MEMORY IN ACTION: EMBRACING THE PAST FOR THE FUTURE
INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDIES OF GALICIA (HALYCHYNA)
INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDIES OF GALICIA (HALYCHYNA)
Interdisciplinary Projects: Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish Subjectivities in
Interwar Eastern Galicia, 1918 – 1939, (modern Ukraine). Digitization, cataloguing, and indexing of the
interwar periodical press.
Dr. Volodymyr Melamed
Interwar Eastern Galicia: Political and Cultural Discourse, 1918 – 1939
Selected Essays
The idea of this monograph lies with elucidation, analysis and interpretation of Ukrainian, Jewish, and Polish subjectivities in interwar Polish Eastern Galicia. The emphasis is on the interwar period that is on Polish Eastern Galicia. It was a distinctively different from the traditionally perceived phenomenon of Austrian Galicia. The social and cultural legacy of old Austrian Galicia still remained in effect but the geopolitical realities have irreversibly changed. Since the end of the First World War, Polish and Ukrainian communities experienced mutual enmity bordering with open confrontation. Polish and Ukrainian societies gained disproportional statuses, they were all but equal. The imperial center vanished, Poland gained independence and with international support managed to integrate Eastern Galicia into the Second Polish Republic. The Jewish community could no longer rely on suitable for them Austrian order and had to balance between the Polish state and Ukrainian ethnic majority of the region. It was a challenge of political choice: either unconditional loyalty to the State or solidarity with the territorial Ukrainian majority. Jewish leading Zionist political establishment could not take a definitive stance but continued to navigate through the course of their own politics. In real life Ukrainian and Jewish historical Subjectivities acting in bona fide, largely not in mutual solidarity, however, not diametrically apart. Both national entities, Ukrainian and Jewish, were engaged in evocative objectification of their ‘individually crafted’ political narratives.
Aspiring to largely opposite ideological premises, Ukrainian and Jewish societies faced and grappled with the strongly determined administrative and political apparatus of the Polish State. Conducting independent from each other political courses vis-à-vis the Polish State, the activities of Ukrainian and Jewish political establishments would often resulted in mutually unacceptable outcomes. On the other hand, dealings with ‘the third force,’ that is with the Polish State, could inspire a sense of solidarity that in turn would lead to the development of a less apprehensive approaches towards each other.
The new internal and external geopolitical realities substantiated the rise of hardly plausible for the Austrian Galicia political forces. Radicalization and authoritarianism characterized the Ukrainian society and the rise of authoritarianism – the Polish state. As for the Jews, the Zionist parliamentary parties continued to dominate in Jewish politics although with noticeable influence of Jewish communist and social-democratic forces present in mundane life. While Polish and Jewish societies became politically more polarized than before, it was the Ukrainian society that produced the most radicalized nationalist underground, namely the Ukrainian Military Organization (Ukrainian acronym UVO) and its heir the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Ukrainian acronym OUN). The latter created the new political narrative of integral revolutionary struggle to be waged until an independent Ukrainian state is attained. The OUN political narrative overlived the interwar period and stretched well beyond the end of the Second World War.
These selected essays reflect on the eventful and existentially marked developments, in which all three communities were engaged. In this regard the Ukrainian, Polish, and Jewish daily press serve as our primary source allowing determine and trace evocatively influential and mutually affective situations. The interwar realities leave little room for mythologization of Eastern Galicia according to the patterns of the 19thcentury Austrian Galician history. The mission of Ukrainian Piedmont unfortunately has not been completed owing to the internal and external factors. A myth of cross-cultural mutual home for Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews, that actually never war realistically warranted in the course of the 19th century, had become illusory in the interwar period. Once fruitful process of Jewish emancipation, acculturation and rising of national awareness in the course of interwar time became deterred by unresolvable mistrust and antagonism withing the Jewish society. Cultural and social tensions between the Jewish – Poles (assimilators), Religious Orthodoxy (largely pro-government groups), the National-Zionist democratic block, and Jewish communist and social-democratic movement were vividly exhibited in Jewish periodical press.
There is a common thread, a sort of a common denominator, connecting these essays together, notably the narratives of existential situations, relevant to all ethno-national and political entities. Traditionally, the literature on the subject presents a singular macro-history of the region within the Polish, Ukrainian or Jewish frameworks. Another larger group of works focuses on Lviv in historical and cultural contexts. While our work also significantly reflects on Lviv from the perspective of political and cultural histories thus making it a ‘centerpiece’ of the presented experience, although we are not seeing it as a mythological center of bygone civilization. Indeed, the events described and analyzed in these essays largely took place in Lviv while effected the entire region.
