Romania/Ukraine -- The Bucovina Cemeteries Guidebook is Launched

Jewish cemeter, Gura Humorului, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Swiss Diplomat Simon Geissbuehler's guidebook to Jewish cemeteries in the Bucovina region straddling the Romania-Ukraine border was launched last week in Bucharest and has been getting appreciative reviews in the local media. The book is available in various languages.

'This work is a combination of a tourist guide and an art album and I'm speaking of the fact that the text written by Simon Geissbuhler is in the form of a traveller's journal, but the images in the album make one think the work is an art album', said Adrian Manafu, the editor of Noi Media Print publishing house that published the volume.

Manafu, moreover, believes the Jewish cemeteries in Bucovina can be deemed genuine works of art. He explained the work refers the cemeteries in historical Bucovina, an old Romanian territory that has been shared by Ukraine and Romania after World War Two.

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I was glad to see that an article in one of the local media highlighted the sorry fact that the wonderful Jewish cemeteries in Bucovina are woefully ignored. The journalist Annett Muller picks up my own contention that these cemeteries could form the basis of a fascinating artistic a spiritual tourism route -- and she points out how the famous "Merry Cemetery" in Sapanta, with its brightly painted grave markers, is a popular attraction, even if it is in a fairly remote location. Few people realize that there is also a Jewish cemetery in Sapanta, well maintained and well marked.

Jewish cemetery in Sapanta, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

I wrote the Foreword to the book, and Simon kindly pointed out an article in the local media where this was highlighted.

I am hoping to get to Radauti at the end of the summer, when a launch of the book is scheduled to take place there -- at the same time, I'll be working on my photo documentation of the beautifully decorated tombs of women in the Jewish cemetery there, a project for which I received a grant from the Hadassah Brandeis Institute.

Romania -- New Guidebook News

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

A Romanian web site (using my pictures....) is highlighting Simon Geissbuehler's new guide to Jewish cemeteries in the Bucovina, for which I wrote the Foreword. The launch of the book in Bucharest is this Friday.

Volumul intitulat „Cimitirele evreieşti din Bucovina” al diplomatului elveţian, dr. Simon Geissbühler, va fi lansat joi, 25 iunie a.c., ora 18.30, la IF Gallery din Str. Tokio nr. 1, Bucureşti. Publicată de editura „Noi Media Print”, cartea este disponibilă în română, germană, engleză, franceză şi ucraineană.

Vernisajul va cuprinde scurte alocuţiuni ale directorului editorial al editurii „Noi Media Print”, Adrian Manafu, ale preşedintelui Federaţiei Comunităţilor Evreieşti din România, dr. Aurel Vainer, şi ale autorului, deschiderea unei expoziţii de fotografie cu cimitirele evreieşti din Bucovina, cât şi un cocktail unde vor fi servite cele mai bune vinuri româneşti.

Celebra scriitoare, fotografă şi jurnalistă americană, Ruth Ellen Gruber, deţinătoare a două premii Simon Rockover pentru jurnalism iudaic, o autoritate în domeniul chestiunii evreieşti din Europa, a apreciat că “prin publicarea acestui ghid turistic Simon Geissbühler face un pas important, prezentând publicului larg o serie de localităţi minunate. Domnia sa deschide astfel, noi dimensiuni pelerinajului spiritual, adresându-se aparţinătorilor tuturor credinţelor şi orientărilor religioase, care doresc să intuiască nemijlocit frumuseţea, semnificaţia istorică şi vitalitatea cimitirelor evreieşti din Bucovina”.

La rândul său, preşedintele FCER, dr. Aurel Vainer, consideră că „această carte este şi trebuie să fie primul pas al autorului, la care ne alăturăm fără nici o rezervă, către un proces de cunoaştere şi recunoaştere a bogatei tradiţii culturale şi religioase evreieşti în sine şi ca parte din Patrimoniul Cultural Naţional”.

Romania -- Romanian Jewish Heritage Event in London

Close up of the Ark, synagogue in Roman, Romania, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Readers in London can get a taste of the wonderful architecture of Romanian synagogues by attending a little festival of Romanian Jewish culture June 11-17 at the Romanian Culture Institute. The opening event takes place June 10.

Centerpiece is the exhibit of Christian Binder's photographs of synagogues of Romania, organized by Julie Dawson (who will speak at the London events).

The Romanian Cultural Institute London, in partnership with Mihai Eminescu Trust (MET) and with the support of Spiro Ark organises an event highlighting Romania's rich Jewish cultural heritage: Synagogues of Romania, an exhibition of photographs of synagogues in southern Transylvania, accompanied by presentations from Andrei Oisteanu, Julie Dawson and Letitia Cosnean and klezmer music live concert with Kosmos Ensemble.

"In the wake of the Holocaust and subsequent mass migration of the vast majority of Romania's Jewish population, countless synagogues fell into various stages of disrepair and decay. This photo exhibition aims to capture the transitional stage in which Romania now finds itself. With the entrance of foreign investors and NGOs, some synagogues are being restored, turned into cultural centers or finding alternative uses. Others remain abandoned, assuming a central location in the town's center and representing an evocative, stubborn reminder of the recent and troubled past."
Julie Dawson, curator
Photography: Christian Binder | http://www.pbase.com/binderch/synagogues

The event brings together:

• the photographic exhibition;
• presentations: Julie Dawson and Letitia Cosnean will lecture about "The Plight of Romanian Synagogues" and the "Restoration of the Medias Synagogue" respectively, Andrei Oisteanu will talk about "Jewish Culture in Romania".
  Mr Oisteanu will also present his recent book Inventing the Jew. Antisemitic Stereotypes in Romanian and Other Central-East European Cultures, published by University of Nebraska Press, USA.
• klezmer music live concert given by the Kosmos Ensemble.

The event will take place in the presence of HE Dr Ion Jinga, the Ambassador of Romania in the UK.

