PSCRP-BESA Reports No 217 (July 15, 2026)
In late June, the most hotly debated issue concerning the Jews of Ukraine was the meeting between Dmytro Korchynskyi, leader of the radical nationalist Ukrainian party Bratstvo (“Brotherhood”), and Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Moshe Asman, who holds both Ukrainian and Israeli citizenship. Following the meeting, Rabbi Asman issued a statement asserting that Bratstvo had no connection to the Nazi slogans and salutes displayed during a public rally held on Kyiv’s Independence Square on June 21. A photograph showing Dmytro Korchynskyi and Moshe Asman shaking hands was subsequently published.
Because the Embassy of the State of Israel had previously issued an official statement regarding the Independence Square event—expressing its “deep concern over actions that desecrate the memory of the victims of Nazism” and calling upon the Ukrainian authorities to respond—Rabbi Moshe Asman stated that he had spoken with Israeli Ambassador Michael Brodsky in order to convey the position of the Ukrainian radicals to the head of Israel’s diplomatic mission. However, even if such a conversation did take place, it did not affect Israel’s position. It is noteworthy that while Dmytro Korchynskyi considered it necessary to meet with the rabbi to discuss Israel’s criticism of his party, the Ukrainian authorities refrained from issuing any response whatsoever to the Israeli embassy’s statement.
Regardless of whose interpretation of the events on Independence Square on June 21, 2026, proves to be accurate, the intense controversy that unfolded on social media over those events—as well as over the Israeli embassy’s statement and Korchynskyi’s subsequent meeting with Rabbi Asman—is itself highly revealing. On the one hand, the Jewish state became the target of a wave of criticism ranging from openly antisemitic and anti-Zionist attacks to comparatively moderate calls urging Israel “not to interfere in Ukraine’s internal affairs and to mind its own business.” As is often the case in online debates, comments directed against Israel and the Jews were considerably harsher than those typically voiced in face-to-face interactions. During my repeated visits to Ukraine following the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, I never encountered anything comparable—not in university lecture halls, nor on the streets, nor at railway stations.
It is worth recalling that a similar reaction emerged on Ukrainian social media following the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s statement of May 25 expressing its “regret over the decision to hold an official state reburial ceremony for OUN leader Andriy Melnyk, who collaborated with the Nazis.” As might be expected, Russian-speaking Israeli social media users—including many who were born in Ukraine—actively supported Israel’s position in both instances. Numerous commentators also questioned the sincerity of Rabbi Moshe Asman’s statement.
Even a superficial examination of the authors of antisemitic and anti-Israeli comments in such online debates reveals that many—though by no means all—appear to be bots. It is reasonable to assume that this constitutes part of the hybrid warfare Russia is waging against both Ukraine and Israel, since Russia is the clear beneficiary of any deterioration in relations between the two countries, both at the governmental level and among ordinary citizens. Given the persistence of latent antisemitic attitudes among segments of Ukrainian society, combined with the heightened sense of national identity produced by the ongoing war, Russian efforts in this direction have yielded tangible results. At the same time, the collective historical memory of the Jews regarding Ukrainian antisemitism also provides fertile ground for fueling anti-Ukrainian sentiment, even among those who unequivocally support Ukraine in its struggle against Russian aggression. Since worsening relations between Ukraine and Israel clearly serves Russia’s interests, it is worth recalling that Ukrainian journalists have repeatedly accused Dmytro Korchynskyi in the past of having projects “financed by Moscow,” although he himself has consistently denied these allegations.
Be that as it may, the underlying cause of these recurring disputes—which have already arisen repeatedly in recent years and are likely to arise again—is a profound conflict of historical narratives. In this context, one should also mention the growing dispute between Ukraine and Poland triggered by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s decision in May to grant one of Ukraine’s elite military units the honorary title “Heroes of the UPA” (the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the military wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists). Zelenskyy’s Jewish background is not without relevance in this particular context. Faced with an existential threat to its independence and even its survival, Ukraine is actively constructing its own national narrative, paying little attention to how the heroes of that narrative are perceived by Poles and, even less so, by Jews. This is especially true given that, at present, Ukraine’s relationship with Poland is immeasurably more important than its ties with the Jewish state or the Jewish Diaspora.
In addition to the glorification of such historical figures as Ivan Gonta, Symon Petliura, Andriy Melnyk, and others—figures viewed extremely negatively within the Jewish national narrative—the Ukrainian national narrative also contains another potentially contentious element: the Holodomor, officially recognized by the Verkhovna Rada in 2006, during Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency, as the genocide of the Ukrainian people. Since the famine of 1932–1933 affected not only Ukraine but also Kazakhstan and several regions of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic—particularly areas populated largely by ethnic Ukrainians, such as the Kuban—and since its victims within the Ukrainian SSR included not only Ukrainians but also members of other ethnic groups, including Jews, defining the Holodomor exclusively as the genocide of the Ukrainian people has generated certain objections. In 2010, then-President Viktor Yanukovych unequivocally opposed such a definition.
However, given that Yanukovych was convicted of high treason by a Ukrainian court in 2019, while Russia’s State Duma had already officially rejected the characterization of the Holodomor as genocide back in 2008, denying the Holodomor this status is now widely perceived in Ukraine as an expression of “Ukrainophobia” and an endorsement of Russian propaganda.
