{"id":64227,"date":"2018-10-09T17:05:31","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T15:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=64227"},"modified":"2018-10-04T14:49:02","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T12:49:02","slug":"02-05-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=64227","title":{"rendered":"Ronald Lauder Awarded Andrey Sheptytsky Medal by Ukrainian-Jewish Organizations"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Ronald Lauder Awarded Andrey Sheptytsky Medal by Ukrainian-Jewish Organizations<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Vladislav Davidzon<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The ceremony held in New York also provided a rare spotlight on the low-profile founder of Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter, James Temerty<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

For the past week, as the annual United Nations\u00a0General Assembly<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0filled New York with visiting heads of state and Foreign Ministers, driving or walking through large swathes of the Upper East side has become next to impossible. However, last night, one ambassador and globe-trotting diplomat, in particular, was being honored in a private and dignified ceremony away from the frenzied activity of the chattering diplomats. Inside the majestic Central Park mansion of the Ukrainian Institute on the corner of 79th\u00a0street, several dozen Ukrainian and Jewish elites gathered to award the 4th\u00a0Andrey Sheptytsky Medal. The recipient of this year\u2019s medal was Ronald Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, honored for his \u201clifetime of service to the Jewish people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For the past 5 years, the prize has been awarded jointly by the Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter (UJE) and the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine to an individual who has contributed to the betterment of Ukrainian-Jewish relations. The award\u2019s namesake, Andrei Sheptytsky, was the remarkable wartime Metropolitan Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic church.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sheptytsky, whom I have\u00a0written about at length<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, was an exceptional figure: the scion of an ennobled and Polonized Ukrainian family, he was an archetype of the \u201clarger than life character\u201d even in his physical stature. He stood almost seven feet tall; he was erudite, wise, multilingual (he is known to have written a letter to the Jewish community of Lviv in Hebrew) and humane. During the Nazi occupation of Soviet Ukraine, the cleric personally hid more than one hundred and fifty Jews, including children and rabbis, in the properties and monasteries of the church. One rabbi was hidden inside the personal library of the Metropolitan\u2019s official residence. Sheptytsky is esteemed by many within the Ukrainian diaspora as a unifying figure whose historical legacy can provide a foundation for better relations and common understanding.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the Archbishop\u2019s remarkable acts of bravery in the face of the Nazi occupation of Lviv remain scandalously unknown outside of Eastern Europe. In the meantime, the campaign to have Sheptytsky be recognized as a \u201crighteous amongst the nations by Yad Vashem\u201d has remained mostly stalled.<\/span><\/p>\n

On hand to present Mr. lauder the Sheptytsky medal last night were Boris Lozhkin and James Temerty, the founder of the UJE.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lozhkin was previously the powerful head of Petro Poroshenko\u2019s presidential administration. Ukraine has numerous Jewish officials at the highest levels of government, including Lozhkin\u2019s successor and the current prime minister Volodymyr Groysman. Lozhkin, who was elected to his position last May, has recently emerged as the main representative of Ukrainian Jewry on the world stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past decade, Temerty\u2019s organization, UJE, has made tremendous contributions by routinely producing publications, exhibitions, films, to improve civilized discourse and comity in Ukrainian-Jewish relations. All the more remarkable, then, that Temerty, the Canadian philanthropist who underwrites all these good works, has maintained such a low profile.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Mr. Temerty and I spoke about his personal contribution to dialogue after the event, I pointed out that he has, for the most part, kept himself out of the public eye. Characteristically, he requested that I speak about the contribution of his colleagues, board, and team instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed, I am Ukrainian,\u201d Mr. Temerty said. \u201cWe are not vocal, we tend to be humble and modest and not blow our own horn.\u201d He added, \u201cI am satisfied to know, that if you do the good work, those who need to know will know about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Temerty proceeded to explain the story of the organization\u2019s founding. He first approached then sitting president Viktor Yushchenko about the project in 2007 after it had been proposed to him by his future colleagues. \u201cSo, I went to see President Yushchenko in his office, just the two of us in his office\u201d and I read this document to him and told him that this is something that we should do and that this is something for his soul and my soul and the whole soul of the Ukrainian people\u2026 if we create this organization.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After the proposal, he said, President Yushchenko stood up and embraced him, telling him that he would do whatever he could to help the project along. \u201cAnd so I knew at that point that I had something here, and that is what happened. When he embraced me like that, I knew it would work and so I went back to Toronto and said: \u201cgang we are doing this, we are launching this!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Temerty was also the primary funder of the newly opened\u00a0l<\/a>ibrary and learning center<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0named after\u00a0Sheptytsky<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, which opened at the Ukrainian Catholic University campus in Lviv earlier this spring.<\/span><\/p>\n

For him, the legacy of\u00a0the Metropolitan<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0remains the core matter:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSheptystky is, as you know, a holy figure, and it does not matter that Yad Vashem has not recognized him\u2026It is the will of God and God works in mysterious ways. Could you imagine that we in the Jewish community and Ukrainian community would be as active in promoting the story of Sheptystky as we are if he had been recognized 40 years ago? So, Maybe the fact that he never received the status of the \u201crighteous\u201d has actually worked to help promote the cause of Jewish- Ukrainian reconciliation in the name of the Metropolitan.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Vladislav Davidzon, the Chief Editor of<\/em>\u00a0The Odessa Review, is a Russian-American writer, translator, and critic. He was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and lives in Paris.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Ronald Lauder Awarded Andrey Sheptytsky Medal by Ukrainian-Jewish Organizations Vladislav Davidzon The ceremony held in New York also provided a rare spotlight on the low-profile founder of Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter, James Temerty For the past week, as the annual United Nations\u00a0General Assembly\u00a0filled New York with visiting heads of state and Foreign Ministers, driving or walking through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64227"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64236,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64227\/revisions\/64236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}