Exhibitions
Traveling exhibits
The Jewish Museum of Bologna makes some of the exhibitions it has curated over the years available to museums, cultural institutions, schools, libraries, synagogues and other public places. In some cases, the catalogues are also available.
The Museum Library can also give bibliographic information for study or research.
Information on contents, technical notes, loan terms and costs can be obtained from the museum.
AVAILABLE EXHIBITIONS ON THE JEWISH HERITAGE IN EMILIA ROMAGNA
Ghettos and giudeccas in Emilia-Romagna
Suspended between memories and concrete places, the subject of the ghettos and giudeccas is emblematic: Jewish districts unmistakably marked vast areas of our town centers, often the oldest and most significant parts. In Emilia-Romagna, as far as town planning is concerned, there are 32 localities where neighborhoods formerly inhabited by Jewish people were found, but only 11 of them were really ghettos; Correggio, Guastalla, ReggioEmilia, Finale Emilia, Carpi, Modena, Bologna, Cento, Ferrara, Lugo, Rimini.
The exhibition wants to draw the attention to the complex issues of urban regeneration and of the restoration of these places which remind us of the life and history of the Jewish people in our region.
Short data sheet: no. 50 colour photos with captions in italian.
Catalogue: available.
Synagogues in Emilia-Romagna
Currently there are six active synagogues in Emilia-Romagna: one in Bologna, Parma, Modena, Soragna and two in Ferrara. In addition there are four synagogue buildings which are no longer active: one in Reggio Emilia, two in Carpi and one in Ferrara. The historical events, the stylistic imprints and the articles of furniture - wooden decorations, textiles and ceremonial – of these complex monuments are the object of this exhibition.
Short data sheet: no. 50 color photographs with captions in italian.
Catalogue: available
Jewish cemeteries in Emilia-Romagna
The exhibition on the Jewish cemeteries of Monticelli d'Ongina, Fiorenzuola d'Arda, Busseto, Soragna, Fidenza, Parma, Cortemaggiore, Reggio Emilia, Scandiano, Correggio, Guastalla, Novellara, Modena, Carpi, Finale Emilia, Bologna, Cento, Ferrara, Lugo intends to draw the attention of the public to an important cultural heritage, which is not always sufficiently capitalized and that requires more careful work of preservation and conservation.
The exhibition recounts the historical events of these places, closely linked to those of the Jewish settlements of which they were an expression, and focuses on their characteristic of "archives", from which the dynamics of Jewish family groups can be gathered.
Short data sheet: no. 50 photographs and captions in italian
Catalogue: available
HISTORICAL/EDUCATIONAL EXHIBITIONS:
Bologna 1961. Primo Levi's worlds
This exhibition was created and designed by the International Centre of Studies Primo Levi in Turin, in collaboration with the Jewish Museum of Bologna
The exhibition was conceived following the great event “Primo Levi's worlds. A tireless clarity”, a show planned and organised by the International Centre of studies Primo Levi and set up in Turin in 2015.
Even though it was developed in collaboration with the Jewish Museum of Bologna to celebrate the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the exhibit does not just tell the history of this writer as a survivor of Auschwitz, but it focuses on 1961, a special year, during which Primo Levi was invited to Bologna to take part in a series of lectures entitled “Thirty years of Italian history” at the Municipal Theatre, with Giorgio Bassani, Giulio Supino, Enzo Enriques Agnoletti and Piero Caleffi. Levi, just over forty, spoke of the deportation and of the extermination of the Jewish people, in one of the first public meetings on that issue, particularly aimed at young people.
In 1961 Levi also published “ Testimony to Eichman”. In the early sixties as a matter of fact Primo Levi chose to talk to students in schools all over Italy: he defined this activity as his third job, in addition to being a chemist and writer. The translation into French and German of “If this is a man” and the beginning of the book “The truce” date back to 1961 too. In that extraordinary year Levi became deeply involved with the art of fiction in science fiction stories (intersecting his literary journey with that of Italo Calvino), wrote mountain stories (the tale “The bear meat”) and finally reviewed the book “The chemist” by Fabrizio De Santis, who forestalls his narrative project of “The periodic Table”.
This exhibition offers a new and exciting opportunity to learn about Primo Levi, an exemplar figure to teach the best values to younger generations.
Short data sheet:
- 13 panels 80x90 cm
- 3 panels 70x90 cm
- 2 panels 80x120 cm
- 2 panels 50x200 cm
Catalogue: not available
Racism class
School and books during the anti-Semitic persecution in Italy
This exhibition will introduce a previously little explored aspect: the reform undertaken in Fascist period was aimed at making schools a place where national identity and the idea of the "true fascist man" should be constructed. How anti-Semitic persecution developed is an issue raised several times, but the importance of images in this process has been only recently discovered.
