Program booklet

THE VAN LEER JERUSALEM INSTITUTE
APRIL 15, 2015
MAY 10, 2015
WHAT IS MEMORY? Seventy Years Later
Exhibition
Meetings
Discussions
Events
Wednesday, April 15, 17:30
Opening Ceremony and Events
Wednesday and Thursday, April 15 and 16
What Is Memory? Seventy Years Later –
Symposia and Gallery Talks
Wednesday, April 16, 19:30 – 22:00
Gatherings for the Eve of the Holocaust
Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day
Sunday, April 19, 10:30 – 14:00
Discussion for Institutions Active in
WHAT IS MEMORY?
Seventy Years Later
Instilling the Memory of the Holocaust
(by invitation only)
Floor 1
Entrance Gates
Aharon Appelfeld, writer
Born in Jadova, Romania, 1932
Memories of the war, the Second World War – I hope this does not surprise you – for me these memories
are bound up with great love. Love without end. Anyone who was in the ghetto and saw mothers
protecting their children, how parents, mothers, did not eat but only fed, how young lads accompanied
their parents so as not to leave them alone and protected them until the last moment. When I ask myself
where I draw the strength to write, it is not from the scenes of horror but rather from the scenes of love
that existed everywhere.
My world remained not in the image of the hangman, my world remained not in the image of the evil
that could not be undone, infinite evil; I was left with human beings, and I loved them.
(The Van Leer Jerusalem institute, meeting with the “Transmitted Memory and Fiction” group, April 20,
2012)
Saul Friedländer, historian
Born in Prague, The Czech Republic, 1932
It took me a long, long time to find the way back to my own past. I could not banish the memory of
events themselves, but if I tried to speak of them or pick up a pen to describe them, I immediately found
myself in the grip of a strange paralysis. It was only at this time in my life, when I was around thirty, that
I realized how much the past molded my vision of things, how much the essential appeared to me
through a particular prism that could never be eliminated. But did it have to be eliminated?
(From When Memory Comes, University of Wisconsin Press, 1979)
The only concrete history that can be retrieved remains that carried by personal stories. From the state of
collective disintegration to that of deportation and death, this history, in order to be written at all, has to
be represented as the integrated narration of individual fates.
(From the introduction to Nazi Germany and the Jews, HarperCollins, 1997)
Otto Dov Kulka, historian
Born in Nový Hrozenkov, Czech Republic, 1933
This was the first world and the first order I had ever known: the order of the selections, death as the
sole certain perspective ruling the world. Death was a basic given, its dominion over every person not
in doubt.
The hidden meaning of ‘immutable law of death’, the ‘Great Death’, the ‘Metropolis of Death’, reaches
beyond the experience of the world of Auschwitz. They are metaphors for what at the time seemed
to expand into a world order that would change the course of human history and remained so in my
reflective memory. I am also aware that these texts, though anchored in concrete historical events,
transcend the sphere of history.
(From Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death, Belknap Press, 2013, trans. Ralph Mandel)
Monologues of members of the
“Transmitted Memory and Fiction”
group
Michal Aharony, scholar of the Holocaust and of political
philosophy
Meir Appelfeld, painter, lives and works in Jerusalem
Dana Arieli, photographer, studies the mutual relations between
art and politics in democracies and in dictatorships
Aliza Auerbach, photographer and artist
Etty BenZaken, vocal artist, active in literature, theater, and music,
researcher of performance
Mendy Cahan, founder and director of Yung Yiddish, the Society for
the Preservation of Yiddish Culture; actor and singer
Rina Dudai, scholar of Holocaust literature, Kibbutzim College of
Education, Technology, and Arts
Daniel Feldman, scholar of Holocaust literature, lecturer in English
literature at Bar-Ilan University
Yochi Fischer, historian, head of the Advanced Studies Program at
the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Dana Freibach-Heifetz, philosopher, cause lawyer
Yolanda Gampel, psychoanalyst, professor emerita at Tel Aviv
University
Gary Goldstein, painter and plastic artist
Michal Govrin, head of the “Transmitted Memory and Fiction”
