occurred without it coming to our attention - there are plenty of miscreants in
every country.
Because the facts selected for your broadcast were excessively biased and one-sided,
it is incumbent upon me to give you a view of the other side of Jewish life.
In Lviv, where seven thousand Jews live, there are thirteen Jewish organizations.
There are also active organizations in the rest of the region - in Drohobych,
Boryslav, Truskavets. I can send you all their addresses. Lviv was the first city
in Ukraine to have a Jewish Society (1988), the first Ukraine-Israel Society (1989),
and the first to publish a Jewish newspaper (1989). A Center for the Study of
Jewish History is functioning in the city. Two Jewish-Ukrainian conferences have
been held here. We have a Jewish ensemble, a Jewish theater, a philharmonic
orchestra which recently, at the opening of the season, performed the works of
Tchaikovsky and of two Jewish composers. A Jew, Kotlyk, head of the Jewish Society,
was elected as a member of the City Council.
Two years ago, in the center of the city, not far from "Hitler Square," a monument
dedicated to the victims of the Lviv ghetto was unveiled. This is the biggest and
most prominent Jewish memorial in all of Europe. Haven't you seen it?
As head of the Jewish Council, I was present at all the events that I am describing,
and I can document them. Your discussing these events in a future broadcast would
present a wonderful balance which together with your video footage would paint an
accurate picture of Jewish life in Ukraine, and not a deliberately one-sided one.
One cannot indict any nation on the grounds that a few of its members were evil.
Evil individuals exist in every nation. But why didn't you show those Ukrainians
and Poles who rescued Jews? There are many of them. Initially, we ourselves didn't
know about them, as they remained silent, and our former regime forbade them to
speak on such topics. In Lviv, Simon Wiesenthal himself was rescued from death, and
in Boryslav, the head of the Israeli parliament, Shevakh Weiss, with whom in 1992 I
personally visited his own rescuers.
We have a list of almost 2,500 Ukrainians who rescued Jews, and many of these are
precisely from the Western region. We have brought these rescuers to Israel,
presented them with certificates, and are now supporting them with pensions. We are
presently in the process of submitting this list of rescuers to the Holocaust Museum
in Washington. Concerning this I have been making particular arrangements, as I
will be in the United States later this year.
You broadcast that Lviv is being depopulated of Jews. However, this has been
happening throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and began not
recently, but even during the Bolshevik regime - but nobody is blaming this on
anti-Semitism. Rather, other motives are responsible: economics, Chornobyl, the
reunification of families. Anti-Semitism plays a far weaker role. Our Council
interviews Jewish emigrants and has definitive information on this question.
Jews, perhaps more than others, should avoid throwing blanket insults and
accusations at other peoples because they themselves - as a people and not as
individuals - have been blamed by the Fascists for all sins. Why do you, then,
proclaim all Ukrainians to be genetic anti-Semites? Why, in addition to talking
about the police did you not also talk about the rescuers of Jews, did not show a
single one of them? And in Lviv, there are many of them. Is it that you couldn't
find any, or that you didn't want to look?
I wish to declare to you officially: in the new Ukraine, there is no state-sponsored
anti-Semitism. Not long ago, a Jew fulfilled the obligations of the prime minister
of Ukraine. The mayors of Odessa and Vynnytsia are Jews. The mayor of Cherkasy was
a Jew. There are six Jews in parliament. Some Deputy Ministers are Jews. It is
such outstanding facts as these that convey the predominant attitude of Ukrainians
to Jewish rebirth, to Jewish culture.
Among the CIS, Ukraine was the first to hold a Jewish Congress. The Days of Jewish
Culture were celebrated this year as a National holiday, dedicated to the 135th
anniversary of Shalom Aleichem. In Ukraine, there are active Jewish organisations
in 89 cities. Eleven Jewish newspapers are published. Ten schools are in
operation. Jewish groups have been formed within Pedagogical and Theatrical
Institutes (composed of 80% Ukrainians who have mastered Hebrew). We have held a
festival of children's vocal and dance ensembles in which 46 groups applied to
participate. Ukrainian television broadcasts two Jewish programs. Jewish
spectacles are performed on the stages of Ukraine.
For the fifth year now we have honored the victims of Babyn Yar, where there has
been erected the Jewish monument "Menorah," and at which have been placed wreaths
both from the President of Ukraine and from the Kyiv City Council. Just this year,
the Days of Babyn Yar commemorations were conducted over the period of an entire
week. In all cities (in all!) in which Jews were shot during the War, annual
remembrance days are observed.
