The UMass Amherst Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies hosts a daylong symposium honoring the work of James Young, Distinguished Professor emeritus of English and Judaic and Near Eastern studies and founding director of the institute.
The symposium, “Edges, Textures, Stages: James Young and the Field of Memory Studies,” will be followed by a reception until 6:30 p.m. The symposium and reception are free and open to the public.
Young, an important figure in the field of memory studies, taught at UMass Amherst from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He also has consulted with municipal agencies in developing memorials and was a jury member for the National 9/11 Memorial competition.
He is the author of “Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust,” “The Texture of Memory,” “At Memory’s Edge: After-images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture,” and “The Stages of Memory: Reflections on Memorial Art, Loss, and the Spaces Between.”
The symposium will feature panel talks by visiting scholars, including:
- Lawrence Douglas, James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College and author of “The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial”
- Alice M. Greenwald, president and chief executive officer of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum
- Debórah Dwork, Rose Professor of Holocaust History, founding director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University and co-author of “Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933-1946” and “Auschwitz”
- Horst Hoheisel, sculpture artist and designer of “counter-monuments” such as “The Crushed Brandenburg Gate”
- Laura Levitt, professor of religion, Jewish studies and gender at Temple University and author of “American Jewish Loss after the Holocaust”
- Samuel Kassow, Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College and author of “Who will Write our History: Emanuel Ringelblum and the Oyneg Shabes Archive”
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.
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
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.
Dedication of a memorial at the Jewish cemetery in the village. It is composed of broken gravestones whose fragments have been partially fitted together to form (in part) their stones.
Marking the 80th anniversary of the destruction of the Great Synagogue in Oswiecim, a memorial park will be dedicated on its site.
The site was long an empty lot, with in recent years signage describing the site.
The park is a project of the Auschwitz Jewish Center and has been supported by the town of Oświęcim as well as institutional and private donors from Poland and elsewhere.
Archaeological excavations in 2004 discovered candlesticks from the synagogue as well as the Eternal Light – Ner Tamid.
The memorial will include a replica of the candelabra (the original is displayed in the AJC’s museum) as well as a structure containing historic photographs of the synagogue.
There will be a ceremony to install an information signboard at the Jewish cemetery in Nowogród, Poland.
The signboard was created thanks to the support provided to Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland by the actress Gwyneth Paltrow, a descendant of 19th century Rabbi Hersz Pelterowicz, rabbi of the Nowogród synagogue district.
Archival research was contributed by Professor Glenn Dynner of Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York and Gniewomir Zajączkowski of FODZ.
Gala ceremony to mark the 200th anniversary of the synagogue in Ingwiller.
Dedication of the new memorial listing 12,0000 Holocaust victims, a project of Ludzie, Nie Liczby-People, Not Numbers, Sądecki sztetl and Dariusz Popiela.
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