Every Jew of European heritage has heard of the Cossacks. Tuvia Tenenbom went to Ukraine in search of the feared figures of his childhood nightmares — but found something very unexpected.
The Circassian Heritage Center in Kfar Kama and the smaller Circassian Museum, in Rehaniya, offer a window onto the community’s singular material culture.
Time magazine has one of the scariest news reports I’ve read in a while. It seems the Cossacks are on the rise again. No, not figuratively — literally. The fanatically religious pan-Slavic paramilitary tribe that terrorized your great-grandmother’s great-grandmother in the old country is recruiting, operating youth training camps, running for office (successfully) in Russia and Ukraine and agitating for a reunification of Belarus and Ukraine with Mother Russia, all with the active encouragement of Russia’s prime minister, ex-president and permanent strongman, Vladimir Putin.