Ukrainian Jews in danger!

I really wouldn't have a clue what exactly the right word is, farmer. My family called called them "platzky" .... probably some sort of weird jumbled Ukrainian/Polish regional thing. And my Ukrainian is very rusty these days. No, your comment made me smile, that's all. So no need to be confused about potatoes at all!

This was particularly, poignantly true in mid-century. The Emperor Nicholas I was never intended to be emperor. He was a reclusive, secretive child, raised by his grandmother, the doddering Catherine the Great, and steeped in religion, superstition, and an arrogant nationalism. But his elder brother Alexander died of typhus, and the second son of his father renounced his claims, so that Nicholas became emperor in 1825. He was soon to announce: "One Emperor, one Church, one Russia." He actively sought to extirpate other religions, and to force other ethnic groups to embrace the Russian language and the Orthodox Church, or he was content to see them get out, and he didn't care if they died in the attempt. In 1839 in particular, Nicholas impose by ukase the Orthodox religion and the Russian language on the inhabitants of Ukraine and Belarus. It was Nicholas who began the war with the Chechens which continues to this day, more than 180 years later. Nicholas wanted no Catholics, no Lutherans (his grandmother had imported many Germans into the Ukraine), no Jews and no Muslims, and he wasn't particular as to methods in attaining his ends.

Apparently, for my gene pool, there was an option that allowed for the acceptance of Orthodoxy as the ony "true religion" and that we are forever apostate of Jewry.

My ancestors were people of deep conviction. I think they were used car salesmen.

I suspect that a great many people faced the same option, and took the path of least resistance. The Poles had elected Nicholas King of Poland (it had been an elective office for centuries by then), but in 1830-31, despite one of the most idiotic constitutions in political history, the Poles were in serious danger of actually effecting sensible parliamentary reform. Nicholas told them they could not do this, so they voted to remove him as King, and his response was to invade the rump of Poland (the earlier partitions had reduced it "postage stamp" size by then, anyway) and in 1831, what was left effectively became a province of Russia. He then attempted to extirpate Roman Catholicism, for which Poles had happily fought and died for centuries. It is from the failed "revolution" of 1831 that the great tide of Poles moving west to Germany, France, England and, of course, eventually to Canada and the United States began. Nicholas was pleased with the results of his edicts, convinced he was doing God's work, and turned his attention to the Ukraine, and to Chechnya and Ingusetia. Central Eurasia lives with the consequences of his idiocy to this day.

I am not disputing the facts of your family history, and the surrounding events; I just cannot understand how so many Jews managed to remain Jews in the Ukraine, and Russia? I mean at least two million died during WWII?

One of my grandparents came from around Kiev. That was in the Ukraine. Well, he arrived in the U.S. in the late 1800's as a practicing Jew. So did another grandparent from Minsk? And, another from Brest-Litovsk. Someone else from Georgia. All Jewish; all arriving in the later half of the 19th century. They might have gotten along well with the local emissary of the Czar? No one was giving them a deal they could not refuse?

By the way, even today, I believe many Jews do not look at those who convert to Christianity as apostates per se; more like the belief is that some Jews are just highly ambitious. Do not think I am making any innuendo about your relatives. I am just telling you the popular notion I have heard.

Then you should have a rip roaring time reading about he history of Russian Jewry. Russia covers the entire breadth of the Asian Continent so Im sure you wont be surprised to know about all the ethnic groups and religions that were classically ensconsed there. The first Jews in Ukraine supposedly migrated to the wstern areas of Ukraine (lvov to Kiev)in the 8th century, escaping Christian prsecution.

Not interested in Jewish/European history. I prefer to read about WASP's. I find their concerns amusing.

glad to see that your sense of humor has returned.

Similar situation in the USA with respect to Native Americans and their religions except the new "citizens" of the USA took a more active role in ensuring Native Americans died.