etsky - by merit of Zionist activities - was understandably one of the first to receive an immigration certificate to Palestine. His collaboration in the murder of tens of thousands of Jews did not make him unfit in the eyes of the officials of the Jewish Agency, who were distributing the certificates. He went to Eretz Yisroel where, it has been reported, the revengeful hand of the Jews of Bedzin killed him while he was taking a trip in the mountains. (Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, 1977, pp. 122-123) A related demonstration of how the accusation of Nazi collaboration is not levelled impartially, but is used as a political weapon can be found in the case of Dr. Israel Kastner. Comparison 2: Ukrainian Cruelty on Behalf of the Nazis Compared to Jewish Cruelty on Behalf of the Nazis Morley Safer states, addressing himself to Simon Wiesenthal: "I get the impression from people that the actions of the Ukrainians, if anything, were worse than the Germans." What can Mr. Safer possibly mean by such a statement? Does he mean that he knows of a Ukrainian whose actions are worse than Hitler's, and another Ukrainian whose actions are worse than Himmler's, and another whose actions are worse than Eichmann's, and so on down the line? Surely, this is an impossibility, as Ukraine has never been accused either of starting the Second World War or of engineering the Final Solution. Surely all that Mr. Safer means is that some Ukrainians can be found who were worse than the average German, or the average Nazi, or even the average member of the SS. Agreed - undoubtedly such Ukrainians exist, but what of it? Similar deviants exist in all groups. Relevant here is that every faithful account of the Jewish Holocaust is peppered with statements such as the following: Question survivors of the ghettoes and camps. They all certify that the beatings they received at the hands of the Jewish 'golden youth' were filled with scorn. They fulfilled their tasks with a zeal and cruelty to a greater extent than that required by the German commanders. (Y. Efroiken, Sanctity and Valor of the Jews, in Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, 1977, p. 21) He [K. Tzetnik] depicts the figure of Eliezer Greenbaum, son of Yitzchak Greenbaum, who, thanks to his tactics of acting as informant and displaying cruelty - to an extent which amazed even the Germans - was elevated to the rank of the bloc commander. (Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, 1977, p. 21) Practically all of the kapo officers were academicians - persons with degrees - who behaved like wild beasts and at times were more cruel than the Nazis. (Reb Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and Testimony on Jewish War Criminals, 1977, p. 121) Is it in the interests of historical truth to allude to the Ukrainian beasts without mentioning the Jewish beasts? Does the depiction of one without the other constitute information or disinformation, reporting or propaganda? Who commands such bias in the media? Who pays for it? These are issues worthy of address by a team of intrepid investigative reporters, should any be found. Comparison 3: Ukrainians Saving Jews Compared to Jews Saving Ukrainians Jews have had many opportunities to save Ukrainians. For example, Jews could have saved Ukrainians during the induced famine of 1932-33, during which Jews fared better than Ukrainians for several reasons: (1) Jews tended to be urban whereas the famine tended to be rural; (2) Jews were more affluent, and money buys food even during a famine; (3) Jews received support from other Jews in the West; (4) Jews occupied positions of authority, and in fact can be said to have administered the famine. Thus, Jews had ample opportunity to save Ukrainians simply by giving them food or by sabotaging the food-confiscation process. Or, in the mass deportations and executions, during which Jews again occupied positions of authority, there was again ample opportunity for Jews to subvert the process and hide or save Ukrainians. We have already seen above innumerable cases of Ukrainians saving Jews, but can we now locate a single case of a Jew saving a Ukrainian? Simon Wiesenthal, for example, had his life saved by the Ukrainian Bodnar, but did Simon Wiesenthal ever in his long life reciprocate by saving a Ukrainian? We saw above that an entire Ukrainian family was shot by the Nazis for hiding a Jewish woman, but can we find a single instance of an entire Jewish family being shot by the Bolsheviks for hiding a Ukrainian woman? We saw above that the Ukrainian mayor of a town was shot by the Nazis for helping Jews, but can we find a single instance of a Jewish mayor - and there were many Jewish mayors in Ukraine - being shot by the Bolsheviks for helping Ukrainians? We saw above Metropolitan Sheptytsky risking his life and the lives of other Ukrainians by hiding Jews on church property, but can we find a single instance of a rabbi risking his life and the lives of other Jews by hiding Ukrainians on synagogue property? We saw above Metropolitan Sheptytsky writing to Himmler protesting the shooting of Jews, but can we find any similar case of a rabbi writing to Lazar Kaganovich protesting the starvation of Ukrainians? One would like to see a statement from Morley Safer as to the justification for this double standard. When the most rudimentary and obvious comparisons indicate that Ukrainians have been disposed to Jews much more favorably than Jews have been disposed to Ukrainians, how can Morley Safer justify concluding the opposite? 