A series of events starting September 1 and continuing until the end of the year will be coordinated as the B’nai B’rith Jewish Heritage in the UK Festival — organised under the international umbrella of the European Days of Jewish Culture (EDJC), whose theme this year is “Renewal.”
Click here to download a PDF calendar of events
(Click here for the “flipsnack” online catalogue of events).
This festival features concerts in the synagogues of five towns in western Romania:
The repertoire includes new compositions by the violinist and virtuoso Alexander Bălănescu, who also will perform.
PROGRAM:
Tuesday, September 5th, at 7 PM | Cetate Synagogue in Timișoara
Thursday, September 7th, at 5 PM | “Beit El” Synagogue in Caransebeș
Thursday, September 7th, at 8:30 PM | Neolog Synagogue in Lugoj
This is the 20th Edition of the Singer’s Warsaw Festival, Warsaw
The premier Jewish culture festival in Poland, aside from the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival. It celebrates its 20th edition jubilee this year.
Theatre performances, concerts, films, guided tours, lectures, food, books — and more.
Click here for the full program (including some preliminary events in Bilgoraj)
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.
Romania’s annual Night of Open Synagogues takes place in a number of synagogues around the country.
We know of events in synagogues in Bucharest, where four synagogues will be open, in Satu Mare, and in Iasi.
We have not seen a full list, however.
The synagogues are open to visitors after the close of Shabbat, and there are also various events planned in some of them.
In 2020, we were privileged to host an online exhibition of work by the Warsaw-based papercut artist Monika Krajewska. The pieces were drawn from her extraordinary cycle of papercuts called “Burning,” a commemoration of the physical destruction of the Shoah.
This fall, from October 4 to December 18, Krajewska’s Burning cycle will be exhibited at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
The exhibit consists of 31 works in which the artist refers to the objects related to synagogue cult and transfers them to the traditional Jewish paper-cutting technique, painstakingly recreating the symbolism and ornamentation of Jewish art from East-Central Europe—stylised floral decoration, symbolic representations of animals, a repertoire of traditional sacred Judaic symbols (a menorah, Torah and the Tablets of Law, the Temple) and calligraphic quotations from religious texts and prayers.
In order to introduce reflection on loss and destruction, the artist subjects her painstaking work to destruction: she tears apart sections of the works after cutting them out and burns the ends of the sheets. She uses tinted paper as a background for the cut-outs, incorporating the motif of fire, ashes and ruins. In the representations, she incorporates quotations from religious texts or classics of modern Jewish literature, in which there are references to flames and destruction, as well as to the hope of salvation.
On December 11-12, the Liberation Route Europe Foundation is organizing a memory project conference titled “When Memory Meets Dialogue – Role of Remembrance Sites and Contemporary Challenges” in Krakow, Poland. This event, in partnership with Oscar Schindler’s Enamel Factory, a branch of the Museum of Krakow, is part of the EU-funded European Days of Jewish Culture (EDJC) 2023, coordinated by the AEPJ.
The conference agenda encompasses sessions focusing on Jewish and WWII heritage. Discussions will revolve around memory transmission and the contemporary significance of remembrance sites. The primary goal is to offer a meaningful platform for idea exchange, nurture cross-cultural understanding, and stimulate international discourse on historical memory and contemporary challenges. As part of the programme, participants can also explore guided tours and historical city walks in Krakow.
“Burning,” an exhibition of paper cuts by Monika Krajewska, is now being shown in Radom, following an exhibit at the POLIN museum in Warsaw. We were privileged to host an online exhibition of some of her works in 2020.
The exhibit consists of 31 works in which the artist, using traditional Jewish paper-cutting technique, refers to objects related to the synagogue, painstakingly recreating the symbolism and ornamentation of Jewish art from East-Central Europe—stylised floral decoration, symbolic representations of animals, a repertoire of traditional sacred Jewish symbols (a menorah, Torah and the Tablets of Law, the Temple) and calligraphic quotations from religious texts and prayers.
In order to introduce reflection on loss and destruction, Krajewska subjects her painstaking work to destruction: she tears apart sections of the works after cutting them out and burns the ends of the sheets. She uses tinted paper as a background for the cut-outs, incorporating the motif of fire, ashes and ruins. And she incorporates quotations from religious texts or classics of modern Jewish literature, in which there are references to flames and destruction, as well as to the hope of salvation.
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