Sign In Forgot Password
Home

Temple Beth El Blog

Our Jewish Connection, Ukraine Then and Now

10/14/2022 10:10:28 AM

Oct14

by Beth Kaplan

The Senior Havdalah program on August 27 took TBE members on a journey through the history of Jewish life in Ukraine and the challenges the country faces today in its fight to preserve its independence. 

Ukraine and Jewish History

Folklorist, amateur historian, and TBE member Carole Kantor described early migration routes from Asia to Europe. Antisemitism was a constant threat, and yet, Jews continued to make important religious and cultural contributions in the region. Expelled from their homes during the Crusades and after the Spanish Inquisition, Jews migrated from the Rhineland in western Europe to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where leaders tolerated religious diversity. In the 16th century, princes and landowners hired Jews to manage estates and collect taxes, and bankers and doctors followed them into the region. 

Then, in the 17th century, Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians and Cossacks allied themselves with Russia and led an uprising that targeted Jews along with Catholic Poles. Despite a massacre in 1648–49 that killed 20,000 Jews, Jews continued to come to Ukraine and contributed to economic recovery there. When Tsar Alexander II was killed in 1881 by socialist revolutionaries, violent anti-Jewish attacks followed. 

The Pale of Settlement, from which many of our families emigrated, was established by Catherine the Great in 1791. While Jews didn’t need permission to live there, they did need permission to live outside of it. The birth of Hasidism followed in the 18th century, and the Zionist movement and growth of Jewish literature came next in the 19th century. The city of Odesa, a city today’s Ukrainians are fighting to preserve after Russia’s invasion, is just outside of what was the Pale of Settlement. This unique city, founded in 1794, was considered nontraditional and had no restrictions on Jews moving there. It was a major hub for “highbrow” synagogues, secular music, and Yiddish folk music, as well as jazz and tango. Many noted cantors and Jewish poets hailed from this city, according to Cantor Jacob Niemi.

Between 1917 and 1920, Ukrainians tried to establish a state independent from Russia. When their efforts failed, some 100,000 Jews were killed in pogroms. Later during World War II, the Jewish population fell from 870,000 to only 17,000. Antisemitism continued unabated, and in the 1980s, Jews were finally allowed to leave Ukraine, many finding new homes in Israel.

Present Day: Boris’s story

TBE member Boris Nenide was born in Chernivtsky, Ukraine, and studied in St. Petersburg, Russia, before coming to UW–Madison in 1991 with his family. He described how 92% of Ukrainians supported Ukraine’s referendum on independence after the USSR dissolved that year. A new president and territorial guarantees followed, and later came economic challenges, corruption, and protests against the pro-Russian president Yanukowich. Some 14,000 people have been killed in a separatist war that began in 2014 in the Donbas, a region in eastern Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a Ukrainian with a Jewish background, was elected in 2019. He has rallied the world for support after Russia invaded the country in February. 

Called to act, Boris began by helping a childhood friend whose son needed medical help, rallying local friends and students in Middleton schools, where his family lives and his children attend school. He soon helped with drives for needed supplies, and support flowed in after he appeared on a local TV news show. Later he went to Ukraine and worked with a volunteer group of Russian dissidents and other immigrants helping Ukrainians, staffing 12-hour shifts on the Polish-Ukrainian border. Dozens of countries were represented, and Boris spoke of the compassion and solidarity among the volunteers.

Boris described how antisemitism has diminished in Ukraine and Poland, noting Ukraine’s commemoration of the victims of Babyn Yar, the positive reception for a French play about the Holocaust produced in a Russian-language theater, and the respect he saw among Poles toward the memory of that country’s once vibrant Jewish culture. 

He was also inspired by the dedication displayed by his fellow volunteers, some of whom had protested Russia’s invasion and had to flee. “They submerged themselves in helping others, despite enduring harsh conditions and hearing heartbreaking stories told by the people they were helping,” he said. Boris is now assembling humanitarian and military care packages and welcomes contributions to support these efforts. He is also working with others to register a new charitable organization based in the United States. 

Here are other organizations Boris suggested to help support Ukraine: Russians for Ukraine and Grain of Solace. “Helping Ukraine is immensely important,” Boris said, “not just from a humanitarian standpoint, but also for preserving and furthering liberal democracy around the world.”
 

April 19, 2024 11 Nisan 5784