UKRAINE AND RUSSIA: THE FACTS ON THE GROUND

Geoffrey Alderman, ( Comment, April 4) as so often gets his facts wrong, and makes statements which have no bearing on the facts.

Russia is a controlled society. Although things look good for the Jews today, it is only because Putin allows it to be good. There is not a strong democratically developed Jewish community. There is a monopoly controlled by the government.

What is good for Jews is not always good for Judaism. Putinism may be good for Judaism. But is a controlled Jewish community good for the Jews?

In Ukraine, Judaism and Jews have flourished for the past 22 years. It’s a fact that there are Jewish schools, synagogues and community centres. Many of the schools are government schools. New synagogues and community centres are being built in large communities. And there is a pluralistic Jewish community where there is no monopoly. The community is protected by law and by the constitution of Ukraine, not by the whims of a dictator or an authoritarian ruler.

Even with the right-wing nationalist party Svoboda in the government, the Jewish community has not been attacked, even verbally, by any of the so- called right-wing parties. Ukraine is looking to the West and is creating a democracy with freedom of speech, religion, press and all of the liberties that we have learned to take for granted. Israel Weinstock High Street, Edgware, Middlesex

Geoffrey Alderman argues that since Jewish life in Russia under Putin “has improved immeasurably… meanwhile the situation of Ukrainian Jewry has deteriorated sharply”, Putin’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula was not such a bad thing for the Jews.

The fact is, however, that Russian troops are massing on the eastern border of Ukraine and are attempting to destabilise the whole country.

A group from Edgware District Reform Synagogue recently visited the Jewish communities in Kiev and Odessa, (with whom we are twinned) and I can assure Geoffrey Alderman that they are Ukrainian through and through and wish to remain part of a unified country.

They are all extremely worried about the current crisis, and several Jewish families from Crimea have already left the area. Kay Bagon Homefield Road, Radlett, Herts