European Days of Jewish Culture 2025 Events
Event: The Rogatchi Foundation and its co-founders, artists Michael and Inna Rogatchi will mark the European Days of Jewish Culture 2025 , themed this year as “People of the Book” in cooperation with Lithuanian colleagues with a special exhibition at the special place.
The well-known Rogatchi Shtetl Songs collection uniting Michael Rogatchi’s Shtetl Songs series and Inna Rogatchi’s Shtetl Memories collection , also known as Yiddish Songs, will be displayed at the Audiovisual Arts Centre in Alytus, Lithuania, starting from September 9th, 2025.
The exhibition’s Opening Event will be conducted on September 18th, 2025, at 17.00. The exhibition is on display until October 4th, 2025.
Artworks: Michael Rogatchi’s original drawings, works on paper and exclusive authored prints reflecting on the Yiddish world are part of the artist’s oeuvre on various aspects of Jewish heritage. They contain lyrical works, homages, visualisation of psalms, personal take on Jewish music, and specific focus on shtetl culture and tradition. All those works bear the artist’s distinctive style which is fine and detailed, conveying his knowledge and paying homage to the rich humane tradition in a loving and masterly way.
Inna Rogatchi’s works, mostly works in a specific mixed technique, also represents various aspects of the artist’s works on Jewish heritage, including Inna’s well-known original Songs of Our Souls series, as well as her artistic studies on shtetl culture ( Yiddish Songs) and her artistic homages.
Both artists have been reflecting on the same subject-matter and similar themes, doing it each in their own way, vision and technique. Together, those visions and series of art works have produced more colourful and muli-sided modern-time songs about shtetl that remain in our memory.
” And today, this rare artist, Michael Rogatchi, transmits to us a special message through his art of memory and history, through the heritage received from the Jews of Lithuania but also the heritage transmitted by Grigory Kanovich, Elie Wiesel and Leonard Cohen, who all were his friends. Through Michael’s art, this message shines beyond the possible. His works from the Shtetl Stories collection transmit love and communion between those people in the past and us living today” – Dr Michael de Saint-Cheron, author of “Dancing Against Ashes” essay for the Shtetl Stories and Memories Catalogue ( 2024).
” In the words of great Elie Wiesel, who was my dear teacher, mentor and friend, and whom Inna and Michael also knew well and closely for many years, “There is no greater peace than a broken heart » . There is no artworks greater than those which make us hear the Song of our Souls and this Cry of Heaven by Inna Rogatchi” – Dr Michael de Saint-Cheron, Hearing the Songs of Our Souls essay. Shtetl Stories and Memories art catalogue. Lithuania, 2024.
Collection: Michael Rogatchi’s part of the Shtetl Songs collection consist of 15 works, his Shtetl Stories series, and Inna Rogatchi’s part of the joint collection consist of 10 works from her various series. Together, those 25 works form a special Shtetl Songs collection of the both artists.
Inna and Michael Rogatchi and their The Rogatchi Foundation has donated this specially produced and unique collection to the Grigory Kanovich Public Library in Jonava in 2024, marking the 95th anniversary of the outstanding Jewish writer, whom Inna and Michael Rogatchi were good friends for several decades.
In Autumn 2024, the exhibition of the donated collection was inaugurated in Jonava Library at the special event which was part of the official program of the European Days of Jewish Culture 2024.
In the words of the director of the Grigory Kanovich Public Library in Jonava Skirmute Gajauskaite, “ We are proud that from now on, the Jonava Grigory Kanovich Public Library will be known as the place where you can see the works of Michael and Inna Rogatchi, which are included in prestigious public art collections in Finland, Lithuania, Poland, the United Kingdom, France, the United States and Israel.”
Catalogue: In conjunction with the inauguration exhibition of the donated Shtetl Songs collection to the Grigory Kanovich Public Jonava Library, the organisers in cooperation with The Rogatchi Foundation have published The Lithuanian – English Edition I of the full catalogue of the collection ( 2024).
The following year, The Rogatchi Foundation has published the updated English Edition II of the fully illustrated catalogue ( 2025), which has become the product of the Foundation special international campaign in support of commemorative culture of the European Jewry Remembrance Initiative.
Exhibition Venue:
The venue for the Michael and Inna Rogatchi Shtetl Songs exhibition ( September 9 – October 4, 2025) is Audiovisual Arts Centre in Alytus, Lithuania. The centre is located at the restored historical synagogue in Alytus.
The brick synagogue was built in the town in the early 20th century, and had been completely rebuilt after the devastating fires in 1911. The imposing building of the synagogue had also an adjusting building of the Rabbi’s house.
Life in the synagogue, one of three synagogues in Alytus, was thriving in the period between the two World Wars. After which the building was abandoned for a long time, and was periodically used as a salt deposit.
The historical synagogue was completely restored in an expensive and thorough five-year project, between 2016 and 2020. It opened its doors in 2021 for exhibitions and concerts, and has become a thriving cultural venue in Lithuania.
“Although the themes of the cycles that we are seeing in this collection are different, and the artists’ techniques are also different, due to their unique style, I do see unity in them. Michael and Inna’s works are sensitive improvisations on the theme of the shtetl. Sadness, the dominant note of melancholy and the continuity of traditions are transferred to their work. This collection of works by Inna and Michael is a reminder of Jewishness, since neither the shtetls, nor the Jews have been left in them. That world and its spirit disappeared, but one can see it in the works of Michael and Inna” – Scenographer, graphic artist, photographer Aleksandra Jacovskyte, Vilnius.
Shtetl Songs exhibition of the works by Michael and Inna Rogatchi in celebration of the European Days of Jewish Culture: September 9 – October 4, 2025
Opening Event of the exhibition – September 18th, Thursday, at 5 p.m.
Audiovisual Arts Center , Kauno st. 9, Alytus, Lithuania.