In an interview with the Vesty Israel, Boris Lozhkin related why both Jews and Ukrainians in his homeland view Israel as an example for themselves.
There is a banner with Golda Meir’s quote on his Facebook page. He knows what the Israeli chutzpah is in the positive sense of the word and believes that Ukraine should borrow it for post-war economic recovery. Boris Lozhkin, Vice President of the World Jewish Congress, President of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, former Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine (2014-2016), an entrepreneur, gave an interview to the Vesty Israel.
- You have a banner on your Facebook page with a quote from Golda Meir: “We want to live. Our neighbors want to see us dead. This leaves not too much room for compromise.” This aphorism has been previously used exclusively in relation to the experience of Israel. Can we assume that in the new context it also acquires a Ukrainian meaning?
- Absolutely. Already in my book The Fourth Republic (2016), I named Ukraine as “Israel of Eastern Europe”. Not only in terms of security, but also in the field of statehood. Among other things, current Israel has formed largely thanks to Ukrainian Jews. Starting from Ze'ev Jabotinsky and all those who were coming between 1940 and 1990 and were building a Jewish country.
By the way, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Israelis have participated in the building of current Ukraine. I personally know many people who left for Israel in the 1970s and then returned in the 1990s to live in two places. Some were building businesses, others were making investments.
- All the waves of repatriations you mentioned were in some way similar to each other. However, the current wave in the last three months is special. This is the first mass aliyah to be held under evacuation. According to the Israeli Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, more than 20,000 people have repatriated to Israel since the start of the emergency admission of Jews from Ukraine and neighboring countries. What is opinion? Will it not happen that this wave subsides as fast as it has grown? And if it doesn't subside, how will it change the lives of the Jewish community in the countries they have left?
- Since the creation of the State of Israel, this has probably been the most difficult aliyah for Ukrainian Jews. Unprepared. Life threatening. After all, for all the problems of the Soviet Union, there was no direct danger to the lives of Jews then. I myself helped evacuate Jews from Kharkiv at the most acute moment of the shelling. As people were boarding buses, Russian artillery was shelling the city. I took also my mother from Kharkiv to Israel, and she resides now in Tel Aviv.
By the way, I need to say special thanks to Garik (Georgii) Logvinsky (People's Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Chairman of the Group for Interparliamentary Relations with the State of Israel). He has carried out a titanic job of evacuating Jews from the hottest spots, including Chernihiv. The city was actually under siege. He had to take trails to bring people to buses under shelling... He has saved more than 15,000 people, and not only Jews.
I repeat, the aliyah was a forced step for many, but I still hope that the repatriates will feel the positive character of Israel and become fully Israeli. I have just received interesting statistics. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Integration, almost a quarter (24%) of those currently repatriated from Ukraine are children under 17, and 22% are between 18 and 35 years old. Most of them will remain in Israel and will be full-fledged, useful citizens of the new society.
Many of them were active members of Jewish communities. Many of the sponsors of those communities have lost their businesses. Therefore, the issue of what will happen to Jewish communities in Ukraine is a very hard issue. I do not know.
By the way, people have moved not only to Israel, but also to the United States and Germany. Germany now has a very powerful program for admitting Jews from Ukraine. It is even friendlier than the Germans had in the 1990s. For example, you do not need now to take a German language exam to obtain a residence permit card, and documents can be issued upon arrival, and not as before, in the country of origin.
That is why Israel is now competing with Germany in this issue and must do everything possible to attract this aliyah to Israel to the maximum. After all, the level of education of people who are forced to leave Ukraine now is high. These people usually want to work, study, develop.
And, as far as I know, even bigger aliyah than from Ukraine is now happening from Russia. A lot of Russian Jews have already left, are leaving now or want to leave.
- How will the Jewish communities of Ukraine and Russia now be able to coexist? Their world is shaped by different ideological platforms that contradict each other, from “we can repeat” to “never again”. Does this break line exist?
