Transcript:  Rosh Hashana is the name for the Jewish New Year. In Hebrew it means the “head of the year.” Rosh Hashanah is one of the most important religious holidays for Jews. It is the first of the Jewish High Holy Days, as specified by Leviticus 23:23–25. Rosh Hashanah marks the first day of the […]

Hanukkah is a joyous holiday, celebrated every year by Jews around the world with the lighting of candles 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. There is also a tradition to give Chanukeh gelt—coins, and […]

Welcome to the final episode of our 4-part series on the currencies of Ukraine and Israel. In Episode 1, the focus was on the respective histories of the currencies of these two states. In Episodes 2 and 3, we focused on eight prominent Jews born in Ukraine who were depicted on Israel’s currency. In this […]

In the last two episodes of Ukrainian Jewish Heritage, we learned that several Jews from Ukrainian territories were awarded one of Israel’s highest honors: their portraits depicted on the state’s banknotes and coins. And that Ukraine has returned the favour. In Episode 1, the focus was on the respective histories of the currencies of Israel […]

The State of Israel was created and built by Jewish settlers who came mainly from Eastern Europe. Among them were quite a few natives of Ukraine, then ruled by the Russian & Austro-Hungarian Empires. Today’s episode of Ukrainian Jewish Heritage, Part 2 of our series on the currencies of Ukraine and Israel, features Jews from […]

Banknotes and coins are not only means of payment, they are also a symbol of sovereignty. This is a story about two currencies, two countries, and two peoples with a long and closely intertwined history. The hyrnvia, currency of Ukraine and the shekel, currency of Israel. This is the story of how both of these […]

Last week we aired the first part of an interview with Paulina Zelitsky, who published The Sea is Only Knee Deep. In this two-volume memoir she tells the fascinating story of her life growing up in the Soviet Union, working in Cuba on a Soviet naval base in the late 1960s, and her famous and […]

A couple of weeks ago on Ukrainian Jewish Heritage, we aired a book review of the memoirs of a Jewish woman from Odessa. An engineer, who worked on a nuclear submarine station in Cuba during the height of The Cold War, shortly before a daring defection from the Soviet Union to Canada. Her name is […]