Whose Words Are “the World’s Largest”? The Menorah Jewish Center in Dnipro

In the city of Dnipro, on the Dnipro River, there is a Jewish community center called “Menorah” (Менора). Opened in 2012, this complex houses a synagogue, a museum, research institutes, a medical center, consulates, and more. The Jewish community of Dnipro, which runs it, introduces it on its own website as “the world’s largest Jewish center.”

This article checks where that phrase comes from, while tracing the center’s origins and the history of the city’s Jewish population, using the community’s own published materials and encyclopedia entries. This city was called Katerynoslav until 1926 and Dnipropetrovsk until 2016. The renaming is covered in the article on Ukraine’s two place-name laws.

A Complex That Opened in 2012

According to the website of the Jewish community of Dnipro, the “Menorah” center opened in 2012. Its architectural concept was designed by Oleksandr Sorin and the design firm “Studio 7,” and the center incorporates a synagogue called the “Golden Rose” (Золота Роза). The community’s website lists the following institutions housed in the center.

Whose Words Are “the World’s Largest”?

The phrase “the world’s largest Jewish center” appears on the community’s “History of the Synagogue” page (“У 2012 році відкривається найбільший у світі єврейський центр “Менора””). But what is being compared to call it the largest — floor area, building height, number of institutions housed — and what it is being compared against, is not stated on that page. No material independent of the community that shows the basis and figures for the comparison could be confirmed. For this reason, this article does not treat “the world’s largest” as fact, and presents it only as the community’s own characterization.

The community’s website also describes a Jewish school that opened in 1991 as “one of the largest schools in Europe.” The entry “Dnipropetrovsk” (written by Vladimir (Ze’ev) Khanin, 2010) in the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe likewise states that the city’s Jewish secondary school is “one of the largest schools in Europe.” Here too, no basis for the comparison is given.

The Jews of Katerynoslav

According to the YIVO entry, Jews began settling soon after the town was founded, a community was formally established in 1793, and the first wooden synagogue was built around 1800. Under an 1804 law on Jews, Katerynoslav province fell within the area where Jews were permitted to live (the Pale of Settlement). The same entry states that in the second half of the 19th century the town’s Jewish population exceeded 40,000, and by 1889 they were the town’s third-largest ethnic group. The “Golden Rose” synagogue, built in 1852, dates from around this period, and by 1913 the town had 90 Jewish schools.

According to the entry “Dnipro” (written by Mykola Hlobenko and Volodymyr Kubijovyč, revised 2018) in the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (IEU, published by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta), the town’s population grew from 47,000 in 1887 to 121,000 in 1897 and 218,500 in 1912, with “almost 40 percent” of residents being Jewish. In the 1926 census, Jews made up 26.7% of the 232,900 residents.

The Figures Differ by Source

The city’s founding and Jewish population figures are described differently across sources.

Neither entry explains why the founding year differs. Many of the figures are estimates or citations of other surveys, and some entries do not state their own source.

The Museum Inside the Center

Inside the center is the Museum of the Jewish People’s Memory and the Holocaust in Ukraine. According to the community’s website, the museum opened on October 16, 2012, and displays the history of Ukraine’s Jews and the Holocaust with an emphasis on the history of the community of Katerynoslav–Dnipropetrovsk–Dnipro. Under the German occupation from August 1941, the city’s Jews were killed in large numbers. Kyiv’s Babyn Yar is covered in the article on Babyn Yar in Kyiv.

A Community Since 1990

According to the community’s website, after World War II and until 2000, the only synagogue in use in the town was a small building on Kotsiubynskyi Street (the “Small Synagogue”). The site states that the community’s real revival began when Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetzki and his wife arrived in the town as envoys of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Afterward, the site lists year by year, a Jewish school opened in 1991, the “Golden Rose” synagogue building was renovated and returned to use in 2000, a home for the elderly opened in 2002, and a children’s education center opened in 2003.

According to the YIVO entry, the Jewish community of Dnipropetrovsk was established and registered in 1998, with Kaminetzki becoming its executive representative. It also states that in March 1999 the Chabad-affiliated “Federation of Jewish Communities” registered with its headquarters in this town. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, spent part of his boyhood in this town from 1909, and his father, Levi Yitzchak, was the town’s rabbi (community website). The beginnings of Hasidism in Ukraine are covered in the article on the Baal Shem Tov and Hasidism.

Did He Arrive in 1990 or 1991?

When Kaminetzki came to the town differs by a year between sources. The community’s website, in “History of the Synagogue,” says “June 1990,” while the YIVO entry says “in 1991, the Israeli-born Lubavitcher rabbi Shmuel Kaminetzki arrived from the United States.” This article does not settle on either and presents both.