Shoebat.com has been the only website to consistently point out a fact that the left and right today refuse to discuss, which is the historical overlap between National Socialists and Jewish revolutionaries. The overlap goes right to the heart of the National Socialist movement itself, where we reported that major Nazis and Jewish figures both admit in that the philosophy of National Socialism and the financing of the movement itself was a disproportionately collaborative effort between Jewish thinkers, Jewish bankers, Wall Street, and European and American industrialists, and it continues to be supported by the same actors that are driving the world to another major war.
The situation in Ukraine is very serious as it is being used as a geopolitical lever to cause a conflict with Russia by isolating Russia on all levels- historically, religiously, economically, and politically -from her. Ukraine has historically been a fighting ground between German and Russian interests, but with American backing it has increased even more. The Western part of Ukraine, which constituted one part of the Pale of Settlement, was an area with a historical Jewish presence since at least the 15th century and also has traditionally allied itself with German interests.
Ukraine is a majority Eastern Orthodox nation, and because the Russian nation began in Ukraine as part of the Kievian Rus in the 10th century has always been considered under the influence of Russia and due to the inseparably nationalistic character of the Orthodox Churches, under the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. While Russia is the largest of the “Orthodox” nations, constituting between 25% to 37% of all Eastern Orthodox Christians, Ukraine is the second largest, constituting 10% to 13% of all Orthodox Christians. The third largest is Romania, at 6% with nations such as Serbia, Bulgaria, and Georgia trailing at lower numbers in population and proportion. Since the latter four and the Russians have their own autocephaly, it is only natural that Ukraine should possess it as well but has been denied it for political reasons (see here for a more detailed explanation).
Given the drive to nationalism and independence in politics and religion in Ukraine, while wanting to avoid unnecessary conflict, it would only seem natural that Ukraine would want, at least for the time being, to ensure that any religious matters are overseen by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as she continues her separation from Russia. However, the government post of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, which oversees all religious matters for Ukraine, has appointed an American-born Hasidic Jew and current Vice President of the World Jewish Council as the head of religious matters:
Observers of international politics have been captivated by the geopolitical maneuvering currently going on within Orthodox Christendom, as a national Ukrainian church fulfills its long-held dream of separating from under Moscow’s domination. What few have noticed, however, is that the incumbent head of the ecumenical council overseeing church matters in Ukraine is not a priest but a rabbi.
Brooklyn-born Yaakov Dov Bleich, the chief rabbi of Ukraine, took over the automatically rotating chairmanship of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations at the beginning of July. He will hold the post at least until the end of this year. Thus, the first Christmas celebrations (on both the Catholic and Orthodox calendars) to be held by a unified and independent Ukrainian church, will be celebrated under the auspices of a church council headed by a rabbi.
Last Saturday, a Ukrainian church “Sobor” or cathedral was officially created in Kiev after decades of lobbying for independence from Moscow and protracted negotiations with Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople. The decision was the culmination of a concerted process of lobbying in Kiev and Istanbul and is widely seen as a serious blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions of reconstituting a “Russki Mir” or “Russian world.” Yesterday, amid soaring oratory and fierce debate, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law requiring the Moscow Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to rename itself in order to make it clear to Ukrainian parish goers that the church is headquartered in Russia. The vote was followed by a scuffle on the floor of parliament between pro-Russian and patriotically minded MPs.
Ukrainian church politics are—pardon the pun—famously Byzantine, but as my friend Matthew Kupfer explained yesterday in the Kyiv Post:
According to the new law, any Ukrainian branch of a religious organization with a center in a state legally recognized by Ukrainian law as an aggressor must indicate its origins in its name.
The name change appears to come at the request of non-Moscow Patriarchate Ukrainian Orthodox clergy. In November, Filaret—then the patriarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate—announced that his organization would ask the Verkhovna Rada to pass a law renaming the rival church the “Russian Orthodox Church,” the Ukrainska Pravda news site reported.
On Dec. 15, during a unification council in Kiev, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and several bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate moved to form a new united church. The bishops elected Epiphanius (Serhii Dumenko), Metropolitan of Pereyaslav and Bila Tserkva, to serve as primate of the church.
The new Ukrainian Orthodox Church is now waiting to receive a decree—or tomos—of Autocephaly, a document conferring canonical independence, from the Constantinople Patriarchate. On Jan. 6—Christmas Eve according to the Ukrainian Orthodox calendar—Epiphanius will receive that document from Archbishop Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, at St. George’s Cathedral in Istanbul, Ukrainian Archbishop Yevstratiy Zorya told journalists on Dec. 13.”
