In 19th century Ukraine, Jewish boys were being spirited from their families to serve the czar, Hasidism was sweeping Jewish practice from Kyiv and Chernobyl through central Europe, and a Jewish girl became a controversial but charismatic Jewish leader. Hannah Rochel, born Hannah Rachel Verbermacher, was the only independent female Rebbe in the 300-year history of the Hasidic movement. Known as “the Maiden of Ludmir,” she has jokingly been called the second-most famous virgin in Jewish history. But to the people of her time, and even long after her death, Hannah Rochel was no joking matter. She severely challenged the social and religious order of her time. Her leadership was based not on dynastic authority, but on the original Hasidic tradition of charisma. Furthermore, she did not ask for money or promote herself. Little is actually known of Hannah Rochel. Only four of her teachings are recorded, and she wrote nothing of herself. The first scholarly study of her life was published in 1909, some 30 years after she died. Even that was based on hagiography, folk tales & legends. Considerable poetic license has been taken to fictionalize her life. She is the subject of four novels, two plays, and […]

Today we have a special story for our listeners, a story that transcends time and generations. A story from the heart. And a story that reminds us of the powerful role that memory plays in our lives. Yana Rathman is an educator and activist in the Jewish community of San Francisco. She recently traveled to Ukraine. Here, in her own words, are some of her reflections. “He was tall, with broad shoulders, olive skin, and a full head of black hair. He joined the Soviet army in the first days of the war with Nazi Germany. He was seriously wounded twice, and finished the war by signing his name on the Reichstag wall in Berlin in May 1945. However, when he returned home to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, there was no one there to greet him. His entire family—including his young wife and two young daughters—had been killed at the ravine of Babyn Yar. They were among the nearly 34,000 Jews—mostly women, children and the elderly—shot by the Nazis over the course of three days in late September 1941. “It is considered one of the largest massacres of the Holocaust. Estimates indicate that more than 100,000 people were killed […]

Bias, stereotypes, and prejudices. We all strive to rise above them but history often proves to be a burden, as well as a challenge to deeper understanding. A newly published book entitled Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-Existence forthrightly tackles sensitive and controversial topics. Two distinguished academics have undertaken a bold project to outline in an intriguing new manner the long and complicated history of Jews and Ukrainians. Paul Robert Magocsi is professor of history and political science at the University of Toronto where he holds the John Yaremko Chair of Ukrainian Studies. Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern is the Crown Family Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of History in History Department at Northwestern University. Writing separately, and at times together, the co-authors produced a parallel narrative of two peoples that ultimately provided a single story. And this story reveals as many similarities as differences between the two peoples. Both ethnic Ukrainians and Jews are shown to be multilingual, multicultural, mobile, and highly culturally productive peoples. The perceived legacy of difference gives way to one of commonality. Jews and Ukrainians first began to interact on a significant scale in the early seventeenth century. From that time historical memories were formed. The […]

    Today we look at symbols and mythologies. When competing narratives on history clash, the battle over symbols becomes heated and emotional. Vitaliy Nakhmanovich is a Ukrainian historian who has written extensively on the formation—and manipulation—of national memory. He has been particularly incisive in analyzing the politics of memory. Nakhmanovich contributed an important essay to the book Babyn Yar: History and Memory, which was recently published to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the tragedy. His essay, entitled “Babyn Yar: A Place of Memory in Search of a Future” details the complex—and sometimes cynical—debates over the symbols of commemoration in a contested landscape of memory. Nakhmanovich points out that Babyn Yar provokes a confrontation. During the Soviet era this was a confrontation between the public’s need to honor the memory of Jewish victims of the Nazis and the actions of the Soviet government trying to impose an artificial memory of events. The Soviet authorities also physically destroyed the scene of the crimes at Babyn Yar. Nakhmanovich reminds us Babyn Yar was flooded with a deluge of pulp from nearby brick plants in the 1950s. This resulted in a notorious mudslide in 1961, when the pulp smashed through a flimsy dam […]

