At the end of the previous year, 2018, and the beginning of this year, 2019, regular reports were published by Israeli, Russian, and Ukrainian organizations involved in monitoring manifestations of antisemitism and xenophobia across the former USSR, primarily in Russia and Ukraine. The facts and conclusions in these documents served as a significant news hook and sparked a lively discussion among political circles in these countries, as well as various factions of the post-Soviet Jewish elites. The main disagreements pertain to the classification of certain events as antisemitic incidents. The common ground for proponents of differing approaches remains a shared commitment to pay close attention not only to direct physical hate crimes or vandalism targeting Jews, but also to issues such as incitement, attempts to defame Jews and Israel, Holocaust denial, and antisemitism disguised as "anti-Zionism."

At the end of the previous year, 2018, and the beginning of this year, 2019, the public's attention was drawn to regular reports from organizations involved in monitoring manifestations of antisemitism and xenophobia across the former USSR, primarily in Russia and Ukraine. Here, the attitude of authorities and society toward Jews has become a prominent element of the psychological, diplomatic, and information campaigns accompanying the severe conflict between the two nations, which has now lasted for over four years. It is no coincidence that the facts and conclusions presented in the current—as well as last year's—series of reports have served as a significant news hook and sparked a lively discussion among political circles in these countries, as well as various factions of the post-Soviet Jewish elites.

Subject of Dispute

This year, as in previous years, local assessments and evaluations in Israel were presented by the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University. In Russia, they were provided by the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis (commissioned by the Russian Jewish Congress). In Ukraine, contributions came from the National Minority Rights Monitoring Group (NMRMG) under the Congress of National Communities of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, and, as of February of this year, the United Jewish Community of Ukraine—a new player in the field of monitoring antisemitic xenophobia in the country. The data published in these documents, for obvious reasons, became news hooks and subjects of dispute, essentially continuing the high-profile discussions from a year ago.

At that time, the report on the state of affairs in 2017, published by the Kantor Center, noted that "monitoring antisemitic acts in the post-Soviet space in 2017 was highly challenging: there were more verbal manifestations of antisemitic xenophobia in Russia, and more violent ones in Ukraine. In general, the same types of incidents—vandalism, antisemitic propaganda (accusing Jews of national and global problems, etc.), and the utilization of antisemitic narratives for political purposes—occurred in this (i.e., 2018) year as well."[1] Similarly, the 2018 report from the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs claimed that, according to their data, the number of antisemitic incidents in Ukraine in 2017 had doubled compared to the previous year.

It is worth noting that the leaders of the Russian Jewish Congress (RJC) essentially confirmed the conclusions of both documents regarding the situation in Russia, pointing to a growing number of inciting statements by local politicians and public figures. According to their conclusions, this "leads to the gradual normalization of antisemitism in the public sphere."[2] Conversely, experts from the Vaad (Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine) believed that these conclusions, at least regarding Ukraine, were highly exaggerated, particularly when referring to acts of violence and vandalism of an antisemitic nature.

As can be observed, in attempting to assess the level of antisemitism in various countries around the world, observers primarily focus on acts of physical violence against Jews, acts of vandalism against synagogues, community centers, schools, Jewish cemeteries, and memorials, as well as antisemitic and/or neo-Nazi graffiti on such targets. Regarding the countries of the former USSR, if one is to trust the data from monitoring organizations, the situation concerning physical violence against Jews and antisemitic vandalism, at first glance, indeed appears less dramatic. According to data from the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) and other organizations, the number of hate crimes on these grounds in 2010–2017 varied from 9 to 24 (or 28, according to other sources) cases per year in Ukraine, and from 6 to 17 cases per year in Russia, showing a slight upward trend since the middle of this decade.

The SOVA Center, which monitors antisemitism on behalf of the Russian Jewish Congress, claimed in its reports that the level of antisemitic violence in 2017 and 2018 was significantly lower than in previous years. Furthermore, during these two years, they did not record a single attack motivated by antisemitism, compared to 5 such incidents in 2016. As for Ukraine, since the systematic monitoring of antisemitism manifestations was launched in 2004 by EAJC experts, the peak of hate crimes targeting Jews occurred in 2005, and a wave of "street violence" posing a real threat to the life and health of the victims was observed in 2005–2007.

