As we close out this most unusual (to put it mildly) year and look forward to 2021, we look back at the news, views, and insights we have posted on Jewish Heritage Europe over the past 12 months.
The Coronavirus pandemic has kept us at home — and online, and we welcomed hundreds of new users, followers, and subscribers; to our regular News Feed and monthly Newsletter, as well as to our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds and to our two JHE Facebook groups — in Italian and English.
MOST SHARED POSTS
Over the past year, we posted around 250 items in our Jewish Heritage Europe News Feed, in our Have Your Say op-eds and in our Jewish cemetery Long Reads.
As 2020 comes to an end, we draw attention to the articles that were most shared this past year on social media. Here are the Top 40, in reverse order, starting with the most-shared.
All were shared many hundreds of times, some of them thousands — and they truly demonstrate the scope and vitality of Jewish heritage developments across Europe. Sadly, they also include the obituaries of several Jewish heritage activists who passed away this year.
CLICK THE HEADLINES TO ACCESS THE POSTS
Locked Down? (Episode 2) Here are more virtual tours to fascinating Jewish museums and other Jewish heritage sites to pique your interest and keep you busy
Published March 22, 2020
The most-shared of our series of round-ups of virtual tours and resources to held readers get through the Coronavirus lockdowns
Update: Prague’s Spanish Synagogue reopens
Published December 13, 2020
It has a new interactive exhibit on the past 2 centuries of Czech Jewish history.
Poland: RIP Tadeusz Kuźmiński, who rebuilt a wooden synagogue and created a “living shtetl skansen” without Jews in southeast Poland
Published July 19, 2020
May his memory be a blessing!
Germany: Dozens of gravestones in the medieval Jewish cemetery in Worms — Europe’s oldest in situ — vandalized with paint
Published July 10, 2020
A woman was detained for the attack.
Social distancing or lockdown got you stuck at home? Take a virtual tour of some of Italy’s gorgeous historic Jewish heritage sites!
Published March 17, 2020
Another of our round-ups of virtual tours and resources.
Poland: Synagogue in Krynki to be renovated
Published February 16, 2020
Long used as a cinema and more recently as a sports and culture center.
Ukraine: Death from COVID-19 of Hryhoriy Arshynov, dynamic Jewish activist who spearheaded the restoration of the Great Maharsha Synagogue and the rescue of the Jewish cemetery in Ostroh
Published November 2, 2020
A tremendous loss! May his memory be a blessing — and may his work continue!
Belarus: Historic 17th century Slonim synagogue up for auction; starting price — €50,000
Published June 8, 2020
The first of four auctions this year…..
2020 Dan David Prize to Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
Published February 13, 2020
Well deserved! She shares the award with Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III, the founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC.
In Prague, physical removal begins of cobblestones made from matzevot used in the communist era to pave a popular downtown pedestrian area
Published May 5, 2020
The cobbles were used to construct the pedestrian promenade along Na Příkopě street, at one end of Wenceslas Square, in the 1980s.
Germany: Citizens’ group seeks to restore the 18th century village synagogue in Mühlhausen, Bavaria, as a memorial and educational center
Published December 24, 2020
One of the oldest surviving synagogues in Bavaria.
Poland: death of Krzysztof Kolibski, a Polish stonemason who carved Holocaust memorials
Published February 4, 2020
May his soul be bound up in the bond of life!
Poland: “Treasure chest” crammed with hundreds of ritual objects and other material uncovered during preliminary restoration work at the 18th century Wieliczka synagogue
Published January 14, 2020
The archaeologists were digging a test hole when they noticed an edge of the chest.
Full-scale €9 million revamp & expansion of the Venice Jewish Museum announced
Published July 13, 2020
The work is due to last for three years.
Poland: The restoration of the tiny wooden synagogue in Wiśniowa, Poland is under way
Published August 27, 2020
It dates from the early 20th century and is one of the few wooden synagogues to have survived World War II.
Hungary: Restoration of long-derelict synagogue in Berettyóújfalu nears completion; will be used as cultural site and also for religious purposes
Published June 12, 2020
In eastern Hungary, on the border with Romania.
Moldova/Transnistria: Vote for the ruined synagogue in Raşcov so it can get EU restoration funding!
Published July 15, 2020
The campaign was successful!
Germany: Tiny synagogue in Gleusdorf — out of use as a synagogue since 1909 — is conserved as info center on rural Jewish life
Published December 17, 2020
A municipal initiative teamed with a grassroots association.
Using Facebook, the Venice Jewish Museum expands knowledge about synagogues with a regular series of posts translating their Hebrew Inscriptions
Published January 28, 2020
Using social media to connect the museum with the public.
