Lecture by Michael Miller, of CEU
Budapest is sometimes called the “Paris of the East,” but in the 1890s, it acquired a new, less flattering nickname: “Judapest.” Karl Lueger, the antisemitic mayor of Vienna – who hated Hungarians more than he hated Jews – is often credited with coining this derogatory nickname for a city that he thought had become more “Jewish” than “Hungarian.” Budapest was Europe’s fastest-growing city at the time, with a flurry of cultural and commercial activity that fascinated — and sometimes appalled — contemporary residents and visitors. This talk will examine the image of Budapest in the decades before and after the First World War, exploring the ways in which Hungary’s capital city was imagined by Jews and non-Jews alike as a quintessentially Jewish metropolis.
The evening will be chaired by Professor Mark E. Smith, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton. It will be hosted by Professor Mark Cornwall (University of Southampton, Parkes Institute)
The event will be held on Zoom. Please register by Monday 19th April 16:00 here:
https://www.southampton.ac.uk/parkes/news/events/2021/04/20-parkes-lecture-2021.page
Speaker biography: Michael L. Miller is Associate Professor in the Nationalism Studies Program at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, and co-founder of the university’s Jewish Studies program. He received his PhD in History from Columbia University, where he specialized in Jewish and Central European History. Michael’s research focuses on the impact of nationality conflicts on the religious, cultural, and political development of Central European Jewry in the long nineteenth century. His articles have appeared in Slavic Review, Austrian History Yearbook, Simon Dubnow Institute Yearbook, Múlt és Jövő , The Jewish Quarterly Review and AJS Review. Miller’s book, Rabbis and Revolution: The Jews of Moravia in the Age of Emancipation, was published by Stanford University Press in 2011. It appeared in Czech translation as Moravští Židé v době emancipace (Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2015). He is currently working on a history of Hungarian Jewry, titled Manovill: A Tale of Two Hungarys.
The conference aims to explore the development, role, influence and shape of virtual spaces in different forms related to contemporary European Jewry. How are digital practices related to real-life practices and spaces performed and inhabited by Europe’s Jewry? What do virtual spaces reveal about Jewish engagement with the geographical location and the idea of Europe? And, ultimately, what do virtual spaces tell us about the existence and future of a “Jewish Europe”? What do they say about transcending the borders of “Jewish Europe” and fostering membership in a global Jewish presence?
Announced keynote speakers are JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber and independent scholar Diana Pinto.
The conference is organised by the University of Gothenburg and the Parkes Institute of Southampton University.
Program:
Tuesday 3 May
09.00 – Welcome and introductions, Joachim Schlör, Maja Hultman and Klas Grinell
09.30 – Keynote: Ruth Ellen Gruber (Jewish Heritage Europe) Life after Life: Shifting Virtualities (and Realities) 20 Years after Virtually Jewish
10.45 – Break and coffee
11.15 – Panel 1: Jewish contribution to Europe – Chair: TBC
- Itai Apter (University of Haifa) – Jewish Legal-Political WWII Era Scholars in the European International Law Space of the Past and Contemporary Virtual Spaces
- Marcela Menachem Zoufalá (Charles University Prague) – TBC
- Vladimir Levin (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) – European Values, Post-Soviet States, and Jewish Heritage
12.45 – Lunch
14.00 – Panel 2: Jewish/non-Jewish Spaces in Europe (J444) – Chair: TBC
- Susanne Korbel (University of Graz) – Jewish Spaces in Vienna Today: A Relational, Hybrid Approach
- Magdalena Abraham-Diefenbach (European University Viadrina) – The Legacy of German Jews in Western Poland: Jewish Cemeteries as Places Between “Jewish Space” and “Virtual Jewishness”
- Jurgita Šiaučiūnaitė-Verbickienė (Vilnius University) – The Process of Learning About the Jews and Their Heritage: Influence of Challenges in Post-Soviet Lithuania to the Contemporary Understanding of the Jewish Culture
15.30 – Break and coffee
16.00 – Panel 3: Jewish Europe from Near and Afar (J444) – Chair: TBC
- Jennifer Cowe (University of British Columbia) – Rootless Nostalgia, Yekke Identity and Intergenerational memory Curation/Creation in Mor Kaplansky’s Café Nagler
- Libby Langsner (independent researcher) – Nostalgia Networks: The Potential of Built Heritage Digitization in European American Jewish Identity Formation and Social Belonging
- Judith Vöcker (University of Leicester) – The Muranów District as a Memorial of the Former Jewish Community of Warsaw
18.00 – City walk of Jewish Gothenburg
19.00 – Tour and dinner @ Gothenburg’s Synagogue
Wednesday 4 May
09.00 – Panel 4: Virtual Heritage Spaces of Jewish Europe – Chair: TBC
- Susanne Urban (University Marburg) – Storytelling in Jewish Spaces: Creating a Bond Between Spaces, History and Present
- Kyra Schulman (University of Chicago) – Memory Space: Probing the Limits of Holocaust Memorialization Projects on Digital Versus Physical Topographies
- Kinga Frojimovics and Éva Kovács (Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies) – Tracing the Holocaust in the Kaiserstadt
10.30 – Break and coffee
11.00 – Panel 5: Digital Practices in Today’s Europe – Chair: Klas Grinell
- Tyson Herberger (University of Southeastern Norway) – Impacts of Norwegian Jewry’s Digital Turn Under Corona
- Dekel Peretz (Heidelberg University) – Searching for Belonging: Jewish-Muslim Dialogue in Virtual Spaces
