18th Contact Day Jewish Studies on the Low Countries | Institute of Jewish Studies

Program

Tuesday 12 May 2026

City Campus University of Antwerp, building E,
room E.201, Grote Kauwenberg 18, 2000 Antwerp.

Study day in English. Free entrance.
Register via email: ijs@uantwerpen.be.

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
  Anticolonial 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 (speakers only)
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

Prior to the Contact Day, the annual IJS/Kazerne Dossin lecture will take place. It will be held on Monday, May 11, 2026 at 6:00 PM. Professor Laura Hobson Faure will deliver the lecture titled “Who Will Rescue Us? Thinking about Jewish Children’s Migrations during the Holocaust.”

Abstracts

Click here to download the abstracts of the speakers.

Call for Papers (closed)

18th Contact Day Jewish Studies on the Low Countries
Institute of Jewish Studies
University of Antwerp
Tuesday 12 May 2026

The Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Antwerp is organising the eighteenth annual interdisciplinary conference devoted to Jewish Studies on the Low Countries -- understood as the states of the current Benelux, the states that preceded them in the geographical region of the Low Countries in the widest sense, their former colonies as well as global diaspora communities connected to them. The purpose of the conference is to facilitate contacts and cooperation between researchers working within this area of study. We encourage the participation of both early career researchers and more established scholars, in order to foster exchange between different research generations. We are particularly keen to receive proposals and/or sessions that are explicitly comparative in character, or focus on specific themes and disciplines within Jewish Studies concerning the Low Countries. Proposals need not be limited to a specific historical period, and presentations may include work in progress. We will welcome proposals for both individual papers and collective panels. The conference language is English. Please note that the conference organisers regret that they cannot provide financial support to cover travel and accommodation of presenters or participants. Please submit an abstract of maximally 400 words and a short CV by 15 December 2025.

For further information please contact:
Karin Hofmeester: kho@iisg.nl
Veerle Vanden Daelen: veerle.vandendaelen@kazernedossin.eu