Wolf Moskovich on memory, books and forever-magical Chernivtsi
The candles cast images of flickering light against the weathered walls of Lviv’s Italian Garden. Wolf Moskovich, professor emeritus of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, who was sitting at this open-air gala next to me, suddenly said, “Lviv had a somewhat different atmosphere seventy years ago. There used to be more Polish.”
“What do you mean?” I replied in surprise. “When you walk the streets today, there’s plenty of Polish to be heard.”
Moskovich shook his head.
“I used to come here as child from Chernivtsi and you could hear Polish everywhere. Not anymore.“
We were enjoying a temperate fall evening. Moskovich has just wrapped up two presentations of the book The Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter: Cultural Dimensions, co-edited with Alti Rodal, co-director of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter. One presentation had taken place days before in Chernivtsi, the city of both his and Rodal’s birth, at the Meridian Czernowitz International Poetry Festival. The other concluded only hours before, here at the city’s international book fair.
It was evident the trip had been moving for Moskovich, taking him back in place and time.
The days in Chernivtsi were spent speaking at the festival, meeting with friends and working on a short film about the city that will appear in this space early next year. In Lviv, he energetically visited places of import with his friend and former student, Victor Radutsky, the eminent Hebrew-language translator.
Radutsky, who stepped away momentarily, re-joined us. He was also visibly moved. Only hours earlier he received special recognition at the fair for his contribution to Israeli-Ukrainian cultural relations. Next year, Ukrainian-language readers will be fortunate to read Radutsky’s new translations of works by the internationally-recognized Israeli writer Amos Oz, whose family roots are in Ukraine.
As more people joined the fete, Moskovich and Radutsky said it was time to bid farewell.
As we stepped out onto Lviv’s central square, I was amazed at Moskovich’s energy and endurance. He is no longer a young man. His life has spanned the Soviet occupation of Ukraine, the building of a career in Moscow, and then even more prominence in Israel, where he is seen as the father of Ukrainian studies. He can switch from English to Ukrainian to Hebrew to Yiddish to Rumanian and yes, even more languages, in the blink of an eye.
Moskovich has, simply, traveled everywhere. In what would be mere weeks, another trip awaited him, this time to the West Coast of the United States where he would speak at the 2017 Limmud FSU Inspire conference in San Francisco.
Those travels, along with his academic work, have given Moskovich, who is a UJE board member, enviable knowledge. Some of his historical insights, shared in Chernivtsi, Lviv, and San Francisco, are presented below.
00:00-01:23
Natalia A. Feduschak, Director of Communications, Ukrainian Jewish Encounter
01:24-05:19
Petro Rykhlo, Professor, Department of Foreign Literature and Theory of Literature, Chernivtsi National University
05:20-11:55
Wolf Moskovich, Professor Emeritus, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Board Member, Ukrainian Jewish Encounter
11:26-16:34
Petro Rykhlo, Professor, Department of Foreign Literature and Theory of Literature, Chernivtsi National University
16:35-52:33
Question and answer.
The Lviv International Book Fair and Literature Festival, Lviv, 14 September 2017
(in Ukrainian)
0:00-01:53
Natalia A. Feduschak, Director of Communications, Ukrainian Jewish Encounter
01:54-05:24
Andriy Pavlyshyn, Co-founder, The Lviv International Book Fair and Literature Festival; award-winning translator and writer.
05:25-24:25
Wolf Moskovich, Professor Emeritus, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Board Member, Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.
24:26-40:47
Question and answer.
Limmud FSU Inspire 2017, San Francisco, 18 November 2017
(in Russian)
00:00-37:33
Wolf Moskovich, Professor Emeritus, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Board Member, Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.
37:34-59:03
Question and answer
