Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

Apr
26
Tue
Installation Ceremony of Information signboard for Nowogród Jewish @ Jewish cemetery
Apr 26 @ 12:00 – 13:00
Installation Ceremony of Information signboard for Nowogród Jewish @ Jewish cemetery | Nowogród | Podlaskie | Poland

There will be a ceremony to install an information signboard at the Jewish cemetery in  Nowogród, Poland.

The signboard was created thanks to the support provided to Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland by the actress Gwyneth Paltrow, a descendant of 19th century Rabbi Hersz Pelterowicz, rabbi of the Nowogród synagogue district.

Archival research was contributed by Professor Glenn Dynner of Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York and Gniewomir Zajączkowski of FODZ.

Click here for the Facebook event

Click here to see the text on the signboard

May
23
Mon
Bridging Divides. Rupture and Continuity in Polish Jewish History @ Jewish Historical Institute Warsaw
May 23 – May 26 all-day
Bridging Divides. Rupture and Continuity in Polish Jewish History @ Jewish Historical Institute Warsaw | Warszawa | Mazowieckie | Poland

Bridging Divides. Rupture and Continuity in Polish Jewish History

In Honor of the 80th anniversary of the “Aktion Reinhard” and the 75th anniversary of the Jewish Historical Institute

Watch the conference on YouTube:

Opening ceremony: https://youtu.be/J3Hx6eh6cng

Day 2: https://youtu.be/D29zQRijkqM

Day 3: https://youtu.be/Xyonp03JUfk

Closing discussion: https://youtu.be/Gk0pqyRJIo0

 

PROGRAM

MONDAY, May 23rd

Opening – 17:00 CET

Welcome – Glenn Dynner, Monika Krawczyk, Katarzyna Person

Opening keynote – Samuel Kassow

TUESDAY, May 24th

Session 1 – 9:00 – 10:30 CET

Evolving Traditions: Polish Jewish Spirituality Chair and Respondent: Glenn Dynner

Alison B. Curry (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

The Last Honor: Jewish Ritual and the Cemetery in the Warsaw Region Between the Interwar Period and the Second World War

Samuel Glauber-Zimra (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)

The Séance in Polish Jewish Life: A Case Study of Rupture and Continuity

Gabriella Licskó (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)

Alexander Hasidism before and after the Holocaust

 

Session 2 – 10:45 – 12:15 CET

Women in Polish Jewish Religious Life Chair and Respondent: Daniel Reiser

Tzipora Weinberg (New York University)

Still Small Voices: Female Prevalence in Polish Rabbinic Literature, 1900-1945

Elly Moseson (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)

Mar’in bishin: The Sexual Nightmare of Eastern European Jewish Women

Glenn Dynner (Sarah Lawrence College)

The Polish Hasidah: Beyond Masculine Definitions of Hasidism Partners: Part of the program:

Session 3 – 13:15 – 14:45 CET

Polish Jewry in Literature and Film Chair and Respondent: Karolina Szymaniak

Daniel Bouskila (Yeshiva University)

Asonovski, Szibucz and Buczacz: SY Agnon’s Theological Meditations on the Plight of Eastern European Jewry

Sarah Ellen Zarrow (Western Washington University)

Jewish Life in Poland as Documented on Film: Continuities and Ruptures

Aleksandra Kremer (Harvard University)

Holocaust Poems in Polish-Language Journals before 1950

 

Session 4 – 15:00 – 16:00 CET

Panel on Archives and Museums Chair and Respondent: Stephen Naron

Jonathan Brent (Executive Director of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)

The oldest Jewish archival institution

Monika Krawczyk (Director of the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute)

Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw: ‘Mother’ of All Jewish Museums in Poland

Albert Stankowski (Director of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum)

Challenges for New Warsaw Ghetto Museum

Zygmunt Stępiński (Director of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews)

POLIN Museum – Shrine for History of Polish Jews

 

16:15 CET – Guided tour of the Jewish Historical Institute’s permanent exhibition: What we were unable to shout out to the world

 

19:30 CET – Screening of Who Will Write Our History in Kino Muranów

WEDNESDAY, May 25th

Session 1 – 9:00 – 11:00 CET

Writing the Polish Jewish Self Chair and Respondent: Francois Guesnet

Maria Ferenc (Jewish Historical Institute) Partners: Part of the program:

 

Life and what comes after. Study of biography and memory of Mordechai Anielewicz as a challenge to historiographical divides

Yaron Nir Freisager (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Josef Zelkowicz and the Circle of Intellectuals in the Lodz Ghetto

Lidia Zessin-Jurek (Czech Academy of Sciences)

“Three times a refugee” – exile as a leading motif in the memoirs of Polish Jews

Ula Madej-Krupitski (McGill University)

Polish Jewish émigrés and the ‘old country’

 