Seventy-five years ago nearly 34,000 Jews were murdered at Babyn Yar over a two-day period on September 29th and 30th 1941. The location has become a poignant symbol of what is known as The Holocaust by Bullets. Some 1.5 million Jews were shot to death on the territory of what is now Ukraine in this particular aspect of the Holocaust. The Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, or UJE, presented a very much-anticipated program commemorating this 75th anniversary of Babyn Yar. The program, held in Kyiv from September 23rd to 29th this year, featured four distinct projects. There was a public symposium, which included the introduction of a groundbreaking book on Babyn Yar; a student conference; a landscape design competition; and a memorial concert. The effort took years of planning and was widely applauded both in Ukraine and abroad. The UJE worked with the World Jewish Congress, Ukraine’s government, and other Ukrainian Jewish and diaspora organizations to plan and present its program. UJE board member Paul Robert Magocsi, who along with his colleague Adrian Karatnycky spearheaded the program, noted, “Our goal was to turn the attention of Ukrainians and the world community to Babyn Yar and to show it is a very important […]

It was always a very scenic area of forests and ravines. A very pleasant green zone on the edge of the city. Picturesque. It was once known as the “Switzerland of Kyiv.” Innocent and bucolic. All that changed over the course of a couple of days at the end of September 1941. Babyn Yar, on the outskirts of Kyiv, became a global symbol of the Holocaust, and entered the language as shorthand for unfathomable cruelty and unprecedented loss of life. Babyn Yar was the site of the murder of nearly 34,000 Kyivan Jews that dark September.  The killings continued over the next couple of years during the German occupation of Kyiv. With continued shootings of tens of thousands more Jews. As well as the Roma people, the patients of psychiatric hospitals, Soviet prisoners of war, Ukrainian national activists, Communist Party members, and ordinary residents of Kyiv taken as hostages. We are still coming to grips with this legacy. Now a new book, entitled Babyn Yar: History and Memory, is dedicated to the commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Babyn Yar, This book, in both English and Ukrainian-language editions and sponsored by the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, is the result of the collaborative […]

It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. An astonishing new film called Shimon’s Returns proves the point in a sometimes provocative but always heart-warming manner. The documentary, directed by Slawomir Grunberg and Katka Reszke, tells the story of the now-retired Israeli history professor Shimon Redlich. In the film Shimon takes some of his Israeli cousins on a trip. A trip back into his childhood. A trip back to the villages, towns, and cities of western Ukraine and Poland. A Holocaust survivor, Shimon shows the hiding places and the people who saved not only his remarkable childhood, but also his life. “There is no question that my happy childhood years had a strong effect on my whole outlook,” says Shimon in the film’s narration. “These years make me strong and feel good until this very day.” Shimon was born into a middle-class family in Lviv before the war. And for the first ten years of his life he lived in the town of Berezhany, about ninety kilometers from Lviv. Most of Shimon’s family did not survive the war. His father’s remains are located somewhere in a mass grave, whose uncertain location in a grassy field Shimon visits in a […]

Oksana Lyniv is an up-and-coming star on the classical music scene. She is a Ukrainian conductor currently working at the Bavarian State Opera as assistant to the General Music Director Kirill Petrenko. On September 29, 2016, she will make her debut in Ukraine, conducting a classical concert that will be held at the Kyiv Opera House, under the directorship of British opera star Pavlo Hunka. The concert is part of the 75th Anniversary commemoration of the Babyn Yar tragedy, sponsored by the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter of Toronto. In 1941, the Nazis murdered some 150,000 people, including over 32,000 Jews. The massacre at Babyn Yar is considered one of the most heinous atrocities of the Holocaust. The concert will feature classical musicians from Ukraine, Israel, Canada and Great Britain, and a symphony orchestra from Germany. Ms. Lyniv took time from her hectic schedule of rehearsals for an interview on Nash Holos to tell us about herself, her career, and the upcoming concert. This is a feature interview. Audio and transcript available below. Enjoy! ************* Pawlina: I’m Pawlina, host of Nash Holos Ukrainian roots radio. This fall the 75th Anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy will be commemorated in Kyiv, on the initiative of the Ukrainian Jewish encounter. One of the events will be […]