Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

Jul
11
Mon
British and Irish Association of Jewish Studies conference @ King's Building, Strand Campus, King's College, London
Jul 11 @ 09:00 – Jul 13 @ 17:00
British and Irish Association of Jewish Studies conference @ King's Building, Strand Campus, King's College, London | England | United Kingdom

BIAJS Conference 2022: “Unfolding Time: Texts – Practices – Politics”

There’s quite a bit of material on Jewish (built) heritage at this year’s conference of the British and Irish Association of Jewish Studies.

 
Mon 11 July 9.15-10.45: Jewish Heritage in the UK Context I
Alan Benstock, Connecting Jewish Collections with Jewish Communities: A Case Study of Leeds City Museum
Eva Frojmovic, Paradoxes of Jewish Heritage in Solomon A. Hart’s Album
of Sketches (Leeds University Library)
David Newman, The Preservation of Closed Synagogues and Their
Artefacts (Including Windows)
 
Mon 11 July 11.30-13.00: Jewish Heritage in the UK Context II
Anna Douglas, Shirley Baker’s ‘Jewish Heritage’
Rebecca Tritschler, Langside (Glasgow) as Heritage
Shannon Kirschner, Clifford’s Tower Heritage Reshaped
 
Monday 11 July 14.00-15.30
Miranda Crowdus, Frozen in Time? Contemporary European Jewish Cultural Heritage Displays and Construction of Jewish Temporal Stasis
 
Tuesday 12 July 9.00-10.30: Jewish Country Houses in Pan-European Perspective
Chair: Abigail Green
Colette Bellingham, Reading The Red Book: Ferdinand de Rothschild and the Country House Album
Silvia Davoli, A little known salonnière Juive: Ernesta Stern (1854
1926)
Sietske Van der Veen, A Rothschild Legacy in Utrecht: Hélène van Zuylen van Nyeveltde Rothschild and the Rebuilding of De Haar Castle
Cyril Grange, The expropriation of the castle and winery of Moncontour and the integration of its Jewish seigneur in the locality
Discussant: Laura Leibman
 

12 July 2022, 15.15-16.45  The state of Jewish tangible heritage in Ukraine: Buildings, monuments, museums and libraries 

organised by: Eva Frojmovic (Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Leeds, clsef@leeds.ac.uk) 

EUGENY KOTLYAR (Associate Professor at Department of Art History of Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts, eugeny.kotlyar@gmail.com):  

Jewish Heritage in Independent Ukraine: Discovery, Study, Preservation and Presentation. Thirty Years of Experience and Challenges 

 SOFIA DYAK (Director of the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv, website:www.lvivcenter.org, E-mail: s.dyak@lvivcenter.org):  

Jewish Urban Heritage and Diversity in Lviv 

 TETYANA BATANOVA (Research Fellow, Acting Head of the Judaica Department of Institute of Manuscripts, V. I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, taniabatanova@gmail.com ) 

The Judaica Department at V. I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine: Revival, Study, and Preservation 

VITALY CHERNOIVANENKO (Senior research fellow, Judaica Department; Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine; President, Ukrainian Association for Jewish Studies; Chief editor, Judaica Ukrainica; E-mail: chernoivanenko@gmail.com and president@uajs.org.ua; Website: uajs.org.ua):  

Ukraine’s Hebraica collections in international perspective 

NADIA UFIMTSEVA (Department of History at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy,nadia.ufimtseva@gmail.com) 

Title: the Jewish printed books collection in the Kamianets-Podilskyi state museum and Judaica objects in Ukrainian museums.  

MIA SPIRO (Glasgow) and EVA FROJMOVIC (Leeds) 

 

Click here to see full conference program

 

To register securely, please visit: https://estore.kcl.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/academic-faculties/faculty-of-arts-humanities/department-of-theology-and-religious-studies/biajs-conference-unfolding-time-texts-practices-politics

Apr
19
Wed
80th Anniversary Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Apr 19 all-day
80th Anniversary Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

A number of events are marking the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, including a conference, exhibit, monument dedication, at the POLIN Museum, Warsaw’s Okopowa Jewish cemetery, and elsewhere.

