unaware of the two attacks that you describe.
Specifically with respect to point (4) above, an open letter to Morley Safer and
the 60 Minutes staff from I. M. Levitas, Head of the Jewish Council of Ukraine as well
as of the Nationalities Associations of Ukraine, as published in the Lviv newspaper Za
Vilnu Ukrainu (For a Free Ukraine) on December 2, 1994, included the following
observations, which I translate from the original Ukrainian. In the portion of the
letter that I quote below, Mr. Levitas argues that the attacks you describe may have
been simple robberies devoid of anti-Semitism. More importantly, Mr. Levitas provides
us with reason to wonder whether the attacks occurred at all:
You reported that two Jews were robbed and beaten. This might have
happened, but most likely not because they were Jews. I imagine that
in Lviv, Ukrainians are also robbed (and significantly more often!),
and yet nobody draws from this the sort of conclusions concerning
ethnic hostility that you draw from the robbing of these two Jews.
Our Jewish Council constantly receives news concerning Jews in
Ukraine, but during the past five years, we have received not a single
report of anyone being beaten because he was a Jew. However, it must
be admitted that such a thing may have occurred without it coming to
our attention - there are plenty of miscreants in every country.
The above speculations lead us once again to the questions of whether your
orientation toward the Ukrainian state is supportive or destructive, responsible or
irresponsible, restrained by reason or fired by emotion. A step toward answering such
questions would be taken by your responding to the points below:
(1) Would you be able to provide the names of the two sets of Jewish victims that
you alluded to (that is, the victims of the knife attack, and the similar victims in the
"Carpathian region"), and the places and dates of the attacks? If by "a number of
attacks" you mean more than two, I would appreciate receiving such documentation for the
other attacks as well. If in addition you are in possession of corroborative evidence
such as videotapes, newspaper clippings, or letters, I would appreciate receiving copies
of these as well.
(2) If the attacks did occur, then there follows the question of what motivated
them. Mr. Levitas suggests that if the knife attack occurred, then it was more likely
driven by economic motives than anti-Semitic ones. You, on the other hand offer that
the attack occurred "because they are Jews," and "because of the myth that all Jews must
have money hidden in their homes," and because "it's - again that stereotype." But for
you to know that the motivation was predominantly anti-Semitic, the perpetrators of the
attacks must have been caught and must have confessed and disclosed their motivation,
unless there exists some alternative evidence pointing to the same conclusion. In any
case, whatever the nature of the material that you relied upon to conclude that the two
attacks had been motivated by anti-Semitism, I wonder if you would be able to provide me
with a copy of it.
(3) I myself was unaware of any Ukrainian "myth that all Jews must have money
hidden in their homes." This strikes me not so much as a myth believed by Ukrainians
about Jews, as a myth believed by yourself about Ukrainians. I wonder if you could
inform me of what evidence you have that Ukrainians are so primitive in their thinking
as to entertain the fantastic myth that "all Jews must have money hidden in their
homes."
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