Leonard Bernstein’s father, an emigrant from Rivne, for whom the musicians were associated with wandering beggar violinists, did not immediately support little Lenny’s passion for playing the piano. Samuel Bernstein saw in his son the successor to their family cosmetic supplies business, so ten-year-old Leonard had to pay almost entirely on his own for his… Continue reading Stories of Ukrainian jews. Leonard Bernstein
In Israel, he is rightfully called the teacher of the nation. A native of Khorol, Poltava region, Ben-Zion Dinur, even before being elected to the first Knesset in 1948, was already known in the Palestinian pedagogical circles as an expert on Jewish history and theorist of the educational system.In 1952, hearing a lot about Dinur… Continue reading Stories of Ukrainian jews. Ben-Zion Dinur
Leopold von Sacher, the son of the Commissioner of the Imperial Police Forces in Lemberg (Lviv), had every chance of not becoming Masoch. From birth, he was so weak that no one was confident that the baby would survive. He was predicted the fate of two of his mother’s brothers who died at an early… Continue reading Stories of Ukrainian jews. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
About 1.5 million people nowadays die every year from tuberculosis in the world, but before the discovery of streptomycin by Selman Waksman in 1943, this toll was several dozen times higher. Streptomycin was the first antibiotic effective for treatment of tuberculosis, and, unlike penicillin discovered by Alexander Fleming by accident, Waksman and his students had… Continue reading Stories of Ukrainian jews. Selman Waksman
Although born in Zolochiv Naftali Herz Imber wrote the lyrics of the national anthem of Israel Hatikvah back in 1877, and by 1900 they sang it in all Jewish settlements in Palestine and at the congresses of Zionist organizations, it received the status of an official anthem from the Knesset only in 2004. The legislators’… Continue reading Stories of Ukrainian jews. Naftali Herz Imber
