At the Danish Jewish Museum
The museum presents this very special exhibition devoted to the difficult theme of persecution and flight in contemporary European history. It’s about the situations that encouraged Jews to migrate to Denmark, but also about the courage of the Danish people in helping them to escape during the Second World War. The exhibition is accompanied by objects from these periods, as well as drawings by Kristian Bay Kirk. The exhibition not only evokes the past, but also questions the present.
Until 1 September 2024 at the Jewish Museum of Belgium
The museum will soon be closed for major renovations. This exhibition is the last to be presented before these works take place. The Passage is a central theme in Judaism, best known for its connection with the festival of Pesach and the passage through the desert that enabled the people of Israel to prepare for their arrival in the Holy Land, having regained their status as free men and women. The tour takes visitors on a number of different journeys to explore the way in which the spiritual and secular spheres interact. But also in the spheres associating ritual with the ordinary, the intimate with the collective.
Passage. Textiles & Rituals – Musée Juif de Belgique (mjb-jmb.org)
5 May 2024 at 2pm
The CCLJ and the Maison de la Culture Juive are presenting a themed walk in the company of a guide, as they do regularly to give participants a better understanding of Brussels’ Jewish history and cultural heritage. This time, the tour will focus on Marolles and the surrounding area, which was home to many refugees from Eastern Europe, particularly between the wars.
Until 1 September 2024 at the Jewish Museum Vienna
Based on the concepts of tikkun olam and tzedakah, the exhibition examines the approach to suffering through violence, illness, poverty and depression. How this suffering affects others and creates a societal and individual need to respond to it. The exhibition presents the medical, psychological and social programmes carried out in Vienna, in particular the important role played by Jewish doctors for the city throughout the ages, but also in hiding during the war.
Exhibitions | Jüdisches Museum Wien (jmw.at)
From 26 April to 4 November 2024 at the Sigmund Freud Museum
This exhibition takes up the complex challenge of unravelling the links between psychoanalysis and art, notably through the works of Louise Bourgeois, Heidi Bucher, Gregory Crewdson, Robert Gober, Birgit Jürgensen, Hans Op de Beek, Markus Schinwald, Esther Shalev-Gerz, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Kai Walkowiak and Francesca Woodman. How the particular feeling of anxiety appears in human consciousness and in artworks, and is then perceived in society. As early as 1919, Freud wrote on this subject, showing how poetic works contained many levels of reading, revealing in particular the share of anxiety in the author and the reader.
THE UNCANNY. Sigmund Freud and Art – www.freud-museum.at/en
2 May 2024
This film, directed by Paula S. Apsell and Kirk Wolfinger in 2023, deconstructs the myth of Jewish passivity during the war in the face of the Nazi machine of destruction. In fact, far from allowing themselves to be led to their deaths, they were very much involved in an individual and collective struggle, joining their country’s armies and then, following the invasion, joining various Resistance groups across Europe. It was a struggle that took place in cities, ghettos, forests and even camps.
Resistance: They Fought Back – UK Jewish Film
4 April 2024 at the Jewish Museum Manchester
Spring is a time when nature and its colours are once again making their presence felt in our towns and cities. It’s a time to encourage creativity. This original workshop allows participants to use plants and flowers to create drawings. They will be shown some astonishing previous creations, but they are also encouraged to bring plants that inspire them for their creations.
Manchester Jewish Museum — Make It! Printing with Plants
Until 4 April 2024
This major exhibition presents a thousand years of British Jewish history, through well-known objects and others never before shown to the public. The golden ages, but also the painful periods of British Judaism, are presented throughout the rooms, from the settlement of the Jews, their expulsion, their return and integration, but also the present and the challenges to come.
Discover: Jewish Museum London @ Swiss Cottage Library – The Jewish Museum London
From 18 to 23 August 2024 at SOAS
The Jewish Music Institute (JMI) is offering you an intense session to discover the world and the Yiddish language. A week of immersion in which beginners and advanced students share their enthusiasm for Yiddish in a variety of workshops. Through music, theatre, poetry and lectures on the past and future of the language. Among the teachers are Shura Lipovsky, Khayele Beer, Sima Beeri, Simo Muir and Osian Sharma.
OT AZOY 2024 – LEARN YIDDISH – Jewish Music Institute (jmi.org.uk)
Before the war, the Jewish community was as diverse as other European Jewish communities. With its characters, personal experiences, professional achievements… This exhibition presents characters as diverse as a child in a sailor suit, a woman in a beret with very thick sleeves, and a rabbi reading a prayer book. These are works that have been found over time, and we often don’t know who they represent or even who made them. We are left to imagine their history, the way the artists looked at them and the trace the models wished to leave of them.
Jüdisches Museum München – Preview (juedisches-museum-muenchen.de)
From 19 April to 1 September 2024 at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt
Mirjam Presseler (1940-2019) was a great translator, notably of the Diary of Anne Frank and of Israeli works by Amos Oz, Zeruya Shalev, Batya Gur, etc. She was also an author and painter. This exhibition invites visitors to enter her imaginary world and explore their own creativity, pushing back the boundaries. The author’s imagination was nourished by her personal experiences of a difficult childhood and her need to escape to creativity and sources of happiness, particularly in her relationship with Judaism and Israel.
Mirjam Pressler – Schreiben ist Glück – Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt (juedischesmuseum.de)
From 17 May to 6 October 2024 at the Jewish Museum Berlin
It was not only Freud who was interested in the place of sexuality in society and in Judaism. This question is present in biblical texts, but also in other ancient documents, works of art and new forms of expression. The exhibition attempts to address this subject, particularly in the context of the centrality of marriage, procreation and desire, but also taboos and the evolution of these perceptions in Judaism. This exhibition is presented in cooperation with the Jewish Museum Amsterdam.
Sex: Jewish Positions | Jewish Museum Berlin (jmberlin.de)
8 April 2024 at 8pm at the Maison de la Poésie
Inspired by his experience as a librarian, the great texts of Russian literature, the popular language of Muscovites and the exploratory madness of pop art, Lev Rubinstein has left his mark on poetry. In form, by publishing his texts on a series of index cards, and in content, by exploring the emotions and feelings of the opponent of the regime that he was. The Maison de la Poésie and the Institut Européen Emmanuel Levinas are organising a tribute to the poet killed recently. An evening presented by Gérard Rabinovitch. It will begin with a musical reading by Laurent Natrella and Jean-Claude Ghrenassia, followed by a discussion with Galia Ackerman, Hélène Henry-Safier and Valérie Zenatti.
Hommage à Lev Rubinstein – Maison de la poésie (maisondelapoesieparis.com)
2 April 2024 at the Palais de la Méditerranée in Nice
The philosopher examines the shock provoked by the pogrom of 7 October and the international consequences at various levels. This presentation is part of a national tour that will continue in Marseille on 3 April and Lyon on 4 April.
2 April 2024 at 6.30pm at the Institut Méditerranéen Universitaire Maimonide
Pierre-Yves Kirschleger, senior lecturer in contemporary history at the Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier III, presents the evolution of this dialogue over the last century. From the commitment of Christian individuals and institutions to saving Jews during the war, to the work of Jules Isaac and the outcome of Vatican II, which brought the two religions closer together. But there are also moments of tension and contemporary challenges.
From 14 March to 20 April 2024 at the Galerie Schwab Beaubourg
From Mukachevo to Parisian bohemia by way of Jerusalem, Samuel Ackerman combines cultures and softly installs his works on nature, like his Golem in the middle of the Negev desert. He invites us to try and capture what lies between heaven and earth, these signs of life and survival, these encouragements to joy and to surpass oneself. Armed with brushes and pencils, he shares these reenchanting colours in a wide variety of places, just as a certain elder from Vitebsk did on the ceiling of the Opera House or in Metz Cathedral. Samuel Ackerman invites you to follow his inspiration on the walls of Paris for a month…
Galerie Schwab Beaubourg | Galerie d’art | 35 R. Quincampoix, 75004 Paris, France
From 1 June to 16 September 2024 at the Musée national Marc Chagall
Exile, wars, pogroms, the Shoah… so many painful pages through which the painter has passed in the 20th century since his childhood in Vitebsk. His art enabled him to respond to horror, to perpetuate the memory of people from his childhood and those close to him, and to give new colour to the beautiful pages of history lived in places that were at times peaceful. This exhibition highlights the painter’s use of pencils and brushes to achieve this asymptotic ideal of peace. Recent research has been carried out on a large number of previously unpublished documents, some of which come from the artist’s archives.
4 April 2024 at 7pm at the Shoah Memorial
On the occasion of the 30th commemoration of the genocide, this conference aims to take stock of the state of knowledge, understanding and deepening of the duty of history and remembrance. It will be attended by historians Jean-Pierre Chrétien and Marcel Kabanda, and will be moderated by the great reporter Patrick de Saint-Exupéry.
Mémorial de la Shoah | Boutique en ligne (memorialdelashoah.org)
18 May 2024 at 4.30pm at the House of Yiddish Culture
The famous Yiddish author asked his children to get together on each anniversary of his death to read aloud some of his funniest texts, as a way of sharing his work with joy, even in his absence. It’s a wish shared by the House of Yiddish Culture. Excerpts from Tevye le laitier will be read, and the short story from Les Gens de Kasrilevke will be staged, with actors Annick Prime-Margules, Laurence Fisbein and Michel Fisbein.
