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Odessa Jewish community mulls emergency evacuation
jpost.com ^ | 05/05/2014 00:46 | SAM SOKOL

Posted on 05/04/2014 8:24:19 PM PDT by BenLurkin

Odessa’s Jews are prepared to evacuate should the violence in the western Ukrainian city get significantly worse, several community leaders told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

... Running street battles between pro-Russian and nationalist forces claimed dozens of lives in the Black Sea port this weekend, culminating in the burning of dozens of pro-Russian protesters in the city’s trade union building on Friday evening.

The Odessa bloodshed came on the same day that Kiev launched its biggest push yet to reassert its control over separatist areas in the east, hundreds of kilometers away, where armed pro-Russian rebels have proclaimed a “People’s Republic of Donetsk.”

While Jewish community leaders are unanimous in asserting that the violence is unconnected to the Jewish community and that they do not feel specially targeted, they agreed that, should the situation deteriorate, it would be easy for the spillover to affect their constituents.

...

The Jewish community, together with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, has prepared a fleet of 70 buses, fueled and ready to go, “if, God forbid, we have to evacuate” the community’s children and any adults who want to leave, he said.

During Friday’s clashes, 20 buses were parked outside of Chabad’s school, but went unused.

...

“Obviously, Jews in Odessa need security,” Eduard Dolinsky, executive director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee in Kiev, told the Post.

Blaming Russia for the unrest, he added that violent clashes “may happen also in Kiev” come Victory Day.

(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Russia
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 05/04/2014 8:24:19 PM PDT by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin

Very irresponsible headline by Drudge.

Key part of the article:

“Obviously, Jews in Odessa need security,” Eduard Dolinsky, executive director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee in Kiev, told the Post.

Blaming Russia for the unrest, he added that violent clashes “may happen also in Kiev” come Victory Day.


2 posted on 05/04/2014 8:29:06 PM PDT by lodi90
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To: lodi90

Agreed. Russians are at fault. Again.


3 posted on 05/04/2014 8:32:30 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: lodi90
Jews are people, not tools of political manipulation. ugh.

Ukraine’s Jews caught in a propaganda war based on the ‘political manipulation of anti-Semitism’

National Post
April 25, 2014

Shimon Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel & Jewish Affairs in Ottawa, said recent events in Ukraine reveal an anti-Semitism that is based on political calculation, rather than a deep-seated hatred of Jews.

“I think that what we’re seeing play out in Ukraine is this tactical anti-Semitism, where the Jew becomes the instrument of trying to advance the agenda,” he said.

“The agenda on both sides is to discredit and undermine the credibility of their adversaries in the eyes of the international community that’s looking on with a great deal of anxiety.”
...
4 posted on 05/04/2014 8:38:20 PM PDT by VitacoreVision
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To: vladimir998

This is getting very dangerous in Ukraine and Odesa might well be the flash point. It seems we are headed to the largest post-soviet break up war. Thousands killed.

The bombastic Russian chauvinism on display may be good for Team Russia moral but is highly offensive to basically everybody else in E. Europe. Given Russia’s offensive and arrogant nationalist displays it very probably “war tourists” will enter on Ukraine’s side and start killing Russians. Then what? Uh oh.


5 posted on 05/04/2014 8:47:10 PM PDT by lodi90
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To: BenLurkin
The Jewish community, together with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, has prepared a fleet of 70 buses, fueled and ready to go, “if, God forbid, we have to evacuate” the community’s children and any adults who want to leave, he said.

I'd say to both groups: It's time to get out of Dodge!!

My family left France because of the French Revolution. They went to Mexico because one of their sons was living there temporarily. It became permanent.

Then the Mexican family left Mexico because of the Mexican Revolution. They came to California because there was a sister and her family living here.

Some of the family returned to Mexico when peace finally "broke out." So I have French family in Mexico and here. None in France to my knowledge, though there are people there with my surname. It was in Basque country.

6 posted on 05/04/2014 8:48:11 PM PDT by cloudmountain
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To: BenLurkin

If the Russians win in Odessa the Jews won’t be coming back. Their property will be spoils.


