Question about jewish history.?

Question

why did the cossacks destroy so many of the jews during the 1600s in poland? i had to read the chosen but, i dont remember. thank you.

Answer 1

Religion & Economy

The Cossacks hated the Polish & Jewish people because they were different in religion, & because they were rich & in controle of the land.

Answer 2

See the article below.  Here's an excerpt:

The term Khmelnytsky Uprising (also Khmel'nyts'kyi/Chmielnicki Uprising or Khmelnytsky/Chmielnicki Rebellion) refers to a rebellion or war of liberation in the lands of present-day Ukraine which raged from 1648-1654. Under the command of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Zaporozhian Cossacks allied with the Crimean Tatars, and the local Ukrainian peasantry, fought several battles against the armies and szlachtian disorganised militia of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The result was an eradication of the control of the Polish szlachta, Roman Catholic priests and their Jewish intermediaries (arendators [1]) in the area.

The Uprising started as the rebellion of the Cossack estate, but as other Orthodox Christian classes (peasants, burghers, petty nobility) of the Ukrainian palatinates joined them, the ultimate aim became a creation of an autonomous Ukrainian state.

Answer 3

Well I am not sure about this particular example, but anti-Semitism has been a part of European history since ancient times. In the Medieval era Jews were persecuted and often wrongly accused of crimes

Answer 4

Cossacks were reacting to the pervasive hatred of Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe.  Other times and places also hated the Jews, but the Cossacks were a very illiterate lot and probably didn't know or care about that.  In the Chosen, the importance of the Cossacks plunder and killing is the backdrop for how Jews in the US retained fear that a powerful , brutal force could annihilate them at any time, therefore they had to keep their values, families and communities tight to withstand any outside force.  Thus the conflict of a contemporary young Jew and his background.