Today will be a Ukrainian Constitution Day unlike any other in the nation’s young history.
On this day in 1995, after two years of work by the Constitutional Commission established by then-recently elected President Leonid Kuchma, the nation of Ukraine officially adopted its first post-Soviet constitution.
June 28 immediately became an annual holiday, celebrated with parades and the public performance of Ukraine’s national anthem, “Shche ne vmerla Ukraina,” which means, “Ukraine has not yet perished.” Today, on the 126th day since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion to reclaim the former Soviet republic, it could hardly be more resonant.
Though far more militaristic than most Jewish or Zionist poetry, the anthem—adapted from an 1862 poem by Pavlo Chubynsky—contains echoes of the Israeli national anthem, “HaTikvah.” Both hearken to an expression of national hope and pride experienced during a period of occupation and oppression. Perhaps, however, the closest comparison is to the song, “Am Yisrael Chai,” which means, “The People of Israel still lives.” The earliest remaining recording of “Am Yisrael Chai” comes from the Jewish survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, who sang it five days after their liberation.
As they enter their fifth month battling the Russian invasion force, the people of Ukraine find themselves in similarly dire circumstances. Though Ukraine’s struggle against Russia may have fallen off the radar of an American media always in search of the next story, the plight of the Ukrainian people—and their need for our support—remains as dire as it was in the early days of the conflict. For information on how to support the Ukrainian people, visit our Ukraine Response page and voice your support today.
#WeStandwithUkraine.
—Rabbi Josh Knobel