Museum of the History of the Jews

The Museum of History of Odessa Jews “Migdal -Shorashim” was opened in November 2002 by the Jewish community center “Migdal”. The need to create of such museum due to the fact that the history of Jews of Odessa was very poorly reflected in the expositions of Odessa state museums. Meanwhile, to the end of 19th century Jewish population of the city was about 35% and in 1900–1910s Odessa had the third largest Jewish population in the world (after New York and Warsaw). During this period the city served as a home to numerous Jewish writers and poets including Mendele Moicher Sforim, C.- N. Bialik, Sholem Aleichem and S. Chernikhovsky. Great historians such as S. Dubnov and I.- G. Klauzner lived in the same city. Early founders of the Zionism movement M. Lilienblum and L. Pinsker along with world known Zionist leaders V. Jabotinsky, A. Ginsburg (Ahad ha-Am), M. Usyshkin, M. Dizengoff and others also spent their days in Odessa.