INTERVIEW: Ukraine's Chief Rabbi Bleich (11/13/94)

INTERVIEW: Ukraine's Chief Rabbi Bleich

by Andrij Wynnyckyj

On October 31, the chief rabbi of Ukraine and Kyyiv issued a statement broadcasted as part of a segment of CBS's "60 Minutes" titled "The Ugly Face of Freedom," and denouncing the conclusions and title of the segment. In order to address issues brought us by the broadcast. The Ukrainian Weekly contacted Rabbi Yaakov Bleich in Kyyiv on November 7.

Rabbi Bleich will be arriving in New York on November 10, in part to meet with staff and executives at CBS, with representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora, Jewish community leaders in the U.S., and to assist Ukraine's newly appointed ambassador to the U.S., Yuriy Shcherbak, in preparations for President Leonid Kuchma's visit to this country.

Do you think this incident can be turned into something positive, in that it can provide much-needed opportunities for dialogue between the Ukrainian and Jewish communities?

I definitely think so. I told my wife exactly what you're asking now: there has to be something good in everything. Maybe the thing that will come as a result of this program will be a lot of dialogue now. I don't think that anybody in either community was happy with what was presented in that broadcast or the context that was provided.

I don't know if there's anybody who is going to agree with what Simon Wiesenthal said, that "they haven't changed," and things like that. Those are blanket statements, generalizations. I think there's a different attitude out there now.

I'm sure that everybody knows, as I pointed out in my statement, that Ukraine today has a record in human rights that is better than any former Soviet republic. The government and the people have made a truly tremendous effort to make all of the national minorities feel comfortable living here.

With this in mind, it will be very healthy to get a full-blown dialogue going so that if there are people who don't realize this, then they'll become informed about the true situation in Ukraine, and again as I pointed out in my statement, not focus on the small incidents and the minority in society, but rather on the majority and the positive.

There has been a suggestion that the government has yet to meet with any members or representatives of the Ukrainian Jewish community. Is that right?

President [Leonid] Kuchma met with us and with the leaders of all religions in Ukraine soon after he was elected, but as far as a meeting only with Jewish representatives, no. We had asked for a meeting just last week because the chief rabbi of Jerusalem and some other dignitaries had come to Kyyiv, and unfortunately, he didn't have time to meet with him.

Aside from the president, we have met with the deputy prime minister for national minorities and other ministers.

In the first couple of months of his work as nationalities minister, do you feel that Mykola Shulha is as responsive as his predecessor, Oleksander Yemets?

Mr. Shulha actually fell into somewhat of a disorganized situation. The ministry of national minorities and migration was actually closed down and was not reopened until October 3. A function was added to the ministry, of religion, so that it was initially very hard for them. They didn't fully get their bearings until they reopened.

Given that it has only been a month that his ministry has been functioning, it's very hard to judge his performance. In part, he's going to be facing a problem that every official in Ukraine is confronted with: there is a certain lack of tools when you start implementing policies, moving from the top down.

Mr. Shulha is a very nice man and very receptive, but I'm not sure if he has the tools to get things done, and the operating environment is tough. The same [applied to] Mr. Yemets, who was also very helpful and receptive.

To give you an idea, one of the problems we consider a "Jewish problem" is the desecration of cemeteries. It could be that it's also going on in the general community too, but we haven't heard about it to the same extent. Well, Mr. Yemets told me that, as long as the price of a stone will be greater than the value of two months salary, it's going to be very hard to keep a policeman near every grave marker to prevent people from stealing them.

You mentioned in your statement that "it would be appropriate for the Ukrainian government to denounce anti-Semitism and any form of bigotry." How specific or how general would you like the government denunciation of anti-Semitism that you call for to be?

I would even be happy if it was positive and not negative. If they were not to denounce, but just come out and say that they are pro-human rights, pro-national minorities. So far, they haven't said anything specific, they've only done things like make administrative moves in the various ministries that deal with these issues.

I think it would be appropriate for them to come out with a positive statement that they will continue to respect the rights of minorities. It's for their own benefit. They should get the message out.

The previous administration, although its record was very good, did not really play this card properly. They should hire some public relations firm to make their policies more widely known. I've told members of the government, including people at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that if you open a major newspaper, such as the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, the Washington Post, you have countries such as the United Arab Emirates taking out full-page ads in order to describe themselves as, you know, "the utopia of the working man," or otherwise raising the profile of their social policies.

Some of these countries that do this are dictatorships, and yet Ukraine, which has such a good record is not doing it.

You mentioned desecration of cemeteries. What are the chief areas of concern, in terms of manifestations of anti-Semitism in Ukraine that should be watched for?

I think the government should be monitoring more closely some of the daily demonstrations in Independence Square [in Kyyiv] where people shout out things against the Jews. Some of this is illegal according to Ukraine's Criminal Code, and so the authorities should disband these gatherings.

A question was thrown in my face, when I approached one of the ministries about this: "What would be done in the U.S. if there was a demonstration by the KKK?" Well, first of all, this is not the U.S., and there are binding laws against this kind of thing in Ukraine that should be enforced.

Secondly, Ukraine is a society in transition towards democracy, and it is a place where a respect for human rights has to be developed and firmly rooted. In a democracy, in freedom, there is a right for those who are the same to group together and be the same, ethnically, religiously and otherwise. But there is also the right to be different, and to enjoy all of the other rights that belong to you as a citizen. These groups who shout these things tend to be those who have no respect for democracy or for human rights for those who are different than they are.

I'll bring up another issue, because it was something that was distorted by the people from CBS. This is the matter of the renaming of streets. This is not really a concern, the way they made it out to be. I don't think that these people are being honored for whatever negative things they might have done, right?

They are being honored because they are heroes to Ukraine. Now throughout history, it's always been that one man's hero is another man's murderer.

Particularly in a people's fight against an empire.

Right. And it's very hard to try to tell Ukraine, "don't honor your heroes because we consider them to be murderers." Certain things have to be taken in their proper context.

And this is a point when my answer in the CBS interview was taken completely out of context. I was telling Safer a story about the time when I met with the Ukrainian community in Cleveland, and a woman asked me: "Why do Jews see collaborators in all of us?"

And I told her well, because when a similar accusation is leveled against Trotsky or Kaganovich, these are not people that we consider heroes, in fact we're embarrassed by them. And yet when Ukrainians say that certain people are heroes that we consider murderers, that sends shivers down our spines.

That's what I told [Mr. Safer], but obviously it was manipulated to suggest that we were concerned about street names and such, which is not the case.

When did CBS interview you?

About mid-June.

How long was the interview?

About half-an-hour. Maybe a bit more than twenty minutes. And of course, you see me for less than two in the program itself.

Did you talk about rates of Jewish emigration?

No, I sent them to a Jewish agency for that.

Did you talk about national attitudes and government policies?

Sure. I remember I brought up that there isn't even a ministry of national minorities anywhere else in Eastern Europe.

Were you referring to a specific group of people when you said "they're saying they want the Jews out"?

Well of course, I was talking about the extremists that they had taken footage of. I certainly didn't mean the Ukrainian government or the population at large. I mean, that's crazy. That's really a sick quote.

How do you feel about how your statements were used?

They were taken out of context. I think the whole thing was sick. The whole broadcast. It just shows the sickness of journalism.

The problem is that some journalists do that for a living. They take people's words, and then they twist people's minds. They do that in print, too.

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