In your appearance on the 60 Minutes broadcast "The Ugly Face of Freedom" of 23
October 1994, you offered some startling testimony concerning the existence of
anti-Semitism in contemporary Ukraine. In your own words:
There have been a number of physical attacks. In a small town, two
elderly Jews were attacked at knifepoint and stabbed because they are
Jews and because of the myth that all Jews must have money hidden in
their homes. The same thing was in west Ukraine, the Carpathian
region. These are very, very frightening facts, because it's - again
that stereotype that we mentioned before, when that leads someone to
really - to - to stab an older couple and leave them helpless, and
you know? - they left them for dead. That means that we have serious
problems.
In the mind of the typical 60 Minutes viewer, your statement would constitute a
substantial proportion of the Ugly Face of Freedom's evidence for the existence of
anti-Semitism in today's Ukraine, and the only evidence at all for the eruption of this
anti-Semitism into violence.
However, I cannot help noticing that your statement is devoid of detail. You do
not disclose the names of the victims, nor the places and dates of the attacks. Nor do
you indicate the source of your information - did you hear about these attacks on the
radio, see them on television, read about them in the newspapers, receive personal
communication, or what? This lack of detail is particularly troubling in view of four
considerations:
(1) that your non-specific testimony occurred in the middle of a broadcast which
was dominated by misrepresentation and disinformation;
(2) that it came from the mouth of an individual recognized in the Ukrainian
community for holding anti-Ukrainian views, and for spreading anti-Ukrainian hatred, as
I think I have demonstrated in my seven previous letters to you of 6Jan95, 26Sep97,
27Sep97, 28Sep97, 29Sep97, 29Sep97, and 30Sep97, in which letters are discussed such
issues as that of your reciting every Saturday in the capital city of Ukraine the
Khmelnytsky curse;
(3) that Jewish interests have sometimes employed exaggerated, or wholly-imagined,
or even self-inflicted anti-Semitic acts to achieve such aims as heightened group
cohesion or increased emigration to Israel; and
(4) that Jewish groups in Ukraine who monitor anti-Semitic incidents report being
unaware of the two attacks that you describe.
Specifically with respect to point (4) above, an open letter to Morley Safer and
the 60 Minutes staff from I. M. Levitas, Head of the Jewish Council of Ukraine as well
as of the Nationalities Associations of Ukraine, as published in the Lviv newspaper Za
Vilnu Ukrainu (For a Free Ukraine) on December 2, 1994, included the following
observations, which I translate from the original Ukrainian. In the portion of the
letter that I quote below, Mr. Levitas argues that the attacks you describe may have
been simple robberies devoid of anti-Semitism. More importantly, Mr. Levitas provides
us with reason to wonder whether the attacks occurred at all:
You reported that two Jews were robbed and beaten. This might have
happened, but most likely not because they were Jews. I imagine that
in Lviv, Ukrainians are also robbed (and significantly more often!),
and yet nobody draws from this the sort of conclusions concerning
ethnic hostility that you draw from the robbing of these two Jews.
Our Jewish Council constantly receives news concerning Jews in
Ukraine, but during the past five years, we have received not a single
report of anyone being beaten because he was a Jew. However, it must
be admitted that such a thing may have occurred without it coming to
our attention - there are plenty of miscreants in every country.
The above speculations lead us once again to the questions of whether your
orientation toward the Ukrainian state is supportive or destructive, responsible or
irresponsible, restrained by reason or fired by emotion. A step toward answering such
questions would be taken by your responding to the points below:
(1) Would you be able to provide the names of the two sets of Jewish victims that
you alluded to (that is, the victims of the knife attack, and the similar victims in the
"Carpathian region"), and the places and dates of the attacks? If by "a number of
attacks" you mean more than two, I would appreciate receiving such documentation for the
other attacks as well. If in addition you are in possession of corroborative evidence
such as videotapes, newspaper clippings, or letters, I would appreciate receiving copies
of these as well.
(2) If the attacks did occur, then there follows the question of what motivated
them. Mr. Levitas suggests that if the knife attack occurred, then it was more likely
driven by economic motives than anti-Semitic ones. You, on the other hand offer that
the attack occurred "because they are Jews," and "because of the myth that all Jews must
have money hidden in their homes," and because "it's - again that stereotype." But for
