This was a guest lecture delivered by my colleague Professor Glenn Dynner, a leading authority on the history of the Jews of eastern Europe. You can find it and all of the other lectures here and the podcasts here or here.
Reading:
Dan Shapira, "The First Jews of Ukraine," in Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern and Antony Polonsky, eds., Polin, vol. 26, 2014, 65-78.
Judith Kalik, "Jews, Orthodox, and Uniates in the Ruthenian Lands," in Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern and Antony Polonsky, eds., Polin, vol. 26, 2014, 131-146.
I've listened to all the lectures now. They are very powerful. It occurs to me that Timothy's understanding of nations is a little like romantic love which begins by chance and in retrospect can seem destined and inevitable. Nations seem to occur out of complex and unpredictable circumstances but seem in retrospect to seem inevitable? I was also thinking of the Buddha's comment about karma. If you want to know who you've been, consider who you have become. If you want to know who you'll be, consider what you will do. The past is what it is but the future is open to human agency. In that way you are always free.
My grandparents on my mother’s side -- Ukrainian Jews from around Odessa came to the United States in 1901. One step ahead of the pogroms. My grandfather and great grandfather WALKED from Odessa to Constantinople. Today’s freedom loving Ukrainians are not the same as the Ukrainians of 120 years ago.