On November 12, 2013, the representatives of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) met with the USA Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Ira Forman in Kyiv. EAJC General Council Chairman Josef Zisels, EAJC General Council members Anatoliy Podolsky and Vyacheslav Likhachev participated in the meeting.

Josef Zisels gave a brief introductory talk to the newly-appointed envoy on the state of affairs in Ukraine and in post-Soviet territory in general. After giving a short summary of the differences between the Western European situation and the situation in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, as well as expressing a number of ideas as to the causes of these differences, Josef Zisels then went into detail on the processes taking place in Ukraine over the last several years. After talking about the All-Ukrainian Union “Svoboda” Party, the EAJC General Council Chairman called for official Washington to take great care in their evaluation of attempts to use anti-Semitism in the Ukrainian political milieu, as there is a great probability of provocations to discredit the opposition as a whole.

EAJC expert in xenophobia Vyacheslav Likhachev presented the American participants of the meeting with the Congress reports on anti-Semitism and a special brochure dedicated to “Svoboda’s” ideology and activity. The expert provided a rundown of the statistics of manifestations of anti-Semitism in Ukraine and gave examples of the provocative use of anti-Semitic elements in political campaigning.

Director of the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies Dr. Anatoliy Podolsky spoke about educational programs involving teaching the history of the Holocaust as well as on the government stance towards this topic.