Auschwitz prisoners, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were tattooed with serial numbers, first on their chests and then on their left arms. An estimated 400,000 numbers were tattooed in Auschwitz and its sub-camps; only some several thousand survivors are still alive today.

NUMBERED is an explosive, highly visual, and emotionally cinematic journey, guided by testimonies and portraits of these survivors. The film documents the dark time and setting during which these tattoos were assigned as well as the meaning they took on in the years following the war. In fact, the film's protagonist is the number itself, as it evolves and becomes both a personal and collective symbol from 1940 to today. These scars, paradoxically unanimous and anonymous, reveal themselves to be diverse, enlightening, and full of life.

Official website: Numbered
Trailer: http://vimeo.com/57539900

This screening is collaboration between the Jewish Cultural Quarter and Filmisreal.

Where: Cinema het Ketelhuis Amsterdam
When: Sundag 16 june 2013
Start and reservations:  Website Filmisreal

The Jewish Cultural Quarter regularly presents concerts in the Portuguese Synagogue. You can enjoy a wide range of musical styles in a synagogue illuminated by hundreds of candles. The Portuguese Synagogue is unheated, and it can be cool inside even in the spring, so make sure to bring a coat with you! The concerts are about one hour long. 

Yuri Honing is a well-known Dutch saxophonist who has performed with various groups since the 1990s. He has played with some of the biggest names in the business, such as Paul Bley, Gary Peacock, Charlie Haden, and Pat Metheny.

Mark Haanstra plays bass in the Barnicle Bill Trio and in Yuri Honing's band Wired Paradise. In addition, he has taken part an impressive list of projects over the past fifteen years, mainly in the areas of jazz and modern music.

Yuri Honing - saxofoon
Mark Haanstra - bas

When: 20 juni, 21:30 (doors open at 21:00).

Admission: € 13,50 for sale during openingshours at the cash register of the Portuguese Synagogue and the Jewish Historical Museum, or buy your e-ticket online (€ 14,50 inclusive €1,00 administrationfee).

Reservations are not possible
More information: evenementen@jhm.nl

De Nederlandse Franz Kafka-Kring and the Menasseh ben Israel Institute for Jewish Social and Cultural Studies present:

Prof. Mark H. Gelber - Does Kafka's heritage belong to Israel?

In October 2012 an Israeli judge ruled that the legacy of Kafka's friend, Max Brod which is said to contain some unknown Kafka manuscripts, should be made accessible to the general public in Israel. This ended a long debate between Germany and Israel.

Professor Mark Gelber (University of Beer Sheba, Israel) will discuss the central question of this debate, whether the right place for Kafka's legacy would indeed be Israel. Dr. Niels Bokhove, co-founder of the Nederlandse Kafka-Kring will respond to Mark Gelber, later the audience can participate in the discussion.

The lecture will be held in English

Where: Jewish Historical Museum, Auditorium
Date: Sunday may 19 2013
Time: 14:00
Admission: 12,00 (normal admission for Jewisj Cultural Quarter), free for holders of a museumkaart. Friends of Franz Kafka-kring and MbII (on the condition of reservation by mail) € 9,00
Reservations:  All reservations via Franz Kafka-Kring: m.vandorst@inter.nl.net

Provenance Unknown, An Imaginary Family Portrait is an installation about an unknown Jewish optician and his imaginary family. It is a homage to a 'fantasy' family, representing a lost Jewish generation.

The idea for this work was inspired by the discovery of a collection of spectacles of an unknown optician at a flea market in Amsterdam.

The installation consists of five portraits, a family tree, two portraits of the optician and his son and a box with a clipping from an Israeli newspaper. The abstract portraits represent Jewish culture: Authority, Science, Wisdom, Grace and Pleasure.   

Tonie van Marle studied at the Akademie voor Kunst en Industrie in Enschede and gained her master's in English and Anglo-Irish literature in Dublin. Her work comprises installations, objects and drawings with references to archaeology, history and natural history. In her 'In Memoriam' projects, including Provenance Unknown, Van Marle places herself in the position of people who are not documented in official histories.  She uses 'sympathetic imagination' to make these unknown characters visible and to give them a place in our collective memory.

This walking tour of the Waterlooplein neighbourhood will emphasize the sociological aspects of the sweeping urban clearance programme of the 1970s.

How does the impersonal urban area we see today compare to Zwanenburg and Vlooienburg before the coming of the metro, the home territory of Philip Mechanicus's street urchins?

Location: Start at JHM.
Admission: Free with your ticket.
When: Sunday 23 June, 14:30
To sign up: E-mail evenementen@jhm.nl or call +31 (0)20 531 0380

Please note: this is a Dutch-language event.

What are the lion and the leviathan, the fox and the fish, the dove and the dromedary all doing at the Jewish Historical Museum? Where do all the animals in Jewish family names come from? And why was Amsterdam's Artis Zoo such a rich source of inspiration for Jewish artists? These questions and more will be answered by Jelka Kröger, curator and organizer of the exhibition Beastly Beauty.

Location: JHM Auditorium.
Admission: Free with your ticket.
When: Sunday 16 June, 14:30
To sign up: E-mail evenementen@jhm.nl or call +31 (0)20 531 0380

Please note: this is a Dutch-language event.

In connection with the exhibition Beastly Beauty, Professor Erik A. de Jong will give a talk about the reputation of animals through the centuries.

Erik de Jong holds the Endowed Chair in Culture, Landscape, and Nature in the University of Amsterdam's humanities faculty. Known as the Artis Chair, this is an initiative of the non-profit organisation Stichting Natura Artis Magistra and the Fonds BKVB, now part of the Mondriaan Fund.

Location: JHM Auditorium.
Admission: Free with your ticket.
When: Sunday 9 June, 14:30
To sign up: E-mail evenementen@jhm.nl or call +31 (0)20 531 0380

Please note: this is a Dutch-language event.

In the almost forty-year career of Theo van Haren Noman
(b. 1917) as an independent maker of documentaries and other films, his work received many Dutch and international prizes.

His second independent film, Gisteren komt nooit weerom ('Yesterday will never return'; 1959), follows the adventures of a boy from Amsterdam's Jewish quarter in the years before it was demolished.

The documentary Een leger van gehouwen steen ('An army of carved stone'; 1957) focuses on Dutch war and resistance memorials, which collectively tell the history of the war - a story of repression, treason, transformation, and liberation.

This film screening is presented in connection with the exhibition Philip Mechanicus:Photographer.

Location: JHM Auditorium; sign up at the ticket desk.
Admission: Free with your ticket.
When: Sunday 2 June, 14:30
To sign up:E-mail evenementen@jhm.nl or call +31 (0)20 531 0380

Please note: this is a Dutch-language event

The Tugelahuis will host a small exhibition of panels made by schoolchildren as part of the educational project House with a story.

In connection with the exhibition Philip Mechanicus: Photographs, Mechanicus's widow and muse, the Japanese-Dutch concert pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama, will give an exclusive concert in the Portuguese Synagogue.

Tomoko Mukaiyama received the Gaudeamus Concours prize in 1991. Since then, she has performed with such renowned ensembles as the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, the London Sinfonietta, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and the Koninklijk Concertgebouw Orkest.

She also collaborates with filmmakers, designers, architects, dancers, and photographers, such as Ian Kerkhof, Marina Abramovic, Merzbow, Kim Ito, and Jiří Kylián.

Location: Portuguese Synagogue; please sign up at the ticket desk.

Admission: €13.50 for all visitors - no free entry for Friends of the JHM.

When: Thursday 30 May, 20.00, doors open at 19.30.

Reservations: Email events or call +31 (0)20 531 0380.