A series of events starting September 1 and continuing until the end of the year will be coordinated as the B’nai B’rith Jewish Heritage in the UK Festival — organised under the international umbrella of the European Days of Jewish Culture (EDJC), whose theme this year is “Renewal.”
Click here to download a PDF calendar of events
(Click here for the “flipsnack” online catalogue of events).
The official kick-off date for the annual European Days of Jewish Culture is September 4 — but events in some countries are being held before and after.
The theme of the year’s EDJC is RENEWAL.
Some associated events will already take place in August.
Click here to see individual events as well as national programs.
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.
A round-table discussion, plus optional walking tours through the “invisible” medieval Jewish history of Winchester. The Roundtable is free, the walking tours — at 10:30-11:30am or 11:30-12:30pm, cost £5.
The event event focuses on Licoricia of Winchester and the heritage and memory of medieval Anglo-Jewry.
The bronze statue of the remarkable Anglo-Jewish woman, Licoricia, was unveiled in Winchester in 2021. This is the most prominent heritage work carried out relating to medieval Anglo- Jewry.
The event, through a walking tour (£5) and free round table discussion, will consider the achievements of the Licoricia project, and the challenges of creating heritage in the absence of the built heritage that directly reflects the presence of medieval Winchester Jewry. It will also consider the public and educational issues raised when dealing with questions such as the Jewish role in medieval finance and hostile representations of Jews from the period based on religious bigotry. Addressing the key aims of the Licoricia project, participants will explore the potential of such commemoration to consider the roots of prejudice and discrimination, using this to promote tolerance, diversity, and female empowerment.
Please note that if you wish to attend both the walking tour and the roundtable event, you will need to register for each event separately.
Click here for booking and other details
Willesden Jewish Cemetery: 150 years of Heritage 1873 – 2023 Guided Walk
As part of the year long celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Willesden Jewish Cemetery, this guided walk will tell the story of the establishment of the cemetery, highlighting the early years of the United Synagogue, the people who made it happen and their role in the community.
Closing event of the conservation and restoration camps held this year in the Jewish Cemetery of Alba Iolia, as part of the project Conservation and restoration of the monumental funeral stones of the Jewish cemetery in Alba Iulia.
The annual Day of Jewish Monuments in the Czech Republic, sponsored by the Prague Jewish Community, the Federation of Jewish Communities and others.
Click to see the preliminary program
JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber, the author of travel books and articles on Jewish heritage in Europe, will be in conversation — “A Journey between Islamic and Jewish Europe” — with the British Muslim writer Tharik Hussain, the author of travel literature on Islamic heritage in Europe, as part of a three day series of meetings called “Invitation to the Voyage.” The conversation will be led by Prof. Shaul Bassi.
The meetings are held in collaboration between the Fondazione dell’Albero d’Oro and the Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, and on the occasion of the last days of the ‘Nicolò Manucci. the Marco Polo of India’ exhibition.
The venue is the drawing room of Palazzo Vendramin Grimani.
The meetings will be open to the public, free of charge upon reservation. Simultaneous translation into Italian will be available for each meeting.
Click here for full information and program and to reserve a place
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
Open Day to share plans for Welsh Jewish Heritage Centre in Merthyr Tydfil.
The public is invited to explore Merthyr Tydfil’s historic synagogue and help shape plans to create a Welsh Jewish Heritage Centre.
There will be tours of the synagogue throughout the day, along with music from a Welsh klezmer band and a talk on the history of Merthyr’s once-thriving
Jewish community.
The project team will be on hand to find out what local people think of the plans for the future of the building, and record their memories of its past life.
Merthyr Tydfil Synagogue was built in the 1870s and is the oldest purpose-built synagogue surviving in Wales. After the congregation left in 1983, its condition deteriorated. The Foundation for Jewish Heritage purchased it in 2019 and the Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, visited in 2021. The following year, the Foundation secured funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Welsh government and Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council to develop the plans.
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