Ukraine -- Report on a Jewish Heritage Tour

Ohel containing tomb of the Baal Shem Tov in Medzhybizh. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

As I am currently compiling up to date information on Jewish heritage sites in Ukraine and other European countries, I was pleased to come across an article by Yoram Dori, a senior advisor to Israeli President Shimon Peres, describing a Jewish heritage tour in Ukraine preceding participation in the Limmud cultural/educational event in Odessa. Dori traveled with Chaim Chesler, the founder and chair of the executive of Limmud FSU, Dan Brown, founder and editor of the eJewish Philanthropy website, Natan Roi, editor of the Jewish Agency’s Hebrew website, and Edvard Doks, a travel guide and Ukrainian correspondent for Yediot Aharonot.

His article focuses on the fact that few if any of the Jewish heritage sites they visited bore mezuzahs or plaques or other signs indicating their history and origianl purpose -- and issues that has loomed large across former-Communist Europe since public interest in Jewish heritage began evolving in the late 1980s.

Ver is di mezuzah? (“Where is the mezuzah?”) was the question at the heart of our tour of various Jewish sites in Ukraine, preceding the recent Limmud FSU festival in Odessa. [. . .]

For me, by the way, everything is clear. When I get home I will try to find a solution at least to the missing plaques. Maybe by an appeal to the president of Ukraine who is due to visit Israel shortly. To allow hundred years of Jewish history to disappear without trace is just not acceptable.

Their stops included Zhitomir, Berdichev, Vinnitsa, Medzhybizh, and Uman.  (Except for Vinnitsa, I covered all these sites in Jewish Heritage Travel.)

Jewish cemetery, Berdichev. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Nice photo web site on Eastern European Jewish traces

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I've just come across the web site galiciantraces.com -- "a photographic documentation of Eastern European Judaica" by Charles Burns. It features a growing gallery of photographs and comments on Jewish heritage and heritage sites in Eastern Europe. It's worth a look.

He has arranged the photos by towns -- and there are dozens on the list. The are mainly in Ukraine and Poland -- but  he doesn't give the country or any other geographic location. I also wish he had included links to similar sites and other resources.

Ukraine -- latest on the Golden Rose

Golden Rose ruins, December 2010. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Archeological excavation near Golden Rose, December 2010. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Misleading reports that suggested that the preserved ruins of the historic Golden Rose synagogue in L'viv were being destroyed to make way for a hotel went viral this past week, triggering an uproar. The G. R. ruins themselves are not under threat -- the envisaged hotel is on a nearby site. There are also archeological excavations going on around the Golden Rose site, which could be misconstrued as preparation for construction. Nonetheless, a longterm strategy for what to do with the Golden Rose is still not in place -- although I am glad to learn that plans for the implementation of the "Synagogue Square" memorial that includes the G.R. ruins and the place in front of them where another synagogue and a prayer house once stood seem to be moving forward.

I was on the international jury for the design competition for this and two other memorials marking Jewish sites in L'viv, and have reported on them in this blog.

Here is the story I ended up doing for JTA on the Golden Rose situation, based on numerous phone calls and email communication with various parties. Most people I know who have anything to do with L'viv Jewish heritage are happy that the controversial hotel plan has now come under scrutiny. But they are rather taken aback at the way a misleading and mis-headlined report can go viral and ignite such a firestorm.

Ukrainian mayor says synagogue ruins are not threatened

September 9, 2011

WARSAW (JTA) -- The mayor of the Ukrainian city of Lviv denied reports that the preserved remains of the historic Golden Rose synagogue were being destroyed to make way for a controversial hotel.

"I want to reassure everyone that no construction has ever taken place at the site of the Golden Rose," Lviv's mayor, Andriy Sadovyy, said in his statement.

"Construction of a hotel in the neighboring Fedorova Street, which has drawn criticism from some civic organizations’ representatives, has nothing to do with the site of the former Synagogue,” he said.

The mayor also said that plans were going ahead for new memorials to Lviv Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

The Golden Rose synagogue was largely destroyed during World War II; what remains are its foundations and a wall bearing arches.

On August 19, a Lviv district court ordered the Ukrainian Investment Company, the hotel's builder and investor, to "stop any preparatory and construction works on the plot" on Fedorova Street and "vacate building machines from this territory."

The site of the envisaged hotel does not directly touch the Golden Rose ruins. But critics charge that it could compromise a mikvah, the foundations of a former kosher butchery and other buildings in the old Jewish quarter.

“It is a disgrace,” said Meylakh Sheykhet, the Ukranian director of the Union Council of ex-Soviet Jews, in a statement. “They are building the hotel over the very places where there are Jewish artifacts buried and where the mikvah once stood.”

The mayor's press office said that his statement had been issued in response to an article by Tom Gross published by The Guardian newspaper and other international media outlets. Gross' article was headlined "Goodbye, Golden Rose."

In The Guardian, Gross wrote: "Last week I watched as bulldozers began to demolish the adjacent remnants of what was once one of Europe's most beautiful synagogue complexes, the 16th-century Golden Rose in Lviv."

Although the "adjacent remnants" to which Gross referred apparently did not mean the actual preserved ruins of the synagogue building, many readers were left with the impression that the synagogue itself was threatened. Other media outlets picked up the story and reported that the synagogue was being destroyed. Even Wikipedia at one point stated, "It [the Golden Rose Synagogue] was illegally demolished by the government of Ukraine in 2011 to build a hotel."

