Sky Watch Friday

I took these on 10-7-08

If you would like to join Sky Watch Friday please Click here and join Tom, Imac,Sandy & Klaus

Poland -- Upcoming commemorative and cultural events

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

In Poland, there may be only 15,000 (or so) Jews -- but the summer months are filled with Jewish culture and heritage events. This year is no exception.

From big Jewish culture festivals, to individual commemorative events marking sites of Jewish heritage, much is going on. Some are sponsored by local civic organizations, some by committed local activists, some by the Israel embassy, some by local Jewish communities and Jewish organizations -- and some by a combination of organizers and funders who work together on the projects.

This month will see at least two commemorative events.

This Sunday, June 14, a ceremony will take place in the little town of Brzostek to memorialize the destroyed Jewish community there. It will formally rededicate the Jewish cemetery, which has been newly fenced put in order, and also unveil a Hebrew-language monument. In the course of restoring the cemetery, some 30 old tombstones, which have come to light in recent years, were re-erected. In addition, a plaque will be dedicated in the town center -- in Polish and English -- in memory of the former Jewish residents of the town. The project is being carried out in full co-operation with both the chief rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, and the Brzostek town council.

Rabbis and local dignitaries will attend the ceremony, as will pupils from local schools.

"The town is regarding it as a major civic event and organizing various exhibitions on Brzostek's Jewish history," writes Connie Webber, the head of the Littman Library Jewish publishing house, said in an email. "Everyone with a Brzostek connection is invited to participate. Buses will be arranged to and from Krakow on the Sunday, and arrangements have been made for kosher food to be available both on the Sunday and for the preceding Shabbat in Krakow."

Connie and her husband, the scholar Jonathan Webber -- who family stems from Brzostek -- have been instrumental in organizing the commemoration.

Just one week later, on June 22, a plaque commemorating the former Scheinbach Synagogue building (today the town library) will be unveiled in Przemysl, in the far southeast of Poland on the border with Ukraine. Participating will be guests from Poland and abroad. The plaque is a joint initiative of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland and Michael Freund of Raanana in Israel.

Located at ul. Slowackiego 15, the synagogue was built for the Reform community in 1886-1890 and was designed by Marceli Pilecki. (Another synagogue in the town, built in 1909, stands abandoned and falling ever more into ruin on Plac Unii Brzeskiej, in the Zasanie district across the river. There is a large Jewish cemetery next to the main municipal cemetery, with tombs from the 19th and 20th centuries.)
(Synagogue photo fodz.pl)

As for Jewish culture festivals -- everyone knows about the big Krakow Jewish Culture Festival -- but a a number of others are in the works in Poland. They include:

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

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

For an ever-growing list of Jewish festivals in all parts of Europe, check the link in the side bar of this blog!

Switzerland -- Guided Tours at Jewish Museum

This summer, the Jewish Museum in Basel, Switzerland, is sponsoring one special guided tour a month of its current exhibition "Strange Objects Stepping Out of Line" which is describe as:

A journey to the world of Jewish curiosities. Objects from everyday-life, religious ceremonies and history have been chosen as they differ in their material, shape or intended use from the ordinary items of the collection.

The exhibit runs til the end of the year. Tour dates are June 21, July 19, August 16 and September 6 -- the European Day of Jewish Culture.

Find information HERE

What Stories could this farm tell?

We have driven past this area several times when we go to Prinville or Culver Or, and i have always wanted to stop and take photos of this old farm, and finally we got the chance to stop, It would be so interesting to know who lived there and what life was like back in the old days when it was all new. This is one fabulous view isn't it.
Click on photos for better viewing.



This was the old cellar

Odd Shot Monday

If you want to join ODD SHOTS, see Katney.

I thought this was a fun and Odd sign since most signs tell Humans not to feed the squirrels

Jewish Heritage -- Final Statement of Bratislava Seminar Released

Synagogue in Abony, Hungary, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Final Statement adopted by participants at the international seminar held in Bratislava in March on the care, conservation and maintenance of historic Jewish property in Europe has been released. The statement represents a milestone in strategic thinking about sites of Jewish heritage, laying out pragmatic guidelines with best-practice principles and procedures for Jewish properties that could serve as models for all involved in the field.

