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.
An online conference on two Sundays about Jewish identity and cultural heritage in Belarus, organized by TheTogether Plan within the context of the European Days of Jewish Culture. The Together Plan is engaged in various Jewish communal, heritage, and identity projects in Belarus, including organising a Jewish heritage route.
It calls Belarus “the unexplored and unknown root of modern day Ashkenazi Jewry.”
The conference “will be exploring hidden history, overcoming severe challenges and taking a look at modern day solutions.”
Click here to register, buy ticket, and see program
An online conference on two Sundays about Jewish identity and cultural heritage in Belarus, organized by TheTogether Plan within the context of the European Days of Jewish Culture. The Together Plan is engaged in various Jewish communal, heritage, and identity projects in Belarus, including organising a Jewish heritage route.
It calls Belarus “the unexplored and unknown root of modern day Ashkenazi Jewry.”
The conference “will be exploring hidden history, overcoming severe challenges and taking a look at modern day solutions.”
Click here to register, buy ticket, and see program
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
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
A celebratory event marks the 20th anniversary of the little Jewish Museum, located in the synagogue complex in the hill town of Pitigliano in southern Tuscany.
This year also marks the 400th anniversary of the imposition of a ghetto in Pitigliano.
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
Instead of September 3, as in other participating countries, the European Days of Jewish Culture is centered on September 10 — with the theme “Beauty,” not “Memory” as in the other countries.
It takes place in scores of localities up and down the Italian peninsula, with Florence as the lead city.
More than 80 years ago, the headstones that once stood in the Brest-Litovsk Jewish cemetery, in the south of Belarus, were desecrated and used for other purposes. More than 1200 headstones have been discovered over the last 20 years. They will be used to create a stunning memorial.
The Together Plan’s January 14th event will focus on this project.
How did the cemetery disappear?
What happened to the matzevot?
How did The Together Plan become involved?
What has been done so far and what are the plans for the future?
Where are the 1249 salvaged headstones at the moment?
How does this memorial play a pivotal role in Jewish history?
How will this support the functioning Jewish community in Brest today?
Click here to find the link to register
USA 11:00 PT / 14:00 ET / UK 19:00 / Israel 21:00
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