"We are witnessing the revival of the Jewish life in Ukraine," – Boris Lozhkin at KJF 2020

12:23 09.09.2020 670

At the time of gaining independence in 1991, very few Jews remained in Ukraine, anti-Semitism flourished, and many doubted that Jewish life had a future at all. The Jews of Ukraine had to go through many dreadful ordeals – thousands of pogroms, Holodomor and Holocaust, followed by the Soviet anti-Semitic policy towards those who had not yet been exterminated.

"But in the last few years we have witnessed a real revival of the Jewish life in Ukraine," stated Boris Lozhkin, President of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, opening the Kyiv Jewish Forum 2020.

"Some of you may wonder why Ukraine is organizing such a global Jewish event. The answer is very simple: For centuries, our country has been one of the brightest and largest centers of the Jewish life in the world, and the Ukrainian Jews have settled all over the world," Lozhkin said.

He reminded that it was in Ukraine that the Hasidic movement was born and developed, that families of such greatest representatives of the Jewish world as Golda Meir, Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Dylan, Dustin Hoffman, Isaac Stern, Steven Spielberg, Sigmund Freud and many others come from Ukraine.

"How to prevent and combat anti-Semitism? What is the future of the US-Israeli relations? What should be the future of Judaism? How should we commemorate the memory of the Holocaust victims? These are just a few of the issues that we will be considering in the next two days," Lozhkin said.

As previously reported, Kyiv Jewish Forum 2020 takes place online on September 8-9 and is organized by the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine in partnership with the Jerusalem Post.