Kiev, Ukraine's Jewish Connections

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                

Kiev is the capital of the Ukraine.  It was a Russian city at one time.  It's possible that the Khazars founded it in the 8th century.  Khazaria, ruled by Bulan, had selected Judaism for the Royal Court out of the 3 religions of Islam, Christianity and Judaism to follow.  It had become a haven for Jews suffering from anti-Semitism in those days. They came to Ukraine from Khazaria, the Caliphate and Byzantium between the 9th and 12th centuries; from Central Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries, and from Poland in the 16th and 17th centuries.  Severe massacres happened there during the Chmielnicki and Haidamak uprising of the 17th and 18th centuries.   This state lay in what is the southern part of Russia on today's maps.  Jewish merchants had visited the Kiev  in the 9th and 10th centuries causing the Jewish population there to grow steadily, despite persecutions which started in 1113.
                                                                         

Jewish scholars from Kiev were known from the 12th century.  The community was then destroyed by the Tatars of Russia in 1240.  From the end of the 14th century, Jews were encouraged to return.  Both a Rabbanite and Karaite community existed there during the 15th century.

Expulsions were decreed in 1495, shortly after the 1492 ones from Spain by the Catholic church.  It happened again in 1619.  Peter the great permitted Jews to trade in Kiev from 1708.
                                                                             
In 1827, Kiev was excluded from the Pale of Settlement, which was land set aside in 1791 by Catherine II.  where Jews were allowed to live. it included Ukraine, Crimea, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,  White Russia, Bessarabia, 25 provinces of Czarist Russia in all.   They were excluded from Russia.  Therefore Kiev became one of the largest Russian communities.
                                                                             

Sholem Aleichem (Shalom Rabinovich 1859-1916) wrote Fiddler on the Roof, about Jews in the Ukraine.  In his most difficult years, he created the character of Tevye the milkman in the story.

Many pogrom happened here in 1881 and on, and even in 1905.  1,200 Jewish families were expelled in 1910.

  The Beilis Ritual Murder Trial occurred in 1913, which is hard to imagine happening at that late date.   Jews do not use blood in any way.  They do not eat blood, either, like some people do.  It's part of the laws of kashrut (kosher) not to do so, so when people say they use blood in matzos at Passover time, it's against all reason.  Here the Russians, who were very anti-Semitic, were accusing a Russian Jew, Menahem Mendel Beilis,  of Kiev,  of this.

350,000 Jews lived in Kiev in 1939, at the height of the Nazi days where Jews were definitely not safe anymore.  Most of those trapped by the Nazi advance were massacred in 1941.  Babi Yar is an example.  This was a ravine outside of Kiev where tens of thousands of Jews were killed in September 1941.  The massacre was a horror.  No memorial was erected until the 1980's to remind people of what had happened which was caused by anti-Semitism.  The Soviet poet, Evgeni Yevtuschenko, used it in his poem, "Babi-Yar" in 1962.  Later the event was used in a symphony by Shostakovitch and the subject of a novel by Anatoly Kuznetzov.  Jews who had lived in Ukraine were wiped out by the Ukrainians and Germans  from 1942 to 1942.
                                                                         

In the post-war period, Soviet anti-Semitism has been felt strongly in Kiev.  In 1988 there were 152,000 Jews living there.  Today Jews are not safe again due to the Russian and Rebels fight over Ukraine as a independent state.  In February, "“The situation here is dire,” said Yossi Asman, a Chabad yeshiva student and son of the chief rabbi. “We have been gathering up families and shuttling them out to safer neighborhoods.”  Two Chabad Yeshiva students had been attacked in Kiev.  Even the food supply in the city was dwindling.  The Israeli Embassy told the Jewish community not to go outside their homes.  Too many attacks had been discovered that were planned on Jews.  Again, 2014, Jews are still the scapegoats  of attacks in the battle between Ukrainians and Russia.   Perhaps Israel is the only answer for them.  

