Ukraine -- On Its Crumbling Jewish Heritage

The ruined synagogue in Brody, Ukraine, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The distinguished Brown University historian Omer Bartov will be giving a talk based on his book Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia on November 23 near Boston, as the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston's 2nd Annual Genealogy Lecture co-sponsored by Hebrew College. (For details see here.)

Bartov gave a similar talk at the major conference on Jewish history and heritage in East-Central Europe that was held in L'viv, Ukraine at the end of October, and for which I gave the key note speech.

For his talk in L'viv, he basically just showed a series of pictures of ruined synagogues that he had taken on his travels in western Ukraine, stressing the important message that unless they are restored, they will crumble -- and with them will vanish the memory of the Jews who once formed such an important parts of the towns in which these ruins now are found. (I have posted pictures of a number of these sites, either on this blog, or in the photos section of my web site: www.ruthellengruber.comhttp://www.ruthellengruber.com, and have written about many of them in Jewish Heritage Travel.)

Omer's photos are compelling, but I hope that he includes in his upcoming talk some of the issues that were discussed at length during the L'viv conference.

These include many of the issues that I have been dealing with in the blog -- and which Sam Gruber has dealt with extensively, in his blog, on the International Survey of Jewish Monuments site, and in nearly 20 years of trying to raise awareness of the plight (and importance) of Jewish heritage sites (in Ukraine and elsewhere) and also -- importantly -- to raise money to help restore them and to instill the idea that they are important for local communities as well as for Jews.

Omer's book, Erased, which came out last year, touched me in particular ways.

As I emailed him at the time, some of his discussion about attitudes to Jewish heritage and memory reminded me of what we had heard and found elsewhere in east-central Europe back in 1990 -- as I was beginning research on the first edition of Jewish Heritage Travel.

A conference organized by Sam in 1990 on the future of Jewish heritage sites was really the first such conference of its type. Back then, the prevailing attitude, among Jews as well as non-Jews, toward preserving Jewish heritage was "why?" By now, in many places, much has changed, and in many minds, "why?" is being or has been largely replaced by "how?" Many of these issues were further elaborated in conferences on the future of Jewish heritage held in Paris in 1999 and in Prague in 2004.

I summarized some of them in my key note speech in L'viv:

Twenty, and even 15 years ago -- even much more recently in some countries, even simple information on Jewish heritage sites was hard to come by, little systematic documentation existed, and few publications addressed the subject.

Jewish heritage sites, like Jewish history and culture and even the Holocaust itself, were often considered "Jewish things" -- things apart that were not deemed important for mainstream society, and not embedded in the main sweep of national or local history. They could be ignored, destroyed, forgotten, concealed, left to crumble, and it didn't matter -- because, except for a few examples, in the absence of Jews they were deemed to have no value for society at large. Jews themselves also often felt ambiguous about Jewish heritage sites and their fate, particularly after the Holocaust made Europe a closed chapter in many Jewish minds.

Since then, times have changed, and changed radically in some places, and they continue to do so -- as this conference itself attests.
By the end of the 1990s, Jewish heritage issues were, to one extent or another, on the agendas of national monuments authorities and local organizations, including tourist bureaus, in many European countries; extensive inventories of Jewish heritage sites had taken place or were under way in some countries; and questions about the place and role of Jewish heritage and heritage sites in a changing Europe had emerged as part of a broader debate on European culture, "multi-culture" and identity. For Jews, too, the question evolved -- from simply "why" care for Jewish heritage sites in these countries -- to "how" to do so, "what use" to make of them, and "by whom" and "for whom" should it be done.. . .

These last questions -- what use to make of sites, who should carry out the restoration and for whom should it be done -- are key to their preservation. (We had extensive talks in L'viv on how to "reimagine" Jewish L'viv, for example.)

Also:

In considering the future of Jewish quarters, and Jewish heritage sites in general, several more specific questions have emerged -- and I know that some of them will be addressed here in the coming days in much more detail.
Does the absorption of Jewish heritage into mainstream culture accurately portray the past? To what degree is commercial exploitation of Jewish history and heritage legitimate? Does the history of the Holocaust impose particular obligations on non-Jews to consider, learn and even care for Jewish culture?
Also: What role can cultural heritage sites and activities play in shaping modern Jewish communities? And -- what role do they play in shaping modern perceptions of what it is to be Jewish?

