Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

Sep
26
Sun
I-Tal-Ya Jewish books presentation @ Meis museum (and online streaming)
Sep 26 @ 11:30 – 12:30
I-Tal-Ya Jewish books presentation @ Meis museum (and online streaming) | Ferrara | Emilia-Romagna | Italy

I-Tal-Ya is a collaborative effort to identify and catalogue every Hebrew book in Italy. It is being carried out by the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy (UCEI), the Rome National Central Library (BNCR), and the National Library of Israel (NLI) in Jerusalem, with the support of the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe.

The project includes cataloguing an estimated 35,000 volumes from 14 Jewish communities and 25 state institutions and will take approximately three years to complete. 

The event is held within the program of Ferrara’s annual Jewish Book Festival.

 

Oct
18
Mon
A World Beyond: Jewish Cemeteries in Turkey 1583-1990 @ online
Oct 18 @ 16:00 – 19:30
A World Beyond: Jewish Cemeteries in Turkey 1583-1990 @ online

An international conference to officially launch the massive website and digital database of Jewish cemeteries in Turkey, A World Beyond: Jewish Cemeteries in Turkey 1583-1990.  

The database and web site are a project of the The Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center of Tel Aviv University. We wrote about it when it first went online last year as a beta version — though the site still says it’s in beta, the kinks that some users experienced appear to have been worked out, and we find it easy to search and use. 

Dedicated to the memory of  the oriental studies scholar Bernard Lewis, who died in 2018, the database is the culmination of decades of research by Prof. Minna Rozen (and others) and comprises digital images and detailed textual content of more than 61,000 Jewish gravestones from a variety of communities in Turkey from 1583 until 1990. Rozen’s onsite documentation of the cemeteries was carried out in 1988-1990. The material was digitized in the 1990s but until the web site was uploaded, it had not been publicly accessible.

Apr
30
Sat
Open Jewish Homes @ Netherlands
Apr 30 – May 4 all-day

The annual “Open Jewish Homes” Holocaust commemoration event in more than a dozen towns and cities in the Netherlands.

Small-scale, locally organized commemorative events takes place in homes where Jews (or members of the resistance) lived before, during, or just after World War II.

The web site states:

The focus is on Jewish life in these houses beforeduring and immediately after the war. History comes to life during Open Jewish Homes. Direct witnesses, descendants and connoisseurs tell stories about persecution, resistance and liberation on the basis of photographs, films, diary fragments, poems, literature and music. […]

The Jewish Cultural Quarter organised in 2012 the first edition of Open Jewish Homes in Amsterdam. Since then local work groups have been organising Open Jewish Homes in various other cities in the country as well. Everyone is free to initiate Open Jewish Homes in his or her place of residence. 

Home page of the Dutch Interactive Holocaust Memorial 

Open Jewish Homes was conceived as a way to engage “in real life” with the interactive Digital Monument to the Jewish Community in the Netherlands, which personalizes the more than 104,000 victims of Holocaust in the Netherlands. Every victim has a personal page  — with their home address as well as photos and other material. 

Click here to see the program in the various locations

 

Nov
30
Wed
“Unsettled Heritage” event @ online
Nov 30 @ 20:00 – 21:30
"Unsettled Heritage" event @ online

A conversation with Yechiel Weizman on his book
Unsettled Heritage: Living Next to Poland’s Material Jewish Traces after the Holocaust (Ithaca, 2022)

In Unsettled Heritage, Yechiel Weizman explores what happened to the thousands of abandoned Jewish cemeteries and places of worship that remained in Poland after the Holocaust. He asks how postwar Polish society in small, provincial towns perceived, experienced, and interacted with the physical traces of former Jewish neighbors. Combining archival research into hitherto unexamined sources and anthropological field work, the book uncovers the concrete and symbolic fate of Poland’s material Jewish remnants and shows how their presence became the main vehicle through which Polish society was confronted with the memory of the Jews and their annihilation. Leading the conversation with Weizman will be Monika Rice, and joining them will be Alon Confino and Amos Goldberg.

This event will be held via ZOOM Webinar.

Registration is required, register in advance here.

Jan
12
Thu
The Architecture of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam @ Online
Jan 12 @ 12:00 – 13:00
The Architecture of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam @ Online

Dr. Pieter Vlaardingerbroek will present an illustrated talk live from Amsterdam on the architecture and interior of the 1675 Portuguese Synagogue (the Esnoga) in Amsterdam and the synagogue’s direct influence on the architecture of the 1763 Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island.