Resource: The New Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menahem_Mendel_Beilis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babi_Yar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Ukraine
http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/02/21/chief-rabbi-of-ukraine-urges-jews-to-flee-kiev-after-attack-on-students/

What Happened to the Jews of Aleppo, Syria ?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                 

                                     A Jewish Wedding in Aleppo  1914

According to the book of Samuel and Psalm 60, Aram Soba, the Biblical name for Aleppo, was part of the extended area of Israel.   Aleppo covered a huge area at this time.  Aleppo's history goes back to King David's day  of 1010-970 BCE.  The Jewish community here was one of the oldest in the world.  

When the United Nations declared a Partition Plan for Palestine in November 1947, the Middle East went wild.  Severe anti-Jewish pogroms took place with many casualties across the whole Arab world.  The most violent happened in Aden and Syria.  The violence caused a severe increase in a Jewish exodus, with the Aleppo Jewish community declining.  The rioters in Aleppo burned the city's Jewish quarter and killed 75 people.  After the pogrom, the city[s Jewish population had left.  

In 1948, there were about 30,000 Jews in Syria.  That's not many when you realize that in 2011 the population of Syria was as high as 22,505,000.  The Syrian government placed severe restrictions on Jews who might choose to escape.  This included emigration.  

Over the next decades, many Jews managed to escape, and the work of supporters, especially Judy Feld Carr, who helped smuggle Jews out of Syria, brought their plight to the attention of the world and raised awareness of their situation.  

After the Madrid Conference of 1991, the USA pressured Syria's government to ease its restrictions on Jews.  By Passover  1992, the government of Syria began granting exit visas to Jews on condition that they would not go to Israel.  4,000 Jews were living in Damascus called in Arabic "Yehud ash-sham) and Aleppo and Qamishli.  Most Jews had made it to the USA and some to Israel already. A few family had chosen to emigrate to France and Turkey.   There is a large Syrian Jewish community living in South Brooklyn, New York.  A few remained in Damascus.  There was a final airlift by Israel  that took place in 1994.  They took these few to Tel Aviv.  

"The Syrian Jewish community in New York originally consisted of two groups, Jews from Aleppo and Jews from Damascus, Syria. At first the convergence of the two groups was not easy. The Aleppan Jews thought of themselves as more knowledgeable, largely due to their history in Syria as a center of Jewish learning. The Aleppans, or Halabis , followed the traditions of Aram Soba . The Damascene Jews or shammies , prayed in a different house of worship, although in Brooklyn the two groups lived side by side and socialized."

By 2004, the Syrian government tried to establish relations with the emigrants, and a delegation of about 12 Syrian Jews  came back and visited Syria in the Spring.  

The surname of Halabi means Aleppo.  It denotes an origin from Aleppo (Halab), Syria, or people who traded with Aleppo residents.  A number of different families from different religions used that surname. Muslims, Jews, Christians or Druze might be carrying this surname.  

Some of the Muslims with the surname of Halabi have migrated away to cities in Western Saudi Arabia such as Jeddah, Madinah and Makkah.  Many Halabi Christians have migrated to the USA, England and other European countries.  Druze al-Halabi are found in Lebanon,  Israel, Canada and the USA among other countries.  Halepovich is a variant of the name which is used among slavic Muslims in the Balkans.  

Najeeb Halaby is the Syrian father of Queen Noor of Jordan who was born as Lisa Najeeb Halaby.  Lisa Elhalabi is the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration of the USA and the CEO and chairman of Pan Am.  

ALEPPO in arabic is called. Ḥalab; the Jews of Aleppo called it  Aram-Ẓoba or Aram Ẓova), It was the second-largest city in Syria and the center of northern Syria.  The legend has it that Abraham pastured his sheep on the mountain of Aleppo and distributed their milk (ḥalav) to the poor on its slopes.   Jews settled in Aleppo during the Greek period and remained there during the Roman days.  "The community seems to have had close contacts with Palestine, and heads of Palestinian yeshivot (schools that studied the Torah) visited Aleppo." Judea and Samaria were called Palestine after 135CE by the Romans.  "At the beginning of the 16^th century exiles from Spain started to arrive in Aleppo, among them outstanding rabbis. " It was the Spanish Inquisition of 1492 that drove out the Jews from Spain and then from their refuge, Portugal and caused them to flee to Syria.  

