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.

Russian Jews: Their Background and Escape to Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                       

The world is made of 7 Continents:  
1. ASIA: 50 countries with 60% of world population
    17,212,000 sq miles large
2. AFRICA: 54 countries
3. NORTH AMERICA: 23 countries
4. SOUTH AMERICA: 12 countries
5. ANTARTICA
6. EUROPE: 51 countries,  3,930,000sq miles large 
7. AUSTRALIA: 14 countries, 0.3% of world population
                                                                     
                                                                   

Russia:  Lies in both Europe and Asia.  Russia is considered European.  The capitol is Moscow.  75% of the population is in Europe with 22% in Asia.  Anything west of the Ural mountains is considered European.  6,323,142 sq miles large.  (almost twice as large as Europe)
                                                           

Catherine was the name of 2 Russian Empresses.  Caherine I ruled from 1725 to 1727.  In May of 1727 she sxpelled all the Jews that were living in Little Russia.  This order was countermanded after her death.  Little Russia was an administrative body of the Russian Empire in the Hetmanate created for the first time by the ukase of Peter the Great on May 27, 1722 in place of the Little Russia Prikase.  

Then Catherine II, called Catherine the Great, ruled from 1762  when she permitted all aliens to live in Russia except Jews.  She ruled to 1796, and her Jewish policy was marked by a  combination of liberalism and coercion.  On one hand, Jews were allowed to register in the merchant and urban classes in 1780, but permission was restricted to White Russia (Belorussia) in 1786. Jews went to White Russia originally from Poland.  They were living in Grodno in the 12th century, at Brest-Litovsk in the 14th century, and at Pensk from 1506.  In eastern White Russia, Jews appeared in the 16th century, but owing to opposition from the local burghers, the communities were long unrecognized.  

Massacres happened at Polotsk in 1563, at Homel in 1659, at Mohilev , etc. in 1655.  The Jewish population suffered severely at the end of the 17th century from the Polish-Cossack and Swedish wars.  
                                                   

 This marked the beginning of the PALE OF SETTLEMENT, an area Jews had to live in as they were kept out of all other areas.  It was their confinement.  This happened during her last years, which were marked by reaction from 1789 to 1796. It was instituted in 1791.    She prevented the extension of Jewish settlement and in 1795, prohibited Jewish residence in even the rural areas.  25 provinces made up the Pale of Settlement of Czarist Russia which was itself made up of Poland, Lithuania, White Russia, Ukraine, Bessarabia -Belarus (Moldova and Ukraine),  and Crimea, where Jews were permitted permanent residence.  Permission to live outside its confines was granted only to certain groups who had to be members of the liberal professions with a high school diploma.  They would have been the big businessmen, skilled artisans, and ex-Cantonists. 

CANTONISTS were Jewish children who were conscripted to military institutions in czarist Russia with the intention that the conditions in which they were placed would force them to adopt Christianity. The "cantonist units" were properly barracks (cantonments) established for children of Russian soldiers. They provided instruction in drill and military training, as well as a rudimentary education. Discipline was maintained by threat of starvation and corporal punishment. At the age of 18 the pupils were drafted to regular army units where they served for 25 years. Enlistment for the cantonist institutions, which originated in the 17^th century, was most rigorously enforced during the reigns of *Alexander I (1801–25) and *Nicholas I (1825–55). It was abolished in 1856 under *Alexander II.

The fate of Jews ever found outside the Pale without permission depended on the arbitrary decision of the local governor.  The borders of the Pale were restricted from time to time arbitarily by the oppressive "Statute Concerning the Jews." of 1835.  By 1882, under the MAY LAWS, Jews were excluded from rural areas inside the Pale.  As a result of these restrictions, Jewish economic development was severely hampered.  The Pale was abolished in effect in August 1915 but legally in March 1917 by the end of World War I.  

Jews immigrated to the USA in 3 waves:  The European Ashkenazi group  arrived " between 1880 and the onset of restrictive immigration quotas in 1924 with over 2 million Jews from Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Romania."   

