Bohdan Chmielnicki Massacres of 1593 to 1657 Brought the Messiah, Or So They Thought

Nadene Goldfoot                                         

Bohdan Khmelnytsky's entry into Kyiv after victory against Polish domination, by Mykola Ivasyuk

There was a Cossack leader, Chmielnicki, Bogdan, who headed the rising of the Cossacks and Ukrainian masses from 1593 to 1657  against Polish landowners, the Catholic clergy and the Jews.  This rebellion made headway at first and resulted in the annihilation of hundreds of Jewish communities and brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews, maybe as many as 400,000.  The only Jews spared were those who accepted baptism.  One source said that 744 communities were wiped out in this rebellion.  The areas affected were in Eastern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which is the present day Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Moldova.  

                                                                         

This event was so horrible that it sent a shockwave throughout Jewry and  and caused those who lived through it or heard about it to feel a messianic impulse which gave support for Shabbetai Tzevi(1626-1676) to be looked upon as the Messiah.

                                              

Shabbetai Tzevi 

He turned out to be one of those pseudo-messiahs who was born in Smyrna, Turkey and was attracted to the Kabbalah when young when he was showing manic-depressive tendencies which were growing more pronounced all his life.  After these horrors of the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-1649, he was moved by this messianic spirit by hearing a heavenly voice, saying that he would redeem Israel.  

His listeners of Jews were won over by his emotional sermons and fresh doctrines.  In 1662 he traveled to Rhodes, Tripoli and Egypt where he married Sarah, a survivor of the Polish massacres, who wanted to marry the Messiah.  He returned to Palestine that same year and by 1665, Nathan of Gaza pronounced him the king-Messiah, so he must have held it together and had not acted too out of sorts.  However, the rabbis of Jerusalem didn't take him to be the Messiah at all, and excommunicated him, so he was forced to return to Turkey.  

                                                

Unfortunately, the Ukrainians regarded Chmielnicki as a national hero.  

A community was formed there toward the end of the 16th century; 100 houses in Jewish ownership out of a total of 800 are recorded in 1646. The community was destroyed during the Chmielnicki rising in 1648, and again suffered at the beginning of the Haidamack rising in 1703. Subsequently, Jews again began to settle there, in 1765 numbering 1,876 poll-tax-payers in the town and its vicinity.       

In Jewish history, the Uprising is known for the concomitant outrages against the Jews who, in their capacity as leaseholders (arendators), were seen by the peasants as their immediate oppressors.  However, Shmuel Ettinger argues that both Ukrainian and Polish accounts of the massacres overemphasize the importance of the Jewish role as landlords, while downplaying the religious motivation for Cossack violence.

The fact remains that Jews were not allowed to own land in these places, so 

 were more likely hired by the nobles who did own the land to collect the 

rent for them, something other places have done.
                                             

        

 A city in the Ukraine most likely affected by the massacres was  Belaya Tserkov.

"Belaya Tserkov is a historic city located in Kiev region of Central Ukraine, center of Belaya Tserkov district. Belaya Tserkov is located on the Ros’ River, a tributary of the Dnieper. The city’s estimated population is 212,090 (as of 2016).  

Belaya Tserkov became a part of Russia Empire in 1793, in 1919– beginning of 20th century it was a shtetl of Vasylkov Yezd of Kiev Gubernia." 
Jews are first mentioned as living in Belaya Tserkov in 1589. The locality was known in Hebrew as Sdeh Lavan (White Field) and in Yiddish as Shvartse Tume (Black Church). The Jewish community of Belaya Tserkov was almost completely destroyed in 1648 during the uprising of Bogdan Chmielnitsky.
   Researchers of genealogy have found that a Hochfeld family came from this town.  

Resource:

Belaya Tserkovorg/belaya_tserkov

/http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2013/05/ukraines-massacre-of-jews-worse-than.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprisinghttp://jewua.org/belaya_tserkov/The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk02E9rlcACz4HS3_2SUKYB6JwxsmUg%3A1590896180824&source=hp&ei=NCbTXpezMIO_0PEP98avyAo&q=belaya+tserkov+ukraine+jewish&oq=Belaya+Tserkov&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgAMgQIIxAnMgIIADIECAAQCjIGCAAQFhAeMgYIABAWEB4yBggAEBYQHjIGCAAQFhAeMgYIABAWEB4yBggAEBYQHjIGCAAQFhAeOgUIABCDAVCLEFiaNGCJamgAcAB4AIABRYgBvQaSAQIxNJgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&sclient=psy-ab

