Musée Juif de Belgique

Performance : David Bernstein – Even if it’s not true, it’s well found – 6.06 from 6pm

The title Even if it’s not true, it’s well found is a literal translation of the Italian expression Se non e vero, e ben trovato – meaning that even though a story might be made up, it is still worth telling. The work consists of a series of abstract sculptures that have had fictional stories written about them. These stories were generated from associations while looking at the artworks, and in that way, they reveal another “truth” about the object.

Three of these sculptures are displayed within the museum with accompanying stories, told during the performance. Each sculpture is made of different materials – various kinds of wood, brass, and steel – to allow for different tactile experiences. The sculptures’ shapes are inspired by ancestral ritual instruments and modern industrial design objects. This work aims to look at the power of imagination to give different readings to the same object. It emphasizes the queerness of objects, celebrating the idea that one thing can be several things at once.

This event is part of the “Laboratory of Rituals” performance cycle.

At the heart of the Laboratory of Rituals project, four performance artists – Hilal Aydoğdu, David Bernstein, Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer et Zinaïda Tchelidze – are committed to creating new mythologies that re-enchant the world.

In this artistic laboratory, these artists explore the depths of the collective imagination, venturing into the meanders of history, culture and tradition. They invite us to plunge into their artistic universes, to cross passages between the visible and invisible worlds, in order to discover new perspectives and new understandings of the world.

The Laboratory of Rituals is more than just an exhibition. It’s a space for artistic exploration, where cross-cultural performers meet, question and share their worldviews. It’s a call for reflection and wonder, as well as the creation of new mythologies that revive our existence.

Program :
6:00pm – Doors open
6:30pm to 7:30pm : Performance “Even if it’s not true, it’s well found” by David Bernstein
7:30pm – Drink
8:30pm – Doors close

Price : Pay what you can (Recommended price 6€)

The body of the artist proposes itself as a living altar, offered for a moment of reflection, meditation, prayer, and request, not for a god or saint, but for the world.

In the Christian religion, lighting a candle opens one’s heart to God and thus raises a prayer towards him. It is also a way of expressing one’s attachment to a saint in particular by making a request or even thanking him. An offering accompanies this approach.

Here, the ritual is proposed to allow oneself to express their concern, fear, and sorrow for the world – it is a way of reacting to the environmental despair that we are currently experiencing.

This performance is inspired both by the artist’s rituals in a women’s circle to celebrate, among other things, the solstices and equinoxes, and Joanna Macy’s essay, “Acting with Environmental Despair” which asks the question: “Can we recognize our sorrow for the world and live with it in a way that affirms our existence and frees our power to act?”

A year ago, the first version of this performance was presented during the Trouble Festival. In this context, more than sixty sorrows were laid at the foot of the altar. These anonymous sorrows will be engraved next to each other on one of the walls of the exhibition, during several one-off sessions between April 11 and September 1.

Performance from 6:30 pm

Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer (1992, Huy, Belgium) lives and works in Brussels. A multidisciplinary artist, her practice covers photography, film, performance, and installation. The question of narrative and the power of words and ideas runs through her work. She uses storytelling as an experience of emancipation and empowerment from gender norms and stereotypes and as a creative force of the universe to induce new relationships to worlds.

She graduated from the photography workshop at ESA Saint-Luc in Liège in 2013 and from ENSAV La Cambre in Brussels in 2022. She obtained her master’s degree with Grand Distinction and the Boghossian Foundation Prize 2022 with her project Terrapolis.

Discussion between Luc Benhamou and Sonia Wieder-Atherton and musical moments

Chantal Akerman was born in Brussels in 1950. Her parents, originally from Poland, had settled in Belgium in the 1930s. During the war, part of her family suffered deportation and were murdered in Auschwitz. The ensuing silence guided both her work as a filmmaker and her life as a woman.

Sonia Wieder-Atherton and Luc Benhamou wish to share a moment of exchange by questioning Chantal Akerman’s relationship with Judaism. Some of the possible approaches are through her work, but also through her positions on several issues, her relationship to biblical texts and to transmission. Music will also be present through the voice of Sonia Wieder-Atherton’s cello.

LUC BENHAMOU :

Born in Paris in 1959, Luc Benhamou studied cinematography at the Insas in Brussels. He subsequently worked as a cinematographer, authored short films and studied Judaism. He framed and/or lit all Chantal Akerman’s films between 1983 and 1988, among these the notables Les Années 80 (1983) L’homme à la valise (1983), Un jour Pina a demandé (1983), J’ai faim, j’ai froid (1984), Family Business (1984), Golden eighties (1984), Letters Home (1986), Histoires d’Amérique (1988).

