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7 Countries in 7 Weeks: European Jewish Winter Travel from your Living Room

Sun February 21, 2021 at 11:00 am - 12:15 pm

Sundays, January 17-February 28, 11 am – 12:15 pm

Mike Hollander’s recommended book list will be added each week below the class. A book recommendation for any week: Martin Gilbert’s Jewish History in Maps.

Poland – the Epicenter of the Ashkenazi World in 1939
January 17
So many of our Jewish ideas and so much of culture comes from Poland. We will go to Warsaw, Krakow, and Auschwitz-Birkenau, and will touch upon 3 central themes – 1,000 years of Jewish life in Polin, the period of the Shoah from 1939-45, and the complicated post-WWII to the present period of resuscitation of Jewish life in Poland, as well as the strengthening of ties between Israel and Poland.

Watch now!

Book List for Poland

  • Who Will Write Our History? Samuel Kassow
  • By Chance Alone by Max Eisen (my survivor friend from Toronto)
  • Irena’s Children (story of the Righteous Gentile Irena Sendler) by Tillar Mazzeo
  • King of Children (biography of Janusz Korczak) by Betty Jean Lifton
  • Neighbors (story of Poles killing Jews in Jedwabne) by Jan Gross

Russia: St. Petersburg and Moscow – The Pale and Beyond
January 24
Many Ashkenazi Jews say that their ancestors came from ‘Russia,’ however most likely they didn’t! Jews generally were not allowed to live in what is today the Russian Federation until 1860. From that period until the Russian Revolution in 1917, this area was an anvil of Jewish creativity. In addition, major events- including the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881, the Russian Revolution, the Great Patriotic War (WWII), the Cold War, and Glasnost – had tremendous impact on the Jewish population in this part of the world and beyond.

Watch now!

Book List for Russia

  • A Century of Ambivalence by Zvi Gitelman
  • Pogrom (about Kishinev) by Steven Zipperstein
  • Jews of Hope by Martin Gilbert and
  • The Jews of Silence by Elie Wiesel
  • Red Notice by Bill Browder (corruption in modern Russia)
  • From That Place and Time by Lucy Davidowitz (YIVO in Vilna)
  • The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder (current Putin/Trump politics)
  • A Gentlemen in Moscow by Amor Towles (guy put under house arrest for decades in a Moscow hotel – fiction)
  • Lenin’s Tomb – the Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Resnick

The Golden Age of Jewish Life in Sepharad/Spain – A Guide for the Perplexed
January 31
For centuries, the Jewish community of Spain was one of the world’s most significant. Its creative achievements in the arts, sciences, literature, medicine, diplomacy, etc. were unprecedented for a Diaspora community, largely because of the interaction and integration of the Jewish community in Muslim Spain. All this ended during the same year that Columbus set sail to discover America. We will visit some of the more important Jewish centers, including Córdoba, birthplace of Maimonides, Granada, home of the beautiful Alhambra Palace, where Ferdinand and Isabel issued their expulsion order, as well as the beautiful synagogues of Toledo.

Watch now!

Book list for Spain

  • Ornament of the World – Maria Menocal
  • The Jews of Spain – Jane Gerber

Berlin – The Rise and Fall of German Jewry – From Success to Shoah to Rebirth
February 7
During the short period from the arrival of Moses Mendelssohn in 1743 to Max Lieberman becoming the President of the Prussian Academy of Arts, the Jewish community in Berlin grew in size and significance. This meteoric rise took less than 200 years. The success of Berlin Jewry was almost unprecedented, and its achievements collapsed quickly after the rise of Nazism in the early 1930s. This journey will examine the growth and success of Berlin Jewry, its quick downfall and the Final Solution conference at Wannsee and will grapple with the complex challenges of Germany’s post WWII legacy. We’ll also explore issues of memory and teshuva, as well as German Israeli relations and the rebirth of a significant Jewish presence in Berlin.

Watch now!

Book list for Berlin

  • The Pity of It All – Amos Elon
  • Nazi Germany and the Jews – Saul Friedlander
  • The Last Jews in Berlin – Leonard Gross
  • In the Garden of the Beasts – Erik Larson
  • Foreign Affairs, January-February 2018, “The Undead Past: How Nations Confront the Evils of History”

In the Footsteps of Theodor Herzl in Budapest and Vienna
February 14 and 21
These two capitals of the Austro-Hungarian Empire boasted thriving and influential Jewish communities, which reached unprecedented heights during the Fin de Siecle era. Austria alas was the first country to fall under Nazi control outside of Germany in the 1938 Anschluss, whereas Hungarian Jewry was the last major European Jewish community to be rounded up by the Nazis in 1944. This two-part session will explore the achievements of the Jewish community in these two beautiful cities and the complex search for identity leading up to World War II. We will grapple with two very different stories of how anti-Jewish policies and the Shoah developed, and will discuss Jewish life post-1945. We will focus on some key personalities including Theodor Herzl, Hanna Szenes, Raul Wallenberg, Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig, and Viktor Frankl.

Watch February 14.

Watch February 21.

Book list for Budapest

  • The Great Escape by Kati Martin
  • Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World Wallenberg by Kati Martin
  • Kaddish for Unborn Child by Imre Kertesz
  • Diary of Hana Szenes Night by Elie Wiesel

Prague – The Jewish Story in a City in Search of Freedom
February 28
Prague’s Jewish story can be understood by walking through the richly preserved Jewish neighborhood which is one of the more visited tourist sites in the city. This city is layered with centuries of quests for freedom from Jan Hus’ early 15th century attempts to reform Christianity (a century before Martin Luther) through the Velvet Revolution led by Vaclav Havel in 1989. The Jewish community was a part of this zeitgeist and had a short-lived Golden Age in the late 15th-early 16th centuries. We will explore the oldest synagogue in Europe, the 13th Century Altneushul, the centuries old Jewish Cemetery, and hear some of the stories of the more prominent Jewish characters, from the Golem of the Maharal through Franz Kafka.

Watch now

Details

Date:
Sun February 21, 2021
Time:
11:00 am - 12:15 pm
Series:
Event Category:
Event Tags:

Other

Zoom Meeting ID
96014968210
Zoom Passcode
768335
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Details

Date:
Sun February 21, 2021
Time:
11:00 am - 12:15 pm
Series:
Event Category:
Event Tags:

Other

Zoom Meeting ID
96014968210
Zoom Passcode
768335