#jewish culture
Home protection amulet and Mizrah plaque by Akiva Hass, Ukraine, Lviv, 1920s
today (27 Jan) is International Holocaust Memorial Day, so I’ve compiled a list of charities you can donate to which help to preserve European Jewish culture as well as supporting living Jewish communities, especially in Eastern Europe, as a way to honour victims of the Holocaust both by preserving their memory and by supporting the European Jewish communities that the Nazis aimed to destroy.
-YIVO[Link]; founded in Vilne, Lithuania in 1925 and now based in New York, is one of the largest organisations for the preservation and education of Yiddish, as well as hosting the largest archive of Eastern European Jewish materials (23 million items) - including many which were rescued from Nazi book-burning by Jewish resistance. It is the ONLY prewar Jewish library and archive to have survived the Holocaust.
-World Jewish Relief[Link], formed during the Holocaust by the UK Jewish community to aid the evacuation of German Jews. The majority of their modern day work focuses on aiding vulnerable Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. They also provide aid to refugees, disabled and elderly people, and respond to international disasters across the world.
-The Yiddish Book Centre[Link] hosts an online archive of hundreds of digitised Yiddish books (many with translations), as well as a video oral history archive with 1000+ Jewish people of all ages and backgrounds telling their own stories, many in Yiddish (with subtitles). They also train new Yiddish translators and run lectures, education programs, film screenings, music festivals, and the world’s first Yiddish museum.
-The Together Plan[Link] supports post-Soviet Jewish communities, especially in Belarus due to the current instability there. As well as supporting Jewish communities with aid, education, and community building; they also record and translate Holocaust testimonies, preserve Jewish graveyards, and run education on Jewish Belarus.
-The European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative[Link] works to preserve and restore Jewish cemeteries, particularly in countries whose Jewish populations were decimated by the Holocaust, which left cemeteries to be vandalised and fall into decay. This is an important act in honouring the dignity of the dead, as well as witnessing and preserving the presence of lost European Jewish life.
If you have no money to spare, consider spending some time browsing the testimony and history hosted on YIVO and the Yiddish Book Centre as an act of memorial instead.
when i started writing this comic, there were courses on duolingo for klingon and dothraki, fictional languages that are only spoken by characters on television shows who don’t exist, but the course for yiddish, a language spoken by jews – real, living, breathing people – for generations, didn’t exist until april 2021.
in 2017 a jewish employee at the anne frank museum was asked to put a baseball cap over his yarmulke. yeah, you read that right – an employee who worked in the house anne frank and her family hid for two years was asked to hide his judaism when he came into work.
what i’m saying is goyim are trying very hard to pretend jewish people don’t exist anymore, and it’s safer for a man to tattoo a swastika on his face than it is for me to wear a necklace with a symbol of my culture on it.
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There’s one of these in Boston, the Vilna Shul (https://vilnashul.org/about/our_history). The interior painting was primarily a Lithuanian thing, hence why most of them have been destroyed. The Vilna is one of few surviving examples and the murals are perpetually in need of preservation funding.
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THIS IS THE FUNNIEST FUCKING THING IVE SEEN ALL WEEK OY
Join the Center for Jewish HistoryandYIVO Institute for Jewish Research on a quest to examine the #Jewish exploration of the heavens as we present our new exhibition:
From as early as Genesis, Jews have pondered the expanse that surrounds our planet, as well as their place in them. Astronomy, mathematics, and other sciences appear frequently in books published by rabbis and scholars in Hebrew and other languages during the 17th-19th centuries.
By the 20th century, Jewish astronauts and cosmonauts had successfully orbited the Earth and began to explore the very heavens their ancestors studied. As Jewish writers and filmmakers embraced these achievements (and other fantastic possibilities) on the screen and the page, science fiction and pop culture were changed for generations to come.
Jews In Space brings together dozens of out-of-this-world artifacts highlighting the indispensable contributions of Jewish scientists, astronomers, explorers, writers, and entertainers, including:
- Rare 18th and 19th-century rabbinic tomes on astronomy in Hebrew, German, and Yiddish
- Judaica taken aboard the Space Shuttle by Astronaut Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman
- Yiddish, English, Polish, and Russian works of science fiction
- Rare science fiction periodicals
Stay tuned throughout May for additional events, including:
Stardate 04.15.2018–All ages family program, with arts, crafts, and curator-led tours
Stardate 05.06.2018–All ages family fun program starting before the Center opens! We’ll be offering special sensory-specific fun and activities in a calm, crowd-free environment.
Stardate 05.07.2018–Meet five-time Space Shuttle astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman and listen to him discuss his experiences as a Jew in orbit! Hoffman will be joined by Dr. Valerie Neal, curator of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, who will provide an overview of the history of Jewish astronauts and their achievements in space.
Are you the leader of a #GirlScouts troop or other youth group that would like to earn a special #JewsInSpace badge for exploring the stars?
The Center would love to take your aspiring astronauts on a tour through the solar system! Email [email protected] to plan a group visit.
For artifact sneak-peeks, external reviews/coverage, and additional event announcements, search for #JewsInSpace on Instagram and Twitter!
Jews In Space: Members of the Tribe In Orbit is proudly co-presented by the Center for Jewish History & YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and financially supported by the generosity of Lisa and Joshua Greer, Kepco, Inc. & the Kupferberg Foundation.
Amazigh, Jewish and Andalusian Moroccan Diadems and Headdresses | Taj Maghrebi
- Tafraout, early 20th century
- 19th century
- 18th century
- 18th century
- Fes, early 20th century
- Anti Atlas, 19th century
- Early 20th century
- Fes, early 20th century
- Fes, early 20th century
- Rabat, 19th century
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Sunday market on Jefferson Street (@Maxwell) in the Jewish ghetto, 1905, Chicago
In the first photo, Jefferson looks impassable to street traffic.
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Nowy Sącz
Wielka Synagoga, XVIII w.
fasada z przełomu XIX-XX w.
foto z 13 maja 2017
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Nowy Sącz, Poland
The Great Synagogue, 18th c.
facade from the turn of 19-20th c.
taken on 13 May 2017
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