However, the following year, the number of such incidents dropped significantly and remained stable over the next ten years. (Excluding a slight increase in 2012–2014, followed by a new decline to minimal figures in 2015–2016).[3] In 2017 and 2018, according to the National Minority Rights Monitoring Group, which operates under the auspices of the Congress of National Communities of Ukraine, "no cases of violence against Jews were registered in Ukraine at all," mirroring the situation in Russia. The same group recorded approximately a twofold decrease (to 12 cases) in the number of antisemitic vandalism acts in 2018 compared to 2017 (when 24 cases were recorded, following 23 cases in 2014, 22 in 2015, and 19 in 2016).[4] They emphasized that their conclusions align with the assessments of the aforementioned report by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.[5]

This material, published in January 2019[6], itself became a subject of lively discussion among various factions of the post-Soviet Jewish elites, who sought in it either factual confirmation of last year's disappointing conclusions, or recognition by the Israelis of their errors in assessing the situation in 2017. Accordingly, some participants in the discussions highlighted conclusions in the document stating that while there was no overall increase in antisemitic manifestations in the post-Soviet space, "cases of this nature were reported more frequently in Ukraine than elsewhere" (although there was no certainty that all of them had an actual antisemitic motive). They also pointed to the "particularly concerning glorification of Jewish persecutors and murderers [during World War II], as part of the process of decommunization and the rise of Ukrainian nationalism, which is also evident in government legislative initiatives." Their opponents, conversely, emphasized the report's findings showing a decrease in 2018, compared to the previous year, in the overall number of acts of vandalism against Jewish targets (synagogues, community centers, cemeteries, etc.). According to this data, the most significant decline occurred precisely in Ukraine, along with the fact that no direct violent actions against Jews were recorded there.

Hate Crimes

Nevertheless, there is general consensus that the very existence of such actions, even if reduced in number, remains a serious challenge to the status and security of Jewish communities and communal property in the post-Soviet space—and is perceived as such by members of these communities. Some of these cases received particular resonance. In Ukraine, among the relatively recent cases of this nature, Nemirov (in the "mid-west" of the country) was frequently mentioned, where vandals regularly desecrated mass graves of Holocaust victims in search of "Jewish gold." Another notable location was Ternopil in Western Ukraine, where on April 27, 2018, a monument to Jewish victims of fascism was damaged.

In Russia, one such act took place in the Siberian city of Novokuznetsk, where vandals desecrated a monument to Russian-Armenian friendship. On the pedestal, designed in the form of an open book with one page in Russian and the other in Armenian, vandals drew a swastika and, to remove any doubt, wrote "To the Jews." Antisemitism is always accompanied by ignorance, believes Yuri Kanner: "They confused it out of ignorance: unfamiliar letters must mean Jewish letters. In this naive malice, the unknown simpleton, without realizing it, expressed the universal essence of antisemitism: it is based on the hatred of the stranger—and Jews are merely the personification of the hated stranger, while his ideal self is Nazism, hence the swastika."[7]

It is no coincidence that subjective assessments by Jews regarding the scale of antisemitic manifestations in their cities, regions, and countries can differ significantly from official monitoring data. For instance, over 40% of respondents in the quantitative study "Perception of Antisemitism through the Eyes of Russian Jews," organized by the Levada Center on behalf of the RJC and with the participation of the EAJC in 2018, admitted that they had been targets of threats, attacks, or other forms of aggression at least once or multiple times over the past five years. Furthermore, 44% of those who answered in this manner (approximately 18% of the entire sample) had reason to believe that these attacks possessed a distinct antisemitic motive.

Revealing data was also obtained during an ongoing, large-scale survey of the Jewish population in four countries of the former USSR, conducted under the author's supervision. The data collected and processed at the time of writing (February 2019) presents the following picture. One-fifth (specifically, 19.6%) of the respondents in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where half of Russia's Jews reside, reported that they or their close relatives had encountered antisemitic incidents directed at them in recent years. More than 16% of the participants did not have such negative experiences personally but knew people who did. Additionally, more than one-fifth (nearly 21%) of the respondents had heard of such cases, even though it had not happened to them or their acquaintances. The remaining 42% of those surveyed in these cities had neither encountered nor heard of such incidents.