(I have already given a preview of the recommendations in a Ruthless Cosmopolitan column written after the seminar.)

Whereas the restitution of Jewish communal property in Central and Eastern Europe has been a hot-button issue since the Iron Curtain fell nearly 20 years ago, the practical and urgent need to care for, conserve and maintain the properties once they’ve been recovered is often forgotten amid the slow and painful legal battles to get back historic Jewish properties that were seized by the Nazis or nationalized by postwar Communist regimes.

Many of these sites are huge. Many are dilapidated. Some are recognized as historic monuments. Most stand in towns where few, if any, Jews now live. Even basic maintenance can stretch already strapped communal resources.

At the Bratislava seminar, Jewish community representatives from 15 countries gathered to address these concerns.

The aim of the meeting was to foster networking and cross-border consultation and spark creative strategic thinking. Many participants had never met before and had little awareness of how colleagues in other countries were confronting similar challenges. Some knew little about the variety of Jewish heritage sites in other countries.

I took part as an expert -- one of my briefs was, as someone who has spent two decades documenting and writing extensively about Jewish heritage sites in many countries, to introduce participant to the panorama of Jewish built heritage in east-central Europe. Among other things, I ran a slide show of more than 200 pictures, from a variety of countries, showing Jewish heritage sites of all sorts, from all periods -- medieval to modern -- and all states of conservation, -- from ruin to fully restored -- and all sorts of use, from warehouse to house of worship.

Sam Gruber, who as president of the International Survey of Jewish Monuments, was one of the organizers (along with the Joint Distribution Committee and the Slovak Jewish Heritage Center; the World Monuments Fund and the Cahnman Foundation were also sponsors) posted the final statement on his blog (from which I have taken this copy.)

Seminar on Care, Conservation and Maintenance of Historic Jewish Property
Bratislava March 17-19, 2009
Final Statement Adopted By Participants

The participants in the Seminar “Care, Conservation and Maintenance of Historic Jewish Property,” meeting in Bratislava March 17-19, 2009, agree on the following principles and procedures which guide their work.

Introduction

The ongoing struggle for property and resource restitution has often overshadowed the practical issues of how to manage community properties already held, or those returned.

Proper care of these properties; often involving substantial costs, difficult planning and use issues, and demanding historical and architectural preservation concerns, have preoccupied many Jewish communities for years. In many cases, and especially for smaller Communities, the needs of these properties continue to stretch professional and financial resources. Everyday community needs often delay or prevent the attention that properties require.

Each Jewish community faces its own specific situations, and has unique needs, but there are many shared problems and needs that can be addressed collectively. Importantly, there are also solutions - many of which have been pioneered by Communities themselves - that can be shared, too.

Jewish Properties and Jewish Heritage

Jewish heritage is the legacy of all aspects of Jewish history – religious and secular.

Jewish history and art is part of every nation’s history and art. Jewish heritage is part of national heritage, too.

Documentation, planning and development of sites benefit and enrich society at large as well as Jews and Jewish communities.

Jewish historic sites and properties should also be developed where possible within the context of diverse histories – Jewish, local, national, art, etc.

Jewish tourism and tourism to Jewish sites should be part of every country’s tourism strategy.

Inventories and Documentation

All past and present Jewish communal properties, and all Jewish properties and sites deemed to have historic, religious and/or artistic significance, should be documented to the fullest extent possible.

Inventories must be made and maintained of all properties in each country, and more substantial documentation should be made of historically and architecturally significant properties, especially all synagogues, institutional buildings, cemeteries, monuments, and Judaica and archival materials.

Jewish communities and institutions should cooperate and collaborate in this process to the fullest extent possible, and should welcome the assistance of other public and private institutions and individuals in pursuing these documentation goals.

Information on Jewish sites is most useful when it is most widely available. Efforts should continue and expand to make documentation available in publicly accessible research centers and through publications and on-line presentation, all the while considering safety, security and privacy concerns.

Materials relevant to Jewish history and properties in public, state archives and Jewish community archives should be open for everyone for historical and legal research.

Good documentation must be accurate and complete in its description, and it must be historically informed so that it presents something of the significance of what is recorded.

Synagogues and Former Synagogues

Synagogue and former synagogues should retain a Jewish identity and or use whenever possible, though each one does not necessarily need to be restored or fully renovated.

