Dear editor,
I was both amazed and deeply disappointed by the offensive and highly-uninformed tone taken in the recent opinion piece by Askold S. Lozynskyj entitled “How insensitive bigots continue to play Ukrainians and Jews against each other.” [Kyiv Post online, Nov. 8]
Lozynskyj does a great disservice to the Ukrainian people when he uses language that is both anti-Semitic and ignorant of historical facts when he tries to argue that there is an inherent anti-Ukrainian bias in the Jewish community or in the Jewish media.
While relations between the Jewish community and the Ukrainian establishment and the government are remarkably improved over past decades, the reality is that for the entire history of a Jewish presence in this country, we have been victims of countless pogroms, latent anti-Semitism and the murder of tens of thousands of our Jewish brothers and sisters.
The role of some Ukrainians as perpetrators in the Holocaust must never be denied but we also recognize that there were many Ukrainians who actively worked to save Jews and their heroic actions must always be highlighted.
The bottom line which Lozynskyj fails to appreciate is that for us ever to create a lasting sense of positive co-existence between Jews and the Ukrainian people, we must first confront history’s realities, however painful they might be, rather than ignore them.
Sincerely, Oleksandr Feldman
Member of the Verkhovna Rada, President of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee.
