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News & Current Events Apr 15, 2026 at 8:40 PM

On Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, Zelensky criminalizes antisemitism in Ukraine

Posted by eaglemaxie

On Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, Zelensky criminalizes antisemitism in Ukraine
www.timesofisrael.com
On Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, Zelensky criminalizes antisemitism in Ukraine
The country's Jewish president signs a law making hate crimes against Jews punishable by up to eight years in prison
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Smugg-Fruit Apr 16, 2026 +63
The coverage of this is spotty, but the law has been a draft for a while, but was just signed into law today by Zelensky. https://itd.rada.gov.ua/billinfo/Bills/Card/25585 Here's an older BBC article that covers the law when it was first brought to parliament. https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/news-58649173
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MeringueComplex5035 Apr 15, 2026 +1142
Im sure this comment section will be totally normal and sane
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Smugg-Fruit Apr 16, 2026 +86
It's a shame, because the details of the law are actually interesting, especially why it took so long to be signed. https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/articles/c4g443jgjx8o
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smltor Apr 16, 2026 +79
I am not sure I can drink enough to tolerate it or join in... Might go have a nice snooze.
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PeterServo Apr 16, 2026 +5
And the responses will be polite and balanced.
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GreatBayTemple Apr 16, 2026 +6
When it involves Israel it's sort of impossible for it to ever fall into the category of normal or sane.
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Impressive-Glass-642 Apr 15, 2026 +514
Zelensky and Israel on the same post. The bots are going crazy as we speak
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BadMuthaSchmucka Apr 15, 2026 +576
Good. My ancestors were forced to leave Ukraine because of antisemititism(pogroms) in the 1890s. I wonder what Zelensky's family story was and how they were able to remain, must have been tough.
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Thefivedoubleus Apr 16, 2026 +250
You really don't have to go that far back. There were about 500,000 Jews in Ukraine just before the Soviet Union collapsed. Now there are about 30,000. The vast majority left because the situation wasn't so great for them.
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sofixa11 Apr 16, 2026 +62
>Now there are about 30,000. The vast majority left because the situation wasn't so great for them. I know a couple, they left because Israel provided an easy path to residency with drastically better living conditions.
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Thefivedoubleus Apr 16, 2026 +25
It takes more than a pull to get that much of a community to leave. There was a push as well; rampant institutional antisemitism. They would have left earlier but the Soviet Union generally didn't let people leave.
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jimmylogan Apr 16, 2026 +191
Your comment may be read as if the situation got significantly worse for jews in Ukraine AFTER the fall of the Soviet Union. That is simply not the case. Most moved simply because they were finally able to. Iron curtain and all that. It was very difficult to leave before the ‘90s. Anecdotal example from my family but the experience was pretty universal during the Soviet times. My dad was told a jew would never set foot in the local med school as long as the provost was alive. This shit came from the top aka Moscow. After Ukraine gained independence no one cared about him being jewish. He still lives in Ukraine, speaks Russian, is still jewish, and no one harasses him outside of an occasional denazifying missile or shahed here and there.
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purple_spikey_dragon Apr 16, 2026 +30
They left after the Soviet Union collapsed because they weren't allowed to before. Everyone who managed to leave before it collapsed did their best to do so. My husband's grandmother lived there during the Holodomor, they went from having 3 fields to one, and even that one was constantly robbed. And even after it it didn't get any better. The moment they got the green light to leave, she took her husband and children and looked for the first chance to leave the place.
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Druncle_Stevie Apr 16, 2026 +27
There were many that left before the collapse because it was one of the few approved immigration paths out was to declare being Jewish and that you want to emigrate to Israel.
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Thefivedoubleus Apr 16, 2026 +2
From the entire Soviet Union, 300k Jews left during the 70ish years of Communism. After 1991, about 1.8 million left in one decade. It's quite a difference of scale.
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BadMuthaSchmucka Apr 16, 2026 +6
Yeah, many of them moved to my area too.
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Thefivedoubleus Apr 16, 2026 +4
Where is that?
