RSVP NOW! TTS Dinner Benefit on Feb 28
Thanks To Scandinavia is very excited to announce that on Tuesday, February 28th we will be hosting our very first dinner benefit at Swedish star chef Marcus Samuelsson’s hot new restaurant, Red Rooster.
Rather than waiting for months to get a seat at this sold out restaurant, why not join us for an evening of terrific food and guests!
Click HERE to RSVP and purchase your tickets online!
Click HERE to view the invitation.
Celebrating the Legacy of Raoul Wallenberg
Today marks the start of yearlong celebrations of the life a Raoul Wallenberg, a heroic Swedish diplomat who saved the lives of thousands of Jews during World War II.
Read this NYT article by Hilary Rodham Clinton and Carl Bildt, which discusses Wallenberg’s life and legacy.
Event: The Jews of Norway During the Holocaust
We are going to pick potatoes: The Jews of Norway during the Shoah
January 25, 2012
7:00-8:30pm, JCC in Manhattan
Knowing how diverse the Jewish people are, we shouldn’t be surprised to hear stories about the Jews of Scandinavia. But we may still be shocked to learn that even Norwegian Jews were deported to their death while others fled the Nazi terror. Join Irene Levin Berman to hear the story of her childhood in Norway and the experience of her family and others during the Holocaust. January 27th is International Holocaust Memorial Day. With the support of JICNY – Jewish International Community of New York.
Click HERE for more information, including how to purchase tickets.
TTS Winter 2011 Newsletter
Looking back on this year, Thanks To Scandinavia has accomplished so much and yet, we still have so much more to be excited about in the future! Our Winter 2011 newsletter describes some of these accomplishments as well as our upcoming programs and events.
Great Article on TTS Trip
Ane Vestbjerg, a participant on the most recent TTS journalist trip to the US, wrote the following article, published by the Danish School of Media and Journalism, about her experience.
NORDIC JOURNALISM STUDENTS IN NEW YORK
By: Ane Vestbjerg
For a journalist student who has not had the opportunity to study abroad, a meeting set up by scholarship organization Thanks To Scandinavia was an eye-opening experience on how to cooperate across the Atlantic on the medias of the future.
On a packed six-day overtime program, 13 journalist students from all over Scandinavia recently got the chance to meet with assistant professor of journalism, Heather Chaplin, from the New York university New School. It was due to an invitation from the Jewish scholarship organization Thanks To Scandinavia that the students got the opportunity to influence the debate on how to shape the journalists of tomorrow.
Teaching in a country where most media workplaces are suffering hard in a tough economic climate, Chaplin is working in a dry spell that we as journalists in Denmark has only experienced to a certain extend. So keeping up good appearances on the precious journalistic virtues, this student figured, must seem harder than ever before. Read more
Thanks to Scandinavia Remembers the Heroic Efforts of Julius Huttner
Julius Huttner
The efforts to rescue the war stricken European Jewish population during and following WWII were very complex due to the massive relocation efforts that were necessary to prevent further disaster. The Swedish government spearheaded the effort to allocate funds to these efforts and thus, the government and its people have been remembered for their “unexampled demonstration of devotion to humanitarian principles,” according to a 1943 article by the Joint Distribution Committee.
The first refugees in the 1930s were German Jews, and following the occupation of Norway and Denmark many non-Jewish refugees who fought against Nazism arrived in Sweden. The larger flow of refugees began after April 9, 1940, when Germany occupied Norway and Denmark, and began persecuting socialists, state employees, officers and policemen. Read more
Educational Opportunity: Paideia Fellowships in Jewish Studies
Paideia Fellowships in Jewish Studies 2012-2013
The Paideia One Year Jewish Studies Program offers a unique international Jewish studies experience during eight months in Stockholm, Sweden with the possibility of completing a Master in Jewish Civilizations at the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien in Heidelberg, Germany.
Features
- Academic studies of Jewish text and culture in English
- World-renowned faculty from Israeli and European universities
- Interactive text studies using the Hevruta method of studying in pairs
- Applied project work
- Networking in an open, international and pluralistic European environment
- Hebrew Ulpan 6 hours per week
- Optional second year of studies at the HfJS in Heidelberg
- Follow-up programs and conferences
Scholarships
Fellows receive scholarships including student tuition, student accommodation and a monthly stipend towards living costs.