Portland, Oregon's Shavuot Becoming a Kristallnacht of 1938

Nadene Goldfoot

Germany, November 9, 1938 during Kristallnacht when people
attacked anything owned by Jews such as this synagogue and
burned it down. Rioters burned down 250 synagogues throughout Germany.
 This riot was "set off by Germans' anger over the assassination of a German official in Paris at the hands of a Jewish teenager.
Glass from shop windows were all broken and looting took over, similar to what
happened last night in our Portland's Kristallnacht.
One difference was that Jews were killed.  I haven't heard of any
deaths except what triggered this, George Floyd's death.

The fact was that  "German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and other Nazis carefully organized the pogroms."

                                                       

Marchers from the George Floyd vigil at Peninsula Park in Portland, Oregon
going towards the Justice Center downtown.
Those who took this picture may have been hit by canisters
with tear gas in it that burns the eyes and lungs, as TV reported this morning.
Rioters broke into Police Headquarters and was burning it.
Minneapolis was the first scene of rioting as George
Floyd was from there. 
How Ironic this event that turned into a destructive riot
happened on our Jewish holiday of Shavuot, a time of remembering
the laws of Moses handed down to us.  

On our first night of Shavuot, the Jewish holiday of celebrating the receiving of the Torah (5 books of Moses), we had a pogrom in our beautiful city of Portland happening right downtown, and the ones again who were the target were the shopkeepers, though their religion was not the issue like what happened on November 9, 1938 when a most horrible of all riot happened when Jews were killed and their whole world was destroyed besides their shops.  
                                                       

Rabbi carrying the Torah
on  Shavuot by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim
Remembering when Moses gave
those on Exodus the Laws-
and the people had no time yet to learn about the kosher law pertaining to eating meat; so the people
had milk products that night.  
We remember this night and our next with the eating of
cheese cake and cheese blintzes, etc besides being
in the synagogue on this illustrious night of Shabbat,
a double mitzva; Shabbat falling on Shavuot.  

What gets into people who act like Nazis with no moral instinct but the need to destroy?  This riot in Portland was born from another Black person being killed by the policeman who was holding him down when he begged for his life.  It's been happening too often, and the Black population has had enough.  
                                                         

Looks like a take-down of several men in a pile
by 3 policemen

I thought, "What a dumb thing to do for this policeman.  Doesn't he know what a sensitive issue this is involving so many of the Black Americans?  Would he treat my son like this?  Hasn't he gone through intense training to be careful with life?   What gets into someone engaged in a hold-down?  I have gone through such training myself and didn't experience any feelings but possible fear for myself while doing it with my peer partner.  I'm a female, so it might be different for men.   

Of course it was a gestapo type of act of the part of the policeman.  But is this act repulsed by the tendencies of the police or army when they are met with a challenge, the need to use what they have been trained to do?  It doesn't soften their feelings for those they are preventing from breaking laws.  More likely it hardens their hearts as well when they are engaged with rioters breaking all the laws including theft.  

The German Kristallnacht, "the "Night of Broken Glass," for the shattered glass from the store windows that littered the streets, was instigated by the German government, and lasted 2 days of rioting where the destruction was of the whole city.  250 synagogues were burned and over 7,000 business were broken into.  Glass covered the streets everywhere, like Portland was attacked last night.

Jewish cemeteries were vandalized as well as hospitals, schools and homes of the Jewish people.  All this went on with the police and fire department just watching and doing nothing to stop it.   They were in on the destruction and hatred of the Jewish people, and for why, the old anti-Semitic feelings against Jews that has been going on ever since the first century and even before.  

It gives me the shivers that such an act as this can happen with such intensity 82 years after the German Kristallnacht which was the beginning of the Holocaust.  It has hurt all the good people who have worked hard to be successful and keep afloat during our  world-wide pandemic where all over businesses have had to close down in order to get rid of a life-killing virus running rampant throughout the world.  This this is how rebels treat the city, killing the way of people making a living for themselves who follow laws and are doing their part to help preserve life.  They are now experiencing a double whammy!  Coronavirus and a pogrom!  

This rioting and stealing will not be forgotten.  Does it help the cause of having better relations between Blacks and Police?  No, I don't think so.  More training may be in the works but that doesn't mend the hearts and minds of those dealing with rioters.  

