Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

Sep
19
Thu
Romaniote Memories – a Jewish Journey from Ioannina, Greece to Manhattan @ Greek Consulate in New York
Sep 19 @ 18:00 – Oct 3 @ 19:00
Romaniote Memories - a Jewish Journey from Ioannina, Greece to Manhattan @ Greek Consulate in New York | New York | New York | United States

Exhibition of Photographs by Vincent Giordano.

The photographs are part of a multi-media archive, created by Giordano, who died in 2010, that was sponsored by International Survey of Jewish Monuments and in 2019 will find a new home at the Hellenic American Project and Special Collections at the Library of Queens College, New York.

Giordano’s photographs document two related communities of Greek Romaniote Jews – in Ioannina, in northwestern Greece and on Broome Street on New York’s Lower East Side. Romaniote Jews trace their religious and cultural heritage to the Judaism of the ancient Greco-Roman world two-thousand years ago, and these two tiny congregations are among the few remaining to follow these traditions. Romaniotes have their own liturgy and cultural traditions, as well as their own language, a dialect of Greek that combines words and phrases from Hebrew and Turkish. This luminous black and white photo essay includes a poignant exploration of liturgy and ritual, conveying how people engage with religious space and carry on their time-honored sacred traditions.

The exhibition will open on Thursday, September 19th , 2019 at 6:00 p.m. it will continue through October 3rd, 2019. 

A panel discussion by experts will take place at the Consulate on Wednesday, September 25th, 2019 at 6:00 p.m.

 

Dec
10
Tue
Synagogues as Museums and Galleries in East‐Central Europe @ Grande Synagogue of Europe, Brussels
Dec 10 @ 18:00 – 21:00
Synagogues as Museums and Galleries in East‐Central Europe @ Grande Synagogue of Europe, Brussels | Bruxelles | Bruxelles | Belgium

The opening of a photo exhibition by Rudolf Klein that presents a brief survey of synagogues converted into museums and galleries in Hungary, Austria, Bosnia‐Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. The exhibit runs until January 16, 2020.

The opening includes talks (in English) by Klein, Polish researcher Natalia Romik,  and Professor Thomas Gergely.

Prior registration is required.  Click here

The event is organized in collaboration with the Great Synagogue of Europe, the Balassi Institute, the Polish Institute and the Austrian Cultural Forum.

Jan
23
Thu
Jewish Musicians and Jewish Music-Making in Polish Lands @ Polish Embassy London
Jan 23 @ 09:30 – 17:30
Jewish Musicians and Jewish Music-Making in Polish Lands @ Polish Embassy London | England | United Kingdom

A one-day Conference to Launch POLIN: Studies in Polish-Jewry

Vol. 32: ‘Jewish Musicians and Jewish Music-Making in Polish Lands’

Organized by the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies, and the Institute of Jewish Studies, UCL.

Co-organized and supported by the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, and the Polish Cultural Institute, London, with the support of Ślipaczek Chartered Financial Planners

The astounding variety of music of all genres and styles produced by musicians of Jewish heritage in Europe since 1750 has been examined almost entirely in the context of German-speaking Europe or in studies of a group of composers who strongly self-identified as Jews.

In five thematic sections, this multi-disciplinary volume presents rich coverage of the main genres produced by musicians of Jewish origin in the Polish lands: Cantorial and Religious Music, Jews in Polish Popular Culture, Jews in the Polish classical music scene, The Holocaust reflected in Jewish music, and Klezmer in Poland today. This volume explores the activities and great creativity of musicians of the ‘Mosaic persuasion’, covering the area of the Polish-Lithunanian Commonwealth and its successor states from 1750 to the present. 

The conference will look at Cantorial Music, Jews and Polish popular culture, and Klezmer in Poland today. And there will be music!

‘POLIN Vol. 32’ is published by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilisation/Liverpool University Press.

Volume Editors: François Guesnet, Benjamin Matis, and Antony Polonsky.

 

Sep
7
Mon
House of Life opens @ Willesden Jewish Cemetery, London
Sep 7 all-day
House of Life opens @ Willesden Jewish Cemetery, London | England | United Kingdom

Willesden Jewish Cemetery reopens as multifaceted place of public heritage — the House of Life: an example of how Jewish cemeteries can be integrated into tourism while respecting the sanctity of the place

If offers guided tours, lectures, an exhibit in a new visitors’ center, and other public programming.

It respects its sanctity as a burial site but enables visitors to explore Jewish history and heritage, as well as learn about the lives of the many Jewish personalities buried there and engage with issues related to death, funeral traditions, and funerary art.

See cemetery web site for more details — http://www.willesdenjewishcemetery.org.uk

Click to read our article about it

 

Feb
11
Thu
Virtual Opening of Romaniote Memories: Photos of Vincent Giordano @ Online Zoom event
Feb 11 @ 17:00 – 18:00
Virtual Opening of Romaniote Memories: Photos of Vincent Giordano @ Online Zoom event
The exhibition can be seen at this link: https://scalar.usc.edu/works/romaniote-memories/index
 
In 1999, photographer Vincent Giordano made an unplanned visit to the small Kehila Kedosha Janina (KKJ) synagogue on New York’s Lower East Side. He knew little about Judaism or synagogues, and even less about the Romaniote Jewish tradition of which KKJ, built in 1927, is the lone North American representative. In this he was not alone. Romaniotes are among the least known of Jewish communities. Beginning in 2001 and guided by members of the KKJ community, Giordano documented the synagogue and its religious art of the congregation using film, video, and audio.
 
In 2019 the Giordano family donated the archive of Vincent’s work to Queens College, where it is a major part of the Hellenic American Project and is preserved as part of the Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library’s Special Collections and Archives.
 
The exhibition is sponsored by the Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library, Hellenic American Project, and Center for Jewish Studies at Queens College, in partnership with the International Center for Jewish Monuments, an independent non-profit organization.
 
The exhibition includes more than one hundred photographs, presented in ten thematic sections, accessible here.
 
To register for the exhibition’s opening reception on Zoom, featuring a conversation with curators, distinguished guests, and friends go to:
Jul
23
Sun
Kos synagogue reopens @ Kal Shalom synagogue
Jul 23 @ 11:30 – 12:30
Kos synagogue reopens @ Kal Shalom synagogue | Greece

Inauguration of the restored synagogue on the island of Kos.

A new Ark and Bimah and other interior furnishings have been installed and — after decades out of its original use — the building will be rededicated as an active house of Jewish worship.

The Kos synagogue was built in the mid-1930s to replace an older synagogue that was destroyed in an earthquake in April 1933. It was abandoned after the near-total destruction of the circa 120 member Jewish community during the Holocaust, and then was purchased by the Municipality around 1984 and used as a local cultural centre.

See our post

 

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)

Feb
21
Wed
House of the World to Come: Immortal Jewish Cemeteries @ Parobrod Galeria, Belgrade
Feb 21 – Mar 7 all-day

Photo exhibition by Rudolf Klein, author of the book Metropolitan Jewish Cemeteries — which will be presented at the opening.

The opening takes place February 21, at 7 p.m.

There will be speeches by Klein and others.

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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