Euroasian Jewish News
The front of a Drogobych synagogue
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Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Ukraine
24.02.2011 Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) General Council Chairman Joseph Zisels has given an interview about the restitution of Jewish community property in Ukraine to the Hadashot newspaper. In the interview, he stated that problems in this sphere are tied to the pecularities of post-Soviet society. According to Zisels, "the state is not ready to discuss these problems, even though I have been trying for almost twenty years to get them to understand that a dialogue is necessary. There have been many promises, but a workgroup is yet to be created. This is a mental pecularity of Ukrainian society. It is customary to take, not to give."
In another interviewm Josef Zisels comments on the results of the competition of landscape, designer, and architectural projectes of the reconstruction of places connected with the Jewish history of Lviv. He believes that "all that was done is merely the beginning." Now it is necessary to look for sponsors to bring the projects into being. But the very fact of holding this competition is undoubtedly important. It is even more important that there is a process of understanding how important the Jewish part of the historical and cultural heritage of Lviv actually is by the city authorities, researchers, and all of those who live in Lviv. The EAJC General Council chairman also said that "the mayor of Lviv, Andrei Sadov, was very interested in the idea of a Jewish museum of Galicia – the city of Lviv houses thousands of Jewish Studies objects, including Torah scrolls, books, jewellery, masterpieces of applied art. Unfortunately, none of the projects presented to the competition showed the phenomenon of Galicia Jewry in full. The museum could become yet another link in preserving the memory of this community, almost entirely destroyed by the Holocaust."
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