Jewish Kyiv Tour

The house, where Korczak worked – a building on the Volodymyrska street, 47. It was built for the merchant of the II guild Friedrich Michelson, the owner of the famous Karavaev baths in Kiev. In 1890-1909  a private girls’ gymnasium by Beitel was on the 1-st floor of the house, where the historian E. Tarle and the geologist P. Tutkovsky taught.  A drawing school by Murashko was on the 3-rd floor, opened in 1875 with the support of Tereshchenko. The school brought up a galaxy of famous Ukrainian artists and was in the house until 1901. In the 1910s a private women’s gymnasium by  Peretyatkovich located here, where the art critic Gilyarov, literary critics Gudziy and C. Maslov operated. Famous Polish writer and teacher Korczak also worked here . The building is still preserved.

Former children’s dispensary – built in 1898 on the Bulvarno-Kudryavska Str., 20 on the initiative of the Society for the Care of Sick Children, headed by Sofia Likhareva (the spouse of the manager of the Kyiv specific property), on the funds of a well-known Kyiv Jew, an entrepreneur and patron of Lev Brodsky. Today the building houses the Presidium of the Academy of Arts of Ukraine.

Karaim kenassa – was built in 1898–1902 in the Moorish-Arabic style (the only structure in this style) on the initiative of Solomon Cohen, the owner of tobacco factories (V. Horodetskyi was the architect). The size of the building is not large: the interior of the manor is 30 m, the width of the facade is 14 m, the height to the top of the roof is 18 m. But the walls are of considerable thickness (almost 1.5 m at the base) and, therefore, 500 thousand units of bricks were used for their erection.

Such massiveness was dictated by the peculiarities of the Moorish style of the structure. On the building there originally was a magnificent dome of galvanized iron with a spire, with patterns and ornaments. Unfortunately, during the Soviet era, the dome was destroyed, and the building lost the excellent Arabic style.

All the external design of the kenassa (the edging of the entrance door and niche, the ornaments of the windows and the parapet, the pendants descending from the top cornice along the entire perimeter) was made from the cement, which at that time was an expensive material. there is a lobby, two small side rooms and a main prayer hall divided by an arch into two unequal parts in the building.

The hall is struck by the beauty of the elegant stucco ornaments that filled the whole area of the walls. They are complemented by colorful stained glass windows. Since 1920, the kenassa had been closed, and the activities of the community had been discontinued. Later, there was an institution of political education, a house of the peoples of the East, a puppet theater, a cinema “Dawn”, and since 1981 there has been an actor’s house where exhibitions, concerts and evening events take place.

The regional hospital – is a former Kyiv Jewish hospital, built on donations. The main sponsor was the Jewish family Brodsky. In 1861, Alexander II gave permission to “establish a hospital in Kyiv for poor Jews.” In 1862, the opening of the hospital, which was first located in rented premises at Podil in the tract Honchari-Kozhumyaky. In 1883, the sugar producer and philanthropist Israel Brodsky donated 150 thousand rubles for the purchase of land and the construction of hospital corps. In 1885 an administrative building was opened and four corps of the hospital on the Baggovutivska Str., 1. Later the sons of Brodsky acted as patrons, on the funds of which new buildings appeared on the territory of the hospital. Other representatives of the Jewish community also participated in the financing of the construction.

The monumet to victims of Babiy Yar – located at the corner of the Petropavlivska Str. and Kyrylivska Str.. It is dedicated to the tragic events of 1941 – massacre, which was described in the novel-document “Babiy Yar” by an author-eyewitness Anatoliy Kuznetsov.

The monument is a sculpture of a boy (the character of the novel) in a coat and with a bag behind his back reading the German decree on the wall of the house: “All Jews of Kyiv and its suburbs should appear on 29th September, 1941 at 8 am at the corner of Melnyka and Dehterivska streets” … ” every Jew, who will not fulfill this order will be found elsewhere and will be shot … “.

Next to the German decree on the wall there is another inscription: “In order the past doesn’t happen again, have the courage to look him in the eye – the whole truth in the novel-document of Anatoliy Kuznetsov.” The monument was installed in 2009 near the house where Anatoliy Kuznetsov lived.

