Russia's Empire Once Upon A Time

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                     

During my lifetime, Russia, the world's largest country, was even larger.  It was an empire referred to as USSR, standing for Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics.  As a teacher, our group copied it for "Uninterrupted Silent Sustained Reading." 

The Union of USSR consisted of   a federal union of fifteen national Communist republics.  It was the largest country in the world, covering over 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi) and spanning eleven time zones.

1. Russia            5. Kazakhstan  9. Moldova  13. Armenia

2. Ukraine           6.Georgia      10. Latvia      14. Turkmenia

3. Bylorussia       7. Azerbaijan 11. Kirgyzstan 15. Estonia

4. Uzbekestan    8. Lithuania   12. Tijikistan

Its 15 constituent republics gained full independence on 26 December 1991.  Boris Yeltzin was president of Russia at the time until 1999. Gorbachev had failed to forge an executive structure to implement the decisions of the U.S.S.R. Presidential Council and Security Council. 

Vladimir Putin took over May 7, 2012.   

The fall of the Soviet Union is a unique case in the history of empires: “Russia let most of the republics go without a fight, without a struggle.” While there were slogans and campaigns for independence among the Union republics in the months before the collapse, none were campaigning for the complete disintegration of the empire. Rather, each was struggling against the central authority to augment its own independent power base. Even the Baltic states, the most independently minded of the republics, operated along these lines. Other republics, such as those in Central Asia, were not struggling at all against the Union for political independence.

Ukraine became independent again when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. This started a period of transition to a market economy, in which Ukraine suffered an eight-year recession. Subsequently however, the economy experienced a high increase in GDP growth until it plunged during the Great Recession.  

A prolonged political crisis began on 21 November 2013, when president Viktor Yanukovych suspended preparations for the implementation of an association agreement with the European Union, instead choosing to seek closer ties with Russia. This decision resulted in the Euromaidan protests and later, the Revolution of Dignity. Yanukovych was then impeached by the Ukrainian parliament in February 2014. On 20 February, the Russo-Ukrainian War began when Russian forces entered Crimea. 

Ukrainian politician who served as prime minister (2002–05, 2006–07) and president (2010–14) of Ukraine.

Soon after, pro-Russian unrest enveloped the largely Russophone eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, from where  Viktor Yanukovych had drawn most of his support.  With Russia's Putin  support, Mr Yanukovych fled to Russia in February after protests in which more than 100 people died. "I will say it openly - he asked to be driven away to Russia, which we did," the Russian president said. He went on to criticise the pro-Western government in Kiev for using force against the rebels rather than conducting talks.

 A referendum in the largely ethnic Russian Ukrainian autonomous region of Crimea was held and Crimea was de facto annexed by Russia on 18 March 2014. The War in Donbas began in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine involving pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian Ukrainians and Russian mercenaries. The war stalled until 24 February 2022, when Russia launched a major invasion of much of the country.                              

Born January 25, 1978, picture from 2022 after being the real president for 3 years at age 44.  A month later, Russia invaded Ukraine.  He's been a war president  since February 24, 2022,   a year and entering into the 17th month.  January 15th 2019 was when COVID started in the world. He had to deal with both-being president and handling COVID.   

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Jewish, was elected President in 2019.  "Zelenskyy grew up as a native Russian speaker in Kryvyi Rih, a major city of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central Ukraine. Prior to his acting career, he obtained a degree in law from the Kyiv National Economic University. He then pursued a career in comedy and created the production company Kvartal 95, which produced films, cartoons, and TV shows including the TV series Servant of the People, in which Zelenskyy played a fictional Ukrainian president. The series aired from 2015 to 2019 when he was 37,  and was immensely popular. A political party with the same name as the TV show was created in March 2018 by employees of Kvartal 95".

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Russia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelenskyy

https://www.britannica.com/event/the-collapse-of-the-Soviet-Union/The-rise-of-Yeltsin-and-the-foundation-of-post-Soviet-Russia

Ukraine's Criticism of Israel Will Gain What? Spotlight On WWII Action

 Nadene Goldfoot                                           

Zelensky's government has taken the position of yelling at Israel for not standing up to Russia's attack on Ukraine.  They have even joined the masses at the US in always voting against Israel.

What does it take to clean their glasses and see the truth about the triangulated relationship that exists between Israel, Russia and Ukraine?                            

The 6 million Jews of Israel and 2 million Muslims in their 8,550 sq. miles must pussyfoot around Russia as the conditions of all the terrorists attacking Israel call for a calm Russia to not get their feathers ruffled too much in the  process.  Russia is gigantic compared to teeny Israel with 143.4 million Russians or more on land that's 6,323, 142 sq. miles.  The largest country in the world is Russia.  They are the big brother to the Syrians including their terrorists who continually attack Israel.  They are the hornet in a nest that Netanyahu does not intend to hit with a stick.   