Julie Dawson works in Romania and has traveled extensively throughout Eastern Europe visiting both shtetls and former centers of Yiddish culture. She has been instrumental in organizing regional Yiddish/Jewish cultural events including klezmer and Yiddish song concert tours, photo-documentary exhibitions and community education programs.

Letitia Cosnean is MET's architect in Sighisoara and her lecture will shed light on the restoration process of the Medias Synagogue.

Andrei Oisteanu is a Romanian historian whose research fields include: ethnology, cultural anthropology, history of religions and mentalities. His writings are seen as a considerable contribution to researching magical and ritual practices as well as mythical and religious symbols. He is also noted for his work in Jewish studies and the history of anti-Semitism; Oisteanu has been the first researcher to have developed a complete study in image ideology focusing on the way in which Jewish people were represented within the Romanian mentality and folklore.

Kosmos is an innovative ensemble that composes original music in which there is space for improvisation. Offering a unique sound free from borders or labels, the ensemble aims to explore the boundaries of Western Classical music with Eastern European, Gypsy, Balkan, Klezmer and Tango with contemporary influences. Since their debut in 2005, Kosmos has been enthusiastically acclaimed by audiences at festivals and music societies across Europe.

When: Opening: 10 June 2009, 6 - 8 pm
Photography exhibition: 11-17 June, 10 am - 6 pm
Where: Romanian Cultural Institute, 1 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PH
Admission: free for the exhibition. Opening: by invitation. We have a limited number of seats - please get in touch if you want to attend.

Romania/Ukraine -- New Guidebook Launch

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

"Jewish Cemeteries of the Bucovina," a new guidebook-brochure to Jewish cemeteries in the Bucovina region of Romania (and Ukraine) is being published this month. It was written (and photographed) by Simon Geissbühler, a Swiss diplomat based in Bucharest and will be available in English, German, French, Romanian, and Ukrainian.

The official launch is June 25 in Bucharest -- see the inviation above -- but there will be another launch in Radauti, on June 29.

I contributed the Foreword to this guide -- the cemeteries in this region, with their sculptural, wonderfully carved, tombstones have long been among my favorite Jewish heritage sites (and not just because the region is where my paternal grandparents came from.) My project (Candle)sticks on Stone focuses on these carved stones, particularly house women are represented on them by depictions of candlesticks.

Needless to say, I'm delighted to see this book come out, and I hope it attracts attention to these wonderful but overlooked places, which are located in the same region as Romania's splendid, and much more famous (and visited) painted monasteries.

Here's my Foreword:

A hand reaches out, grasps the branch of a tree and breaks it sharply off. The image is extraordinary, even surreal; so vivid that you can almost hear the crack of the wood.

The tree is the Tree of Life and the hand is the hand of God -- or maybe that of the Angel of Death. The portrayal, found repeated over and over in the Jewish cemetery in Radauti, in the Bucovina region of northern Romania, is one of the remarkable sculpted images found on Jewish tombstones in scores of Jewish cemeteries scattered over this part of East-Central Europe.

I first visited Radauti more than 30 years ago, in the bitterly cold December of 1978. It is the town from which my grandparents emigrated to the United States, and it is here, in the Jewish cemetery, that my great-grandmother Ettel Gruber lies buried.

Tilted now to one side, her tombstone is marked with the depiction of candlesticks that traditionally denote the tombs of Jewish women. Ettel, who died in 1947, was "a positive and dedicated woman, fair and kind in all her doing," her epitaph reads. She "offered hospitality and charity to the poor and set a full table for the Tzaddikim."

Jewish cemeteries are often described as "Houses of the Living," and, even when overgrown and abandoned, lives and life stories endure here in sculpted form.

Jewish tombstone decoration combines religious and folk motifs that in many cases refer to the name, lineage, profession or personal attributes of the deceased. Numerous gravestones bear symbols referring to death, such as broken candles and broken flowers as well as the hand of God breaking the branch from a tree. But many more refer to life.

Among the more common carved symbols are two hands in the spread-fingered gesture of priestly blessing on the gravestones of a Cohen (priest), that is, a descendant of the biblical High Priest Aaron. Another common symbol is a pitcher, or ewer, marking tombs of Levites, or descendants of the ancient tribe of Levi, priestly assistants who traditionally washed the hands of the priests.

Books mark the graves of particularly learned people; hands placing coins into charity boxes denote those who were particularly generous. Candlesticks -- as on my great-grandmother's gravestone -- often mark the tombstones of women, since in Jewish ritual women bless the candles on the Sabbath. The candlesticks are sometimes simple representations; others show ornate, almost braided candelabras, and some carvings include hands blessing the flames.

The images of a variety of animals also frequently decorate the stones. Lions may symbolize the tribe of Judah or personal names, such as Lev or Leib. Carved stags indicate names such as Zvi or Hirsch. Birds often appear, and mythical beasts, such as the winged griffin, are also common. There is often, too, a wealth of other decorative carving such as flowers, vines, grapes, and geometric forms.

All this imagery, and more, is found in the Jewish cemeteries of the Bucovina region. The decorated tombstones here, in fact, represent especially striking and sometimes startling examples of artistry, design and virtuoso stone-carving.

Baroque tombstones from the 18th and 19th centuries in particular employ a richness of texture and imagery that approaches that found in the rococo decoration in some churches. In some places carving styles are so distinctive that you can discern the work of individual, now anonymous, artists.

Few Jews live in the Bucovina today; the cemeteries thus form powerful memorials to a civilization that was wiped out in the Holocaust. Moreover, the liveliness and fantasy employed by the stone-masons adds a new dimension to how we may regard the spiritual, intellectual and artistic lives of Jews who lived in traditional East European shtetls.

To me, these elaborate sculpted gravestones are just as important manifestations of faith through art as are the marvelous painted monasteries that are also found in this region. Yet few people know of their existence, and even fewer ever visit.

