Inna Tsaruk (Інна Царук) on Discovering Her Jewish Ancestry and Educating Ukrainians About Jewish Life

Inna Tsaruk is a Ukrainian Jewish blogger, media personality, and author whose public work focuses on Jewish culture, traditions, and lifestyle. Her Instagram account, @kosher_style_, describes the page as a space for “the Jewish world and kosher style” and identifies her as the author of @rabbi_daughter. Tsaruk also hosts the YouTube channel “Yevreiskyi podcast” (“Jewish Podcast”), which presents content on Jewish customs and Jewish life. Retail listings for her book are Donka Rabyna (“Rabbi’s Daughter”) out of Media-Center Shofar. She has worked for Radio M Ukraine as a morning radio host. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Inna Tsaruk, a Ukrainian Jewish blogger, journalist, and author, about discovering her Jewish ancestry at 25 and building a public platform around Jewish life in Ukraine. Tsaruk recounts her spiritual search, her embrace of Jewish community, and her decision to create an Instagram blog explaining holidays, traditions, modest fashion, and identity in accessible language. She discusses antisemitism as a problem often rooted in ignorance, the continuing importance of Holocaust memory, and the many adults who learn of Jewish ancestry later in life. She also explains her Messianic Jewish identity and its contested place within broader Judaism. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was your story of discovering your Jewish roots?

Inna Tsaruk: I learned about my Jewish ancestry at the age of 25. It came as a great surprise. Around that time, I became deeply interested in Jewish topics. I cannot fully explain why. I felt a strong inner curiosity about Jewish literature, music, traditions, and community life.

I began thinking about visiting a synagogue, but I believed it might be difficult for someone without a Jewish background or a personal invitation to enter certain communities, especially given the antisemitism that existed and the closed nature of some Orthodox communities. At the same time, I was searching for a spiritual path. I was not a believer then; I was closer to being agnostic or an atheist. During that period, I began looking for answers to spiritual questions.

Then I met a group of Ukrainian Jewish young men and women in Kyiv. They told me about their community. There were Jewish communities not only in Kyiv but across Ukraine, and in many cities, there were different communities with different traditions and approaches. They invited me to visit. I went, and I felt a deep connection to Jewish life.

After that, I returned to my hometown in the Rivne region. I told my mother, “I do not know what has happened to me, but I have fallen in love with Jewish life. I am interested in Jewish topics. I attended Shabbat, and I felt very close to it.” She replied, “That is not surprising. Your father’s family is Jewish.”

Even today, this subject remains closed in my family. It is a difficult story. My father has shared only limited information, even now. He told me that members of our family changed their first and last names, and that many documents were destroyed, so it may be impossible to trace everything. But he did confirm our family’s Jewish background. My family accepted my decision to become part of the Jewish community in Ukraine, which feels closer to me than a more conventionally traditional Ukrainian identity. That is how it happened.

Jacobsen: How common is it for people not to know their own heritage?

Tsaruk: After I realized that I have both Ukrainian and Jewish roots, both became important to me. It is not a problem to live with both identities; they can coexist.

The following year, I started an Instagram blog focused on Jewish topics. I describe it as “kosher style.” By this, I mean content about Jewish life—its language, traditions, clothing, fashion, and modesty.

The goal of my page is to bring together people with Jewish roots and those interested in Jewish topics, and to explain these subjects in simple terms. As a member of a Jewish community, I have learned a great deal about Jewish holidays and traditions because I live according to a Jewish lifestyle.

I have been living this way since 2017. When I first began, I knew very little. There were not many people who could explain these traditions in clear, simple language. Because I am a journalist with a master’s degree in journalism and experience working in television and other media, I decided to create a platform to make this knowledge more accessible.

My passion—my small mission—is to explain complex things. I have also observed that antisemitism still exists, not only in Ukraine but worldwide. In Ukraine, it may not always be as visible in public spaces as in some parts of Europe, but it is still present.

As a journalist, I understand that many forms of antisemitism and other social problems often arise from a lack of knowledge—when people do not know the history, the facts, or the context. Because of this, I decided that my blog would also serve as a small educational mission: to explain Jewish life to people who may not understand it, and to present who we are and how we live.

The memory of the Holocaust remains especially important. These lessons must be remembered by everyone, not only as part of one nation’s history, but as a universal human responsibility.

