Posted on 03/29/2022 9:54:41 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
Batozsky said he worked closely with the Azov Battalion during the 2014-15 conflict behind the scenes as a political consultant in Donetsk. It is this work, and his outspoken defense of Ukrainian efforts to defeat the separatists, that he says put him on the Russian hit list — and also that makes him confident that Russian charges of neo-Nazis in Ukraine are inaccurate.
“They were soccer hooligans and wanted attention, so yeah, I was shocked when I saw guys with swastika tattoos,” he said about the Azov members he got to know. “But I talked with them all the time about being Jewish and they had nothing negative to say. They had no anti-Jewish ideology.”
He insists that the image of Ukraine as a hotbed of antisemitism is absurd.
“I don’t practice, but still everyone knows I am Jewish — I have such a Jewish face! And I never experienced antisemitism from Ukrainians,” he insisted. “The military guys I am working with now really don’t care that I am a Jew.”
He does not have similar feelings toward his Russian neighbors. “I did have a Jew-hating Russian first-grade teacher who mockingly called my long hair payos,” recalled Batozky, using the Hebrew term for the long side curls kept by many Hasidic men. And he said he heard more slurs against Jews from Russians Moscow State University, which he attended in the 1990s, then he ever heard back home.
Daniel Kovzhun, a Jew from Kyiv who ran logistics during the war in Donetsk for paramilitary units, described a similar experience.
“There were Orthodox Jews in Azov,” he said. “I know because I was there on the battle lines. No one cared who was Jewish, we cared about keeping our country together.”
(Excerpt) Read more at timesofisrael.com ...
Was he a war criminal like his friends and coworkers?
https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/e/7/233896.pdf
Ukraine ping
It sounds like .....like....heaven!
Now that is true national unity when the Jews and the Nazis agree to settle their differences later. First you must unite to fight off the foreign enemy , and only then kill each other.
Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism are the religions of 0.2% of the population each.
Hope these so Jews don’t plan on aliyah. Bit of splaining to do. Kapos
Are the Ukrainian Jews actually denying that neo Nazi groups exist in Ukraine?
Sounds like Finkelstein hanging out with Lebs and Hezbollah in 2006.
No. Just that they didn’t have any contacts with them.
Good onya for giving no quarter to the Azovaholics on FR.I salute you
I wonder where zelensky got his $1 billion dollars from? My liberal friends that I barely talk to anymore have really bought into the anti Russian propaganda. They all still think Russia and Putin control Donald trump and that he only beat Hillary cuz of Russian collusion. Seeing how stupid these friends of mine are I make sure to be on the opposite side and I hope Putin has the best of luck destroying the CIA’ and deep state playground
They did a number on the Poles in their western territories, too.
Zel made more money out of his comedy career than Will Smith [net worth - 350 million] made off his acting career.
Stunning talent.
It makes the Nazis go away /s
In another thread, someone supported the Russians for “cleaning the Khazarian mafia out of the Ukraine.” The crypto-Nazi talk around here is really messed up.
At around 350,000, Ukraine has more Jewish people per capita than most countries in the region, and for good reasons. Many of them have been mistreated in Russia and fled from Russia. Many of us have sent money to help them leave Russia.
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