BANKER IN THE JEWISH SURROUNDINGS

TEST ON MEANNESS

«FREEDOM» A LA LUKASHENKO

JEWS OF UKRAINE, DON'T BE SILENT!

It was interesting for me to read the article "Why are Jews of Ukraine silent?" by Alexander Burakovsky and comments on it by Igor Desner («Why do the USA Jews keep silence?») and Yevgueny Brodsky («Must the Jews of Ukraine feel sorry?») in the "Jewish Observer". The first problem raised by the author of the article from New-York painfully touches on the souls of the Ukrainian Jews - this is the fact that Ukraine has supported the initiative of four European countries on the formation of armed forces to protect the Palestinians on the territory of the autonomy under the auspices of the UN Security Council.

The problem we are going to discuss can hardly be called a new one. During 60 years which past since the Babiy Yar massacre, numerous attempts of architectural interference were made in the area adjacent to the place of the tragedy. We are not talking about malicious intent, nobody doubts in good intentions to immortalize the memory of victims. Still this place imposes moral obligations upon all construction initiatives. And all these initiatives are sometimes quite doubtful. The idea of Jewish Community Center, which laying took place during mournful events last autumn, is quite doubtful as well.

The first attempt to immortalize the memory of massacre victims was made by Sovnarkom of Ukrainian SSR and Central Communist Party Committee of Ukraine (Resolution of March 13, 1945). According to it, 1.4 millions of rubles were assigned for designing and erection of a monument in Babiy Yar in 1946. However, this work in which chief architect of Kiev A.Vlasov and sculptor U.Kruglov were involved, was suddenly stopped.

"Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven: "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am", - he replied. "Do not lay a hand on the boy", he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God". If you are familiar with the Holy Scripture, you must remember the dramatic moment from it - Abraham's sacrifice to his God. One and Almighty. We are going to return to this extract from the Torah.