Actress Mila Kunis. Photo: Gage Skidmore

A Ukranian politician has caused a stir by referring to actress Mila Kunis as a “zhydovka”–a Ukranian slur that translates to “dirty Jewess.”

The politician Igor Miroshnichenko included the slur in a Facebook rant in which he said that Kunis– who was born in the Ukraine– is not a true Ukrainian.

Miroshnichenko wrote: “She is not Ukrainian, she is a Jewess by birth. She is proud of this and the Star of David. But she says nothing and expresses nothing positive about the country in which she was born. I can’t bring myself to say she is Ukrainian. Let her love America or Israel, people must not attach her to the Ukraine!”

Miroshnichenko is one of the most powerful politicians in Svoboda, a right-wing political party known for its anti-Semitic views. The leader of the party, Oleh Tyahnybok, was recently named “Personality of the Year” by the country’s respected Korrespondent magazine. The magazine does not endorse Tyahnybok or his views, but 40 percent of its readers nominated Tyahnybok.

In the article Tyahnybok’s politics are compared to that of the Nazi party, with emphasis on his xenophobia, anti-Semitism and strongly nationalist views.

According to Israel Hayom, in elections at the end of November Svoboda won 37 seats in the Ukrainian parliament. His party’s members soon drew attention for their anti-Semitic stance. For instance, the party claims that the word, “zhid,” a derogatory word for Jew, is an acceptable word.

The Simon Weisenthal Center sent a letter to the Ukranian Government to “express our outrage and indignation against the slanders of the Svoboda Party directed against the Jewish community in the Ukraine.”

In the letter, Rabbi Marvin Hier explains … the term “zhydovka” translates to “dirty Jewess” … and was used as an “insidious slur invoked by the Nazis and their collaborators as they rounded up the Jews to murder them at Babi Yar and in the death camps.”