MEMORY IN ACTION IS THE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH, PRESERVATION AND ANALYSIS OF EXISTENTIAL SITUATIONS.
We are a non-profit organization dedicated to analysis and historicizing of existential experience on personal, communal and regional levels in the past-present continuity. The Past and Present are existentially interconnected on individual, communal and national levels.
Through our research, exhibits, events, and educational programs, we strive to reconstruct the history of European and American Jewish experience in conjunction with the geopolitical discourse of the given time and locations. The Institute provides analytical annotations for the contemporary geopolitical situations.
Our projects include:
Digitizing and indexing of integrated archival collections comprising East Galician interwar periodicals, the Holocaust related documents and of the current political developments. This is part of an interdisciplinary Project: Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish Subjectivities in Interwar East Galicia, 1918 – 1939, (modern Ukraine ).
Documenting the story of Los Angeles Jewry, from the perspective of Hollywood's first synagogue, in the different waves of Jewish migrants: the early founders of Hollywood film and media, German and Central European creative figures who made LA "Weimar on the Pacific", Holocaust Survivors who rebuilt new lives after the death camps of Europe, Jews of the former Soviet Union who could explore a new world of freedom of religion, opinion and commerce, Jews making a safe and secure home away from the fascist regime of Iran, and more.
Advancing research in the rebirth of Jewish life and vitality in the heart of Austria and Germany, based on original archival documents.
Discourse on the existential perception of critical geopolitical situations nowadays and in the past with periodical reviews and commentaries about the Regions of Human Suffering, such as in the Russo-Ukrainian War and the dangers facing Israel in the light of October 7 and the radically changing Middle East. These discussions are presented on our website and our Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557770967121
WE strive to apply to modernity a romantic and medieval Motto:
TO SERVE AT THE PLEASURE OF TRUTH AND DECENCY.
About our Symbols:
Our logo is the ancient Hebrew letter Bet , which represents the first sound for Bereshit, Beginning. Ancient teachings hold that the shape of the letter taught us that we are to focus our thoughts from the foundations of human existence and move forward, thus embracing the past for the future.
Our symbol Chimera is always perplexed for the knowledge increases sorrow.
Our projects study and analyze the existential situations as crucial turning points in History.
OUR PROJECTS
DOCUMENTED HISTORY OF JEWISH EXPERIENCE:
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE AMERICAN AND JEWISH CENTURY, 1920'S TO 2020'S AND BEYOND
-Documenting and Analyzing Jewish - Gentile Discourse in the Context of Ethno-National, Political and Economic Developments in Los Angeles from the Civil War through to the post Cold War era, a period that has been described both as the American Century and the Jewish Century
-The impact of Jews on contemporary American civilization in the hard sciences and the social sciences, film and entertainment culture, business and industry, political culture, with a highlight on Los Angeles as the hothouse for America's cultural and economic development
- Periodization of Jewish historical experience in the greater Los Angeles area
- Social integration and disintegration: centripetal and centrifugal tendencies
- Stages of Jewish immigration: social and cultural compositions, counterbalancing and adverse effects
- Public perception of the Jews: decoding mytholgies and stereotypes
- Translating Jewish History to the LA functional narrative
-Historicizing LA Jewish Experience: Creating Online Archive and Thesaurus of Subject Matters.
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INTERDISCIPLINARY SEMINAR ON JEWISH-UKRAINIAN RELATIONS IN INTERWAR EASTERN GALICIA (modern Ukraine): 1918 -1939
We entertain a figurative conception of Ukrainian and Jewish apartness in a sense of two parallels. Both societies attempted to reach their own, largely incompatible goals. The agendas and political pursuits of both communities were in most instances distinctively opposite and intractable for mutual rapport and rapprochement. At the same time, the picture of Ukrainian-Jewish relations in interwar East Galicia would be incomplete without registering a phenomenon of the periodically arising affinities, that largely were evoked by the third and dominating force, namely the Polish state apparatus. We are in the position to argue that Ukrainian and Jewish objectives could warrant a certain number of common actions. The latter eventuated in encounters between two subjectivities at least within the realm of existential situations. We connote these virtually crossed parallels of subjectivities as the instances of togetherness in action.
