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Proselyte Again Turns Cossack when Wife Dies

November 26, 1928
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(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

The call of his Cossack blood, seldom, if ever, peaceful and tolerant and in particular in reference to Jews, was given as the reason for Stefan Gorkotschenko’s inability to tolerate his Jewish mother-in-law and his stepson after his Jewish wife died.

Gorkotschenko, a former member of the Petlura pogrom bands, settled in Warsaw five years ago, when he embraced Judaism and married a Jewish widow, who was the provider of the family, earning her living in a grocery store. During the five years of his marital life, Gorkotschenko severed all connections with his past, being a peaceful husband, and a pious observer of Jewish traditions and customs.

Now, when his wife died, the proselyte declared that his Cossack blood has reawakened and for this reason he cannot longer bear the presence of his Jewish mother-in-law, an aged woman, and young stepson. He summarily ejected them from his household. The story is made the most of in the daily chronicles of the Warsaw Yiddish press.

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