Ukrainian Jewish Lawmaker Attacked on Streets of Kiev

By JTA June 23, 2014

A Ukrainian Jewish lawmaker said he was threatened in central Kiev by uniformed men who hurled anti-Semitic insults at him.

Oleksandr Feldman, president of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, told police last week that the unidentified men surrounded his car on June 17 near the Ukrainian parliament, Ukrainian Jewish Committee Director Eduard Dolinsky told JTA.

“When he tried to leave, they punctured his car tires,” Dolinsky said, adding: “In the police report, Mr. Feldman noted that the men shouted anti-Semitic insults at him and this angle will be investigated.”

The suspected attackers left the scene as police approached, Dolinsky said. Feldman was guarded during the attack by his bodyguard, Dolinsky added. None of them were injured in the incident, which occurred on Institutskaya Street near the Ukrainian parliament.

Feldman, who wears a kippah and is one of Ukraine’s most well-known Jews, is also the initiator of the annual Kyiv Interfaith Forum.

Anti-Semitic attacks are rare in Ukraine, and Kiev especially, but several have occurred since November, after the eruption of a revolution that forced former president Viktor Yanukovych to flee for Russia and has left hundreds dead.

Last month, armed, masked men threatened to burn down the house of one of Ukraine’s chief rabbis, Yaakov Dov Bleich.

Bleich, the president of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, was not in the country at the time of the attack, which ended without serious injury.

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