History of the Jews in Ukraine

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Golden Rose Synagogue in Lviv (1582–1943)
Klezmorim 1925

The history of the Jews in Ukraine describes the development of Jewish life and culture in what is now Ukraine .

Antiquity

There is evidence of Jewish settlements in the cities of Chersonese and Pantikapaion on the Black Sea during the Hellenistic period . On the Crimean exist to the present day with the rabbinic krymchaks and opposition Karaites small separate Jewish groups.

Kievan Rus

There was probably a Jewish community in Kiev as early as the 10th century, most of which was of Khazar origin. There was a Jewish quarter and a "Gate of the Jews". They were under princely protection. In 1113 many Jews were killed in an uprising against the upper class. A rabbi Moses of Kiev is mentioned in Hebrew texts for the 12th century.

There were also Jewish communities in Chernihiv and Volodymyr-Wolynskyj .

Kingdom of Poland

Since 1340 the western part of Ukraine belonged to the Kingdom of Poland . There freedom of religion and trade were valid for Jews, on a scale that is unique in Europe. Since 1348, many Jews from Central Europe came to Poland and Galicia after pogroms.

In 1352 a Jewish community in a suburb of Lemberg was mentioned, in 1387 a Judenstrasse , and in 1457 a Karaean community in the suburb.

From 1506 a heyday began for Jews in Poland under Sigismund I. The Council of the Four Lands developed as a decision-making body for Jews in Poland with extensive freedom of choice. There was a yeshiva in Lviv whose students came from all over Europe.

In the second half of the 16th century, numerous Jews from Poland came to Volhynia and Podolia . Since the 17th century the restrictions on Jews have become stricter.

As traders and tax collectors, Jews had an intermediate position between the Polish nobility and the Ukrainian peasant population. During the Cossack uprisings under Bohdan Khmelnyzkyj , tens of thousands of Jews were killed in massacres in 1648 and 1649. In the 18th century, the Jews were victims of attacks by the Hajdamaks led by Zaporozhian Cossacks . The Uman massacre during the Kolijiwschtschyna uprising of the Hajdamaks in 1768 under Iwan Gonta and Maksym Salisnjak should be mentioned in particular .

Around 1740 the religious movement of Hasidism was founded in Medschybisch in Podolia by Rabbi Baal Shem Tov . This soon spread over all of East Central Europe. Centers in the Ukraine were, among others, Bels , Berdychiv , Brody , Jampil , Lemberg , Mesritsch, Solochiv , Tjatschiw .

Empires of Russia and Austria

In 1772 the Ukraine was divided, the northern part with Volhynia and Podolia came to Russia , the south with Galicia to Austria . At times there were relatively good opportunities to live in both parts. The Jewish population lived in their own districts, the so-called shtetl . In the Russian Empire, Jewish settlement was limited to the Pale of Settlement , which included parts of what is now Ukraine.

The Haskala , the Jewish Enlightenment, was not very widespread; the most important center was Brody from around 1800 with Nachman Kromal and Menachem Mendel Lefin .

In the middle of the 19th century they were the largest population group in many cities, in Brody in 1869 over 80% of the population were Jews.

After the pogroms in Russia in the 1880s, many Jews emigrated to Central and Western Europe and America. After 1905 there was again a great wave of emigration to the west.

Soviet Union

Lenin's nationality policy offered a number of activities in the 1920s and 1930s. Yiddish theaters sprang up and newspapers appeared. Serafyma Gopner (Ukrainian also Hopner) was elected the first Jewish party leader of the Soviet Ukraine (First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR).

German occupation

WW2 Holocaust Ukraine big legend.PNG

After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, massacres and pogroms of Jews by Ukrainians took place in many areas of Ukraine. With the advance of the SS Einsatzgruppen , the mass shootings of Jews began. The most famous of these massacres took place on September 29 and 30, 1941 in Babi Yar near Kiev , where more than 33,000 Jewish Kievan people were murdered, followed by further regular mass shootings with a further 70,000 dead. There were other massacres in Kharkov , Berdichev , Kamenets-Podolsk and many other places.

From 1941 to 1943, most of the Jewish population in Ukraine was murdered .

Soviet Union

After the Ukraine was retaken by the Red Army in 1944, there were initially relatively unhindered opportunities for the remaining Jews to live. In the late 1940s there was an anti-Jewish campaign in the Stalinist Soviet Union . Later on, so-called anti - Zionism in particular maintained the disadvantages and reservations towards Jews. Many Ukrainian Jews emigrated to Israel , the USA or Western Europe since the Cold War era .

Ukraine

Jews continued to emigrate since 1992. There is a small but active minority today especially in larger cities like Kiev, Lviv, Odessa and other cities. In 2016, Volodymyr Hrojsman was the first person of Jewish origin to be elected Prime Minister of the country, and in 2019, Volodymyr Zelenskyj was the first Jewish President of Ukraine .

population

Lived in Ukraine

  • 1650: 40000
  • 1765: 300000
  • 1897: 2680000
  • 1926: 2720000
  • 1941: 2700000
  • 1959: 840446
  • 1970: 777406
  • 1979: 634420
  • 1989: 487555
  • 2002: 100000
  • 2010: 71500
  • 2014: 67000

See also

Web links

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ cf. Kiev letter
  2. ↑ Numbers partially estimated YIVO Encyclopedia