Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

Feb
11
Thu
Virtual Opening of Romaniote Memories: Photos of Vincent Giordano @ Online Zoom event
Feb 11 @ 17:00 – 18:00
Virtual Opening of Romaniote Memories: Photos of Vincent Giordano @ Online Zoom event
The exhibition can be seen at this link: https://scalar.usc.edu/works/romaniote-memories/index
 
In 1999, photographer Vincent Giordano made an unplanned visit to the small Kehila Kedosha Janina (KKJ) synagogue on New York’s Lower East Side. He knew little about Judaism or synagogues, and even less about the Romaniote Jewish tradition of which KKJ, built in 1927, is the lone North American representative. In this he was not alone. Romaniotes are among the least known of Jewish communities. Beginning in 2001 and guided by members of the KKJ community, Giordano documented the synagogue and its religious art of the congregation using film, video, and audio.
 
In 2019 the Giordano family donated the archive of Vincent’s work to Queens College, where it is a major part of the Hellenic American Project and is preserved as part of the Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library’s Special Collections and Archives.
 
The exhibition is sponsored by the Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library, Hellenic American Project, and Center for Jewish Studies at Queens College, in partnership with the International Center for Jewish Monuments, an independent non-profit organization.
 
The exhibition includes more than one hundred photographs, presented in ten thematic sections, accessible here.
 
To register for the exhibition’s opening reception on Zoom, featuring a conversation with curators, distinguished guests, and friends go to:
Jun
2
Wed
The Architecture of Greek Synagogues @ Online Zoom event
Jun 2 @ 19:00 – 20:15
Apr
30
Sat
Open Jewish Homes @ Netherlands
Apr 30 – May 4 all-day

The annual “Open Jewish Homes” Holocaust commemoration event in more than a dozen towns and cities in the Netherlands.

Small-scale, locally organized commemorative events takes place in homes where Jews (or members of the resistance) lived before, during, or just after World War II.

The web site states:

The focus is on Jewish life in these houses beforeduring and immediately after the war. History comes to life during Open Jewish Homes. Direct witnesses, descendants and connoisseurs tell stories about persecution, resistance and liberation on the basis of photographs, films, diary fragments, poems, literature and music. […]

The Jewish Cultural Quarter organised in 2012 the first edition of Open Jewish Homes in Amsterdam. Since then local work groups have been organising Open Jewish Homes in various other cities in the country as well. Everyone is free to initiate Open Jewish Homes in his or her place of residence. 

Home page of the Dutch Interactive Holocaust Memorial 

Open Jewish Homes was conceived as a way to engage “in real life” with the interactive Digital Monument to the Jewish Community in the Netherlands, which personalizes the more than 104,000 victims of Holocaust in the Netherlands. Every victim has a personal page  — with their home address as well as photos and other material. 

Click here to see the program in the various locations

 

Jan
12
Thu
The Architecture of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam @ Online
Jan 12 @ 12:00 – 13:00
The Architecture of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam @ Online

Dr. Pieter Vlaardingerbroek will present an illustrated talk live from Amsterdam on the architecture and interior of the 1675 Portuguese Synagogue (the Esnoga) in Amsterdam and the synagogue’s direct influence on the architecture of the 1763 Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island.

Pieter Vlaardingerbroek, Ph.D., is a leading expert on Dutch architecture and material culture. He is an architectural historian for the City of Amsterdam, having served in a similar position for the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. He is an Assistant Professor of Architectural History and Conservation at the University of Utrecht. Professor Vlaardingerbroek is the author of many articles and books and served as editor for the definitive volume on the Portuguese Sephardic synagogue, The Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, published by the City of Amsterdam in 2013.

There is no fee to participate, but reservations are required to receive the Zoom login information.

Click to register.

 

Apr
29
Sat
Open Jewish Houses @ Various towns
Apr 29 @ 17:22 – May 5 @ 18:22
Open Jewish Houses @ Various towns

The annual “Open Jewish Houses/Houses of Resistance” commemorative program takes place in a score of towns and cities around the Netherlands.

Storytellers, visitors and residents share stories in houses where Jews or members of the resistance lived and worked before, during and just after the Second World War. 

