BOOK REVIEW: Anti-Semitism around the world (09/14/97)

BOOK REVIEW

Anti-Semitism around the world

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - According to an assessment published in the "Anti-Semitism World Report 1997," in Ukraine, "anti-Semitism remains a marginal phenomenon as in previous years. Jewish issues are not prominent in current Ukrainian life. The major factors behind the appearance of anti-Semitism in Ukraine are economic instability, the political immaturity of the population at large, and the weakness of the state and government institutions."

Released on July 22, the report, a joint survey in its sixth year of publication, is issued by the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research (IJPR) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC). It provides assessments of anti-Semitic incidents and trends in 60 countries, arranged alphabetically within the continental regions of the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and South Africa.

The report's individual country surveys are divided into sections: "general background" (in which very good up-to-date thumbnail sketches of the latest political developments and economic conditions are provided); "historical legacy" (which gives an overview of Jewish presence and experience in the country); a section on "racism and xenophobia" in general and more specific sections dealing with anti-Semitic parties, organizations and movements; anti-Semitism in mainstream politics, in "cultural and sporting life," in religious life, in the media; Holocaust denial; opinion polls; demographic data; legal issues; and governmental and civic efforts to combat anti-Semitism.

Leonid Finberg, a Kyiv-based activist closely involved with the AJC's Project Ukraine, is acknowledged in the report's prefatory section along with a list of individuals who assisted in its preparation.

Ukraine surveyed

Checking in at four pages, the survey of Ukraine is brief (the U.S. survey is 32 pages long, 13 pages are devoted to Russia, six to Poland), fair, even-handed and contains no unpleasant surprises in its assessment of the current situation. Ukraine's Jewish population is listed at 450,000, living mainly in Kyiv, Lviv and Kharkiv.

The "historical legacy" section, largely accurate, contains a few debatable curios, including the assertion that intolerance toward Jews in the territory is "traceable to the establishment of the early Russian Church." Somewhat more problematic is the claim that the Haidamaka rebellions of the 18th century "gave rise to a popular tradition of anti-Semitism, in which the Jews were identified with aliens and the hated Muscovite government," [though this was an anti-Polish revolt].

This is in some sense an exceptional oddity, since the treatments of the Khmelnytsky uprising and other periods marked by anti-Jewish violence, including the post-World War I period and World War II, are not similarly marred. The Brezhnev Soviet period's anti-Semitism is illustrated by the publication-then-withdrawal of the notorious provocation by Trofim Kichko, titled "Judaism Without Embellishment." Suggestively, the paragraph on the Kichko book also appears in the Russian country survey's "historical legacy" section.

This parallel also draws a reader's comparison to two other similar paragraphs in the Ukrainian and Russian surveys.

The "Russian" version reads: "In the Brezhnev era, an anti-Zionist propaganda campaign aimed at countering the emigration sentiment of Soviet Jews was influenced by a number of anti-Jewish propagandists who introduced classical [sic] anti-Semitic theses under a Marxist-Leninist gloss."

In the Ukrainian survey, it reads: "In reaction to the Jewish emigration movement from the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, which began in the late 1960s, Ukrainian journalists and propagandists contributed to the officially sponsored anti-Zionist campaign, with its anti-Semitic excesses."

In either case, a mention of the healthy inter-ethnic solidarity that characterized the dissident movement in this period would have been most welcome.

The "racism and xenophobia" section hands Ukraine its most ringing endorsement - largely thanks to the new Constitution and the 1991 Law on National Minorities, which is credited with playing "an instrumental role in preventing ethnic strife by allowing individual citizens to use their respective national languages in conducting personal business and minority groups to establish their own schools."

Russian complaints about discrimination are noted, as are those of the Tatar and Ukrainian minorities in Crimea, who are said to have "criticized the national government for tolerating radical anti-Ukrainian and Russian chauvinistic groups on the peninsula."

Under the "parties, organizations, movements" heading, the worrisome Ukrainian National Assembly (UNA) and its paramilitary wing, Ukrainian National Self-Defense (UNSO), are described as part of "a small number of ultra-nationalist organizations on the fringe of Ukrainian politics."

According to the report, in February 1996 the assembly "set up a coordinating council together with a number of Russian ultra-nationalist parties" and its delegates signed "a so-called Declaration of the Kyiv Council of Slav Radical Nationalists," which declared "the cosmopolitan new world order with its imperialist dictatorship of the golden calf" as its enemy. The assembly's recent professed disavowal of its past opposition to the government is seen as "difficult to take seriously."

