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Israel Zangwill   Letter to Ukrainian Government   20-Oct-1919   Will surely ruin your state
"The danger that the massacres will surely ruin your state the same as it has destroyed those innocent Jewish victims, rather deepens my regret that you have till now not succeeded in suppressing fully the excesses." � Izrael Zangwill

A Letter of Izrael Zangwill
to the Ukrainian government,
c/o the Ukrainian delegation in Paris

We quote below an extract from a letter of October 20,1919, by the well-known writer and chairman of the Jewish Territorial Organization (ITO), Izrael Zangwill (London), to the Ukrainian government in reply to its invitation sent to him to take part in the Commission of Investigation of anti-Jewish pogroms in the Ukraine.
I take the opportunity to declare that there is no necessity for you to take this step, and to show your honest admission relative to the sad occurences in the Ukrainian cities in order to convince me that your government has taken measures � although, perhaps, not all possible measures � for the suppression of murders for which the uncertain conditions in Russia are mostly to blame.  The fact that you have granted the Jews national rights testifies to your real statesmanship, and appears as a sharp contrast to Poland and its attitude toward the Jews, and I earnestly hope that your republic will endeavor to give the whole world an example of strength and lofty patriotism which are the result of friendly cooperation and mutual esteem of all the various religious denominations and nationalities inhabiting a modern state.  The danger that the massacres will surely ruin your state the same as it has destroyed those innocent Jewish victims, rather deepens my regret � being, as I am, an adherent of self-determination of nations � that you have till now not succeeded in suppressing fully the excesses.
F. Pigido (ed.), Material Concerning Ukrainian-Jewish Relations during the Years of the Revolution (1917-1921): Collection of Documents and Testimonies by Prominent Jewish Political Workers, The Ukrainian Information Bureau, Munich, 1956, p. 76.

Comments on Zangwill's Letter

Who is Israel Zangwill?  He is an English author and Zionist, living 1864-1926:

Embraced Zionist cause of 1895 but abandoned official Zionism after Uganda offer was rejected and founded Jewish Territorial Organization with aim of creating "homeland" for Jews wherever possible.
Geoffrey Wigoder, editor, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Judaica, Len Amiel Publisher, New York-Paris, and Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1974, p. 643.

Pogroms strengthen Zionism.  But if Zangwill is a Zionist, then � unless he views Ukraine as the ultimate homeland of Jews � his goal must be to remove the Jews of Ukraine to another location.  And it follows that because he encounters resistance to this plan, he welcomes methods of overcoming that resistance.  Ukrainian anti-Semitism (whether real or imagined, whether spontaneous or incited) is just such a method.  Pogroms on Ukrainian territory (whether conducted by the Red Army, or the White Army, or the Poles, or Ukrainians) can be publicly decried as an inevitable manifestation of Ukrainian anti-Semitism, and can be privately lamented for the Jewish suffering even while it is welcomed for strengthening Zionism.  If "Ukrainian" pogroms were largely the work of the Red Army, or of Denikin's White Army, or were instigated by provocateurs sent by Poland or Russia, then Zangwill would not want to believe it.  Even while blaming Ukrainians for the pogroms, Zangwill was secure in the knowledge that no Ukrainian leader would dare to suggest that as Zionists benefitted from the pogroms, they themselves might be responsible for sending provocateurs to incite them, and propagandists to exaggerate and misattribute them.  If the Ukrainian government did everything in its power to prevent the pogroms, Zangwill's committment to Zionist would necessitate that he claim that it had not been enough, as we see him doing twice in his letter above.  If � as also happens in Zangwill's letter � he was invited to participate in the investigation of the pogroms, he would decline, because his existing interpretation of the pogroms was useful to Zionism, but the truth of the pogroms would not be.  Even while calling for religious tolerance in Ukraine, Zangwill would be aware that it was religious intolerance that advanced his cause.  Even while giving the appearance of defending the existence of Jews in Ukraine, Zangwill was following the Zionist plan of evacuating Jews out of Ukraine.  As a Zionist, Zangwill finds it useful to portray Ukraine as a place where Jews will never find rest.  As a Zionist, Zangwill finds it useful to portray Ukrainians as forever hostile to Jews.  Appealing to Zangwill to reconsider his views concerning the pogroms in light of the evidence is threatening the success of his Zionist plan, and so of course can only meet with his refusal.


The Zionist curse on Ukraine.  The success of the Ukrainian State would have interfered with Zionist plans.  This Ukrainian State embraced its Jews.  This Ukrainian State printed Hebrew on its currency � what other country has signalled its deference to its Jewish minority by such a salient token?  But the more accommodating the Ukrainian State made itself to its Jews, the more odious it became to the Zionists who were struggling to win the emigration of those same Jews.  The success of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Ukrainian State would have entailed the failure of Zionist plans for Ukraine, and so the destruction of such a state must have became a goal of Zionism.  The Ukrainian failure to understand the incompatibility between its own survival and the growth of Zionism may have played a significant role in the destruction of Symon Petliura's Ukrainian National Republic (UNR).  The curse of Zionism upon the Ukrainian State is captured in Zangwill's words, whose gist is, "the massacres will ruin your state," although they are weakened by the qualification that this ruin was only a "danger," and then strengthened by the second qualification "surely" suggesting that the ruin was indeed a certainty: "The danger that the massacres will surely ruin your state the same as it has destroyed those innocent Jewish victims...."  Although Zangwill's statement is somewhat cryptic, it might be taken to assert that "Jews have died, the Ukrainian State is destroyed, both of these are foundation stones in the building of Zionism."

And is it different today?  Only a little!  Zionism has been gobbling Ukrainian Jews, and many still remain to be gobbled.  There are no pogroms in Ukraine today, so in their place the Zionists broadcast the incessant message of Ukrainian anti-Semitism.  There is no more anti-Semitism in Ukraine today than there is anywhere else, so to create the opposite image, Zionists mount a campaign to prosecute Ukrainians for Nazi war crimes.  There is no war in Ukraine creating a flood of refugees which could be directed to Israel, but there is economic chaos, coupled with the economic inducements to relocate to Israel where a higher standard of living is made possible by American subsidies.  A successful Ukrainian State is one that Ukrainian Jews will not abandon, so a failed Ukrainian State becomes in the interests of Zionism.  By subsidizing Israel's brain theft, the United States works to destroy the Ukrainian State, which further increases the Ukrainian brain drain.

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