In my travels in Ukraine in 2006, researching the new edition of JHT, I really felt as if I had stepped back into those days nearly 20 years ago, in other countries.....who knows if and what may change in coming years; in 2006 I detected a few sprigs of movement, such as the efforts to locate and preserve Jewish cemeteries coordinated by Meylakh Shyekhat -- and the work of a young local historian in Luboml, who is obsessed with local (ie Jewish) history and worked on the big Luboml exhibition and book project in the 1990s. But these still need to be nurtured (and funded) -- and good will and local interest are essential ingredients.

Former synagogue in Sharhorod, Ukraine, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Plaque on synagogue in Sharhorod, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Placing plaques and signage -- as Sam Gruber noted in his recent blog post -- are important steps. For me, for example, the ruined synagogue in Stryj, with its recently installed gate with stars of David and its plaque, makes a powerful statement -- though the plaque could and should contain more information. (In contrast, see the former synagogue in Dolina, which was transformed out of recognition into a church and bears no indication of its former function.)

The recent conference in L'viv and the conversations that some of us held afterward with local officials also give rise to some hope. As does the operation of the new Center for Urban History that organized and hosted the conference. But who knows....

Ukraine -- Old Picture of Galich Karaite neighborhood and Kenessa

The other day I posted a slide show of the old Karaite cemetery in Galich (Halych) Ukraine... Here is a link to an old postcard (from 1910) showing the Karaite neighborhood and kenessa (house of worship) in Galich (in Polish spelled Halicz) that is posted on Tomek Wisniewski's bagnowka web site. The wooden kenessa, whose highly decorated interior is shown on the post card, no longer exists.

Ukraine -- Restoration Works on the Synagogue in Zhovkva

On Tuesday, before flying back to Italy from Ukraine, I spent part of the day in Zhovkva, about a 40 minute drive northwest of L'viv, where a massive fortress style synagogue, built in the 17th century, is under (slow) restoration as part of longterm efforts to develop the entire center of the town -- declared by authorites in 1994 as a historic preservation district. Mihajlo Kubai, who is in charge of the restoration and development plan, took me and two colleagues, including Sofia Dyak of the L'viv Center for Urban History, on a tour of the synagogue and other historical sites in Zhovkva and described the ambitious, 15-year restoration project.

Founded in 1594 by the Polish nobleman Stanislaw Zholkiewski, the town -- known as Zholkva in Yiddish and Zolkiew in Polish -- was laid out as an "ideal city" by the Italian-born architect Paulus Szczesliwy (AKA Pavlo Schastliviy). Jews settled here from the start, and Zhovkva became an important Jewish center -- before WW2, about half the population was Jewish, more than 5,000 people. (See a web site on the town and its monuments.)

The synagogue, one of the key buildings in town, dates from 1687. Its flat roofline has the crenellations and blind arcaded tracery typical of the style and period. The Germans tried to dynamite the building in 1941 but only partially succeeded in destroying it. The interior was gutted, but the outer walls survived. Inside there are also some traces of wall paintings and the decorative carving surrounding the Ark. Some restoration work was carried out in the 1950s and 1990s, but for the most part the grand building has remained empty and derelict. (Read a description by Boris Khaimovich, writing in the Jewish Heritage Report.)

Thanks in part to the efforts of Sam Gruber, the synagogue received a Jewish Heritage grant from the World Monuments Fund and was also placed on the WMF's Watch List of 100 most endangered sites. Work has been going on sporadically, and state funding has also arrived.

Currently, workers are rebuilding the crenelations and also restoring the facade on two sides of the building. Not much is going on inside, but Mr. Kubai said that once restoration is completed, there were still plans to use the synagogue as a museum of Galician Jewish history and culture.



Other sites we visited included the castle (where work was proceeding on restoration of the huge central courtyard), the main market square, which retains some of the arcaded buildings that once surrounded it, and the huge, early 17th century Roman Catholic church of St. Lawrence, used in Soviet times as a warehouse but restored beautifully by international experts after Ukraine gained independence in the early 1990s. It includes the tombs of Stanislaw Zholkiewski and other members of his family.

I was pleased to find that there is a tourist office for the town (near the castle) with material in English and an English-speaking staffer.

Krakow versus L'viv, Sam's view

Sam Gruber has posted a thoughtful piece on his Jewish arts and monuments blog about ways in which Jewish heritage can be reclaimed in L'viv, and he made some comparisons with Krakow's old Jewish quarter, Kazimierz. His post, with pragmatic suggestions, is based on the more detailed paper he delivered at the Jewish heritage and history conference that we both attended in L'viv last week.