With this important new guidebook, Simon Geissbühler introduces these wonderful places to a broader public and opens the way for spiritual pilgrims of all faiths and beliefs to experience their power, beauty and historical significance.

Ruth Ellen Gruber
Morruzze, Italy

Romania -- Late News on a Jewish Heritage Conference

Siret synagogue, Romania. 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I just found out today about what could have been an interesting conference on Jewish heritage that took place this past week in Bucharest. I'm posting it in the "it's frustrating, but better to know about it late than never" category. This category, alas, is a big one! So many initiatives take place on an individual level that it is often hard (or impossible) to keep track.

The program as a whole looked terrific. Many of the topics were of particular interest to me because of my own research and writing -- and my own interest in regarding Jewish heritage as part and parcel of national, regional and European heritage -- and also because of my new "(Candle)sticks on Stone" project centering on the respresentation of women on Jewish tombstones, particularly on the richly carved stones in the Jewish cemeteries of Radauti and other towns in northern Romania.

Annual International Conference on JEWISH HERITAGE
PART OF THE WORLD AND NATIONAL HERITAGE
Bucharest, May 28-29, 2009

The University of Bucharest and the Goldstein Goren Center for Hebrew Studies
invite you to the annual international conference on Jewish Heritage Part
of the World and National Heritage.

Prominent scholars from Romania and abroad (Israel, France, Hungary, Turkey) will
lecture and debate on the Jewish intellectual heritage - its influence on local
and world culture and the current state of rehabilitation, restoration and
conservation options; a special panel will be dedicated to the Jewish monuments
of worship, synagogues and their art.

The event is open to the public and will take place on May 28-29, 2009, at the
Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest (5-7 Edgar Quinet St., room 120 and
Council Hall).

On the occasion of the conference, the photo-documentary exhibition "Colors of
Time: The Synagogues of Moldova", belonging to the Romanian Cultural Institute
in Tel Aviv, will be on display.

The photographs presented in the exhibition are the work of Teodor Rafileanu, a
journalist and a photographer. These photographs were taken in the spring of 2007,
during the trip for the research of synagogues in Romanian Moldova, in which he
accompanied Dr. Ilia Rodov, lecturer at the Department of Jewish Art, Bar-Ilan
University. This tour was part of a research project supported by the Romanian
Cultural Institute in Israel.

----

JEWISH HERITAGE –
PART OF THE WORLD AND NATIONAL HERITAGE
Bucharest, May 28-29, 2009

Partners: Academia Romana – Institutul de Istorie a Religiilor
Federatia Comunitatilor Evreiesti din Romania – Centrul pentru Studierea Istoriei Evreilor din Romania
Institutul Cultural Român – Tel Aviv

Thursday, May 28, 2009
Opening, Council Hall
Chair: Andrei Oisteanu, Institutul de Istorie a Religiilor, Academia Romana – Romania

9.30 – 9.45
Welcome address by Prof. Dr. Liviu Papadima, Dean, Faculty of Letters/ Director, The
Goldstein Goren Center for Hebrew Studies, University of Bucharest

9.45 – 10.00
Welcome address by Traian Basescu, President of Romania, delivered by Dr. Bogdan Tataru-Cazaban, State Counselor for Culture and Religious Affairs

10.00 – 10.15
Welcome address by Prof. Dr. Aurel Vainer, President of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania

10.15 – 10.30 Coffee break

Morning Session, Council Hall
Jewish intellectual heritage and its influence on local and world culture
Chair: Felicia Waldman, Goldstein Goren Center, University of Bucharest – Romania

10.30 – 10.50
“Patrimoniul cultural evreiesc – document istoric prea putin uzitat”
Liviu Rotman, SNSPA; Centrul pentru Studierea Istoriei Evreilor din Romania, FCER – Romania

10.50 – 11.10
“ ‘In Nehardea There Are No Heretics’ – The Purported Jewish Interaction with Christianity in Sasanian Babylonia”
Barak Cohen, Bar Ilan University – Israel

11.10– 11.30
“From Monologue to Dialogue: the Varying Relationships of Jewish Thinkers to European Intellectual Culture”
Raphael Shuchat, Bar Ilan University – Israel

11.30 – 11.50
“Jews and Central Europe – A Double Legacy”
Raphael Vago, Tel Aviv University – Israel

11.50 – 12.10
Discussions

12.10– 14.15 Lunch break

Afternoon session, Council Hall
Jewish monuments of worship – Synagogues and their art
Chair: Mariuca Stanciu, Goldstein Goren Center, University of Bucharest – Romania

14.15 – 14.35
“Ars brevis, vita longa: On Preservation of Modern Synagogue Art”
Ilia Rodov, Dept. of Jewish Art, Bar Ilan University – Israel

14.35 – 14.55
“Tradition and Innovation in the Romanian Synagogues – Structure and Decoration”
Ariella Amar, Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University of Jerusalem – Israel

14.55 – 15.15
“The Great Synagogue of Budapest”
Rudolf Klein, St. Stephen University, Budapest – Hungary

15.15 – 15.35
“The Mural Painting of Romanian Synagogues – a surprising documentary source”
Mariuca Stanciu, Goldstein Goren Center, University of Bucharest – Romania

15.35 – 15.55
“Sinagogile din Bucuresti – perspective arhitecturala”
Alina Popescu, Goldstein Goren Center, University of Bucharest – Romania

15.55 – 16.15
Discussions

Friday, May 29, 2009
Morning session, Council Hall
The Jewish Cultural Heritage – A Multifaceted Approach
Chair: Liviu Rotman, SNSPA; Centrul pentru Studierea Istoriei Evreilor din Romania, FCER – Romania

9.30 – 9.50
“The transformed Jewish Heritage of Târgu Neamţ – Romania”
Felicia Waldman, Goldstein Goren Center, University of Bucharest – Romania

