Comments on: Ukrainian Jews: the Mad, the Dishonest, and the Dead

By: Danny the Admin

Danny the Admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:35:42 +0000

Ignorance is not a virtue. Tragically, a lot of Jews who lived in villages died in your Holodomor famine.

By: greg tryl

greg tryl — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:38:11 +0000

Cant belive ive just read aone sided view there is good and bad in every race through out history ukrainians as well as jews have been persecuted ,holodomor for example and the jewish nation can honestly say they are blameless I think not you always say never forget which I agree BUT AT THE SAME TIME START ANEW just a tip or a uncmfortable eye opener for you look at the power in ukraine and russia whatsthere orgin russian ukrainian? no JEWISH

By: Danny the Admin

Danny the Admin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 09:01:47 +0000

Goebbels wrote in his diary that every German had come to him to implore for a Jewish friend, that that Jew is unlike other Jews. Or, as Ukrainian saying goes, “My Jew is no Jew.” Personal relations are very different from those of mobs.

By: Chana

Chana — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:10:42 +0000

My grandfather came to the USA from the Ukraine in 1903, as a Jew fleeing Tsarist pogroms. I grew up on horror stories of how “evil” Ukrainians were. It took me a long time to get over that childhood training.

But then I met some Ukrainian-Americans at a church near my home, when I attended their Slavic Festival. They were such lovely people, that my husband and I offered to volunteer as helpers for their next festival.

To make a long story short, I was pregnant and my baby and I almost died during childbirth. When one of the church ladies called to ask how I was, and my husband told her what had happened, she organized the ladies of the church to deliver food and gifts to our home while I was still in the hospital with our new baby!

They did this even though we did not belong to their church, and even though we are Jewish. At no time did they try to convert us, either.

So you see, there are good and bad in all nationalities!

By: Inanna Baskan

Inanna Baskan — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 03:33:16 +0000

My father at the age of eight lived with his mother and stepfather in a one-room house. They hid him above the oven, from which safe perch he saw his mother and stepfather shot dead by Petlyura’s men.

That is all I need to know to make me fear Ukrainians. Please do not post my name or city for them to come after me and kill me too.

This month I read part of a newly published book, editd by by Joshua Rubenstein and Ilya Altman, called “The Unknown Black Book: The Holocaust in the German-Occupied Soviet Territories” which cites the “black book”’s documentation, collected first hand in the 1940s from survivors, detailing that Ukrainians pointed out to the Germans which individuals were Jews and helped also in the killing of Jews. I looked up Uman, where my father’s aunt, uncle, and cousins lived. (That explains the deaths of my father’s aunt, uncle, and cousin during the Nazi era.)

My father, however, survived to produce me, since he and his grandfather left the Ukraine in 1923 and were spared the Nazi episode.

And are you going to claim that Bogdan Khmelnitsky was not Ukrainian? Or that Petlyura is not a HERO to Ukrainians?

So, you wish we would stop mentioning your killing us?

I too have a wish or two.

I wish you hadn’t killed my grandmother and my great aunt and my cousins.

I wish you would stop killing us.

I wish you would stop being “outraged” at us.

(And what is the cause of your outrage???
The fact that we object to being murdered!!!
YES, BY HEAVEN, WE CERTAINLY OBJECT!!!)

Well, this time it wasn’t you.
This time an Islamic group called the Deccan Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the slaughter in Mumbai.

Congratulations. Mazal tov.
You seem to be innocent this time.

By: Danny the Admin

Danny the Admin — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:30:21 +0000

Thanks, you made me laugh. I’m visiting Ukraine often, and the heaps of anti-Semitic publications sold at every corner in Kiev and other cities assure me that Ukrainians, Yuschenko included, oppose anti-Semitism.
Attacks on rabbis and Jews around Ukraine also confirm your point of view.
Then, there is a history of pogroms and massive cooperation with Nazis in Ukraine against Jews.
You gays have the slaughterers such as Khmelnitsky, Petlyura, Shuhevich, etc as your national heroes.
And there is MAUP, seething with anti-Semitism and teaching 50,000 young bureaucrats at any given moment.

By: Roman Melnychuk

Roman Melnychuk — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:41:52 +0000

As a Ukrainian, I am deeply outraged by this article. You all paint us as anti-semitic and in reality Ukrainians helped more Jews during WWII than any other country. I wish all this anti-ukrainianism by Jews would stop. Once both sides have come to agreements, then there will be peace and both sides can unite as one.

