Ukraine's Peninsula: CRIMEA In The Black Sea and the Jewish Population

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

     China wants to invest in Crimea and has projects.  Russia seems to be okay with it.  China has been doing this all over the world.   

Today's Crimea is a Russian peninsula, but this has not always been the case.  From the 7th century to 1117, eastern Crimea was controlled by the KHAZARS, a powerful group between the 8th and 10th centuries..  They were called the White Ugrians by the Russians and were a Turkish or Finnish tribe living in the Volga delta.  They converted to Judaism, following their leadership in the 8th century.  .                                                     

        Though it's not named, Crimea is that little peninsula in the Black Sea.  Kyiv/Kiev, the capital,  is way up north in Ukraine.  Many Jews lived there.

Khazaria extended westward as far as Kiev.  Its royal house intermarried with the Byzantinians.

Since February 2014, Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula has been under Russian occupation. The Kremlin initially attempted to justify its military aggression by stage-managing a fig leaf referendum at gunpoint, but the international community was not fooled. Instead, virtually every country on the planet, except for Russia itself and Moscow’s few remaining rogue state allies, continues to recognize Crimea as an integral part of Ukraine.

By the 12th century, there was a large Karaite (a Jewish sect that rejected the ORAL LAW, who originated in the 8th century in and around Persia),  population living in Crimea.  From the end of the 13th century, many Jews converted to Islam under Tatar rule.  By the 15th century, the Genoese (Jews from Genoa, Italy) ruled southern Crimea, and they protected Jewish affairs.  

The Ottoman Empire (Turkey) ruled from 1475 to 1783.  The city of Chufut-Kale grew to became a Jewish center.  Many Jewish captives from the Ukraine were sent to Crimea after 1648.  

                                              

     Crimea was a potential Jewish Homeland before it became an ethnic Russian stronghold 

The Russians then conquered Crimea in 1783, and this caused many Ashkenazi Jews to settle here.  In 1863, the Russian authorities granted equal rights to the Karaites, but not the Jews who were still under the gun of many disabilities until the 1917 Revolution.  

In the 1920, thousands of Jews were settled in Crimea under a plan to establish an agricultural center, turning Jews into farmers.  

                                               

                                   Krimchak girls

        Karaite men in traditional garb, Crimea, 19th century.

By 1939, the Jewish population was 50,000 of which 40,000 were Ashkenazim  (who spoke Yiddish),  6,000 were Krimchaks (name given to the original "orthodox" aboriginal Jews of the Crimea who spoke a Turkish (Tataric) dialect and their dress and many of their customs were also Turkish) and 4,000 Karaites (spoke Turkic) .  This was at the height of World War II with the German invasion of Poland.  They were mostly all wiped out by the Germans in 1941, and only a few, including some 500 Karaites, survived.  

Crimea's Jewish population by 1980 was 25,614.  The Jewish community in Crimea numbers around 15,000 today  out of a total population of two million. The most significant minority group is the Crimean Tatars, numbering around 300,000.

Crimea was a part of Ukraine until Russia conquered the country.  So the following statistics about Ukraine include Crimea.  Antisemitism had  declined. According to the European Jewish Congress, as of 2014, there were 360,000–400,000 Jews in Ukraine. Today, 2021-2022,  antisemitism is at its highest.  In 2014,  someone spray-painted a large swastika and the words 'Kill the Zhids (Jews)' on the Simferopol synagogue walls, told by Haaretz.  

In 2016:  Israeli organizations are setting up shop in eastern Ukraine, to help Jewish people displaced by war with Russia-backed rebels. Anyone with Jewish heritage can take one-way flights to Israel.

During the 1990s, some 266,300 Ukrainian Jews emigrated to Israel as part of a wave of mass emigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union to Israel in the 1990s. That was 30 years ago.  

In 2015, some 7,500 Jewish people left Ukraine for Israel: up from 6,000 in 2014, and following many years when the flow from Kiev to Jerusalem was little more than a trickle. Most fled from the conflict-ridden east of the country: first westwards, and then across the Black Sea to Tel Aviv.

Ukrainian Jews consist of a number of sub-groups, including Ashkenazi Jews, Mountain Jews, Bukharan Jews, Crimean Karaites, Krymchak Jews, and Georgian Jews. In the westernmost area of Ukraine, Jews were mentioned for the first time in 1030.

War between Russia and Ukraine may start as soon as today. Russia had already taken Crimea and now has Ukraine completely surrounded with something like 150,000 soldiers, tanks, etc. China's Olympics are about over.  Russia has been in position for months, lately seen getting into position.  The USA has not sent any soldiers to Ukraine,  but to NATO countries in preparation in case of war.    

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/time-to-remind-russia-that-crimea-is-ukraine/

https://www.russia-briefing.com/news/belt-road-crimea.html/

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

https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-crimea-jews-apprehensive-1.5331285

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