Anti-Semitic Leaflets in Ukraine Region Alarm Jews

Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, who said he participated in a teleconference with the country’s interim prime minister over Pesach on the matter, said Tuesday night that while the initiator of the leaflets was still unknown, it is more likely to be the Russian-backed regime in Donetsk than Ukrainian nationalists.

He added that Jews in the breakaway region are anxious about their future.

“This leaflet has done more to create fear among the Jews than all the other attacks and the firebombing of the shul in Nikoliaev,” he said.

“This brings back memories of what the Nazis did.”

Condemnations poured in from across the world, with the U.S. condemning it as “grotesque.”

“In the year 2014, after all of the miles traveled and all of the journey of history, this is not just intolerable; it’s grotesque,” Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters at a convention in Geneva in which a fragile agreement to the Ukrainian crisis was worked out. “It is beyond unacceptable. And any of the people who engage in these kinds of activities, from whatever party or whatever ideology or whatever place they crawl out of, there is no place for that.”

The leaflets, which were distributed by masked men a block away from the local Chabad shul, purport to come from the Donetsk People’s Republic, a self-styled, unrecognized breakaway authority that seeks to join Russia. The Donetsk Republic press office denied any involvement in the matter and says the leaflets are fake.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s acting president ordered security forces to resume operations to retake the region, and the Defense Ministry says a military aircraft was struck by gunfire over one of the tensest cities in the region.

The twin developments Tuesday raised fears over whether last week’s international agreement can succeed. The agreement calls for all sides to refrain from violence and for demonstrators to vacate public buildings.

Pro-Russia insurgents in eastern Ukraine have rejected the agreement, arguing they were not party to it.

Ukraine suspended its so-called anti-terrorist operation in the east after the agreement. President Oleksandr Turchynov said it must be resumed.

This article appeared in print on page 1 of the April 23rd, 2014 edition of Hamodia.