The Western Ukrainian town of Brody is on my mind today. This historic town has always been in the minds of several generations of Jewish traders, writers, rabbis, and immigrants to the New World. Boris Kuzmany of the Institute of Slavonic Studies at the University of Vienna can tell us why this one particular town has retained a vitally important place in Ashkenazi Jewish memory. His fascinating article in the journal East European Jewish Affairs, entitled Brody Always On My Mind: The Mental Mapping of a Jewish City, explores just how and why little Brody became a legend. It all started with trade. Brody was always a lively centre but the tempo really picked up in 1629, when a Polish noble bought the place. There was an influx of Jewish merchant families. Jews were under the direct protection of the noble city owners and could live without any restrictions within the town and work in any profession or engage in commerce. By the middle of the eighteenth century Brody became the region’s most important hub for trans-European trade. It was the linchpin of trade between the German lands and points east into Ukraine and Russia. An affluent mercantile elite funded […]

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Brody is a city in western Ukraine, located in the the Lviv Oblast, or province, 90 kilometres northeast of Lviv. It is now the administrative center of the Brody Raion, or district, with a population of about 24 thousand. At one time, Brody was one of the greatest centers of commerce in Eastern Europe, outside of Lemberg … today, L’viv. Brody was in fact once considered the continental version of the prosperous Mediterranean port of Triest. Brody was also once known as the Galician Jerusalem. By the 19th century Brody had the highest concentration of Jews among Eastern European cities. Today Jews all over the world can trace their roots to Brody. Many, upon emigration to new lands, adopted last names derived from Brody … Brodsky, Brodowski, Brodovsky, Brodisch (meaning “from Brody”). Brody’s recorded history dates back to the era of Volodomyr Monomakh in the 11th century. In the centuries following, Brody remained under Polish and Austrian control. By the 17th century, Brody had become an important center of Jewish trade, known for its horse fairs and artisans … cordmakers, weavers, and metalsmiths. In 1648 Brody was captured briefly by Ukrainian Cossack leader Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Notably its Jewish population was […]

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–Written and narrated by Peter Bejger. Who closes the door? And who can open it? Who escapes? And who doesn’t? A compelling book entitled The Great Departure: Mass Migration From Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World by Tara Zahra answers some of these questions. Tara Zahra is a professor of modern European history at the University of Chicago and a recent winner of a MacArthur Fellowship. Her book is an impressive work of scholarship that is filled with often-heartbreaking personal stories of the devastating human toll of migration. Between 1846 and 1940 more than fifty million Europeans moved to the Americas in one of the largest migrations of human history. Villages were emptied out throughout Europe—especially Central and Eastern Europe. The homes the emigrants left behind as well as their new homes were fundamentally changed. From almost the very beginning emigration policies were political tools to be manipulated and exploited. Governments and nationalist movements were eager to see certain groups leave—they were often called “surplus populations”—while trying to restrict the departure of other “favored groups” considered essential for state or nation building. The goal was to create nationally homogeneous populations. A goal pursued by various regimes and […]

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– Written and narrated by Peter Bejger. Let’s take a moment to consider “dark tourism.” The concept is elastic, and quite multi-faceted. And it has a distinguished historic pedigree. Evidently there are assertions that Thomas Cook, yes the Thomas Cook that founded the famous international travel agency, took people to see public hangings in England with some of his very first tour groups in the 19th century. And there is even an academic Institute for Dark Tourism in England that promotes ethical research. Research into a social scientific understanding of sites of death and disaster. And how these sites have, or can, become tourist sites, whether appropriate or inappropriate. The world offers so many options for dark tourism: the horrifying, like now visitor-thronged concentration camps; the easily accessible, like Ground Zero at the 9/11 memorials in Lower Manhattan; the far-flung and harder to reach, like the haunting ruins of lovely ancient Armenian churches in the isolated reaches of what is now northeastern Turkey. Reflecting on those ruins brings up uncomfortable questions on what happened to those people who once worshipped in those churches. There is also the edgy. People are usually impressed when you’ve told them you were able to […]

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Oksana Lyniv is an up-and-coming star on the classical music scene. She is a Ukrainian conductor currently working at the Bavarian State Opera as assistant to the General Music Director Kirill Petrenko. On September 29, 2016, she will make her debut in Ukraine, conducting a classical concert that will be held at the Kyiv Opera House, under the directorship of British opera star Pavlo Hunka. The concert is part of the 75th Anniversary commemoration of the Babyn Yar tragedy, sponsored by the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter of Toronto. In 1941, the Nazis murdered some 150,000 people, including over 32,000 Jews. The massacre at Babyn Yar is considered one of the most heinous atrocities of the Holocaust. The concert will feature classical musicians from Ukraine, Israel, Canada and Great Britain, and a symphony orchestra from Germany. Ms. Lyniv took time from her hectic schedule of rehearsals for an interview on Nash Holos to tell us about herself, her career, and the upcoming concert. This is a feature interview. Audio and transcript available below. Enjoy! ************* Pawlina: I’m Pawlina, host of Nash Holos Ukrainian roots radio. This fall the 75th Anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy will be commemorated in Kyiv, on the initiative of the Ukrainian Jewish encounter. One of the events will be […]

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Іsrael Baal Shem Tov is the founder of the Hasidic movement in Judaism. His name means «a good man who knows the secret name of God». Rabbi Baal Shem Tov developed a sophisticated mystical system based not on an intellectual comprehension of God, as did the Kabbalists, but on passionate religious aspiration, easily accessible to poor people. The aim was dvekut – union with God. Little is known about him and his life. What biographical information does exist  is interwoven with legends of miracles so it is often hard to determine fact from legend. Israel Baal Shem Tov was born to a poor family in the small village of Okopy, in the Ternopol region of western Ukraine. The exact year is unknown and often disputed. He was orphaned at the age of five. The Jewish community adopted him, and provided him with his basic needs. In 1710 Israel graduated and became assistant to the Melamed, which means instructor, in cheder, which is a Jewish elementary school. In 1716 he married, but soon became a widower and began to wander through Jewish shtetls in Eastern Galicia. In Yazlovtse (near Buchach) he managed to obtain a position as melamed. In 1727, the […]

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