16 Jews from Ukraine Who Changed the World
Jews from Ukraine have made essential contributions to Jewish thought
and culture, and have also brought world-class talent to science, art, politics,
and more.
Ukraine has had a significant and vibrant jewish community going all The
way back to the middle ages, but the history of ukrainian jewry.
Has been difficult, and often marked by periods of intense antisemitism.
In addition, it was not always easy to live in a region that was frequently unstable.
Borders shifted following the collapse of the russian empire — and Later,
the soviet union — and near-constant persecution and surveillance
Led many jews to emigrate elsewhere. But an astonishing number of Ukrainian
jews, whether they spent their entire lives in the country or traveled
elsewhere, have made remarkable contributions to the world in art, culture,
science, politics, sports, and more. Ukraine was also the birthplace of
important Jewish developments, most notably Hasidism.
BAAL SHEM TOV
The Baal Shem Tov was the founder of Hasidic Judaism, an orthodox
spiritual revivalist movement that has hundreds of thousands of adherents
today.
Born Israel ben Eliezer in 1698 in Okopy, Ukraine, Baal Shem Tov
literally means “master of the good name” and is often abbreviated
as ‘besht’.
GOLDA MEIR
While Golda Meir ascended to international prominence when she was
elected prime minister of Israel in 1969, she was born in Kyiv, Ukraine's
capital, in 1898.
Meir was the fourth woman in the world to serve as a head of state.
Other Israeli leaders who were born in Ukraine include Israel's second prime minister
Moshe Sharett, as well as his successor, Levi Eshkol.
SHOLEM ALEICHEM
Born Sholem Rabinowitz in 1859 in Pereyaslav, Ukraine, Sholem Aleichem
is considered one of the most beloved Yiddish writers of all time. His short stories
about Tevye the dairyman inspired the hit musical and film fiddler on the roof.
MILA KUNIS
Born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine in 1983, Mila Kunis and her family fled the
soviet union when she was seven years old. Her family was resettled in Los Angeles
with the help of the Hebrew immigrant aid society. Kunis ascended to fame by starring
in that 70’s show and has had major roles in dozens of shows and films since
then.
MENACHEM MENDEL SCHNEERSON
Known to many as just “the rebbe,” Menachem Mendel Schneerson was the
last rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch movement is considered one of the most influential
20th-century Jewish leaders. While Schneerson famously led the
Chabad movement from its Brooklyn headquarters, he was born in Mykolaiv,
Ukraine in 1902.
OKSANA BAIUL
Figure skater Oskana Baiul made history in 1994 when she became the
first athlete representing post-soviet Ukraine to win a gold medal at the Olympics.
While Baiul was raised orthodox Christian, she discovered and embraced
her maternal Jewish ancestry when she was 25 years old. Since retiring from ice
skating, she has served as a trustee for the Tikva children’s home, a Jewish orphanage
in Odessa.
LENNY KRAYZELBURG
While swimmer Lenny Krayzelburg represented team USA at the 2000 and
2004 Summer Olympics, the gold medalist was born and raised in Odessa, until
his family fled and resettled in Los Angeles when he was 14. World-renowned tennis
player Elina Svitolina won a bronze medal for Ukraine at the 2020 Olympics
in Tokyo. Svitolina was also a semi-finalist at Wimbledon and the u.s. open.
SELMAN WAKSMAN
Selman Waksman was born in 1888 in a small village outside of Vinnytsia,
Ukraine. As a researcher at Rutgers university in new jersey, Waksman
discovered several antibiotics, which led to the first successful treatment of
tuberculosis. Waksman was awarded the 1952 Nobel
Prize in medicine for his contributions to microbiology. Many other Ukrainian
Jewish scientists have made sterling contributions, including Waldemar Haffkine,
the microbiologist credited with developing the first vaccines for cholera and
bubonic plague, who was born in Odesa in 1860.
NATAN SHARANSKY
Born in Donetsk, Ukraine in 1948, Natan Sharansky is one of the most
famous refuseniks who advocated for soviet Jewry's right to emigrate during the
1970s and 1980s. Between the years 1977 and 1986, Sharansky was imprisoned for
his activism. After being released, Sharansky immigrated to Israel and entered
the world of politics. Sharansky was awarded the Israel prize in 2018.
VLADIMIR HOROWITZ
Hailed as one of the greatest pianists of all time, Vladimir Horowitz
was born in Kyiv in 1903. He left the soviet union at 22 years old and went on
to reside in berlin and new york city. After winning dozens of Grammy awards
from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, Horowitz earned grammy's lifetime
achievement award in 1990. There have been many other remarkable Ukrainian Jewish
musicians including internationally renowned violinist and six-time grammy
VIOLINIST ISAAC STERN.
