| Time Frame | Event | Reference Source |
| 3d and 4th cent. | The ancient Miletian Greek colony, said to have occupied this site, (Odessos, Ordyssos, or Ordas). | |
| The 12th century. | Jewish settlements existed on the banks of the River Dnieper and in the east and south of the Ukraine and the Crimea prior to the period of the Khazar kingdom. Ancient Jewish communities were established only in in Volhynia and Red Russia (eastern Galicia). Of these the most ancient may have been Vladimir-Volynski. Jewish settlement in the Ukraine preceded the unification of the area and formation of the Ukrainian nation. | |
| 13th-century | The Russia mentioned in rabbinical literature refers to Red Russia. | |
| 1399 | Black Death | |
| 14th-end 15th century | Due to persecutions and massacres, Ukrainian communities absorbed Jewish migration from Germany and Bohemia. | |
| 16th to 17th centuries | With the rule of Poland-Lithuania over the region, Jews were drawn to the Ukraine by the colonizing activities of the Polish nobility and the role of Jews in economic life. This made the Ukraine one of the Jewish centers in Poland-Lithuania as the number of the communities increased from 25 during the 14th century to 80 in 1764. | |
| 14th cent. | Odessa became a Crimean Tatar fortress and trade center called Khadzhi-Bei. | |
| At the close of the 16th century | There were about 45,000 Jews (100,000 Jews were presumably in the whole of Poland) living in the eastern regions of Poland which were inhabited by Ukrainians. The migration of Jews from the western provinces of Poland to the Ukraine in the 16th century was mainly due to their economic role in the arenda business on a large or small scale. Hence, the Ukraine became a region where Jews managed a considerable proportion of the agricultural economy, administering complexes consisting of a number of estates, single estates, or a sector of their economy. Jews also engaged in arenda there in the collection of customs duties and taxes, and played an important role in the export and import trade in the region. * | |
| 1648–49 | Before the Chmielnicki massacres their numbers had increased to at least 150,000. 100,000 Jews were brutally killed and almost all the communities of the Ukraine were destroyed. The massacres did not halt Jewish migration to the Ukraine and Jews played a prominent role in its economic recovery during the second half of the 17th and the 18th centuries. | |
| Late 17th century | Ukrainian Jewry became a focus of religious and social ferment within Judaism. The massacres and sufferings endured by the Jews in the Ukraine also introduced spiritual and social trends. The messianic agitation which followed the massacres of 1648–49 paved the way for the penetration of Shabbateanism, while at the time of the Haidamak persecutions and the revival of blood libels, the Frankist movement made its appearance, and Hasidim as inaugurated by Israel b. Eliezer Ba'al Shem Tov developed and spread rapidly through the country. | |
| 18th century, | Persecutions of the Haidamakswere more limited but more cruel. These massacres, whose perpetrators were admired as national heroes, gave rise to a popular tradition of hatred toward the Jews in the Ukraine; it was nurtured by the increase of the Jewish population in the country, by its economic position, and later by the propagation of the Russian language and culture by Jews—an act which the nationalist Ukrainian intellectuals (the Ukrainophiles) regarded as collaboration with the Muscovite Russian government in its campaign against their awakening as a separate nation. | |
| 1717-1764 | The Cossack authorities of the part of the Ukraine annexed by Russia beyond the Dnieper opposed the frequent expulsions of the Jews from there (1717, 1731, 1740, 1742, 1744), and argued in favor of their free admission to the Ukraine (1728, 1734, 1764) stating that the Jews promoted the region's trade. | |
| Third Partition | When the Ukraine (with the exception of eastern Galicia) became part of the Pale of Settlement after the partition of Poland-Lithuania, the Jews continued to play a considerable and dynamic role in the economy of the region. | |
