Howard Aster and Peter J. Potichnyj, Jewish Ukrainian Relations: Two Solitudes by Michael Hurst

Summary

While not a pot of paint flung into the face of the public, this book nevertheless reminds me of a professorial acquaintance, who, when faced with what he deems a difficult or (more likely) suspicious question, rushes for cover behind an imaginary mental iconostasis and flings the answer over it at his tormentor in the form of sentence sections. Efficient ‘Do it yourself action can lead to comprehending all. But the ‘doing’ has to be rapid and well-mixed with empathy. Eccentric presentation should not, however, discourage the wise reader; nor even weird grammar and the occasional meaningless sentence. The patient seldom scoff; the truly enlightened should not only remain to pray- they must usually arrive with prayer a top priority. These authors have produced what is in key respects a work of impressive piety. So for the reader prepared to persist and to ponder, devotion will come, and come to great effect. To seek the dispassionate thoroughly, albeit laboriously in examining the doleful tale of Jewish-Ukrainian relations is to convert idealistic emotion into an elevated faith in the capacity of reason to dispel myth. Similarly, to record as vital for the present 1981 accord between representative North American Ukrainian Church hierarchs and a prominent Jewish rabbi is to sterilise the historical operating theatre and deem it consecrated for the blessed mission of truth seeking. The subjective here produces its opposite.

As one of the great borderlands of European history, the Ukraine (the very word means frontier zone) has been the victim for centuries of its Lithuanian, Turkish, Polish and Russian neighbours. In some fashion, all the major features of the medieval, early modern and modern stages of its history are presented here. And the periods most apposite for the examination of Jewish-Ukrainian relations are, of course, those during and consequent upon the great second incoming of Jews escaping from persecution in German lands and finding refuge in Polish-controlled territory opened up by official decrees. That incoming began at the end of the fourteenth and reached its zenith at the end of the fifteenth century.