Canadian Philanthropist Donates $1.2m for Ukrainian Jewish Programs

James Temerty, a prominent Canadian businessman and philanthropist, has donated $1.2 million to fund Ukrainian-Jewish interfaith relations at Lviv’s Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU).

The University houses six research institutes and is the only Catholic university in the former Soviet Union.

The Temerty funds will be used to create three endowed professorships at UCU. One will be dedicated to the Ukrainian-Jewish encounter and interfaith relations, another for a program of Jewish studies in the context of Central and East European history and the third for biblical studies.

Temerty has been a driving force in opening a dialogue between the Ukrainian and Jewish communities. He is the founder of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, an initiative launched in 2008 to promote stronger and deeper relations between Ukrainians and Jews.