“After the publication of this information we have received inquiries from various countries of the world about the situation of the ruins of the Golden Rose Synagogue," Sadovyy said.

Sadovyy's statement noted that Lviv staged an international architectural competition last year for memorials to mark three sites of Jewish history in the city. Winners, announced in December, came from Israel, the United States and Germany.

One of the sites, the so-called Synagogue Square, includes the ruins of the Golden Rose and the space in front of it where another synagogue and a beit midrash once stood. Sadovyy said that an international group of experts "is at work" on this project. JTA has learned that Jewish representatives and city officials will meet in Lviv next month to discuss how and when to implement construction of the memorial there.

"It is extremely important to us, that, together with the Jewish community, civic organizations and everybody concerned with the fate of Lviv heritage, we resolve the issue of Synagogue fragments’ conservation as well as the issue of their worthy setting," Sadovyy said.

Ukraine -- Struggle to recognize and recover Jewish heritage and history

Old Jewish Cemetery in L'viv -- now destroyed and built over by a market

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Kyiv Post has run a 5-part series over the past few weeks about the struggle of memory over Jewish heritage and history in Ukraine in the wake of the Holocaust.

One of the articles, which are by Natalia A. Feduschak, focuses on the valiant Meylakh Sheykhat and his tireless battles to preserve and honor Jewish heritage sites.

For nearly two decades, often working with limited resources, Sheykhet has tirelessly traveled throughout western Ukraine to ensure Jewish cultural remnants are preserved. It has not been an easy job for the 58-year-old, who has lived in Lviv nearly his entire life.

Not only is Sheykhet racing against time, neglect and the elements, he is also fighting apathy from some segments of the Ukrainian population, which does not always recognize Jewish culture as part of its own.

For instance, since 2003 he has been at loggerheads with local officials in Sambir, a town south of Lviv, to remove three large Christian crosses erected in the Jewish part of the cemetery. Visits by international figures like former Canadian-Ukrainian parliamentarian Borys Wrzesnewskyj and Mark Freiman, president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, have not changed local minds.

Before World War II, today’s western Ukraine boasted artifacts that reflected a culturally rich Jewish life. The landscape was dotted with cemeteries and synagogues, while towns and villages, often home to a population comprised largely of Jews, bore entire Jewish quarters with unique religious and residential structures.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/108659/#ixzz1SvAkERYp

Read a profile of Meylach HERE

Nice article in the Forward on overlooked Jewish heritage sites

Wonderful carved stone in Siret. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Michael Luongo has a nice wrapup in The Forward about the "Top 10 Overlooked Jewish Heritage Sites From Around the Globe." It's called "Forgotten History." And thanks, Mike for mentioning this blog!

When most of us think of Jewish heritage travel, places like Jerusalem or the Warsaw Ghetto come to mind. Yet, from the pre-Inquisition sites that dot Spain, to farming villages in South America, hundreds of forgotten or under-visited Jewish sites exist across the world. When we put out the call for recommendations of our readers’ favorite overlooked sites on the Forward’s Shmooze blog and Facebook page, we got a global range of answers. Not surprising, most of the suggestions were about Eastern Europe. From your recommendations and my own travels, here’s an informal list of the top 10 Jewish sites often overlooked by traveler

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/138890/#ixzz1PvK2lPPF

The sites on the list range from Europe, to Latin America to New Zealand.....

It's always hard for me to choose a favorite or "best" or "most overlooked" site -- but I nominated my beloved Jewish cemeteries and painted synagogues in northern Romania and western Ukraine.

Hungary to Poland trip -- Lutowiska!

View of Lutowiska from Jewish cemetery. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

One of my aims in the southeastern corner of Poland was to explore  some  Jewish heritage sites for the first time -- as well as revisit some that I had been to previously to update my information on their status and condition.

One of the first-time places was the hamlet of Lutowiska -- way down in the triangular southeastern tip of the country that pokes between Ukraine and Slovakia, very close to the Ukrainian border.  Pretty far, far away.....   When borders were different, though, tt was once a major trading center,  with a large Jewish population. According to a Yizkor book entry on Lutowiska, Jews  were the majority population from the late 19th century.

Here's information from the town web site:

The name Lutowiska comes from the Russian word „letowyshche” designating a place where cattle and sheep were grazed in summer. The village was set up in the 16th century according  o the Wallachian law in estates that then belonged to the Stadnicki family. The village was first referred to in 1580. The village was located on the intersection of busy trade routes from Sanok to the Tucholska Pass and further to Transylvania and from Przemyśl through the Beskid Mountains or Użock Pass to Użhorod. There was also a local route to the East through Turka to Drohobycz. Such a place encouraged the location of a town. Thanks to the efforts of Ludwik Urbański Lutowiska was granted a charter at the beginningof the 18th century. In 1742 King August III granted the town a privilege to hold ten big fairs a year (by comparison  Sanok and Lesko only held two big fairs a year). In the 19th century the big fairs in Lutowiska were famous throughout Europe. People chiefly traded in oxen that were grazed on high-elevation meadows (poloninas). They were grey, long-horned cattle called Hungarian, willingly bought even by merchants from Western Europe. During thebig fair the whole Lutowiska was packed with cattle, a few thousand animals were here at a time. Lutowiska’s centra consisted then of two adjoining market places surrounded by wooden houses, which mainly belonged to Jews, a majority of the town’s population. Lutowiska lost the status of town in 1919, though it remained the region’s significant trade and administrative centre until the Second World War. The census of 1921 discovered 261 houses inhabited by 2125 people. In 1939 the settlement already had about 3500 inhabitants. In June 1942 Gestapo officers from Ustrzyki Dolne shot ca. 650 local Jews. They also burnt the synagogue and Jewish houses, practically all the wooden buildings in Lutowiska. Between 1945 and 1951 Lutowiska was within the Soviet borders, the name was changed to Shevchenko. At the end of 1951 a mere 28 families lived there. Resettlers from the Sokal and Hrubieszów regions mainly moved to the deserted houses. The village only reverted to its original name after a few years. In 1951 Lutowiska became home to communal authorities.

