Institute for Research Preservation Public Policy
MEMORY IN ACTION: EMBRACING THE PAST FOR THE FUTURE jewish experience
WE ARE COMMITTED TO SERVE AT THE PLEASURE OF TRUTH
jewish experience
See us on Facebook
WE ARE COMMITTED TO SERVE AT THE PLEASURE OF TRUTH
jewish experience
See us on Facebook
MEMORY IN ACTION: EMBRACING THE PAST FOR THE FUTURE is an Institute for Research, Preservation and Public Policy Analysis.
We are dedicated to preserving and historicizing social and political experience of our community's past. Through our research, exhibits, events, and educational programs, we strive to reconstruct the history of the Jewish experience through critical and unbiased lenses, from the mid-19th century to nowadays in Los Angeles.
The Past and Present are interconnected on a communal national level, and on global level.
Our missions and tasks are indeed multifaceted. We are equally engaged in an interdisciplinary Project: Ukrainian-Jewish-Polish interactions and historical discourse in Interwar East Galicia (Poland in 918 – 1939). This Project, based on archival sources, will be presented in a series of original essays and online thematic archives.
An existential perception for critical geopolitical situations now and then empowers our periodical reviews and commentaries about the Regions of Human Suffering.
We provide feedback to the Russo-Ukrainian War, Israel - Hamas War and American Political Business.
Living in modern world WE strive to a romantic medieval Motto: TO SERVE AT THE PLEASURE OF TRUTH, which also is part of American official parlance.
About our Symbols:
Our logo is the ancient Hebrew letter Bet , which represents the first sound for Bereshit, Beginning. Ancient teachings hold that the shape of the letter taught us that we are to focus our thoughts from the foundations of human existence and move forward, thus embracing the past for the future. It also reflects the story of the origin of Beth El, from which this historic institution derived its name. It was, as the ancient account tells us, the union of Heaven and Earth, the spiritual and the mundane, bound together at the vision of Jacob's ladder.
Our Chimera on the top image reflects a thinking person perplexed by the events around him. It overlooks Paris, the seat of the historic Grand Sanhedrin of 1806, as Napoleon queried Jewish leaders about their place in the new France. It was the first significant demonstration, by the leading power of Europe, that Jews would be considered as citizens, not members of a religious group.
The Chimera is always perplexed for the knowledge increases sorrow.
OUR PROJECTS
DOCUMENTED HISTORY OF JEWISH EXPERIENCE:
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE AMERICAN AND JEWISH CENTURY, 1920'S TO 2020'S AND BEYOND
-Documenting and Analyzing Jewish - Gentile Discourse in the Context of Ethno-National, Political and Economic Developments in Los Angeles from the Civil War through to the post Cold War era, a period that has been described both as the American Century and the Jewsih Century
-The impact of Jews on contemporary American civilization in the hard sciences and the social sciences, film and entertainment culture, business and industry, political culture, with a highlight on Los Angeles as the hothouse for America's cultural and economic development
- Periodization of Jewish historical experience in the greater Los Angeles area
- Social integration and disintegration: centripetal and centrifugal tendencies
- Stages of Jewish immigration: social and cultural compositions, counterbalancing and adverse effects
- Public perception of the Jews: decoding mytholgies and stereotypes
- Translating Jewish History to the LA functional narrative
-Historicizing LA Jewish Experience: Creating Online Archive and Thesaurus of Subject Matters.
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INTERDISCIPLINARY SEMINAR ON JEWISH-UKRAINIAN RELATIONS IN INTERWAR EASTERN GALICIA (POLAND): 1918 -1939
We argue and discuss a figurative conception of Ukrainian and Jewish societal and political discourse that was going apart but in a sense parallel to each other in attempt to reach their own, largely incompatible goals. The agendas and political dealings of both communities were in most instances distinctively opposite and intractable for mutual rapport and rapprochement. At the same time, the picture of Ukrainian-Jewish relations in interwar East Galicia would be incomplete without registering a phenomenon of the periodically arising affinities, largely evoked by the third and then dominating force, namely the Polish state and the Poles. We are in the position to argue that Ukrainian and Jewish objectivities warrant a certain number of common foci, eventuating in crossing between their subjective parallels at least for a momentum of commonwealth. We connote these virtually crossed parallels of subjectivities as the instances of togetherness in action.
