Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

Jan
17
Thu
Monument to a Monument @ Saulėtekis school, Vilnius
Jan 17 @ 10:00 – 11:00

Opening of an exhibition of photographs by photographer Rimantas Dichavičius showing the Uzupis Jewish cemetery in Vilnius in 1964, before it was destroyed by the communist regime.

The exhibition marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Jun
17
Mon
“In the Synagogue” film screening @ London, Bloomsbury Studio
Jun 17 @ 18:30 – 20:30

In the Synagogue is a short film by young Ukrainian director Ivan Orlenko based on an unfinished story by Franz Kafka. One of few works by Kafka to deal with Jewish culture overtly, the story describes a strange vision of a beast that a Jewish boy experiences while praying in a synagogue, a metaphor which could be interpreted in several ways. Young Ukrainian director Ivan Orlenko has adapted Kafka’s fragment into a 30-minute film, shot entirely in Yiddish, and transposed its action to a synagogue in western Ukraine.

The screening will be preceded by a talk by Dr Uilleam Blacker of UCL SSEES on the ways in which the rich Jewish cultural heritage of Ukraine is remembered and reimagined in the country today, and the challenges which this process of recovery faces.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with the director.

The event is co-organised by Ukrainian Institute, London and UCL SSEES, with the support of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.

Jul
19
Fri
Dedication Synagogue Square memorial @ Jurbarkas, Lithuania
Jul 19 @ 12:00 – 18:00
Dedication Synagogue Square memorial @ Jurbarkas, Lithuania | Jurbarkas | Tauragės apskritis | Lithuania

The official opening ceremony for a new memorial commemorating the memory of the Jews of Jurbarkas, Lithuania — in Yiddish, Yurburg.

The event will have several parts, including a concert at 2:30 pm by the choral group Aukuras from Klaipėda, at the Apparition of Christ Orthodox church. At 3:30 there will be a look back at the Synagogue Square Memorial Project at the Grybas Museum at Vydūno street no. 31, and at 4:30 there will be a meeting and discussion with the authors and creators of the memorial at the Jurbarkas Regional Public Library at Vilniaus street no. 4.

The municipality approved renaming the junction of Kauno and Kranto streets in the town center – The Synagogue Square.

This square, adjacent to the historical location of Yurburg’s two major Synagogues, was chosen as the site for a memorial dedicated to the Jewish Community of Yurburg. In April 2016, mayor Skirmantas Mockevicius asked Amir Maimon, the Ambassador of the State of Israel to the Republic of Lithuania, to contact Israeli sculptor David Zundelovitch and his creative group CAN New Artists Collegium with a request to design and create the future memorial, with is a sort of urban land sculpture.

Click to see the Facebook page for the memorial

 

 

Sep
23
Wed
Exhibition opening @ Lviv Museum of History of Religion
Sep 23 @ 16:00 – 17:00
Exhibition opening @ Lviv Museum of History of Religion | L'viv | L'vivs'ka oblast | Ukraine
The exhibition will feature 22 ritual items used in synagogues or by Jewish families as well as photos from the collection of Vladimir Rumyantsev and Yaroslav Yanchak, provided by the Center for Urban History of Central and Eastern Europe from its media archive.
 
Among the exhibits are Galician Hanukkah menorahs, a Torah crown, tzedaka boxes, and a post-war velvet parochot with an embroidered inscription dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust
 
Some of the items were kept during 1945–1962 in the Jakub Glanzer Synagogue. They were later confiscated by the Soviet authorities and transferred to the Lviv Historical Museum, and from there to the Lviv Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism (Today – the Lviv Museum of the History of Religion). 
The curator of the exhibition is Maxim Martin, the head of the museum’s Judaism department.
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The exhibition will be up until the end of the year.
Feb
23
Tue
Legacy of the Shtetl: Investigating Polish-Belarusian-Ukrainian Borderlands @ Online Zoom event
Feb 23 @ 18:00 – 19:00
Legacy of the Shtetl: Investigating Polish-Belarusian-Ukrainian Borderlands @ Online Zoom event | Bentonville | Arkansas | United States
The Legacy of the Shtetl: Investigating Polish-Belarusian-Ukrainian Borderlands
with Dr Magdalena Waligórska, and Dr Natalia Romik, respondent, and with Prof François Guesnet, Chair 
 
Co-organized by the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies and  the UCL Institute of Jewish Studies
 
Magdalena Waligórska takes us on a journey to the post-1945 Polish-Ukrainian-Belorusian borderlands where she explores small towns which had a predominantly Jewish population before the Second World War and the Holocaust. Here, Jewish property both entirely fell under the control of the new ethnic majority and remained a “disinherited heritage” that continues to cause dissonance and psychological discomfort to its current “heirs.”
 
The unsettling presence of Jewish ruins, resurfacing human remains, walled-in objects, collapsing cellars, and the recycled tombstones constitutes an “intrusion of the past into the present” that, decades after the war, still demands action and results in different local responses.
 
The respondent, Natalia Romik, is an artist, urban historian, and architect from Warsaw who has undertaken similar but different explorations of the Jewish heritage in small Polish towns.
 
May
26
Wed
Jewish cemetery Gorizia/Nova Gorica @ Online webinar
May 26 @ 18:00 – 21:00
Jewish cemetery Gorizia/Nova Gorica @ Online webinar

A Zoom seminar about the project to restore the Jewish cemetery of Gorizia, Italy, that now lies across the border outside Nova Gorica, Slovenia. The twin cities will jointly be the European Cultural Capital in 2025, with their shared Jewish heritage playing a role.  In Italian

Click here for details and to register 

Read our 2017 article about the shared Jewish heritage of the towns

Read an Italian perspective about the project

Read a history of the cemetery

Read about the project to restore the cemetery (in English)

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/

Nov
27
Sat
Extermination – Great Synagogue Grodno @ online - zoom, and on-site
Nov 27 @ 18:00 – 20:30
Extermination - Great Synagogue Grodno @ online - zoom, and on-site | Vilnius | Vilniaus apskritis | Lithuania

European Humanities University (EHU) and the Center for Belarusian Community and Culture in Vilnius will host a premiere presentation of “Extermination” — an audiovisual installation about the Great Synagogue of Grodno, which was constructed in the 16th century and was rebuilt many times after devastating fires. 

Kseniya Shtalenkova (lecturer in the Academic Department of Humanities and Arts at EHU, Philosophy PhD candidate) is the project curator and Viktoryia Bahdanovich (fourth-year student of the BA program in Visual Design) is the project production designer and executive producer.

 The “Extermination” audiovisual installation is a monologue on the history of the place as well as an individual experience of a person in time and space.

The installation has been created as a part of the project on “Preservation and Actualization of Former Synagogues in Belarus for the Benefit of Local Communities” by Stsiapan Stureika, Professor of Humanities and Arts at EHU. Project research conducted for the work on the installation was conducted with the participation of EHU students.

The presentation will be delivered in Russian with subtitles in English. 

Register by November 26.

Click here to register on Zoom (or for in-person attendance)

The event will be also streamed online via EHU’s Facebook page.

NOTE: you can attend the event physically at the Belarusian House (Vilniaus g. 20) by pre-registration at the same link to register on Zoom

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