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BadMuthaSchmucka Apr 16, 2026 +3
North East Philadelphia area
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GateDeep3282 Apr 15, 2026 +98
Mine as well. Fled to Argentina and led pretty good lives.
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thotuthot Apr 15, 2026 +24
Che, boludo!
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crispdude Apr 16, 2026 +8
Mine fled Poland to Argentina. Failed horrendously to keep up a farm then came to the US
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urielsalis Apr 16, 2026 +4
Same for mine!
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Ultra_Metal Apr 16, 2026 +13
Same with my ancestors. My great grandfather was kidnapped by the Tsar's forces in the early 20th century during a pogrom against his tiny Jewish village (somewhere in either Ukraine or Moldova). He was imprisoned in a camp in Siberia for a while. Eventually he was released and the first thing he did was go home to his wife and tell her it's time to leave Russia. They ended up in Argentina, as far away from Russia as they could get.
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Happy_Feet333 Apr 15, 2026 +33
Same here. My family fled from Chernihiv and Poltava.
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sofixa11 Apr 16, 2026 +6
>My ancestors were forced to leave Ukraine because of antisemititism(pogroms) in the 1890s. Just a note for anyone not aware, this was under the Russian Empire that did a few rounds of pogroms all around the country.
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ThePickleConnoisseur Apr 16, 2026 +3
Mine did it around the Sam time too
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MyHobbyAndMore3 Apr 16, 2026 +3
probably the smartest decision in their life given what happened to the jewish population after german invasion in 1941
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NegevThunderstorm Apr 15, 2026 +16
glad they made it out
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EnhancedWithAi Apr 16, 2026 +7
Hey man, I dont know you but I want to tell you. Im not a jew however I am your ally and always have and will be. And I fight antisemitism with vigor every time I experience and see it. Im not alone ill always be there for you guys.
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BadMuthaSchmucka Apr 16, 2026 +12
Thanks dude! We all appreciate it so much! It means so much.
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bestestopinion Apr 16, 2026 +2
Same
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GENERALVONDEATH Apr 15, 2026 +138
Twitch streamers don't approve of this
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Amathyst7564 Apr 16, 2026 +77
Since Hasan was pro Russia and pro Iran, he's going to go apeshit.
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Seeker-N7 Apr 16, 2026 +45
Shocking relevation. Back to you, Kaya.
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Boltboys Apr 15, 2026 +165
This is a good thing.
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DaHomieNelson92 Apr 16, 2026 +48
Not for the bots tho
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Boltboys Apr 16, 2026 +29
Ship them to Palestine.
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Captain-Starshield Apr 17, 2026 +4
Why does there need to be a law specific to antisemitism? Why not have harsh punishments for any kind of hate crime?
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Longjumping_Belt_405 Apr 15, 2026 +70
The bots will now have to explain why this is bad but russias criminalization of it is based and trad acksually
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Superest22 Apr 15, 2026 +114
I’m sure people will have the nuance to appreciate that Zelenskyy is doing this from a realist perspective to have it noted as a significant event and newsworthy, thus increasing likelihood of Israeli and therefore US support.
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P4cer0 Apr 16, 2026 +56
>likelihood of Israeli and therefore US support Oof
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Stable_Orange_Genius Apr 16, 2026 +24
>likelihood of Israeli and therefore US support. They couldn't care less. They have their own agenda, they don't care about the rest
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dev-ai Apr 16, 2026 +40
Except that when they strike Iran, they indirectly help Ukraine. For example, the Israelis recently bombed a Caspian port trying to break up the Russia-Iran logistic corridor there
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wowlock_taylan Apr 16, 2026 +3
You know this Iran war actually HELPED Russia right? Those Oil price hike literally gave Russia so much money.
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dev-ai Apr 16, 2026 +13
During the war, yes, oil price hike helps Russia. But if Iran falls, it will be a disaster for Russia.