Former synagogues, no matter what their present ownership or use, should be sensitively marked to identify their past history.

As part of the effort to restitute communal and religious property, when a property of historic value - such as a synagogue - in disrepair or otherwise in a ruined condition (while in the government's possession) is returned, States should help either by modifying laws which impose penalties for not maintaining properties in reasonable condition, or by providing financial and material assistance to undertake necessary repairs and restoration.

Cooperation and Trust

Honesty and transparency are Jewish values and should be especially apparent in the handling of all matters concerning Jewish property, which is held as a communal trust.

Jewish communities should manage their properties to maximize their use for present and future generations.

Jewish communities and institutions should work together as much as possible to share existing information, methodologies and technologies, and they should work together to develop new and compatible goals and strategies to optimize the care and management of historic Jewish properties.

Regular meetings of Jewish community leaders, members, staff and expert professionals to discuss property issues is encouraged within single communities, and between communities. Regional, national and trans-border meeting are useful for the exchange of information and ideas, and for effective planning purposes.

Any sale or development of communal property must be to meet identified community needs.

Wherever possible, proceeds from the sale or development of some properties should be allocated to the care and maintenance of other properties including, but not exclusively, cemeteries.

Jewish communities and museums should work together to develop historic, descriptive and exhibition materials that can be shared.

Jewish communities and local heritage, cultural and tourist bodies should work together to develop regional, national and trans-border heritage routes.

Italy -- Jewish Route in Pesaro

A Jewish heritage route including the synagogue and the Jewish cemetery will be open this summe in the Italian Adriatic port of Pesaro. Unfortunately, the sites will only be open one day a week -- Thursday afternoons -- during June, July and August.

The synagogue, probably dating from the early 17th century and noted for its beautifully decorate vaulting, is on via delle Scuole and will be open from 4-7 p.m.

The cemetery is nearby on the San Bartolo hill, and will be open from 5-7 p.m.

For information, call +39/0721 387474-357

La sinagoga di via delle Scuole sarà visitabile nei mesi di giugno, luglio e agosto, ogni giovedì dalle 16 alle 19. I visitatori della sinagoga troveranno ancora allestita al piano terra dello storico edificio la mostra “1938-1945 La persecuzione degli ebrei in Italia”, a cura della Fondazione Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea CDEC. I 38 pannelli articolati in 15 sezioni tematiche - dove convivono testi, foto, libri, giornali e documenti privati - ricostruiscono con impostazione scientifica le vicende subite dagli ebrei in un periodo ben preciso del Novecento.

L’apertura estiva è possibile grazie alla disponibilità delle associazioni FAI e Serc e della dottoressa Maria Letizia Siepi.

Accanto alla sinagoga, anche il cimitero ebraico sul colle San Bartolo (strada panoramica San Bartolo c/o n. 161), sarà aperto da giugno a settembre il giovedì dalle 17 alle 19. In agosto, è prevista inoltre un’apertura eccezionale sabato 15 in occasione della festività: mattino 10-12, pomeriggio 17-19; per informazioni Ente Parco Naturale Monte San Bartolo 0721 400858, 335 1746509.

Informazioni tel. 0721 387474-357 Servizio Musei_Comune di Pesaro.

Today's Flowers

Visit Luiz, the host of Today's Flowers and see more flowers from around the world.

Poland -- My Ruthless Cosmopolitan column from Bielsko Biala

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

My latest Ruthless Cosmopolitan column, published June 1, was from Bielsko Biala, Poland and deals with the impact of perception, desire and demand on memory, particularly vis a vis the Jewish experience and Jewish heritage in Poland....

I'm posting the piece here, but will have more to say about B-B in a later post, with pictures from my trip.

Poland’s Jewish heritage is about more than just death

By Ruth Ellen Gruber · June 1, 2009

BIELSKO-BIALA, Poland (JTA) -- Outside the elegant theater in the city of Bielsko Biala in southern Poland, a billboard advertises an upcoming play. Stark letters spell out the title: "Zyd" -- Jew.

The lettering looks almost menacing, like scrawled graffiti, and I am a little taken aback.

But then I remember where I am.

This is Poland.