Session 2 – 10:45 – 12:45 CET

Reframing Antisemitism and the Holocaust Chair and Respondent: Katarzyna Person

Ania Switzer (University of British Columbia)

Antisemitism as a cultural code in Poland

Jan Burzlaff (Harvard University)

Surviving as a Social Process

Alicja Podbielska (Yale University)

“Our feelings toward Jews have not changed”: Polish underground press on help and rescue

Lea Ganor (Bar-Ilan University)

Life Stories of Holocaust Survivors with Polish and European roots who served as Air Crew Members in the Israeli Air Force

 

Session 3 – 13:45 – 14:45 CET

Polish Jewish Philanthropic Networks Chair and Respondent: Anna Cichopek-Gajraj

Karolina Kołpak (Yale University)

The history of the Warsaw Kolonie Letnie Society, 1882-1939

Samir Saadi (University of Warsaw)

The HIAS in Poland in the II Republic and after the Holocaust (until 1949): comparative approach

Dikla Yogev (University of Toronto)

The Bais Yaakov Network – A Case Study of the Multiple Dimensions of Orthodox Community

 

Session 4 – 15:00 – 16:15 CET

Presentation on Jewish Historical Institute’s resources Chair and respondent: Andrzej Żbikowski Partners: Part of the program: Library – Marzena Zawanowska

Heritage Documentation Department – Alicja Mroczkowska

Archive – Michał Czajka

Art Department – Michał Krasicki

 

16:30 CET – Keynote by Naomi Seidman

 

19:00 CET – Zisl Slepovitch Ensemble outdoor concert in Krasiński Garden

The Songs from Testimonies project collects and records songs and poems discovered in the accounts found in the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. The musician-in-residence, Zisl Slepovitch, took the songs, conducted research about their origins, then arranged and recorded versions with his ensemble, featuring Sashe Lurje.

The performers:

Joshua Camp – accordion, piano, additional vocals

Dmitry Ishenko – contrabass, additional vocals

Craig Judelman – violin, additional vocals

Sasha Lurje – leading vocals

D. Zisl Slepovitch – composer, clarinet, vocals

THURSDAY, May 26th

Guided tour of Jewish Warsaw – 9:00 CET

The overwhelming presence of the Warsaw Ghetto

Guide: Olga Szymańska, Education Department

 

Closing of the Conference – 11:30 CET

Concluding Remarks and State of the Field discussion

Jun
26
Sun
25th Preserving Memory awards @ Galicia Jewish Museum
Jun 26 @ 12:00 – 13:00
25th Preserving Memory awards @ Galicia Jewish Museum | Kraków | Małopolskie | Poland

The 25th edition of the “Preserving Memory” awards honoring non-Jewish Poles who care for Jewish heritage in Poland.

Aug
28
Sun
Nowy Sacz Names Memorial @ People Not Numbers Memorial
Aug 28 @ 16:00 – 17:00
Nowy Sacz Names Memorial @ People Not Numbers Memorial | Nowy Sącz | Małopolskie | Poland

Dedication of the new memorial listing 12,0000 Holocaust victims, a project of Ludzie, Nie Liczby-People, Not Numbers, Sądecki sztetl and Dariusz Popiela.

 

Sep
21
Wed
Białystok Cemetery Restoration Project webinar @ online-zoom
Sep 21 @ 19:00 – 20:00
Białystok Cemetery Restoration Project webinar @ online-zoom

The “Zoom in on the Forum” series of webinars by the School of Dialogue, presents a discussion about the restoration work at the Bagnowka Jewish cemetery in Bialystok Poland — we have posted a number of times about the project.

Amy Degen and Heidi M. Szpek will share  their work as members of the Bialystok Cemetery Restoration project (BCRP). Both have been involved in salvaging, documenting, and restoring headstones in the cemetery as well as raising awareness about Jewish history of Bialystok.

This summer, the BCRP carried out work at the cemetery for the first time since the pandemic began.

Among other things, more than 100 headstones dating from the early 19th century and originally located in the destroyed Rabbinical cemetery, were unearthed and rescued from under a mound of earth where they had been buried during communist times, when the cemetery was turned into a park.

Click here to register

Nov
30
Wed
“Unsettled Heritage” event @ online
Nov 30 @ 20:00 – 21:30
"Unsettled Heritage" event @ online

A conversation with Yechiel Weizman on his book
Unsettled Heritage: Living Next to Poland’s Material Jewish Traces after the Holocaust (Ithaca, 2022)

In Unsettled Heritage, Yechiel Weizman explores what happened to the thousands of abandoned Jewish cemeteries and places of worship that remained in Poland after the Holocaust. He asks how postwar Polish society in small, provincial towns perceived, experienced, and interacted with the physical traces of former Jewish neighbors. Combining archival research into hitherto unexamined sources and anthropological field work, the book uncovers the concrete and symbolic fate of Poland’s material Jewish remnants and shows how their presence became the main vehicle through which Polish society was confronted with the memory of the Jews and their annihilation. Leading the conversation with Weizman will be Monika Rice, and joining them will be Alon Confino and Amos Goldberg.

