1981: an overview: Ukrainian-Jewish relations (12/27/81)

1981: an overview

Ukrainian-Jewish relations

1981 was a mixed bag in terms of Ukrainian Jewish relations. Although there were several concrete steps taken in the direction of cooperation and mutual understanding, there were also several instances of continued tension, misunderstanding and open hostility.

An important inroad in terms of Ukrainian Jewish cooperation was achieved when Jakiv Suslensky, head of the Israeli-based Society of Ukrainian Jewish Relations, began a tour of Canadian and U.S. cities in April. Mr. Suslensky, a former Soviet political prisoner whose life was saved by his Ukrainian cellmates, met with community leaders and advocated the position that Ukrainians and Jews stop working at cross-purposes, and concentrate on areas of commonality, such as the plight of Ukrainian and Jewish political prisoners in the USSR.

Another positive step was Mr. Suslensky's meeting with Metropolitan Stephen Sulyk of the Ukrainian Catholic Church on May 2. Two days later, Metropolitan Sulyk met with Rabbi Marc Tannenbaum, the spiritual director of the American Jewish Committee.

In addition, Mr. Suslensky revealed that he planned to help push for recognition of the late Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky as one of the "Righteous of the World," an honor bestowed by Israel on individuals who helped save Jewish lives during the Holocaust. It was a positive step in dispelling the growing myth of Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis.

Needless to say, such gestures of Ukrainian-Jewish good will did not go unnoticed in Moscow. Radio Moscow wasted little time in assailing Mr. Suslensky's group and the meeting of the metropolitan and the rabbi, labelling the development as a sign of an unholy nationalist-Zionist alliance.

Ukrainians and Jews did find and nurture common cause. On September 13, members of both communities in San Francisco, under the aegis of the local UCCA chapter and the Bay Area Council on Soviet Jewry, staged a demonstration in front of the Soviet Consulate to protest the continued imprisonment of Soviet dissidents Anatoly Shcharansky, Ukrainian Oleksiy Muzhenko and Yuri Fedorov.

But despite these positive steps, there were several areas of continued disagreement and divisiveness. The most emotional and polarizing events in terms of Ukrainian-Jewish relations were the trials of several Ukrainians accused by the U.S. Justice Department of collaborating with the Germans during World War II. On May 2, members of the Jewish Defense League picketed the home of Serge Kowalchuk in Philadelphia, threatening to bring him to Jewish justice if the government did not expedite his case. In spite of pleas by leaders of the Ukrainian and Jewish communities in Philadelphia, there was lingering bitterness over the denaturalization trial of Wolodymyr Osidach.

A similar situation developed in Cleveland as a result of the proceeding against John Demjanjuk. Although leaders of the United Ukrainian Organizations of Greater Cleveland and the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland issued a joint statement urging both communities to foster understanding rather than divisiveness, tensions ran high.

Another area of continued misunderstanding centered around alleged Ukrainian complicity in the Holocaust and allegations of Ukrainian complicity in the Holocaust and allegations of Ukrainian anti-Semitism which appeared frequently in several leading publications this year. Much of the damage was done by Holocaust scholar Lucy Dawidowicz. In her review of Philip Freedman's Essays on the Holocaust, which appeared in the January 11 issue of The New York Times Book Review, she accused Ukrainian historians of revising their past, especially regarding the Ukrainian enthusiasm for the Nazis and voluntary Ukrainian participation in Nazi paramilitary organizations.

In an article on Babyn Yar which appeared in the Times in September, Ms. Dawidowicz went so far as to implicate Ukrainians in the massacre of Kiev's Jewish population in 1942, buttressing her allegation with the rather dubious theory of a historical pattern of Ukrainian anti-Semitism. Both articles in the Times received high national visibility.

Ms. Dawidowicz's theme was echoed in a joint statement on behalf of jailed Soviet Jewish activist Dr. Alexander Paritsky by Albert Shanker, head of the United Federation of Teachers, and Seymour Lachman, professor of education at the City University of New York, who claimed that persistent attacks against the defendant and his family "resonate with the worst traditions of Ukrainian anti-Semitism."

Moreover, the Soviet Union issued a pamphlet, "Yellow-Blue Anti-Semitism," a scurrilous little monograph which brands all Ukrainian nationalists virulent anti-Semites.

All these developments seriously undercut attempts at Ukrainian-Jewish cooperation, and they are interpreted by many as indicators of a Soviet disinformation blitz to discredit Ukrainian nationalists in the diaspora and drive a wedge between the Ukrainian and Jewish communities. After all, Ukrainians and Jews, both here and in the Soviet Union, are unquestionably the most vociferous critics of the regime. Therefore, the Soviets would like nothing better than to see the two communities at each other's throats.

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