Leader of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, Vadim Rabinovich, says he will run for president in Ukraine’s May 25 election.

By Arutz Sheva Staff

Vadim Rabinovich, president of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress and founder of the European Jewish Parliament, announced on Tuesday that he will run for the presidency of Ukraine, reports the Jewish Daily Forward.

Huge Kiev rally – Reuters

According to the report, Rabinovich told the Russian Interfax news agency that he was running to “destroy the myth about anti-Semitism in Ukraine.”

In recent months, Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have accused groups that overthrew Ukraine’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych, of being fascists and anti-Semites.

The elections in Ukraine are scheduled for May 25.

As the situation in Ukraine has escalated, several anti-Semitic attacks have been reported in the country.

A synagogue was firebombed in late February by unknown assailants, and at least one synagogue in Crimea has also been defaced.

In January, unknown assailants stabbed a hareidi man in Kiev as he was making his way home from synagogue on a Friday night.

Rabinovich himself was targeted in an assassination attempt in central Kiev in March of last year, when a bomb was hurled at his car as it pulled out from an office courtyard. He escaped unharmed

Recently, however, Rabinovich put out a statement denying that anti-Semitism was on the rise in Ukraine, according to the Jewish Daily Forward.

“Attempting to fan the flames around this issue is a provocation and is not conducive to a peaceful life of the Jewish community in Ukraine,” he said, according to the report.

Leaders of the Jewish community in Ukraine last week assured Knesset Speaker MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud-Beytenu) that “there is tension in the air but no Jew is hiding his Jewishness or hiding out. While there are anti-Semitic manifestations, there is no systemic anti-Semitism. Nor do we feel more threatened after the revolution.”

View original Arutz Sheva publication at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/178914#.UzMXR4WLUYB