Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich
29 Shchekavytska Street
Kiev 254071
Ukraine


Dear Rabbi Bleich:

I see in recent issues of The Ukrainian Weekly that you call on Ukrainians to take steps to keep incipient anti-Semitism in check.  With this I would be in agreement were it not that without qualification, it misplaces the needed emphasis � I would suggest that contemporary Ukrainian anti-Semitism is weaker and finds more limited expression than contemporary Jewish Ukrainophobia, and that it is the latter which is currently the chief source of friction between Ukrainians and Jews, and which is the chief cause of what little Ukrainian anti-Semitism does exist.

My recommendation, therefore, would be that both sides work to tie down their respective loose cannons, and more particularly that the first efforts be directed toward the heaviest of these loose cannons � specifically, toward Simon Wiesenthal for whom the Ukrainian side has no counterpart in either intensity of hatred, lack of veracity, or media attention.

I think that the Jewish community would gain immensely in support from the Gentile community if it itself began to view Simon Wiesenthal with a critical eye and began to demand that he act responsibly, rather than offering him unconditional support and leaving it to the victims of his attacks to expose his calumnies � as happened earlier in the case of Jerzy Kosinski with serious loss to the perception of Jewish credibility.


Yours truly,


Lubomyr Prytulak