The boy kept the ball from dropping forever. English fans drinking beer at Maidan were delighted. Hope he earned some money from them.
Didn't see any Maccabi fans - but Ukraine's best-known anti-Semite Baba Paraska (aka Baba Porazka - Grandma Defeat) was there. If she's not making some cash posing for tourists' pictures, she should.
By the way, there's an Orthodox church holiday called Makovey (this is one of the names, at least), celebrated sometime around now, a few weeks ago, I guess - they take poppy heads to church for blessing, even in the Soviet times they did, it's one of my very few church-related childhood memories, old women walking to the church at the end of our street in the town of Pryluky - and we've recently realised that the official church holiday has nothing to do with poppy (mak in Russian), but is all about Biblical history: Maccabi is Makkavey in Russian - but Makkavey sounds like something about mak, poppy, and hence the whole pagan ritual. It's interesting, I'd like to read more about it.
When speaking of Baba Poraska, this may be something to consider before labeling her "anti-Semite":
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Intro/Intro-IsThis.html
In order not to be labeled an anti-Semite, Baba Paraska may consider not using the word "zhid" to "label" someone she doesn't like Jewish.
ReplyDeleteBaba Paraska has every right to use the word "zhid" and it should not be considered "hate speech" or "anti-Jewish" in itself, unless of course one has a russified mindset.
ReplyDelete"Zhid" just means "jew" in ukrainian, originally referring to yiddish-speaking jews whom had migrated over from Germany and Poland. Hence, "zhid"="yid". Even according to etymonline.com, it states "Used before c.1870 by Jews and Gentiles without intent of insult."
This term, however, has become negative primarily due to the russification/sovietization of Ukraine via Russia, where the term "zhid"="kike (derogatory slang)". It appears that the modern mindset in many parts of Ukraine is still influenced heavily by Russian culture (via TV, movies, music, books, etc) which is why that term is seen as offensive not only in southern/eastern Ukraine. Many Ukrainians, however, esp. in western Ukraine and abroad, still use the term "zhid" when generally speaking about jews, not necessarily with offensive intent. The Russian civil term "yevrei" can clearly be seen to denote "israeli" and is ridiculous to apply to all jews, many of whom are not israeli.