Ukraine in Context: Odesa
Jewish Perspectives on Ukraine, Present and Past (video recording available, in German)
The third event in the series Ukraine in Context leads us to Odesa as a central site of Jewish-Ukrainian culture and Jewish utopian dreams.
Since its foundation in 1794, the trading city Odesa has been very cosmopolitan; it was known as the “Pearl of the Black Sea.” Thanks to its tolerant and economically progressive climate, it had a strong power of attraction. Jews enjoyed far-reaching rights and held important offices in the city administration.
recording available
Where
Old Building, level 2, Great Hall
Lindenstraße 9–14, 10969 Berlin
Video recording from 19 January 2023, in German; Jewish Museum Berlin 2023
To this day, Odesa is considered the capital of Yiddish and Hebrew literature, art and theater, and also as an important center of the Zionist movement. The “Odesa myth” continues to resound in the voices of Ahad Ha-Am, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Simon Dubnow, Hayim Nahman Bialik and Isaak Babel. Nevertheless, the city was also the scene of the first pogroms in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as later in the Shoah. In the course of the political upheavals before and during the Soviet Union, there were several political, economic and social realignments in the city.
Art historian and curator Mikhail Rashkovetsky (Museum of the History Of Jews of Odesa, Odesa Biennale of Art, among others), Anna Misyuk, former Curator of the Literary Museum Odesa, and the artist and musician Nikolay Karabinovych will join us on the exploration of Jewish Odesa.
In the discussion series Ukraine in Context, the Jewish Museum Berlin, the German Federal Agency for Civic Education and OFEK aim to make Jewish perspectives on the war in Ukraine audible and visible, and provide insights into the complexities of present-day Ukraine in its historical context. Using the cities Kharkiv, Chernivtsi, Odesa, Dnipro, and Lviv, Ukrainian artists and academics will talk about life and survival in war, about plural affiliations, competing memories, identities and visions of cities and history.
A series of talks by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (German Federal Agency for Civic Education), the Jewish Museum Berlin and OFEK.
Discussion Series: Ukraine in Context (6)
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Ukraine in Context
The Jewish Museum Berlin, the German Federal Agency for Civic Education, and OFEK are coming together for a discussion series to make Jewish perspectives on and from the war audible and visible and shed light on the complexities of present-day Ukraine against the backdrop of its history.
