According to news reports, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev left the Bishkek White House in the Kyrgyzstan capital after protestors overcame police on Wednesday. (Photo: Ondřej Žváček/Creative Commons)
A day after an apparent overthrow sent an incumbent president from office and led a former foreign minister to claim executive authority, Rabbi Arye Raichman said from his home in Bishkek that the violence that engulfed the Kyrgyzstan capital on Wednesday had spared the Jewish community.
Kyrgyzstan Violence Spares Bishkek Jewish Community
A day after an apparent overthrow sent an incumbent president from office and led a former foreign minister to claim executive authority, Rabbi Arye Raichman said from his home in Bishkek that the violence that engulfed the Kyrgyzstan capital on Wednesday had spared the Jewish community.
“The Jews here are, thank G-d, okay,” said Raichman, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary and rabbi to the local Jewish community of 2,000 people. “This is a government issue. The Chabad House is still providing services and our spirits are good.”
In light of the recent events, in which bloody protests and police reprisals left more than 40 people dead, Raichman and his family remained home, and urged others to do the same. The Ohr Avner Chabad Day School, likewise, suspended its classes.
The rabbi added that while he counseled an abundance of caution, calm largely appeared to be the order of the day after former foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva declared that she was leading a transitional government for six months. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, according to news reports, was said to be in the south of the central Asian nation.
“There’s nothing more to report,” said Raichman, who last week hosted Passover Seders for local community members and Jewish travelers. “With G-d’s help, everything will be fine.”