In the 1880's many European Jews immigrated to the USA.  Almost all the records say they were from Russia, and that was all.  We have to really dig to find out what part of Russia, and usually it was somewhere in the Pale.  Our grandfather, Nathan Goldfus/Goldfoot b: 1871, came over from Telsiai, Kovno, Lithuania  through a trip through England, Ireland, Canada and then finally landing in Council, Idaho marrying our grandmother, Zlata Jermulowskey from Lazdijai, Seinai,Suwalki, Lithuania/Poland.  They married in Boise, Idaho in 1905.  

The family of Louis Eskovitz Iskowitz Eskowitz Eskowitz b: 1875 in Russia and wife  Rose Kupper b: 1886 in Russia had to pay a guide to get them and their children; Chester, Baili, Leonard, Morris,   Dora, Fanny and Nat out of Russia.  The guide led them out at night between 1905 and 1906.  It became cloudy and they couldn't see each other.  One of the children let go of their parent's hands and the parent couldn't find it again.  They were panicking.  Finally, the parent had the little one and they were able to continue and cross over the line.  tt's hard to understand that they weren't allowed to leave. Nat, the youngest, told me this story several times.  His cousin became the rabbi who started Boy's Town in Jerusalem.                        

At Babi Yar, a ravine ouside Kiev where almost 34,000 Jews were killed in September 1941.The horror of the massacre together with the fact that no memorial was erected until the 1980s in memory of the Jewish victims turned Babi Yar into a symbol of anti-Semitism.  

                                                     
  It is estimated that more than half of the 6 million Jews of the Holocaust  died directly as a result of the Shoah and were Russian Jews. Many more emigrated to Israel, USA, Argentina, and Germany.  Communists denied any specific religious ethnicity of the dead. 

 Russia and Ukraine still have among the larger Jewish populations in the world today (440,000 in Russia; 300,000 in Ukraine.)   The Ukraine has been going through their own battle with Russia lately.  They do not want to be a part of Russia again.  

Russia had turned into the  Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 30 December 1922 to 26 December 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized.and back to Russia again.  They may have called it a socialist state but the world considered it a Communist State.  
                                                    

       Golda Meir was the newly appointed ambassador to the USSR in 1948 from Israel and she visited the GREAT SYNAGOGUE in Moscow during the Succot holiday.  She was mobbed by thousands of Jews, defying the intimidation of KGB infiltrators and the very real anger of being arrested.

I had moved to Israel in 1980 and had many Russians in my Hebrew class at the Ulpan.  They had just started allowing some Russians to leave by then, Russians that didn't matter to them.  They knew how to study a foreign language, and we didn't.  For starters, my husband and I were in a class with 40 Russians.  As we couldn't keep up, a smaller class was created for us, and get this-my husband had taught Hebrew to barmitzva preparing boys.  Conversational Hebrew was another thing.  
                                                      

Natan Sharansky b: 1948

More Jews have wanted to get out of Russia/USSR but were not allowed.  It was an atheistic country.  It had not only become a Communist state, but ended all religion for everyone.  Natan Sharansky was in prison since 1977 for trying to learn Hebrew.  He was there in 1980-81 when I was learning Hebrew in Haifa, Israel at an ulpan.  Our teacher was Sarah, and she sent him letters.  He tried to make aliyah to israel in 1973 but was refused permission as all Jews were not allowed to go there. By 1986 with the help of his wife's work and the president of the USA, he moved to Israel.    the Choral Synagogue (the only synagogue allowed to operate in Moscow) was filled with spies and the most conscious of the city’s Jews were the refuseniks who sought to leave Mother Russia forever.”
                                                   

Ukranian Jews getting out and making aliyah to Israel

Natan, THE CHAIRMAN OF THE JEWISH AGENCY FOR ISRAEL,  wrote an article for THE JERUSALEM REPORT MAGAZINE that came out in July 13, 2015.  He had a feeling that many more Jews would want to make aliyah to Israel, and it turned out that he was right.  In 1988 Natan was head of the Zionist Forum, an organization founded by aliyah activists and former prisoners of Zion.  400,000 Jews came out of Russia within the first 2 years.  
                                                    