I had been told that there was a Jewish cemetery here, but that it was outside the village; I would have to ask, I was told, but people would know.

In fact, there is a beautiful, and beautifully maintained, Jewish cemetery here, as well as the ruins of the synagogue -- and I was delighted to find that  local authorities have included both in a well organized touristic/educational route in and around the town that focuses on the three cultures that before WW2 coexisted here -- Jews,  Poles and Ukrainians. The itinerary is aimed at bringing back awareness of destroyed local history (Holocaust as well as post-war expulsions and population and border shifts) and also highlight the landscape and environment.

Sign of Three Cultures route outside entry to Jewish cemetery. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The cemetery is on a hill behind the town's big school, immersed in lovely rolling landscape -- I found it by asking at the local tourism office, where an English-speaking young man gave me explicit directions as well as a brochure and map for the Three Cultures route. I walked there, following three back-packing girls who also headed that way to visit the site.

The cemetery is enclosed by a rustic fence, and the weeds and grass are cut. There are some dozens of gravestones, some with fairly elaborate carving; many tilted, some eroded -- I was able to document a lot of women's tombstones, for my (Candle)sticks on Stones project, showing a variety of carved versions of candlesticks.

Some of the carvings were very reminiscent of the carving style in Busk and other places across the border in what is today Ukraine.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The carving on this stone reminds me of that across today's border in Ukraine. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

 

Other sites on the Three Cultures itinerary include the Greek-Catholic cemetery, with a replica of the wooden church that no longer stands here:

Replica of the Greek-Catholic church Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Ukraine -- Jewish Travel Web Site and Tours, etc

Fortresslike 16th century synagogue building in Sharhorod, Ukraine. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

People are always asking me for advice on "traveling Jewish" in Ukraine -- arranging trips and tours, finding places, accommodation, information, etc.

A new (or newish) web site and organization, "JUkraine" may now be the answer.

I just came across the web site -- jukraine.com -- and it looks at if it will be very helpful.

I hope so! Ukraine is a huge country, rich with fascinating Jewish heritage sites and also home (in some places) to active Jewish communities. To date, my chapter on Ukraine in Jewish Heritage Travel is one of the only Jewish guides to the country -- but it only minimally scratches the surface.

Ukraine -- L'viv Jewish History Design Competition Winning Designs Viewable Online

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The winning designs -- and all the other entries -- in the competition held in L'viv, Ukraine last year to mark three key sites of Jewish history in the city are now viewable online.

I was on the international Jury for the competition, and I described some of the process in a blog post here last December. Our brief was to consider some 70 designs sent in  from 14 different countries for projects marking three key sites, taking into consideration the following stated criteria:

The competition has two distinct, but interconnected purposes. First, the competiton seeks to respond to the growing awareness of Lviv's multi-ethnic past by contributing to the rediscovery of the city's Jewish history and heritage through creating public spaces dedicated to the city's historic Jewish community. Secondly, the competition also seeks ways to re-design these three open public spaces in such as manner as to improve the quality of life for the contemporary inhabitants and visitors of Lviv.

All the entries were judged anonymously -- we had no idea where they were from or who were the designers.

See all the designs for the Synagogue Square site -- the empty space in the heart of the downtown Jewish quarter where three now destroyed synagogues once stood -- by clicking HERE.

The winning design for the Synagogue Square site was by Franz Reschke, Paul Reschke, Frederik Springer Germany, based in Berlin, Germany.

See all the designs for the Besojlam Memorial Park, or Jewish cemetery, site by clicking HERE.

The first prize went to a design by Israeli designer and landscape architect Ronit Lambrozo. You can see that HERE.

See all the designs submitted for the site of the Janivski death and labor camp memorial by clicking HERE.

The first prize went to a dramatic but understated design by Ming-Yu Ho, Ceanatha La Grange, Wei Huang of Irvine, California.

Candlesticks on Stone - another cross post: a stone-carver reflects on tradition and symbolism

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

A few days ago, I posted this picture of a tombstone-carver, taken in Ukraine in 1916.

Tombstone carver at work, 1916 

(image from Bildarchiv, National Library, Vienna)

The one finished tombstone that you can see is very simply carved, but clearly painted in at least three colors. It also appears that the stone-carver may be teaching his son the trade — several sources, including David Goberman and the art historian Moshe Barasch report that tombstone-carving was often (or at least sometimes) a family business, passed on down the generations. In his essay “Reflection on Tombstones: Childhood Memories” (which I have cited before for Barasch’s contemptuous attitude toward the “primitive” artistic character of the stones) Barasch recalls hearing about two families of tombstone-carvers in Czernowitz after World War I — the Picker family and the Steinmetz  family (the name means “stone carver”), both of which had been in the business “for several generations.”

