The childhood home of former Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky in Odessa, Ukraine will be turned into a historical site rather than be demolished, following a diplomatic campaign by Israeli government officials. Jabotinsky, born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky in October 1880, was the founder of the “Revisionist” Zionist movement and is considered the ideological forebear of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party. He is also credited for having predicted the Holocaust, and prepared an “evacuation plan” for eastern European Jewry to British Mandate Palestine during the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. The move to save the building began after its current residents sent letters to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko alerting them of the fact that multiple high-rises were set to be constructed in close proximity and pleading with them to protect the structure from what they believed would cause irreparable damage. Last week, Israeli Communications Minister Ayoub Kara flew to Ukraine to meet with municipal leaders, who thereafter promised to preserve the house—located on Odessa’s historic Jewish Street—as a Zionist heritage site, in addition to dedicating a park in the city after Jabotinsky. Ties between Jerusalem and Kiev have warmed considerably since Israel failed to publicly condemn Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014; which, in turn, was followed a few months later by Netanyahu’s cancellation of a planned visit by current Ukrainian premier Vlodymir Groysman—who is Jewish—as a consequence of Ukraine’s vote in favor of a resolution condemning the construction and presence of Jewish homes in the West Bank at the United Nations Security Council.
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