Ukraine -- More of On the Road

I wrote the other day about my visit to Bolekhiv and Stryj with Sergei Kravstov and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett.

After leaving Bolekhiv, we stopped briefly at a couple of other places en route back to L'viv.

At the village of Dolina, we looked at the synagogue, which was transformed in the 1990s into a Baptist church. The red brick walls have been covered by a layer of grey stucco, and a little front extension with two pointed towers has been added.

(Dolina former synagogue. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber, 2008)


Behind the synagogue, on the steep slope above a little stream, is the site of the WW2 mass execution and mass grave of local Jews.


From Dolina, we bumped along the country roads to Galich (or Halych, as it is pronounced in Ukrainian, where we visited what looks like a "normal" Jewish cemetery (Hebrew epitaphs and similar decorative carving) but is actually the cemetery of the Karaite community. An ethnic Turkish people, Karaites follow a breakaway Jewish sect that originated in 8th century Iraq. They recognize the Torah and celebrate major Jewish holidays but have modified other Jewish traditions, reject the Talmud and rabbinical Judaism, and do not consider themselves to be Jewish.



Perched high above the Dniester River, Galich was the medieval capital of the province and kingdom of Galicia -- it's the town from which the region gets its name.

Unfortunately we didn't have time to visit the historic sites in the town (though we did catch a glimpse of the castle, from the cemetery). We had to get back to L'viv for a meeting -- our driver, Sergei, absolutely flew back, speeding down the country roads in his Chevy (which lacked a back bumper). I'm glad I wasn't sitting in the front seat.

Spain -- Construction on Site of Ancient Toledo Jewish Cemetery

Sam Gruber reports in his blog that controversy is brewing over excavation for new construction on the site recognized as the medieval Jewish cemetery in Toledo, Spain. There is already a school on the site, built in the 80’s that destroyed a great part of the cemetery. The new excavation is for expansion of the school. He suggests that "the only solution in such a case must be to halt new excavation in any area that can be confirmed to hold graves. It is possible that some surface construction can be allowed that would ultimately protect the graves. "

Read the Full Story

Ukraine -- Ber of Bolechow's Tomb (and more)

This weekend, I spent a day traveling south of L'viv with Sergei Kravstov, of the Center for Jewish Art, and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, the NYU anthropologist who now heads the project of the new Museum of Jewish History, now under development in Poland.

I organized the trip (meaning, getting a taxi) -- my goal was to go to Bolekhiv (Bolechow) in order to revisit the old Jewish cemetery there to find the tomb of Dov Ber Birkenthal, AKA Ber of Bolechow.

Born in 1723, Ber was a wine merchant and Jewish community leader. He spent much of his adult life traveling to and fro between Galicia and northern Hungary, on frequent wine-purchasing missions to the Tokaj region. Several years before his death in 1805, he wrote a fascinating memoir that provides particularly illuminating insights into conditions for Jews -- and non-Jews -- of the period in Polish Galicia and Hungary. He described everything from driving hard bargains to obtain the best quality wine for the lowest prices to experiencing the perils of the road -- complicated currency exchanges and customs duties, drunken wagon drivers, icy, unfordable rivers, double-dealing business partners, flea-ridden inns, occasional attacks by roving bandits, and more. Ber met the great Hungarian Hasidic Master Isaac Taub when the future Tzaddik of Nagykallo (or Kallo) was little more than a boy. He became particularly friendly with the Jews in the wine-producing village Tarcal, near Tokaj and Mad, and in 1765 brought them a magnificent set of gold and silver ritual objects, which he had ordered specially made by craftsmen in L'viv.

When I visited Bolekhiv in 2006, I found a tombstone of someone named Dov Ber, decorated with the carving of a bear and bunches of grapes -- but it turned out that it was not that of Ber of Bolechow.

This time I was determined to find the real tomb. Sergei Kravstov, who is one of the leading experts on Jewish heritage sites in Ukraine, had seen the tomb before and thought he could find it again amid the hundreds of other stones.

The cemetery, we found, is now being fenced with a concrete wall -- a cemetery group based in Budapest, which does a lot of such work, is carrying this out.

We made our way through the tombstones. Most are large and ornately carved, with images of animals, grapes, and floral designs, and elaborate caligraphy -- either in incised or raised letters . The oldest are believed to date from the 17th century.



