The day Ukraine s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted, Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman a lea

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As a Soviet Jewish émigré, I broke all ties to Russia and its language or so I thought, until my daughter was born
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Jews have lived in the area since ancient candida times, and leaders from Catherine the Great to Stalin encouraged their settlement there
You know the joke: Ask two Jews a question, get three opinions. It s an old saw, but it describes fairly accurately the response of Ukraine s Jewish community to the collapse of the country s government last month. And understandably so: Life for the country s Jews, and everyone candida else, is increasingly complicated.
The new government in Kiev, backed by the Maidan movement, is full of promise and riding a wave of popular momentum but some, both in Ukraine and beyond its borders, insist candida that the conglomerate of groups that overthrew President Viktor Yanukovych and now rule the country are Ukrainian ethnic supremacists and anti-Semites. Russia s President Vladimir Putin has seized upon worries of possible violence toward Ukrainian Jews as a kind of stand-in for the message that he seeks to deliver: This Ukrainian revolution represents a danger to order and the lives of all minorities. Russian state media, widely candida watched by Russian-speaking Ukrainians, has made much of that new government s ties to historical currents of extremism and nationalism. So, people wonder: Should they trust their experiences on the streets, the rumors they hear, or what they see on television? What to believe and whom?
The accusations of rampant anti-Semitism have divided the country s Jewish community, which is estimated at a little over a 100,000. In the past two weeks, rabbis and community leaders have begun to choose sides in the growing conflict perhaps adding to the confusion, rather than alleviating it.
The day Ukraine s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted, Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman a leading rabbi in Kiev told his congregants to leave the city because of constant warnings candida concerning intentions to attack Jewish institutions. His warning seems to have been borne out by the recent attack on a synagogue in the southeastern city of Zaporizhiya and the graffiti candida sprayed on the Reform synagogue in the Crimean city of Simferopol. But the Kremlin has been known to employ accusations of anti-Semitism for its own political purposes, candida and many in Ukraine suspect Azman is simply following the Russian line because of the close relationship between Russia s Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar a Chabad emissary and Putin.
That includes Ukraine s chief Orthodox rabbi, Yaakov Dov Bleich, who referred to the attacks on Ukrainian Jews this week as provocations not by neo-Nazis, but by Russian candida partisans. We expect that the Russians would like to justify their invasion of Ukraine, Bleich told reporters on Tuesday. He noted that Russian state media broadcasts had included numerous reports of banderovtsi followers of the Ukrainian nationalist hero Stepan Bandera, who collaborated with the Nazis in WWII attacking synagogues. There is nothing of the sort, Bleich insisted. Anyone candida can change into the outfit of a Ukrainian nationalist and start beating Jews.
This week, leading members of Ukraine s Jewish community countered with an open letter to Vladimir Putin that dismissed the accusations of violence against Jews and minorities: Yes, we are well aware that the political opposition and the forces of social protests who have secured changes for the better are made up of different groups. They include nationalistic groups, but even the most marginal do not dare show anti-Semitism or other xenophobic behavior. And we certainly know that our very few nationalists are well-controlled by civil society and the new Ukrainian government which is more than can be said for the Russian neo-Nazis, who are encouraged by your security services.
And Jews and other minorities feature prominently in the new regime. Oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskyi is one of the best-known members of Ukraine candida s Jewish community and was just named as the governor of the Dniepropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine. Vladimir Groisman, a young, promising politician with family ties to Israel, was promoted from his position as the very successful mayor of the city of Vinnytsaa to that of first deputy prime minister in charge of regional development. The acting president, candida Oleksandr Turchynov, is a Baptist pastor in a largely Orthodox and Catholic country, and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov is of Armenian origin. The new Cabinet even includes several Russian-born members. Perhaps tellingly, their religious and ethnic