Ukraine’s new Prime Minister…
The Jewish speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Volodymyr Groysman, has been elected prime minister after a months-long political crisis.
The parliament on Thursday voted 250-57 for Groysman, who was nominated by President Petro Poroshenko.
The outgoing prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, resigned earlier this week after weeks of pressure for him to step down. He had survived a no-confidence vote in February.
Groysman has been perceived as a conciliatory figure after the governing coalition refused to support U.S.-born Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who has been lauded as a West-friendly reformist untainted by cronyism and corruption.
Speaking ahead of the vote, Groysman said his government was committed to tackling graft and strengthening ties with the European Union.”I understand the threats that face us. In particular I would like to highlight three threats – corruption, ineffective governance and populism, which do not pose less of a threat than the enemy in eastern Ukraine,” he said, referring to a pro-Russian separatist rising.”I will show you what leading a country really means,” he added.
I have no idea whether Groysman will be able to stem corruption and “ineffective governance.” If he succeeds, however, that would make him a very unusual person. I’m not at all sure what he’s talking about when he says that “populism” is a threat—does it translate from Ukrainian to the same word here, with all its ramifications? Nor am I particularly conversant with Ukrainian politics or Ukrainian issues, other than the very obvious difficulties they’ve had with Russia. So I can’t really comment on the merits of Groysman’s taking on the office, or whether he will be a success.
But an elected Jewish leader of any country other than Israel is unusual, to say the least. It is even more striking in a country such as Ukraine, which has a very lengthy and complex history with its Jews. No doubt you’ve met Jews in this country whose ancestors are said to be “from Russia,” but that’s more likely than not a shorthand for “from Ukraine.”
Jews in Ukraine have a lengthy history:
Jewish communities have existed in the territory of Ukraine from the time of Kievan Rus’ [882-1240] and developed many of the most distinctive modern Jewish theological and cultural traditions…According to the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish community in Ukraine constitute the third biggest Jewish community in Europe and the fifth biggest in the world.
In the 1800s and well into the 1900s, pogroms that murdered up to 50 thousand Jews occurred in Ukraine, where the blood libels was very active. But that violence paled in comparison to what the Nazis did there—it was the home of the famous Einsatzgruppen slaughters in which over a million Jews were shot in western Ukraine by the Nazis, with the cooperation of some of the locals. That reduced Ukraine’s Jewish population by about 70%, and the number of Jews there was further reduced when Communists persecuted much of the remainder, many of whom emigrated.
But quite a few remained, among them the ancestors of the youngish (38) Groysman, an entrepreneur who was previously city councilor and mayor of Vinnytsia, a member of Parliament, and then chairman of Parliament. I find his election as prime minister an encouraging sign that anti-Semitism has probably declined in that country recently. In much of Europe—and the world—it seems to be doing quite the opposite.
‘Populism’ in today’s Ukraine is a code word for Putin’s KGB scheming.
The rebellion in the Donbas was a “populist uprising.”
Get it?
The American context was not intended, whatsoever.
blert:
Populism?
This is the question.
I’m not sure the reference is not to the Martyrs of the Maydan, Putin’s bete noire.
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/maydan/40days.html
mf…
Back at the beginning, Putin’s mouthpieces always described the uprising in the Donbas as “populist.”
Whereas the maydan fiasco was always termed ‘a protest.’
The magic term ‘populism’ never made it into the English language press.
The Chicago riots (1968) were never described as being populist… just activist demonstrations to provoke a police riot.
I know little of the Ukraine. I do hope that Groysman is sincere and that his election indicates a lessening of antisemitism. That said, my ‘spidey sense’ is tingling.
So, a parliament that voted 250-57 for Groysman, who states that his government will be committed to tackling graft and strengthening ties with the European Union… and who identifies corruption and ineffective governance (cronyism) as threats… that same Parliament was first against a Finance Minister who has been lauded as a West-friendly reformist untainted by cronyism and corruption…?
Does that strike anyone else as contradictory?
Then there’s ”I will show you what leading a country really means,”… which for me has the faint ring of unease about it.
Hopefully I’m wrong… but it might be useful to know how Groysman’s family survived the Nazis.
Some Jews were collaborators and escaped justice. George Soros for instance. To use today’s vernacular, I’m just saying…
GB:
One of the articles said his father (or grandfather) survived by jumping in the pit right before being shot, thus avoiding a bullet, and escaping from the pit later. Also, in eastern Ukraine, I don’t think the Nazis got that far, so survival was possible.
neo,
That’s reassuring, I certainly hope he’s sincere.
