The European Jewish Congress’ president canceled a trip to Ukraine to protest the government’s silence on rising anti-Semitism.
Moshe Kantor was set to visit Ukraine on Wednesday for a government ceremony honoring the late Maj. Anatoly Shapiro, the Ukrainian-Jewish Red Army commander who liberated the Auschwitz death camp, but circumstances led him to change his mind.
Kantor wrote in a letter to the 41 country members of the EJC that, “to my deepest disappointment, in the last few days things have deteriorated extremely in Ukraine with regard to anti-Semitism. After four major physical attacks against rabbis in Ukraine within the last month, we have not seen nor heard any statement from the government condemning this dangerous tendency.â€
Rabbis were attacked in Zhitomir, Cherkassy and Sevastopol in late September. The home of the rabbi of Uzhgorod was set ablaze on Oct. 5.
Kantor also noted that a recent neo-Nazi parade in Kiev was unopposed by local authorities and that the government on Sunday honored a Nazi collaborator.
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