Kiev Jews regain synagogue, proving that money does talk

KIEV, Ukraine, Dec. 22 (JTA) — The story of a successful seven-year struggle to regain a synagogue in Ukraine appears to prove the old adage that money talks. A Chasidic congregation in Kiev this month reclaimed possession of the Brodsky Synagogue, the largest synagogue in the Ukrainian capital. The move came as uncertainty surrounded the future of a 1991 decree ensuring the restitution of communal religious property. The decree is scheduled to expire at the end of this year. Soon after then-President Leonid Kravchuk signed the decree in 1991, Jews moved into the Brodsky Synagogue, which was confiscated by the Communists in 1926 and turned into a workers’ club. But the Culture Ministry and Kiev’s city administration did not want to give up the building, which since 1955 had housed a popular puppet theater. As a compromise, the congregation received three rooms in the building, which served as the community’s central synagogue. The Jewish community eventually filed suit against the theater and the city administration, and earlier this year, Ukraine’s High Court of Arbitration ruled that the theater should move out of the synagogue by Dec. 1. But Jewish leaders say the theater would not have moved out if it were not for the efforts of Vadim Rabinovich, one of the country’s richest men and the president of the newly formed All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress. Rabinovich donated $100,000 to refurbish a club to serve as a temporary home for the theater. Since the 1991 decree was issued, more than 30 synagogues have been returned to local Jewish communities. But some communities have found it difficult to regain their properties because some local authorities, influenced by anti-Semitic and extreme nationalist elements, have been lax to implement it. The small central Ukrainian Jewish community of Khmelnik, for example, has encountered fierce resistance in its attempt to reclaim its former synagogue. Two years ago, the region’s administration agreed to return the building to the Jewish community. However, the decision was appealed to a higher court, which overruled the earlier decision. “We still have no place that we can call our own,” said Semyon Berenstein, leader of the 200-member Khmelnik community. The international director of human rights for the Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry, Leonid Stonov, said he believed that a new law calling for the return of communal religious property would be put into place early next year.