European Day of Jewish Culture -- Italy

European Day of Jewish Culture events took place in more than 55 towns and cities in Italy, and there were hundreds of activities to choose from. The Day was marked Sunday in more than a score of European countries. (Here's a link to events in Bulgaria.)

In Italy, Milan and Mantova hosted the "keynote" events.

I chose to go to Siena, where I attended a concert Saturday night in the lovely Baroque/Rococo synagogue just off the famous Campo. The music was special -- it was the suite of Baroque music (for male singers and chamber orchestra) that was composed by the Jewish musicians Volunio Gallichi and Francesco Drei, for the ceremony inaugurating the synagogue at the end of May 1786. This was the first time that the music was played in the synagogue since then. Very, very interesting; it sounded like Handel, or someone like Handel in his "Water Music" or "Royal Fireworks" mode, sung in Hebrew -- very far from what is considered today "typical" Jewish music like klezmer and mournful prayers. The performers were Siena's Rinaldo Franci orchestra, directed by Michele Manganelli.



My friend Francesco Spagnolo, an Italian musicologist who is now research director at the Magnes Museum in San Francisco, introduced the performance with a talk describing the music and the role it played in the dedication ceremonies, which took place over several days. Using such music, he said, represented an act of modernity at the time of the Enlightenment, just as Jewish were about to gain civil liberties. As part of the inauguration ceremonies, specially written Hebrew poems were recited and, on May 27, processions from two older synagogues in the Siena ghetto wended their way to the new synagogue, chanting and bearing Torah scrolls.

Italian speakers can read an article Francesco wrote about Jewish music in Italy, including the music played in Siena, by clicking HERE.

Yet More on Travnik Synagogue

Jakob Finci, the head of the Jewish community in Bosnia, confirmed that the synagogue in Travnik demolished last week to make way for a shopping center was NOT the 18th century Kalkados synagogue, which already had been destroyed in 1860, but another built in 1860 to replace it. Last used for worship in 1941 and damaged during World War II, it had been sold to the town in the 1950s by the Bosnian Jewish community. Stripped of any indication of its former use, it was used as a metal workshop for decades. In late August, news of the impending demolition sparked an ultimately unsuccessful local campaign to save the building, as a reminder of Bosnia's historic multi-cultural heritage. Many of those who protested the demolition identfied the building as the historic 18th century synagogue.

Here is a piece by Ivan Ceresnjes detailing the history of Travnik Jews and Jewish monuments:

"A Jewish community has existed in Travnik, Muslim Croat Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, since 1768, and the first synagogue was built in 1769. During the period of the Ottoman Empire, Travnik was the seat of the Pasha, making Travnik the most important city in the Ottoman province of Bosnia and its Jewish community the second in importance, after Sarajevo. The number of Jews increased constantly, and reached a peak in 1940 of 375 Jews. After WWII only a few Jewish families resettled in Travnik and the recent war delivered the final deathblow to the Jewish community.

"I was not able to enter the synagogue, built in 1860 on the foundations of the previous synagogue and therefore the building is only partially documented. The communal chronicles say that the synagogue was built entirely by voluntary work of members of the community between Pesach and Rosh Hashana.

"Travnik is in a way strange City when Jews are in question: during the WW II Jews were killed, synagogue was damaged (but not destroyed) and all ritual objects all were taken by the local Croatian and Moslem Nazi-collaborators to the nearby Jesuit monastery. After the war only a handful of survivors returned, and since the synagogue was not suitable for prayers Jesuits returned everything to the Jewish community in Sarajevo.
In the spring of 1941, local fascists partially burned and looted the building, took the ritual objects (Torah scrolls, silver items from synagogue, books, tefillim, tallitot) from the synagogue and gave them to the local Jesuits. After the war, the Jesuits returned the Torah and ritual objects to the Jewish community in Sarajevo which in turn donated part of the collection to the Jewish museum in Belgrade.

"The synagogue was stripped of everything that would indicate its former use. The hall has been divided horizontally on the level of the former women’s gallery, whose entrance was from the outside. Behind the synagogue is a building which housed a Jewish school and the Rabbi’s apartment.

