The Jewish Forum of Ukraine has protested against the Kyiv City Council's decision to rename Comintern Street to Symon Petliura Street.

Ukrainian Jews protest against plans to name Kyiv street after Petliura 

The Jewish Forum of Ukraine has protested against the Kyiv City Council's decision to rename Comintern Street to Symon Petliura Street. 

"The Jewish Forum of Ukraine believes that the names of historically controversial personalities should not be given to streets and cities, and it is better to return to them their original geographical and historical names, and what counts more, that these names be far from politics," said  Jewish Forum of Ukraine Director Arkady Monastyrsky. 

Monastyrsky said he had addressed Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky to veto the Kyiv City Council decision. 

It is believed that Petliura's troops are responsible for particularly cruel Jewish pogroms in Ukraine in 1918-1919. After the so-called Ukrainian Directory led by Petliura was crushed by Red Army in late 1919, Petliura fled to Warsaw. From the end of 1924, Petliura lived in Paris, where Jewish anarchist Sholom Schwartzbard assassinated him on May 25, 1926, saying that, in doing so, he avenged the murder of his relatives, including parents, during the pogroms.