The Department of Religious Studies and the Program in Jewish Studies are proud to welcome award-winning filmmaker and virtual reality creator, Avi Dabach, to our campus for two exciting events! Through an immersive virtual reality workshop and a lecture, Dabach will showcase his use of virtual reality and documentary filmmaking to explore history, memory, and cultural heritage.
Registration is requested for both events, found at the links below.
Inside the Great Synagogue of Aleppo: An Immersive Virtual Reality Experience
Tuesday, February 17th at the Geller Hillel Student Center
5:00pm dinner and presentation
In this presentation, filmmaker Avi Dabach recounts the history and destruction of the Great Synagogue of Aleppo and the last-minute photographic documentation that preserved it, sharing his journey of transforming these rare images into an immersive Virtual Reality experience. Through historical research, 3D modeling, and digital technology, the project reconstructs communal memory by transforming absence into presence and preserves lost material heritage.
Searching for Jewish Aleppo: A Filmmaker’s Quest to Restore Syria’s Lost Heritage
Wednesday, February 18th at the Baker-Nord Institute in Clark 206
6:00pm refreshments | 6:30pm lecture
This lecture explores the destruction of Aleppo’s ancient Jewish community after the 1947 anti-Jewish riots, including the burning of the Great Synagogue and the disappearance of the Aleppo Codex. Drawing on his family’s connection to the Codex, Dabach traces its mystery through his documentary, The Lost Crown, and a virtual-reality reconstruction of the synagogue, showing how personal memory and immersive technology can converge to recover a vanished world.
Two Evenings with Avi Dabach are sponsored by: the Baker-Nord Institute, Geller Hillel, the Department of Religious Studies, and the Program in Jewish Studies