In his PhD dissertation on Jewish tombstone inscriptions and iconography is what is now western Ukraine, Boris Khaimovich of the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem cites an interview conducted in 1926 by a Ukrainian art critic and ethnographer named  Taranoshchenko with the last professional tombstone carver from the town of Ozarintsy in Southern Podolia.  (For a fascinating account, including photos, of growing up in Ozarintsy at that time, click HERE. a photo of a synagogue in Ozarintsy in 1928 click HERE.)  He was a young man named Goldenberg. Taranoshchenko wanted to find out “what guided him in carving certain images on a tombstone: whether definite rules and tradition, or the wishes of the dead person’s family, or perhaps his own imagination.”
The young carver apparently had “poor knowledge of ancient tradition.” But he did adhere to memories this and said he was “usually guided” by certain considerations. Regarding women’s tombs they were:

1) for the grave of a young girl – a chopped down tree, a small fir-tree, a wreath, a bird;
2) for the gravestone of an important woman – a candelabrum (since the mistress of the house must light Shabbat candles), two candelabra, two birds

Bolekhiv/Bolechow -- tombstone of
Esther bat Meshulem Zalman, 1805. 

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The earliest tombstones bearing candlesticks to mark women’s tombs that were found and described by Boris Khaimovich in Ukraine and Silviu Sanie in Romania (Siret, just on the Ukrainian border) date from the late 18th and very early 19th centuries. By the mid-to-late 19th century, the imagery was almost universal.
The young carver Goldenberg’s account in Ozarintsy shows how strongly engrained the tradition became.
Boris Khaimovich concludes that:

Apparently, the “poor knowledge of tradition” referred to the fact that the carver neither used nor knew the meaning of the motifs depicted on old tombstones, which the researcher had also documented in the murals of the Ozarintsy synagogue. This means that the tradition was totally lost by the turn of the 20^th century. At the same time, the carver’s testimony sheds some light on the nature of this phenomenon, and clearly point at the existence of a special symbolic language, of which Goldenberg’s generation retained no more than vague notions and echoes. (BK Dissertation, p. 158)

Ukraine --Design competition in L'viv

Starlings over the dome of the former Jewish hospital (now the maternity hospital) in L'viv next to the Besojlem site. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber
 
As I noted in earlier posts, I was in L'viv, Ukraine, this past week as part of  the nine-member international jury for an important design competition for sites of Jewish history in L'viv (or Lvov, Lwow, Lemberg, Leopoli, as it is called in various languages...) that was organized by the municipal authorities in association with the L'viv Center for Urban History and the German organization GTZ -- the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit. The idea for the competition goes back to an international conference held at the Center for Urban History in October 2008 on "Urban Jewish Heritage and History," at which I was the keynote speaker. (I have already posted the results  -- or see them HERE.)

The jury was composed of two eminent architects/urban designers from Switzerland and Germany, the L'viv deputy mayor, three local city architects/heritage experts, and three "Jewish representatives" -- myself, Josef Zissels (chairman of one of the main Ukrainian Jewish umbrella organizations) and Sergey Kravtsov, from the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem, who comes from L'viv and is an expert on all aspects of Jewish heritage there.  (See full list below.)

Our brief was to consider some 70 designs sent in from 14 different countries for projects marking three key sites, taking into consideration the following stated criteria:

The competition has two distinct, but interconnected purposes. First, the competiton seeks to respond to the growing awareness of Lviv's multi-ethnic past by contributing to the rediscovery of the city's Jewish history and heritage through creating public spaces dedicated to the city's historic Jewish community. Secondly, the competition also seeks ways to re-design these three open public spaces in such as manner as to improve the quality of life for the contemporary inhabitants and visitors of Lviv.

Our first order of business was to visit the three sites. (We got started late as two of us -- including myself -- got stranded overnight in Vienna because of the snow chaos, and we arrived a day late.)

     -- the "Valley of Death" that was linked to the infamous Janivski concentration, labor and mass murder camp  set up by the German occupation during World War II, where more than 100,000 Jews were killed;

     This site is a deep, rather narrow valley rimmed by steep banks.The site of the camp itself, atop a plateau overlooking the valley, is now occupied by a prison. In the valley there is a pond where bodies were thrown. For a full description, click HERE. Marking the spot is currently a memorial stone and a sign.

     -- the site of three destroyed synagogues in the center of the city's downtown Jewish quarter, just off the main market square, or Rynok;

Ruins of Golden Rose synagogue

Excavations for Bejs Midrash

    The site is an open public space located in the southeast part of Lviv’s historic inner city, which is included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, on the site where once stood the Great Synagogue and a Bejt HaMidrash. They adjoin the still-visible ruins of the 16th century Turei Zahav or Golden Rose Synagogue. Some of the buildings in the immediate vicinity of the site date back to the 16th century. For fuller description click HERE. It is a sensitive area, where gentrification is beginning to clash with historic memory, preservation goals and potential Jewish restitution claims for communal property.

     -- and "Besojlem," the small piece of open ground that is the only section of the centuries-old Jewish cemetery (founded in late medieval times and closed in 1855) that was not built over -- virtually all the rest of the cemetery is now covered by a big market bazaar, the Krakovsky Market. Adjacent is the city's maternity hospital, a Moorish style structure with a dome that was built originally as the Jewish hospital. It occupies a part of the cemetery site where no burials took place.

 

This is a particularly sensitive site, given the fact that burials still exist here but exactly where is not known. Also, it is believed that a number of old tombstones also lie beneath the surface. There is a long and contentious history  regarding attempts by the Jewish community to regain the cemetery -- or at least have the market removed. Sam Gruber has posted a concise summary on his blog.

