Chabad Shliach Sets The Record Straight, Story of Ukrainians Attacking Jews is Fake

by CrownHeights.info

A horrific story broke Tuesday claiming that the Jews of Zhytomyr, Ukraine were under attack by none other than the Ukrainians themselves.

The story, which was picked up by many news organizations, went into detail, claiming that “Members of the organization told the news outlet that hundreds of Jews in the town were fleeing precisely because of locals who turned against them.”

Specifically, the author of the story claimed that those attacking the Jews were workers of the Chabad Orphanage that had miraculously escaped to Romania.

Rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm, the Shiach who oversaw the orphanage and is Chief Rabbi of Zhytomyr published a rebuttal.

“Yesterday, on one media dump, which mistakenly considers itself to be a serious information resource, an article was published stating that the Jews of Zhytomyr, a city in Ukraine, were forced to evacuate from the city due to pogroms and persecution by local nationalists, but not from the war,’ he wrote. “I will answer everyone: all Ukrainian Nazism, anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews exist only in the sick imagination of the authors of this rubbish false information.”

Why was this rticle written? According to Rabbi Wilhelm, it’s very simple. “There is a war going on in Ukraine, Russia attacked under an absolutely fictitious pretext of getting rid of imaginary Nazis. And in war, as you know, all means are good – any false news that can cause or intensify conflict moods within Ukraine plays into the hands of Russia.”

Rabbi Wilhelm urged everyone to take any information you read responsibly, double-check it through reliable and trusted resources, and not trust hype headlines on dubious websites.

The original article, and many of those spawned from it, have since been taken down.

“I pray for a speedy end to the war,” Rabbi Wilhelm concluded. “I am currently in Israel, but I really want to return to my native Zhytomyr.”