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Ukrainians, Jews, Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Russian Jews, Polish Jews |
| History of Ukraine |
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Jewish communities have existed in the territory of Ukraine from the time of Kievan Rus' and developed many of the most distinctive modern Jewish theological and cultural traditions. While at times they flourished, at other times they faced periods of persecution and antisemitic discriminatory policies. Before World War II, a little under one-third of Ukraine's urban population consisted of Jews.[2]
Jewish settlements in Ukraine can be traced back to the 8th century. Jewish refugees from the Byzantine Empire, Persia, and Mesopotamia, fleeing from persecution by Christians throughout Europe, settled in the Khazar Khaganate.
By the 11th century Byzantine Jews of Constantinople had familial, cultural, and theological ties with the Jews of Kiev. For instance, some 11th-century Jews from Kievan Rus participated in an anti-Karaite assembly held in either Thessalonica or Constantinople. One of the three Kievan city gates in the times of Yaroslav the Wise were called Zhydovski.
In Halychyna, the westernmost area of Ukraine, the Jews were mentioned for the first time in 1030. From the second part of the 14th century, they were under subjects of the Polish kings and magnates. The Jewish population of Halychyna and Bukovyna, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was extremely large; it made up 5% of the world Jewish population.
From the founding of the Kingdom of Poland in the 10th century through the creation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569, Poland was considered one of the most tolerant countries in Europe. It became home to one of the world's largest and most vibrant Jewish communities. The Jewish community in the territory of Ukraine during the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became one of the largest and most important ethnic minority groups in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Cossack hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky incited the Cossacks to revolt by stating that the Poles had sold them as slaves "into the hands of the accursed Jews." At that time it is estimated that the Jewish population in Ukraine numbered 51,325.[3] In the name of Orthodox Christianity the army of Cossacks and Crimean Tatars massacred and taken into captivity a large number of Jews, Roman Catholics and Uniates during the years 1648–1649.
The precise number of dead may never be known, but recent estimates range from fifteen thousand to thirty thousand Jews killed or taken captive: 300 Jewish communities were totally destroyed.[4]
The Cossack Uprising and the following the Swedish war (1648–1658) left a deep and lasting impression on the Jewish social and spiritual life.
In this time of mysticism and overly formal rabbinism came the teachings of Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov, or BeShT, (1698–1760), which had a profound effect on the Jews of Eastern Europe. His disciples taught and encouraged a new fervent brand of Judaism, related to Kabbalah, known as Hasidism. The rise of Hasidic Judaism had a great influence on the rise of Haredi Judaism, with a continuous influence through its many Hasidic dynasties.
A radically different movement was started by Jacob Frank in the middle of the 18th century. Frank's teachings were extremely unorthodox (such as purification through transgression, as well as adoption of elements of Christianity), and he was excommunicated along with his numerous followers. They eventually converted to Catholicism.
The traditional measures of keeping Imperial Russia free of Jews failed when the main territory of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was annexed during the partitions of Poland. During the second (1793) and the third (1795) partitions, large populations of Jews were taken over by Russia, and Catherine II of Russia established the Pale of Settlement that included Congress Poland and Crimea.
During the 1821 anti-Jewish riots in Odessa after the death of the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople, 14 Jews were killed. Some sources claim this episode as the first pogrom,[5] while according to others (such as the Jewish Encyclopedia, 1911 ed.) say the first pogrom was the 1859 riots in Odessa. The term became common after a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish violence swept southern Imperial Russia, including Ukraine, in 1881-1884, after Jews were blamed for the assassination of Tsar Alexander II.
In May 1882, Alexander III of Russia introduced temporary regulations called May Laws that stayed in effect for more than thirty years, until 1917. Systematic policies of discrimination, strict quotas on the number of Jews allowed to obtain education and professions caused widespread poverty and mass emigration. In 1886, an Edict of Expulsion was applied to Jews of Kiev. In 1893-1894, some areas of the Crimean peninsula were cut out of the Pale.
When Alexander III died in Crimea on October 20, 1894, according to Simon Dubnow: "as the body of the deceased was carried by railway to St. Petersburg, the same rails were carrying the Jewish exiles from Yalta to the Pale. The reign of Alexander III ended symbolically. It began with pogroms and concluded with expulsions."[6]
Odessa became the home of a large Jewish community during the 19th century, and by 1897 Jews were estimated to comprise some 37% of the population.[7]
Counterrevolutionary groups, including the Black Hundreds, opposed the Revolution with violent attacks on socialists and pogroms against Jews. There was also a backlash from the conservative elements of society, notably in spasmodic anti-Jewish attacks — around five hundred were killed in a single day in Odessa. Nicholas II of Russia himself claimed that 90% of revolutionaries were Jews.