group and head of the Gathering design team, writer and theater
director, lecturer at Tel Aviv University
Odeya Kohen-Raz, researcher on cinema, Sapir Academic College,
Tel Aviv University, and the Open University
Yehudit Kol-Inbar, curator, head of museums branch at Yad
Vashem
Orit Livne, lives, paints, and dances in Jerusalem
Artistic Works
Aliza Auerbach
Sandra Meiri, researcher on cinema, Department of
Literature, Language, and the Arts, the Open University
Raya Morag, researcher on cinema, Department of
Communication and Journalism, the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem
Eitan Steinberg, composer who explores in his works
connections between ancient, folk, and contemporary
music; lecturer, at the University of Haifa
Eli Vakil, Department of Psychology and head of the
Laboratory for Memory and Amnesia Research at the
Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University
Directors: Ron Ofer and Yochai Rosenberg
Transmitted Memory and
Fiction: Meetings
An edited selection of three years (2012–2014) of meetings
of the “Transmitted Memory and Fiction” research group at
the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Editors-in-chief: Odeya Kohen-Raz, Sandra Meiri
Editing: Yael Shemer, Tamar Gan-Zvi
Once upon a time there was a family…, Budapest, 2014
Photograph of a work by Gyula Pauer and Can Togay
“These are the names,” synagogue in Vienna, 2014
Photograph of a work by Thomas Feiger
Gary Goldstein
Under Milk Wood series (inspired by Dylan Thomas’s radio drama), 2012
Four paintings: Ink and oil-based paint marker on paper
Three paintings: Ink, oil-based paint marker, and pencil on paper
Two paintings: Ink, oil-based paint marker, and colored pencil on paper
One painting: Ink, oil-based paint marker, pencil, and postal stamp on paper
Dana Arieli
Conference Room in Former Ministry of Aviation, Berlin, 2009
Photo Album at the Flea Market, Berlin, 2012
Buchenwald, 2009
Café at Tiergarten, Berlin, 2012
Villa Wannsee, 2009
Bedroom in Tiergarten, Berlin, 2012
A Courtyard in Former Interior Ministry, Berlin, 2009
Former Hitler Youth Camp, Werbellinsee, 2012
Luftwaffe Museum, Berlin-Gatow, 2011
Miniatures on Display, Nuremberg, 2009
Yonatan Haimovich
Exhibition
WHAT IS MEMORY?
Seventy Years Later
Fragments (Documentary, 50 minutes), 2009
A road movie on one street on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The filmmaker tries to trace the
fragments of his childhood after the death of his mother. Through his renewed acquaintance
with the street and its veteran residents—immigrants from the former Soviet Union—he creates
a mosaic of a vanishing world.
Production and Screenplay: Meital and Yonatan Haimovich; Direction and Cinematography:
Yonatan Haimovich; Editing: Ofir Raul Graizer; Sound Designer: Yuri Primenko; Online Editing:
Lev Golzer
Floor 1
Saul Friedländer
Otto Dov Kulka
Monologues of members of the group
Aharon Appelfeld
Aliza Auerbach
Gary Goldstein
Yonatan Haimovich
Transmitted Memory and Fiction: Meetings
1B
A2
A1
Dana Arieli
Aliza Auerbach
Floor 0
Artistic Works
Michal Rovner
To Be a Human Being
Participants: Chana Spiegel, Chaya Kligman, Dita Segal, Dora
Handalis, Felicja Karary, Lili Rickman, Ruth Mittlemann, Sabina
Elzon, Shoshana Klein, Zsuzsana Braun
Photography: Ardon Bar-Hama; Photography: Michal Rovner;
Editing and compositing: Ronen Shaharabani; Editing: Nili
Feller; Compositing: Dan Tomer; Sound: Shargo; Sound
mixing: Jane Stewart; Photographer’s assistant: Tom Rimon;
Sound recording: Amir Boverman, Dror Mansura; Production
supervisor: Avi Mussel; Production coordinator: Dikla BenAtia; Technical assistant: Rami Hovav; Sound assistant: Simon
Shmuel
Yad Vashem staff: Initiator and advisor: Yehudit Kol-Inbar;
Testimony research: Nina Springer Aharoni, Yehudit Kleimann,
Haviva Peled-Carmeli, Yehudit Shendar, and Rinat Pavis; Filmday coordinator: Hedva Nachmias
The work was created for the Spots of Light: To Be a Woman in
the Holocaust exhibition, 2007
Courtesy of Michal Rovner and the Holocaust art collection,
Museums branch, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
Mendy Cahan
Materials from Yung Yiddish—the Society for the
Preservation of Yiddish Culture
Orit Livne
Clouds, 2014
Three paintings: Oil on canvas and color crayons
Meir Appelfeld
Studio 2, Studio 3, Studio 4, Studio 6, 2012, Oil on canvas
Etty BenZaken and Eitan Steinberg
Amulet for the Widening of the Heart (Installation, 2015)
Original music and sound design: Eitan Steinberg
