Thank you!

Khmelnitsy was an Orthodox Christian, so I think having him form a closer relationship with Russia makes sense. I've heard some historians (not Russian propagandists ) claim he even called himself a little Russian.

Glad to hear you enjoyed the videos!

I'm glad that you enjoy the lectures!

Really enjoy your lectures fill many of the gaps for me in Jewish history מחיל לחיל !!

I think you mean Henryk Sienkiewicz (yeah, I know, Polish spelling is a bit weird 😉). Sienkiewicz is probably the most popular Polish author ever (although now not nearly as he used to be). He got some international acclaim too, winning the Nobel prize in 1905. Internationally his most popular novel was _Quo Vadis_ about the ancient Rome during Nero's reign. In Poland it was definitely the Trilogy. Have you read the other two parts? _The Deluge_ (the middle one) is my favorite.

@@Artur_M. I only read with Fire and Sword and it was great. The third I think is Fire in the Steppe. Would love to read the whole series. Quo Vadis is great too. He was awesome. I read them on my own I'm high school in the winter. The snow provided a good ambiance.

Great job today!

You're welcome! I'm glad that you enjoyed the lecture.

Thanks for listening! Glad that yo enjoyed it

I'm glad that you enjoyed the video!

You're welcome!

Yes, quite a bit, actually.

Thank you for your kind words! I appreciate your feedback.

Glad you found it useful.

The reason the Soviets loved Khmelnytsky was because they used him as the historic figure to prop-up the concept of "brotherhood" and unification between Russian and Ukrainian people. It was important for the Soviet Union to "glue" all of these different republics and ethnicities as if they always had common history, and often would use these kind of historical figures, despite their controversial past. It was easy in a totalitarian society to "edit" and re-write the history. Because of this, Khmelnytsky was glorified and the city of Proskurov renamed in his honor. Also, the historic town of Pereyaslav was renamed to "Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky" because it was in that town that the Pereyaslav Articles were signed between the Cosacks (Khmelnytsky's son, since Bogdan was already dead by then) and representatives of the Tsar. Regarding present-day Ukraine - just to add, not only is the current president Jewish, but when he became president, at that time the prime-minister (Groysman) was also Jewish (not to mention many mayors and oligarchs who are also Jewish in Ukraine). So religion and ethnicity doesn't seem to play that huge a role in elections or politics in Ukraine, and you are totally correct in that this is really a unique phenomenon in Europe (I certainly can't picture a Jewish leader getting elected in most other countries). There is still some anti-semitism of course, but nothing systemic and not engrained in the modern population, from my personal experience. Also, based on recent polling data, Ukraine had the lowest "negative" attitude towards Jews among Eastern European countries.

@@pavelvodov1516 Thanks so much for a knowledgeable reply. Do you know if the current residents of Khmelnytsky speak Russian exclusively, or is Ukrainian used also? If both, is one or both groups commonly biligual? My grandfather's wife was from nearby Vinnitsia, also a Russian speaker. Is the contemporary language makeup of that city similar? When I was young, I didn't understand that I was not ethnically Russian, though the children of White Russian refugees in my 1960s home town in the suburbs of New York made it clear that I was most assuredly not one of them :)

