Ніґун "ГОП КОЗАК". Nigun "Gop Hazak" (Hop Cossack). Jewish folk melody from Ukraine. Photo: Jews of Kremenchuk, Ukraine. New Year (Shana Tova) greeting card. Nigun means "melody / tune" in Hebrew. Music by Jewish messianic community, Kyiv, Ukraine. Ashkenazi Jewish culture of Ukraine. Name Ashkenaz (means Germany in modern Hebrew) comes from Ashkuza, Assyrian term for Scythia, geographic Ukraine. In the past term Ashkenaz had much broader meaning and denoted nearly the entire northern Europe. Prior to the Holocaust, what is now Ukraine was home to 2 millions Askenazi Jews (that is half of the population of modern Israel). The bulk (a good half) of western Ukrainian Jews perished in Belzec extermination camp (now in Poland, just next to Ukraine´s border), while the most of central Ukrainian Jews were executed by German einsatzkommando group C. Nevertheless, at the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine was home to 400.000 Jews, nearly half of them moved to Israel or the west in 1990s. Very likely, current Ukrainian president Poroshenko is of Jewish paternal descent (Waltzman), the same applies to paternal lineage of Tymoshenko (Kapitelman). Both from south Ukrainian / Bessarabian Jewry. The currents Ukraine´s minister of regional development Groysman is also of Jewish ethnicity (Podolian Jews), just as former chief of Football Association of Ukraine (Surkis), many parlamentaries, former Odesa mayor (Gurwitz) and many inflential industrialists and bankers (Kolomoyski, Pinchuk etc.). Russia´s second richest man Vekselberg is also Ukrainian Jew (from west Ukraine, born and grew up in Dorohobych). Chief of US Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke´s family too originates from Boryslav, west Ukraine just as Barbara Streisand´s grandfather was Jewish immigrant from Berezhany, west Ukraine. The only other prominent European president who had (at least half) Jewish descent was Sarkozy of France. England also had a Jewish prime minister Benjamin Disraeli (from Venice Jews) in the 19th century, who was perhaps the most famous Jewish Christian, who said that if not Christ nobody would knew even about the Jews. Luckily, Holocaust bypassed Jews in England (Germany didnt manage to invade UK - mainly the merit of British Air Force).

• published: 20 Oct 2014
• views: 2