Ukrainian community endeavors
Koliady and shchedrivky began the year for Ukrainians in Canada. At the start of the Julian-calendar Christmas season (January 7 to 19), a group of Ukrainian carolers composed of members of Ottawa’s Akord Ukrainian Men’s choir performed a series of carols in Ukrainian at prime minister’s residence. They offered the traditional Ukrainian Christmas greeting, “Khrystos Narodyvsia,” and then asked “Do you welcome carolers?” Laureen Harper invited the group inside, where the group sang koliady and shchedrivky and presented a traditional Ukrainian Christmas greeting, a “vinshuvannia.” The caroling was organized by the National Office of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.
Throughout the year, the war in Ukraine was on the minds of Ukrainian Canadians. In a statement released on February 21, the UCC strongly condemned the violations of the Minsk agreements by the Russian Federation and Russian-led, -staffed, -funded and -controlled terrorist organizations in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The statement underlined that, while withdrawing from Debaltseve, Ukrainian forces were shelled by Russian artillery, resulting in over 100 wounded and over 89 Ukrainian soldiers missing in action. “The list of crimes committed by the Russian Federation and the terrorists it supports in Ukraine is long and growing daily… it shows the Putin regime’s blatant disregard for international law, binding obligations and principles of the inviolability of state borders…In dealing with Putin, Western leaders would do well to remember the disastrous results of the appeasement of Adolf Hitler,” the UCC stated.
“Ukraine’s army must be given the means with which to defend their country, and the costs to Russia of continuing its aggression must be significantly increased,” the UCC underscored. “Canada, the U.S., and their NATO allies must: 1. Provide Ukraine with defensive weapons, equipment and training it needs to defend its territorial integrity; 2. Significantly increase the provision of communications and intelligence capabilities of Ukraine’s armed forces; 3. Increase sectoral sanctions against the Russian Federation’s defense, energy and financial services.”
On March 3-7, the vice president of the World Jewish Congress and chairman of the Confederation and Communities in Ukraine, Josef Zissels, spoke to both Ukrainian- and Russian-speaking communities in Toronto and Ottawa, calling for a united effort to confront Russian aggression. In 1988 he had set up Ukraine’s first Jewish organization and has been a fervent defender of Ukraine’s independence and democratic path.
The purpose of his visit was to propose a project – the Coalition for Democratic Choice – to stand up to Mr. Putin’s armed aggression. Because Ukraine is the first post-Soviet country that has been able to resist Russia’s aggressive policy aimed at re-integrating post imperial territories into a new Eurasian Union, Mr. Zissels proposed that such an initiative come from Ukraine. He explained that the war launched against Ukraine is being waged on three fronts: propagandistic, economic and military. Fortunately, Ukraine has a well developed civil society. Mr. Zissels advised that many Coalitions for Democratic Choice could be created in strengthening democracy, to counter Russian propaganda in their respective countries.
A traveling exhibit highlighting and exploring the relationship between the Ukrainian and Jewish communities was mounted by the organization Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter (UJE) which, since 2008, has been studying and supporting this encounter. “A Journey Through the Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter from Antiquity to 1914” was shown on July 8-19, at the Ukrainian Museum of Canada at St. Vladimir Institute in Toronto, and was later shown in Edmonton and Montreal.
Because Jewish-Ukrainian relations have also had to bear stereotyping, the exhibit focused on “an integrated narrative of these two peoples… presented in the belief that there is much to be gained by viewing their historical experience together, in all its complexity.” The exhibit consisted of 35 large panels, each dedicated to one or more topics – for example, the 13th-16th centuries, Russian rule in the 1750-1790s, Hasidism, the 1861 reforms, modernist Ukrainian writers. Where appropriate, two “sides” of the story were highlighted, for example, the city of Uman in Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish Memory. Under “Pogroms in the Russian Empire,” the text clearly said: “During the turmoil of the first Russian revolution around 650 pogroms occurred, mostly officially orchestrated with the support of the police and the army, and carried out by the Black Hundreds (monarchists, Orthodox, Russian nationalists, anti-revolutionary militants). Pogroms are primarily associated with attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire in 1881-1921.”