This event will be held via ZOOM Webinar.

Registration is required, register in advance here.

Apr
19
Wed
80th Anniversary Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Apr 19 all-day
80th Anniversary Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

A number of events are marking the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, including a conference, exhibit, monument dedication, at the POLIN Museum, Warsaw’s Okopowa Jewish cemetery, and elsewhere.

 

 

Jan
25
Thu
Places of Difficult Heritage, Education, and Human Rights @ online
Jan 25 @ 18:00 – 20:00
 
The webinar will discuss issues such as:
 
Can places of difficult heritage—such as areas of former forced labor/concentration/death camps, prisons, juvenile detention centers, sites of executions, desecrated cemeteries, or prayer houses—play a role in today’s education about human rights and in shaping civic attitudes? How to adapt such institutions and places accordingly? How do we manage them to use their educational potential fully? Can they become spaces for civic mobilization and sensitization of different generations to the past, present, and future experiences of persecuted minority groups, discriminated against, or exposed to social exclusion? Does such a model work in Norway and is there a way that it could also be implemented in Poland and CEE? What can we learn from each other? Is there a wider EU perspective we can learn from?
 
🔎 Speakers will look for answers to these and other questions during the webinar, entirely devoted to the role that places of difficult heritage can play in multidimensional education about human rights. They include memory activists, the academia, and individuals actively working with difficult heritage sites on a daily basis.
 
Guests/presenters will be: Agnieszka Jabłońska (Urban Memory Foundation), Aleksandra Janus (Fundacja Zapomniane), Magdalena Rubenfeld (FestivALT), Karolina Jakowenko (Brama Cukermana), Mats Jørgen Nesjø (Falstad Centre), and Johannes Börmann (European Comission).
 
🇬🇧 The meeting will be conducted in English with simultaneous interpretation to Polish. 🇵🇱
 
🕒 PROGRAM 🕒
18.00–18.15: Welcome and introduction of the discussed terminology
18.15–18.35: Falstad Centre
18.35–19.00: Engaged Memory Consortium Poland & NeDiPa
19.00–19.15: The EU perspective: site-specific education about past violences and Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme of the EU?
19.15–19.45: Discussion – what the Polish and Norwegian partners can learn from each other? Is there a universal model?
19:15–20.00: Q&A
 
 
Mar
20
Wed
Journeys to Treblinka @ Holocaust Centre North Huddersfield, and online
Mar 20 @ 17:00 – 18:00

Since 2007, forensic archaeological investigations have revealed new evidence of the crimes undertaken at the notorious Treblinka Extermination Camp in Poland.

In this talk, Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls will outline some of the key findings of this research and discuss the ways they have inspired Holocaust survivors and their descendants based in the UK to undertake their own journeys to commemorate their loved ones.

Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls’ pioneering research focuses on the application of interdisciplinary approaches to the investigation of Holocaust landscapes. She conducted the first forensic archaeological investigations at Treblinka Extermination and Labour Camps, the results of which will be presented in her forthcoming book Finding Treblinka. She is also the author of several other books including Holocaust Archaeologies: Approaches and Future Directions (2015), the Handbook on Missing Persons (2016) and ‘Adolf Island: The Nazi Occupation of Alderney (2022).

 

Mar
28
Thu
Memory Activism webinar @ Online
Mar 28 @ 18:30 – 19:30
Memory Activism webinar @ Online
A webinar on the topic of memory activism related to Jewish heritage and Jewish history in Poland.
 
Participation in the event is free of charge.
 
Registration is required, at this link: https://tinyurl.com/MemoryActivism
 
Discuss will include the results of qualitative research on memory activism in Poland conducted in 2023. The panel will consider the importance of their key findings and try to answer a number of important questions: what are the motivations of people engaging in such activities? What do they need and what kinds of challenges do they face on a daily basis? How the wider phenomenon is impacted by the fact that most activists work on a voluntary basis?
 
Also: the perspective of activists. How do they perceive their actions, how do they define them and what kind of changes do they want to bring about?
 
Participants will include: Agnieszka Jabłońska (managing director of the @urbanmemoryfoundation), Aleksandra Janus (president of the @fundacjazapomniane), Magda Rubenfeld Koralewska (co-director of FestivALT), and Katarzyna Fereniec-Błońska, member of the research team that carried out the study under under the aegis of the „Curiosity” agency.
 
The meeting will be conducted in English.
 
The event is co-organized with the @galiciajewishmuseumkrakow and the Research Center for Memory Cultures as part of the „NeDiPa: Negotiating Difficult Pasts” project, which FestivALT implements together with the Zapomniane Foundation and the Urban Memory Foundation, thanks to the support of the European Union under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values program (CERV).
 
 

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