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 60 Minutes' Cheap Shots 60 Minutes peppered its broadcast with distortions and misrepresentations. Here are nineteen miscellaneous instances: (1) Doctoring the sound track to bring out the evil of torchlight parades. The torchlight marchers are not a clear indication of anything, and without some enhancement, the scene would have fallen flat, and so 60 Minutes overlaid an exaggerated, rhythmic tramping sound which added an ominous militaristic flavor to the scene. In fact, given that it is dark and there is no band and the marchers are not singing, it is impossible for any but local groups of them to keep in step, and simple leather-soled or rubber-soled shoes could not have made such a sound - it would have taken cleated boots. The rhythmic tramping superimposed by 60 Minutes continues to be heard even when the paraders can be seen to be walking more than marching. One can see that the added sound effects are only imperfectly coordinated with the movements of the feet. (2) "Adolph Hitler Square". "The place they're marching in was once called Adolph Hitler Square," Mr. Safer tells us, but does not add that it was so called by the Germans and that it was not called that either before the Germans came or after they left. (3) Gratuitous accusation of mimicking. Mr. Safer informs us of the marchers that "Their chants and banners mimic another more fearsome time." But this is absolutely gratuitous - neither the chants nor the banners are mimicking anything. The marchers are not wearing swastika armbands and their banners do not contain Nazi symbols. They are not chanting "Death to the Jews!" but only "Slava natsiyi!" which means "Glory to the nation!" and is about as ominous in Ukrainian as "Vive la patrie!" is in French. Mr. Safer's syllogism here seems to be: The Nazis sometimes held torchlight parades. These Ukrainians are holding a torchlight parade. Therefore, all Ukrainians are Nazis. (4) If it sounds like "Nazi," then it must be "Nazi." 60 Minutes broadcast the above-mentioned "Slava natsiyi!" several times, but never provided a translation. But as "natsiyi" sounds like "Nazi," this invites the listener who does not know any Slavic languages to think that something is being said about Naziism, and the context supplied by Morley Safer suggests that this something is complimentary. (5) The menace of boy scouts and girl guides. Desperate for any images that to a gullible 60 Minutes audience might be suggestive of undying Naziism within Ukraine, Morley Safer presents film clips of Ukrainian boy scouts and girl guides. (6) Censorship through muted translation. When a Ukrainian in Lviv says "A Russian shot my brother!" 60 Minutes mutes the English translation to the point that it is almost inaudible. The critical viewer is left wondering whether the operating principle might not be that when a Ukrainian says something that might win sympathy for Ukrainians, omit it; in the case where the image has some overriding appeal (that was a pretty craggy Ukrainian, he was pretty excited, and the lighting was wonderful), then mute the translation to the point of inaudibility. Furthermore, in the 60 Minutes transcript of The Ugly Face of Freedom, the statement "A Russian shot my brother!" is entirely omitted, one might imagine following this same principle of avoiding attracting sympathy to Ukrainians. (7) Who welcomed the Germans? Mr. Safer says that "The same square greeted Hitler's troops fifty years ago as liberators," making this seem like another symptom of a Ukrainian addiction to Naziism. Of course we understand that it was not the square which greeted Hitler's troops at all, but rather people in the square, and it was smart on Mr. Safer's part not to draw attention to the people, because there might follow the natural question of "What people?" and the honest answer would have to be "All people - Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews." Jews welcomed Hitler's troops? - Yes, so it would appear: The prevailing conviction [was] that bad things came from Russia and good things from Germany. The Jews were historically oriented away from Russia and toward Germany; not Russia but Germany had been their traditional place of refuge. During October and November, 1939, that conviction, among other things, drove thousands of Jews from Russian-occupied Poland to German-occupied Poland. The stream was not stopped until the Germans closed the border. Similarly, one year later, at the time of Soviet mass deportations in the newly occupied territories, [there was] widespread unrest among Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews alike. Almost everyone was waiting for the arrival of the German army. When the army finally arrived, in the summer of 1941, old Jews in particular remembered that in the First World War the Germans had come as quasi-liberators. These Jews did not expect that now the Germans would come as persecutors and killers. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1961, p. 206) Upon experiencing the impulse to blame Ukrainians for welcoming the Germans, the impartial journalist might recognize that all groups had been traumatized by their exposure to Communism, and all hoped for relief from the Germans. (8) Chief Rabbi of Ukraine. Although Rabbi Bleich is introduced by 60 Minutes as the "Chief Rabbi for the Ukraine," he is in fact an American from Brooklyn, New York, perhaps unqualified to hold such an exulted title for several reasons: (1) Rabbi Bleich is a Hasidic Jew, and so perhaps not authorized to speak for other Jewish sects. (2) Rabbi Bleich is newly-arrived in Ukraine carrying his full load of American-engendered prejudices, and seemingly unaware of the history of Ukraine, or even of the contemporary situation of Jews in Ukraine. (3) Rabbi Bleich, as of the date of the 60 Minutes broadcast, spoke some Russian, but negligible Ukrainian. Some Ukrainians might think that one prerequisite for the post of "Chief Rabbi of Ukraine" would be fluency in Ukrainian. The title of "Chief Rabbi of Ukraine," then, may be viewed as being self-proclaimed and presumptuous, and as carrying no standing within Ukraine or anywhere else. In crediting the title, Morley Safer was just blowing up Rabbi Bleich's credentials to give his words more weight. (9) An observation or a hypothetical case? Rabbi Bleich is shown saying, "Obviously, if someone - you know? - screams 'Let's drown the Russians in Jewish blood!' there isn't too much love lost there." Yes, if anyone did scream such a thing, we might safely infer that the screamer was motivated by a hatred of both Russians and Jews (even though we wouldn't be able to conclude much about anybody other than the screamer). But in fact Rabbi Bleich does not claim that anybody ever did scream such a thing. The 60 Minutes viewer is left with the impression that Rabbi Bleich was reporting something that he witnessed, but his wording commits him to nothing more than contemplating a hypothetical case. (10) Lenin's Jewish ancestors. After interviewing the editor of Lviv's daily For a Free Ukraine, 60 Minutes cuts to Rabbi Bleich saying "There's an article that came out just two weeks ago where they tried to prove that Lenin was really Jewish...." The impression created is that this article was published in For a Free Ukraine, and that For a Free Ukraine is a major newspaper in Western Ukraine's major city. In fact, however, "there's an article that came out" does not precisely inform us where the article was published. Perhaps it was published in Ukraine's equivalent of a supermarket tabloid. Perhaps it wasn't published at all, but only circulated in pamphlets. Perhaps it's just a rumor and nobody can produce such an article. But even if published in For a Free Ukraine - so what? A higher standard of journalism than that exhibited by 60 Minutes would have reported who was the author of this article, what position he holds in Ukrainian society, how good were his data and his arguments, where was the article published, about how many people may have read it, does anyone believe it, does it alter anybody's attitudes toward contemporary Jews even if they do believe it? - But of course such questions weren't answered, and we are left able to conclude no more than that Rabbi Bleich wishes us to believe in the existence of a virulent Ukrainian anti-Semitism. The Bleich statement is representative of a large number of statements in which events are referred to obliquely, indirectly, vaguely - and on this basis, the viewer is invited to jump to some strong conclusion. "I get the impression from people...." says Mr. Safer. Now there's a lazy substitute for investigative reporting! What people? Why can't we see these people for ourselves? Perhaps they are just a couple of cronies of Mr. Safer's whose company he prizes because they are as bigoted as himself. And what do we care what one or two of Mr. Safer's friends think? 60 Minutes should show its viewers the data on which these people are basing their conclusions and let the viewers draw their own conclusions. But this is not what 60 Minutes did - its broadcast was short on data and long on instructions on how to feel. (11) Morley Safer, genetic theorist. Mr. Safer tells us that "The Church and Government of Ukraine have tried to ease people's fears, suggesting that ... Ukrainians, despite the allegations, are not genetically anti-Semitic." Here we see a new escalation in the level of irrationality with Mr. Safer now divulging to us the existence of the allegation that Ukrainians are genetically anti-Semitic. For an anti-Semitism which Mr. Safer failed to document, he now suggests a cause from the fairyland of pseudoscience, and suggests furthermore that the Church and Government of Ukraine have dignified this charge by denying it. That Ukrainians are pronouncedly anti-Semitic, Mr. Safer takes as a given requiring no corroborative evidence, and so he