History of the Jews in Ukraine

Ukrainian Jews
יהדות אוקראינה‎
Українськi євреї
The location of Ukraine in Europe
Total population
2010 est. 71,500 core – 200,000 enlarged [1] 360,000–400,000 by 2014 est. [1][2]
Regions with significant populations
Kyiv110,000[3]
Dnipro60,000[3]
Kharkiv45,000[3]
Odesa45,000[3]
Languages
Russian (83.0%), Ukrainian[4][5][6][7] (13.4%), Yiddish[4][8] (3.1%), Hebrew[9]
Religion
Judaism, Christianity and other (including atheism)
Related ethnic groups
Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Russian Jews, Mountain Jews, Belarusian Jews, Romanian Jews, Hungarian Jews, Polish Jews
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The history of the Jews in Ukraine dates back over a thousand years; Jewish communities have existed in the modern territory of Ukraine from the time of the Kievan Rus' (late 9th to mid-13th century).[10][11] Important Jewish religious and cultural movements, from Hasidism to Zionism, arose there. According to the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish community in Ukraine constitutes Europe's third-largest and the world's fifth-largest.[3]

At times it flourished, while at other times it faced persecution and anti-Semitic discrimination. In the Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1920), Yiddish became a state language, along with Ukrainian and Russian. At that time, the Jewish National Union was created and the community was granted autonomous status.[12] Yiddish was used on Ukrainian currency between 1917 and 1920.[13] Before World War II, slightly less than one-third of Ukraine's urban population consisted of Jews.[14]

In the westernmost region, Jews were mentioned for the first time in records in 1030. During the Khmelnytsky Uprising between 1648 and 1657, an army of Cossacks massacred and took large numbers of Jews, Roman Catholics, and Uniate Christians into captivity. One estimate (1996) reported that 15,000-30,000 Jews were killed or taken captive, and that 300 Jewish communities were completely destroyed.[15] More recent estimates (2014) report mortality of 3,000-6,000 people between the years 1648–1649.[16]

During 1821 anti-Jewish riots in Odesa followed the death of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Constantinople, in which 14 Jews were recorded killed. Some sources claim this episode as the first pogrom.[17] At the start of the 20th century, anti-Jewish pogroms continued, leading to large-scale emigration. In 1915, the imperial Russian government expelled thousands of Jews from the Empire's border areas.[18][19]

During the Russian Revolution and ensuing Civil War, an estimated 31,071 Jews were killed in pogroms between 1918 and 1920.[20] During the Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–21),[21] pogroms continued. In Ukraine, the number of civilian Jews killed by the Ukrainian Army under Symon Petliura during the period was estimated at between 35,000 and 100,000.[22]

Pogroms erupted in January 1919 in the northwest province of Volhynia and spread to many other regions[23] and continued until 1921.[24] The actions of the Soviet government by 1927 led to a growing antisemitism.[25]

Total civilian losses in Ukraine during World War II and the German occupation are estimated at seven million. More than one million Soviet Jews, including 225,000 in Belarus,[26] were killed by the Einsatzgruppen and their many Ukrainian supporters. Most of them were killed in Ukraine because most pre-WWII Soviet Jews lived in the Pale of Settlement, of which Ukraine was the biggest part. The major massacres against Jews occurred mainly in the first phase of the occupation, although they continued until the return of the Red Army. In 1959 Ukraine had 840,000 Jews, a decrease of almost 70% from 1941 totals (within Ukraine's current borders). Ukraine's Jewish population continued to decline significantly during the Cold War. In 1989, Ukraine's Jewish population was only slightly more than half of what it was in 1959. During and after the collapse of communism in the 1990s, the majority of Jews in 1989 left the country and moved abroad (mostly to Israel).[27] Antisemitism, including violent attacks on Jews, is still a problem in Ukraine.[28]

  1. ^ a b DellaPergola, Sergio (2 November 2012). Dashefsky, Arnold; Sheskin, Ira (eds.). "World Jewish Population, 2012" (PDF). Current Jewish Population Reports. Storrs, Connecticut: North American Jewish Data Bank. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  2. ^ "Ukraine". European Jewish Congress. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d e Ukraine. World Jewish Congress.
  4. ^ a b Grenoble, L. A. (31 July 2003). Language Policy in the Soviet Union. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-1-4020-1298-3.
  5. ^ Berkhoff, Karel C. (15 March 2008). Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule. Harvard University Press. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-674-02078-8.
  6. ^ Trenin, Dmitriĭ (2002). The End of Eurasia: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and Globalization. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-87003-190-8.
  7. ^ Ukraine Jews Expect Little to Change Following Election, Jewish Telegraphic Agency (3 October 2007)
  8. ^ Berger, Shlomo (2003). Speaking Jewish - Jewish Speak: Multilingualism in Western Ashkenazic Culture. Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-90-429-1429-2.
  9. ^ Conservative Judaism movement to establish first community in Ukraine, Haaretz (5 February 2012)
  10. ^ "Серія "Між Львівською площею та Євбазом (сучасна площа Перемоги)" (Фото Києва ::: Фото Киева ::: Photo of Kiev ::: Pictures of Kyiv)". 21 November 2014. Archived from the original on 21 November 2014. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
  11. ^ Kipiani, V. "Interesting Books": Jewish addresses of Kyiv. News Broadcasting Service (TSN). 6 April 2012
  12. ^ National policy of the Central Council in conditions of Ukrainian independence (January-April 1918). Electronic library of handbooks.
  13. ^ Money with Yiddish labels. Hadashot by Vaad of Ukraine. January of 2008
  14. ^ "Jewish Urban Population: 1897". Geschichteinchronologie.ch. 7 May 2007. Archived from the original on 23 June 2013. Retrieved 16 April 2013.
  15. ^ Paul Magocsi, A History of Ukraine, p. 350. University of Washington Press, 1996.
  16. ^ Batista, Jakub (2014). "Chmielnicki Massacres (1648–1649)". In Mikaberidze, Alexander (ed.). Atrocities, Massacres, and War Crimes: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-Clio. pp. 100–101. ISBN 978-1-59884-926-4.
  17. ^ "Virtual Excursion on Jewish Odessa - Pogroms". 21 January 2007. Archived from the original on 21 January 2007. Retrieved 3 April 2022.
  18. ^ Pinkus 1988, p. 31.
  19. ^ Baron 1976, p. 188–91.
  20. ^ Cite error: The named reference Abramson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  21. ^ Yekelchyk, Serhy (2007). Ukraine: Birth of a Modern Nation. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530546-3.
  22. ^ "20 years before the Holocaust, pogroms killed 100,000 Jews – then were forgotten". The Times of Israel.
  23. ^ Midlarsky, Manus I. (2005). The Killing Trap: Genocide in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press. pp. 46–47. ISBN 978-0-521-81545-1. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  24. ^ Mayer, Arno J. (15 January 2002). The Furies: Violence and Terror in the French and Russian Revolutions. Princeton University Press. p. 516. ISBN 978-0-691-09015-3.
  25. ^ Сергійчук, В. Український Крим К. 2001, p.156
  26. ^ Timothy Snyder (16 July 2009). "Holocaust: The Ignored Reality". The New York Review of Books. Archived from the original (Internet Archive) on 9 January 2014. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  27. ^ "Table 30. Immigrants from the USSR (former) by last republic of residence: 1990-2001" (PDF). Central Bureau of Statistics, State of Israel. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2013.
  28. ^ "Ukraine: Treatment of ethnic minorities, including Roma; state protection". Refworld. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 17 September 2012. Retrieved 31 January 2023.