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Ukrainian Jewish life has always taken place in Russian. Now a race to translate is underway.
LVIV, Ukraine (JTA) – The rabbis sat around a breakfast table, discussing Russia’s war on the country where they work in a mixture of Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian. They named their hometowns as Lugansk, Lvov and Dnepr, the Russian names for Ukrainian cities that have vaulted into international headlines since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
Although they were focused on Ukraine’s progress in the fighting, the rabbis uttered not a single word in Ukrainian. How could they? Like the vast majority of Jews in Ukraine, none of them speaks the country’s official language.
Russian has long been the first language for a wide swath of Ukrainians, including the majority of the country’s Jews. But after the Russian invasion, many Ukrainians decided they wanted to speak less Russian and more Ukrainian. Many Jews, similarly horrified by the sight of thousands of Russian soldiers pouring over Ukraine’s borders and wishing to demonstrate their Ukrainian bonafides, have made the same choice — even as it means disrupting a long linguistic tradition.
So when the rabbis’ successors meet for pancakes and sour cream, they will be far more likely to introduce themselves as the rabbis of Luhansk, Lviv and Dnipro, the Ukrainian names for their hometowns that have become the standard in English. They will also likely be able to hand their students and congregants Ukrainian-language versions of central Jewish texts that simply do not exist now.
“Many of my friends say that they are embarrassed to use Russian as a language. They say that we are Ukrainian Jews, and that Russia is a terrorist country fighting us and that we shouldn’t use their language,” said Rabbi Meir Stambler, from Dnipro. “Others say that [Russian president Vladimir] Putin doesn’t own the Russian language. It is an issue.”
He added, “This is something that people are discussing all the time.”
A decade ago, half of Ukrainians said they spoke Russian as their native language. That number has declined to 20%, fueled in part by resentment over Russia’s aggressions in Crimea, a contested region that it annexed by force in 2014. But Jews have remained predominantly Russian-speaking, even in parts of western Ukraine where Ukrainian has long been the dominant language. (Russian and Ukrainian are related linguistically, but their speakers cannot understand each other.)
Russia’s war on Ukraine has Ukrainian Jews playing catchup. Stambler, who heads the Federation of Jewish Communities, a body affiliated with the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement that operates a network of 36 synagogues around Ukraine, offers a stark prediction: “Within 10 years, every Jew in Ukraine will speak Ukrainian.”
The dominance of Russian among Ukraine’s Jews, who numbered in the tens of thousands before the war, has deep roots.
“The historical trajectory of Jews in what is now Ukraine led them in the 19th century to adopt Russian rather than Ukrainian,” says historian Natan Meir, a professor of Judaic studies at Portland State University. “That was because Ukrainian was perceived as a peasant language that did not have any high culture associated with it, and because there were no economic advantages to adopting Ukrainian at the time.”
Now, the upside of switching to Ukrainian — demonstrating a national allegiance during a time of war — couldn’t be clearer.
“Jews feel quite integrated into Ukrainian society, but a shift, even if it is a gradual shift, to Ukrainian is going to make that more tangible than ever,” Meir said, calling the Russian invasion “absolutely game-changing” for Ukrainian Jews. “They will be perceived even more strongly than they have been as being wholly Ukrainian and part of the fabric of Ukrainian society.”
Most Ukrainian Jews, especially those educated since the collapse of the Soviet Union, can now speak some Ukrainian. But their ability often depends on where they grew up: Many Jews in traditionally Russophone cities such as Odesa, Dnipro or Kharkiv can struggle with the language, while their grandparents often cannot speak it at all.
Books in both Hebrew and Russian sit on a bookshelf at Medzhybizh. (Jacob Judah)
“Not more than 20% were Ukrainian-speaking at home,” says Stambler. “Take President [Volodymyr] Zelensky. He knew Ukrainian, but he didn’t speak it at home, and he had to polish it up when he became president.”
It will not be simple for the Jewish community to suddenly switch to Ukrainian, the most widely spoken European language without a standardized translation of the Torah.
Two years ago, a team of translators working in Israel, Austria and Hungary began working to produce Ukrainian-language Jewish texts. But before the Russian invasion, the effort had so far produced only a Ukrainian book of psalms, or tehillim.
In May, two months into the war, a decision was made to accelerate work on a daily prayer book. A Torah could follow.
“The chumash is difficult,” said Stambler, who oversees the half-dozen-strong team of translators from his base in Dnipro, using the Hebrew word for the printed form of the Torah. “We are working on it.”