Visual design and quilts: Etty BenZaken
Recording and soundtrack editing: Rafi Eshel, Eshel Studios Tel Aviv
Recorded musicians: Etty BenZaken (voice), Avshalom Sarid (viola), Sarah
Cahill (piano), Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra and conductor Vakhtang
Kakhidze
The installation weaves together memories, folk songs, piyyutim, and
spoken fragments, as documented in field recordings and as transcribed
by Etty BenZaken from family, friends, members of the research group, and
their families:
Michal Aharony; Meir Appelfeld; Dana Arieli; Adira Ben-Aharon; the late
Albert BenZaken; the late Bella BenZaken; Binyamin BenZaken; Etty
BenZaken; Hilda BenZaken; the late Margalit BenZaken; Mendy Cahan;
Elisheva Clodfelter; John Clodfelter; Osnat Fischer; the late Simha Fischer;
Yochi Fischer; Yolanda Gampel; Gary Goldstein; the late Sam Goldstein;
Michal Govrin; the late Rina Govrin; Michael Dahan; Eyal Donagi; Tamar
Donagi; Rina Dudai; Meital Haimovich; Yonatan Haimovich; Miriam
Hamawi; Dana Freibach-Heifetz; the late Adele Tzila Honigwachs; Ruth Hon
Reading Room
(Merenlander); Yehudit Inbar; Odeya Kohen-Raz; the late Eliyahu
Kossowsky; Orit Livne; Livna Luk-Matraso; the late Moshon
Matraso; Yehuda Matraso; Sandra Meiri; the late Esther Molho;
the late Nisim Molho; Raya Morag; Shlomi Perlmuter; Eitan
Steinberg; Hedi Steinberg; the late Ilan Steinberg; the late Kurt
Steinberg; the late Talia Steinberg; Eli Vakil
Additional text in the soundtrack: “A Poem” by Yona Wallach
Additional texts on the quilts: Biblical and talmudic texts; piyyut
by Rabbi Isaac Luria; fragments from “Stations of the Heart” by
Abu al-Hassan al-Nuri—in the original Arabic and in Hebrew
translation by Sara Sviri from her anthology The Sufis; literary
quotes (with indications of the authors and titles) by Aliza
Auerbach, Nathan Alterman, Dana Arieli, Etty BenZaken, Hayim
Nahman Bialik, Anne Frank, Yaakov Orland, Dan Pagis, Leah
Rudnitsky, William Shakespeare, Shaul Tchernichovsky, and texts
written by BenZaken especially for this piece.
Etty BenZaken and Eitan Steinberg are deeply grateful to the
many people who generously shared their memories, their
voices, and the voices of their loved ones.
Visitors are invited to respond to what they have seen and heard in the
exhibition, to write their thoughts on “What is memory, seventy years later,”
and to browse the books and other materials in the reading room.
Steering committee:
Michal Govrin, Yehudit Kol-Inbar, Yochi Fischer
Design: Chanan de Lange
The exhibition was made possible through
the generosity of the Polonsky family and
through a grant from the Company for
Location and Restitution of Holocaust
Victims’ Assets
Floor 1
C
Meir Appelfeld
B2
Etty BenZaken and Eitan
Steinberg
2A
Reading Room
1A
A2
A1
Orit Livne
Mendy Cahan
Michal Rovner
Opening Ceremony: Wednesday,
April 15, 17:30
Wednesday, April 15
Greetings Prof. Gabriel Motzkin, director, the Van Leer Jerusalem
Institute
Mme Béatrice Rosenberg de Rothschild, president, Yad
Layeled, France
Prof. Michal Govrin, head, “Transmitted Memory and Fiction”
Speakers group, the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Prof. Eli Vakil, Department of Psychology and head
of the Laboratory for Memory and Amnesia Research at the
Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University
Musical Interlude Etty BenZaken, vocal artist, active in literature, theater, and
music, researcher of performance
Mendy Cahan, founder and director of Yung Yiddish, the Society
for the Preservation of Yiddish Culture; actor and singer
Dr. Yochi Fischer, head, the Advanced Studies Program, the
Moderator Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Etty BenZaken: Performance of Memory Transmission—Family Stories as a
Bridge between Cultures
Mendy Cahan: The Dust of Memory and Forgetting—Yiddish Stories as an
Example
Dana Freibach-Heifetz: On Responsibility and Mercy
10:30 – 12:00 Memory and Responsibility
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch Break
13:00 – 14:30 Literature of Destruction
Michal Aharoni: Thoughts on Hannah Arendt, Radical Evil, and Testimonies of
Holocaust Survivors
Rina Dudai: The Double Code: Between Historical and Poetic Testimony—A
Discussion of Jorge Semprún Literature or Life
Galili Shahar: The Sign—Agnon and Rabbi Simeon ben Gamliel
14:30 – 15:15 Break
14:45 – 15:15 Gallery Talk
Orit Livne with Meir Appelfeld
15:30 – 17:30 Creativity, Memory, and
Forgetting
Symposia and Gallery Talks
WHAT IS MEMORY?
