Germany: Multiple Memorials for Berlin's Munchener Strasse Synagogue

Berlin, Germany. Image of the former Münchener Straße 37 on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Germany: Multiple Memorials for Berlin's Munchener Strasse Synagogue
by Samuel D. Gruber

In November 2016, I was in Berlin for a few days and had the chance to visit more Jewish and Holocaust-related historical and commemorative sites than usual. I've already posted about the Jewish cemetery on Grosse Hamburger Strasse and the monument and burial section at the Weissensee Cemetery for Jewish soldiers who died in World War I. Here's information on a lesser known commemorative site.

The domed synagogue at Münchener Straße 37 in the Schöneberg section of Berlin, designed by Jewish architect Max Fraenkel (1856-1926), was dedicated in 1910 and was at the center of a heavily Jewish neighborhood around Bayerischer Platz.  It was looted but not burned on Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938), but was subsequently damaged by aerial bombing during the war years, and  torn down in 1956. The synagogue, which was a transitional structure between historicism and modernism, was notable for its large dome, and as one of the more architecturally distinctive buildings in the largely residential neighborhood. The composer Kurt Weill had a job as the synagogue choir conductor for a few months in 1921. 

Today, there is a part of a school building on the synagogue site, but the synagogue is remembered in the neighborhood in various ways. Each memorial corresponds to a particular phase of Berlin's facing the past and acknowledge the Shoah. There is an official abstract street level monument (1960s), a student-built collaborative memorial (1990s) and recently an extensive photo exhibit underground in the nearby U-Bahn station.

At the school, the original synagogue outline is remembered through garden design and in 1994-95 students erected a memorial brick wall on the school grounds to remember local Jews who lived in Berlin-Schöneberg. According to school officials,"the idea was based on the artist Horst Hoheisel from Kassel who gave stimulus on his "memorial from down below" in the framework of the 6th grade teaching lesson "National Socialism".

Berlin, Germany. Löcknitz Primary School on site of the synagogue at Münchener Straße 37. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

In front of the school and near the street is a more traditional monument, designed in a cubist style by Gerson Fehrenbach in 1963. It declares: "Hier stand der 1909 erbauten synagoge der jüdischen Gemeinde" (Here stood the Synagogue of the Jewish Community built in 1909).

Berlin, Germany. Monument to destroyed at synagogue at Münchener Straße 37. Gerson Fehrenbach, arch., 1963. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Berlin, Germany. Monument to destroyed at synagogue at Münchener Straße 37. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

A plaque beneath gives further information about the fate of the building.  

Hier stand von 1909-1956 eine Synagoge. Sie wurde während der Reichspogromnacht
am 9. Nov. 1938 wegen ihrer Lage in einem
Wohnhaus nicht zerstört.
Nach der Vertreibung und Vernichtung
der jüdischen Mitbürgerinnen und Mitbürger
durch die Nationalsozialisten verlor sie
ihre Funktion und wurde 1956 abgerissen.”

In the nearby U-Bahn station there is a extensive photo exhibition on the history of the neighborhood. Since it was a heavily Jewish district in the interwar period, there is are many images of the synagogue and of prominent Jews who lived nearby. When I visited the station in November 2016, the former synagogue - already destroyed once - was suffering the indignity of having a temporary construction barrier interrupting the view of its full facade.
 

Berlin, Germany. images of the former Münchener Straße 37 on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station, with a construction barrier further "destroying" the synagogue today. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Berlin, Germany. Image of the memorial wall constricted by local students on the site the former Münchener Straße 37. Photo on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Berlin, Germany. Image of the memorial wall constricted by local students on the site the former Münchener Straße 37. Photo on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Bayerischer Platz neighborhood, including Münchener Straße, is also the location of the noteworthy "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by artists Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock and installed in 1993.  The memorial, which consists of 80 signs which flatly state the dates and essence of laws promulgated by the Nazis in the 1930s to curb the rights of Jews.  This project remains one of the most thought provoking Holocaust commemorative installations anywhere - if one takes the time to look.

