Antisemitismen i Ukraina bleknar – men vad händer om Zelenskyj misslyckas?
Tidigare beskylldes judar i Ukraina för allt möjligt – inklusive vedermödorna under kommunismen. Men antisemitismen har klingat av, inte minst på grund av kriget, skriver The Economist. En anledning är de väsentliga summor som judiska organisationer skänkt för att stötta Ukraina. En annan är att Volodymyr Zelenskyj själv är jude. Men det senare väcker även den djupt liggande rädslan för att bli syndabockar. Skulle presidentens arv kunna vara gnistan som väcker anklagelser om judarna som ansvariga för ukrainska förluster? After centuries of discrimination By The Economist 11 September, 2023 Nothing Russia can throw at them will deter up to 30,000 mostly foreign Jews from making their annual pilgrimage to the Ukrainian town of Uman, 200km south of Kyiv, this week. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, falls on September 15th-17th, and the visitors will mark it by praying at the grave of Nachman of Breslov, a rabbi who founded an important branch of Hasidism over 200 years ago. The pilgrimage has featured in recent quarrels between the Ukrainian and Israeli governments. Ukraine has threatened to ban Israeli pilgrims from entering the country because Israel has been deporting Ukrainians for alleged visa violations. But these arguments, which stem mainly from disagreements over the military help Israel is or is not willing to give Ukraine, have been largely resolved. Jewish-Ukrainian relations are in fact now enjoying something of a golden era. For a start, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish. That fact is “very disturbing” for the Kremlin, says Rabbi Moshe Azman in Kyiv. It exposes its war aim of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine as nonsense. Still, Vladimir Putin persists in repeating it. On September 5th Russia’s president went into full conspiracy mode, saying that Mr Zelensky had been put in his position by his “Western curators” and that this made “the whole situation extremely disgusting, in that an ethnic Jew is covering up the glorification of Nazism.” Last year, one day before the invasion, Kharkiv’s Jewish school celebrated its 30th anniversary. A few days later it was damaged in a Russian attack; the community’s nearby yeshiva, or religious college, suffered a direct hit. “Our schools aren’t able to function because rockets are hitting them,” says Miriam Moskovitz, director of the school. “It is nothing to do with Nazis”. Before the second world war Jews were a large minority in the lands that now comprise Ukraine; 1.5m of them were to perish in the Holocaust. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian auxiliaries helped the Germans commit this crime, though more than 7m fought the Nazis as troops in the Red Army. For older Jews the name Ukraine is almost synonymous with the word “pogrom”. National heroes of Ukraine like Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a 17th-century Cossack commander, are remembered by Jews as responsible for the deaths of thousands. Today many Ukrainians revere Stepan Bandera, whose followers fought the Red Army after 1944. They know, or choose to know, little about the murder of Poles and Jews at the hands of Bandera’s followers. In the past Ukrainians often blamed Jews for everything, including the hardships of communism. Now, says Yevhen Hlibovytsky, an analyst, anti-Semitism is fading—as is Jewish fear of Ukrainians. “The generation of those who grew up in the Soviet Union reflected a lot of the anti-Semitism that the Soviet Union practised. My generation is much freer of that and the generation of my children treats ethnic and religious diversity as normal.” The Pew Research Centre, an American institute, has found that Ukrainians are among the least anti-Semitic people in Europe. One of its polls found that just 5% of Ukrainians said they were not prepared to accept Jews as fellow citizens. That compared with 14% in Russia, 18% in Poland and 16% in Greece. “That may come as some surprise” to many, says Edward Serotta, the director of Centropa, a Vienna-based organisation dedicated to preserving Jewish memory in central and eastern Europe. Not to him. Ukrainians are enthusiastically learning about their country’s Jewish past. This March 210 Ukrainian teachers applied for 60 places on seminars on how to use Centropa’s resources, and then travelled for many hours to get to them. No one knows exactly how many Jews are left in Ukraine, and anyway the numbers depend on who counts as one. In 1989 the “core” Jewish population—those who identify as fully Jewish—was 487,000, according to the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research. Most emigrated after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, leaving an estimated 43,000 by 2021. (Counts that use broader definitions go above 200,000.) The fading of Jewish scepticism towards Ukraine is borne out in the scale of aid Jewish organisations have brought to the country since the start of the war. World Jewish Relief, based in the UK, has helped 236,206 people, in various ways. Synagogues have sheltered those in flight, and helped with evacuations and humanitarian aid. In Dnipro, in central Ukraine, families identifiable as Orthodox by their clothes can be seen in the streets around the Menorah Centre, a building that houses a Jewish museum, kosher hotels, a kosher shop and a synagogue. Men in uniform sporting kippahs smoke outside. Some of Ukraine’s Jewish soldiers were born or brought up in Ukraine before emigrating to Israel. Now they have returned to fight. One of the most extraordinary changes for Ukraine’s Jews in the last three decades has been that of identity. For decades after the second world war, most Jews in Ukraine spoke Russian and identified as Soviet Jews. Now, those that remain identify as Ukrainian Jews. Jewish prayer books are being translated into Ukrainian for the first time. In Ukraine today, Russians are the enemy. It is increasingly common to hear Israel, a thriving country surrounded by enemies, cited as a model for Ukraine’s future. Yet although Jews in Ukraine have never been freer from anti-Semitism, one deep-seated fear remains. If things go badly wrong in the war, runs the argument, Mr Zelensky’s heritage could become a lightning rod for renewed anti-Semitism, with Jews being blamed for Ukrainian defeats. One more reason for them to pray for victory. © 2023 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.
