Crimean Jewish Group’s Ukrainian Bank Account Emptied
Simferopol Reform Synagogue Ner Tamid, in Crimea, was vandalized soon after Russia invaded the area; the group’s Ukrainian bank account was recently emptied. Image by Courtesy Simerofol Reform Synagogue Ner Tamid
A Jewish organization from Crimea said its Ukrainian bank account had been emptied of funds following Russia’s annexation of the peninsula.
The disappearance of $3,157 from the account of the Jewish Ner Tamid association with Privatbank was reported Thursday by the ITAR-TASS news agency.
The money “had been withdrawn,” the news agency quoted Anatoli Guendine, head of the Reform Jewish group, as saying.
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine on March 18, in a move that Russia said was in accordance with the wishes of most residents and that was designed to protect them from persecution by anti-Russian activists in Ukraine.
But Ukrainian officials denounced the Russian move as a land-grab that violated international law and norms. Ukraine’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted in February from power in a revolution that erupted five months earlier over his alleged corruption and perceived allegiance to Russia. But pro-Russian and pro-Yanukovych forces still control some locales in the country’s east. Ukraine’s government has called those forces terrorists.
Privatbank is owned by Igor Kolomoisky, a Ukrainian Jewish oligarch who was recently appointed to the government of the Dnipropetrovsk region and who strongly supports Ukraine in its dispute with Russia, including by funneling millions of dollars from his own fortune into arming the Ukrainian army.
“It seems Kolomoisky needs these moneys of my Jewish community to create a new battalion against so-called terrorists, meaning anyone who does not want to submit themselves to the laws” of the government in Kiev, Guendine said.
A Privatbank spokesman told the Russian news agency that he did not immediately have information on Ner Tamid’s account.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
