VINNITZA, Ukraine — A recent development in the city of Vinnitza may produce some real benefits for visitors making a pilgrimage to another renowned Ukrainian city – Uman. As explained by Chief Rabbi of Vinnitza Shaul Horowitz, a Chabad Lubavitch emissary serving in the region, the ‘Gavrishovka’ airport in Vinnitza is being re-opened by the local government. Once renovations to the runway are completed, it will have the capacity to receive aircraft.
This is good news, particularly for Bratslav Chassids, who traditionally embark on pilgrimages to Uman, especially at Rosh Hashanah. While this question was raised with local authorities previously on numerous occasions, it is only this year that this project is actually attainable, with the flight route Tel Aviv-Vinnitza being scheduled. While such flights cannot accommodate all Bratslav Chassids who make their way back to Ukraine, this is certainly a benefit for many.
Such a development is noteworthy, since it significantly lightens the load on those making the pilgrimage to Uman. Vinnitza is located between several places that are sacred for Chassidic Jews. It is 90 km from Medzhibozh, 80 km from Berdichev, and 160 from Uman. In addition to this, Vinnitza is situated rather close to Bratslav, separated by a small distance of 30 km.
Uman is home to the gravesite of Rebbe Nakhman of Bratslav, the leader of the Bratslav Chassids. Here, males come to pay tribute at the Rebbe’s grave and jointly celebrate Rosh Hashanah — the Jewish New Year. According to unofficial estimates, Uman was visited by some 20,000 pilgrims over the past 12 months. Chief Rabbi Horovitz had noted that this latest development is not only advantageous for pilgrims themselves, but will also raise the prestige of Ukraine as a state.
Showing posts with label Ukraine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ukraine. Show all posts
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Monument honors slain Ukraine rabbi
Published: 06/26/2008
A rabbi murdered during World War II was honored with a new monument in eastern Ukraine.
The opening ceremony for a monument built in memory of Rabbi Dov Ber Schneerson, a brother of the Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was dedicated June 22 on the outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk.
According to the leaders of the local Jewish community, the memorial complex erected at the actual location of Schneerson’s shooting was dedicated on the date he was killed by Nazi soldiers in 1941. A witness helped local Jews identify the site.
Local authorities, Jewish leaders and members of the Jewish community took part in the opening.
A rabbi murdered during World War II was honored with a new monument in eastern Ukraine.
The opening ceremony for a monument built in memory of Rabbi Dov Ber Schneerson, a brother of the Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was dedicated June 22 on the outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk.
According to the leaders of the local Jewish community, the memorial complex erected at the actual location of Schneerson’s shooting was dedicated on the date he was killed by Nazi soldiers in 1941. A witness helped local Jews identify the site.
Local authorities, Jewish leaders and members of the Jewish community took part in the opening.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Ukranian president, Jewish leaders to meet
Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko will meet local Jewish leaders to discuss recent anti-Semitic attacks.
Yuschenko on Monday also will meet with representatives of the Ukrainian community and law enforcement generals about a spate of anti-Semitic attacks in Ukraine and the lackluster reaction by law enforcement agencies. There have no been no arrests or successful prosecutions, a member of Yuschenko's administration told JTA.
Yuschenko is expected to make a statement about combating the rise of ethnic hatred and anti-Semitic attacks in his country.
In late September three separate attacks on observant Jews took place in Zhitomir, Sevastopol and Cherkassy. On Oct. 5, the Chabad house in the city of Uzhgorod was set ablaze and robbed.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Torah scrolls confiscated from Ukrainian community
KIEV — As their Torah scrolls were packed into black plastic garbage bags and carried out of the Jewish school, the students and adults continued to pray, many with tears in their eyes.
The scrolls originally belonged to the Jewish community of Zhitomir in central Ukraine, but were acquired by the local state archives through communist and Nazi looting.
Since then, in the absence of a restitution law, the archives had lent the scrolls to the community — but on shaky terms.
On February 14, the community was forced to return 10 scrolls it had received more than two years ago.
Representatives of the archives carried them out of the Ohr Avner Jewish Day School, leaving the community without any scrolls.
“This was like the medieval times, this was like a nightmare,” said Oleg Rostovtsev, a spokesman for the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine, the country’s leading Jewish umbrella group.
The seizure was the result of a controversy that was triggered a few months ago when the officials at the Zhitomir Regional State Archives demanded the return of the scrolls, citing concern over their safety.
In 2004, the archives handed over 17 out of 290 Torah scrolls in its possession to be used by the local Jewish community run by Chabad.
The scrolls had been the property of the many synagogues and private Jewish households in Zhitomir, and were confiscated by communist authorities during anti-religious campaigns or seized by the Nazis during the occupation of Ukraine in World War II.
