Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

Dec
10
Tue
Synagogues as Museums and Galleries in East‐Central Europe @ Grande Synagogue of Europe, Brussels
Dec 10 @ 18:00 – 21:00
Synagogues as Museums and Galleries in East‐Central Europe @ Grande Synagogue of Europe, Brussels | Bruxelles | Bruxelles | Belgium

The opening of a photo exhibition by Rudolf Klein that presents a brief survey of synagogues converted into museums and galleries in Hungary, Austria, Bosnia‐Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. The exhibit runs until January 16, 2020.

The opening includes talks (in English) by Klein, Polish researcher Natalia Romik,  and Professor Thomas Gergely.

Prior registration is required.  Click here

The event is organized in collaboration with the Great Synagogue of Europe, the Balassi Institute, the Polish Institute and the Austrian Cultural Forum.

Jan
23
Thu
Jewish Musicians and Jewish Music-Making in Polish Lands @ Polish Embassy London
Jan 23 @ 09:30 – 17:30
Jewish Musicians and Jewish Music-Making in Polish Lands @ Polish Embassy London | England | United Kingdom

A one-day Conference to Launch POLIN: Studies in Polish-Jewry

Vol. 32: ‘Jewish Musicians and Jewish Music-Making in Polish Lands’

Organized by the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies, and the Institute of Jewish Studies, UCL.

Co-organized and supported by the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, and the Polish Cultural Institute, London, with the support of Ślipaczek Chartered Financial Planners

The astounding variety of music of all genres and styles produced by musicians of Jewish heritage in Europe since 1750 has been examined almost entirely in the context of German-speaking Europe or in studies of a group of composers who strongly self-identified as Jews.

In five thematic sections, this multi-disciplinary volume presents rich coverage of the main genres produced by musicians of Jewish origin in the Polish lands: Cantorial and Religious Music, Jews in Polish Popular Culture, Jews in the Polish classical music scene, The Holocaust reflected in Jewish music, and Klezmer in Poland today. This volume explores the activities and great creativity of musicians of the ‘Mosaic persuasion’, covering the area of the Polish-Lithunanian Commonwealth and its successor states from 1750 to the present. 

The conference will look at Cantorial Music, Jews and Polish popular culture, and Klezmer in Poland today. And there will be music!

‘POLIN Vol. 32’ is published by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilisation/Liverpool University Press.

Volume Editors: François Guesnet, Benjamin Matis, and Antony Polonsky.

 

Mar
1
Sun
Devastated, Decayed, Revived – Former Synagogues in Poland and Ukraine @ Städtischen Galerie Haus Seel, Siegen
Mar 1 @ 16:00 – Mar 22 @ 18:00

And exhibition of photographs by Eva Maria Kraiss.

The exhibition is presented as part of the Week of Brotherhood 2020.

The opening is March 1 at 4 p.m. It will be open daily except Monday, from 2 – 6 p.m., and on Sundays also from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

See more details in the poster below:

 

Mar
4
Wed
Over the river. History of Jews on the Odra River @ Zielona Gora, Poland, Museum of the Lubusz Land
Mar 4 @ 17:00 – 19:00

Opening of the Polish-German exhibition  “Over the river. History of Jews on the Odra River,” co-organized by the Museum of the Lubusz Land and the German Cultural Forum of Central and Eastern Europe in Potsdam.

The exhibition is devoted to selected aspects of Jewish history on both sides of the Oder River — a borderland area that changed nationality for centuries, and which was a meeting place for the culture of German Jews and the culture of Polish Jews.

From the organizers:

In the nineteenth century, a growing wave of nationalism and anti-Semitism began to threaten the cultural diversity [of the region] and eventually it was destroyed by Nazism. After World War II, the border between Poland and Germany was marked on the Oder and Nysa Łużycka. After the expulsion and displacement of the German population, these lands became a new homeland for Poles. For a short time it seemed that Polish Jews survived the Holocaust survivors in Lower Silesia and Pomerania. Initially, tens of thousands of them settled here, but most of them left the area by the end of the 1960s. Over time, the thousand-year absence of Jews on the Oder fell into oblivion, and its traces blurred or were destroyed. The exhibition tries to save from oblivion and recall these traces.

 

The exhibition will continue until April 26, 2020.

Sep
25
Sat
Exhibit of rescued matzevot fragments @ Huta Bedzin
Sep 25 @ 11:00 – 17:00
Exhibit of rescued matzevot fragments @ Huta Bedzin | Będzin | Śląskie | Poland

More than 1,000 fragments of Jewish headstones that the Communist authorities removed in the 1960s from the Jewish cemetery on Zagorska Street and used to build a railway station platform will be exhibited to the public.

Excavations have been going on for six months to recover them, and they will eventually used to create a memorial.

At 5 pm, at the Muzeum Cafe Jerozolima, there will be a presentation about the history of the cemetery.

 

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

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.

 

 

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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