SONIA WIEDER-ATHERTON :

Cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton studied at the Paris Conservatoire, then went on studying further with Natalia Chakhovskaya at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow. She returned home at the age of 25, where she met Chantal Akerman. Their work and personal relation were set to last forever. Their worlds came together in film scores and stage creations. Chantal Akerman also directed several films with SWA, who performed works ranging from Monteverdi to Dutilleux. Their collaboration on the music for “Histoires d’Amérique” gave rise to a recording of liturgical Jewish chants for cello and piano.

Program:

6 pm doors open

6:30 pm start of discussion (approx. 1h30)

8 p.m. end (no drinks)

Credit: Collections CINEMATEK – © Fondation Chantal Akerman

Celebrate Pesach with us!

We’re delighted to invite you to a one-day Pesach celebration on April 14 at 3pm.
Pesach, also known as Passover, is one of Judaism’s three pilgrimage holidays, commemorating the exodus of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt according to the Torah’s Book of Exodus. The holiday evokes the notion of renewal, of freedom, and is honored through several rituals, including the consumption of unleavened bread (matza) and the celebration of the Passover meal.

Program :

Matzot-making workshop for children: Our young participants will have the opportunity to take part in a Matza bread-making workshop. They’ll have the opportunity to discover the importance of this ancestral tradition by getting their hands dirty.

Guided tour of the “Passage – Textiles & Ritual” exhibition: We also invite you to a guided tour of our “Passage – Textiles & Ritual” exhibition, a fascinating exploration of Jewish textiles and rituals.

This event is organized in collaboration with the European Jewish Community Centre (EJCC).

As part of NOCTURNES, the third “Passage” tour will open on April 11 in our Project Space, inviting you to explore the contemporary resurgence of beliefs and rituals through a program of unique performances.

In Turkish culture, when you welcome someone, you give them your bed, your home. Misafirperverlik means «hospitality » in Turkish. The term has Arabic roots: «musafir», «safar», which also means «hunger» and «he or she who goes on an expedition, who goes far away». And Persian roots: «parvar», meaning «to feed, to bring up, to educate». Misafirperver therefore means «he or she
who feeds his or her guest».

The performance is two-fold: «the preparation» and «the meal».
Duration: 2 h00.

Hilal Aydoğdu (1998, Liège), holds a Master’s degree in drawing from the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Liège and has practiced performance art for several years, in depth at La Cambre.

Hilal questions the place of women in a man’s world. She proposes to apprehend the devices that work to establish a deleterious hegemony – that of patriarchy – mainly through culture, by exploring the morbid lexicon of the values and injunctions it conveys: honor, virginity, obedience. Performance and installation allow her words to take shape; by breaking the boundaries between the object and
its flesh, by playing with what can be forced together, she attempts to suggest imbalance, to let the union give rise to vertigo, and vertigo to fall.

She aims to confront the order that strikes in the name of ideals that damage women with the consequences of its reign, reflecting back to it the horror and pain they generate.

Program :

guided tour of the “Passage” exhibition at 6pm (FR)
guided tour of the “Passage” exhibition at 6:30pm (NL)
Performance Misafirperver by Hilal Aydoğdu from 6 pm to 8 pm (FR,NL,EN)

For bookings –> via the Nocturnes website (ticket sales open on March 25)

This spring, the Jewish Museum of Belgium is delighted to present an exhibition from the Center for Jewish-Moroccan Culture (CCJM) titled “Tanger. Ville mythique” (Mythical Tangier).

Through a vast array of archives and artworks from the collection of the Center for Judeo-Moroccan Culture, visitors are invited on a journey through time and space to discover this city with a thousand faces.

As a bridge between Africa and Europe, a western beacon in the Mediterranean, Tangier has always held a special place in the history of the Kingdom of Morocco. Its strategic location has made it a coveted area since antiquity by major empires and conquerors, with successive invasions shaping its customs and traditions. These influences are still evident in its craftsmanship, a cultural richness perceptible in both its costume art and local jewelry. The coexistence of different societies and religions – Muslims, Jews, and Europeans – makes it a cosmopolitan and unique space in Morocco, oriented towards Europe. Between land, sea, and ocean, the “Pearl of the North” offers inspiring landscapes that attract artists: painters, photographers, and filmmakers come to soak up its unique atmosphere. But Tangier is also active on the political and diplomatic stage, the scene of several major events in the history of North Africa over the centuries, as the exhibition’s journey portrays.

