Ukraine

THINGS TO SEE AND DO IN Ukraine

Ukraine’s Jewish community dates back to when Jews lived among the Khazars, who converted to Judaism en masse in the mid-8th century. Few Jews from this community remained after the Tatar invasion during the 13th century but migration gave rise to a new community of Jews from Western Europe. The Jewish community thrived until the 17th century when the Chmielnicki massacres killed nearly half of the Jews in Ukraine. Hasidism became especially popular and as the pogroms intensified in the late 19th century, Zionism became widespread. Repression of Jews and Jewish culture worsened under Stalin.

Much of Ukrainian Jewry was destroyed by the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazi killing forces which destroyed entire communities in mass executions, during the Holocaust. In the Babi Yar massacre, 30,000 Ukrainian Jews were killed over two days in 1941. After the war, Jews living in Ukraine faced repression and anti-Semitism much like the rest of Soviet Jewry. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the vast majority of Ukrainian Jews emigrated. Today, the Jewish community numbers between 56,000 and 140,000. There are hundreds of Jewish organizations, both local and international, operating in Ukraine as well as dozens of synagogues and a large Chabad presence.

PLACES OF INTEREST

SYNAGOGUES

PLACES TO EAT