Synagogue Gives Shelter in South Ossetia

This AP story evokes echoes of the so-called Fortress Synagogues in Eastern Europe, which served as defenses for the local Jewish communities and also the towns in which they stood. Striking examples of such synagogues, mainly in ruins, can be seen now in Poland (Szydlow, Zamosc) and Ukraine (Brody, Sokal, Sataniv, Shargorod, etc).


Abandoned synagogue gives shelter in Ossetian war

By YURAS KARMANAU

TSKHINVALI, Georgia (AP) — When Georgian rockets began falling on this sleepy capital of the breakaway province of South Ossetia, Zemfira Tibilova and her neighbors ran to a century-old brick synagogue.
During four days of fighting in the town, she said, four dozen Orthodox Christians hid in the building's dark basement with little food and water.
"These holy walls protected us," said Tibilova, 60. "God is still present here."
When the Georgian army launched an offensive late on Aug. 7 seeking to regain control of the region, about 50 people on Tskhinvali's Shaumian Street — mostly women and children and several elderly men — grabbed all the bread and water they could carry and took refuge in the synagogue.

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(Ruined fortress synagogue in Sokal, Ukraine, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber)

Article on Synagogue in Ludza (Lutsin) Latvia

For those who read Italian, the journalist Paolo Rumiz has a colorful piece in La Repubblica about the synagogue in Ludza, latvia, once known in Yiddish as Lutsin. Paolo specializes in lengthy travel stories that weave in history, politics and culture.

La sinagoga dei destini alternati

di PAOLO RUMIZ

Questa è la storia di una sinagoga che un giorno fu trasformata in stalla da uomini bestiali in divisa. Le bestie dichiararono "alieni" la gente che la popolava, la uccisero e la seppellirono nei boschi. Ma un giorno la stalla tornò a ospitare uomini pii e divenne luogo di festa, musica e allegria.

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Sergei Kravtsov wrote about the synagogue in his survey of synagogues in Latvia, carried out for the Center for Jewish Art.

Heritage Travel by Cleaning Cemetery

One way of gaining deeper knowledge through travel is to go somewhere to do something.... like clean up a Jewish cemetery in Belarus....Siena College is an independent Catholic Liberal Arts college near Albany in upstate New York.


Students return to Jewish cemetery in Belarus


First published: Sunday, August 10, 2008
COLONIE -- A group of Siena College students made their second summer trip to restore a Jewish cemetery destroyed by the Nazis during World War II and neglected by generations of villagers in Rubezhevichi, Belarus.

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A Book Replies to "Virtually Jewish"

I've discovered, thanks to a review in the online "H-Net" Humanities and Social Sciences Online, that a book was published in Austria in 2005 that in a sense can be, as reviewer Deborah Holmes put it "understood as a reply" to my own book "Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe" (University of California Press, 2002).

The new book is called "Der 'virtuelle Jude': Konstruktionen des Jüdischen" (Schriften des Centrums für Jüdische Studien. Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2005), and is a collection of essays edited by Klaus Hödl.

It is bizarre to me that a whole book could be dedicated to responding to my own work, but I was never contacted and knew nothing about it! From what Holmes writes, I'm not sure that what I was saying in my own book was actually interpreted the way I meant it to be -- and in some cases I apparently was misinterpreted.

Holmes writes:

"The most detailed criticism of Gruber's concept of "virtual Jewishness" comes in Hödl's own essay "Der 'virtuelle Jude'--ein essentialistisches Konzept?" Although Gruber is concerned with the commercialization of Jewishness and Shoah tourism in particular historical constellations, and not at all with theoretical identity discourse, Hödl is naturally justified in questioning her terms. On the other hand, he does seem to misread her at times. She does not set out to prove or discuss the existence of an "authentic" Jewish identity, and often sets this and other potentially problematic notions ("real Jews," "goyish") in quotations, indicating that she is well aware of the minefield she is crossing. It would of course be difficult to discuss the phenomena she sets out to investigate without using some abbreviations, and she defines her idea of "virtually Jewish" at great and satisfying length. Whether or not one concurs with her on the importance of "living" memory to cultural identity is another matter. Hödl is so intent on deconstructing her suggestion that there can be such a thing as an organic cultural legacy that he somewhat loses sight, in his own contribution at least, of the very valid question of what difference it makes that there are now so few Jews (or even "Jews") living in Europe as compared to previous centuries: "Die Annahme, dass vor der Shoah aufgrund des Vorhandenseins eines 'lebendigen jüdischen Milieus' statt Virtualität Authentizität bestimmend gewesen sowie der Geschichtsbezug weniger durch Bedürfnisse motiviert, sondern durch Rückgriffe auf Erinnerung hergestellt worden sei, ist ... zu hinterfragen. Konstruktionen sind immer schon mit historischen Deutungen einhergegangen, sie stellen kein Phänomen allein der Gegenwart dar" (p. 60)."

Anyway, it's interesting to see that my book has "legs," as it were, and that the concepts that I developed have led and are leading to further thought.

