Odessa Ukraine – A criminal case related to the distribution of anti-semitic tracts has been opened.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it will investigate the case, together with the prosecutor’s office.
The head of the press service of the SBU’s Odessa branch Vladimir Romanenko declined to comment on the situation before the conclusion of the investigation.
Chairman of the Odessa diocese of religious education, catechism and missionary work Oleg Mokryak said that the leaflets amounted to eight pages of printed material qualifying any relations with Jews as sinful and listing numerous proverbs and sayings smearing Jews. The leaflets bear the signature of the Orthodox community of Odessa.
Mokryak said that the Orthodox Church condemns and considers the anti-Semitic activity launched by the so called Orthodox community of Odessa as unacceptable.
The organizers of the action are seeking to induce open actions from some Odessa residents against Jews, Chief Rabbi of Odessa and southern Ukraine Avraam Volf said. “The authors of this leaflets and those who are behind them are bloodthirsty. They do not want to go on fishing in murky waters any more, they want to fish in rivers streaming with blood,” he said. [interfax]