For two-and-a-half years, the scrolls were kept in a specially designated room at the Ohr Avner school.
Without a restitution law, many Jewish communities in the post-Soviet Ukraine were allowed to temporarily use Torah scrolls confiscated by the Bolsheviks, while most of the scrolls remain the property of state-run museums and archives.
Such loans do not always satisfy the Jewish community.
The Zhitomir community had previously expressed its concern that in the absence of a proper restitution act, they could not repair the borrowed scrolls in accordance with Jewish law.
In addition, representatives of the community had to submit a petition every three months that would allow them to keep the scrolls.
In October, representatives of the archives checked the scrolls kept in the Zhitomir school and demanded their return, claiming that at least seven of the scrolls may have been damaged while in the community’s possession.
Archive Deputy Director Natalia Shimchenko said that the archive’s curators had established that the “number of units” registered with the archives “did not correspond with those in the community safe.”
Local Jewish leaders deny the accusations of improper care or alterations and said the scrolls — some of them fragmented — were improperly catalogued in the archives.
But the community chose not to argue, and last month returned the seven scrolls in question to the archives.
The archives then refused to prolong the loan agreement on the remaining 10 scrolls and confiscated them Wednesday despite protests from the Jewish community and the local governor.
“We are law-abiding citizens of Ukraine and we have not violated any laws,” community leader Vladimir Rozengurten said, adding that allegations of improper care and damage were “slander.”
“The statements that we have damaged the scrolls are outrageous,” Zhitomir Chief Rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm said. “This is a groundless accusation, and we still have no results of the examination” of the scrolls.
But community leaders said they had to back off, apprehensive of possible use of force by representatives of the archives.
“I’m sure we are not saying goodbye for a long time to the Torah scrolls,” Rozengurten said.
He and other community leaders are hoping that legislation will be adopted in Ukraine dictating the return of the scrolls that were confiscated by the Bolsheviks and the Nazis.
JTA
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Ukraine Native Staying Home to Keep Jewish Tradition Alive
VANO-FRANKOVSK, Ukraine, Jan. 30 (JTA) -- As an observant Jew, Moishe Leib Kolesnik admits he thinks about moving to Israel and the ease of living a religious lifestyle there rather than staying in this Western Ukraine city.
But Kolesnik just can't leave his hometown, which he serves as spiritual leader and keeper of all things Jewish.
"Leaving the community for some time is very difficult for me," he acknowledges.
Kolesnik, 50, is rare among the Orthodox spiritual leaders, mostly from Chabad-Lubavitch, serving in Ukraine. For one thing, he can speak the native tongue fluently.
In a country where Jewish tradition was nearly obliterated by the Holocaust and communist anti-religious persecution, reviving Jewish tradition today has relied almost entirely on foreigners, mainly Israelis or Americans.
Had it not been for Kolesnik's interest in Judaism, Ivano-Frankovsk might not have any spiritual leadership.
More than 80 percent of its Jews emigrated when communism ended -- only about 700 Jews remain, Kolesnik estimates, in a city of 200,000. In 1995 he had to close a small yeshiva, or religious school, that he opened due to a lack of students. Most of the remaining Jews are secular and rarely attend his services.
But Kolesnik nonetheless has become the ultimate source of information on Jewish matters. He has traveled the region in his efforts to preserve its rich Jewish history.
They call Kolesnik rabbi in Ivano-Frankovsk, though he has no formal ordination.
"When I need anything concerning Jews, our rabbi always has a response," says Olga Markus, a local Jewish activist and director of the Magen Avot charitable group here. "He is the best archival database."
Kolesnik has what he calls a "federation smicha," the authority given to him by the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities -- the largest Jewish group in the former Soviet Union -- to perform rabbinical duties.
"Rabbi Moishe Kolesnik revives Jewish life successfully, and thanks to his knowledge hundreds of Galicia Jews became closer to their roots," said Rabbi Azriel Chaikin, one of three chief rabbis of Ukraine. "Thanks to his energy, fluent Ukrainian and good knowledge of the mentality of Ukrainian society, he succeeded in resolving many issues."
Kolesnik also has a blessing from his religious mentor, an elderly Holocaust survivor named Yehudah Goldscheid who had a rabbinical background from when the area was part of prewar Poland.
Reb Yidl, as Goldscheid's followers affectionately called him, "taught me all concerning traditional Jewish life and Judaism," Kolesnik says.
Although he was raised in a non-observant home, Kolesnik says he's always had a strong Jewish identity, and Yiddish was often heard in his family. Still, he had prepared himself for a different career.
