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Comments (0)A new educational initiative in Ukraine will try to bolster students’ knowledge of Jewish heritage.
The Jewish Forum of Ukraine, on the initiative of and with financial support from the UJA-Federation of New York, Genesis Philanthropy group and CAF Russia, launched a coordinated philanthropic effort to spread or bolster knowledge of Jewish history, tradition and culture among the Jewish and non-Jewish students in schools in Kiev and the region.
The program, Hevruta, was possible due to the Jewish Forum of Ukraine and its Grassroots 2009 program to provide target grants for Jewish educational programs. It will include lectures and seminars on Jewish history, culture and tradition, excursions and trips.
The organizers are planning to arrange a Jewish educational summer camp in the Crimea peninsula.
“The main aim of the program is to support the best local initiatives for the rebirth of Jewish identity and preservation of Jewish cultural heritage,” Arkady Monastyrsky, president of the Jewish Forum of Ukraine, told JTA. “The program is aimed primarily at developing the Jewish identity of young Jews, but we also engage non-Jewish students to learn Jewish history, tradition and culture.”
Israeli, Turkish Officials: Ties are Steady
Israeli and Turkish officials said relations remained good in the wake of a public falling-out between the countries’ leaders.
“We give special importance to our bilateral ties with Israel and we want to preserve ties with that country,” Cemil Cicek, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, was quoted as saying Monday by the French news agency AFP. “We are now looking towards the future. Turkey is not targeting Israel and the Israeli people.”
Ha’aretz, the Israeli daily, quoted Israeli officials as saying that top officials of both countries were meeting to calm tensions.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, stormed off the stage on Jan. 29 during a panel at an economic forum in Davos, Switzerland. He had said during the panel that Israel must accommodate dealing with Hamas, the terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip, in the wake of the Gaza war launched in December when Hamas ended a cease-fire.
Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, delivered an emotional response, asking how Turkey would deal with a terrorist group attacking its people with rockets.
Erdogan tried to answer but was cut off by the mediator. He accused Israel of “barbarianism,” gathered his papers and left.
The reports Monday of steady relations appear aimed at stemming an outburst of reports from unnamed sources of deteriorating ties.
The Jerusalem Post said Israel was considering rejecting Turkish requests for the sale of advanced military equipment, and the Associated Press quoted an Israeli official as saying that Israel was reconsidering Turkey’s role as a mediator with Syria. Other reports have said that Israelis are canceling vacations to Turkey.
British Cameraman’s Family Gets $2 Million
Israel paid more than $2 million to the family of a British cameraman shot and killed by an Israeli soldier in Gaza.
In May 2003, James Miller, 34, was in the Gaza-Egypt border town of Rafah shooting footage for a documentary about the impact of violence on children in the region when he was shot and killed by Israeli gunfire.
A statement issued by Miller’s family did not specify the amount of money it accepted, but an Israeli official confirmed that the amount was around “$2.2 million.”
Last April, Miller’s family rejected a higher offer from Israel, claiming that it was “a ruse” to delay its planned civil court case. However, the family now says “it was as close to an admission of guilt from Israel as they were ever likely to get.”
Miller was posthumously awarded an Emmy in 2004 for his film, “Death in Gaza.”
The cameraman’s killing, which was caught on film by another cameraman, was screened on British television numerous times. The footage showed that Miller and his colleagues, who were leaving the home of a Palestinian family in the Rafah refugee camp after dark, carried a white flag and called out to let troops know they were British journalists.
As they walked toward an Israeli armored personnel carrier, Miller was hit by gunfire.
Developers Destroy Sholom Aleichem House
One of Sholom Aleichem’s homes in Kiev was demolished on the eve of the anniversary of his birth.
A building in Kiev where the famed Yiddish writer, born Solomon Rabinovich on Feb. 18, 1859, lived in 1905 was destroyed over the weekend by the private company KievZhytloInvestManagement, despite instructions by city authorities to the company to suspend the demolition in order to clarify the case.
The site is being prepared for a new hotel for the Euro-2012 soccer tournament, according to reports.
“This is a disgraceful act to destroy that building,” said Ilya Levitas, a president of the Jewish Council of Ukraine, who addressed a petition to the deputy prime minister of Ukraine and Kiev authorities on Jan. 21, requesting that the city order a stop or suspension of the demolition.
“Activities of KievZhytloInvestManagement Company, that is an owner of the building, shocked the public this past weekend,” Irina Zalyuzhenkova, an inspector for the Association for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture, told JTA. “In spite of city authority instructions and a visit to the site, the company destroyed the building. They could find no other site.
“Now we can see that money is more important than the memory of a famous Yiddish writer,” added Zalyuzhenkova, a native Ukrainian who earlier had sent a petition to city authorities.
Mikhail Kalnitzky, a historian of Kiev, said Sholom Aleichem lived at 35 Bolshaya Vasylkivska St., apartment 1 in Kiev.
“The local authorities’ fault is that they didn’t put the building on the register list of state or municipal monuments of architecture,” he said. “That is why the private company is destroying the building.”
Evgeny Chervonenko, a first deputy of the Kiev mayor and a prominent Jewish leader, told JTA that the Kiev authority will establish a committee to clarify the case properly.