Poland: Refurbished former synagogue in Wojsławice opens with new permanent exhibit on the township’s multicultural heritage
Published December 16, 2020
Part of a broader project in the area highlighting pre-WW2 Jewish, Catholic, and Orthodox Christian communities.
Hungary: Hope for the restoration of the long-derelict village synagogue in Kővágóörs!
Published April 3, 2020
A foundation set up last year has purchased the long-ruined building and plans to restore it for use as both a synagogue and a cultural center.
UK: Good news! Foundation for Jewish Heritage gets major funding for urgent preservation work on Merthyr Tydfil, Wales synagogue
Published June 19, 2020
The Foundation purchased the synagogue last year and made it a flagship project.
Hungary: death of András Gyekiczki, who worked to preserve Jewish memory and heritage
Published July 15, 2020
May his soul be bound up in the bond of life!
Poland: Archaeologists (working under rabbinical supervision) make extraordinary discoveries at Warsaw’s vast Okopowa st. Jewish cemetery
Published October 14, 2020
Part of largescale restoration work in the cemetery.
Germany: Archaeologists reveal ruins of Frankfurt Höchst synagogue destroyed on Kristallnacht
Published May 11, 2020
The synagogue was built in 1905 in what is now part of Frankfurt.
Portugal: Jewish interpretive center to open in town where “Rembrandt’s doctor” Ephraim Bueno was born
Published February 5, 2020
The center aims to highlight local Jewish history but also hopes to draw tourists.
Poland: Death of Dr. Łucja Pawlicka-Nowak, longtime key activist regarding Jewish heritage and Holocaust studies & commemoration in Poland
Published May 6, 2020
May her soul be bound up in the bond of life!
Powerful Papercuts: Online Exhibition of Monika Krajewska’s “Burning” Cycle (2003-2020), a requiem for the Jewish world destroyed in the Shoah
Published April 19, 2020
An online exhibit of papercuts by Monika Krajewska.
Ukraine: Volunteer restoration work on Glanzer synagogue in Lviv moves forward — see videos highlighting what’s going on
Published September 9, 2020
Work goes on despite the pandemic.
Shavua tov! Greeting the week with an online exhibit of paper cuts by Danuta Petruczenko inspired by the decoration of historic synagogues
Published June 28, 2020
An online exhibit by a Polish papercut artist — a student of Monika Krajewska.
Lithuania: The wooden synagogues in Alanta and Kurkliai are under restoration
Published October 27, 2020
They are the latest wooden synagogues to be rescued from ruin.
Poland update: Polychrome wall paintings in Włodawa Beit Midrash to be restored w/ EU grant.
Published September 29, 2020
Culmination of fullscale revitalization of historic 3-synagogue complex, now a museum
The tragic grandeur of the Fabric synagogue, a Lipót Baumhorn gem in Timisoara, Romania
Published March 20, 2020
Visiting a sadly neglected masterpiece by the architect Lipot Baumhorn.
Austria: 17th century matzevot discovered in a wall built to protect a castle from the Ottoman invasion of 1683
Published June 21, 2020
The find was described as “sensational.”
Hungary: Restoration of the hauntingly beautiful, long-abandoned synagogue in Kőszeg has begun
Published October 23, 2020
Beginning of restoration follows on many years of false starts and failed announcements.
Poland: in 2019, 51 grave markers underwent restoration at Warsaw’s vast Okopowa st Jewish cemetery
Published May 5, 2020
We posted details and linked to before and after pictures.
Poland: Mazel tov to Paweł Kulig, winner of the 2020 POLIN award — and to the runners up. Kulig cares for the vast Jewish cemetery and other Jewish heritage in Łódź
Published December 1, 2020
It was the sixth edition of the award.
Kristallacht: On the 82nd anniversary, we highlight 3D virtual reconstructions of synagogues that were destroyed
Published November 9, 2020
There are an increasing number of these projects.
Lajos Erdélyi, Holocaust survivor and photographer who pioneered documentation of Jewish cemeteries in Romania, dies at 90
Published March 23, 2020
May his memory be a blessing!
Czech town of Kolín buys former rabbis’ house and Jewish town hall; plans to restore them as part of preserved Jewish heritage complex
Published August 26, 2020
The complex includes a restored synagogue and Jewish cemetery.
More than 150 matzevot & fragments uncovered under Lezajsk, Poland market square; dozens more uncovered in a former prison courtyard in Lviv, Ukraine
Published August 9, 2020
They had been uprooted and used for construction.