The name for the Jewish New Year is Rosh Hashana, which in Hebrew means the “head of the year.” It is one of the most important religious holidays for Jews … a day of awe and fear, but also a day of celebration. Rosh Hashana remembers the creation of the world. It’s a time for continuous introspection, looking back at the mistakes of the past year and making plans to do better in the new year… to do Teshuvah – returning to the paths of the Almighty. Rosh Hashana is also called the Feast of the Trumpets, as the central observance of the holiday is the sounding of the the shofar, a ram’s horn. This sound is to awaken souls from their “slumbers” and alert them to the coming judgment. It is a reminder to dedicate one’s life to serving the Almighty and to follow His commandments. The cry of the shofar is also a call to repentance. As the anniversary of man’s first sin, Rosh Hashanah is the first day of the “Ten Days of Repentance” which end with Yom Kippur. At this time of year, the common greeting is “Shanah Tovah,” which means “May you enjoy a good […]

The beautiful Western Ukrainian city of Lviv has over the past few years blossomed as an artistic and cultural center, a center that is increasingly featured in the itinerary of European and global artists. The city now holds numerous festivals of national cultures. They present a full menu of events in cuisine, literature, theatre, music, as well as the visual and decorative arts. A major goal of such events is the rediscovery and appreciation of national traditions. Lviv has a long, honored, and rich history of various ethnicities. And they all have contributed to Lviv’s cultural mosaic. Jewish culture is without a doubt a fundamental element to the city’s common cultural heritage. A lively and yearly celebration of Jewish culture is now one of the highpoints of Lviv’s summer calendar. LvivKlezFest, the international festival of Jewish music, was started in 2009 to reconnect with the lost Klezmer musical culture of Jews living in Galicia. Klezmer music has enjoyed a dynamic revival and popularity in many countries hosting the Jewish Diaspora. The Lviv festival has in turn grown in scope, attracting an increasing number of international musicians who have returned to perform in one of the historic homelands of Klezmer. The […]

Architecture and memory. Restoration and commemoration. Cities and towns throughout Europe after the Holocaust have grappled with the issue of historic Jewish sites. Buildings once alive with dynamic communities can now sit in ruins. How can these haunted places be properly reintegrated into the contemporary life of cities? What do you need to consider? And to remember? The Western Ukrainian website Zakhid dot net recently featured a lively dialogue between Dr. Sergey Kravtsov of Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Dr. Sofia Dyak of the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv on these issues. Kravtsov, a specialist in synagogue architecture, was born, trained, and worked as an urban planner and architect in Lviv. Both he and Dr. Dyak have been involved in the discussions around Lviv’s historic Golden Rose Synagogue, an architectural landmark destroyed by the Nazis in the Second World War. Kravtsov noted that Jewish neighborhoods have been wiped off the map of Central and Eastern Europe. However, thanks to history, memory, and art, a mental map of this Jewish world remains. The possibility to transform this mental map into a meaningful and attractive urban space depends on several factors. First of all, current residents in […]

Imagine everything that is dear to you in life has been lost. Imagine your world destroyed. And imagine if you can find the strength to move ahead. In 2011 the Austrian director Paul Rosdy released his film The Last Jew from Drohobych. The documentary chronicles the astonishing path of one man’s journey through the treacherous history of Eastern Europe. Alfred Schreyer was born in 1922 in Drohobych, a thriving town then in Poland, and now in Western Ukraine. His mother Leontina was a pharmacist. His father Benno had a doctorate from the University of Zurich and was a chief chemist at an oil refinery. Both were very musical and Alfred learned to play the cello. Later, in high school, Alfred was a student of the world-renowned writer and painter Bruno Schulz. Just like Alfred, Bruno Schulz spent most of his life in Drohobych. Schulz’s acclaimed books, The Street of Crocodiles and The Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, both now translated into many languages, can still be felt and seen on every street corner in Drohobych. The outbreak of the Second World War however turned Drohobych upside down. Yet life continued. Alfred graduated from high school in 1940, during […]

