Ukrainian nationalists have asked President Viktor Yushchenko to open criminal proceedings against "judeo-Nazis" in Ukraine, singling out Chabad rabbis and the main work of Chabad hassidic literature, the Tanya.

In an open letter to Yushchenko, members of the Ukrainian Conservative Party and several far right-wing editors demanded that Jews be prevented from teaching the Tanya in Jewish schools and synagogues, so as to stop the spread of "this misanthropic religious system."

At the Ukrainian Embassy in Tel Aviv, cultural attache Maksym Osavoliuk said on Wednesday that his government would investigate the incident.

"Our official stance is to fight anti-Semitism and xenophobia as much as possible," he said.

Jewish organizations, meanwhile, warned of a possible escalation in anti-Semitism. Only a few weeks ago in the eastern city of Dnepropetrovsk, two synagogues were vandalized.

"This is not a sporadic event, but part of the long-term activity of anti-Semitic groups," said Eduard Dolinsky, executive vice-president of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine. "We are constantly fighting against this sort of thing."

Those involved are tied to the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (known in Ukraine by its acronym, MAUP), a sizable college and unabashedly anti-Semitic publishing house. MAUP recently presented a blacklist of "media and organizations who distribute and defend or support Jewish racism, Judeo-Nazism and Jewish organized crime in Ukraine." In June, its conference titled "Dialogue of Civilizations: Zionism as the Greatest Threat to Contemporary Civilization" attracted the likes of white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

The campaign is strikingly similar to letters sent to the Russian authorities earlier this year, signed by members of Parliament and academia, which attempted to outlaw other Jewish religious books as inhumane and claimed that Jews had staged anti-Semitic attacks to besmirch the name of patriotic Russians.

The Federation of Jewish Communities in the Commonwealth of Independent States, which criticized the Russian government at the time for practically ignoring that campaign, called on Ukraine to hold those involved accountable for inciting hatred against Jews.

"Surely those responsible are saying, 'In Russia they got away with it, so we'll get away with it in Ukraine,'" said Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, executive director of the FJC.

"We will turn to the president and prime minister to ask them to denounce the parliamentarians involved," he added. "They must be held accountable, even if they are minority members. Serious repercussions have to come from this."

The letter could revive concerns about Yushchenko's commitment to protecting the country's Jewish population.

According to The Kyiv (Kiev) Post, Yushchenko, Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk and Finance Minister Viktor Pynzenyk have previously served on MAUP's board of trustees. Some Jewish groups defended Yushchenko, however, noting that he had gone to Auschwitz for the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of its liberation, and that he joins a Kiev synagogue each year to light Hanukka candles.

One of Yushchenko's defenders was Ukrainian Chief Rabbi Yaakov Bleich, who told The Jerusalem Post in March that Yushchenko "is definitely not anti-Semitic, but he is maybe too tolerant of people who are."

Bleich is also one of the public Jewish figures named in the letter (although he is not a Chabadnik), and has been the frequent target of MAUP's criticism in the past.