Kolesnik attended a university in his hometown, graduating with a degree in Russian philology. In the early 1980s he took a job as the language teacher at a secondary school in Kolomya, a small provincial town an hour's drive from Ivano-Frankovsk.
Perhaps it was the spirit in Kolomya that led to the increased importance of Judaism in his life. Kolesnik notes proudly that the founder of Chasidism, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, used to pray there.
Kolesnik says he first encountered religious Jews in the early '80s when he visited Kiev and Moscow. That's when he became involved in underground religious activism: the learning and teaching of the Torah, underground prayer services and organizing funerals in accordance with Jewish tradition.
Before World War II, when Ivano-Frankovsk was called Stanislavov and was the center of a province in eastern Poland, the approximately 50,000 Jews there comprised half of its population. Most of them were killed in the Holocaust.
Although little today remains of Ivano-Frankovsk' s prewar Jewish past, Kolesnik believes he has a mission to preserve as much of it as he can.
"I have traveled to towns and villages throughout the region, met with local Jews and people often showed old Jewish books and documents" still preserved in their homes, says Kolesnik, who is married.
Over the years he has built a rich collection of old books, mostly in Hebrew, a language few people in the region understand. Kolesnik says he was particularly fascinated by the handwritten notes found in many of the books he came across.
Today the library he collected from these trips includes more than 1,000 Hebrew books, as well as community records and photographs from dozens of towns across the region. He keeps these treasures in the town's historic synagogue, an impressive two-story building that stands like a silent testimony to the past importance and prosperity of the local Jewish community.
Built in 1898 as one of some 60 Jewish houses of prayer in town at the time, the synagogue was confiscated by the communist authorities in 1941. It was returned to the community -- mainly thorough Kolesnik's efforts -- after Ukrainian independence in the early '90s.
In his travels, Kolesnik drew maps of many Jewish cemeteries, a priceless resource for foreign Jews who often come to this region searching for their roots.
But for local Jews their spiritual leader is a no less trusted authority.
"He was born here, and we speak the common language, both in direct and in figurative sense," says Yankel Berezin, 72, a member of the local Jewish community.
In addition to the synagogue, there is a small Jewish day school in town run by the Chabad-led Ohr Avner Foundation that has 30 students, a Hebrew school for 20 children and a kindergarten with nine students. The synagogue also houses a mikvah, or ritual bath, a women's club and an Israeli cultural center.
Aware of his vital role in the community, Kolesnik sees his mission as staying as long as possible. Asked about the community's future, he prefers not to speculate.
"Making prognoses is a ludicrous business," he says. "The main goal today is to preserve" what is left of the community.
© JTA. Reproduction of material without written permission is strictly prohibited.
But Kolesnik just can't leave his hometown, which he serves as spiritual leader and keeper of all things Jewish.
"Leaving the community for some time is very difficult for me," he acknowledges.
Kolesnik, 50, is rare among the Orthodox spiritual leaders, mostly from Chabad-Lubavitch, serving in Ukraine. For one thing, he can speak the native tongue fluently.
In a country where Jewish tradition was nearly obliterated by the Holocaust and communist anti-religious persecution, reviving Jewish tradition today has relied almost entirely on foreigners, mainly Israelis or Americans.
Had it not been for Kolesnik's interest in Judaism, Ivano-Frankovsk might not have any spiritual leadership.
More than 80 percent of its Jews emigrated when communism ended -- only about 700 Jews remain, Kolesnik estimates, in a city of 200,000. In 1995 he had to close a small yeshiva, or religious school, that he opened due to a lack of students. Most of the remaining Jews are secular and rarely attend his services.
But Kolesnik nonetheless has become the ultimate source of information on Jewish matters. He has traveled the region in his efforts to preserve its rich Jewish history.
They call Kolesnik rabbi in Ivano-Frankovsk, though he has no formal ordination.
"When I need anything concerning Jews, our rabbi always has a response," says Olga Markus, a local Jewish activist and director of the Magen Avot charitable group here. "He is the best archival database."
Kolesnik has what he calls a "federation smicha," the authority given to him by the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities -- the largest Jewish group in the former Soviet Union -- to perform rabbinical duties.
"Rabbi Moishe Kolesnik revives Jewish life successfully, and thanks to his knowledge hundreds of Galicia Jews became closer to their roots," said Rabbi Azriel Chaikin, one of three chief rabbis of Ukraine. "Thanks to his energy, fluent Ukrainian and good knowledge of the mentality of Ukrainian society, he succeeded in resolving many issues."
Kolesnik also has a blessing from his religious mentor, an elderly Holocaust survivor named Yehudah Goldscheid who had a rabbinical background from when the area was part of prewar Poland.
Reb Yidl, as Goldscheid's followers affectionately called him, "taught me all concerning traditional Jewish life and Judaism," Kolesnik says.
