News Brief

Reported anti-Semitic attack in Ukraine is false

False reports of an anti-Semitic attack in the Ukrainian city of Cernigov are a provocation, say Jewish leaders there.

The Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry, a Jewish monitoring organization, issued a report from its Lvov monitor last week on its Web site describing an attack by extremists in Cernigov on the Garazh night club during an anti-fascist concert.

The attackers allegedly screamed “kikes out of our city,” injured several people, caused extensive property damage, and scrawled anti-Semitic and racist graffiti on the walls. Several Ukrainian news Web sites reported the alleged attack.

Law enforcement agencies, including the security police and the Chernigov department of internal affairs, told JTA that the incident never occurred.

“This is provocation and a newspaper hoax,” Semyon Belman, the leader of the Chernigov Regional Association of Jewish Communities and Organizations, told JTA. “This is provocation organized by a left-wing, marginal group against democratic authority. They are trying to play the ‘Jewish card’ in Ukraine again.”

Yakov Muzykant, the chief rabbi of Chernigov and the surrounding region, told JTA that he was also not aware of the attack described in the reports.