Berlin, Germany. Bayerischer Platz and "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

ABerlin, Germany. Bayerischer Platz and "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Berlin, Germany. Bayerischer Platz and "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Exhibitions: German Jewish Museums Focus on Eastern European Jews in Germany Before and After the Shoah

Entrance to the Kempler pastryshop and Krakow Café, Grenadierstraße, Berlin 1926
© JMB, Schenkung von Hillel Kempler

D H. Lewin bookshop, Grenadierstraße 28, Berlin, ca. 1930 © bpk

Looking into Schendelgasse, Herbert Sonnenfeld, Berlin, ca 1935-1938
© JMB, purchase funds from the German Lottery Foundation Berlin

Sale of dry goods in Grenadierstraße , Frederick Seidenstücker, Berlin, 1932 © bpk

Exhibitions: German Jewish Museums Focus on Eastern European Jews in Germany Before and After the Shoah

Two exhibitions at German Jewish museums focus on the history and legacy of Eastern European Jewish immigrants to Germany before and after the Shoah. At the Berlin Jewish Museum the exhibition Berlin Transit traces the lives, settlement patterns and cultural expressions of Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe in the 1920s, especially those poorer Jews who settled in the neighborhood of Scheunenviertel, near Alexanderplatz, others in middle-class Charlottenburg.The exhibtion includes photos form the old neighborhoods as well as objects from the time, but it also includes works of fine art by some of the best Jewish artists of the interwar period, including Issachar Ber Ryback and Leonid Paternak. A cycle of pogrom images by Ryback is on display in Berlin for the first time since 1924. The imagery in these works will remind viewers of similar scenes in Marc Chagall's crucifixion series of the later 1920s. Rybacks' avant-garde watercolors join in dialogue with Leonid Pasternak's paintings and Naum Gabo's sculptures.

Meanwhile, an exhibition at the Munich Jewish Museum the exhibition Jews 45/90 From Here and There - Survivors from Eastern Europe examines the fate of Eastern European Holocaust survivors who settled in Germany after 1945. The Munich exhibitions examine the lives of DPs in the Munich area after the World War II, when Germany became home for tens of thousands of Eastern European survivors. This exhibit is purported to be the most comprehensive presentation to date about the everyday life, history and culture of Jewish Displaced Persons. The exhibit especially focuses on the stories of individuals, and also the varied living conditions of DPs. While some DPs remained in Germany and until the recent large influx of Russian Jews constituted the majority of Germany's post-war Jewish community, most emigrated again to Israel, the United States and other countries.

Berlin Transit: Jewish Migrants from Eastern Europe in the 1920s at the Jewish Museum Berlin

Through July 15, 2012

As a hub connecting East and West, Berlin was a place of refuge and a way station for tens of thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe starting in the late nineteenth century, and particularly after the First World War. Most of them were fleeing westwards, away from the war, revolution and pogroms of the former Russian Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy.

With its multilingualism and complex internal networks, the community of Eastern European immigrants brought about a heyday of Jewish culture in Berlin. Many of the poor Jewish immigrants lived in the Scheunenviertel area near Alexanderplatz, others in middle-class Charlottenburg, a district of the city referred to as "Charlottengrad" on account of the high proportion of Russians who lived there.

This cultural-historical exhibition focuses on the diverse worlds of Eastern European Jews in Berlin of the Weimar Republic, and presents a wealth of unknown materials: literary and autobiographic texts can be heard in their original languages (Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew and German), largely unknown photographs of the Scheunenviertel are subject to critical analysis and newly interpreted.

After the  Pogrom, series by Issachar Ber Ryback, drawing, Kiev/ Moskow, 1918/1920
© Mishkan LeOmanut, Museum of Art Ein Harod, Israel

Birds in Yiddish children's book, Leib Kwitko and Issachar Ber Ryback, Schwellen Verlag, Berlin, 1922
© Gross Family Collection, Tel Aviv

 Die Berlinerin, Issachar Ber Ryback, Kiev and Berlin, 1919/1921-1924, oil on canvas

© Bat Yam Municipality, Israel

Max Liebermann opened an exhibition at the Berlin Academy of Arts, Leonid O. Pasternak, Berlin, 1930, oil on canvas © Jerusalem, The Israel Museum

The exhibition was developed in cooperation with the research project "Charlottengrad and Scheunenviertel: Jewish Immigrants from Eastern Europe in Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s" at the Eastern Europe Institute of the Free University of Berlin.