Actually, I've just checked back in my email, and this volume seems to collect papers given at a conference in Graz, Austria in 2003 on "Der Virtuelle Jude". I remember seeing a reference to this conference back then -- and I remember trying to get in touch with the organizers, as it seemed clear that already this was a response of some sort to my book. But I never received a reply to my emails....

European Day of Jewish Culture schedules up

The 9th annual European Day of Jewish Culture will take place Sept. 7, with music this year's theme. Schedules for events in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom can now be accessed at the Day's web site.

This represents fewer than half of the 30 countries that are supposed to be taking part, and I hope that the schedules for the remaining countries get posted soon.....

European Day of Jewish Culture meeting set

According to the web site of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Heritage, a meeting of national coordinators of the European Day of Jewish Culture will be held in November, probably in Spain. (Heritage Day is on the first Sunday of September, this year Sept. 7.)

The meeting, the web site states, "not only will allow the different coordinators to get to know each other personally, but it will also offer a forum for the exchange of experiences, projects and ideas, thus contributing to enhance and strengthen the collaboration between countries."

All of this is much needed. Due to funding and sponsorship issues as well as local interest and possibilities, there is little consistency in the organization of the European Day of Jewish Culture. Some countries, such as Italy, have public sponsorship and a skilled organizational team that enables about 50 cities and towns to program events. Other countries manage only token participation.

Update on Romanian Jewish Heritage Sites

Here's a cross post from Sam Gruber's Jewish Monuments blog, providing information on the survey of Romanian Jewish heritage sites he recently presented to the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad.

Sam welcomes input and information on Romanian sites, which can be incorporated into the survey as the editing and review process proceeds.

100th Anniversary of Czernowitz Yiddish Conference

(Former synagogue in Cernivtsi, now used as a cinema. Photo: Ruth Ellen Gruber 2006)

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the landmark First Yiddish Language Conference in Czernowitz (now Cernivtsi, Ukraine), held Aug. 30-Sept. 3, 1908, at which it was recognized that Yiddish was a Jewish language.

The conference focused on the role of Yiddish in Jewish life. The meeting drew 70 delegates representing many political and religious factions. They included the authors I.L. Peretz and Sholem Asch, along with other prominent scholars, writers and activists. The most heated debates centered on whether Hebrew, which was then being revived and modernized after centuries of disuse, or Yiddish, which was spoken by millions of Jews, could, or should, be considered the Jewish national language. In the end, delegates adopted a resolution declaring Yiddish "a" national language of the Jewish people -- along with Hebrew.


(My 2006 of the Yiddish Culture building in Cernivtsi)

Various initiatives and celebrations have been taking place to mark the occasion.

One of the major events is an conference in Cernivtsi next week. The conference is mainly academic, but it will also feature guided tours of Cernivtsi and unspecified Jewish heritage sites in Bucovina and Galicia. (See photos of some such sites on my web site.)

Some of my pictures from 2006 of the Jewish cemetery in Cernivtsi:

Synagogue Exhibit in Romania

On the weekend of Aug. 22-23, the "Proetnica" interethnic festival in Sighisoara, Romania will feature a exhibit of photographs of synagogues in southern Transylvania, taken by Christian Binder.

Venue for the exhibit is the lovely synagogue in Sighisoara, at Str. Tache Ionescu 13.

According to the press release, the exhibit "attempts to capture the interesting transitional stage in which Romania now finds itself – with the entrance of outside, foreign investors and NGOs, some synagogues have been or are being restored and turned into cultural centres or finding other alternative uses. Others remain abandoned, often assuming a central location in the town's centre, an evocative, stubborn reminder of recent past – and of today's reluctance to address Romania's troubled relationship with this history. The questions are numerous – what will become of these buildings now that they can be used again? Will their respective towns take responsibility for their upkeep, how can they be integrated into a long-term plan for urban or rural renewal? And how can the countless still decrepit synagogues, many of significant historical and architectural value, be incorporated into a systematic and far-reaching plan for commemorating and celebrating a culture formerly a vibrant part of Romania's multi-cultural existence?"


(Facade of the synagogue in Alba Iulia, Romania. (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber, 2006)



About 10,000 Jews live in Romania, about half in Bucharest, the rest scattered in many small and very small communities. The number is inexact, as community membership may include non-Jewish spouses and family members.

As many as 100 synagogue buildings still stand in Romania, in one form or another. While many are in poor repair, about 50 are used at least occasionally for religious services and a number of them are listed as historic monuments. In addition, there are more than 800 Jewish cemeteries in Romania. (I have posted photo galleries of several Jewish heritage sites in Romania on my web site.)

An Italian Jewish Journalist Discovers L'viv...

For those who read Italian, I'm posting the link to an article (also blog entry) by the Italian journalist Gad Lerner, whose ancestors come from Lwow/Lemberg/L'viv (in Italian, Leopoli). (Lerner was born in Beirut but moved to Milan as a young child). He is on a sort of roots trip. The article also appears in today's issue of La Repubblica newspaper.