NOCE JUIVE AU MAROC
Delacroix Eugène (d’après),
1850

At the heart of the Laboratory of Rituals project, four performance artists – Hilal Aydoğdu, David Bernstein, Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer et Zinaïda Tchelidze – are committed to creating new mythologies that re-enchant the world.

In this artistic laboratory, these artists explore the depths of the collective imagination, venturing into the meanders of history, culture and tradition. They invite us to plunge into their artistic universes, to cross passages between the visible and invisible worlds, in order to discover new perspectives and new understandings of the world.

Through their performances, these artists offer us intense moments where the sacred and the profane meet, where emotions blossom and questions multiply. They open doors to sensory and intellectual experiences, inviting us to reflect on our own relationship with beliefs, myths and rituals.

The Laboratory of Rituals is more than just an exhibition. It’s a space for artistic exploration, where cross-cultural performers meet, question and share their worldviews. It’s a call for reflection and wonder, as well as the creation of new mythologies that revive our existence.

The Laboratory of Rituals will open on April 11 in our Project Space and invites you to explore the contemporary resurgence of beliefs and rites through a program of unique performances. The first performance will take place as part of the Nocturnes event.

Program :

Misafirperver – Hilal Aydoğdu – 11.04.2024

La Chapelle des peines pour le monde – Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer – 22.05.2024

Even if it’s not true, it’s well found – David Bernstein – 6.06.2024

To your arrival and our welcome – Zinaïda Tchelidze – 1.09.2024

The last exhibition of the Jewish Museum of Belgium before closing for construction works in late 2024, Passage reflects on the idea of transformation. It explores how the spiritual blends with the profane life, how the rite combines with the ordinary, and what happens when the collective and the intimate tie together.

The exhibition consists of three complementary paths. The first immerses us in the universe of Charlemagne Palestine. In an installation entitled «AA BATT BEARR BARR MITZVAHH INN MESHUGAHLANDDD», the artist reinterprets the transition to adulthood in the Jewish tradition. In the tradition of schmattès, the Yiddish word for rags or second-hand clothes, he reinvents the gestures of collecting, sewing, and mending the fabric that mark the history of the Jewish worlds.

Echoing the fabric assemblages of Charlemagne Palestine, the second route proposes a dialogue around textiles, by crossing the collections of the Jewish Museum of Belgium, those of the Center of Judeo-Moroccan Culture, and the interventions of four contemporary artists: Jennifer Bornstein, Richard Moszkowicz, Elise Peroi, Arlette Vermeiren. This game of free-spirited associations reminds us that textile work is, in itself, a ritual practice and that women occupy a central place in it. It also shows that fabrics are never a mere adornment: alternately, they are places of memory, symbols of celebration, or accessions to the sacred.

Through a performances program, the third path questions the contemporary resurgence of beliefs and rites. Hilal Aydoğdu, David Bernstein, Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer, and Zinaïda Tchelidze rethink the museum space to create an intimate and sensory laboratory, conducive to reflection and exchange.

A symbolic gesture, Passage is not only the end point of an exhibition program that has been running in this building for over twenty years. This exhibition questions the future Jewish Museum, which will also imagine new forms of passages.

circumcision cloths, Arlon, 1843, 1888, 1875, Antwerp, 1802

On the occasion of INTERNATIONAL ROMA DAY, the Jewish Museum of Belgium is pleased to invite you to an event dedicated to celebrating Roma culture and raising awareness of anti-Roma discrimination.
In partnership with ESMA, Carrefour des Cultures:

ESMA-CC is an association that promotes and supports artists, cultural creations and music from the Balkans and Roma, with the aim of encouraging encounters, debate and dialogue between groups, communities and cultural players in civil society.

Program

3:30 pm: Conference: Carol Silverman (Eng – Fr)
4:45 pm: Q&A
5:00 pm: Break
5:30 p.m.: Concerts
6:30 pm: Drink of friendship
Price
Price: 7 euros on site
Free for students

Free event

Conference

Historical and cultural contexts of klezmer and Balkan Romani music: comparisons and contrasts
Jews and Roma are often considered Europe’s two most emblematic minority groups. Both communities have greatly enriched the culture and arts of Eastern Europe, while facing historical discrimination, including the Nazi genocide. This illustrated lecture explores the cultural links and differences between Jews and Roma in Eastern Europe. Focusing on music, we will examine the professional role of klezmer and Roma musicians, as well as the context of their repertoire and performances in ritual and family life. Today, Balkan Romani music is not only a dynamic community asset, but also a global musical product; klezmer is also being creatively revitalized and recast. At the same time, anti-Semitism and anti-Gypsyism are on the rise. In these difficult times, music can serve as a tool in the fight against neo-nationalism and xenophobia.