    Hezbollah terrorists attacking Israel while being backed by Russia's position towards Israel....It's complicated.  The point is, that Russia will accept just so much activity from Israel and then.....

The situation is unlike what others are finding themselves.  " Netanyahu expressed that there are “complex” relations between Israel and Russia, primarily because of the risk to Israel's freedom of military action in Syria as it fights the Iranian military entrenchment there. He stressed that in the last eight years, he had designed a policy to prevent a crisis between Jerusalem and Moscow, which could break out if pilots of the two countries collided in Syrian skies.  Russia is said to leave Israel alone in their defense of themselves against the Syrian terrorists in view that Russia is on the Syrian side and not Israel's.  

US taps  Into Israeli Stockpile As Ukraine Burns Through 90,000 Artillery Shells A Month 

Netanyahu then reiterated a promise to "look into" the idea of supplying Israeli weapons to Ukraine, including the "Iron Dome" air-defense systems, while hinting that Israel might help Ukraine "with other kinds of aid," instead. Case in point, he portrayed the transfer of 250,000 artillery shells belonging to the United States—which were pre-positioned in Israel—as the United States using Israel's munitions and passing it to Ukraine. At the same time, he emphasized that Israel provides significant humanitarian aid to Ukraine, including the reception of refugees.

Jewish Ukrainian refugee now in Israel Yohor Sereda, 17: ‘It was very scary driving out of Kyiv: there were explosions everywhere. It felt like being in a movie.’ Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum  ‘No one really believed it would happen’: first Jewish Ukrainian refugees arrive in Israel. Influx of 100,000 refugees from the war zone expected as members of the diaspora exercise the country’s law of return.  Dozens of blue and white flags were waiting for the first Jewish Ukrainian refugees to arrive in Israel as part of a huge rescue operation triggered by Moscow’s invasion.                

Netanyahu’s comments in the interview indicate that despite the deepening rift between Russia and the West, Netanyahu intends to continue the policy he has maintained towards Russia since 2015, separating Israel's campaign against Iran from a larger great-power rivalry. More specifically, Israel hopes to maintain its partnership with Washington without alienating Moscow. The wording that Israel will "look into" supplying weapons to Ukraine probably implies that Israel’s policy review process will not lead to direct assistance to Kyiv with lethal weapons. 

Resource:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/FMfcgzGsnLMFMcKbrcSXDJsDBJxdbPsx

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/netanyahu-governments-approach-russia-and-ukraine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2xZiSMY1xw

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/10/first-jewish-ukrainian-refugees-arrive-in-israel

Russia's and Ukraine's Stand Against Nazis Then and Now

 Nadene Goldfoot                                    

     Cover of Life Magazine of the invasion of Germany into Poland   Near Sochaczew during the German invasion of Poland, 1939.Hugo Jaeger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by German President Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party. The full name of the Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Its members were often called Nazis. The Nazis were radically right-wing, antisemitic, anticommunist, and antidemocratic. 

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939  Under the control of Adolf Hitler, they bombard Poland on land and from the air. World War II had begun.

The Soviet Union joined WW2 on September 17, 1939, when it invaded eastern Poland in coordination with Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union officially maintained neutrality during WW2 but cooperated with and assisted Germany.  It would be misleading to say that the Soviet Union (the USSR) switched sides because it was never in a state of war with the US, the UK, or France. Yet, the USSR maintained friendly neutrality with Nazi Germany until the latter attacked it in June 1941. After this aggression, the country allied with the UK, and later on, with the US. 

Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941. It took the country four years and a tremendous military and civilian effort to achieve victory. About seventeen million Soviet citizens died in WW2, the largest death toll of any country. The victory was possible due to greater willpower (Soviet citizens defended their own country against an invader with genocidal plans) but also bigger industrial and human reserves.   Then the Soviet Union allied with Britain. After the United States joined the war in December 1941, the USSR also allied with this country against Nazi Germany.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President of the USA at the time, trying to keep out of the war.  

Prior to the war, Polish Jews suffered from institutionalized discrimination and widespread poverty. In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland while the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. In German-occupied Poland, Jews were killed, subjected to forced labor, and forced to move to ghettos. The Soviet Union deported many Jews to the Soviet interior, where most survived the war. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and began the systematic murder of Jews. 1.8 million Jews were killed in Operation Reinhard, shot in roundups in ghettos, died during the train journey, or killed by poison gas in the extermination camps. 

                                            

                  Warsaw Ghetto burning, May 1943 •

In 1943 and 1944, the remaining labor camps and ghettos were liquidated.                 

 Łódź Ghetto children deported to Chełmno death camp, 1942

 Many Jews tried to escape, but surviving in hiding was very difficult due to factors such as the lack of money to pay helpers and the risk of denunciation. 

