Odesa and the Jewish Imagination: Remembering a Vanished World

Odesa holds a special place in the Jewish imagination. Once a vibrant centre of Jewish culture in Tsarist and inter‑war Eastern Europe, it blended commerce, literature, political activism, and humour. Though much of this lived reality was destroyed during the Holocaust and Soviet era, it lives on in memory, archives, and the artistry of writers like Isaac Babel, and in the enduring preservation of Jewish heritage in the city.

Beyond Brick and Stone: What Made Odesa “Jewish”?

Founded in 1794 under Catherine the Great, Odesa became a melting pot of identities—Greek, Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish and more. By the late nineteenth century, Jews comprised roughly 30 per cent of Odesa’s population, creating one of the Russian Empire’s major Jewish centres. The city was famed for its bustling port, its lively bazaars, and its multi‑lingual cafés, all linked by Jewish shopkeepers, traders, labourers, and artisans. These same streets gave rise to a distinct urban identity: modern, secular, ironic, and often revolutionary.

Literary Legacy: Babel, Jabotinsky, Bund

Odesa’s Jewish presence found its most celebrated expression in literature. Isaac Babel, born in 1894, wove tales of gangland “kings” like Benya Krik, giving voice to the city’s criminal and creative fringes. His Odesa Stories remain emblematic of a culture both gritty and deeply human.

At the same time, Odesa incubated Zionist thought. Ahad Ha’am edited Hebrew periodicals here; Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism, grew up and studied in the city  . Meanwhile, the socialist activism of the Bund (a socialist Jewish political party in the late Russian Empire) coexisted alongside other trends—making Odesa an intellectual crossroads of Jewish modernity.

Culture Interrupted: Pogroms, Holocaust, Soviet Erasure

Even as Odesa flourished, Jewish residents endured waves of pogroms in 1821, 1859 and 1905. These assaults were followed by the Holocaust. Under Romanian occupation in 1941–1944, hundreds of thousands of Jews in and around Odesa were murdered or deported to Transnistria death camps. Post‑war Soviet repression continued this erasure: synagogues were closed, Hebrew and Yiddish banned, and survivors silenced under the pressure of assimilation.

Revival and Memory

Today Odesa has begun to reclaim its Jewish heritage. The Migdal‑Shorashim Jewish Museum, opened in 2002, curates 7,000 artefacts documenting Jewish life—from synagogue vestments to letters and photographs. The Brods’ka (Choral) Synagogue, completed in 1868, is undergoing restoration and will serve again as a house of worship. Memorials to the Holocaust and monuments to literary figures like Babel dot the cityscape, signifying a cultural reawakening.

A Legacy in the Imagination

Odesa’s Jewish world endures most vividly in fiction, memory and symbolism. Babel’s stories immortalise a city of paradox—lawless yet humane, scandalous yet deeply communal. Jabotinsky remembered its vibrancy as an almost idyllic inspiration. Today’s literary flash mobs and pilgrimages to Babel’s former neighbourhoods reconnect writers and readers to that spirit.

Remembering Odesa’s Jewish Soul

The Jewish Odesa that thrived between the 19th and mid‑20th centuries is gone—but it lives on in literature, museums, synagogues under restoration, and in the determination of survivors and scholars. Remembering this world means acknowledging its tragedies, celebrating its creativity, and ensuring that its legacy informs the present.

To honour Jewish Odesa is to affirm that culture and memory can outlast persecution, and to recognise that even in absence, a vanished world can still shape the identity of a city—its stories, its values, and its ongoing cultural revival.