Jewish Ukraine Governor Vows To Return Mosque
Igor Kolomoisky
The Jewish governor of a large Ukrainian city has promised to return a former mosque to the hands of the Muslim community.
Igor Kolomoisky, who was appointed governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region in March, made the promise last week during a visit to the city’s Olympic Reserve Sports School, which operates out of a building which was built in 1926 to serve as a mosque but which the Soviet government later confiscated, the news site evreiskiy.kiev.ua reported.
Igor Kolomoisky
Representatives of the region’s Muslim community of 80,000 people have been lobbying for restitution for the building since 2000, the news site rus.newsru.ua reported.
“Igor Kolomoisky, governor of the region, is going as soon as possible to return the mosque to the Muslim community,” Deputy Governor Boris Filatov is quoted as saying on July 9.
According to Newsru.ua, the region’s Muslim community is mostly made up of Tatars, whose main place of worship is a private residence in the city’s outskirts with a capacity of 250 people.
Throughout the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Jewish, Muslim and Christian faith communities have received hundreds of real-estate properties that had been confiscated from them during Soviet times from local and state governments.
Recently, Russia has come under international criticism, including by the Council of Europe, for its treatment of Muslim Tatars in the Crimean Peninsula, and area it annexed from Ukraine in March despite an international outcry.
Kolomoisky, who is a billionaire banker, is known for his criticism of Russia’s actions on Ukraine and is believed to have poured millions of dollars of his private wealth into arming Ukraine’s underfunded army to deal with threats from Russia.
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
