The Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine,” the leading cultural and historical institution of the Jewish Community of Dnipro and the largest Jewish museum in Ukraine, marked the fourteenth anniversary of its opening at the world’s largest Jewish center, “Menorah,” with a whole series of special events, the first of which was a grand tour of the historic “Alter Shul” Synagogue on Kotsyubynsky Street.
The tour was conducted by Avraham Yosef Yitzchak Karshenbaum, Deputy Secretary of the Dnipro Rabbinical Court, a renowned local historian, and a great friend and many-year partner of the Jewish Museum of Dnipro. He acquainted the participants with the history of this unique synagogue, which remained the only functioning synagogue of the city even during Soviet times, preserved Jewish religious life in the 1970s and early 1980s, and at the end of the 1980s became the center of the Jewish revival and the main hub of public life in Dnipro, all the way until the restoration of the Central “Golden Rose” Synagogue.
Avraham Yosef Yitzchak Karshenbaum gave special attention to how the Jews of the city preserved and defended their synagogue during the years of Soviet power. The tour participants learned how the community managed to defend the building and prevent its conversion into a children’s cinema, how the walls of the synagogue were adorned with special murals, how the Aron Kodesh was created, how daily and festive prayers were organized, and how issues of heating and maintaining the building in proper condition were resolved. Behind all these details arose the story of people who, even under the most unfavorable circumstances, did not allow the Jewish religious tradition in Dnipro to be interrupted.
No less substantive was the part of the tour dedicated to the revival of Jewish life in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Avraham Yosef Yitzchak Karshenbaum spoke about the changes that began with the arrival in Dnipro of Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki, the personal emissary of the leader of our generation, the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson. It was precisely the “Alter Shul” in those years that became the place where the most important decisions concerning the development of Jewish life were made, new communal structures were created, the mikvah was built, and the foundations of the revival of the united and cohesive Jewish Community of Dnipro were laid.
The tour participants also became acquainted with the subsequent pages of the synagogue’s history, when, after the restoration of the Central “Golden Rose” Synagogue, the main center of Jewish life moved there, while the historic building of the “Alter Shul” continued to serve the community. A yeshiva was housed here, various events took place, and later the building was reconstructed and became home to the “Good Future” social rehabilitation center, which provides assistance to Jews who have endured severe life trials and require social adaptation, special attention, and the care of the Jewish Community of Dnipro.
Avraham Yosef Yitzchak Karshenbaum’s account aroused great interest among the tour participants. They asked numerous questions, clarified details of historical events, and sincerely thanked the guide for his deep, thorough, and fascinating account, which allowed them to see anew the significance of the “Alter Shul” in the history of Jewish Dnipro.
After the conclusion of the tour, the participants returned to the Menorah Center, where the events dedicated to the fourteenth anniversary of the Jewish Museum of Dnipro continued. The next important event of the festive program was the opening of the special exhibition “Memory. Monuments. People,” about which we will tell in detail in one of our upcoming publications.
