Calendar

Guided tour of the Wertheimer synagogue, accessible as part of the Austrian Jewish Museum. Dedicated to Jewish life in the province of Burgenland, the museum opened in 1982 in the former mansion of Samson Wertheimer (1659-1724). The private synagogue is part of the mansion.

Wertheimer had a prominent role at the Viennese court, where from 1694 to 1709 he worked for emperors Leopold I, Joseph I, and Charles VI as Hofoberfaktor or chief administrator of financial affairs. He also served the Esterhazy family in Burgenland and was Rabbi of Hungary and Moravia.

A mob destroyed Eisenstadt’s main synagogue on Kristallnacht in 1938 but the they overlooked the  Wertheimer Shul,  hidden in the mansion. The synagogue was re-consecrated for Jewish worship in 1979.

In its current form the synagogue dates almost entirely from 1832, having been refurbished after the Eisenstadt ghetto was badly damaged in a fire of 1795. Its design includes many elements typical of the period, including a high ceiling and a chandelier hanging from a painted rosette. At the inauguration of the building in 1834, members of the community contributed ceremonial silver, a painted glass beaker for the Hevrah Kadisha (Burial Society), Torah scrolls, an elaborate Parohet (Ark curtain) and a parchment Megillah (Scroll of the Book of Esther) executed by the scribe Elie Gabriel, all of which are among the items displayed in the museum today.

A nighttime tour of the Old and New Jewish cemeteries, in Eisenstadt. Bring a flashlight!

Of the older cemetery, in used from 1679 to 1874, can be considered one of the most important Jewish cemeteries in Europe. The newer cemetery, used until 1938, tells stories about the last decades of Jewish life in Eisenstadt.

Guided tour of the Wertheimer synagogue, accessible as part of the Austrian Jewish Museum. Dedicated to Jewish life in the province of Burgenland, the museum opened in 1982 in the former mansion of Samson Wertheimer (1659-1724). The private synagogue is part of the mansion.

Wertheimer had a prominent role at the Viennese court, where from 1694 to 1709 he worked for emperors Leopold I, Joseph I, and Charles VI as Hofoberfaktor or chief administrator of financial affairs. He also served the Esterhazy family in Burgenland and was Rabbi of Hungary and Moravia.

A mob destroyed Eisenstadt’s main synagogue on Kristallnacht in 1938 but the they overlooked the  Wertheimer Shul,  hidden in the mansion. The synagogue was re-consecrated for Jewish worship in 1979.

In its current form the synagogue dates almost entirely from 1832, having been refurbished after the Eisenstadt ghetto was badly damaged in a fire of 1795. Its design includes many elements typical of the period, including a high ceiling and a chandelier hanging from a painted rosette. At the inauguration of the building in 1834, members of the community contributed ceremonial silver, a painted glass beaker for the Hevrah Kadisha (Burial Society), Torah scrolls, an elaborate Parohet (Ark curtain) and a parchment Megillah (Scroll of the Book of Esther) executed by the scribe Elie Gabriel, all of which are among the items displayed in the museum today.

Lecture by Michael Miller, of CEU

Budapest is sometimes called the “Paris of the East,” but in the 1890s, it acquired a new, less flattering nickname: “Judapest.” Karl Lueger, the antisemitic mayor of Vienna – who hated Hungarians more than he hated Jews – is often credited with coining this derogatory nickname for a city that he thought had become more “Jewish” than “Hungarian.”  Budapest was Europe’s fastest-growing city at the time, with a flurry of cultural and commercial activity that fascinated — and sometimes appalled — contemporary residents and visitors. This talk will examine the image of Budapest in the decades before and after the First World War, exploring the ways in which Hungary’s capital city was imagined by Jews and non-Jews alike as a quintessentially Jewish metropolis.

The evening will be chaired by Professor Mark E. Smith, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton. It will be hosted by Professor Mark Cornwall (University of Southampton, Parkes Institute)

The event will be held on Zoom. Please register by Monday 19th April 16:00 here:

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/parkes/news/events/2021/04/20-parkes-lecture-2021.page

Speaker biography: Michael L. Miller is Associate Professor in the Nationalism Studies Program at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, and co-founder of the university’s Jewish Studies program. He received his PhD in History from Columbia University, where he specialized in Jewish and Central European History. Michael’s research focuses on the impact of nationality conflicts on the religious, cultural, and political development of Central European Jewry in the long nineteenth century. His articles have appeared in Slavic Review, Austrian History Yearbook, Simon Dubnow Institute Yearbook, Múlt és Jövő , The Jewish Quarterly Review and AJS Review. Miller’s book, Rabbis and Revolution: The Jews of Moravia in the Age of Emancipation, was published by Stanford University Press in 2011. It appeared in Czech translation as Moravští Židé v době emancipace (Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2015). He is currently working on a history of Hungarian Jewry, titled Manovill: A Tale of Two Hungarys.

BIAJS Conference 2022: “Unfolding Time: Texts – Practices – Politics”

There’s quite a bit of material on Jewish (built) heritage at this year’s conference of the British and Irish Association of Jewish Studies.

12 July 2022, 15.15-16.45  The state of Jewish tangible heritage in Ukraine: Buildings, monuments, museums and libraries 

organised by: Eva Frojmovic (Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Leeds, clsef@leeds.ac.uk) 

EUGENY KOTLYAR (Associate Professor at Department of Art History of Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts, eugeny.kotlyar@gmail.com):  

Jewish Heritage in Independent Ukraine: Discovery, Study, Preservation and Presentation. Thirty Years of Experience and Challenges 

 SOFIA DYAK (Director of the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv, website:www.lvivcenter.org, E-mail: s.dyak@lvivcenter.org):  

Jewish Urban Heritage and Diversity in Lviv 

 TETYANA BATANOVA (Research Fellow, Acting Head of the Judaica Department of Institute of Manuscripts, V. I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, taniabatanova@gmail.com ) 

The Judaica Department at V. I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine: Revival, Study, and Preservation 

VITALY CHERNOIVANENKO (Senior research fellow, Judaica Department; Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine; President, Ukrainian Association for Jewish Studies; Chief editor, Judaica Ukrainica; E-mail: chernoivanenko@gmail.com and president@uajs.org.ua; Website: uajs.org.ua):  

Ukraine’s Hebraica collections in international perspective 

NADIA UFIMTSEVA (Department of History at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy,nadia.ufimtseva@gmail.com) 

Title: the Jewish printed books collection in the Kamianets-Podilskyi state museum and Judaica objects in Ukrainian museums.  

MIA SPIRO (Glasgow) and EVA FROJMOVIC (Leeds) 

Click here to see full conference program

To register securely, please visit: https://estore.kcl.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/academic-faculties/faculty-of-arts-humanities/department-of-theology-and-religious-studies/biajs-conference-unfolding-time-texts-practices-politics

This international conference aims to explore the Jewish experience in Sommerfrische (Summer holiday) destinations, summer resorts, and spas, focusing on the particular urban processes that led to their emergence and the factors that transformed them into spaces of possibility in a rural or small-town context.

JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber will speak about “Those Who Stayed (and One Who Came Back” about Jewish cemeteries in health resort towns, focusing on Merano/Merano, Italy.

Click here for the Program