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Awareness vs. Historical Accuracy: we cannot understand the History of the Holocaust without historical truthfulness.
A film: The Tattooist of Auschwitz is controversial, but is historical accuracy more important than awareness?
Authors and filmmakers should not be shielded from criticism because they 'raise awareness' of the Holocaust. If untruthful and historically is off the track of reality the awareness and education are situated on the formal side, on statistical side. The 'happy stories' and happiness thereafter serve at the pleasure of trivialization devaluation of day-to-day hellness of the Holocaust. Truthfulness to the historical relevance on the contrary builts conscious understanding and lasting memory.
Films Son of Saul and The Zone of Interest are the rare exceptions from the mainstream.
With “The Zone of Interest,” Jonathan Glazer is just the latest director to confront the problem.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/magazine/movies-holocaust-zone-of-interest.html?smid=em-share
A Laszlo Nemes film Son of Saul, 2015. Languages: French, German, Russian, Greek, Hebrew, Polish
The Online Archives will be available for research and education. We will be cataloguing, indexing and digitizing the documents for our Projects: official records, daily press, literary work, personal correspondences, memoirs and family photo-documents.
We are focussing on the documented history in the regions of interest: Los Angeles, East-Central Europe, Middle East and on the oral histories of a broader personal experience.
See also articles by our staff on Academia.edu and Academia and Academia Letters in this regard: https://www.academia.edu/50926698/UKRAINIAN_AND_JEWISH_VICISSITUDES_EAST_GALICIA_1918_1923_OBJECT_SUBJECT_RELATIONSHIPS_AND_INTERSUBJECTIVITY_Existential_Analysis
From Academia Letters
ACADEMIALetters
Dr. Vladimir Melamed
Keywords: Eastern Europe; Ukraine; Austro-Hungary; collective memory; historical narrative
Other Articles and Essays
https://independent.academia.edu/VMelamed
Literature of European and American Modernism: literary and comparative analysis
Polish-Jewish Literature: Literature in Polish written by Jews
Polish modernist literature by Jewish-Polish authors
Existential Central European Literature in German before and after the First World War
The Art of Weimar Republic and the European reflections
Bruno Schulz, Polish-Jewish writer and artist. Explore his inner circle of the non-ordinary world
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/05/02/bruno-schulz-nocturnal-apparitions-benjamin-balint/
Joseph Roth, writer and philosopher. He was a man of few possessions and a haunted, lonely mind, whose life stands out for unrepentant self-destruction.
Hans Fallada, modernist literature in the Third Reich
https://lithub.com/hans-fallada-the-anti-nazi-writer-who-reluctantly-served-the-reich/
Albert Camus, Existential philosopher and author
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1958/05/albert-camus-a-good-man/640286/
Independent
Cinematic Representation of Existential Pages of Human Experience in the 20th century
Ida, Drama, 2014, Director Pawel Pawlikowski, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeaXwufbOlc
Son of Saul, Drama, 2015, Director Laszlo Nemes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ktMOyfD8k
Wolyn (Hatred), Drama, 2016, Director Wojcech Smarzowski
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY-zOOjTO7U&t=246s
Pianist, Drama, 2002, Director Roman Polanski
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Pianist+film+
Ashes and Diamonds, Drama, 1958, Director Andrzej Waida
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuqhCAZSo3Y
The Zone of Interest, Drama, 2024, Director Jonathan Glazer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-vfg3KkV54
Golda, 2023, Biographical Drama
Director Guy Nativ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJETvSNa178
In 1851, the new Jewish settlers organized in Los Angeles a congregation Beth El, but they did not have neither a cantor or Rabbi and assembled for religious services only on New Year and the day of Atonement (I.J. Benjamin, Three Years in America, 1859 - 1862, trans. Charles Reznikoff (Philadelphia, 1956), II, 101.
Hollywood Temple Beth El, the first synagogue of Hollywood, was founded just as the burgeoning film industry was setting roots in Los Angeles in 1922.
In 1952, the members of Hollywood Temple Beth El built the magnificent edifice at the corner of N Crescent Heights and Fountain, in the heart of what would become the City of West Hollywood.It was designed by noted architect, Harry Hiller, and it has since been on the tour route of the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles for its unique design. It seems to have been influenced by artist depictions of the ancient Temple of Solomon in JerusalemThe structure also houses three sets of stained glass windows depicting the twelve tribes. The large windows in the Main Sanctuary were crafted by Francis J. Dunham in 1967. The most recent set, on the doors to the sanctuary lobby, were designed by Joe Young, architect of the Holocaust Memorial in Pan-Pacific Park.The magnificent structure now serves as the headquarters of the Iranian American Jewish Federation.
This historic building has served as a social and communal home for people in the West Hollywood and Hollywood Hills environs for over a century.
For a stunning 360 degree visual of our Main Sanctuary, go to:https://synagogues-360.anumuseum.org.il/gallery/hollywood-temple-beth-el/
Rabbi Dr. Norbert Weinberg,President and CEO of Research and Education, Rabbi of Hollywood Temple Beth El
For his background go to:
Dr. Vladimir Melamed, Executive Director, Noted Historian and Researcher of Modern European History
For his background:
Bill Greenberg, Director for Technology
and Marketing
President of Net Data Systems, Inc.
Douglas Workman, Technical Advisor
Edward Melamed, Content Manager
Hollywood Temple Beth El
follow us for events on
https://www.facebook.com/htbel
and on YouTube for recordings and livestream ofour services and activities
https://www.youtube.com/@templehtbel5978/streams
The Iranian American Jewish Federation
Rabbi Dr Norbert Weinberg blog at
and recorded discussions:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxjc3h0xSwvPyfOCfgEFAcPhqz1frLijK&si=bQvT40RpBV9UB_HN
Dr. Vladimir Melamed
https://independent.academia.edu/VMelamed
https://huri.harvard.edu/people/vladimir-melamed
Dr. Vladimir Melamed
Online archive: Holocaust Museum LA
Dr. Vladimir Melamed
Online Archive: New Center for Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles
Russo-Ukrainian War.
If Ukraine have reliable allies
European Union and NATO: if there will the new leaderships
Institute for the Study of War
https://www.understandingwar.org/
Israel-Hamas War
Israeli and Geopolitical Perspective
American Politics, or American Political Business
Bloomberg Politics
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics
The Economist
Themes for the future pennels and discussions:
Anticipatory Anxiety: Literary and Cinematic Models
Does anti-semitism stands for anti-Jewishness: social and political dimensions
Collaboration in the Holocaust:
Everlasting existential discourse
DISCOURSE AND PERSPECTIVES
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1149584349412544
Future Topics:
Biblical History: Modern Historical Narrative
Jewish - Gentile Discourse in the Context of Ethno-National and Political Developments in Los Angeles: from the Civil War to the end of the Cold War
Temple Beth El as a Reflection on Social, Economic and Cultural Experience of the Jews in Los Angeles : 1920s -- 1990s
Russo-Ukrainian War: Ukrainian anti-colonial national narrative versus Putin's postcolonial expansionism.
Breaking the Russian Geopolitical Dominance
This is the History to be written yet
Preliminary tenets and conclusions:
Limited historiography on the Subject
Vague categorization: Cultural or Political History?
History of the Institutions, Societies or Religious organizations?
Integration, disintegration and unification on the notion of American patriotism and support for Israel
THEMES OF RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
Architecture of the Final Solution
Collaboration with Nazi-German administration and the role of Local administrations
Judenraete (Jewish Councils) and Jewish order police in the ghettos: phenomenon of survival
To survive or to resist?
Oral Histories of the Holocaust
The Genocides: Memories and Politics
Our Institute is in its construction phase and the public willl be notified when the exhibits go live.
1317 North Crescent Heights Boulevard, West Hollywood, California 90046, United States
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