Both of my grandfathers would be so proud.
My ancestors were more north, from what’s now Belarus but, yeah.
I cannot see this vote as a vote for this guy on his own merits. I have to interpret it as a play for what’s left of American neoconservatism. The Ukrainians know they cannot fight Putin on their own – they cannot fight Putin even with Hungarian and Polish support. (Germany is a lost cause.) Who’s left?
The Orthodox and Catholic citizens of what’s left of Ukraine would doubtless call this a “hail mary play”.
In the 1800s and well into the 1900s, pogroms that murdered up to 50 thousand Jews occurred in Ukraine, where the blood libels was very active.
In 1648-49, the Ukrainians under Cossack Bogdan Chmielnitzki, killed about 250,000 Jews. It’s known in Jewish sources as the Tach v’Tat Massacres. When fighting the Bolsheviks in 1919-21, the Ukrainians used it as an opportunity to kill over 100,000 Jews. Ukrainians were such good Jew haters that they volunteered for the Nazis, who made them camp guards.
Consequently, Groysman’s election is quite notable.
When – not if – something goes wrong, I can virtually guarantee that Groysman’s heritage as a Jew will be loudly trumpeted as the cause.
That is always standard operating procedure in places like Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and perhaps all of Eastern Europe. And now Western Europe thanks to Islamic immigration/invasion.
Meh. What really has changed in over a thousand years?
Written by an American based Ukrainian, this is a good primer on what is going on in the Ukraine.
Why did Ukraine parliament outlaw Communism and Nazism
Hungary electing a Jewish PM would be the bigger story. Surprisingly (to me, at least; only became aware a few years ago), anti-Semitism is quite prevalent there.
neo-neocon Says:
April 19th, 2016 at 6:44 pm
GB:
One of the articles said his father (or grandfather) survived by jumping in the pit right before being shot, thus avoiding a bullet, and escaping from the pit later. Also, in eastern Ukraine, I don’t think the Nazis got that far, so survival was possible.
&&&&
The Nazis made it as far as Rostov-on-Don in 1941…
With the 1ss brigade leading the way.
It was detailed — constantly — to murder countless thousands of Slavs and Jews on its way east.
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th SS formations were deployed in 1941.
It is now known that all during the advance they were deploying companies to assist in the murder of more civilians than ever died in the gas chambers.
(!!!)
All of these atrocities occurred before the death mills really geared up.
The psychological damage to the murders was the entire basis for crafting the death engines.
The trigger pullers were cracking up.
Zimriel – my paternal grandfather came from Volkovysk, now in Belarus; my maternal grandfather came from Kiev.
bozoerrebbe Says:
April 20th, 2016 at 12:36 am
“Ukrainians were such good Jew haters that they volunteered for the Nazis, who made them camp guards.”
&&&
Let’s not re-write history to our imaginations.
1) The SS // NAZIS exclusively used the teenaged survivors of the Holomodor. ( By such time, they weren’t teenagers any more.)
2) The NKVD// nee KGB of the Holomodor era was over loaded with Jewish troopers. This is an ugly fact that Western Jews can’t accept.
3) One might note that the foreign service under Stalin was almost wholly staffed by Jews — right up until he signed the infamous deal with Hitler to start WWII — through Poland.
Those fellas instantly found themselves out of a career — and in serious trouble… NKVD style. No, they didn’t head off into a sweet retirement.
^^
The reason why Communism was so attractive to Russian Jews must be obvious: they had the same enemy — the Tsar.
It never occurred to anybody that Lenin and Stalin would be so bent.
Lening died of syphilis — something that only came out in the 21st Century – from the official Moscow archives.
His exit from public life occurred after he went totally off the rails.
( cf Adolf — another terminal syphilitic. )
As for Stalin, he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic by the leading physician of his era.
The good doctor ended up being removed by the NKVD // nee KGB.
In the early going, it made every possible sense for Russian Jews to join the revolution. Only later did they find that it, the joining, was a trap.
Over time, Stalin used the GRU — largely staffed with Slavs — to liquidate elements of the NKVD — and VICE VERSA.
Nikita wrote that Stalin was anti-Semitic — of the ‘first water’ — ie absolutely pure.
No early revolutionary ever imagined what was to come.
blert:
I recall that we’ve had disagreements before about some of your “facts” about Jews and to what degree they were implicated in similar activities (don’t have time to find the discussions right now). I notice that you don’t source your assertions, either.
Words like “exclusively” are very extreme, and should be easy enough to document, if true.
Belfast and Dublin had Jewish mayors – someone acceptable to both Catholics and Protestants.