REVIEWS

Jewish Ludmir by local tour guide Volodymyr Muzychenko is a finely tuned scholarly work that mines Ukrainian and Russian archives for materials previously unavailable to American scholars. As head of the local Jewish community, Muzychenko hosted a small group from Boston on a “roots” journey.  After a brief and sketchy description, he was immediately able …

—Rosie Rosenzweig, Resident Scholar, Brandeis University, Women’s Studies Research Center

Click here to download the PDF of the entire article.

Click here for Rosie’s bio.

Volodymyr Muzychenko is the founding member of the Jewish community of Volodymyr-Volynsky, and is well respected in the city for his sterling personal qualities and the many years he has devoted to teaching. He committed the last ten years of his life to gathering historical data on the Jews of his city and the region. His work is thus the first and fullest narrative to date about the Jews of Volodymyr-Volynsky. The author drew on a wide array of sources, including scholarly and press articles, and unearthed a large number of illustrations, including rare photographs. He does not confine himself to a mere description of the city’s Jewish history, but examines it contextually, placing it against the background of political, economic, and cultural processes that took place in the region. The book is noteworthy for its balanced material and the author’s desire to avoid a purely lamentational type of exposition. Instead, he sought to show Jewish history as a variegated process marked by both tragic and distinguished pages.

This book is outstanding. It is the only full history of Ludmir — a true scholarly achievement. My family was able to finally gain this knowledge of the community where our grandfather was born — invaluable and precious.