The Kyiv-based State Independence of Ukraine group (DSU), headed by Roman Koval, is noted for "inveighing against alien dominance in government departments, the army and business," and for its organized pickets featuring placards with slogans such as "Free passage to Tel Aviv for the Yids."

Another noxious grouping highlighted is the Ukrainian Social-National Party (SNPU), which requires that members be "pure" Ukrainians, as identified by language, culture, history, economics, psychology, mentality and biology; as is the OUN-U (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in Ukraine) which declared Poles, Russians and Jews traditional oppressors of Ukrainians at its third conference in January 1996; and the Lviv-based Organization of Ukrainian Idealists.

Stepan Khmara's Ukrainian Conservative Republican Party caught the report's eye because of his claims in Parliament that Western "pro-Zionist imperialism" threatens national security, but it is noted that the party's membership has slipped to 500.

The "publications and the media" section briefly lists the limited-run newspapers issued by the organizations profiled above.

Manifestations of anti-Semitism the report records are those that made the news in Ukraine, such as the vandalizing of Jewish gravestones in Berdychiv in early 1996, and the break-in at the United Jewish Community of Crimea building in September of that year.

Under the rubric "countering anti-Semitism," President Leonid Kuchma's spring 1996 meeting with Ukrainian Jewish organizations is noted, as is the coverage the event was given in the country's media. The report also mentions a November 9, 1996, presidential Kuchma radio address on an active constructive approach to "intra-national relations."

In closing, the report relates Mr. Kuchma's November 25-28, 1996, visit to Israel, where Ukraine's chief executive told the Knesset about Ukrainian authorities' determination to combat anti-Semitism.

The survey ends with the assessment quoted in full at the top of this article.

Australia and Canada

In the Australian survey, under the "cultural and sporting life" heading, the report provides a brief outline of the controversy surrounding the notorious anti-Ukrainian and anti-Semitic novel, "The Hand that Signed the Paper" by Helen Darville, a.k.a Demidenko, her unmasking as a plagiarizing charlatan and the polemic the book (which had received literary awards in 1996) engendered.

In a glancing blow, the report notes that "newspapers serving the Hungarian, Polish and Ukrainian communities all featured articles that attacked Jews for exploiting or oppressing their readership's compatriots in eastern Europe," but provides a specific example only in a Polish-language weekly's case.

In the Canadian survey, under the "legal matters" section, extensive coverage is given to the issue of war-crimes prosecution, particularly the efforts of U.S.-based private eye Steve Rambam who tracked down 157 alleged former Nazis living in Canada, and B'nai B'rith of Canada President David Matas criticisms of the Canadian justice system's sluggish efforts in bringing alleged criminals to justice. Only brief mention is made of the war crimes allegations brought against Wassily Bogutin of St. Catharines, Ontario, and Volodymyr Katriuk of Montreal.

Internet analysis

The report's approach to the question of the use of the Internet is attractive in its intelligence and moderation, and bears quoting directly. "Although the Internet is seen as free and anarchic and beyond control, nevertheless the presence of racists could be seen as an unwitting form of self-imposed social control, both because of the conventions they have to adhere to and the fact that they can be monitored. If 'battles' with them are fought out on the Net rather than in the streets, that constitutes an interesting development."

Fair and balanced approach

The report's compilers note in their introduction to the volume that "because of the very country-specific nature of anti-Semitism, it is necessary to strike a cautionary note when making general statements about the state of anti-Semitism throughout the world. An over-all positive assessment can appear to ignore problems in certain countries; but too much concentration on those problem countries can distort the picture as a whole."

Quite clearly, the IJPR and AJC's researchers keep closely to this guideline. As a result, they consistently provide interested readers with a comprehensive and valuable guide with which to view the manifestations of intolerance around the world specifically in their contexts and in comparative relief.

Quoted in the press release accompanying the report's issuance was AJC's Executive Director David A. Harris, who stated: "Such investigation is vital not only for the well-being of the Jewish community, but to all societies that value human equality and dignity, pluralism and a respect for diversity."

* * *

To obtain a copy of the report, write to Dan Larson, Publications Department, American Jewish Committee, 165 E. 56th St., New York, NY 10022, fax your request to (212) 319-0975; or send e-mail to larsond_ajc@compuserve.com

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