The Architectural Dialogue between the St. Petersburg Jewish Community and the Tsarist Metropolis
In this lecture, Dr. Vladimir Levin will consider the uneasy relationship between the architectural oeuvre of the Jewish community and the capital city of the Russian Empire. Although concentrating on St. Petersburg, the talk will address questions and problems that many Jewish communities in European and American cities had to wrangle with. Every Jewish community that settled in a large or small city had to decide how to represent itself vis-à-vis that city, how prominent and visible should their representation should be; what are the ways to express Jewishness in the general cityscape and which means should be employed toward achieving this goal. The lecture will discuss how the Jews of St. Petersburg and their non-Jewish allies looked for a style that was best suited for marking their presence in the city, and how a unique convergence of architecture and manuscript illuminations was created to that end.
About the Speaker
Dr. Vladimir Levin is the Director of the Center for Jewish Art at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Born in St. Petersburg, he holds a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University. He authored From Revolution to War: Jewish Politics in Russia, 1907-1914 (in Hebrew, 2016) and co-edited Synagogues in Lithuania: A Catalogue (2010-2012). In 2017 he co-authored with Sergey Kravtsov the book Synagogue in Ukraine: Volhynia, and currently works on the book of Jewish heritage in Siberia with Anna Berezin. He also published 120 articles and essays about social and political aspects of modern Jewish history in Eastern Europe, synagogue architecture and ritual objects, Jewish religious Orthodoxy, Jewish-Muslim relations, Jews and Jewish politics in Lithuania, Russian architecture in the Holy Land, history of East-European Jewish communities etc.
Dr. Levin headed numerous research expeditions to documents synagogues and other monuments of Jewish material culture in eastern and central Europe and lead several research projects in the field of Jewish Art, the most important of which is the creation of the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art – the world’s largest digital depository of Jewish heritage.
The Duomo & The Great Synagogue: An Evening of Italian Culture
An evening of Jewish and Florentine architecture, culture, music, and food.
• Informal talks about the history and architecture of two of Florence, Italy’s grandest and most iconic structures — the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral (the Duomo) and the Great Synagogue — by Ross King, author of the national bestseller Brunelleschi’s Dome, and noted scholar Professor Francesco Spagnolo, Curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley.
• Q&A session moderated by Gail Price, former Executive Director of The American Institute of Architects Santa Clara Valley Chapter.
•The San Jose Chamber players with Cantor Sharon Bernstein presenting both Jewish and Italian songs.
• Italian appetizers and ice cream.
A day-long conference to mark the 200th anniversary of the synagogue of Haguenau, in France’s Alsace region.
Les stèles funéraires de l’ancien cimetière juif de Venise. Art, histoire et poésie
A lecture in French by Sofia Locatelli about the carved imagery found in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Venice, 1386-1774.
Construit en 1386 sur un terrain stérile concédé aux juifs par la République de Venise au Lido, à l’Est de la ville, l’ancien cimetière juif San Nicolò précède de plus d’un siècle la clôture du ghetto. En raison de son emplacement favorable, face à la lagune, la nécropole fut parfois utilisée à des fins défensives et militaires. De nombreuses stèles funéraires furent perdues, détruites ou réutilisées, et d’autres déplacées sur un terrain situé plus au Sud, devenu officiellement le « nouveau cimetière » en 1774. Les tombes de l’ancienne nécropole sont des artefacts riches en histoire, en poésie et en art. Leur étude permet de restituer la vie et les événements des membres de la communauté, mais également de détecter des aspects significatifs de la culture littéraire et artistique de l’époque.
Les épitaphes, véritables poèmes en rimes et en rythme, et le complexe réseau iconographique et symbolique gravé sur les stèles, font de l’ancien cimetière du Lido une source de connaissance exceptionnelle sur l’art et la poésie juives dans l’Italie de l’époque moderne.
A wide-ranging conference organized by the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research, the German Historical Institute in Paris and the Museum of Art and History of Judaism, 12 years after an earlier conference on “Archaeology of Judaism in France and Europe.”
Experts will evaluate of the progress of archaeological research on European Judaism from antiquity to the 20th century, reporting on the most recent significant discoveries across the continent.
The symposium will offer summaries and case studies on places of worship (synagogues, ritual baths, etc.), the topography of medieval Jewry and modern ghettos, funerary spaces, sites of the Shoah, new methodological approaches and the heritage of the sites studied.
Click for further information, to see the program, and to register
Gala ceremony to mark the 200th anniversary of the synagogue in Ingwiller.
A series of events in November and December celebrate the 140th anniversary of the Grande Synagogue. The series kicks off November 9 with an official ceremony.
See the program below:
Dr. Pieter Vlaardingerbroek will present an illustrated talk live from Amsterdam on the architecture and interior of the 1675 Portuguese Synagogue (the Esnoga) in Amsterdam and the synagogue’s direct influence on the architecture of the 1763 Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island.
Pieter Vlaardingerbroek, Ph.D., is a leading expert on Dutch architecture and material culture. He is an architectural historian for the City of Amsterdam, having served in a similar position for the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. He is an Assistant Professor of Architectural History and Conservation at the University of Utrecht. Professor Vlaardingerbroek is the author of many articles and books and served as editor for the definitive volume on the Portuguese Sephardic synagogue, The Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, published by the City of Amsterdam in 2013.
There is no fee to participate, but reservations are required to receive the Zoom login information.
A talk (in French) by the expert on synagogue architecture Dominique Jarrassé, emeritus professor of art history and the université Bordeaux Montaigne, about the art nouveau synagogue built on rue Pavée in the Marais Jewish district of Paris for the orthodox Agoudas hakehilos congregation. It was designed by Hector Guimard, one of the most modern architects of his time.
Lecture by Catherine Trautmann, president of the Maison du Judaïsme Rhénan association, will discuss how three associations — the Society for the Study of Judaism in Alsace-Lorraine, Les Routes du Judaïsme Rhénan and the Maison du Judaïsme Rhénan — have created a new Rhineland Judaism Center.
They hope to pool their resources within the framework of joint projects.
This conference is an opportunity to publicly present this dynamic, inspired by the example of the German ShUM cities (Mainz, Worms and Speyer) and Erfurt, whose Jewish heritage from the Middle Ages has been included on the UNESCO world heritage roster.
Under discussion will be the responsibility of Alsace, which has the largest concentration of Jewish heritage sites in France, for the protection, enhancement and access to this heritage.
Click here to find a link to register
Comments are closed.