 

 

Aug
19
Sat
Singer’s Warsaw Festival @ Warsaw
Aug 19 – Sep 3 all-day
Singer's Warsaw Festival @ Warsaw | Warszawa | Mazowieckie | Poland

This is the 20th Edition of the Singer’s Warsaw Festival, Warsaw

The premier Jewish culture festival in Poland, aside from the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival. It celebrates its 20th edition jubilee this year.

Theatre performances, concerts, films, guided tours, lectures, food, books — and more.

Click here for the full program (including some preliminary events in Bilgoraj)

Sep
12
Tue
Jewish or Common Heritage? (Dis-) appropriation of Synagogue Architecture in East-Central Europe since 1945
Sep 12 @ 18:00 – Sep 14 @ 16:30
Jewish or Common Heritage?  (Dis-) appropriation of Synagogue Architecture in East-Central Europe since 1945

The conference starts on the 12th of September at 18:00 at German Historical Institute and ends on the 14th of September at 16:30 in POLIN – Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

The synagogues that remained standing after World War II have facedan uncertain destiny. As abandoned buildings,they were susceptible to decay quickly and, as former buildings of worship, for legal, cultural and architectural reasons, posed a great challenge in terms of their reuse. Consequently, many synagogues simply fell into ruins, some were turned into secular buildings of various purposes, and few could have been used as houses of prayer again. 

In postwar Europe, synagogue architecture was culturally categorized as an element of Jewish heritage that appeared to be isolated from the common heritage of a city or town – wherever a synagogue stood.

At first, synagogues were not considered a shared but a distinct patrimony of a place. A shift in such a state of affairs could have been observed in the last three decades that witnessed a ‘rediscovery’ of synagogues. Though one can still find abandoned synagogues in small towns, in most of the bigger municipalities, these buildings were ‘rediscovered as a part of local history and culture and thus became part of the common heritage. In many regions of Europe, the ‘rediscovery’ of the former synagogues led to their restoration and opening to the public, and in rare cases, to their reuse by Jewish communities.

The aim of the conference is a historicization of the processes of rediscovery in the recent past.

 

Oct
4
Wed
“Burning” exhibition by Monika Krajewska @ POLIN Museum
Oct 4 – Dec 18 all-day
"Burning" exhibition by Monika Krajewska @ POLIN Museum | Warszawa | Mazowieckie | Poland

In 2020, we were privileged to host an online exhibition of work by the Warsaw-based papercut artist Monika Krajewska. The pieces were drawn from her extraordinary cycle of papercuts called “Burning,” a commemoration of the physical destruction of the Shoah.

This fall, from October 4 to December 18,  Krajewska’s  Burning cycle will be exhibited at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

The exhibit consists of 31 works in which the artist refers to the objects related to synagogue cult and transfers them to the traditional Jewish paper-cutting technique, painstakingly recreating the symbolism and ornamentation of Jewish art from East-Central Europe—stylised floral decoration, symbolic representations of animals, a repertoire of traditional sacred Judaic symbols (a menorah, Torah and the Tablets of Law, the Temple) and calligraphic quotations from religious texts and prayers.

In order to introduce reflection on loss and destruction, the artist subjects her painstaking work to destruction: she tears apart sections of the works after cutting them out and burns the ends of the sheets. She uses tinted paper as a background for the cut-outs, incorporating the motif of fire, ashes and ruins. In the representations, she incorporates quotations from religious texts or classics of modern Jewish literature, in which there are references to flames and destruction, as well as to the hope of salvation.

