A chief rabbi of Ukraine called on the Israeli government to suspend school trips to Poland and have them in his country because of Warsaw’s new bill on Nazi crimes.

Rabbi Moshe Azman made the suggestion in a letter he sent to Education Minister Naftali Bennett on Thursday, a day after the Polish Senate passed a measure that proposes to outlaw rhetoric in which Poland is blamed for Nazi crimes.

The State of Israel and many Jewish organizations, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Yad Vashem and the European Jewish Congress, say the legislation risks blurring historical truth, as many Poles participated as individuals or as members of some resistance militias in murdering Jews or betraying them to the Nazi occupation forces. They also acknowledge that Polish authorities were not part of the Nazi campaign of annihilation against the Jews during the Holocaust.

Following the bill in Poland to “forbid telling the truth on what happened during the Holocaust in Poland,” Azman wrote, “I urge you to cancel the March of the Living for Israeli school students.” The march brings individuals from around the world to Poland and Israel to study the history of the Holocaust.

In 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a law honoring Ukrainian independence fighters, including militiamen complicit in the murder of tens of thousands of Jews. Another law signed by him makes it illegal to “insult” or “question the legitimacy” of these fighters.

As the “chief rabbi of Ukraine, I propose having the March of the Living this year in Ukraine,” added Azman, who also wrote that the move he is proposing would amount to “imposing a fine on Poland” to the tune of tens of millions of dollars that Israeli participants of the March of the Living spend in Poland.

“Ukraine has many places fit for a March of the Living: Babi Yar in Kiev, Drobytsky Yar in Kharkiv, Janowska concentration camp in Lviv and dozens of other places where Jews suffered and were murdered in a terrible tragedy,” he wrote. Azman said this “fine” was appropriate because “there is serious concern about anti-Semitism against Jewish communities and institutions” in Poland. He also called the legislation, which was drafted to counter the phrase “Polish death camps,” an “anti-Semitic legislation designed to silence history and witnesses to the Holocaust.”

Unlike in Poland, the Nazi occupation forces in Ukraine drafted thousands of local volunteers to actively assist in the murder of almost a million Jews in what is today Ukraine. The Nazis allowed the establishment of a Ukrainian SS division, the 1st Galician. The OUN resistance group to Russia fought for a time in coordination with the Germans, who did not allow Poles to possess arms. The OUN and UPA were also implicated in the murder of thousands of non-Jewish ethnic Poles, who were not Jewish.

In its annual report on anti-Semitism, Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs said that the number of recorded anti-Semitic attacks documented in Ukraine in 2017 surpassed the tally of all such incidents in the entire former Soviet Union. More than 130 incidents were recorded in Ukraine last year, the ministry told JTA, double the total for 2016.

At least one researcher on anti-Semitism in Ukraine, Vyacheslav Likhachev, who is affiliated with the Vaad Association of Jewish Communities and Organizations of Ukraine, dismissed the report as unprofessional and false.

The report also highlighted the glorification of Nazi allies by Ukrainian historians, including Vladimir Vyatrovich, the director of Ukraine’s Institute of National Remembrance. He told Radio Liberty last week: “It is a pity, but the results of the influence of [Russian] propaganda are felt even by documents of certain Israeli institutions.”

    Avery Crookes February 13, 2022 1:24 pm

    Man i thought for all this years it was a girl

    Ihaxzt February 15, 2022 9:17 pm

    cialis 10mg drug – oral cialis 5mg cialis order online

    Feoucj February 16, 2022 2:14 pm

    order hydroxychloroquine 200mg pill – oral hydroxychloroquine 200mg buy plaquenil pills

    Rpiule February 17, 2022 1:29 pm

    stromectol – ivermectin 6mg for humans for sale ivermectin 3mg without prescription

    Oidokw February 18, 2022 3:58 pm

    cephalexin 125mg drug – generic cleocin 300mg order erythromycin 250mg pill

    Abmjcz February 19, 2022 11:48 pm

    sildenafil 100mg cheap – cheap antabuse disulfiram 250mg oral

    Qasbzk February 21, 2022 1:48 am

    purchase rhinocort pill – seroquel oral cheap cefuroxime 250mg

    Otzacm February 22, 2022 2:19 am

    purchase bimatoprost for sale – generic bimatoprost order trazodone 100mg for sale

    Dlwtgv February 23, 2022 4:03 am

    sildenafil 100mg usa – zantac 150mg pill buy zantac 150mg online cheap

    Ibxwmh February 24, 2022 6:58 pm

    purchase tadalafil pills – order cialis 5mg generic stromectol online pharmacy

    Sjykiw February 25, 2022 5:58 pm

    order tadalafil 5mg for sale – buy erectile dysfunction medication top erection pills

    Mvlske February 26, 2022 4:39 pm

    empire casino online – prednisone 5mg usa buy prednisone 10mg sale

    Uobtdg February 27, 2022 2:59 pm

    prednisone 10mg us – prednisone 20mg usa purchase isotretinoin without prescription

    Vpsooq February 28, 2022 1:51 pm

    order amoxicillin sale – cheap amoxicillin order sildenafil 50mg generic

    Gtrrhf March 1, 2022 3:26 pm

    order cialis for sale – buy cialis 5mg online cheap cialis for women

    Lnbjeb March 2, 2022 8:34 pm

    ivermectin 12 mg online – ivermectin 12mg otc buy azithromycin 250mg pill

    Rtbuil March 5, 2022 2:16 am

    buy zithromax 500mg pill – purchase lasix sale methylprednisolone medication

    Nqznom March 7, 2022 12:17 am

    baricitinib 4mg sale – order generic chloroquine 250mg order priligy 30mg without prescription

    Sbamok March 8, 2022 5:38 am

    metformin without prescription – most reliable online pharmacy atorvastatin 40mg for sale

    Oeszbu March 9, 2022 7:12 am

    amlodipine for sale online – lisinopril 2.5mg ca buy prilosec 10mg online cheap

    Wtklhv March 10, 2022 1:03 pm

    order metoprolol pills – purchase cialis generic order cialis 5mg online cheap

Comments (21)