After what seemed like an hour, we had not found the tomb... Sergei, a little sheepishly, took out his cellphone and called colleagues in Israel, who told him where and what to look for -- a tomb whose decoration at the top of the stone showed a big seated bear holding a crown in his paws, with grape motifs at the sides. We found it easily -- we had already passed it by several times.

The epitaph was a little hard to decipher, and the lines of text ran down into the earth, where the tomb had sunk.



We found Ber's name toward the bottom of the text that was visible -- Sergei said it was written in a Yiddish, not a Hebrew, spelling.






En route to Bolekhiv, we stopped in Stryj to check on the condition of the ruined synagogue there.



It appeared the way I had seen it 2 years ago; it's a devastated shell, but the entry is closed with the gate and a plaque denotes it as a former synagogue. I had thought it was a fortress style synagogue, but Sergei had a photo of an old postcard of the synagogue that showed it after a renovated in the late 19th century, with a peaked roof and sort of Byzantine decoration.

Barcelona: Zakhor Jewish Heritage Organization web site

Here's the web site for Zakhor, a new study center in Barcelona "for the protection and transmission of Jewish heritage."

Ukraine -- L'viv Conference and Travel

I haven't posted anything for a week, as I have been in L'viv, Ukraine, where I took part in the Oct. 29-31 International Conference on Jewish Heritage and History in East-Central Europe, organized by the recently established L'viv Center for Urban History of East Central Europe. The Center, established by a Swiss-Austrian historian, Harald Binder, aims to be not only a center for research and projects, but also a facilitator, providing a "neutral space" where the sometimes conflictual elements of L'viv's political and cultural society and policy-makers can come together for discussions. The conference coincided with the opening of an exhibition on L'viv's multi-ethnic history, "Wo Ist Lemberg/L'viv A World A Way."

I gave the keynote presentation for the conference -- "Touching and Retouching: Balancing Real, Surreal and Real Imaginary Jewish Spaces," a paper that drew from my previous work and tried to provide some context for the various topics that were being addressed in detail by speakers.

The meeting gathered prominent scholars and other experts from Western Europe, Israel, and the U.S., as well as from Ukraine (among participants was my brother, Samuel Gruber, who I am sure will post some of his reflections on the meeting on his blog).

This was believed to have been the first conference of this nature held in L'viv -- the presentations were pertinent and interesting, and the discussion was very lively and intense. In addition, several of us met after the conference with various officials and others, including the L'viv deputy mayor and the director of the History of Religions Museum. Hot-button topics included the promotion of Jewish heritage and the future of L'viv's derelict former Jewish quarter off the main square, including the ruins of the famous Golden Rose synagogue, and plans for a new Judaica exhibit space in the Jewish quarter.

Questions that were raised echoed those raised in other countries years ago; models for development, the legitimacy of commercial and tourist exploitation of Jewish heritage; the danger of promoting stereotype, etc. Lots was said about the goods and ills of Krakow's Kazimierz district... along these lines, a new "Jewish style" cafe that opened a weeks or so next to the ruins of the Golden Rose stole the show, or part of the show.... We all (or, at least some of us) trooped over to take a look....to me, the interior decor is not bad at all -- rather subdued, with no kitschy carved Jews clutching money, as in Kiev's Tsimmes restaurant or the Ariel in Krakow (and Anatewka in Lodz). There are reproductions of historic photos and motifs based on Bruno Schulz's work.

BUT (and it's a big BUT) -- the cafe displays a collection of black hats complete with long, fake sidelocks (which patrons are encouraged to try on and clown around in). The barman wears a yarmulke -- and patrons are supposed to "haggle" over prices. No prices are listed in the menus -- the waitress is supposed to tell you a price and you have to bargain her down to the actual price the management has (secretly) set..... It's sort of Jewish self irony, without the Jews, or the self or the irony..... The same owner apparently runs several other (debatable) "theme" restaurants in town.


It may take some time to sort my thoughts, so I will try to write some posts on specific issues that came up.

After the conference, I was able to spend a day traveling to four Jewish heritage sites, and I am posting separately on this trip.

Jewish Hungary brochure -- online

A Jewish guide to Hungary called "Shalom Hungary" came out in the 1990s as a magazine-like brochure, published by the national tourism agency.

A updated edition of Shalom Hungary is available online. You can easily download the pdf. The brochure is illustrated and also has a list of addresses of Jewish community offices around the country.