All this you failed to see, and so you did great harm not only to Ukrainians, but to
Jews as well.
In our work of resurrecting Jewish life, we receive help from such prominent
Ukrainian intellectuals and parliamentarians as B. Oliynyk, P. Osadchuk, O. Yemets,
D. Pavlychko, V. Yavorivskyi, I. Drach, P. Movchan, M. Shulha, I. Dziuba, V.
Durdynets, and many others. We do not want to return to former times, and yet that
is the direction in which your broadcast is pushing us. You have done as the
Bolsheviks used to do - you presented information that is one-sided, suppressed
information that does not fit your stereotype, biased the selection of materials,
strengthened and reinforced negativism. It would be as if the Los Angeles riots
were shown to us here as representative American events.
If you want to convince yourselves that everything I have been saying is true,
please come to us and film anything you want. Please regard this as an official
invitation of our Jewish Council.
Certainly there exist many disappointments in our work. A lot remains to be done in
revitalizing Jewish culture. We cannot immediately realize all our goals. But this
is never merely because we are Jews; it is never attributable to either
state-sponsored or spontaneous anti-Semitism. You must be aware in what a difficult
economic situation Ukraine finds itself - and yet despite this, the government gives
high priority to the support of cultural diversity, included in which is the support
of Jewish culture. For example, the observance of the Days of Jewish Culture in
Ukraine was funded entirely by the Ukrainian government - close to two billion
karbovantsi, and this in our difficult economic times!
It is these many things, then, that are of importance to us, and not the activities
of individual ultra-nationalists who don't receive support from most Ukrainians;
where in fact most Ukrainians condemn their activities.
Oh, democracy! Is there any country, even the United States, which has succeeded in
ridding itself of anti-Semitism? And are the American anti-Semites representative
of official government attitudes toward Jews? Or are isolated events in Los Angeles
reflective of United States government attitudes toward Blacks?
Esteemed gentlemen! You didn't do a good thing insulting the Ukrainian people.
Imagine if someone collected similarly true but unrepresentative facts to paint a
negative picture of the Jewish people. Remember the Biblical injunction: Don't do
anything to another that you would not want done to yourself.
Please revisit us with an open mind, and not with any fixed bias. The United States
is presently awaiting the visit of our President, and we don't want his visit to be
marred by any anti-Ukrainian actions from anybody, especially not from Jews; nor
would we want American assistance to our country to depend on isolated individuals
who are opposed to granting such assistance.
We await you in Ukraine.
Respectfully,
I.M. Levitas
Head of the Jewish Council of Ukraine
Head of the Nationalities Associations of Ukraine
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE JORDAN 726 hits since 23May98
Jordan Letter 5 Jul 18/96 Genetic anti-Semitism
July 18, 1996
Michael H. Jordan
Chairman, Westinghouse Electric Corporation
11 Stanwix Street
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
USA 15222
Dear Mr. Jordan:
I have some questions for Morley Safer, and I route them to him through you, as I have discovered over the years
that he is not very communicative when addressed directly - perhaps if the request to respond to these questions came
from you, he might be more forthcoming. Specifically, I wonder if you would be so good as to ask Mr. Safer the
questions organized under the following eight points, all of them in connection with his October 23, 1994 statement
that "The Church and Government of Ukraine have tried to ease people's fears, suggesting that ... Ukrainians, despite
the allegations, are not genetically anti-Semitic.":
(1) Through what source did Mr. Safer become aware of the allegation that Ukrainians were genetically
anti-Semitic? And what were the qualifications of this source in the field of human genetics, particularly in the
field of the genetic inheritance of cognitive predispositions?
(2) Before broadcasting this allegation, did Mr. Safer verify its plausibility with any responsible geneticist?
(3) What does Mr. Safer mean by "the church of Ukraine"? This reference is as puzzling as would be a reference
to "the church of the United States."
(4) Could Mr. Safer divulge the name of the church representative who issued this denial of a genetic
predisposition to anti-Semitism on the part of Ukrainians, and indicate as well the time and the place of the denial?
(5) Could Mr. Safer similarly identify the Government of Ukraine representative who issued this same denial of a
genetic predisposition to anti-Semitism on the part of Ukrainians - who was it, when, where?
(6) Is Mr. Safer aware of a genetic predisposition to anti-Semitism on the part of any other group - or is this
in his estimation a uniquely Ukrainian phenomenon?