The Ukrainian church council has a total of 18 members, representing every major religious denomination in the devout, multinational and traditional country. Evangelicals, Adventists, Roman Catholics, Greco-Catholics and all the various denominations of Orthodoxy are joined by a pair of imams (both the Crimean Tatar and majority Muslims are represented). On Bleich’s initiative, the first meeting of the council of churches recently took place outside of Kiev in Ternopil earlier this year, with the next such traveling meeting likely to take place in February in Israel.
The usually contentious Ukrainian polis has been especially divided over the last year as the ruling Poroshenko administration made a concerted push for church independence in the midst of a fiercely contested presidential election. The creation of an independent church is a serious electoral victory for the embattled president who lags in the polls three months before the first round of the presidential election is due to take place.
“There is indeed a lot going at this moment and as chairman of the council I have been heavily involved in many of the different aspects of the political process that is taking place now,” Rabbi Bleich told Tablet. “As I see it, my mandate is to do something that unites all the different religious leaders of the Ukrainian churches, so that the council retains its relevance. It was important to keep some semblance of peace and dialogue going between the various churches of Ukraine.”The irony of the formation of an independent Ukrainian church taking place under the guidance of an ecumenical Council of Churches chaired by a Brooklyn-born Jew is not lost on the funny and streetwise Rabbi Bleich.
“All this divisive stuff is going on and so they decided to put a Jew in charge!” he quipped.
The rabbi did not mince words however in confirming that he found some of the practical political consequences of the church split that have emerged over the last few days to be a disturbing assault on the values of the separation of church and state. The law that the Ukrainian parliament voted in yesterday included provisions for excluding priests of what will most likely be known as the “Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine” from serving as chaplains in the Ukrainian army.“I do personally think that some of the things that are going on now are very much beyond the mandate of what should be happening,” Bleich said. “The government should not be getting into the matter of naming and renaming churches. They are outlawing chaplaincy for members of particular churches? That is one of the most absurd things that one can imagine!”
Many of the most serious predictions of politicization as well as violent side effects that critics predicted in the wake of a church schism now seem to be coming to pass. (source, source)
Ukraine’s revolution claims it is “nationalistic,” as in expelling foreign influence and asserting her independence from Russia and promoting Ukrainian interests first.
It is true that Rabbi Bleich has lived in Ukraine for a long time. However, this Rabbi is still an American citizen with direct ties to Israel, and he is the vice-president of the world’s largest organization representing Jews worldwide. He is, for all purposes, a cosmopolitan man with no direct roots in any nation be it the Ukraine, the US, or Israel. He is a globalist for all purposes in his outlook and his approach, and yet at a time when Ukraine is going through a supposed “nationalist” movement, he is being appointed to the head of a government office to oversee religious affairs. The appointment does not make sense unless one considers what Ted has said, which is that nationalism is a fraud meant to cover for another form of internationalism, dislodging one ruler in favor of another for nothing more than the acquisition of power.
Bleich talks frequently about “anti-semitism” on his Twitter account, but directly alludes to his support of the Ukrainian nationalist and mass murderer Stepan Bandera:
Enter Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s Russia. It is no secret that Putin dislikes Yushchenko. The prime minister never misses an opportunity to attack Ukraine, as a pretext to attack Yushchenko. Does he do it to glorify the Red Army? How was it terrible that Bandera – following in the footsteps of the Soviet Union – made a pact with the Nazis?
Give me a break! Joseph Stalin, the authoritarian leader of the Soviet Union before, during and immediately after WWII, was one of the first to sign a deal with the devil. Have we ever seen Putin, “champion of human rights,” stand up and condemn Stalin – if not for the murder of millions of Soviet citizens that he had killed, then at least for the destruction of Polish Jewry, which came about as a direct result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact?
With one wide-sweeping brush, Rabbi Lazar blames the Ukrainian people for collaboration, using words that would be funny if they weren’t so sad. “The government of Ukraine?” There was no government of Ukraine at that time!
