Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

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.

Mar
4
Wed
Over the river. History of Jews on the Odra River @ Zielona Gora, Poland, Museum of the Lubusz Land
Mar 4 @ 17:00 – 19:00

Opening of the Polish-German exhibition  “Over the river. History of Jews on the Odra River,” co-organized by the Museum of the Lubusz Land and the German Cultural Forum of Central and Eastern Europe in Potsdam.

The exhibition is devoted to selected aspects of Jewish history on both sides of the Oder River — a borderland area that changed nationality for centuries, and which was a meeting place for the culture of German Jews and the culture of Polish Jews.

From the organizers:

In the nineteenth century, a growing wave of nationalism and anti-Semitism began to threaten the cultural diversity [of the region] and eventually it was destroyed by Nazism. After World War II, the border between Poland and Germany was marked on the Oder and Nysa Łużycka. After the expulsion and displacement of the German population, these lands became a new homeland for Poles. For a short time it seemed that Polish Jews survived the Holocaust survivors in Lower Silesia and Pomerania. Initially, tens of thousands of them settled here, but most of them left the area by the end of the 1960s. Over time, the thousand-year absence of Jews on the Oder fell into oblivion, and its traces blurred or were destroyed. The exhibition tries to save from oblivion and recall these traces.

 

The exhibition will continue until April 26, 2020.

Aug
23
Sun
Jewish Museum reopening @ Jewish Museum Berlin
Aug 23 all-day
Jewish Museum reopening @ Jewish Museum Berlin | Berlin | Berlin | Germany

 

Grand reopening of the Jewish Museum of Berlin, following a full revamp of its core exhibition.

Click here to see information — https://www.jmberlin.de/en/core-exhibition

 

 

Sep
17
Thu
Photo exhibit on Jewish cemeteries @ Jewish Museum Creglingen Germany
Sep 17 @ 19:30 – 20:30

Opening of “House of Eternity,” an exhibit of photographs of Jewish cemeteries in central and eastern Europe, taken between 2004 and 2020 by Marcel-Th. and Klaus Jacobs.

Marcel-Th. and Klaus Jacobs created a photographic documentation of meanwhile 64 Jewish cemeteries in Germany, Poland, the Ukraine an the Czech Republic. The Jewish Museum Creglingen presents 40 selected photographies of this collection. Short characteristics explain the local conditions and the backgrounds of the visited cemeteries.

The exhibit will run until November 2, open on Sundays, 2-5 p.m.

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Oct
21
Wed
Frankfurt Jewish Museum reopens @ Frankfurt Jewish Museum
Oct 21 all-day
Frankfurt Jewish Museum reopens @ Frankfurt Jewish Museum | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | Germany

The Frankfurth Jewish Museum reopens after being closed for five years for a total revamp of its core exhibit and expansion of its space with a modern new building.

The new core exhibit presents Jewish history, art and culture in Frankfurt, from the time around 1800 to the present day, with a strong focus on the present.

 

 

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:
Jun
10
Thu
Virtual Reconstructions of Synagogues in Germany @ NS Documentation Center
Jun 10 @ 19:00 – 20:00
Virtual Reconstructions of Synagogues in Germany @ NS Documentation Center | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Germany

The opening of an exhibition of virtual reconstructions of synagogues destroyed by the Nazis.

It is mounted at the the NS Documentation Center in cooperation with the Technical University of Darmstadt.

The exhibition “Synagogues in Germany – A Virtual Reconstruction” runs from from June 11th to September 19th.

The TU Darmstadt has been working on the virtual reconstruction of synagogues that were destroyed in Germany for 25 years. The initial spark for this long-term project was the attack by neo-Nazis on the synagogue in Lübeck in 1994. In 2019, an attack was carried out on the synagogue there in Halle. With this project, the TU Darmstadt shows the cultural loss, the importance of synagogues in the cityscape and the beauty of the architecture. 

The exhibition also shows synagogues that were built in Germany after 1945. 

Read our article about virtual reconstructions

Jun
13
Sun
Synagogue in Gleusdorf opens @ Synagogue in Gleusdorf, Germany
Jun 13 all-day
Synagogue in Gleusdorf opens @ Synagogue in Gleusdorf, Germany | Untermerzbach | Bayern | Germany

The tiny former synagogue in the village of Gleusdorf, out of use for more than a century, opens as an information center about local rural Jewish life and history.

The inauguration ceremony will be a closed event for invited guests because of COVID restrictions.

The synagogue has been owned since 2016 by the Untermerzbach municipality, which sponsored and oversaw the €174,000 project. Funding included a €87,500 grant from the EU’s LEADER funding program for the development of the rural economy. 

The synagogue will be operated in cooperation with the Friends of the Synagogue association in nearby Memmelsdorf, and the preservation concept accords with that of the Memmelsdorf synagogue –“conservation instead of reconstruction” —  that is, not to reconstruct or restore the building, but to conserve it in a way that shows the history of what it has gone through.

Click to read our article about the restoration and project

 

Jul
12
Mon
Görlitz Synagogue reopens @ Synagogue Görlitz
Jul 12 all-day

The former synagogue in Görlitz reopens after  around 30 years of gradual renovation as the “Kulturforum Görlitz Synagogue.” 

The Görlitz synagogue is the only community synagogue in saxony that survived Kristallnacht in 1938.

According to the city administration, the total cost of the renovation was 12.6 million euros.

 The opening had been postponed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

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

 

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