At the end of the exhibition visitors are invited to explore urban space for traces of the largely forgotten places that reflect the immigration of Eastern European Jews to Berlin.

A catalog of the exhibition (in German) is available.

Jews 45/90: From Here and There - Survivors from Eastern Europe

November 30th, 2011 through June 17th, 2012

Divided into nine different themed displays, the lives of DPs are described from their liberation until their emigration to Israel or other countries. It is not a straightforward story that is told. Depending on the occupation policies of the Allied Forces, the relief organizations, and international political developments, Jewish refugees did not know how long and under what conditions they had to carry on living in DP camps. Visitors therefore make their way through a maze - with a view of the next displays always barred. Many of the exhibits may seem at first glance to be everyday objects of little value. Their significance unfolds through the stories and memories that the lenders associate with them.

On the second exhibition level visitors are led into the Föhrenwald DP camp, now the Waldram district of Wolfratshausen, that existed from 1945-1957, longer than all other DP camps in Germany. Insights into the various aspects of camp life and the stories of individual families open up between the silhouettes of the characterstic Föhrenwald estate houses.

The richly illustrated exhibition catalog From Here and There Survivors from Eastern Europe provides further information on the DP era and on the exhibited objects. In the essay section, the children of former Displaced Persons such as the authors Lily Brett and Savyon Liebrecht, reflect their own family histories inspired by the objects in the exhibition.

Exhibition: Photos of Death Camp Drawings on View at Auschwitz

Exhibition: Photos of Death Camp Drawings on View at Auschwitz

Forbidden Art is the title of a new exhibition at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum Memorial on view until November 20, 2011 on the grounds of the former Auschwitz I camp in the camp laundry building.
The exhibition features photographic reproductions of twenty works of art made illegally and under the threat of death by prisoners in German Nazi concentration camps. The photographs are accompanied by commentary and excerpts from archival accounts.

Artists represented in the exhibit include: Peter Edel, Maria Hiszpańska, Franciszek Jaźwiecki, Mieczysław Kościelniak, Halina Ołomucka, Stanisława Panasowa-Stelmaszewska, Marian Ruzamski, Josef Sapcaru, Włodzimierz Siwierski, Zofia Stępień, Józef Szajna, Stanisław Trałka, The anonymous artist with the initials MM, other Aanonymous artists.

On the Auschwitz memorial webpage you can also view a gallery of over 90 artworks from the camp and post-liberation period.

The exhibit is scheduled to travel.

Read more about the exhibtion here.

Exhibition and Catalogue: Architect Bertrand Goldberg

Chicago, IL. Marina City. Bertrand Goldberg, architect. In the forefront you can see the statue of Hyam Solomon. Photo: Samuel Gruber

FIRST COMPREHENSIVE RETROSPECTIVE OF ARCHITECT
BERTRAND GOLDBERG TO OPEN AT THE ART INSTITUTE

I am pleased to learn of a major retrospective of the architecture of Bertrand Goldberg in Chicago this fall. Goldberg was one of America's most innovative architects of the 20th century, and one of the few full-blooded pre-WW II Jewish modernists born in the United States. (Louis Kahn, for example, a very different sort of architect was born in Estonia).

The following text courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago, which holds the Goldberg archives.)

Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention Features More Than 100 Works With Companion Photography Exhibition Inside Marina City

On View Only in Chicago September 17, 2011-January 15, 2012

The Art Institute of Chicago has organized a landmark exhibition exploring the work of Bertrand Goldberg (1913-1997), one of the most innovative modern American architects. On view from September 17, 2011, through January 15, 2012, in the Modern Wing's Architecture and Design Galleries (283-285), Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention is the first comprehensive retrospective of the architect's work, featuring more than 100 original drawings, models, and photographs, as well as significant examples of his rarely-shown graphic and furniture design. Long recognized for his seminal contributions to the built environment of Chicago, most notably his groundbreaking design for Marina City (1959-67), this exhibition showcases his progressive vision, dramatic architectural forms, and inventive engineering with a wide range of built and experimental projects. As a tribute to Goldberg's career, the Art Institute has specially commissioned a stunning installation by John Ronan Architects and graphic design firm Studio Blue.

