From New York not Europe, but relevant

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

My friend Julian Voloj, who was born in Germany, has been photographing former synagogue building in New York City for nearly a decade. He has amassed an important collection of images -- 12 of which are on display at an exhibit in Sag Harbor, NY.

One would think that because American Judaism is alive and well in New York City, there would be lots of people advocating to protect some of these sites. But Voloj found himself in “a race against the clock to make sure what I was documenting would still be there. There was one place that was torn down before I could get inside.”

Of the 1200 photos that Voloj took on his expeditions around New York, he has selected 12 for his exhibition at Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor.

“One photo is of a now-supermarket that used to be a Jewish site, and you can see two lions and The Ten Commandments,” said Voloj. “Another is a cross nailed on a Star of David, and there’s one image from the oldest Jewish cemetery in North America, in Chinatown. There’s one gravestone that stands alone. It’s a nice link because the gravestone goes back to the roots of North American Judaism.”

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Slovenia -- Exhibit in Maribor About Jewish WWI soldiers

World War I Military Cemetery, Stanjel. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Back in the 1990s, when I was documenting Jewish heritage in Slovenia, the most impressive site visited was the haunting remains of an Austro-Hungarian World War I military cemetery. All that was left were the massive stone pillars of the gates, a huge temple‑like monument, and about five scattered grave markers. Two of these were of Jewish soldiers, each bearing a star of David.

Stanjel gravestone. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Yesterday, Nov. 17, an exhibition dedicated to Jewish World War I soldiers opened in the former synagogue in Maribor, Slovenia. It is called Forgive Us, Forgive Us O You Dead. Jewish Soldiers of the Austria-Hungarian Army On The Isonzo Front.

In Isonzo Front, in northeast Italy and western Slovenia along the Isonzo river, is dotted with battlefields, museums and monuments to the World War I fallen. Some half a million soldiers died between 1915 and 1917. Fighting here was immortalized in Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms. 


The  exhibition in Maribor was curated by  Petra Svoljšak, Head of the Milko Kos Historical Institute of the Scientific Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and Renato Podbersič, senior researcher at the SCNR (Slovenian Center for National Reconciliation).

The theme of the exhibition forms a part of the Podbersic's dissertation research, which is to be concluded in near future. Podbersic visit all  the extant war cemeteries of WWI in Slovenia and added several other tombstones to the list that I had compiled in 1996. He made historical research of the documents and existing literature and also interviewed people who knew about Jews who fought on  the side of the Austrian army in World War I.

 Our friend Ivan Čerešnješ, of the Center for Jewish Art, contributed  photos of his own grandfather and other Jewish soldiers from Bosnia, fighting in the Isonzo front.

Maribor Synagogue Center curator Janez Premk also advised on the exhibit. He said he believe that it will be  "a  major contribution in the contemporary research of the Jewish past in Slovenian lands."

Italy --Exhibition in Rome

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

What sounds like an interesting photographic exhibition opens tomorrow, Oct. 6, in Rome at the "House of Memoria and History". It's an exhibit of 300 photographs taken by Maurizio Agostinetto during a 960-kilometer trip by bicycle from the Brenner Pass to Auschwitz, retracing the route of 26 Jewish deportees during the Holocaust, including Primo Levi.

Exhibitions -- More on Mark Epstein show in Kiev

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I posted recently about retrospective show of the work of Ukrainian (Jewish) avant garde  artist Mark Epstein -- the Forward has a nice piece going into detail about the artist and his work.

Born Moyshe Epshtein in Bobruisk, White Russia, Epshtein moved at a young age to Kiev with his family, where he entered art school. According to one story, when Epshtein was barely 10 years old, his mother sent him to bring water from the well. When he didn’t return his mother went looking for him, and found him building a sculpture of Leo Tolstoy out of snow. A neighboring photographer took a picture of the boy with his sculpture, and the picture was later was given to the Tolstoy Museum.
The story illustrates not only Epshtein’s talent and love of art, but also the tragic fate of his work. Like his childhood snowman, almost all of Epshtein’s sculptures have been lost or destroyed, with only a photographic record of them remaining. Moreover, because of his overt Jewishness Epshtein was never included in official versions of Soviet art history. Neither has he been much appreciated by Jewish art historians, presumably because his artistic vision didn’t accord with their own ideas about Jewish art.

Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/135434/#ixzz1E3pUPbxT

Ukraine -- Mark Epstein Exhibition in Kiev

From National Art Museum web site.

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I gladly pass on information received from Leonid Finberg in Kiev about a current exhibition at the National Art Museum there of the work of the avant garde Kiev painter Mark Epstein, who was active in the 1920s. (THIS LINK to the museum web site provides information in Ukrainian.)

The exhibition presents works of the Kiev period of Epstein's life and represents Epstein's first solo show. It opened in mid-December and runs til the end of January.

 The Kiev Judaic institute has published a book on Epstein to go with the exhibit, Mark Epstein. Return of the Master, that includes illustrations of approximately 60 of Eptein's works, most of which are published here for the first time. 

Dr. Finberg adds:

Mark Epstein was a notable figure in the artistic life of Kyiv during the 1920’s. In 1928, having just finished the Kyiv Arts College , he immersed himself into the progressive arts movement of that time. He attended O. Exter’s art studio where his newest creative ideas were polished. Mark Epstein’s cubic-futurist works of the beginning of the 1920’s – Violoncellist, Family, Tailor, The Two, A Woman with a Yoke – have become part of the history of modern Ukrainian art.

Epstein was one of the founders of the artistic section of the Culture League – an association whose aim was the development of Jewish culture. Members of the section also included O.Tishler, El Lysytsky, J. Chaikov, S. Nikritin, and others. Marc Chagall, N. Altman, R. Falk, and D. Sterenberg also cooperated with the Culture League. In their effort to create new Jewish art, members of the Culture League synthesized images of traditional art with Ukrainian avant-garde ideas.

Epstein took an active part in this work. Unfortunately, only the graphic works of Epstein have been preserved from the 1920’s; representations of his sculptures have survived only as photos, while his paintings have been totally lost.

The work of the Culture League was terminated in the middle of the 1920’s. In 1932, Epstein had to move to Moscow . He took practically no part in exhibitions there, but worked a great deal. However his attempts to adjust his talent to the requirements of the times bore no evident fruit.

Poland -- fascinating exhibit in Warsaw

by Ruth Ellen Gruber

A fascinating photographic exhibit opens in Warsaw next week -- it's about Jewish tombstones used for purposes other than marking a Jewish grave.

The opening of "Matzevot of Everyday Use" will take place at the Center for Contemporary Art, ul. Jazdow, at 7 p.m.  on Oct. 28 and run for a month.

Łukasz Baksik is the author of the photographs and the initiator of the exhibition. For many months, he has been searching for and taking photos of matzevot which had been taken from Jewish cemeteries and used as paving, building materials, grinding wheels, hones and graves at Christian cemeteries.
‘I have investigated what has happened with Jewish tombstones,’ said the author. ‘I found a household with a cowshed built from matzevot in the town center just near the police commissariat, fire brigade premises and the church. I also came across Catholic tombstones from which one had forgotten to rub off Hebrew letters. I talked to people who, being aware of what they had in their yards, did not consider it as something improper. I discovered the history of some relatives who were reunited after many years thanks to the one matzevah.’

I have seen many examples of this on my own travels.