Anti-Semitism And The Ukrainian PressBy Alexandre NaimanDirector of Kiev Regional Branch |
I took the above to be a reference to my article which appeared to have been translated into Ukrainian and published in Za Vilnu Ukrainu. The fact that Za Vilnu Ukrainu had not informed me of this publication and had not sent me a copy struck me as puzzling.
In any case, having seen the above allusion to me in the Jewish Press Magazine, I made attempts to obtain a copy of the translation which was said to have appeared in Za Vilnu Ukrainu, and for some time was unsuccessful. Although some copies of Za Vilnu Ukrainu were to be found in North America, in every case the particular issues that I wanted seemed to be missing. Also, queries mailed to Za Vilnu Ukrainu in Lviv initially met with no response. However, with the assistance of intermediaries, I was finally able in March of 1996 to obtain a copy of the article. As it turned out, Za Vilnu Ukrainu is a broadsheet consisting of four pages, and the Ukrainian version of my article occupied all of page 2 in three consecutive issues — March 21/22/23, 1995.
In examining the translation, I quickly discovered that there was good news and bad. The good news was that it was a pleasure to read my own words translated into Ukrainian. But that little piece of good news was totally smothered by the bad. The bad news, in an approximately ascending order of importance, was:
(1) In the original article, I frequently used block quotation format to signal when I was quoting — that is, the material being quoted was indented on both left and right, and a smaller font used. In the Za Vilnu Ukrainu translation, however, this indentation and smaller font were not employed, with the result that it was often difficult or impossible to tell when I was speaking and when quoting, and so that the article was rendered confusing, illogical, and incoherent.
(2) A key three-sentence paragraph in which I was at my most tolerant and conciliatory was reduced to a single mistranslated sentence which conveyed exactly the opposite meaning. What I had said was:
| 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. |
But Za Vilnu Ukrainu reversed the meaning of the first of the above three sentences, and quite omitted the remaining two:
| The claim of Jews to their own role within the Ukrainian nation is no more logical than the claim of the ethnic Russians and others who reside there. (Za Vilnu Ukrainu, March 23, 1995, p. 2) |
(3) Za Vilnu Ukrainu prefaced my article with an editorial which contained statements which in no way reflected my own views or the views contained in my article. My translation of this editorial is as follows:
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The contemporary speaker of the Israeli Knesset, Shevah Weiss, was saved from the Hitlerites by the residents of the city of Boryslav (Lviv province). Rabbi David Kahane together with his family and with hundreds of other Jews were hidden by Metropolitan A. Sheptytsky. Simon Wiesenthal, a notorious spy working for various intelligence services, among them the KGB, was saved from death in Hitlerite-occupied Lviv by the Ukrainian, Bodnar. Today are celebrated the names of hundreds of Ukrainians who during the so-called Holocaust risked their lives and the lives of their families and friends in order to save thousands of Jews from genocide. Therefore, at least those who have been rescued, especially the Weisses, Kahanes, and Wiesenthals, should be able to recognize that when they portray all Ukrainians as "genetic anti-Semites," they are broadcasting abominable and savage slanders. But they nevertheless do fanatically conduct themselves in this way. Why? We have already had occasion to reveal the secret of this conduct. World Jewry, the leaders of Judeo-Zionism, have as their objective the extermination of Ukrainians in Ukraine so as to be able to seize its territory for the New Jerusalem. For this reason, there is created on a world scale the requisite image of Ukrainians as deep-rooted anti-Semites, an image which provides a practical solution to the problem of how to win tacit approval for the seizure, a ploy that we have already seen implemented during the Bolshevik-organized mass famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933. The 60 Minutes broadcast of October 23 of last year [1994], on the American telecommunications network CBS — this is a typical sally of the chosen-of-God in this psychological war. It is worth underlining that the Jews have always warred against the nations among which they lived. In ancient times, as the Torah testifies, they physically exterminated the Amorities, Caananites, Frezyites, Amalekites, Moabites. It is not for nothing that the 18th-century French sage Paul Holbach characterized Jews as the eternal enemies of mankind ("Gallery of Saints," 1962, p. 42) Minutely analyzing the 60 Minutes broadcast, Lubomyr Prytulak (Canada) convincingly demonstrates the absolute groundlessness of the Jewish portrayal of Ukrainians as "genetic anti-Semites." In the context of the indications concerning the goal of Judeo-Zionist calumnies — they like Ukrainian land! — L. Prytulak's article completely clarifies the nature of the conflict. Therefore, it is both expedient and timely to acquaint our readers with this article. Incidentally, this article was sent by the author in the form of a letter to the owner of the telecommunications corporation CBS, multimillionaire Laurence Tisch. With some abridgement, we are publishing Taras Hordienko's translation of this article. |
The statement in the above editorial that departs most widely from my own views is that Jews want to exterminate Ukrainians so as to turn Ukraine into a New Jerusalem. This statement clearly does not accord with the observation that Ukrainians are not being exterminated, nor with the observation that Jews are being evacuated from Ukraine, predominantly to Israel, where the fight to win an unchallenged claim to the Old Jerusalem is commanding all available Jewish resources.
(4) Za Vilnu Ukrainu had introduced a large anti-Semitic illustration into the middle of each of the three installments of my article. I found these illustrations artistically primitive, uninformative, distracting, and offensive. I was embarrassed that anyone would attach them to my work. All three illustrations have my name written across the top. Along the bottom of the first and the third is written "Analysis of Jewish slanders." Extending up the left margin, then along the top, then down the right margin is "The Ugly Face of CBS" I reproduce these illustrations below:
Numerous lesser distortions and irregularities were discovered in the Za Vilnu Ukrainu anti-Semitization of The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes, but need not be detailed here.
My initial thought was that this perversion of my work was attributable to patriotic Ukrainians who were incensed at the injustices of the 60 Minutes broadcast, and who had been carried away by their righteous indignation to express themselves in ways that were intemperate, ill-considered, and ultimately self-defeating. Since that first interpretation of what had gone wrong, however, I am inclined to a different view.
My reinterpretation now is that I am yet another Ukrainian who has been conscipted — in my case unwittingly — into replaying the role of Trofim Kichko. This reinterpretation is based in the first place on a CUI BONO analysis — I ask who gains and who loses by the Za Vilnu Ukrainu creation? I lose in that my article which in reality was devoid of anti-Semitism is now rendered crudely anti-Semitic. Ukraine loses in the eyes of anyone who sees the Za Vilnu Ukrainu article. And who gains? Moscow, in making Ukrainians appear virulently anti-Semitic discredits and destabilizes Ukraine. And Israel gains, in that Jewish Ukrainians are given one more reason to feel unwelcome in Ukraine and one more reason to emigrate to Israel.
My article in Za Vilnu Ukrainu occupied a large proportion of Za Vilnu Ukrainu's resources — one quarter of its page space over three successive issues. If the staff of Za Vilnu Ukrainu had been proud of what they did, if they thought that they had no more than provided me with a venue for my views, then one would have expected them to notify me of the publication, and to send me a copy. They did not do this. They knew that I would not approve. They knew that they were connecting my name to thoughts and emotions that I would find repugnant. Most importantly, they knew that they were acting to smear me and to discredit me. Look at those three crude cartoons above with my name plastered prominantly across the top of each one, and tell me that the editorial staff of Za Vilnu Ukrainu might have been unaware that they were crucifying me.
Thus, I ask myself, who is behind Za Vilnu Ukrainu? Who supports this newspaper? Who gives it donations? Who protects it from prosecution? Who suggests mistranslations and cartoons? A CUI BONO analysis does not assign blame, but it does tell us where to start looking — Moscow and Jerusalem. These are the two forces that gained by this travesty; Ukraine and I lost.
It bears some small relevance to our discussion of CUI BONO that in the above quotation from The Jewish Press Magazine, the writer Alexandre Naiman exhibits three signs of Russocentrism: