Live EUPJ Webinar: Jewish Heritage Hard Talk
Throughout Europe, Jewish monuments are endangered. Synagogues are abandoned. Cemeteries are overgrown. In many cases, local Jewish communities are too small to keep these heritage sites alive.
Nonetheless, there is hope. Jewish communities have been revived in post-Communist countries and Jewish heritage sites are the focus of restoration, study, tourism and, once again, worship.
Join us for a wide-ranging conversation with three Jewish heritage activists who will discuss and debate the realities of Jewish monuments and heritage sites in Europe – from their destruction during and after the Shoah and the ‘Jewish archaeology’ of their documentation and rediscovery to the multiple challenges and strategies for their preservation and future use for religious purposes, education, tourism, culture, commemoration, and more.
The catalyst for the conversation is a set of strategic guidelines issued by Sally Berkovic, the CEO of the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe. Called
10 (other) Commandments – for the Care of Jewish Heritage, they provide a framework to look back at what has happened, assess the current situation, and focus on the future.
Please click here to join us for this interesting and informative discussion.
Guest Speakers
Ruth Ellen Gruber has researched and written widely on Jewish heritage for more than three decades. She is the author of several books on the topic and manages the Jewish Heritage Europe website, a project of the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe. Her honours and awards include Poland’s “Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit”, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a grant from the US National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Michael Hammer “Tribute Research Award” from the Hadassah Brandeis Institute (HBI). Ms Gruber was the Arnold Distinguished Visiting Chair in Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston (South Carolina) in the spring of 2015.
Helise Lieberman is the director of the Taube Center for the Renewal of Jewish Life in Poland Foundation. An informal educator and former Hillel director, she was the founding principal of the Lauder-Morasha Day School in Warsaw. Ms Lieberman has served as a consultant to the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) Baltic region, the Westbury Group, and the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. A recipient of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bene Merito award, she was appointed director of the Taube Center and its flagship program, Taube Jewish Heritage Tours, in 2009. Ms Lieberman has lived and worked in Warsaw since 1994 and is a dual citizen of Poland and the United States.
Victor Sorenssen has been director of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage (AEPJ) since 2017. He studied Political Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where he had an internship in the university’s Observatory of European Policies. Mr Sorenssen has served as director of the Comunidad Israelita de Barcelona and founded the Jewish Cultural platform, Mozaika, where he has helped develop projects such as the Séfer Barcelona: Jewish Book Festival 2019 and the Salam Shalom Barcelona initiative.
If you need further information, please email Jesse Goldberg at Jesse.Goldberg@eupj.org.
