In previous posts, we’ve linked to a long list of virtual tours and other Jewish heritage online resources to help us get through the quarantines, lockdowns, and general sheltering in place as the Covid 19 crisis continues.
There are so many creative and engaging solutions now — from lectures and meetings, to courses, to tours, to online exhibits, to concerts, performances, and more — that it has become difficult if not impossible to keep up.
With this episode, we present just a few that we have found particularly interesting (or fun). We’ll be sharing others on our Facebook page and groups and Twitter feeds.
Stay home — but explore!
Click to see our previous Lockdown episodes
BRATISLAVA
Click here to take a virtual reality tour of the twin-towered Neolog synagogue that once stood next to the cathedral and was a city landmark until it was destroyed in 1969 when the Community authorities built a bridge and crosstown highway.
The VR tour was created to complement an exhibit last year that commemorated the 50th anniversary of the destruction of the Moorish-style synagogue, and which was mounted in and around the space where the synagogue once stood. It also commemorated the 125th anniversary of the first service in the synagogue.
Watch film of the destruction of the synagogue:
The physical exhibition (due to remain in place for two years) enabled access to the VR through goggles.
Online, you can “visit” the streets and neighborhood surrounding the synagogue as well as the synagogue itself — inside and out. The visuals are accompanied by a sound track — street sounds as well as cantorial singing.
In addition, you can click on certain delineated spots to learn about the history of the synagogue and the community as well as some of the personalities who contributed to its construction, such as its architect, Dionyz Milch.
The project is the latest to commemorate the destroyed synagogue. A Holocaust Memorial erected on the site in the 1990s includes a silhouette of the building, and in 2012 a replica made of canvas and scaffolding was built on the site as part of a larger commemorative project.
CAIRO
Click to take a virtual tour of the Ben Ezra synagogue.
The tour is presented by Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, which has prepared 3-D tours of a variety of its historic and archaeological sites that have bee scanned in high resolution that can be explored online from home.
The Ministry is announcing the tours on its Facebook page.
The famous Cairo Genizah was discovered at the end of the 19th century during renovation work at the synagogue, which is more than 1,000 years old. (Many of the Genizah’s around 200,000 pages, fragments of pages, and other items can be explored online HERE.)
Here’s a screenshot from the Virtual Tour:
BUDAPEST
Take a virtual tour of the Kerepesi/Salgotarjani utca Jewish cemetery, a site that includes monumental family tombs as well as simple matzevot.
The description is in Hungarian, but even for those who don’t understand it, the footage is stunning.
Founded in 1874, this is the oldest Jewish cemetery in the Pest side of Budapest. It is the Jewish section of the city’s Kerepesi monumental cemetery, where national heroes are buried — and is the final resting place of the crème de la crème of Hungarian Jewry of the time. Massive family tombs of Jewish noble families and industrialists line the perimeter; but there are also the graves of ordinary people. There is also a section where Holocaust victims are buried.
Quite a few of the tombs are the work of leading architects of the day — such as Ignác Alpár, Sándor Fellner, Albert Körössy, Emil Vidor and Béla Lajta. Lajta, whose work prefigured art deco, also designed the entry way from the street and the massive Ceremonial Hall built around 1908.
The cemetery was long extremely neglected and overgrown. It is now managed by the National Heritage Institute, which has instituted clean-up and restoration.
Click to see the Cemetery web site
Click to see our photo gallery of the cemetery (before any clean-up)
Click to read about the sculptural tombs of Bela Lajta