Film and book on Ukrainian Jews are presented at Shevchenko Society (11/14/04)

Film and book on Ukrainian Jews are presented at Shevchenko Society

by Dr. Orest Popovych

NEW YORK - Ukrainian-Jewish relations are always a hot topic, which is why on October 16 the lecture hall at the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) was filled with an audience anxious to hear and view a two-part program that documented two very different types of Jewish experience in Ukraine during different periods of the 20th century.

The 2003 film "Arnold Margolin - An Eminent Ukrainian and Jew," shown here by its co-producer, Iryna Ovdiy, depicts the success story of a Jewish activist who was also a Ukrainian patriot, occupying important posts in the government of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) in 1918-1922, who later dedicated much of his life to Ukrainian causes. In contrast, the 2004 book "Jews of Ukraine in the Years 1943-1953: Outlines of Documented History," which was presented by its author, the historian and archivist Michael Mitsel, is a tale of Ukrainian Jews as victims of discrimination and persecution. Both presentations were complemented by the expert commentary of Dr. Taras Hunczak, professor of history and political science at Rutgers University.

The program was opened by NTSh Vice-President Dr. Orest Popovych, who extended a special welcome to Mr. Margolin's grandson, Gary Graffman, president and director of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Prof. Vasyl Makhno, who took over the rest of the proceedings, set the appropriate tone for this event by reading the poem titled "To Agnon" by the contemporary Ukrainian poet from Ternopil, Borys Shchavursky. That poem is dedicated to Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888-1970), who was born in the town of Buchach in Halychyna and eventually became a famous Israeli writer, winning the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Arnold Margolin (1877-1956), born in Kyiv, was a lawyer, a Jewish political activist and an ardent supporter of Ukraine's independence. After Ukraine had declared independence in 1918, Mr. Margolin served the UNR government in various capacities - as a member of its General Court, as deputy foreign minister, member of the UNR delegation to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference and as chief of the UNR mission in London. After emigrating to the U.S. in 1922, he continued to support Ukrainian causes and became active within the Ukrainian American community. Mr. Margolin was a member of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S., a professor at the Ukrainian Technical Institute in New York, and a contributor to the weekly Narodna Volya. The Ukrainian Free University of Munich awarded him an honorary doctorate.

Mr. Margolin's fascinating life story provides rich material for a film, which was utilized by the Ukrainian producer Oleksander Muratov of Kyiv to create the semi-documentary "Arnold Margolin - An Eminent Ukrainian and Jew," which had its American premiere at the Shevchenko Society. In her introduction, Ms. Ovdiy stated that the film was commissioned by the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, and its world premiere took place at the Cinema Building in Kyiv.

In the film, scenes from the hero's early life in Kyiv are played by actors and much attention is devoted to Mr. Margolin's participation in the legal defense of Mendel Beilis, a Jew falsely accused by the Russian tsarist authorities of the ritual murder of a Christian boy. The notorious Beilis trial of 1913 ended with the acquittal of Mr. Beilis by a jury of Ukrainian peasants. Mr. Margolin's UNR years are documented with the aid of some film footage as well as still photographs, while his life in the U.S. is illustrated by live interviews with Ukrainians who knew and admired him. Dr. Hunczak makes an appearance in that segment of the film.

Following the viewing of the film, Mr. Graffman shared with the audience his personal memories of his grandfather as well as the entire Margolin family, which was one of the wealthiest in the Russian Empire.

Next came the presentation of the book by Mr. Mitsel, which documents the lives of Jews in Ukraine in 1943-1953. Born and educated in Ukraine, Mr. Mitsel now works at the Joint Archive in New York, the institution which financed his book. It was published in 2004 by the Judaica Institute in Kyiv, in Russian. The author's presentation, however, was in Ukrainian.

Mr. Mitsel's book is a product of thorough archival research, heavily documented and referenced. Its chapters deal with such topics as the alleged common anti-Semitism in Ukraine in 1943-1946, the transfer of Jews from Ukraine to Romania, Poland and the Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan in Siberia. There are chapters on the persecution of Jews through political trials directed at so-called "cosmopolitans," "Jewish bourgeois nationalists" and "Zionists," as well as economic trials for "thefts of socialist property." Salient examples in this orgy of persecution were the murder of the actor Solomon Michoels (1948), the arrest and prosecution of the members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist League (1948-1952), as well as the imprisonment of Jewish physicians in the notorious "Doctor's Plot" of 1953.

In his commentary, Dr. Hunczak shared his fond memories of Mr. Margolin, particularly from the latter's visits to Glen Spey, N.Y. With respect to Mr. Mitsel's book, Dr. Hunczak had nothing but praise for the author's accomplishment in researching and presenting the archival material, but criticized it for lacking the necessary historical context. For example, the alleged Ukrainian common anti-Semitism of the immediate post-war years, as well as some of the criminal allegations against the Ukrainian Jews could be explained objectively given the proper historical context in which they occurred.

Due to the exceptional length of the formal part of the program, the discussion period was cut short by Prof. Makhno, who closed by saying that conferences of this type are important for achieving better Ukrainian-Jewish and Jewish-Ukrainian understanding, and for getting rid of stereotypes on both sides.

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