A one-day international online conference called “Jewish Crossroads: Between Italy and Eastern Europe” organized by the Foundation for Jewish Cultural Heritage in Italy and the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The close contacts between Italy and eastern Europe have evolved over the centuries and Jews have been an integral part of this relationship.
The most known examples of Italian influences on eastern European Jews are the construction of synagogues in Poland and Lithuania by Italian architects; Jewish medics from Italy practicing in noble east European courts; or the selling of Hebrew books printed in Italy.
The interaction obviously was in the opposite direction: many Polish and Lithuanian rabbis moved to Italy or transferred their texts to be published there; the Council of the Four Lands sent emissaries to Rome; and many eastern European Jewish artists spent years in Italy.
The conference is planned to concentrate on those contacts and interactions, during the Early Modern and Modern periods.
The conference will be conducted in English. The keynote lecture will be given by Prof. Ilia Rodov of Bar-Ilan University.
I-Tal-Ya is a collaborative effort to identify and catalogue every Hebrew book in Italy. It is being carried out by the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy (UCEI), the Rome National Central Library (BNCR), and the National Library of Israel (NLI) in Jerusalem, with the support of the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe.
The project includes cataloguing an estimated 35,000 volumes from 14 Jewish communities and 25 state institutions and will take approximately three years to complete.
The event is held within the program of Ferrara’s annual Jewish Book Festival.
JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber will be one of the speakers at this day-long international conference held to mark the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the ruins of the synagogue in the ancient Roman port of Ostia Antica — a discovery made during construction of a highway to Rome’s Fiumicino airport — and the 20th anniversary of the Art in Memory Cultural Association, which every two years organizes a biennale of contemporary art in the synagogue ruins.
Some conference talks will be in English; most will be in Italian. A Green Pass (proof of COVID vaccination) is required to attend the conference.
Click here to see the conference program
Info in italiano (dal sito del Goethe Institut):
Nel 1961, nel corso dei lavori per la costruzione dell’autostrada di Fiumicino, sono stati rinvenuti i resti della antichissima Sinagoga di Ostia antica, parte dell’insediamento archeologico romano, la cui datazione è ancora controversa ma che costituisce certamente, con l’eccezione di quella di Delo, la più antica sinagoga dell’occidente mediterraneo e forse della Diaspora. L’intervento tempestivo dell’allora Soprintendente Anton Luigi Pietrogrande e di Maria Floriani Squarciapino ha determinato la deviazione della strada per Fiumicino, dunque la salvaguardia della Sinagoga, che è stata prontamente restaurata. La stessa Soprintendenza ha avuto il merito di dare immediatamente alla scoperta un rilievo internazionale.
Dalla fine degli anni Novanta, in concomitanza con una violenta ondata di antisemitismo che ha accompagnato la caduta del Muro di Berlino, alcune tra le poche Sinagoghe europee sopravvissute hanno riaperto i battenti come centri per l’arte contemporanea. La prima è stata quella Stommeln in provincia di Colonia. Su quel modello, dal 2002 la Sinagoga di Ostia antica ospita la biennale di arte contemporanea “Arte in Memoria”, curata da Adachiara Zevi, organizzata dall’Associazione Arte in Memoria, che ogni due anni invita artisti da tutto il mondo a creare un lavoro originale per il luogo.
La direzione del Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica e l’Associazione “Arte in Memoria”, intendono ricordare i 60 anni dal ritrovamento della Sinagoga con un convegno internazionale, al quale parteciperà anche l’artista tedesco Mischa Kuball, da tenersi all’interno del Parco Archeologico.
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.
Sharing the catacombs. Religious interactions in funeral spaces of Rome, 3rd-4th centuries CE
A round-table of interational scholars, in Italian and English, about Jewish and Christian catacombs in Rome.
To register for Zoom attendance, go to https://www.istitutosvizzero.it/it/tavola-rotonda/19933/
Program:
H17:00-17:15 – Caroline Bridel, Introduzione
H17:15-17:45 – Giandomenico Spinola (Musei Vaticani), La necropoli vaticana della via Triumphalis: tra religione e superstizione
H17:45-18:15 – Giancarlo Lacerenza (Università di Napoli L’Orientale), Ebraico e aramaico negli epitaffi delle catacombe ebraiche di Roma: segni di plurilinguismo o marcatori identitari?
