Jewish Studies Week at University of Alberta will be held from Nov. 2 -6

By Regan Lipes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(AJNews) – The Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies is presenting a lineup of excellent programming in honour of Jewish Studies Week, to be held at the University of Alberta November 2 through 6.  The programming kicks off with Bente Kahan’s Unfinished Lives which will be on display in the Rutherford Library Atrium. According to the exhibition’s official website: “Unfinished Lives is a multimedia project by the Bente Kahan Foundation (Fundacja Bente Kahan/FBK), introducing European Jewish artists who perished during the Holocaust. In the midst of the horror, artists continued to express themselves through literature, music, visual and performing arts.” Bente Kahan, a performing artist originally from Norway, established the Foundation in Wroclaw, Poland in 2006 as a cultural preservation and educational organization.

In the middle of Wroclaw, past several decorative gnomes, behind an old archway and through a charming courtyard stands the historic White Stork Synagogue.  Dating back to 1829, this historic building was where the exhibition was first unveiled. “The material included in the exhibition is unique, presenting often forgotten artists and their work, and sometimes even showcasing them to the public for the first time. European Jewish art before World War II was multilingual, multicultural, and diverse, both thematically and formally. Behind each photo is an actual person, introduced with a biography and surviving artwork, such as writings, paintings, films, or music. If there is no existing photo, the person is represented symbolically as a shadow. We want to make our artists and their work known to a larger audience. To do this, we have undertaken new translations of literature and produced videos, concerts, and recordings, often in various languages.”  There is the permanent display in Wroclaw, and the show has toured Poland, Germany, Czechia, Norway, and now makes its way to Canada.  “War is not an abstract notion, but a reoccurring nightmare. Art resonates with each of us and helps interpret events. The Holocaust is our shared legacy and has become the modern world’s metric for evil.”

On Monday, November 2 at 4 pm in the Henry Marshall Tory Building, room 2-58, the Wirth Institute invites students, faculty, and community members to listen to an exciting lecture by Professor Tvrtko Jakovina, from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, MIREES, Universita di Bologna.

As elaborated on the Wirth Institute’s website, Professor Jakovina will be: “exploring how the Holocaust is understood, remembered, and discussed in Croatia and the wider post-Yugoslav region. A prominent political historian, author, public commentator, and former television host, Jakovina examines the ways twentieth-century history, memory, and nationalist narratives continue to shape contemporary understandings of the region’s past.”  Jakovina, is a prolific scholar with numerous works to his name.

On Thursday, November 5 at 4 pm, the annual Toby and Saul Reichert Holocaust Lecture will be delivered in Tory Lecture Building T LB-1 by Professor Anna Cichopek-Gajraj from Arizona State University.  Her talk, “Beyond Violence? Survivors’ Returns to Poland after the Holocaust” promises to be an engaging and valuable investigation of displacement, return, and belonging in the face of trauma.  According to the lecture abstract on the Wirth Institute’s website: “What did it mean for Jewish survivors to return “home” to Poland after the Holocaust? This is a familiar story: survivors returned to find their families murdered and their homes occupied, while facing their Polish neighbors’ hostility, violence, or indifference. Yet these common postwar experiences do not tell the whole story. Although loneliness, pain, fear, and sorrow were palpable, survivors also exhibited resilience and creativity in their search for a new sense of belonging in their old country. They sought justice, entered schools and workplaces, and tried to recover some measure of normality in the shadow of the genocide.”

The work of scholars like Professor Anna Cichopek-Gajraj does much amidst current geopolitical polarization to keep human perspectives at the forefront of public consciousness.  Focussing on Jewish civilizations of Poland and Slovakia, “she is the author of Pogrom Żydów w Krakowie 11 sierpnia 1945 r. (Jewish Historical Institute, 2000) and Beyond Violence: Jewish Survivors in Poland and Slovakia, 1944–1948), which was a finalist for the 2016 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award and received an Honorable Mention for the 2015 Barbara Heldt Prize. In 2016, she was honoured with the Shofar Zakhor Award for her work on Holocaust education in Arizona.”

This year’s lecture marks the first since the recent passing of Saul Reichert (OBM). On July 27, 2026, the Wirth Institute published a moving tribute to Reichert, stating: “With the support of the Edmonton Jewish community, Saul became a successful restaurateur and businessman while remaining deeply committed to Holocaust education and sharing his experiences with future generations. Throughout his life, he dedicated his time and energy to Holocaust education, believing that remembrance was essential to building a more just and compassionate future. Among Saul’s most enduring legacies at the Wirth Institute is the Toby and Saul Reichert Holocaust Lecture.”  Predeceased by his wife Toby OBM in 2021,  Sual Reichert “also felt strongly about seeing a Holocaust museum established in Edmonton. He would have been immensely proud to know that this vision is now becoming a reality through the planned museum in the new Jewish Federation building. It is a fitting testament to a life devoted to preserving memory and educating future generations.”

On Friday, to wind down a week of scholarly discussion, the Wirth Institute warmly invites students, faculty, and the community to gather at Henderson Hall 1-17 of Rutherford Library South at 2 pm to meet with the distinguished lecturers and enjoy some delicious pastries and refreshments.  Toby and Saul Reichert are sadly no longer able to bear witness to all they built and accomplished, but their four daughters Rochelle, Jerell, Adell, and Bonny, can be proud of the impact their parents are still making. The Wirth Institute stated: “Saul Reichert transformed unimaginable loss into a lifetime of generosity, community leadership, and education. His story stands as a powerful reminder of the resilience of the human spirit and of the enduring importance of preserving the memory of the Holocaust. Through the Wirth Institute’s Toby and Saul Reichert Holocaust Lecture, his legacy will continue to educate, inspire, and remind future generations of the consequences of hatred and the enduring responsibility to uphold human dignity.”

This year when attending Jewish Studies Week at the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies, please take a moment to remember Toby and Saul Reichert; may their memories be a blessing.