Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

Jun
17
Wed
Old Jewish quarter tour @ Eisenstadt, Austria
Jun 17 @ 10:30 – 11:30
Old Jewish quarter tour @ Eisenstadt, Austria | Eisenstadt | Burgenland | Austria

 

Curator Christopher Meiller leads a tour to the Jewish quarter including the former community synagogue and the two Jewish cemeteries.

  • Registration is mandatory up to 2 days before the event, limited number of participants (by phone: +43 (0) 2682 65145 or by E-mail: info@ojm.at).
  • If there is a high demand, the events / tours / tours will be repeated.
  • Free donation.
  • Please take your own mouth and nose protection with you (for use where required by the authorities).
  •  
Jun
23
Tue
Jewish cemeteries tours @ Eisenstadt, Austria
Jun 23 @ 18:00 – 20:00
Jewish cemeteries tours @ Eisenstadt, Austria | Eisenstadt | Burgenland | Austria

There are two Jewish cemeteries and two tours — the Old Jewish Cemetery at 6 p.m. and the New Jewish Cemetery at 7 p.m. You can register for one or both.

In the old Jewish cemetery the oldest gravestone goes back to the year 1679. The cemetery was used until the summer of 1875. The new Jewish cemetery was established in fall of 1875 as the “successor cemetery” to the older one and was used until 1938. In just a few unusual cases, there were burials after 1945.

Registration is mandatory up to 2 days before the event, limited number of participants (by phone: +43 (0) 2682 65145 or by E-mail: info@ojm.at).

Sep
23
Wed
Exhibition opening @ Lviv Museum of History of Religion
Sep 23 @ 16:00 – 17:00
Exhibition opening @ Lviv Museum of History of Religion | L'viv | L'vivs'ka oblast | Ukraine
The exhibition will feature 22 ritual items used in synagogues or by Jewish families as well as photos from the collection of Vladimir Rumyantsev and Yaroslav Yanchak, provided by the Center for Urban History of Central and Eastern Europe from its media archive.
 
Among the exhibits are Galician Hanukkah menorahs, a Torah crown, tzedaka boxes, and a post-war velvet parochot with an embroidered inscription dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust
 
Some of the items were kept during 1945–1962 in the Jakub Glanzer Synagogue. They were later confiscated by the Soviet authorities and transferred to the Lviv Historical Museum, and from there to the Lviv Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism (Today – the Lviv Museum of the History of Religion). 
The curator of the exhibition is Maxim Martin, the head of the museum’s Judaism department.
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The exhibition will be up until the end of the year.
Oct
6
Tue
Synagogue guided tour @ Wertheimer synagogue, Eisenstadt, Austria
Oct 6 @ 15:00 – 15:45
Synagogue guided tour @ Wertheimer synagogue, Eisenstadt, Austria | Eisenstadt | Burgenland | Austria

Guided tour of the Wertheimer synagogue, accessible as part of the Austrian Jewish Museum. Dedicated to Jewish life in the province of Burgenland, the museum opened in 1982 in the former mansion of Samson Wertheimer (1659-1724). The private synagogue is part of the mansion.

Wertheimer had a prominent role at the Viennese court, where from 1694 to 1709 he worked for emperors Leopold I, Joseph I, and Charles VI as Hofoberfaktor or chief administrator of financial affairs. He also served the Esterhazy family in Burgenland and was Rabbi of Hungary and Moravia.

A mob destroyed Eisenstadt’s main synagogue on Kristallnacht in 1938 but the they overlooked the  Wertheimer Shul,  hidden in the mansion. The synagogue was re-consecrated for Jewish worship in 1979.

In its current form the synagogue dates almost entirely from 1832, having been refurbished after the Eisenstadt ghetto was badly damaged in a fire of 1795. Its design includes many elements typical of the period, including a high ceiling and a chandelier hanging from a painted rosette. At the inauguration of the building in 1834, members of the community contributed ceremonial silver, a painted glass beaker for the Hevrah Kadisha (Burial Society), Torah scrolls, an elaborate Parohet (Ark curtain) and a parchment Megillah (Scroll of the Book of Esther) executed by the scribe Elie Gabriel, all of which are among the items displayed in the museum today.

 

Oct
7
Wed
Jewish cemetery guided tour @ Jewish cemeteries, Eisenstadt, Austria
Oct 7 @ 20:00 – 21:15
Jewish cemetery guided tour @ Jewish cemeteries, Eisenstadt, Austria | Eisenstadt | Burgenland | Austria

A nighttime tour of the Old and New Jewish cemeteries, in Eisenstadt. Bring a flashlight!

Of the older cemetery, in used from 1679 to 1874, can be considered one of the most important Jewish cemeteries in Europe. The newer cemetery, used until 1938, tells stories about the last decades of Jewish life in Eisenstadt.

 

 

Oct
8
Thu
Synagogue guided tour @ Wertheimer synagogue, Eisenstadt, Austria
Oct 8 @ 15:00 – 15:45
Synagogue guided tour @ Wertheimer synagogue, Eisenstadt, Austria | Eisenstadt | Burgenland | Austria

Guided tour of the Wertheimer synagogue, accessible as part of the Austrian Jewish Museum. Dedicated to Jewish life in the province of Burgenland, the museum opened in 1982 in the former mansion of Samson Wertheimer (1659-1724). The private synagogue is part of the mansion.

Wertheimer had a prominent role at the Viennese court, where from 1694 to 1709 he worked for emperors Leopold I, Joseph I, and Charles VI as Hofoberfaktor or chief administrator of financial affairs. He also served the Esterhazy family in Burgenland and was Rabbi of Hungary and Moravia.

