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 has retained a vitally important place in Ashkenazi Jewish memory. His fascinating article in the journal East European Jewish Affairs, entitled Brody Always On My Mind: The Mental Mapping of a Jewish City, explores just how and why little Brody became a legend. It all started with trade. Brody was always a lively centre but the tempo really picked up in 1629, when a Polish noble bought the place. There was an influx of Jewish merchant families. Jews were under the direct protection of the noble city owners and could live without any restrictions within the town and work in any profession or engage in commerce. By the middle of the eighteenth century Brody became the region’s most important hub for trans-European trade. It was the linchpin of trade between the German lands and points east into Ukraine and Russia. An affluent mercantile elite funded […]

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 of Ukraine. He is also Vice President of the World Jewish Congress. He is once again in the political limelight after a recent visit to North America. The sixty-eight year old Zissels set up Ukraine’s first Jewish organization in 1988. He has been a strong and consistent defender of Ukraine’s independence and democratic path. In an interview with the Toronto Star, Zissels discussed the troubles in eastern Ukraine. He told the Star that it’s a war. And Jews are suffering in the same way other Ukrainians are. Many have moved from eastern Ukraine to Kyiv and other western Ukrainian cities to escape the danger. But Ukraine’s Jewish community is largely staying put. And not only staying put. But also pitching in. Zissels told the Canadian Jewish News that Ukrainian Jews volunteer to help displaced persons. They provide the army and National Guard with money, medication, […]

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 monk Nestor wrote of ancient Slavic tribes called Volhynians living in Dubno. In the early 14th century it was annexed by Poland and became a royal stronghold guarding that country’s eastern border. Dubno was the site of a renowned castle, built by the Ostrozhsky family. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the castle was made into a modern fortress, one of the strongest in the area. The castle stood until it was destroyed in 1915 during World War I. Granted city rights in 1498, the town attracted many foreign settlers, most notably Jewish and Armenian. The Jewish community of Dubno is first mentioned in documents of 1532 in connection with the ownership of cattle. The oldest tombstone inscription in the Jewish cemetery dates from 1581. During the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648-49, Dubno Castle was the scene of heavy fighting. Some of it was described by […]

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 to read the books. This is a story of a language lost and regained. And this is also a story of one man’s determination to honor his heritage with an extraordinary contribution to help revive a language of dreamers. “My interest for Yiddish was born in my family,” says Dr. Dmytro Tyshchenko. “My ancestors spoke this language; it was as natural as breathing.” Tyshchenko is the son of a Jewish mother and a Ukrainian father from Donbas. He is the creator of a massive new Yiddish-Ukrainian dictionary, produced with the assistance of the Ukrainian Jewish encounter. The 945-page tome is being acclaimed in Jerusalem, Kyiv and elsewhere. The Holocaust nearly destroyed Yiddish in Eastern Europe. Further damage was inflicted by Stalin’s executions of Yiddish-language writers, and Soviet government policies. The language lost its vitality and languished on the margins of society. But the language refused […]

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 the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month on the Jewish liturgical calendar. It lasts for seven days in Israel, eight in the diaspora. On the Gregorian calendar, Passover generally corresponds with late March or early April. This year, 2015, Passover begins Friday evening April 3rd, and ends Saturday evening, April 11th. Passover is known as the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In preparing for Pesach, Jews clean their homes and vehicles, removing every trace of leaven (or chametz, in Hebrew). This act symbolizes the haste with which the Jews left Egypt. They did not even have time to let the bread rise. It is also a symbolic purification ritual— removing the puffiness of arrogance and pride, which separates us from one another, and our Creator. The eating of matzo, or unleavened bread, is very important to Jews during this time. The scrupulous ritual avoidance of […]