First: I know it’s a crass and parochial question. I don’t mean for it to be. Wherever there is oppression, tyranny, and military aggression by a malignant dictator—and Putin checks all the boxes—a Jew should be anguished. If it’s a human rights issue, of course it’s a Jewish issue.
But there are a few specifically Jewish dimensions to the Russian assault against a nation that has the 10th largest Jewish community in the world (depending on how you’re counting), a population that has been there for over 1,000 years.
Ukraine and Belarus were homes to some of the most glorious spiritual geniuses in all of Jewish history; the birthplaces of some of the great figures of Jewish modernity, especially early Zionists and Hasidic masters. Through the end of the 19th century, this region was home to the largest Jewish community in the world, by far.
Putin’s gaslighting. “Gaslighting” is a tool of abusers everywhere. It means: to obfuscate a situation by accusing the other person of doing something that the perpetrator himself is doing. (“Election security!” comes to mind.) Gaslighting makes the victim feel like he is the one who’s crazy, like she is the one who is the problem.
Putin’s particular gaslighting is his call for the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. It’s not even clear what that means, but in recent years many people have found it useful to hurl the “Nazi!” epithet at their social and political opponents, which is especially ironic, given the rise of actual neo-Nazis these days.
It's gaslighting not only because of Putin’s tyrannical instincts, but also because his invocation of Nazis implies the persecution and annihilation of Jews—as if Russian (and Ukrainian) history wasn’t soaked with Jewish blood.
One Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said:
They tell you that we’re Nazis. But how can a people that lost 8 million lives to defeat the Nazis support Nazism? How can I be a Nazi? Say it to my grandfather, who fought in World War II as a Soviet infantryman and died a colonel in an independent Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Jewish president. Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine in a landslide vote in 2019 after a career as a comic actor and stand-up comedian. (The Times of Israel: “He was catapulted to fame by playing a foul-mouthed schoolteacher on TV who became president after one of his students filmed his profane rant against corruption and posted it online.”) He caught the world’s attention by getting tangled up with Rudy Giuliani’s traitorous machinations and Trump’s first impeachment.
It does not seem that Zelensky’s Jewishness has particularly influenced his political outlook, nor was there a notable surge in antisemitism after his election. But you can be sure that if the Russian-Ukrainian situation devolves, murmurings about international Jewish cabals and conspiracies will be murmured in the dark corners of the Internet and the usual suspects.
Jewish canaries in the coalmine. But perhaps the biggest fear is one that is linked to the region’s repulsive history. Jews are always the canaries in the coalmine at times of crisis.
Jews have long been identified by European mobs as “others” and outsiders, useful targets for hate. In Ukraine there was a 17th century proto-Holocaust known as the Chmielnicki Massacres; it is estimated that 100,000 Jews were slaughtered at a time when the world Jewish population was about 1.5 million. (Bodgan Chmielnicki, the cursed leader of the uprising, is remembered among Ukrainians and Russian nationalists today as a hero.)
Historically, the Jewish condition in the region was fraught. Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (where untold numbers of generations of my ancestors lived until they thankfully escaped) were homes to some of the most glorious spiritual geniuses in all of Jewish history; they are the birthplaces of some of the great figures of Jewish modernity, especially early Zionists and Hasidic masters. Through the end of the 19th century, this region was home to the largest Jewish community in the world, by far.
In 1881 Tsar Alexander II was assassinated—and the Jewish community was falsely implicated in the crime. Brutal pogroms were unleashed by bloodthirsty peasants with the knowing encouragement of churches, newspapers, and the government. And in a 30 year period, massive numbers of Jews got the hell out—approximately 2.5 million left, most of them heading to the shores of America’s goldene medina.
When the Soviet Union emerged in the 20th century, Jews were perpetual targets of discrimination, deportations to Siberia, and abuse. I know that I am not alone in my generation of Jewish Americans whose appetites for political action were profoundly shaped by the Free Soviet Jewry movement. (And we won—the Soviet Jewry movement has been called the most successful human rights campaign in history!)
There’s a reason why it’s so hard to visit a synagogue in Europe these days. When you go as a tourist and want to drop in on Shabbat services, there are hurdles to jump through; you can almost never simply show up and say you’d like to join the service. It involves calling ahead, always showing your passport, and often driving back and forth searching for a community that is self-consciously trying to keep its head down and not draw attention to itself. Such is the state of freedom of worship in “civilized” Europe.
So when we see this uncloaked Russian neo-Soviet aggression, our basic humanity is triggered and we worry about all the victims. But it also makes sense that we fear for the safety and well-being of Ukraine’s Jewish communities, who are on edge precisely because of the region’s awful history: When times are rough, Jews have always been the convenient scapegoat by oppressors.
Keep them all in your prayers this Shabbat, and for the awful weeks ahead that we surely have in store.
How can we help? Tzedakah Funds have been set up to help the victims of the crisis through the WORLD UNION FOR PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM and the JDC - AMERICAN JEWISH JOINT DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE.
