As Russian troops gather at the Ukrainian border, Jewish immigrants who fled Soviet Ukraine are speaking out against Vladimir Putin. Even the Russian-speaking Jews who oppose Russian aggression, however, do not necessarily feel solidarity with the Ukrainian people. Raina Weinstein notes that the present moment has served as a reckoning for some, who recall the reasons they fled.

As emigres from the Ukrainian SSR, these refugees never lived in an independent Ukrainian state. Under Soviet rule, their passports identified their nationality as “Jewish”—rather than Ukrainian—unlike their non-Jewish neighbors, who were not subject to the anti-Semitic discrimination of the Soviet regime.

The distinction between Jewish and Ukrainian still plays a role in the self-conception of Ukrainian-born Jews. Many members of this community do not identify as Ukrainian but express political support for Ukraine against Russia and President Putin.

Irina Rakhlis, a Manhattan Beach resident, was born in Kyiv but does not identify as Ukrainian. She describes herself as a “Russian-speaking Jew,” whose upbringing in Kyiv was more culturally Soviet than Ukrainian. In Kyiv, Ms. Rakhlis studied Ukrainian as a second language in school. She recalls that her Ukrainian teacher discriminated against Jewish students.

Her grandparents told her stories of pogroms in their childhood shtetls—often carried out by popular Ukrainian figures. “I remember my parents saying, ‘it’s a Ukrainian hero, but it’s really a person who slaughtered Jews,’” she says.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.