Born in 1913 in Chicago, Goldberg began studying architecture in 1930 at Harvard College. In 1932, he moved to Germany to take courses at the Bauhaus in Dessau, before relocating to Berlin to apprentice in the office of architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. After his return to the United States in 1933, Goldberg worked for Chicago modernist George Fred Keck while studying engineering at the Armour Institute of Technology (now the Illinois Institute of Technology). Goldberg established his own firm in 1937 with a range of innovative work in housing and industrial design before devoting his practice to large-scale urban projects. His architectural achievements were recognized with numerous professional awards: in 1966, Goldberg was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects, and in 1985 he was awarded the Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. During his lifetime, his work served as a touchstone for a generation of international architects and critics including Reyner Banham, the Japanese Metabolist group, and members of the British architectural collective, Archigram. Today, Goldberg's pioneering cross-disciplinary approach resonates with the diverse practices of contemporary architects and designers.

Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention draws on the important holdings of the Art Institute's Bertrand Goldberg Collection and Archive, which includes more than 30,000 drawings and models spanning the architect's career from the 1930s to the 1990s. This rich archival collection was given to the Art Institute in 2002 by the Goldberg family, and includes such seminal projects as Marina City, River City (1972-89), and the Health Sciences Center in Stony Brook, New York (1965-76). This work is complemented by early student Bauhaus drawings borrowed from the Harvard Art Museums and furniture from the Goldberg family's private collection, which makes its public debut in this exhibition.

The exhibition is organized thematically, demonstrating how Goldberg's work mirrored the changing priorities of American culture at large, beginning with his early interest in prefabrication and low-cost housing, his projects for middle class leisure culture in the 1950s, his expanded engagement with new cultural programs throughout the 1960s, and the large-scale projects for hospitals and urban planning in his later practice. Many of Goldberg's early projects experimented with new materials and manufacturing processes, including prefabricated plywood structures and designs for mobile medical facilities for the United States government during World War II. As his work grew in scale, Goldberg explored new building technologies to realize his distinctive designs, from the daring structures of the Marina City towers and Raymond Hilliard Center (1963-66), to the groundbreaking cantilever of his Prentice Women's Hospital (1969-74). He worked tirelessly to redefine conventional building and urban typologies and pioneered some of the first mixed-use developments in the United States at a time when American cities were facing serious problems of population and commercial development. The university and hospital buildings of his mature career demonstrate his interest in improving the quality of education and health care through new spatial configurations designed to function as close-knit "villages" promoting healing and social exchange.

From his experimental roots at the Bauhaus to his visionary designs for urbanism, Bertrand Goldberg's 50-year-long career reflects a remarkable engagement with issues central to his time developed through a unique approach to structure and form that defied architectural convention. His steadfast commitment to innovation across a multitude of disciplines, including architecture, urban planning, and graphic and industrial design, mirrors the fluid exchange that occurs between these fields today, as practitioners venture beyond the confines of their specializations to provide solutions that transform our social and built environment.

Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention is accompanied by a photography exhibition, Inside Marina City: A Project by Iker Gil and Andreas E.G. Larson . In this exhibition, visitors are offered the rare opportunity to see inside the apartments of Marina City with more than 30 images that explore the relationship between Goldberg's rigorous modular framework for the building and the informal development of these interior spaces by residents throughout its history. Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention is accompanied by a handsome, fully illustrated, 192-page catalogue designed by Studio Blue. The book, edited by Zoë Ryan, Chair and John H. Bryan Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago, features 140 color and 75 black-and-white illustrations, and scholarly essays written by Ryan; Alison Fisher, the Harold and Margot Schiff Assistant Curator of Architecture at the Art Institute; Elizabeth Smith, Executive Director, Curatorial Affairs at the Art Gallery of Ontario; and Sarah Whiting, dean of the Rice University School of Architecture. The catalogue, published by the Art Institute and distributed by Yale University Press, will be available beginning October 3, 2011, at the Art Institute's Museum Shop for $60. Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and curated by Zoë Ryan, Chair and John H. Bryan Curator of Architecture and Design, and Alison Fisher, the Harold and Margot Schiff Assistant Curator of Architecture, with guest curator Elizabeth Smith, Executive Director, Curatorial Affairs, Art Gallery of Ontario. The exhibition and its publication are made possible by the generous support of the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Albert Pick, Jr. Fund, the Architecture & Design Society at the Art Institute of Chicago, and by anonymous donations. Additional support is provided by the Exhibitions Trust: Goldman Sachs, Kenneth and Anne Griffin, Thomas and Margot Pritzker, the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Foundation, Donna and Howard Stone, and Melinda and Paul Sullivan. Inside Marina City is made possible by the generous support of the Architecture & Design Society. Additional sponsorship is provided by The Print Lab. MUSEUM HOURS 10:30 am-5:00 pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 10:30 am-8:00 pm Thursday 10:30 am-5:00 pm Saturday, Sunday Museum free to Illinois residents on first and second Wednesdays of every month. Closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day. ADMISSION Adults $18.00 Includes all special exhibitions Children 14 and over, students, and seniors $12.00 Includes all special exhibitions Chicago residents receive a $2.00 discount with proof of residency Children under 14 always free Members always free City of Chicago residents with Chicago Public Library cards can borrow a "Museum Passport" card from any library branch for free general admission to the nine members of Museums in the Park, including the Art Institute of Chicago

Exhibition: Photographs of Chaim Gross Sculpture

Sculptor Chaim Gross at work on Harvest at 1939 New York World's Fair. Photo by Eliot Elisofon, courtesy of Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation

Exhibition: Photographs of Chaim Gross Sculpture

The current exhibit of photographs of the sculptural work of Chaim Gross (1904-1991), “Displayed: Stages for Sculpture,” is on view until December 16 at the Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation in New York. Gross practiced what he (and contemporaries) called “direct carving” and created totemic human figures out of wood and stone. According to the exhibit organizers he "was a perfect subject for photographers who wanted to capture his creative process." Sculpture, as one of the most active, physical and, of-course, 3-dimensional forms of art, and one that could be represented well in black and white with light and shadow, appealed to photographers and was frequently featured in the many photo and news magazines of the early 20th-century.

According to the Foundation's press release:

"The photographs chart the “stages” in the making of sculpture, and public “stages” displaying Gross’s work, such as the 1939 World’s Fair, educational carving demonstrations, and commercial print media. The exhibition, curated by the Foundation's archivist Zak Vreeland, features images from the Foundation’s collection by renowned photographers Arnold Newman (1918-2006), Eliot Elisofon (1911-73), and Rudy Burckhardt (1914-99). It also includes works by less known, yet equally compelling photographers Robert M. Damora (1912-2009), Soichi Sunami (1885-1971), Walter Rosenblum (1919-2006), and Arnold Eagle (1909-92).

Chaim Gross knew many of these photographers at the beginning of their careers and became particularly close with Arnold Newman and Eliot Elisofon. Gross hired them to record the process of sculpting, both in the privacy of the studio as well as various public venues. The photographers also featured Gross, his house, studio, and sculpture in news stories, fashion spreads, and advertisements in publications such as Life and Glamour. The exhibition explores this relationship between sculpture and photography. It also considers the convergence of two modes of production: Gross’s signature process of hand carving and the mechanical reproduction of the photograph. Of particular interest are photographs of window displays that featured Gross’s sculpture in arrangements with mannequins and merchandise from c. 1940-50 at Bonwit Teller, Saks Fifth Avenue and Lane Bryant. These include an eight-window display for Bonwit Teller designed by the preeminent window designer Gene Moore (1910-98)."

Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/139204/#ixzz1QrP1DBfb

View the 1957 film The Sculptor Speaks (17 minutes) on the Gross foundation website.

Read more about the life and work of Chaim Gross at artnet.com.