A mob destroyed Eisenstadt’s main synagogue on Kristallnacht in 1938 but the they overlooked the  Wertheimer Shul,  hidden in the mansion. The synagogue was re-consecrated for Jewish worship in 1979.

In its current form the synagogue dates almost entirely from 1832, having been refurbished after the Eisenstadt ghetto was badly damaged in a fire of 1795. Its design includes many elements typical of the period, including a high ceiling and a chandelier hanging from a painted rosette. At the inauguration of the building in 1834, members of the community contributed ceremonial silver, a painted glass beaker for the Hevrah Kadisha (Burial Society), Torah scrolls, an elaborate Parohet (Ark curtain) and a parchment Megillah (Scroll of the Book of Esther) executed by the scribe Elie Gabriel, all of which are among the items displayed in the museum today.

 

Feb
23
Tue
Legacy of the Shtetl: Investigating Polish-Belarusian-Ukrainian Borderlands @ Online Zoom event
Feb 23 @ 18:00 – 19:00
Legacy of the Shtetl: Investigating Polish-Belarusian-Ukrainian Borderlands @ Online Zoom event | Bentonville | Arkansas | United States
The Legacy of the Shtetl: Investigating Polish-Belarusian-Ukrainian Borderlands
with Dr Magdalena Waligórska, and Dr Natalia Romik, respondent, and with Prof François Guesnet, Chair 
 
Co-organized by the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies and  the UCL Institute of Jewish Studies
 
Magdalena Waligórska takes us on a journey to the post-1945 Polish-Ukrainian-Belorusian borderlands where she explores small towns which had a predominantly Jewish population before the Second World War and the Holocaust. Here, Jewish property both entirely fell under the control of the new ethnic majority and remained a “disinherited heritage” that continues to cause dissonance and psychological discomfort to its current “heirs.”
 
The unsettling presence of Jewish ruins, resurfacing human remains, walled-in objects, collapsing cellars, and the recycled tombstones constitutes an “intrusion of the past into the present” that, decades after the war, still demands action and results in different local responses.
 
The respondent, Natalia Romik, is an artist, urban historian, and architect from Warsaw who has undertaken similar but different explorations of the Jewish heritage in small Polish towns.
 
Apr
23
Sat
Yearning for Baden: Jewish Houses tell (Hi)stories @ Kaiserhaus
Apr 23 – Nov 6 all-day
Yearning for Baden: Jewish Houses tell (Hi)stories @ Kaiserhaus | Baden | Niederösterreich | Austria

Baden bei Wien – Baden by Vienna – was long a popular spa and summer guests were originally attracted by the glamorous presence of the Imperial Court.

Many of these families who spent their summers in Baden had Jewish roots. They built villas in a variety of styles – historicist, art nouveau and modernist – a fascinating mixture and shaped summer life in Baden until 1938.

This exhibition  is dedicated to ten families and their villas.

Click here for an interactive map with the villas

 

Jan
25
Thu
Sataniv: the lost world of the ancient Jewish cemetery @ “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine" Museum
Jan 25 – Mar 3 all-day
Sataniv: the lost world of the ancient Jewish cemetery @ “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine" Museum | Dnipro | Dnipropetrovs'ka oblast | Ukraine

An exhibition of art-enhanced photographs by Dmytro Polyukhovich based on the carvings on the centuries-old matzevot in the Jewish cemetery in Sataniv (which unfortunately has suffered extensive damage in recent years by a self-appointed Haredi man claiming to restore it).

The images for the exhibition focus on specific details of the carved iconography, which combines religious tradition with folk art — floral motifs, animals (and imaginary animals), symbols, religious allegories, and more.

To create the exhibition pieces, Polyukovich manipulated his original photos of the matzevot in Adobe Photoshop, cutting away everything except for the specific detail of the carving  that he wanted to highlight and then adding color.

NOTE: The exhibition will be open every Wednesday and every Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. It is also possible to organize group tours every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.

 

Mar
1
Fri
Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival @ Jewish Museum Frankfufrt
Mar 1 – Sep 1 all-day
Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival @ Jewish Museum Frankfufrt | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | Germany

A multimedia exhibition by the artist, architect and historian Natalia Romik dedicated to the creativity of Polish Jews seeking to survive the Shoah in hiding.

In Poland and Ukraine during World War II, approximately 50,000 people survived persecution by the German occupying forces in hiding. The majority of them were Jewish. They found refuge in tree hollows, closets, basements, sewers, empty graves, and other precarious locations. Natalia Romik’s exhibition “Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival” pays tribute to these fragile places of refuge and explores their physicality. The show poses basic questions about the relationship between architecture, private life, and the public sphere: it addresses the protective function of spaces and emphasizes the creativity those in hiding brought to bear in their attempt to survive.

In a research project extending over several years, Natalia Romik and an interdisciplinary team of researchers consulted oral histories to identify several hiding places, which they explored using forensic methods. The multimedia exhibition “Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival” presents the results of this research. It consists of sculptures bearing a direct connection to the sites and includes documentary films, forensic recordings, photos, documents, and objects found in the hiding places.

“Hideouts: The Architecture of Survival” is presented in cooperation with the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw and the TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Szczecin. On the occasion of the show at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, a catalogue will be published in German and English editions by Hatje Cantz Verlag.

The exhibition was curated by Kuba Szreder and Stanisław Ruksza with the help of Aleksandra Janus (scientific collaboration). For the presentation in Frankfurt, Katja Janitschek, curator of the Judengasse Museum, was responsible for the curatorial project management. We would like to thank the Evonik Foundation for their generous support.

 

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