Although Jews have had a long history in ethnolinguistically
Ukrainian territory, by the turn of the twenty-first century
only a small remnant of this once commanding population
remained. In 2001, Ukraine had a population of 48 million,
approximately 75 percent of which was of Ukrainian ethnicity,
with a large Russian minority (some 21%, or 10 million). The
exact number of Jews is a matter of some controversy: the 1989
census listed 487,300 Jews, but only 104,300 were recorded in
the first post-Soviet census of 2001, a figure that is
questioned by some but that certainly reflects the massive
emigration of Jews in the 1990s. History to 1881 Jewish
settlement in Ukraine predates the beginnings of recorded
history in the region. Archaeological evidence places Jews among
Greek traders inhabiting the Black Sea coastline in the last
centuries before the Common Era. The eastern portions of
Ukraine, extending all the way to Kiev, were later absorbed into
the Khazar kingdom, with its center just north of the Caspian S