H18:15-18:30 – Pausa
H18:30-19:00 – Norbert Zimmermann (Deutsche Archäologisches Institut), Space, tombs, images: Experiencing Christian Catacombs of Rome
H19:00-19:30 – Discussione moderata da Caroline Bridel
and, instead of considering them as isolated phenomena as it has been generally done until now, proposes to
analyze the exchanges, contaminations, adoption of ancient prototypes and the painful and sacrilegious processes of
adaptation to the new cult. Particular attention is paid to the methods of restoration, or renovation of religious
buildings no longer in use or looted, a widespread practice that generally coincides with low-cost interventions
consisting of removing and replacing the images, as well as changing the ornaments and possibly the furniture. In
order to investigate this aspect it is necessary to highlight its trauma and subsequently to remember the desecration
of religious buildings carried out over the centuries to adapt them to the religious needs of the dominant power, and
therefore the distortion of some of their peculiar characteristics, and what was destroyed and what was maintained.
Jewish Museum of Rome
(Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Community of Rome), Ruth Dureghello
(President of the Jewish Community of Rome)
Museum of Rome): Introduction
“memoria” al “trauma”: il potere politico e la profanazione degli edifici
religiosi (From “memory” to “trauma”: the political power and the
desecration of religious buildings)
Basilicas and Ancient Synagogues: Interreligious Dynamics in Architecture
for Worship
The orientation of Galilean synagogues, fourth to sixth centuries
Tempio Maggiore di Roma e le sue tipologie architettoniche di riferimento
(The Great Synagogue of Rome and its architectural typologies of
reference)
Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea
of the Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemoporanea, Rome)
Italia): La sinagoga in Italia dal medioevo all’emancipazione: una lunga
storia di continuità tipologica, cambi di destinazione d’uso e strategie di
rinnovamento stilistico-architettonico (The synagogue in Italy from the
Middle Ages to emancipation: a long history of typological continuity,
changes of intended use and strategies of stylistic-architectural renewal)
UOB, Université de Balamand):Tripoli-Liban-Nord, Patrimoine religieux
complexe (Tripoli -Lebanon-North, complexreligious heritage)
Marano (Ca’ Foscari University, Venice): Lo stato giuridico delle
sinagoghe sotto Bisanzio e delle chiese sotto l’Islam: Prospettive
comparate durante la lunga Tarda Antichità (The legal status of
synagogues under Byzantium and churches under Islam: compared
perspectives during the long Late Antiquity)
between Christians and Muslimsin 13th century Armenia: evidence from
ornament and inscriptions
formales en la arquitectura de lassinagogas,catedralesy mezquitas en la
España bajomedieval (Formal contamination in the architecture of
synagogues, cathedrals and mosques in late medieval Spain)
Riflessioni su arte e devozioni interreligiose nel Mediterraneo medievale
(Mary of the Miḥrāb: reflections on interreligious art and devotions in
the medieval Mediterranean Sea)
in Spagna nell ́età moderna (Cathedrals and relics in Spain in the
Modern Age)
sinagoghe e una moschea:spazicultuali non cristiani nella Venezia di Età
Moderna (Five synagogues and a mosque: non-Christian cultual spaces
in the Modern Age Venice)
d’Agincourt et la naissance de l’architecture gothique: un nouveau regard
vers l’architecture religieuse islamique au siècle des Lumières
(Jean-Baptiste Séroux d’Agincourt and the emergence of gothic
architecture: a new perspective on religious Islamic architecture during
the Enlightenment)
Synagogues of the Jewish “Reform movements” from the late 18th
century
A one-day conference will also include the inauguration of the Austria Jewish book store (run by Wojtek and Malgosia Ornat who run the Austeria Jewish publishing house and book store in Krakow) and also the unveiling of a plaque on the mikveh recognising the AEPJ’s Route of Jewish heritage.
See program:
A Zoom webinar in English introducing the current temporary exhibition at MEIS — the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah in Ferrara— Houses of Life; Synagogues and Jewish Cemeteries in Italy.
The exhibition mainly features plans and architectural drawings of synagogues, as well as gravestones, tombs, and other architecture features, through the ages.
A historic ark and other Judaica are also featured.
Speakers in the webinar include the two curators of the exhibition, Andrea Morpurgo and MEIS director Amadeo Spagnoletto, as well as Dr. Jessica Del Russo.
Click here to receive the Zoom link
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.”
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