Ukrainian businessman launches Jewish group

PM, Lieberman lend support to World Forum of Russian Jewry.

By GIL STERN STERN SHEFLER
The United Nations in New York 311 (photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
The United Nations in New York 311
(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
Say “privet” to a new Jewish organization.
The World Forum of Russian Jewry, which seeks to give a voice to Russian-speaking Jews, was launched on Wednesday in a ceremony at the United Nations in New York.
The group – founded by Ukrainian businessman Alexander L. Levin, who also serves as its president – laid out its ambitious objectives at the event, which also marked International Holocaust Day.
“Our goal is to bring together Russian-speaking Jews from around the world in order to save ourselves and other people from the next catastrophe and genocide, to preserve the world peace, and protect our national land [and] the State of Israel,” a press release quoted Levin – who owns the real estate firm KDD Group – as saying.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor and the American Jewish Committee’s David Harris attended the event.
The organization also received congratulatory letters from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
“I have no doubt that your activities will promote our shared objectives of ensuring the future of the Jewish people and the Jewish state,” the Prime Minister’s Office wrote.
Lieberman wrote that “knowing those who created and support this initiative, I believe this forum will play a new major role in supporting the State of Israel and uniting Jews around the world in general and Russian-speaking Jews in particular.”
Since the fall of communism, and especially over the last decade or so, Jewish organizations founded by rich businessmen from the former Soviet Union have proliferated.
Last year Ukrainian Jewish businessmen Igor Kolomoisky and Vadim Rabinovich created the European Jewish Union. It joined a field that includes the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, the Russian Jewish Congress and the Georgian Jewish World Congress, to name a few.