(Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Krivoi Rog, Donetsk, and Kyiv) Report of a ...

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and funds simply do not exist, even for formally approved projects, such as
development of a state Jewish museum in Lviv.
The Vaad will continue to operate its summer camp, Shorashim, in the Carpathian
Mountains in 2011. About 120 children and adolescents will attend a single two-week
session. The Vaad receives no subsidy from JAFI for this venture, noted Mr. Zissels.
Mr. Zissels observed that about 800 synagogue buildings exist in Ukraine, 65 of which
are used by Jewish communities. Many others, he continued, are used by government
authorities for other purposes, particularly sports halls. 105 Recovery of these facilities
for Jewish communal use would be easier, Mr. Zissels commented, if powerful rabbis in
various locales would be more generous in approving their distribution to other Jewish
groups ready to use them, instead of attempting to
prevent such groups from acquiring any property of their
own. It often happens, explained Mr. Zissels, that a
chief rabbi who is unable to use a building approved for
restitution blocks other Jewish groups from acquiring the
structure and using it for activities that he cannot control.
Iosif Zissels, right, deals with complex political issues in his
role as director of the Ukrainian Vaad.
Photo: the writer.
About 2,000 Jewish cemeteries remain in Ukraine, Mr. Zissels stated, 260 of them in
Transcarpathia alone. It is extremely expensive to maintain them, he continued.
Foreign donors who used to contribute to the restoration and maintenance of Jewish
cemeteries, continued Mr. Zissels, now seem “obsessed” with contributing to the efforts
of Father Patrick Desbois, who publicizes killing grounds, but does little to preserve
them.
The writer asked Mr. Zissels, who has developed several demographic analyses of the
Ukrainian Jewish population, about the number of Jews in Ukraine. Mr. Zissels
responded that the probable number is 105,000, 85 percent of whom will acknowledge
their Jewish heritage. About 25 percent of all Jews in Ukraine, he continued, live in
Kyiv. Approximately 95 percent of Jewish men and 90 percent of Jewish women intermarry,
Mr. Zissels declared. About 300,000 people in Ukraine are eligible for Israeli
citizenship under the Israeli Law of Return, he stated.
76. Vyecheslav Likachev is employed by the Vaad as a specialist on antisemitism in
Ukraine. Mr. Likachev stated that the current number of violent antisemitic acts is low.
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The large halls and high ceilings of many synagogues spurred conversions of these structures into
basketball courts or other sports premises.