One further reflection suggests itself. The Federation of Ukrainian Jews has no political axe to grind, and is neither Zionist nor anti-Zionist. Its. functions begin and end (though, unfortunately, the end is not in sight) with the needs of the Jews in the Ukraine. " The rival ambitions of peoples, governments and parties, and all the folly of civil war, satiate themselves to-day upon the unhappy Jewish minority with criminal cruelty ": these are the words of the French Appeal (page 15), and they lift the problem out of politics. But, however much detached from politics the attitude of the Federation may be» It cannot but see in the facts, which it brings to the bar of public opinion, a meaning beyond the facts themselves. It is freely asserted that Soviet Russia IS under a Jewish domination, in which Jews alone are above the law, and that one of the chief objects of their misrule is to abolish the sanction of religion^ as the mainstay of the moral life. From this assertion it follows, that to destroy the Jews is to destroy destructive Bolshevism. Thus stated, the proposition moves in a vicious circle of destruction, out of which no sound principle is forthcoming. But the facts disclosed in the following pages seem to strike at the rootof the argument. Not even a nightmare could conjure up the vision of a Jewish domination, which would tolerate the Terror in the Ukraine, raging since 1918, and directed precisely at Jews. The unhappy victims of that Terror, so far from having lost their religious sense, find in the teachings of Judaism their sole, remaining comfort in life. They have seen their homes sacked and pillaged; their few worldly possessions have disappeared; their relatives, distant or very near, have been killed in their sight by a violent death; they include 150,000 orphan children, who will never find their parents' graves, and who are crying for food, clothes, and bedding, in a land where such commodities are unobtainable; they have passed through a purgatory of suffering, so unimaginable and irrational, when measured by their limited experience, as often to drive them crazy — and yet they cling to the consolation of religion, and welcome the ministrations of their Rabbis.
We other Jews, watching with anguish the trials of our brethren in South-eastern Europe, and welcoming chiefly for their sake the prospect of a national home in Palestine, deplore the fallacies of half-knowledge, which confound the victims of revolution with the revolutionaries themselves, and even identify Zionism with Bolshevism. The Federation of Ukrainian Jews in London, which has no politics, and which is neither Zionist nor anti-Zionist, is not-concerned with the fight against anti-Semitism, though it seeks to alleviate persecution of the Jews. But, so far as the facts herein disclosed admit a general conclusion, apart from their particular conclusion to the urgency of swift relief, they do seem to show that a great wrong is still being organized against the Jewish population in the unhappy country which was Russia. Of Russia, in 1896, Lecky, the historian, wrote (Democracy and Liberty, I., 465):
" The Russian persecution stands in some degree apart from the other forms of the anti-Semite movement, both on account of its unparalleled magnitude and ferocity, and also because it is the direct act of a Government, deliberately, systematically, remorselessly seeking to reduce to utter misery about four-and-a-half millions of its own subjects.... Nowhere, indeed, in modern Europe have such pictures of human suffering and human cruelty been witnessed cis in that gloomy Northern Empire.... Some of the most disgraceful apologies for the savage persecutions in Russia have come from writers who profess to be champions of n,ationalities, ardent supporters of liberty and progress."
Twenty-five years and a bloody revolution have neither tamed the Russian,
nor changed the key of some of his apologists.
We would not conclude on a note, however mildly, controversial. This Pamphlet is published and distributed in the cause of humanity and charity. The conclusions which we have suggested may be disputed, or may not be accepted in all quarters. The facts which we narrate are indisputable, and their victims cry for assistance. We do not believe that the world has grown so callous as to turn down the appeal of the little destitute children who have survived the Terror in the Ukraine.
THE UKRAINE TERROR AND THE JEWISH PERIL
MEMORANDUM ON THE MASSACRES OF JEWS IN THE UKRAINE
Committee of Jewish Delegations, Paris, 10, Place Edouard VII.
Geneva,
16{A December, 1920.
The Committee of Jewish Delegations, representing either by direct election or by written authority the Jewish populations of 22 countries, appeals to the League of Nations to obtain justice for the most terrible crimes that history has ever witnessed.