As we discussed before in a previous segment, a recent conference held in the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Lviv in early June analyzed the lethal impact of destructive propaganda on community relations. The conference was organized and hosted by the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter Initiative. Entitled “The Seduction of Propaganda: Mass Violence in Ukraine in the 20th and 21st Centuries,” the conference outlined how propaganda used by totalitarian regimes provoked and legitimized violence against three peoples: the Jews in Hitler’s Holocaust, the Ukrainians during Stalin’s Holodomor, or Terror Famine, and the Crimean Tatars in their deportation. The conference not only addressed the historical context of propaganda, but also revealed malignant themes being used in the current Russian disinformation campaign against Ukraine. Dehumanization and demonization are classic propaganda techniques that have been recycled.  Dr. Ihor Schupak, the director of the Tkuma Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies in Dnipropetrovsk, revealed how today’s Russian propaganda against Ukrainians recalls the exact same strategy and format used by the Nazis. Ukrainians have been depicted as rats, and as aggressors. The implication here is that aggressive vermin need to be exterminated. Subtle as well as blatant anti-Semitic themes have also been used in Russian propaganda, with […]

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 […]

He is relentless and outspoken. And he has paid the price. He was arrested twice for his human rights activities and served six years in prison in the Soviet gulag. But he emerged from behind prison bars to the world stage. Josef Zissels is now the head of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine. He is also Vice President of the World Jewish Congress. He is once again in the political limelight after a recent visit to North America. The sixty-eight year old Zissels set up Ukraine’s first Jewish organization in 1988. He has been a strong and consistent defender of Ukraine’s independence and democratic path. In an interview with the Toronto Star, Zissels discussed the troubles in eastern Ukraine. He told the Star that it’s a war. And Jews are suffering in the same way other Ukrainians are. Many have moved from eastern Ukraine to Kyiv and other western Ukrainian cities to escape the danger. But Ukraine’s Jewish community is largely staying put. And not only staying put. But also pitching in. Zissels told the Canadian Jewish News that Ukrainian Jews volunteer to help displaced persons. They provide the army and National Guard with money, medication, […]

The city of Dubno is located in the Rivne Oblast, or province, in western Ukraine. It sits on the banks of the Ikva River. The current population is around 38,000. Dubno was first mentioned in a chronicle dated 1099, although it is thought to be even older. In the “Story of the Passing Years” the monk Nestor wrote of ancient Slavic tribes called Volhynians living in Dubno. In the early 14th century it was annexed by Poland and became a royal stronghold guarding that country’s eastern border. Dubno was the site of a renowned castle, built by the Ostrozhsky family. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the castle was made into a modern fortress, one of the strongest in the area. The castle stood until it was destroyed in 1915 during World War I. Granted city rights in 1498, the town attracted many foreign settlers, most notably Jewish and Armenian. The Jewish community of Dubno is first mentioned in documents of 1532 in connection with the ownership of cattle. The oldest tombstone inscription in the Jewish cemetery dates from 1581. During the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648-49, Dubno Castle was the scene of heavy fighting. Some of it was described by […]

A grandfather taught his grandson the Jewish alphabet and read him poems in Yiddish. Shortly before his death, he tied all the Jewish books into a pile, and threw them onto the very top shelf of a cabinet. He believed that nobody would ever need them. But the grandson took down this pile and started to read the books. This is a story of a language lost and regained. And this is also a story of one man’s determination to honor his heritage with an extraordinary contribution to help revive a language of dreamers. “My interest for Yiddish was born in my family,” says Dr. Dmytro Tyshchenko. “My ancestors spoke this language; it was as natural as breathing.” Tyshchenko is the son of a Jewish mother and a Ukrainian father from Donbas. He is the creator of a massive new Yiddish-Ukrainian dictionary, produced with the assistance of the Ukrainian Jewish encounter. The 945-page tome is being acclaimed in Jerusalem, Kyiv and elsewhere. The Holocaust nearly destroyed Yiddish in Eastern Europe. Further damage was inflicted by Stalin’s executions of Yiddish-language writers, and Soviet government policies. The language lost its vitality and languished on the margins of society. But the language refused […]