shifts attention to speculating as to how they could have gotten that way. Perhaps Morley Safer will appreciate how bizarre and inflammatory his statement is when its direction is reversed: "The World Jewish Congress has tried to ease the growth of anti-Semitism, suggesting that Jews, despite the allegations, are not genetically predisposed to usury." Now if Mr. Safer had heard that on Ukrainian television, he could have brought it back as very good evidence not only of Ukrainian anti-Semitism, but of Ukrainian irrationality as well - but he didn't hear any such thing during his visit to Ukraine, and he brought back nothing. To encounter that degree of hatred and that level of irrationality, you have to leave Ukraine for the United States and tune in to 60 Minutes. (12) Church of Ukraine. But even while rebutting Mr. Safer's main point, I have been carelessly adopting his slovenly terminology. "Church of Ukraine"? What "Church of Ukraine"? There is no "Church of Ukraine" any more than there is a "Church of Canada" or a "Church of the United States." Ukraine has more than one variety of Orthodox church, more than one variety of Catholic church, more than one variety of Protestant church; and Ukraine has as well a full slate of non-Christian religions. It even has agnostics and atheists - just like a real country. Thus it is not only in his big lies, but also in his small misstatements that Mr. Safer reveals to us that his perception of Ukraine is uninformed, indeed wholly stereotypical. To him, perhaps all Ukrainians conform to some archetypal image - wielding a saber, hard-drinking, pogrom-prone, and Christian (to the question "What kind of Christian?" we almost expect Mr. Safer to ask "You mean Ukraine has more than one kind?"). And so when Mr. Safer speaks, he does not report what he has recently observed in Ukraine, but rather reads off from his internal image. He goes to Ukraine not to study it, not to report on its reality, but merely to provide a backdrop for the proclamation of his own preconceptions, of his own prejudices so deeply rooted that confirmation scarcely seems necessary, of his own stereotypes so apparently unchallengeable that the anticipation that they might be in error does not enter consciousness. (13) Peasants with nuclear weapons. Mr. Safer states: "Uneducated peasants, deeply superstitious, in possession of this bizarre anomaly: nuclear weapons capable of mass destruction thousands of miles away!" This is one piece of information that I did find both newsworthy and disquieting. Although it requires us to lay aside data indicating that American education is inferior to Ukrainian, we cannot but be persuaded that the farmers shown in the broadcast were indeed both uneducated and deeply superstitious - one look at their weatherbeaten faces and deep wrinkles and I was convinced. The information is so alarming and the threat to world stability so great that I expect Mr. Safer must have immediately telegraphed President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine to inform him that the uneducated and deeply superstitious peasants had seized control of Ukraine's nuclear weapons, and to urge him to recapture the weapons and place them back under the control of the educated and less-deeply-superstitious peasants. Who can argue with Mr. Safer's syllogism here? - Old and wrinkled people are uneducated and deeply superstitious. Here is an old and wrinkled person who may or may not be Ukrainian. Therefore, it is dangerous for Ukraine to have nuclear weapons. Out of respect for Mr. Safer's personal vulnerability, I will refrain from demonstrating the retargetability of this syllogism. But to be fair to Mr. Safer, he did not really say that the peasants were in possession of the nuclear weapons - what he actually said was that they were in possession of an anomaly. This is an unfamiliar concept, and I cannot get my mind around it - what does it mean to say that someone is in possession of an anomaly? Perhaps what it means in this case is simply this - that Mr. Safer sensed that even the uncritical 60 Minutes viewer at whom he was aiming his story wasn't going to believe that the Ukrainian peasants had gotten control of the nuclear weapons, and so the thing to do was to speak gobbledygook - to suggest that they did but without actually saying it. (14) Why leave Ukraine? Mr. Safer suggests that the explanation of Jewish emigration from Ukraine is anti-Semitism: "The [anti-Semitic] message is clear to Lvov's Jews. They're leaving as quickly as they can get exit permits." I can think of an alternative interpretation. It is that given the catastrophic and deteriorating economic situation in Ukraine, practically everybody in the country wants to leave, but it is disproportionately Jews who can afford to and who are allowed to. Anybody who is emigrating from Ukraine today is, in comparison to the average Ukrainian, both wealthy and influential. Iosef Zissels, co-president of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine as well as co-president of Va'ad (Confederation of Jewish Communities of the Former Soviet Union) has stated that: "Many Jews are emigrating from Ukraine, not