Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

Mar
31
Thu
Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival @ Zacheta gallery Warsaw
Mar 31 @ 18:00 – 19:00
Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival @ Zacheta gallery Warsaw | Warszawa | Mazowieckie | Poland

Opening of the exhibition Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival — showcasing the work of the architect, artist, and researcher Natalia Romik about the places where Jews hid during the Holocaust.

The exhibition will run until July 17, Tuesday-Sunday, 12-8 pm.

 

May
23
Mon
5th World Litvak Congress @ various
May 23 – May 26 all-day
5th World Litvak Congress @ various | Lithuania

A gathering of Lithuanian Jews and descendants, which includes an academic conference, a cultural fest, guided tours to Jewish heritage in several towns and cities around the country — Vilnius, Kaunas, Panevėžys, Šeduva, Pakruojis — and more.

Click here to see the full program

Pre-registration is required by filling out the following form:

https://forms.gle/VJa9nMHaHjH4t5Lf6

Sep
1
Thu
Jewish Heritage in the UK festival @ various
Sep 1 – Dec 31 all-day
Jewish Heritage in the UK festival @ various | United Kingdom

A series of events starting September 1 and continuing until the end of the year will be coordinated as the B’nai B’rith Jewish Heritage in the UK Festival — organised under the international umbrella of the European Days of Jewish Culture (EDJC), whose theme this year is “Renewal.”

Click here to download a PDF calendar of events

(Click here for the “flipsnack” online catalogue of events).

 

 

 

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.

 

 

May
21
Sun
Licoricia of Winchester: Heritage and Memory of Medieval Anglo Jewry @ The Arc, Winchester
May 21 @ 13:30 – 14:30
Licoricia of Winchester: Heritage and Memory of Medieval Anglo Jewry @ The Arc, Winchester | England | United Kingdom

A round-table discussion, plus optional walking tours through the “invisible” medieval Jewish history of Winchester. The Roundtable is free, the walking tours — at 10:30-11:30am or 11:30-12:30pm, cost £5. 

The event event focuses on Licoricia of Winchester and the heritage and memory of medieval Anglo-Jewry.

The bronze statue of the remarkable Anglo-Jewish woman, Licoricia, was unveiled in Winchester in 2021. This is the most prominent heritage work carried out relating to medieval Anglo- Jewry. 

The event, through a walking tour (£5) and free round table discussion, will consider the achievements of the Licoricia project, and the challenges of creating heritage in the absence of the built heritage that directly reflects the presence of medieval Winchester Jewry. It will also consider the public and educational issues raised when dealing with questions such as the Jewish role in medieval finance and hostile representations of Jews from the period based on religious bigotry. Addressing the key aims of the Licoricia project, participants will explore the potential of such commemoration to consider the roots of prejudice and discrimination, using this to promote tolerance, diversity, and female empowerment.

Please note that if you wish to attend both the walking tour and the roundtable event, you will need to register for each event separately.

Click here for booking and other details

Click here to read an April 2017  JHE Have Your Say essay about invisible medieval Jewish heritage by one of the Roundtable speakers, Dr. Toni Griffiths

 

Beginnings: The Story of the Willesden Jewish Cemetery @ Willesdan Jewish Cemetery
May 21 @ 14:00 – 15:30
Beginnings: The Story of the Willesden Jewish Cemetery @ Willesdan Jewish Cemetery | England | United Kingdom

Willesden Jewish Cemetery: 150 years of Heritage 1873 – 2023 Guided Walk

As part of the year long celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Willesden Jewish Cemetery, this guided walk will tell the story of the establishment of the cemetery, highlighting the early years of the United Synagogue, the people who made it happen and their role in the community.

Oct
4
Wed
“Burning” exhibition by Monika Krajewska @ POLIN Museum
Oct 4 – Dec 18 all-day
"Burning" exhibition by Monika Krajewska @ POLIN Museum | Warszawa | Mazowieckie | Poland

In 2020, we were privileged to host an online exhibition of work by the Warsaw-based papercut artist Monika Krajewska. The pieces were drawn from her extraordinary cycle of papercuts called “Burning,” a commemoration of the physical destruction of the Shoah.

This fall, from October 4 to December 18,  Krajewska’s  Burning cycle will be exhibited at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

The exhibit consists of 31 works in which the artist refers to the objects related to synagogue cult and transfers them to the traditional Jewish paper-cutting technique, painstakingly recreating the symbolism and ornamentation of Jewish art from East-Central Europe—stylised floral decoration, symbolic representations of animals, a repertoire of traditional sacred Judaic symbols (a menorah, Torah and the Tablets of Law, the Temple) and calligraphic quotations from religious texts and prayers.

