Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

Mar
30
Mon
Iconography of Subotica synagogue @ Jewish University/Rabbinical Seminary Budapest
Mar 30 @ 18:00 – 19:30
Iconography of Subotica synagogue @ Jewish University/Rabbinical Seminary Budapest | Budapest | Hungary

A talk by by László Márk Negyela on the iconography of the art nouveau synagogue in Subotica, Serbia, designed by the Hungarian architects Komor and Jakab. (In Hungarian)

Apr
20
Tue
“Judapest”: Austria-Hungary and its Jews at the Fin-de-Siècle @ Online Zoom event
Apr 20 @ 18:00 – 19:30
"Judapest": Austria-Hungary and its Jews at the Fin-de-Siècle @ Online Zoom event

Lecture by Michael Miller, of CEU

Budapest is sometimes called the “Paris of the East,” but in the 1890s, it acquired a new, less flattering nickname: “Judapest.” Karl Lueger, the antisemitic mayor of Vienna – who hated Hungarians more than he hated Jews – is often credited with coining this derogatory nickname for a city that he thought had become more “Jewish” than “Hungarian.”  Budapest was Europe’s fastest-growing city at the time, with a flurry of cultural and commercial activity that fascinated — and sometimes appalled — contemporary residents and visitors. This talk will examine the image of Budapest in the decades before and after the First World War, exploring the ways in which Hungary’s capital city was imagined by Jews and non-Jews alike as a quintessentially Jewish metropolis.

The evening will be chaired by Professor Mark E. Smith, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton. It will be hosted by Professor Mark Cornwall (University of Southampton, Parkes Institute)

The event will be held on Zoom. Please register by Monday 19th April 16:00 here:

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/parkes/news/events/2021/04/20-parkes-lecture-2021.page

Speaker biography: Michael L. Miller is Associate Professor in the Nationalism Studies Program at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, and co-founder of the university’s Jewish Studies program. He received his PhD in History from Columbia University, where he specialized in Jewish and Central European History. Michael’s research focuses on the impact of nationality conflicts on the religious, cultural, and political development of Central European Jewry in the long nineteenth century. His articles have appeared in Slavic Review, Austrian History Yearbook, Simon Dubnow Institute Yearbook, Múlt és Jövő , The Jewish Quarterly Review and AJS Review. Miller’s book, Rabbis and Revolution: The Jews of Moravia in the Age of Emancipation, was published by Stanford University Press in 2011. It appeared in Czech translation as Moravští Židé v době emancipace (Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2015). He is currently working on a history of Hungarian Jewry, titled Manovill: A Tale of Two Hungarys.

Aug
24
Tue
The Great Synagogue of Vilnius – Finds from the Past and a Vision for the Future @ Both at Lithuanian Jewish Community Center and on Facebook
Aug 24 @ 18:00 – 19:00
The Great Synagogue of Vilnius – Finds from the Past and a Vision for the Future @ Both at Lithuanian Jewish Community Center and on Facebook | Vilnius | Vilniaus apskritis | Lithuania
Lecture by Dr. Jon Seligman – Archaeologist and the Director of the Excavations, Surveys and Research Department of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Since August 9 team of archaeologists with led by Dr. Seligman continues the works of previous excavation seasons of Vilnius Great Synagogue and this August plan to fully expose the remainder of the Bimah, the Torah Ark/Aron Kodesh, the floor and the southeastern and northwestern walls of the synagogue.

The lecture will be in English.

Place: Lithuanian Jewish community, Pylimo str. 4., III floor.

The project is partially financed by the Good Will Foundation.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/s/i-the-great-synagogue-of-vilni/267447701552421/

May
3
Tue
A Jewish Europe? Virtual and Real-Life Spaces in the 21st Century @ Gothenburg University
May 3 – May 5 all-day
A Jewish Europe? Virtual and Real-Life Spaces in the 21st Century @ Gothenburg University | Gothenburg | Västra Götaland County | Sweden

The conference aims to explore the development, role, influence and shape of virtual spaces in different forms related to contemporary European Jewry. How are digital practices related to real-life practices and spaces performed and inhabited by Europe’s Jewry? What do virtual spaces reveal about Jewish engagement with the geographical location and the idea of Europe? And, ultimately, what do virtual spaces tell us about the existence and future of a “Jewish Europe”? What do they say about transcending the borders of “Jewish Europe” and fostering membership in a global Jewish presence? 

Announced keynote speakers are JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber and independent scholar Diana Pinto.

The conference is organised by the University of Gothenburg and the Parkes Institute of Southampton University.

