Shalom Aleichem’s Museum 
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The interior of Sholom-Aleikhem Museum. |
The portrait of Sholom-Aleikhem Museum. Painted by German Gold, 2009. |
The interior of Sholom-Aleikhem Museum. |
The Museum of the great Jewish writer is situated in a modern building, built in place of the house, in which the writer created his most famous works. It was opened on March 2, 2009.
Sholom-Aleikhem (S.N. Rabinovich) is one of the founders of literature in Yiddish, including the children`s one. He was Ukrainian by nationality (born in Pereyaslav in 1859). At the age of 15, inspired by Robinson Crusoe, he wrote his own, Jewish version of this story and decided to become a writer, taking the pseudonym of Sholom-Aleikhem («peace to you» -traditional Jewish greeting).
In 1887-1890, 1893-1905 he lived in Kiev. After destructions in 1905 he left with his family for Switzerland, then - for Germany. In 1914 he was deported from Germany as a Russian citizen, and got to New York, where he lived the last years of his life. He died in 1916.
In 1997 a monument to the writer was opened in Kiev. Unfortunately, the house, in which Sholom-Aleikhem lived his last Kiev years, was destroyed in 2009. So nowadays only the monument and museum exposition remind about the writer
In the museum, which occupies the area over 220 metres, there are authentic things of that period, when the writer lived and created in Kiev. They were gathered by Jewish Diaspora of Ukraine for a long time. The museum gives a picture of not only the writer and his creative work, but also about the environment Sholom-Aleikhem lived in – about Jewish Kiev of the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. The district, where the museum was opened, was one of the centres of Jewish city life – Chorale and Merchant synagogues are not so far and also the house, where the Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meer was born.