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Ultra_Metal Apr 16, 2026 +7
Zelensky is also doing it because it's the right thing to do. Zelensky isn't the type of leader who only considers realpolitik. He's a good person too and that factors into his decisions.
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King_Scorpia_IV Apr 15, 2026 +186
Watch the tankies and fascists get butthurt over this. Slava Ukraini, Common Zelenskyy W
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Ultra_Metal Apr 16, 2026 +77
Hatred of Jews is the one issue that unites fascists and communists.
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Aoimoku91 Apr 16, 2026 +13
Which is funny because, before 1945, being a communist or a socialist was the only way to join a party without (too many) anti-Semites. This encouraged the far right to claim that Marxism was a Jewish conspiracy, which in turn led other Jews to support Marxist parties, which led other conservatives to say that...
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ArchitectNebulous Apr 15, 2026 +136
Common Ukraine Win.
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Randomnesse Apr 15, 2026 +46
Ahh, it's fun to see yet another thread deteriorate into arguments between closeted antisemites and normal people! /s
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zonzon1999 Apr 16, 2026 +8
Some of them are not that closeted
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RazzleThatTazzle Apr 15, 2026 +193
Seems like you could have a "dont discriminate based on religion" rule, and not give a special carve out to one specific religion.
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EasyMode556 Apr 15, 2026 +185
Suddenly everyone likes to play "all lives matter" when it comes to antisemtism, but would never even think of applying that same standard to biggotry against other minorities.
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David_Ign Apr 15, 2026 +292
Judaism is an ethnicity as much as it is a religion
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gankindustries Apr 15, 2026 +135
Correct. They are an ethnoreligious group similar to the Druze or Sikhs
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ThePickleConnoisseur Apr 15, 2026 +101
Until it doesn’t help someone’s argument against Jews. Then they separate the two
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Beautiful_Bag6707 Apr 16, 2026 +56
Jews never separate the two. 90% of Jews also don't separate Israel from the equation. The homeland of the Jewish people, and Jews are in fact a people, is Israel. That is woven into every aspect of Judaism whether you're religious or not. Athiest Jews (and there are many) ascribe to that without religion. It is estimated that 8.5-9M of the whopping 15M global Jews are either secular or non-religious. As many as 3.5M are estimated to be fully athiest.
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ThePickleConnoisseur Apr 16, 2026 +32
I know many people who don’t practice at all yet the culture and the big holidays still play a key role. As I recently heard this Passover “It only takes one experience to remember who your people is and to re-establish your identity”. No other religion would someone who hasn’t been to a service in two decades be considered equal to one who has every week
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CuriousButNotJewish Apr 16, 2026 +28
And there is a reason for "next year in Jerusalem"...
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TheGazelle Apr 16, 2026 +10
There is, but I suspect most non Jews probably don't get that it's not really about the *literal* Jerusalem. The Haggadah was put together centuries before Zionism was even a twinkle in anyone's eye, but centuries *since* Jews had become a diaspora people. Saying "next year in Jerusalem" isn't about literally hoping to go to the city of Jerusalem in the state of Israel. It's about hoping for a future where the Jewish people can be *together* again. "Jerusalem" calls back to the time of the temple, when it was the center of Jewish *life*, and it should thus be understood as a desire to return to a time when the Jewish people were all together, and not forcibly spread out.
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ShotStatistician7979 Apr 16, 2026 +10
It’s both. There’s a lot of Jewish theology pre-Herzl that talks about Jews returning to literal Tzion/ Jerusalem and there were numerous times throughout history when entire communities either moved, or tried to move, to Jerusalem from all over the Jewish world pre-modern political Zionism. I’m not sure who taught you it wasn’t about literal Jerusalem, but they weren’t really telling the truth.
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royi9729 Apr 16, 2026 +23
There's a grotesque saying, "we all smell the same coming out of the chimneys", regarding how antisemites don't differentiate between Jews whether they're religious or not, so we shouldn't do that either.