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The titular Collection comprises five historical collections of Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish daily and weekly periodicals published in Eastern Galicia, Poland (present day Ukraine) in interwar period, 1918 –1939. What makes this Collection unique is that it serves to be a source for multi-disciplinary research and studies united by the common goal to facilitate studies of Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish Subjectivities in East Galicia in interwar period. We have selected and categorized thousands of newspapers and magazines according to five historical themes that reflect ethno - political, national and social discourses. Each of five aggregated collections is a digital repository of its own right bringing to public view under-researched and often stigmatized topics of the entangled and perplexed relations between Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish communities. Comparative reading and analysis of the documents should serve the purpose of understanding the viewpoints, decision-making and public opinions that drive Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish national paradigms. Periodical press of this period is a highly valuable historical source allowing us to delve into national identities, vicissitudes of political agendas and often antagonistic to each other societal trends.
We have digitized a great number of the interwar periodicals ourselves and added also a significant number of digital objects available in public domain, originally hosted by several academic institutions in Ukraine and Poland. Most of the Ukrainian newspapers have been microfilmed and digitized by us, Institute for the Studies of Galicia (Halychyna), non- profit organization located in Los Angeles. We have also been collecting microfilms from the interlibrary loans of several American universities. Please note that the core of the initial collections comprises microfilmed materials from Vasyl Stefanyk National Academic Library in Lviv, Ukraine. We have been microfilming Ukrainian and Jewish periodicals from the original newspaper binders at the premises of the Special Collections of this Library.
In the result we have collected thousands of digital objects which have been categorized and preliminary catalogued according to our Project. Our goal is to create five digital collections and have them indexed on a collection and document levels.
Directors:
Rabbi Dr. Norbert Weinberg,President and CEO of Research and Education, Rabbi of Hollywood Temple Beth El
For his background go to:
Dr. Vladimir Melamed, Chief Executive Officer, noted Historian and Researcher of Modern European History
For his background:
Bill J. Greenberg, Director for Technology
and Marketing , who brings his experience in web technology and archiving documents.
President of Net Data Systems, Inc.
Advisors:
Richard Hirschhaut-expert on Jewish communal affairs
Regional Director, American Jewish Committee, Los Angeles
https://www.ajc.org/bio/richard-s-hirschhaut
Douglas Workman, Technical Advisor
Edward Melamed, Content Manager
He graduated from Columbia University with degree in Psychology. His work experience includes applied research at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and University of Southern California
Alex Holt, Consultant on advanced education, literature, and film
The Online Archives will be available for research and education. We will be cataloguing, indexing and digitizing the documents for our Projects: official records, daily press, literary work, personal correspondences, memoirs and family photo-documents.
We are focusing on the documented history in the regions of interest: Los Angeles, East-Central Europe, Middle East and on the oral histories of a broader personal experience.
See also articles by our staff on Academia.edu and Academia and Academia Letters in this regard: https://www.academia.edu/50926698/UKRAINIAN_AND_JEWISH_VICISSITUDES_EAST_GALICIA_1918_1923_OBJECT_SUBJECT_RELATIONSHIPS_AND_INTERSUBJECTIVITY_Existential_Analysis
From Academia Letters
ACADEMIALetters
Dr. Vladimir Melamed
Keywords: Eastern Europe; Ukraine; Austro-Hungary; collective memory; historical narrative
Other Articles and Essays
https://independent.academia.edu/VMelamed
Literature of European and American Modernism: literary and comparative analysis
Polish-Jewish Literature: Literature in Polish written by Jews
Polish modernist literature by Jewish-Polish authors
Existential Central European Literature in German before and after the First World War
The Art of Weimar Republic and the European reflections
Bruno Schulz, Polish-Jewish writer and artist. Explore his inner circle of the non-ordinary world
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/05/02/bruno-schulz-nocturnal-apparitions-benjamin-balint/
Joseph Roth, writer and philosopher. He was a man of few possessions and a haunted, lonely mind, whose life stands out for unrepentant self-destruction.
Hans Fallada, modernist literature in the Third Reich
https://lithub.com/hans-fallada-the-anti-nazi-writer-who-reluctantly-served-the-reich/
Albert Camus, Existential philosopher and author
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1958/05/albert-camus-a-good-man/640286/
Independent
Cinematic Representation of Existential Pages of Human Experience in the 20th century
Ida, Drama, 2014, Director Pawel Pawlikowski, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeaXwufbOlc
Son of Saul, Drama, 2015, Director Laszlo Nemes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ktMOyfD8k
Wolyn (Hatred), Drama, 2016, Director Wojcech Smarzowski
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY-zOOjTO7U&t=246s
Pianist, Drama, 2002, Director Roman Polanski
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Pianist+film+
Ashes and Diamonds, Drama, 1958, Director Andrzej Waida
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuqhCAZSo3Y
The Zone of Interest, Drama, 2024, Director Jonathan Glazer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-vfg3KkV54
Golda, 2023, Biographical Drama
Director Guy Nativ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJETvSNa178
In 1851, the new Jewish settlers organized in Los Angeles a congregation Beth El, but they did not have neither a cantor or Rabbi and assembled for religious services only on New Year and the day of Atonement (I.J. Benjamin, Three Years in America, 1859 - 1862, trans. Charles Reznikoff (Philadelphia, 1956), II, 101.
