Dr. Marilyn Chiat Lectures at Museum at Eldridge Street about "Preservation: Saving and Praising the Past"
Sunday, June 1 at 11 AM
Longtime ISJM member Dr. Marilyn Chiat will speak at the Museum at Eldridge Street on June 1, 2008, as part fo the NEH-funded Academic Angles Series. Dr. Chiat will survey the history of the effort to preserve religious structures in the United States , and the issues related to their restoration and reuse. Particular emphasis will be placed on the restoration of the Eldridge Street Synagogue and B'nai Abraham Synagogue in Virginia, Minnesota. Free event
http://www.eldridgestreet.org/
Before the Flame Goes Out Exhibition to Open at Museum of Biblical Art in March 2008
ISJM will co-sponsor an exhibition in 2008 at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City. The exhibition will be based on the ongoing ISJM documentation project Before the Flame Goes Out (BFGO), a multi-disciplinary work by Vincent Giordano and an ISJM advisory team. BFGO documents the history, art, architecture and community of Romaniote (Greek) Jews from Ioannina, Greece in Ioannina and New York City. The Museum of Biblical Art exhibition will include photographs by Vincent Giordano of the synagogues, ritual art and prayer and life cycle services from Ioannina and New York. The exhibition will open in late February 2008 in conjunction with the larger "Treasures from the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore)."
Samuel Gruber to Speak about work of ISJM at Temple Society of Concord in Syracuse, NY (USA)
On Sunday, November 18th at 10:00 a.m. at Temple Society of Concord, 918 Madison Street, Syracuse, the Avodah Chapter of NA’AMAT and the Sisterhood of TSOC will jointly sponsor Dr. Samuel Gruber’s lecture, “Jewish History in Stone (and Other Materials): The Documentation and Preservation of Jewish Historic Sites.” In this free, illustrated lecture Dr. Gruber will discuss his involvement with the work of the International Survey of Jewish Monuments, and the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, as well as the efforts of other organizations to record, protect and preserve historic Jewish sites worldwide. These projects are ongoing in Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine and the United States. Presently, Dr. Gruber is involved in over thirty research, documentation, conservation, planning and preservation projects worldwide, including the documentation of a Greek-Jewish synagogue on New York’s Lower East Side, the excavation and preservation of the Belz Hasidic Compound in Ukraine, and the commemoration of Holocaust sites in the Baltic and other countries.
NA’AMAT, the largest women’s organization in Israel, works to improve the status of women and provides educational and social services for women, children, teenagers and families. The organization sponsors and promotes day care facilities, technological high schools, legal aid bureaus, women’s rights centers, centers for the prevention and treatment of domestic violence, community centers, women’s clubs, business women’s networking, social integration and education for new immigrants, and assistance to single-parent families.
ISJM's Samuel Gruber and Marilyn Chiat to participate in NEH "We the People" Grant to Eldridge Street Synagogue, NYC
The Museum at Eldridge Street (New York), part of the Eldridge Street Project, has received a National Endowment of the Humanities "We the People" grant to help evaluate exhibits and programming, and to usher in the next phase as the Museum. The historic synagogue, under restoration for many years, will re-open to the public later in 2007. The panelists who reviewed the Eldridge application considered the plan “a model for how historic religious institutions can be an effective means not only of interpreting religious practices and traditions but also of connecting place to broader, important historical, social, and cultural themes, such as the immigrant experience.” ISJM President Samuel Gruber, and ISJM member Marilyn Chiat are among eight scholars who will participate in the year-long interdisciplinary project, involving historians and preservationists. Other participating scholars are Deborah Dash Moore, Daniel Soyer; Tony Michels, Jeffrey Shandler; Riv Ellen Prell and Jeffrey Gurock. The scholars will work with the Eldrisge staff, and each will deliver a public lecture during the year.
ISJM Represented at Jewish Architecture in Europe Conference in Braunschweig, Germany
ISJM President Samuel Gruber participated in the international conference Jewish Architecture in Europe held at the Technische Universitat Braunschweig in Braunschweig, Germany from October 8-11, 2007. The conference was organized by the Bet Tfila - Research Unit for Jewish architecture in Europe, at joint project of the Technische Universitat Braunschweig and the Center for Jewish Art of Hebrew University. Dr. Gruber presented the paper "Medieval Synagogues of the Mediterranean Region," and read of paper for ISJM founding member, Prof Carol Herselle Krinsky, "Is There Jewish Architecture." Other participants included Bezalel Narkiss, Sergey Kravtsov, Vladimir Levin, Karin Kessler and Zoya Arshavsky (Israel), Dominique Jarrasse (France), Eleonora Bergman (Poland), Rudolf Klein (Hungary), Maros Borsky (Slovakia) Jaroslav Klenovsky (Czech Republic) Attilio Petruccioli (Italy), Elko Hazan (Bulgaria), Alla Sokolova (Russia), Sharman Kadish (Great Britain), Miquel Espinosa (Spain), Isabel Haupt (Switzerland), and Harmen Thies, Simon Paulus, Tobias Lamey, H-Christoph Dittscheid, Hermann Simon, Daniela Gauding, Ingolf Herbarth, Hans-Cristof Haas, Heidi Vormann, Mirko Przystawik, Sonja Beyer, Ulrich Knufinke and Ralf Busch (Germany).
ISJM.org
Last updated: May 28, 2008