Talk:Jewish Cossacks

message: Interesting article, but it seems a bit ORish. Is there an academic source that clearly states there were Jewish Cossacks? Certainly during Chmielnicki Uprising Cossacks massacred many Jews, so I find it rather hard to believe that they would have many Jews in their ranks.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Somewhat, due to unavailability of translations from Borovoy's work.Galassi 21:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

text: The article is largely off-topic. As per title, it should be about the Jewish Cossacks, not the Jewish-Ukrainian relations or arbitrary-picked issues of Cossack history forked here for whatever reasons. We have dedicated articles on each of these issues already. The article needs severe trimming and cleanup. Not that it cannot become a long one but length should not come from inclusion of irrelevances. --Irpen 02:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: An important question to ask is whether the Jewishness of these Cossacks was by ethnicity or by Religion or both? Bandurist 02:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, a very important question and an extremely tangled one. That Jewishness is just an ethnicity is a POV in itself, rather common in post-Soviet countries and rather unpopular in much of elsewhere. You can google for much of the fascinating debate of this yet unresolved question whether Jewishness is about ethnicity, religion, both, none or "I don't like this question". So, let's first do some really necessary steps of cleaning up the irrelevant stuff. --Irpen 02:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is safe to assume that they were of Jewish ethnicity, because as we all know- etnicity is omnipresent whether this notion is popular somewhere or not. And it is a reasonable assumption that they were converted, but continued to use Hebrew, being literate in it. Knowledge of Hebrew was not limited  to the Jews BTW, and any Eastern Orthodox cleric worth his salt had at least some skill in it.Galassi 03:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Scope

message: This appears to be little more than a monograph, attempting to prove that Jewish Cossacks existed. 
There is nothing in that article about Jewish Cossacks per se. Language? Culture? Place within Cossack society? History of how they came to be Cossacks?
In other words, nothing that would make this an article is actually present.
Have I missed something? Jd2718 01:54, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. Read the russophone articles.Galassi (talk) 11:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Essay 

message: Check this out. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200009/ai_n8917384 
What do you think 16:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It won't be eay to separate the fact from its schlocky presentation.Galassi (talk) 17:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Check this out

message: Here is the full quotation:
Simon Sebag Montefiore "Prince of Princes; The Life of Potemkin", page 394 "Potemkin' decided to arm the Jews against the Turks. This 'singular project', probably his Jewish friend Zeitlin's idea, spawned in some rabbinical debate with the Prince, started as a cavalry squadron raised among the Jews of his Krischev estate. In December, he created a Jewish regiment called the Israelovsky, a word reminiscient of the Izmailovsky Guards. But that was where the similarities ended. Commanded by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, their ultimate aim was to liberate Jerusalem for the Jews, just as Potemkin was to conquer Constantinople for the Orthodox. This sign of Potemkin's unique philo-semitism and of Zeitlin's influence was an awkward idea given Russian and especially Cossack anti-semitism, but it was surely the first attempt by a foreign power to arm the Jews since Titus destroyed the Temple. The Prince wanted his Israelovsky to be half-infantry, half-cavalry, the latter to be Jewish Cossacks with Zaporogian lances: 'we already have one squadron', observed Ligne to Joseph II. Thanks to the shortness of their stirrups, their beards come down to their knees and their fear on horseback makes them like monkeys.' Joseph, who had loosened the restrictions of his own Jews, was probably amused.
By March 1788, thirty-five of these bearded Jewish Cossacks were being trained. Soon there were two squadrons, and Ligne told Potemkin there were plenty more in Poland. Ligne was skeptical, but he admitted he had seen excellent Jewish postmasters and even postillions. The Israelovsky evidently went out on patrol with the cavalry because Ligne wrote that they were as terrified of their own horses as those of the enemy. But five months later Potemkin cancelled the Israelovsky. Ligne joked that he did not dare continue them for fear of 'getting mixed up with the Bible.' So ended this rare experiment that says a great deal about Potemkin's originality and imaginaton. Ligne thought the Jewish Cossacks were 'too ridiculous'. Instead, Potemkin concentrated on a 'great number of Zaporogians and other Cossack volunteers' pouring in to form the new Black Sea Host."
Footnote:
"One wonders what happened to those Jewish Cossacks. Six years later, in 1794, Polish Jews raised a force of 500 light cavalry to fight the Russians. Their colonel Berek (Berko) Joselewicz joined Napoleon's Polish Legion in 1809. Did any of Potemkin's Jewish Cossacks fight for Napoleon?"  —Preceding unsigned comment added by AllenHansen (talk • contribs) 12:37, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Israelovsky 

