Odessa’s Jews are prepared to evacuate should the violence in the western Ukrainian city get significantly worse, several community leaders told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Odessa’s Jewish community numbers some 30,000, down from nearly 40 percent of the city’s population before the Holocaust.

The surprising part to me is that there is any Jewish community in the Ukraine, another region of the world with a long standing history of anti Semitism.

Fearful of further “provocations” on Friday, which marks the anniversary of Soviet Russia’s victory over Germany in the Second World War, Kruskal said that he was considering renting a holiday camp to house 600 Jews away from the fighting he expects next week.

I guess there is no time like a celebration of the defeat of a nation that had an official policy of exterminating Jews to mark the occasion by terrorizing some, uh, Jews. Right.

The Jewish community, together with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, has prepared a fleet of 70 buses, fueled and ready to go, “if, God forbid, we have to evacuate” the community’s children and any adults who want to leave, he said.

Why wait? Get out ahead of time I say.

Finally there is this gem from right here in the United States,

School District Officials Reportedly Threatened Over Holocaust Assignment

RIALTO (CBSLA.com) — School district officials in Rialto have received death threats in connection to a class assignment instructing students to debate the veracity of the Holocaust, according to reports Monday.

Rialto Unified School District officials first responded last week to reports of the assignment, which asked students to compose a written debate over whether the Holocaust was “merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain.”

The district initially defended the eighth-grade assignment – which was one part of an 18-piece essay – as an exercise to help students “evaluate the quality of evidence made by advocates or opponents of an issue.”

Rialto Police Captain Randy De Anda told KCAL 9′s Tom Wait the school district’s interim superintendent, Mohammed Z. Islam, received death threats in connection with the assignment. A district spokesperson was also threatened, De Anda said.

Threats are a really dumb idea, although some adherents of at least one religion have used threats of violence to get public officials and other entities to change their policies and plans by using threats and actual violent acts. Which doesn’t make it right, even if it is effective.

“We are striking the sentence that claims, ‘Did the Holocaust occur?’ Absolutely the Holocaust occurred,” Rialto District spokesperson Syeda Jafri. “It was an error and we have to correct it,” Jafri added.

“Mistake” seems to be a way for backpedaling officials to try to deflect criticism and dodge consequences. I wonder if the person or persons who came up with this idea are going to be sent for “cultural competency and sensitivity” training as they would if some other ethnic groups were offended? I wonder if the person or persons who came up with this idea are going to be publicly identified? I’m not holding my breath for either.

No good can come from any of this, no good at all.