Ukrainian-Jewish conference notes new trends in Ukraine
by R.L. Chomiak
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly
WASHINGTON - The Jewish population of Ukraine continues to drop: one birth for every nine deaths; 20,000-plus emigrate to Israel alone every year. But the Israeli population of Ukraine is increasing: currently nearly 50 Israeli companies are operating in Ukraine, and one of them - Air Ukraine-Israel - ferries 1,500 passengers between Ukraine and Israel every week.
In addition, exports from Ukraine to Israel more than doubled between 1993 and 1995; today they are second highest of the total exports from the former Soviet Union. And Jewish cultural and religious life continues to thrive.
Those are some of the realities brought up on March 24 in Washington at a seminar called "Examining the New Realities of Ukraine," sponsored jointly by the American Jewish Committee as part of its Project Ukraine, and by the Embassy of Ukraine.
The seminar brought together about 50 experts representing the governments of Ukraine, Israel and the United States, people from non-governmental organizations and community and religious leaders from Ukraine and the United States.
At the end of the day, one of the participants, a veteran of other Jewish-Ukrainian conferences, commented: "This was refreshing. There was almost no talk of the past, just the present and future."
The reality from the Israeli government's point of view is that this is "the best period of relations between the state of Israel and Ukraine." These were the words by Robert Singer, Israeli's consul in New York, who also is his government's representative in the U.S. for all issues concerning Jewry in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. (Mr. Singer is a 40-year-old native of Chernivtsi who immigrated to Israel as a teenager. He also predicted that after the next election there will be at least four members of the Israeli Parliament who came from Ukraine. They could form a Ukraine lobby, he joked.)
Ambassador Yuri Shcherbak, who hosted the seminar at the Embassy of Ukraine, noted in his concluding remarks that there are natural ties - "vascular circulation" - among Ukraine, the United States and Israel. Earlier he had cited the very high level of relations between Ukraine and the United States, something that was confirmed by Ambassador Richard Schifter, special assistant to President Bill Clinton, who also spoke at the seminar.
Ambassador Shcherbak said Ukraine is looking for even closer cooperation within the Ukraine-U.S.-Israel triangle, and as an urgent project he suggested a joint effort against terrorism. Because of Ukraine's "transparent" borders, he said "currently we have in Ukraine 500,000 illegal immigrants who want to go abroad, who worsen the criminal situation in Ukraine," and some of whom may stage a terrorist act in Ukraine. Both Israel and the U.S. have valuable experience in fighting terrorism, he noted.
The ambassador urged the participants to consider organizing a conference involving the three countries to focus on the new Ukraine and on the civic society being developed there.
During the last 20 years, 180,000 Jews from Ukraine came to Israel, and another 120,000 to the United States, said Consul Singer. An estimated 320,000 Jews still live in Ukraine. These figures alone would support the strong triangular cooperation envisioned by Ambassador Shcherbak, a person with a unique vantage point since, before coming to Washington, he had served as Ukraine's envoy to Israel.
Based on this experience, the ambassador cited five lessons Ukraine could learn from Israel:
The seminar was a brainchild of the late David Roth, who had established Project Ukraine within the American Jewish Committee, noted David Harris, AJC executive director. He paid tribute to Mr. Roth, mentioned his strong support for the establishment of the U.S. Congressional Commission on the Ukraine Famine in the early 1980s, and said it was Mr. Roth, who "got us all together."
This seminar had been conceived a year ago, Mr. Harris said, but it was delayed because of Mr. Roth's death. The seminar program was developed by Rabbi Andrew Baker, director of European affairs at the AJC, who moderated the panels.
Mr. Harris also recognized Vira Goldman, who chairs Project Ukraine, and who with her husband, Robert provides the funding for it.
Seminar participants from Ukraine included Josef Zissels, president of the Association of Jewish Communities in Ukraine, who noted that "the blossoming of Jewish life and Jewish culture is possible only in an independent Ukraine." He talked about more than 250 Jewish communities active in Ukraine, 70 of them religious, and about 16 Jewish full-time and more than 70 Sunday schools in Ukraine. He also pointed to a system of social security that has been developed by Jewish communities, "because we understand that at this stage the government is unable to do more."
