Re: [czernowitz-l] New video about the history of the Czernowitz Jewish community and the Czernowitz Jewish cemetery at www.cjcro.org

From: SASHA WOLLOCH <sashawoll_at_gmail.com_at_nowhere.org>
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2021 23:07:23 -0400
To: Johannes Czakai <johannes.czakai_at_fu-berlin.de>, CZERNOWITZ-L History digest <czernowitz-l_at_list.cornell.edu>
Reply-To: SASHA WOLLOCH <sashawoll_at_gmail.com>


Mr. Czakai,



I am glad to have given you the opportunity to show off your erudition.

We did not mean to create an academic dissertation about 18th century
Austria.

In only 9 minutes we have tried to present to the average viewer a quick
history of Jewish Czernowitz.

I am not going to spend too much time dissecting your nitpicking about the
video.

The video is probably not perfect, it was not meant as an academic paper
and nobody is arguing about this.

But I personally take exception with your statement:



“The Czernowitz Jewish cemetery is not "the
last remnant of the city’s vibrant Jewish past", there are other
important landmarks in the city, like the former synagogue (now a
cinema) or the former Jewish National House (both of which can be seen
in the video on old pictures)”



A person who comes to visit Czernowitz today and only sees the Cinemagoga
( we do not need to belabor here what happened with the Tempel in 1941) or
the ex-Jewish National House( where little girls take ballet classes today
) cannot even start to appreciate what the Jewish community meant for the
city.

The Jewish Cemetery with it’s huge surface of almost 12 hectares and more
than fifty thousand graves dating in many cases from the mid 19th century
is the only place in town where one can really appreciate the size of what
Jewish Czernowitz once was. And I heard several times during my repeated
 trips to Czernowitz things like “ you Jews from America have money, why
are you not taking care of your own cemetery?”.

This is why we have formed CJCRO and with the help of our contributors we
try to keep in reasonable shape this place where our ancestors rest.



I also did not appreciate at all your personal attack on Dr. Matthew Lupu.
I found it petty!

He did a good job with a small budget.

We have received only positive comments about the video from many people
and generous contributions continue to arrive. For this we are grateful.



So if you still have a bad taste in your mouth you can always go to Café
Kadosh in Jerusalem and have a baklava…



Best,

Sasha Wolloch

On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 1:29 PM Johannes Czakai <
johannes.czakai_at_fu-berlin.de> wrote:

> Dear Sasha,
>
> thanks for sharing this video. I support the project and hope you will
> raise a lot of awareness for your cause. However, because of my
> sympathies I have to stress that the video is quite problematic. Like
> other list members I was excited to watch it, but then I was very soon
> surprised. The video is certainly well produced, looks amazing, and the
> cause is inspring, but unfortunately it is full of historical errors,
> incorrect statements and misleading footage, which most viewers are not
> aware of.
>
> Right in the first frame we see Toledo in Spain, then we see random
> Jewish cemeteries (Sarajevo), synagogues (Bulgaria), objects
> (Lithuania), gravestones, buildings, reenactments, interiors, all of
> which are not in Czernowitz, although the assumption of the viewer is
> that we see Czernowitz. We see a picture of Regensburg in Eastern
> Bavaria, when the narrator talks about "Swabia"; we see pictures of
> Christian farmers, when the narrator talks about Jews, we see a picture
> of the 1781 edict of tolerance for Protestants, when the narrator talks
> about the 1782 edict for Jews.
>
> But most important are historical errors: There was never an organized
> migration of Jews from Austria or Swabia to Czernowitz, which is
> depicted in the video as the starting point of the modern community.
> Enzenberg was certainly driven by 18th century anti-Jewish sentiments,
> but he was not a "devout antisemite" (which is a concept of the 19th
> century). Hasidism did not originate in Yazlovets. The quoted passage of
> the edict of 1782 was only valid in Lower Austria and Vienna, and had
> nothing to do with Bukovina. The Czernowitz Jewish cemetery is not "the
> last remnant of the city’s vibrant Jewish past", there are other
> important landmarks in the city, like the former synagogue (now a
> cinema) or the former Jewish National House (both of which can be seen
> in the video on old pictures).
>
> All of that and much more leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. In
> fact, the video seems to be mainly a collage of commercial stock footage
> and wikipedia knowledge, augmented with some historical and actual
> images from Czernowitz, which makes it impossible to understand which
> information and image is accurate and which is the imagination of the
> creators. Also the assertion that Panorao is a group of historians is
> misleading, since Matthew Lupu is a dentist and (soon-to-be)
> archeologist. If it would be just one mistake or two misleading pictures
> - fine. This video is not an academic paper, it has another purpose and
> it looks inspiring if you are not interested in accurate information.
> But there is so much wrong and misleading content, that I was relieved
> when the video was over. And that is sad for the good cause it should
> serve. Please understand everything I wrote as constructive criticism.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Johannes Czakai
>
> --
> Johannes Czakai
> Visiting Research Fellow
> Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center
> Hebrew University Jerusalem
> https://rosenzweig.huji.ac.il/people/johannes-czakai
>
>
>
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*******************************************************************************
This moderated discussion group is for information exchange on the subject of
 Czernowitz and Sadagora Jewish History and Genealogy. The opinions expressed
 in these posts are the opinions of the original poster only and not necessarily
 the opinions of the List Owner, the Webmaster or any other members
 or entities connected with this mailing list. The Czernowitz-L list has
 an associated web site at http://czernowitz.ehpes.com that includes a
 searchable archive of all messages posted to this list.

To send mail to the list, address it to <Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu>.

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Received on 2021-03-21 12:22:05

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