Glorious anniversary uniting Israel and Ukraine

Wolf Moskovich, professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the only foreign member of Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences living in Israel, the initiator and editor-in-chief of the unique 27-volume academic series Jews and Slavs, and a UJE board member, is celebrating a great anniversary these days.

Professor Wolf Moskovich has achieved world renown following many years of research and educational work in Slavic studies, including Ukrainian studies. His linguistic research on Yiddish is considered fundamental. Prof. Moskovich has made an enormous contribution to Ukrainian studies in Israel and has done much to draw attention to Ukrainian topics. For more than half a century, he has been involved in international Ukrainian-Jewish academic dialogue.

In 2023–2025, Prof. Moskovich helped erect a monument to Holodomor victims in Jerusalem.

Here is a description of his life path in academic language:

"Wolf Moskovich was born on 7 April 1936 in the city of Bolgrad, now in the Odesa region, Ukraine. He is Professor Emeritus and formerly Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1976–2004). His main fields of interest include Slavic studies (Ukrainian studies in particular), Jewish culture and history in Eastern and Central Europe (Yiddish studies in particular), interrelations between Jews and Christians, and languages and cultures in contact. He studied at Chernivtsi State University in Ukraine, received his PhD (1965) from the Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages, and Dr. Hab. (1971) from the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. From 1965 to 1974, he was a senior researcher and laboratory director in computational linguistics and cognitive studies at the USSR Committee for Inventions and Discoveries, Moscow.

"Prof. Moskovich has been a visiting professor at the universities of London, Oxford, Cornell, Pennsylvania, Rome, and Bratislava. He has over 300 publications, including 12 monographs, mainly in the fields of theoretical and Slavic philology and Jewish and Ukrainian culturology. He has been editor-in-chief of the book series Jews and Slavs (volumes 1-27, Jerusalem) since 1993. He was for a number of years President of the Israeli Committee of Slavists and a member of the International Committee of Slavists. Honors received include: Foreign Member of the National Academies of Sciences of Ukraine and Slovenia; the V. Zhabotinsky Gold Medal of the Ukraine-Israel Friendship Society (Kyiv) for promoting mutual understanding among nations; and in 2023, he was awarded the Life Achievement Award for the revival and advancement of Yiddish culture by Israel's National Authority for Yiddish Culture."

Prof. Moskovich's friends, colleagues, and students, whom he has helped and mentored, have shared their good wishes in honor of his wonderful anniversary.

Dr. Mordechai Yushkovsky, a specialist in the Yiddish language and culture:
"My link to Professor Wolf Moskovich is 37 years of close academic cooperation and true friendship. I became his student when I arrived in Israel in 1989 and started my doctoral studies in the Department of Yiddish at Bar-Ilan University. I remember how his lectures on Jewish lexicology and the role of Yiddish in the circle of Jewish languages amazed me with their scope and opened up a huge, most interesting world to which I had no access before. Much of what I heard and learned from him then, I continued to use throughout all the years of my work.

"From 1990 to 2006, Wolf Moskovich was a regular lecturer at almost all Yiddish language and culture summer workshops in Eastern Europe, which I organized together with Prof. Gershon Weiner, Chairman of the World Council for Yiddish Culture. Thus, Wolf's lectures were attended by more than 1,300 students from all over Eastern Europe. A truly beloved teacher, he was always surrounded by numerous student admirers who sought every opportunity to communicate further with him. Many of those students who became Yiddish professionals maintain their connection with Prof. Moskovich to this day.

"The name of Wolf Moskovich will forever occupy one of the most honorable places in the history of research and academic popularization of Yiddish. He has made an invaluable contribution to the project of creating a Comprehensive Yiddish Dictionary. For decades, he devoted much effort to this initiative, which immortalizes the long-suffering Yiddish language as a monument to the millions of its speakers who perished in the Holocaust.

"Over the past decade, I have invited Wolf to teach at seminars on Yiddish and Jewish culture held at various academic institutions within the framework of the International Yiddish Center. Thus, he gave lectures at the YIVO Institute in Buenos Aires, Odesa University, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, the Ostroh Academy, and others. He enjoyed, of course, special respect and esteem in his native Ukraine, where his name is widely known and instantly attracts many people.

"It is no coincidence that Wolf Moskovich initiated and led two anniversary conferences held in 2008 and 2018 in his hometown of Chernivtsi and dedicated to the first Conference on Yiddish Language and Culture, which was held in the same city in 1908.

"These two conferences attracted dozens of academics and cultural figures dealing with Yiddish from different countries of Europe, America, and Israel and became events of universal significance, receiving wide media coverage in Ukraine and many other countries. Wolf dedicated two volumes of the academic series Jews and Slavs, which he edited for many years, to the two conferences on the Yiddish language and culture.