Carol Silverman

Carol Silverman has been interested in Balkan music and culture for over forty years as a researcher, teacher, artist and activist. Professor Emerita of Cultural Anthropology and Folklore at the University of Oregon, she has taught Jewish and Balkan folklore, focusing on music, festivals, cultural policy and human rights issue

Concerts

ESMA Next Generation Band
Vilmos Csikos, Anette Dukane Csikos, Duka Vilmos
The Klezmer Society

Exhibition

Ceija Stojka

Ceija Stojka was born in Austria in 1933, the fifth of six children in a family of Roma horse traders. Deported at the age of ten with her mother Sidonie and other family members, she survived three concentration camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen. 

It was only forty-five years later, in 1988, at the age of fifty-five, that she felt the need and the necessity to talk about it; she embarked on a fantastic work of remembrance and, despite being considered illiterate, wrote several poignant books, in a poetic and highly personal style, which made her the first Roma woman survivor of the death camps to bear witness to her concentration camp experience, against oblivion and denial, against the prevailing racism. 

SKINFOLD is a durational performance in which bodies move alongside each other in reciprocal recognition, leaning towards and exploring internalised landscapes in an attempt of soft transformations.

Tending to an embodied habitat, where boundaries of flesh and body image continuously blur, the performers allow themselves to shift their representational features and ways of bodily perceptions. What does it mean to inhabit a body? This body?

These strategies for a utopian and transformative practice stem from an ongoing choreographic research initiated by Abigail Aleksander and Mary Szydlowska. Presented for the first time in the context of Shoshana Walfish’s exhibition, SKINFOLD responds and converses with Walfish’s paintings series Illusive Bodies; where representation and corporealities are put into interpretational play.

———

Abigail Aleksander and Mary Szydlowska are performers & choreographers based in Brussels. They met in 2019 during their respective studies at P.A.R.T.S. and have been engaged in each other’s work since. SKINFOLD is their first performance collaboration.

Abigail Aleksander works as a performer and collaborator with a variety of art makers including: Philipp Gehmacher, Michiel Vandevelde, Jan Martens and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. She began her dance training in London before graduating with a BA from P.A.R.T.S in 2022. SKINFOLD is her first choreographic work.

Mary Szydlowska’s practice varies between movement, installation and sculptural objects. Since graduating from MA STUDIOS programme at P.A.R.T.S, they’ve been making solo performances touching upon the notions of peripheral, withdrawn and invisible phenomena. Their work has been supported and presented by Beursschwourburg, IKOB Museum, Brussels Gallery Weekend, Zachęta National Gallery in Warsaw, workspacebrussels, wp zimmer, CC Strombeek and others.

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Program :
1:30pm – Doors open
2pm to 5pm – SKINFOLD performance
5:15pm – Artist talk moderated by Persis Bekkering
6:30pm – Doors close

*The performance lasts for three hours, the audience can come, go and return freely. To avoid overcrowding, the performance can host 15 guests at one time, you may need to wait if this number is exceeded.

Credits:

Concept, choreography, performance Abigail Aleksander / Mary Szydlowska Music composition, Hannah Todt Special thanks to Shoshana Walfish, PARTS, Steven De Belder, Steven Peeters.

This project is supported by the Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie (VGC).

Immerse yourself in the universe of “Pierrot Lunaire” by Arnold Schoenberg by attending a concert organized by the Royal Conservatory of Brussels.

A group of young artists, singers, and instrumentalists, are determined to confront the sacred monster of the Second Viennese School: Pierrot Lunaire. Together, and without a conductor, they attempt to capture the power of Arnold Schoenberg’s music, its extraordinary expressive and visionary force.

Don’t miss out on this unique musical experience!

Program:
6:30 PM – Doors Open
7:00 PM – Concert
8:00 PM – Drinks
9:00 PM – Doors Close

Free entry, reservation required.

Location: Jewish Museum of Belgium, Rue des Minimes 21, 1000 Brussels, Belgium.
In partnership with the Royal Conservatory of Brussel s.

As part of the Photo Brussels Festival, the Jewish Museum of Belgium invites you to the closing of its exhibition “Erwin Blumenfeld. Photography. 1930-1950” on 4 February 2024 at 4pm for a guided tour in the presence of the Director of Exhibitions, Bruno Benvindo, and the photographer’s granddaughter, Nadia Blumenfeld Charbit.