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Ultra_Metal Apr 16, 2026 +11
Yep. I'm a secular Jew who supports Israel because it is the indigenous homeland of the Jews and a liberal democracy. I support native people having sovereignty over their own homelands and I support democracies. Religion does not factor into my support for Israel at all.
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sofixa11 Apr 16, 2026 +2
>I support native people having sovereignty over their own homelands and I support democracies Then you should know the vast majority of inhabitants of modern Israel are not native to the region in any sense of that word. Check the last Ottoman census for the province of Palestine, Jews were a tiny minority. Migration started after WWI, accelerated in the interwar period, and was turbocharged after WWII. And no, a people being from a region doesn't make them "native" to it after 2000 years outside of it. Otherwise everyone is native to everywhere - Hungarians to Central Asia, Bulgarians to half of European Russia, Arabs in Iberia, etc etc etc. And yes, Israel has a right to exist. But not because the millions of people who migrated there after WWII are magically "native" to it.
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Beautiful_Bag6707 Apr 16, 2026 +19
>Then you should know the vast majority of inhabitants of modern Israel are not native to the region in any sense of that word. 65% of Israelis have zero European ancestry. Most Ashkenazi Jews are genetically from the Levant. >Check the last Ottoman census for the province of Palestine, Jews were a tiny minority. Why? Do you think that was a natural occurrence or by design? The dhimmi, subjugated Jews (and Christians) were under population control throughout Ottoman lands. Jews were a forced minority. You can't keep Jews from a place and then say "they're really not from this place". A fairer population audit would be to share that Jews were the higher population in Jerusalem (>50%) and the area that is now Israel, West Bank, and Gaza had a total population of just 600k in 1900. We know the Jewish population went from 50k to 600k mostly by immigration and most consisting of Jewish *refugees* fleeing persecution and death (>100k Jews were murdered in Russian pogroms before the Holocaust). We also know the Muslim population went from <500k to 1.4M (yes, more than *trippled*!), yet people like to pretend that's all birthrate. In 47 years. Sure, Sure.
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Ultra_Metal Apr 16, 2026 +2
Everything you said is false. Jews have the right to return to their ancient homeland and have their own independent state so that they can defend themselves against the antisemitic criminals who want to murder them.
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LateralEntry Apr 15, 2026 +125
It’s worth doing when that one religion is the subject of more hate crimes than all other religions combined.
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Raulr100 Apr 15, 2026 +93
Yeah they've literally been one of the go to targets for thousands of years. You could erase the Holocaust from history and they would still be one of the most persecuted ethnic groups.
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BabaRoomFan Apr 15, 2026 +43
All lives matter ass comment
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Teletzeri Apr 15, 2026 +99
Just here to add to the pile-on because you deserve it for this weak-ass shit. One more time for the kids at the back: Jews are an ethnoreligious group.
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PiperPeriwinkle Apr 15, 2026 +126
> Seems like you could have a "dont discriminate based on religion" rule, and not give a special carve out to one specific religion. "All lives matter"-ass response.
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Careless-Vehicle-286 Apr 15, 2026 +11
If it was every religion then he'd say: "Seems like you could have a "don't discriminate based on any segregated group" rule, and not give a special carve out to religions. But I think Ukraine is doing this specifically right now to strengthen ties with Israel against the Iran-Russia alliance. Either way it's a good thing.
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expectingthexpected Apr 16, 2026 +8
You’re a big “all lives matter” person aren’t you?
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TheFrickinThrowAway Apr 15, 2026 -6
Oh boy here we go… This is some all lives matter bullshit 
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Not_To_Smart Apr 15, 2026 -7
Was BLM advocating to enact race-specific laws?
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Caspica Apr 15, 2026 -13
Weren't they advocating actions and punishment based on the target's race? They definitely advocated for black separatism/racial segregation.
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Not_To_Smart Apr 15, 2026 +22
The entire thrust of BLM and their protest is rooted in the fact that police were discriminating against African Americans in spite of existing laws. They werent saying "we need new laws that outlaw racialized police violence" they were saying "police are breaking the law and need to be treated like regular citizens and punished accordingly".
