KYIV (JTA) — Hundreds of people marched bearing torches in the capital city of Ukraine Friday in an annual tribute to a leader who collaborated with Nazi Germany.
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Israel’s ambassador condemned the torchlight march Friday in Kyiv in memory of Stepan Bandera, issuing the strongest rebuke yet by an Israeli official of the event, which has grown in scope amid rising nationalism in Ukraine.
“We strongly condemn any glorification of collaborators with the Nazi regime. It is time for Ukraine to come to terms with its past,” Ambassador Joel Lion wrote on Twitter Saturday.
At the march, many participants waved banners carrying the symbol of the far-right Svoboda party, whose leaders have often made anti-Semitic comments, and banners reading: “Nationalism is our religion. Bandera is our prophet,” Pravda Ukraine reported.
https://twitter.com/srbnews0/status/1345308593827020800?s=09
During World War II, Bandera led the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, whose men killed thousands of Jews and Poles, including women and children, while fighting alongside Nazi Germany against the Red Army and communists.
Expressions of admiration for Bandera and other collaborators have increased in scope and status following the 2014 revolution in Ukraine, which toppled the regime of Viktor Yanukovych amid claims that he is a Russian stooge, and triggered an armed conflict with Russia.
In Lviv, Bandera’s birthplace, events celebrating him were also held and attended by many officials including Maxim Kozitsky, the head of the Lviv region. He and other officials laid wreaths on a monument for Bandera.
Hello? This is the Ukraine we’re talking about here. These people are the definition of the word “grub”. My mother’s hometown was in Czechoslovakia but it is now in the Ukraine. She always said the people who lived there were ignorant peasants. Nothing has changed.
How can an orthodox jew
1) make an annual pilgrimage to the ukraine
2) vote democrat
rational reasons evade me due to my small mindedness
Hashem is teaching us a lesson. Israel can protest from today until tomorrow. Israel the most condemned nation in the UN.
When will learn never to trust man.
Sorry, but just because they support this guy it doesn’t mean that they are all anti Semitic – they may like him for other reasons.
The president of Ukraine is Jewish….
Hasidim insist on giving these anti semites dollars by visiting judenrein areas.
Big deal. “There are very fine people on both sides.”
well, the Ukrainians were pretty good antisemites with out the Nazis, only nutty Breslovers would give them money to go there.
Those people marching seem similar to the MAGA people we have in America, the dregs of society.