"Israel to a great Odessa" is the name of the Israeli cultural center's project initiated during the recent Days of Israeli Culture in the city. The opening of plaques to Meir Dizengof (the first Mayor of Tel-Aviv) and Shimon Dubnov (a great Jewish historian, philosopher, public figure) launched the project. The solemn ceremony took place in the Richelyevskaya Street, 44/46. Another distinguished Odessa resident who has greatly contributed to the cause of the Jewish renaissance - Lev (Leon) Pinsker - is commemorated here.

The Deputy General Director of the Israeli Government Bureau "Nativ" Tsvi Kantor said, opening the ceremony, "It is a great honor for me to be here, in the center of Odessa and to talk to you about one of the founders of the Jewish national movement". Chief Rabbi of Odessa and the region Shlomo Baksht underlined the importance of Lev Pinsker's life for today's generations. "He teaches us how we should treat Jewishness and, at the same time, how we should treat the country we live in. Pinsker himself was studying all his life, he was a clever person and he understood there are no trifles in life. One should always consider things seriously, analyze them, search for the ways to achieve a desirable result. Great ideas become great deeds owing namely to such people..."

"To be beaten and abused for being a Jew or to need protection due to the same reason is equally humiliating: both phenomena hurt human dignity in the heart of a Jew... That's why we should strive not for the mercy of the peoples of the world but for self-liberation of the Jewish people!

We should aspire to a national political unity and independence. To stop being eternal wanderers we need to have our own country, our shelter". These are the lines from "Authoemancipation" - a famous work of the Odessa resident Lev Pinsker- which was published in Berlin in 1882 and greatly welcomed on his motherland, especially in Odessa where the Pinskers were well - known. His father - Simkha Pinsker - was the founder of one of the city Jewish schools, a teacher of the Jewish history, an archeologist, a great specialist in old Jewish manuscripts. The merits of Pinsker-father were so big that the Russian government awarded two gold medals to him, the city named him an honorable citizen and the Jewish community secured him a life pension of 300 rubles.

Lev Pinsker was born in 1821. He got a primary education at his father's school. He further went to the Richelyevsky lyceum, then to the medicine department of the Moscow University. His medical practice was not only "civil" but military as well: Lev Pinsker selflessly worked at the hospital during the Crimean war.

The beginning of 1880s became a turning point in the outlook and life of a prosperous doctor, prominent philanthropist, public figure and educator who advocated the widest possible attraction of the Jewry to the Russian culture.

Lev Pinsker was shocked by the pogroms of 1881 and by a listless attitude to them on the part of the Russian intelligentsia. The "Autoemancipation" was written at that time, and a 60-year old Pinsker agreed to numerous requests to become a recognized leader of the movement "Khovevey Tsion" ("Zion Friends"). Soon a Black-Sea city became a leading Russian center of the Erets-Israel colonization which also has the name of "Gates to Zion". Igor Kotler, the author of the book "Essays from the history of Odessa Jews", analyzes different documents of that time and gives excerpts from police reports, "Doctor Lev Semyonovich Pinsker is the head of the Odessa society "Montefiore", which aim is to support Jews who have settled in the Palestinian colonies to cultivate soil and to indulge in agriculture in general... Doctor Lev Pinsker is no more young being an Odessa resident for many years. He has a higher education and enjoys a big popularity and authority not only among the Jews, but among generally educated people as well...Doctor Pinsker, doctor Lion, Lillenblum are true Jews fanatically devoted to the Jewish cause in the widest sense of the word".

Lev Pinsker died in Odessa in 1891. According to the historians, his death "put an end to a whole epoque in the Jewish movement for the national renaissance. Pinsker was not only the first leading ideologist of the national renaissance. He was also the soul of this movement, its moral authority. In 1934 Lev Pinsker's remains were taken to Jerusalem and buried there.