Program: 

Tuesday 3 May

09.00 – Welcome and introductions, Joachim Schlör, Maja Hultman and Klas Grinell

09.30 – Keynote: Ruth Ellen Gruber (Jewish Heritage Europe) Life after Life: Shifting Virtualities (and Realities) 20 Years after Virtually Jewish

10.45 – Break and coffee

11.15 – Panel 1: Jewish contribution to Europe – Chair: TBC

  • Itai Apter (University of Haifa) – Jewish Legal-Political WWII Era Scholars in the European International Law Space of the Past and Contemporary Virtual Spaces
  • Marcela Menachem Zoufalá (Charles University Prague) – TBC
  • Vladimir Levin (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) – European Values, Post-Soviet States, and Jewish Heritage

12.45 – Lunch

14.00 – Panel 2: Jewish/non-Jewish Spaces in Europe (J444) – Chair: TBC

  • Susanne Korbel (University of Graz) – Jewish Spaces in Vienna Today: A Relational, Hybrid Approach
  • Magdalena Abraham-Diefenbach (European University Viadrina) – The Legacy of German Jews in Western Poland: Jewish Cemeteries as Places Between “Jewish Space” and “Virtual Jewishness”
  • Jurgita Šiaučiūnaitė-Verbickienė (Vilnius University) – The Process of Learning About the Jews and Their Heritage: Influence of Challenges in Post-Soviet      Lithuania to the Contemporary Understanding of the Jewish Culture

15.30 – Break and coffee

16.00 – Panel 3: Jewish Europe from Near and Afar (J444) – Chair: TBC

  • Jennifer Cowe (University of British Columbia) – Rootless Nostalgia, Yekke Identity and Intergenerational memory Curation/Creation in Mor Kaplansky’s Café Nagler
  • Libby Langsner (independent researcher) – Nostalgia Networks: The Potential of Built Heritage Digitization in European American Jewish Identity Formation and Social Belonging
  • Judith Vöcker (University of Leicester) – The Muranów District as a Memorial of the Former Jewish Community of Warsaw

18.00 – City walk of Jewish Gothenburg

19.00 – Tour and dinner @ Gothenburg’s Synagogue

Wednesday 4 May

09.00 – Panel 4: Virtual Heritage Spaces of Jewish Europe – Chair: TBC

  • Susanne Urban (University Marburg) – Storytelling in Jewish Spaces: Creating a Bond Between Spaces, History and Present
  • Kyra Schulman (University of Chicago) – Memory Space: Probing the Limits of Holocaust Memorialization Projects on Digital Versus Physical Topographies
  • Kinga Frojimovics and Éva Kovács (Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies) – Tracing the Holocaust in the Kaiserstadt

10.30 – Break and coffee

11.00 – Panel 5: Digital Practices in Today’s Europe – Chair: Klas Grinell

  • Tyson Herberger (University of Southeastern Norway) – Impacts of Norwegian Jewry’s Digital Turn Under Corona
  • Dekel Peretz (Heidelberg University) – Searching for Belonging: Jewish-Muslim Dialogue in Virtual Spaces
  • Alla Marchenko (The Polish Academy of Sciences) – Virtual Representation of Real Jews and Jewishness in Contemporary Poland

12.30 – Lunch

13.45 – Heritage Session: Jewish Spaces in Sweden – Chair: Maja Hultman

  • Yael Fried (Jewish Museum in Stockholm)
  • Anna Grinzweig Jacobsson and Karin Brygger (Judiska salongen)
  • Lukasz Gorniok (Paideia – The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden and Ivana Koutniková (Paideia – The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden/Paideia folkhögskola)
  • Tom Shulevitz (Jewish Congregation of Gothenburg)

15.15 – Break and coffee

15.45 – Bus trip Gothenburg-Marstrand

17.00 – Guided tour of Marstrand

19.00 – Dinner @ Grand Tenan

21.30 – Bus trip Marstrand-Gothenburg

Thursday 5 May

09.00 – Panel 6: Being Jewish in Today’s Europe – Chair: TBC

  • Katalin Tóth (Institute of Ethnology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Eötvös Loránd Research Network) – “But We Are Also Here – the Descendants of the Survivors”: Everyday Life of a Synagogue in Budapest for the Past Thirty Years
  • Stanislaw Krajewski (University of Warsaw) – The Concept of De-Assimilation as a Tool to Describe Present-Day European Jews: The Example of Poland
  • Phil Alexander (University of Edinburgh) – “The Most Saving Slum in Glasgow, and the Most Abandoned”: Scotland’s 20th Century Jewish Neighbourhoods as 21st Century Virtual Spaces

10.30 – Break and coffee

11.00 – Virtual Keynote: Diana Pinto (independent researcher) Jewish Spaces in a Topsy Turvy Europe                                      

12.15 – Closing remarks by Joachim Schlör and Maja Hultman

 

May
23
Mon
5th World Litvak Congress @ various
May 23 – May 26 all-day
5th World Litvak Congress @ various | Lithuania

A gathering of Lithuanian Jews and descendants, which includes an academic conference, a cultural fest, guided tours to Jewish heritage in several towns and cities around the country — Vilnius, Kaunas, Panevėžys, Šeduva, Pakruojis — and more.

