Krakow Synagogue Now ‘Mezcal’ Night Club

This post first appeared on The Arty Semite blog at the Forward.

To the dismay of guardians of Jewish heritage in Poland, a former Krakow beit midrash, or Jewish house of prayer and study, reopened as a disco this past weekend.

It was first reported in Gazeta Wyborcza, a local media outlet, that a new club called Mezcal would be opened in the Kazimierz district in a structure that was once the Chewra Thilim beit midrash. The article named the various DJ’s and bands that would perform, and described the light shows and parties that would take place in the space with valuable frescoes on its walls.

The building, designed by Nachman Kopald, was built at the corner of Meisels and Bozego Ciala streets in 1896. It was utilized as a dance studio after World War II, but was restituted to the Krakow Jewish community in 2001. The building had reportedly been vacant and unmaintained since 2006.

Members of the Managing Jewish Immovable Heritage conference visited the site last month after the president of Beit Krakow, the city’s small reform congregation, informed conference organizers that she had heard that the property would be turned into a restaurant. Her congregation had been hoping to use the space for its own needs.

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© 2013 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.

Montreal Museum Takes The Internet To The Streets

This piece was first published on The Arty Semite blog at the Forward.

“I’m interested in pushing young people to get involved, to take ownership of history,” declared Zev Moses, founder and director of the Interactive Museum of Jewish Montreal.

For Moses, this means getting people out into the original Jewish neighborhoods of Montreal for an “immersive experience” that combines computer technology with actual visits to historic sites.

“People have called it a ‘virtual museum,’ but that’s a misnomer,” Moses explained in a phone interview with The Arty Semite. The IMJM has collected a trove of archival photographs, oral history recordings, musical recordings, and films about the 250-year-old community that can be enjoyed online from anywhere. But the optimal situation is for people to access these resources through their mobile devices as they physically stand at the locations (IMJM calls them “exhibits”) that the information is meant to illuminate.

Moses and Stephanie Schwartz, IMJM’s research director, are working with their staff of 10 student researchers and project coordinators to curate the museum’s material into tours that highlight specific subjects. The only tour so far (and the only portion of the IMJM website that is currently mobile browser-compatible) is called “Between These Walls: Hidden Sounds of Hazzanut in Montreal,” focusing on cantors who sang at downtown synagogues between 1934 and 1965.

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© 2013 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.

No Yiddishkeit At ‘Downton Abbey’

This article as first published in The Times of Israel.

Bad news, fans who‘ve gotten religious about “Downton Abbey“: Lady Cora Crawley is not — I repeat, not — Jewish.

Although this may be of absolutely no consequence to most people, for at least some admirers of the hit TV series, it’s a real disappointment. (Before anyone accuses me of revealing spoilers, rest assured that Judaism does not play a part in the British show’s third season, which premieres in the US Sunday on PBS.)

With the approach of new episodes, some fans may be wondering about the religious background of the series’ female lead, an early 20th-century heiress living on the English estate of the title.

Viewers’ curiosity about the American-born Lady Cora — also known as the Countess of Grantham — stems from an official online biography posted online last year, in which the character is described as “the beautiful daughter of Isidore Levinson, a dry goods multimillionaire from Cincinnati.”

With the revelation of that telltale maiden name, some of the series’ Jewish fans immediately began speculating about how her heretofore unrevealed identity might play out in Season 3.

Their interest was only heightened by news that Shirley MacLaine had agreed to join the show as Lady Cora’s mother, Martha Levinson. Who could contain her excitement at the prospect of a Jewish mother arriving from America to shake up stodgy Downton Abbey? Best of all, would she spar with Lady Cora’s mother-in-law (Maggie Smith), the fantastically barb-tongued Dowager Countess?

Alas, all hopes have been dashed. As impatient as viewers may be for the new season, they will not see the cook, Mrs. Patmore, bake challah; the butler, Mr. Carson, serve Shabbat dinner; Lady Cora bless the candles; or her eldest daughter, Lady Mary, wear an exquisite Star of David necklace.

The reason neither Martha Levinson nor Lady Cora (played by Elizabeth McGovern) are Jewish, it turns out, is very simple: They’re Episcopalian.

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© Renee Ghert-Zand 2013. All rights reserved.