The oldest Jewish necropolis – opened in 1893 on the outskirts of the city in the tract Repyakhovy Yar, where there were Jewish burials, and next to it was the Karaim necropolis. Here were buried: the leader of the Kiev Zionists – Dr. Mandelstamm; the chief rabbi of Kiev – Weisblat. The family vault of Brodsky’s (sugar mill) was here. In 1937, the necropolis was closed. During the occupation of Kiev by Nazi troops, many graves were destroyed. In the late 1950s part of the graves was transferred to the Berkovets cemetery. In the early 1960s the necropolis was completely destroyed. Today, the territory of the Jewish necropolis belongs to the national park “Babyi Yar”. Thanks to activists, the Lapidarium was recently opened here. It consists of gravestones of the former Lukyanovsky Jewish cemetery, found in Repyakhov Yar.

Feldman’s profitable house – located on the corner of Mezhyhirska and Yaroslavska streets (Mezhyhirska str., 26/24). Built in 1898 in the Neo-Renaissance style. The last owner of the house was the merchant Feldman. The windows of the 3rd floor with semicircular lintels and stucco ornaments deserve special attention. A cut corner with balconies gives the elegance of the building.

Former Talmud Torah – Jewish religious school on the Kostyantynivska Str., 35. It was a free school, where Jewish boys from poor families and orphans could get an elementary education. The building was built in 1910-1911 according to the project of the architect F. Essen on the means of the Jewish public figure and philanthropist David Margolin. Today in the building houses the secondary school №10. Also Margolin financed the construction of municipal sewerage and the first tram lines of the capital. He was the founder of the Kyiv Gas Society and the Water Supply Society.

The monument to Sholom Aleichem – was installed on the Rognedynska Str., 3 in honour of the famous Jewish writer. In a narrow coat and with a cane Sholom-Aleichem greets every passer-by, holding his hat high above his head. The monument of the writer stands on two steps, on which his name is written in Ukrainian and in Yiddish.

Not far from the monument on the Velyka Vasylkivska, 5 there is a museum dedicated to the creative work and life of Sholom Aleichem in Kyiv. At this address the writer lived in 1896 -1903. This was the time of his active creative activity. Here he wrote “Menachem Mendl”, “In a small world of small people”, some short stories from “Tevye the Milkman”.

Golda Meir House – located on the Baseina St., 5-a. She was born in 1898 in Kiev poor Jewish family and lived here until 1903. After emigrating with her family, she emigrated to the United States. Golda Meir is known as the first woman to become the head of Israel in 1969, and the third woman-president in the world. A memorial plaque was installed on the facade of the building where Meir lived.

Lev Ginzburg’s House is a luxurious mansion with antique figures, built in 1900 – 1901 and preserved to this day (Gorodetsky Street, 9). The well-known Kyiv “King of contractors” L. Ginzburg decided to build on his own means a profitable house, which, apart from commercial purposes, also served as a visual advertisement for Ginzburg’s construction office.

The first two floors were occupied by shops, the upper floors were leased to wealthy lodgers. Profitable house on the Gorodetsky Str., 9 are often confused with the “Ginzburg’s skyscraper” – the first 12-storeyed building in Kyiv built by L. Ginzburg in 1910-1912 and completely destroyed in 1941. Today the hotel “Ukraine” stands on this site ( Instytutska Street,4).

The Bessarabska market – opened since 1912 on the Bessarabska Square in the centre of Kyiv. The market was built according to the project of architect Genrikh Gai with the help of a famous Kyivite Jew – patron and sugar-maker Lazar Brodsky.

It was the first in the capital covered market and the main object of the square. A special feature of the construction is steel structures with lanterns supporting the roof, the facade of the building is decorated with stucco and clock. The Bessarabska market has been fully preserved to the present day and is considered the most expensive point of sale in Kyiv.

Lieberman’s mansion is a house on Bankova Street, 2, called the Gingerbread house, was built in 1879 on the order of the former mayor of St. Petersburg, Fyodor Trepov. In 1896 it was redeemed by the sugar manufacturer Simha Lieberman, who rebuilt the house, making from it a rich bourgeois palace-mansion.

Interestingly that in one of the rooms in the house, Lieberman asked to make a sliding ceiling, so that once a year during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot he can pray in the open air according to the Jewish canons. In Soviet times, the original ceiling was sealed. After 1917 here were located various military headquarters, the Soviet People’s Commissariat of the republic, the city house of propaganda and agitation named after I. Stalin. Nowadays, the National Union of Writers of Ukraine is located in Lieberman’s house.