Again, I am not belittling or minimizing the terrible acts that took place, the collaboration of some Ukrainians, even the collaboration of the SS Nightingale unit, or the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists under Bandera. I am only questioning the moral right of Putin, and the intentions of my colleague Rabbi Lazar. (source, source)
If this was not clear enough, Bleich’s support of Bandera has incurred the wrath of other major rabbis in Ukraine, including Rabbi Satanovsky who said that those rabbis who support Bandera “should be hung.” One of the people he mentioned was Ihor Kolomoisky, a Jewish businessman who has directly bankrolled the Azov Battalions, which are Ukrainian nationalist death squads who support National Socialism (you can read about them here). In spite of this, Bleich defended Kolomoisky, saying that Kolomoisky was not “pro-Bandera” but “pro-Ukraine” :
A former head of the Russian-Jewish community called for the deaths of two of his Ukrainian counterparts on Wednesday, drawing harsh condemnations from Jewish figures in both countries.
In an interview with radio Govorit Moskva, Yevgeny Satanovsky, a former president of the Russian Jewish Congress and current head of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies in Moscow, accused Ukrainians, including Jewish leaders, of downplaying the role of World War II era nationalist leader Stepan Bandera in the massacre of their country’s Jews.
“When and if there is such [an opportunity] I will hang at least [Igor] Kolomoisky and Joseph Zissels,” in front of Dnepropetrovsk’s Golden Rose synagogue, he said.
The Jewish community of Dnepropetrovsk, in which Kolomoisky is a central figure, has been vocal in its support of the current war effort, collecting donations for wounded soldiers in its schools and taking a nationalist public line. Kolomoisky, himself, in his role as governor of the Dnepropetrovsk district, has personally funded the creation of a militia battalion that is fighting separatists in the neighboring Donbas region.
Zissels, an ardent nationalist, is president of the Vaad of Ukraine and has been one of the most vocal critics of Russia’s role in the conflict.
“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. That is, given the Jewish context – “Whom God would destroy, He first makes mad,” Zissels quipped in response to a request for comment.
“He is crazy. What can I do? I know him for a long time and he was a little crazy and now he is more crazy,” he said.
Rabbi Boruch Gorin of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia said he was shocked to hear his countryman’s comments, saying that while Satanovsky was known for his “sharp speeches,” his most recent comments constituted “madness of the highest level.”
Such incitement is especially worrying since it comes in the wake of the assassination of Russian opposition activist Boris Nemtsov, who was a halachic Jew.
Gorin said it was tragic that the war had broken up friendships between some Ukrainian and Russian Jews and that “if normal Jewish voices are not raised against such speeches, we will hear more such things.”
A Ukrainian friend he has known for decades said he would kill him if he saw him again, Gorin recalled.
“Community leaders [in Ukraine] think the same,” he alleged. “Thank God they are not saying it publicly like Satanovsky.”
Some Ukrainian Jews have expressed anger at Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, who is known as a strong supporter of President Vladimir Putin.
“Kolomoisky and Zissels are not pro-Bandera but they are [in favor of a] democratic Ukraine just like the rest of the Jewish community,” Chief Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich told The Jerusalem Post.
“The Russians are still living under the illusion that the all Ukrainians are Banderistas and fascists. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I really think that the Russians aren’t the ones to lecture Ukraine and Ukrainians about fascism, especially since they were the ones that signed the pact with the devil [Nazi Germany] and started World War II… and even today they are still glorifying Stalin,” Bleich said.
Neither the Russian Jewish Congress nor Satanovsky responded to requests for comment. (Gorin said it was tragic that the war had broken up friendships between some Ukrainian and Russian Jews and that “if normal Jewish voices are not raised against such speeches, we will hear more such things.”
A Ukrainian friend he has known for decades said he would kill him if he saw him again, Gorin recalled.
“Community leaders [in Ukraine] think the same,” he alleged. “Thank God they are not saying it publicly like Satanovsky.”
Some Ukrainian Jews have expressed anger at Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, who is known as a strong supporter of President Vladimir Putin.
“Kolomoisky and Zissels are not pro-Bandera but they are [in favor of a] democratic Ukraine just like the rest of the Jewish community,” Chief Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich told The Jerusalem Post.
“The Russians are still living under the illusion that the all Ukrainians are Banderistas and fascists. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I really think that the Russians aren’t the ones to lecture Ukraine and Ukrainians about fascism, especially since they were the ones that signed the pact with the devil [Nazi Germany] and started World War II… and even today they are still glorifying Stalin,” Bleich said.
