Poland -- another synagogue restoration wins award

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The restoration of the synagogue in Ostrow Wielkopolski has won the "Facade of the Year" award for historic building preservation.

This is the second announcement this month of a synagogue restoration in Poland garnering an award, joining the synagogue in Zamosc, for whose restoration the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland won the 2011 Conservation Laurel, an annual award granted by the regional authorities and monuments conservator in eastern Poland's Lubelskie Region, where Zamosc is located

I posted about the Ostrow restoration project last fall, providing links to the town web site with a lot of photographs illustrating the transformation.

Germany/Music -- Alan Bern to Speak in NYC about Yiddish Summer Weimar, etc

Street dancing led by Zev Feldman at Yiddish Summer Weimar. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Folks in New York -- Don't miss Alan Bern  speaking in New York on May 9 at the Center for Traditional Music and Dance about the Yiddish Summer Weimar and related events and developments.  The talk is called "Weimar Republic."

Center for Traditional Music and Dance’s An-sky Institute for Jewish Culture, the Center for Jewish History and the American Society for Jewish Music present a multi-media lecture by composer/musician Alan Bern about klezmer and Yiddish music in Germany and his work in creating Yiddish Summer Weimar - now 10 years old and one of the most celebrated institutes for Yiddish culture in the world. In addition to founding and directing Yiddish Summer Weimar, Bern is Musical Director of the internationally renowned Brave Old World ensemble, and leads the Other Europeans, an amazing new international ensemble of 14 leading musicians who explore the deep connections between Jewish and Roma (Gypsy) musical traditions. A reception will follow the program. We are grateful for the support of the Keller-Shatanoff Foundation in making this program possible. 

Poland -- New project on pre-WW2 Oshpitzin (Auschwitz)

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Auschwitz Jewish Center is launching on April 28 a new guide to pre-World War II Oshpitzin -- AKA Oswiecim, AKA Auschwitz.  The town had a majority Jewish population before World War II, and the project include an online map and hard-copy guide to the town's Jewish history and heritage.

The Auschwitz Jewish Center, opened in 2000, occupies a complex including the only surviving synagogue in Oswiecim and hosts a Jewish museum and education programs.

Poland -- Zamosc synagogue restoration wins prize

By Ruth Ellen Gruber


The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ), has won an award for the outstanding conservation of historic buildings. The award specifically cited the recently completed restoration of the Renaissance synagogue in the town of Zamosc, in southeastern Poland. FODZ, which initiated and oversaw the restoration, announced on Thursday that it had received the award, the 2011 "Conservation Laurel." The award is granted each year by the regional authorities and monuments conservator in eastern Poland's Lubelskie Region, where Zamosc is located. The award ceremony will take place May 13. Granted annually since 2000, the Conservation Laurel singles out restoration projects characterized by appropriate and high quality execution as well as by particular care on restoring and preserving the historic value and significance of a monument. The Zamosc synagogue was rededicated this month after a three-year restorations project.

Fuzhou Restaurant at Taman Johor Jaya, Johor Bahru

Fuzhou Restaurant (N1.53558 E103.79331) (air-conditional) is located at the junction of Jalan Rosmerah 2/1 & Jalan Rosmerah 2/15. We visit the restaurant often and the dishes we order are almost the same every time. I would like to share some good dishes from this restaurant to all of you...

As usual, we will definitely order the Fuzhou noodle (福州面) which is Famous from Yong Peng , Johor.

Fuzhou noodle (福州面)

Follow by the ginger chicken...

The ginger chicken

This is Must order - Claypot Yam...

Claypot Yam

Not forget the green vegetable...

Vegetables

And last, the steam fish...

So far, they never fail us! We were really satisfied with the meals. All the taste were just nice...and I like the noodle, the yam and the chicken very much!

Damage : RM130.00 for 6 adults and one child included drinks. Reasonable isn't it?! :)

The restaurant closed since April 2012.

The Location Map of Fuzhou Restaurant at Taman Johor Jaya, Johor Bahru

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Cemeteries: Somewhat off topic but related.....

Caretakers in Alba Iulia, Romania, cut hay in the Jewish cemetery. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Washington Post recently ran an interesting article about what can happen to a cemetery in an isolated area when its elderly caretaker can no longer take care. This is a common problem with Jewish cemeteries in some parts of Eastern Europe, where -- as in Romania, for example -- the small Jewish communities often contracted with local peasants to cut the weeds and maintain Jewish cemeteries in places where few or no Jews now live in exchange for housing onsite, or use of the hay or part of land where there are no burials. As these people age and pass away, the cemeteries may be left untended.