- Alla Marchenko (The Polish Academy of Sciences) – Virtual Representation of Real Jews and Jewishness in Contemporary Poland
12.30 – Lunch
13.45 – Heritage Session: Jewish Spaces in Sweden – Chair: Maja Hultman
- Yael Fried (Jewish Museum in Stockholm)
- Anna Grinzweig Jacobsson and Karin Brygger (Judiska salongen)
- Lukasz Gorniok (Paideia – The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden and Ivana Koutniková (Paideia – The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden/Paideia folkhögskola)
- Tom Shulevitz (Jewish Congregation of Gothenburg)
15.15 – Break and coffee
15.45 – Bus trip Gothenburg-Marstrand
17.00 – Guided tour of Marstrand
19.00 – Dinner @ Grand Tenan
21.30 – Bus trip Marstrand-Gothenburg
Thursday 5 May
09.00 – Panel 6: Being Jewish in Today’s Europe – Chair: TBC
- Katalin Tóth (Institute of Ethnology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Eötvös Loránd Research Network) – “But We Are Also Here – the Descendants of the Survivors”: Everyday Life of a Synagogue in Budapest for the Past Thirty Years
- Stanislaw Krajewski (University of Warsaw) – The Concept of De-Assimilation as a Tool to Describe Present-Day European Jews: The Example of Poland
- Phil Alexander (University of Edinburgh) – “The Most Saving Slum in Glasgow, and the Most Abandoned”: Scotland’s 20th Century Jewish Neighbourhoods as 21st Century Virtual Spaces
10.30 – Break and coffee
11.00 – Virtual Keynote: Diana Pinto (independent researcher) Jewish Spaces in a Topsy Turvy Europe
12.15 – Closing remarks by Joachim Schlör and Maja Hultman
This workshop explores spatial aspects of the experiences of German-Jews during 1930s, in Germany and in transit. In highlighting the convoluted relations between place and identity—and the essential influence of these relations on the history of emotions, thoughts and culture—the workshop focuses on the spaces that shaped German-Jewish self-perceptions in the face of National Socialism. While the workshop discusses specific locations, it also examines the concepts of space and place as analytical tools to enhance the historical understanding of Jewish life under Nazi rule and Jewish responses to Nazi persecution. In so doing, the workshop seeks to scrutinize and complicate recent trends in the study of German-Jewish history.
The Keynote Lecture will be given by Professor Marion Kaplan, a renowned researcher of German-Jewish history in modern times and one of the first to address questions of place and space in the experience of German Jews under Nazism.
Organisers: David Jünger (Universität Rostock), Ofer Ashkenazi (The Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History), Björn Siegel (Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden) und Katrin Steffen (Sussex Weidenfeld Institut of Jewish Studies)
This workshop takes place IN PERSON. To comply with current regulations to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, please register in advance by contacting Dr. David Jünger (david.juenger@uni-rostock.de).
PROGRAM
Thursday, 12 May
12:30–13:00
Introduction
13:00–15:00
1. Creating Spaces of Memory
Gerald Lamprecht (Graz)
Entangled Memories. Jewish and non-Jewish Discourses on the Great War in Interwar Austria
Katrin Steffen (Brighton)
East German-Jewish Spaces in Berlin. Jewish Heritage Societies (Heimatvereine) and their diasporic milieu in the 1930ies
Joachim Schlör (Southampton)
Brückenallee 33, Berlin
15:30-17:30
2. Being In-Between
David Jünger (Rostock)
From Myth to Reality. German Jews Discover Palestine (1933–1938)
Charlie Knight (Southampton)
Mapping your coordinates. Space and Transnationality in Refugee Correspondence
Björn Siegel (Hamburg/Graz)
Ships to Nowhere. A Maritime Space and Its Relevance to Decode Jewish Refugees’ experiences in the 1930s
18:00-19:30
Keynote Lecture
Marion Kaplan (New York)
The Emotional Dissonance of Spaces. German Jewish Refugees in Portugal
Hörsaal 218, Universitätshauptgebäude, Universitätsplatz 1
Friday 13 May
09:00-11:30
3. Vanishing Jewish Spaces
Guy Miron (Jerusalem)
Synagogues, Cemeteries, Sports facilities. Jewish spaces and places in Nazi Germany
Teresa Walch (Greensboro)
Rendering Germany ‘judenrein’: Space, Ideology, and German Jews in the 1930s
Kim Wünschmann (Hamburg)
Filming the destruction of the Munich Main Synagogue in June 1938. A spatial history-approach to the reading of visual sources
Miriam Rürup (Potsdam)
Dejudaization before Deportation. The removal of Jewish traces in urban topographies of German cities
12:00-14:00
4. Visualizing Jewish Spaces
Robert Mueller-Stahl (Potsdam)
Capturing crisis. German-Jewish private travel photography between the Weimar Republic and Nazism
Sarah Wobick-Segev (Hamburg)
Being and Not Being in Time and Place
Ofer Aschkenazi (Tel Aviv)
The Displacement of the Ordinary. The German-Jewish Home in Photography Narratives of Emigration
14:15-15:30
Round table: Final Discussion
with Sandwich lunch
This workshop explores spatial aspects of the experiences of German-Jews during 1930s, in Germany and in transit. In highlighting the convoluted relations between place and identity—and the essential influence of these relations on the history of emotions, thoughts and culture—the workshop focuses on the spaces that shaped German-Jewish self-perceptions in the face of National Socialism. While the workshop discusses specific locations, it also examines the concepts of space and place as analytical tools to enhance the historical understanding of Jewish life under Nazi rule and Jewish responses to Nazi persecution. In so doing, the workshop seeks to scrutinize and complicate recent trends in the study of German-Jewish history.
