[57] (C. 141–176)
Англійський переклад вивчив та редагував Роберт С. Шерінс
Переклад професорів Зіви Явін та Раббі Джека Х Блума
«У VІІ столітті Ясси слугувало дорожньою зупинкою для емігрантів в Єрець
(Ізраїль) з центральних та східних європейських країн. В часи жорстоких заходів
Польщі в 1648–49 рр. (козацьке повстання під проводом гетьмана Богдана Хмельницького)
деякі євреї втекли з Польщі до Ясс та оселилися там. У відгуках польських
вчених того часу було записано, що євреї Ясс милували єврейських полонених, яких
вивозили на рабські ринки татари. Однак водночас євреї Ясс також потерпали від
переслідувань та погромів 1650 р. Козаки спалили Ясси та масово вбивали євреїв,
турків, вірменів. 1652 року, коли молдавський князь Василь Лупул був змушений
видати дочку заміж за сина Хмельницького Тимоша, козаки, які прибули на весілля,
вбили 60 євреїв; а інші змогли зберегти собі життя, лише заплативши великі суми
грошей. 1653 року Василя Лупула змусили припинити правління, і його зять Тиміш
прибув на допомогу із армією козаків. Вони знущалися з євреїв, саджали їх у вежі та
мучили, аби отримати більше грошей».
[58] http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:j_yS7ILNEDMJ:www.ukrweekly.com/
Archive/1997/299711.shtml+jew+in+ukraine+KHMELNYTSKY&hl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=
18&gl=ua&client=firefox-a
FACES AND PLACES by Myron B. Kuropas
Press attacks on Ukrainians continue in Chicago
«A few months ago, Chas i Podiyi, (Time and Events), a Chicago-based Ukrainian-
language newspaper, published an interview with Yoram Sheftel, Israeli defense attorney
for John Demjanjuk, and author of «Defending Ivan the Terrible».
Responding to the interview, a certain Rafael Levchin penned a commentary in
My America, a Chicago-based Russian-language newspaper, in which he wrote, among
other things, that Mr. Sheftel is a traitor to the Jewish people. «To say Mr. Sheftel sold
his soul would be to give him too much honor», wrote Mr. Levchin. «From that kind of
soul even Satan would turn away». Ukrainians are infinitely worse than Germans in their
treatment of Jews, Mr. Levchin continued. Germans only killed Jews during World War
II. Ukrainians have persecuted Jews since the days of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Ukrainians
happily served the Nazi cause by organizing the SS Division Galicia, eight additional
German troop divisions, and by orchestrating Babyn Yar, Mr. Levchin concluded. For
all those reasons, all Ukrainians are guilty of anti-Semitism and John Demjanjuk is their
worthy representative.
Since I am the co-director of the Ukrainian American Justice Committee, the
organization that sponsored Mr. Sheftel’s appearance before Chicago’s Ukrainians, an
appearance which led to the original interview in Chas i Podiyi, the editor, himself a
Ukrainian American Jew, asked me to reply to Mr. Levchin.
234234
In my response, I suggested, among other things, that Mr. Sheftel was an Israeli patriot
who preserved the integrity of the Israeli justice system. Had the innocent John Demjanjuk
been hanged following a Soviet-style show trial, the entire free world would have
condemned Israel. I also pointed out that Ukrainians never had eight German divisions;
that Jews often lived better in Ukraine than Ukrainians, especially in the larger cities; and
that it served no useful purpose to hammer away at the guilt of a few Ukrainian criminals.
Ukrainians, I pointed out, do not condemn all Jewish people for the crimes of Trotsky,
Kameniev, Zinoviev, Sverdlov and Kaganovich.
Mr. Levchin’s response to my article recently appeared in Seven Days, another
Chicago-based Russian-language newspaper. Following a list of potentially libelous
insults too banal to mention, he repeats his Ukrainophobic calumny about Khmelnytsky(«hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed») Petliura, (a «National Socialist, Nazi»)
and other Ukrainian leaders as was presented in his first article, demanding again thatUkrainians apologize for their crimes. The only reason Israel freed Mr. Demjanjuk was to
preserve good relations with Ukraine, Mr. Levchin concludes.
Mr. Levchin’s allegation that Israel freed Mr. Demjanjuk to preserve good relations
with Ukraine is absurd. In Israel’s view of the world, Ukraine is of little consequence.
There is no denying that Jews were massacred during the 1648-1649 rebellion ofBohdan Khmelnytsky. How many were actually killed during the Kozak rampage?
According to Prof. Paul R. Magocsi: «Almost without exception, today’s specialists on
the period reject what they describe as the grossly exaggerated figures in the [Jewish]
chronicles. The Israeli scholars Shmuel Ettinger and Bernard Weinryb speak instead of the
‘annihilation of tens of thousands of Jewish lives’ and the Ukrainian-American historian
Jaroslaw Pelenski narrows the number of Jewish deaths to between 6,000 and 14,000».
(Magocsi, «A History of Ukraine», 1996). This is far less than the «hundreds of thousands»
of Jews Mr. Levchin believes perished.
Turning to more recent times, it should be remembered that a Ministry of Jewish
Affairs was established during the days of the first Ukrainian National Republic, making
Ukraine the only state to have such a ministry. (See Solomon I. Goldelman, «Jewish
National Autonomy in Ukraine, 1917–1920», 1968; Moses Silberfarb, «The Jewish
Ministry and Jewish National Autonomy in Ukraine, 1918–1919», translated by Rabbi
David H. Lincoln, 1993). Anti-Semites don’t establish such ministries.
As for Symon Peltiura, there is substantial evidence that he was, indeed, a friend of
the Jews – and not their enemy. During his leadership of Ukraine, the Ministry of Jewish
Affairs was reinstituted (see Goldelman) and on August 26, 1919, Petliura issued an order
to the troops of the Ukrainian National Republic to «bring the perpetrators [of pogroms]
before the courts as enemies of the fatherland» to suffer «the most severe penalties of the
law». According to Prof. Taras Hunczak, «the frequently repeated charge that Petliura
was anti-Semitic is absurd. Volodymyr Jabotinsky, perhaps one of the greatest Jews of the