In order to introduce reflection on loss and destruction, the artist subjects her painstaking work to destruction: she tears apart sections of the works after cutting them out and burns the ends of the sheets. She uses tinted paper as a background for the cut-outs, incorporating the motif of fire, ashes and ruins. In the representations, she incorporates quotations from religious texts or classics of modern Jewish literature, in which there are references to flames and destruction, as well as to the hope of salvation.

 

Jan
14
Sun
The “Burning” Exhibit of Papercuts by Monika Krajewska – now in Radom @ Jacek Malczewski Museum, Radom
Jan 14 – Apr 30 all-day
The "Burning" Exhibit of Papercuts by Monika Krajewska - now in Radom @ Jacek Malczewski Museum, Radom

 “Burning,” an exhibition of paper cuts by Monika Krajewska, is now being shown in Radom, following an exhibit at the POLIN museum in Warsaw. We were privileged to host an online exhibition of some of her works in 2020.

The exhibit consists of 31 works in which the artist, using traditional Jewish paper-cutting technique, refers to objects related to the synagogue, painstakingly recreating the symbolism and ornamentation of Jewish art from East-Central Europe—stylised floral decoration, symbolic representations of animals, a repertoire of traditional sacred Jewish symbols (a menorah, Torah and the Tablets of Law, the Temple) and calligraphic quotations from religious texts and prayers.

In order to introduce reflection on loss and destruction, Krajewska subjects her painstaking work to destruction: she tears apart sections of the works after cutting them out and burns the ends of the sheets. She uses tinted paper as a background for the cut-outs, incorporating the motif of fire, ashes and ruins. And she incorporates quotations from religious texts or classics of modern Jewish literature, in which there are references to flames and destruction, as well as to the hope of salvation.

 

 

Feb
18
Sun
Open Day Merthyr Tydfil @ Theatre Soar, Merthyr Tydfil
Feb 18 @ 10:00 – 15:30
Open Day Merthyr Tydfil @ Theatre Soar, Merthyr Tydfil | Wales | United Kingdom

Open Day to share plans for Welsh Jewish Heritage Centre in Merthyr Tydfil.

The public is invited to explore Merthyr Tydfil’s historic synagogue and help shape plans to create a Welsh Jewish Heritage Centre.

There will be tours of the synagogue throughout the day, along with music from a Welsh klezmer band and a talk on the history of Merthyr’s once-thriving
Jewish community.

The project team will be on hand to find out what local people think of the plans for the future of the building, and record their memories of its past life.

Merthyr Tydfil Synagogue was built in the 1870s and is the oldest purpose-built synagogue surviving in Wales. After the congregation left in 1983, its condition deteriorated. The Foundation for Jewish Heritage purchased it in 2019 and the Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, visited in 2021. The following year, the Foundation secured funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Welsh government and Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council to develop the plans.

 

Mar
1
Fri
Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival @ Jewish Museum Frankfufrt
Mar 1 – Sep 1 all-day
Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival @ Jewish Museum Frankfufrt | Frankfurt am Main | Hessen | Germany

A multimedia exhibition by the artist, architect and historian Natalia Romik dedicated to the creativity of Polish Jews seeking to survive the Shoah in hiding.

In Poland and Ukraine during World War II, approximately 50,000 people survived persecution by the German occupying forces in hiding. The majority of them were Jewish. They found refuge in tree hollows, closets, basements, sewers, empty graves, and other precarious locations. Natalia Romik’s exhibition “Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival” pays tribute to these fragile places of refuge and explores their physicality. The show poses basic questions about the relationship between architecture, private life, and the public sphere: it addresses the protective function of spaces and emphasizes the creativity those in hiding brought to bear in their attempt to survive.

In a research project extending over several years, Natalia Romik and an interdisciplinary team of researchers consulted oral histories to identify several hiding places, which they explored using forensic methods. The multimedia exhibition “Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival” presents the results of this research. It consists of sculptures bearing a direct connection to the sites and includes documentary films, forensic recordings, photos, documents, and objects found in the hiding places.

“Hideouts: The Architecture of Survival” is presented in cooperation with the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw and the TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Szczecin. On the occasion of the show at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, a catalogue will be published in German and English editions by Hatje Cantz Verlag.

The exhibition was curated by Kuba Szreder and Stanisław Ruksza with the help of Aleksandra Janus (scientific collaboration). For the presentation in Frankfurt, Katja Janitschek, curator of the Judengasse Museum, was responsible for the curatorial project management. We would like to thank the Evonik Foundation for their generous support.

 

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