Hollywood Temple Beth El, the first synagogue of Hollywood, was founded just as the burgeoning film industry was setting roots in Los Angeles in 1922.
In 1952, the members of Hollywood Temple Beth El built the magnificent edifice at the corner of N Crescent Heights and Fountain, in the heart of what would become the City of West Hollywood.It was designed by noted architect, Harry Hiller, and it has since been on the tour route of the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles for its unique design. It seems to have been influenced by artist depictions of the ancient Temple of Solomon in JerusalemThe structure also houses three sets of stained glass windows depicting the twelve tribes. The large windows in the Main Sanctuary were crafted by Francis J. Dunham in 1967. The most recent set, on the doors to the sanctuary lobby, were designed by Joe Young, architect of the Holocaust Memorial in Pan-Pacific Park.The magnificent structure now serves as the headquarters of the Iranian American Jewish Federation.
This historic building has served as a social and communal home for people in the West Hollywood and Hollywood Hills environs for over a century.
For a stunning 360 degree visual of our Main Sanctuary, go to:https://synagogues-360.anumuseum.org.il/gallery/hollywood-temple-beth-el/
Hollywood Temple Beth El
follow us for events on
https://www.facebook.com/htbel
and on YouTube for recordings and livestream ofour services and activities
https://www.youtube.com/@templehtbel5978/streams
The Iranian American Jewish Federation
Rabbi Dr Norbert Weinberg blog at
and recorded discussions:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxjc3h0xSwvPyfOCfgEFAcPhqz1frLijK&si=bQvT40RpBV9UB_HN
Dr. Vladimir Melamed
https://independent.academia.edu/VMelamed
https://huri.harvard.edu/people/vladimir-melamed
Dr. Vladimir Melamed
Online archive: Holocaust Museum LA
Dr. Vladimir Melamed
Online Archive: New Center for Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles
Image from Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
Russo-Ukrainian War.
If Ukraine have reliable allies
European Union and NATO: if there will the new leaderships
Institute for the Study of War
https://www.understandingwar.org/
Israel-Hamas War
Israeli and Geopolitical Perspective
American Politics, or American Political Business
Bloomberg Politics
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics
The Economist
Themes for the future pennels and discussions:
Anticipatory Anxiety: Literary and Cinematic Models
Does anti-semitism stands for anti-Jewishness: social and political dimensions
Collaboration in the Holocaust:
Everlasting existential discourse
DISCOURSE AND PERSPECTIVES
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1149584349412544
Future Topics:
Biblical History: Modern Historical Narrative
Jewish - Gentile Discourse in the Context of Ethno-National and Political Developments in Los Angeles: from the Civil War to the end of the Cold War
Temple Beth El as a Reflection on Social, Economic and Cultural Experience of the Jews in Los Angeles : 1920s -- 1990s
Russo-Ukrainian War: Ukrainian anti-colonial national narrative versus Putin's postcolonial expansionism.
Breaking the Russian Geopolitical Dominance
This is the History to be written yet
Preliminary tenets and conclusions:
Limited historiography on the Subject
Vague categorization: Cultural or Political History?
History of the Institutions, Societies or Religious organizations?
Integration, disintegration and unification on the notion of American patriotism and support for Israel
THEMES OF RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
Architecture of the Final Solution
Collaboration with Nazi-German administration and the role of Local administrations
Judenraete (Jewish Councils) and Jewish order police in the ghettos: phenomenon of survival
To survive or to resist?
Oral Histories of the Holocaust
The Genocides: Memories and Politics
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Arching and indexing of digitized collection of periodical Galician press of 19th-20th centuries
Publishing a series of essays reflecting Galician existential discourse of the 19th -20th centuries
Geopolitical analysis of the continuity of Ukrainian strife for sovereignty and self-determination
Founded in 2024, MEMORY IN ACTION: EMBRACING THE PAST FOR THE FUTURE has been dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of our community for over a century. Our collection of artifacts, documents, and photographs tells the story of our city from its earliest days to the present.
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