Josef Zissels

Josef Zissels, a dissident of Jewish origin, is the co-president of Ukraine's Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities (VAAD) and executive vice-president of Ukraine's Congress of Ethnic Communities. He is an outstanding public figure who has been indispensable in developing the Ukrainian-Jewish dialogue.

Mr. Zissels was born in Tashkent in 1946. In the early 1960s, after his mother died, he and his father moved from Chişinău (Moldova) to Chernivtsi (Ukraine), where he graduated from the local university with a degree in physics in 1969. Many high-profile events and cases involving dissidents occurred during his student years, including the arrest and imprisonment of Ivan Kandyba and Levko Lukianenko, the trial of Zenovii Krasivsky, and the punishment of General Hryhorenko by imprisonment in a mental hospital. There was also the Prague Spring. Mr. Zissels took an active interest in samvydav (self-publishing) and was formed as a person who aspired to change by the early 1970s. At the time, he worked as a technical control engineer at the Chernivtsi Radio and Television Center and led an active public life, which was extremely risky. Starting in 1970-1971, Mr. Zissels helped people who wanted to leave for Israel.

Being targeted by the Soviet services, particularly the KGB, Mr. Zissels knew he was going to clash with this terror machine sooner or later. In February 1977, the KGB warned him he would be held responsible if he chose to continue his "anti-Soviet activities." They offered him to leave the USSR, but he refused. Instead, Mr. Zissels joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group in 1978 and was instrumental in helping the families of political prisoners. Among other things, he systematically collected data on unlawfully convicted prisoners and those sent to mental hospitals.

In an interview with Iryna Slavinska for Ukrainska Pravda, Mr. Zissels noted he had also rejected an invitation to work in a university lab. The reasons were his reluctance to be involved in weapons research and the antisemitism of the lab's director. During this period, he closely communicated with the Soviet dissident Igor Pomerantsev. The circle of the German-speaking Jewish intelligentsia in Chernivtsi, who had close connections with Paul Celan, an outstanding poet and a native of the city, profoundly impacted Mr. Zissel's formation.

In late 1978, he was arrested for anti-Soviet activities and sentenced to imprisonment in a high-security colony. He served his sentence but was slapped with another three-year prison term in 1984. In 1988, Mr. Zissels made the risky move of establishing Ukraine's first Jewish organization in Chernivtsi. He was involved in creating VAAD in 1989 and became its co-president.

Throughout the three decades of Ukraine's independence, Mr. Zissels has invariably been a tireless public figure and human rights activist. He publicly expressed a pro-Ukrainian position in 2014 at a time when Ukraine's territorial integrity and independence faced a direct threat and armed aggression from Russia. Today, he stands squarely on the position that Ukraine's sovereignty must be defended. He is one of the few leaders among religious and secular Jewish organizations who openly and constantly support Ukraine in their activities. Mr. Zissels lives in Kyiv.

Translated from the Ukrainian by Vasyl Starko.