The Jewish population of Ukraine before the Second World War was over 2.5 million. Now the current population is only around 100,000. A whole world with its very own culture, rules, and customs was decimated...
[Editor’s note: More than 500 leaders from Israel, the United States, Europe and Ukraine participated in the inaugural Kyiv Jewish Forum held in the Ukrainian capital from 5-7 May 2019. Carl Gershman, President of the...
While conducting research on the history of Ukrainians in Canada during the interwar years, Jars Balan discovered a series of powerfully written articles by a forgotten Canadian Jewish journalist, named Rhea Clyman, describing the horrors...
[Editor’s note: In an effort to broaden the discussion of Ukrainian-Jewish interactions and relations, the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter proudly supports independent media projects. Along with Ukraine’s Hromadske Radio and Istorychna Pravda and Nash Holos in...
The historian Iryna Sklokina discusses the unofficial memory of the Holocaust during Soviet times, the search for unknown heroes, and the struggle to establish monuments. Today we will be talking about a lecture that took...
Dave Bloom is a member of the board of an organization dedicated to preserving the story of two Jewish communities and surrounding areas in Ukraine. One of them is called Drohobycz and the other is...
The historian Iryna Yavorska talks about “Jerusalem on the Prut River” after the war, Soviet propaganda, and the Yiddish language in Chernivtsi. Andriy Kobalia: The Second World War changed the face of many Ukrainian cities....
Photo essay: A little-known page of Ukraine’s national history. Below is a photo essay about efforts to create Jewish colonies in the south of Ukraine and in Crimea with the help of Jewish organizations in...
The American historian Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern discusses the Golden Age of the Jewish town, Polish magnates, and fragments of shtetl culture. Iryna Slavinska: We met through the lecture “Shtetl: The Jewish Town Phenomenon,” which was held...
The historians Daniel Hrenciuc and Maria Nykyrsa discuss the political and everyday dimensions of life in Chernivtsi between the two world wars. Andriy Kobalia: This small frontier city was initially part of the Principality of...
Ukrainians and Jews have lived as neighbours for centuries, creating and sharing enduring cultures that continue to inform their identities today. Ukrainian Jewish Encounter (UJE) is proud to present Part 1 of an integrated narrative of these two peoples in the belief that there is much to be gained by viewing their historical experience together, in all its complexity.
Since its launch in September 2022, the UJE Timeline has earned international recognition by winning eight international awards:
The 'Encounter' prize aims to build on the common experiences of Ukrainians and Jews over the centuries, expressed in literature and nonfiction. The Prize will be awarded annually to the most influential work in literature and nonfiction (in alternate years) that fosters Ukrainian-Jewish understanding, helping solidify Ukraine's place as a multi-ethnic society and giving truth to the motto, "Our stories are incomplete without each other."
The goal of the richly illustrated catalogue is to present an integrated narrative that looks at the experience of these two peoples together, in all its complexity — through periods of crisis, as well as long stretches of normal co-existence and multifaceted cultural interaction from antiquity to 1914.
