Analytics

The dynamics of manifestations of anti-Semitism in Ukraine

Vyacheslav Likhachev

Articles about anti-Semitism both in Ukrainian and foreign press usually start with disturbed statements such as "Recently the anti-Semitism in Ukraine has become stronger." "The ris of anti-Semitism" worries observers from Russia, Israel, Europe and the US. I will not even give specific examples. I believe that anyone who is interested in the topic of level of anti-Semitism in Ukraine and reads relevant materials from time to time (or all the time) is sick and tired of such assertions. The media is not the only group fond of this opinion. The allegation is repeated in numerous foreign monitoring reports, analytical presentations and in speaches of public leaders. In the course over last few years one could witness something like an "autumn exacerbation" in the discussions on this issue. In September - October debates around "Ukrainian-Jewish" relations usually intensify due to commemoration of such historical events as mass execution in Baby Yar and anniversary of organizations like the "UPA", the Ukrainian Rebellious Army.

Afore - named events accompanied by a certain number of actions and public statements provoke public discussions on a wider level and raise the question "What's going on with anti-Semitism in Ukraine now?" More than that, the statement that "assaults on Jews have become the normal state of matters in Ukraine" was produced recently by a respected Ukrainian Jewish organization. But usually it does not seem to be enough to merely constitute the country's catastrophic situation, but often the negative dynamics are specifically stressed. According to many observers, there is an "unprecedented increase of anti-Semitism." It would to be logical to find such an opinion in a single independent publication, but the frequent and assertive repetition of the statement about the situation deteriorating more with each passing year evokes the urge to check its accuracy and measure these "dynamics" in some tangible way.

Usually the assertion about an increase of the level of anti-Semitism is proved or, to be more exact, illustrated by several examples such as cases of vandalism or violence towards Jews, one to two publications in the marginal press, and of course by discussions on historical issues, especially related to attempts to evaluate the deeds of the "UPA", the Ukrainian Rebellion Army. But there is no analysis of the factual statistics in comparison with preceding periods. It is not really surprising, since there is not much interest in a systematic approach to collection and analysis of information regarding anti-Sermitism in the past years. Yet I do have the relevant statistics. For several years, with help and in cooperation with numerous Ukrainian and foreign non-governmental organizations, such as the Congress of National Minorities of Ukraine, the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities (Vaad) of Ukraine, Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, and the Union of Councils for Jews in former Soviet Union (UCSJ), I have been monitoring and analyzing different cases of xenophobia, including anti-Semitism. Collected information allows to draw careful conclusions regarding the development of the situation, conclusions based not on emotions and feelings, but on hard facts.

First of all it is worth mentioning that statements regarding the "growth" of anti-Semitism (as well as its "decline") are meaningless. "Anti-Semitism," a complex phenomenon, can't simply "rise" or "decline" by itself or, at least, we cannot say anything about it in such terms. There is no tool to measure anti-Semitism "in general," and it's not a tool that is possible to create. One can only trace the dynamics of the displays of anti-Semitism in some particular spheres. Thus one could talk about the amount of hate crimes towards Jews (more specifically, the ideologically motivated actions of violence and vandalism towards memorials, cemeteries and buildings where Jewish institutions are located). Besides one may talk about the volumes of anti-Semitic propaganda, but still probably not in its full variety. Vaad of Ukraine conducts systematic monitoring of the press and now we have at our disposal exact figures of the amount of anti-Semitic publications in last years. One could also mention displays of anti-Semitism in political life. It is practically impossible "to measure" statements of the politicians in figures. Nonetheless, we can evaluate the changing of the electoral results of the right wing radical political parties and those politicians who are well known because of their xenophobic or Anti-Semitic propaganda in between from one election campaign to another. Only by this means one could formulate a certain vision regarding the dynamics in this sphere. Finally, we could draw approximate conclusions regarding anti-Semitism based on sociological research by comparing results of research conducted in different years.

Therefore in our opinion, in order to verify the thesis regarding the "recent" "growth" of anti-Semitism in Ukraine, one should analyze the dynamics in the above mentioned four dimensions. We will try to gradually examine the situation regarding violence and vandalism based on anti-Semitism, electoral successes of xenophobic political parties, public propaganda in mass media and the level of anti-Semitism in mass consciousness.

Dynamics of anti-Semitic crimes

As it was mentioned above, hate crimes against Jews are mainly assaults and vandalism. Strangely enough, in Ukraine no systematic monitoring of cases of criminal anti-Semitism was carried out in the 1990s, therefore we can only talk confidently about changes over the last few years.

According to our data, there was a small rise in the number of attacks on Jews at the very beginning of the 2000s. The situation stabilized by 2005-2006, and in 2007 and 2008 the figure has even fallen slightly.

Although it is too early to give the final statistics, according to preliminary data of our monitoring, from January to November 2008 three people became victims of street attacks. Another two received light injuries as the result of the so-called "pogrom" of the Jewish Education Center in Lviv in July (the two elderly neighbors who carried out the attack also suffered as a result of the resistance shown, however, this does not negate the fact that it was they who initiated the confrontation).

In 2007, there were five anti-Semitic attacks in which eight people suffered (if we include one case which was not fully confirmed then we are talking of six attacks and nine victims).

In 2006, five incidents were recorded in which eight Jews were assaulted, as well as a passer-by who interceded. In one case (an attack with the use of weapons on Hitler's birthday in Dnipropetrovsk) it was a miracle that the victim was not killed. There were also two other questionable cases where we were unable to receive reliable information.

In 2005, more than eight people were harmed in six incidents (it is difficult to be more exact since one of the cases was an attack on a group of students in Simferopol). As a result of one of the attacks, the victim, a Kyiv yeshiva student, was brutally beaten by skinheads and received life-threatening injuries.

We should note that neither in 2007, nor in 2008 there were no such serious cases.

One cannot therefore assert that in 2007 - 2008 there was any particular increase in anti-Semitic violence; on the contrary, there was a slight fall. Yet it is precisely in the last two years that we have heard most public statements about increase in the number of anti-Semitic crimes.

If we look at dynamics of hate attacks around Ukraine in general, we will see a sharp increase in such assaults starting from the end of 2006. The victims of these attacks most often are people from Africa, Middle East, Central, South and South-Eastern Asia. According to information we have, in 2006 14 people became victims of xenophobic violence (two were killed). In 2007 there were nearly 90 victims (the exact figure cannot be given since some cases were not clear-cut). 5 people died (maybe 6, if we count one unclear case). According to preliminary information, during 2008 there were 77 victims of hate attacks. It should also be borne in mind that the public is much worse informed about racism displays in relation to people with black skin, or those from Asia, than about cases of anti-Semitism, and therefore the statistics are quite probably far from complete. These figures help to understand real level of hate violence in Ukraine and the place of anti-Semitic crimes in this context.

As for the vandalism (mainly desecration of Jewish cemeteries and memorials, as well as damage to synagogues and other Jewish infrastructure buildings), a rise has really been recorded during 2006-2007. Although this might partly be due to finally setting up reliable monitoring system in various regions of the country, where one was previously unavailable. However, according to preliminary findings for 2008, there has been a steep reduction in such crimes. In 2008 there were half as many of them as during the same period in 2006 and 2007 (11, 22 and 20 respectively).

This reduction seems to have happened due to some unexpectedly harsh sentences (including terms of imprisonment of several years) against anti-Semites proved in court to have participated in acts of vandalism. Previously such crimes had practically always gone unpunished or the punishment had been symbolic.

Anti-Semitism in political life: dynamics in the electoral movement

The Ukrainian political situation in the our sphere of interest presents an ambiguous picture. On one hand, people known for their anti-Semitic (or more broadly, xenophobic) rhetoric are active in very different political movements, and neither the public nor the political elite feel that the very presence of such personalities on the electoral candidate lists is compromising or unacceptable. Anti-Semitism is seen as unimportant. The only case when the leadership of a political movement took disciplinary measures with regard to a politician publicly making xenophobic statements, was the expulsion of Oleh Tyahnybok from the "Our Ukraine" faction after his remarks in the summer of 2004. And that happened in the specific circumstances of a presidential campaign. Anti-Semitic utterances by, for example, the patriarch of the Ukrainian national movement Levko Lukyanenko did not prevent him from being a respected member of the Yulia Tymoshenko Block (BYuT) during the last parliamentary term (and it did not bothered him in any way that he was a member of the same faction with, for example, Oleksandr Feldman).

On the other hand, radical right-wing political forces, especially those that focus on anti-Semitic rhetoric, face crashing defeat in election after election. Moreover, as political analyst and specialist on ultra-nationalistic political movements Andreas Umland states, Ukraine is the only Eastern European country where, despite a low electoral threshold, no parties or blocs from this political spectrum had never gotten into the parliament unassisted. There is nothing like the Russian "Rodina" ["Motherland"] party, or "Great Romania", or the League of Polish Families in Ukraine's parliament, and there wasn't even in the 1990s, when the national-patriotic discourse was far more relevant - at least in single mandate areas some radicals did get into the Verhovnaya Rada.

In the 2007 snap parliamentary elections only one radical rightwing political force was running - the ultra-nationalist "Svoboda" ("Freedom") party, led by former National Deputy [MP] and now Deputy of Lviv Regional Council Oleh Tyahnybok. "Svoboda" which espouses a racist policy of ethnic proportional representation gained 0.76% of the votes in 2007, doubling its result in the 2006 elections (0.36%). It seems that this improvement could be explained by the lack of any radical nationalist competitors in 2007. During the 2006 elections other parties were running: radical rightwing Ukrainian National Assembly; People's Movement of Ukraine for Unity; overtly anti-Semitic Ukrainian Conservative Party; Bloc "Sontse" ["Sun"] with its religious messianic rhetoric. Altogether they received less than 1% of the votes. It should admittedly be kept in mind that a certain number of votes from radical national electorate were "siphoned off" by Ukrainian People's Bloc of Kostenko and Plushch to the some extent by PORA-PRP block and party.

Of particular interest for us is the fact that the general volume of anti-Semitic propaganda during the election campaign in 2007 was on a different, considerably lower scale, than in 2006. Then the vast majority of such material was circulated by the International Academy for Personnel Management [MAUP], which was linked with Ukrainian Conservative party (details below). Despite considerable activity, at least in Kyiv, the Ukrainian Conservative Party only received 0.09 % of the votes.

Therefore on the basis of results of the last parliamentary elections, we can confidently assert that anti-Semitism not in any way is a popular subject in electoral rhetoric. Efforts to play the anti-Semitism card end up in failure. Rightwing radicals who gain relative success might be personally hostile towards Jews, however, they prefer not to focus on this subject, and at least do not actively use anti-Semitic rhetoric, and their electoral support is due to other reasons. In any case, there can be no question of a rise in popularity of anti-Semitic political forces.

Anti-Semitic propaganda: the fountain has dried up

"Unpunished and untrammeled anti-Semitic propaganda," the scale of which is also supposedly on the increase, is another clichés doing rounds from publication to publication. Lets also turn to exact figures.

According to data gathered by Vladimir Mindlin, who monitors anti-Semitic propaganda in the central press for Vaad of Ukraine, there were 542 anti-Semitic publications in 2007. Undoubtedly, the monitoring encompasses far from all publications, which is understandable, given that it is impossible to follow the huge number of Ukrainian newspapers (regional, party, religious, one-time campaigning papers during elections, etc). One can therefore hardly claim that these results should be interpreted as the exact number of anti-Semitic articles published in the Ukrainian media during the reporting period. Nonetheless, for our purposes they are very valuable since they enable to make a comparison with the relevant statistics from previous years (also gathered by V. Mindlin).

Thus, in 2006, 676 anti-Semitic publications were identified; in 2005 - 661; in 2004 - 379; in 2003 - 258 and in 2002 - 179. In 2001 there were slightly over 100 such publications.

What processes are reflected in these figures? At the very beginning of the 2000s, anti-Semitic material was mostly published in marginal publications, in general, monthly ultra-nationalist newspaper with a print run of around one thousand. From 2002, a new phase begins with a sharp rise in the scale of anti-Semitic propaganda.

The huge increase in the number of anti-Semitic publications between 2002 and 2006 was caused by activities of the International Academy for Personnel Management [MAUP]. MAUP publications contained up to 90% of the full amount of anti-Semitic material in the print media. From 2002-2005 the number of anti-Semitic articles was increasing each year by 1.5-2 times, including publications with a print run of tens or even hundreds of thousands of copies coming to the fore.

In 2006 the number of anti-Semitic publications rose only slightly against 2005. In 2007 for the first time since 2002 a reduction in the amount of anti-Semitic propaganda was observed. Furthermore, a detailed analysis indicates a reduction during the entire year but an especially sharp fall from autumn 2007 (183 publications during the first quarter; 137 - in the second; 147 in the third quarter, during the elections to the Verkhovna Rada (parliament); and 75 publications in the final quarter.)