Although he was raised in a non-observant home, Kolesnik says he's always had a strong Jewish identity, and Yiddish was often heard in his family. Still, he had prepared himself for a different career.
Kolesnik attended a university in his hometown, graduating with a degree in Russian philology. In the early 1980s he took a job as the language teacher at a secondary school in Kolomya, a small provincial town an hour's drive from Ivano-Frankovsk.
Perhaps it was the spirit in Kolomya that led to the increased importance of Judaism in his life. Kolesnik notes proudly that the founder of Chasidism, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, used to pray there.
Kolesnik says he first encountered religious Jews in the early '80s when he visited Kiev and Moscow. That's when he became involved in underground religious activism: the learning and teaching of the Torah, underground prayer services and organizing funerals in accordance with Jewish tradition.
Before World War II, when Ivano-Frankovsk was called Stanislavov and was the center of a province in eastern Poland, the approximately 50,000 Jews there comprised half of its population. Most of them were killed in the Holocaust.
Although little today remains of Ivano-Frankovsk' s prewar Jewish past, Kolesnik believes he has a mission to preserve as much of it as he can.
"I have traveled to towns and villages throughout the region, met with local Jews and people often showed old Jewish books and documents" still preserved in their homes, says Kolesnik, who is married.
Over the years he has built a rich collection of old books, mostly in Hebrew, a language few people in the region understand. Kolesnik says he was particularly fascinated by the handwritten notes found in many of the books he came across.
Today the library he collected from these trips includes more than 1,000 Hebrew books, as well as community records and photographs from dozens of towns across the region. He keeps these treasures in the town's historic synagogue, an impressive two-story building that stands like a silent testimony to the past importance and prosperity of the local Jewish community.
Built in 1898 as one of some 60 Jewish houses of prayer in town at the time, the synagogue was confiscated by the communist authorities in 1941. It was returned to the community -- mainly thorough Kolesnik's efforts -- after Ukrainian independence in the early '90s.
In his travels, Kolesnik drew maps of many Jewish cemeteries, a priceless resource for foreign Jews who often come to this region searching for their roots.
But for local Jews their spiritual leader is a no less trusted authority.
"He was born here, and we speak the common language, both in direct and in figurative sense," says Yankel Berezin, 72, a member of the local Jewish community.
In addition to the synagogue, there is a small Jewish day school in town run by the Chabad-led Ohr Avner Foundation that has 30 students, a Hebrew school for 20 children and a kindergarten with nine students. The synagogue also houses a mikvah, or ritual bath, a women's club and an Israeli cultural center.
Aware of his vital role in the community, Kolesnik sees his mission as staying as long as possible. Asked about the community's future, he prefers not to speculate.
"Making prognoses is a ludicrous business," he says. "The main goal today is to preserve" what is left of the community.
© JTA. Reproduction of material without written permission is strictly prohibited.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Ukrainian Jews: Stop media incitement
Ukraine’s Jewish community called on authorities to end anti-Semitic incitement in the media.
Vadim Rabinovich, leader of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, appealed Jan. 24 to Ukrainian law enforcement agencies to take measures that would suspend a Kiev university’s publication for continuously inciting interethnic hatred.
On Jan. 11, three newspapers associated with MAUP, a private school with a history of anti-Semitism, published an appeal by the Conservative Party of Ukraine that blamed the Chabad Lubavitch movement for Ukraine’s problems and called on authorities to deport members of the “Judeo-Nazi sect.”
The letter was published by Personal Plus, Ukrainian Newspaper Plus and For the Ukrainian Ukraine newspapers.
Rabinovich described the publications as libelous and aimed at creating a discord in Ukrainian society, which “can lead to unpredictable consequences.”
The Conservative Party of Ukraine, headed by MAUP President Georgy Schokin, ran in last year’s parliamentary elections but won no seats.
Vadim Rabinovich, leader of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, appealed Jan. 24 to Ukrainian law enforcement agencies to take measures that would suspend a Kiev university’s publication for continuously inciting interethnic hatred.
On Jan. 11, three newspapers associated with MAUP, a private school with a history of anti-Semitism, published an appeal by the Conservative Party of Ukraine that blamed the Chabad Lubavitch movement for Ukraine’s problems and called on authorities to deport members of the “Judeo-Nazi sect.”
The letter was published by Personal Plus, Ukrainian Newspaper Plus and For the Ukrainian Ukraine newspapers.
Rabinovich described the publications as libelous and aimed at creating a discord in Ukrainian society, which “can lead to unpredictable consequences.”
The Conservative Party of Ukraine, headed by MAUP President Georgy Schokin, ran in last year’s parliamentary elections but won no seats.
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