Ukrainian Jewish Encounter's events page on the Lviv BookForum website (in Ukrainian). All events will take place in person (offline) in the Ukrainian language.

We invite you to visit us at Stand 216 in the Lviv Arts Palace, Mykola Kopernyka St., 17, to learn more about our organization and publications.

03 October 2025 (Friday)

15:30 –16:45

Presentation and announcement of the winners of the Encounter: The Ukrainian-Jewish Literary Prize, 2025

Location:
Lviv Arts Palace, Conference Hall
Address: Mykola Kopernyka St., 17

Participants:
Maria Genkin, Volodymyr Yeshkilev, Ostap Slyvynsky, Sonya Kapinus, Mia Marchenko, Kateryna Pekur, Khrystyna Semeryn, Anna Nekrasova, Sofia Korn, Vasyl Shkliar

Moderator:
Andriy Pavlyshyn, Ukrainian journalist, public figure, historian, and translator
Lana Zhabiuk, Ukrainian journalist

In Person (Offline)
Join us in the announcement of the winners of the 2025 Encounter: The Ukrainian-Jewish Literary Prize, which celebrates outstanding contributions to Ukrainian fiction dedicated to the past and future of Ukrainian-Jewish relations. During the event, a presentation of the five shortlisted books will take place, featuring authors, translators from Yiddish and Hebrew, and editors who will share their thoughts on interethnic interaction and the modernity of intercultural relations. This year, the jury will have to choose between a mystical thriller, a classic novel, a fictionalized memoir, stories about Hasidim, and an anthology of works by twentieth-century Ukrainian writers about our Jewish compatriots. Members of the jury will also attend: co-founder of the Ukrainian book club in New York, Razom Book Club, and the volunteer movement in support of civil society, Razom for Ukraine, Maria Genkin (New York), Ukrainian writer and theorist of modern trends in literature and philosophy, Volodymyr Yeshkilev (Ivano-Frankivsk), and an outstanding translator from Slavic languages, member of PEN Ukraine, Ostap Slyvynsky (Lviv).

Shortlisted books for the 2025 Encounter prize:

Sonya Kapinus, White Rabbits (Kyiv: Publishing House ORLANDO, 2024)
Sonya Kapynus, Bili Krolyky (Kyiv: Vydavnychyy dim ORLANDO, 2024)

Mia Marchenko, Kateryna Pekur, Children of the Burning Time (Kharkiv Readberry, 2024)
Miya Marchenko, Kateryna Pekur, Dity vohnennoho chasu (Kharkiv: Readberry, 2024) 

Isaac Leib Peretz, Hasidic, (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2024)
Yitskhok Leybesh Perets, Khasydsʹke (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2024)

Khrystyna Semeryn (Editor), Centuries of Presence. The Jewish World in Ukrainian Short Prose of the 1880s–1930s (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2024)
Khrystyna Semeryn (Uporyadnytsya), Stolittya prysutnosti. Yevreysʹkyy svit v ukrayinsʹkiy korotkiy prozi 1880-kh–1930-kh (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2024)

Eli Schechtman, Ringen oyf der Neshome (Rings on the Soul) (Lviv: Apriori Publishing House, 2023)
Eli Schechtman, Goyrl. Kilʹtsya na dushi (Lviv: Vydavnytstvo Apriori, 2023

04 October (Saturday)

13:30 – 14:30

All-Ukrainian Student Drawing Competition "Ukrainian Jewish Encounter: Our Stories Are Incomplete Without Each Other"

Location:
Lviv Regional Library for Children
Address: Vynnychenko St., 1

Moderator:
Vladyslav Hrynevych, Regional Manager, UJE, Ukraine

In Person (Offline)
Presentation of the All-Ukrainian Student Drawing Competition, which is organized by the Ukrainian representative office of the Canadian charitable nonprofit organization Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.

15:00 – 15:45

Presentation of new books in the field of Jewish studies

Location:
Bookstore Ye
Address: Svoboda Ave., 7

Participants:
Tetiana Nepypenko, Yehor Vradii, Igor Shchupak, Maryna Horbachuk

Moderator:
Andriy Pavlyshyn, Ukrainian journalist, public figure, historian, and translator

In Person (Offline)
Presentation of new books in the field of Jewish studies, published in 2024-2025 by the publishing houses "Dukh i Litera" (Kyiv), "Tkuma" (Dnipro), and "Books XXI" (Chernivtsi).

05 October 2025 (Sunday)

10:00 – 10:45

The New Ukrainian History Textbook for Schools is the World's Most Pro-Israeli

Location:
Bookstore Ye
Address: Svoboda Ave., 7

Participants:
Igor Shchupak, Ze'ev Khanin

Moderator:
Dr. Yehor Vradii (Tkuma Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies, Dnipro)

In Person (Offline)
Never before has the topic of Israel, the history of the Arab-Israeli wars, and the conflict in the Middle East been presented in school textbooks in such detail and objectively, without stereotypes of the Soviet era, with pro-Ukrainian and pro-Israeli accents. Such reviews were presented in Ukrainian and Israeli media regarding the textbook, World History, for 11^th-grade secondary schools in Ukraine, which covers the period of Modern History from the end of World War II to the present. Eleven pages in the textbook are devoted to the history of Israel and the Middle East conflict.

Discussants are Dr. Igor Shchupak, author of the textbook and Director of the Tkuma Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies (Dnipro), and Dr. Ze'ev Khanin, an Israeli journalist, analyst, publicist, and associate professor at Bar-Ilan University.

14:00 – 15:00

Listen, Read, Understand: Ukrainian Translations of Hebrew- and Yiddish-language Authors

Location:
House of Sound of LKP "Lviv Radio"
Address: Kniazia Romana St., 6

Participants:
Diana Klochko, Tetiana Nepypenko, Mariana Maksymiak, Anna Nekrasova

Moderator:
Andriy Pavlyshyn, Ukrainian journalist, public figure, historian, and translator

In Person (Offline)
A conversation about Ukrainian translations of Hebrew- and Yiddish-language authors with the participation of essayist and art critic Diana Klochko, poet, founder of the Agnon Literary Center in Buchach, Mariana Maksymiak, Yiddish translator Tetiana Nepypenko, and Hebrew translator Anna Nekrasova.

17:00 – 18:00

Ukraine and the Middle East: Identity and War

Location:
Lviv Arts Palace, Conference Hall
Address: Mykola Kopernyka St., 17

Participants:
Vitaly Portnikov
Maria Hurska

Moderator:
Natalia A. Feduschak

In Person (Offline)
A conversation with Vitaliy Portnikov, Ukrainian journalist and analyst, and Maria Hurska, Ukrainian journalist, creator and head of the Ukrainian TV channel "Slava" in Warsaw.

In partnership with: