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.
From 15 to 17 March 2024
Created in Egland, Limmud has been a major cultural event in France for the last fifteen years. It enables artists, intellectuals and other enthusiasts from a wide range of backgrounds in Jewish culture to present workshops and lectures to the participants. This year, Denmark is in the spotlight at the weekend organized near Paris, marking the 80th anniversary of the rescue of the Jews by the courageous Danish people. Danish representatives and experts on the subject will be in attendance.
The Museum of Turkish Jews has put on this exhibition, thanks to the work of Metin Delevi, which tells the story of the country’s Jews during the war. It is on display in the Grand Edirne synagogue.
During 2024, a number of objects from the Jewish Museum London will be on display at the synagogue to celebrate English Jewish heritage. These include documents, photographs and ritual objects.
Museum on the Move: Bradford – The Jewish Museum London
Until 30 June 2024 at the Jewish Museum Vienna
Four years ago, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Austrian Constitution. The role played by the Jewish jurist Hans Kelsen in writing this constitution is not insignificant. His father, a candlestick maker, installed the candlesticks in the Vienna synagogue. A professor at the University of Vienna, Hans Kelsen helped to draft the constitution. Despite this, he was forced to leave the city in 1930 in the face of an upsurge in anti-Semitic acts.
Exhibition Detail | Jüdisches Museum Wien (jmw.at)
At the Jewish Museum Stockholm
How far does the unknown lead? What are its limits and its capacity to cross them? In any case, Bea Szenfeld’s exhibition goes beyond walls to explore the heights of the former synagogue and touch its clouds. Clouds are a religious symbol that features prominently in religious texts, and the exhibition looks at their current symbolism at a time when they are under threat from pollution.
The Cloud of Unknowing | Judiska museet
10 April at the Dornbirn City Museum
In cooperation with the Jewish Museum Hohenems, this German film by Christoph Hubner from 2017 deals with how grandparents’ past affects lives and how to overcome this. Seven people, grandchildren of Nazis or their victims, testify. With sincerity and without pathos, with the aim of helping new generations deal with this kind of situation.
Nachlass | Jüdisches Museum Hohenems (jm-hohenems.at)
From 5 to 7 April 2024 in Youlgrave, Derbyshire
This new annual festival brings together klezmer enthusiasts and professionals to share their enthusiasm for this music, its generosity and its sharing. The festival takes place in the beautiful village of Youlgrave, a place that combines inspiration from nature with a reappropriation of time.
KlezNorth | A festival of Klezmer music, dance and song
From 9 February to 26 May 2024 at the Galerie Eric F. Ross
This exhibition highlights the work of German-Jewish author Curt Bloch, written between August 1943 and April 1945 while in hiding in the Netherlands. His poems, written in Dutch and German, were collected together in a booklet, dealing with the war and the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime, but also with the attitude of the collaborators and the daily danger faced by the Jews, followed by the advance of the Allied troops leading to victory. In this work, he did not shy away from ridiculing the Nazi leaders. His poems are read and performed on stage by actors Marina Frenk, Richard Gonlag and Mathias Schäfer.
“My verses are like dynamite” | Jewish Museum Berlin (jmberlin.de)
From 25 January to 30 June 2024 at the former Kriegshaber synagogue
This exhibition, organised in partnership with Dagesh and the Augsburg Jewish Museum, presents the work of nine international Jewish artists. This event focuses on the theme of new perspectives in their work of a changing world. They invite visitors to ask themselves questions about their place in this societal upheaval and the link between the past and the future. The works on display are as varied in form (photo, video, sound, etc.) as they are in the artists’ individual perspectives.
TRANSITIONS. Jewish Perspectives on the Present – Jüdisches Museum Augsburg Schwaben (jmaugsburg.de)
At the CHRD
This exhibition devoted to the great hero of the Resistance allows us to (re)discover the man through the eyes of those who knew him or studied him. These include friends and family, fellow Resistance members and even opponents. Numerous documents are used, ranging from his childhood, his professional career before the war and his involvement in the Resistance. Videos are also shown, with testimonies from a 1958 documentary, along with valuable interviews.
Jean Moulin, les voies de la liberté | CHRD | Musée d’histoire | Lyon dans la guerre, 1939-1945
Until 21 April 2024 at the mahJ
Thanks to Pierre de Girord’s donation of 400 photographs and documents to the mahJ, visitors will be able to appreciate the fascinating Jewish history of Greece’s mythical city. The works are all the more interesting in that they combine the golden age of Thessaloniki’s Jewish community with the beginnings of photography, as artists and ordinary enthusiasts seized on this new art form to share the adventures and glimpses of this vibrant city.
Salonique, « Jérusalem des Balkans », 1870-1920. | Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme (mahj.org)
Until 12 May 2024 at the mahJ
This exhibition, the first retrospective devoted to Joann Sfar in France, features almost 250 plates and drawings, many of them previously unpublished. The author of hundreds of works never leaves his notebook, alternating words and sketches, drawings and observations. From The Rabbi’s Cat to Little Vampire, from his early work with Marjane Satrapi and Riad Sattouf to his accompaniment of the works of classic authors revisited through his drawings, this exhibition will give you a better understanding of Sfar’s family and thematic inspirations. It will stir up a wide range of emotions, motivating you to dance to the klezmer rhythm of his graphic novels and question contemporary anti-Semitism.
Joann Sfar. La vie dessinée | Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme (mahj.org)
Until 8 July 2024
This bold exhibition tackles the complex question of how to share the memory of the Second World War to children. The Museum invites parents and children to explore four stories imagined by four authors and illustrators of children’s books. The themes stories chosen to embody the different themes are On Resistance:”Le sac à dos” by Géraldine Alibeu; On rationing: “Surplace” by Clarisse Lochmann; On prisoners of war: “Bien chère Angèle” by Romain Rousset; On Jewish children in hiding: “La guerre est arrive” by Jérôme Ruillier.
À (h)auteur d’enfant. Histoire(s) de guerre (isere.fr)
At the CHRD in Lyon
80 years after the death of the Resistance leader, this exhibition at the CHRD provides an opportunity to learn more about the man through the eyes of those who knew or studied him. Testimonies from relatives, witnesses and supporters, as well as detractors. Photos and written documents take visitors through the stages of his life, from his childhood to his arrest. A film from 1958 is also shown, and lectures are given on the links between Jean Moulin and Charles de Gaulle, as well as with Daniel Cordier.
Jean Moulin, les voies de la liberté | CHRD | Musée d’histoire | Lyon dans la guerre, 1939-1945
Until 16 June 2024 at the JHI
This exhibition is devoted to the work of Isaac Celniker, born in Warsaw in 1923 and a survivor of the concentration camps during the Shoah. After the war, he studied painting and moved to Paris in 1957, where he died in 2011. The day before he left for France, he had created illustrations for Yiddish publications. These drawings, which have a strong autobiographical theme, will be on display at the exhibition, providing a better understanding of his history and Polish Jewish life.
From 2 March to 26 May 2024 at the Museum Rembrandthuis
This original exhibition highlights the links between Rembrandt’s work and the Amsterdam theatre scene of his time. The famous painter seems to have been greatly inspired by theatrical staging and the presentation of characters. Rembrandt’s work does not show the range of feelings that explode onto the canvas, but rather the outcome in the next moment, the result of an emotional rollercoaster. Like the painting of Susanna, where she is surprised to be spied on as she emerges from the bath, or the painting Joseph accused by Potiphar’s wife (1655).
Directed by Rembrandt – Rembrandthuis
At the Riga Jewish Community House
Students from the Jurmala School of Art are exhibiting their work in the Riga Jewish Community House. An initiative in keeping with the tradition of this art school, where artists study the history, culture and art of a country in order to create works of art. More than 200 schoolchildren took part in the project.
Until 26 May 2024 at the Jewish Museum of Vienna
While war rages in the Middle East and Europe, the museum focuses on the definition of peace as the success of a civilisation. Jewish perspectives on notions of peace, but also the struggles waged in the name of these values, such as the fight for equal rights during the march for Civil Rights in America and feminism. The museum stresses the importance of this exhibition in the wake of the Hamas terrorist movement’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the omnipresence of violence.
Exhibition Detail | Jüdisches Museum Wien (jmw.at)
Until 28 April 2024 at the Jewish Museum in Stockholm
This exhibition presents the different hats and other garments used by men in Judaism to cover their heads during religious ceremonies. It includes a stunning work by the artist Ann Hult showing a flower bed formed by kippoth. The diversity of styles, fabrics, colours and patterns and their significance will give you a better understanding of the history of European Jewry in general and Swedish Jewry in particular.