Conferences: Reform Judaism and Architecture Conference Postponed

Conferences: "Reform Judaism and Architecture" Conference Scheduled for October in Braunschweig Postponed

(ISJM) The previously announced international conference "Reform Judaism and Its Architecture“ to be organized at the Technische Universität Braunschweig in Germany this October (2010) has been postponed. According to conference organizers at Bet Tfila – the Research Unit for Jewish Architecture in Europe at the Technische Universität logistical conflicts and financial uncertainties have forced the change. The conference is intended to be a follow-up gathering to the highly successful 2007 "Jewish Architecture in Europe," conference, the proceeding of which have just been beautifully published.


New dates for the conference have not been set, but since the rescheduling will surely affect the availability of some planned speakers, those interested in participating should still contact to the organizers.

Here is the original call for papers:

In 2010, Reform Judaism all over the world celebrates the 200th anniversary of its "mother synagogue", the Jacobstempel in Seesen/Harz, consecrated in 1810 and the first reform synagogue to be built. This anniversary serves as an impetus for Bet Tfila – the Research Unit for Jewish Architecture in Europe – to research the beginnings and expansion of reform synagogue architecture from Lower Saxony in Germany to locations all over the world.

Bet Tfila Research Unit, in cooperation with the Institute for the History of German Jews in Hamburg, therefore invites scientists from various disciplines to discuss the complex subject of Reform Judaism and its architecture at a conference in Braunschweig this fall. The discussion will revolve around 19th century building projects of reform congregations, but will not concentrate exclusively on these topics. Possible subjects could relate to the following questions:
- Was there a single type of a reform synagogue?

- What were the mutual relations between liturgical reforms, on the one hand, and the architecture, or inner space design, on the other hand?
- Viewed from a comparative perspective, what can be deduced from the architectural development of Jewish houses of worship?
- What differences and similarities can be drawn from national, European and international comparisons?
- Are there any specific regional elements which characterize Jewish prayer houses?

In addition to considering purely architectural features, interdisciplinary approaches should also be taken into consideration. Scholars of Judaism, musicologists, historians, and liturgy experts are invited to reflect on the differences and similarities between the Jewish communities (Orthodox, Liberal, and Conservative), and to also draw comparisons to the Christian environment (Protestant, Catholic, etc.).

The conference will be conducted in English. Please send a brief abstract (in German or English – max. one A4 page), as well as a short biography, including a list of publications:

Prof. Dr. Harmen H. Thies

Bet Tfila – Forschungsstelle für jüdische Architektur in Europa
Technische Universität Braunschweig

Pockelsstraße 4
38106 Braunschweig
Germany
Fax +49 (0)531/391-2530
www.bet-tfila.org
info@bet-tfila.org

Exhibitions: Egon Schiele's "Portrait of Wally"

Exhibitions: Egon Schiele's "Portrait of Wally"

Tom Freudenheim has written about Egon Schiele's "Portrait of Wally" for the Wall Street Journal. The painting which was at the center of one the most publicized art restitution cases goes on view for three weeks at New York's Museum of Jewish Heritage this week.

What Is Lost When Works are Trophies

By Tom L. Freudenheim
Wall Street Journal (July 27, 2010)

It's interesting to contemplate how works of art, which museums generally want us to appreciate for their aesthetic values, can turn into trophies: emblems of issues or events that have nothing to do with their status as art.

Take Egon Schiele's "Portrait of Wally" (1912), which goes on view at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan for three weeks starting Thursday, following an out-of-court settlement of the dispute over its ownership. In 1998 it had been seized by then-Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau from a Schiele exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, to which it had been lent by Vienna's Leopold Museum. Mr. Morgenthau was acting on behalf of the estate of Lea Bondi Jaray. The heirs of the original owner held that the painting had been stolen from her by the Nazis and therefore did not belong to the Leopold Museum. "Portrait of Wally" may not be Schiele's most important but the legal case has certainly turned it into his most famous one.

Read the entire article here.

Greece: Jewish Museum in Athens Vandalized

Greece: Jewish Museum in Athens Attacked by Vandals

The Jewish Museum in Athens was vandalized this week. On July 22nd, red swastikas were painted on the building's exterior walls. Despite frequent acts of vandalism against Jewish targets throughout Greece, including those in Ioannina, Hania, and elsewhere previously reported on this blog, this is the first time the museum has been the target of and anti-Semitic attack. According to community representative security cameras recorded the eight perpetrators during the museum attack.

A Sukkah for New York

Manuscript Illustration of a Sukkah (Italy, 1374). British Libriary MS Or 5024 fol 70v from Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, fig. 369.

Sukkah meal. Amsterdam, 1722 by Bernard Picart

Design for Sukkah by Stanley Tigerman and Susan O'Brien , Chicago Booth Festival (Chicago: Spertus Museum, 1994), pg 32

A Sukkah Bound for New York

An ambitious compeititon is organized for Sukkahs to be built in Union Square in New York City. I've written about the sukkah and the competition in The Forward:

New Yorkers have gotten used to the celebration of Jewish holidays in public places. The 32-foot-tall Hanukkah menorah lit regularly at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza isn’t as tall as the spires of nearby churches (or hotels), but it is still a pretty assertive statement of Jewish presence and pride. Once the city opened the door to such displays of religious observance in a public space, we knew it wouldn’t be long before other celebrations followed. And in fact, it is the holiday of Sukkot that will be celebrated in a public space as “Sukkah City: New York City” — the brainchild of Joshua Foer — launches a design competition for innovative sukkahs (literally: booths), for which registration closes on July 1.

Traditionally, rabbis have discouraged building in public places in order to lessen the risk of unwanted intrusion or destruction. But Foer is using the competition process and public display to combine the explicit missions of the organizers — Union Square Partnership and Reboot — to improve “the district’s continued growth and success” while making Jewish “culture, rituals, and traditions we’ve inherited… vital and resonant in our own lives.”

Read my entire article in the The Forward about the sukkah and the competition here.

You can read more at the competition website here.