Like Portland's Mayor stated, "How does this honor  George Floyd?" 

Resource:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-night-of-broken-glass
https://www.voanews.com/usa/portland-oregon-protest-erupts-riot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavuot

A History of Jews Living in Ghettos

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                           

Today's Ghetto in Venice

In Daniel Silva's books, the main character, Gabriel Allon's love of his life is a Jewish Italian woman who is living in the old Jewish Ghetto in Venice, Italy.  Evidently her family had been there for ages.  Gabriel is an Israeli spy for Mossad, I believe.  His profession is that of a painter; an art restorer of the old masters that are found in Italy.  

Present day Jews are most familiar with the Ghetto in Venice where the Jews were segregated in 1517 after the Spanish Inquisition had started and spread from 1492.  

The Ghetto was a Jewish quarter in a city, set up by law to be homes only for Jews.  The name comes from the foundry or Ghetto in Venice where the Jews were segregated from the rest of the city.

If you've been watching Net Flicks on TV's Medici or The Borgias, you'll get a taste of the history and know that Venice in the 15th century was a city-state as they all were, warring against each other, seeking power.  

The idea of segregating the Jewish population goes back to earlier Church legislation to the Lateran Councils of 1179 and 1215 which forbade Jews and Christians to live together in close contact.  The Catholic church was in power and considered Jews as their competition in religion and they were just changing over from Roman gods to Christianity.  

In Spain, the Jews lived at least from the 13th century in juderias provided with walls and gates for their protection.  in 1355, 12,000 Jews were massacred by the mob in Toledo.  in 1492, 180,000 were expulsed from Spain while 50,000 were converted to Christianity so as to remain in Spain.  Most of them were keeping their Jewishness a secret, and today many are coming out of the closet, so to speak, and not called Marranos anymore but the Anusim; Jews.  

From the 15th century, the friars in Italy began to press for the effective segregation of the Jews, and in 1555, Pope Paul IV ordered that Jews in the Papal States should be forced to live in separate quarters.  This was carried out right away in Rome and became the rule throughout Italy in the next generation as well.  

The name, GHETTO used in Venice now was applied universally.  It was in common use under the name of Judengasse in Germany and Prague and in some Polish cities.  It was a town within a town.  People inside had a certain amount of autonomy but besides this, did have a vigorous spiritual and intellectual life.

However, it was unhealthy and overcrowded as the area had no way to expand.   It was beset with many fires in those days.                                                            
An even bigger problem was that they were set upon by forced baptism, the wearing of the Jewish Badge, conversionist sermons, and the occupational restrictions.  

It took the French Period to come alone before clothing ID saying you were a Jew was abolished in Italy but reintroduced locally in the 19th century, and only came to an end when Rome united with the kingdom of Italy in 1870.  

Moslem law did not restrict Jews into their own quarter like European Christians were doing.  Their deterioration came in the 18th century.  Jews there were required to move from the area of mosques and were restricted in the size of their houses.  Economic decline came along and Jewish quarters became slums.  

In Persia, Shi'ite (Iran today) fanaticism from the outset enforced distinct Jewish quarters, also closed at night and on Sabbaths as Europe had practiced.  This practice extended to Yemen and Morocco where the ghettos were called as Qa'at al-Yahud or Masbattah and Mellah.  
                                                      

Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler inspecting Dachau concentration camp on 8 May 1936.

Then we come to 1939 and the Nazis in Eastern Europe.  Ghettos were not permanent homes there but temporary holding cells in their plan of liquidation aiming to concentrate, isolate, and break the spirit of their occupants before they were murdered.  Between 1939 and 1942, Jews from Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and other places were transferred mainly to the Warsaw and Lublin areas of Poland.  Ghettos were used there and at other places like Lodz, Minsk, Vilna, Cracow, Bialystok, Lvov, Riga, Sosnowiec.  
                                                          

The population of the Warsaw Ghetto grew to 445,000 and there were 200,000 in the ghetto of Lodz.  In the beginning they were overcrowded.   If one escaped, the punishment was death.  The Gestapo and SS were in control.  
They appointed council out of the Jewish people to carry out their dastardly orders and used them as a Jewish police force.  
                                                          

Last Seder in Warsaw Ghetto
76 years ago, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto organized the largest Jewish armed resistance against the Nazis. It was April 19th, the first night of Pesach. As the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was unfolding, Jews gathered for a Seder. For most of them, it would be their last.