While translating sacred texts can take years, other changes have come faster. The leaflets, brochures and calendars that are a fixture at any Jewish center in Ukraine were quickly swapped out Russian for Ukrainian, at least at the federation’s headquarters. Before February, these had often been produced and printed by Russian Jewish communities and shared with those in Ukraine, for simplicity’s sake.
“This differentiation from Russian Jewry is going to be huge,” said Meir, the historian. “Up until this point they have essentially formed one linguistic and cultural space that all Jews, whether they were in Ukraine, Russia or Belarus could move freely between.”
Now, the ties between those communities are both logistically complicated to maintain — trade routes have been ruptured — and also potentially a liability at a time when anyone in either Russia or Ukraine showing an affinity for the other country can face suspicion or penalties.
“This shift, if it actually happens, is going to be marking out a totally new cultural space for Ukrainian Jews and almost a declaration of independence,” Meir said “Or at least that is the aspiration, because there is so much of their heritage which is still based in the Russian language that it is going to be a long time before they can fully separate.”
That separation process, which began to take shape most clearly after 2014, has quickened. “We started doing things ourselves,” said Stambler. “We used to do about 20% in Ukrainian for the Jews in western towns like Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Uzhhorod, but we are making a much stronger push now.”
He estimates that some 75% of material being distributed to Ukrainian Jewish communities by the Federation of Jewish Communities was in Ukrainian by September, up from 20% to 35% in January.
Young rabbis who come from the United States or Israel to serve small Jewish communities across Ukraine now say that they have had to add Ukrainian alongside their Russian classes.
“I began with Russian,” said one of those rabbis who works in Vinnitsya, until he decided over the summer that he had to learn Ukrainian. “I realized that I had to learn Ukrainian because I needed it on the street. I needed it to speak with the government and with the media.”
Signs in a synagogue in Ukraine are written in both Ukrainian and Russian. (Jacob Judah)
Some Ukrainian Jews are voting with their voices.
“My whole life, I spoke only Russian,” said Olha Peresunko, who before the war lived in Mikolaiv in southern Ukraine. “But after the 24th of February I am speaking only Ukrainian.”
Peresunko was speaking outside a Lviv synagogue this fall, where she and other refugees were waiting for food parcels. She had fled Mikolaiv, which has sustained repeated assault by Russian troops, for Lviv with her mother and two children while her husband is on the frontlines.
Her children are finding it hard to adjust to the exclusive Ukrainian environment in Lviv, but she is confident that they will make the shift. “They will speak Ukrainian as their first language,” Peresunko said.
Exactly how much the shift to Ukrainian will change local Jewish communities is a matter of debate. Rabbi Shalom Gopin, who fled to Kyiv in 2014 from his home community in Luhansk, an overwhelmingly Russophone city seized by Russia-backed separatists at that time, said he, too, believes that Ukrainian will displace Russian as the lingua franca of Ukrainian Jewry.
A Ukrainian woman displays her Ukrainian-language Jewish calendar as a source of pride, September 2022. (Jacob Judah)
“They are starting to slowly speak Ukrainian,” he said. “It is no problem. There are lots of Jews in America who speak English. We live here, and we speak the languages of the places that we live. It is normal.”
But Gopin said the linguistic shift “means nothing” amid other issues facing Jews in Ukraine, where Russia’s war is threatening to undo 30 years of Jewish community building, largely though not exclusively led by Chabad, Gopin’s Orthodox movement.
“The problem for the Jews of Ukraine is not language,” he said. “It is about how much they are going to synagogue, or how many children are going to Jewish schools, not about what they are speaking.”
Natalia Kozachuk, 45, a Jewish businesswoman in Lviv, sees only upside to shedding Russian, her native language. She has started to speak to her children only in Ukrainian.
“It will be hugely positive if Jews speak more Ukrainian,” Kozachuk said. This is the only way that Jews can truly “learn more about the Ukrainian people,” she said, “about their history and the positive qualities and strengths of Ukraine.”
“Only good can come of it,” she added. “We will understand each other better.”
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Xi Tells Trump That Mishandling of Taiwan Could Lead to ‘Dangerous’ Place
Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects an honor guard with US President Donald Trump during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, China, May 14, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/Pool
China’s President Xi Jinping warned US President Donald Trump on Thursday that mishandling the countries’ disagreements over Taiwan could push China-US relations to a “dangerous place,” as the two leaders met for a closely watched summit.