This is the last opportunity to discover an exhibition devoted to one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century: Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969). Known for his exceptionally creative fashion photographs, Blumenfeld’s work is polymorphous, combining Dadaist inspiration, political commitment and artistic experimentation.

Featuring over a hundred photographs, the exhibition looks back at the life of this Berlin Jew, who was part of the cultural avant-garde in Amsterdam and then Paris, before being interned when the Second World War broke out. He managed to take refuge in New York at the last minute in 1941, where he enjoyed a successful career, marked by a free exploration of form and colour.

Program :

Doors open at 3:30 p.m.

Guided tour from 4pm to 5pm with Nadia Blumenfeld Charbit (in FR).

Drinks from 5.00 p.m. to 6.00 p.m.

Doors close at 6.30pm.

Price: 10 euros (including access to the exhibition) / Free for students

Registration available here.

We are pleased to invite you to the MultiMemo Dissemination Conference and Holocaust Commemoration Event.

This event is organized by CEJI – A Jewish Contribution to an inclusive Europe, in partnership with the Jewish Museum of Belgium, as part of the EU funded project MultiMemo – Multidirectional Memory: Remembering for Social Justice.

The MultiMemo project proposes an intersectional approach to remembrance – one that underscores the relevance of memory for social justice and the need to face contemporary challenges related to human rights violations, military conflicts and violence, social exclusion, and the migration crisis.

The first MultiMemo dissemination conference and commemoration event aims to promote a new language of commemoration through a multidirectional approach to holocaust remembrance based on the four principles of inclusivity, sustainability, the rescuing of memory, and epistemic justice through arts, academia, urbanism, activism, and policy making.

Date & Time:

21^st of January 2024, 16.00h (CET).

Location:

Jewish Museum of Belgium.

Language

The event will be in English. Translation into French and Dutch will be provided.

Registration

Click here to fill in the registration form. Please note that there is a limited number of seats. Registration closes on January 15th.

The Jewish Museum of Belgium invites you to discover “Les Guerrières de la Paix”, a documentary directed by Hanna Assouline and Jessica Bertaux in 2018. 

In 2014, Israeli and Palestinian women decided to create an informal movement: Women Wage Peace. These women came together around a demand as simple as it was terribly audacious: that their leaders meet again around a negotiating table. In 2018, there are now tens of thousands of them, from all political backgrounds and origins. They are the warriors of peace.  

Through this film and her recent speeches, Hanna Assouline strives to propose a humanist path, “without slogan nor flag”, to transcend the various antagonistic narratives at play and bring everyone together beyond their respective reactionary opinions.

This kind of apolitical approach presented in the documentary is often misunderstood and interpreted as ignoring the complexity of reality. We will examine its properties and relevance. Together we will question the essence of the word “peace”, the evocation of which now frequently arises suspicion and polemics, in order to understand how to restore its unifying character.  

Program :

Doors open 6:30pm

Screening of the film “Les Guerrières de la Paix” at 7:00 pm

Meeting with Hanna Assouline at 8:00 pm, hosted by Sarah Halfin.

Come and (re)discover Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, at the Jewish Museum of Belgium with your family on Sunday, December 10, 2022 from 11 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.

While parents are guided by exhibition director Bruno Benvindo through the Erwin Blumenfeld exhibition, children will enjoy a special Hanukkah craft workshop with our cultural mediator!

We’ll then light the fourth Hanukkah candle together, telling you the story of the Maccabim revolt and the miracle that took place in Jerusalem’s temple in the second century BC.

11 a.m. Guided tour and children’s workshop – with Barbara Cuglietta and Audrey Elbaum

12pm Candle-lighting ceremony, Hanukkah songs

12:30 traditional doughnut tasting

Admission: 12 euros / adult, free for children.

Registration by e-mail to events@mjb-jmb.org

Image : ארכיון השומר הצעיר יד יערי – Hashomer Hatzair Archives Yad Yaari

License : Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic

From September 29, the Jewish Museum of Belgium proposes an exhibition featuring the photographer Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969). Famous for his exceptionnaly creative fashion portraits, Blumenfeld’s artistry is offers a polymorphic work where Dadaïst inspiration, political committment and artistic expérimentations intertwine.

