Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, a Jewish professor of political science got a weapon, and went to the eastern part of Ukraine to defend the country. He is not leaving, he said, until he is killed, wounded or the war is over
At the age of 56, the Jewish professor Maxim Gon was drafted into the Ukrainian army, although he did not have to go to war due to his academic position.
Maxim looks forward to the day when he can return to teaching. The Jewish professor authored several books and more than 200 articles. He emphasized that he is not leaving the profession, but will only leave the front if he is killed, wounded or the war ends.
In an interview with the Forward website, he says that for more than 12 years he taught students what civic duty is. “For me, these words mean something. We must defend our right to freedom in the broadest sense of the word. Ukrainians do not want to become an internal colony of the Russian Empire again. We do not want to return to the totalitarian society that is modern Russia. Also, I believe that those of us who are already old should be The first to go to war and not the boys who are just starting to live their lives.”
He said that the Russians are attacking and fighting not only against the army but also against civilians, “ruthlessly destroying military but also civilian infrastructure.” About the fact that he is Jewish, he said that it did not speak to him at first.
“I had no experience with Judaism. My parents, who grew up under the Soviet regime, were both atheists. However, I was aware of the fact that I was Jewish. My father explained this to me when I was in high school, while showing me a book about the Nuremberg trials.” He confessed that “my brother scolded me when he learned that I was ashamed of my Jewish roots – being a Jew in the Soviet Union, I would say, would not have been considered something to be proud of at the time. I stayed outside the world of religion. My parents did not give us a Jewish education, and the Soviet system certainly did not.”
“When I was younger, during the Soviet Union, I served in the Russian army, and I experienced prejudice because I was Jewish. This type of prejudice when I was younger made me not want to reveal that I was Jewish.” He told a story from the time he was in the Soviet army. “One day I was sitting in a smoking room with another Jew, Sasha Huberman. Two soldiers from Central Asia come and turn to us and say, “Guys, we heard that there are two Jews serving in our unit. What do Jews look like? Where can you find them?”.