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On July 11, 2017 Lviv hosted discussion “Separately on the Shared: What Jewish Museums are Needed in Eastern Europe?” This was the first event in this year's lecture-discussion series “Jewish Days in the City Hall: (Un)Displayed Past in East European.”

The preservation of Jewish heritage as well as its inclusion as part of renewed Ukraine’s national narrative is increasingly relevant today. The Interest to Jewish heritage in Ukraine nowadays coincides with a sort of “boom” in Jewish museums in Eastern Europe, where several large-scale museum projects have been implemented over the past few years.

Why is it so important to study the history and culture of Jews? Can the presentation of Jewish heritage be an integral part of the national public narrative of one country, or is it an independent, "supranational" phenomenon? What principles and metrics should guide the presentation of Jewish heritage within the museum space? How could (and should) the "painful" aspects of shared history be shown? 

These issues, among others, were raised during discussions on the example of Polish, Ukrainian and Russian museums in relation to the needs and capacity of Ukrainian museums.

Disputants: Iegor Vradii (Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine”, Dnipro), Dariusz Stola (POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw), Grigoriy Kazovskiy (Museum of Jewish History in Russia, Moscow), Uri Gershovich (Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Moscow), Semion Goldin (Nevzlin Research Center at Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

“Jewish Days” is a public program for general audiences, related to two other projects of the Center for Urban History: Summer School in Jewish History and Multicultural Past, held annually since 2010, and the initiative “Space of Synagogues: Jewish History, Common Heritage and Responsibility” (in partnership with the Lviv City Council and the German Society for International Cooperation, GIZ).

 According to the Center for Urban History