As
noted previously, the Masorti movement intends to offer an optional Jewish
studies section in an existing high-quality public school beginning in the
2012-2013 school year. The particular school has a substantial Jewish
enrollment and is well-located in central Kyiv.
Welfare
Activities
73.
The writer did not visit the JDC hesed, which is operating at reduced
capacity due to severe budgetary constraints and problems with the hesed
building itself. According to Amir Ben-Tzvi, the new JDC director in
Kyiv, the condition of the structure is so dreadful that it cannot be
renovated. Additionally, said Mr. Ben-Tzvi, the location of the hesed – on a
small hill and some distance from public transportation lines - suggests that
renovation is ill-conceived anyway.
74. The Home
for Assisted Living sponsored by Rabbi Yaakov Bleich currently accommodates
27 elderly Jewish men and women on the second and third floors of a six-story
building intended to house 85 when fully occupied. Nine apartments on the
second and third floors remain empty, said Manager Victor Popov, but three of
them were scheduled to receive new residents after Pesach. The fourth and
fifth floors would not be opened to additional senior residents until the
financial condition of the enterprise improves substantially. The economic
model for the structure is based on an income-producing trust generated by
funds from the sale of residents’ previous private apartments
In an attempt to boost income, the home is now renting
apartments on the third and fourth floors to several families, including a
rabbinic family of 10 individuals. However, said Mr. Popov, the financial
situation remains dire, mainly due to inflation. The cost of almost all
utilities has risen enormously, he noted. He has had to fire several staff,
and salaries are being paid at least one month late to those employees who
remain.
Various communal facilities are located on the ground
floor of the building, including a kitchen and dining room, synagogue/social
hall, and medical offices. A new hair dressing salon has been added, and some
repairs have been made to the exterior of the building.

The Kyiv Jewish Home for Assisted Living is located in
a pleasant residential area near markets and public transportation.
Photo: Rabbi Bleich’s office.
Ukrainian
Jewish Organizations
75. The Association
of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine, better known as the
Ukrainian Vaad, is chaired by Iosif Zissels, a longtime Jewish community
observer and leader in Ukraine. The Vaad works in four main areas: Jewish
property preservation and restoration, as well as archival research;
interethnic tolerance; representation of Ukrainian Jewry in various
international forums; and operation of Jewish community programs in small
Jewish population centers, focusing on summer camps for adolescents. The Vaad
has sponsored heritage expeditions to places of Jewish interest in Ukraine, and
Mr. Zissels himself is regarded as a capable analyst of Ukrainian Jewry.
Mr. Zissels stated that the Vaad currently is working
on as many as 100 different projects in its areas of interest. These
include research, interfaith activities, strengthening Jewish studies in
Ukrainian universities (especially in Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, a prestigious Kyiv
university), development of small Jewish museums in various parts of Ukraine,
strengthening Jewish identity, preserving the Jewish cultural heritage through
restoration of old synagogues, monitoring local antisemitism (see below), and
assisting the smaller and much poorer Jewish population in neighboring Moldova
to undertake similar measures in their country.
Fulfilling all of these tasks is very difficult,
observed Mr. Zissels, in the current situation of economic crisis in
Ukraine. The country is recovering very slowly, he continued, 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.
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 inter-marry, 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. Further, he stated, the amount of antisemitism in print also is
low; anti-Jewish bigotry in the print media, said Mr. Likachev, tends to be
found in small-circulation rightwing journals. The amount of antisemitism in
media would increase substantially, Mr. Likachev added, if Moslems paid for it
as had been the case with the many bigoted publications of MAUP ((Міжрегіональна
Академія
управління
персоналом or
Interregional Academy of Personnel Management) between 2002 and 2007.
In the mainstream press, observed Mr Likachev, antisemitic commentary may
appear in such newspapers as Ukrainskaya pravda in articles about the
business affairs of certain Ukrainian Jewish oligarchs, Ihor Kolomoisky in
particular.
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