—Project Kesher activist Alina Verhofskaya, Yalta, Ukraine

 

NIOT: My understanding is there was an attack on a mosque in Sympheropol last year. How did your community reach out to another?

 

AV: Last fall an attempt was made to put on fire a Seit-Settar mosque in Sympheropol. The situation was very dangerous .… Crimea is considered to be an unstable region. The moslem community has grown considerably in recent years. This leads to increased xenophobia and increased nationalism. We … made a decision to unite with representatives of other nationalities and to protest against this provocation by supporting the spiritual leadership of Crimean Moslem community and expressing our disapproval of any incidents of xenophobia.

 

It was not difficult for us to engage other national communities into the campaign as, since 2007, we have been cooperating with them in the context of a Not In Our Town campaign, and we had already established close relationships with them, which helped us organize the campaign. We also engaged other multi-cultural unions of Ukraine into that campaign. Project Kesher activists were collecting signatures in support of Moslem community all over Ukraine: 18 cities, six multi-cultural unions, seven partner organizations and people who cared about the issue participated in the campaign and signed the letter of protest. We still receive letters of support from those who consider that attack inadmissible.

 

… On September 4, our campaign was presented at the meeting of the city human rights committee by Anatoliy Gendin, the head of progressive Jewish community of Sympheropol. That campaign united not only representatives of different national communities, it managed to unite all Jewish organizations of the region who acted as one team. And I think that it would be good to create a united Jewish council consisting of representatives of all Jewish organizations which will address on a regular basis similar problems.

 

 

 

AV: On Dec. 23, 2010 Jewish women’s organization Project Kesher initiated a roundtable discussion: “Tolerance. Mutual understanding. Mutual respect. Mutual enrichment." Thanks to our efforts we engaged … [government representatives], representatives of 14 national communities; four informational agencies and Project Kesher volunteer activists from Sympheropol, Yalta, Feodosia and Yevpatoria. More than 60 participants in total. The activity was covered by six media representatives.

 

According to the words of authorized representative of the president of Ukraine in Crimea Kazarin V.P. , “It is very meaningful that it was Jewish women living in different cities of Ukraine displayed their social activism, showed that they care about the issues of our multi-cultural region.”

 

… For the first time we managed to unite all Jewish organizations of the region at one table. And the outcome didn’t take long to appear. The discussion resulted in the formation of a task force on fighting all forms of xenophobia and a timely response to the incidents of nationalistic and religious hate crimes.

 

AV: Not In Our Town is a project that has been implemented for four years already and it is directed towards prevention of all kinds of violence. Every year the project is shaped a little differently. This year it’s a Scroll of Tolerance (video [1]). The way NIOT projects will look like the next year will be decided at summer Project Kesher staff meeting. We will analyze recommendations of our volunteers from coordinative councils and suggestions of our activists and then we’ll make some general decision. The only thing I may promise is that we’ll respond to any hate crime.

 

 

 

 

AV: One of the integral parts of our mission is to build a non-violent society of equal opportunities. It can be done only if people build tolerant relationships. So, one of Project Kesher focuses of activism is tolerance. The greatest success of this project is the establishment of multi-cultural coalitions that come together to address the issues like: trafficking [2] and domestic violence, financial [3] and computer literacy, women’s health. Special thrill of the project is the fact that we engage religious leaders into cooperation.

 

Why do we do it? Most conflicts in our history were based on religious background. Our spiritual leaders can ensure the peace, which tends to be a fragile concept. Currently, religious leaders are greatly respected in the society. And we offer them cooperation to address the existing social evils. By starting a dialogue we raise the issues like alcoholism, AIDS, drug-addiction, violence… We are sure that it is possible to repair this world only with joint efforts.