Features

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…

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…