In Aleppo is the Al-Hayyat mosque.  It used to be a synagogue dating from the 6th century.  Benjamin of Tudela found 1,500 Jews living there in 1170 CE.  Before 1914 there were 14,000 Jews living in Aleppo.  The Jewish quarter contained many ancient synagogues with the oldest being the Mustaribaha which was destroyed in 1947's riots.  The main part of this synagogue dated back to the 4th century.  

Resource: http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2013/07/modern-day-female-moses-judith-feld.html
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_and_Muslim_countries
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2013/07/what-happened-to-jews-of-damascus-syria.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/07/what-had-happened-to-jewish-syrians.html
http://genealogy.familyedcation.com/surname-origin/halabi@ixzz2thCmJfAC
http://genealogy.familyeducation.com/surname-origin/halabi
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0001_0_00732.html
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia  "Aleppo"
http://www.jewishgen.org/sefardsig/aleppojews.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Jews

Jews' Return to Their Land Sparked By Pogroms and Government Restrictions

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

                                           19th Century Pogrom in Russia
Ever since 70 CE, life was one event after another of persecution for Jews. 1096 saw Crusaders slaughtering Jews as they went through European towns on their way to take Jerusalem.  1492 was the year of the Spanish Inquisition and forced conversions of Jews in Spain.   In 1648 to 1656, 100,000 Jews were murdered in the Chmielnicki massacres in Poland.  In 1727 and 1747, Jews were expelled from Russia.   In 1838, the entire Jewish community in Meshed, Persia (today's Iran) were forcibly converted to Islam..

 Jews finally had a formal emancipation in Central and Western Europe from the 18th to 20th centuries, but it did not put an end to discrimination and social ostracism of Jews. This was supposed to be the removal of the disabilities imposed on Jews that had been in place from the 4th century  on.  The Christian Empire enacted an elaborate system of discrimination against Jews which was adopted and intensified in medieval Europe as well as in the Islamic world.  It brought in the Ghetto system aiming at keeping Jews away from the gentile society.      The Dreyfus case in France was a good example of Jewish discrimination and anti-Semitism in 1894 when he was condemned to life imprisonment and ordered to Devil's Island. This led to the affect it had on Herzl and to the development of Zionism.

Continued oppression and outbreaks of pogroms in Eastern Europe were combined with extreme poverty for most of the Jews.  The Hep Hep riots against them began on August 2, 1819 in Wurzburg, Germany. Hep! Hep! was an anti-Jewish slogan used during these riots.  The cry was then said to be of Crusader origin, being formed from the initials of the words Hierosolyma est perdita (Jerusalem is lost).   This continued and reached Denmark, Poland, Latvia and Bohemia.  By 1821 Odessa, Russia  had pogroms against them.  This started up a wave of pogroms.  More occurred in 1859.

A new movement came out of all this suffering of returning to their land and of a revival of Jewish national life.  The Yishuv-the Jewish community already living in Palestine that had never left, started it all.  In 1860, they built the first quarter outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.  Two Hebrew periodicals were regularly published in Jerusalem calling for a return to the Land.  It couldn't have happened at a better time.

In 1870, the first Jewish agricultural college was established in Mikveh Israel which today is on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.  Back in Russia, the next year of 1871 and non-stop until 1921 were years of anti-Jewish pogroms in the towns of Russia including the Pale.  By being in the Pale, it was so much easier to attack Jews.  It was no wonder that the early 1900's saw the immigration of over a million Jews.