And the play, in fact, is an award-winning exploration of anti-Semitism and the power of stereotypes -- part of the endless continuing discussion here about the Jewish past, the Jewish present, and the long, complex and troubled relationship between Jews and Catholic Poles.

"There is no theme that Poles are more likely to discuss than Jews," the play's author, Artur Palyga told the Polish media. "It can be said that Judaism is our national passion."

"Zyd" deals with teachers in a provincial Polish town preparing for the visit of a former student, a Holocaust survivor who had attended their school before the Shoah, when Jews made up more than half the town's population.

Its portrayal of grassroots prejudice is graphic and sometimes grotesque. Indeed, the play came under fire in the right-wing press, and its premiere last year sparked protests.

Still, it won the main prize at a national festival of contemporary Polish drama for being "an honest, brave and theatrically precise attempt to settle accounts with the difficult Polish past."

The play is essentially about memory. In particular, it’s about the various uses to which memory is put, and how memory differs in the minds of different people considering the same past.

These issues have suffused much of my own work over the past two decades, as I have researched Jewish heritage sites in East and Central Europe and chronicled the Jewish experience in places were few or no Jews live today.

How are Jews and Jewish heritage remembered? Which Jewish places and personalities are incorporated into the local consciousness? How do local people choose to portray an important part of the population that was savagely removed, almost overnight?

I found Bielko Biala permeated with examples of how perspective influences memory.

They ranged from indifferent disregard to the kitschy commercialization of a "Jewish-style" restaurant called Rabbi, to an earnest attempt to acknowledge the contribution of Jews to the city.

Bielsko Biala was officially established in 1951 with the amalgamation of two towns on opposite sides of the Biala River, which for centuries formed the border between the Austrian Empire and Poland, and then the regions of Silesia and Galicia.

Before 1939, the population was divided among ethnic Germans, Jews and Poles, and the city remains a stronghold of Protestantism. The Nazis absorbed it into the Reich, and almost all the Jews were killed. After World War II, Poland took it over and expelled the ethnic Germans.

Only a small Jewish community lives here today, but Jews played a major role in local history. In the 19th century, Jewish industrialists helped build the city into a major textile center, and a local Jewish architect, Karol Korn, designed key buildings that still define Bielsko Biala.

Korn's grandest building -- the Moorish-style great synagogue -- no longer exists. Erected in 1881, it dominated the city's main avenue until it was blown up by the Nazis in 1939.

Today, a contemporary art gallery occupies the spot; a small plaque on an outer wall commemorates the destroyed building but says nothing about the community it once served.

There's a puppet theatre now next door, where the Jewish culture center once stood, and a courthouse occupies the former Jewish community building across the street. Its elaborate decoration, I was told, represents the seven fruits mentioned in the Torah.

The Jewish cemetery, whose red-and-orange striped ceremonial hall is another Korn design, is well maintained and designated a cultural monument. Among the tombs is a poignant memorial to Jewish soldiers who fell fighting for the Austrians in World War I.

All these sites, and more, are noted on Jewish heritage itineraries included in local guidebooks available at the tourist information office and the city museum. On sale in both places I found reproductions of old postcards portraying the synagogue in all its glory as a major pre-war landmark.

I have no way of knowing who follows these itineraries or purchases the postcards. But, at least for tourists, they clearly acknowledge the Jewish contribution to the town and set Jewish history and heritage here within the general matrix.

This marks a welcome contrast to the "Jewish heritage package" offered by one of the city's leading hotels.

Far from exploring the rich historic contribution of Jews here, its itinerary is simply a round trip to Auschwitz, with "sightseeing" at the memorial museum there, then dinner back at the hotel's restaurant.

Bielsko Biala is only 25 miles from Auschwitz. I would certainly urge anyone visiting the town to take a day and go there. But promoting a tour of the Nazis' most notorious death camp as a Jewish heritage package banalizes Jewish heritage and the Holocaust, and both ignores and insults the memory of the generations of Jews who lived here (and often prospered).

In Bielsko Biala, Poles have begun to offer up a more nuanced take on history -- Jewish and Polish. Unfortunately, however, hotel tourist packages tend to offer only what their clients demand. Jews should take the lead in demanding more.

Even in places where few or no Jews live anymore, Jewish heritage must not be equated with its destruction. Nor, indeed, should the centuries-old Jewish experience be defined solely in terms of death.

