The Jewish Community of Kharkiv

Kharkiv

Ukrainian: Ха́рків - Karchiv / Charkiv; Russian: Ха́рьков - Kharkov

Kharkiv is the second-largest city in Ukraine.

The Chabad-run Kharkiv Choral Synagogue is the largest synagogue in Ukraine. The synagogue functions as a community center, and includes a yeshiva, and a Jewish kindergarten and elementary school. 
At the dawn of the 21st century there were approximately 50,000 Jews living in Kharkiv.

HISTORY

Kharkiv was located outside of the Pale of Settlement and, as a result, Jews were forbidden to settle there. Beginning in 1734 Jewish merchants were granted permission to attend the large fairs held in the city until 1821, when that permission was revoked; however, after an outcry by the local authorities that banning Jewish merchants resulted in a substantial profit loss, they were readmitted in 1835.

Jews who were considered to be particularly “useful” began to be granted permission to settle in Kharkiv during the reign of Alexander II (1855-1881). The local governor continued to relax restrictions on Jewish settlement in the city, and the community grew accordingly. Reports from 1867 indicate that there were 12 merchants, 14 students, 12 gymnasium students, 28 artisans, and 68 soldiers living in Kharkiv, and approximately 3,000 Jews during the annual fairs. The city’s Jews were granted permission to build a synagogue and other community institutions, including 5 cheders, in 1868; in 1880 they were also permitted to open an inexpensive kosher cafeteria.

Toward the end of the 19th century, young Jews from the provinces of the Pale began to attend the Imperial Kharkiv University; by 1886 the 414 Jewish students formed 28.3% of the student body. These Jewish students organized a number of literary and cultural organizations, including a branch of the Zionist BILU Society.

The community numbered 11,013 (6.3% of the total population) in 1897.

During World War I (1914-1918) and the Civil War (1918-1920) Kharkiv’s Jewish population grew, as Jews from western Ukraine who had been expelled from their homes, or who were escaping from the fighting or the pogroms, took refuge in the city. Indeed, Grodno’s teaching seminary, along with its teachers and pupils, were transferred to Kharkiv during this period.

The Soviet period saw a marked increase in the number of Jews living in Kharkiv. During the period that Kharkiv was designated as capital of Ukraine (1919-1934), the Jewish population rapidly increased as Jews began migrating to the new capital. By 1923 Kharkiv’s Jewish population numbered 65,007 (17.2% of the total); three years later it had jumped to 81,138 and in 1935 there were 115,811 Jews living in the city. The Jewish population reached its peak in 1939, at approximately 150,000.

As a result of this influx, Kharkiv became an important Jewish center. A Hebrew secondary school and popular Jewish university were established. Books and newspapers in Yiddish and Hebrew were published, and Kharkiv became a center for Hebrew writers. Several Yiddish newspapers, with a variety of political leanings, were published in Kharkiv. Zionism, which began to be popular during the late 19th century, continued to grow. Conferences for the Zionist groups HeChalutz, the Socialist-Zionist Party, and HaShomer HaTzair were held throughout the 1920s. The Jewish communist organization Evsektsiia was very active in the city, as was the Bund, a socialist organization.

At the same time that this Jewish cultural, political, and social growth was taking place in Kharkiv, as the Soviet government became more established, it carried out a number of anti-religious campaigns, seeking to emphasize Jews as an ethnic, rather than a religious, group. Soviet Yiddish schools, courts, and other organizations were established in Kharkiv, while anti-religious pamphlets were published, and show trials were organized, parodying and demonstrating the primitive nature of ritual and religion.

The campaign was mostly successful. By the eve of World War II (1939-1945) Kharkiv’s Jews were among the most assimilated. Intermarriage rates were high; in 1938 records indicate that out of the 1,715 Jewish men who married, 524 married non-Jewish women. The vast majority of Kharkiv’s Jews (76.3%) listed Russia as their mother tongue in 1939, followed by Yiddish (22.8%) and Ukrainian (0.9%). Jewish children generally attended local schools; during the 1938-1939 school year 20.7% of the city’s high school students were Jewish (10,802 students).

Notable Jews from Kharkiv include Ida Rubinstein (1883-1960), a ballet dancer, actress, and cultural icon; and the Nobel laureate for economics Simon (Shimon Abramovich) Kuzmets (1901-1985).

THE HOLOCAUST

Kharkiv was occupied by the Germans at the end of 1941. A number of Jews escaped, and many joined the Red Army. Beginning on December 14, 1941 the city’s Jews were forced to live in the buildings of an abandoned lathe factory on the city’s outskirts. There, the Jews suffered from overcrowding, and a lack of food, water, and heat during the Ukrainian winter.

Those who managed to survive the conditions in the ghetto were taken to Rogan, a nearby village about 5 miles (8km) from Kharkiv. There they were killed, at a site known as Drobitsky Yar. The Soviets who liberated Kharkiv discovered two mass graves at Drobitsky Yar, containing more than 15,000 bodies.

POSTWAR

Jewish life in Kharkiv was renewed after the war. By 1959 the Jewish population numbered over 84,000 (9% of the total population) in 1959. However, Soviet repression led to a number of setbacks. The Jewish theater was shut down in 1949, reflecting a general trend towards the repression of literary expression. Kharkiv’s last remaining synagogue was shut down in 1948-1949 and all subsequent requests for permission to establish another synagogue were denied. A number of religious leaders were arrested, including Rabbi Shmuel Lev, Kharkiv’s rabbi, who was taken into custody in 1950. During the 1960s and 1970s in particular, groups of Jews who attempted to observe the High Holidays were dispersed by the authorities and harassed; on Passover, Jews who attempted to bake matzah were arrested. Several Torah scrolls were confiscated by the authorities.

In 1970 there were approximately 80,000 Jews living in Kharkiv.

Under perestroika, however, which took place during the 1980s, Jewish life began to be able to come out into the open. Eventually, in 1990, the government returned the Kharkiv Choral Synagogue, which had since been converted into a sports club, to the Jewish community. The community established a number of schools, charitable organizations, and cultural organizations.