Uncategorized
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.”
—
The post Ukrainian Jewish life has always taken place in Russian. Now a race to translate is underway. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
‘Blue Wave’: Israel Expands Diplomatic, Security Ties Across Latin America Amid Shifting Regional Politics
Argentine President Javier Milei speaks during a Plenum session of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, in Jerusalem, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
A new wave of diplomacy in Latin America has seen several governments adopt a friendlier, more supportive stance toward Israel, deepening bilateral ties that Jerusalem is now leveraging on the global stage while signaling a potential shift in regional political alignments.
In a new interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Amir Ofek, deputy director for Latin America at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explained that the country is undergoing a major shift in its diplomatic engagement across the region, marked by a series of significant developments.
“There have been shifts in countries that were once our allies, and we have faced periods under very critical and challenging governments,” Ofek said. “We respond quickly to these changes, stay in close contact, and we are now beginning to make real progress.”
In a significant regional breakthrough, Israel and Bolivia formally restored diplomatic relations late last year, ending a two-year rupture sparked by the war in Gaza and reopening channels of official dialogue between the two countries.
In December, Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Armayo also announced that the country will lift visa requirements for Israeli travelers, a move that Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar praised as helping to “strengthen the human bridge between our peoples.”
Chile and Honduras are also leading the way among other Latin American nations making a striking turn toward Israel
Last year, Chile elected far-right President José Antonio Kast, who promised to reshape the country’s foreign policy toward the Jewish state, overturning the stance of a previously hostile administration.
This year, Honduras also chose a far-right candidate, President Nasry Asfura, who expressed hopes for a “new era” in bilateral relations and stronger ties with Jerusalem.
“The shift in Honduras is part of a broader regional trend: a ‘blue wave’ across Latin American countries that embrace freedom and democracy and align closely with US policy in the region,” Nadav Goren, Israel’s ambassador to Honduras, told Channel 12. “We are in a very optimistic period for Latin America.”
With the official launch of the Isaac Accords by Argentina’s President Javier Milei last year, Israel has been working to expand its diplomatic and security ties across the region, in an effort designed to promote government cooperation and fight antisemitism and terrorism.
Modeled after the Abraham Accords, a series of historic US-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries, this new initiative aims to strengthen political, economic, and cultural cooperation between the Jewish state and Latin American governments.
“Israel offers globally recognized expertise that meets the needs of many countries, covering areas such as agricultural technology, water management, food security, cybersecurity, and innovation. Partners understand that Israel can help propel them forward, even in the context of internal security,” Ofek said.
The first phase of the Isaac Accords will focus on Uruguay, Panama, and Costa Rica, where potential projects in technology, security, and economic development are already taking shape as this framework seeks to deepen cooperation in innovation, commerce, and cultural exchange.
The Isaac Accords will also aim to encourage partner countries to move their embassies to Jerusalem, formally recognize Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, and shift longstanding anti-Israel voting patterns at the United Nations.
Less than a year after the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Argentina became the first Latin American country to designate the Palestinian Islamist group as a terrorist organization, with Paraguay following suit last year.
Building on a deepening partnership, Saar and Paraguay’s President Santiago Peña also signed a landmark security cooperation memorandum, as the two countries continue to expand their relationship following Paraguay’s move to relocate its embassy to Israel’s capital of Jerusalem in 2024.
“Over the past two very difficult years, our friendship has shown its strength through international forums, mutual cooperation, official visits, and measures against Iran. We have expressed our friendship in meaningful, if sometimes implicit, ways,” Ofek told Channel 12, referring to the country’s growing ties with Paraguay.
In recent years, Latin America has gained strategic importance for Israel as a frontline in countering Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, whose growing influence and criminal networks in the region — especially in Venezuela and Cuba — have prompted Jerusalem to expand its diplomatic, security, and intelligence presence.
“For us, this is a circle of allies that recognizes the same threat we face from Iran’s growing influence in the region, and it is only natural to cooperate to halt its expansion,” Ofek said. “We have seen firsthand how damaging this is, particularly in the context of attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets.”
Uncategorized
Australian Nurses Plead Not Guilty Over Viral Video Threatening to Kill Israeli Patients
Sarah Abu Lebdeh, 27, and Ahmad Rashad Nadir, 28, face criminal charges in Australia for statements made in an online video in February 2025 in which they allegedly threatened Israelis, prompting nationwide bans from treating patients. Photo: Screenshot
Two nurses in Australia who were charged over a viral video in which they allegedly threatened to kill Israeli patients pleaded not guilty during their arraignment on Monday.
