World Forum for Russian Jewry head announces new Babi Yar memorial

At Jewish Agency’s board of governors meeting in Kiev, Levin says site where over 30,000 Jews massacred to get memorial complex.

By SAM SOKOL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
Tribute to the Jewish victims of the massacre at Babi Yar 31 (photo credit: Sergey Vladykiu)
Tribute to the Jewish victims of the massacre at Babi Yar 31
(photo credit: Sergey Vladykiu)
KIEV- A new memorial complex is slated to be built at the site of the infamous Babi Yar massacre in Kiev, Alexander Levin, the president of the World Forum for Russian Jewry, announced.
Speaking at the Jewish Agency’s board of governors meeting in Kiev on Sunday, Levin said that the planned complex will incorporate a community center and that “in the place where Jews were murdered, they will learn Torah.”
"It’s not just a tragedy for the Jewish people, it’s a tragedy for the entire world, and the memorial site will commemorate not only the killings of Jewish people, but also all other victims who were brutally murdered by the Nazis on Ukrainian territory," he said.
Despite the presence of Yiddish text carved into the the official Soviet era memorial at the site, no specific mention is made of the Jewish identity of the victims.
Over thirty thousand Jews were killed at the Babi Yar ravine in the Ukrainian capital between September 29-30, 1941.
Construction is slated to begin within months and should take around two and a half years to complete. 
The work is "mostly" being paid for by Levin and Ukrainian Jewish oligarch Vadim Rabinovich, the owner of the JN1 news station, the World Forum of Russian-speaking Jews announced on Monday.