Neither the Russian Jewish Congress nor Satanovsky responded to requests for comment., source)
Rabbi Bleich’s statement about Kolomoisky is what Jesus accused the Pharisees, the predecessors to the modern Rabbinical system, of doing when he said:
You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence (Matthew 23:24-25)
The Azov Battallions are National Socialist stay-behind groups built up by the US and Germany as part of an anti-Russia geopolitical strategy. There is no way to say they are not Nazi because all of their imagery was directly taken from National Socialists and they openly profess their love of Hitler. Bandera rose to power with the rise of National Socialist Germany and her subsequent invasion of Ukraine, and as part of his nationalism he committed genocide against the Volhynian people in Ukraine, Poland, and Slovakia. It is impossible to deny the Bandera- Nazi connection because the two are directly interlinked, and yet that is what Rabbi Bleich is doing. In spite of his constant complaints about “anti-semitism,” Rabbi Bleich by his own logic would attempt to strain out the gnat that Bandera is in the National Socialist morass which he is inseparable from just to swallow his own camel of Nationalism and the same National Socialist philosophy that Bandera embraced.
Bleich’s support of Bandera and the National Socialist Azov Battalions continued on his Twitter page, which began on May 2, 2014, the same day that the Odessa clashes in Ukraine happened as part of the burning of the Trade Union house by “pro-Russian” activists which resulted in Ukraine forming a military “defense unit” to continue attacks against Russia in Donbass. In his tweet, he expressed his support for General Serhy Kulchitskiy of Ukraine, who fought alongside Ukrainian nationalists and was killed during the Siege of Sloviansk in 2014:
All over his twitter account shows constant interaction by Bleich with US and German officials, as well as calling for arms shipments to Ukraine:
Bleich also expresses his support of Zbigniew Brzezinski, a major “globalist” and supporter of National Socialism in US policy:
Earlier in 2018, Poland put forth a law making it a criminal offense to say that Poland was involved in the Holocaust, which makes sense because it is objectively slander to say so, as millions of Poles were put to death in the German-created and operated camps. However, many Jews falsely accused Poland of “anti-semitism” for stating this historical fact, one of which was Rabbi Bleich as is evidenced by his Twitter account:
On his Twitter page, Bleich has tweets where he stands with Ukrainians commemorating the Holodomor, which was a terrible massacre, and where he routinely condemns “anti-semitism” as well as communism. Yet as his Tweets above indicate, his condemnation of anti-semitism is selective, for he defines it in terms of interest. Bleich only condemns it when he does not believe it supports Jewish interests, such as with Poland. Yet he is more than willing to stand with men who are either open national socialists or directly promote National Socialism and mass murderers, such as with Kolomoisky and Bandera, when he believes it aligns with his interests.
He has no principle, but is an opportunist over all.
This view is repeated in the following above television segment for Shalom TV from 2015. In it, he makes several fascinating statements.
At 9:50, he talks about how life for Jews, notably in Ukraine, improved after World War I following the abolition of the Pale of Settlement. The only reason the Pale of Settlement was abolished was because of the Communist takeover of Russia, which was overwhelmingly influenced and lead by Jews. Not only that, but the improvement of Jewish life in the USSR, including Ukraine, happened at a time when Jews were disproportionately involved in the persecution of the majority Slavic and Christian population, including during the Holodomor. It is not unreasonable to say that in the early years of the USSR, while Yiddish culture and life flourished in Ukraine and the USSR, the rest of the people suffered grievously or starved to death.
If this rabbi is truly against Communism and the Holodomor, why would he speak about so blatantly that life for the Jews proportionally improved at the same time the Communist revolution and Holodomor that disproportionately hurt those under Soviet domination took place? It is because they were events that benefited his interests, as Jews were less affected by the consequences and those who were affected serve no current end to advance his interests.
At 12:10, he talks about Jews being “evacuated” to the Far East. After the rise of the Soviet Union, many Jews in the Communist Party ranks wanted their own Jewish state. However, since there was a division between religious Jews and atheist Jews, it was eventually decided that Jews should be given their own fully autonomous nation within Russia. That nation they were given was the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO), which is a natural-resource rich area in Siberia on the northeasternmost border of China that still exists today as a heavily Jewish enclave in Russia. Many Jews willingly relocated there as a compromise between practicing religion and living the collectivist lifestyle official promoted by the USSR, and it was after World War II that many became disillusioned and returned to major urban regions. It was, for all purposes, the first practical attempt at creating a modern-day state of Israel. Thus while there were certainly forced relocations, many were also done willingly, and many of those who were relocated were done so to the JAO. This compares greatly with Ukrainian Catholics, Poles, and many German Catholics, who were not sent to their own autonomous region, but areas such as Magadan Oblast where they were worked to death in the state camps (“Gulags”) at Kolyma.
