History of the Jews in Ukraine
| Total population | |
|---|---|
|
(2010 est. 71,500 core - 200,000 enlarged 360,000-400,000 by 2014 est. ) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Kiev | 110,000 |
| Dnipropetrovsk | 60,000 |
| Kharkiv | 45,000 |
| Odessa | 45,000 |
| Languages | |
| Russian (83.0%), Ukrainian (13.4%), Yiddish (3.1%), Hebrew | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism, other (including atheism) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Russian Jews, Mountain Jews, Belarusian Jews, Polish Jews | |
(2010 est. 71,500 core - 200,000 enlarged
Jewish communities have existed in the territory of Ukraine from the time of Kievan Rus' (one of Kiev city gates was called Judaic) and developed many of the most distinctive modern Jewish theological and cultural traditions such as Hasidism. According to the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish community in Ukraine constitute the third biggest Jewish community in Europe and the fifth biggest in the world.
While at times it flourished, at other times the Jewish community faced periods of persecution and antisemitic discriminatory policies. In the Ukrainian People's Republic, Yiddish was a state language along with Ukrainian and Russian. At that time there was created the Jewish National Union and the community was granted an autonomous status. Yiddish was used on Ukrainian currency in 1917-1920. Before World War II, a little under one-third of Ukraine's urban population consisted of Jews who were the largest national minority in Ukraine. Ukrainian Jews are comprised by a number of ethnic 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. An army of Cossacks and Crimean Tatars massacred and took into captivity a large number of Jews, Roman Catholic Christians and Uniate Christians in 1648–49. Recent estimates range from fifteen thousand to thirty thousand Jews killed or taken captive, and 300 Jewish communities totally destroyed. During the 1821 anti-Jewish riots in Odessa after the death of the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople, 14 Jews were killed. Some sources claim this episode as the first pogrom. At the start of 20th century, anti-Jewish pogroms continued to occur. When part of the Russian Empire in 1911 to 1913, the antisemitic attitudes can be seen in the number of blood libel cases. In 1915, the government expelled thousands of Jews from the Empire's border areas.
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