programs

Karl Kraus

THE LAST DAYS OF MANKIND

A theatrical reading of one of the most insighful texts ever written about the war. Curated by Natalia Indrimi and staged by Laura Caparrotti. With Ron Bagden, Emanuele Secci and Robert Zuckerman.

Presented by the Leo Baeck Institute, Centro Culturale Primo Levi and Jewish Heritage Project.

APRIL 28 at 7pm - Center for Jewish History - www.cjh.org

The perpetual war has begun. Its glory saturates the media. The nation cheers the heroic sacrifice of its young. Grumblers are ridiculed. Industrialists generate enormous concentrations of new capital. Their politicians define the rule of law. These are the last days of mankind.

Karl Kraus' masterwork is one of the greatest indictments of war ever written.

A TRIBUTE TO BRUNO SCHULZ

THE VISIONARY AUTHOR AND PAINTER MURDERED DURING THE HOLOCAUST IS REMEMBERED ON 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH

Held in association with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research at the Center for Jewish History in New York.

Presented with the support of the Goethe-Institut New York, the Polish Cultural Institute, New York, the Institute for the Humanities at New York University, and PEN American Center.

Bruno Schulz, a noted author and painter, now known to a larger audience for the murals he produced during the Holocaust, was the subject of a special commemoration on the 60th anniversary of his death, on November 19, 2002. The program included a literary roundtable, a world premiere film, and dramatic readings.

VIRTUAL EXHIBIT. The life and visual work of Bruno Schulz with images from the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Archives and the academy of Literature in Warsaw, Poland.

VIDEO SCREENING. Street of Crocodiles, an animation by the Quay Brothers.

READING, BOOK PRESENTATION, and ROUNDTABLE

“Bruno Schulz: His Life, Work, World and Afterlife”

Host and Moderator: Alan Adelson, executive director of the Jewish Heritage Project, which is sponsoring the International Initiative in the Literature of the Holocaust.

Participants:

Henryk Grynberg, author of Drohobycz, Drohobycz (Penguin Books). Mr. Grynberg's writing has been acclaimed throughout Europe where he has been short-listed three times for the Nike Award, Poland's highest literary honor. His most acclaimed titles include The Children of Zion, The Jewish War, and Memorbuch.

Theodosia Robertson, editor and translator of Regions of the Great Heresy, Bruno Schulz: A Biographical Portrait (W.W. Norton & Co.).

Lawrence Weschler. Mr. Weschler recently resigned after 20 years as a staff writer at The New Yorker to become director of the Institute for the Humanities at New York University. His articles written while reporting from Poland have been collected in the anthology, The Passion of Poland.

Readings by film and Broadway actress Elzbieta Czyzewska.

World Premiere Film: Finding Pictures by Benjamin Geissler. Mr. Geissler is the filmmaker who discovered Bruno Schulz’s murals and followed their fate from the time of discovery to their sudden disappearance from Drohobycz in one of the most controversial museum acquisitions of recent years. A talk with Mr. Geissler will follow the screening of Finding Pictures.

Born in 1892 in the Polish town of Drohobycz, in which he would spend most of his life, Bruno Schulz earned his living teaching art to young students. His short stories and darkly erotic sketches were first sent out only to his close friends; but his talent was soon recognized and his writing began circulating in Polish literary circles. Two short story collections, The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, were published to international acclaim. As his fame grew, Schulz struggled to write The Messiah, the novel that was to be his masterwork. The tragic disappearance of this, his final work, has seized the literature imagination of a generation of writers and is still the subject of intense speculation.

Schulz never completed The Messiah. The Nazis occupied Drohobycz on July 3, 1941. Schulz was first placed under the protection of a Nazi officer who obliged him to paint fairy tale figures on the walls of his son’s bedroom. Caught in an escalating feud between his protector and another Nazi officer, Schulz was shot on November 19, 1942. Despite an intensive search after the end of the war, his murals were not uncovered until February 9, 2001, when documentary filmmaker Benjamin Geissler discovered the long lost pictures. In May 2001, representatives of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem removed the murals from Drohobycz, sparking an international controversy.

PHOTO GALLERY

VIDEOCLIP

BLOOM

CELEBRATING THE IRISH-JEWISH CULTURAL CONNECTION WITH READING OF JAMES JOYCE 'ULYSSESS'

A contemporary, unconventional, upbeat presentation!

In association with the Center for Jewish History and American Sephardi Federation. Made possible in part by the support of Tourism Ireland.

"Bloom" is a gala theatrical reading focusing on the peculiarly endearing character of Leopold Bloom, James Joyce’s Jewish protagonist in his epic novel Ulysses. The theatrical readings featured a distinguished cast of Broadway actors, including actress Kathleen Chalfant, star of the Off-Broadway hit "Wit" and "Angels in America". Ms. Chalfant was currently appearing in "Talking Heads" at the Minetta Lane Theater and shuttled between simultaneous productions at the Center and the Minetta Lane. At least eight actors assumed the role of Leopold Bloom, some describing his speech and actions, others giving voice to Bloom's thoughts, including his unconscious: Chris Ceraso, Rufus Collins, Jerry Matz, Paul McIsaac, and Robert Zukerman.

The one-night performance celebrated the Irish/Jewish cultural connections explored in Joyce’s novel. The literary evening, part of the CJH’s “Writers at the Center” program, presented Joyce’s novel from a Jewish perspective, while taking its place among the many readings of Ulysses being held around the world on Bloomsday, the anniversary of the day the novel takes place, ninety nine years ago on June 16, 1904.

The "Bloom" gala is being organized by Natalia Indrimi, Curator of the Center for Jewish History, and Alan Adelson, Executive Director of the Jewish Heritage, the gala’s co-sponsor and producer/director of the performance.

"Literate America seems to break down into two groups," says Adelson: "Those who’ve read and loved Ulysses, and those who haven’t dared. We’re emphasizing the most human side of the story told in this surprisingly poignant novel. Our performance will follow a Jewish man through a day of good works and failed business efforts--even as he lives with the knowledge that his wife Molly, a music hall singer, is with her lover. Not a conventional literary reading, Bloom incorporated set, sound, and lighting design in an attempt to innovate staging devices evoking Joyce’s revolutionary "stream of consciousness" - the inner monologues of his characters."

Kathleen Chalfant performed the most famous of these–Molly Bloom’s reverie reliving her sex life, the closing passages of the novel.

Throughout Joyce’s life as a writer, and particularly with his novel Ulysses, he was attracted to exploring the cross-overs between Irish and Jewish cultures. "By focusing on Leopold Bloom, the most celebrated Jew in Irish literature, and many would agree the greatest Jewish character in modern literature, we hope to present a program which will stimulate far more awareness of those commonalities," says Adelson. Surprising similarities exist between Irish and Jewish cultures. The stages of exodus, exile and diaspora are major themes addressed by Joyce as he observed the common nature of both Jewish and Irish heritage, Adelson observes. And like a Talmudic scholar, Joyce continued to analyze, revise and comment upon his own holy text: Ulysses.