Pesakh in Ukrainian: get out of Egypt or leave Russia-not all

As Pharaoh went to any suicide steps, not wanting to release Jews from Egypt, so Putin clung to Ukraine with a dead grip, writes the editor-in-chief of the Jewish newspaper "Hadashot" Mikhail Gold. On the eve of the holidays, he reflects on how the self -awareness of Ukrainian Jews has changed, who saw a new way to freedom. Every year, Jews in Jerusalem and New York, Buenos Aires and Paris, Toronto and Chisinau, Kyiv and Odessa sit at a covered table.

And it is not just a family dinner, but Easter Seder is a ritual meal (this year falls on April 22), which begins the holiday of the Passover. This evening they read the Easter Agada, which tells the exit of Jews from Egypt. Once upon a time, the Hebrew and Aramaic did not cause difficulties in the household, but in modern times the original text is often supplemented by the translation of diaspora languages.

For many years in the Jewish communities of Ukraine this second language of Easter Agada was Russian. But literally the first day in the Kiev Publishing House "Spirit and Letter", translated by Mikhal Stamova under the auspices of Project Kesher, the first "Ukrainian" Easter Agada under the symbolic name "For our freedom" was published. "I have not accidentally offered this name," says Michal.

"We are Ukrainian Jews, in one way or another we are different from tribesmen from other post -Soviet countries. And we have not need the care of the Russian -speaking Jewish world and teachings for a long time, how to interpret the history of our country and our people. Although, of course, the concept of freedom in Easter Agada is inscribed in a broader context. " It is difficult to disagree with this, because the holiday of freedom is one of the names of Passover.

And this is the birthday of the Jewish people, since the release of slavery is an inseparable condition for the nation. About the same stage in their development is now the Ukrainian people. Did it exist before February 24, 2022? Certainly. But Jewish history also counts from the events of Passover . . . In the life of every community (Ukrainians are no exception) there is a sign event that sets a further vector of development.

Formally independent Ukraine was born in 1991, and every year its citizens were increasingly moving away from the eastern neighbor. This process could last as long as you want - the identity not of changing in the short term, but . . . As the second book of the Torah "Exit": "The Almighty made the cruel heart of Pharaoh", in this case - President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

As Pharaoh went to any suicide steps, not wanting to release Jews from Egypt, so Putin clutched the dead with a dead grip. The complexes of the Russian leader are quite clear - the loss of Ukraine is equivalent to him to bring the strokes under the collapse of the Russian (Soviet) empire, which the Kremlin owner is nostalgic. At the same time, like Pharaoh, the President of Russia lost a sense of reality, underestimating the will of Ukrainians to independence.

The Russian Pharaoh did not calculate and the inevitable "execution of the Egyptian", which came to its huge, but detached in the imperial last country. The result of invasion and massive violence is natural - Ukrainians (regardless of ethnic origin) hated everything related to the Russian world. "What are they (Russians) to me compatriots?!" - a pensioner from Konstantinovka of Donetsk region, whose house was destroyed by two Iskander missiles, boiled with me with me.

In 2014, he already fled from Donetsk, and in 2022 he almost died in his native Konstantinovka. In the fantasies of Russian propagandists, people with similar family backgrands should meet "liberators" with flowers: grandparents shot by Nazis in the ghetto, father - a Jew, a veteran of war, a warrior, a mother - a Russian woman. But today the refugee curses Russia twice. A Jew from Mariupol, who settled in Israel, recalls a dialogue with her elderly mother.

Hearing that the war began, the old woman asked, "Who attacked? The Germans?" "No," the daughter replied, "Russia. " And the grandmother who survived the Holocaust escaped: "Did they go crazy?" More than once and not two from the respondents of the Exodus-2022 project ("Jewish refugees of the Russian-Ukrainian war") I heard saratled, saying, today I am ashamed to speak Russian.

It is about people born in the southeast and in the center of the country, where traditionally the higher share of Russian -speaking and where the largest Jewish communities of Ukraine are concentrated. And it was in these regions that the main blow was 24. 02. 2022.

"Surprisingly, even Jewish grandmothers switch to Ukrainian - sometimes it sounds funny - the Ukrainian language with a Jewish accent," - admits the head of the Vinnytsia Regional Society of Jewish Language and Culture Alexander Podikovich. At times, even refugees choose Ukrainian as a language of family communication.

"Russian is my native language, but we have recently moved to the family to Ukrainian," says a young religious Jew from Kharkiv, a mother of three children who evacuated in March 2022 in Amsterdam. - It is clear that all people from post -Soviet space in Europe in Europe We have been perceived as Russians, but we do not want to be associated with them before. Land - to tell about Ukraine, about what distinguishes us from people who now kill Ukrainians regardless of ethnic origin.

" You will not say better. "Ukrainian Jews are part of Ukrainian society, the carriers of a special culture that is developing dynamically, especially after 2014 and a full -scale invasion," Michal Stamov continues. "We are not better or worse than Jews of Russia or Belarus, just others and build our community. " Of course, this is a long process, but the vector is not in doubt. And the translation of Easter Agada is another element of the formation of modern Ukrainian Jewry.

Just like three (!) Ukrainian Translations of Torah that appeared last year. No one is surprised when Jews have a religious debate in Buenos Aires, in Budapest-Hungarian, and in Marseille-French. Subsequently, the Ukrainian language will be perceived from the mouths of local Jews. All her turn. It is in the dogs that you should not forget that getting out of Egypt does not mean to gain true freedom. It took the Jews for 40 years, and the road, to put it mildly, was not easy.

There is no reason to believe that after the war of Ukraine the path of Ukraine to the European family will be littered with roses. The main thing is not to forget about the end point of the route, despite all fluctuations in the style "step forward, two steps back". This is another lesson in Passover, perhaps the most important for the country that is experiencing the most dramatic moment of its history. The author expresses a personal opinion that may not coincide with the editorial position.