The article, by J. Freedom du Lac, was not about a Jewish cemetery in eastern Europe -- but about an African-American cemetery in rural Virginia whose longtime caretaker, Vernon Peterson, is now 80.

It’s what happens afterward, when he’s no longer around to look after Rock Hill Cemetery. For nearly half of its existence, the 122-year-old cemetery — where generations of local African American families are interred — has been carefully tended by Peterson, a fastidious Korean War veteran who grew up nearby in a country village that’s long since disappeared.

But Peterson is 80, and he can’t stop wondering: Who will care for this little-known repository of community and family history when he’s gone?

There are thousands of graveyards scattered across Virginia, many of them small family burial plots on private properties, according to preservationists and historians. Some date to the founding of Jamestown more than 400 years ago.


But they’re increasingly endangered as a generation of caretakers dies off and people with kin buried out back sell off their family land. The burial sites can become overgrown and, eventually, consigned to oblivion.

Bulgaria -- New Guidebook to Jewish Bulgaria

Synagogue in Sofia

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

A new, richly illustrated, guidebook to Jewish Bulgaria has been published by Vagabond Press. Written by Dimana Trankova and Anthony Georgieff, the 168-page book is the first such comprehensive, stand-alone guide. (My book Jewish Heritage Travel includes a chapter on Bulgaria along with chapters on 13 other countries.)  From what I saw in the online preview, the new book looks packed with information, history and photos.

Click HERE to see the web site and preview.

Chinese Dragon Dance @ Jalan Tan Hiok Nee, Johor Bahru.

The Dragon Dance at Jalan Tanh Hiok Nee (N1.45648 E103.76373) was performed on 5th March 2011. We were there trying to capture some photos of the performance.
The show was started about 8pm and the second show was on 9.30pm. The little street was packed with peoples at every corner!

There were total of 4 Dragons that night and the first Performance was the Blue Dragon.

The Blue Dragon which was mixed with Blue, Red, Silver and White colours...

This was the most aggressive Dragon of the night!

Then follow by the some kind of Red Dragon...

The Red Dragon

The Performance of the Red Dragon

My apologies that I couldn't snap a good photo of the White Furry Dragon, it was because of my built-in Flash...sorry...
So immediately after the performance of the Furry Dragon, there came the Lantern Dragon with Fireworks! These was the impressive Dragon of the night!

The Dragon with Fireworks!

The End Of the Show...

We were standing at one of the corner and cannot move around! Because there were extremely crowded and no place left for us to change location...so you can see all my photos were shooting from Only one corner! :)
My head and camera were Hit by the Dragons few times, and luckily it was still A OK. Haha!

We spent almost 3 hours along the street and too bad we miss the business hour of the IT LOO Cafe for our dinner... yeah...I was grumbling why it close so early?!

It was a GREAT show and we hope they will organize it again in next year!

Location map of Jalan Tan Hiok Nee at Johor Bahru.

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Seng Huat Koay Tiaw Soup at Jalan Kebun Teh Lama, Johor Bahru

Seng Huat Koay Tiaw Soup stall (N1.47779 E103.75348) is located at the junction of Jalan Kebun Teh Lama and Jalan Tun Abdul Razak, Johor Bahru. There was only one stall during my visit and I'm not sure is there any other hawker stall around in this coffee shop.

There are indoor and outdoor area at the shop, and I took the outdoor area...the outdoor area shaded and you won't feel hot especially under the big tree...

Outdoor area

Indoor area

It was not very hot on that day, and I believe the shop will be uncomfortable during a hot sunny day. I ordered the Kuay Tiaw (dry type) and it served with soup.

Plenty of fish in the bowl

The fish was tender and the soup was not too salty, overall...satisfied with it! Delicious!  

Damage was MYR7.00. I will be back again but Not on Hot Sunny day...:)

You might feel not secure around the area because of the vehicles passing by, the shop located exactly beside the traffic light junction and furthermore it's a high traffic area. But for me, it's ok. :)

The stall is open 7 days every week...Mon - Sat : morning till around 4pm and Sunday : morning till 12pm.

