Letter to the Editor: Daniel H. Trigoboff

Many Jewish people have understandably been highly sympathetic to Ukraine’s plight. We have resonated to the constant flood of reports about innocent people being victimized by cruel invaders. In so doing we may have lost sight of some important realities about Ukraine’s historical treatment of the Jewish people.

Ukraine has been the scene of terrible pogroms against Ukrainian Jews. For hundreds of years murderous Ukrainian antisemites massacred Jewish people there in organized attacks, from Khmelnitsky to the Black Hundreds, attacks which together killed over 100,000 Jews.

During World War 2 significant numbers of Ukrainian civilians voluntarily participated enthusiastically in the murder of their Jewish neighbors, sometimes even exceeding the brutality of the German Nazis overseeing them. Even the Ukrainian guerrillas of Stepan Bandera, himself elevated to the role of national hero by Ukrainians, engaged in antisemitic acts.

Nowadays many American Jews take pride in the fact that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy is Jewish. Yet Ukraine has routinely voted on the wrong side of anti-Israel U.N. resolutions. Disturbingly, a report emerged today that Ukrainian civilians are attacking and robbing their Jewish neighbors in areas where law enforcement has lapsed.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is wrong. And simultaneously we can comprehend and condemn the historical and ongoing wrongs of Ukrainian conduct towards Ukrainian Jews, and towards Israel.

Daniel H. Trigoboff, Ph.D., Williamsville, NY