because of anti-Semitism, but because of the unstable situation in Ukraine. They see instability in Ukraine, as well as in all the former republics of the Soviet Union, as lasting a long time" (Ukrainian Weekly, January 26, 1992). (15) Symon Petliura. Mr. Safer tells us that "Street names have been changed. There is now a Petliura Street. To Ukrainians, Symon Petliura was a great General, but to Jews, he's the man who slaughtered 60,000 Jews in 1919." But that is not what happened and it is irresponsible to broadcast such an accusation. Of course here as elsewhere, the 60 Minutes numbers may be somewhat inflated - Orest Subtelny gives us a more moderate range of 35,000 to 50,000 Jewish fatalities (Ukraine: A History, 1994, p. 363), though even the lower bound of 35,000 is still a horrendous number. The main point, though, is that in 1919, Ukraine was in a state of civil war. Two Russian armies - the Bolshevik Red Army and the anti-Bolshevik White army - were rampaging through the country, and both were killing Jews. The White Army, in particular, had an official policy of killing Jews, proceeded to do so in an organized and methodical manner, and can be credited with the majority of the victims: The Ukrainian pogroms differed from those of the Whites in two ways: in contrast to the premeditated, systematic undertakings of the Russians, they were spontaneous outbursts of demoralized and often drunken irregulars, and they were committed against the express orders of the high command. Unlike the White Russian generals such as Anton Denikin, the Ukrainian socialists, especially the Social Democratic party to which Petliura belonged, had a long tradition of friendly relations with Jewish political activists. Therefore, the Directory renewed Jewish personal-cultural autonomy, attracted prominent Jews such as Arnold Margolin and Solomon Goldelman into its government, appropriated large amounts of money for pogrom victims, and even negotiated with the famous Zionist leader Vladimir Zhabotinsky about the inclusion of Jewish police units into its army. But while Petliura's attitudes towards the Jews might have been well-intentioned, he was unable to control the otamany (the court-martial and subsequent execution of Semesenko and other partisan leaders did not improve the situation), and their dreadful deeds were associated with his government. And because many Jews considered themselves to be Russians, they found it easier to lay all the blame for the pogroms on Petliura and the Ukrainians rather than on Denikin and his Russian generals. (Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, 1994, pp. 363-364). The Jewish accusation against Petliura is that maybe he could have done more to prevent the pogroms. Well, maybe and maybe not. In any case, it is not fair for 60 Minutes to describe a man who implemented vigorous measures to protect Jewish interests and to stop the pogroms - but maybe could have done more - as "the man who slaughtered 60,000 Jews." Further insight into Symon Petliura's attitudes may be gleaned from the Petliura page on the Ukrainian Archive. (16) Blessing the SS. Mr. Safer informs us that "for this reunion [of Galicia Division veterans in Lviv recently], Cardinal Lubachivsky, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, gave his blessing, just as a predecessor did to the SS more than 50 years ago." The blessing of this predecessor was likely the blessing of Bishop Kotsylovskyi and was a blessing of the Galicia Division, which as we have seen above was not quite the same thing as the German SS. (17) The immaturity of blaming others. Mr. Safer tells us that "Western Ukraine also has a long, dark history of blaming its poverty, its troubles, on others." Of course, no evidence of any unusual tendency to blame others is provided - but then the sharing of hatred such as Mr. Safer's is not an evidentiary matter, but is rather the warm feeling you get when you pass along a stereotype and your partners in hatred accept the stereotype without asking for evidence. But we may ask Mr. Safer just what it was that he might have had in mind. Perhaps it was the Ukrainian Holocaust that Ukraine should accept as its own fault and stop blaming others for? Perhaps it was the devastation wrought during the Second World War that Ukraine should start accepting as its own fault? Or maybe it was the eight decades of Moscow's strangulation of Ukraine's economy that Ukraine has really no one to blame for but itself? Ukraine has so many such calamities to choose from that it is impossible to guess - perhaps Mr. Safer would be kind enough to simply tell us precisely which of them he thinks it is that Ukraine should be mature enough to accept responsibility for having brought upon itself. (18) Dividing Ukraine. 