"Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere) Book Presentation in Budapest

Here's the announcement/invitation to my book present in Budapest next Monday, March 23:

AUSTERIA

Publishing Company and Bookstore (Cracow - Budapest)

kindly invites you to the presentation of

Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere)

by

Ruth Ellen Gruber

The event will take place on

Monday, March 23, 2009 at 18.00.

in Austeria Bookstore

( Budapest, VII. Nagydiófa 30-32),

and will be hosted by Michael Miller

(Assistant Professor in Nationalism Studies Program at the CEU, Budapest)

The event will be in English

Ruth Ellen Gruber is an American writer and photographer based in Europe. Her books include "National Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe" and "Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture In Europe." Her articles and photographs have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and many other publications. She was the chief correspondent in Poland for UPI during the Solidarność and Martial Law period, until she was jailed and expelled from the country in 1983. Ruth Ellen Gruber contributes regular "Letters from Europe" (and sometimes elsewhere) to the U.S. magazine The New Leader. Mixing travelogue with social and cultural commentary, she delves under the skin of European society to provide a closely observed, uniquely personal take on topics ranging from politics to pop music, from architecture to local cuisine. This volume collects a decade of her colorful, insightful reports - from 1997 to 2007. The datelines range from Warsaw and Sarajevo to Bucharest, London, Budapest, Brno, Nuremberg, Paris, the tiny village of Morruzze, Italy, and more.

Poland -- Wooden Synagogus anniversary

Nextbook.org recently published Sam Gruber's article marking the 50th anniversary of the landmark book Wooden Synagogues by Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka.

Fifty years ago this year, two young Polish architects published a book that would change the face of American synagogue architecture. Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka, both survivors of the Warsaw Uprising and German labor camps, collected and interpreted studies made before the war of the wooden synagogues that once dotted Eastern Europe. Most of the surveys were taken by people who died in the Holocaust, and all of the centuries-old buildings went up in flames. But much of the documentation pertaining to their architecture survived. The Piechotkas used this material, which included photographs, measurements, and descriptions, to recreate the destroyed buildings in their book Wooden Synagogues. Published in Polish in 1957 and released in English in 1959, the book revealed a lost world of interior spaces, shapes, and decorations, tremendously varied, expressive, and exciting—and all made of wood.

From 1959 to 1989, the Piechtokas, living in Warsaw, were severely restricted in what they could publish about Jewish art, despite the material they continued to gather and additional insight they might have offered. Thus, Wooden Synagogues became a sort of message in a bottle, sent out into the world on its own.

Read Full Article and See Pictures

One of my first and most intensive journeys tracing Jewish heritage sites was a trip with the Piechotkas through eastern Poland in May 1990.... Sam and his wife, Judy, and I traveled with Maria and Maciej to -- if I remember correctly -- 19 synagogue buildings in all states of repair and disrepair. (We also visited some sites on our own.) The trip opened my eyes to the extent, beauty and power of what survived of Jewish heritage in eastern Europe, and it formed the basis for much of the Poland chapter in the first edition of Jewish Heritage Travel.

Book -- Catalogue of Synagogues in Lithuania

 Two former synagogues in Kedainiai, Lithuania, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem has announced the publication of the first volume of its ambitious catalogue of Synagogues in Lithuania.

This publication offers a catalogue of the extant synagogues in Lithuania: 96 buildings in 59 cities and towns, among them 17 synagogues built of wood. Until World War II there were about 1,000 Jewish prayer houses in Lithuania, while today only 10% exist, many abandoned and in different state of deterioration. Only three synagogues are active.

The catalogue consists of 59 geographical entries. Each entry includes a short overview of the history of the Jewish community in the town where a synagogue is preserved, comprehensive information about the vanished synagogues in that town and a detailed description of the extant synagogue building or buildings. The entries are richly illustrated with archival historical photographs and architectural designs of the synagogues, and recent documentation of the extant buildings with measured architectural drawings. The catalogue has two introductory articles: “Synagogues in Lithuania: A Historical Overview” by Dr. Vladimir Levin and “Synagogue Architecture in Lithuania” by Dr. Sergey Kravtsov.

The first volume of the catalogue includes the following entries:
Alanta, Alsedžiai, Alytus, Anykščiai, Balbieriškis, Biržai, Čekiške, Daugai, Eišiškes, Jonava, Joniškelis, Joniškis, Kaltinenai, Kalvarija, Kaunas, Kedainiai, Klaipeda, Krekenava, Kupiškis, Kurkliai, Laukuva, Lazdijai, Linkuva, Lygumai, Marijampole, Merkine.