 All the submitted designs were hung in the city's drafty, Soviet-era Palace of the Arts and were on public display as of December 16.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Our deliberations took place here -- in a vast hall that was freezing!

Sofia Dyak, the director of the L'viv Center for Urban History, at our work table. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The jury included a varied group of experts from several countries, and we each looked at the sites and projects from different viewpoints and experience. This made our deliberations  extremely intensive, thoughtful, thought-provoking, exhaustive -- and exhausting. We examined the displayed plans, as well as other information, and discussed each not just on its design, but on its  feasibility of implementation and sensitivity to place.  The concerns of the Jewish community were also taken into consideration, even though (aside from L'viv native but current Jerusalemite Sergey Kravstov) there was no representative of the local L'viv Jewish community on the jury. All of the submissions were anonymous, so we had no idea where they came from -- in the end, it turned out that there were submissions from 14 countries.

In addition to myself, the Jury members were:

Oksana Boyko (Ukraine, Lviv), architectural historian, research fellow at the institute “Ukrzakhdproektrestvratsia,” author of the monograph “Synagogues of Lviv” (2008)

Bohdan Cherkes (Ukraine, Lviv), professor for architecture, director of the Institute of Architecture at the National Polytechnic University in Lviv

Carl Fingerhuth (Switzerland, Zürich), architect, city planner and author, advisor to the city governments of Bremen, Salzburg, Halle, Karlsruhe, Cologne, Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Regensburg; Chief Architect Basel 1979-1992, since 1995 Honorary Professor for Urban Planning at the University of Darmstadt, private projects in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and China

Vasyl Kosiv (Ukrain, Lviv), Deputy Mayor for Humanitarian Issues of Lviv, Director of the Department of Graphic Design at the National Academy of Arts in Lviv

Sergei Kravtsov (Israel, Jerusalem), architect, historian of architecture, researcher at the Center of Jewish Arts at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Yuriy Kryvoruchko (Ukraine, Lviv), head of the Department of Urban Planning of Lviv City Council, Chief Architect of Lviv, professor for architecture at the National Polytechnic University in Lviv

Ingo Andreas Wolf (Germany, Leipzig), architect, Urbanist, advisor to city governments; Professor for urban planning and design, University of Applied Sciences in Leipzig

Josef Zissels (Ukraine, Kyiv), Chairman of the General Council of Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, chairman of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine (Vaad Ukraine), executive vice-president of the Congress of National Communities of Ukraine and the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine

Discussing one of the designs. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

In the end, we were were almost totally unanimous in choosing the three designs that we awarded the first prize in each category. For each of them, however, we appended recommendations as to changes or amendments we felt needed to be taken into consideration before implementation. (I'm not sure these have all be made public yet -- I will append them when so.)

The first prizes went to:

    -- Ronit Lombrozo, from Jerusalem, for Besojlem. A landscape architect and exhibition designer who often deals with heritage issues, Lombrozo submitted a design that envisages a raised walkway and also the use of unearthed tombstones as part of the memorial.

    -- The design team of Ming-Yu Ho, Ceanatha La Grange, and Wei Huang, from Irvine, California, for the Janivski concentration camp site. Their design was radically different from most of the others. Most of the others envisaged the area as a sort of park. The winning team's idea was to turn it into a form of land art -- a raised walkway leading to and curving around a slope covered with slabs representing symbolic tombstones.

    -- The Berlin, Germany team of Franz Reschke, Paul Reschke and Frederik Springer for the synagogue square site, a design that incorporates the archeological excavations of the Bejs Midrash and also traces the form of the Great Synagogue. One of the things that we liked is that it leaves the way open for modifications in the future, should the site be restituted or other excavations be foreseen.

Other prizes and honorable mentions went to designs from Italy, Poland, Germany, Austria and Ukraine.

I was particularly pleased to see how young the Ukrainian winners were -- some in their early and mid-20s, even students -- and to witness how thoughtful and sensitive their approaches were to reintegrating and restoring a component of local history that has for far too long been suppressed, ignored, forgotten and/or distorted.

L'viv deputy mayor Vasyl Kosiv announces the awards at a public ceremony. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Ukraine -- Jewish heritage initiatives

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

JTA last week ran a nice story by Dina Kraft about an initiative to document and rescue Jewish heritage sites in western Ukraine, with the help of local Ukrainians. One of the Israeli experts is Vladimir Levin, whom I met last year in Vilnius, when we both took part in a seminar organized by the Lithuanian Culture Ministry about how to deal with Jewish heritage in Lithuania.

Levin, a 39-year-old immigrant to Israel from St. Petersburg, Russia, is part of a team of Israeli historians attempting to document what remains of a once populous and vibrant Jewish life in the regions of Galicia and Bukovina, most of which is in the western edge of present-day Ukraine.

As part of efforts to recover the world that once was in these towns and shtetls, where some 1 million Jews lived before the Holocaust, the researchers are partnering with Ukrainian academics. The idea is not only to boost the level of scholarship but to highlight to Ukrainian locals a Jewish past that spanned centuries but is rarely remembered publicly in the country. 

"Jewish history is not part of the agenda” in Ukraine, said Yaroslav Hrystak, director of graduate studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University, which has partnered with the Israeli researchers. “It's like a whole subject that disappeared.”

