The Ukrainian Jewish Family Album

Jewish Community life
Svetlana Benyumova
Vladimir Goldman
Photo taken in: Odessa, 2001
Interviewer: Natalia Fomina
Here I am with my grandson Dennis on the first day
of Chanukkah. In the late 1980s, the revival of Jewish
life in Odessa began and a Jewish cultural association
was founded in 1989. The Jewish community was given
back the ownership of the main synagogue on Richelieu
Street. In 1993 I was offered the position of director of
the Jewish charity center and we got an office in the
Jewish Cultural Center. We started by providing services
to forty people but now we provide services to about
9,000 people in Odessa and the surrounding region.
Photo taken in: Kyiv, 1975
Interviewer: Leonid Aptekar
My daughter Svetlana’s wedding. In the late 1980s the revival of
Jewish life in Ukraine began. First, books by Jewish writers that
hadn’t been published in decades appeared. Then came theater
productions by Jewish playwrights and concerts of Jewish music.
Jewish newspapers and magazines started to be published, and
various Jewish organizations were established. My grandchildren
are religious and have everything a Jew needs for a prayer. Their
lives are still ahead of them and I hope they will be all right.
Max Shykler
Yakov Honiksman
Photo taken in: Ostrow Lubelski, 1922
Interviewer: Ella Orlikova
Rabbi Moisey Grinberg, my maternal grandfather. I
got this photo when I was in Poland in 1974! One of
the residents of the town, where my grandfather
had been highly respected, had kept this photo. I
guess my grandfather was born in the 1860s. I met
him only once, when I was four years old. He was
a handsome, tall Jewish man with a big half-gray
beard. He died in 1933.
Photo taken in: Chernivtsi, 1936
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya
Me and my friends during our time as members
of Betar, our Jewish youth group. I am on the
right in the second row. Betar was Zionist and
rather right wing. They said Jews had to live in
Palestine, sing Jewish songs and have military
training. Senior members of Betar wanted to
go to Palestine. Those who wanted to move
had to work for a property owner for about a
year to learn how to farm before they could
obtain a certificate and move to Israel from
the British Embassy.
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