President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has a name in the central synagogue of Kiev, known as the synagogue of Brodsky. This place is located in the front rows of the prayer hall, on the right edge.
The rabbi of Ukraine David Milman told this in a comment to DW. He explained that in the great prayer hall of the synagogue all places are registered and assigned to certain people, including the place of the President of Ukraine. At the same time, this does not mean that other visitors cannot sit there.
"When there is no owner, anyone can sit here," Rabin said.
Zelensky said earlier that he grew up in a non -religious family. In an interview with the Israeli edition of The Times of Israel in 2020, he noted that he grew not in an orthodox but in a "ordinary Soviet Jewish family". He stressed that in the Soviet Union, most Jewish families were not religious due to the inability to confess the faith openly.
Brodsky's synagogue is one of the largest and oldest in Kiev. It was built in 1898 and remains an important religious and cultural center of the Jewish community of the capital.
The fact of the existence of a nominal place of the President of Ukraine in the synagogue testifies to his connection with the Jewish community of Kiev, although he is not an active religious figure. At the same time, it emphasizes the historical and cultural role of the Jewish community in Ukraine.