- Yes and no. For the most part, those Jews who have left Russia do not support the so-called denazification line. Many of those who remain adequately assess reality and are not adherents of the new world that Russian propagandists are trying to present to them as a new reality. And those who support the “special operation” are not on the same road with them. I very much hope that Jewish organizations in Russia are taking the good side in the Ukrainian-Russian conflict. Unfortunately, not everyone is free to speak about it now.
- The war in Ukraine is still in full swing, but the United States, Britain, the EU and international funds are already preparing for a program to restore the destroyed country and its macroeconomic stability. On May 18, the European Commission published an interesting project with the Rebuild Ukraine plan. Its essence: the restoration of infrastructure, health care, housing, as well as digital and energy sustainability. Hundreds of billions of euro will be allocated for all this over 10 years. In the German press, the president of the World Economic Forum, Børge Brende, is calling on the democratic world to start implementing the new Marshall Plan now. Where do you see Israel's place in this process?
– Israeli business knows Ukraine well. It is very important now for Israel what will happen here after the war. I am confident that Israeli business will actively participate in investments in Ukraine.
Israel will be interested in investments in food production and cooperation in the field of high-tech. I also see the potential for joint defense industries. The superindustry is cybernetics: Israel is No.2 in the world in it. For Ukraine, it is necessary to simply break down the experience of the most successful sectors of the Israeli economy into molecules, and then do the same in Ukraine.
There is a well-known person in the Israeli IT sector – Inbal Arieli. She has published a book, which I highly recommend, Chutzpah (which means audacity). She explains why Israel has become a leader in high-tech. This is the result of Israeli upbringing. And Israeli upbringing is, in particular, the army. Now in Ukraine, the army is becoming as important part of society as it is in Israel.
- In the book Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle by Dan Senor and Saul Singer they called the IDF the largest social network of Israel.
- Absolutely true. Well, Ukraine is moving towards the same. This is one of the most important components of Ukraine's “Israeliization”. This is what makes current Israel invincible.
- You started your career in the socio-political and business spheres as a journalist.
- It was a long time ago.
- I will now return you to the profession for a minute. As a journalist, what question would you have to Putin?
- (A pause) I would have liked to ask him if he does not regret that he has started all this? Although I understand that I would not receive an honest answer.
- This is an issue of his human component. And to him as the head of state? Wouldn't you like to ask him what goal he set for his “special operation?”
- Well, everything is clear here! I don't even need to ask Putin about it. I will tell you that now myself. The plan was as follows: they were to capture Kyiv. Yanukovych was waiting near Kyiv, and there was a large team of those who were to take seats in the new government with him. About three months before the start of the war, a lawsuit was filed in court to declare illegal the voting to remove Yanukovych from the presidency in 2014. According to my information, that decision was to be made in the regional court of Kyiv. In other words, Yanukovych was to return to the presidency in this way. Naturally, this would not have been accepted by the western regions of Ukraine, and all the other regions should have been captured by then.
5-7 regions (out of 25) would have said that they do not accept this result, and then Yanukovych, as the legitimately elected president, was to start military action against those regions. Putin viewed that zone as a zone of compromise with the West. That is, the West would have said: all right, let everything remain as it is. Then Viktor Medvedchuk would have become the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Yanukovych would have resigned, and Medvedchuk would have become acting president of Ukraine. In essence, that would have been a puppet regime with signs of legitimacy, and, of course, with the destruction of dissidents. That's the whole story.
- Would you not like to ask Putin, how they were going to control a hostile country with 40 million people?
- According to my information, people from Yanukovych's entourage convinced him that it was possible. They controlled this country until 2014. At the same time, I do not know why the Russian intelligence did not understand that.
- And what question would have to Volodymyr Zelensky?
- A good question (long pause). I know what I would ask Zelensky, but I do not want to voice it now.
The author of the interview is a new repatriate from Ukraine (Kyiv). In his country of origin he worked as a columnist for the socio-political magazine Novoe Vremya (NV), a reporter and editor on the Ukrainian TV channels.