Persons of Jewish origin were over-represented in the Russian revolutionary leadership. However, most of them were hostile to traditional Jewish culture and Jewish political parties, and were loyal to the Communist Party's atheism and proletarian internationalism, and committed to stamp out any sign of "Jewish cultural particularism".
At the start of 20th century the Anti-Jewish pogroms continued to occur in cities and towns across the Russian Empire such as Kishinev (1905), Kiev (1911), and many others. Numerous Jewish self-defense groups were organized to prevent the outbreak of pogroms among which the most notorious one was under the leadership of Mishka Yaponchik in Odessa. During the Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War an estimated 70,000 to 250,000 civilian Jews were killed in the atrocities throughout the former Russian Empire in this period.
During the establishment of the Ukrainian People's Republic (1919–20), pogroms continued to be perpetrated on Ukrainian territory. Only in Ukraine, the number of civilian Jews killed during the period was estimated to be between 35 and 50 thousand. Archives declassified after 1991 provide evidence of a higher number; in the period from 1918 to 1921, "according to incomplete data, at least 100,000 Jews were killed in Ukraine in the pogroms."[8]
Disputes among scholars continue over Symon Petlura's association with these pogroms. He is often considered to be the perpetrator of pogroms due to his lack of action to stop the anti-Semitic events. Eventually Petliura was killed by Sholom Schwartzbard, who was acquitted in the Schwartzbard trial in Paris.
Among prominent Ukrainian statesmen of this period were Moisei Rafes, Pinkhas Krasny, Abram Revutsky, Moishe Zilberfarb, and many others. (see General Secretariat of Ukraine) The autonomy of Ukraine was openly greeted by the Ukrainian Jewish Volodymyr Zhabotinsky.
In 1921 Crimea became an autonomous republic. In 1923 the All-Union Central Committee passed a motion to resettle a large number of the Jewish population from Ukrainian and Belorusian cities to Crimea. 50400 families were moved. The plan to further resettle Jewish families was again confirmed by the Central Committee of the USSR on July 15, 1926 assigning 124 million roubles to the task and also receiving 67 million from foreign sources.[9]
The Soviet initiative of Jewish settlement in the Crimea was opposed by Symon Petlura[10] which he regarded as a provocation. This train of thought was supported by Arnold Margolin[11] who stated that it would be dangerous to set up Jewish colonies there.
The actions of the Soviet government for the supported settlement in the Crimea with Jewish families by 1927 led to a growing anti-semitism in the area.[12]
In 1944 it was suggested to Stalin to form a Jewish Soviet Socialist Republic in Crimea however the idea was not materialised.[13]
For names and maps of Jewish settlements Jewish Agricultural Colonies of South Ukraine and Crimea
In 1905 a series of pogroms erupted at the same time as the 1905 Revolution against the government of Tsar Nicholas II. The chief organizers of the pogroms were the members of the Union of the Russian People (commonly known as the "Black Hundreds").[14]
In June 1906 a pogrom in Bialystok, in which eighty people were killed, marked the end of three years of sporadic anti-Jewish violence.[15]
From 1911-1913 the anti-Semitic tenor of the period was characterized by a number of blood libel cases (accusations of Jews murdering Christians for ritual purposes). One of the most famous was the two-year trial of Mendel Beilis, who was charged with the murder of a Christian boy (Lowe 1993, 284-90). The trial was showcased by the authorities to illustrate the perfidy of the Jewish population.[16]
From March–May 1915, in the face of the German army, the government expelled thousands of Jews from the Empire's border areas, which coincide with the Pale of Settlement[17][18]
The February 1917 revolution brought a liberal Provisional Government to power in the Russian Empira. On 21 March/3 April, the government removed all "discrimination based upon ethnic religious or social grounds".[19] The Pale was officially abolished. The removal of the restrictions on Jews' geographical mobility and educational opportunities led to a migration to the country's major cities.[20]
One week after the 25 October/7 November 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the new government proclaimed the "Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples [Nations] of Russia," promising all nationalities the rights of equality, self-determination and secession. Jews were not specifically mentioned in the declaration, reflecting Lenin's view that Jews did not constitute a nation.[21]
In 1918 the RSFSR Council of Ministers issued a decree "On the Separation of Church from State and School from Church", depriving religious communities of the status of juridical persons, the right to own property and the right to enter into contracts. The decree nationalized the property of religious communities and banned their assessment of religious tuition. As a result, religion could be taught or studied only in private.[22]