Location map of Seng Huat Koay Tiaw Soup, Johor Bahru

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List of Jewish Culture, etc Festivals 2011

At the Budapest Jewish Summer Festival. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

As usual, I am trying to put together a list of as many as possible of the numerous Jewish festivals -- culture, film, dance, etc -- that take place each year around Europe. Please help me by sending me information!

The big culture festivals and other smaller events make good destinations around which to center a trip. Some, like the annual Festival of Jewish Culture in Krakow, are huge events lasting a week or more, which draw thousands of people and offer scores or sometimes hundreds of performances, lectures, concerts, exhibits and the like. Other festivals are much less ambitious. Some are primarily workshops but also feature concerts. Many of the same artists perform at more than one festival.

 The list will be growing and growing -- and again,  I ask my readers to please send me information and links to upcoming events. Thanks!


ALL OVER EUROPE -- Sept. 4 -- 12th European Day of Jewish Culture. The theme this year is "Facing the Future."

AUSTRIA

April 3-7 -- Vienna -- Jewish Film Noir festival

Nov. 5-2- -- Vienna -- KlezMORE music festival


CZECH REPUBLIC

 April 28-May 1 --Mikulov -- Days of Jewish Culture

June 12-16 -- Terezin -- Defiant Requiem performances

July 7-10 -- Boskovice -- UniJazz/Boskovice Festival. The festival is focused on saving and restoring of local Jewish quarter.

July 25-30 -- Trebic --  Trebic Jewish Festival, held in one of the most extensive and best-preserved old Jewish quarters in Europe, part of the town's UNESCO-listed historic center.

July 25-26 -- Namest nad Oslavou -- Jewish music at Folk Holidays Festival

FRANCE

May 10-13 -- Saint-Gildas-des-Bois -- Festival MusiqueS Klezmer

June 14-30 -- Paris -- Festival of Jewish Cultures

July 2-10 -- Bréau (Gard) -- Le Yiddishland à la rencontre des Cévennes

GERMANY

March 11-13 -- Fuerth -- International Klezmer Festival

May  18-31   -- Berlin/Potsdam -- 17th Jewish Film Festival 

June 23-26 -- Berlin -- "Sounds no Walls" -- Jazz and Jewish Culture

July -- Weimar -- Yiddish Summer Weimar

Oct. 23-Nov. 6 -- Dresden -- 15th Yiddish Music and Theater Weeks

November 12-30 -- Munich -- 25th edition of Jewish Culture Days


HUNGARY

April 28-May 4 -- Budapest -- First Israeli Documentary Film Festival

June 5 -- Budapest -- Judafest

Aug. 4-7 -- Bank Lake -- Bankito Festival

Aug. 27-Sept. 5 -- Budapest -- Jewish Summer Festival 

ITALY

May 7-9 -- Ferrara -- Festival of the Jewish Book in Italy


June 2-3 -- Casale Monferrato -- Oy Oy Oy Festival


June 26-July 17 -- in val d'Aosta -- Centrad festival/workshops in Ashkenazic culture

Nov. 12-16 -- Rome -- Pitigliani Kolno'a Festival (music, film, etc)

Nov. 20-27 -- Venice -- Festival of Polish-Jewish Culture 

NETHERLANDS

October -- many venues around the country -- International Jewish Music Festival -- . See the web site for a calendar of Jewish music events.

POLAND

May 1-6 -- Czestochowa -- International Festival of Sacred Music


May 6, 7, 13 -- Opole -- Days of Jewish Music and Culture

May 14-22 -- Warsaw -- Otwarta-Twarda Jewish Festival

May 15-18 -- Warsaw -- 14th Jewish Book Days

May 29-June 3 --- Wroclaw -- 13th Simcha Jewish Culture Festival

June 1 -- Szydlow -- 9th Encounters with Jewish Culture

June 4 -- Krakow -- Night of the Synagogues

June 11-17 -- Oswiecim -- Oswiecim Life Festival (international music festival with Jewish content, held in the town where Auschwitz is located)

June 18-19 -- Chmielnik -- 9th Encounters with Jewish Culture

June 24-July 3 -- Krakow -- Festival of Jewish Culture

August 19-21 -- Lublin -- Shalom: Encounters with Jewish Culture

August 20-21 -- Lelow -- 9th Cholent and Ciulim festival

August 27-Sept. 4 -- Warsaw -- Singer's Warsaw Festival


ROMANIA

June 16-19 -- Bucharest -- Klezmer & More Festival

June 20-26 -- Bucharest -- First Bucharest Jewish Film Festival



SERBIA

June 12-21 -- Belgrade -- Ethno Fusion Fest (in courtyard of Belgrade synagogue)


SWITZERLAND

June 18-19 -- Geneva -- Friends of Jewish Music Festival

UKRAINE

July 24 -- L'viv -- L'vivKlezFest

Stones and Stone-carver images from a century ago

Here's a cross-post from candlesticksonstone

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The wonderful imagery on East European tombstones was created by talented and extraordinarily creative stone-carvers who are now, for the most part, anonymous. Everyone so often, a photograph of a more recent traditional stone-carver turns up. Sergey Kravstov has sent me the image below.

