Turning the pages back... January 15, 1998 (01/10/99)

Turning the pages back...

January 15, 1998

Last year on January 15, at a special gathering at the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington, Ukraine's chief rabbi, Yaakov Bleich, reported that the Jewish community is faring better in Ukraine than in any of the other new independent countries of that region. A report on the presentation was filed by Yaro Bihun, The Weekly's special correspondent in Washington. Following are excerpts of his story.

Rabbi Bleich, who was born in the U.S. and has worked in Ukraine for eight years, said the welfare of Jews in Ukraine is tied to the general welfare of the country and cautioned that anti-Semitism should not be mistaken for nationalism. He reported that, organizationally, Jews in Ukraine, who number about 600,000, are "definitely far ahead" of Jews in any other post-Soviet successor states. There are over 300 Jewish organizations and four national umbrella organizations active in Ukraine.

"I think that this is in no small part thanks to the atmosphere that was created by the Ukrainian government since its independence - since 1991, when the Ukrainian government made it known that (it) will seek a European type of democracy, where national minorities will all be free and welcome to build their own communities within the framework of Ukraine," he explained.

As a result, he noted, there are 16 Jewish day schools in Ukraine, 12 of which are in part government-supported as Jewish national schools. More than 30 percent of Jewish children in Ukraine receive some sort of Jewish education - 10,000 out of a population of 30,000 with 5,000 of them in all-day schools. That percentage, he pointed out, is better than in the United States.

He quoted an official who said the government would like to make Ukraine "a better place to live - better than Canada for Ukrainians, and better than Israel for Jews." "That may be a far-reaching goal, and there's a long way to go," the rabbi added, "but I think that the Ukrainian government is doing a lot to try and make the Jews feel at home in Ukraine."

Source: "Chief rabbi praises Ukraine's government for positive position on minorities," by Yaro Bihun, The Ukrainian Weekly, January 25, 1998, Vol. LXVI, No. 4.

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