Promoters and organizers: the Jewish Museum of Bologna, Ambron and Castiglioni-Florence Foundation and, the National Institute for Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research (Istituto Nazionale di Documentazione, Innovazione e Ricerca Educativa- INDIRE).
Short data sheet:
Lending Rights: € 500.00
-n.1 colophon panel (made up of three pieces) for a total footprint of cm.120x175
-n.11 panels cm.70x100
-n.2 panels cm.35x100
-n.3 panels cm.21x30
-n.1 scenic panel (4 pieces cm.102x114) for a total of cm.204x228 footprint
Catalog: yes
THE RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS.
Non-Jews who saved Jews in Emilia Romagna 1943-1945
The Righteous Among the Nations are non-Jewish people who saved one or more Jewish person from deportation and death during the Holocaust, risking their own life and without any financial gain expected in return.
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, established in 1953 in Jerusalem, since 1963 has been dedicated to the identification and the recognition of these saviors: individuals who are named Righteous receive a medal bearing their name and a certificate of honor, and for each of them, a tree would be planted along the Avenue of the Righteous.
To date, more than 20,000 people were recognized Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, including 400 Italians.
The exhibition focuses on the 54 Righteous who had hidden, protected and fed Jewish people in mortal danger for weeks, sometimes for months, in the Region of Emilia Romagna; their stories show that, despite the tragedy that befell the Jewish people, men and women didn’t remain passive; on the contrary, risking their lives, they put into practice the great Talmudic saying“if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind.”
Short data sheet:
-n.16 panels cm 100x70 ( 3 of which are not numbered)
Catalogue: no
The participation of Jewish people in the Risorgimento in Emilia-Romagna [1815-1870]
Designed and realised from the Jewish Museum of Bologna on the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of Italy's Unification, the exhibition aims to look at the history of the relationship between Italians Jewish people and the events in the Country during the nineteenth century as a whole; in particular, it intends to highlight Jewish participation and contribution, in Emilia-Romagna, to the decisive events in the Risorgimento and to the subsequent birth of the unified state.
TEACHING ... BY TELLING STORIES.
Laura Orvieto and her world
Curated by Caterina Del Vivo of the Gabinetto Vieusseux of Florence, the exhibition focuses on the writer Laura Orvieto (1876-1953) and her work, still relevant today, both in the field of literature and in the field of education;, which became true classics of children’s books. The exhibition accurately traces her life, her birth in a family of the Jewish bourgeoisie and her childhood in Milan, her collaboration with Rosa Errera (pioneer of the first after-school programs for poor children), the arrival in Florence after her marriage to Angiolo Orvieto (poet and founder of "Il Marzocco" magazine), her female friends – from Eleonora Duse to Amelia Rosselli - ,racial persecution and her getting back into writing after the War.
The reproduced documentary material, most of which comes from the writer’s archive in the Gabinetto Vieusseux Florence, shows the close relationship between Laura's passion for narrative and his love for children, through a striking combination of real and fictional characters, between stories and biography.
Short data sheet
n.16 panels cm 70x100
Catalogue: no
Jewish people of Thessaloniki 1492-1943: the Italian diplomacy and repatriation operations.
The exhibition deals with the 350 Italian Jewish people saved in Thessaloniki in 1943, thanks to the action of the Italian Consul Guelfo Zamboni - today rewarded as a Righteous Among the Nations - , of Giuseppe Castruccio, and to the collaboration of Captain Lucillo Goods.
In 1941, about 80,000 Jews lived in Greece: most of them, about 56,000, mainly concentrated in the city of Thessaloniki, in the German Zone of occupation, 3,400 in Thrace and Eastern Macedonia, under the Bulgarian occupation, the rest, about 20,000 people, were under the Italian occupation. In Italy anti-Semitism was institutionalized by the State with the racial laws of 1938, afterwards extended to all Italian colonies; although in the occupied part of Greece, it didn’t become relevant in the repression. On the contrary, in the area under German control, the anti-Semitic persecution was a primary goal: the city of Thessaloniki became the laboratory of the elimination of the largest Jewish communities of Greece. Between March 15 and August 10, 1943, the Germans deported almost the entire Jewish community of Thessaloniki to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Only citizens with a passport of neutral or non- invaded nations by Germany survived the massacre. In this complex context the diplomatic operation of the Italian General Consulate in Thessaloniki fits, and in particular the action of the Consul Guelfo Zamboni and the Consul Giuseppe Castruccio.
