The building of Odessa archive transferred to Jewish communities

On February 19, 2016, the regular session of Odessa Regional Council decided to transfer (as donation) the main building of the State Archives of Odessa region (city of Odessa, Pushkinskaya str., 20, Zhukovskyy lane, 18) from the ownership of the municipal community to Odessa Jewish religious community (OIRH) “Chabad - Shomrey - Shabos.” 59 out of 62's councilors present voted for this decision, according to Rrostir.museum.

The draft decision, which was prepared for the meeting by the Office of Property Relations, stated that the building was transferred to the community under the Law of Ukraine of 2002 “On urgent measures on the final elimination of negative consequences of totalitarian policies of the former USSR towards religion and restoration of violated rights of churches and religious organizations.”

According to the Archive employees, the building is in very poor condition and in need of repair, which has been requested since 2003 and all these 13 years they have offered dozens of options of buildings (including the building of ODA carpool, servicing 50 cars of officials, and has an area of ​​4000 square meters) that could host the institution storing 2 million files of the Minister of State Archival Fund of Ukraine. But all this time the authorities pretended that the problem did not exist.

Director of the State Archives of Odessa region Volodymyr Levchuk says that employees do not object to return of the building to the religious community, but they want first to get another room that would meet the standards for proper operation of the archives: “We fully support that the building is returned to the parish, but first determine the future of our archive. The area of the facilities we are offered totals 1700 square meters, and the current area is  2700 square meters. That is, we would like to obtain normal room or area in the first place, and only in the second place to transfer the building to the religious community.”

According to rumors, the archive is being offered the building outside the city, in the village of Oleksandrivka, Kominternovsky district.

In this connection, a general meeting of Odessa community is convened on February 22, 2016 at 15.00 to decide on the further fate of the Archive.

According to the report, the building of Brodsky synagogue was built in 1860 year according to architect Kollovych’s design. Later it became the first Choral Synagogue in the South of Ukraine (as part of the Empire), where prayers were accompanied by music and physharmonica. In 1920, when all 7 operating synagogues were closed in Odessa, Brodsky synagogue hosted a Jewish club. After World War II, the archive moved in. The discussion on the return of synagogues to the religious community have continued since 1990s.