message: This appears to be a hash-up of one paragraph articles, mostly about individual Jews who happened to become Cossacks. The lack of any unifying information (culture, language, special role within Cossack society (?), how they became Cossacks, etc) gives away that this is not a single article.
Rather than tell us about Jewish Cossacks, the article is devoted to showing that they existed. This is a good sign that the notability of the topic as a single topic should be doubted. Jd2718 (talk) 15:09, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You should learn something about the history and culture of the place and the era before putting HIGHLY inappropritae tags. The article is referenced, and is supported by the work of Saul Borovoy, a major historian.Galassi (talk) 15:35, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability 

message: I tagged this article as original research. By stringing together a list of unrelated individual anecdotes and facts, mostly from marginally reliable sources, this article is, taken as a whole, a single piece of original research, a synthesis. (this seems inevitable, as the topic is not notable) Jd2718 (talk) 15:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ludicrous. This topis is extraordinarily notable.Galassi (talk) 15:37, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Here he goes again. There is no reason to do this just because you personally don't like the article an it does not fit you perception of the world Bandurist (talk) 17:56, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I always assume good-faith, but this user has a clear anti-ukrainian bias.Galassi (talk) 18:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Would you please provide reliable sources that would inequivocally state any lack of such individuals?Galassi (talk) 18:40, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, first you have to present source that assert the existence of such individuals. Note the other concurrent discussion at the talk of the History of Jews in UA. --Irpen 18:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  The entire Borovoy diss is devoted to the subject, which needs no assertion. Except for anti-Semites, maybe....Galassi (talk) 18:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Galassi, this is the warning #2. Please tone it down. And, btw, I see no indication from the article's sources that practicing Jews were Cossacks. Among Cossacks? Yes. Converted Jews being Cossacks? Perhaps. But those are no more "Jewish" Cossacks in that century's context. And most of the article just forks J-UA relations which is plain wrong. --Irpen 18:58, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Galassi is quite correct. Soviet era antisemites suppressed Borovoy's research because it compromised pure-ethnic "quasi Aryan" view of Cossacks especially after WWII. No one else would ever need any such justification.Lute88 (talk) 19:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Please reread above starting from "I see no indication from the article's sources that practicing Jews were Cossacks." --Irpen 19:28, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:   One does not have to profess any religion whatsoever to be persecuted as a Jew. So lets not bring this daft "practicing Jews" bit in here (I should add that this construct in endemic to the US only, pretty much).Lute88 (talk) 19:41, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Please remember we are not talking the 20th century context. Back then the concept of the nation did not exist even, let alone the "Jewish nation". People were classified by the language, religion, social status and suzerainty. --Irpen 19:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am sure you know what is LIMPIEZA DE SANGRE, or am I?Galassi (talk) 13:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Adding info on number 4: , the book by the Slavist and translator Susanne Luber has 145 pages and here you get a two-page review of the work. Hm, I have no accesse to JSTOR, but if the book is really also mentioning "Jewish Cossacks", I can only say I have seen articles kept on Wikipedia with less than this to reference the phenomenon ... But indeed, there should be less about Jewish-Ukrainian relationships here and perhaps a line about the fact that they may have been converted - or we should refer to some article about the ethnicity/religion problem. Er, someone said above Orthodox priests knew Hebrew (so, but that is OR on OR, we presume they could talk to these guys). Unfortunately, most of the chaps who may have joined these military outfits "probably only knew enough Hebrew to get through Bar Mitzvah" (like knowlege of Latin by Roman Catholic boys going through confirmation), their mother tongue was Yiddish, and it only looked like Hebrew when it was written down - it was a Germanic language! So that argument about Orthodox priests is not worth a Ukrainian shekel. Wishing loads of mazzel to anyone who wants to correct this article, by the way. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 13:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Bedanckt for your opinion. However in is not well informed. The upper stratum of the Cossack society was extremely well educated, with some officers possessing degrees from OXford, Sorbonne or Bologna. Western style education was brought to Ukraine when cossack mersenaries came back from the 30year War. Hebrew was obligatory at the seminary that staffed entire Eastern and Southern Europe- Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.Galassi (talk) 13:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I am so sorry, mensh, but I was not shmoozing, I was not arguing against Orthodox priests knowing Hebrew. Hebrew, however, was never the mother tongue of the immense majority of Jews living in Europe from 800 on. In Spain, a "Jewish" version of Spanish became the norm ("Spanish" speaking Jews later emigrated to Thessalonica and Crete - they were the "Greek" Jews exterminated by the nazis). Later, in the Rhineland, Jews switched to German, which as the Jews trekked East became more and more influenced by Slavic languages. So it does not matter whether Orthodox priests spoke Hebrew, it does not matter how much Hebrew Mazepa knew (very little, I am inclined to think, if he left school at 15), the point is that only Jewish rabbis knew Hebrew and 99% of Jews in Eastern Europe had far less trouble being understood by German Mennonites than by Orthodox priests who would have addressed them in Hebrew. Before the vernacular was used in the Roman Catholic Church Western Rite, 99% of Roman Catholics had no idea what they were saying when reciting the Credo in Latin, and the same thing applied to Jews and Hebrew. Of course, now in Israel, the spoken language is a "derivation" from Hebrew and Yiddish is fast dying out... Bedanckt is badly spelled Dutch by the way ("Bedankt", though you normally say "Dank U", as "bedankt" may imply you want to get rid of that person's company: "Ты свободен!"), in Yiddish you say "a sheynem dank". Zay gezunt! (not implying that you sneezed, just saying goodbuy!).--Paul Pieniezny (talk) 15:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Literacy in Hebrew was obligatory and prevalent, regardless of vernacular, and that is standard scholarship.  Mazepa the Intellectual is well-documented. As to BEDANCKT- I prefer Baroque spelling.Galassi (talk) 15:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original Research 