Featuring over a hundred photographs, the exhibition looks back at the life of this Berlin Jew who evolved within the cultural avant-garde movement in Amsterdam and Paris. As WWII broke out, he endured internment in a camp but was able to flee to New York in 1941 where his art blossomed with a free exploration of shapes and colors.

**Hitler, Grauenfresse**
Netherlands, 1938
© The Estate of Erwin Blumenfeld 2022

…and then there was EVE is a one woman performative concert, embodied by Jeanna Criscitiello stems from a larger artistic practice that explores feminism and identity. A multi-voiced anti-hero EVE’s inner and outer voice are unfiltered and contradictory and become acts of resistance towards oversimplification of the human experience.

… and then there was EVE performs a collection of EVE heroes from multiple perspectives through invited participants asked to name a personal heroine and identify an object — book, work of art, photograph, and so on — representative of that figure.

New narratives were created by mixing hard fact, intimate confession and the poetics of story-telling. Reinvention, metamorphosis and transmission are reoccurring themes that play a central role in the creation of a feminine archetype with multiple voices – EVE.

In the framework of the exhibition Four Sisters at The Jewish Museum of Belgium, Jeanna Criscitiello will perform a thirty minute selection of her EVE heroes with a highlight on Chantal Akerman’s, Jeanne Dielman. A detailed study of Dielman’s hand gestures that span the three hour opus has been condensed into a seven minute fragment performed on stage and set against an original music composition which is as repetitive and physically exhausting as the endless loop of mundane chores that lead to Dielman’s catastrophic unraveling.

Jeanna Criscitiello’s fascination with facts and fictions that become woven realities is the basis of this performance.

Program :

3:30 pm: Doors open

4:00 pm – 5:00 pm: “Four Sisters” guided tour with Yann Chateigné Tytelmans

5:00 pm – 5:30 pm: Performance EVE

5:30 pm – 6:00 pm: Talk with Jeanna Criscitiello and Barbara Cuglietta

6:00 pm – 7:00 pm: Drink

Price: 10 euros (+ free admission to the “Four Sisters” exhibition)

Tribute to the victims of the SamudaripenOn August 2, 2023, the Jewish Museum of Belgium will pay homage to the victims of the Samudaripen genocide by the Nazis of Roma/Manouches/Sintis/Travellers in Europe.

In collaboration with the ESMA-Carrefour des cultures association, the Jewish Museum of Belgium is organizing a commemoration event on the occasion of the “European Day of Remembrance of the Roma Genocide”, on Wednesday August 2, 2023 at 2:30 p.m. Two conferences will take place: Génocide des Roms : des sources du racisme au génocide nazi by Olivier Bonny (Esma-Carrefour des cultures) and a presentation of research and collection of testimonies and interviews in Eastern countries – by Costel Nastasie of Dignité Rom. The commemoration will be followed with a concert of Balkan Roma style music by Eleonora Mustafovska (singing), Simeon Atanasov (composition, accordion) and Muhi (keyboards) (40 minutes)

Program :

Reception from 2 p.m.

Lectures at 2:30 p.m.

Concert from 3:45 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Farewell drink

Free of charge, reservation required via edu@mjb-jmb.org with mention Commemoration August 2

On view in its Project Space, the Jewish Museum of Belgium presents the paintings of the Canadian-born Brussels-based artist Shoshana Walfish (°1988). This exhibition focuses on the artist’s research into the representation of the female body, in two scopes. Rooted in the classical pictorial tradition, her works vary in scale and style, from sculptural figuration to figurative abstraction.

Shoshana Walfish questions the idea of the woman as an object and of objects as female bodies. Between surrealism and the absurd, Walfish questions the gaze, the objectification and the narratives produced by history and art history. In a second series, Walfish explores the lush aesthetic allusions associated with body organs, thus mingling corporality with the natural world, science and society.

The Jewish Museum of Belgium invites you to discover a short film directed by Sarah Lederman, which draws its inspiration from the work of filmmaker Chantal Akerman, one of the artists featured in the “Four Sisters” exhibition.

Les Racines de l’eau (synopsis) : Two women, one Ashkenazi Jew from Poland and one Sephardic Jew from Algeria meet in Brussels with the same quest: to find out what their Jewish identity means to them. Their biggest desire is to undergo the water ritual called Mikveh. But they are not welcome in a bath house, being neither married nor orthodox. Nonetheless, they try to claim their heritage on a road trip and own their Judaism.