Sarah Abu Lebdeh, 27, and Ahmad Rashad Nadir, 28, previously worked at the Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney until appearing on a video with Israeli social media personality Max Veifer in February 2025.
The footage, which circulated widely, featured Abu Lebdeh stating she would refuse to treat an Israeli patient and would instead kill them, while Nadir used a throat-slitting gesture when he confessed to having already killed many.
“It’s Palestine’s country, not your country, you piece of s—t,” Lebdeh told Veifer.
“One day your time will come, and you will die the most disgusting death,” she added.
Veifer began asking the two during a night shift discussion how they would respond if an Israeli seeking treatment landed in their hospital. Abu Lebdeh, preempting the question, interrupted: “I won’t treat them. I’ll kill them.”
Nadir interjected: “You have no idea how many s—t dog Israelis came to this hospital,” and using a throat-slitting gesture, continued, “I sent them to Jahannam,” the Islamic word for hell.
The video went viral and sparked global outrage, prompting a two-year nationwide suspension to prevent them from continuing to treat patients.
Abu Lebdeh was charged with federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass.
Nadir was also charged with federal offenses, including using a carriage service to menace, harass, or cause offense, as well as possession of a prohibited drug.
Speaking before Judge Stephen Hanley at Downing Center District Court in Sydney, Abu Lebdeh appeared “with tears streaming down her face,” according to Australia’s Sky News.
The Australian reported last year that Lebdeh has expressed remorse and is now experiencing extreme anxiety. An uncle told a journalist that she “will come out and make a statement when she’s ready, but you can’t talk to her now because she’s having a panic attack, an anxiety attack. We might be calling the ambulance for her.”
Lawyer Zemarai Khatiz represents Nadir and confirmed to Sky News that the defense strategy would seek to make the video inadmissible in court.
“It will be, yes,” Khatiz stated before declining to elaborate. “You will have to just wait until the first of June when the applications are heard.”
The video drew international attention, with Israel’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, Sharren Haskel, demanding action.
“There needs to be an investigation immediately into these two Australian medical professionals who are saying they will kill Israeli patients – and suggesting that they already have,” Haskel posted on social media after the video was released. “They are expressing criminal intent towards Jewish people; this must be stopped.”
Haskel went on to declare antisemitism “a disease that is spreading in Australia,” arguing the nurses should be fired and their behavior must “be treated with the highest consequences under the law.’”
“They have broken the Hippocratic Oath,” the diplomat continued. “They have talked about killing Jews, they show the true racism and hate that the Australian Jewish community is currently enduring.”
A US-born Jewish woman who moved from Israel to Australia six years ago told The Algemeiner last year that she no longer feels safe in hospitals given the atmosphere of heightened antisemitism.
“In the past year alone, my little boy has witnessed many hostile protests where ‘anti-Zionists’ have actually come into the Jewish community without permits to intimidate us. Time and time again, instead of [authorities] dispersing and arresting anyone in the crowd for screaming racial slurs and threats, Jews are asked to evacuate and told if they don’t run away, they are inciting violence,” the woman said.
“Now they actually brag online about killing Israeli patients,” she continued, referring to the case in Australia. “I don’t know how safe I would feel giving birth at that hospital.”
Following the video’s exposure and international condemnation, a group of 50 Muslim leaders and organizations came together in defense of Abu Lebdeh and Nadir. “This statement is not about defending inappropriate remarks,” the coalition wrote in a letter. “It is about pushing back against the double standards and moral manipulation at play while the mass killing of our brothers and sisters in Gaza is met with silence, dismissal, or complicity.”
The district court scheduled the suspended nurses’ trial for Aug. 31 with an anticipated five days of arguments and deliberations. A pre-trial hearing will take place on June 1.
The charges against Abu Lebdeh and Nadir reflect a global trend that has emerged since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel wherein medical practitioners come under scrutiny or even legal prosecutions following the exposure of antisemitic statements and behavior.
One notable case drawing attention involved Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan, a trainee trauma and orthopedic surgeon, who British police arrested on Oct. 21, charging her with four offenses related to malicious communications and inciting racial hatred. In November, she was suspended from practicing medicine in the UK over social media posts denigrating Jews and celebrating Hamas’s terrorism. She also described London’s Royal Free Hospital as “a Jewish supremacy cesspit” and declared her belief that “over 90% of the world’s Jews are genocidal.”
That same month, UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting called it “chilling” that some members of the Jewish community fear discrimination within the National Health Service (NHS)., amid reports of widespread antisemitism in Britain’s health-care system.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a new plan in October to address what he described as “just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively” in the NHS.
Another notable incident occurred in September, when a Belgian doctor reportedly listed “Jewish (Israeli)” as a medical problem in a child’s report.