This is why I am telling you about my Instagram blog. Over the years, it has grown to reach thousands of people. I have been working on it for eight years. During this time, I have received many messages from people in different cities, small towns, and countries—Ukrainian-speaking, Russian-speaking, and English-speaking.

Even today, I received two messages—one from Zakarpattia Oblast and another from Kamianets-Podilskyi. They were very similar. For example: “Hello, my name is Alex. I recently discovered that I have Jewish roots on my father’s side. I am an adult, around 30, but I do not know anything about Jewish traditions. I found your Instagram blog—can you tell me where to start or where I can learn more?”

I see stories like mine very often—people discovering their Jewish ancestry in adulthood but not knowing how to begin understanding it, as an adult.

Jacobsen: When you began engaging with this tradition, which path did you follow? There are many different approaches within Judaism.

Tsaruk: I identify as a Messianic Jew.

Jacobsen: What does that mean?

Tsaruk: Messianic Judaism refers to communities of Jews and non-Jews who believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. This differs from mainstream forms of Judaism, such as Orthodox Judaism, which do not accept Jesus as the Messiah or as divine.

For me, this was important because in 2017, when I began thinking seriously about my spiritual path, I still believed that I was entirely Ukrainian, without Jewish roots. Many people around me spoke about Jesus. At earlier points in my life, when I identified as agnostic or atheist, I viewed such beliefs as simplistic. However, during that period, I reconsidered these ideas and decided to read the New Testament to see whether I could find something meaningful.

When I later discovered that the group I met in Kyiv belonged to a Messianic Jewish congregation, it felt natural to me. My parents are Eastern Orthodox. Although my father has Jewish ancestry, many people in Ukraine with Jewish roots identify as Orthodox Christians or Catholics. In Ukraine, it is common for people to have mixed backgrounds—Bulgarian, Hungarian, Roma, Jewish, or others—while identifying primarily with a different religious tradition.

For my father, this aspect of identity was not especially significant. This is one reason my parents were open when I shared my experience. From the beginning, I told my mother, “I am not changing my faith in a way that separates me from what you understand. This community combines Jewish identity with belief in Jesus.” She responded that it did not matter.

In Ukraine, if you search for Jewish topics on Instagram, you will find very few accounts that focus directly on them. There are Jewish bloggers, but many of them focus on fashion or general lifestyle content rather than Jewish education or culture.

My blog is one of the few in Ukraine dedicated specifically to explaining Jewish topics to a broader audience. Public figures such as Volodymyr Zelenskyy are widely known to have Jewish backgrounds, but they do not focus on promoting Jewish education or cultural content in this way.

What makes my position more complex is that, within many traditional interpretations of Jewish law, including Orthodox Judaism, I would not be considered Jewish. This is because I identify as a Messianic Jew, and Messianic Judaism holds to the belief that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. In mainstream Jewish traditions, this belief is generally seen as incompatible with Judaism.

Because of this, some people within those traditions may not recognize my religious identity as Jewish. However, many people who follow my work are interested in the clarity of the information I share, and they continue to read and engage with my content.

There are also significant differences between various forms of Judaism. For example, some more insular or strictly observant communities maintain strong boundaries around belief and identity. These differences are sometimes portrayed in popular culture, such as the television series Unorthodox, which is based on an autobiographical account of leaving a highly observant community in the United States.

In some traditional communities, adopting beliefs seen as outside accepted doctrine—such as belief in Jesus as the Messiah—can lead to serious social consequences, including exclusion from the community or family estrangement. In certain cases, families may symbolically treat the person as if they have left the community entirely.

Jacobsen: You are considered, in a sense, no longer part of the community?

Tsaruk: In some communities, adopting beliefs such as faith in Jesus Christ can be seen as a serious break from tradition. In certain cases, this may lead to strong reactions, including social exclusion or being treated as having left the community entirely.

At the same time, I have built a significant audience as a Jewish-focused content creator in Ukraine. My work reaches many people who are interested in Jewish topics, identity, and education.

For me, it is not about aligning with one specific synagogue or another. I focus on my role as a journalist. I see myself as a liberal journalist whose goal is to explain, inform, and make complex cultural and religious topics accessible.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Inna. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a blogger on Vocal with over 130 posts on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978–1–0692343; 978–1–0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369–6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018–7399; Online: ISSN, 2163–3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719–6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The Good Men Project, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing,, comprising more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications across more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20–0708028), and others.