message: Just reviewing many of the above sources one comes to the conclusion that the Zaprozhian Cossacks were not racists, because they included many peoples into the ranks of the cossacks
... but they did wind up being extremely hostile to all non-orthodox religions, in particular the Poles and the Uniates. One has to re-assess the the happenings of Khmelnytsky's times, as at that time they were even killing Greek Catholics, ie Byzantine Eastern Orthodox Christians who had come into UNion with the Catholic church. Bandurist (talk) 20:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Did the question of racism ever come up? Just consider that Hetman Fedorenko was a converted Tatar.Galassi (talk) 23:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Highly unlikely. A totally unprincipled mercenary. Galassi (talk) 02:57, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  You meant Fedorovych, right?Lute88 (talk) 00:06, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Cossacks and racism

message: See sources in :uk:Ілляш Караїмович. Karaimovych wa also called the Armenian. No need to cutt of information you dont like.--202.71.90.139 (talk) 18:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no primary source mentioned on LITOPYS.Galassi (talk) 21:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Where does it say that Ormjanchyk and Karaimovych are the same person?Lute88 (talk) 10:25, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL, Read the "Chronicle" and its comments, "warrior". Do you reject other explanations because they contradict your "vision" of history?  --202.71.90.139 (talk) 14:06, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Where does it say that Ormjanchyk and Karaimovych are the same person?Lute88 (talk) 14:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

text: ..."Chronicle" and its comments--202.71.90.139 (talk) 20:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  It raises a tenuous possibility in the comments, but makes no mention of sameness in the text.Galassi (talk) 22:16, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Karaimovych 