The project aims to collect oral testimony and document cemeteries and synagogues left derelict or used for such purposes as canning factories to storage space, and enlist young Ukrainian historians to do Jewish-related scholarship. An online database has been established on the project's website to make the research widely accessible. The project also has set up a scholarship for Ukrainian graduate students to spend a year at Hebrew University to learn Jewish history, Hebrew and Yiddish.

"Records are being lost in front of us, and so the goal is collection and preservation," said David Wallach, a professor of molecular biology at Israel’s Weizmann Institute who is among the group of families that helped establish a fund called the Ludmer Project to help pay for the research.

Ukraine -- Hebrew University research expedition to Galicia begins

Researchers from  Hebrew University in Jerusalem have begun another foray into Ukraine as part of the ongoing Jewish Galicia project. The group, headed by Dr. Vladimir Levin, will document Jewish heritage sites, including former synagogues, around the town of Nadvorna.

I posted about the project last year, after I met  Levin at a conference in Vilnius. Click HERE for that post.

Read a story about the expedition in Jerusalem Post story by clicking here

Ukraine -- Profile of Meylakh Sheykhet

 Meylakh Shekhet, Sam Gruber, and me in L'viv

I'm delighted to share this link to a profile in Canada's National Post  of my friend Meylakh Sheykhet in L'viv, who has devoted much of his life to identifying and preserving Jewish cemeteries and sites of WW2 mass execution.  Specifically, it describes one of Meylakh's current projects, an attempt, with Canadian aid, to restore the Jewish cemetery in Sambir, near L'viv.

Ever since he ventured into the Ukrainian countryside and saw the remnants of bulldozed Jewish cemeteries, and ever since he saw Holocaust mass graves that lie unkempt in the forests there, Meylakh Sheykhet has fought for the right to remember.

Over the past 20 years, Mr. Sheykhet has found and worked to restore more than 150 Jewish cemeteries in Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus, cemeteries that were destroyed or forgotten under Soviet rule.

With his greying beard and traditional Jewish dress, Mr. Sheykhet is known in Ukraine and beyond as the guardian of Jewish cemeteries. His voice is calm but impassioned as he speaks of his mission to preserve the history of a once-thriving Jewish community.

“When I witnessed the lost cemeteries for the first time, with their tombstones broken and bowed to the earth, I felt deeply connected,” said Mr. Sheykhet, who is in Toronto this weekend to address Ukrainian and Jewish audiences on his efforts. “I cannot explain it, but they called out for my protection.”

Among the villages assailed by the Nazis is the western Ukraine town of Sambir, which is home to Mr. Sheykhet’s latest quest: A centuries-old Jewish cemetery, where a Holocaust mass grave also lies.

On the first day of Passover in 1943, more than 1,200 Jews were shot and buried at the cemetery in Sambir, which was called Sambor when the town was part of Poland. Today, the cemetery — its tombstones destroyed in 1974 — doubles as a garbage dump and an overgrown pasture for cattle grazing.

Mark Freiman, president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, made his own pilgrimage to the cemetery in 2007, paying homage with his brother to their grandparents and aunts and uncles who perished there during the Holocaust.

“All of my instincts told me I had to undertake an effort to memorialize this place,” Mr. Freiman said from his Toronto home. “Seeing the place, touching the stones, and lighting a memorial candle in front of the mass grave made the history entirely real and entirely personal.”

Mr. Freiman’s partnership with Mr. Sheykhet began in the fall of last year, and has so far sparked the beginnings of a historic assessment of the site. Their work, sometimes lonely and with few allies, picks up where another Canadian’s efforts left off.

Read more by clicking here

Meylakh was on a speaking tour in Canada and several articles about him and his worked appeared. Click HERE   for a lengthy piece in Shalom Life.

He told Shalom Life that initially, he decided to take part in volunteer work to preserve the graves, while continuing his professional career.

“I meant (to just do it) for a while but it has happened for life,” said Meylakh who is also the director for Ukraine for the Union of Councils for the Jews in the Former Soviet Union. He added that he eventually realized it was not possible to do both and decided to focus on preserving Jewish cemeteries full time.

Meylakh has made it his mission over the last 10 years to protect and preserve as many Ukrainian Jewish cemeteries and mass graves as possible.

He explained that during Soviet times, the authorities denied the legitimacy and existence of Jewish cemeteries and mass graves, while using propaganda to accuse Jews for all sorts of crimes and turning the Star of David into an evil symbol. As he was familiar with this history of falsification, he felt that he could be useful in navigating the complex bureaucracy in Ukraine; during that early days after communism fell, Western visitors and dignitaries were getting the run around from the government which was giving them all sorts of excuses why it could not protect the cemeteries.

The cemeteries had even been removed from all maps and any mention of their existence was erased as if Jews never existed. Prominent Jews and rabbis who visited the country were even told that there were no laws on the book to protect cemeteries when the opposite was true.

“I made everything possible to show that they were mislaid and that the rule of law did exist for the burial sites and that the bureaucracy must follow it up and they have to respect the Jewish grave sites as required by international agreements and the rule of law of Ukraine,” he said.

So far, Meylakh has been involved in investigating more than 150 sites, producing documentation and physically protecting a third of those. However, he explained that there are literally thousands of such sites, currently in poor condition, that need to be protected.

“They need a lot of work, they need a lot of monetary investment and most important, they have to be reconstituted in a legal way because they have to be put back on city and town maps,” he said.

