“Some of you were present at the opening of the Kyiv Jewish Forum last year. This year, having organized the forum online, we held it at your home and attracted even more participants,” said the President of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine (JCU) Boris Lozhkin, closing KJF 2020 and addressing its participants and observers.

Lozhkin stated that the Jewish concept of debates and the art of arguing is a unique phenomenon, the roots of which can be found already in the Talmudic tradition.

“According to the Jewish tradition, students must always challenge their teachers and learn both to agree and disagree in a respectful and constructive manner, in order to move together towards the truth,” he said.

According to him, over the past decade, we have witnessed a dangerous growth of political and social polarization in the world; people listen and hear each other less with every day; we’ve grown accustomed more to screams than to words in a normal voice.

“As history shows, the first victims of intolerance and hatred are always Jews,” Lozhkin noted.

In his closing speech, he announced holding the third Kyiv Jewish Forum.

As you know, Kyiv Jewish Forum 2020 has been organized by the JCU in partnership with the Jerusalem Post and was held online on September 8-9. Among the forum participants have been the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, Alternate Prime Minister of Israel Benny Gantz, World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba, human rights activist Natan Sharansky and other famous personalities.