Xi‘s remarks on Taiwan, the democratically governed island claimed by Beijing, came in a closed-door meeting of the leaders of the world’s two largest economies that ran more than two hours, China’s foreign ministry said.
They represented a stark – if not unprecedented – warning during a pomp-filled occasion that was otherwise friendly and relaxed, although the US summary of the talks made no mention of Taiwan.
According to Chinese state media Xinhua, Xi, referring to Taiwan, told Trump: “If handled poorly, the two countries could collide or even enter into conflict, pushing the entire China-US relationship into an extremely dangerous place.”
Taiwan has long been a flashpoint in the US-China relationship, with Beijing refusing to rule out the use of military force to gain control of the island and the United States bound by law to provide Taipei with the means to defend itself.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is with Trump in China, confirmed to NBC News that the issue of Taiwan was discussed, saying the Chinese “always raise it on their side, we always make clear our position and we move on to the other topics.”
The US summary of the talks focused on the leaders’ shared desire to reopen the key waterway of the Strait of Hormuz, effectively closed due to the Iran war, and Xi‘s apparent interest in buying American oil to reduce China’s dependence on Middle East supplies.
With Trump‘s approval ratings dented by a war with Iran that shows no signs of abating, the first visit by a US president to China in nearly a decade has taken on added significance as he searches for economic wins.
“There are those who say this may be the biggest summit ever,” Trump told Xi in brief opening remarks, after a ceremony that featured an honor guard and throngs of children waving flowers and flags at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.
Xi told Trump that preparatory negotiations between US and Chinese economic and trade teams in South Korea on Wednesday had reached “balanced and positive outcomes,” China’s foreign ministry said in a summary.
The talks aimed to maintain a fragile trade truce struck when the leaders last met in October, where Trump suspended triple-digit tariffs on Chinese goods and Xi backed away from choking global supplies of vital rare earths.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who led Wednesday’s talks, said he expected progress on establishing mechanisms to support future bilateral trade and investment, and an announcement about large Chinese orders for Boeing aircraft.
CHINA’S RED LINES
Trump expected Xi to raise the thorny issue of US arms sales to Taiwan, he said earlier this week. With the status of a $14 billion package awaiting Trump‘s approval still unclear, China has reiterated its strong opposition to the sales.
“US policy on the issue of Taiwan is unchanged as of today,” Rubio told NBC.
Trump did not respond to a reporter’s shouted question whether the leaders had discussed Taiwan as he posed with Xi later for photos at the Temple of Heaven, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where emperors once prayed for good harvests.
Taipei said there was nothing surprising from the summit and that China’s military pressure is the real threat to peace.
Underscoring its outsized importance to the US economy, Taiwan, an island of 23 million people, is the United States’ fourth-largest trading partner, behind China, which has about 1.4 billion people.
LOBSTER SOUP AND BEIJING DUCK
At a lavish state banquet attended by senior officials and business executives, Xi told the audience that the China-US relationship was the most important in the world.
“We must make it work and never mess it up,” Xi said, before guests tucked into a 10-course dinner that included lobster soup, Beijing roast duck and tiramisu.
The leaders will take tea and lunch together on Friday before Trump departs.
Joining Trump on his visit are a group of CEOs looking to resolve issues with China, from Elon Musk, viewed in China as a visionary and occasional villain, to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, a late addition to the delegation.
The United States has cleared around 10 Chinese firms to buy Nvidia’s powerful H200 AI chip, but not a single delivery has been made so far, Reuters exclusively reported.
TRUMP INVITES XI TO WASHINGTON
Trump entered the talks with a weakened hand.
US courts have hemmed in his ability to levy tariffs at will on exports from China and other countries, while the Iran war has boosted inflation at home and elevated the risk that Trump‘s Republican Party will lose control of one or both legislative branches in November’s midterm elections.
Though the Chinese economy has faltered, Xi does not face comparable economic or political pressure inside China, where he rules an authoritarian regime that, unlike the US, has little tolerance for dissent.
As well as Boeing jets, Washington is looking to sell farm goods and energy to China to cut a trade deficit that has long irked Trump. Beijing, for its part, wants US curbs eased on exports of chip-making equipment and advanced semiconductors, officials involved in the planning said.
Trump is expected to encourage China to convince Iran to make a deal with Washington to end the conflict, as a fifth of global supplies of oil and natural gas travel through the Strait of Hormuz in normal times.