The Keynote Lecture will be given by Professor Marion Kaplan, a renowned researcher of German-Jewish history in modern times and one of the first to address questions of place and space in the experience of German Jews under Nazism.
Organisers: David Jünger (Universität Rostock), Ofer Ashkenazi (The Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History), Björn Siegel (Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden) und Katrin Steffen (Sussex Weidenfeld Institut of Jewish Studies)
This workshop takes place IN PERSON. To comply with current regulations to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, please register in advance by contacting Dr. David Jünger (david.juenger@uni-rostock.de).
PROGRAM
Thursday, 12 May
12:30–13:00
Introduction
13:00–15:00
1. Creating Spaces of Memory
Gerald Lamprecht (Graz)
Entangled Memories. Jewish and non-Jewish Discourses on the Great War in Interwar Austria
Katrin Steffen (Brighton)
East German-Jewish Spaces in Berlin. Jewish Heritage Societies (Heimatvereine) and their diasporic milieu in the 1930ies
Joachim Schlör (Southampton)
Brückenallee 33, Berlin
15:30-17:30
2. Being In-Between
David Jünger (Rostock)
From Myth to Reality. German Jews Discover Palestine (1933–1938)
Charlie Knight (Southampton)
Mapping your coordinates. Space and Transnationality in Refugee Correspondence
Björn Siegel (Hamburg/Graz)
Ships to Nowhere. A Maritime Space and Its Relevance to Decode Jewish Refugees’ experiences in the 1930s
18:00-19:30
Keynote Lecture
Marion Kaplan (New York)
The Emotional Dissonance of Spaces. German Jewish Refugees in Portugal
Hörsaal 218, Universitätshauptgebäude, Universitätsplatz 1
Friday 13 May
09:00-11:30
3. Vanishing Jewish Spaces
Guy Miron (Jerusalem)
Synagogues, Cemeteries, Sports facilities. Jewish spaces and places in Nazi Germany
Teresa Walch (Greensboro)
Rendering Germany ‘judenrein’: Space, Ideology, and German Jews in the 1930s
Kim Wünschmann (Hamburg)
Filming the destruction of the Munich Main Synagogue in June 1938. A spatial history-approach to the reading of visual sources
Miriam Rürup (Potsdam)
Dejudaization before Deportation. The removal of Jewish traces in urban topographies of German cities
12:00-14:00
4. Visualizing Jewish Spaces
Robert Mueller-Stahl (Potsdam)
Capturing crisis. German-Jewish private travel photography between the Weimar Republic and Nazism
Sarah Wobick-Segev (Hamburg)
Being and Not Being in Time and Place
Ofer Aschkenazi (Tel Aviv)
The Displacement of the Ordinary. The German-Jewish Home in Photography Narratives of Emigration
14:15-15:30
Round table: Final Discussion
with Sandwich lunch
The long-derelict 19th century synagogue in Kőszeg, western Hungary, is reopening to the public after a full-scale renovation that took place over the past two years. The synagogue, which is owned by the state, will become a cultural centre but also will be able to be used for religious services.
JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber is on the program of its first public event, Sunday August 28-29 — the opening of an exhibition about Philip (Fülöp) Schey (1798-1881), a Jewish philanthropist born in Kőszeg (known in German as Güns), who had grown rich as a textile merchant and later became a banker for the Hapsburgs. In 1859, Emperor Franz Joseph raised Schey to the Hungarian nobility — he was the first Jew to receive this honor and took the title Philip Schey von Koromla.
The exhibit is called “A Kőszeg Success Story: the Schey Family,” and it presents Philip Schey’s family, life and work: his economic and philanthropic activities, as well as his founding of institutions.
It begins at 3 p.m. and is organized by iAsk — the Institute of Advanced Studies in Kőszeg, which has played a role in the restoration of the building.
The opening is part of a two-day series of events, “Synagogue Week in Kőszeg,” including concerts, lectures, guided tours, and book presentations.
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