Jews in Eastern Ukrainian City Told to ‘Register’

A notice was posted on the door of the main Synagogue of Donetsk, Ukraine, and similar flyers appeared elsewhere in the city, demanding that all Jews appear at the pro-Russian-rebel-controlled municipal headquarters to ‘register’ and pay a fee, or else they would be forcibly deported.

From the Times of Israel:

The United States on Thursday condemned as “grotesque” the distribution of leaflets demanding that Jews in eastern Ukraine register with a self-proclaimed local authority or face consequences. US officials also denounced other instances of religious intolerance that are inflaming tensions in the crisis in Ukraine and said no such behavior could be tolerated.

Speaking in Geneva after top diplomats from the US, European Union, Russia and Ukraine reached agreement on steps to de-escalate the situation, Secretary of State John Kerry denounced the leaflets.

“In the year 2014, after all of the miles traveled and all of the journey of history, this is not just intolerable; it’s grotesque,” Kerry told reporters. “It is beyond unacceptable. And any of the people who engage in these kinds of activities, from whatever party or whatever ideology or whatever place they crawl out of, there is no place for that.”

Kerry also denounced apparent threats to members of the Russian Orthodox Church from members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He noted that the agreement signed on Thursday “strongly condemned and rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti-Semitism.”

Also Thursday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center released a statement saying that Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador in Kiev, told Mark Weitzman, SWC’s director of government affairs, that  the fliers were “clearly part of a general effort to sow fear among Ukrainian Jews.”

Pyatt added that he doesn’t know who was behind the literature.

In Washington, US officials said the anti-Semitic leaflets, which recall the days of czarist pogroms and Nazi-era persecution of Jews, have appeared recently in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk. The State Department said it was looking into who is responsible but said it took the threat seriously, no matter who was behind the leaflets.

The leaflets seen by US officials purport to come from the Donetsk People’s Republic, a self-styled, unrecognized breakaway authority that seeks to join Russia. The Donetsk Republic press office denied any involvement in the matter and says the leaflets are fake.

Update: Yosef Gurevitz, a Lubavitcher Bochur who is in Donetsk for Pesach, told NBC News that he witnessed masked men handing out the anti-Semitic flyers.

From NBC New York:

A Brooklyn man visiting Ukraine says he witnessed masked men handing out leaflets ordering Jews in eastern Ukraine to register with authorities.

Yosef Gurevitz, who is from Crown Heights and is in Donetsk visiting family, told NBC News he saw the men outside a synagogue earlier this week.

“There were about 100 of us outside the synagogue after Passover eve prayers [on Wednesday] when we saw three masked men in the crowd who started to hand out letters,” Gurevitz said. “One of them tried to tape one on the synagogue door. Then they quickly left. When I read the letter I was in shock.”

The papers say Jews are required to register with a “commissar” by May 3.

“It’s very worrying,” said Gurevitz. “We’re hoping its just a provocation but I always thought the days that Jews would become scapegoats for whatever reason were long over.”

Continue reading at NBC New York.

In this video, Rabbi Moshe Liberow, a Shliach in Colorado, is interviewed by a local TV News station regarding the uneasiness being felt by the Jewish community following this event in Ukraine and the tragic shooting in Kansas City:

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4 Comments

  • False

    If you paid more attention to the news, this has proven to be false. Check the second page of reddit.

  • to #1

    not PROVEN to be false; highly suspected and probable. but not proven. this is indeed mentioned in the videos.

  • Fed Up

    Why should the Jews register? Just because they are Jews? This is what Jews had to do in Europe during the Nazi-era! Anti-Semitism is on the rise, and who knows how worse it is going to get! First registering, what’s next?

  • Germany 1938

    Don’t we Jews learn anything from history? It wasn’t so long ago that we don’t have any memories? And in the Ukraine…doesn’t the name Babi Yar mean anything? I don’t understand why, aftter these leaflets, any Jew who can leave hasn’t/isn’t going within days – if they have that long. Perhaps the Israeli govt can help, they managed it with the Ethopians & Yemenites. As for the Lubavitchers, even Shluchim – get your communities out, & give yourselves enough time to get out too. The writing is not only on the wall, it’s in your hands, on these papers.