In autumn 2007, for a number of reasons MAUP curtailed its anti-Semitic campaign as dramatically as it launched it. Since September 2007, with the trend continuing in 2008, there has been a sharp fall in the number of anti-Semitic publications. According to monitoring results over the first nine months of 2009 we can speak of a tenfold (!) reduction in the number of anti-Semitic publications in Ukrainian press in comparison with the same period in 2007.

Thus we can see that the claim about constant increase in anti-Semitism in the Ukrainian media was justified from 2002-2006, however it is precisely in 2007-2008 that we have observed a colossal decline in this area.

Anti-Semitism in the public consciousness

In sociology there are various methods for assessing how widespread xenophobia is within society. Ukrainian researchers (especially the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) and specifically Vladimir Paniotto) most often use the Bogardus Social Distance Scale, which measures social distance between different groups of the population. The respondent's answer to the question of how they would be prepared to view members of another ethnic group (as members of their family, close friends, neighbors, colleagues, etc) makes possible to determine social distance they would like to maintain with people belonging to that group. The accumulated number of various answers is used to assign a mark on a scale from one to seven, where the higher is the figure, the lower is the level of tolerance towards that group.

The last such survey was carried out in summer 2008. Although the results have not been officially presented, preliminary figures were given by V. Paniotto at a conference on Ukrainian – Jewish relations held in Kyiv on 29 October.

According to the results of the study, for the first time in many years the social distance index between the Eastern Slavonic majority (Ukrainians, Russians and Belarussians) and Jews decreased (from 4.6 in 2007 to 4.1 in 2008).

This is quite a significant change, although, of course, the results of one study are not yet enough to speak of a steady trend. It should be borne in mind that previously, according to earlier KIIS studies, the social distance towards Jews was only rising (from 3.63 in 1994 to 4.6 in 2007).

Unfortunately, the results of studies based on the Bogardus Scale are not enough, in my opinion, to draw conclusions about xenophobia (and anti-Semitism as one of its specific forms) in the mass consciousness. This scale determines precisely and only social distance, and interpreting it in terms of "tolerance", "xenophobia" and "anti-Semitism" is problematic. The Bogardus Scale was developed back in the 1930s, and first and foremost it measures the level of integration into society (not to say assimilation) of ethnic minorities. It would be hardly justified to try and to cover the whole diversity of inter-ethnic relations with this scale. One should therefore be very careful with any definite assertions like "such and such a number of respondents did not wish to see Jews as Ukrainian citizens" pulled out of the context of the study.

Furthermore, one should pay attention to the social context. I think that for a post-Soviet society a high level of social distance is on the whole natural, as is the "negative" development over the last 10-15 years. In circumstances of a breakdown of the Soviet model of society, the role of ethnic identification increases. This is a normal process. At the same time, the boundaries between different groups become more rigid, and the level of social distance accordingly rises. The role of religious identification also increases, obstructing closer contacts (including marriage) with members of different ethnic and religious groups. It is hardly justified to equate this process with a rise in xenophobia.

Finally, I would like to point out one detail specifically relating to anti-Semitism. Jews are in the most favorable position in comparison with other ethnic groups. They are the minority which is closest to the Eastern Slavonic (Ukrainian - Russian) majority. The distance with regard to Jews is less than that towards Romanians, Hungarians, Greeks or Tatars, not to mention the traditional "leaders" in the xenophobia rating - Roma (Gypsies), people from the Caucuses, South-East Asian countries, and people with dark skin. According to surveys over the last two years, only Poles have almost caught up with Jews - the social distance index with regard to them was 4.7 in 2007 and 4.2 in 2008.

Conclusions

Thus, we can see that the statements about "sharp increase" in anti-Semitism "recently" are unconfirmed by the data we hold. The situation is of course far from ideal, and in different spheres of public life one observes worrying developments. We must acknowledge, for example, a sharp rise in the number of hate crimes in the last two years. It should also be mentioned that a migrant-phobic discourse has gained topicality and demand in society, with this teetering on the edge or toppling over into xenophobia. However if we speak specifically of anti-Semitism, then, on the contrary, a noticeable decline has been registered, based on a whole slew of indices.

One would hope that in discussing such a delicate subject which undoubtedly requires particular attention, experts and publicists could be guided by facts, and not emotions.