Speech of the Chairman of VAAD Ukraine Josef Zisels at the World Jewish Congress Governing Board session in Berlin, on September 15, 2014


Dear Chairman!
Dear delegates and guests!

I am deeply thankful for this opportunity to speak to you about the situation in Ukraine and its Jewish community.

Perhaps some of you do not know yet, so I shal hereby lift the veil of secrecy: Ukraine has been fighting a war for almost half a year now - a war that has been begun by Russia with the explicit goal of stopping Ukraine from implementing its pro-European choice. Over the course of our session here in Berlin, 7 non-combatants died in Donbass because the pro-Russian side has been violating the ceasefire.

And, as in any war, the Jewish community of Ukraine has been shouldering all of the toil and problems together with its other citizens. This war does not have a particularly Jewish side to it.

Demographic aspect. The Jewish community of Ukraine numbered approximately 300 thousand eligible for repatriation under Israeli laws before the war. This includes no less than 30 thousand in the territories that have been currently occupied by the Russian Federation and the collaborationists as well as being partially annexed (the Crimea).

The approximately 10 thousand Jews who lived in Crimea continue to live there; the emigration from the Crimea is slightly stronger than in previous years, as the Crimea was occupied by Russia practically without any bloodshed.

The “peaceful annexation” of the Crimea created an illusion for the residents of Donbass that the events of the spring and early summer will also have a “successful” outcome. This illusion belied the tragic mistake made by many Donbass residents - namely, the decision not to evacuate immediately after the fighting began in the Ukrainian South-East.

Even the Jews with their characteristically sharp sense of danger did not think that by awaiting a “successful” resolution of the Dobass events, they would be trapped in a situation which it would become so hard, if not impossible, to leave.

As a result, approximately a million people had relocated by early autumn from the aforementioned territories. This is about a quarter of the region’s popultion.

Over the eight months of the current year, 3250 Jews and members of their families have repatriated to Israel, which is 2,5 times more than over the same period last year. We expect that approximately 4,5 thousand Jews will repatriate to Israel by the end of the year, which will make the aliyah from Ukraine the second largest in Europe after France.

I believe that approximately half of the Jews and their family memebers who have left Ukraine come from the combat zone.

Displaced persons. The main bulk of the Jews who left the combat zone are familied with childen. In larger cities - that is, Donetsk and Lugansk - the bulk of the Jews has relocated to safer places, in contrast to smaller cities, where the Jewish population is largely elderly, and where it had been simply more difficult to leave.

I believe that the situation is different from Georgia, where many Jews left during and immediately after the the Russian-Georgian war of 2008, but then returned after everything was over. Even if the ceasefire in Donbass lasts, it is quite unlikely that Jews will be actively returning to the region.

The Jewish communities of the region believe that approximately 10% of the relocated Jews left for Russia, 10-15% repatriated to Israel, and the rest were taken on as relocated persons by the Jewish communities of Kharkiv, Mariupol’, Dniepropetrivsk, Zhytomyr, Odessa, Kyiv, and other cities. For example, the synagogue and Jewish community center in the Podil district of Kyiv, where I live, has taken on a group of Jews from Donbass..

Jewish organizations. Practically all of the local Jewish organizations and communities have seriously curtailed their activities. Some of them have even stopped working entirely. There were two international organizations that remained sufficiently active in the region: JAFI and the JDC, but they do not have enough capabilities to help everyone who needs help. All of my attempts to request aid for the Jews of the Crimea and the Donbass from the new leaders of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress have remained unanswered.

Victims in the Jewish community. Currently we know about 5 dead from the Jewish communities of the region, 2 in Donetsk and 3 in Lugansk. Most of them were killed by artillery fire and rocket launchers.

The most well-known tragic incident is the murder of one of the leaders of the Donetsk Jewish community George Zilberbord by pro-Russian paramilitary, which happened on the Sabbath two weeks ago. A group of DNR fighters decided to rob a villa community on the edges of Donetsk. The villa community had been built by George Zilberbord, whose business had been in construction and who lived there himself with his wife and two daughters. When the bandits appeared, George and the villa community chief of security came out with the intention of resolving the conflict peacefully. Both were shot by the bandits.

Zilberbord was buried in Kyiv, with many people from his home town in attendance.

There has also been reports of missing Jews and Jews who were kidnapped for ransom, but these reports have not been confirmed yet.

Participation in the anti-terroristic operation (ATO). We know of several incidents where individual Jews and/or citizens of Israel are participating in the ATO as volunteers, but all information about allegedly-existing Jewish detachments, “hundreds,” and batallions actively participating in the fight from both sides has been checked by our experts and found no confirmation.

Aid to the ATO. As far as we know, some communities - particularly, the Jewish community of Dniepropetrivsk, hav been helping the ATO by collecting funds, particularly for medical supplies, wound dressing materials, and medical kits. Twinned communities from the USA have also been involved in providing this form of help.

Anti-Semitism. The amount of anti-Semitic incidents in Ukraine remains as low as last year - one of the lowest rates in Europe. Unfortunately, it is very hard to investigate the aforementioned incidents of attacks and vandalism due to the situation in Ukraine, even though almost all of the cases have been taken under special control at the Prosecutor General’s office in Ukraine at the request of VAAD Ukraine. At the end of the year, we and our experts will have to somehow classify the incidents, and decide which of them were really local, and which were provocative, a mere attempt to support anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

It is far harder to monitor and analyze similar cases in occupied territories, but the amount of incidents is not large there either.

It is particularly notable that there are caricatures posted on the Internet that are reminiscent of anti-Semitic caricatures of Nazi Germany, attempting (unsuccessfully) to convince Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers of that they are mere puppets of Jewish and Zionist capitalists. We have been unable to identify the origin of the flyers as of yet, but it is obvious that they are pro-Russian.

We would also like to note that certain Russian neo-Nazi groups that are taking an active part in recruiting, preparation, and military action - particularly, the RNE (Russian National Unity, led by Alexander Barkashov) - use anti-Semitic slogans.

The IDF operation in the Gaza sector did not provoke an increase in anti-Semitic tendencies in Ukraine, unlike in Western Europe. Many of the Jewish communities held rallies to support Israel in a number of cities, but unlike in other countries, Ukrainian youths took an active part in the rallies, particularly in Dniepropetrivsk and Ukraine. The protests were held against terrorism, both in Israel and in Ukraine.

Many of the observers and analysts in Ukraine and Israel have been finding more and more in common between the military anti-terroristic operations in both countries. “Donbass is the Ukrainian Gaza” has been becoming a more common sentiment.

VAAD Ukraine has been monitoring the situation in the Jewish communities by phone on an everyday basis, particularly in those communities situated in the combat zone. Special attention is dedicated to provocations, violent incidents, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. We send the results of our monitoring to all interested organizations.

Over the summer we have organized camps where many children from occupied territories, including the Crimea, were able to rest. Right now we are preparing the autumn camp, where half of the children will be from families that have been displaced from the combat zone.

We and a group of experts have been consulting the new government of Ukraine on ethnic policy, and they have taken some of our adivce to heart. In any case, we are always carefully listened to and there is always a reaction from the government.

Help. And right now now I am turning to you, the delegates and guests of the Governing Board of the World Jewish Congress with the request to help Ukraine and its Jewish community in this difficult time.