President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine condemned “any manifestations of intolerance and antisemitism” in his country following a series of neo-Nazi and other recent antisemitic events there.

Confronting a difficult history is no easy matter, particularly in Ukraine—a country caught between murderous regimes throughout the twentieth century. In his book Bloodlands, Yale historian Timothy Snyder places Ukraine at the center of a region where more than 14 million “non-combatants” were ruthlessly killed by the competing geopolitical goals of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin between 1933 and 1945.

Ukraine’s far-right has no need to look for mythical enemies when there’s a real enemy to be fought and their country truly needs to be defended.

New York, NY, February 3, 2015 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today was deeply troubled by a thinly veiled antisemitic appeal made by the leadership of the Donetsk and Lugansk “People’s Republics,” who referred to the central government in Kyiv as “pathetic representatives of the great Jewish people.”

Ukraine will soon appoint an envoy tasked with preventing and combating antisemitism and xenophobia. Last week’s announcement came days before the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by the Red Army and as many countries debate how to respond to increasingly frequent antisemitic violence across Europe.

You don't need to remind Ukrainian Jews of their long history of oppression at the hands of local authorities. In light of the past, how is the remaining 100,000-strong Jewish community faring in newly independent Ukraine, particularly in the wake of recent Maidan protests, renewed nationalism and war with separatists in the east? When it comes to such questions, views can be somewhat nuanced.

(JTA) – Jewish communities in Ukraine and the United States have conducted a coordinated and successful effort to refute Russian claims that Ukraine’s revolution unleashed a wave of antisemitic acts, one of Ukraine’s chief rabbis said.