Bleich Letter 8 23May98 Please substantiate or retract
If your 60 Minutes testimony concerning violent attacks on Jews by Ukrainians and
motivated by anti-Semitism is true, then it behooves you to substantiate it and in so doing
to remove the doubt which surrounds it. If your 60 Minutes testimony is false, then it
behooves you to retract it. Either option will constitute a step toward restoring your
standing in the eyes of the Ukrainian community, and in ameliorating Ukrainian-Jewish
relations.
Silence is an option only if you are prepared to encourage the conclusion that you spoke
impulsively and irresponsibly, and that you subsequently lacked the courage and integrity
to admit your error.
May 23, 1998
Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich
29 Shchekavytska Street
Kiev 254071
Ukraine
Dear Rabbi Bleich:
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