7 posted on 05/04/2014 8:57:10 PM PDT by Mike Darancette (Do The Math)
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To: BenLurkin
Knowing the history of Eastern Europe, they'd do well to just pick up and leave.

At least for now.

In Warsaw they waited too long. Same with Odessa the first time.

8 posted on 05/04/2014 9:15:23 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Mike Darancette
My history may be a little rusty, but my memory says Odessa was 40% Jewish until the Nazis showed up.

Then, almost zero.

And Odessa has been a Russian city since about 1790. Seems the Jews were doing just fine under the Russians.

9 posted on 05/04/2014 9:19:54 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: lodi90
Given Russia’s offensive and arrogant nationalist displays it very probably “war tourists” will enter on Ukraine’s side and start killing Russians. Then what? Uh oh.

I wouldn't call them "tourists". I have no doubt ethnic Russians from abroad (incl. Russia) and ethnic Ukrainians with foreign passports will be returning to help their respective sides. There's also the element of ex-servicemen from the West who would love another bite at the Russian apple. It was hard to get to Afghanistan for the Soviet-Afghan War, and the Afghans were simply too foreign and Muslim. Ukrainians are Europeans and Christian in the bargain, and getting there is just a matter of flying in on a cheap Ryanair flight to a neighboring European country and crossing the border. Even without direct NATO intervention, if Russia invades and Ukraine decides to fight, first conventionally, followed by guerrilla warfare, this has the makings of another crusade.

10 posted on 05/04/2014 9:37:28 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: Zhang Fei

I wouldn’t call them “tourists”. I have no doubt ethnic Russians from abroad (incl. Russia) and ethnic Ukrainians with foreign passports will be returning to help their respective sides.


Ethnic Russians are publicly displaying the pro-separatist St. George ribbons in the Baltics now. People are pissed about that naturally. And also about the Russian language persecution propaganda. Coming from a country like Russia that made language banning a sport that has really PO’d some of the Balts. I don’t imagine a lot of them go to Ukraine but some surely will.

We will know soon for certain but I think Putin has badly miscalculated in Ukraine if he thinks he can take them with proxies. It will require the Russian Army/ Air Force and then BOOM.


11 posted on 05/04/2014 9:48:42 PM PDT by lodi90
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To: Mariner
Seems the Jews were doing just fine under the Russians.

Yes because that where the Russians sent the Jews. see "Pale of Settlement". Lots of Jews came to America from that region because they were treated so well there.

12 posted on 05/04/2014 9:55:22 PM PDT by Mike Darancette (Do The Math)
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To: lodi90

All true and good advice. People of Jewish faith need to exit Ukraine asap.

I have been to the main synagogue in Kiev, near Golda Mayer’s house. The Jews in Kiev and all in Odessa would be well advised to clear out. Ukraine is like Russia with no rules.

I went to Babi Yar. It has one of the heaviest feelings of the presence of death, of anywhere I have been in the world. It is overwhelmingly sad, just being there. The Nazis had plenty of help in the slaughter from locals. The way things are going, the Ukraine’s Jewish people just need to preserve their lives above all right now. And btw, I’m Catholic, not Jewish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babi_Yar

By the end of this week, things could be getting really ugly over there.


13 posted on 05/04/2014 10:23:11 PM PDT by FlyingEagle
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To: Mariner
And Odessa has been a Russian city since about 1790. Seems the Jews were doing just fine under the Russians.
Gallows humor? There were 4 Pogroms against the Jews of Odessa. Jews lived in Odessa not only because it was a cosmopolitan city, but because it was in the Pale of Settement, where Jews could live in Russia. Do you really want to start a discussion of antisemitism? Suffice to say that Ze'ev/Vladimir Jabotisky a native of Odessa was correct. Jews should leave, and they should be armed and trained in defense.
14 posted on 05/04/2014 11:21:10 PM PDT by rmlew ("Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers.")
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To: BenLurkin

I thought they meant Odessa Texas, guess I need to study geography more.


15 posted on 05/04/2014 11:26:28 PM PDT by easternsky
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

16 posted on 05/05/2014 7:03:31 AM PDT by SJackson (the Democrats take back control, we donÂ’t make (this) kind of naked power grab, J Biden)
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