Jewish organizations in clash over project
By Evgenia Mussuri, Kyiv Post Staff Writer

A U.S. - based organization's plan to construct a multi-million dollar Jewish community center in Kyiv has run into opposition from an unlikely source - the local Jewish community. At issue is the project's location at Babyn Yar, known worldwide as the site where Nazis massacred thousands - most of them Jews - during World War II.
The group backing the plan maintains that the project would provide the capital with the community center it has always lacked. Opponents say that the idea is, at best, inappropriate.
The dispute started after the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a non-government organization that provides assistance to Jews throughout the world, rolled out a plan to build a memorial, research and community center at Babyn Yar. The project, called Heritage, included plans for a museum, research institute and community center with a theater.
The Kyiv City Administration donated land for the center and the City Construction Council, which oversees city development, approved the proposed project last spring.
That touched off a storm of protests from the Jewish community that the center was supposed to serve. Opponents said it was unethical to build a community center that would include entertainment activities on what essentially is a mass grave and the site of one of the nation's most notorious massacres.
"There are many other places in Kyiv where a community center can be built," said Josef Zissels, chairman of Vaad, a Jewish association. "Why build the center at the place where people died, instead of at a place where they lived?"
Zissels said the proposal to build a community center lacked sensitivity to local needs.
"JDC came here with a pragmatic approach and a Western mentality," he said. "It is not customary for Ukrainians to spend their free time in community centers. Our people are too busy trying to find ways to survive."
He said JDC's money would be better spent on other needs, like the construction of synagogues and schools.
On Oct. 4, 16 public organizations sent an open letter to the president, prime minister and other senior government officials requesting that the project be halted.
Volodya Glozman, JDC's representative for Central and Western Ukraine, said his committee decided to build the complex after it consulted with local Jewish organizations and determined that Kyiv lacked such a facility.
Glozman said that although Kyiv has had several small Jewish community centers, it has never seen such a large complex.
"There is a Soviet monument and a Jewish Menorah at Babyn Yar, but there is nothing that commemorates the memory of the victims," he said. "And this is not enough for educational work."
He said the Heritage complex would be the largest of three similar centers being planned for Kyiv, Moscow and St. Petersburg.
While he wouldn't specify the cost of the project, he did say that it would be worth several million dollars. Representatives of other organizations estimated the project at around $10 million.
The Heritage center will include the Ukrainian Jewish History Museum, a Holocaust Museum and a research center where scholars could study Jewish history and culture.
Glozman said JDC is currently working on the final plans for the center, which he expects to present to the city for approval by year-end.
Ilya Levitas, president of the Ethnic Communities Council, said Ukraine's Jewish community has long needed such a center. Levitas said his organization has sought funding for a similar project for several years.
"All our attempts were in vain, then JDC came up with the same idea," he said.
Jewish organizations housed in the community center will receive financial support from JDC for their activities, according to Tatyana Kovtun, a spokeswoman for the JDC.
Vaad's Zissels said organizations supporting the Babyn Yar project have let promises of office space and funds corrupt their moral principles.
"When a figure like $10 million is bandied about, people forget their morals," Zissels said. "I do not want my children to be embarrassed and say that their father took part in this center when they pass Babyn Yar."
Zissels said that a memorial, at most, should be built on the Babyn Yar site. The community center, he maintains, should be sited elsewhere.
Levitas, whose organization is slated to take charge of one of the museums planned in the center, said Jewish organizations lobbying to divide the project are merely trying to kill it, knowing that it would be impossible to raise funds for two projects.
Levitas said the JDC has had soil samples from the land allocated by the city examined to ensure that the area was not part of the mass grave.
"Several forensic soil analyses have determined that the soil was never used for human burial," he said.
The center's opponents are unmoved.
Vitaly Nakhmanovich, editor of Hadashot, a Jewish community newspaper and an opponent of the JDC plan, said the soil analysis is inconsequential.
"In 1943, the Fascists cremated human remains and scattered the ashes in Babyn Yar," he said. "Whether the construction site is 100 meters to the left or 100 meters to the right of the place where people were murdered doesn't matter."
The JDC's Kovtun said that the complaints have led the organization to reconsider parts of the project. Entertainment elements, like the theater, have been scrapped.
Glozman said that his organization is working closely with the Association of Veterans and Organization of War Prisoners to determine what the center should include.
"It's a common decision," he said. "There won't be anything disrespectful."
He declined to comment directly on criticism of the center.
"Some 90 percent of [the criticism] is legitimate, and 10 percent is internal disputes," he said. "I have nothing to do with it."