Jewish Heritage Europe wishes all our readers and friends a Happy Hanukkah!
Thank you for your interest and support — and thanks especially to those of you who have contacted us with questions and comments, with news of publications and events, and with updated or new information on Jewish heritage issues and sites. Keep it coming!
Hanukkah is a special time for JHE. And this year it marks the lead up to our 10th anniversary!
It was 10 years ago, on the first night of Hanukkah in 2011, that our web site had its first public presentation — at a holiday reception hosted in Prague by the then- U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Norman Eisen. (The reception was held in the palatial ambassadorial residence, the Petschek Villa; Eisen, the son of a Holocaust survivor from the former Czechoslovakia, went on to write a book about the magnificent residence.)
For us, that first public presentation was truly a moment to recite the Shehecheyanu blessing — even though the JHE web site didn’t go live online until two months later, in February 2012.
Since then, we have continued to grow. And we are still growing and expanding — with news items, resources, links, photos, articles, calendar events and other content being added every week.
Throughout 2022, we will be celebrating our anniversary with special content and online and (we hope) on site events.
The theme of the celebrations will be the “Anniversary of Anniversaries” — that is, using JHE’s own anniversary to highlight other significant or symbolic anniversaries related to Jewish heritage that also take place next year, from anniversaries of buildings to birth and death anniversaries of architects and others in the field.
So stay tuned!
Meanwhile — It’s traditional to give gifts during the holiday — so, like in past years, we are posting some images here of synagogue wall and ceiling paintings and other decoration that almost remind us of fancy gift wrapping…
Enjoy!
