Jewish Heritage Europe is an expanding web portal to a wide range of news, information and resources concerning Jewish monuments and heritage sites all over Europe. It is a project of the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe (RFHE) and builds on and expands a previous version of the site. JHE thanks and gratefully acknowledges the people who worked so hard on the original site, in particular Dr. Sharman Kadish, Dr. Syd Greenberg, Dr. Samuel D. Gruber and Jon Cannon.

The current coordinator of JHE is Ruth Ellen Gruber.

JHE aims to aggregate information, shed light on Jewish heritage issues, and stimulate discussion and exchanges among professionals and the interested public.

The original JHE was launched after a major conference on the Future of Jewish Heritage, held in Prague in 2004. The current version was conceived as a follow-up to an important seminar held in Bratislava, Slovakia in March 2009 that discussed the state of Jewish heritage sites in Europe as well as strategies for their restoration, use and upkeep. That seminar, attended by international Jewish heritage experts as well as by representatives from Jewish communities in more than a dozen countries, resulted in a statement of specific “Best Practices” about how to deal with Jewish heritage sites.

The statement made clear that:

The ongoing struggle for property and resource restitution has often overshadowed the practical issues of how to manage community properties already held, or those returned.

Proper care of these properties; often involving substantial costs, difficult planning and use issues, and demanding historical and architectural preservation concerns, have preoccupied many Jewish communities for years. In many cases, and especially for smaller Communities, the needs of these properties continue to stretch professional and financial resources. Everyday community needs often delay or prevent the attention that properties require.

Each Jewish community faces its own specific situations, and has unique needs, but there are many shared problems and needs that can be addressed collectively. Importantly, there are also solutions – many of which have been pioneered by Communities themselves – that can be shared, too.

(The full text of the Bratislava Statement, with the list of best practices, can be found in the “Resources” section of this web site.)

The International Survey of Jewish Monuments (ISJM) defines Jewish monuments very broadly — to include art, artifacts, and sites that are of significance to the history, religion and culture of Jews and Judaism.

Jewish Heritage Europe includes information on museums, exhibitions and more intangible material, but our primary focus in on built heritage, that is, physical sites and places, rather than art and artifacts.

These include:

– Archaeological sites with evidence of Jewish activity and/or settlement, or events significant in the history of Jews;

– Buildings such as synagogues, Jewish schools, mikvaot, houses of rabbis and other prominent people;

– Various types of former and actual Jewish quarters, ghettos, settlements, and neighborhoods;

– Cemeteries and other funerary sites and all the art and architectural elements they contain;

To a lesser extent JHE also focuses on Holocaust-related sites including ghettos; deportation centers; concentration, labor and death camps; killing sites and mass graves; memorials and monuments; and other places.

JHE’s primary goals are to promote the identification, description, study, protection, preservation and appropriate use of Jewish monuments and heritage sites in situ and to foster an exchange of news, information, and expertise regarding these places and this process among a growing network of individuals, institutions and organizations.

A key feature of the web site is the news feed, which is updated on a regular basis with a variety of material.

As the site grows, we will post more and more information and links about where to turn for project funding, how to ask an expert about preservation and other problematic issues, and how to get involved with the preservation process on an individual, grass roots or institutional basis, how to integrate Jewish heritage into education and tourism, and the like.

The site also features an expanding database of resources and links – including bibliographic material, lists of sites, photo galleries, and links to web sites that focus on Jewish heritage sites and issues.

JHE also will include commissioned articles and book reviews by experts, as well as “In Focus” features on historical developments as well as specific sites, issues, projects, personalities, expertise, dilemmas, and experience.

JHE has several purposes aimed at a variety of interests and users. The public news feed is updated on a regular and timely basis with links and articles including news, information and reports from around Europe. Readers of JHE may comment on the news feed posts -- all comments will be monitored before being posted.

In addition, the JHE site includes a wealth of resources and information on Jewish heritage and monuments. Among other resources, there is a calendar with major events, exhibitions, conferences, Jewish culture festivals and the like. We do not intend to duplicate material that is already on the Web, so many of our resources are links to other web sites and databases. While we do not organize tourism or carry out genealogy work, the general public will be able to find resources and information that can aid travel to Jewish heritage sites and also family history research.

JHE also includes original content, such as commissioned articles and commentaries on specific heritage sites, issues, procedures and strategies.

As the site grows, we will be welcoming input from users. We will hope to encourage discussion about strategic issues and exchanges of expertise and also put interested parties in touch with each other.

We will post information and advice on what concerned individuals, institutions and organizations can do about preserving, protecting and promoting Jewish heritage, and about bringing potential preservation projects to the attention of funding sources, sponsors, experts and others involved in the field.

JHE is funded by the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe. For more information about their work and grant making, please visit their site at www.rothschildfoundation.eu

A number of local and international foundations and NGOs operate or fund Jewish heritage projects. The World Monuments Fund, some Culture Ministries, government bodies and the European Union also have funding programs. Jewish Heritage Europe will post more information about funding as it becomes available.