Tidigare beskylldes judar i Ukraina för allt möjligt – inklusive vedermödorna under kommunismen. Men antisemitismen har klingat av, inte minst på grund av kriget, skriver The Economist. En anledning är de väsentliga summor som judiska organisationer skänkt för att stötta Ukraina. En annan är att Volodymyr Zelenskyj själv är jude. Men det senare väcker även den djupt liggande rädslan för att bli syndabockar. Skulle presidentens arv kunna vara gnistan som väcker anklagelser om judarna som ansvariga för ukrainska förluster? After centuries of discrimination By The Economist 11 September, 2023 Nothing Russia can throw at them will deter up to 30,000 mostly foreign Jews from making their annual pilgrimage to the Ukrainian town of Uman, 200km south of Kyiv, this week. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, falls on September 15th-17th, and the visitors will mark it by praying at the grave of Nachman of Breslov, a rabbi who founded an important branch of Hasidism over 200 years ago. The pilgrimage has featured in recent quarrels between the Ukrainian and Israeli governments. Ukraine has threatened to ban Israeli pilgrims from entering the country because Israel has been deporting Ukrainians for alleged visa violations. But these arguments, which stem mainly from disagreements over the military help Israel is or is not willing to give Ukraine, have been largely resolved. Jewish-Ukrainian relations are in fact now enjoying something of a golden era. For a start, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish. That fact is “very disturbing” for the Kremlin, says Rabbi Moshe Azman in Kyiv. It exposes its war aim of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine as nonsense. Still, Vladimir Putin persists in repeating it. On September 5th Russia’s president went into full conspiracy mode, saying that Mr Zelensky had been put in his position by his “Western curators” and that this made “the whole situation extremely disgusting, in that an ethnic Jew is covering up the glorification of Nazism.” Last year, one day before the invasion, Kharkiv’s Jewish school celebrated its 30th anniversary. A few days later it was damaged in a Russian attack; the community’s nearby yeshiva, or religious college, suffered a direct hit. “Our schools aren’t able to function because rockets are hitting them,” says Miriam Moskovitz, director of the school. “It is nothing to do with Nazis”. Before the second world war Jews were a large minority in the lands that now comprise Ukraine; 1.5m of them were to perish in the Holocaust. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian auxiliaries helped the Germans commit this crime, though more than 7m fought the Nazis as troops in the Red Army. For older Jews the name Ukraine is almost synonymous with the word “pogrom”. National heroes of Ukraine like Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a 17th-century Cossack commander, are remembered by Jews as responsible for the deaths of thousands. Today many Ukrainians revere Stepan Bandera, whose followers fought the Red Army after 1944. They know, or choose to know, little about the murder of Poles and Jews at the hands of Bandera’s followers. In the past Ukrainians often blamed Jews for everything, including the hardships of communism. Now, says Yevhen Hlibovytsky, an analyst, anti-Semitism is fading—as is Jewish fear of Ukrainians. “The generation of those who grew up in the Soviet Union reflected a lot of the anti-Semitism that the Soviet Union practised. My generation is much freer of that and the generation of my children treats ethnic and religious diversity as normal.” The Pew Research Centre, an American institute, has found that Ukrainians are among the least anti-Semitic people in Europe. One of its polls found that just 5% of Ukrainians said they were not prepared to accept Jews as fellow citizens. That compared with 14% in Russia, 18% in Poland and 16% in Greece. “That may come as some surprise” to many, says Edward Serotta, the director of Centropa, a Vienna-based organisation dedicated to preserving Jewish memory in central and eastern Europe. Not to him. Ukrainians are enthusiastically learning about their country’s Jewish past. This March 210 Ukrainian teachers applied for 60 places on seminars on how to use Centropa’s resources, and then travelled for many hours to get to them. No one knows exactly how many Jews are left in Ukraine, and anyway the numbers depend on who counts as one. In 1989 the “core” Jewish population—those who identify as fully Jewish—was 487,000, according to the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research. Most emigrated after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, leaving an estimated 43,000 by 2021. (Counts that use broader definitions go above 200,000.) The fading of Jewish scepticism towards Ukraine is borne out in the scale of aid Jewish organisations have brought to the country since the start of the war. World Jewish Relief, based in the UK, has helped 236,206 people, in various ways. Synagogues have sheltered those in flight, and helped with evacuations and humanitarian aid. In Dnipro, in central Ukraine, families identifiable as Orthodox by their clothes can be seen in the streets around the Menorah Centre, a building that houses a Jewish museum, kosher hotels, a kosher shop and a synagogue. Men in uniform sporting kippahs smoke outside. Some of Ukraine’s Jewish soldiers were born or brought up in Ukraine before emigrating to Israel. Now they have returned to fight. One of the most extraordinary changes for Ukraine’s Jews in the last three decades has been that of identity. For decades after the second world war, most Jews in Ukraine spoke Russian and identified as Soviet Jews. Now, those that remain identify as Ukrainian Jews. Jewish prayer books are being translated into Ukrainian for the first time. In Ukraine today, Russians are the enemy. It is increasingly common to hear Israel, a thriving country surrounded by enemies, cited as a model for Ukraine’s future. Yet although Jews in Ukraine have never been freer from anti-Semitism, one deep-seated fear remains. If things go badly wrong in the war, runs the argument, Mr Zelensky’s heritage could become a lightning rod for renewed anti-Semitism, with Jews being blamed for Ukrainian defeats. One more reason for them to pray for victory. © 2023 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.