Category talk:American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent

Menachem Schneerson
Menachem schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, can be included here too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.42.124.21 (talk • contribs)

not a historically accurate category
With all due respect to all parties involved: "Ukrainian-Jewish" is not a historically accurate category, either from a Ukrainian or from a Jewish historical perspective--nor does it map onto Jewish sense of identity in Ukraine until very, very recent times. So this is reading backwards into history something these folks so categorized would not ever have thought of themselves. Not sure where the Wikipedians who embarked on this categorization got this from! Being of Jewish heritage and from a place that is now Ukraine does not make one Ukrainian-Jewish. A passing familiarity with the history of the Jews in Ukraine will be helpful to understand why this is an important categorization error to correct. And so on for all the associated categories--namely, "People of Ukrainian-Jewish descent", "Ukrainian-Jewish culture in the United States", "Ukrainian-descended American Jews", "Ukrainian-born American Jews", or "Ukrainian Jews" (this last one has a greater claim historically and sociologically relative to Jews living in Ukraine subsequent to Ukrainian independence from the USSR, as Ukrainian cultural and linguistic socialization was more and more emphasized for all citizens). The historically accurate ways to categorize here include "Jews from present-day Ukraine", "East European Jews", "Jews from the former USSR", "Jews from the Pale of Settlement", "Jews from the historic Russian Empire", "Galitzianer Jews", "Litvak Jews". Indeed, these last two represent cultural and linguistic categories that historically divide up the populations of Jews whose ancestors lived in what is present-day Ukraine. It's all a bit messy, to be sure, but the point is that all this doesn't roll up to "Ukrainian-Jewish". We're not talking about cosmopolitan countries like the US or Australia where people have or have had those sorts of hyphenated identities or lived lives. The cultures and heritages here are quite different and in light of the shared history of those neighboring peoples, this categorization ("Ukrainian-Jewish") is not only fiction; it papers over hundreds of years of a very different story. 2603:7000:9503:6470:8170:9908:6BB8:13F1 (talk) 12:39, 14 December 2023 (UTC)