 

Oct
19
Thu
Jewish Cultural Heritage: Practices, Perspectives, Challenges @ Polin museum
Oct 19 – Oct 20 all-day
Jewish Cultural Heritage: Practices, Perspectives, Challenges @ Polin museum | Warszawa | Mazowieckie | Poland

Conference on the role of Jewish culture and history in contemporary Europe.

The congress’ program consists of sessions, discussions and workshops aimed at exchanging good practices, discussing perspectives and challenges related to the protection and popularization of Jewish cultural heritage. Below we present the framework program of the main panel.

Click here to see details and program

 

Dec
11
Mon
When Memory Meets Dialogue – Role of Remembrance Sites and Contemporary Challenges. @ Oskar Schindlers enamel factory museum
Dec 11 – Dec 12 all-day
When Memory Meets Dialogue – Role of Remembrance Sites and Contemporary Challenges. @ Oskar Schindlers enamel factory museum | Kraków | Małopolskie | Poland

On December 11-12, the Liberation Route Europe Foundation is organizing a memory project conference titled “When Memory Meets Dialogue – Role of Remembrance Sites and Contemporary Challenges” in Krakow, Poland. This event, in partnership with Oscar Schindler’s Enamel Factory, a branch of the Museum of Krakow, is part of the EU-funded European Days of Jewish Culture (EDJC) 2023, coordinated by the AEPJ. 

The conference agenda encompasses sessions focusing on Jewish and WWII heritage. Discussions will revolve around memory transmission and the contemporary significance of remembrance sites. The primary goal is to offer a meaningful platform for idea exchange, nurture cross-cultural understanding, and stimulate international discourse on historical memory and contemporary challenges. As part of the programme, participants can also explore guided tours and historical city walks in Krakow. 

Click here to register

Jan
14
Sun
The “Burning” Exhibit of Papercuts by Monika Krajewska – now in Radom @ Jacek Malczewski Museum, Radom
Jan 14 – Apr 30 all-day
The "Burning" Exhibit of Papercuts by Monika Krajewska - now in Radom @ Jacek Malczewski Museum, Radom

 “Burning,” an exhibition of paper cuts by Monika Krajewska, is now being shown in Radom, following an exhibit at the POLIN museum in Warsaw. We were privileged to host an online exhibition of some of her works in 2020.

The exhibit consists of 31 works in which the artist, using traditional Jewish paper-cutting technique, refers to objects related to the synagogue, painstakingly recreating the symbolism and ornamentation of Jewish art from East-Central Europe—stylised floral decoration, symbolic representations of animals, a repertoire of traditional sacred Jewish symbols (a menorah, Torah and the Tablets of Law, the Temple) and calligraphic quotations from religious texts and prayers.

In order to introduce reflection on loss and destruction, Krajewska subjects her painstaking work to destruction: she tears apart sections of the works after cutting them out and burns the ends of the sheets. She uses tinted paper as a background for the cut-outs, incorporating the motif of fire, ashes and ruins. And she incorporates quotations from religious texts or classics of modern Jewish literature, in which there are references to flames and destruction, as well as to the hope of salvation.

 

 

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.

 

Apr
2
Tue
Houses of Eternity – Domy wieczności @ Płońsk Memorial House
Apr 2 – Jun 9 all-day
Houses of Eternity - Domy wieczności @ Płońsk Memorial House | Płońsk | Mazowieckie | Poland

An exhibition about Jewish cemeteries, prepared by the Galicia Jewish Museum.

In many places throughout Poland, Jewish cemeteries or what remains of them are the only visible sign of the centuries-long presence of Jewish communities in a given area. The exhibition “Houses of Eternity” is a reflection on what Jewish cemeteries mean to us today and an attempt to find an answer to the question of what we can learn from them. Its aim is to introduce the topic of Jewish cemeteries to the widest possible audience, help understand how important an element of cultural heritage the preserved Jewish cemeteries are and answer a number of questions related to cemeteries in the context of Jewish history and tradition.

The opening is at 1 p.m., April 2

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