Center for Jewish Art

06/02/2026

Dear Friends of the Center for Jewish Art,

We are happy to announce that the Center published a new book, Jewish Folk Ornament by Solomon Yudovin, written by Boris Khaimovich and Hillel (Grigory) Kazovsky.

Solomon Yudovin (1892–1954) was one of the most important modern artists to devote a significant part of his work to Jewish ornament. He not only documented and reproduced the creations of Jewish folk masters, but also developed his own interpretations of traditional motifs, seeing himself as a conscious participant in the centuries-long development of this artistic tradition. The book commemorates the endeavors of collector Tsilya Mengeritsky (1925–2020), who preserved a substantial corpus of Yudovin’s works, and was initiated and supported by her daughter, Galina Mengeritsky.

The book offers the most comprehensive presentation of Yudovin’s engagement with Jewish ornament. Published here, for the first time, are his drawings of tombstones and ritual objects produced during the An-sky ethnographic expedition in 1912–1914 in Ukraine and during his fieldwork in Belarus in the 1920s, as well as his layout and sketches for the unpublished project “Jewish Folk Ornaments” preserved in the Tsilya Mengeritsky Collection at the Israel Museum and the Kazovsky Family Collection. Well-known materials from the An-sky album “Jewish Artistic Heritage” and the 1920 Vitebsk Portfolio are presented here as integral components of Yudovin’s continuing attempt to develop a modern Jewish ornamental language. The essays situate his work within both modernist art and the broader traditions of Jewish folk creativity.

The price of the book is $75 + postage. To purchase the book, please send an email to [email protected].

21/12/2025

Dear friends, you are very welcome to join us today for the award ceremony of the Bezalel, Mordechai, and Nessia Narkiss Prize for excellence in the research of Jewish Art. This year, the prize is awarded to Mrs. Sharon Liberman Mintz. The recipient will give the lecture: “Engraving the Sacred: The Extraordinary Collaboration of a Venetian Rabbi and a Christian Artist in 18th-Century Italy.”
The ceremony will take place online on Sunday, December 21, 2025, at 20:00 Israel time - 7 pm CST -1 pm EST. Please find the Zoom link in the first comment.
See you in less than two hours!

26/11/2025

The ESJF, in cooperation with the Chair for Jewish and Holocaust Studies at the University of Zagreb and the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, invites all interested participants to a lecture day on the preservation of Jewish cemeteries.

The event will take place on 11 December at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb.

The key topics are:
- Jewish Cemeteries in Croatia: Urban and Rural Context
- Basic Skills for Exploration Jewish Cemetery and Reading Hebrew Inscriptions: Presentation of the ESJF Manual
- Tombstones, Stonemasons, and Mental Maps: Jewish Graveyard Networks in Croatia and Beyond

📌To register, please fill out the form by 5 December - https://forms.gle/MS9DX6Yzn4SRs7mV7

The event is made possible with the financial support of the Auswärtiges Amt German Federal Foreign Office.

27/05/2025

29/12/2024

Dear friends, the Center for Jewish Art invites you to the award ceremony of the Bezalel, Mordechai, and Nessia Narkiss Prize for excellence in the research of Jewish Art.
This year the prize is awarded to Dr. Ilona Steimann. She will give the lecture titled “Masorah for Embroidery”: Micrography between Germany and France." The ceremony will take place online on Monday, December 30, 2024, at 20:00 Israel time - 7 pm CST -1 pm EST. We will be delighted to see all of you at the ceremony!
The Zoom link is in the first comment.

15/10/2024

English follows Russian

14/10/2024

We are pleased to share an important project the Center for Jewish Art has taken part in: the virtual reconstruction of the Wolpa Great Synagogue.
The Wolpa Synagogue, one of the most beautiful wooden synagogues in European history, was destroyed during World War II. The synagogue is believed to have been built in the first half of the 18th century.

This is the first Belarusian heritage project to be featured in the Meta Store, marking a significant step in preserving Jewish cultural heritage. As part of the larger Belarus Shtetl multimedia exhibition, this project aims to virtually reconstruct several significant synagogues and serves as a foundation for the future Virtual Jewish Museum of Belarus. The Wolpa Synagogue has been recreated in virtual space by a dedicated team of curators, historians, artists, 3D designers, and IT engineers. Under the guidance of the researchers at the Center for Jewish Art, the team spent nearly a year using archival data, classical hand-drawing techniques, and modern technology to model the building as accurately as possible.

One of the highlights of the project is the ability to explore two versions of the synagogue’s interior—before and after the major renovations it underwent in the 1920s. A "time switch" feature allows users to see how the synagogue evolved over time, and a 360-degree view shows the present-day site where it once stood.

The project is now available as a VR experience on Meta (https://www.meta.com/experiences/wolpa-synagogue-vr-reconstruction-tour/8117165718328667/) and as a web tour on the Belarusian-Jewish Cultural Heritage Center website (https://bjch.center/shtetlwolpa/eng). Users can take a guided audio tour or explore the synagogue freely, with audio available in English, Russian, and French.

29/09/2024

13/09/2024

Last but not least is the video and model of the synagogue in Delmenhorst, Germany (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=653T07FmF2o&t=11s). The building still stands but is completely rebuilt as a dwelling house.

12/09/2024

The Center also made videos about the entire synagogal complexes, including mikveh. Here is the one about the synagogue, mikveh, and cemetery in Schwedt, on the German-Polish border (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-wud7O3oPI). For more about this complex, see the book by Katrin Kessler, "The Buildings of the Jewish Community in Schwedt/Oder."

10/09/2024

We continue to publish our videos and 3D models of synagogues. This time - of the wooden synagogue in Pakruojis, Lithuania (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6chErkxFfQ&t=1s). Our reconstruction made by Sergey Kravtsov served as a blueprint for the physical restoration of the building.

08/09/2024

We continue to publish our videos and 3D models of synagogues. Check out the video investigating the Great Maharsha Synagogue in Ostrog (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOhd5pGp6Ys&t=9s). Later on, we wrote extensively on this synagogue in the book Kravstov & Levin "Synagogues in Ukraine: Volhynia."