Seventy Years Later
Eitan Steinberg: Forgetting and Memory—A Balance That Allows Creativity
Meir Appelfeld: The Purpose of Memory and Forgetting in the Act of Creation
Dana Arieli: Lost in the Abyss of Forgetting? On Photography, Forgetting, and
Memory
Haviva Pedaya: On Trauma and Identity—Something about Short-term
Memory and Long-term Memory
Thursday, April 16
10:30 – 12:30 Discussion and
Reading
Constructing the Rupture: Transmission of the Memory of the
Holocaust from the Perspective of Brain Studies, Literature, and
Psychoanalysis
Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Eli Vakil, Yolanda Gampel,
Michal Govrin, Yochi Fischer
12:30 – 13:00 Gallery Talk
Gary Goldstein with Dana Arieli
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch Break
14:00 – 15:30 Cinema and Memory
Raya Morag: The Miracle of the Renewal of Cambodian Cinema
and the Ethical Injunction in the Works of Rithy Panh
Odeya Kohen-Raz: Cinema of the Holocaust’s Third Generation—
Ethics and Aesthetics in Arnon Goldfinger’s film The Apartment
Sandra Meiri: Cinema-memory—Contending with the
Transmission of Post-trauma of a Sexual Nature to the Second
Generation
15:30 – 16:00 Break
16:00 – 17:30 What the
Holocaust Means to Me
Aliza Auerbach, Yehudit Kol-Inbar, Chanan de Lange
Gatherings for Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’
Remembrance Day, April 15, 19:30 – 22:00
Created by a multidisciplinary and multisectoral team, led by Prof. Michal Govrin
This year, on the Eve of Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day, some ten gatherings will
take place, as part of a pilot project, in groups of about thirty active participants with a facilitator. The
participants will receive “guidelines” (in the spirit of a Passover Haggadah) made up of chapters that
weave together readings, stories, and personal memories of the participants, songs, discussion, prayer,
and silence.
At the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
The gathering of a mixed group of ultra-Orthodox and secular people, facilitated by Rabbi Aharon
Stern
Gatherings of young students, facilitated by members of Hitorerut in Jerusalem and
Miriam Ben-David
Gathering of members of Yung Yiddish, facilitated by Mendy Cahan
Gathering of the general public, facilitated by the writer and director Prof. Michal Govrin
In Jerusalem
Gathering of members of Zion: An Eretz Israeli Congregation in Jerusalem, facilitated by Rabba
Tamar Elad-Appelbaum
In Moshav Nehalim
Gathering of members of the Hazon circle, which brings together religious and secular Jews, facilitated
by Dr. Mali Eisenberg
In Tel Aviv
Gathering at Beit Tefilah Israeli, facilitated by Rani Yeger and the Beit Tefilah Israeli team
Two gatherings of students in the Ofakim program at Tel Aviv University, facilitated by Noa Israeli
and Jeremy Fogel
The Writing Team of the Gathering
Prof. Michal Govrin (writing and editing), Miriam Ben David (coordinator and co-editor),
Lior Chen (researcher and co-editor), Mendy Cahan, Dr. Mali Eisenberg, Rabba Tamar
Elad-Appelbaum, Prof. Ron Margolin, Shva Salhoov, Rabbi Aharon Stern,
Rani Yeger
Consulting: Etty BenZaken, Yehudit Kol-Inbar, Renana Mankin, Prof. Eitan
Steinberg
Design: Rami and Jaki Design and Visual Media
Thanks to the members of “Memories@Home” for their cooperation.
Discussion on Instilling the Memory of the Holocaust
Sunday, April 19, 10:30 – 14:00
The “Transmitted Memory and Fiction” group will share a description of how the group worked
and its suggestions with the institutions and the main collaborators in instilling the memory of
the Holocaust, as a platform for a contemporary and professional discussion that will reveal what
is being done, will allow questions to be raised regarding responsibility for the future of that
memory, and will enable group members to learn from the rich experience of all the participants.
The visit to the exhibition and the symposium will be facilitated by the group’s head, Michal
Govrin, and group members.
By invitation only.
WHAT IS MEMORY?
Seventy Years Later
The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, 43 Jabotinsky St., Jerusalem
Tel. 02-560-5222
Parking is not available at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
(Metered parking is available on neighboring streets.)
Photographs taken during the events will be posted on the Institute’s website and on social networks.