Learn about (and help support) the ongoing project to restore the Bagnowka Jewish cemetery in Bialystok, Poland, the only remaining Jewish cemetery in the city.
For the second year in a row, the Open Republic Association will commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising with a multimedia event created by the artist Gabi von Seltmann. On the night of 18th April, i.e. on the eve of the anniversary of the Uprising, the image of the Great Synagogue rising from the rubble will appear on the wall of the Blue Skyscraper which was constructed on its site. The Great Synagogue, destroyed by the Germans after the fall of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, will be symbolically reconstructed through image, sound and emotion.
“May remembrance and love overcome destruction and death.”
Archival recordings of the cantor of the Great Synagogue, Gerszon Sirota, who died in the Warsaw ghetto, and fragments of the poem “Bashert”, read by its author, Irena Klepfisz, daughter of Michał, a soldier of the Jewish Combat Association, will be played during the ceremony.
The performance will last six minutes (the sequence will be repeated from 9:00 to 11:00 PM).
The event will be broadcast live at www.otwarta.org
For more details please visit the fanpage and event on FB.
Lecture by Joanna Beata Michlic.
Since the fall of Communism, Łódź, the third-largest city of Poland, has embarked on a process of cultural reorientation. This process aims at reshaping it into a forward-looking twenty-first century European city. A close look at this process reveals that the reinvention of the city depends on what might be called an archaeological project of rediscovering the local pre-1939 multi-ethnic and multicultural heritage. In this lecture, Dr. Michlic examines the dynamics of the rediscovery of the Jewish heritage in Łódź from the perspective of mutual relations between a physical space and various social agents. She focuses on how the city draws on, reworks and articulates the forgotten Jewish heritage.
At Lag B’Omer, a training seminar for tour guides on Hasidic history and heritage will be held — in English, sponsored by several institutions and organizations in cooperation with local Jewish bodies and Bar Ilan University.
The aims are:
- to improve knowledge about Hasidism, especially Seer of Lublin and his students
- to improve guiding and storytelling skills
- to visit sites most important for the history of Hasidism in eastern Poland
- to meet people from all over Poland, Israel and abroad
The seminar will include:
- Study Groups Relating to “The Seer of Lublin” and His Hasidic Court: Historical and Theological Background
- Lectures of Israeli and Polish experts
- Hasidic Tales and Music
- Lag Baomer Celebration
- Study tours in: Lublin – Leżajsk – Łańcut – Kock
Registration is open till March 31, 2019.
For more information and registration:
Agata Radkowska-Parka : agata@rootkatours.com
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Click here to find full details, program, and application process
Click here for a pdf leaflet about the seminar
Click here for full program PDF
Lecture by Rudolf Klein, based on his recent book.
This lecture, in English, deals with metropolitan Jewish cemeteries in Central and Eastern Europe, from the aspects of art history, architecture and planning, landscaping, Jewish history, Jewish-Christian/Moslem dialogue, the influence between different European regions, including the impact of the Reform Movement and the Ashkenazi-Sephardi dialogue.
Its subject comprises the entirety of elements of 19th and 20th century Jewish cemeteries: urban location, morphology of cemeteries, gravestone typology, stylistic analysis, symbols and inscriptions – language, content, typography – tahara and ceremonial halls, wells, benches, pergolas, row- and section-markers, etc.
Rudolf Klein is professor of history of architecture at the Architecture and Civil Engineering Department of Szent István University. He specializes in history and theory of the 19th- and 20th-century architecture and its impact on religious identity. He is author of many books on history of architecture, including one dedicated to the synagogues in Hungary from late 18th c. to early 20th century, and one about Jewish cemeteries.
A second memorial wall made of rescued matzevot has been constructed next to the 2011 original memorial wall and will be inaugurated. These are matzevot that were buried under local streets and have been recovered in recent months, thanks to the the initiative and efforts of Grzegorz Grzybowski and with the support of Mayor Kowalski and local military authorities.
Gregorz Grzybowski is the contractor who designed and built the wall and plaza at the cemetery that was dedicated in 2011.
It is known that there are still partial and full headstones scattered around the city that had been used for walls, walkways, etc. The Mayor’s office has undertaken a program to encourage people who have these to turn them in to the city and receive replacement blocks or decorative pavers in return.
The dedication of the new monument takes place withing an annual reunion of descendants from Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki, taking place June 4-6.
The historic Jewish cemetery in Tarnow, Poland will be ceremonially rededicated after years of extensive restoration work.
The rededication ceremony on June 26 takes places within the context of the two-day Tarnow Jewish Reunion.
Other events include a walking tour of Jewish Tarnow, photography exhibit, Jewish cemetery tour and visit to family graves.
See program below.
Vilnius presentation of the new book by Dr. Richard Freund, the Maurice Greenberg Professor of Jewish History at the University of Hartford in Connecticut: The Archaeology of the Holocaust: Vilna, Rhodes, and Escape Tunnels.
Click to read more about the book
Just weeks after the Jewish cemetery in Tarnow was rededicated after a more than two-year restoration, vandals spray-painted antisemitic graffiti on the newly repaired wall next to the entrance gate.
It read: “Jews eat children Jadowniki eats Jews”. (Jadowniki is a nearby village.)
The Committee for the Protection of Jewish Heritage in Tarnow has organized a clean-up for Monday morning July 22, in order to paint over the slogans.
“We believe that the majority of Tarnów residents, like us,… oppose all forms of hooliganism, boorishness, anti-Semitism, or any discrimination and humiliation of other people, their origin, appearance, sex, age, etc.,” it said, announcing the initiative. “Let us show that in our city, there is no place for this type of acts of hooliganism.”
Volunteers are asked to bring paint brushes and rollers, if they have them. Otherwise they will be provided.
Read our article about the rededication of the cemetery
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