Leaders of Ukraine's Jewish community have come out strongly in support of the Kiev government in its conflict with Russia, rejecting Moscow's accusations that their country is now a hotbed of antisemitism.

Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko denounced antisemitism and Putin’s Russia during a speech to business leaders in Tel Aviv on Monday.

The mayor of the Ukrainian city of Lviv told participants at a Jewish learning conference that France has a bigger antisemitism problem than his country.

Despite media reports, there has been no surge of antisemitic attacks in Odessa, local Jewish leaders say. Reports in Pravda, Izvestia and other Russian news outlets last week painted a picture of an Ukrainian Jewish community terrorized by members of the ultra-nationalist Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) movement.

On the second night of Rosh Hashanah, a group of five or six men disrupted a Jewish concert in the Great Hall of Moscow’s International Music House with a tear gas attack.

Veteran peace and human rights advocate Larry Lerner came home from a mission to Ukraine on Aug. 25 with some optimistic news. “We got the feeling that antisemitism had dropped considerably in Ukraine,” he said two days after his return.

Head of Kiev’s Jewish community to leaders of the global Jewish Diaspora: “We support the president-elect, there is no antisemitism on the government level in Ukraine, antisemitism is a tool of failed politicians. We must continue investing in the safety of the Jews of Eastern Ukraine."

As Ukraine grapples with political upheaval and threats to its territorial integrity, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is confronting the country’s post-revolution government with another, no less difficult challenge: contending with its past treatment of Jews.

The museum has urged the new government in Kiev to set up an international commission to examine its troubled relations throughout the 20th century with the country’s Jewish community.