Edmund de Waal is creating a major new two-part exhibition to be displayed in the 500-year-old Jewish Ghetto in Venice, coinciding with the opening of the 58th Biennale.
The first part is located in the spaces surrounding the Canton Scuola, the beautiful 16th century synagogue in the Ghetto Nuovo, which is now part of the Jewish Museum.
New installations of porcelain, marble and gold will reflect the literary and musical heritage of this extraordinary place. The intention is to animate spaces that are little known and little understood by visitors to the Biennale and to bring new audiences into the Ghetto.
The second part of the work will be a pavilion based at the Ateneo Veneto, the fifteenth-century building near the Fenice Opera House that has been an historic centre for cultural debate in Venice. Here, de Waal is constructing a small building within the main space that will house 2,000 books by exiled writers, from Ovid to the present day.
An exhibition of photographs by Christian Schuster, focusing on the traces of Jewish (often rural) life in northern Bavaria’s Franconia region.
The opening ceremony is at 14:00 on May 12, 2019.
A major exhibit at the Bologna Jewish Museum will focus on the city’s “lost” medieval Jewish cemetery: it was destroyed in 1569 by order of Pope Pius V and was rediscovered during excavations in 2012-2014.
the exhibit features material found in the graves — including gold, silver, and bronze jewelry incorporating gemstones and amber, as well as other precious artifacts, using them to tell the story of medieval Jewish life in the city.
It was curated and organized by the Bologna Jewish Museum and the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for Bologna and the provinces of Modena, Reggio Emilia and Ferrara, in collaboration with the Jewish Community of Bologna.
See our JHE article about the exhibition
The Colours of Judaism in Italy: Precious textiles and fabrics from ancient Jerusalem to contemporary ready-to-wear
The exhibition at the famed Uffizi Gallery explores various aspects of the Jewish world’s relationship with fabrics and textiles for both religious and secular use, up to and including fashion and business in the 20th century, via such themes as the role of writing as an ornamental motif, the use of textiles to adorn synagogues, embroidery as secret labor, and the role of women. .
The exhibit is included in the general admission ticket to the Uffizi.
Cemetery clean up summer camp
The Summer Camp in Vištytis aims to preserve the town’s Jewish heritage and prepare information and material for the inventory process of the local Jewish cemetery. Ultimately, it will help to understand about the situation of the cemetery as well as people who had been buried there. The inventory process will cover cleaning and tidying the cemetery from debris and excess of vegetation; digitisation and identifying coordinates of graves; identifying and copying legible inscriptions. Your volunteer work will be a vital part in making this almost lost information accessible to the public again.
The initiative is organized by the NGO Maceva- Litvak cemetery catalogue and Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, with the cooperation of the NGO Goodwill Foundation.
The the third edition of the Czech Republic’s Day of Jewish Monuments takes place August 11 — and this year there is a smartphone app as well as an interactive map on the web site to help visitors.
On the Day, some 50 selected Jewish heritage sites in more than 40 towns in Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia will be open to visitors. They include synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, museums, and other sites. Some of them are generally closed to the public; some have recently undergone extensive renovation or are in the process of restoration.
Opening of the photographic exhibition of abadoned Jewish heritage sites in eastern Europe, by Christian Herrmann.
The exhibit runs until December 29, open on Saturdays and Sundays, 2 – 5 p.m
If you’re in New York this fall….
On this fall walking tour presented in partnership with the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy, you will visit two grand synagogues on the Lower East Side – rare remnants from a time when the neighborhood would have been filled with bustling houses of worship. Although both sites were places of prayer for new Jewish immigrants to the United States, their origins, histories, and architecture are entirely unique. The tour begins at the Bialystoker Synagogue, the largest active orthodox congregation on the Lower East Side today. A converted church with rumored ties to the Underground Railroad, the interior of this synagogue is covered in colorful murals and Tiffany-inspired glass windows. Next, you’ll learn about our historic sanctuary at the Museum at Eldridge Street. The first purpose-built synagogue for Eastern European Jews in the neighborhood, this building represents immigrant aspirations and exuberance. The state-of-the-art restoration, which spanned 20 years, brought this time capsule back from the brink of collapse.
The annual European Day (or Days) of Jewish Culture kicks off September 1st.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the event — which takes place in hundreds of locations all over Europe.
JHE Director Ruth Ellen Gruber took part in the meeting in Paris in 1999 that established the EDJC, and she will be writing about it in a post on the web site.
The conference, entitled “Democracy in Challenging Times: Israel, Europe, and the World”, is co-organized by the European Association of Israel Studies, University of London and Centre for the Study of the Holocaust and Jewish Literature, Faculty of Arts, Charles University.
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