Call for Papers: Ars Judaica Conference

Call for Papers: “Ars Judaica” Conference

TRADITIONS AND PERSPECTIVES IN HISTORY OF JEWISH ART

Bar-Ilan University, Israel, September 10–13, 2012.

The conference will bring together historians of art and material culture and researchers in history, religions, semiotics, psychology, sociology, and folklore to explore the fields of interest of “Ars Judaica – The Bar-Ilan Journal of Jewish Art” that include, but are not limited to: - The Jewish contribution to the visual arts and culture from antiquity to the present; - Art and architecture of Jewish sacred spaces; - Biblical texts as a source in Christian and Muslim visual arts;- Jerusalem and the Holy Land as an object and model in visual arts;- Images of Jews in visual arts;- Hebrew script in visual arts;- Patrons, collectors and museums of Jewish art;- Jews, arts and politics.

Abstracts (limited to 200 words) of twenty-minute presentations with a short CV should be submitted (as attached MSWord documents) by JANUARY 6, 2012 to gr.ajudaica@biu.ac.il.

The applicants will be notified of the decision regarding their proposal by February 6, 2012

Exhibition: Architecture of Murder: The Auschwitz-Birkenau Blueprints

Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate Avner Shalev studies one of the plans in the exhibition together with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Photo: Courtesy of Yad Vashem

Exhibition: Architecture of Murder: The Auschwitz-Birkenau Blueprints at Yad Vashem

January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day - a Commemoration recently established by the United Nations to be celebrated on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops in 1945. In fact, when the Red Army arrived there was little to liberate. The German had moved west forcing a deadly evacuation of Jewish prisoners by forced march. Only the very sick and the dead remained to greet the advancing Russians (see the final entries in Primo Levi's famed memoir Se Questo e un Uomo (Survival in Auschwitz).

On Monday, January 25th, as part of a symposium for the diplomatic corps in Israel, a new exhibition, Architecture of Murder: The Auschwitz-Birkenau Blueprints will open at Yad Vashem. On display will be original architectural blueprints of Auschwitz-Birkenau, given to Yad Vashem for safekeeping last summer by the German newspaper Bild, For more on today's event click here.

For a video presentation about the architectural and engineering plans and drawings click here.

According to the website of Yad Vashem:

“The original plans detailing the construction of Auschwitz, constitute graphic illustration of the Germans’ systematic effort to carry out the ‘Final Solution.’,” said Avner Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem. “We have chosen to display them to the public to illustrate how seemingly conventional activities of ordinary people brought about the construction of the largest murder site of European Jewry.”

Marking the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the opening will take place as part of a special symposium in the presence of dozens of members of the diplomatic corps - representing some 80 countries - and Auschwitz survivors, and with the participation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Prime Minister, Minister of Education Gideon Saar, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, Holocaust survivor Ruth Bondy, Prof. Shlomo Avineri, Prof. Moshe Halbertal, Bild Editor Kai Diekmann, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Director Dr. Piotr Cywinski, Historical Advisor to the exhibition Dr. Daniel Uziel, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council Rabbi Israel Meir Lau and Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate Avner Shalev will address the participants.

The exhibition was curated by Director the Museums Division Yehudit Inbar. Along with the blueprints, the photo album of the construction of Auschwitz will be exhibited for the first time. In addition, an aerial photo of Auschwitz from the RAF, the Vrba-Wetzler Report (written by two Jewish escapees from Auschwitz in 1944), and quotes from SS men and Jewish prisoners describing the site and its murderous purposes. A copy of the poem “Death Fugue” by Paul Celan will also be displayed.

The exhibition is funded thanks to the generous support of the Greg Rosshandler and Harry Perelberg families, Australia.

A traveling version of the exhibition will open at the United Nations in New York in advance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The exhibition will open in the presence of Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Public Diplomacy Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev, Chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem Eli Zbrowoski, and curator of the exhibition and Director of the Yad Vashem Museums Division Yehudit Inbar.

Publication: New Book on Ancient Synagogues

Publication: New Book on Ancient Synagogue

(ISJM) ISJM has been notified about a new book published about the art and architecture of the ancient synagogue at Khirbet Gikke (c. 460 CE), located near the Jordan River, on the east Golan Side. The book includes comparative material from other sites in the Golan area and from Chorazin.

Khirbet Dikke and the Synagogues in and around Bethsaida Valley (Archaostyle Scientific Series 7), Qazrin 2009: Archaostyle (191 pp; 58 illustrations; 1 map).