To date, thirty-two states have officially recognized the Holodomor as the genocide of the Ukrainian people. Israel is not among them. This has become a source of criticism directed at the Jewish state not only by radical Ukrainian nationalist politicians but also by ordinary Ukrainian social media users. Many ask, “Why should we recognize your Holocaust if you refuse to recognize our Holodomor?” In this way, the Ukrainian national narrative that has emerged in recent years appropriates the image of a victimized nation, a perception that naturally resonates with the profound trauma inflicted upon Ukrainian society by the prolonged war unleashed by Russia.
In 2006, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) published a list of individuals whom it identified as responsible for organizing the Holodomor. In 2010, the Kyiv Court of Appeal endorsed the SBU’s conclusions. Among the officials listed by the SBU, the number of Jews exceeded that of ethnic Ukrainians. In response, the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, headed at the time by billionaire businessman and Member of Parliament Oleksandr Feldman, issued a statement declaring that “the first list of Communist Party and Soviet leaders, senior OGPU and GPU officials of the Ukrainian SSR, and documents that served as the organizational and legal basis for implementing the policy of the Holodomor-Genocide and repressions in Ukraine, published by the SBU on the basis of archival materials, effectively assigns ethnic responsibility for the tragedy of the Holodomor to Jews and Latvians.” According to Feldman, the lists had been compiled in a tendentious manner in order to shield the actual perpetrators of the Holodomor—ethnic Ukrainians such as Hryhoriy Petrovskyi, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR; Vlas Chubar, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR; Prosecutor General Anton Prykhodko; and others.
These lists remain publicly accessible online and, in the eyes of many ordinary Ukrainians, serve as evidence of Jewish “guilt” toward the Ukrainian people, supposedly nullifying Jewish claims regarding the participation of Ukrainian collaborators in the destruction of the Jewish population during the Holocaust. At times, such attitudes are expressed through ostensibly conciliatory proposals that “everyone should repent and everyone should forgive.”
This is the political and psychological backdrop against which relations between the Ukrainian state and its Jewish ethnic minority are currently evolving. Although the Jewish community has become numerically very small—fewer than 40,000 Jews are believed to remain in Ukraine—it is still perceived by Ukrainian society as an important factor in many respects. At the same time, contemporary Ukrainian Jewry lacks any universally recognized representative body. Moreover, there are currently no influential secular Jewish organizations operating in the country. Major Ukrainian businessmen of Jewish origin who had previously been active in Jewish communal life now reside outside Ukraine, where criminal proceedings have been initiated against them. In the cases of Vadym Rabinovych and Ihor Kolomoisky, one of the grounds cited for the prosecution was their possession of Israeli citizenship. On June 18, 2025, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law on multiple citizenship that includes a list of countries whose passports Ukrainian citizens may legally hold; Israel is not among them. Jewish communal life in present-day Ukraine is therefore concentrated almost entirely around religious communities affiliated with international Jewish organizations.
At the same time, against the backdrop of four and a half years of full-scale war, a distinct Ukrainian Jewish identity is rapidly taking shape—one that differs from other Russian-speaking Jewish communities and constitutes an integral part of the Ukrainian civic nation. This is the picture promoted by certain Ukrainian public figures of Jewish origin, most notably Josef Zissels, Executive Vice President of the Congress of National Communities of Ukraine and Executive Co-President of the Vaad of Ukraine. Zissels and his supporters do not consider the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian-born Jews now living in Israel and Western countries to be part of “Ukrainian Jewry.” Within this ideological framework, the Jewish narrative is entirely subordinated to the Ukrainian one. This tendency became especially evident in the debate over how Babyn Yar should be commemorated.
The actual picture, however, is considerably more complex than a simple confrontation between competing narratives. On the one hand, Russia’s bloody aggression has led the average resident of Ukraine—including Ukrainian Jews—to develop hostility toward Russians regardless of their ethnic background. On the other hand, in Israel and throughout the West, Jews born in Ukraine generally belong to the same communal and social structures as Jews born in Russia. Russian has been eliminated from official use within Ukraine’s Jewish communities. Ukrainian is now expected to be the language of all public speeches, all publications—including translations of Jewish sacred texts—and instruction in Jewish schools. Even Ukraine’s only Jewish literary almanac, Yegupets, is now published exclusively in Ukrainian. At the same time, Russian remains the principal language of informal communication among Ukrainian Jews, whose largest communities continue to be located in traditionally Russian-speaking cities such as Dnipro, Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa. It also remains the primary language of communication with the transnational Russian-speaking Jewish world in Israel, the West, and those post-Soviet states with which ties have been maintained, above all Moldova. The continued existence of Jews in contemporary Ukraine requires, at least outwardly, acceptance of the Ukrainian national narrative in order to avoid conflict with both the authorities and the ethnic majority. This, however, does not necessarily mean that most Ukrainian Jews genuinely regard that narrative as fully their own, nor is it certain that, when confronted with a clash of narratives, they sincerely choose the Ukrainian national narrative over the Jewish one.