Ukrainian Neo-Fascists Target Jews

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Sunday March 16, 2014 14:26 by KM

‘Pushed to leave’: Packing moods among Ukraine’s Jewish minority amidst far-right rise

They don't just look like like fascists, they don't just trample on Democracy and suppress National Minorities. No! The Ukrainian fascists are also intent on driving Jews from the Ukraine. RT reports on the growing number of incidents. There is also a video at the link.

With the beating of the head of Hatzalah’s local branch in Kiev and an earlier attack on a synagogue, many from the Jewish minority tell RT they feel they will be forced to leave the country, where the far-right is capitalizing on the turmoil.

Unknown men have beaten up the leader of a Kiev Jewish movement, hitting him with bats and shouting anti-Semitic slogans, just a month after a rabbi addressed crowds on Square of independence, calling for peace. The rabbi, Hillel Cohen, was attacked Thursday in the street by two men, who “struck him in the leg, shouting anti-Semitic slurs," the rabbi’s wife told Reuters. Then, the two ran off in a car.

Cohen is the head of the Ukrainian branch of Hatzalah, an international volunteer emergency services organization for Jewish communities. Police are now investigating the incident and looking for the assailants.

Mikhail Kapustin, rabbi of Sevastopol and Ukraine, told RT that he could no longer stand it after he had found swastikas drawn on his synagogue – the first time in twenty years that his synagogue was vandalized. Police turned up two weeks after the incident had taken place.

“I don’t want to leave, but I’m pushed to leave. I want my children to feel safe, I want my children to be free, to speak openly what they think, that’s the reason. This is not only for me, it’s for my children and for my family,” Kapustin said.

On the walls of his home, the rabbi also found a blood-chilling message, “Death to the Jews.”

Another synagogue – in the southeastern city of Zaporozhye – was hit with Molotov cocktails in late February. No one was hurt, but the building’s walls sustained damage, according to Angrey Glotser, the spokesperson of Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia.