The European Days of Jewish Culture is a pan-European project. Under its auspices, various Jewish institutions, synagogues, museums and other cultural institutions open their doors wide to the widest range of visitors and invite them to see and learn about the diversity of the Jewish cultural heritage on European soil.
This year’s European Days of Jewish Culture are dedicated to the theme “Bridges”, and they will be especially festive in Slovenia. Only a few days ago, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia declared the Synagogue Maribor a monument of national importance by decree. The former synagogue in Maribor is the only preserved medieval synagogue on Slovenian soil, and its declaration as a monument of national importance officially confirms its exceptional importance as part of Slovenian cultural and historical heritage and guarantees it institutional protection at the highest state level.
EDJC will be held in Slovenia in Maribor, Murska Sobota, Lendava, Ljubljana and Negova. The introductory event will take place on Thursday, 3 September, in the Provincial and Study Library Murska Sobota. There, at 7 p.m., a professional guided tour of the exhibition Jews in Slovakia: The Museum of Jewish Culture presents itself will be organized. After the exhibition, it will be led by mag. Franc Kuzmič.
On Friday, 4 September, they will also join the commemoration of the EDJC in the Synagogue in Lendava and at 8 p.m. they will open the art exhibition Cvetka Hojnik En sof. After the opening, there will be a concert of klezmer music performed by Ferenc Jávori (piano, vocals) and Bencet Gazda (violin, vocals), members of the world-famous Budapest Klezmer Band.
The central events of this year’s EDJC in Slovenia will take place on Sunday, 6 September. On this day at the Synagogue in Maribor at 11 a.m. we will open a documentary exhibition by the author Rudolf Klein Synagogues in Eastern Central Europe between 1782 and 1944. The opening of the exhibition will also mark the official start of the European Days of Jewish Culture in Slovenia, and the opening will be followed by a klezmer concert music performed by Judit Klein (vocals) and Zoltán Neumark (piano) and an open day. In Ljubljana, the program will start at 10 a.m. The renowned puppet theatre Key Theatre from Tel Aviv will first perform in the Jewish Cultural Center – Mini Theater with the play When Everything Was Green. After the performance, also in the JKC – Mini Theatre, at 12 o’clock there will be a ceremonial handover of a facsimile of the entire “Iconotheca Valvasoriana” collection, which will accompany the official establishment of the JKC Library, and at 12:30 the opening of the exhibition of Slovenian Judaics with the presentation of paintings by Anton Karinger (Jew of Ljubljana Lazar Pollak) and Bard Iucundus (Rabbi). On that day, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., the young artist Noemi Levovnik Veberič will prepare an artistic intervention, My Room, on Ljubljana’s New Square. With it, the artist in the company of the poet Dejan Koban will address passers-by and invite them to weave new, intergenerational, urban, poetic and narrative bridges. Sunday, 6 September, we will conclude with an event in Negova Castle. There, at 5 p.m., we will open the exhibition Synagogue Maribor – on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of its operation; the exhibition will be accompanied by a klezmer concert by the Harfa-Kinnor band from Murska Sobota.
On Monday, 7 September, at 7 p.m., we invite you again to Murska Sobota. An official opening ceremony with a cultural program will be held in the Regional and Study Library there in conjunction with the exhibition Jews in Slovakia: The Museum of Jewish Culture presents itself.
On Tuesday, 8 September, the European Days of Jewish Culture will continue in the Rotovž Multipurpose Hall in Maribor with the screening of a short documentary film about the first Maribor female medical doctor, Klara Kukovec. The screening will take place at 6 p.m.
The EDJC project will be concluded in Slovenia with final events in Lendava and Maribor: on Wednesday, 16 September, Vladimir Vajda will give a Jewish New Year lecture at the Synagogue in Lendava at 6:30 p.m., and on Tuesday, 29 September, dr. Janez Premk and Boris Hajdinjak took a guided tour following the traces of the heritage of the Maribor Jews. The meeting point will be on the Jewish Square in Maribor, and the tour will start at 5 p.m.
Visiting and viewing all events within the EDJC are free. Due to the limited number of places, advance reservations are required for the guided tour of the Jewish heritage in Maribor on Tuesday, 29 September, at the e-mail address klemen.brvar@mb.sik.si.
This year, in Slovenia, we joined the project, which is coordinated at the international level by AEPJ (The European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage): Center of Jewish Cultural Heritage Synagogue Maribor, Embassy of Hungary in Slovenia, Maribor Library, Kultprotur – Institute for Culture, Tourism and Promotion of Gornja Radgona, Negova Castle, Pomurski Museum Murska Sobota, Provincial and Study Library Murska Sobota, Gallery – Lendava Museum, Lendava Synagogue – Slovenian Holocaust Museum, SEZAM – Association of Youth, Parents and Children, Jewish Cultural Center Ljubljana and the Mini Theater.
The national coordinator of the project in Slovenia is the Center of Jewish Cultural Heritage Maribor Synagogue.
