Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

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.

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.
 
Apr
19
Mon
Swedish Synagogue Architecture @ Online Zoom event
Apr 19 all-day
Swedish Synagogue Architecture @ Online Zoom event

The Symposium on Swedish Synagogue Architecture (1795–1870) and the Cultural Milieu of the Early Jewish Immigrants to Sweden will take place on Zoom, on April 19, 2021.

It is organized by the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University, the University of Potsdam, and the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, with the support of the Stockholm Jewish Museum.

To attend, click this link to register: 

The opening presentation will be of particular interest, an overview by Daniel Leviathan of his PhD dissertation project, “Jewish Sacred Architecture in the Nordic Countries 1684-1939.” 

Besides Leviathan, speakers will include Vladimir Levin and Sergey Kravtsov, of the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem; Ilia Rodov of Bar Ilan University; Maja Hultman, of the Centre for European Research and Department of Historical Studies at University of Gothenburg Centre for Business History in Stockholm; Mirko Przystawik, of Bet Tfila – Research Unit for Jewish Architecture in Europe, Technische Universität Braunschweig; Yael Fried, of The Jewish Museum of Stockholm; and Carl Henrik Carlsson, of The Hugo Valentin Centre, Department of History, Uppsala University.

Click here to see the full program, with abstracts of talks 

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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