Ukraine – Chief Rabbi Takes Government to Task for Weak Responses to Antisemitic Violence

Ukraine – One of Ukraine's competing chief rabbis sent an open letter to Ukrainian officials criticizing their lack of a serious response to a wave of antisemitic violence in the city of Zhitomir.

Rabbi Ariel Chaikin wrote the letter to the Prime Minister, the prosecutor general's office, the SBU (the successor agency to the KGB), and local officials in Zhitomir. Rabbi Chaikin wrote that religiously observant Jews "feel that they are in danger" in the city. "They are constantly threatened, they are insulted on the street and people throw things at them."

Rabbi Chaikin added that there have been two antisemitic assaults in the past month on members of the local community, but that in response:

"Officials in Zhitomir either don't have the desire to or are incapable of preserving security and inter-ethnic and inter-religious peace in the city."

"We demand that not only the direct actors be found out and appropriately punished, but also those who stand behind them, their organizers, and their ideological instigators and protectors," the letter concludes. [fsumonitor]