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

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populations are to be found in Odesa, Kharkiv, and Donetsk. No other
Ukrainian city has even 10,000 Jews. 6
No Jewish population center in Ukraine can be characterized as the center of
Ukrainian Jewry. Notwithstanding its stature as the national capital and the
relatively large size of its Jewish population, Kyiv remains without Jewish
leadership, a city with multiple Jewish offices but surprisingly little active
Jewish life. Odesa, as always, is the Jewish intellectual and cultural capital,
and Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv are important centers of Chabad activity.
However, the majority of Ukrainian Jews remain distant from Jewish
engagement, finding little of interest in contemporary Jewish life.
Antisemitism “is, was, and will be” widespread throughout Ukraine, said one
longtime observer, although, unlike the Soviet period, it no longer is statesponsored.
Instead, he continued, it is commonly expressed through
attribution of Jewish ancestry to repellent fictional figures in television
programs, allegations of Jewish ancestry in smearing political opponents, and
growing antisemitic commentary on websites. 7 Although law enforcement
officials sometimes pursue perpetrators of physical attacks on Jewish
individuals or Jewish institutional property, antisemitic hostility in political
exchanges and in media appears part of everyday life and draws little
response from a Jewish population that remains too timid to suggest that
such portrayals are offensive and unacceptable. 8
The writer interviewed 60 people during her travels in Ukraine, including four diplomats
attached to foreign representations. The diplomats are not identified by name or position
in this review.
6 These numbers refer to self-identified Jews. They should be multiplied by three to account for non-
Jewish family members who are eligible for immigration to Israel under the provisions of the Israeli Law of
Return. The Jewish population of Russia is more concentrated, with large Jewish populations remaining
only in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
7
See the summaries of interviews with Oleg Rostovtsev and Vyecheslav Likachev on pages 39-40 and
116-117.
8 Unlike antisemitic assaults in contemporary western Europe, anti-Jewish bigotry in Ukraine appears to
stem from traditional Ukrainian nationalism rather than from anti-Israel sentiment.