2nd generation Russian Jews in Israel 

They found their place in Israeli society.  These Russians can boast of tremendous achievement.  They entered the hi-tech, Science, economics, the arts, sports and politics of ISRAEL.  They had to fight against the Soviet regime for the right of Jews to move to their historical homeland and had no doubt that in the end they would prevail.  
                                                    
I suppose Russia missed the Jews who left.  Something happened.  It started accepting Jews again.  I say this because I've read that " Instead of one synagogue, Moscow today is home to about 20 synagogues. The iconic Choral Synagogue has been refurbished and attracts scores of worshippers each Shabbat.
                                                       

In St. Petersburg, Jewish life has been revived as well: synagogues, a Jewish Community Center, schools, a Hillel and senior center all educate St. Petersburg’s Jews. In a city that before 1917 banned Jewish residency, public Shabbat dinners now draw crowds of Jews."

"Jews make up about 0.16% of the total population of Russia, according to the 2002 census, and Russia’s Jewish community is shrinking. Numbering 2,279,800."  Here's something also happening in the USA.  Small family sizes and high rates of assimilation and intermarriage mean that fewer Russians identify as Jews. As many as 80% of non-Orthodox Jews in Russia marry non-Jewish spouses.

Vladimir Putin likes Jews.  When he was a small child, his neighbor was an orthodox Jew.  His Jewish neighbors had him over for dinners many times and he was very appreciative as his family was very poor.  He never forgot their kindness to him. He became president in 2012.  
                                   

However, anti-Semitism has hit Russia as well.  "Despite Russia’s thriving Jewish life and pro-Jewish overtures from President Putin, Russia today is home to worrying levels of anti-Semitism. A 2015 ADL poll found that fully 23% of Russians harbor anti-Semitic views. In recent months, a series of high-profile anti-Semitic incidents has made some Russian Jews reconsider their place in Russian society." 


Resource: https://www.countries-ofthe-world.com/continents-of-the-world.html
https://www.countries-ofthe-world.com/continents-of-the-world.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegium_of_Little_Russia_(1722%E2%80%9327)
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-immigration-to-america-three-waves/
http://www.worldometers.info/geography/largest-countries-in-the-world/
https://www.aish.com/jw/s/7-Facts-about-Jewish-Life-in-Russia-Today.html
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Update: 5:00pm, again at 7:15pm.  .

Being Jewish in Russia Was the Pits

Nadene Goldfoot                                            

It started with living in Kiev, now the capital of Ukraine.  Duke Vladimir, (958-1015) also the Prince of Novgorod, son of Prince Sviatoslav,  became powerful and had solidified the frontiers against incursions of Bulgarian, Baltic and Eastern nomads.  His religion was that of a Slavic paganism.  He converted to Orthodox Christianity in 988 and Christianized the Kievan Russians.  This caused the Jews of that area to have to be involved in a debate against becoming Christianized in 986. Jews had emigrated to Kiev in the 700s, possibly from Khazaria and Jewish merchants had visited in the 800s and 900s.

Kiev in the 1100s had a Jewish Gate.  What?  Jews had to enter by a special gate?  Talk about discrimination.  That goes with being forced to live in the Jewish Quarter, which may or may not have been their choice. It was actually a ghetto and Jews were persecuted and  the ghetto looted in 1113.  During this period, the Jews were attending a western yeshivot and sent their questions of a religious nature to the German rabbis who were the experts living in Worms, Germany.
By 1240, the Tatars destroyed the community.
Kiev was excluded from the PALE OF SETTLEMENT.

1321 and Jews were entering Lithuania which would later be a part of the PALE OF SETTLEMENT along with Latvia, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine.  .
1398 and Karaites made up a community in Lithuania in Troki.
In the late 1400s, Jewish traders from Lithuania helped to spread the knowledge and people of a Judaizing sect in Novgorod and Moscow and this started a drastic reaction.  It sounds like they were proselytizers.
1495 saw 10,000 Jews living in Vilna, Grodno and Kovno.  This same year they were excluded from Lithuania
1566 to 1572 those in Lithuania then had to wear the Jewish badge to identify them.