message: The article must be deleted because it is absurd.
Like "Jewish SS Waffen in Wehrmacht". 
It is not ORish, it is absurd. Wikipedia is not a place for sensational hypotesis.Vadvir (talk) 07:35, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The scolarly opinion differs on this matter.~-Galassi (talk) 15:56, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Absurd

message: - neither the Scottishness of Krzywonos nor the Frankist roots of Mickiewicz are something that is certain. The Scottish Krzywonos thing, AFAIK, comes from a single document, where it's mentioned only in passing. So, the article should NOT prevent these things as certain.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:02, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The descriptions of Kryvonos in POlish sources are deliberate in stressing his origins in the lowest possible station, for derogatory purposes, biased, understandably. The exact genealogy of Mickiewicz's mother has been long known, documented by Meyer Balaban. But them POlish nationalists dislike that, naturally.--Galassi (talk) 11:59, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't care about POlish nationalists, that's not what I'm talking about and in fact I don't know what you are talking about. The bottom line is that some sources say Mickiewicz's mother was descendent from Frankists, others sources say that that is highly implausible. Balaban isn't the only source in the world. Some sources take that one document which mentions Krzywonos as a Scottish mercenary at face value, other sources says that that is highly implausible. Note that I didn't remove the claims just qualified it with a "possible", which at least partly reflects that sources don't agree on this. I think that's perfectly reasonable.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:38, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

text: btw, this is the 17th century Commonwealth we're talking about. I'm not so sure that "Scottish mercenary" would have been regarded as being of higher social status than "Cossack ataman", even by (or especially by) Poles.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:41, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  We are not here to interpret the primary sources. The Mytsyk article calls Maxym K. a Scotsman, and so it is, per RS, as Mytsyk is a bona fide authority on the cossack history.--Galassi (talk) 15:03, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Who's interpreting primary sources? All I'm saying is that secondary sources themselves disagree and that should be reflected in the article.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:41, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Krzywonos/Mickiewicz 

message: The idea that Zaporozhian Cossacks had been Amshen Vakhabbis and their example inspired the Tzarnayev brothers IS AN ORIGINAL RESEARCH. The authors of this research are to be interrogated by the FBI. Moreover even the followers of both Armenian Apostolic faith and Armenian Uniat faith, being Christians, might not join the Cossack Kosh. They were to be baptized into either Roman Catholic church or Orthodox Catholic church for this. The idea that only Galichina SS Division Cossacks are real Cossacks is an ORIGINAL RESEARCH. This division was created in 1943 to wage a war against Anglo-American forces during the WWII, not against Russians. Moreover, there were no real Cossacks in this division. Cossacks were on the same side as the USA and UK in two world wars in general. Jewish Cossacks are usually Cossacks of Jewish faith. Just they usually were the guards of Russian emperors and their heirs during their visits on Don, because other Cossacks were used to ask for  equal rights for Old-Believers and other democratic reforms during their guard service. Jewish Cossacks were not discriminated contrary to other Jews and to Old-Believers and were considered more reliable than other Cossacks. If Cossacks of Jewish descent are called Jewish Cossacks then the majority of Don and Kuban Cossacks can be called such ones according  to OUN.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.66.196.208 (talk) 12:48, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cossacks in Russia 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It mentions documents “… written in Hebrew and Ukrainian…”
for one it’s best to mention that the Hebrew language during the period was used for religious practices and not regularly as Israel has it now. The language would be yiddish and likely the Ukrainian dialect of it . The yiddish alphabet is part of hebrew but it is still different from it
In the Ukrainian people’s republic, Yiddish was a state language as it 
History of the Jews in Ukraine
Yiddish dialects
History of the Jews in Ukraine#Ukrainian People's Republic Shelly098 (talk) 18:15, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The sources say explicitly the documents were written in Hebrew. --Aristophile (talk) 18:38, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I mean, I just believe that the source link would help. Shelly098 (talk) 19:36, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Saul Borovoy - correction?