(RNS) — For centuries, Ukraine was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the world, but never before had the Haggadah, the Passover liturgy that millions of Jews will read around their Seder tables next week, been translated into Ukrainian.Just in time for this year’s holiday, however, an initial print run of 1,000 copies of “For Our Freedom,” a haggadah in Ukrainian, has been produced by Project Kesher, an American Jewish nonprofit devoted to empowering Jewish women worldwide.
“This has become part of our identity as Ukrainian Jews,” Michal Stamova, the Haggadah’s translator, told Religion News Service. “It’s not only a translation; it’s our life. It’s our culture for the last many years and all of our memories: how we celebrated our first Seders when we were students, all the memories that we remember from our parents who were Jews during the Soviet Union, when baking matzo was forbidden.”
Why a Haggadah in Ukraine’s national language is only now going into print after hundreds of years of Jewish life and three decades of Ukrainian independence has to do with the particular history of the country’s Jewish community.
A century ago, most Ukrainian Jews spoke Yiddish, the Judeo-German language that Ashkenazi Jews brought with them as they migra …
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“This has become part of our identity as Ukrainian Jews,” Michal Stamova, the Haggadah’s translator, told Religion News Service. “It’s not only a translation; it’s our life. It’s our culture for the last many years and all of our memories: how we celebrated our first Seders when we were students, all the memories that we remember from our parents who were Jews during the Soviet Union, when baking matzo was forbidden.”
Why a Haggadah in Ukraine’s national language is only now going into print after hundreds of years of Jewish life and three decades of Ukrainian independence has to do with the particular history of the country’s Jewish community.
A century ago, most Ukrainian Jews spoke Yiddish, the Judeo-German language that Ashkenazi Jews brought with them as they migra …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]