Jewish writer Jonath Weinberger, a dual Belgian-Israeli citizen living in Amsterdam, recounted an episode in November about a nurse denying her medical care after refusing to remove a pro-Palestinian button
In Argentina, a Buenos Aires doctor received a suspension following a social media post in which he wrote about Jews that “instead of performing circumcision, their carotid artery and main artery should be cut from side to side.”
Uncategorized
‘Don’t be a wimp’: Josh Shapiro, Philly DA Larry Krasner spar over ICE-Nazi comparisons
(JTA) — The Jewish governor of Pennsylvania this week rebuked one of his state’s most visible elected officials for comparing ICE officers to Nazis, leading to a protracted war of words between the two men.
The spat between Josh Shapiro and Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, Democrats with a long-running rivalry, comes amid a rise in such incendiary comparisons used to describe weeks of chaotic Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz recently invoked Anne Frank when discussing ICE, and was criticized by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, among others. Celebrities like Bruce Springsteen and Stephen King have also compared ICE to the Gestapo. Some Jews, including those with connections to the Holocaust, have also made such comparisons as ICE’s behavior in the streets of Minneapolis and other cities has become more aggressive and deadly.
For Shapiro, such waters are proving especially difficult to navigate. Shapiro holds higher office aspirations and has become more vocal in his criticisms of ICE in recent days while also saying his office is more open to collaboration with agents.
The fight began last week when Krasner, a pugilistic progressive prosecutor, called ICE “a small bunch of wannabe Nazis” at a rally amid speculation that ICE could turn its attentions to his city. Then, musing about when Trump’s term ends, Krasner likened his own office to Nazi hunters like Simon Wiesenthal.
“If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities, we will find you, we will achieve justice and we will do so under the Constitution and the laws of the United States,” he said.
Shapiro, in response, called Krasner’s comments “abhorrent” and “wrong, period.”
“We need to bring down the rhetoric, bring down the temperature, and create calm in the community,” the governor said in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier.
Other state officials, including Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who has vocally allied with the pro-Israel Jewish community, also condemned Krasner’s remarks. So did the White House, whose press secretary Karoline Leavitt shared video of Krasner’s comments and asked, “Will the media ask Dems to condemn?”
That didn’t deter Krasner, the son of an Evangelical minister mother and Russian Jewish crime novelist father who enlisted to fight Nazis in World War II. Instead of “bringing down the temperature,” the DA, who does not identify as Jewish, escalated.
“Gov. Shapiro is not meeting the moment,” Krasner told the Philadelphia Inquirer Tuesday. “The moment requires that we call a subgroup of people within federal law enforcement — who are killing innocent people, physically assaulting innocent people, threatening and punishing the use of video — what they are.”
He added, “Just say it. Don’t be a wimp.”
The interview came days after Krasner doubled down on ICE-Nazi comparisons during a CNN appearance, when he also claimed that white supremacists had threatened him with the gas chamber.
“There are some people who are all in on a fascist takeover of this country who do not like the comparisons to what happened in Nazi Germany,” Krasner told Kaitlan Collins on Thursday. “The reality is, they’re taking almost everything they do out of the Nazi playbook. And I say that as the son of a volunteer who served in World War II, who explained his experiences to me.”
Speaking to the Inquirer, Crasher went on to quote Rabbi Joachim Prinz, who fled Nazi Germany for the United States, became a civil rights and Zionist activist, and delivered a famous speech entitled “The Problem of Silence” at the March on Washington in 1963.
“Bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problem,” the DA quoted Prinz. “The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful, and the most tragic problem is silence.”
Krasner continued, “A reminder, Mr. Governor: Silence equals death.” Referring to ICE, he said, “These are people who have taken their moves from a Nazi playbook and a fascist playbook.”
The two men have longstanding differences, and it’s not the first time Nazis have come between them. In 2019, when Shapiro — then the state’s attorney general — hired away some of Krasner’s staff, Krasner and his remaining staff referred to them as “war criminals” and joked that they had fled to “Paraguay” (a country that housed fleeing Nazis after World War II). The joke received pushback at the time from the Anti-Defamation League.
Jews have been caught up in the fight against ICE in a myriad of ways. On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that a British Jewish immigrant to suburban Philadelphia was subpoenaed by the Department of Homeland Security. Identified in reports only as Jon, the former Soviet Jewry activist had written a critical email to a federal prosecutor about his handling of an Afghan immigration case.
The post ‘Don’t be a wimp’: Josh Shapiro, Philly DA Larry Krasner spar over ICE-Nazi comparisons appeared first on The Forward.