Deadlines
Early Application: Deadline January 15 (decision by March 1)
Application I: Deadline March 1 (decision by April 15)
Application II: Deadline April 15 (decision by June 1)
The earlier one applies, the better chances are to get a scholarship.
Candidates should have the following qualities:
- Commitment to the renewal of European Jewish culture
- Intellectual curiosity and documented academic experience
- Interpersonal and leadership skills
Prior study experience in Jewish texts or Hebrew is not required
For more information and application forms visit www.paideia-eu.org
Historical Perspectives: Mia Munzer Le Comte
A painting by the Czech émigré artist Mia Munzer Le Comte is on display in the office of Thanks To Scandinavia in New York, on loan from her son Douglas through arrangements by TTS Board Member and close family friend James Colias.
Mia Munzer Le Comte: "Fleeing"
The painting, called “Fleeing”, portrays the harrowing escape of persecuted Jews in Europe during the time of World War II.
With its focus on movement and its depiction of entire families on the run, the picture tells an emotional story of people forced to flee the homes that had been theirs for centuries in some cases, taking almost nothing along in order to have a chance to survive.
Mia Munzer Le Comte was born on March 15, 1909 in Prague, received her master’s degree there at the Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, and committed herself full time to painting. After the occupation of Prague on her thirtieth birthday, she escaped to Rome, Nice, Paris, Marseille, Lisbon and finally to America. While living in Paris, Mia worked privately with the celebrated Austrian Expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka.
Mia Munzer Le Comte’s autobiography “I Still Dream of Prague”, tells her story with style and poignancy. Those who are interested in Czech history between the two World Wars will be fascinated by this memoir.
The story of rescue during World War II that Thanks To Scandinavia commemorates through publications, programs, and above all, scholarships for young people today – exists against the backdrop of a dark history of persecution and murder that escalated in the Holocaust. “Fleeing” is a striking reminder that this indeed, was the fate of most Jews during World War II, and that racism and terror — and not rescue and hope — were the norm of that dark period.
By Florian Hansmann
TTS Scholar Stories: TTS Alumni created film about Israel called “The Immigrants”
The Immigrants is a documentary by Majken Astrup and Camilla Tuborgh, Masters of Journalism from the Danish School of Journalism and TTS scholarship recipients. Read more about the experience that Majken and Camilla embarked on as they set to film a documentary about the personal narratives of individual Israeli immigrants.
Historical Perspectives: Irene Levin Berman, a Norwegian Jew living in the US
July 13, 2011
Irene Levin Berman is the author of “We are going to pick potatoes,” Norway and the Holocaust, The Untold Story. In this book, she tells the story of the Jewish settlement in Norway at the end of the nineteenth century. She relates her own family’s experiences during The Holocaust and describes what it was like growing up Jewish in Norway after the liberation. Now that her book has been published in Norwegian and English, (Publisher Rowman & Littlefield) she revisits her reflections about this trip back in time.
Irene Levin Berman
Most of this article was written while traveling along the Norwegian west coast from Bergen to Kirkenes this past June, on the Hurtigruten cruise. Such a trip allowed her to focus on her three separate, yet interwoven, identities; she is Norwegian, Jewish and, having spent most of her adult life in the U.S., American. She describes her experiences exploring the breathtaking fjords of Norway, and depicts her visit with the Jewish congregation and to the Jewish Museum in Trondheim during one of the stops on the cruise. The atmosphere that Berman creates triggers renewed focus on her childhood years as an exiled refugee in Norway during World War II. The reader, alongside the author, takes a one-day trip through Norway to the Swedish border, retracing her family’s escape route for the first time since 1942.
For more information regarding Irene Levin Berman’s story, “We are Going to Pick Potatoes,” Norway and the Holocaust, the Untold Story, and the greater story of Norway’s role in World War II, the Holocaust, and the Liberation, see www.Norwayandtheholocaust.com.
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RSVP NOW! TTS Dinner Benefit on Feb 28
Thanks To Scandinavia is very excited to announce that on Tuesday, February 28th we will be hosting our very first dinner benefit at Swedish star chef Marcus Samuelsson’s hot new restaurant, Red Rooster. Rather than waiting for months to get a seat at this sold out restaurant, why not join us for an evening of [...]
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