This report reviews a journey to Jewish population centers in Kyiv
and eastern Ukraine during a three-week period in late April and
early May of 1999. The eastern Ukraine centers included the large
industrial cities of Dnipropetrovsk, Dniprodzerzhinsk, Kharkiv,
Zaporizhya, and Donetsk, as well as the smaller urban area of Novomoskovsk.1
Ukraine is the second largest new state to have
emerged from the former Soviet Union, following only Russia in size.
It is approximately equal in both territorial expanse and population
to France. Reflecting economic decline and emigration, its population
has diminished from over 52 million at the time of Ukrainian independence
in 1991 to 49.98 million in 1999.2
The Ukrainian economy,
which had been in recession even before the August 1998 devaluation
of the ruble in neighboring Russia, remains deeply troubled. Its
real growth rate is negative, declining 4.2 percent during the first
quarter of 1999. Inflation increased 2.3 percent in April 1999 and
is likely to grow substantially as the government finds it desirable
to print money to pay wage arrears of approximately three billion
dollars before Presidential elections in October 1999. Pension payments,
which average about $15 monthly, also are in arrears and may become
a government priority before the October 31 voting. Unemployment,
though difficult to measure, is high and growing.3
The gross domestic product per capita is about $2,500, and the average
monthly salary is about $40.
According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance,
the country owes foreign creditors $12.4 billion. State bank reserves
in mid-May 1999 were $896 million. The International Monetary Fund,
World Bank, and several Western countries continue to finance the
current government of Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma, which is considered
market-oriented despite major flaws and repeated failures to meet
Western conditions. Kuchma has been in constant conflict with the
majority leftist Rada (lower house of Parliament), which has repeatedly
blocked reform measures introduced by the President and his allies.
Western lenders are demanding reforms in agriculture, manufacturing,
energy, and banking. Among the specific appeals are: accelerated
privatization of farmland and numerous industrial sectors; deregulation
of government-controlled natural gas and electricity distribution
monopolies; better bank depositor protection; and reform of the
court system. Great apprehension is voiced about the possible victory
of Communists and Socialists, backed by disgruntled workers and
pensioners, in the forthcoming Presidential election.
Western observers also are troubled by continuing
erosion of freedom of the press. Almost all national daily
newspapers are controlled by the government or by political interest
groups and oligarchs friendly to the government. The opposition
press faces harassment through such measures as intimidation of
potential advertisers and consequent loss of revenue, inconsistently
applied tax and libel laws, and physical attacks upon key writers
and editors.
Some of the large ethnic Russian minority, which
constitutes about one-quarter of the total population and is concentrated
in the eastern and more industrialized part of Ukraine, is nostalgic
for the Soviet Union and supportive of efforts by Russia to increase
its influence in Ukraine. The Russian
National Unity (Русское
национальное
единство;
known by its Russian initials, RNE)
party, a fascist group led by veteran racist Alexander
Barkashov, is increasingly active in Ukraine and is contributing
to a growing sense of insecurity among the 300,000 to 400,000 Jews
who live in the country.
The Jewish population
is concentrated in four cities: Kyiv (70,000 to 100,000 Jews), Dnipropetrovsk
(45,000), and Kharkiv and Odessa (35,000 to 40,000 each). Ukrainian
Jewry is losing about 40,000 individuals annually due to heavy emigration
and a high mortality rate. The average age of Ukrainian Jewry is
about 56 and the death to birth ratio is believed to be about 13:1.4
In view of the demographic decline, some groups working with Ukrainian
Jews now prefer to lease premises, rather than purchase real estate,
fearing that a diminishing population (and the organizations that
serve them) will be burdened by unnecessarily large property holdings
within a few years.
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Antisemitism
is perceived by observers to be increasing in Ukraine, spurred by
the need among some elements of the population to find scapegoats
for continuing economic distress. Provocative actions by such groups
as Russian National Unity and occasional antisemitic statements
by some individuals associated with Rukh, a Ukrainian national party,
are thought to be secondary in generating anti-Jewish bigotry. Although
growing antisemitism is causing some unease among Ukrainian Jews,
it is less serious than in neighboring Russia and is not yet a significant
factor in generating Jewish emigration. Observers note that President
Kuchma is “well connected” with local Jews. However,
the 1999 campaign of a Jewish candidate for mayor of Kyiv was attacked
in antisemitic posters and leaflets.

Map of Ukraine. Available: http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/oleh/map.html.
As in Russia, a disproportionately
large number of Jews are deemed oligarchs,
i.e., among those in a small group who exercise control over important
sectors of the government, often for selfish and/or corrupt purposes.
Three of the five men most closely associated with Prime Minister
Kuchma are strongly identified with the Jewish community: Grigory
Surkis of Kyiv, Viktor Pinchuk
of Dnipropetrovsk, and Vadim Rabinovich,
who commutes between Kyiv and Israel.5
Other Jewish businessmen with national influence are: Yehven
Chervonenko, Eduard Shifrin,
and Vadim Shulman of Kyiv;
Gennady Bogolyubov of Dnipropetrovsk;
and Efim Zvyagilsky of Donetsk.
