Exhibition of Photographs by Vincent Giordano.
The photographs are part of a multi-media archive, created by Giordano, who died in 2010, that was sponsored by International Survey of Jewish Monuments and in 2019 will find a new home at the Hellenic American Project and Special Collections at the Library of Queens College, New York.
Giordano’s photographs document two related communities of Greek Romaniote Jews – in Ioannina, in northwestern Greece and on Broome Street on New York’s Lower East Side. Romaniote Jews trace their religious and cultural heritage to the Judaism of the ancient Greco-Roman world two-thousand years ago, and these two tiny congregations are among the few remaining to follow these traditions. Romaniotes have their own liturgy and cultural traditions, as well as their own language, a dialect of Greek that combines words and phrases from Hebrew and Turkish. This luminous black and white photo essay includes a poignant exploration of liturgy and ritual, conveying how people engage with religious space and carry on their time-honored sacred traditions.
The exhibition will open on Thursday, September 19th , 2019 at 6:00 p.m. it will continue through October 3rd, 2019.
A panel discussion by experts will take place at the Consulate on Wednesday, September 25th, 2019 at 6:00 p.m.
Lecture and panel discussion about Romaniote Jews, linked to the exhibition “Romaniote Memories – A Jewish Journey from Ioannina, Greece to Manhattan: Photographs by Vincent Giordano.”
Lecture on the past, present, and future of Jewish museums by Dr. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Chief Curator of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland and Professor Emerita of Performance Studies at New York University.
Experts from Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Great Britain will meet for a Herrenhausen Symposium at Herrenhausen Palace in Hanover to discuss the issue of reusing church buildings for the first time from a European comparative view. The intention is to develop new perspectives.
The target audience are persons responsible in church, monument preservation and politics, academics, members of educational institutions and all those interested in the topic. The symposium addresses an expanded public, convinced that churches are public buildings that ultimately belong to the public. An important aspect of the symposium is the involvement of young scientists and young professionals as well as society stakeholders or volunteers that are active in this field.
The discussions have relevance also for the adaptive reuse of synagogue buildings.
Click here to see details and program
Online lecture by Leon Saltiel on his research on the destruction of the Jewish cemetery of Thessaloniki (Salonika), Greece.
The lecture is sponsored by the @UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center.
Inauguration of the restored synagogue on the island of Kos.
A new Ark and Bimah and other interior furnishings have been installed and — after decades out of its original use — the building will be rededicated as an active house of Jewish worship.
The Kos synagogue was built in the mid-1930s to replace an older synagogue that was destroyed in an earthquake in April 1933. It was abandoned after the near-total destruction of the circa 120 member Jewish community during the Holocaust, and then was purchased by the Municipality around 1984 and used as a local cultural centre.
Presenting a selection of nearly 150 pieces from various sources, this photographic exhibition recreates the history of Salonika (today Thessaloniki) Greece from the second half of the 19th century to the end of the First World War. Men and women are captured in their traditional costumes: modest artisans, porters, traders, members of the local “aristocracy;” society is revealed. Urban modernization is also shown: the quays and the White Tower, cafes, restaurants and entertainment venues; the Countryside sector where the notables established their residence; deprived areas, where emerging industries were established.
But also, in the now Greek city, the great fire of August 1917, an authentic trauma for the Jews who saw their historic neighborhoods, the municipal archives and more than thirty synagogues swept away by the flames, before the geopolitical upheavals caused by the First War worldwide.
The International Conference on Cemetery Studies, organized by the Harokopio University in collaboration with the University of York, will take place from 18 to 20 April 2024 at the Harokopio University in Athens, Greece.
The event will bring together a wide spread of academics, presenting their latest research findings concerning various aspects of cemeteries (end of 18th century onwards), including history, art and culture, anthropology, geography, social studies, and cemetery tourism.
The conference fee is 30 euros (15 euros for doctoral students). The fee includes a light lunch, refreshments, and a guided tour in the historical cemetery of Athens.
Comments are closed.