Volodymyr Zelensky
Search results
Olena Volodymyrivna Zelenska (née Kiyashko; born 6 February 1978) is a Ukrainian screenwriter who is the current First Lady of Ukraine as the wife of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenska was named by Time as one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2023.
According to press reports, the two children he has with his non-Jewish wife — Olena Zelenska, a former schoolmate — have been baptized. As a teenager, Zelensky scored so high on an English test that he was offered a chance to study in Israel, but his father refused to allow him to go and he eventually earned a law degree in Ukraine instead.
Olena Zelenska, the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said her nation sees Israel as a source of inspiration for resilience given its history of facing attacks from its neighbors...
- He had an “ordinary Soviet Jewish upbringing.” Zelensky told the Times of Israel in early 2020, on the eve of visiting Israel to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, that his family was typical of Soviet Jews in the 1980s when he was growing up.
- He grew up in what was once known as the “Pale of Settlement.” Like much of Ukraine, Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih is located in the only region of the Russian Empire where Jews were permitted to live.
- As with most Ukrainian Jews, the Holocaust is part of his story. Zelensky has said that his great-grandfather and three of his grandfather’s brothers died as a result of the Nazi invasion of Ukrainian territory.
- He says being Jewish is a small part of his identity. Zelensky rarely discusses his Jewish identity publicly, and by all accounts it was not a prominent part of his campaign, even by his detractors.
- He had an “ordinary Soviet Jewish upbringing.” Zelensky told The Times of Israel in early 2020, on the eve of visiting Israel to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, that his family was typical of Soviet Jews in the 1980s when he was growing up.
- He grew up in what was once known as the “Pale of Settlement.” Like much of Ukraine, Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih is located in the only region of the Russian Empire where Jews were permitted to live.
- As with most Ukrainian Jews, the Holocaust is part of his story. Zelensky has said that his great-grandfather and three of his grandfather’s brothers died as a result of the Nazi invasion of Ukrainian territory.
- He says being Jewish is a small part of his identity. Zelensky rarely discusses his Jewish identity publicly, and by all accounts it did not form a prominent part of his campaign, even for his detractors.
May 5, 2023 · SUSAN WALSH // Getty Images. U.S. First Lady Jill Biden meets with Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska at School 6, a public school that has taken in displaced students in Uzhhorod on May 8,...
Feb 27, 2022 · By the time Zelensky came of age, three or four generations of Soviet Jews had experienced their Jewish identity as a hollow thing, nothing but a black mark on a passport and a sense of...