As it happens, the Syracuse University Special Collection Research Center has four boxes of Gross papers. I'm looking forward to finding time in the next year to examine these, or to interest a student in the project.

Exhibitions: Mark Epstein. Return of Master (Kiev, National Arts Museum)

Exhibitions: Mark Epstein. Return of Master (Kiev, National Arts Museum)

The Centre for Studies of the Culture and History of East European Jews in Kiev has organized an art exhibition of the work of Ukrainian-Jewish avant-garde artist Mark Epstein (1899-1949). The exhibition, Mark Epstein: Return of Master opened at the National Arts Museum in Kiev in mid-December and includes about 100 works and is on view until the end of this month. The exhibition is the first of Epstein's work, which was not exhibited during his lifeitme during the Societ period. In conjunction with the exhibition the Centre has published an album of about 60 Epstein works including graphics, paintings, scenographic works an sculpture.

National Art Museum of Ukraine, 6 Grushevskogo St., 278-13-57, 278-74-54, www.namu.kiev.ua, until Jan. 30

Leonid Finberg, Director of the Centre for Studies of the Culture and History of East European Jews of the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla academy” sent the following note:

Mark Epstein was a notable figure in the artistic life of Kyiv during the 1920’s. In 1928, having just finished the Kyiv Arts College, he immersed himself into the progressive arts movement of that time. He attended O. Exter’s art studio where his newest creative ideas were polished. Mark Epstein’s cubic-futurist works of the beginning of the 1920’s – Violoncellist, Family, Tailor, The Two, A Woman with a Yoke – have become part of the history of modern Ukrainian art.

Epstein was one of the founders of the artistic section of the Culture League – an association whose aim was the development of Jewish culture. Members of the section also included O.Tishler, El Lysytsky, J. Chaikov, S. Nikritin, and others. Marc Chagall, N. Altman, R. Falk, and D. Sterenberg also cooperated with the Culture League. In their effort to create new Jewish art, members of the Culture League synthesized images of traditional art with Ukrainian avant-garde ideas.

Epstein took an active part in this work. Unfortunately, only the graphic works of Epstein have been preserved from the 1920’s; representations of his sculptures have survived only as photos, while his paintings have been totally lost.

The work of the Culture League was terminated in the middle of the 1920’s. In 1932, Epstein had to move to Moscow. He took practically no part in exhibitions there, but worked a great deal. However his attempts to adjust his talent to the requirements of the times bore no evident fruit.

Here is a small selection (compliments of Flickr) of Epstein's innovative graphic designs using new forms of Hebrew lettering and composition.

Cover of the magazine "Freyd" (Joy). Kiev, Kultur-Lige, 1923, No 8, Yiddish. 27,1 x 21,5. Design: Mark Epstein Location: Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaisme, ParisSource: Hillel (Gregory) Kazovsky, The Artists of the Kultur-Lige, Jerusalem; Moskau 2003.

Cover of L. Reznik's "Ufstand" (Uprising). Kiev, Kultur-Lige, 1928, Yiddish. 22,5 x 13,2. Design: Mark Epstein
Location: Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaisme, ParisSource: Hillel (Gregory) Kazovsky, The Artists of the Kultur-Lige, Jerusalem; Moskau 2003.

Cover of a "Theather-bukh" (Book on the Theater). Kiev, Kultur-Lige, 1927, Yiddish. 23.5 x 16,5. Design: Mark Epstein Location: Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaisme, ParisSource: Hillel (Gregory) Kazovsky, The Artists of the Kultur-Lige, Jerusalem; Moskau 2003.

Poland: New Director at Krakow's Galicia Jewish Museum

Krakow, Poland. Galicia Jewish Museum. All photos Samuel D. Gruber, 2008.

Poland: New Director at Krakow's Galicia Jewish Museum

The Galicia Jewish Museum founded in April 2004 in Krakow's Jewish quarter, Kazimierz, has appointed a new director, Kazimierz-born Jakub Nowakowski. Nowakowski has worked at the museum since 2005, most recently as its education direction. The museum is located in a former mill building (see photo above) on the edge of Kazimierz, the former suburb to Krakow's Old Town where Jews were permitted to live, and where a vibrant Jewish culture developed over a period of five centuries. The mission of the museum is "to challenge the stereotypes and misconceptions typically associated with the Jewish past in Poland and to educate both Poles and Jews about their own histories, whilst encouraging them to think about the future."