​@@dactylntrochee I would say the more common case in Ukraine today is that people in cities such as Khmelnitsky are bilingual and easily switch from Ukrainian to Russian and vice-versa depending on the situation. I haven't been to Khmelnitsky itself, but I was in that region recently (2019) in the city of Kamianets-Podolsky and also I have in-laws from a village not far from Khmelnitsky. In Kamianets, the younger generation (under 30) more often spoke Ukrainian, but the older generation (over 50 or so) defaulted to Russian. My in-laws first language was Ukrainian, although they did grow up during the 50's-60's Soviet period when everything was standardized to Russian across all republics. This was very common that in most cities during Soviet Ukraine, Russian became the first language, however in the villages or small towns in those same regions across western or central Ukraine, Ukrainian was more common. I grew up in Kiev in the 80's and distinctly remember there was a certain stigma when someone spoke Ukrainian, because this meant that they likely came from a village and people could even make fun of that. Nowadays, the attitude towards Ukrainian language is completely reverse and is sort of a source of pride. I actually passed through Vinnitsia on that trip, and yes, the language dynamic is also very similar there, very much depends on what age demographic you speak to. The language "map" of Ukraine is very much tied to history and which region was under which empire's control until what period. If you look at regions that were under Austria/Poland up until WW2 (1939) such as Lviv, Ternopil, Volyn region, Ukrainian remained dominant there in cities or villages even during the Soviet period. However, the regions like Vinnitsia, Khmelnitsky, Zhytomir, Kiev (all also with a large Jewish population), were already part of the Russian empire (since at least 1795, the last partition of Poland) and then the Soviet Union, and so because of this, Russian began to dominate there in the cities. Even the eastern corner Donbass region was majority Ukrainian at the turn of the 20th century (according to the census), but because of the influx of labor from Russia and other republics after WW2, Russian language began to dominate. Interesting to hear about your experience growing up in NY. A lot of us have Jewish roots to the same region, roughly in modern-day Ukraine, however I often encounter people considering their roots as "Polish", "Russian", or "Ukrainian", depending mostly on the time period of the immigration :-) Even in the Ukrainian community, there is a clear difference between those who immigrated before the Russian revolution (who are now 2nd/3rd generation, their Ukrainian is somewhat different and hard to understand, it is almost it's own community), and the modern-day Ukrainian immigrants.

@@pavelvodov1516 First, thanks for the patient tour of the region's history and current nuances. There's no substitute for on-site eyes and ears. Second, just a curio -- this conversation sent me to Google Maps (what a treasure!), which put into focus an old family question: why my grandfather's mother (born around 1860) spoke Romanian. Google shows the southern edge of greater Khmelnitsky to be only 12 miles from Moldova, and he was a villager, perhaps even south of Proskurov. Insofar as their daily language was Jewish, I imagine there was no sense of being foreign on anybody's part.

@@dactylntrochee My Grandfarther also came from Proskorov and my grandmother came from Chorny- Ostrov. Who knows they may have been friends.Such a small world.

Glad you found it useful!

Thanks!

More for the text version.

I believe I recall reading that the Tosfos Yom Tov created liturgy that emphasized the importance of not speaking during prayers in Synagogue.

@@HenryAbramsonPhD Yes Dr. The Tosfot Yom Tov survived the massacres as he was in Krakow at the time as we Read in his Megillat Eiva . The raiders didn’t penetrate Poland proper . Interestingly I pray in a shul called after the Tosfot yom tov , where it’s absolutely forbidden to speak throughout the tefilla . There are more such Shuls around the world. The Mi Sheberach shlo ledaber b’shat hatefilla is recited before יקום פורקן.

Taras Bulba is a fictional character, but the book is based on a real story, which happened during the Ostryanyn uprising in 1638.

Thanks fort he reference!

Thanks for sharing this citation!

It's not that hard, actually. Khmelnitsky. Believe it or not, there are Jews with that last name. Try to say Khloe.

In English, approximately like this: h - mel - NIT - ski. All those y's and single quotes and stuff is for the original Ukrainian pronunciation for which English doesn't really have the sounds. In English it translates to something like Hopson since Khmel means hops, and nitsky is a generic last-name ending meaning "of the clan of".

@@ferdinanddaratenas3447 I would suggest "Chemelnitsky". I believe that there should be a "e" somewhere at the beginning of the word. Another possibility from wikipedia: "Khmelnytsky".

Nathan of Hanover's Abyss of Despair provides a lot of these difficult details.

@@HenryAbramsonPhD thanks Dr. Will try getting his book . The Holy R’ Shamshon of Osropoli was among the Martyrs. Since I’m a descendant of the Panim Meirot who was a nephew of the Shach . My grandmother told us the story legend of his flight with his daughter. Their separation and reunion at this tumultuous time. Don’t remember the details .

@MCADHD666 VOL2 Thanks for this . I was ignorant of this terrible episode of the Holocaust.

I also heard about that stomach cutting and inserting a cat inside. Do you really believe that happened? Let's try to look at it logicaly - can you even imagine catching a stray cat with your hands in a battlefield. The cat is probably scared and stressed to death, so I think a cossack who would try it will end without his eyes. So with all do respect I just can't see how it's possible to insert a cat into someone's open stomach (where the cat is probably not happy to go), not to mention that until it happens the person would be dead anyway. I would like to see where am I wrong about it...

@@dimager2003 many communities beyond the Dnieper, and close to the battle field, such as Pereyaslaw, Baryszowka, Piratyn, and Boryspole, Lubin and Lachowce and their neighbors, who were unable to escape, perished for the sanctification of His Name. These persons died cruel and bitter deaths. Some were skinned alive and their flesh was thrown to the dogs; some had their hands and limbs chopped off, and their bodies thrown on the highway only to be trampled by wagons and crushed by horses; some had wounds inflicted upon them, and thrown on the street to die a slow death; they writhed in their blood until they breathed their last; others were buried alive. The enemy slaughtered infants in the laps of their mothers. They were sliced into pieces like fish. They slashed the bellies of pregnant women, removed their infants and tossed them in their faces. Some women had their bellies torn open and live cats placed in them. The bellies were then sewed up with the living cats remaining within. They chopped off the hands of the victims so that they would not be able to remove the cats from the bellies. The infants were hung on the breasts of their mothers. Some children were pierced with spears, roasted on the fire and then brought to their mothers to be eaten. Many times they used the bodies of Jewish children as improvised bridges upon which they later crossed. There was no cruel device of murder in the whole world that was not perpetrated by the enemies." - Nathan ben Moses Hannover, The Abyss of Despair (Yeven Metzulah), chapter IV It is common phenomenon in our history to see others say we Jews exaggerate . Alas we’re not to far in time from our biggest calamity since the destruction of the temple, and there are deniers or those that say we’re exaggerating. Although most of us until today are still effected by the aftermath and know by first hand accounts the hell we went through. These type of comments we filter in our minds as the ones that want to deny even that the temple of Solomon stood on Temple Mount . We understand the agenda and nuances behind them . These type of comments are meant to add salt on the wound. הַרְנִ֤ינוּ גוֹיִם֙ עַמּ֔וֹ⁠ כִּ֥י דַם־עֲבָדָ֖יו יִקּ֑וֹם וְנָקָם֙ יָשִׁ֣יב לְצָרָ֔יו וְכִפֶּ֥ר אַדְמָת֖וֹ עַמּֽוֹ׃ {פ} O nations, acclaim God’s people! For He’ll avenge the blood of His servants, Wreak vengeance on His foes, And cleanse His people’s land. (Deuteronomy 32:43)

Danger pay and theft insurance.

A journalist friend of mine in LA confirmed what you say here. In New York City they owned a lot of produce stands and habitually would ring up items at a higher weight than what the scale read. Happened to me and others. Back in the 90s big problems between black and Korean communities over this.

IT WAS THEIR OWN SHOPS/BUSINESSES...................

So you think the Korean shop owners should reduce the prices and sell at a loss? If you have brains, you would understand that small shops have higher running costs than big supermarkets. Large supermarkets can buy their products in bulk or produce them themselves and so on. And nobody expects you to shop with them. It's your choice. If you don't want to shop with a small business, don't.

yes, there are Unite Martyrs in RC calendar killed by Russians (and the orthodox church). St.Andrzej Bobola was martyred in Chmielnick's time of Uprising in horrible tortures.

@@krzysztofciuba271 Yes, and I've heard of that martyr and Saint.

Ukraine is still majority Orthodox

@@matthelme4967 The Ukranian Byzantine Catholic Church was suppressed and made to go underground as illegal by both Czarist Russia under Catherine the Great and since the Bolshevic revolution and through the period under Soviet control. Many of its leaders, priests and people killed or exiled to Siberia. Putin is continuing this trend.