One would think after so many years of heroic dedication and hard work, the job would now be easier; sadly, today it is the exact opposite because of the short-sighted economic policies of the Ukrainian government.

 Read More by clicking HERE

Jewish Culture/Music/Etc Festivals 2010

 Posters for last year's Quarter6Quarter7 Hanukkah festival in Budapest. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

                                                                                            

A number of Jewish culture festivals of all sorts take place around Europe in the spring and summer (and beyond). Some are dedicated just to music. Some to film. Others are much broader. As far as I know, there is no central web site where you can find information on all of them. I will begin to post information here on dates and venues. I ask my readers to please send me information to include!

The culture festivals and other smaller events make good destinations around which to center a trip. Some, like the annual Festival of Jewish Culture in Krakow, are huge events lasting a week or more, which draw thousands of people and offer scores or sometimes hundreds of performances, lectures, concerts, exhibits and the like. Other festivals are much less ambitious. Some are primarily workshops but also feature concerts. Many of the same artists perform at more than one festival.

 The list will be growing and growing -- and again,  I ask my readers to please send me information and links to upcoming events. Thanks!


ALL OVER EUROPE -- 11th annual European Day of Jewish Culture. The first Sunday in September -- Sept. 5. Events take place in nearly 30 countries. The theme this year is Art and Judaism.

AUSTRIA

April 22-27 -- Vienna --  Stay Jewish! (Film Festival)

October 14-November 14 -- Vienna -- Yiddish Culture Autumn (web site under construction)

November 6 -  21 -- Vienna -- KlezMORE festival (this year's program is not up yet)

CROATIA

Aug. 23-31 -- Opatija -- Bejahad 2010


CZECH REPUBLIC

July 8-11 -- Boskovice -- Boskovice Festival. Mainly jazz, but also an emphasis on Jewish culture, given the importance of the well-preserved former Jewish quarter, cemetery and Jewish museum in the restored synagogue.

July 29-31 -- Trebic -- Seventh edition of the Trebic Jewish Culture Festival, held in the Czech Republic's most extensive preserved former Jewish quarter

FRANCE

April 9 - July 18 -- Paris -- Radical Jewish Culture exhibit (and concerts), Jewish Museum

June 13-28 -- Paris --  6th Festival of Jewish Cultures

July 5-9 -- Paris -- Klezmer Paris festival Lots of workshops from an all-star international team of  musicians and teachers.

November 6-13 -- Lyons -- International Jewish Music Festival 

Nov.21-Dec. 13 -- Paris -- Jazz'n'Klezmer festival, 9th edition.

GERMANY

March 5-14  -- Fürth -- Fürth International Klezmer Festival (12th edition)

July 3-August 2  -- Weimar -- Yiddish Summer Weimar

October 17-31 -- Dresden -- The 14th Yiddish Weeks Dresden

November 20-30 -- Munich -- The 24th Jewish Culture Days, Munich (devoted this year to Jewish Berlin)

HUNGARY

April 2-4 -- Budapest -- Mini-Israeli-Film-Festival, Kino cinema club

August 5-8  -- Bank Lake -- Bankito Festival

August 26-Sept. 6 -- Budapest -- Jewish Summer Festival


 ITALY

 March 11 -- Barletta --  Festival Musica Judaica 2009-2010

April 17-21 -- Ferrara -- Festival of the Jewish Book in Italy


April 23-May 23; Sept. 26-Oct. 31 -- Casale Monferrato -- OyOyOy Festival

October 9-13 -- Rome -- International Festival of Jewish Literature

October 23-27 -- Rome -- Kolno'a Israeli Film Festival

NETHERLANDS

April  18-25    -- Leeuwarden -- Yiddish Festival Leeuwarden (takes place every other year)

Oct. 28-31 -- Amsterdam -- International Jewish Music Festival

POLAND

April 9-11 -- Warsaw -- Festival of New Jewish Music

April 20-25 -- Warsaw -- Jewish Motifs International Film Festival

May 23-28 -- Wroclaw -- 12th Simcha Jewish Culture Festival (note -- other events take place May 5-9, with the gala re-opening of the newly restored White Stork Synagogue)

May 15-23 -- Warsaw -- "Otwardatwarda" festival

May 23-26 -- Warsaw --  13th Jewish Book Fair

 June 13-19 -- Sejny -- Musicians' Raft

June -14-16 -- Bialystok -- Zahor Festival of Jewish Culture

June 19-20 -- Chmielnik -- The Eighth "Meetings with Jewish Culture" festival

June 22-26 -- Piotrkow Trybunalski -- Days of Judaism

June 26-July 4 --Krakow -- Festival of Jewish Culture --20th Edition!

 July 13-17 -- Kazimierz Dolny -- Klezmer Music Festival

July 23-25 -- Poznan -- 4th Tzadik Jewish Culture Festival

August 11 -- Lublin -- Shalom. Meetings with Jewish Culture

August 12-14 -- Rymanow -- Shabbat in Rymanow

August 28-Sept. 5 -- Warsaw -- Singer's Warsaw Jewish Culture Festival

October 4-6 -- Slupsk -- Meetings with Jewish Culture 

ROMANIA

May 24-27 -- Timisoara -- Jewish Culture Days


May 26-29 -- Bucharest -- Czech Nine Gates Festival

June 19-22 -- Sighet -- Sighet Jewish Festival

September 2-5 -- Bucharest -- World of Yiddish Festival

RUSSIA

March 29-April 4 -- Moscow -- Yiddish Fest


SWITZERLAND

March 6-April 25 -- Geneva - Printemps Sefarade

U.K.

