Jewish Heritage Europe

Calendar

Feb
23
Tue
Legacy of the Shtetl: Investigating Polish-Belarusian-Ukrainian Borderlands @ Online Zoom event
Feb 23 @ 18:00 – 19:00
Legacy of the Shtetl: Investigating Polish-Belarusian-Ukrainian Borderlands @ Online Zoom event | Bentonville | Arkansas | United States
The Legacy of the Shtetl: Investigating Polish-Belarusian-Ukrainian Borderlands
with Dr Magdalena Waligórska, and Dr Natalia Romik, respondent, and with Prof François Guesnet, Chair 
 
Co-organized by the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies and  the UCL Institute of Jewish Studies
 
Magdalena Waligórska takes us on a journey to the post-1945 Polish-Ukrainian-Belorusian borderlands where she explores small towns which had a predominantly Jewish population before the Second World War and the Holocaust. Here, Jewish property both entirely fell under the control of the new ethnic majority and remained a “disinherited heritage” that continues to cause dissonance and psychological discomfort to its current “heirs.”
 
The unsettling presence of Jewish ruins, resurfacing human remains, walled-in objects, collapsing cellars, and the recycled tombstones constitutes an “intrusion of the past into the present” that, decades after the war, still demands action and results in different local responses.
 
The respondent, Natalia Romik, is an artist, urban historian, and architect from Warsaw who has undertaken similar but different explorations of the Jewish heritage in small Polish towns.
 
Apr
19
Mon
Swedish Synagogue Architecture @ Online Zoom event
Apr 19 all-day
Swedish Synagogue Architecture @ Online Zoom event

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.

Click here to see the full program, with abstracts of talks 

May
15
Sat
Explore former ghetto, Finale Emilia @ former Jewish ghetto
May 15 @ 09:00 – 17:30

Every half hour there will be a guided walking tour of the former Jewish ghetto in Finale Emilia.

Participants must wear masks and follow other COVID-19 health measures.

The tours are presented as part of the Italian Environment Fund’s Springtime Open Days events around the country.

 

Click here to learn more and register — reservations are necessary

May
16
Sun
Explore Jewish cemetery Finale Emilia @ Jewish cemetery Finale Emilia
May 16 @ 09:00 – 17:30

There will be a guided walking tour every half hour of the Jewish cemetery, founded in the 17th century. The cemetery had been abandoned for decades until a major restoration and clean-up in 1987 and a further restoration in 2015.

Participants must wear masks and follow other COVID-19 health measures.

The tours are presented as part of the Italian Environment Fund’s Springtime Open Days events around the country.

Click here to register — reservations are required

 

 

May
26
Wed
Jewish cemetery Gorizia/Nova Gorica @ Online webinar
May 26 @ 18:00 – 21:00
Jewish cemetery Gorizia/Nova Gorica @ Online webinar

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

Read a history of the cemetery

Read about the project to restore the cemetery (in English)

Jun
10
Thu
Virtual Reconstructions of Synagogues in Germany @ NS Documentation Center
Jun 10 @ 19:00 – 20:00
Virtual Reconstructions of Synagogues in Germany @ NS Documentation Center | Köln | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Germany

The opening of an exhibition of virtual reconstructions of synagogues destroyed by the Nazis.

It is mounted at the the NS Documentation Center in cooperation with the Technical University of Darmstadt.

The exhibition “Synagogues in Germany – A Virtual Reconstruction” runs from from June 11th to September 19th.

The TU Darmstadt has been working on the virtual reconstruction of synagogues that were destroyed in Germany for 25 years. The initial spark for this long-term project was the attack by neo-Nazis on the synagogue in Lübeck in 1994. In 2019, an attack was carried out on the synagogue there in Halle. With this project, the TU Darmstadt shows the cultural loss, the importance of synagogues in the cityscape and the beauty of the architecture. 

The exhibition also shows synagogues that were built in Germany after 1945. 

Read our article about virtual reconstructions

Jun
13
Sun
Synagogue in Gleusdorf opens @ Synagogue in Gleusdorf, Germany
Jun 13 all-day
Synagogue in Gleusdorf opens @ Synagogue in Gleusdorf, Germany | Untermerzbach | Bayern | Germany

The tiny former synagogue in the village of Gleusdorf, out of use for more than a century, opens as an information center about local rural Jewish life and history.

The inauguration ceremony will be a closed event for invited guests because of COVID restrictions.

The synagogue has been owned since 2016 by the Untermerzbach municipality, which sponsored and oversaw the €174,000 project. Funding included a €87,500 grant from the EU’s LEADER funding program for the development of the rural economy. 

The synagogue will be operated in cooperation with the Friends of the Synagogue association in nearby Memmelsdorf, and the preservation concept accords with that of the Memmelsdorf synagogue –“conservation instead of reconstruction” —  that is, not to reconstruct or restore the building, but to conserve it in a way that shows the history of what it has gone through.

Click to read our article about the restoration and project

 

Jul
11
Sun
“House of Eternity” photo exhibition @ Synagogue in Hagenow
Jul 11 – Oct 17 all-day
"House of Eternity" photo exhibition @ Synagogue in Hagenow | Hagenow | Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | Germany

“House of Eternity: Jewish cemeteries in the Central European cultural area 2004–2021.”

A photo documentation by Berlin-based Marcel-Th. and Klaus Jacobs.

The 45 black and white photos in the exhibition, featuring Jewish cemeteries  in Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Czech Republic, were taken with an analog Leica camera.

The exhibition was made possible by donations from the Circle of Friends for the Preservation of the Jewish Cemeteries in Central Europe.

Further information abut the project is available at: www.jüdische-friedhöfe.de

 

Jul
12
Mon
Görlitz Synagogue reopens @ Synagogue Görlitz
Jul 12 all-day

The former synagogue in Görlitz reopens after  around 30 years of gradual renovation as the “Kulturforum Görlitz Synagogue.” 

The Görlitz synagogue is the only community synagogue in saxony that survived Kristallnacht in 1938.

According to the city administration, the total cost of the renovation was 12.6 million euros.

 The opening had been postponed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Jul
22
Thu
Jewish Crossroads: Between Italy and Eastern Europe @ Online webinar
Jul 22 all-day
Jewish Crossroads: Between Italy and Eastern Europe @ Online webinar

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.

 

Click here for details

 

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