Participants at the recent international Urban Jewish Heritage conference held in Krakow touched on a wide range of issues regarding the history, management, preservation, role, and future of Jewish heritage in (mainly) urban settings — towns and cities.
Organized by the Foundation for Jewish Heritage and the University of Birmingham’s Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, the September 3-7 conference was the latest in a series of major international conferences on Jewish material heritage that have been held since 1990. Speakers touched on issues regarding the care, maintenance, preservation, use and promotion of Jewish material heritage that have been developed, researched, engaged in, interpreted, and acted upon in the past nearly three decades.
But, importantly, a key focus was also to raise the profile — and awareness — of Jewish heritage and Jewish heritage issues at the senior European institutional level.
To this end, in addition to around 140 scholars, activists, and other hands-on stakeholders from more than 30 countries, high-level EU officials involved in European cultural policy addressed the meeting, which was held within the context of the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage.
These included two EU Commissioners, Tibor Navracsics, EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport; and Elzbieta Bieńkowska, EU Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship.
(Navracsics and members of the European Parliament will also be addressing a major religious heritage conference to be held in October, the general assembly of Future for Religious Heritage (FRH), a non-profit, non-religious, organisation aimed at preserving and managing historic houses of worship.)
In their addresses to the Urban Jewish Heritage conference, both commissioners stressed the importance of Jewish heritage to European heritage as a whole — what Navracsics described as “our common European story” — and pledged support for Jewish heritage, in ways both concrete and symbolic.
Bieńkowska, whose brief includes tourism, stressed the how tourism and Jewish heritage can be mutually beneficial, specifically mentioning the European Route of Jewish Heritage recognized by the European Commission and being developed by the AEPJ.
She said more should be done from European institutions to invest
more efforts and money into restoration and preserving the Jewish culture in Europe.
The role of local, regional and national authorities is essential but the European institutions have their part as well in supporting these efforts.
Navracsics said that with the Shoah:
Jewish culture and its unique way of life were brought to the edge of extinction, many aspects of Jewish cultural heritage were threatened: its food, music, dance, literature, theatre, painting, architecture — in short, its flourishing culture, the beating heart of Jewish life in Europe. Europe’s cultural fabric risked losing some of its richest seams.
We can never accept or justify the horrendous crimes committed against European Jews. But since those dark days, thanks to the determination and resilience of Jewish communities, thanks to scholars like you, thanks to dynamic cultural institutions, thanks to festivals and cultural activities, thanks to heritage sites being restored, Jewish life and culture continue to be present and a vital part of Europe.
It is our privilege that the European Union can support this, through initiatives, projects and funding opportunities.
How to preserve, manage and promote historic Jewish properties remains a key challenges faced by Jewish communities, civic bodies, NGOs, governments, municipalities, grassroots activists and others.
There are several key factors when a historic building is restored, particularly when, as in the case of many Jewish heritage sites, there is no longer a Jewish community to use them: funding; a plan for post-restoration use; and sustainability, that is a means in place to maintain the site.
Many Jewish heritage projects have been supported by EU funding, from various programs — major funding from the EU or sources such as the EEA and Norway grants is essential in some cases, given the high costs of many restoration and preservation projects. Neither Commissioner was specific about new or further EU funding opportunities.
We are proud that JHE has co-organized three major conferences addressing these issues in the past five years — in Krakow in 2013 on Managing Jewish Immovable Heritage; in Vilnius in 2015 on Jewish Cemeteries, and in Venice in 2017 on Jewish Heritage Tourism in the Digital Age. All the presentations in the Krakow and Venice conference were filmed and the videos are online — click the links. We invite you to watch them — many of the speakers also presented at the Urban Jewish Heritage conference.
(NOTE: We will be posting JHE Director Ruth Ellen Gruber’s presentation at the Urban Jewish Heritage conference, and possibly others.)
Click to read the full text of Commission Navracsics’s speech
Click to read the full text of Commissioner Bienkowska’s speech
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See videos of all presentations of the 2017 conference on Jewish Heritage Tourism in the Digital Age