A FEW HUNDRED YEARS LATE, THE COSSACKS COME AROUND

No, Not the Kossacks (WSJ-BOTW)
Here's a headline we never thought we'd see: "Cossacks Express Support for Israel at Meeting." It's a news release from the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS (that would be the Commonwealth of Independent States, an alliance of 11 former Soviet "republics"). The story, from Kiev:

Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Azriel Chaikin and the Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Naomi Ben-Ami met with the leader of the Ukrainian Cossacks Anatoliy Schevchenko and the General Judge of Cossacks Igor Kozlovsky. At this meeting, the Cossack leaders assured the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine and the Israeli Ambassador of their support of Israel as it combats terrorism. As a dean of a local higher-education institution, Mr. Schevchenko said his teaching staff was doing everything possible to explain to their students the importance of supporting Israel as well as the need to fight against anti-Semitism and national and religious intolerance.

The Cossacks also announced that they were going to visit Israel on a solidarity mission at the invitation of Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Azriel Chaikin.

As the Jewish Virtual Library notes, the Cossacks have not always been good for the Jews:

As Jews prospered, anti-Semitism flourished. The country's lower classes, including the Ukrainian Cossacks, saw Jews as working for the nation's wealthy landowners and accused Jews of robbing the wealth of poor people to better enrich them. By the end of 16th century, Poland sought more control over the Ukrainians Cossacks, who rose up against their Polish landowners and the Jews. Life for the Jews then took a turn for the worst.

The Cossacks, meanwhile, wanted to free the Ukraine from Polish domination--and sought to rule the Ukraine. In 1648, the Cossacks, led by Bohdan Chmielicki, began a series of campaigns by instigating the uprising of the Cossacks against the Jews. Chmielicki told people that the Poles had sold them as slaves "into the hands of the accursed Jews." Angered by this notion, the Cossacks massacred tens of thousands of Jews during 1648-1649, in a war that would later be considered among the worst of that time period.

Many Polish Jews fled the country, but most were brutally murdered. The massacre was devastating--both in numbers and effect. According to Jewish chronicles, the death toll reached approximately 100,000, and nearly 300 Jewish communities were destroyed. Cossack cruelty was so great that many Jews preferred to flee to captivity under Crimean Tartars, to be sold as slaves.

If the Cossacks can come around, perhaps in time so can the Arabs.