By 1881 and subsequent years, Jewish immigrants that belonged to the Hibbat Zion (Love of Zion) movement arrived in Israel from Eastern Europe.  Meyer Levin's "The Settlers", a historical novel, tells about their arrival from the turn of the century to the Balfour Declaration and covers over a 1/4 of a century of turbulent events and their hardships as pioneers.  Some had joined existing villages while others founded new ones.  Some of the villages established during the last 2 decades of the century are large towns today; Hadera and Rishon Le-Zion, for example.

From  1882 to 1890, 750,000 Jews living in Russia were forced to re-settle in the Pale of Settlement; 25 provinces of Czarist Russia,  areas under Catherine II's reign of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, White Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Crimea.  In 1891 Jews were then expelled from Moscow and St. Petersburg and sent to the Pale.

The Jews who returned to the Land during this period are known as "the First Aliya."  Aliya  literally means: going up-spiritually, ascent;.  In practice, it has come to signify immigration to Israel.   The conditions in which the first Aliya-and subsequent waves of immigration-settled in the Land were extremely harsh.  The population was small and dispersed.  Communications were poor and insecure.  The Land had been completely neglected.  Pioneers faced swamps,and with it,  malaria,  The Ottoman Empire, which lasted for 400 years by 1917, was hostile and oppressive towards both Arabs and Jews, which is probably  why the native Jews hadn't been able to keep up the land.  Life for these pioneers was a continuous ordeal and new villages survived precariously.

By 1897, Theodor Herzl organized the First Zionist Congress in Basle and founded the World Zionist Organization.  Zion  had been the traditional synonym for Jerusalem and for the entire land, so was the proper word to use.  A growing realization that Jews should follow the path of self-determination which other nations were following such as the Greeks, Italians and Poles.  Zionism became the national liberation movement of the Jewish people.  It's aims were to carry out the return of Jews to the Land and the revival in it of Jewish national life; socially, culturally, economically and politically.

So a 2nd Aliya came to Israel in 1904 to 1914 which reinforced existing villages and founding new ones.  The Yishus began to organize itself politically with socialist groups figuring prominently.  In 1909 the first kibbuts-Degania-was establish on the southern shore of Lake Kinneret.  That same year was when Tel Aviv was founded on the sand dunes outside of Jaffa.

Hebrew was becoming the principal language of the Yishuv with the emerging Hebrew literature.  Life was still harsh and many of the newcomers left.  However, by 1914, there were 85,000 Jews in the Land.  The Land became occupied by Britain 4 years later with the end of WWI and they governed it for 30 more years.  They left and Israel was declared a state on May 14, 1948.  .

After all the suffering Jews have had to endure for 2,000 years at the hands of the governments of the world, they finally passed the Balfour Declaration that gave Jews the right to have their own land back, a decision on November 2, 1917 with the League of Nations.   The promise on paper was given to establish the Jewish National Home, and now even that is in limbo with nations today with discrimination in the UN.  The struggle continues for rights and recognition in our own homeland.  This time we're not going to be driven out.  

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom
Facts About Israel by the Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem 1973

ANTI-SEMITIC RESULTS AFTER FALL OF JERUSALEM : A Walk Through History

Nadene Goldfoot
This is a partial  chronology of persecution, massacres and expulsion of the Jewish experience.  One would think we would have given up the resolve of continuing our Judaism, but we can not. It is the impetus to rebuild our state once again, though, after 2,000 years of waiting and praying: "NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM".

70 CE  Fall of Jerusalem-many Jews taken as slaves
115 CE Expulsion of the Jews from Cyprus
135 CE Bar Kokhba's Rebellion, lost hope to regain Judah

640, 721, 873 Jews in Byzantine Empire forcibly converted to Christianity
1096 German Crusade massacres Jews in European towns
1099 Jerusalem Jews massacred by the Crusaders
1146-1391 Jews of Spain forcibly converted to Christianity
1290 Expulsion of Jews from England
1306 Expulsion of Jews from France
1355 12,000 Jews massacred in Toledo, Spain by mob
1349-1360 Jews expelled from Hungary
1420 Jewish community of Toulouse, France all killed
1421 Expulsion of Jews from Hungary
1492 Expulsion of 180,000 Jews from Spain
1492, 50,000 Jews converted to Christianity remain in Spain (Morranos)
1495 Jews expelled from Lithuania
1497 Expulsion of Jews from Portugal, Sicily and Sardinia
1502 All Jews of Rhodes forcibly converted, expelled or taken into slavery
1541 Jews expelled from Kingdom of Naples (Italy)
1648-1656, 100,000 Jews murdered in Chmielnicki massacres in  Poland
1727, 1747 Jews expelled from Russia
1838  Entire Jewish community of Meshed, Persia forcibly converted to Islam
1871-1921 Anti-Semitic pogroms in towns of Russia
1882-1890, 750,000 Jews in Russia forced to re-settle in Pale of Settlement
1891 Jews expelled from Moscow and St. Petersburg
1917 to present: Jews in Soviet Union denied right of national identity
1939-1945 The Holocaust murder of 6 million Jews by German Nazis and European collaborators
1941 Anti-Semitic pogrom in Jewish community in Baghdad, 180 killed
1948-1967: Persecution of Jewish communities in Arab countries, mass expulsions

Resource: Facts About Israel, Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 1973, page 32

Just Because We Were Jewish, We Couldn't Live There

Nadene Goldfoot
Jews may be slightly paranoid for good reason.  We've been kicked out of so many countries in the past 2,000 years that we just wait around for the other shoe to fall.  Look at the history we've had being the unpopular guy. Even in the wonderful United States Jews suffered from anti-Semitism, especially from 1920-1951.  There was a limit as to how many Jews could enter the country-even just before the Holocaust, how many could attend medical school, and certainly weren't welcomed in country clubs.  We were reminded who we were in others' eyes and words. Our children have been very lucky to not have had to experience such facts.   Losing our country caused us to wander throughout the world.

     70 CE Thrown out of Jerusalem, taken as captives or killed by Romans, fall of Jerusalem
  115 CE  Thrown out of  Cyprus
 640, 721, 873 Forcibly converted to Christianity in Byzantine Empire-the cue to leave
1096 German Crusade, massacred in European towns-if alive, better to get out of town
1099 Jerusalem Jews massacred by Crusaders
1146 Converted to Christianity by force in Spain
1290 Thrown out of England
1306 Thrown out of France
1355 12,000 Jews massacred by mob in Toledo, Spain
1349-60 Thrown out of Hungary
1391 Converted to Christianity by force in Spain-those that were found again
1420 Toulouse, France Jewish community all killed
1421  Thrown out of Austria
1492  180,000 Jews thrown out of Spain, 50,000 forced to convert to Christianity if remaining (Marranos) Spanish Inquisition
1495 Thrown out of Lithuania
1497 Thrown out of Sicily and Sardinia and Portugal
1502 Converted to Christianity by force in Rhodes or expelled or taken into slavery
1541 Thrown out from Kingdom of Naples
1648-56  100,000   massacred in Chmielnicki, Poland
1727-1747  Thrown out of Russia
1795-1835-Moved from Russian towns to Pale of Settlement (Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine, Belorussia) 
1838  Converted by force in Meshed, Persia, entire Jewish community
1871-1921  Attacked, many killed  in Pogroms in towns of Russia/Pale of Settlement (Musical-Fiddler on the Roof) (Golda Meier story) (Immigration to USA and "Palestine") 
1882-1890    750,000 thrown out of Russia and into Pale of Settlement  4 million living in Pale; 4% of Imperial Russia
1891  Thrown out of Moscow and St. Petersburg 
1917-2012 Denied right of national identity in Soviet Union/Russia
1939-45  Holocaust-killing of 6 million by Nazis and European collaborators
1941-2012  Attacked, 180 killed in Baghdad by mobs (part of Axis on Germany's side in WWII) 
1948-Dminni status (3rd class)- persecuted in Arab countries, kicked out en mass


Now we have our own state again on our original soil.  We are not wandering again unless we are tourists!  

Resource:  Facts About Israel 1973-Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/pale.html