      Einsatzgruppe shooting of women from the Mizocz Ghetto, 1942 •

Only 1 to 2 percent of Polish Jews in German-occupied territory survived.

Ukraine:  The surprise German invasion of the U.S.S.R. began on June 22, 1941. Initially, the Germans were greeted as liberators by some of the Ukrainian populace. In Galicia especially, there had long been a widespread belief that Germany, as the avowed enemy of Poland and the U.S.S.R., was the Ukrainians’ natural ally for the attainment of their independence. The illusion was quickly shattered. The Germans were accompanied on their entry into Lviv on June 30 by members of OUN-B, who that same day proclaimed the restoration of Ukrainian statehood and the formation of a provisional state administration; within days the organizers of this action were arrested and interned in concentration camps (as were both Bandera and, later, Melnyk). Far from supporting Ukrainian political aspirations, the Nazis in August attached Galicia administratively to Poland, returned Bukovina to Romania, and gave Romania control over the area between the Dniester and Southern Buh rivers as the province of Transnistria, with its capital at Odessa. The remainder was organized as the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.

 In the fall of 1941 began the mass killings of Jews that continued through 1944. An estimated 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews perished, and over 800,000 were displaced to the east; at Baby Yar (Ukrainian: Babyn Yar) in Kyiv, nearly 34,000 were killed in just the first two days of massacre in the city.  The Nazis were aided at times by auxiliary forces recruited from the local population.(Fear of life or anti-Semitism was the motivation.)  

Ukraine’s human and material losses during World War II were enormous. Some 5 to 7 million people perished. Even with the return of evacuees from the east and the repatriation of forced labourers from Germany, Ukraine’s estimated population of 36 million in 1947 was almost 5 million less than before the war. Because more than 700 cities and towns and 28,000 villages had been destroyed, 10 million people were left homeless. Only 20 percent of the industrial enterprises and 15 percent of agricultural equipment and machinery remained intact, and the transportation network was severely damaged. The material losses constituted an estimated 40 percent of Ukraine’s national wealth. Was there any reason to think that Ukraine was full of Nazis to later attack?  

Russia now was the invader;   invading Ukraine February 24, 2022 with the pretext that it was full of Nazis and they had to.

                   Volodymyr Zelenskyy b: January 25, 1978  of the hit series, Servant of the People on TV.  

Ukraine, free of Russian rule, has had a Jewish president, a lawyer and TV comedian personality, since 2019, and now is 2023.   Born to a Ukrainian Jewish family, Zelenskyy grew up as a native Russian speaker in Kryvyi Rih, a major city of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central Ukraine.   I'm even surprised that Jewish people would want to return to Ukraine.  Does it appear that Nazis would put up with a Jewish president?  Where does Putin get his information?  Obviously, no Nazis were secure in Ukraine, of all places.  It was a ridiculous excuse for invasion that Putin used, only working on the demented.  

In the early hours of 24 February, shortly before the start of the Russian invasion, Zelenskyy recorded an address to the citizens of both Ukraine and Russia. He disputed claims of the Russian government about the presence of neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian government and stated that he had no intention of attacking the Donbas region, while highlighting his personal connections to the area. In part of the address, he spoke in Russian to the people of Russia, appealing to them to pressure their leadership to prevent war:

What is Russia doing?

Now:  The private army of Wagner Group's chief accuses Russian army of attacking Wagner forces.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the violent Wagner Group, a private mercenary unit which has been fighting on behalf of Putin, on Friday accused the Russian army of launching attacks on Wagner forces, which are made up of fellow Russians. This has already ended in Russia.  

The rebellious mercenary soldiers who briefly took over a Russian military headquarters on an ominous march toward Moscow were gone Sunday, but the short-lived revolt has weakened President Vladimir Putin just as his forces are facing a fierce counteroffensive in Ukraine.

Under terms of the agreement that ended the crisis, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led his Wagner troops in the failed uprising, will go into exile in Belarus but will not face prosecution.

2:30pm, The latest is that Zelensky is going along with UN with being against Israel (wanting help for Ukraine)  while at the same time they are pleading with Israel to send them arms.  This is an intolerable situation for him, but hurts immensely to add anti-Semitism upon Israel!  This is espeically bad considering their reputation from WWII against the Jews and aiding the Nazis.  

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/FMfcgzGsnLMFMmLlccLvNRgQvmmvqLSG

Resource:

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/hitler-comes-to-power

https://study.com/academy/lesson/ussr-involvement-in-world-war-ii.html#:~:text=Course%2041K%20views-,The%20Soviet%20Union%20in%20World%20War%20II,cooperated%20with%20and%20assisted%20Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelenskyy

https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-Nazi-occupation-of-Soviet-Ukraine

CBS:  https://www.cbsnews.com/video/wagner-group-chief-accuses-russian-army-of-attacking-wagner-forces/

Revival of General Bar Kokhba and Religious Zionism with Gush Emunim's Rabbi Avraham HaCohen Kook

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                     

                                Born September 7, 1865, Rabbi Kook in 1924

When some Israeli Jews saw that the Palestinians absolutely refused to accept Israel in 1974, they took upon the task to to include all the biblical homeland into today's Israel. 

