Blurriness Was Photogenic
A Personal and Technical Memoir

Reto Kromer by the sea.
Photograph by Edie Robinette-Petrachi.

This farewell event will mark Reto Kromer’s retirement as audiovisual conservator and restorer, after forty-one years of research, teaching and work in this field. He will devote the last part of his life primarily to study and teach Medieval, Western and Italo-Yiddish as well as other rare Jewish languages, including some varieties of northern Judeo-Italian such as Judeo-Venetian, Judeo-Lombard and Judeo-Piedmontese.

What and How

Michal Cohen will host this in-person event. We will start with a personal and technical lecture by Reto on analogue and digital aesthetics. He will revisit his 2014 article “Unschärfen waren fotogen” (blurriness was photogenic) and discuss what this means for audiovisual conservation and restoration. It will be followed by an informal Q&A session. And last but not least, there will be a gala dinner later in the evening at which Reto’s friends will play interludes of both traditional and experimental Yiddish music.

When and Where

At the Technion in Haifa on 27 June 2027 at 5 o’clock in Israel (that’s 14:00 UTC). We don’t know yet whether there will be a webcasting of the offficial part or not.

Note

• Peter Z. Adelstein (1924–2019) was both a friend and a mentor. And Reto stole the subtitle from Peter’s book.

2026-04-26