Program :

Doors open at 6:30pm

Film screening from 7:00 pm

Talk with Shabbes 24/7 Collective and Samuel Kujas (director of IMAJ) from 7:45 pm

Light Dinner from 8:30 pm to 10 pm

Price: 10 euros (+ free admission to the “Four Sisters” exhibition)

free for students

Biography of Sarah Lederman : Sarah Lederman (1994) was born and raised in Brussels, Belgium. She is a film maker and studied both Documentary and Fiction at the The Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema & Sound (RITCS) in Brussels. She finished her Film MFA at Sint-Lucas Brussels with her short film ‘Les Racines de l’Eau’. At UK Jewish Film Festival 2022 she won the Best Short Film award.

‘Licht’, a children’s documentary for KETNET and VRT, which premiered at DOK LEIPZIG, recently won the Ensor for Best Short Film 2023. She just finished her fiction short film ‘Friday, 1st of July’. Both projects were subsidized by VAF.

She specializes in visual intimate stories through fine story telling, honest and pure with a considerate attention for detail. She has a great sensibility for capturing unfolding unique moments. Documentary and fiction film both fascinate her.

“Mirror effect: I am all this, piece by piece. I go out through every pore. I am crossed, invaded, dispossessed. And yet, in this thin skin, I grow, I am alive.” (Marianne Berenhaut)

In Private Collection / Vie Privée, choreographer/performer Ula Sickle invites the audience to explore the exhibition “Four Sisters” through the materiality of the Poupées-Poubelles – transparent nylon tights filled with textiles and everyday objects – made by artist Marianne Berenhaut.

In 1969, a fall of more than four metres left Marianne Berenhaut bedridden for over a year. The accident became an opportunity to question and reinvent her artistic practice: no longer able to engage in large-scale physical productions, it was with the Poupées-Poubelles that she returned to a production that resonated with the demands of feminist thought to which she was close.

For this performance, Ula Sickle invited Sabrina Seifried and Joëlle Laederach to develop a series of wearable pieces in natural latex, a mutable material known for its healing, protective and sensual properties.

The performer Katja Dreyer personifies the Poupées-Poubelles, which she embodies by wearing these clothing creations in a choreography developed by Ula Sickle.

Program :

3:30 p.m.: Doors open

4:00 pm : Start of the performance

16h30 – 17h30 : Talk with Yann Chataigné, Marianne Berenhaut and Ula Sickle (EN)

5:30 pm : Performance

18h00 : Drink

Price: 10 euros (+ free access to the “Four Sisters” exhibition)

Ula Sickle is a Canadian choreographer and performer, living and working in Brussels. From a background in contemporary dance, she works across disciplines, frequently drawing from contemporary music and the visual arts. In 2017-18 she was artist in residence at Ujazdowski Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw and WIELS Arts Center in Brussels. She is currently a PHD researcher at KU Leuven and Luca School of Art. Her performances have been presented across Europe in festivals and venues including the Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna), Actoral (Marseille), MACBA (Barcelona) and the Serralves Museum (Porto), among others. Ula is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Flemish Authorities.

It is common knowledge that war photography is a profession often dominated by men. Julia Pirotte however, like many women photographers, has also worked in war zones. The Polish photographer of Jewish origin, documented the resistance in Marseille during World War II, Jewish families in the internment camp of Bompard and the Kielce Pogrom. Throughout these conflict territories, women often had access to families and children, Julia in particular made it a point to render these moving portraits. Her images played a decisive role in shaping war imagery. By highlighting Julia Pirotte’s photographs and journey, Bruna Lo Biundo, Caroline François and Maja Wolny tell us the specificity of female gaze on war and show us that women are as much transmitters of images as witnesses of war atrocities. The conference will also explore how other women she met along the way have contributed to her work.

The conference will be held in FR/EN
The speakers are : Maja Wolny, Bruna Lo Biundo, Caroline François
Program :
Opening of the doors 18:00
Beginning of the conference 18h30
Drink at 19h30/20h

With the support of the Polish Institute in Brussels

Maja Wolny (* 1976 in Kielce) is a Polish writer, curator of international exhibitions, doctor of humanities.From 1998 to 2002 she was a journalist for the Polish weekly newspaper “Polityka”. She lived for many years in Belgium, where she directed the Eastern European cultural center Post Viadrina in Ghent.In 2016, her novel “Black Leaves” was published in Poland about the life of the Polish-Belgian-Jewish photographer Julia Pirotte and the pogrom in Kielce. The book was translated into Dutch and published by the Bezige Bij with a recommendation by Griet Op de Beeck. “Black Leaves” was included in 2017 in the list of the best novels of 2017 according to the newspaper De Standaard.Maja Wolny has been living in Poland since 2016, in Kazimierz Dolny, where she is involved in the city’s Jewish past. In 2016 and 2017, she traveled alone to Siberia to gather material for her latest novel, “Powrót z Północy” (“The Return from the North”).In 2018, the jury of the Hercule Poirot Prize awarded her the Fred Braeckman Prize for her novel “De boekenmoordenaar”.

