"And from a Jewish perspective?" I asked Josef Zissels. The veteran Ukrainian dissident, Jewish activist and passionate advocate of Ukraine's "Maidan" movement, had just finished briefing a Warsaw audience about the movement's spectacular victory and President Viktor Yanukovych's fall from power.
"There is no Jewish perspective," he answered. "There are Jews on both sides of the divide."
That is certainly true. For example, Aleksander Feldman, the chairman of the Jewish Fund for Ukraine, is a prominent parliamentarian for Yanukovych's Party of Regions — though he condemned the deposed president after his fall. And several Jewish oligarchs were close to Yanukovych until the very end.