Ukrainian Jewish Heritage: Limmud FSU California 2016

Today, let us consider identity. Identity may be frozen, destroyed, or altered through major life changes such as exile, immigration, or assimilation. Identity is a journey, as a recent conference in Los Angeles has shown. The Jewish organization Limmud FSU, the FSU standing for Former Soviet Union, brought together several hundred people to discuss and […]

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Ukrainian Jewish Heritage: Courage and Fear

Courage and fear. The first quality mobilizes action. The second emotion can paralyze the brain, but not always the heart. Courage and Fear is also the title of a remarkable new book written by the Polish scholar and diplomat Ola Hnatiuk.  Her book is a gripping account of both the Soviet and Nazi occupations of […]

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Ukrainian Jewish Heritage: Agnon of Buchach

The Agnon Literary Center: restoring the link between contemporary Buchach and a literary legend.   Welcome to Ukrainian Jewish Heritage on Nash Holos Ukrainian Roots Radio. I’m Peter Bejger. Today—some reflections on periphery and center, the province and global culture, and a literary legacy interrupted, lost, and re-imagined. Buchach is a charming town of some twelve […]

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Ukrainian Jewish Heritage: Agnon Literary Center

Today—some reflections on periphery and center, the province and global culture, and a literary legacy interrupted, lost, and re-imagined. Buchach is a charming town of some twelve thousand people. It is nestled along a river among picturesque forests of the southern Ternopil region of western Ukraine. As with many small towns, the atmosphere is placid. […]

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Ukrainian Jewish Heritage: Hannukah 2015

Hanukkah is a joyous holiday, celebrated every year by Jews around the world with the lighting of candles or wicks in olive oil on a candelabra called a “menorah”, or “hanukkiya* in modern Hebrew. Traditional Hanukkah treats include potato latkes, called plyatsky or deruny in Ukrainian, and sufganiyot, doughnuts with jam, called pampushky in Ukrainian. […]

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Ukrainian Jewish Heritage: Propaganda—Holocaust vs Holodomor

Propaganda. A loaded term that, today, has become so clichéd that its original definition is lost in a sea of moral equivalence. Once, propaganda was merely a word describing … the dissemination of ideas, information or rumour … for the purpose of helping or injuring … an institution, a cause, or a person. Today, unfortunately, […]

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Ukrainian Jewish Heritage: Sheptytsky from A to Z

Today we will play a game with the alphabet. “A” is for aristocrat, someone who is privileged but also someone who can be considered the best of its kind. “A” is also for ascetic, someone who practices profound self-discipline and abstains from the worldly pleasures of life. “A” is also for Andrei, as in Andrei […]

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Reflecting on Remembrance Day

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Ukrainian Jewish Heritage: Film Review— Saved by Sheptytsky

“No harm will come to you here. You are safe. “ Lilly Pohlman says she will remember these words till the end of her days. Along with the memory of a giant of a man gently reassuring her after experiencing the horror of Nazi brutality. Over 150 other Jews who survived the Holocaust in Ukraine […]

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Knyzhka Corner Book Review: The Sea is Only Knee Deep

 The Sea is Only Knee Deep is the true story of Paulina Zelitsky’s defection to Canada from the Soviet Union with her two young children in 1971. These two volumes explore many topics including: Stalin’s final years, Fidel Castro’s Cuba, and the dangers defecting. Paulina’s story begins in Cuba in 1968. She is part […]

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