The councils organized social welfare, schools, maintained courts of law, and raised a labor fore for the Germans.  As the Nazi murderous plans became clear with gas chambers and shootings,  both councils and the Jewish police passed into the hands of collaborators who formed a privileged group.  

The ghettos contained industrial centers working for Germany at nominal wages.  Nazis starved the ghettos and available relief could only be financed at the expense of the Jews themselves.  

The Ghettoed Jews went through destitution and demoralization but maintained cultural activity, schools and mutual aid and from this moral resistance were born the Ghetto Revolts of 1943.  The Warsaw Ghetto was liquidated in 1943 and the remaining ghettos by 1944.  
                                    

                     The Pianist is a movie about the Warsaw Ghetto.  

Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

They Killed the 2017 Resolution to Recognize Jerusalem as Israel's Capital

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                    

Israel's Knesset is in Jerusalem.  This is Israel's single chamber parliament and was created in 1949.  It has 120 seats which are filled by proportional representation based on the total vote in the country.  All men and women with Israel citizenship over the age of 18 have the right to vote.  Candidates for election must be above the age of 25.  The permanent building was built in 1966.  

On January 1, 2017, Donald Trump took office as President of the United States after Barack Hussein Obama had been in office for 2 terms for 8 years.  Obama had taken office on January 1, 2009.  At the end of 2017, on December 20th, Trump voted on the United Nations General Assembly resolution drafted by Yemen and Turkey, an emergency session resolution, declaring that the status of Jerusalem as Israel's capital was null and void.  It was called ES-10/L.22.  
                                                             

ARCH OF TITUS IN ROME BY JEBULON

        That's taking us back to 70 CE when the Romans forced the Jews to carry

loot from the Temple all the way to Rome.  Notice the Menorah above.  They made this arch in Rome to depict making slaves out of the Jews, forcing them to carry these valuables from the Temple.  This is the ARCH OF TITUS.                                               

This menorah is across the street from the Knesset.
"It is a bronze Menorah 4.30 meters high, 3.5 meters wide, and weighs 4 tons. It is located at the edge of Gan Havradim (Rose Garden) opposite the Knesset. It was designed by Benno Elkan (1877–1960), a Jewish sculptor who escaped from his native Germany to Britain. It was presented to the Knesset as a gift from the Parliament of the United Kingdom on April 15, 1956 in honour of the eighth anniversary of Israeli independence.  (Israel's rebirth was on
April 15, 1948.

We are reminded that the Menorah from the 2nd Temple was taken to Rome and is pictured on the Arch of Titus in Rome for all the tourists to see.  The Menorah is a symbol of Judaism and is frequently portrayed on tombs and monuments of every description.  Jewish homes have a Chanukiah, a
menorah with 9 candleholders for the 8 nights of Chanukah.
 

This resolution ES-10/L.22 was sharply contested by the United States and President Trump.  It was Barack Obama who did not vote for the last resolution in the UN affecting Jerusalem, causing it to fail.  He had set the example of how much the surrounding states of Israel could get away with.  
                                                      

            General Assembly of UN in New York on September 17, 2017

Trump wanted this resolution of being able to tell the USA what they couldn't do to fail, so he threatened to cut off financial aid to the countries that voted in favor of it.  That had an impact.  Nine countries voted against the resolution. Thirty-Five countries abstained.  One Hundred Twenty-Eight countries voted for the harmful resolution!  I'll say that again.  128 to 9 against with 21 absentees and 25 abstentions.  It passed.                   

The day before the vote, Trump said: "Let them vote against us...We don't care...this isn't like it used to be where they could vote against you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars. We're not going to be taken advantage of any longer."                           

Nikki Haley was former governor of South Carolina.
Trump selected her as the US Ambassador to UN, one of his
1st and best decisions.  She was remarkable.
She started position January 25, 2017, resigned December 31, 2018
We lost the greatest advocate, but it must be a very frustrating position. 
I miss her SO much!  She was born January 20, 1972.   

 Ambassador Nikki Haley warned her country would remember and "take names" of every country that voted in favour of the resolution. The governments of Turkey and Iran denounced the threats made by the US as "anti-democratic" and "blackmail".Haley had sent a letter to dozens of member states that warned Trump had asked her to "report back on those countries who voted against us." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said "I call on the whole world: Don't you dare sell your democratic struggle and your will for petty dollars" and warned Trump that "he cannot buy Turkey's democratic will with his dollars." He added: "I hope and expect the US won't get the result it expects from there (UN) and the world will give a very good lesson to the United States".                         

