A Zoom seminar about the project to restore the Jewish cemetery of Gorizia, Italy, that now lies across the border outside Nova Gorica, Slovenia. The twin cities will jointly be the European Cultural Capital in 2025, with their shared Jewish heritage playing a role. In Italian
Click here for details and to register
Read our 2017 article about the shared Jewish heritage of the towns
Read an Italian perspective about the project
A one-day international online conference called “Jewish Crossroads: Between Italy and Eastern Europe” organized by the Foundation for Jewish Cultural Heritage in Italy and the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The close contacts between Italy and eastern Europe have evolved over the centuries and Jews have been an integral part of this relationship.
The most known examples of Italian influences on eastern European Jews are the construction of synagogues in Poland and Lithuania by Italian architects; Jewish medics from Italy practicing in noble east European courts; or the selling of Hebrew books printed in Italy.
The interaction obviously was in the opposite direction: many Polish and Lithuanian rabbis moved to Italy or transferred their texts to be published there; the Council of the Four Lands sent emissaries to Rome; and many eastern European Jewish artists spent years in Italy.
The conference is planned to concentrate on those contacts and interactions, during the Early Modern and Modern periods.
The conference will be conducted in English. The keynote lecture will be given by Prof. Ilia Rodov of Bar-Ilan University.
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.
JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber will be one of the speakers at this day-long international conference held to mark the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the ruins of the synagogue in the ancient Roman port of Ostia Antica — a discovery made during construction of a highway to Rome’s Fiumicino airport — and the 20th anniversary of the Art in Memory Cultural Association, which every two years organizes a biennale of contemporary art in the synagogue ruins.
Some conference talks will be in English; most will be in Italian. A Green Pass (proof of COVID vaccination) is required to attend the conference.
Click here to see the conference program
Info in italiano (dal sito del Goethe Institut):
Nel 1961, nel corso dei lavori per la costruzione dell’autostrada di Fiumicino, sono stati rinvenuti i resti della antichissima Sinagoga di Ostia antica, parte dell’insediamento archeologico romano, la cui datazione è ancora controversa ma che costituisce certamente, con l’eccezione di quella di Delo, la più antica sinagoga dell’occidente mediterraneo e forse della Diaspora. L’intervento tempestivo dell’allora Soprintendente Anton Luigi Pietrogrande e di Maria Floriani Squarciapino ha determinato la deviazione della strada per Fiumicino, dunque la salvaguardia della Sinagoga, che è stata prontamente restaurata. La stessa Soprintendenza ha avuto il merito di dare immediatamente alla scoperta un rilievo internazionale.
Dalla fine degli anni Novanta, in concomitanza con una violenta ondata di antisemitismo che ha accompagnato la caduta del Muro di Berlino, alcune tra le poche Sinagoghe europee sopravvissute hanno riaperto i battenti come centri per l’arte contemporanea. La prima è stata quella Stommeln in provincia di Colonia. Su quel modello, dal 2002 la Sinagoga di Ostia antica ospita la biennale di arte contemporanea “Arte in Memoria”, curata da Adachiara Zevi, organizzata dall’Associazione Arte in Memoria, che ogni due anni invita artisti da tutto il mondo a creare un lavoro originale per il luogo.
La direzione del Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica e l’Associazione “Arte in Memoria”, intendono ricordare i 60 anni dal ritrovamento della Sinagoga con un convegno internazionale, al quale parteciperà anche l’artista tedesco Mischa Kuball, da tenersi all’interno del Parco Archeologico.
Sharing the catacombs. Religious interactions in funeral spaces of Rome, 3rd-4th centuries CE
A round-table of interational scholars, in Italian and English, about Jewish and Christian catacombs in Rome.
To register for Zoom attendance, go to https://www.istitutosvizzero.it/it/tavola-rotonda/19933/
Program:
H17:00-17:15 – Caroline Bridel, Introduzione
H17:15-17:45 – Giandomenico Spinola (Musei Vaticani), La necropoli vaticana della via Triumphalis: tra religione e superstizione
H17:45-18:15 – Giancarlo Lacerenza (Università di Napoli L’Orientale), Ebraico e aramaico negli epitaffi delle catacombe ebraiche di Roma: segni di plurilinguismo o marcatori identitari?
