This anthology contains texts of American Jewish short prose. The book includes a whole century of unique works, beginning with the immigrant fictional literature of the early twentieth century and finishing with the stories of some modern writers. Reading these pages implies getting familiar with the marvellous and diverse literary tradition. The edition begins with the short stories by two profound immigrant writers of the early the twentieth century, Abraham Cahan and Anzia Yezierska. After that, the edition contains selected works of Jewish American authors of recent history such as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Saul Bellow, Grace Paley, Tillie Olsen, Bernard Malamud, and Philip Roth. The anthology ends with the short stories of contemporary writers, whose works illustrate the fascinating variety and life power of the modern Jewish American fictional literature. Continue reading
This guidebook describes locations in cities and villages of Ukraine that are related to the history and culture of Ukrainian Jewry. The composition of the guide is based on the geographical principle, thus each chapter defines a given region of the country. Since the histories of the Jewish communities of Ukraine varied, a reader’s perception of the chapters can vary as well. The illustrations of the edition allow observing both cultural sights that exist nowadays and photos of the objects that have not been preserved. Special attention is paid to individuals, for instance, Jewish writers, artists, civil rights leaders, philanthropists, religious activists and righteous men. The book can be especially useful for tourists, who are interested in the Jewish history of the state.
Text compilers: Marharyta Yehorchenko, Iryna Berliand and Ihor Vynokurov.
The edition contains the translations of works of eleven Jewish writers from the Eastern Europe of the second half of the neneteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Isaac Leib Peretz, Sholom Aleichem, Janusz Korczak, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Bruno Schulz, Isaac Babel, Itzik Kipnis, Itzik Manger, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Debora Vogel, and Abraham Sutzkever. The Jewish prose in the book is rather diverse in its nature in terms of genre and style characteristics. That is since it ranges from traditional educational plots that include distinctive parable features, to the examples of the European literature of the ‘stream of consciousness’ based on lavish metaphors, and alliterations that combine the history with modernity, the old with the new, as well as undermine the rigidity of canonical topics and masterfully lead readers to themselves, which is the most fascinating destination. Continue reading
Tehillim (David’s Psalms) is one of the first books of the First Testament, which is an essential part of religious service in Jewish and Christian traditions. The book consists of 150 psalms with the commentary on daily life occurrences, feelings, and emotions familiar to everyone regardless of religious belief. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch was born in Hamburg in 1808. He was the first to combine the Jewish tradition with the ideas of secularism and became one of the most profound commentators of the Biblical texts in the world. His writings are addressed not only to the Biblical scientists but also to those who question the basis of faith or even who has lost it. The edition contains the texts of psalms and detailed commentary by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch as well as reference materials such as an index of names from the Tanakh and the Bible, a glossary, and a bibliography. Continue reading
Volodymyr Yermolenko’s discussion with Leonid Finberg, Director of the Center for Studies in History and Culture of East European Jewry, took in Ukrainian-Jewish relations in history, about their positive and negative aspects, anti-Semitism and the search for mutual understanding, the Ukrainian liberation movement and the USSR, as well as the people who connect the Ukrainian and Jewish cultures.
Source: Ukraine in Histories and Stories: Essays by Ukrainian Intellectuals / ed. Volodymyr Yermolenko. – Kyiv: Internews Ukraine; UkraineWorld, 2019. – P. 254–271.