But analysts doubt Xi will be willing to push Tehran hard or end support for its military, given Iran’s value to Beijing as a strategic counterweight to the United States.
Rubio told Fox News that it was in China’s interest to help resolve the crisis as many of its ships are stuck in the Gulf and a slowdown in the global economy would hurt its exporters.
Iran’s Fars news agency reported on Thursday that an agreement had been reached to let some Chinese ships pass.
Trump on Thursday invited Xi for a reciprocal trip to the White House on Sept. 24, in what would be his first visit to Washington since 2015 and his first to the United States in the US president’s second term.
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US Senate Blocks Latest Bid to Rein in Trump Iran War Powers, Support Grows
An American flag flies outside the US Capitol building at sunset, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, Jan. 30, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
US Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked the latest Democratic-led effort to end the Iran war until it is authorized by Congress, but the measure edged closer to passage as a third Republican voted to advance the bill.
The Senate voted 50-49 not to advance the war powers resolution, nearly along party lines. Three Republicans joined every Democrat but one in backing the measure sponsored by Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
It was the seventh time this year that President Donald Trump‘s fellow Republicans in the Senate had blocked similar resolutions.
Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted in favor of moving ahead, while Democrat John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voted with Republicans to block it.
The vote was the first in the Senate since the conflict hit a 60-day deadline on May 1 for Trump to come to Congress about the war. Trump declared then that a ceasefire had “terminated” hostilities against Iran.
Under a 1973 US war powers law passed in response to the Vietnam War, a US president can wage military action for only 60 days before ending it, asking Congress for authorization or seeking a 30-day extension due to “unavoidable military necessity regarding the safety of United States Armed Forces” while withdrawing forces.
Democrats disputed Trump‘s assertion that the deadline did not apply because of a ceasefire, saying the conflict is ongoing.
“There’s not a cessation of war hostilities,” Merkley told reporters before the vote, citing the US blockade of Iranian ports and strikes on Iranian ships and Iran‘s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on US ships and tankers.
“Both sides are still engaged in hostilities, and so I don’t accept that the 60-day clock is suspended,” he said.
Merkley and other Senate Democrats said they planned to bring up another war powers resolution next week, and every week until the war ends or Trump comes to lawmakers for authorization.
Democrats in the House have also introduced war powers resolutions, also blocked by Republicans.
Democrats have called on Trump to come to Congress for authorization to use military force, noting that the US Constitution says that Congress, not the president, can declare war. They have warned that Trump may have pulled the country into a long conflict without setting out a clear strategy.
Republicans – and the White House – say Trump‘s actions are legal and within his rights as commander-in-chief to protect the US by ordering limited military operations.
Some congressional Republicans have accused Democrats of filing the war powers resolutions only because of their partisan opposition to Trump.
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King Charles Visits Jewish Area of London Hit by Antisemitic Attacks
Britain’s King Charles III greets residents in Golders Green in North London following the attack on Jewish residents, Britain, May 14, 2026. Photo: Richard Pohle/Pool via REUTERS
King Charles was greeted by cheering crowds on Thursday when he visited an area of London which has suffered a spate of antisemitic attacks in recent weeks, in a show of support for Britain’s fearful Jewish communities.
The monarch met two victims of a recent stabbing attack when he made the unannounced visit to Golders Green, which is home to a sizeable Jewish population and has borne the brunt of the recent antisemitic incidents across the British capital.
“Thank you, your majesty, for coming today to Golders Green to bring comfort and encouragement to our Jewish community!” Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who was there to greet the king, said on X.
Last month, two Jewish men were stabbed in the area in an attack being treated by police as terrorism, while in other incidents in Golders Green, four Jewish community ambulances were torched and a memorial wall targeted.
During his trip, Charles met the two stabbing victims at a Jewish Care charity center as well as other religious and civic leaders.
The visit was Charles‘ latest demonstration of backing for the Jewish community, after he visited a synagogue in northern England following an attack last year that left two worshippers dead and agreeing in March to become the patron of a charity that provides security for Britain’s estimated 290,000 Jews.
The recent attacks have led Mirvis to say the Jewish community was facing a sustained campaign of violence and intimidation.
The government has also raised its national terrorism threat level to “severe” from “substantial” with Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying Jewish people were living in fear.
The king‘s visit comes on the same day that an article written by his younger son Prince Harry was published in which he said a rise in antisemitism in Britain was deeply troubling, and that any anger over events in the Middle East should not spill over into hatred.