A survey conducted in Odessa as part of our study yielded results similar to those of Russia's capital cities and the Levada study. In a city with a rich Jewish past and active Jewish life today, the ongoing processes are highly representative of cities where the majority of Jews living in Ukraine are concentrated. About 16% of the respondents or their close relatives stated that they had been targets of antisemitic provocations in recent years, while one-third knew people who had found themselves in such a situation. A somewhat different picture emerged from a survey of representatives of smaller and less organized Jewish communities in the northeast of the country, where nearly half of the respondents stated that they and/or members of their families had been targets of antisemitic xenophobia in recent years.

It is clear that in all cases, this refers not only to acts of direct physical violence or harassment (hate crime) but also to verbal attacks (hate speech), the inclusion of which in official statistics on antisemitic manifestations remains a subject of intense debate among various factions of the Jewish elite. In particular, the authors of the report by the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, guided by what they termed the international definition of antisemitism of the European Forum on Antisemitism, concluded that the number of everyday antisemitic incidents and vandalism in Ukraine in 2018 had not halved, as claimed by NMRMG experts, but had instead increased. Their monitoring recorded 107 incidents of an antisemitic nature in 2018, of which 29% were registered via reports to the "910" Jewish Hotline of Ukraine, 44% were documented by Ukrainian media and bloggers, and 27% were publicized by the "Jewish public figure Eduard Dolinsky."[8]

The authors of the report attribute such a significant difference to the "lack of continuous monitoring and registration of such incidents in previous years." They also expressed grievances toward Israeli government bodies for uncritically using, in their view, "incomplete and inaccurate information provided by certain Jewish organizations in Ukraine." According to the same claims, these organizations "lacked sufficient tools and resources for proper tracking and provided the State of Israel with incomplete and inaccurate information regarding the actual level of antisemitism in the country."[9] This statement was, in turn, refuted by representatives of those very same unnamed Ukrainian Jewish organizations mentioned in the UJCU report.

Similar, though more low-key and less institutionally pronounced disagreements among entities involved in registering and analyzing antisemitic manifestations were also noticeable in Russia. This was evident, among other places, at the "Protecting the Future" Moscow International Conferences on Combating Antisemitism, Racism, and Xenophobia held in 2017 and 2018.[10]

Area of Consensus

One way or another, many proponents of both of the seemingly opposing approaches mentioned above generally agree that manifestations of antisemitism in the former USSR are not limited to direct physical hate crimes against Jews or acts of vandalism against Jewish religious, communal, and educational institutions. Issues such as incitement, xenophobic provocations, attempts to defame Jews and Israel, Holocaust denial, and antisemitism disguised as "anti-Zionism" must also be taken into account.

This perspective appears to be the common denominator in the approaches of Israeli and diaspora organizations concerned with the status of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and post-Soviet Euro-Asia. With goodwill, this consensus can serve as a foundation for a productive dialogue among these structures, keeping personal interests and political disagreements outside the scope of professional discussion.

[i] See: Irena Cantorovich, “The Post-Soviet Region”, in Moshe Kantor Database for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, p. 19-20

[ii] Quoted in: Elena Mukhametshina, “Russian Politicians Begin to Permit Themselves Antisemitism”, Vedomosti, 28.02.2018

[iii] Vyacheslav Lykhachev, “Anti-Semitism in Ukraine, 2017 Monitoring Report”, Ethnic Minorities’ Rights Monitoring Group, Kiev, 2018, p.2,

[iv] Vyacheslav Lykhachev, "Antisemitism in Ukraine – 2018: monitoring report." Kyiv: National Minority Rights Monitoring Group of the Congress of National Communities of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Vaad, February 2019, http://jewseurasia.org/page18/news63055.html

[v] "Israel Acknowledges: Antisemitism Level in Ukraine is Decreasing" http://jewseurasia.org/page18/news62900.html

[vi] "Antisemitism in 2018: State, Trends, and Manifestations." Jerusalem: Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, January 2019, pp. 69-72 (in Hebrew)

[vii] https://www.facebook.com/yurykanner/posts/1604009729686945

[viii] See “Anti-Semitism in Ukraine: Report 2018”. United Jewish Community of Ukraine, Kiev, Feb 2019, p. 6

[ix] https://jewishnews.com.ua/society/antisemitizm-v-ukraine-oficzialnaya-pozicziya-obedinennoj-evrejskoj-obshhinyi-ukrainyi

[x] For conference materials, see http://mcca.ru/ru