Anti-Semitic Incidents Hit Former Soviet Union

Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Avraham Wolff, chief rabbi of Odessa, Ukraine, and director of the local Jewish community, called on Ukraine President Victor Yuschenko to do more to stem the tide of anti-Semitism in the wake of an appearance by a previously unknown hate group.

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the "Orthodox Public Organization of Odessa" distributed pamphlets in local Russian Orthodox churches that called for pogroms and the murder of Jews. Community spokesman Berl Kapulkin said that preliminary information pointed to the pro-Russian groups of United Fatherland and the Union of Orthodox Citizens of Ukraine as responsible for the pamphlets' distribution.

Wolff urged Yuschenko to keep a promise he made to combat interethnic hatred in the country.

The incident comes on the heels of an apparent anti-Semitic attack in the neighboring country of Russia. Last week, according to JTA, vandals threw a rock through the bedroom window of Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Ovadya and Miryam Isakov, directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Derbent.

The Isakovs arrived in the Caucasus regional town of Derbent – Russia's southernmost city – three years ago to shepherd the 8,500-strong Jewish community there. The community, a member of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, operates a Jewish Sunday school, youth club, library, women's club, historical museum, burial society and a Jewish cemetery.