Based on the total of anti-Jewish responses to items appearing in the
questionnaire, the rank order of the states from most hostile to least hostile
toward Jews in 1992 is as follows: Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Lithuania,
Azerbaijan, Russia, Latvia, Ukraine, Moldova and Estonia. (Ukrainian Weekly,
June 21, 1992, p. 6)
Worthy of note, too, is that between 1990 and 1992, attitudes toward Jews became more negative
in all of the above republics, with the exception of Ukraine and Moldova, in which two republics
the attitudes became more positive. The failure of Ukraine to rank high on anti-Jewish
responses in this survey should have been noted by 60 Minutes, as should the improvement in
attitudes from 1990 to 1992. Instead of applauding the reality of favorable Ukrainian attitudes
toward Jews, and the reality that they are getting even better, 60 Minutes seemed bent on
encouraging their deterioration.
And, if 60 Minutes had wanted personal testimony concerning Ukrainian attitudes toward Jews to
bolster the dry facts coming from the opinion poll, then it could have consulted any number of
Ukrainian Jews who would have been happy to correct 60 Minutes' biases. The above-mentioned
Iosep Zissels, for example, would have offered observations such as that "There was a time when
the leaders of Pamiat [or "Pamyat" - the Russian anti-Semitic organization] would travel from
Russia to recruit supporters in Ukraine. They didn't find any. We are well aware of this fact"
(Ukrainian Weekly, January 26, 1992, p. 4)
CONTENTS:
Preface
The Galicia Division
Quality of Translation
Ukrainian Homogeneity
Were Ukrainians Nazis?
Simon Wiesenthal
What Happened in Lviv?
Nazi Propaganda Film
Collective Guilt
Paralysis of the Comparative
Function
60 Minutes' Cheap Shots
Ukrainian Anti-Semitism
Jewish Ukrainophobia
Mailbag
A Sense of Responsibility
What 60 Minutes Should Do
PostScript
Jewish Ukrainophobia
Is there any? Of course there is. Jewish Ukrainophobia is universal. Ukraine has some, just
as does the United States or Canada or Israel. But is there more Jewish Ukrainophobia in
Ukraine than elsewhere? Don't ask 60 Minutes - to ask such a question is to violate rules of
political correctness.
One thing missing from the above discussion of Ukrainian anti-Semitism, then, is any mention of
the reciprocal attitude of Jewish Ukrainophobia (or more generally of Jewish phobic responses
toward Gentiles or peoples of any other creed). But perhaps we would be able to evaluate
statistics on the rate of Ukrainian anti-Semitism more intelligently if we were able to put them
side by side with statistics on Jewish Ukrainophobia. If Ukrainian anti-Semitism shows a
declining trend over some interval, would this fact not be enriched by a comparison with the
trend of Jewish Ukrainophobia over the same interval? In a discussion of Ukrainian-Jewish
relations, how is it conceivable that the attitudes of Ukrainians toward Jews is deemed relevant
and susceptible to quantification, but the attitudes of Jews toward Ukrainians is not? Here, as
in several other instances above, we see a curious paralysis of the comparative function, a
puzzling Ukrainian passivity in allowing the Jewish side to set the agenda for discussion and to
limit its parameters. Ukrainian motes are put under the microscope and measured and analyzed,
but Jewish beams are not.
CONTENTS:
Preface
The Galicia Division
Quality of Translation
Ukrainian Homogeneity
Were Ukrainians Nazis?
Simon Wiesenthal
What Happened in Lviv?
Nazi Propaganda Film
Collective Guilt
Paralysis of the Comparative
Function
60 Minutes' Cheap Shots
Ukrainian Anti-Semitism
Jewish Ukrainophobia
Mailbag
A Sense of Responsibility
What 60 Minutes Should Do
PostScript
Mailbag
60 Minutes' Mailbag comment on October 30, 1994 - the Sunday following the original The Ugly
Face of Freedom broadcast - was inadequate. It failed to retract or correct any of the
misinformation noted above. It failed to present the other side of the story. It continued to
pour fuel on the fire.
Of what possible relevance is it that - as 60 Minutes reports a letter as saying - a fraction of
Ukrainians refuses to admit that they collaborated with the Nazis? Possibly, some minuscule
fraction does irrationally refuse to admit this (60 Minutes offered no data, of course) - but so
what? The same might be true of every other group. Possibly some minuscule fraction of Jews
irrationally refuses to admit that Jews collaborated with the Nazis (I don't have any data
either), and yet 60 Minutes does not seem to find the existence of this group noteworthy enough
to broadcast.
The following Sunday, November 6, 1994, 60 Minutes continued to focus on the Ukrainian reaction
to the original broadcast, but without correction, without retraction, without apology. 60
Minutes is willing to go as far as admitting that Ukrainians are upset, but not as far as
divulging that the cause of that upset is irresponsible and negligent reporting.
As of November 21, 1997, 60 Minutes has not broadcast any correction or retraction or apology.
CONTENTS:
Preface