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Israel rejects this vote before it passes and called the UN a "house of lies".

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, condemned Trump's warning to countries receiving aid from the US: "Trump should know that there are things that are not for sale or subject to blackmail, particularly issues of principle, legality and morality."

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland's spokesman, a country which was seeking re-negotiations of the NAFTA, confirmed its intention to abstain from the vote and that the resolution should not have come to the General Assembly.

                                                 

US Ambassador Nikki Haley then said that her country was "singled out for attack" because of its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. She added that: "The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation,” Haley said. "We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world’s largest contribution to the United Nations, and so many countries come calling on us, as they so often do, to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit." She added that: "America will put our embassy in Jerusalem. That is what the American people want us to do, and it is the right thing to do. No vote in the United Nations will make any difference on that...this vote will make a difference in how Americans view the UN.

Even since King David's days, and he ruled from 1,010 BCE to 970 BCE down to 70 CE when Rome destroyed our 2nd Temple and Jerusalem, this city called the City of David has been the capital of the ancient state of Israel, then Judah.  It is sometimes called ZION, after David's fortress.  It's been known as the city of Righteousness, the faithful city, the city of God, THE HOLY CITY, CITY OF TRUTH.  It's always been known as such and recognized as a Jewish capital. 

The Romans through Hadrian  took over the city and founded a Roman Colony on its ruins.  They called it AELIA CAPITOLINA, a name that has persisted into the Arab Period, but the common name they use is EL-KUDS.  To the Jews, there is reason to say it is their holy city.  There is nothing about Jerusalem in a historical sense dear to the Arabs.  

 King David had captured this city from the Philistines in 1010 BCE and became the capital of the united Israel.  One can read about it in II Samuel 5:6-8;  I Chronicles 11:4-6.  David had dealt leniently with the Jebusites living there but established himself in the city, adding the fortress of Zion and also a House of Heroes for his guard.  Then he constructed a tomb inside the city for himself and his dynasty.                                                           

He transferred the Ark of the Covenant there.  David made Jerusalem the religious center of Israel..  Through his conquests, he made it the capital of his empire that reached from the Red Sea to the Euphrates River.  
                                                    

His  son, King Solomon, who ruled from 970 to 930 BCE, enriched the city from his commercial ventures and  taxation.  He enlarged the city by adding the Palace and the Temple, while filling the gap between them and David's City with the Millo or filing.  The erection of the Temple transformed Jerusalem definitely into the permanent center of the Jewish religion.  When Solomon died much changed.  The Northern 10 tribes had been taken by force by the Assyrians in 721 BCE and Judah including Jerusalem remained the capital.  The Davidic dynasty remained in power until it's destruction in 586 BCE.  During this period, the city was under threat by by different kings.  King Hezekiah cut the tunnel which was then named after him.  King Uziah strengthened the city walls and added towers and engines.  It was kings Jotham and Hezekiah who made the other wall to encompass his pool.    King Herod built a palace in the NW quarter of the city, protecting it with 3 great towers; the base of one, the tower Phasael, called the Tower of David, is still visible.  
                                                           

Still standing, the surrounding parts of his outer wall are known as the Western or Wailing Wall. That's where Jews of today go to pray, as the Jordanians will not allow any Jew on the Temple Mount.  They were allowed to rule that part of Jerusalem as a courtesy by Moshe Dayan at the end of the 6 Day War which Israel won.  As a peaceful gesture, he allowed this and look how they treat Jews.   Everyone associates Jerusalem with Jews.  We are wailing once again!!  Luckily, the UN is not a world police force they think they are.  They are there to suggest, not to cause another war.  

The Jerusalem Law of 1980 extended Israel sovereignty over the entire city.  The population of the eastern portion of the city---including the 139,600 Moslems and Christians---had been incorporated into the total population of 493,500 in 1990.  

Jerusalem's 2020 population is now estimated at 931,756. In 1950, the population of Jerusalem was 120,895. Jerusalem has grown by 74,004 since 2015, which represents a 1.67% annual change.

Resource:https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-israel-un-vote/over-100-countries-defy-trump-vote-for-jerusalem-u-n-resolution-idUSKBN1EF2EE
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_resolution_ES-10/L.22
The New Standard JEWISH Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Haley
https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/jerusalem-population/
https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/jerusalem-population/