stopped some of these men and demanded, "How dare you use the word "zhyd"?

Don't you know it's a very offensive term, an insult to the Jewish nation?"

... "Here in the Western Ukraine it's just the opposite," they explained. "We

call ourselves zhyds...." Apparently what they said was true. If you go back

to Ukrainian literature ... you'll see that "zhyd" isn't used derisively or

insultingly. (Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 1971, p. 145)

But 60 Minutes' mistranslation went even further than that - upon listening to the broadcast

more carefully, it is possible to hear that where the editor of the Lviv newspaper For a Free

Ukraine was translated as saying in connection with a joke circulated among the common people

"In terms of the Soviet Union which is abbreviated SSSR, that stands for three kikes and a

Russian," - in fact he was using the unarguably neutral term "yevrei" which it is obligatory to

translate not as "kike" but as "Jew" not only in Russian, but in Eastern and Western Ukrainian

as well.

Thus, in at least two instances, and possibly in all, the 60 Minutes' translator was translating

incorrectly, and in such a manner as to make the Ukrainian speakers appear to be speaking with

an unrestrained anti-Semitism, when in fact they were not. On top of that, the translator

gratuitously spit out his words and gave them a venomous intonation which was not present in the

original Ukrainian. And then too, where the speaker spoke in grammatical Ukrainian, the

translator on one occasion at least, offered a translation in ungrammatical English, making the

Ukrainian appear uneducated or unintelligent - specifically, the Ukrainian "We Ukrainians do not

have to rely on..." was rendered into the English "We Ukrainians not have to rely on...."

Since "zhyd" is currently held to be derogatory in much of Ukraine, any speaker of contemporary

Ukrainian who wishes to give no offense may choose to view it as derogatory in all of Ukraine,

and switch to "yevrei" in all contexts and in all parts of the country. The fact that a Western

Ukrainian old enough to have escaped thorough Russification has not as yet made this switch,

however, is not evidence of his anti-Semitism, and his use of "zhyd" cannot rightly be taken to

be derogatory. In non-Russified Western Ukrainian, there is only one word for Jew, and that is

"zhyd," and there is no word corresponding to the derogatory "kike" or "yid" or "hebe" of

English.

A further discussion of the use of "zhyd" vs "yevrei" can be found within the Ukrainian Archive

in a discussion of the Sion-Osnova Controversy.

CONTENTS:

Preface

The Galicia Division

Quality of Translation

Ukrainian Homogeneity

Were Ukrainians Nazis?

Simon Wiesenthal

What Happened in Lviv?

Nazi Propaganda Film

Collective Guilt

Paralysis of the Comparative

Function

60 Minutes' Cheap Shots

Ukrainian Anti-Semitism

Jewish Ukrainophobia

Mailbag

A Sense of Responsibility

What 60 Minutes Should Do

PostScript

Ukrainian Homogeneity

In his every statement, Mr. Safer reveals that he starts from the assumption that Ukrainians are

homogeneously anti-Semitic and Nazi in their inclinations. In doing so, Mr. Safer does not stop

to wonder how it is that Ukrainians can be so entirely different in this respect from all other

peoples. Take Americans, for instance. Surely we all agree that among Americans, there are

some who would pitch in and help if they saw Nazis killing Jews, and others who would risk their

lives - and give their lives - to stop that very same killing, and of course the great bulk in

the middle who would consider immediate self-interest first, and look the other way and pretend