Hi.
How many Jews are still in the Ukraine? And why are they still there?
I knew that was coming- and I'm glad it did so I can address it. There are about 300.000 of us still here. Yes it's sometimes scary, but especially so if you live at the front lines between the pro-Russian and nationalist conflict, as in places like Kharkiv or Dnipropetrovsk. But I live in Lviv, the main city of the nationalist stronghold, or Bandera-land. I've actually barely encountered any anti-Semitism.
I guess a lot of Jews speak Russian, which leads Ukrainians to believe they side with Russia or the interests of the Russian-speaking minority. In fact I think if Jews in
western Ukraine spoke Yiddish instead of Russian that would
decrease anti-Semitism, believe it or not- of course Ukrainian would even more, and fortunately I speak Ukrainian. I also "look" Ukrainian- i.e. I have very Slavic features because my father is non-Jewish Ukrainian, and supposedly Ukrainians look different from
Russians- I've had people tell me I don't "look" Jewish all the time. But then again, many of these people say the same thing when they see full-blooded Jews.
There is a local neo-nazi party, "Swoboda" (which means "freedom" and they say they're just "nationalist") which has gotten a lot of votes but we aren't worried. Everyone thought that most people in Lviv would vote for Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the party, for president in this year's elections; but he won in only one district in the entire country. I also remember some time ago he had an interview on Israeli TV where he said he admires Israel and wants Ukraine to be more like Israel, and also received support from the leader of a party in Israel called "Home of David" or something. But I see the filth emanating from his supporters online and I just can't believe a word he says.
But anyway, sorry for being off-topic, I just thought I had to mention that- many of you would be quite surprised about Ukrainian Jews. I consider myself a proud Ukrainian Jew, and I love Ukraine and Israel, and of course America- although I wish they would stay out of our politics and stop making things worse. Russia, of course, is completely different since I consider them an enemy nation, while I do realize there are some good people and political parties there. I could go on and on about Stepan Bandera, the EU, Euromaidan, the language policy, etc. But it would take pages and pages. I definitely will continue to post about the Jewish-related topics in Ukraine.