For orders contact the Golan Archaeological Museum (Qazrin)
museumga@netvision.net.il Tel: 972-6961350; Fax 9724694665.

Israel: Synagogue from Second Temple Period Excavated at Migdal

Israel: Synagogue from Second Temple Period Excavated at Migdal

(ISJM) According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, a synagogue from the Second Temple Period (pre-70 CE) was excavated at Migdal, near the Sea of Galilee .The remains appear to have been remarkably well preserved with surviving perimeter benches, floor mosaic and traces of colored wall painting.

The most unusual feature is a large stone covered with symbolic relief carving (see photo). This includes what archaeologists believe is the earliest known representation of a menorah in a synagogue setting. The discovery of the synagogue - during construction of a hotel - adds important new evidence of extensive building of Jewish synagogues prior to the destruction of the Temple. There is still no consensus, however, on what exactly took place in these meeting halls. Torah reading? Study? Individual and collective prayer? When it is fully Migdal will no doubt now be included in the standard synagogue histories in which the Second Temple period is dominated with mention of Gamla and Masada.

Migdal, Israel. Carved stone from the excavated synagogue, Photo: IAA

Here is the IAA Press Release:

A synagogue from the Second Temple period (50 BCE-100 CE) was exposed in archaeological excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting at a site slated for the construction of a hotel on Migdal beach, in an area owned by the Ark New Gate Company. In the middle of the synagogue is a stone that is engraved with a seven-branched menorah (candelabrum), the likes of which have never been seen. The excavations were directed by archaeologists Dina Avshalom-Gorni and Arfan Najar of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The main hall of synagogue is c. 120 square meters in area and its stone benches, which served as seats for the worshippers, were built up against the walls of the hall. Its floor was made of mosaic and its walls were treated with colored plaster (frescoes). A square stone, the top and four sides of which are adorned with reliefs, was discovered in the hall. The stone is engraved with a seven-branched menorah set atop a pedestal with a triangular base, which is flanked on either side by an amphora (jars).

According to the excavation director, Dina Avshalom-Gorni of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “We are dealing with an exciting and unique find. This is the first time that a menorah decoration has been discovered from the days when the Second Temple was still standing. This is the first menorah to be discovered in a Jewish context and that dates to the Second Temple period/beginning of the Early Roman period. We can assume that the engraving that appears on the stone, which the Israel Antiquities Authority uncovered, was done by an artist who saw the seven-branched menorah with his own eyes in the Temple in Jerusalem. The synagogue that was uncovered joins just six other synagogues in the world that are known to date to the Second Temple period”.

According to the Minister of Culture and Sport, MK Limor Livnat, “This important find attests to the extensive Jewish settlement in the northern region at the time of the Temple. I am certain that the site will constitute an attraction for tourists from abroad and from Israel and will shed light on life in the Jewish settlement during the Second Temple period”.

Jose Miguel Abat, legal representative of "Ark New Gate" company, expressed his joy for the finding and said it reinforces the company's intention to establish a center of dialogue and respect between the different religions and cultures. Abat said that "we are sure this finding and the planned center will attract tourists and visitors from Israel and from around the World".

The synagogue is located in Migdal (‘Magdala’ in Aramaic), which is mentioned in Jewish sources. Migdal played an important role during the Great Revolt and was actually the main base of Yosef Ben Matityahu (Josephus Flavius), commander of the rebellion in the Galilee. Migdal also continued to resist the Romans after both the Galilee and Tiberias had surrendered. ‘Magdala’ is mentioned in Christian sources as the place whence Mary Magdalene came, one of the women who accompanied Jesus and the apostles and who Christian tradition has sanctified. After it was conquered by the Romans, the city was destroyed and many of its residents were killed. At the end of the Second Temple period Migdal was an administrative center of the western basin of the Sea of Galilee. Until the founding of Tiberias in the year 19 CE, Migdal was the only important settlement along the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

The site is currently closed to visitors and will be opened to the public in the future.

Israel: Ambitious New Plan To Reinvent & Rename Beth Hatefusoth

Israel: Ambitious New Plan To Reinvent & Rename Beth Hatefusoth

by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) As work on the new Israel Museum facility in Jerusalem moves into its final phases, an ambitious new plan to reinvent and rename Tel Aviv's Beth Hatefusoth (Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora) has been announced. The preliminary concept for the museum - developed by curator Dr. Orit Shaham-Gover - was presented to the Board of Governors of Beth Hatefutsoth on June 26th. The $25 million project envisions an entire rebuilding and redesign of the existing museum structure.