At 12:30, he talks about Jews not being allowed to leave Ukraine in the days up to the fall of the USSR. This is an absolute lie. Jews from the USSR were not allowed to directly immigrate to America, but they were encouraged to immigrate to Israel so much that many times their trip was subsidized. For those who did not acquire a subsidy or desire to go to Israel, what many did was to claim they were going to Israel and secure passage out of the USSR to a third-party European nation, such as Italy or West Germany, and instead of going to Israel they would then go to the USA and claim refugee status.
Israel wanted Soviet Jews to migrate to her nation in the last days of the USSR because they wanted to build up their population. It was tougher in the 1970 and the early 1980s, but that quickly changed as the political situation worsened. Many of those who stayed did so because they wanted to, not because they were forced to, and the majority of them were elderly. It was the younger generations who went to Israel and the US.
At 15:45, the rabbi says “there is no more government anti-semitism.” However, as noted before, he has nothing to say in response to the direct ties between the government of Ukraine and the backing of openly National Socialist groups, which have been the epitome of everything “anti-semitic” for most Jews over the last century.
At 17:05 the rabbi says that the Russians used to disguise themselves as Ukrainian nationalists and commit murder in order to soil the name of Ukrainian nationalism, and he expresses his fear of “Russian anti-semitism” (17:43), yet regardless of whether or not this is true, what is to be said of his support of national socialist advocates such as Kolomoisky and mass murderer Stepan Bandera as noted above?
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Looking at the Rabbi’s statements, one notices that he is neither a nationalist or an internationalist, but rather an opportunist who will side with any group and yield his support so long as it believes it advances his interests, which is the acquisition of power at all cost with respect to none. It is not an issue of race, but one of the rejection of Christ’s grace in favor of the love of things of the world.
Rabbi Bleich will stand alongside Christian leaders and love to have his photo with them to advance his opportunities, but he hates Christ and considers the cross as ritually impure. He proved this in 2013 when a cross was put up near the grave of a major rabbi in Ukraine. The cross was later found to be desecrated with Hebrew language graffiti that said “To exact vengeance on the Gentiles- stop desecrating the name of God.”
In response to the desecration, the Rabbi did not address the desecration, but said blamed it on the cross’s presence and said that because of the cross, Jews could not make pilgrimage to the area for this year:
The recent placing of a crucifix near the Uman grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov was an act of “clear provocation,” Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, chief rabbi of Ukraine, said.
“Ukraine is not a Jewish country, and Ukrainian Jews respect Christian symbols like crosses,” Bleich told the Jewish Ukrainian news site Еvreiskiy.kiev.ua. “However, the cross raised in Uman, in the immediate vicinity of the tomb of Rabbi Nachman, is a clear provocation.”
The Hebrew message read: “To exact vengeance on the gentiles.” A further inscription on the crucifix’s leg reads: “Stop desecrating the name of God.”
Referring to an estimated 30,000 Jewish pilgrims expected to arrive in Uman for Rosh Hashanah, Bleich said: “They will not be able to pray there this year.” He said the cross would prevent the pilgrims from performing tashlich, a prayer often accompanied with the ritual of symbolically casting off the sins of the previous year by tossing pieces of bread or another food into a body of flowing water.
Bleich also stated that the installation of the cross has not been endorsed by the leadership of Christian denominations nor by the local authorities, which, in his opinion, should intervene. (source, source)
If this happened with a Christian figure- say the desecration of a Jewish Star placed next to the tomb of a famous Christian and the words on the star read “To exact vengeance on the Christ killers- stop murdering your savior” -it would be reported as worldwide news as a horrible act of “anti-semitism” and this Rabbi would demand an investigation, apology, and revenge. If any priest defended the desecration, this rabbi would see to it this person is labeled as an “anti-semite.” Yet when a group of Jews did the exact same thing but in a Christian context, this Rabbi defended the desecrators by his silence and saying that Jews could not pray in the area because of the cross, and that the cross needs to be removed.
The hypocrisy is unmistakable.
The appointment of Rabbi Bleich to this position of power in Ukraine cannot be viewed as just a simple rotation of leadership for a religious chair because of his past behavior and current associations. Given how Bleich will condemn “anti-semitism” yet stand with national socialist leaders and mass murderers when it suits his interest, his appointment is surely for the purpose of advancing the nationalist agenda in Ukraine and an escalation in military conflict with Russia and her allies.