9.50 – 10.10
“Patrimoniul iudaic din Romania – reabilitare, restaurare si optiuni de conservare”
Rudy Marcovici & Lucia Apostol, Federatia Comunitatilor Evreiesti din Romania

10.10 – 10.30
“Reportajul interbelic prin textele lui F. Brunea Fox, ilustrate de Iosif Berman ”
Anca Ciuciu, Centrul pentru Studierea Istoriei Evreilor din Romania, FCER – Romania

10.30 – 10.50
“Evolutia artei funerare evreiesti din Cimitirul Filantropia – Bucuresti in secolele XIX-XX”
Gabriela Vasiliu, Centrul pentru Studierea Istoriei Evreilor din Romania, FCER – Romania

10.50 – 11.15
Discussions

11.15 – 11.30 Coffee break

Midday Session, Council Hall
Jewish heritage lost and found
Chair: Raphael Vago, Tel Aviv University – Israel

11.30 – 11.50
“Spatiul corpului si irealitatea targului”
Voichita Horea, University of Bucharest – Romania

11.50 – 12.10
“The preserved Jewish Heritage of Bursa – Turkey”
Bulent Senay, Uludag University, Bursa – Turkey

12.10 – 12.30
“The entirely lost Jewish heritage of Ştefăneşti – Romania”
Laurenţiu Ursu, Al. I. Cuza University, Iaşi – Romania

12.30 – 12.45
Discussions

12.45 – 14.45 Lunch break

Afternoon session, Council Hall
Jewish heritage lost and found (continued)
Chair: Carol Iancu, Paul Valery University Montpellier III – France

14.45– 15.05
“The lost and found Jewish heritage of Montpellier – France”
Michael Iancu, Moses Maimonides Institute, Montpellier – France

15.05-15.25
“Patrimoniul evreiesc din sudul Franţei – exemplul sinagogilor din Carpentras si Cavaillon”
Carol Iancu, Paul Valery University Montpellier III – France

15.25 – 15.45
“Intre exclusivism şi inclusivism: CazulRonetti Roman”
Michael Shafir, Babes Bolyai University, Cluj – Romania

15.45 – 16.05
“Romancero sau Istoria unei comori de suflet”
Cristina Toma, Societatea Română de Radiodifuziune – Romania

16.05 – 16.25
“Leaving the Jewish heritage behind: Wartime Jewish emigration from Romania”
Mihai Chioveanu, Goldstein Goren Center, University of Bucharest – Romania

16.25 – 16.45
Discussions

Europe -- Jewish culture festivals

Cantorial concert Jewish Culture Festival Krakow, 2008. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

A number of Jewish culture festivals of all sorts take place around Europe in the spring and summer. Some are dedicated just to music. Others are much broader. As far as I know, there is no central web site where you can find information on all of them. I will begin to post information here on dates and venues. I ask my readers to please send me information to include!

The culture festivals and other smaller events make good destinations around which to center a trip. Some, like the annual Festival of Jewish Culture in Krakow, are huge events lasting a week or more, which draw thousands of people and offer scores or sometimes hundreds of performances, lectures, concerts, exhibits and the like. Other festivals are much less ambitious. Some are primarily workshops but also feature concerts. Many of the same artists perform at more than one festival.

Dance workshop, Krakow, 2008. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

A highlight this summer will be three concerts by the 14-person ensemble of The Other Europeans project on Jewish and Roma culture, music and identity. This is an EU-co-financed project of the Yiddish Summer Weimar, The Festival of Jewish Culture in Krakow and the KlezMORE Festival Vienna.

Here is a partial list, with links to web sites -- I will add to it (here or on separate posts) as information comes in:

All Over Europe -- 10th annual European Day of Jewish Culture. Sept. 6. Events take place in nearly 30 countries. The theme this year is Jewish Festivals and Traditions.


Austria

Vienna -- KlezMORE Festival -- The festival itself is Nov. 7-22. But on June 28 it will present The Other Europeans concert. For detrails contact weimar@the-other-europeans.eu or Ruth Schwarz, tel. +43(0)699 - 1270 8645; e-mail: ruth(at)klezmore-vienna.at


Canada

Montreal -- International Yiddish Theatre Festival -- June 17-25. Not in Europe,
but with a lot of European Jewish/Yiddish Theatres participating.

Laurentian Mountains, Quebec -- KlezKanada Summer Institute, Aug. 24-30

Czech Republic

Boskovice -- Boskovice Festival 2009. July 16-19. Many types of music, performance and exhibitions, etc, aimed at supporting the restoration and promotion of the historic Jewish quarter


France

Paris -- Klezmer Paris -- July 6-10. Mainly workshops in dance, singing, playing.

Germany

Weimar -- Yiddish Summer Weimar. Workshops and concerts the whole month of July. The Other Europeans concert will be July 5.

Great Britain

London -- Nine Gates International Festival of Czech-German-Jewish Culture. May 30-June 1.

London -- Klezfest. August 9-14. There is also a Yiddish crash course August 2-7.

Hungary

Bank Lake -- "Jewstock", August 6-8 (Now called Bankito, with new web site.)

Budapest -- Jewish Summer Festival, Aug. 30-Sept. 7

Lithuania

Vilnius -- Klezmer Festival. Aug. 25-29 (This will take place within the framework of the Third Litvak Congress, a meeting of Jews with origins in Lithuania, Aug. 23-31)

Poland

Wroclaw -- Simcha - 11th Jewish Culture Festival in Wrocław. May 31-June 5

Gdansk -- 10th Baltic Days of Jewish Culture. June 14-15

Lodz -- Jewish Culture Days, Lodz. June 14-30.

Bialystok -- 2nd Zachor Festival of Jewish Culture. June 15-16

Chmielnik -- VII Meeting with Jewish Culture, June 19-21

Krakow -- Festival of Jewish Culture, June 27-July 5. The Other Europeans concert will be July 3.

