2 yeshiva students stabbed by neo-Nazis

Federation of Jewish Communities ^ | Monday, August 29 2005

[jb6]

KIEV, Ukraine- A group of neo-Nazis stabbed two Kiev yeshiva students on an underpass Sunday evening, while on their way home from the yeshiva.

Mordechai Ben Avraham, 28, one of the students attacked, was in critical condition and undergoing brain surgery Monday. The other student was lightly wounded.

No suspects were identified as of Monday morning.

Rabbi Moshe Asman, of the Kiev Jewish community, was in contact with the police and promised that the stabbings would be dealt with seriously. Kiev police also made similar assurances, Army Radio reported.

The Jewish community describes local anti-Semitism as worsening since the elections six months ago. There have been a number of violent anti-Semitic incidents in recent months.

Although a significant portion of the Ukrainian Jewish community has immigrated to Israel over the last few years, there are still 500,000 Jews living in the country. The city of Kiev is home to approximately 50,000 Jews.

The Jewish Agency reported that it would provide assistance to the victims.

[jb6]

ping

[jb6]

Leading oligarch urges Yuschenko to protect Jewish community

By Haaretz Service and News Agencies

A Russian-Jewish oligarch and one of the owners of the Yukos oil giant urged Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko to provide protection for the country's Jewish community in the wake of an attack on two yeshiva students.

Leonid Nevzlin, who is thought to be one of Yuschenko's biggest supporters and who aided the president during his campaign six months ago, called Monday for immediate action to increase security for the Jewish community.

Ukraine police said Monday that an attack on two yeshiva students in Kiev the previous day was not motivated by anti-Semitism.

One of the yeshiva students was critically wounded in the attack while the other sustained light wounds. Ukraine police said that the perpetrators of the attack were not skinheads, as was previously reported.

Rabbi Yaakov Zilberman, the head of Kiev's Jewish community, said the skinheads approached the two in an underground tunnel in the city center and attacked them with bottles, rods and knives.

According to other reports, the yeshiva students provoked drunks, who then attacked them with bottles.

Mordechai Ben Avraham, 28, who was critically wounded in the attack, underwent surgery late Sunday.

Zilberman said that Jewish residents of Kiev continuously encounter acts of anti-Semitism. He said that they have appealed to the municipality with a request to protect the city's Jewish community.

"It's a flagrant crime ... unfortunately, that is today's reality in Ukraine," said Vadim Rabinovych, head of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress. "It's a murder attempt on racist grounds."

Jewish Agency chairman Zeev Bielski offered the Agency's assistance to the Kiev community rabbi Moshe Asman, and regarded the incident as very grave.

Acts of vandalism at Jewish sites occur often in Ukraine, which has a Jewish population of about 100,000. Hundreds of thousands of Jews perished over the centuries in pogroms staged by Ukrainian nationalists, and millions died during the Holocaust.