{"id":973,"date":"2014-05-05T08:39:26","date_gmt":"2014-05-05T08:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/josef-zissels-vaad-chairman-and-former-soviet-prisoner-of-conscience-visits-canada-and-the-united-states\/"},"modified":"2017-08-18T19:40:25","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T19:40:25","slug":"josef-zissels-vaad-chairman-and-former-soviet-prisoner-of-conscience-visits-canada-and-the-united-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/josef-zissels-vaad-chairman-and-former-soviet-prisoner-of-conscience-visits-canada-and-the-united-states\/","title":{"rendered":"Josef Zissels, VAAD chairman and former Soviet prisoner of conscience, visits Canada and the United States"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Josef Zissels, one of Ukraine\u2019s leading Jewish activists, visited the United States and Canada at the end of April to discuss how the current political unrest in his homeland is affecting the Jewish community. He also encouraged the Ukrainian and Jewish Diasporas to increase pressure on their respective governments to take more aggressive measures against Russia to stop destabilizing Ukraine.<\/p>\n

In New York, he appeared at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research the Ukrainian Museum and met with the leadership of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the World Jewish Congress. In Canada, he met with national politicians and spoke at a gathering of Ukrainian and Jewish leaders, who gathered at Toronto\u2019s Lipa Green Centre. Zissels urged the two communities to work closely together to counter Russian propaganda about Ukraine.<\/p>\n

In his appearances, Zissels stressed three points: Ukraine\u2019s informational campaign countering Russian propaganda must be more robust and effective; the West must use stronger economic measures against Moscow to stop its aggression or it will pay a higher price later, and NATO must also be ready to defend democracy anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat does not mean it has to use military force,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current sanctions are like a mosquito biting an elephant,\u201d Zissels told Jason Kenney, Canada\u2019s Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism.<\/p>\n

Zissels, a former dissident who spent six years in Soviet prisons, has been a long-time supporter of Ukraine\u2019s pro-democracy movement. He was the first Ukrainian Jewish leader to publically support protesters on Kyiv\u2019s Euromaidan.<\/p>\n

Despite Moscow\u2019s efforts to depict Ukraine and its current leadership as fascist and antisemitic, Zissels noted the number of antisemitic incidents in Ukraine has actually fallen. Today it boasts one of the lowest rates in Europe, according to studies conducted by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, where Zissels is Chairman of the General Council.<\/p>\n

Still, Zissels said he expected emigration by Jews from Ukraine to Israel would rise in 2014 because of general instability in the country.<\/p>\n

Zissels established Ukraine\u2019s first Jewish organization in the town of Chernivtsi. Today he also heads VAAD, the Confederation of Jewish Organizations and Communities, an organization that represents 265 organizations in 65 cities of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Along with community leaders and politicians, Zissels met with various media outlets, including the Canadian Jewish News. His interview with the newspaper can be found at\u00a0http:\/\/cjnews.com\/canada\/ukrainian-jewish-leader-says-russia-threat<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Josef Zissels, one of Ukraine\u2019s leading Jewish activists, visited the United States and Canada at the end of April to discuss how the current political unrest in his homeland is affecting the Jewish community. He...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-973","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\/973","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=973"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3989,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions\/3989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}