By 1563, 300 Jews were drowned at Polotsk and Vitebsk on refusing to accept baptism.  Boy, that sure told the Jews what a nice religion they didn't accept.

In 1667, the Jews were expelled from Eastern Ukraine when it was annexed to Russia.  Clauses prohibiting Jews from visiting the country of Russia were inserted in treaties signed by Russia with foreign powers in 1550 and 1678.  Expulsion orders were given out in 1727, 1738, and 1742.

In 1753, 35,000 Jews were driven out of Russia.  Where did they go?  To the neighboring countries that hadn't become as nasty yet.
                                                                     

In 1762, Catherine II permitted all aliens to live in Russia except the Jews.

                                                    CZAR RULE

Poland was partitioned off in 1772, 1793 and especially in 1795.  The great Jewish masses of White Russia (Belarus) , the Ukraine, Lithuania and Courland (Latvia) became Russian subjects and for over a century, the great majority of the world's Jews were under the horrid rule of the Czars.

By 1796 Jews were restricted to towns, the start of the land called the PALE OF SETTLEMENT. This was comprised of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine.   Only the Karaites had equal rights with Christians in 1795.  Poland was the world's greatest center of talmudic study.  S. Russia, particularly Odessa, was the focus of Hebrew literary revival and the place where many remarkable people in Zionist and contemporary Jewish history had congregated and lived, just like Worms, Germany was the center when Jews lived there.

In 1802 Jews had a Council for Jewish Affairs established.  2 years later it defined the PALE.  Jews were legally restricted to live in the villages in 1807-1808 which limited their activities of the KAHAL( a Jewish congregation having autonomous rights and responsible for taxation, abolished in 19th century)  in religion and charity and prohibited the traditional Jewish clothing.  It took measures to promote agriculture among the Jews.

Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 and the Jews remained loyal.  He issued several restrictive measure of his infamous decree relating to commerce and finance which restricted Jewish rights.
Alexander I (1801-1825) was benevolent at first.  He changed his attitude later and caused 20,000 Jews to be expelled from the provinces of Vitebsk and Mohilev in 1824.  Those remaining were forbidden to live near the frontier.
                                                                     

 About 600 oppressive acts regarding the Jews were published during the reign of NICHOLAS I a Czar reigning from 1825 to 1855.  He regarded Jews as an injurious element.  He tried to assimilate Jews by his police methods so introduced the kidnapping of boys called Cantonists.  Jewish clothing was forbidden to wear  in 1850.  Intellectual life was strictly supervised (the beginning of big brother is watching you).  If you converted to Christianity you were exempt from paying income tax for several years.

In 1827, military service was brutally imposed on Jews.  Jews became subject to this decree from this year and a much higher number of Jewish children were taken away from their families with the intent of converting them to Christianity.  This was the act of taking adolescents into the army and had actually started in 1805 and lasted until 1856.  The Jewish communities were bound to supply yearly a certain number of recruits between ages of 12 and even sometimes 8 to 25.  Service in the armed forces lasted for 25 years. and wasn't counted until they had reached age 18.  Jewish recruits were educated at special schools outside the PALE OF SETTLEMENT and then sent to far away places, the eastern provinces like Siberia.  Thousands were converted and assimilated this way while many died of hardship.  Most of these children, called the CANTONISTS, were from poor Jewish families.  The more wealthy Jews were able to buy their children.  The same thing has happened in other places as well.  However, there was a brutal police force that imposed on the the Jewish community the act of kidnapping these children and this had led to widespread corruption and deep resentment on the part of the poorer Jews against the rich.  No wonder some families cut off fingers and tried to make their children unfit for service.
                                                                     

Isador Kaufman 1853-1921, a Yeshiva Boy

In 1835, the frontiers of THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT were restricted and this remained a law until 1915.  In 1836 a censorship was imposed on Jewish books.
In 1844 the Kahal was abolished.  Alexander II tried to Russify the Jews by education and the gradual relaxation of restrictions.                                    