Bruna Lo Biundo holds a doctorate in literature and history of French culture. She is a specialist in the representation of women in French culture between the wars. Since 2007, she has worked as a researcher and curator of historical and documentary exhibitions in Paris. She has notably worked for the Mémorial de la Shoah, La contemporaine and Génériques. In 2018, she co-founded the association Past/Not Past which promotes research in the field of cultural heritage. As cultural project manager for Génériques (2013-2018), a center for research and valorization of immigration heritage, she worked on immigrant and refugee women in France in the 20th century and participated in various international conferences on this theme. It was in the context of this work that she discovered the work and fate of Julia Pirotte and her sister Mindla Diament.

Caroline François is a historian, responsible for the temporary and travelling exhibitions of the Shoah Memorial in Paris. She is also an exhibition curator and author of several articles on the question of women in the Shoah. As a lecturer, she regularly participates in the Shoah Memorial’s training program on the following topics: discrimination, gender issues and sexual violence in the context of the genocidal process. In 2016, She curated a temporary exhibition for the Shoah Memorial on women, mainly Jewish, in the French Resistance. Among them were Julia Pirotte and her sister Mindla Diament.

During the Nocturnes, the Jewish Museum will be more than ever a space for encounter and dialogue. In addition to its permanent exhibition on Jewish religion and culture, the museum hosts two temporary exhibitions. Four sisters combines the works of Chantal Akerman, Marianne Berenhaut, Sarah Kaliski and Julia Pirotte, all four women, artists, Jews, and custodians of a memory. 236. Land(es)capes of the 20th Convoy offers, through the photographs of Jo Struyven and the paintings of Luc Tuymans, an artistic look at an exceptional episode in the history of the Second World War. On April 19, 1943, thanks to resistance actions, 236 deportees managed to jump from the train that was taking them to Auschwitz.

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WORKSHOP Want to discover Judaism? What rituals and practices are part of Jewish family life? In this workshop on Jewish cultures, the aim is to build bridges, to show the commonalities between cultures and their enriching differences. The workshop is for all audiences, regardless of their background and beliefs.

→ 18:00 (NL) / 19:30 (FR) – Limited places Please send an e-mail to edu@mjb-jmb.org with your name, the number of people you wish to register, the language of the activity and name of the activity.

WORKSHOP The last survivors of the Holocaust share their personal stories with you, documented by the Museum’s archives. A unique and exceptional opportunity to get to know someone who survived the Holocaust and who will explain why bearing witness is still necessary today.

→ 17:30 (FR) / 19:30 (FR) –Limited places Please send an e-mail to edu@mjb-jmb.org with your name, the number of people you wish to register, the language of the activity and name of the activity.

On March 19, 2023 at 5:00 pm, the Union des Etudiants Juifs de Belgique, the MerKaz and the Musée Juif de Belgique will have the pleasure of receiving sociologist Illana Weizman on the occasion of the publication of her latest book “Des blancs comme les autres?” dealing with the blind spot that the fight against antisemitism represents within the anti-racist world.

A panel of speakers from Jewish and anti-racist associations will follow IIlana Weizman’s presentation to discuss her book. We will publish their names on the event in the next few days.

It is a fact that in today’s Jewish communities, there is a prevailing feeling that the fight against antisemitism is the most overlooked aspect of anti-racist campaigns. The loneliness that those involved in the fight against antisemitism too often face or, quite simply, the frequent lack of understanding of the antisemitic phenomenon in anti-racist circles are all elements that reinforce this feeling.

Faced with this observation, the speakers and the audience will discuss several major questions: Why is antisemitism sidelined in anti-racist struggles? How can we rehabilitate the fight against antisemitism and the inclusion of this fight in the anti-racist movement? How can we renew the collaboration between activist organizations and Jewish communities?

This event will be in French.

Author: Olivier Hottois

We are pleased to invite you to the MultiMemo Dissemination Conference and Holocaust Commemoration Event.

This event is organized by CEJI – A Jewish Contribution to an inclusive Europe, in partnership with the Jewish Museum of Belgium, as part of the EU funded project MultiMemo – Multidirectional Memory: Remembering for Social Justice.

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