Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

Apr
7
Thu
“Secrets of the Land” opening @ Regional Museum Chrudim, Czech Republic
Apr 7 @ 17:00 – 19:30
"Secrets of the Land" opening @ Regional Museum Chrudim, Czech Republic | Chrudim | Pardubický kraj | Czechia

Opening of an exhibition (running April 7-June 30, 2022) of objects found in the genizas in former synagogues in eastern Bohemia, with a particular focus on the synagogue in Luze.

The exhibition grows out of a geniza research project initiated by the Prague Jewish Museum in the 1990s.

 

Apr
10
Sun
Reopening Plzen Great Synagogue @ Great Synagogu, Plzen
Apr 10 @ 17:00 – 20:00
Reopening Plzen Great Synagogue @ Great Synagogu, Plzen | Plzeňský kraj | Czechia

The official reopening ceremony of the Great synagogue in Plzen, Czech Republic, following  a three-year restoration of the synagogue interior and nearby Rabbi’s house. A permanent exhibition on Jewish monuments in the Pilsen region will be opened, in the women’s gallery. It is based on the photographs of Radovan Kodera.

A procession  will bring a Torah scroll  from the Old to the Great Synagogue and ceremoniously place it in the ark.

Following will be a ceremonial program with speeches by the Culture Minister, the head of the tiny local Jewish community, and others. A concert will feature compositions inspired by Jewish prayers, adapted for the occasion. 

 

 

 

Aug
14
Sun
Czech Day of Jewish Monuments @ All over
Aug 14 all-day
Czech Day of Jewish Monuments @ All over | Czechia

The annual Day of Jewish Monuments in the Czech Republic opens Jewish heritage sites all over the country to visitors.

(It does not seems to be coordinated within the umbrella of the European Day of Jewish Culture).

On the web site, you can find lists of events and an interactive map with a list of participating sites and opening hours.

Nov
23
Wed
Invisible synagogues – Neviditelné synagogy @ Synagogue in Krnov
Nov 23 2022 @ 17:00 – Feb 28 2023 @ 19:00
Invisible synagogues - Neviditelné synagogy @ Synagogue in Krnov | Krnov | Moravskoslezský kraj | Czechia

The latest edition of the exhibit Neviditelné Synagogy — Invisible Synagogues, photographs by Štěpán Bartoš.  The vernissage is November 23 at 17:00.

Bartoš photographs the blank spaces in the Czech Republic where destroyed synagogues once stood and adds a ghostly silhouette of the destroyed synagogue to the exhibition photos of the places where they once stood.

On the Invisible Synagogues project web site (which is in German and Czech) you can see galleries of his photos, without the added silhouette, arranged according to region. They include sites in big cities, small towns, and tiny villages; there are fields and rural spaces as well as modern buildings, crowded city streets, and even artificial lakes.

Read our November 2021 post about his Invisible Synagogues project.

 

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

 

Aug
13
Sun
Czech Republic Day of Jewish Monuments @ Czech Republic
Aug 13 all-day
Czech Republic Day of Jewish Monuments @ Czech Republic | Czechia

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

 

 

Sep
19
Tue
Salonique, Jérusalem des Balkans, 1870-1920 @ Museum of Art and History of Judaism, Paris
Sep 19 2023 – Apr 21 2024 all-day
Salonique, Jérusalem des Balkans, 1870-1920 @ Museum of Art and History of Judaism, Paris | Paris | Île-de-France | France

Presenting a selection of nearly 150 pieces from various sources, this photographic exhibition recreates the history of Salonika (today Thessaloniki) Greece from the second half of the 19th century to the end of the First World War. Men and women are captured in their traditional costumes: modest artisans, porters, traders, members of the local “aristocracy;” society is revealed. Urban modernization is also shown: the quays and the White Tower, cafes, restaurants and entertainment venues; the Countryside sector where the notables established their residence; deprived areas, where emerging industries were established.

But also, in the now Greek city, the great fire of August 1917, an authentic trauma for the Jews who saw their historic neighborhoods, the municipal archives and more than thirty synagogues swept away by the flames, before the geopolitical upheavals caused by the First War worldwide.

 

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.

 

Neviditelné synagogy – Invisible Synagogues @ Brána Trojzemí, Hrádek nad Nisou
Jan 25 – Mar 31 all-day
Neviditelné synagogy - Invisible Synagogues @ Brána Trojzemí, Hrádek nad Nisou | Liberecký kraj | Czechia

The latest edition of the exhibit Neviditelné Synagogy — Invisible Synagogues, photographs by Štěpán Bartoš.  

Bartoš photographs the blank spaces in the Czech Republic where destroyed synagogues once stood and adds a ghostly silhouette of the destroyed synagogue to the exhibition photos of the places where they once stood.

On the Invisible Synagogues project web site (which is in German and Czech) you can see galleries of his photos, without the added silhouette, arranged according to region. They include sites in big cities, small towns, and tiny villages; there are fields and rural spaces as well as modern buildings, crowded city streets, and even artificial lakes.

Read our November 2021 post about his Invisible Synagogues project.

 

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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