"So, truth is that the building has been sold by the Federation in early '50, (there were good reasons for that and I can elaborate on that), used for some time as a kind of metal workshop and was abandoned before the last war so the Jewish Community had no legal rights on the building but the truth is also that Municipality of Travnik and local City Museum asked more than once if Jews are interested to find together with them some solution for the survival of the only Jewish prayer-house in the city for any kind of cultural use.

"In the City Museum are four recently discovered silver artifacts, thought to be from the house of one of the oldest Jewish families of Travnik. Researchers documented two silver Esther Scroll cases, a silver book cover belonging to the family of Yaacov Yeruham Konforti, and a silver belt. The cache was found while digging the foundations of a new house in 1989. It was presumably hidden and buried at the site of Konforti’s house.

"One of the Esther Scrolls is engraved with Konforti’s name and the date 5650 (1890). There is also an engraved floral decoration and a hallmark indicating that this was made by the same artisan who made the prayer book cover.

"The second Esther Scroll is silver, machine stamped and chased. A cartouche decorating the scroll has a decorative monogram with the letters JK, probably Jacob or Jeruham Konforti.

"The silver book cover is engraved with an open work interlaced foliage motif. On the front cover there is an oval medallion inscribed with the family name and the date 5650. The back cover is identical to the front including the oval, but without the inscription. Both the engraving and the cutting for the open work are done by machine.

"The fourth item that was found in the cache is a silver belt made with a floral motif.

"The Jewish cemetery in Travnik, founded in 1762, is outside of the town on the slope of one of the surrounding hills, bordering the Catholic cemetery. It is large, quite overgrown with vegetation, but in decent condition. In the center of the plot is a monument to those who perished in WWII. It is a concrete pedestal on which are positioned three tombstones, possibly among the oldest ones from the cemetery. "

More on Travnik Synagogue

I have received word that the synagogue I mentioned in Travnik has indeed been demolished. Both my correspondent and local news reports describe it as the old Kalkados synagogue, which was built in 1768 -- but which information supplied to www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu by Ivan Ceresnjes and others says was already demolished in 1860 and replaced by the synagogue that was used as a metal workshop after World War II. The photograph I linked to in an earlier post clearly shows the newer synagogue -- as do photos in local media. I am trying to clarify this.

My Article on the European Day of Jewish Culture

Hadassah Magazine runs an article I wrote on the European Day of Jewish Culture in its current edition. You can read it online -- click HERE, then click on current issue, then scroll down.

Former Bosnian Synagogue Threatened?

There's been a bit in the news (in Bosnia) about plans to tear down the former "Kalkados" (or New) synagogue in the town of Travnik and construct there a shopping center. Built in 1860, the synagogue has been used as a metal workshop since after World War II. According to pictures I've seen, doesn't retain the outward (at least) look of a synagogue.

(You can see a photo of it as part of an extensive photo documentation of Jewish sites in the former Yugoslavia, posted on the web site of the Jewish community of Zemun, Serbia.)

There has been a call made to halt the demolition -- I saw a report that a citizens' group called "Front" had called on Bosnian authorities to step in. A brief report by Bosnia's FENA news agency quotes a member of the Sarajevo Jewish community, Eli Tauber, as saying that the Community can do nothing to stop the process as the building had been sold off after World War II.

Singer Festival in Warsaw Sept. 6-14

The fifth annual Singer's Warsaw Festival of Jewish Culture takes place Sept. 6-14. The program is a rich mix of performance, workshops, book presentations and lectures -- most of which, however, seem to be in Polish.

Music stars this year include the Klezmatics, Yale Strom, and Chava Alberstein.

The Festival (which coincides with the European Day of Jewish Culture, Sept. 7) includes various open air events and a street fair that takes place in and around Prozna Street, the semi-ruined block in downtown Warsaw that is just about the only piece of the Warsaw ghetto area to have survived World War II. There have been ongoing debates for years about what to do with Prozna; whether and to preserve it, whether it should form the center of a Jewish life museum, etc.

I was encouraged to see that there is now an upscale little cafe and gallery functioning in Prozna, as well as a couple of other businesses. For the festival, many of the bricked-up windows have been covered with pictures of pre-war Jews.

The Singer festival is sponsored by the Shalom Foundation, headed by the Lodz-born Yiddish singer Golda Tencer. Tencer's husband, Szymon Szurmiej, directs Warsaw's State Jewish Theater. The Festival this year includes celebrations for his 85th birthday. Shalom supports many Yiddish-language oriented projects, including a web site called yiddishland.pl

Southern Transylvanian Synagogues

Following the exhibition of photographs by Christian Binder of synagogues in southern Transylvania held in Sighisoara, Romania, a photo gallery of images has been posted online. View it by clicking HERE.

