Jewish – Ukrainian Relations Show Promise in Understanding

By John Pidkowich

In building better understanding and mutual respect between Jews and Ukrainians, a positive step forward was an engaging evening talk and discussion conducted with Toronto’s Ukrainian community on April 8 at KUMF Gallery. Entitled “The Importance of Jewish-Ukrainian Relations”, talk presenters gave personal testimony about the Jewish community in Ukraine, in the context of history and current geopolitics. Main discussion was led by Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal MP for Etobicoke Centre and Mark Freiman, President of the Canadian Jewish Congress about the state of the ancient Jewish Cemetery in Sambir, Ukraine where thousands of Jews fell in mass murder committed by the Nazis in 1943. Mr. Freiman’s parents were among the few Jewish survivors. Listeners not only heard about these horrific crimes of WWII, but also of later Soviet desecration and attested more recent set backs to privately-funded rehabilitation work. Claims for sacred Jewish sites in Ukraine and other issues continue to face stubborn, uncooperative local authorities and wrongful judicial decisions. Although higher government authorities in Ukraine have offered promising support, Jewish and Ukrainian Canadian communities and both major political parties have pledged to work towards a positive outcome of these contentious issues. 

A strong beacon to developing Jewish - Ukrainian relations, Meylakh Sheykhet, Ukraine’s Director for the Union of Councils for Jews in the former Soviet Union, was invited to talk about his work in Ukraine and engage the community in discussion. He grew up in Ukraine and taught at the Odessa Telecommunications Institute. He now lives in Lviv and has written on Ukraine’s Jewish heritage, advocating protection for Ukraine’s lost Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust mass graves. Through his original and interesting presentation, he gave his personal account of Jewish - Ukrainian relations in Ukraine.

Mr. Sheykhet grew up speaking Ukrainian which his mother spoke and he considers Ukrainian to be his 2^nd Mother language, Yiddish being his first. Ukrainian was the common language to understand and respect each other. To his Ukrainian students, he would lecture in Ukrainian, for whom he felt sorry for as the Ukrainian language was forbidden at the time. He also wrote books on what it means to be Jewish and distributed them among friends not fearing the Soviet system and persecution.

In relations with Ukrainians, Mr. Sheykhet became close with writer Iryna Kalynets, the late historian Prof. Yaroslav Dashkevich and with many Ukrainian nationalists. He understood their ambition to rebuild Ukrainian independence and with many in the Jewish community supported the referendum for independence. He also stated that the biggest Jewish support for independence was that for the Orange Revolution which he still perceives as a big victory for the Ukrainian people. Otherwise, Ukraine would have been taken back to the re-emerging Russian Empire. During the first years of independence, many prominent Ukrainians made sacrifices to rebuild the country. Now, however, Ukraine has turned back to a pro-communistic bureaucracy ruling the country, grabbing property and resources through privatization and becoming wealthy themselves, misleading the people in the truth.

Aside from a mistrustful relationship with the current parliament Verkhovna Rada and the bureaucracy, Mr. Sheykhet stated that the Jewish community’s communication with the majority of the Ukrainian people is good. Travelling the Ukrainian countryside and hearing first-hand accounts from old villagers, on how side-by-side with Jews, they used to help each other living in peace and harmony. Particularly, mountain villagers and their communication with nature, spoke to him with an original truth from the heart claiming that “the Nazi’s started with the Jews and finished with Ukrainians”. 

In reflection, Mr. Sheykhet said Jews and Ukrainians have to find a way to live together today. In understanding negative beliefs held by each, their inspiration is centred around “Third Forces” which have nothing in common with Jewish and Ukrainian relations. For example, the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP), the largest non-state higher education institution in Ukraine, printed daily anti-Semitic booklets and papers for its 30,000 students to take and “grow hatred in the brain”. As found out, the origin of these papers was Russian and MAUP was getting paid [for their creation and distribution]. In support of Ukraine’s membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), Mr. Sheykhet’s organization wrote a letter to the US Congress and MAUP conspired having retorted with how could Ukraine enter the WTO if Ukraine is so anti-Semitic? Mr. Sheykhet’s reply was “no, it’s not, [talk of anti-Semitism] comes from outside Ukraine”.

When Mr. Sheykhet comes to a place to restore sacred sites of Jews, and Ukrainians come over to say “thank you” for doing the right thing, this inspires him to continue to return dignity to Jewish cemeteries, mostly with great effort under adverse conditions. Even where Jewish cemeteries have become privatised by former Communists as their own yards, Mr. Sheykhet stated that Ukrainians would not build/develop their properties atop of graves, “it’s not their style!” While appeal to Ukraine’s court system, which is completely corrupt, results in denial of claims for Jewish sacred sites, Ukrainians are at the same time accused of inhuman acts. He has stated that this is not true – these are actions of the bureaucracy and not the majority of the Ukrainians. Mr. Sheykhet's organization decided to bring an international voice to such an unacceptable situation, thinking that the former communists ruling Ukraine will pay more heed to outside rather than internal voices. These bureaucrats and political rulers believe that if they fail politically, they can simply travel abroad and avoid their mistakes. But if enough dissenting voices from Ukrainian and other communities were to greet them abroad having already pointed out that they are not in the right, they may change their ways. Unfortunately, as frustrating as it still seems, the Foreign Office of Ukraine in reply to a recent letter continues to disregard Jewish claims for sacred burial sites. 

To be taken possibly as a challenge, Mr. Sheykhet boldly asked “How would Ukrainian people better understand their position historically?” During World War II, both Jewish and Ukrainian people suffered at the hands of Germany and the Nazis. For example, Jewish people were to supposed to be completely annihilated in the Holocaust – 6 million destroyed. Ukrainian people lost 4 million in WWII and another 2 million Ukrainians were sent to Germany to forced labour. Mr. Sheykhet asserted that Ukrainians must speak openly about this, and that we should speak together about our suffering under the Nazis “which will enable us to build a common platform for a common memory”.

Nearing the end of the presentations, Iryna Korpan, host of OMNI TV's Ukrainian program “Svitohliad”, spoke about family recollections of her maternal Grandmother Kateryna Sikorska who hid three Jewish men in her home in Pidhaytsi, Western Ukraine, 1942-43, for which she was shot by the Nazis. Ms. Korpan is producing a documentary film on this story. Alti Rodal concluded the presentations by also sharing her family story about the loss of her Jewish grandparents in Chernivtsi during the War.

A question and answer session was followed by a reception.

PHOTO

From L. to R.: Mark Freiman, Meylakh Sheykhet, Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal MP