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Caspica Apr 15, 2026 -2
That's certainly not all BLM were saying. It was the very foundation the movement was built on, yes, but it was not what it was restricted to when people asked what changes BLM proposed to accomplish their goals. 
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Not_To_Smart Apr 15, 2026 +5
My 2 sentence comment really didn't cover the entirety of the specific goals of a massive, decentralized, decades-old movement? My bad. Point still stands though. They were not by and large advocating that new race-specific laws be adopted to handle discrimination.
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Alternative-Put-3932 Apr 15, 2026 +8
No? It was to highlight discrimination by law enforcement and never advocates for separatism wtf are you talking about. Weird ass fucks.
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Caspica Apr 15, 2026 +6
BLM advocates absolutely proposed black separatist solutions to accomplish their goals.  It's the problem with decentralised organizations though: when you claim no single person speaks for the entire movement then every single person also speaks for it. That's why the social rights movement was so successful and BLM wasn't. 
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smithdog223 Apr 16, 2026 -1
All the bots responding to you with the exact same comment lol.
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RazzleThatTazzle Apr 16, 2026 +5
Yeah, did you know that this is a black lives matter ass comment? Thanks for saying something, I felt like I was going crazy
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Schuperman161616 Apr 16, 2026 +2
So that's what this was about. Got it.
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Magerfaker Apr 17, 2026 +2
In a country with a troubled past of antisemitic violence and far right groups, this seems like a sensible choice
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Love-for-everyone Apr 15, 2026 +5
Popcorn out and ready for listnook
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Fluffy-Mix-5195 Apr 16, 2026 +5
And still they celebrate Bandera and Azov battalion.
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Poonis5 Apr 16, 2026 +6
Azov isn't a battalion. It's a brigade. A great one. Law abiding. Their reputation in Ukraine is so good Chief Rabbi recorded a video congratulating them on their birthday.
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Red_black_flag_07 Apr 16, 2026 +5
"20 rubles"
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Fluffy-Mix-5195 Apr 16, 2026 +4
So you call this a lie?
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Red_black_flag_07 Apr 16, 2026 +3
~~"40 rubles"~~ "3 rubles"
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ThatUsrnameIsAlready Apr 16, 2026 +5
> “A strong state is one where the dignity of every person is respected." \- chief rabbi, Moshe Azman Would you please tell that to Israel?
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BANKSLAVE01 Apr 16, 2026 +4
"Your opinion is now illegal."
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PleaseStayStrong Apr 16, 2026 -4
This man is genuinely one of my favorite people in this world.
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w1nt3rh3art3d Apr 16, 2026 +1
I bet you are not Ukrainian
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Poonis5 Apr 16, 2026 +5
I'm Ukrainian, I love this guy.
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Ultra_Metal Apr 16, 2026
He is the greatest world leader currently in power.
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kevin402can Apr 16, 2026 +3
Religion keeps demanding special protection while refusing to play by the same rules as everyone else. That double standard is exhausting. I don’t have an issue with people practicing their beliefs privately, but once religion starts influencing laws, education, or public policy, it deserves the same level of scrutiny and criticism as anything else. Too often, it gets a free pass under the banner of “respect.” What frustrates me is watching governments pass laws around religious sensitivity while real human rights issues are treated as secondary. If we’re going to legislate morality, it should be based on universal human rights—not religious doctrine or political convenience. If religious institutions want tolerance, they need to show it first—consistently, and not just when it benefits them.
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[deleted] Apr 15, 2026 +2
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maxofJupiter1 Apr 15, 2026 +17
Have you tried hating Jews more? Thats a good inoculation against logic
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Ultra_Metal Apr 16, 2026 -2
Zelensky is the greatest world leader currently in office. He is an example for all to follow.
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AlisaofallTimes Apr 16, 2026 +2
Great work!
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coffee_shakes Apr 16, 2026 -8
Does this include valid criticisms of Israel?
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nodboss Apr 16, 2026
Amazing news. Everyone should follow
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