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
Passover is a festival of freedom. It commemorates the exodus of Jews from Egypt over 3000 years ago. The timeless and universal message of this holiday is that slaves can go free, and the future can be better than the present. Passover, or Pesach, as it is called in Hebrew, begins in the middle of
Download: UJH-2014-0803-Tisha B’Av Tisha B’Av is a fast day that commemorates the destruction of the two Temples in ancient times, as well as more recent tragedies befalling the Jewish people. It is sometimes referred to as “The Ninth of Av, since it falls on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av. On the secular
Babyn Yar is a ravine on the outskirts of Kyiv that has become a symbol of the Holocaust. There more than 100 thousand perished during the Nazi occupation, including 40,000 Jews. Babyn Yar was first mentioned in historical accounts in 1401, in connection with its sale by a “baba” (which means an old woman), to
«If you believe that you can damage, then believe that you can fix.» Those are the words of Rebbe Nachman, founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement. In his short life, Rebbe Nachman achieved much acclaim as a teacher and spiritual leader, and is considered a seminal figure in the history of Hasidism. He was born
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
Drohobych is a town in the Lviv region of Ukraine, and the homeland of Bruno Szultz – a writer, literary critic, fine artist, and teacher of art. Szultz was born to Jewish parents and is regarded as one of the great Polish-language prose stylists of the 20th century. He attended school in Drohobych from 1902