"On the occasion of his anniversary, I would like to sincerely congratulate Wolf Moskovich, wish him good health, much joy, and continued fruitful activity. I express my great respect to my dear teacher, friend, and, most importantly, A MENCH (a Man with a capital M)."

Dr. Sergey Kravtsov, emeritus research fellow at the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem:
"I met Professor Wolf Moskovich in the summer of 1994, shortly after my repatriation to Israel. Professor Moskovich's department, which was working on the Yiddish dictionary, was located in the same building, in the courtyard of the Terra Sancta College in Jerusalem, where I began my work at the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University.

"During our first conversation, we immediately switched to Ukrainian, and, ignorant as I was at the time, I unsuccessfully asked to which dialect his Ukrainian belonged. New conversations followed, and I learned a lot about the academic environment in which I found myself and which appeared to me in a beautiful, rosy light.

"The professor also told me about his career, its Soviet phase, his scholarly achievements, and his work on the radio. It turned out that my Ukrainian friends were much more familiar with the 'unfavorable voice' of Wolf Moskovich than I was with Russian-speaking' voices.' A multitude of common interests related to Ukraine's culture were identified, along with the mutual attraction of Ukrainian and Jewish cultures (with their inherent plurality), and a desire to delve into the depths of intercultural relations and find points of contact, mutual understanding, and enrichment.

"These interests were later successfully implemented in research projects and publications. Many success stories were made possible by the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter and Wolf Moskovich, one of its board members.

"The most fruitful, at least for me, was my involvement in the 27th volume of Jews and Slavs, an academic series Professor Moskovich launched in 1993 and constantly edited. Under his leadership and in cooperation with Slovenian colleagues, I had the honor of editing a collection of studies on the political, cultural, literary, and artistic interactions between Jews and Slavic peoples. The wonderful constellation of authors, acquaintance with new topics, and wise advice of colleagues remain my invaluable experience of academic and human communication."

Anna Zharova and Vyacheslav Feldman, co-chairs of the NGO "Israeli Friends of Ukraine":
"Dear Wolf, thanks to your support, a significant date appeared in our lives — the day when the NGO 'Israeli Friends of Ukraine' was created. You believed in a group of volunteers and gave us a chance to grow into an organization that today unites thousands of people in Israel, Ukraine, and beyond.

"Your life is legendary. Thank you for allowing us to become a part of it. Our warmest congratulations on your anniversary! Your contribution to the Ukrainian-Israeli dialogue and your support are our pillar and guide. We sincerely wish you good health, many more years of meaningful work, and the strength to continue doing that which brings you joy."

Yosyf Zisels, Chairman of the Vaad of Ukraine:
"I am very grateful to God that fate brought me in contact with Wolf Moskovich on my life's journey. I have gained a lot of knowledge and ideas from him, primarily regarding Jewish culture. In particular, he helped me significantly in preparing and holding the World Conference on the Yiddish Language and Culture, which took place in Chernivtsi in 2008."

Leonid Finberg, editor-in-chief of the Dukh i Litera Publishers:
"The publication of dozens of volumes of Jews and Slavs is one of the landmark cultural projects of the past decades. And this is an intellectual feat of Professor Wolf Moskovich."

Dr. Liudmyla Hrynevych, Director of HREC-UA, and Dr. Vladyslav Hrynevych, Sr.:
"Professor Wolf Moskovich is a remarkable figure. A renowned Israeli scholar, polyglot, and a profound expert on Yiddish and Slavic languages and cultures, he has always maintained a strong connection with Ukraine.

"Wolf Moskovich never forgets his roots, speaks Ukrainian fluently, is deeply familiar with Ukrainian history and culture, and consistently supports Ukraine. His many years of engagement in the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter and his inspired work for Ukrainian-Jewish mutual understanding are an important part of his academic and public service.

"There is more about Wolf Moskovich than his exceptional academic achievements that is impressive. He is a man of encyclopedic knowledge, philosophical thinking, refined culture, sensitivity, and openness to people. He naturally combines intellectual depth, breadth of interests, and readiness to support, advise, and help.

"His ninetieth birthday is a great opportunity for us to pay tribute not only to an outstanding scholar but also to a person who, with his work, knowledge, and moral stance, became a role model for many colleagues, students, and friends."

Congratulating Professor Wolf Moskovich on his glorious anniversary, I want to thank him for many years of intellectual and moral mentorship, for always being for me a model of academic integrity, dignity, and ability to empathize with problems faced by individuals and the two countries that occupy an important place in his heart — Ukraine and Israel.

Text and photos: Shimon Briman (Israel).

Translated from the Ukrainian by Vasyl Starko.