Warsaw -- Singer's Warsaw Festival of Jewish Culture, Aug. 29-Sept. 6. A big festival, increasingly similar in scope to that in Krakow.

Lodz -- Festival of the Dialogue of Four Cultures. Usually in September

Romania

Oradea, Cluj, Sighet -- Mamaliga and Gefilte Fish. Klezmer workshops and dance house. June 16-24. Oradea June 16, Sighet June 21, Cluj june 24. For Information contact klezromania@gmail.com

Romania -- More on Botosani Cemetery desecration

Lucia Apostol in Bucharest has sent me further information about the vandal attack last month on the Jewish cemetery in Botosani, in northern Romania.

The desecration was reported in local and national media. In all, 24 tombstone stones were destroyed, 21 of them very badly and two of them so badly smashed that it is impossible to tell whose graves they marked. Total damage is estimated at $10,000.

Police suspect four teenagers of the attack -- two of them 14 years old and two of them 16.

Romania -- Jewish cemetery in Botosani Vandalized

I've just caught up with the news that the Jewish cemetery in Botosani, Romania was vandalized last month, and 24 tombstones were destroyed. The Bucharest Herald ran a graphic picture:

Photo: Bucharest Herald

From the picture, it seems as if the graves that were desecrated were in the most recent part of the cemetery.

According to the Romanian media, local police said that their initial investigation indicated that the desecration had been carried out by a group of seven youths.

“There are no signs that show it was a proof of anti-Semitism as there were no other signs or inscriptions. I think there were a few young persons under the influence of alcohol. It is a pity that the value and beauty of these old monuments were destroyed,” the local Jewish community president David Iosif told the media immediately after the attack.

The Romanian Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, meanwhile, issued a communique criticizing Romanian authorities for excluding any anti-Semite motivation when such incidents take place.

"As much as we would like to believe the official position, we can not ignore – taking into account all previous incidents - the fact that the Jewish centers are preferred targets of the 'vandals'."

I visited the Botosani cemetery in 2006. There are several sections -- the more modern section is still in use by the tiny Jewish community. The older part of this features gravestones with metal canopies.

Behind the modern section is an older, rather overgrown, section where tombstones feature extraordinarily vivid carvings of lions and other animals, many of them clearly by the same artist/stone mason.

Botosani Jewish cemetery. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Next to this cemetery there is an even older cemetery, also with elaborately carved stones, but when I visited it was almost impossible to enter because of the vegetation.

Botosani has one of Romania's most important synagogues -- very plain on the outside but with gorgeous interior wall and ceiling paintings dating from the early 19th century and an extremely elaborate carved and painted Ark that arches into the sanctuary.

(Candle)sticks on Stone -- Introducing My New Web Site

As I reported earlier, I have been awarded the first Michael Hammer Tribute Research Grant by the Hadassah Brandeis Institute for a project called “(Candle)sticks on Stone: Representing the Woman in Jewish Tombstone Art”.

Each year the HBI awards 20 to 30 grants to support academic and artistic projects about Jews and gender. My project was selected by the HBI board as "an exceptional research award" to be dedicated to the memory of Michael Hammer, the husband of one of the board members, who died last year.

My project centers around the richly decorated tombstones of women in the Jewish cemetery in Radauti, Romania, where my own great-grandmother, Ettel Gruber, is buried. Many of these stones bear sometimes very elaborate depictions of candlesticks, and of women's hands blessing the flames.

As part of the project, I have set up a combined web site/blog on which I will post photo galleries and text related to my subject and also post blog entries chronicling my reflections and insights as I progress. There is also room for comment from visitors.

Please visit the site at candlesticksonstone.wordpress.com.

The site is in a continuing state of evolution and development -- so I hope you'll keep coming back!

My latest Moked comment (in Italian) -- Passover in Radauti

My latest photo and comment on the Italian web site moked.it harks back to the Passover seder I spent in 1991 in Radauti, Romania, the town from which my grandparents emigrated to the USA.

Passover 1991, Radauti. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Il Seder di Pesach. Una cerimonia antica. Una cerimonia vissuta in famiglia o fra amici, raffigurata qui in una immagine che è abbastanza vecchia, ma, nel mio cuore e nella mia memoria, rimane senza tempo. E' Pesach del 1991, a Radauti, una cittadina nel nord della Romania da dove, un secolo fa, i miei nonni erano emigrati in America. Siamo una ventina di persone, quasi tutti anziani, seduti in una stanza della sinagoga. Fa freddo. Portiamo maglie e capotti. C'è un solo ragazzo, il figlio del presidente della piccolissima comunità, che ha cantato le quattro domande del Ma Nishtanà. Il Seder è finito. Abbiamo mangiato il kugel di matzot, uova sode, manzo stufato con patate. Abbiamo bevuto un vino dolce che viene da Israele. Le fiamme delle candele si spengono. L'uomo che ha condotto il Seder è stanco. Canta con una voce molto debole. E lui è unico fra i presenti che ricorda ancora della mia famiglia. Dopo la cena, cantiamo il tradizionale, Had Gadya. Conosco una melodia. Un amico venuto con me da Bucarest ne propone un'altra. E il vecchio intona, con un filo di voce, un' altra melodia, una melodia molto particolare, che non ho mai sentito. Canta, forse, nel modo in cui cantavano, anni e anni fa, i miei antenati.

Translation:
The Passover Seder. An ancient ceremony. A ceremony observed with family or friends, shown here in an image that is rather old, but, in my heart and memory, remains timeless. It is Pesach 1991, in Radauti, a small town in the north of Romania, from which, a century ago, my grandparents emigrated to America. We are about 20 people, almost all elderly, seated in a room of the synagogue. It is cold. We wear sweaters and coats. There is only one boy, the son of the president of the tiny Jewish community, who chanted the Four Questions. The Seder is over. We ate matzo kugel, hard-boiled eggs, stewed beef with potatoes. We drank sweet wine imported from Israel. The flames of the candles are sputtering out. The man who conducted the Seder is tired. He said with a very weak voice. And he is the only person here who still remembers my family. After the meal, we sing the traditional song, Had Gadya. I know one melody. A friend who came with me from Bucharest knows another. And the old man sings, with a quavering voice another melody, a very particular melody, one that I had never heard before. He sings, perhaps, the way that, years and years ago, my own ancestors sang.

Romania -- Agreement to Restore Zion Synagogue

Zion Synagogue, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Livia Chereches, whom I met at the recent seminar on managing historic Jewish property in Bratislava, has written with exciting news. The landmark Zion synagogue in Oradea, Romania, is going to (finally) undergo restoration.

A grandiose Neolog temple with a soaring dome, the synagogue is a city landmark that towers over the Cris river. Built in 1878, it was designed by David Busch, the town's chief municipal architect. Its interior features columns, arches, and vaulting decorated by geometric designs (painted by Mor Horovitz from Kosice). The Ark is framed by an elaborate arch and surmounted by a pipe organ.

Interior of Zion Synagogue, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Livia writes that under an agreement signed by the President of the Jewish Community Oradea, Felix Koppelmann, and the mayor of Oradea, the town will assume control of the synagogue and use it for exhibitions and other cultural purposes, but on occasion it will also be used by the Jewish community for religious purposes.

This year the municipality will renovate the exterior of the building, and meanwhile European Union funding will be sought for the interior. What's more, a planned high-rise parking lot, that developers wanted to build in front of the synagogue, will now be built underground so that the striking view of the synagogue will be left free.

"This seems to be a happy end to a long story with unsuccessful attempts to save the Jewel of the town of Oradea," writes Livia.

Oradea, which has a Jewish community today numbering about 500 members, has about four other synagogues. Two are in the Jewish community compound (one in use and one closed for hoped-for renovation) and two have been converted for other use.

Emotions on Visiting a Jewish Cemetery in (East-Central) Europe

Nazna, Romania, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Visiting a Jewish cemetery in Europe, and particularly in East-Central Europe, can be an emotional experience.

This holds true whether you go there as a volunteer helping clean up an abandoned cemetery overgrown by weeds and trees, or as someone on a roots trip looking for a long-lost, or long-forgotten, family grave, or as a "straight" tourist interested in history or the powerful imagery of tombstone art.

In the introductory chapter of Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe I addressed these emotions, describing how I myself felt when I began exploring these sites.

I became absolutely mesmerized, even a little obsessed with what I was seeing. I wanted to visit, touch, see, feel as many places as I could. I almost felt it a duty. As I entered broken gates or climbed over broken walls into cemeteries where a Jew may not have set foot in years, I wanted to spread my arms and embrace them all, embrace all the tombstones, all the people buried there, all the memories.

In the first editions of the book, I added a further sentence, describing how I projected my thoughts toward these all so often forgotten places: I'm here, I told them mentally; SOMEONE is here.

Back then, my trips were voyages of discovery. Everything was new; there was little literature on the subject, few visitors had made their way to such sites, and there were few efforts to preserve, maintain or restore them. But even today, after scholars and genealogists and tour guides have studied and mapped and documented almost everything -- I still feel the pull.

An eloquent expression of the power of this pull -- one that in many ways mirrors my own feelings -- was recently published in the Jerusalem Post. It's an article called "The Other Side," by Jonathan Gillis, who had taken part in a project to restore the Jewish cemetery in Czestochowa, Poland. The article is a tribute to the late Aryeh Geiger, the founder and head of the Reut School in Jerusalem, who also instituted the school's project to restore Jewish cemeteries in Poland. I did not know Geiger, who died at the end of 2008.

Gillis describes working to find stones hidden by ivy and undergrowth and heaving to right them and turn them over. And he describes reading a letter, originally composed by Geiger, that imagines how the individual people whose lives are marked by the individual stones might address the strangers who had suddenly come into their midst to seek them out, restore them to light and, thus, restore them also to memory:

I chose a tombstone quite near to the main path running through the cemetery. It was one I'd uncovered myself that morning, as I'd searched about under the ivy with my metal bar: the tombstone of an avrech - a young unmarried man stricken down in the prime of his youth. His name, which looked like Ya'acov, had been partly chipped off the stone, though the name of his father, Naftali, was clearly there, and also the date he had died.

I sat down on the ground next to the grave and lit the candle, and then opened the folded-up paper and, by the candlelight in the gathering gloom, read the letter Aryeh had once written in his own hand: "Dear Friend," it read, "First of all I wanted to say thank you to you for coming to visit me from the Holy Land. When you all entered my little fortress by the gateway, I was sure I was hallucinating and that my mind was deceiving me. Of course I don't have eyes or a body, and quite possibly my bones have long since disintegrated... however my spirit and soul are very much here and alive in this cemetery.

"I don't know why you came to me now. I know that you have cleaned me and restored me and my friends, and we all feel as if our spirits have been splendidly brought back to life by this.

"You know I too was alive once, breathed the air, loved, hiked, prayed; I was also once a very proud Jew. Then, after I left the world, it made me sad when the undergrowth came and hid me. I felt neglected and abandoned. And then, suddenly, you appeared, reconnected with my soul and 'revived' me.

"If you don't mind, I would like to ask you a few questions - from 'the other side' as it were... from behind the screen - the world that you call 'the world of truth' (though my soul is actually present right here this evening) - just a few questions from me to you: Who are you really?

"What brought you to me and what was it really that made you decide to visit me and revive me? How beautiful is the Land of Israel - is it important to you that you are an Israeli?

"Do you gain satisfaction from being Jewish?

"For as long as you're on 'the other side,' what is it you want to do with your life?

"Will you remember me when you leave here?

"What is it in your view that gives life value?

