A conference on the project to conserve and promote for visitors the ancient Jewish catacombs in Venosa, Italy — and the neighboring Christian catacombs, both under Magdalena hill.
An international conference :”Dentro e fuori ghetto. Vita e cultura ebraica a Siena in età moderna.”
It takes place in the morning at the State Archives, and in the afternoon at the Siena synagogue.
From a perspective combining social and cultural history, this conference will focus on the study of Jewish societies and cultures within the Siena ghetto (XVIth-XIXth centuries), as much as on the consideration of Sienese Jews’ individual experiences outside the ghetto, in the middle of the Tuscan Catholic world, both in the city of Siena and in the broader context of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
The diversity of Jewish populations in the ghetto, their condition of legal minority, their socio-economic vulnerability as much as their cultural perseverance, will be among the research subjects presented in the course of the conference.
Organized by the State Archives of Siena and the Jewish Community of Florence in collaboration with the EHESS in Paris (Centre des Recherches historiques), this event will bring together around fifteen specialists in Jewish studies as well as in legal, social, cultural and economic history. The proceedings of the conference will be published in 2021.
PROGRAM
Archivio di Stato di Siena, 9:00-13:00
Saluti istituzionali, 9:00-9:15
Introduzione: Davide Mano, Centre de recherches historiques, EHESS, Paris, Dentro e fuori ghetto: per una storia degli ebrei a Siena, 9:15-9:45
Il patrimonio ebraico senese: un panorama su fonti e beni culturali, 9:45-11:15
Anna Di Castro, Comunità ebraica di Firenze, Sezione di Siena, Il patrimonio ebraico senese: dal ghetto alla dispersione (XVI-XX sec.)
Ilaria Marcelli, Archivio di Stato di Siena, I documenti senesi: da un raffronto fra i fondi ebraici di Toscana
Ariel Viterbo, The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, Kol sasson me‘ir tehilà – Una voce di gioia dalla città gloriosa. Fonti senesi alla Biblioteca Nazionale d’Israele
Pausa caffè, 11:15-11:30
Il ghetto senese: complessità socio-economica e minorità giuridica, 11:30-13:00
Michele Cassandro, Università degli studi di Siena, Gli ebrei a Siena prima e dopo il ghetto. Aspetti economici e sociali
Michaël Gasperoni, Centre Roland Mousnier, CNRS/Sorbonne Université, Paris, La popolazione e le famiglie del ghetto di Siena in età moderna
Mario Ascheri, Università degli studi Roma 3, Problemi giuridici degli ebrei in Toscana a fine Seicento: da un libro fortunato
Pausa pranzo
Sinagoga di Siena, 14:30-17:30
Tradizioni e culture nel ghetto senese: musiche e apparati rituali, 14:30-16:00
Enrico Fink, Polonsky visiting fellow, Oxford Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Oxford, Shochant Bassade (Tu che abiti nel campo): musiche della tradizione senese nelle registrazioni di Leo Levi
Gabriele Mancuso, Medici Archives Project, Firenze / Polonsky visiting fellow, Oxford Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Oxford, L’introduzione del repertorio musicale colto nel ghetto di Siena: modalità, stilemi e forme paradigmatiche di esecuzione musicale
Dora Liscia Bemporad, Università degli studi di Firenze, Onorare il Signore. Il rinnovamento della sinagoga e il suo apparato rituale
Pausa caffè, 16:00-16:15
“Commerci” dentro e fuori ghetto: interazioni e legami, conflitti e divieti, 16:15-17:30
Patrizia Turrini, Archivio di Stato di Siena, Tra conflitti e interazioni: le attività economiche ebraiche dentro e fuori il ghetto di Siena (fine XVII- XVIII sec.)
Floriana Colao, Università degli studi di Siena, “Commercio d’Ebrei con Cristiani”. Aspetti della giustizia criminale toscana dall’età tardo medicea-lorenese ad una Causa celebre di Giovanni Carmignani
Conclusioni e saluti
For further information see:
http://crh.ehess.fr/index.php?6991
http://www.archiviodistato.siena.it
www.firenzebraica.it
The Duomo & The Great Synagogue: An Evening of Italian Culture
An evening of Jewish and Florentine architecture, culture, music, and food.
• Informal talks about the history and architecture of two of Florence, Italy’s grandest and most iconic structures — the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral (the Duomo) and the Great Synagogue — by Ross King, author of the national bestseller Brunelleschi’s Dome, and noted scholar Professor Francesco Spagnolo, Curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley.
• Q&A session moderated by Gail Price, former Executive Director of The American Institute of Architects Santa Clara Valley Chapter.
•The San Jose Chamber players with Cantor Sharon Bernstein presenting both Jewish and Italian songs.
• Italian appetizers and ice cream.
A Zoom seminar about the project to restore the Jewish cemetery of Gorizia, Italy, that now lies across the border outside Nova Gorica, Slovenia. The twin cities will jointly be the European Cultural Capital in 2025, with their shared Jewish heritage playing a role. In Italian
Click here for details and to register
Read our 2017 article about the shared Jewish heritage of the towns
Read an Italian perspective about the project
A one-day international online conference called “Jewish Crossroads: Between Italy and Eastern Europe” organized by the Foundation for Jewish Cultural Heritage in Italy and the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The close contacts between Italy and eastern Europe have evolved over the centuries and Jews have been an integral part of this relationship.