But, don’t call Ukrainians anti-semitic because as a majority, we don’t tolerate anti-semitism in any of our cities. And with Yushchenko, Anti-semitism is going to be harder to spring up in Ukraine.

Roman

By: Adam Baron

Adam Baron — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 04:28:40 +0000

To say the least, the relationship between Jews and Ukrainians historically has been tense, violent, hateful, but also interdependent and human.The above account is very good at conflating elements of truth with lies. The fact that this is an emotional subject makes the matter that much easier.What is specifically wrong with the above opinion?For starters, it is incorrect that Ukrainians exterminated more Jews than any other nation. In this, they are beaten among others by Germans, Russians, and Arabs. The story of Bohdan Khmelnytsky is true. Under his uprising, many Jews were killed, and when I say many I mean the five digit number cited above. The store is however much more complex (isn’t everything)? At the time, the Ukrainian nation – by the way, historians, such as Andrew Wilson, do not recognize existence of a Ukrainian nation until a couple of centuries later – comprised of the worker peasants was oppressed by Jew tax collectors and usurers. This similar type of hatred can be found in Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice” where Jews were hated by the non-Jews for guess what – charging high interest rates, et cetera. The Jews at the time of Bohdan’s uprising were middlemen of Polish government walking and collecting the money. The also served the same function under the Tsar. Every now and then, the Poles and later Russians had to let their populations to vent their anger by allowing pogroms, and massacres. In the case of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, he used this mass hatred of the oppressing Jews to his advantage (as Henry Kissinger would call it – realpolitik).What does the Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk say about the Jews? I have no idea and the author does not say so I will just have to skip that rhetorical device. Orlyk however was not a warlord. Orlyk was a cossack Hetman who was elected following Hetman Mazepa’s death (after the Battle of Poltava against Russians). Also, I am almost certain that Orlyk’s constitution is not in Ukrainian children’s curriculum or even at the high school level. It simply is not (maybe it should be, but I still have no idea what it says about the Jews).Another note about the pogroms, umm…Poles, Belarussians, Russians, Germans, French populace all had them against the Jews throughout their history. To single out Ukrainians as the worst is a biased and flat out wrong statement.The case of Petlura is similar to Khmelnytsky in that both are valued for their fight for freedom of Ukrainians from oppression. Both killed Jews and so will be hated by others. This cannot be reconciled. A modern comparison is Ariel Sharon who is respected and revered by many Jews, but is hated by Palestinians and Arabs. Who is right?Before discussing Nazis, let’s look at the 1930s in Ukraine and the murder of millions of Ukranians by communist idealists during what is known as HOLODOMOR. Wikipedia I think has an article about that as well, and according to it between 7 to 10 millions of Ukrainians and then some of Kazakhs and in Kuban region were killed with artificial starvation. Lazar Kaganovich, a Jew, was the top dog. Another middle man?Anyhow, Holodomor is to Ukrainians what Holocaust is to Jews. That is a lot of people dead on both sides! One important distinction is of course that nobody knows about the Holodomor because unlike the Germans, the Soviets did not keep good records and that the KGB still refuses to release its Holodomor files.Finally, if there is a country that really hates Jews, RUSSIA is it. A simple search of internet produces credible evidence.Anyhow, the relations between Jews and Ukrainians are tense, but like I said above the two people do get along if they have to live together. Nothing will erase the history of pain on both sides and Ukrainian nationalists will continue to hate Jews just as the latter will continue to hate Ukrainians and write garbage like this on the internet.The bottom line is that Ukraine accepts Israel as an independent state and supports its right to exist and defend against any attacks. Writings like this belong in the refuse room after they have been critically processed.SEE BELOW:*Israel Voices Concern at Anti-Semitism in Russia, Calls Officials ?Drunks?http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/01/20/israeldrunks.shtml Here is a finding by Euro-Asian Jewish Congress:”In a comparison of anti-Semitism in Russia and Ukraine, researchers have concluded that the situation in Ukraine is noticeably calmer. Manifestations of interethnic conflicts in Ukraine are not as acute as in Russia. The level of Jewish phobia in particular and xenophobia in general is lower among Ukrainians than among Russians, and Ukrainian political groups employ anti-Semitic tactics less than Russia?s politicians.”ANTI-SEMITISM IN UKRAINEVyacheslav LikhachevSource: http://www.eajc.org/program_art_e.php?id=10