Odessa Jewish Heritage

Duration: 4 hours
Walking: moderate

Begin your exploration of Odessa's Jewish Heritage from Potemkin Staircase, and learn how the city gained its sobriquet, Gateway to Zion. Many world-renowned names including Jascha Heifetz, Emil Gilels, David Oistrakh, Nathan Milstein, Leon Brodsky, Isaac Babel and Vladimir Jabotinskiy are closely connected with the history of Odessa.

Proceed to one of the newly opened synagogues of Odessa, Shomrei Shabbos. In the synagogue's white spacious worship hall, learn about the present-day life of the Jewish community in Odessa. Passing by the impressive building of Brodsky Synagogue, the house of Jabotinsky, soon reach Jewish Street where the Old Main Synagogue with its stone edifice has been relocated. This now active synagogue was revived following the end of the Soviet atheistic era. Proceed for a visit to the Moldavanka district, where in a small park are two dark grey marble stones, one engraved in lighter shades with a menorah, and the other with a Magen David. The inscription declares, "Remember in the name of the future. This reminder of the Holocaust’s horror, which affected Odessa severely during the WWII, stands at the beginning of "death road," where the Jews were forced to walk on the way to their brutal demise.

Reboarding your coach, drive along Miasoedovskaya Street, still known as Shalom Aleichem, to view another historical landmark, the Jewish Hospital, which was founded in 1802.


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