From 4 April 2024 to 27 April 2025 at the mahJ
As part of this programme, the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme is highlighting the lives and work of the women artists in its collections. The first exhibition is devoted to Charlotte Henschel (1892-1985), Georgette Meyer (1916-2020) and Sonia Steinsapir (1912-1980). The exhibition looks at the career paths, artistic expressions and influences of these artists, who all came from different places and all shared the choice of Paris and the freedom that the city represented for them. A city where they could create freely and where they managed to hide during the War.
Nouvelles venues | Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme (mahj.org)
17 March, 28 April, 26 May and 16 June 2024
The links between Judaism and ecology go back a very long way, and are particularly marked by the presence of these themes in the Bible around the respect due to nature, the working of the land and its rest, as well as the animal condition. La Manne is the think tank of Judaism on the Move (JEM) and studies these links, cross-referencing texts from Jewish tradition with contemporary issues thanks to contributions from experts. The lectures will be given by Tamara Settbon, Adam Forrai and Tamia Menez B’Chiri and will take place in the centre of Paris, at a venue to be announced to those registered.
La Manne, laboratoire d’idées – Judaïsme En Mouvement (judaismeenmouvement.org)
The CBL regularly organises visits to these emblematic sites in Médan. Visitors can follow the story of these two great men and their common fight for the values and dignity of the French Republic. The aim is to share with future generations the values of these two men and their courage in the face of adversity, by showing the xenophobic speeches and anti-Semitic caricatures. But also the texts and images of support, including many Armenian authors.
Agenda | Cercle Bernard Lazare | Paris
2 April 2024 at 8pm at the Centre Medem
Alexandre Bande, Guy Konopnicki and Rudy Reichstadt present the collective work “Political History of antisemitism in France”. The book analyses this overt or covert presence within French political parties, from 1967 to the present day. The evolution of antisemitism, its manifestations and the way it is conveyed, particularly following the advent of social networks.
9 April 2024 at 7pm at the Caen Memorial
This year, 2024, music during the war is approached from two different angles. The first part of the year will explore artistic life under the Occupation. Then, the desire to sing after the Liberation. Musician and journalist Thierry Geffrotin presents the different ways in which people “entertained” themselves in an attempt to forget during the Occupation, a complex subject that gave rise to much post-war controversy.
“Chanter malgré tout” conférence par Thierry Geffrotin – Mémorial de Caen (memorial-caen.fr)
31 March 2024 at 10.30am at the Drancy Shoah Memorial
Many Jews lived in this popular département throughout the 20th century, in the suburbs of Paris at the beginning of the century, but also later in Sarcelles and other places emblematic of Jewish settlement in North Africa. Through the study of the different destinies of Jewish volunteers, members of the Resistance, hidden children and deportees, participants in this workshop will learn about the profession of historian and how to study such archives.
Mémorial de la Shoah | Boutique en ligne (memorialdelashoah.org)
17 April 2024 at the Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation de l’Isère
This animated film by Véra Belmont is an adaptation of the poignant comic strip Second Generation by Michel Kichka, whom we interviewed earlier. It was dedicated to his father Henri, and tells the story of the resilience of Jews after the war. It’s the moving view of a child from the Belgian city of Liège, confronted with silences and caught up in the desire for happier days for the new generation.
Les secrets de mon père – Ciné-goûter (isere.fr)
Until 29 June 2024 at the Montluc Memorial
This exhibition features works by visual artist Nicolas Daubanes. One of them was created for the occasion, following an immersion in the Montluc Memorial, based on a study of the archives and discussions with visitors to the site. The aim is to emphasise transmission, by allowing art and memory to interact freely. This project is all the more important at a time when the last witnesses to the war are disappearing.
Exposition temporaire 2024 – Mémorial national prison de Montluc (memorial-montluc.fr)
Until 8 September 2024 at the CHRD
This exhibition is an opportunity to rediscover the impact of the Second World War on women. Both in terms of their support for the war effort and their involvement in the Resistance, but also the way in which the Vichy regime tried to limit their freedoms by assigning them solely to family roles.
28 March 2024 at the Institut universitaire Rachi
Didier Francfort, university professor and specialist in cultural history at the University of Lorraine, presents the background to and reasons for the musical encounter between these two worlds, jazz and klezmer. The former is mainly a music created by black Americans and the latter is rooted in the musical tradition of Yiddishland. Since the turn of the 21st century, this encounter has become a worldwide phenomenon and a source of shared joy on stages from Krakow to Tokyo, from New York to Troyes…
Séminaires, colloques, journées d’étude – Institut Universitaire Rachi (institut-rachi-troyes.fr)
At the MEIS
This exhibition takes up a huge challenge: to present 2200 years of Italian Jewish history and culture in a 24-minute show! Directed by Giovanni Carrada and Manuela Fugenzi, the show takes the audience through the eras, the golden ages of Italian Judaism, as well as the darker pages. A task made all the more difficult and rigorous by the fact that it takes into account the different characters, challenges and confrontations in cities as different and inspiring as those in Italy.