The EAJC leadership has addressed an official letter to the President and the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine

The leadership of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, headed by EAJC President Dr. Mikhail Mirilashvili, has appealed to the President of Ukraine, Mr. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Mr. Dmytro Razumkov, requesting their support for Bill No. 5109 on the prevention and combating of antisemitism in Ukraine, which was submitted to the Verkhovna Rada on February 19.

In their letters, the EAJC leaders reminded the President and the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada that on April 6, members of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Human Rights voted unanimously to include the bill on the agenda of the upcoming plenary session of the Verkhovna Rada.

It should be noted that according to monitoring reports, an increase in antisemitic incidents was recorded in Ukraine last year. Furthermore, in late April, a march was held in central Kyiv to commemorate the establishment of the SS Division 'Galicia', which during World War II operated as a unit of the Waffen SS and was implicated in heinous war crimes.

The Euro-Asian Jewish Congress has expressed its profound concern regarding the march and condemned the ongoing glorification of Nazi collaborators. In their official statement, the EAJC leadership declared that 'preserving the memory of Holocaust victims and combating antisemitism is by no means solely an internal matter of individual states or Jewish communities. It is part of the collective responsibility of civil society in any country worldwide.'

In light of these circumstances, the EAJC urged the codification of the working definition of antisemitism developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) into state law.

'We are convinced,' the EAJC President wrote in his appeal to the President of Ukraine and the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, 'that these combined measures will significantly mitigate antisemitic sentiment in Ukraine, enable Jewish citizens of the country to feel secure and protected, and foster a positive atmosphere within the nation's civil society.'