"I do hope you'll think about these questions because I would like you to continue talking with me. Even if you leave me here, I'd still like to stay in touch. I'd like you to remember me always, and always feel free to talk with me (a dialogue of souls).

"On behalf of myself and all my friends, I am very grateful. Now my soul really does dwell in the realm of life.

"With love, and thanks, your tombstone."

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Back in 1991, while researching the first edition of Jewish Heritage Travel, I had an almost mystical experience in the old Jewish cemetery in Nazna, near Targu Mures, Romania. Here, in a sort of clearing in the center, I found one stone shaped almost like a human being; its back even curved like the back of a living person. I somehow felt a living presence. Not that the stone was "alive", but that it embodied a strong, surviving spirit. A man, a mentsch. I was very reluctant to leave. The man buried here was named Moses, son of Israel. His epitaph tells us that he was a man of integrity; the carved decoration represents a crown, and an upside-down heart pierced by an arrow.

I keep a picture of me and the stone tacked to the bulletin board above my desk -- the stone stood upright, almost as tall as I am. It was early early spring; barren and still chill.

When I visited Nazna again, 15 years later, I was as excited to revisit that stone as I would have been to revisit a friend I hadn't seen in that long a time...This time it was summer, and the fruit trees planted since I had last been there made a rich, green, leafy bower. The stone seemed to be more tilted over, as if by added age. Its carved decoration, too, was more blurred. Still, the connection was there. I felt the same spirit, only a little older perhaps, like me. It was still a man, a mentsch. And it was great to see him.

Nazna, Romania, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Romania/CZ -- Czech 9 Gates Festival in Bucharest

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

This year, the annual (and of late traveling)   9 Gates Festival of Czech Jewish Culture is being hosted in Bucharest, Romania.

The schedule includes:

EXHIBITIONS

Neighbors who Disappeared
The project Neighbors Who Disappeared provides young people (12-21 years old) with an opportunity to search for neighbors who "disappeared" from their neighborhood - particularly during the Second World War. Students and children in the same schools children go to today, and what were the reasons for their sudden departure.

Tribute to the Child Holocaust Victims
The second stage of the project called A Tribute to the Child Holocaust Victims addresses again young people aged 12-21 and proposes tht they work independently on the stories of people who lived with their neighbours in a harmony until WWII and who were then mostly marked, restricte, persecuted, and finally liquidated. This projct’s topic, however is in the first place the life of the children and youngsters in the same community where children-participants live today.

FILM
Short Long Journey, Czech Republic, 2009, 82 min.
Director: Martin Hanzlicek
Producers: Fedor Gal, Jarmila Polakova
„About people, not only about Jews, about the evil in us, not only about the holocaust, about the present not only about the past“
In April 1945 Vojtech Gal was murdered on the way from Sachsenhausen to Schwerin. In April 2008 his son walked the same route in an attempt to find his father’s grave and leave a testimony. He was accompanied by friends, film makers and fellow pilgrims. They did not understand everything they came across. They could not comprehend some of the people with whom they talked. But it never occurred to them even for a moment that they were travelling without aim and meaning. They give harsh personal witness of their journey, anticipating neither agreement nor tolerance.

Diamonds of the Night, Cehoslovacia, 1964, 64 min.
Director: Jan Nemec
Screenplay: Arnost Lustig
Diamonds of the Night is set in Czechoslovakia during World War II. Two Jewish youths escape from a concentration camp-bound train. Captured by local peasants on a charge of stealing bread, the boys are sentenced to a firing squad. The men prepare to execute the boys, but simply laugh as they walk away instead of executing them. The ending is ambiguous: The men either actually spared the boys, or they could be walking into the afterlife.

MUSIC
Concert Naches
The Klezmer band NACHES interprets the traditional and the not so traditional folk music of the East European Jews. The band has taken part of many important Klezmer festivals, for example Klez- Fest in the UK.

For a full schedule click HERE

Romania -- Historic synagogue in Iasi under restoration

 Photo (c) Simon Geissbuehler

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The historic 17th century Great Synagogue in Iasi, in northern Romania, is under restoration. The Swiss historian and diplomat simon Geissbuehler (who has written widely on Jewish heritage in Romania) visited the site last week and provided the picture above. He said the synagogue is empty, and that some work has been completed on the foundations, but that workers on the site did not have a time frame for the work's completion.

The synagogue was built in 1671 and is the oldest surviving synagogue building in Romania. (Before World War II, there were more than 110 synagogus in Iasi alone.) The synagogue has simple lines and tall dome and is set in a small garden, almost totally surrounded by new buildings. Inside, a huge, elaborate Ark, surrounded by frescoes, fills one end of the hall. The former women's gallery for years housed a small exhibit on local Jewish history, organized in the 1980s.

Romania -- Jewish culture festival next week in Timisoara

Just found out about this Jewish Culture Festival, which takes place in Timisoara, Romania next week -- May 24-27.

It is co-sponsored by the local Jewish community as well as the French Cultural Institute and features the internationally known actress Maia Morgenstern (who played Mary in the controversial Mel Gibson movie "The Passion of the Christ.")

Timisoara is a beautiful city, and its Jewish community is one of the largest of Romania's communities outside Bucharest.

Permanent Jewish settlement dates from the mid-16th century, and the oldest tombstone in the  Jewish cemetery is that of a rabbi and surgeon named Azriel Asael, who died in 1636The city's three remaining synagogues include the imposing, Moorish style Citadel Synagogue, designed by the Viennese architect Carol Schuman. It was built in 1864 -- the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph attended a formal dedication ceremony in 1867 and has a monumental façade, with small side steeples and a rose window over the horseshoe-arched entry. The prolific Budapest synagogue architect Lipot Baumhorn designed the so-called Fabrik Synagogue, which was built for the Neolog community in 1899 on Coloniei street. The building was one of Baumhorn's most ornate synagogues, with fanciful domes and carving and a gorgeous interior featuring huge pipe organ beneath scalloped double arches surmounting the lavishly decorated Ark and bimah.When I last saw it, some years ago, it was abandoned and in sorry dilapidated state....