Camera Critters

Click on photos for better viewing
If you would like to join Misty click here
Princess and Tom Tom, they have found to be the best of friends, sleeping together and playing together.

Before the Rain

If you would like to join Sky Watch Friday please Click here and join Tom, Imac,Sandy & Klaus

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.

Odd shot Monday

I found this to be odd as i don't know if this is a barn or a house, if a barn it would make a neat looking house.
If you want to join ODD SHOTS, see Katney.

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

Poland -- Dzialoszyce, commemoration, pilgrimage, travel

Ruth in Dzialoszyce, 2006. Photo: Jack Sal

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Pilgrimage and commemoration form important components of Jewish travel in eastern and central Europe. In fact, in Poland in particular, few Jews visited in the post-war communist period for any other purpose.

There were -- and still are -- strictly religious pilgrimages to the tombs of great rabbis. These are facilitated now by new infrastructure including kosher food services and accommodation.

Commemorative pilgrimages to death camps and other Holocaust-related sites also still draw thousands of people each year. More than half a million people visit Auschwitz alone. Here too infrastructure has changed radically, enabling the experience to educate about the Shoah and about the Jewish communities that were destroyed, rather than to focus them on mourning and commemoration.

At Auschwitz, among other things, the Auschwitz Jewish Center, which opened in 2000 in the surviving synagogue in the town of Oswiecim, focuses on the life in a town that before World War II was a majority Jewish town.

Before Auschwitz became the ultimate symbol of the Holocaust, it was just an ordinary Polish town known as Oswiecim. The majority of its citizens were Jewish. Generations of merchants, rabbis, doctors, and lawyers raised families here and contributed to a richly textured Jewish culture. Jews worked, married, studied and worshipped, cared for their families, and served the community. The tragedy of Holocaust suddenly ended the centuries-old Jewish life of the town.

The Center facilities include the Jewish Museum, Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue, and Education Center. The Center’s exhibitions and programs are open to visitors and students from around the world. Dedicated to public education, the Center’s programs teach about the richness of pre-war Jewish life in Oswiecim and build awareness of the dangers of xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and the other forms of intolerance.

The Center's current exhibition is on Jewish survivors from Oswiecim who now live in Israel.

New forms of commemorative pilgrimage increasingly involve bridge-building between Jews and local Poles.

The filmmaker Menachem Daum led such a trip last month -- accompanying a group of students and two Holocaust survivors from Lost Angeles to Dzialoszyce, Poland, where they commemorated Holocaust victims but also met with local students and town officials.

On May 15th, 2009 a group of Jewish high school seniors from the Shalhevet School in Los Angeles, accompanied by two Holocaust survivors, were greeted in Dzialoszyce by Polish students and teachers from the local high school as well as by students from Krakow's Jagiellonian University. The group marched together to the ruins of the town's once magnificent synagogue where they were addressed in Polish by one of the survivors. They also learned that the synagogue had housed a voluntary kitchen that the community operated with great sacrifice in order to keep thousands from starving during the Nazi occupation. The town's Mayor greeted the group and promised to shore up the synagogue ruins so they do not collapse. The group also paid their respects at the monument near the mass grave of over 1,500 Jews shot during the deportation on September 3rd, 1942. Finally, the group ascended the hill to the Jewish cemetery. Although there are no longer any tombstones or a wall, this site is sacred because of the thousands of Dzialoszyce Jews buried there. The final prayers of the Jews of Dzialoszyce at this cemetery were recalled and the shofar was again sounded, as it had been 67 earlier. The ceremony ended with Poles and Jews affixing symbolic tombstones to the trees that now cover the cemetery .

Menachem posted the following video on Youtube:




The synagogue still stands crumbling, and physically it all looks much the same. But what a difference in attitude this represents from the first time I visited Dzialozyce, in 1990. I wrote about that visit in the New York Times in October of that year in my first major article about Jewish travel in Poland, "Visiting the Vestiges of Jewish Poland."

An elderly woman, her face as brown and wrinkled as a walnut, approached us one day last June as we stood gazing at the yawning roofless wreck that was once the synagogue in Dzialoszyce, a sleepy village 30 miles or so northeast of Cracow in southern Poland.

''Do you speak Jewish?'' she asked in Polish, and mumbled a few words of Yiddish.