Brooklynite Yaakov Bleich, chief rabbi of Ukraine, who has worked there since 1989, said Jewish religious life in Ukraine "is the most organized of any in the diaspora." Jewish schools, he said, are supported by community organizations, by Israel and by the Ukrainian government, and kosher food is readily available everywhere. He also noted that the new constitution of Ukraine must be approved.
In turn, Ihor Ostash, member of the Supreme Council of Ukraine, read strong human rights clauses from the recently completed draft of the constitution, and recalled that last year Ukraine became a member of the Council of Europe - a recognition of its development as a democratic state.
Vasyl Kremin, head of the humanitarian affairs department in President Leonid Kuchma's office, said he expects the constitution to be adopted by June. He admitted that implementation of existing laws in Ukraine at times is inadequate and that the level of "legal culture" in Ukraine still is quite low, but he blamed this situation on the current transitional period in Ukraine - from its status within "a superpower called the Soviet Union, which in fact was post-tsarist Russia," to the status of an independent state.
He assured his listeners that today's Ukraine has removed all taboos on information, "including information about past relations," that a separate department of Jewish history now operates in the Institute of Politics of Inter-Ethnic Relations of the Academy of Sciences, and that a Jewish literature section has been established in the Central Scholarly Library - the second most important library on the territory of the former Soviet Union.
Taras Vozniak, chief of the foreign relations department in the Lviv city administration, said there are manifestations of xenophobia, including anti-Semitism, in Ukraine, as there are manifestations of Ukrainophobia. He saw the reason for these manifestations in the fact that many nations are represented among Ukraine's inhabitants and that in the midst of difficult economic conditions prevailing in Ukraine, there is a search for scapegoats.
Inter-ethnic understanding and an effective nationality policy, he said, are among Ukraine's top priorities. Mr. Vozniak appealed to his listeners to remember that Ukraine remains peaceful within a region that "is aflame with inter-ethnic conflicts [including] Chechnya, Abkhazia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Moldova, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Yugoslavia."
Myroslav Marynovych, head of Amnesty International in Ukraine, proposed more emphasis on conflict resolution in Ukraine. "Conflict of interests is natural," he said, adding that this is better understood in the United States than in Ukraine. And conflict leading to violence, he continued, means failure at attempts to resolve the conflict. Mr. Marynovych contended that some Jewish and Ukrainian interests differ and, naturally, they may come into conflict. But they can also be resolved peacefully through modern methods of conflict resolution.
"Western civilizations have made huge gains in harmonious resolution of inter-ethnic misunderstandings, and we count on your assistance to bring this experience to Uk-raine," he told the seminar. The important thing, said Mr. Marynovych, was to take this work away from extremists - both in Ukraine and in the diaspora - who don't want to be-lieve in the possibility of Ukrainian-Jewish understanding.
Leonid Finberg, director of the Research Center of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine, credited Ukrainian intellectuals for developing a Jewish-Ukrainian dialogue in Ukraine, starting with Ivan Dzyuba's speech at Babyn Yar in 1967. He also explained that his organization emphasizes its publication program because for decades Jews in Soviet Ukraine had no access to important works.
Alexander Motyl, associate director of Columbia University's Harriman Institute, reviewed U.S.-Ukraine relations over the past five years, from the time Ukraine was seen by American policy-makers as a "problematic nuisance state" to the present "strategic asset." He ventured an opinion that if Russia were a stable, democratic state, the U.S. would pay less attention to Ukraine.
Ambassador Schifter rejected this geopolitical view as not applicable for the 21st century. The U.S., he said, looks to "a world at peace," and since Ukraine is one of the largest countries in Europe - "it is more significant than Malta or Romania" - "the U.S. is genuinely interested in Ukraine for its own sake. ... As long as Ukraine wants to be an independent country, we support it."
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 7, 1996, No. 14, Vol. LXIV
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