Ken Blady—Among Cossacks and Commissars: A History of Ukrainian Jewry (Zoom Only)

4 sessions: Mondays May 1, 8, 15, 22 @7–8:30pm

This series begins with the Crimea as the cradle of Eastern European Jewry reviews the pre-Ashkenazic Jews of Ukraine in medieval times and the Crusades, and the beginnings of mass migrations from Western Europe into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. We will then study the Ukrainian shtetl, Cossack massacres, and chafing under the Czars. Moving into the 20th century, we examine  Jews and the Ukrainian War of Independence (1917-21), life under Stalin, the Babi Yar Massacre during the Holocaust, and Ukrainian Jewry before Putin’s invasion.