The museum, which in recent years has been beleaguered by organizational, financial and identity problems - will also change its name from the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora to the Museum of the Jewish People. For the first time in its history the museum appears to have rallied Israeli government support and international organizations and donors to sustain and expand its mission. When the museum opend in 1978 it was hailed as one of the most innovative history museums in the world, and was one of the first museums that was fully designed around a didactic mission, rather than a collecting one. Beth Hathfusoth pioneered many methods of using photo and later digital documentation to tell historical and ethnographic narratives, but beginning in the 1990s when a new wave of high-tech Jewish museums opened in America and Europe, many questioned Beth Hatefusoth’s ability to compete and to sustain relevancy.

Throughout its history the museum has also struggled with its very identity. As a museum devoted to maintaining the history of Jews in the Diaspora its mission was at odds with the mainstream Israeli social, political and cultural agenda. The new plan and the new name are apparently designed to address and rectify these old problems.

For more on the story see Schelly Talalay Dardashti's report on Tracing the Tribe.

Israel: Israel Museum Has Been Closed - But Very Active

Israel: The Israel Museum Has Been Closed - But Very Active

In 2008 the Israel Museum entered the international musuem renovation and expansion competitions...an on-going and even-spending building boom that has kept name-architects and top musuem designers busy for more than a decade. No where is this more true than in the world of Jewish Museums. It was time for Jerusalem's Israel Museum - the flagship institution for Jewish art to get into the act. After the Moshe Safdie renewal of Yad Vashem, the Israel Museum was looking dowdy. The existing facilities could not keep up with new demands in musuem collection management, conservation, exhibition, education and (yes) entertainment.

An article this week in the Jerusalem Post begins us up to date on construction work at the Israel Museum. Remarkable given the state of the worldwide economy, the project seems to be on schedule and on budget.

Arts: On schedule and on budget
May. 14, 2009
David Stromberg , THE JERUSALEM POST

Two years after announcing its campus renewal project and a year after breaking ground, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, has proudly announced that construction is on schedule and that 90 percent of the $100 million needed for the project has already been provided.

Walking in a hard hat down wooden staircases and through giant spaces stripped down to their bare concrete walls - the occasional sawing and drilling noises competing with the voice of museum director James Snyder as he explains which museum wing each concrete box is going to become - makes the renewal very real.

Listening to the MoMA-trained director with the shock of white hair and round-rimmed glasses, one gets the sense that Snyder has the project under his thumb. He, however, gives due credit to deputy director Dor Lin and administrative deputy director Ephrat Pomerantz, who he says are on site every day making sure that the massive project involving five giant cranes is moving along at the necessary pace.

There are two main aspects to the renewal project. The first is to create a completely new approach from the entrance of the museum to the center of the museum campus. To do this, the museum has hired New York architect James Carpenter, who has worked on a variety of high-profile projects, such as the new Hearst headquarters (which involved saving the original facade of an existing building), the podium light wall of the Seven World Trade Center building in New York, a proposed multi-use sports enclosure for the Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the Madison Square Garden renovation.

For the Israel Museum, Carpenter has created an architectural language that reflects the original modular approach created by Alfred Mansfeld for the museum - a Modernist take on an Arab village set into the Jerusalem hillside - but infuses a signature style that develops his own architectural statement. He has designed a series of glass-walled pavilions at the front of the museum that will include ticketing, retail and food services. To control the heat and sunlight, the pavilions will be surrounded by glazed terra cotta shutter-like frames, which will create shade while also letting in light during the day. At night, the spaces between the shutters will let incandescent light out of the pavilions, giving the museum entrance a moonlike sheen from afar.

Carpenter has also created a two-pronged approach from his entrance pavilion to Mansfeld's gallery pavilion - one along the original outdoor pathway that includes a number of staircases, and a second subterranean climate-controlled concourse that remains nearly on the same level as the entrance (making it barrier-free and wheelchair accessible) and ends at a sunken courtyard with a staircase, an escalator and an elevator leading up to the heart of the redesigned museum.

This second main aspect of the campus renewal - the reconstruction of the original museum complex from within - has been taken up by Tel Aviv-based Zvi Efrat of Efrat-Kowalsky Architects. Efrat, who is also the head of the architecture department at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, has created a central circulation point from which all the museum's main exhibit wings - Archeology, Judaica and Jewish Ethnography, Fine Arts, and Temporary Exhibitions - are accessible on the same level.

Read the full article here