| Pale of Settlement | | |
| 1764 | Odessa passed to the Turks, who built a fortress (Yenu-Duniya) to protect the harbor. In the census of 1764, 258,000 Jews were enumerated, though in fact their number was over 300,000. | Census of 1764 |
| 1789 | Captured by the Russians. | |
| The Treaty of Jassy in 1792, | Turkey ceded the region between the Dnestr and the Bug (including Odessa) to Russia, which rebuilt Odessa as a fort, commercial port, and naval base. | |
| 1795-1796 | Document Type : CENSUS | State Archives of Kherson Oblast |
| 1800-1938 | Document Type : Occupation Lists | State Archive of Odessa Oblast
Fond/Opis/Delo : 4; 16; P-5138 |
| 1816 | Document Type : CENSUS | State Archives of Kherson Oblast |
| The city that developed around the fort grew rapidly as the chief grain-exporting center of Ukraine; | |
| 1817 | 30% of the factories in Ukraine were owned by Jews. They were particularly active in the production of alcoholic beverages. | |
| 1819 to 1849, | It was a free port. | |
| 1842 | “The official lists for the year 1842, show the following number of Jewish tradesmen and journeymen: “Twelve goldsmiths, nine watchmakers, twelve lacemakers—these employ thirty-eight journeymen; forty-one shoemakers, with eighty-eight journeymen; fourteen bookbinders and wadding manufacturers; with twenty-one journeymen; one hundred and ten tailors, with ninety-four journeymen; thirty-three capmakers, with thirty-eight journeymen; fourteen glaziers, with seventeen journeymen; eight bakers, with three journeymen; thirty-four tinmen and pewterers, with thirty-six journeymen; in all two hundred and seventy-eight masters, and three hundred and thirty-five journeymen. “This account includes only those master-manufacturers who have got the freedom of their respective companies. ** | From: The Occident and American Jewish Advocate
The Industry of Jews in Odessa Volume II, No. 8 Heshvan 5605 November 1844. |
| 19th and 20th centuries. | Activist and revolutionary trends were prominent in the Hebrew and Yiddish literature which emerged in the Ukraine. | |
| 1847 | According to official sources, there were almost 600,000 Jews in the Ukrainian regions belonging to Russia (the provinces of southwestern Russia—Volhynia, Podolia, and Kiev; of Little Russia—Chernigov and Poltava; and of New Russia—Yekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk), Kherson, and Taurida), though they actually numbered up to 900,000. | |
| 1854 | Death records for Odessa | State Archives of Odessa Oblast
Fond/Opis/Delo : 39; 16/107, 108; P-8085 |
| 1857-1858 | Document Type :Odessa Army/Recruits
(List of Soldiers [Reserves], Jews-Cantonists included in the total number of merchants in Odessa) **** | State Archive of Kherson Oblast
Fond/Opis/Delo : 22/1/30 |
| 1857-1858 | Document type: Odessa Census
1857-1858 (List of Residents and Merchants); (List of Merchants and Residents);(Lists of Merchants);
1858 (List of residents); 1858 (List of Jewish Merchants) | State Archive of Kherson Oblast -Fond/Opis/Delo 22/1/1; 22/1/2; 22/1/31, 53, 84, 102, 134; 22/1/126; 22/1/34, 35, 38, 39, 40, 43, 74, 112, 119; 22/1/56, 100; 22/1/32 |
| 1866 | Odessa linked by rail with Kiev, Kharkov, and the Romanian city of Jassy. City's importance was further enhanced. | |
| 1869-1883; 1895-1912; 1920 | Document Type : Odessa Notary Records | State Archive of Odessa Oblast
Fond/Opis/Delo : 408; 611; 413; 427; 35/1 |
| 1872 | Before the anti-Jewish restriction in this sphere, 90% of those occupied in distilling were Jews; 56.6% in sawmills, 48.8% in the tobacco industry, and 32.5% in the sugar industry. Only a limited number of Jews were occupied in heavy industry, where they were generally employed as white-collar workers. | |
| 1881–82 | Pogroms spread to the Ukraine. After the pogroms of the 1880s, the Ukraine was not only the birthplace of the Hibbat Zion, the Bilu, and the Am Olam movements but also of the Dukhovno-bibleyskoye bratstvo (Spiritual Biblical Brotherhood, founded by Jacob Gordin and his circle) which sought to bring back the Jews to the religious purity of the Bible and thus draw them closer to Christianity. | |