Synagogues pictured include those in Targu Mures, Brasov (designed by Lipot Baumhorn), Reghin, Faragas and others.

Grodno (in Italian)

Paolo Rumiz's latest piece in La Repubblica deals evocatively, among other things, with the synagogue and Jewish cemetery in Grodno, Belarus. The article includes a photo of the synagogue and a description of an encounters with a non-Jewish woman who has "adopted" the cemetery and tries to clean the tombstones, one by one, one each day.

"Adonai", "Elohim" ripetono i vecchi nella sinagoga corale ormai vuota, e tutto sembra appeso al filo di queste antiche parole che garantiscono la continuità del mondo. Ma è proprio questo che spaventa: quando esse non saranno più ascoltate da nessuno, allora sarà l'Europa a perdere definitivamente se stessa. E già te ne accorgi quando nello spazio corale torna il silenzio, carico di nostalgia del canto che non c'è più. C'erano diciassette sinagoghe a Grodno, ora ce n'è una sola.

Marija, la vecchia custode, è un'ortodossa convertitasi all'ebraismo e la sua fede è un ibrido perfetto tra le due religioni. Dice, con gli occhi febbrili: "Tutti aspettano l'arrivo del Messia. Arriverà quando tutti si armeranno contro Israele: allora il cielo si aprirà e lui andrà in suo soccorso. Sarà il secondo arrivo di Cristo. Il momento arriverà presto, così è scritto nella Torah. Allora gli ebrei crederanno, Gesù li benedirà, e Israele sarà il primo di tutti i popoli".

Sull'altra riva del fiume c'è un vecchio cimitero ebraico. Immenso, coperto di sterpaglia, devastato dalle radici delle betulle. Per entrare scavalchiamo un muro sbrecciato coperto di ortica. Poljakov Abram Lazarevic. Rosenzweig David Bulfovic. Le tombe con la stella di Davide emergono dalla vegetazione come menhir, coperte di licheni grigi e giallo-senape. Qualcuna ha la stella rossa. Su tutto, la luce incendiaria della sera. Migliaia di morti, e sono la minoranza. Gli altri sono passati per il camino.

Nella boscaglia, una donna in vestito rosso-papavero spazza una tomba. Sembra una visione, una Morgana. Con lei un bambino che l'aiuta. Poco lontano, un uomo che falcia la sterpaglia. La donna in rosso chiama Lilia e racconta una storia straordinaria. "Io e mio marito siamo ortodossi, ma abbiamo adottato questo luogo.

Da quando siamo in pensione, ogni giorno puliamo una tomba. Abito in quella casa lì in fondo, accanto al muro di cinta e da anni lotto perché questo spazio non decada. Conosco tanti di quelli che abitano qui". Dice "abitano", perché ne parla come se fossero ancora vivi.

Il piccolo Igor dice a Monika: "Vieni, ti porto a vedere la tomba di un santo", e si arrampica su un pilastro coperto di caratteri ebraici. "Era un rabbino, vengono in tanti a salutarlo. Gli chiedono sempre qualcosa".
Abbaiano due cani lupo. Sono i guardiani della casa di Lilia. Hanno fiutato estranei oltre la cancellata. Lilia vede ragazzi che cercano di entrare; urla, li minaccia, li fa scappare.

News on Jewish Genealogy Resources

The latest issue of the Avotaynu email newsletter "Nu? What's New?" is now online, with information on new genealogy resources, events and publications.

Seeking family roots forms a major piece of the Jewish travel mosaic. The newsletter includes links to a wide range of material and can be subscribed to direct to your inbox.

Detailed info on Jewish heritage in Bosnia online

The Jewish Heritage Europe web site, an expanding database of information on Jewish heritage in European countries, has added material on Bosnia.

I'm not quite sure why I am listed as the author of the material -- but I think that much of it comes from a report I prepared several years ago for the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad. The main source of info on Bosnia remains Ivan Ceresnjes and his name should be up there. I have included a fair amount of what it included in this report in Jewish Heritage Travel.




(Jewish cemetery, Mostar. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber)