There is a classic expression that asserts “when cannons roar the muses fall silent.” In times of distress and upheaval, creativity and art may falter. However, there are always those artists who quietly and stubbornly continue their work no matter what the circumstances. The recent exhibition “Jewish Art in Ukraine: The Torah in the Paintings of Yevhen Roytman” offers an example. The show was held at the Museum of the History of Kiev, sponsored by the Kyiv city government and with the support of the Jewish community of the city. The Museum presented the Torah project as a series of paintings that illustrate renowned Biblical subjects. The artist and poet Roytman believes that humanity, and in particular Ukraine, is living through a complex historical period. There is a fundamental epochal change happening. Sharp conflicts of opinion erupt. The old ways of life are being challenged, ruined, and discarded. This powerful process affects the consciousness of people and fundamentally alters viewpoints. In order to take advantage of and sustain such changes, society needs to believe in truth, justice, and morality. For the Jewish people, the Torah is a source of these understandings. The sacred texts guide the Jewish people through the […]

The Kyiv of his youth was very different from today’s busy capital of Ukraine. The city was greener, and quieter. Life was calmer. The city was infused with the mysteries of the past, and held more secrets. The climate was more bracing—with honest cold snaps and dry snowy winters. Kyiv springs were velvety and the summers hot, punctuated with cheerful sudden downpours of refreshing rain. And the fall was peaceful, generous with harvest and blazing yellow colors. And so recalls the prize-winning Ukrainian Jewish poet and public figure Hryhorii Falkovych. Falkovych remembers as a very young child returning to his native city of Kyiv. He was already a fourth generation Kyivite. Along with his mother he had been evacuated as an infant to Russia at the outbreak of the Second World War. The trip home was memorable for the boy. A locomotive with trailing black clouds. A crowded train chugging through endless steppe during a searing hot summer. Lunch breaks on faded grass. The aluminum cups filled with tea were too hot to hold. And there was no way to climb back onto the train by your self. It was too high! Falkovych and his mother returned to their pre-war […]

One of the old jokes during the Communist era in Eastern Europe was the quip that you could never predict history. Official interpretations of the past could change suddenly and radically. You had to be adept—and cynically clever—to keep up with changes in the party line. In the post-Soviet era, Ukraine has the challenges, and the opportunities, to look at its history anew. Historical figures, events, and entire communities can be retrieved and evaluated from the memory hole to which they were previously consigned. The Center for Urban History in East Central Europe, based in Lviv, has an innovative program for such retrieval. A Summer School program has been running for the last several years. This program introduces an inclusive approach to research, teaching, and learning the region in the 19th to 20th centuries. The program also significant strengthens the awareness of the importance of Jewish history and heritage as part of Ukraine’s multicultural past. The summer program this year is called “Jewish History, Common Past and Heritage: Culture, Cities, Milieus. It will explore the multicultural artistic and literary heritage of Lviv. The focus will be on Jewish milieus in a city once also known as Lemberg or Lwów. The […]

Today, let us consider identity. Identity may be frozen, destroyed, or altered through major life changes such as exile, immigration, or assimilation. Identity is a journey, as a recent conference in Los Angeles has shown. The Jewish organization Limmud FSU, the FSU standing for Former Soviet Union, brought together several hundred people to discuss and celebrate their evolving identifies. Limmud FSU brings together young Jewish adults who are revitalizing Jewish culture throughout the countries of the former Soviet Union. It also has an international network with Russian-speakers in Israel and throughout the world. [Russian-language excerpt, summarized in English-language paragraph below.] Limmud FSU Executive Director Roman Kogan points out that the organization has a unique ability to attract enthusiastic people who are outside the traditional Jewish community. Committed to pluralism and education, Limmud’s format and principles enables it to strengthen and expand the dialogue between the Jewish and Ukrainian communities. Important parts of this dialogue on identities were the dynamic talks by the Ukrainian historian Ihor Shchupak. He is the director of Dnipropetrovsk’s Tkuma Center for Holocaust Studies and Museum of History of Jews of Ukraine. Shchupak engaged his audiences in provocative give-and-takes on the complexities and contradictions of the history […]

The Agnon Literary Center: restoring the link between contemporary Buchach and a literary legend.   Welcome to Ukrainian Jewish Heritage on Nash Holos Ukrainian Roots Radio. I’m Peter Bejger. Today—some reflections on periphery and center, the province and global culture, and a literary legacy interrupted, lost, and re-imagined. Buchach is a charming town of some twelve thousand people. It is nestled along a river among picturesque forests of the southern Ternopil region of western Ukraine. As with many small towns, the atmosphere is placid. And many residents may not know every aspect of their local heritage. A new initiative with the launch of the Agnon Literary Center explores this heritage. The energetic young arts activist Mariana Maksymiak set out to return to Buchach an important aspect of its literary identity. She organized weekly events at an informal art space that attracted a growing local audience. These cultural initiatives are still rare in the smaller towns of Ukraine. And she turned to restoring a link between contemporary Buchach and a literary legend. [English-language audio clip] Who was Agnon? First, some history. During the Habsburg Empire Buchach developed into an important county center and had a Jewish majority until 1914. The town was […]