{"id":954,"date":"2014-07-13T08:24:51","date_gmt":"2014-07-13T08:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/ukrainian-jewish-identity-has-evolved-through-ukraines-revolutions\/"},"modified":"2017-08-18T19:40:24","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T19:40:24","slug":"ukrainian-jewish-identity-has-evolved-through-ukraines-revolutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/ukrainian-jewish-identity-has-evolved-through-ukraines-revolutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukrainian Jewish Identity Has Evolved Through Ukraine\u2019s Revolutions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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LONDON\u2014\u201cWe stood there together with Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, Armenians, and others as a part of one fighting nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

With this evocation of ethnic and religious diversity united in solidarity, Ukrainian Jewish leader Josef Zissels delivered the keynote address at the conference \u201cJews and the Ukrainian Revolution: Future Perspectives\u201d held by the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies in London on June 30, 2014.<\/p>\n

\"josef-zissels-at-ucrdc\"
\nJosef Zissels at UCRDC. Photo: Bozhena Gembatiuk-Fedyna<\/em><\/p>\n

Zissels outlined the evolution of the Jewish community\u2019s relationship with the long-term Ukrainian \u201crevolution\u201d that unfolded over the past several decades: Jews supported Ukraine\u2019s independence in 1991 and started to develop a distinct Ukrainian Jewish identity as opposed to a previous Soviet identification. A segment of the Jewish community supported what Zissels considered to be the \u201cethnocentric\u201d Orange Revolution of 2004. The revolution of 2014 was less ethnocentric and the spirit of a \u201cUkrainian political nation\u201d was dominant.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday Ukrainian Jews are a part of the Ukrainian political nation which is on its way to Europe,\u201d he said. \u201cThe identity of Ukrainian Jews is different nowadays from the identity of Russian Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zissels also denied the existence of widespread Ukrainian antisemitism, stating that in 2013 there were just 13 antisemitic incidents in Ukraine as opposed to 700 in the United Kingdom. Anton Shekhovtsov, a researcher at the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies at University College London who tracks far right groups, supported Zissels\u2019s view. He noted the three nationalist parties in Ukraine\u2014UNA-UNSO, Svoboda, and Right Sector\u2014have limited membership and influence and have refrained recently from antisemitic declarations of excesses.<\/p>\n

Brandeis University professor Anton Polonsky analyzed recent events in Ukraine from the encouraging perspective of Poland\u2019s accession to the European Union. In 1991 the GDP of both Ukraine and Poland was the same. Today Poland\u2019s GDP is three times larger than that of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Zissels\u2019s talk in London on the Jewish community and Ukraine\u2019s path to Europe follows previous presentations he made in Cracow and Paris.<\/p>\n

Born in Tashkent and educated at Chernivtsi University in western Ukraine, Zissels is the chair and founder of the Federation of Ukrainian Jewish Organizations (Vaad) and Vice President of the World Jewish Congress. He was imprisoned for several years in Soviet penal colonies for his work in human rights and with Jewish organizations. He continues an active role in Ukrainian political life. He addressed protesters on the Maidan in Kyiv in 2013. In March 2014, he was an initiator and signatory of a letter requesting Russian President Vladimir Putin to abstain from destabilizing the interim Ukrainian government. (The letter can be accessed here:<\/p>\n

Zissels traveled to Ottawa and Toronto this spring as a guest of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter. There he met with Canadian legislators, Ukrainian and Jewish community leaders and media to discuss the current political situation. For more on his visit see here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Interviews with Zissels can be accessed at:<\/p>\n

Voices of Ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n

Canadian Jewish News<\/a><\/p>\n

Hear an interview with Josef Zissels that aired on May 4, 2014 during The Ukrainian Hour on CHIN Ottawa 97.9 FM. Irena Bell is producer and host of the Ukrainian-language program that runs every Sunday from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Previous podcasts can be found at http:\/\/chinradioottawa.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Part One of interview with Josef Zissels<\/a><\/p>\n

Part Two of Interview with Josef Zissels<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON\u2014\u201cWe stood there together with Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, Armenians, and others as a part of one fighting nation.\u201d With this evocation of ethnic and religious diversity united in solidarity, Ukrainian Jewish leader Josef Zissels delivered...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-commentary-and-analysis","primary-category-22","primary-category-commentary-and-analysis"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=954"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4037,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions\/4037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}