All of these men are active in Jewish communal life in their home
cities and on a national level.
National
Jewish communal activity in Ukraine is complex and subject
to some disdain for a public feud that has erupted between two newly-organized
umbrella groups claiming to represent Ukrainian Jewry. Each held
rival inaugural congresses in Kyiv during the first part of April
1999. Although casual observers may find the rivalry ludicrous,
participants and even foreign governments are concerned about the
competing claims to legitimacy and see little humor in the conflict.
The first group, United Jewish Community
of Ukraine (Обеднана
єврейська
община Украіни)
held its organizing conference April 5-6; it is backed by Vadim
Rabinovich and succeeds his All-Ukraine Jewish Congress (Всеукраінський
єврейський
конгресс),
which he had founded in 1997. The inaugural meeting of the new Rabinovich
group was hastily called, designed to upstage the long-scheduled
initial session of the Jewish Confederation
of Ukraine (Єврейська
конфедерація
украіни), which
met April 12-14. The latter organization is backed by Chief
Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich and a number of wealthy businessmen.
Mr. Rabinovich is on the “watch
list” of the United States, denied entry to the U.S. and shunned
by senior American officials because of his involvement in narcotics
trafficking, weapons trading with rogue states, money laundering,
and other criminal pursuits. He also is barred from Britain and
Austria.6
Rabinovich appears to be the only significant backer of United Jewish
Community, spending large sums to attract paid “rent-a-crowd”
delegates to attend a lavish organizing conference. His leadership
style is said to be dictatorial and mercurial, and his actual achievements
in the philanthropic world are capricious and meager relative to
his means, consisting mainly of support for restoration of the well-known
Brodsky synagogue and development of a fledgling Jewish community
center in Kyiv. His only prominent local Jewish associates are Rabbi
Moshe Asman, an independent Chabad rabbi in Kyiv7
, and Arkady Monastirsky,
a former ally of Ilya Levitas, now affiliated with the Jewish Confederation.
Mr. Rabinovich abruptly terminated for petty political reasons an
earlier grant in support of soup kitchens in six cities, leaving
258 elderly Jews without food.8 Once one of President Kuchma’s
major backers, Mr. Rabinovich is widely perceived as initiating
his Jewish communal activity to enhance his image, which has been
badly damaged by the various reports of his numerous criminal activities.
Should rehabilitation prove elusive, it is thought that Mr. Rabinovich
will attempt to use his philanthropic activity as protection against
an eventual bid by the Ukrainian government, under American and
other Western pressure, to deport him for his criminal conduct.
At that time, it is predicted, Mr. Rabinovich will claim that antisemites
are persecuting him for his Jewish philanthropic efforts and will
appeal to foreign leaders for support.9
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1. Ukrainian
orthography is used in the spelling of all place-names and all Ukrainian
Jewish organizations in this report that use Ukrainian in their
own documentation.
2. Reuters,
June 9, 1999.
3. As
in neighboring Russia, unemployment often is concealed by the practice
of placing workers on “extended leave” without pay.
4. Interview
with Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Ukraine, May
13, 1999.
5. Mr.
Surkis is best known as the owner of the Kyiv Dynamo soccer team.
He also controls the Slavutych holding company (oil, electricity,
metals), has a stake in the television station Inter, and publishes
the business magazine Zakon Í
Biznes (Law and Business). Viktor Pinchuk, is the owner of
Interpipe, which manufactures seamless steel pipes, and also deals
in gas. He controls Fakty,
the highest-circulation daily newspaper in Ukraine, and Channel
11, an important Dnipropetrovsk television station. The controversial
Vadim Rabinovich, probably the wealthiest of all of the oligarchs,
operates the Swiss-based holding company Rico Capital Group and
owns two Kyiv publications, the newspaper Stolichniye
Novosti (Capital News) and the business magazine Delovaya
Nedelya (Business Week). Mr. Rabinovich also controls significant
time slots on both the major state television channel and the major
state radio station. Prime Minister Kuchma ceased taking contributions
from Rabinovich in 1998 and arranged for his deportation to Israel
as this report was being completed. See below.
6. His
unlawful activity attracted attention in the Israeli press in August
1998 when then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to attend
a dinner at which Rabinovich was to have been honored. The organization
sponsoring the dinner revoked the award.
7. Mr.
Rabinovich has provided financial assistance to Rabbi Asman and
to the Brodsky Synagogue with which Rabbi Asman is associated. See
pages 7-9.
8. The
Joint Distribution Committee is now funding three of these soup
kitchens.
9. Mr.
Rabinovich has placed numerous “advertorials” in the
English-language Kyiv Post
and in other newspapers promoting United Jewish Community of Ukraine
and his own defining role in it
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