Romania -- Conference in Bucharest

This year's annual Internation Jewish Studies conference at the Goldstein Goren Center at the University of Bucharest will take place May 27-28 and focus on Jews and the City -- on  "how the Jewish minority shaped and was shaped by the urban space along history. The diverse Jewish lifestyles, relations and spirituality patterns, which created a characteristic space within the rich context of urbanism, and their economic expression, artistic values and social ties."

I haven't see the list of speakers yet.

Romania --Piatra Neamt Wooden Synagogue to be Rededicated

Interior of Piatra Neamt wooden synagogue, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Interior of Piatra Neamt wooden synagogue, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Ark in Piatra Neamt wooden synagogue, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The "Baal Shem Tov" or Cathedral wooden synagogue in Piatra Neamt, Romania, will be rededicated Dec. 14 after restoration.


Legend has it that the Ba'al Shem Tov, the founder of Hassidism, prayed here -- that is, on an earlier, masonry synagogue that  stood on the spot, as the wooden synagogue was built, according to documentation, in 1766, and the Ba'al Shem Tov died in 1760.

I've visited on several occasions, the last time in 2006.  This is what I wrote in Jewish Heritage Travel:

The present building is halfway underground, probably built like this to conform to regulations that forbade synagogues from being higher than surrounding Christian buildings. The sanctuary is entered down stairs leading from a little outer prayer room, where regular services are held. Chandeliers hang from the ribbed wooden dome arching over the dull, browny-green walls decorated by pale stenciled flowers. Carved and gilded lions, griffins, bunches of grapes and other decorations ornament the compact but elaborate Aron ha Kodesh, built in 1835 by one Saraga Yitzhak ben Moshe.

Sam Gruber has posted further information and comment on his blog.

The wooden synagogue stands next door to the masonry Great (or Leipziger) synagogue, which was originally built in 1839. It is very similar to other folk-style Moldavian synagogues, with  a small, raised bimah with a trellised frame situated in the middle of the sanctuary in front of a highly elaborate Aron ha Kodesh with tromp l'oeil draperies. The walls are decorated with bright frescoes representing Holy Land themes, and frescoes of biblical animals -- the stag, the lion, the tiger and the eagle -- are painted on the ceiling.

Ark in Great synagogue in Piatra Neamt, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Romania -- My Travel Piece in NYTimes online explore painted monasteries and Jewish cemeteries

The International Herald Tribune and NYTimes online runs my travel piece on the Bucovina region of northern Romania -- in which I write about both the painted monasteries and the Jewish cemeteries. The headline writer and photo caption writer unaccounably attributed everything to Gura Humorului, but that is just one of the places I mention in the story -- chosen as the dateline as it is the hub for two monasteries (Voronet and Humor) as well as the historic Jewish cemetery -- I posted a video of the cemetery in September.

November 7, 2009
Where Art and Faith Embrace in Gura Humorului, Romania
 
By RUTH ELLEN GRUBER

GURA HUMORULUI, ROMANIA — The Bucovina region in the far north of the country, wrote the Romanian scholar Silviu Sanie, is “one of those blessed realms where sacred and secular monuments have enriched the enchanting natural landscape. [...]”

Here are Romania’s famous painted monasteries, built in the 15th and 16th centuries when the region, a stronghold of Orthodox Christianity, was threatened by Ottoman invaders.
The vividly colored frescoes on their exterior walls, masterpieces of Byzantine painting, tell the tales of saints and heroes, and portray in epic imagery the cataclysmic struggle between good and evil at the end of days. [...]



Here, too, however, are religious sites far less known and rarely visited that also form important components of the region’s deeply rooted spiritual patrimony. These are the centuries-old Jewish cemeteries, whose weathered tombstones bear extraordinary carvings that meld folk motifs and religious iconography into evocative examples of faith expressed through art.

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Romania -- More on Gura Humorului

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

A few weeks ago, I posted a video that I took of the wonderful and well maintained Jewish cemetery in Gura Humorului, Romania. I was there to document that tombstones of women for my project (Candle)sticks on Stone: Representing the Woman in Jewish Tombstone Art.

I forgot to include the link to the excellent and informative web site about Gura Humorului, which include a map and index of the cemetery. You can find that web site by clicking RIGHT HERE.

In 1857 Gura Humorului had a Jewish population of 190 souls. In that year also the Jewish cemetery was established. That cemetery was active until 1920. In 1920 the "New" cemetery was established right near the "Old" one, and it is still open today. This cemetery (the old and the new) has about 2060 graves. Stones beautifully cared for, many in German. The new part was renovated recently by The Association of Gura - Humora Jewish Community Descendants.

Romania -- New Holocaust Monument in Bucharest

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

A new National Holocaust memorial, commemorating Jews and Roma killed in the Shoah, will be dedicated in Bucharest on Thursday. President Traian Basescu laid the cornerstone for the memorial in 2006 and is expected to attend the dedication. The Romania Ministry of Culture, Religious Affairs and National Heritage described the monument, designed by Peter Jacobi, as "a contemporary expression of a memorial, the bearer of a message, a visible sign, an active space with which the public can interact freely." It includes five sculptures symbolizing Jewish and Roma suffering, a central memorial site and two installations using tombstones.

Construction of the monument was mandated by an international commission on the Holocaust in Romania, headed by Elie Wiesel, which released a 400-page report in 2004. As many as 380,000 Jews, and thousands of Roma, were killed in the Holocaust in Romanian-occupied territories.

Until now, the only Holocaust memorial in Bucharest was one erected by the Jewish community in 1991 in front of the main Choral Synagogue.

Holocaust memorial in front of the Choral Synagogue, Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Sam Gruber has posted a detailed article on Holocaust memorials in Romania on his blog.