Yaroslavska Street is a street at Podil, which was very popular with the local Jewish community, because at the time of the “Pale of Settlement”, more Jews here had the right for permanent residence. In connection with that fact, a lot of Jewish prayer places, schools and shelters arose on the Yaroslavska Street.

Until now, a lot of buildings of the turn of the XIX-XX century have been preserved along the street. So on the Yaroslavska Str., 40 locates a building, built in 1910 on the funds of Margarita Goldschmidt Brodskaya (daughter of the famous Jewish philanthropist Lazar Brodsky) and served as a day shelter for Jewish girls. On the Yaroslavska Str., 8 in the 1890’s the Jewish community of the Lukyanivka and Podil police stations rented here the house for the chapel.

On the Yaroslavska Str., 17/22 in 1901 was built two-storeyed building, which housed with bath rooms. Baths were called “Moscow” and belonged to a businessman in Kyiv – the Jew Yakov Kapler. In 1904, one can not help mentioning the son of Kapler, Alexei, who became a famous Soviet director (“Striped Trip”) and an anchorman (“Kinopanorama” program).

In addition, there were pharmacies on the street (№ 4, 20, 38), profitable houses (№ 10, 19, 21, 55), land banks (№ 2, 15, 24, 47, 49), free clinic (№ 27) , Goldberg’s Jewish sausage establishment (No. 26/24), Hefter’s sleeve facility (No. 30), Lviv’s bookbinding facility (No. 41), Goldstein’s and Tsipeniuk’s manufacturing shops (No. 9) and (No. 12), Shreiber’s workshops (No. 15) and Haita (No. 48).

Mezhyhirska Street is one of the streets of Podil near Kontraktova Square, where Jews settled and Jewish communities rented houses. So on the Mezhyhirska Str., 3/7 is the profitable house of confectioner Balabukha. At one time, one of the apartments in the house was adapted for a Jewish chapel for the community of Jews who took part in the Russo-Japanese War.

In the 1890’s on Mezhyhirska Str. lived and engaged in shoemaking Chaim Fridlyand. But the shoemaker is not so famous as his sons Mikhail and Boris are famous, one of which is the Soviet publicist and poet Mikhail Koltsov, the second is the cartoonist Boris Efimov. On the Mezhyhirska Street, 20 \ 37 was a profitable complex, owned by a famous Kyiv philanthropist A. Tereshchenko until 1908. At one time here on the second and third floors housed the Jewish moth “Makarivska” (on behalf of the tsadik – the Jewish righteous from the town of Makariv).

In 1908 the estate was purchased by Jewish entrepreneurs A. Schwartz and V. Bokshitsky. Mansion on the Mezhyhirska Str., 23/22 served as a residential complex with a Jewish prayer house. The building is an architectural monument. The last owner of the apartment building in the Neo-Renaissance style on Mezhyhirska Street, 26/24 was the merchant O.M. Feldman. Particular attention deserves a third-floor window with semicircular lintels and stucco ornamentation.

The Brodsky Synagogue was built in 1898 with the donations of the Kyiv Jew – millionaire Lazar Brodsky and is situadted on the street Shota Rustavelli, 13. Since the Jews were not allowed to build religious buildings in the central part of Kyiv, the draft of the synagogue was rejected by the provincial authorities. It was allowed to accommodate living and household premises for ritual purposes.

Then Brodsky and Kyiv rabbi Evsei Zukkerman decided to play smart by sending a complaint and a drawing of the side facade of the synagogue, from where the building looked like a household premise to St. Petersburg. And the Senate gave its permission. The building was built in a year, construction was carried out by Lev Ginzburg’s best construction company in the city. In 1926, the building was transferred to the club for a trade union of handicraftsmen.

Since 1955, a children’s puppet theater was located there, in 1997 the building was transferred to the Jewish community of Kyiv. There is a museum in the hall of the synagogue where one can see the work of the Israeli sculptor Frank Meisler, the fragment of the Torah scroll of the 2nd-5th c., a copy of the key from the opening of the synagogue in 1898, ancient books, bales, tefillins, mezuzah, candlesticks.