In 1864 the judicial law contained no anti-Jewish discrimination.  At this time there were 65,000 Jewish farmers.  They became prominent in economics, culture and left-wing politics.  Social anti-Semitism now began to replace or reinforce the former religious prejudices.

1881 was when Alexander II was assassinated causing the Jews to become the chief victims.  Horrid pogroms in the early 1880s took place and caused Russians to see Jews as a foreign element to be kept apart from the village population.
                                                                         

1891 started THE MAY LAWS pertaining to where they could live, when they could work.  Jews were expelled from Moscow and a law called NUMERUS CLAUSES was introduced into their high schools and secondary schools. " (4) The measures laid down in paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 shall apply only to the governments within the Pale of Jewish Settlement [that is, they shall not apply to the ten governments of Poland].They were laws discriminating against the Jews.  The administration of the May Laws by petty officials who were very often ignorant of their meaning intensified abuses"                                                                       

                                                                        
My grandfather left Telsiai, Lithuania in June 1893 for England at age 22.  

Many Jews turned to ZIONISM.     Some opted to emigrate to the USA. They all wanted to leave.                                

1897 was the turning point for Jews to be interested in socialism like the Bund and the revolutionary movement.

1905 was the start of an organization advocating Jewish rights.  By 1906 they elected 12 Jewish deputies to the Duma, representing the Liberal Party. Anti-Semitism reached a peak with the Beilis case, one of many Blood Libels.In 1911 the body of a boy was found in Kiev and Menahem Mendel Beilis was charged with ritual murder.  The investigation lasted for 2 years with violent anti-Jewish propaganda in the Russian and anti-Semitic press and by a wave of protest in Jewish and libnertal circles in the world.  In 1913 the trial was held and Beilis was acquitted.  He traveled to Palestine and later in 1920  to the USA. His story was the subject in the book The Fixer by Bernard Malamaud.
                                                                     

Much emigration to the USA took place between 1900 and 1920.  I know from the reports of one family that they had to pay a leader to take them out, traveling at night.  Their story was about a foggy night and they had let go accidentally the hand of one of their children and almost lost her in fleeing.

1914 was the beginning of WWI and lasted until 1917.  At the outbreak of the war, 5,600,000 Jews lived in the empire of the Czars including almost 2 million in Poland.  Those living near the war zones were deported.  There happened to be 300,000 Jewish soldiers in the Russian army at the time.    Jewish shtetls (villages) were the scapegoats for Russian defeats.  Jews were expulsed from Kovno, Grodno and Courland.  They could do no printing in Hebrew or Yiddish.
Lithuania's 100,000 Jews were expelled and emigrated to Russian interior during war.
                                                                               
After the Russian Revolution on April 2, 1917, the government ended all anti-Jewish decrees.  Then Jews became active in the Kerensky regime and later men such as  Trotsky, Zinoviev, Sverd and Lov were prominent  in the Bolshevik Revolution.

1918 saw changes for Jews.  There were Jewish departments in the commissariats of national affairs and of education.  April 1919 the Soviet government ended the non-communist Jewish institutions
1919  Vilna, Lithuania went to Poland.
                                                                             
A Civil War started and with it was a wave of more pogroms but the Soviet government said that anti-Semitism was a criminal offense.  Jewish traders started to disappear.  Many went into heavy industry.  The Soviet Government became anti-religious.   and it became against the law to teach in public schools any religious teaching.  There was an economic revolution what affected all life.  Older Jews held onto their traditions, but the younger ones were affected by the changes.  The government recognized that Jews were not a nationality, so they discouraged Hebrew and persecuted Zionism.   They didn't like Jews but discouraged them from leaving Russia for Palestine, too.