They were like a new breed of men, to me more like Aluf "General" Bar Kokhba who was intent in taking back Jerusalem and did.  Gush Emunim was the name they took for themselves which means "Block of the Loyal" or "Group of the Loyal".  They were certainly Zionists, but Orthodox Zionists. They are Israeli religious nationalist group committed to the territorial integrity of the "Greater land of Israel." which includes the areas taken over in 1967--.After all, it was their land historically, and they had won it back in the huge attack of all the Arab counties in 1967 when they miraculously won it back by winning the war. That's Judea and Samaria, so called West Bank by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip.  It has been Gush Emunim that has been prominent in the Jewish settlement of these areas and in the opposition to territorial concessions that Netanyahu has gone along with.                                                 

 Rabbi Avraham HaCohen Kook was their spiritual mentor, a scholar who had been the chief rabbi in the 1930s  the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine. He is considered to be one of the fathers of religious Zionism and is known for founding the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva. (A Yeshiva is a school studying the biblical writings.)

His father, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Ha-Cohen Kook, was a student of the Volozhin yeshiva, the "mother of the Lithuanian yeshivas", whereas his maternal grandfather was a follower of the Kapust branch of the Hasidic movement, founded by the son of the third rebbe of Chabad, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn. His mother's name was Zlata Perl.  Born in  the Courland Governorate of the Russian Empire in 1865, today a part of Daugavpils, Latvia, he was the oldest of eight children.

In formulating religious Zionism, Rav Kook broke with most other Orthodox rabbis. Most Orthodox rabbis saw nothing but evil in the early Zionist pioneers who were hostile to religion, and in their belief that their labor rather than God would save the Jewish people.                 

Kook broke off from mainstream Orthodoxy of his period, "he found tremendous religious significance in the atheist pioneers of the different aliyotes." He saw them through mysticism and pragmatism, harbingers of the redemption.  To him, these Jeews who felt themselves farthest from G-d were finally undertaking  tikkun olam, the act of repairing the world which Reform Jews work on a lot., 

    Defending their progress on repairing the land of Israel 

Kook on the other hand, defended their behaviour in theological terms, and even hailed them as playing a role, by their labors, in hastening the messianic deliverance. His stance was deemed heretical by the traditional religious establishment.                   

This internationally popular, beige-colored spread is traditionally made with mashed chickpeas, tahini sesame paste, lemon juice, and garlic. People across the world love hummus for its tangy flavor and the fact that it is filled with nutrients.

When served, it is typically dressed with a drizzle of olive oil, and is then used as a dip for vegetables or a flavorful filling for flatbreads such as pita. Even today, not much is known about its origins, although the earliest mention of hummus dates back to 13th-century Egypt. 

Probably the best-known national dish of Israel, Israeli salad is actually a descendant of Arab and Palestinian salads. Finely diced tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, (optional) parsley, and either bell peppers or chili peppers are typically dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.

Vegetarians will enjoy this:  Between 1901 and 1904, he published three articles which anticipate the philosophy that he later more fully developed in the Land of Israel. Kook personally refrained from eating meat except on the Sabbath and Festivals, and a compilation of extracts from his writing, compiled by his disciple David Cohen, known as "Rav HaNazir" (or "the Nazir of Jerusalem") and titled by him "A Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace," depicts a progression, guided by Torah law, towards a vegetarian society.

Combat soldier in 67 being a Gush Emunim and an Orthodox

                                            

Kook died in Jerusalem in 1935 at age 70, and his funeral was attended by an estimated 20,000 mourners.  His only son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, has taken his place. Many of Kook's disciples were young orthodox men fully part of the modern world, raised in a post-Holocaust world where Israel was a reality, not an aspiration, and who had no feelings inferiority towards the secular world or toward the Orthodox.  They have been the combat soldiers in 1967 and in 1973 and felt that G-d was demonstrating His will.  To them, 1973 had been the result of a faltering, and now the Jews must do what was expected of them and continue moving forward;  settling the biblical heart of the land, which the Zionists had been skirting because it was where most of the Palestinian Arabs lived;  the highlands of Judea-Samaria.  

After the Jewish village of Eli was attacked and 4 were killed, retribution is happening.  Jewish neighbors are reacting in kind and attacking Palestinian Arabs.  

Resource:

Book:  Right To Exist by Yaacov Lozowick, of Israel's Holocaust Museum

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bjyxtasd3#autoplay?utm_source=email