Nowakowski will replace Kate Craddy who has returned to England, to take up an appointment at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham. Craddy herself became director after the death in 2007 of the museum's founder, the British photographer Chris Schwarz. The museum's core exhibition is formed by Chris's photographs of Jewish heritage sites, taken mainly in the 1990s -- they also form the basis for the book Recovering Traces of Memory, with text by Jonathan Webber.
I congratulate Kate on all she has achieved at the museum, and wish Jakub all the best in his new position.

Nowakowski has an MA in History from the Department of Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University, as well as a postgraduate diploma in Management and Marketing from the Kraków School of Economics and Computer Science. He also holds a Tour Leader’s License from the City of Kraków.

In addition to its permanent photographic exhibition, the museum hosts traveling exhibitions about history and art, and also has one of Poland's best Jewish book stores and gift shops, and a hospitable cafe that provides a good rest and meeting place in Kazimierz. My family was pleased to donate one of my mother's (Shirley Moskowitz) monoprints from her Polish synagogue series to the museum in 2009, based on her visits to ruined synagogues in 1993. The wntire series had previously been exhibited at the museum.

The Galicia Jewish Museum employs over 20 full- and part-time staff, in Museum Operations; Education and Research; Projects and Publications; External Relations and Communications; and Finances and Administration. New Museum Director Nowakowski is supported by an active Board of Directors in Poland and a Board of Trustees in the UK, led by Chairman Prof. Jonathan Webber (UNESCO Chair of Jewish and Interfaith Studies, University of Birmingham).

Exhibition: Looking Back, Jewish Life in Morocco

Meknes, Morocco. Bet Ha-Knesset Rabbi Y'hoshua Berdugo, built 1927. Photo: Isaiah Wyner (Isaiah Wyner/WMF 1989)

Looking Back: Jewish Life in Morocco

An exhibition: "Looking Back: Jewish Life in Morocco," will have its Opening Program and Reception on October 14, 2010 at the Center for Jewish History in New York City. Produced by the American Sephardi Federation, the exhibition will focus on the history of the Jewish people and Jewish life, as it once was in Morocco. The event will launch a year-long series of programs on "2,000 Years of Jewish Life in Morocco: An Epic Journey" including an international Symposium, a concert, and individual lectures. Dr. Norman A. Stillman, the Schusterman-Josey Professor and Chair of Judaic History at the University of Oklahoma, will present the keynote address.

For more information contact: exhibition curator Shelomo Alfassa at 001 917-606-8262

Jews have lived in what is today Morocco for millenia, and Jewish culture has been influenced by the Berbers, the Spanish, the Arabs and the French. This exhibition will provide an overview demonstrating the presence and flourishing of Jews in the ancient and modern Kingdom of Morocco.

According to the organizers: "The exhibition will be presented through the implementation of artistically designed textual displays, documents, pull quotes, non-photo images (e.g. lithographs and engravings), historic photos, captions, replications of historic documents, and other visuals which demonstrate the life of the Jews living throughout this North African country."

ASF holds the photo archive of the documentary expedition carried out in 1990 for the World Monuments Fund by Joel Zack and Isaiah Wyner. I remember fondly the great assistance given to that project by the late Prof. Yedida Stillman, wife of Norman Stillman. I hope that the exhibition is imbued with Yedida's joyous spirit.

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.

Jews on the Altar: MOBIA Exhibition Examines Images on Spanish Altarpieces

You can read my discussion of the current exhibition Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians, and the Altarpieces of Medieval Spain in The Forward newspaper. The exhibition is on view until through May 30th. It is accompanied by an informative and beautifully illustrated catalog with essays by exhibition curator Vivian B. Mann, Marcus B. Burke, Carmen Laccara Ducay and Thomas F. Glick.

