Ukrainian Jewish Businessman Killed in Donetsk Attack
A Ukrainian Jewish man and his guard were killed during an armed attack in Donetsk, a local Jewish group said.
George (Eliyahu) Zilberbord, 47, was shot dead on Aug. 30 by men who raided the area around his home on the outskirts of the embattled city, where pro-Russian separatists are fighting with Ukrainian government troops, the Vaad Association of Jewish Communities and Organizations of Ukraine said in a statement.
According to Vaad, the men responsible for killing Zilberbord, a 47-year-old businessman and member of the local Jewish community’s board, were militants who had decided to loot homes in the victim’s neighbourhood.
“Militant bandits came to rob a cottage house, and George, along with the head of security, came to them to try to negotiate and, as a result, both were killed,” the Vaad wrote. The security professional was not named in the statement. Zilberbrod was buried in Kiev on Monday at a funeral attended by several hundred people.
The Vaad under Josef Zissels has been a vocal critic of the actions of pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine and of the intervention of Russia in Ukraine.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO