Rabbi honored for promoting Ukrainian-Jewish relations (05/28/95)

Rabbi honored for promoting Ukrainian-Jewish relations

by Roman Woronowycz

NEW YORK - A rabbi who helped coalesce the voices of the Jewish and Ukrainian communities in protest over a CBS newspiece broadcast on its popular show, "60 Minutes," was honored on May 10 by the Society of Ukrainian-Jewish Relations.

Rabbi David Lincoln of the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York was honored for his outspoken criticism of the broadcast of "The Ugly Face of Freedom," in which Ukrainians are alluded to be "genetically anti-Semitic," and for working to improve Ukrainian-Jewish inter-ethnic relations.

After viewing the October 23, 1994, broadcast, Rabbi Lincoln wrote CBS News, which aired the piece, and Ukraine's Ambassador to the United Nations Anatoliy expressing his distress regarding the "60 Minutes" program and assuring the ambassador of his readiness to "help in any way I can to let the truth be known."

Rabbi Lincoln also spoke with the show's producer, Don Hewitt, and the correspondent responsible for the segment, Morley Safer, both of whom contacted him via conference call. He said he locked horns with the two journalists over a contention that "Jews [in Ukraine]: are living in great fear," and that the two tried to cajole him into accepting their position.

Dozens of people showed up at the Shevchenko Scientific Society building in Manhattan to honor Rabbi Lincoln, among them Israel Singer, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress and its executive director, Elan Steinberg. "We are friends with the people here and are very close with Rabbi Lincoln," said Mr. Singer when asked his reason for attending.

Also present were Ambassador Zlenko, representatives of Ukrainian American organizations such as the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council and the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and Mr. Lincoln's spouse and two of his four sons.

Among the speakers were Rutgers University professor of history, Taras Hunczak, and Oleksandr Burakovsky, formerly of the Rukh Department of Ethnic Minorities.

Prof. Hunczak, a friend of Rabbi Lincoln's for several years now, called him "a good man who stood for truth and justice at a time when others maliciously would poison inter-group relations, distorting facts and creating stereotypes which could rival the evil Nazi propaganda machine. How else can one characterize the statement that Ukrainians are 'genetically anti-Semitic,' " he said.

Introduced by SUJR Vice-President Stephanie Charczenko, the 58-year-old rabbi in his heavy British accent asked the gathered that "instead of all the advertisement of how difficult it is to be a Jew today, why not talk of the great revival that has occurred in Jewish life in Ukraine?"

He mentioned the century-old historical ties between the Jewish and Ukrainian people. "Ukrainian is the cradle of so much that is Jewish in our lives," he said. "Many of the great Yiddish writers were born in Ukraine or lived there, Sholom Aleichem, for example."

Rabbi Lincoln also mentioned Vladimir Jabotinsky, the Zionist leader who was acquainted with Symon Petliura and attempted to dispel accusations that the Ukrainian leader had organized pogroms.

Rabbi Lincoln was born in 1937 in London, the son of Ashe Lincoln, a queen's counsel, who helped organize the Anglo-Ukrainian Society in 1935 and who helped publish a booklet, "The Ukrainian Question."

In 1993, Rabbi Lincoln translated from the original Yiddish, "The Jewish Ministry and Jewish National Autonomy in Ukraine," a book by Moses Silberfarb, a member of the Jewish Socialist Party and the minister and general secretary of Jewish affairs in the Ukrainian government in 1918.

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