Like the rest of the world, from 1921 to 1929, life was better for the Jews economically.  Jews were placed on the land to farm in the Ukraine, Crimea and in Biro-Bidjan.  The American Jewish Agricultural Corporation helped them, but not many Jews wanted to be farmers.
                                                                     

In 1930, Jews were being discouraged to continue with their religion.  Prominent Jews were taken away in purges of the 1930s.
                                                                       

1939 WWII started.  Poland was invaded by the Nazis on September 1, 1939.  "  In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, a treaty included a secret protocol that divided territories of Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland into German and Soviet "spheres of influence", anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries"   Countries were annexed such as Belarus, W. Volhynia, E. Galicia, N. Bukovina, Bessarabia (Moldova and Ukraine) , Lithuania and Latvia and this led to the mass-deportation of Jews by the Nazis, especially the intelligentsia from these places.
July 1940 Lithuania had 175,000 Jews.  Russians deported 25,000 and from Latvia.  The remaining were massacred by the Nazis and Lithuanians by 1943.                                                                              

1941 the Nazis invaded Russia.  Their aim was to exterminate the Jewish population.  There were 500,000 Jews in White Russia (Belarus).
                                                                                 

Russian Jew 

Only half escaped to the interior.  200,000 were slaughtered immediately.  The Soviet government appealed to the World Jewry in 1941 but quickly the anti-Jewish trend showed itself again.Many outstanding Jews were taken away, including most of the people of Yiddish culture.
                                                           
1947-1948 Jews were supporting Israel.  Russia adopted a strong pro-Arab and anti-Israel policy.

1952 showed the chutzpa of the Russians  to charge Jewish doctors of plotting against the state, part of another campaign against Jews after suffering from the Nazi Holocaust.
                                                                       

Joseph Stalin 1878-1953, Russian dictator from 1929 to 1953. 

 
1953 Stalin died! All doctors who survived prison were released.  The government continued to be anti-Semitic and restricted Jewish cultural expression.  Jews were removed and placed in different centers, changing the population.

1955 Russia strongly supported Arabs
1959 Jews living in Russia 2,268,000.
1967 After Six Day War USSR broke off relations with Israel and came out in support of the Arabs, especially supportive of Egypt.
Jews demanded the right to emigrate to Israel.  At this time, all synagogues were shut down and Russians were atheistic.  There was no religion practiced.  Many Jews were put in prison for wanting to leave.
                                                                           
 Sharansky was one of them.  He was able to write to my Hebrew teacher in Israel from prison in 1980 and she in turn sent back lessons, in secret.
                                                                     

Natan Sharansky, born 1948 in Russia. Chess champion, computer scientist, Knesset member 

1970s Jews started to come to Israel.  250,000 left Russia and of those 150,000 went to Israel.  By mid 70s, Russians came to USA instead.
Natan  Sharansky was denied an exit visa to Israel in 1973. The reason given for denial of the visa was that he had been given access, at some point in his career, to information vital to Soviet national security and could not now be allowed to leave. After becoming a refusenik, Sharansky became a human rights activist, working as a translator for dissident and nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov, and spokesperson for the Moscow Helsinki Group and a leader for the rights of refuseniks.

Sharansky was released on 11 February 1986 as part of a larger exchange of detainees. He was the first political prisoner released by Mikhail Gorbachev due to intense political pressure from Ronald Reagan.

1980s saw doors closed to Jews again.  Finally in last years of 1980s, Gorbachev allowed emigration. Everyone felt freer, Jew and anti-Semites.  Now the USA severely limited Soviet Jews from entering.  Israel received almost 200,000 Jews in 1990 and it continued into 1991.

     I made aliyah in 1980 and joined a group of Russian Jews who were teachers of English in Russia.  We were all learning Hebrew in an ulpan lasting 10 months and had to pass a 3 hour Hebrew test at the end.  They were far better at learning languages than we Americans.  They could not return to Russia, but we were free to return to the USA having dual citizenship.  I loved them for loving my female German shepherd who I had brought with me.  One time we Americans and Russians had a big disagreement on managing our ulpan lunch money, and though we argued, they always loved my dog.  She brought us together.  

1989 census of Jews in Russia: 1,449,167, probably higher.  Some records say only 12,312 Jews remained.  
1991 relations with Israel re-established, just before liquidation of USSR.                                       
2015:  Russia meeting with Iran about nuclear plans of Iran.   Russia backs Iran in arming terrorists who are attacking Israel.  
                                                  

A Jew praying at the wall in Jerusalem

Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natan_Sharansky
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10508-may-laws