Jews on the Altar: MOBIA Exhibition Examines Images on Spanish Altarpieces

By Samuel D. Gruber

Published April 07, 2010, issue of April 16, 2010.

Jewish Spain is a world of which many have heard, but few actually know. Popular and even scholarly Jewish discourse is full of rumor and exaggeration, and interpretations of scattered facts vary widely. Since 1992, however, when Spain began a rapprochement with Jews and Judaism on the 500th anniversary of the expulsion, more and more facts have been brought to light, and new eyes and new ways of looking have trained on this evidence. Read More

Robin Cembalest on Uneasy Communion Exhibition

Robin Cembalest on Uneasy Communion Exhibition

Just a few hours after posting my notice about the opening of Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians, and the Altarpieces of Medieval Spain at MOBIA, I saw Robin Cembalist's piece in Tablet Magazine, which provides more insight into the exhibition. When Robin is not writing for Tablet, she is engaged in her full time work as editor of ARTNews (she was also my first editor at The Forward). Robin mentions Vivian Mann's links between the painting Christ Among the Doctors and the recently excavated synagogue in Lorca, Spain of which I have previously written.

The Torah in the Altarpiece

A new exhibition explores the overlapping worlds of Christian and Jewish art in medieval Spain

An on-line slide show from the exhibition accompanies the article.

Exhibition: MOBIA in NYC Will Open Exhibit on Representations of Jews on Medieval Spanish Altarpieces

Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians, and the Altarpieces of Medieval Spain to Open at MOBIA (Museum of Biblical Art) in New York
by Samuel D. Gruber

New exhibitions of medieval art are increasing rare in the United States, so it has been a pleasure to see view the series of exhibitions developed over the past five years at MOBIA, the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City, many of which have included medieval works, sometimes important and sometimes obscure, but usually chosen for a particular reason and often elucidated from a new point of view.

MOBIA seems about to continue and perhaps expand this tendency with a new exhibition, Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians, and the Altarpieces of Medieval Spain that opens to the public this February 19th and runs through May 30. The exhibition is curated by Dr. Vivian B. Mann, curator emeritus at the Jewish Museum and now director of the graduate program in Jewish Art at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Almost twenty years ago Dr. Mann collaborated to present artistic aspects of Jewish, Christian and Muslim co-existence in medieval Spain in the ground-breaking Convivencia organized by the Jewish Museum. This new exhibition promises to present Christian-Jewish relations is a somewhat different light, and through the religious lens of altarpieces that reference and represent Jews in both Biblical and contemporary guise.

According to the publicity from MOBIA:

This exhibition discusses the last two centuries of medieval Spanish history in the Crown of Aragon (the Kingdom of Aragon, the Kingdom of Valencia, and the region of Catalonia) from the vantage point of religious art, and demonstrates the documented cooperative relationship that existed between Christians and Jews who worked either independently or together to create art both for the Church and the Jewish community. Religious art was not created solely by members of the faith community it was intended to serve, but its production in the multi-cultural society of late medieval Spain was more complicated. Jewish and Christian artists worked together in ateliers producing both retablos (large multi-paneled altarpieces) as well as Latin and Hebrew manuscripts. Jews and conversos (Jews who had converted to Christianity) were painters and framers of retablos, while Christians illuminated the pages of Hebrew manuscripts.

The exhibition tells not only the story of this fascinating moment of artistic collaboration, it also provides a glimpse into the lives of these communities which lived side by side. Images in some retablos reflect the hardships of Jewish life in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: conversions, forced sermons, disputations, the Inquisition, and charges of host desecration and blood libel. Other extraordinary paintings project a messianic view of a future in which Jews would join with Christians in one faith.

I'm looking forward to this exhibition and expecting some surprises. One work that will be on view and is being used for publicity for the exhibition is an anonymous altarpiece of Christ Among the Doctors (click here for photo) from the early 15th century in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The painting, which has been cleaned and restored for this exhibition, represents the Jerusalem Temple as a contemporary Spanish synagogue. The "Doctors" include an assortment of Jews seated at their wooden prayer benches reading from (manuscript) prayer books.

A catalog is published to accompany the exhibition.