Click to see the program

 

 

 

Jul
23
Sun
Kos synagogue reopens @ Kal Shalom synagogue
Jul 23 @ 11:30 – 12:30
Kos synagogue reopens @ Kal Shalom synagogue | Greece

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.

See our post

 

Sep
19
Tue
Salonique, Jérusalem des Balkans, 1870-1920 @ Museum of Art and History of Judaism, Paris
Sep 19 2023 – Apr 21 2024 all-day
Salonique, Jérusalem des Balkans, 1870-1920 @ Museum of Art and History of Judaism, Paris | Paris | Île-de-France | France

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.

 

Jan
23
Tue
“Religious Heritage and Minority Communities” @ online and Centre for Religion and Heritage of the University of Groningen
Jan 23 @ 13:15 – 18:15
“Religious Heritage and Minority  Communities” @ online and Centre for Religion and Heritage of the University of Groningen

The Centre for Religion and Heritage of the University of Groningen will host a half-day public symposium to launch the Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe. This event will also inaugurate a new European project on minority religious heritage.

The event takes place in person and also online.  Click HERE to register

The organizers state:

The Handbook provides a state-of-the-art guide by leading international scholars, policy makers and heritage practitioners. With 46 chapters, we cannot address all the contributions, thus we have chosen to concentrate on those which examine how religious communities are using their rich heritage to make new meanings for themselves in Europe. Our focus will be on Jewish, Muslim and Christian heritage. We want to think together about the challenges facing these communities, as they grapple with being Jewish or Muslim minorities in a historically Christian landscape, or with being a minority of practicing Christians in the highly secularized society, such as that of Northern Netherlands. Reflecting on these questions together with our Handbook authors will aid the start of a new project in the Erasmus Plus program called European Pathways to Minority Religious Heritage (Miretage). Over three years we are exploring how minority religious heritage can be taught as a co-creative activity between heritage institutions, creative organizations and minority communities. On hand to participate in the symposium are partners from Storytelling Center Amsterdam, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Moslim Archief Rotterdam, KU Leuven, Future for Religious

Click here to see the program for the January 23 event

 

Feb
12
Mon
Dutch National Holocaust Museum Opening @ National Holocaust Museum, Amsterdam
Feb 12 all-day
Dutch National Holocaust Museum Opening @ National Holocaust Museum, Amsterdam | Amsterdam | Noord-Holland | Netherlands

The new Dutch National Holocaust Museum will be officially opened March 10  by King Willem-Alexander at a ceremony attended by the prime minister and other VIPs. The king will also give a speech at a gathering in the nearby Portuguese Synagogue.

The museum then opens to the public on March 11, from 10 am-5 pm  (almost) daily.

The museum tells the story of the Nazi persecution and murder of the Jews of the Netherlands. 

This is the first and only museum to relate the history of the persecution of the Jews of the entire Netherlands. Including the day-to-day life of Jews on the eve of the Second World War, the liberation as Jews experienced it, and how the Holocaust has been treated in our national culture of remembrance: all this is examined in the museum.

The Museum is part of the Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam. Germany and Austria have contributed financially to the establishment of the museum.

(Photo: © Thijs Wolzak/National Holocaust Museum)

Mar
10
Sun
Dutch National Holocaust Museum Opening @ National Holocaust Museum, Amsterdam
Mar 10 all-day
Dutch National Holocaust Museum Opening @ National Holocaust Museum, Amsterdam | Amsterdam | Noord-Holland | Netherlands

The new Dutch National Holocaust Museum will be officially opened March 10  by King Willem-Alexander at a ceremony attended by the prime minister and other VIPs. The king will also give a speech at a gathering in the nearby Portuguese Synagogue.

The museum then opens to the public on March 11, from 10 am-5 pm  (almost) daily.

The museum tells the story of the Nazi persecution and murder of the Jews of the Netherlands. 

This is the first and only museum to relate the history of the persecution of the Jews of the entire Netherlands. Including the day-to-day life of Jews on the eve of the Second World War, the liberation as Jews experienced it, and how the Holocaust has been treated in our national culture of remembrance: all this is examined in the museum.

The Museum is part of the Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam. Germany and Austria have contributed financially to the establishment of the museum.

(Photo: © Thijs Wolzak/National Holocaust Museum)

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