The son
of Solomon and Clara Stern, Isaac Stern was born in Kremenets, Poland (now Ukraine). He was 14 months old when his family moved to San
Francisco in 1921. He returned to the San Francisco Conservatory to study for
five years with Naoum Blinder, to whom he
said he owed the most. His public début on February 18, 1936, aged 15, he
played Saint-Saëns' Violin
Concerto No. 3 in B minor with the San Francisco Symphony under
the direction of Pierre Monteux. Reflecting
on his background, Stern once memorably quipped that cultural exchanges between
the U.S. and Soviet Russia were simple affairs:
"They
send us their Jews from Odessa, and we send them our Jews from
Odessa”.
Stern
toured the Soviet Union in 1951,
the first American violinist to do so. In 1967, Stern stated his refusal to
return to the USSR until the Soviet regime allowed artists to enter and leave
the country freely. His only visit to Germany was in 1999, for a series of
masterclasses, but he never performed publicly in Germany.
In the
1960s, he played a major role in saving New York City's Carnegie Hall from demolition, by organizing the
Citizens' Committee to Save Carnegie Hall. Following the purchase of Carnegie
Hall by New York City, the Carnegie Hall Corporation was formed, and Stern was
chosen as its first president, a title he held until his death.[2] Carnegie Hall later named its main auditorium
in his honor.[10]
Among
Stern's many recordings are concertos by Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, and Vivaldi and modern works by Barber, Bartók, Stravinsky, Bernstein, Rochberg, and Dutilleux. The Dutilleux concerto, entitled L'arbre
des songs ["The Tree of Dreams"] was a 1985 commission by
Stern himself. He also dubbed actors' violin-playing in several films, such
as Fiddler on the Roof.
JAN KOUM
Born in Kyiv in 1976, Jan Koum immigrated to California with his mother
as a teenager. After working for several years in cybersecurity and programming,
Koum invented the messaging application Whatsapp in 2009.
Whatsapp has billions of users worldwide and was acquired by facebook’s meta
platforms for $19.3 billion in 2014.
RAV NACHMAN OF BRESLOV
Rav nachman, also known as nachman from uman or reb nachman, was born in
medzhybizh, ukraine in 1772. A grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, Rav Nachman went
on to found the Breslov Hasidic movement, which combined elements of mysticism
with Torah writings. He moved to Uman in 1810 and died later that year. Today, Rav
Nachman's grave in Uman is a pilgrimage site that receives tens of thousands of
visitors each year.
ILYA KAMINSKY
Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa in 1977. At age 16, Kaminsky and his
family emigrated to the u.s. due to antisemitism in Ukraine. Kaminsky’s poetry collections
dancing in Odessa and deaf republic both received international accolades, and Kaminsky
was selected as a Guggenheim fellow in 2018.
BORIS ARONSON
Born in Kyiv in 1898 to a rabbi, Boris Aronson studied theater and art
throughout
The Russian Empire and western Europe before immigrating to the u.s. in
1923.
After spending several years designing sets at Yiddish theaters, Aronson
began working on broadway. He designed three dozen broadway productions and won
the Tony Award for scenic design six times.
HAYIM NAHMAN BIALIK
Born near Volhynia, Ukraine in 1873, Hayim Nahman Bialik is remembered
as a pioneer of modern Hebrew poetry. He is just one of many Ukrainian jews who
molded early Israeli literature and zionist thought. Ahad Ha’am, an essayist
who was also influential in the revival of Hebrew writing, was born in Skvyra, Ukraine
to a Hasidic family in 1856. He is also considered the father of cultural Zionism;
ZE’EV JABOTINSKY
The founder of revisionist Zionism was born in Odessa in 1880.
Jabotinsky also established the Beitar youth movement and the Irgun, a
paramilitary organization in pre-state Israel.
SHLOMO GANZFRIED
A rabbi and expert in Jewish law, Shlomo Ganzfield was born in 1804 in Uzhhorod,
Ukraine. Considered a child prodigy in eastern Europe's yeshiva world, Ganzfried’s
most notable contribution to Judaism was penning the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, a
condensed and easily understood version of the Shulchan Aruch, the most widely
cited code of Jewish law.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY
Born in the village of Kryvyi in 1978, Volodymyr Zelensky was raised in the
area that was once known as the pale of settlement, the only region in the Russian
empire where most jews were permitted to live. While Zelensky gained fame in Ukraine
as an actor and comedian, he switched gears in 2019 and successfully ran for Ukraine's
presidency where he became a hero to the country in the wake of the Russian
invasion in February 2022.
Thanks to Barbara Higgs