The illustration is from the catalogue: The Jewish Art of Solomon Yudovin (1892-1954). From Folk Art to Socialist Realism, by Ruth Apter-Gabriel (Jerusalem, 1991). Yudevin was a wonderful artist born near Vitebsk, the same town where Marc Chagall was born.

The drypoint at right, dated 1939, is clearly based on the photo at left, taken in Ostroh/Ostrog in Volhynia — probably during the expedition into Ukraine led by the Yiddish writer An-Sky in 1912-14 to document the rapidly disappearing Jewish cultural life of the shtetl. This would mean that it was taken by Yudovin, who was a photographer on that expedition. It’s a very dramatic shot and to me looks staged!

I have tried to figure out what the design he is carving is — but I can’t make it out….

Here below is a wood cut by Yudevin that shows a funeral at a shtetl’s Jewish cemetery — including the gravestone of a woman that bears the typical candlestick motif.

Poland -- Jewish life in Krakow article

Jonathan Ornstein and Staszek Krajewski at a discussion on Jewish identity in Poland at the Krakow JCC in 2010. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber). 

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Jerusalem Post ran a long article about Jewish life and experience in Krakow, focusing on the role and work of the new Jewish Community Center, which opened in 2008. The author, Israel Kasnett, asks the usual questions, and writes about many of the usual scenes, paradoxes and tropes. I'm glad though to see a generally positive spin in his description of what I have called the "new authenticities" in the city.

For many people, Jewish life cannot conceivably flourish in Krakow – a city so close in proximity to the Auschwitz and Plaszow concentration camps where more than a million people were murdered. To them, Krakow has simply become a stopover on the way to the camps, to see where Schindler’s List was filmed or to visit the graves of ancestors.

But 66 years after the war, and 22 years since the fall of communism, the question remains: Can Krakow’s Jewish community flourish once again? My recent visit to its Beit Chayil Jewish Community Center proved that today there exists more than just death and a Jewish past.

 Read full article HERE

The International Kite Festival 2011 @ Pasir Gudang, Johor

We visited The International Kite Festival 2011 on the Saturday morning and it was not a good weather that day...As usual, the Bukit Layang Layang (Kite Hill) (N1.47480 E103.90641) area was crowded and packed with peoples everywhere...

The Kite Museum of Bukit Layang Layang, Pasir Gudang

This time, I don't really take note on the stalls along the way, it was almost the same every year. There was a group of children that cheer up the area! I like to see those smile on their face! :)

The group of school children

We went to the field immediately and trying to catch some actions with the kites around...I believe the groups from all over the World are the same as previous year.

Country flags of all the participants

It was not a sunny day and also Not windy at all! I believe that was a bad news for all the Big Giant Kites in the field...
I managed to took some photos on the sky...during that time, most of the huge kites were lying on the field.

You can see the Big Kite every year...

The Malaysia flag

Follow by the Brotherhood of Stingrays...

Some of the Big heavy kites trying very hard to fly, but...unfortunately the wind was Not strong enough to lift them...too bad, we don't have a change to snap the Big kites too! :(

The Big Kites trying hard to lift up, but...

Suddenly the sky does not corporate enough and heavy down pour without a notice! Everyone ran like hell to find a place to hide! Except those in the field...I saw them really enjoyed dancing in the rain...haha!

Some actions on the ground...

Doesn't matter rain or shine...

I like this action!

After the rain stop, we saw a really Nice scene! Many young boys and girls suddenly ran into the field with their little kites in hand! That was Great!!

We were there for about 2 hours, then the rain started to pour again...that spoiled our moods to continue watching the beautiful kites flying...and all of them were just lying on the field...
Disappointed! We will be back again next year!

The Location Map of Bukit Layang-Layang (Kite Hill) of Pasir Gudang, Johor.

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