Passover 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, is truly a festival of freedom. Passover begins in the middle […]
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Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-Existence (Book Review: Ukrainian Jewish Heritage)
In this edition of Ukrainian Jewish Heritage, we will be discussing Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-Existence by Paul Robert Magocsi and Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern. Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-Existence is a comprehensive historical account of the relationship between Jews and ethnic Ukrainians, both in Ukraine and the diaspora. It was written primarily […]
Continue readingUkrainian Jewish Heritage: The Jewish holiday Purim (2019)
Purim is a holiday Jews observe in memory of an ancient Jewish victory. The story of Purim is recounted in the Book of Esther in the Bible. It’s a story of treachery and warfare in ancient Israel, but it has eerie parallels with the bloody 20th century in Europe. About twenty five hundred years ago, […]
Continue readingUkrainian Jewish Heritage: The Pale of Settlement
Most Jews in the diaspora can trace their ancestry to the Pale of Settlement. But what exactly IS the Pale of Settlement? It’s a term that often comes up when reading about or researching the history of Jews in Eastern Europe. Obviously, it’s a territory where Jews lived, and were in fact confined to live […]
Continue readingUkrainian Jewish Heritage – Holocaust Museum in Fastiv
In this edition of Ukrainian Jewish Heritage, we’ll be speaking again with Julia Korsunsky, the executive director of RememberUs.org, a nonprofit organization based in Massachusetts. We were first introduced to RememberUs.org when we learned about their project of planting metasequoia trees at mass grave sites of Holocaust victims. These include her own great-grandparents and many […]
Continue readingKnyzhka Corner Book Review: The Man with the Poison Gun
In this edition of Knyzka Corner, we will be discussing Serhii Plokhy’s non-fiction thriller, The Man with the Poison Gun – A Cold War Spy Story. The Man with the Poison Gun, Serhii Plokhy’s first non-fiction thriller, focuses on the life of Bogdan Stashinsky, the assassin who killed Stepan Bandera and Lev Rebet. The very […]
Continue readingKnyzhka Corner Book Review: The Red Prince by Timothy Snyder
In this edition of Knyzka Corner, we will be discussing Timothy Snyder’s, The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke. Who can resist a romantic Hapsburg hero who openly embraces the cause of Ukrainian nationalism in the early 20th century? Wilhelm von Habsburg was such a man. Although he died in obscurity in […]
Continue readingKnyzhka Corner Book Review: Communism and Hunger
In this edition of Knyzhka Corner: Communism and Hunger – The Ukrainian, Chinese, Kazakh, and Soviet Famines in Comparative Perspective edited by Andrea Graziosi and Frank E. Sysyn. Communism and Hunger is a collection of scholarly articles examining the similarities and differences of the pan-Soviet famine of 1931-1933, the Ukrainian Holodomor, the Kazakh great hunger, and […]
Continue readingUkrainian Jewish Heritage: Felshtin Society commemoration of 1919 pogroms joined by local church in Ukraine (Part 2)
The Felshtin Society is named after a Ukrainian shtetl called Felshtin, which today is the town of Hvardiiske. The Felshtin Society began as a benevolent society organized in 1905 in New York City and is still active today. In 1919 after 600 Jews perished in a brutal pogrom which took place in Felshtin, the society […]
Continue readingUkrainian Jewish Heritage: Felshtin Society commemoration of 1919 pogroms joined by local church in Ukraine (Part 1)
The Felshtin Society is named after a Ukrainian shtetl called Felshtin, which today is the Ukrainian town of Hvardii’ske. The Felshtin Society began as a benevolent society organized in 1905 in New York City and it’s still active today. One of the most notable of its ongoing humanitarian efforts over the past 113 years is […]
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