Short data sheet:
16 panels cm.100x70
Catalogue: no
The Jewish Brigade in Romagna 1944-1946
Across the Mediterranean Sea and Italy for freedom
The exhibition is an integrated edition of the one presented in June 2003 in Rome (The Jewish Brigade in Italy from 1943 to 1945. Through the Mediterranean Sea for freedom). It’s focused on the events and the most salient facts related to the Jewish Brigade Group passage along the Gothic Line and Romagna.
Through maps, military, historical documents and testimonials, it sheds light on a little-known chapter in the history of Italy and the history of Jewish people in Italy, exploring the story of the Jewish Brigade, which is fascinating in its uniqueness.
Short data sheet:
n.24 panels cm.100x70 with text and photos
Catalogue: yes
EXIBITION FOR THE MEMORIAL DAY
Mario Finzi [Bologna 1913- Auschwitz 1945]
Bolognese musician between art and commitment to the salvation of the persecuted Jewish people.
On the basis of the "Mario “ archival documents, the historical-documentary exhibition explores Mario Finzi’s life events; he was an eminent Bolognese pianist, whose career was shattered by the events that marked the beginning of anti-Jewish persecution in Italy. Mario Finzi, a young anti-fascist and member of the Resistance, from 1941 devoted all his energy to save the Jewish people of Bologna and Emilia-Romagna through DELASEM, Delegazione per l’Assistenza degli Ebrei Migranti (Delegation for the Care of Migrants Jews), a national organization of which he became a delegate in Bologna and where he worked with Eugenio Heiman. His friends were among the best Bolognese people at that time : Cesare Gnudi, Giorgio Morandi and Giuseppe Raimondi, the Telmon brothers, the Arcangeli brothers, Gina Fasoli, Corrado Festi, Massenzio Masia, Armando Paintings, Gino Honors.
Arrested in 1944 by the Fascists because of his opposition activities, he was then imprisoned in the camp at Fossoli. From there, he was deported to Auschwitz, where he died in the winter of 1944-45.
Short data sheet:
- 8 forex panels cm.100x70 mounted on any flat surface
Catalogue: no
Simone Samuel Spritzman
a Jewish person who survived Auschwitz from Kishinev to Parma
Simone Spritzman Samuel was born in 1904 in Kishinev, Bessarabia. When his Country passed under the Romanian domination from the Russian one, Spritzman moved to Italy in order to continue his studies, first to Parma, then to Turin.
From 1939, with the racial laws, to 1945 he was victim of dramatic events culminating in deportation. In the history of the Italian anti-Semitic persecution, Simon Samuel Spritzman was one of thousands of people, who were at first supervised, then arrested, and finally deported to the Italian and then to the German concentration camps. He was among a few hundred people who came back and among those who managed to rebuild social, professional and emotional lives, however engaging their energy in facing their mourning, building with documents their own story, entrusting the memory of the suffered trauma to them.
Short data sheet
10 panels cm.100x70
Catalogue: yes
HISTORICAL -ARTISTIC EXHIBITIONS
Jewish Festivals and Life
Emanuele Luzzati’s works in the Jewish Museum of Bologna
The seven paintings were created for the big Art and Jewish culture in Emilia-Romagna exhibition (1988), and are unique in Emanuele Luzzati’sartistic production .
The large scale works, depict some aspects of Jewish life (marriage, rabbi, school, cemetery), along with some of the main festivals (Pesach Seder, Sukkoth, Rosh-ha shanà) and create a path expressing Luzzati ‘s Jewish identity: his colors and his fairy-tale vision are the medium of a personal memory of his tradition.
Short data sheet:
n.12 panels cm.170 x 90, mixed media paintings
Catalogue: yes
Unknown / Sconosciuto and other stories
Rutu Modan Personal
Rutu Modan, born in Israel, is an internationally renowned author, also known as a magazine and children's books illustrator; she has been publishing comics and illustrations for some twenty years. Her book Unknown / Sconosciuto –published by Coconino Press in 2006 in world preview - aroused a keen interest in Italy; Rutu Modan, with her essential and elegant style, manages to fully grasp the most banal aspects of reality, against the backdrop of a Country aiming for normality with difficulty.
Unknown is the body of a man killed in an attack in Tel Aviv, that brings together the two main characters; but unknown seem to be Kobi and Numi as well, who only slowly and through a thin and fragile bond stretching between them, become able to find themselves.
An essential portrait, a style of moving clarity that with great accuracy captures the relationships between the characters and the place in which they live and move.
Short data sheet:
51 drawings
Catalogue: no