Feb. 27-March 7 -- London -- Jewish Book Week

June 21-24 -- London -- Cantors Convention

August 8-13 -- London -- KlezFest

Ukraine

July 25 -- L'viv -- LvivKlezFest

October 3-10 -- Kharkov -- Days of Jewish Culture

Ukraine -- Report on Cemetery Clean up and exhibit at Sniatyn

More on Ukraine -- Check Sam Gruber's blog for a long post and photographs about an "archeology of memory" project this past  summer organized by the Center for Urban History in L'viv to clean up the Jewish cemetery in Sniatyn, rescue tombstones that were used to pave a courtyard, and stage an exhibition.

The Center's web site reports:

The goal of the project was to return the attention of the inhabitants of Sniatyn to the multi-national and multi-religious heritage of their city with the help of the two week program of a volunteer camp made up of youth from Ukraine, Poland and Germany. The program included fixing up and recording the architectural cemetery ensembles of the city. Concurrently the camp become an opportunity for participants of the volunteer group to become acquainted with the heritage, as well as contemporary life of Sniatyn. The work of the volunteers focused on two cemeteries in Sniatyn - Jewish and Christian, which are found not far from one another. The Christian cemetery is still used as a place of ritual events. The Jewish cemetery is in a state of neglect and ruin, and gravestones are being destroyed by spreading tree roots. Both cemeteries are monuments to the culture and history of the city, witnesses of the life and death of Sniatyn’s past inhabitants.

 Nineteen young people took part in in the two week project at the end of July and beginning fo August.

The project was realized by the Centre for Urban History within the framework of the program "Memoria", which was initiated by the foundation "Memory, responsibility and future" and was led together with the Stefan Batory Foundation. The goal of the program is to inspire young people to look for traces of shared culture and history in the border territory. The geographical focus of the program is Central and Eastern Europe, where for centuries people from different cultures, religions and languages co-existed. The Second World War and the Holocaust, deportations and changing borders after 1945 almost completely destroyed the diversity of these territories.  That is why, within the framework of the "Memoria" program, events are organized with the participation of young volunteers from Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Russia, Belorus and Ukraine, which are aimed at the preservation of historical monuments, acquaintance with different aspects of border area history and culture and formation of contacts with the inhabitants of these populated points, where the camps take place. 

Ukraine -- New Report on Jewish Cemeteries in Kiev Region

Lo Tishkach, the international organization involved in documenting and preserving Jewish cemeteries, has just published a detailed report on the cemeteries and World War II Holocaust mass grave sites in the Kiev (Kyiv) region of Ukraine, which can be downloaded as a file.

This report on the Jewish burial grounds of Kyiv Region, or Oblast, is one of the results of a number of education and research projects undertaken by the Lo Tishkach Foundation in the spring and summer of 2009. It catalogues 52 Jewish cemeteries and 29 Holocaust-era mass graves. The publication, which can be downloaded HERE, also contains details of two mass graves dating from 1919, when many Ukrainian Jews were murdered in the wave of pogroms committed in the aftermath of the Russian revolution.

Thanks to the efforts of local partners and with the support of the Genesis Philanthropy Group, this material is now available for Kyiv Oblast, the area around Ukraine’s capital and its largest city. During the spring and summer months of 2009, 83 burial grounds in the Kyiv Region were located, visited, surveyed and photographed, creating a unique record of the region’s Jewish heritage.

The report gives the history of the cemetery and of the local Jewish community (in many cases destroyed in the Holocaust), as well as details of access, location and demarcation of the cemetery; graves, gravestones, memorial markers and structures; condition and threats.

Lo Tishkach surveys in the Kiev Oblast of Ukraine have shown that the following works are urgently required on the cemeteries listed below. 

Baryshivka Jewish Cemetery – Identification marker, fencing

Bohuslav Jewish Cemetery – Completion of fencing, vegetation clearance

Borodianka Jewish Cemetery – Fencing, reparation of broken monuments, vegetation clearance

Boryspil Jewish Cemetery – Identification marker

Brovary Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, identification marker

Byshiv Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, identification marker, restoration of remaining matzevot

Dymer Jewish Cemetery – Vegetation clearance, fencing, restoration of metal grave markers

Hermanivka Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, memorial plaque

Hnativka Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker

Hornostaypil Old Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker

Hornostaypil New Jewish Cemetery – Identification marker

Hostomel Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker

Hrebinky Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, identification marker

Kaharlyk Jewish Cemetery – Vegetation clearance, fencing

Kivshovata Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker

Kodra Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker

Kozyn Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker

Kyiv (Zvirynetske) Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, identification marker

Makariv Jewish Cemetery – Identification marker

Medvyn Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, vegetation clearance, identification marker

Obukhiv Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, identification marker

Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi Jewish Cemetery – Fencing

Piatyhory Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker, restoration of gravestones

Poliske Jewish Cemetery – Completion and restoration of fence, vegetation clearance

Rokytne Jewish Cemetery – Completion of cemetery wall

Rozhiv Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker

Rzhyschiv Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker

Skvyra Old Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, identification marker

Tetiiv Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker

Trypillia Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, identification marker

Vasylkiv Old Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, identification marker

Volodarka Old Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, identification marker

Volodarka New Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, identification marker

Voronkiv Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker

Yahotyn Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker, gravestone restoration

Yasnohorodka Jewish Cemetery – Delineation of cemetery boundaries, fencing, identification marker