| latter part of the 19th cent. | Industrialization began. | |
| 1873-1935 | Document Type : Odessa School Records | State Archive of Odessa Oblast
Fond/Opis/Delo : 42; 45; 108; 125; 116; 130; 441; P-1302; P-1650; P-4574; P-5286 |
| Odessa was a center of emigré Greek and Bulgarian patriots, of the Ukrainian cultural and national movement, of Jewish culture, and of the labor movement and social democracy. | |
| 1875 | The city's first workers' organization was founded. | |
| 1897 | According to the population census there were 1,927,268 Jews in these regions, 9,2% of the total population of the Ukraine. | The first general census in Russia |
| 1835;1893-1895; 1897-1899; 1908; 1910; 1912-1914 | Document Type : Odessa Census | State Archive of Odessa Oblast -
Fond/Opis/Delo : 359/1/4-9, 20-44; 2/8-11 |
| 1854; 1875-1922 | Document Type : Marriage | State Archives of Odessa Oblast
Fond/Opis/Delo : 39; 16/107, 108; P-8085 |
| 1854; 1875-1922 | Document Type : Divorce | State Archive of Odessa Oblast
Fond/Opis/Delo : 39; P-8085 |
| 1854; 1875-1922 | Death records for Odessa | State Archives of Odessa Oblast
Fond/Opis/Delo : 39; 16/107, 108; P-8085 |
| 1873-1919; 1929-1931; 1934-1935 | Document Type : Odessa Kahal/Jewish Community | State Archives of Odessa Oblast Fond/Opis/Delo : 16; P-2644; P-81 |
| 1897 | The occupational structure of the Jewish population of Ukraine was 43.3% in commerce; 32.2% in crafts and industry; 2.9% in agriculture; 3.7% in communications; 7.3% in private services (including porterage and the like); 5.8% in public services (including the liberal professions); and 4.8% of no permanent occupation. | |
| 1905 | Odessa was the scene of a workers' outbreak led by sailors from the battleship Potemkin. | |
| 1915-1918 | When Turkey closed the Dardanelles to the Allies in World War I, the port of Odessa was also closed and was later bombarded by the Turkish fleet. | |
| 1917 | Bolshevik Revolution | |
| 1917-1920 | The city was successively occupied by the Central Powers, the French, the Reds, and the Whites. March 1917 to August 1920: Ukrainians established a National Council (the Rada).January 1918 proclaimed the separation of the Ukraine from Russia.*** | |
| August 1920 | The Red Army completed the conquest of the Ukraine from General Denikin in 1920 and united it with the Ukrainian SSR. | |
| 1919–20 | Under the regime of S. Petlyura (the Socialist government), about 100,000 Jews were murdered in the Ukraine | |
| 1920s- early 1930s | Three Jewish districts were created in the areas of Jewish settlement in southeastern Ukraine (Kalininskoye, Stalinskoye, and Zlatopol) | |
| 1921-22 | After the Russian civil war Odessa suffered greatly from famine.. | |
| 1912; 1915; 1917; 1925 | Document Type : Address Books | Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Kiev
Fond/Opis/Delo : 21589-21591 |
| 1920-1924 | Document Type : Pogroms | State Archive of Odessa Oblast
Fond/Opis/Delo : P-5275/1 |
| 1925-1932 | Document Type : Property Owners | State Archives of Odessa Oblast
Fond/Opis/Delo : P-1509/1 |
| 1926 | Enumerated 1,574,391 Jews in the Ukraine, subsequent to the detachment of half of the province of Volhynia (the second half was then within the borders of Poland), half of the province of Taurida, and a small section of the province of Chernigov, while several districts of the Don region had been incorporated into it. The Jews then Constituted 5.43% of the total population of the Ukraine. | The census of 1926 |
| 1929-1939 | Document Type : Immigration
Polish Alijah Passports to Palestine | Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw, Poland
Fond/Opis/Delo : 115 |
| 1939 | Enumerated 1,532,827 Jews in the Ukraine (4.9% of the total). | The census of 1939 |
| Oct., 1941 (World War II) | Despite a heroic defense the city fell to German and Romanian forces. | |