The second volume is due for publication at the end of 2010 and will include the entries:
Pakruojis, Panevėžys, Pasvalys, Plungė, Prienai, Pušalotas, Raguva, Ramygala, Rietavas, Rozalimas, Salantai, Seda, Šeta, Šiauliai, Šilalė, Simnas, Širvintos, Skaudvilė, Švėkšna, Telšiai, Tirkšliai, Troškūnai, Ukmergė, Utena, Vabalninkas, Veisiejai, Vilnius, Vištytis, Žagarė, Zarasai, Žasliai, Žemaičių Naumiestis, Žiežmariai.

Book -- New Book about Bialystok, Poland

 Monument to the destroyed main synagogue in Bialystok. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora, by Rebecca Kobrin, a new book about Bialystok and the Jews who both lived and left there, has been published by the University of Indiana Press. From the description, it sounds as if it shows how memories of "the old country" are connected with the reality of the New World.

The mass migration of East European Jews and their resettlement in cities throughout Europe, the United States, Argentina, the Middle East and Australia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries not only transformed the demographic and cultural centers of world Jewry, it also reshaped Jews' understanding and performance of their diasporic identities. Rebecca Kobrin's study of the dispersal of Jews from one city in Poland -- Bialystok -- demonstrates how the act of migration set in motion a wide range of transformations that led the migrants to imagine themselves as exiles not only from the mythic Land of Israel but most immediately from their east European homeland. Kobrin explores the organizations, institutions, newspapers, and philanthropies that the Bialystokers created around the world and that reshaped their perceptions of exile and diaspora.

Budapest -- New Book on Dohany St. synagogue

 Tourists outside the Dohany St. synagogue during the summer Jewish culture festival, Sept. 2009. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The second major book in less than two years has come out in Hungary on the Dohany St. synagogue -- the biggest synagogue in Europe and a major Budapest landmark, which was inaugurated just 150 years ago.

This book, titled simply "The Dohany Street Synagogue," is by the Hungarian-born American photographer Laszlo Regos, and it was published by the Hungarian publisher Alexandra to coincide with events marking the synagogue's anniversary in September. I have not seen the book yet, but Regos posted a video preview on YouTube.

Regos, who specializes in architectural photography, said that what sets his book apart from that published last year by the Budapest-based architectural historian Rudolf Klein ("The Great Synagogue of Budapest," published by the Budapest house, Terc) is the emotional aspect. Klein, he said, "put his talent as a photographer and his knowledge as an architect to it -- I gave my soul. It took me eight years to do it, and [I] approached it not just as an architectural photographer."

Regos is an accomplished photographer and clearly passionate about his subject,  and the photos on the video and on his web site are luscious. Again, I haven't seen the book yet (and don't know what text there is to go with the pictures) but one thing does bother me (it bothers me a bit in Klein's book, too, but that book is really text-driven) -- in the images I have seen, the synagogue is presented as empty; gorgeous and beautiful and artistically and architecturally powerful, but empty. People (Jews or not) are literally not in the picture(s). Yet this is one of the synagogues in Europe -- in post-Holocaust, post-communist Europe -- which is, in fact, rarely empty. On major Jewish holidays, it is packed by a congregation that spills out on the forecourt, seeing and being seeing. At other times during the year, it is crawling with tourists who often must line up to gain entry. It is, in short, a living space -- and I hope that this comes through in the book.

In 2004, Regos included photographs of the Dohany St. synagogue in an exhibition on synagogue architecture held in New York called "Palaces of Prayer." Sam Gruber mentioned this exhibit in an article on synagogue photography in The Forward. 

On his web site Regos includes the following as Artist's Statement:

      ...When I was a little boy, my parents took me there for the very first time. I didn't like the place at all.
      It was dark, gloomy; the lingering smell of crumbling plaster and mildew was in the air. I didn't understand why everyone's eyes were filled with tears.
      Later when I understood all too well, I went back whenever I could to say Kaddish for my grandparents. They didn't come back from Auschwitz, along with the other 600 thousand Hungarian Jews who perished during the Holocaust. Challenging the watchful eyes of the ever-present Secret Police, I went there with my family and friends to demonstrate that we belonged there rather than Communist Party meetings.
      The location was Budapest, Hungary. The place, the Dohany Street Synagogue.
      In 1979 I left Hungary seeking political, religious and artistic freedom.
     The next time I saw her was a few years ago. I couldn't believe my eyes! She was gorgeous and probably looked better than when she was born in 1859. Her breathtaking beauty made me fall in love.

 I too remember the Dohany Street synagogue where it was in terrible condition, dark and dank and with its ceiling sagging down over the sanctuary, swathed in plastic sheeting and held up by metal bands. But I also remember it -- even then -- as, at least on the High Holidays, being, despite everything, a place of life, where thousands of people congregated. They were there to make a statement of belonging and identity -- I'll never forget walking in to Yom Kippur services in 1983 and being aghast at the noise of what amounted to a giant schmooze fest under that sagging ceiling.