An interesting and little-reported offshoot of the current crisis between Russia and Ukraine is how it’s affecting the identity of Ukraine’s Jews.
They’re starting to call themselves Ukrainians.
As anyone who has spent time with Jews in the former Soviet Union knows, Jews who lived in Moscow in Communist times were not Russian, just as Jews in Kiev were not Ukrainian and those in Tblisis were not Georgian. They were Jews, ethnically and nationally, even if they never stepped inside a synagogue or lit a Shabbat candle. In case they had any doubts, it was stamped in their state-issued internal passports, the infamous “fifth paragraph” that declared the holder’s nationality — so called because it was listed fifth on the document, after name, date of birth, place of birth and social status/profession.
That “Jewish” on their passport kept them out of key universities and government jobs, and made foreign travel more difficult. It made them subject to suspicion, arrest and worse. Children of mixed marriages were permitted at 16 to choose between their parents’ nationalities; according to reports, up to 95 percent of those with one Jewish parent chose the other’s nationality, at least for their official papers.
In their hearts, however, they were still Jews. Russians and, even more so, Ukrainians were the Cossacks, the oppressors — the “Other.”
When the Soviet Union disbanded in 1991, Jews began identifying publicly as Jewish. More than a million emigrated, mostly to Israel; some returned, and those who remained in the Jewish state kept up with friends and relatives back home, creating a cultural cross-pollination. Foreign Jewish organizations from Chabad to the Joint Distribution Committee arrived, helping to create real Jewish communities, which had not existed since, well, ever.
All of this strengthened Jewish identity, individual and communal.
So in June, when I sat in a Jerusalem hotel room with about a dozen Jewish journalists from the former Soviet Union, including five from Ukraine, I didn’t expect to hear what I heard.
The Jewish journalists from Ukraine were calling themselves Ukrainians.
Olga Medvedava, a lovely young woman from Triomphe, a Ukrainian fashion magazine, showed up for the session in full Ukrainian national costume — high-necked white blouse tucked into long white skirt, both embroidered with red flowers, and a wreath of flowers on her head.
What’s up with the gear, I asked her?
“I’m from Dnepropotrovsk, which has a large Jewish population,” she said. “When the crisis broke out this spring, something extraordinary happened — people of all national groups suddenly saw themselves primarily as Ukrainians. The Jews, the Armenians, we all recognized that we are Ukrainian first. So I wanted to represent this to you even in my appearance.”
She hauled the clothes with her to Israel, wreath and all, hoping she’d have the chance to demonstrate this sometime during the Jewish media conference we were all attending.
Dnepropotrovsk, OK. That’s in the center of the country. What about Jews in eastern Ukraine, where the major battles have raged?
Dmitro Brook is a journalist in Kharkov, one of the cities that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin claimed was full of Russian sympathizers yearning to breathe free. He, too, told our group that he considers himself Ukrainian, and so do his friends. “Even though the language used most of the time is Russian, the population — Jews, Armenians and Ukrainians — see the city as a Ukrainian city,” he said.
Neither Olga nor Dmitro had any statistics to back up their statements. And they made some wild generalizations about how the Ukrainians who supported Russia were all Russians in disguise. But that didn’t matter — what mattered was how their perceptions, and those of other Jews they know, are changing their sense of belonging. Calling themselves Ukrainian indicates a huge cultural shift.
Dmitro insisted that as soon as Crimea was occupied by Russia this spring, the Jews of Ukraine came out publicly in support of Ukrainian sovereignty. And that political stand has emotional resonance.
“Like French Jews say they are French, Ukrainian Jews consider themselves Ukrainian,” he said.
Sue Fishkoff is the editor of J., and can be reached at [email protected].