RUTHFULLY YOURS

On 14 April 2016, by a vote of 257 to 50, Ukraine’s Parliament elected Volodymyr Groysman prime minister, replacing Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was forced out by public dissatisfaction and allegations of corruption surrounding his government.

At 38, Mr. Groysman is the youngest Ukrainian prime minister ever elected and the first Jew to hold such a high position.

Here are some basic facts about him:

– Born in Vinnytsia into a Jewish family on 20 January 1978.

– Grandfather Isaac survived the Holocaust by pretending to be dead after being dropped into a mass grave by Nazi troops.

– Started his career in 1994 as a commercial director of the small private business company “ОКО” and as a commercial director of the private enterprise “Youth.”

– 2003 graduate of the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management with a specialty in jurisprudence.

– Elected mayor of Vinnytsia in 2006.

– 2010 graduate of the National Academy of State Administration with a specialty in community development management.

– Elected to Ukraine’s Parliament in 2014 as a member of the Petro Poroshenko bloc, which favors decentralization and privatizing all Ukrainian coal mines.

Meanwhile, Democratic Party candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders vowed to increase centralization and staunchly oppose privatization of any government functions or services.  Neither has any business experience.  On the GOP side, only Donald Trump does.  A meeting between Trump and Groysman wouldn’t be such a bad idea, for a variety of obvious reasons.

The New York Times story on Groysman’s election neglected to mention that he is Jewish.  Readers will need to go to other sources to learn, for example, that Mr. Groysman attends synagogue on holidays and wraps tefillin.  Evidently, NYT editors did not think such facts are “fit to print.”