Modern narration of the Chernivtsi Jews

In the prewar Chernivtsi, in 1908, a conference devoted to the Jewish language was organized. Different political parties argued either pro or against the Hebrew or Yiddish language option. The well known Icchak Leib Perec and Shalom Ash attended the conference. Today, after a hundred years, most of the Jewish inhabitants of  Chernivtsi use the Russian language.

On August 10^th of 2009, took place the funeral of the last great Yiddish writer and citizen of the town- Josif Burg.  Bukovina is identified as a place of multiple cultures. In the meantime, during the communist rule, such multiculturalism, expressed often through the presence of multiple religions was strongly discriminated. The homo sovieticus (soviet human/man) project required denying all differences in the USSR (which Ukraine was a part of as well).

Cultural, religious and language minorities had various institutions such as schools and temples taken away from them, thus they stopped functioning publicly. Toward the end of the eighties, the first legal Jewish organization in Chernivtsi was established in one of the local homes. The fall of the communist block and the opening of the borders created a chance for the minority to get its voice back and for its institutions to be reborn.  A few Jewish organizations had been established in Chernivtsi and even though they made the minority status stronger, the question whether they will survive is still in the open.  The most important occurrence since the nineties has been immigration. Because of it, more than 90% of the Jewish citizens left the area (in comparison with the year of 1989). So is the Chernivtsi Jews' extinction inevitable? Will they be forced to create a virtual society, located far away from the Bukovina border? What about their heritage, when the last witnesses pass away? The last ones to remember where the school was located and where was the Jewish hospital. Who could care about this area's heritage then?

Anna Chodkowska