My Jewish family left an unwelcoming Ukraine, then Putin's war made me rethink my identity

[Behind the Aegis]

On the night Vladimir Putin announced his special noninvasive operation, I did the only thing I could think to do: I called my dad.

Papa Reytblat, born in the small Ukrainian town of Korosten just after the Great Patriotic War, had been proclaiming for months that a Russian invasion was impossible. "Vladimir Putin is a lot of things, but he’s not a schlemiel," he had said in Russian with a shpritz of his native Yiddish.

As the first kindergarten-seeking missiles struck Ukraine, my dad was sure: "Putin doesn't know what's coming. He messed with the wrong people."

I never thought of myself as Ukrainian before the war, even though it's my ancestral home. For starters, no one here in the United States ever seemed to know where or what Ukraine was, which I'll admit was a bit embarrassing growing up. As a Jewish American kid whose first language was Russian, it was hard enough to fit in without trying to explain the complexities of nationality in my parents' bygone USSR. Russian or Jewish were easy identifiers for Americans to digest. The few times I opted for specificity prompted a question I got tired of answering: "Ukraine … that's in Russia, right?"

For much of its history, like many of the red giant's neighboring nations, Ukraine was in Russia and Ukrainian independence movements were put down with brutal, chauvinistic fervor. During that time, my Ukrainian mishpucha, or family, lived in a community much like the ones described in the stories of "Fiddler on the Roof" progenitor Sholem Aleichem. They lived in shtetls, small Jewish towns in the Pale of Settlement, the lands of the Russian Empire beyond which Jews were forbidden to live. My grandparents and great-grandparents had names like Israel and Avram-Moishe. They spoke Yiddish around the dinner table, Hebrew at Torah study, and Russian at the only jobs they were allowed to work – all while trying to parry the occasional pogrom.

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[MatthewG.]

1. I'm part Ukrainian-Jewish and I've thought about some of these issues

My Jewish grandmother was born in Ukraine. She talked about her childhood there quite a bit when I was young, although honestly, I was more concerned with her sugar cookies than most of what she had to say about life in the region.

From what I can gather, her experience was similar to what the author describes, and similar to that of many minorities the world over; she and her family had dear friends who were Ukrainian Orthodox but also experienced painful discrimination from some quarters that left her scarred, and at times bitter.

I do think it’s notable that contemporary Ukraine has elected a Jewish President and Prime Minister, and is today apparently considered the least anti-Semitic country in East Europe. That speaks a lot about national cultural priorities and efforts to grapple with a painful past.

[appalachiablue]

2. A very interesting article with important points. Thanks.