18th Contact Day Jewish Studies on the Low Countries
Institute of Jewish Studies, University of Antwerp, 12 May 2026
Grote Kauwenberg 18, 2000 Antwerpen, Room s.E.201.
We welcome you to join us in the 18th Contact Day Jewish Studies on the Low Countries to be held on 12 May 2026 at Antwerpen University (please see the attached program, for an online version and abstracts see https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/research-groups/ijs/lectures-and-conferenc…;
Admission is free, please register via email: ijs@uantwerpen.be
Program
9:30 - 10:00 Registration
10:00 - 10:15 Opening words
10:15 - 11:45 Panel “Shifting Jewish Identities in a Global Context” (Chair: Laura Hobson Faure)
José Alberto Rodrigues da Silva Tavim, “A life story from the 17th century in his own voice (discurso de sua vida): Francisco Cardoso Ortiz or Abraham Cardoso, a Jew from Bayonne, and his transcontinental travels”
Hilde Greefs & Anne Winter, “From Pinhas to Youssouf: The fascinating travels of a Jewish family of “Muslim” performers in mid-nineteenth-century Europe”
Laura Almagor, "Anti Colonial Cold War Liberals: Sal Tas and Jacques de Kadt”
11:45 - 12:00 Coffee break
12:00 - 13:00 Panel “Religious anti-Jewish Images” (Chair: Philippe Pierret)
Hélène Muratore, “The Legacy of the Cambron Desecration: Imagery, Pilgrimage Sites and the Shaping of Medieval Identity and Community in the Low Countries”
Lieve Teugels, “Anti-Jewish images in the OLV Church in Aarschot”
13:00 - 14:00 Lunch break
14:00 - 16:00 Panel “Crossing Places, Spaces & Jewish Identities” (Chair: Karin Hofmeester)
Julia van der Krieke, “ ‘The Jewish Neighbourhood’, creating different Jewish identities on
Amsterdam’s streets”
Nina Zellerhoff, “Hakhshara in the Netherlands. Jewish Youth Between Hope, Escape, and Self-Fulfilment”
Bettine Siertsema, “The stranger as catalyst: Emuna Elon’s House on Endless Waters”
Dawn M. Skorczewski, “A Strange Desire: Uncovering Dutch Holocaust Trauma through Longing and Witnessing in The Safekeep”
16:00 - 16:15 Coffee break
16:15 - 17:45 Panel “Anti-Jewish Policy and its Consequences” (Chair: Veerle Vanden Daelen)
Linda Graul, “An Experiment in Early Persecution: Luxembourg as a Testing Ground for Anti-Jewish Policy in Western Europe”
Jana Müller, “Post-war or post-Holocaust? Parliamentary debates and the legislative process regarding compensation in Luxembourg”
Sabrina Lind, “Looted in Belgium, recovered to Belgium. Who is the rightful owner of Jan Denens’s Vanitas?”
17:45 - 18:00 Concluding remarks