Click here to see the full program

Pre-registration is required by filling out the following form:

https://forms.gle/VJa9nMHaHjH4t5Lf6

Aug
28
Sun
Koszeg synagogue opening-exhibit @ Koszeg, Hungary synagogue
Aug 28 @ 15:00 – Aug 29 @ 19:00
Koszeg synagogue opening-exhibit @ Koszeg, Hungary synagogue | Kőszeg | Hungary

The long-derelict 19th century synagogue in Kőszeg, western Hungary, is reopening to the public after a full-scale renovation that took place over the past two years. The synagogue, which is owned by the state, will become a cultural centre but also will be able to be used for religious services.

JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber is on the program of its first public event, Sunday August 28-29 — the opening of an exhibition about Philip (Fülöp) Schey (1798-1881), a Jewish philanthropist born in Kőszeg (known in German as Güns), who had grown rich as a textile merchant and later became a banker for the Hapsburgs. In 1859, Emperor Franz Joseph raised Schey to the Hungarian nobility — he was the first Jew to receive this honor and took the title Philip Schey von Koromla.

The exhibit is called “A Kőszeg Success Story: the Schey Family,” and it presents Philip Schey’s family, life and work: his economic and philanthropic activities, as well as his founding of institutions.

It begins at 3 p.m. and is organized by iAsk — the Institute of Advanced Studies in Kőszeg, which has played a role in the restoration of the building.

The opening is part of a two-day series of events, “Synagogue Week in Kőszeg,” including concerts, lectures, guided tours, and book presentations.

Sep
18
Sun
Centennial Nagyfuvaros utca synagogue @ Nagyfuvaros synagogue
Sep 18 @ 17:00 – 19:00
Centennial Nagyfuvaros utca synagogue @ Nagyfuvaros synagogue

A ceremony and reception mark the 100th anniversary of the synagogue on Nagyfuvaros street in Budapest.

 

May
18
Thu
Szeged Synagogue 120th anniversary @ New Synagogue, Szeged
May 18 @ 10:30 – May 19 @ 20:00

A two-day event celebrates the 120th anniversary of the New Synagogue in Szeged, Hungary, the masterpiece of prolific synagogue architect Lipot Baumhorn. The synagogue was inaugurated on May 19, 1903.

There will be a talk about the synagogue’s history and architecture, and that of the Old Synagogue, and also other presentations, including about the noted rabbis Lipot and Immanual Löw, as well as a talk by the Szeged mayor about the synagogue’s role in the city.

 

See the program here:

 

Jun
8
Thu
200th anniversary Kővágóörs synagogue @ Erzsébetváros Jewish History Museum Csanyi 5
Jun 8 @ 18:00 – 19:30
200th anniversary Kővágóörs synagogue @ Erzsébetváros Jewish History Museum Csanyi 5 | Budapest | Hungary

Opening of an exhibition of photographs by Daniella Grinberg to mark the 200th anniversary of the synagogue in the village of Kővágóörs, near the north shore of Hungary’s Lake Balaton.  The exhibit runs until June 30.

Long abandoned and ruined, the synagogue is now under the care of a foundation that purchased the building and is working  to restore it for use as both a synagogue and a cultural center. It already hosts cultural events there.

The Synagogue of Káli-valley Foundation (in Hungarian, Káli-medence Zsinagógája Alapítvány) officially acquired the building in October, 2020 after a year and a half of discussions, from a Canadian businessman of Hungarian origin, who had owned the synagogue since 2013.

 

Sep
12
Tue
Spain: Jewish Archaeology @ Aula Magna. Edificio Universitario San Pedro Mártir - Madre de Dios
Sep 12 – Sep 13 all-day
Spain: Jewish Archaeology @ Aula Magna. Edificio Universitario San Pedro Mártir - Madre de Dios | Toledo | Castilla-La Mancha | Spain

An international conference/workshop on: “Toledo in the management of the New Jewish Archaeology in Europe”.

Organised by the Sephardic Museum in Toledo, the conference falls within a research project that has among its tasks the dissemination of the important archaeological findings that have been produced in recent years in the area of ​​the Jewish quarter of Toledo, in addition to highlighting the city and the Spanish-Jewish and Sephardic heritage, nationally and internationally. The objective of the conference will be “not only to create a scientific space for the exchange of academic news at a local, national and European level, but also to highlight the singular and unique value of the city of Toledo within the archaeological map of Jewish heritage in Spain.”

Click here to see the program

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