Nash Holos Ukrainian Roots Radio

In this episode of Ukrainian Jewish Heritage, UJE Co-Director Alti Rodal discusses a new exhibit catalogue, their upcoming ROM exhibit and museum developments in Ukraine. (Part 1 of a 2-part interview.)

If you’re a regular listener to Nash Holos, you will be very familiar with the name Ukrainian Jewish Encounter. This Toronto-based, privately organized, multinational initiative sponsors the long running series on the show, Ukrainian Jewish Heritage. This series of vignettes, cultural capsules and interviews has opened a window on this hitherto little known aspect of the Ukrainian experience.

Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, or UJE, engages scholars, civic leaders, artists, governments and the broader public throughout Ukraine, Israel and the diasporas. It organizes many conferences that facilitate broader dialogue and understanding, as well as public education projects.

One such project is an exhibition entitled "A Journey Through the Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter: From Antiquity to 1914." This exhibit was created by UJE and co-funded by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. It premiered in Toronto in 2015 and also travelled to Winnipeg and Edmonton.

This project is far from finished, however.

Alti Rodal is Co-Director of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter Initiative. She is a historian, writer, former professor of Jewish history, and official and advisor to the Government of Canada. She was educated at McGill, Oxford, and Hebrew Universities in history and literature. Her research and writing has focused on aspects of identity, Jewish history and culture, and inter-communal relations.

Alti joins us now on skype to tell us what has developed since with this exhibit as well as some other exciting collaborative developments on the horizon.

For transcript, photos and more click here.