60 Minutes gave the impression that its story focussed solely on Western Ukraine, when in fact a portion of it came from Central Ukraine. Rabbi Bleich's full title, for example, is not "Chief Rabbi for the Ukraine," but rather "Rabbi of Kiev and Ukraine," (where Kiev is in central Ukraine) and although 60 Minutes gave the impression that he was interviewed in Lviv, he was in reality interviewed in Kiev. Similarly, while Mr. Safer was in the middle of interviewing representatives of the Ukrainian Catholic church in Lviv and was saying "The Cardinal's deputy, Monsignor Dacko, denies traditional anti-Semitism in the Ukraine....", the viewer was being shown St. Volodymyr's cathedral which unlike Monsignor Dacko was in Kiev and which unlike Monsignor Dacko is Orthodox rather than Catholic. I suppose that 60 Minutes committed itself to the scene-setting introduction "... and the West, where we go tonight ...", and then suppressed the Kiev origin of some of its material so as to give the story the appearance of having a consistent locale; and perhaps as well 60 Minutes wished to restrict its smearing to Western Ukrainians so as to promote divisions within the country. (19) Freedom from slavery is too much freedom (for Ukrainians, anyway). The title of the 60 Minutes broadcast, "The Ugly Face of Freedom" is puzzling. The freedom being referred to must be the freedom from Russian rule, and so the title suggests that Ukraine would be better off back within the Russian empire. But Morley Safer's suggestion is inappropriate for three reasons. First, anti-Semitism is strong in Russia and weak in Ukraine (Ukraine has no counterpart of either Pamyat or Zhirinovksy), and so it is unclear how falling back under Russian rule would assist Ukraine in avoiding anti-Semitism. Second, Ukraine's current problems are more rationally seen as being the result not of too much freedom, but of too little - specifically, Ukraine's problems are the result of continuing to be ruled by the old Communist nomenklatura that had originally been appointed from Moscow and that presently is robbing the country blind while obstructing economic reform. A weak economy, in turn, affects Ukrainian-Jewish relations by inviting scapegoating from each group against the other and by promoting Jewish emigration out of Ukraine. Thus, it is not too much freedom, but rather the absence of freedom from rule by Moscow's appointees that most stands in the way of good Ukrainian-Jewish relations. Third, it is surprising to hear an American objecting to freedom from slavery. Some 60 Minutes viewers will notice that Mr. Safer objects to it on behalf of other people and not on behalf of Americans. I expect that if anyone were to argue that American anti-Semitism or America's low quality of education or America's high crime rate is the result of America having broken away from England, Mr. Safer would not agree. I expect also that if England had been guilty of the horrific crimes against America that Russia has been guilty of against Ukraine, Mr. Safer would find the suggestion odious. In fact, Mr. Safer's suggestion is as odious to Ukrainians as would be the suggestion that Israel would be better off under German rule would be odious to Jews. No, Mr. Safer's suggestion is more odious - this because Berlin today is not ruled by former Nazis, whereas Moscow today is ruled by people who just a few years ago were ardent Communists and who today continue to be ardent imperialists. 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 Ukrainian Anti-Semitism Is there any? Of course there is. Anti-Semitism is universal. Ukraine has some, just as does the United States or Canada or Israel. But is there more anti-Semitism in Ukraine than elsewhere? 60 Minutes said so - as much as said that Ukraine leads the world in anti-Semitism - but failed to provide any evidence of this, and in fact does not seem to be aware of how to go about obtaining such evidence. The American Jewish Committee did a better job - it sponsored a survey in 1992 about attitudes toward Jews in the republics of the former Soviet Union, and its findings do not support 60 Minutes' allegations: 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 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 A Sense of Responsibility Jews have lived with no other peoples as intimately and for as long as they have with Ukrainians. In this shared history, there have been bright periods and dark episodes. It is possible to imagine a shared future in which the bright periods predominate and the dark episodes are banished. This is the future that Ukrainians and Jews should strive toward, this is the image that should guide them in their dialogues and that should have guided Mr. Safer in his broadcast. Perhaps it is already the attitude that inspires the majority of both Ukrainians and Jews. The Jewish claim to a share of the newly-created nation of Ukraine is as tenable as that of the ethnic Ukrainians and of the ethnic Russians and others who reside there. At present, all three of these groups are beginning to mine that claim in relative peace. Differences are being overlooked, cooperation is the norm, a bright future is possible. Into this scene burst immature and undiplomatic people like Morley Safer needing a sensational story, Simon Wiesenthal desperate to retain his relevance in the modern world by having it believed that 1941 is repeating itself, and Yaakov Bleich disoriented by having been plucked from the United States to fill this exotic role of rabbi of Ukraine - and these three show no