| World War II | Great parts of the Ukrainian population wholeheartedly collaborated with the Nazis in exterminating the Jews in the occupied Ukraine. | |
| 1943 | Document Type : Holocaust | Moldova National Archives, Kishinev
Fond/Opis/Delo : 706/1/1115 |
| 1941-1944 | Under Romanian administration as the capital of Transnistra | |
| (April, 1944) | Lliberation by the Soviet Army. Many buildings were ruined, and approximately 280,000 civilians (mostly Jews) were reportedly massacred or deported during the Axis powers' occupation | |
| 1959 | Included the Jews of the regions which had passed to Russia after World War II (eastern Galicia, northern Bukovina, Subcarpathian Ruthenia), there were 840,319 Jews in the Ukraine (2% of the total). According to this census, which was generally regarded as underestimating their numbers, Jews were concentrated in the towns of Kiev (153,500), Odessa (106,700), Kharkov (84,000), Dnepropetrovsk (52,800), Chernovtsy (Czernowitz; 36,500), Lvov (24,700), and Donetsk (21,000). About 80% of the Jews of the Ukraine declared their mother tongue as Russian, about 17% (142,240) as Yiddish, and only about 3% as Ukrainian. | According to the census of 1959, |
*This tradition of hatred toward the Jews found its expression in both folk songs and literature (T. Shevchenko; N. Gogol), in historiography (N. Kostomarov), and in political thought (M. Dragomanov).
**We are glad to find from the “Orient,” for July 16, page 224, that the Jews in Odessa furnish another example of the praiseworthy industry with which, when opportunity is afforded them, they devote themselves to the prosecution of those useful trades and callings, which are so indispensably necessary for their prosperity as a people. . “The Jews of Odessa apply themselves also to occupations which they do not generally exercise in other parts of the empire. This proves that the Jews do not hesitate to enter upon the most laborious employment, if they furnish them with an honest though scanty livelihood. There are, for instance, those who are employed in the harbour in bringing in and heaping up the grain. Hundreds of Jews arrive in the summer from the western governments to labour for forty kopecs (a Russian coin, the hundredth part of a ruble) a day. It is a touching sight to see these labourers, for the most part aged, perform their fatiguing labours in the streets during the hottest season, endeavouring to lighten their heavy burden by the repetition of passages of Scripture, or of the Talmud. Other Jews are working in the stone-quarries outside the town, and there is no public building, not a single church, for which the Jews have not furnished the stones in the sweat of their brow.”—Jewish Intelligence.
*** During this time the leaders of the Ukrainian nationalist movement attempted to reach an agreement with the Jews. They established relations with the leaders of Zionism in eastern Galicia, and jointly waged a struggle against Polish aims in the Ukraine. During this period the Jews were represented in the Rada (with 50 delegates), a secretariat for Jewish affairs was established (July 1917), and a law passed on "personal national autonomy" for the national minorities, among which, the Jews were included. The Jewish ministry (M. Silberfarb was the first minister; he was succeeded by J. W. Latzki-Bertholdi) passed a law providing for democratic elections to the administrative bodies of the communities (December 1918), a Jewish National Council was formed, and the Provisional National Council of the Jews of the Ukraine was convened (November 1918). These institutions were short-lived. In July 1918 the autonomy was abolished, the Jewish ministry was dissolved and the pogroms which then took place—without the Ukrainian government taking any effective measures to assure the security of the Jewish population—proved that the whole of this project had been directed more at securing the assistance of the Jewish parties in order to achieve complete separation from Russia than at really developing a new positive attitude toward the Jews.
****Archives and their holdings from: Routes to Roots http://www.rtrfoundation.org