1 February 1918
27 July 1918
20 October 1918
In July 1919 the Central Jewish Commissariat dissolves the kehillot (Jewish Communal Councils). The kehillot had provided a number of social services to the Jewish community.[28]
From 1919-1920 Jewish parties and Zionist organizations are driven underground as the Communist government seeks to abolish all potential opposition.[29]
31 January 1924
29 August 1924
January 1925
In 1928, in an effort to establish a Jewish territorial region (see Jewish Autonomous Region), KOMZET sends a number of Jews to the confluence of the Bira and Bidzhan Rivers in the Far East. Colonization of this area will help to create a buffer between the Soviet Union and the Far Eastern countries, and to stimulate development in the remote region.[35]
8 April 1929
In 1930 the Yevsektsia is dissolved,[27] and there is now no central Soviet-Jewish organization. Although the body had served to undermine Jewish religious life, its dissolution leads to the disintegration of Jewish secular life as well; Jewish cultural and educational organizations gradually disappear.[37]
When the Soviet government reintroduced the use of internal passports in 1933, "Jewish" is considered an ethnicity for these purposes.[38]
7 May 1934
In 1938 OZET is disbanded, following years of declining activities.[40]
The cities with the largest populations of Jews in 1926 were Odessa, 154,000 or 36.5% of the total population; Kiev, 140,500 or 27.3%; Kharkiv, 81,500 or 19.5%; and Dnipropetrovsk, 62,000 or 26.7%. In 1931 Lviv's Jewish population numbered 98,000 or 31.9%, and in Chernivtsi, 42,600 or 37.9%.[41]
As the Soviet government annexes territory in Poland, Romania and the Baltic states,[42] roughly two million Jews become Soviet citizens.[43] Restrictions on Jews that had existed in the formerly independent countries are now lifted.[44] [The Baltic states had begun their brief period of independence as democracies.[45] Policies of "Latvianization" and "Lithuanization" also caused friction with all minorities, although the Lithuanian government at the same time supported minority-language schooling.[46]] At the same time, Jewish organizations in the newly-acquired territories are shut down and their leaders arrested and exiled.[47] Approximately 250,000 Jews escape or are evacuated from the annexed territories to the Soviet interior prior to the Nazi invasion.[48]
Total civilian losses during the war and German occupation in Ukraine are estimated at seven million, including over a million Jews shot and killed by the Einsatzgruppen and some local Ukrainians supporters in the western part of Ukraine.
In 1989, a Soviet census counted 487,000 Jews living in Ukraine.[49] Although discrimination by the state quickly all but halted after Ukrainian independence in 1991, Jews were still discriminated against in Ukraine during the 1990's.[50] For instance, Jews were not allowed to attend some educational institutions.[50] Anti-semitism has declined since.[51]
During the 1990s some 266,300 Ukrainian Jews emigrated to Israel.[52] The 2001 Ukrainian Census counted 106,600 Jews living in Ukraine[53] (the number of Jews also dropped due to a negative birthrate[52]).
In November 2007, an estimated 700 Torah scrolls previously confiscated from Jewish communities during the Soviet Union's Communist rule were returned to Jewish communes in Ukraine by the state authorities.[54]
The Ukrainian Jewish Committee was established in 2008 in Kiev with the aim to concentrate the efforts of Jewish leaders in Ukraine on resolving strategic problems of the community and addressing socially significant issues. The Committee declared its intention to become one of the world’s most influential organizations protecting the rights of Jews and "the most important and powerful structure protecting human rights in Ukraine".[55]
In Ukraine violent against Jews and anti-semitic graffiti remains.[56]
At present Ukraine contains the fifth-largest Jewish community in Europe and the tenth-largest Jewish community in the world. The majority of Ukrainian Jews live in four large cities: Kiev, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, and Odessa.[57] Rabbis Yaakov Dov Bleich of Kiev and Shmuel Kaminetzky of Dnipropetrovsk are considered to be among the most influential foreigners in the country.[58]
There is a growing trend among some Israelis to visit Ukraine on a "roots trip" to follow the footsteps of Jewish life there.[59] Among the place of interest are usually mentioned Kiev, where it is possible to trace the paths of Sholem Aleichem and Golda Meir; Zhytomyr and Korostyshiv, where one can follow the steps of Haim Nahman Bialik; Berdychiv, where one can trace the life of Mendele Mocher Sforim; Rivne, where one can follow the course of Amos Oz; Buchach - the path of S.Y. Agnon; Drohobych - the place of Maurycy Gottlieb and Bruno Schulz.[59]
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