Top leaders at two Jewish museums in Lithuania and Italy have resigned their posts.
Sergey Kanovich, founder and Executive Director of the Lost Shtetl Museum in Lithuania, announced in a Facebook Post on January 6 that “with great sadness” he was stepping away from his involvement with the museum, which is under development and scheduled to open this year in the town of Šeduva.
As its founder, Kanovich has been one of the prime movers of the museum project, leading its creative work since its inception a dozen years ago as part of the broader Lost Shtetl memorial complex.
Earlier, on December 23, 2024, Caterina Quareni, Director of the Bologna, Italy Jewish Museum since April 2023 , announced on the museum’s web site that she was resigning and would no longer be associated with the museum.
The museum, housed in the sixteenth-century Palazzo Pannolini in the heart of the historic Jewish ghetto area, was established in 1999 and is managed by a public foundation created by the Municipality of Bologna, the Jewish Community of Bologna and the Friends of the Museum Association, supported by the Emilia-Romagna Region, the Province of Bologna and the Institute for Artistic, Cultural and Natural Heritage of the Emilia-Romagna Region.
Neither Kanovich nor Quareni gave specific reasons for their decision, though both cited differences with governing bodies of the institution.
Kanovich cited “an irreconcilable and fundamental difference of vision and attitude of some involved [with] a public institution that has arisen during the final stages of the project.”
Quareni, whose position technically was President of the Foundation of the Jewish Museum of Bologna, said that hers was a “deeply considered” decision that resulted from “twenty months in which, in addition to committing myself to making this place function to the best of my ability, I had the opportunity to take note of the choices and orientations given by the decision-making bodies of the Foundation, partly new, partly already announced in previous years but never to date brought forward with great determination. The inevitability of some programmatic lines therefore made me understand that I cannot and do not want to continue either in my role or in a less prominent position.”
Both museums are members of the Association of European Jewish Museums (AEJM).
Click to read Kanovich’s FB announcement
Click to read Quareni’s statement