It's been a long time, she apologized; she's forgotten almost everything she knew of the language.

The woman came with us - three Americans and two Polish experts on synagogue architecture - as we inspected the battered masonry shell. Children lounging around a bumper car and video arcade in front of the ruin stared as we passed; a few of them joined us, too.

Built in 1852 according to a neo-classical design by Felicjan Frankowski, the synagogue is an impressive monument to the destruction of a people.

Before the Holocaust, Dzialoszyce was a Jewish town: in 1939, 7,000 of its 10,000 inhabitants were Jews. The synagogue would have been magnificent, with its tall arched windows and sculpted outer decorations. But all that remains of a frescoed interior is a few patches of flaking blue paint.

Later, the old woman and the children escorted us beyond the edge of the village, to the site of the Jewish cemetery, destroyed by the Nazis. A simple white monument, erected Sept. 1, 1989, on the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the war, commemorates the thousands of Jews who were slaughtered here in mass graves or deported to Nazi death camps.

''I used to work for the rabbi here before the war,'' the old woman confided. ''I will never forget what he told me. He said that when the birds go away from here, the Jews will go away too. One year, there were no birds. And after that . . .''

Read full article

Today's Flower #1

This is my first Today's Flowers So thought i would start out with a Sun Flower
Visit Luiz to view more of Today's Flowers

Camera Critters

If you would like to join Misty click here


I took these at the Abbey Museum when we went to Mt Angel Oktoberfest. I am not very fond of people stuffing animals, and i sort of wonder why such a display would be located in a Abbey. I do have to say the man that did these did great work. Click photo for better viewing

So on a much brighter note here is Tom Tom enjoying playing with the hair brush


And here is Princess & Tom Tom after cleaning out his ears, check out T's ear bent

Czech Republic -- Trebic!

Trebic Rear Synagogue. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I've come across a nice feature story on Czech Radio by my friend Jan Richter, about the historic old Jewish quarter of Trebic, in the Czech Republic -- the largest, and one of the best preserved, former Jewish quarters in the country and one of the most significant preserved Jewish quarters in Europe. In 2003, the the Jewish quarter and the Jewish cemetery, together with the Catholic basilica of St Procopius, were added to the UNESCO List of World Heritage. Click HERE for a virtual tour.

The Jewish quarter, stretched out along the opposite bank of the river from the main market square, is known as Zamosti -- "across the bridge." It includes a wide range of houses and other buildings dating from the Renaissance to the 19th century.

I first visited Trebic in about 1990, and the changes since then have been remarkable -- I have written extensively about developments there in both Jewish Heritage Travel. There has been considerable restoration work in recent years, and the area is becoming a district of quaint shops, cafes and restaurants, some of them Jewish themed. On my last visit, a couple of years ago, I took part in a weekend meeting organized by the Union of Czech Jewish Students -- there were lectures, social events, walking tours, etc.

Two former synagogues stand here. One, the so-called Front Synagogue, originally dates from 1639-1642 but was rebuilt in the 19th century. It now serves as a church -- it has a plaque inside memorializing the Trebic Jewish community annihilated in the Holocaust.

The so-called Rear Synagogue, long a ruin, was reopened to the public in 1997 after a lengthy restoration process. It was a ruined shell when restoration work began in the early 1990s. Today, it is used for cultural purposes and has an exhibition on local Jewish history and traditions, including a Holocaust memorial. The building has a barrel vaunted interior, heavy, partially buttressed walls and arched windows. Walls and ceiling are covered with baroque stucco decoration and colorful paintings that include Hebrew texts, floral motifs and painted lions on one of the doorways

You can read Jan Richter's radio report HERE -- and there is also a button to click to listern to it, as he is guided around the district by Michal Řídký, a guide for the local tourist center.

“The [rear] synagogue was built around the year of 1669, so it’s about thirty years newer than the front synagogue, and it was built in the Renaissance style. It consists of this main hall, the small hall, and the women’s gallery, because men and women were separated here during the service. Women also had a special entrance to the synagogue, there was a staircase outside. Later, a house was built just next to the synagogue, and the stairway became a part of it. A funny story is connected with that – the owner of the house was obligated to let the women go through his house into the synagogue, so every week, the women would pass through his house.”