Russia's Invasion of Ukraine and the Jews

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Russia has been home to Jews, mostly in its southern provinces, since classical times, told of in its history concerning Crimea, Caucasus, Khazars, Lithuania, Turkestan,, and Ukraine.  

In 986, Jews were involved in a disputation on the occasion of Duke Vladimir's conversion to Christianity. "However, Prince Vladimir begins to recognize that pagan gods are unable to unify Rus. Becoming interested in the question of faith while planning a campaign against the Eastern Roman Empire, he has sent embassies to the neighboring states of Bulgaria, Khazar, and Byzantium to examine their beliefs. [This is when he considers the 3 religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam for himself and his people..]The ambassadors return, declaring that the Islam of Bulgaria is too unhappy a religion to adopt. The fact that Islam bans fermented drink and pork does not set well with the Russians, who cannot imagine life without either—especially the drink. Vladimir himself rejects the Judaism of his Khazar neighbors, for he says the Jewish loss of Jerusalem and its temple proves that God has forsaken them. As for German Catholicism, the ambassadors describe it as plain and dour. Their impression of the faith of their Orthodox neighbors to the south is altogether different, however. Upon attending a service at the glorious Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinople, they report":

 A Jewish gate is mentioned in the 12th century at Kiev, and there was a Jewish quarter there that was looted in 1113.  Since the year 70, Jews had been fleeing from Jerusalem's burning and trying to find places to live since the Romans held their land.  They went from Germany to eastern Europe.  

Tevye, milkman in Fiddler on the Roof, probably in Ukraine.  He was trying to keep the mores of his Jewish religion in this land where pogroms were a constant happening.  My Bobba's legs were broken in one pogrom in Poland-Lithuania.

Russia is the largest country in the world, more like an empire. " covering over 17,098,246 square kilometres (6,601,670 sq mi), and encompassing one-eighth of Earth's inhabitable landmass. Russia extends across eleven time zones sharing land boundaries with fourteen countries, more than any other country but China. It is the ninth-most populous country in the world and the most populous country in Europe, with a population of 146 million. The country's capital and largest city is Moscow, the largest city entirely within Europe. Saint Petersburg is Russia's cultural centre and second-largest city. Other major urban areas include Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan."

A country this big is making Putin use its soldiers up like fodder, thinking they can be easily replaced, but he's finding that this isn't so.  Many are running away, getting out of Russia, and those that were forced to serve haven't even been paid or trained.  They are starting to realize that Russia has been the invader of their own cousins' neighboring country.

By comparison,, the USA has 3.797 million square miles

China has 3.705 million square miles

Canada has 3.855 million square miles

Ronald Reagan referred to it as the Evil Empire and they called themselves the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the USSR. We teachers had a reading session in class we called Uninterrupted Silent Sustained Reading.  

This helped me remember that they had 15 Soviet Republics including the one called Russia, and also had Ukraine, the Baltic states, Armenia and Turkestan.  Christopher Caldwell wrote that this bigger empire was part of an even bigger empire which included the Eastern European "captive nations" of Poland and Hungary.  

    Most Ashkenazi Jews came to the USA in the early 1900s from Russia's Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and were the poor folk.  The door closed on them in about 1924.  

That reminds me of the Pale of Settlement (25 provinces of Czarist Russia[in Poland, Lithuania, White Russisa, Ukraine, Bessarabia, and Crimea] created by Catherine the Great in 1791 that wasn't so great to Jews. Jews lived in little villages called Shtetls (think "Fiddler on the Roof.")  It was land where Jews could live in as they weren't allowed in the general area of Russia. They had to have permission to live outside the Pale, and I've never heard of anyone that did.  Their fate would have been decided on the governor of that sector.  The Russians came up with their oppressive "Statute concerning the Jews" of 1835 to 1882 , and under the May Laws, Jews were excluded from rural areas inside the Pale.  This killed Jewish economic development.  the Pale was abolished in effect in august of 1915, and legally in March 1917 at the end of WWI.

Communism collapsed in the early 1990's and most of the USSR countries became independent.  Ukraine had been ruled by a crooked president, Viktor Yanukovich, but he was replaced by democratic elections by Zelensky, a Jewish comedian who had a satirical TV series going for him.  He was an educated lawyer as well as comedian.  I guess the political situation was just too funny for him, and he wrote a great script that was entertaining for his people.  Ukraine now had a Jewish President, ironic since Ukraine had been terrible to the Jewish people throughout WWII.  Along with gaining independence and being exposed to life outside of Communism, they changed into people that didn't want to go backwards, and are fighting for the right to remain a free society.

Following a diplomatic crisis with neighboring Georgia, the Russo-Georgian War took place during 1–12 August 2008, resulting in Russia imposing two unrecognised states in the occupied territories of Georgia. It was the first European war of the 21st century.

 Russia steeply escalated the war by launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The invasion marked the largest conventional war in Europe since World War II, and was met with widespread international condemnation, as well as expanded sanctions against Russia. As a result, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe in March, and was suspended from the United Nations Human Rights Council in April. In September 2022, Putin proclaimed the annexation of 15% of Ukraine's landmass in its Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions, the largest seizure attempted in Europe since World War II.

Putin, on the other hand, has slipped backward, wanting to be an emperor like Catherine the Great.  He has invaded Ukraine;  attacked and taken over Crimea on March 18, 2014. and now has pulled a Nazi-like attack on Ukraine since 24th  February. Putin announced [ a "special military operation" for the "demilitarisation and denazification" of Ukraine].  It isn't Ukrainians who are acting like Nazis.  It's Russia's Putin !  They have invaded Ukraine!  

 In 2014, following a revolution in Ukraine, Russia invaded and annexed the neighboring country's Crimean peninsula, and contributed to the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine with direct intervention by Russian troops.

Zelenskyy clearly won the first round of elections on 31 March 2019. In the second round, on 21 April 2019, he received 73 % of the vote to Poroshenko's 25 %, and was elected President of Ukraine.

What Putin wanted was their large naval base in Crimea.  They had lost it to Ukraine and wanted it back.  

The Jews have been offered safety in Israel and many were helped to get there, but mostly the women.  Women of Ukraine with children have fled to all the neighboring countries that would take them in, a great many going to Poland.  The men are all staying and fighting.  Some Americans have even joined them and several have already been killed in battle. 

Because  of Ukraine's history of corrupt president Viktor Yanukovich,  Ukraine was not considered as one of the NATO nations.  Here they are, the only one-being attacked by land and sea and sky, and they do not have the insurance of NATO, which Putin is adamant against-of course, who else would NATO countries have as an enemy?  Russia, of course.  They lost their USSR and want it back.  

Resource:

Edit: 11/4/22 about Vladimir converting.https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/incontext/article/vladimir

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Pamphlet: Imprints:  complications of the Ukraine War by Christopher Caldwell, Hillsdale College. Claremont Institute

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#:~:text=The%20invasion%20began%20on%20the,demilitarisation%20and%20denazification%22%20of%20Ukraine.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelenskyy#:~:text=Zelenskyy%20clearly%20won%20the%20first,was%20elected%20President%20of%20Ukraine.