As part of events marking the 20th anniversary of the Auschwtiz Jewish Center in Oswiecim, Poland, this web event will explore the Center’s commemoration efforts in Oświęcim and their impact on descendants of the town’s Jewish residents.
The Auschwitz Jewish Center (AJC) is a branch of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, in New York.
The program will feature Barbara Posner, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor from Oświęcim, and Shlomi Shaked, the grandson of another survivor from Oświęcim, who have both reconnected with the town over the past two decades.
The Symposium on Swedish Synagogue Architecture (1795–1870) and the Cultural Milieu of the Early Jewish Immigrants to Sweden will take place on Zoom, on April 19, 2021.
It is organized by the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University, the University of Potsdam, and the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, with the support of the Stockholm Jewish Museum.
To attend, click this link to register:
The opening presentation will be of particular interest, an overview by Daniel Leviathan of his PhD dissertation project, “Jewish Sacred Architecture in the Nordic Countries 1684-1939.”
Besides Leviathan, speakers will include Vladimir Levin and Sergey Kravtsov, of the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem; Ilia Rodov of Bar Ilan University; Maja Hultman, of the Centre for European Research and Department of Historical Studies at University of Gothenburg Centre for Business History in Stockholm; Mirko Przystawik, of Bet Tfila – Research Unit for Jewish Architecture in Europe, Technische Universität Braunschweig; Yael Fried, of The Jewish Museum of Stockholm; and Carl Henrik Carlsson, of The Hugo Valentin Centre, Department of History, Uppsala University.
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
The Task Ahead: a two-hour webinar on preserving Jewish cemeteries in Poland, to be held online July 1.
Confirmed keynote speakers include :
- Michał Laszczkowski, President of the Coalition of Guardians of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland
- Ronald S. Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress
The webinar is sponsored by the Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland, The Matzevah Foundation, the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, the World Jewish Restitution Organization, and the Chief Rabbinate of Poland.
It is a follow-up to a webinar held in August 2020.
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.
An interdisciplinary online conference (on the Gridaly platform) that will bring together scholars in a wide range of fields: anthropology, sociology, history, memory studies, museology, art history, and political science, among others; organized by the POLIN museum in Warsaw.
It will explore new directions in the study of East and Central European Jews.
Several specific questions will be raised: What constitutes Jewish studies today and in which direction should we be heading? Which paradigms are guiding the field today? How are theoretical and methodological developments in the humanities and social sciences shaping Jewish studies? How are scholars working in a broad range of disciplines – history, social sciences, literature, visual and performing arts, and other disciplines – contributing to the field? What are interdisciplinary approaches contributing to the field? What is the impact of studies of Jewish life in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on a wider understanding of world history?
4 Keynotes
- François Guesnet, “The Narcissism of Small Differences? Reflections on Jewish Studies and Jewish Area Studies”
- Havi Dreifuss, “Beyond traditional methods: Five Thoughts of what is New and What is Next in Jewish Studies”
- Marcin Wodziński, “What’s Next in Jewish Studies: Prospects and Challenges”
- Gerben Zaagsma, “Exploring Jewish History in the Digital Age”
21 Panels
- Theory
- Paradigms, methodologies, and sources
- Issues, emphases, and gaps
- Digital resources and methods
- Ethics and politics
- Academic and cultural institutions
- Legacies
1 Poster session
- PhD candidates will present methodological, theoretical, and source issues related to their dissertations.
2 Roundtables
- “Creating a Legacy: The Impact of Jewish Studies in Poland”
- “The Future of Museum Architecture”
The full-scale replica of the wooden synagogue of Połaniec one of the hundreds of East European wooden synagogues destroyed during WW2, will be formally opened — it has been installed at Poland’s largest open-air ethnographic museum, or skansen, the Folk Architecture Museum in Sanok, in the far southeast corner of Poland.
Click here to see our September 13 article and photos about the synagogue and replica.
The two-day opening event includes the inauguration on-site on October 7, plus an excursion to the masonry synagogue and historic Jewish cemetery in nearby Lesko.
The day-long conference takes place October 8, at another location in Sanok, the Jan Grodek State Vocational Academy — ul. Mickiewicza 21.
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 conference looking at the handling of Jewish cemeteries on both sides of the border between Germany and Poland — both in communist East Germany and Poland after WW2 and since 1989 in post-reunification Germany and post-communist Poland. Register by November 2.
Program
Welcome: Dr. Peter Bahl, State Historical Association for the Mark Brandenburg eV, and Dr. Magdalena Gebala, German Cultural Forum for Eastern Europe eV
Introductory presentation On the situation of the Jewish cemeteries in the Soviet Zone and the GDR, Dr. Monika Schmidt, Berlin
Presentation of the project Jewish cemeteries in Poland in the areas of the former province of Brandenburg, Dr. Magdalena Abraham-Diefenbach and Dr. des. Anke Geißler-Grünberg, both Frankfurt (Oder)
Documentary film Jewish cemeteries in Poland , director: Dietmar Barsig, 2009, 4:05 min., Broadcast in Kulturzeit on November 18, 2009; with the kind permission of ZDF
Followed by a panel discussion with Dr. Magdalena Abraham-Diefenbach, Dr. des. Anke Geißler-Grünberg, Dr. Monika Schmidt and Andrzej Kirmiel, director of the Museum of the Meseritzer Land, Międzyrzecz / Meseritz
Moderation: Dr. Peter Bahl
The event will be held in German and Polish and will be interpreted.
Important NOTE
Limited places. To participate in the event, a confirmed registration up to and including Tuesday, November 2, 2021 by email to ger.wei@web.de (preferred) or on the telephone number (030) 413 82 19 (with AB) is necessary. Proof of COVID vaccination is required to enter. A minimum distance of 1.5 m must be maintained. Wearing an OP or FFP2 mask is mandatory for all participants.
A cooperative event between the Chair for Monument Studies at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), the Chair for Modern History (German-Jewish History) at the University of Potsdam , the State Historical Association for the Mark Brandenburg eV and the German Cultural Forum Eastern Europe eV
The picture shows: Broken tombstone in the Jewish cemetery in Drossen / Ośno Lubuskie, 2021, © Peggy Lohse
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