H18:15-18:30 – Pausa
H18:30-19:00 – Norbert Zimmermann (Deutsche Archäologisches Institut), Space, tombs, images: Experiencing Christian Catacombs of Rome
H19:00-19:30 – Discussione moderata da Caroline Bridel
and, instead of considering them as isolated phenomena as it has been generally done until now, proposes to
analyze the exchanges, contaminations, adoption of ancient prototypes and the painful and sacrilegious processes of
adaptation to the new cult. Particular attention is paid to the methods of restoration, or renovation of religious
buildings no longer in use or looted, a widespread practice that generally coincides with low-cost interventions
consisting of removing and replacing the images, as well as changing the ornaments and possibly the furniture. In
order to investigate this aspect it is necessary to highlight its trauma and subsequently to remember the desecration
of religious buildings carried out over the centuries to adapt them to the religious needs of the dominant power, and
therefore the distortion of some of their peculiar characteristics, and what was destroyed and what was maintained.
Jewish Museum of Rome
(Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Community of Rome), Ruth Dureghello
(President of the Jewish Community of Rome)
Museum of Rome): Introduction
“memoria” al “trauma”: il potere politico e la profanazione degli edifici
religiosi (From “memory” to “trauma”: the political power and the
desecration of religious buildings)
Basilicas and Ancient Synagogues: Interreligious Dynamics in Architecture
for Worship
The orientation of Galilean synagogues, fourth to sixth centuries
Tempio Maggiore di Roma e le sue tipologie architettoniche di riferimento
(The Great Synagogue of Rome and its architectural typologies of
reference)
Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea
of the Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemoporanea, Rome)
Italia): La sinagoga in Italia dal medioevo all’emancipazione: una lunga
storia di continuità tipologica, cambi di destinazione d’uso e strategie di
rinnovamento stilistico-architettonico (The synagogue in Italy from the
Middle Ages to emancipation: a long history of typological continuity,
changes of intended use and strategies of stylistic-architectural renewal)
UOB, Université de Balamand):Tripoli-Liban-Nord, Patrimoine religieux
complexe (Tripoli -Lebanon-North, complexreligious heritage)
Marano (Ca’ Foscari University, Venice): Lo stato giuridico delle
sinagoghe sotto Bisanzio e delle chiese sotto l’Islam: Prospettive
comparate durante la lunga Tarda Antichità (The legal status of
synagogues under Byzantium and churches under Islam: compared
perspectives during the long Late Antiquity)
between Christians and Muslimsin 13th century Armenia: evidence from
ornament and inscriptions
formales en la arquitectura de lassinagogas,catedralesy mezquitas en la
España bajomedieval (Formal contamination in the architecture of
synagogues, cathedrals and mosques in late medieval Spain)
Riflessioni su arte e devozioni interreligiose nel Mediterraneo medievale
(Mary of the Miḥrāb: reflections on interreligious art and devotions in
the medieval Mediterranean Sea)
in Spagna nell ́età moderna (Cathedrals and relics in Spain in the
Modern Age)
sinagoghe e una moschea:spazicultuali non cristiani nella Venezia di Età
Moderna (Five synagogues and a mosque: non-Christian cultual spaces
in the Modern Age Venice)
d’Agincourt et la naissance de l’architecture gothique: un nouveau regard
vers l’architecture religieuse islamique au siècle des Lumières
(Jean-Baptiste Séroux d’Agincourt and the emergence of gothic
architecture: a new perspective on religious Islamic architecture during
the Enlightenment)
Synagogues of the Jewish “Reform movements” from the late 18th
century
A one-day conference will also include the inauguration of the Austria Jewish book store (run by Wojtek and Malgosia Ornat who run the Austeria Jewish publishing house and book store in Krakow) and also the unveiling of a plaque on the mikveh recognising the AEPJ’s Route of Jewish heritage.
See program:
Following a full-scale renovation, there will be an official public rededication ceremony for the synagogue in Alessandria, Italy.
Click here to read our post about the synagogue’s restoration
An exhibition marking the 80th anniversary of the torching of the Sinagoga Tedesca by local fascist squads. The synagogue now houses the Jewish Museum in Padova.
The exhibit will feature historic photographs and archival documents, and there will be explanatory talks at the opening.
The even is free, but please reserve here – museo@padovaebraica.it or Tel. 049661267 – Whatsapp 3756347243
Guided tour of the Jewish Museum Lecce and the ancient Jewish district, with Fabrizio Ghio (architect and archaeologist, member of the Scientific Committee of the Jewish Museum Lecce), Fabrizio Lelli, director of the Jewish Museum Lecce and professor of Hebrew language and literature at the Sapienza University (Rome), and Claudio Fano, direct witness of the racial laws and the Jews deportation from the Ghetto of Rome on October 16th 1943.
Free admission, reservation required.
Telephone Number & WhatsApp: + 39 0832 247016
Email: info@palazzotaurino.com
Comments are closed.