(Jewish Group) Understanding Ukraine's Jewish President
After Volodymyr Zelensky won the Ukrainian presidency in a landslide this April, his country became the only country besides Israel with a Jewish president and prime minister. It’s remarkable given that only a tiny minority of Ukraine is Jewish, and the international press dwelled on it. Yet Mr. Zelensky’s Judaism was a nonfactor during the campaign.
A few weeks before the election, Mr. Zelensky told a writer on these pages that “the fact that I’m Jewish ranks about 20th on the long list of my features.” As a comedian who sometimes mocked politicians who were overtly religious in public, he has no interest in making faith part of his political and national identity. He stayed true to this attitude when stressing national unity in his May 20 inaugural address. He identified as a Ukrainian responsible for all Ukrainians—even those in the country’s diaspora. He didn’t mention religion.
Mr. Zelensky was born to a family of intellectuals 41 years ago in the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih. The future president was never religious. Vadik Pereverzev, a childhood friend, tells me that “we knew he was a Jew by ethnicity, but it wasn’t shown in holidays, communication, or following Sabbath. His family was absolutely the same as others.” He remained family-oriented as an adult, but “what Volodymyr took from his family as tradition is an enormous work ethic”—not a religious identity. When he attended a Jewish event, Mr. Pereverzev says, it was likely for work.
“Religion for me is the most intimate question,” he said in a December interview. “I am not ready to share it with anyone.” The president has said he has visited many houses of worship and believes in God. Mr. Zelensky’s wife is not Jewish, and his children were reportedly baptized in the Orthodox tradition to which about two-thirds of Ukrainians adhere.
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