Pieter Vlaardingerbroek, Ph.D., is a leading expert on Dutch architecture and material culture. He is an architectural historian for the City of Amsterdam, having served in a similar position for the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. He is an Assistant Professor of Architectural History and Conservation at the University of Utrecht. Professor Vlaardingerbroek is the author of many articles and books and served as editor for the definitive volume on the Portuguese Sephardic synagogue, The Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, published by the City of Amsterdam in 2013.

There is no fee to participate, but reservations are required to receive the Zoom login information.

Click to register.

 

Apr
29
Sat
Open Jewish Houses @ Various towns
Apr 29 @ 17:22 – May 5 @ 18:22
Open Jewish Houses @ Various towns

The annual “Open Jewish Houses/Houses of Resistance” commemorative program takes place in a score of towns and cities around the Netherlands.

Storytellers, visitors and residents share stories in houses where Jews or members of the resistance lived and worked before, during and just after the Second World War. 

Click to see the program

 

 

 

Jan
23
Tue
“Religious Heritage and Minority Communities” @ online and Centre for Religion and Heritage of the University of Groningen
Jan 23 @ 13:15 – 18:15
“Religious Heritage and Minority  Communities” @ online and Centre for Religion and Heritage of the University of Groningen

The Centre for Religion and Heritage of the University of Groningen will host a half-day public symposium to launch the Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe. This event will also inaugurate a new European project on minority religious heritage.

The event takes place in person and also online.  Click HERE to register

The organizers state:

The Handbook provides a state-of-the-art guide by leading international scholars, policy makers and heritage practitioners. With 46 chapters, we cannot address all the contributions, thus we have chosen to concentrate on those which examine how religious communities are using their rich heritage to make new meanings for themselves in Europe. Our focus will be on Jewish, Muslim and Christian heritage. We want to think together about the challenges facing these communities, as they grapple with being Jewish or Muslim minorities in a historically Christian landscape, or with being a minority of practicing Christians in the highly secularized society, such as that of Northern Netherlands. Reflecting on these questions together with our Handbook authors will aid the start of a new project in the Erasmus Plus program called European Pathways to Minority Religious Heritage (Miretage). Over three years we are exploring how minority religious heritage can be taught as a co-creative activity between heritage institutions, creative organizations and minority communities. On hand to participate in the symposium are partners from Storytelling Center Amsterdam, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Moslim Archief Rotterdam, KU Leuven, Future for Religious

Click here to see the program for the January 23 event

 

Feb
12
Mon
Dutch National Holocaust Museum Opening @ National Holocaust Museum, Amsterdam
Feb 12 all-day
Dutch National Holocaust Museum Opening @ National Holocaust Museum, Amsterdam | Amsterdam | Noord-Holland | Netherlands

The new Dutch National Holocaust Museum will be officially opened March 10  by King Willem-Alexander at a ceremony attended by the prime minister and other VIPs. The king will also give a speech at a gathering in the nearby Portuguese Synagogue.

The museum then opens to the public on March 11, from 10 am-5 pm  (almost) daily.

The museum tells the story of the Nazi persecution and murder of the Jews of the Netherlands. 

This is the first and only museum to relate the history of the persecution of the Jews of the entire Netherlands. Including the day-to-day life of Jews on the eve of the Second World War, the liberation as Jews experienced it, and how the Holocaust has been treated in our national culture of remembrance: all this is examined in the museum.

The Museum is part of the Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam. Germany and Austria have contributed financially to the establishment of the museum.

(Photo: © Thijs Wolzak/National Holocaust Museum)

Mar
10
Sun
Dutch National Holocaust Museum Opening @ National Holocaust Museum, Amsterdam
Mar 10 all-day
Dutch National Holocaust Museum Opening @ National Holocaust Museum, Amsterdam | Amsterdam | Noord-Holland | Netherlands

The new Dutch National Holocaust Museum will be officially opened March 10  by King Willem-Alexander at a ceremony attended by the prime minister and other VIPs. The king will also give a speech at a gathering in the nearby Portuguese Synagogue.

The museum then opens to the public on March 11, from 10 am-5 pm  (almost) daily.

The museum tells the story of the Nazi persecution and murder of the Jews of the Netherlands. 

This is the first and only museum to relate the history of the persecution of the Jews of the entire Netherlands. Including the day-to-day life of Jews on the eve of the Second World War, the liberation as Jews experienced it, and how the Holocaust has been treated in our national culture of remembrance: all this is examined in the museum.

The Museum is part of the Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam. Germany and Austria have contributed financially to the establishment of the museum.

(Photo: © Thijs Wolzak/National Holocaust Museum)

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