The most known examples of Italian influences on eastern European Jews are the construction of synagogues in Poland and Lithuania by Italian architects; Jewish medics from Italy practicing in noble east European courts; or the selling of Hebrew books printed in Italy.
The interaction obviously was in the opposite direction: many Polish and Lithuanian rabbis moved to Italy or transferred their texts to be published there; the Council of the Four Lands sent emissaries to Rome; and many eastern European Jewish artists spent years in Italy.
The conference is planned to concentrate on those contacts and interactions, during the Early Modern and Modern periods.
The conference will be conducted in English. The keynote lecture will be given by Prof. Ilia Rodov of Bar-Ilan University.
I-Tal-Ya is a collaborative effort to identify and catalogue every Hebrew book in Italy. It is being carried out by the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy (UCEI), the Rome National Central Library (BNCR), and the National Library of Israel (NLI) in Jerusalem, with the support of the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe.
The project includes cataloguing an estimated 35,000 volumes from 14 Jewish communities and 25 state institutions and will take approximately three years to complete.
The event is held within the program of Ferrara’s annual Jewish Book Festival.
A day-long conference to mark the 200th anniversary of the synagogue of Haguenau, in France’s Alsace region.
An international conference to officially launch the massive website and digital database of Jewish cemeteries in Turkey, A World Beyond: Jewish Cemeteries in Turkey 1583-1990.
The database and web site are a project of the The Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center of Tel Aviv University. We wrote about it when it first went online last year as a beta version — though the site still says it’s in beta, the kinks that some users experienced appear to have been worked out, and we find it easy to search and use.
Dedicated to the memory of the oriental studies scholar Bernard Lewis, who died in 2018, the database is the culmination of decades of research by Prof. Minna Rozen (and others) and comprises digital images and detailed textual content of more than 61,000 Jewish gravestones from a variety of communities in Turkey from 1583 until 1990. Rozen’s onsite documentation of the cemeteries was carried out in 1988-1990. The material was digitized in the 1990s but until the web site was uploaded, it had not been publicly accessible.
JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber will be one of the speakers at this day-long international conference held to mark the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the ruins of the synagogue in the ancient Roman port of Ostia Antica — a discovery made during construction of a highway to Rome’s Fiumicino airport — and the 20th anniversary of the Art in Memory Cultural Association, which every two years organizes a biennale of contemporary art in the synagogue ruins.
Some conference talks will be in English; most will be in Italian. A Green Pass (proof of COVID vaccination) is required to attend the conference.
Click here to see the conference program
Info in italiano (dal sito del Goethe Institut):
Nel 1961, nel corso dei lavori per la costruzione dell’autostrada di Fiumicino, sono stati rinvenuti i resti della antichissima Sinagoga di Ostia antica, parte dell’insediamento archeologico romano, la cui datazione è ancora controversa ma che costituisce certamente, con l’eccezione di quella di Delo, la più antica sinagoga dell’occidente mediterraneo e forse della Diaspora. L’intervento tempestivo dell’allora Soprintendente Anton Luigi Pietrogrande e di Maria Floriani Squarciapino ha determinato la deviazione della strada per Fiumicino, dunque la salvaguardia della Sinagoga, che è stata prontamente restaurata. La stessa Soprintendenza ha avuto il merito di dare immediatamente alla scoperta un rilievo internazionale.
Dalla fine degli anni Novanta, in concomitanza con una violenta ondata di antisemitismo che ha accompagnato la caduta del Muro di Berlino, alcune tra le poche Sinagoghe europee sopravvissute hanno riaperto i battenti come centri per l’arte contemporanea. La prima è stata quella Stommeln in provincia di Colonia. Su quel modello, dal 2002 la Sinagoga di Ostia antica ospita la biennale di arte contemporanea “Arte in Memoria”, curata da Adachiara Zevi, organizzata dall’Associazione Arte in Memoria, che ogni due anni invita artisti da tutto il mondo a creare un lavoro originale per il luogo.
La direzione del Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica e l’Associazione “Arte in Memoria”, intendono ricordare i 60 anni dal ritrovamento della Sinagoga con un convegno internazionale, al quale parteciperà anche l’artista tedesco Mischa Kuball, da tenersi all’interno del Parco Archeologico.
A wide-ranging conference organized by the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research, the German Historical Institute in Paris and the Museum of Art and History of Judaism, 12 years after an earlier conference on “Archaeology of Judaism in France and Europe.”
Experts will evaluate of the progress of archaeological research on European Judaism from antiquity to the 20th century, reporting on the most recent significant discoveries across the continent.
The symposium will offer summaries and case studies on places of worship (synagogues, ritual baths, etc.), the topography of medieval Jewry and modern ghettos, funerary spaces, sites of the Shoah, new methodological approaches and the heritage of the sites studied.
Click for further information, to see the program, and to register
Comments are closed.