As we close out our 10th anniversary year and head into 2023, we look back at the most popular news, views, and insights we have posted on Jewish Heritage Europe over the past 12 months.
It was a year marked by the war in Ukraine and continuing concerns over the Coronavirus pandemic, but also marked by major developments in Jewish heritage. And we welcomed many 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.
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MOST POPULAR POSTS
Over the past year, we posted more than 240 items in our Jewish Heritage Europe News Feed and Have Your Say op-eds. As 2022 comes to an end, we draw attention to some of the articles that were most popular.
Here are the Top 20 — in no particular order.
CLICK ON THE HEADLINE TO ACCESS THE POST
Poland: Archaeology at the site of the Warsaw Ghetto sheds dramatic and poignant light
July 12
Discoveries during archaeological excavations this summer on the site of the WW2 Warsaw Ghetto are shedding dramatic — and poignant — light on the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Jews confined to the area and are furthering research on the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Poland Update: Recovery of long-buried matzevot in Białystok is complete: 120 matzevot dating back the early to mid 19th century were discovered
August 23
The removal of Jewish gravestones buried under an artificial mound outside the walls of the Bagnowka Jewish cemetery in Białystok was completed, with a remarkable 120 matzevot dating back to the early to mid 19th century recovered — the oldest is from 1809.
Poland: Oshpitzin Jewish Museum in Oświęcim launches online digital catalogue of all of its holdings
July 26
The Oshpitzin Jewish Museum in Oświęcim, the town in southern Poland were the Nazis built the Auschwitz death camp, has launched a digital catalogue of its collection that makes information about its thousands of items available online.
Poland: an artificial mound outside the Bagnowka Jewish cemetery in Białystok could cover hundreds of matzevot dating back over 200 years
August 17
Excavations began at a large, artificial mound outside the Bagnowka Jewish cemetery in Białystok where researchers believe possibly hundreds of historic matzevot uprooted under communism from another cemetery were buried.
Poland: A powerful new commemorative complex marks Warsaw Ghetto mass graves at the Okopowa st Jewish cemetery
January 27
A striking new memorial complex in Warsaw’s Okopowa street Jewish cemetery now marks one of Europe’s biggest World War II mass burial sites — two deep pits containing the mass graves of thousands of Jews who died or were murdered in the streets of the World War II Warsaw Ghetto.
Hungary: The wonderful 19th synagogue in Kőszeg is opening to the public after a 2-year renovation, with an exhibition about Philip Schey, the Hapsburg Jewish baron who funded its construction
August 24
After years of false starts and failed attempts, the long-derelict 19th century synagogue in Kőszeg, western Hungary, is reopening to the public after a full-scale renovation that took place over the past two years. The synagogue, which is owned by the state, will become a cultural centre but also will be able to be used for religious services.
Romania: Timisoara’s long-derelict Fabric Synagogue (designed by Lipot Baumhorn) is on the 2022 World Monuments Fund Watch list of world heritage at risk
March 1
“The selection of the Fabric Synagogue and Jewish Heritage of Timișoara on the World Monuments Watch 2022 will make sure that the synagogue building will be safeguarded and our rich and cherished Jewish Heritage will be preserved and promoted,” Ronald Wagmann, the Project Director for the Timisoara Jewish community told JHE.
Have Your Say: Safe In Jewish Places — The Journey Of A Jewish Researcher, Now A Refugee In War-Wracked Ukraine
May 16
Art historian and Jewish heritage researcher Dr. Eugeny Kotlyar, a professor at the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts, was forced to flee from Kharkiv to Lviv after Russian forces bombarded the city. In this powerful personal essay he describes his journey through Ukraine, which took him and his family through favorite Jewish places he had researched and written about for years — former shtetls which had been home to historic Tzaddikim.
Ukraine: Images of Jewish heritage, as we hold Ukraine in our thoughts
February 25
A day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we posted a gallery of Jewish heritage sites, in Kyiv and elsewhere in the country, from happier times….
Poland: Abandoned Synagogue in Jaroslaw for Sale
June 20
A dilapidated synagogue in Jaroslaw, southeast Poland, is up for sale by its private owner.
Anniversary of Anniversaries: 400 years since the imposition of the Ghetto in Pitigliano, the “Little Jerusalem” of southern Tuscany, Italy
March 23
As part of our Anniversary of Anniversaries series, we highlighted the In400th anniversary of the establishment of the Ghetto in Pitigliano, in southern Tuscany, Italy retracing the history of the imposition of the Ghetto in the town, and noting the important Jewish heritage sites that still stand there.
Hungary: New web portal offers detailed digital models & interactive 3D virtual tours of Hungarian synagogues
January 12
A new web site features detailed digital models and interactive virtual tours of a diverse group of synagogues in Hungary — from a gothic medieval synagogue in Sopron dating from the 14th century, to the grandiose New Synagogue in Szeged, dedicated in 1903 and the masterpiece of prolific synagogue architect Lipot Baumhorn.
Italy: Jewish cemetery in Revere “reappears” after being closed off for decades in abandoned factory grounds. Local Jewish, civic, and heritage authorities are seeking funds to restore it
March 14
The severely neglected Jewish cemetery in the town of Revere, in northern Italy, recently “reappeared” after the factory that absorbed it into its grounds in the 1970s was demolished. Now the Jewish community of Mantova, in association with civic and heritage authorities, is looking for funds to restore it and include it in a tourist route of the province’s Jewish site.
Two new online portals — on Jewish archives and Judaica objects — launched by Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe
June 20
The Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe has launched two major — and freely accessible — online portals to support research into Jewish archives and Judaica objects: Yerusha and Judaica Index. They form part of the Foundation’s commitment to ensure digital resources on Jewish cultural heritage.
Ukraine: Joint Hungarian-Ukrainian project will remove Soviet-era concrete shell and renovate former Great Synagogue of Beregszász/Berehove
February 20
Just a few days before the Russian invasion, it was announce dthat a joint Ukrainian-Hungarian project would renovate the former Great Synagogue in Berehove/Beregszasz, Ukraine and restore the original 19th century exterior appearance. The project would dismantle the Soviet-era concrete shell built around the synagogue in 1969, when it was turned into a city culture center.
Poland: New online photo book traces development of Krakow’s Kazimierz Jewish district from empty ghost-scape to Jewish heritage tourism attraction
February 16
The book, called Krakowski Kazimierz: Faces & Places, is a collection of photographs by Jerzy Ochoński, who first started visiting Kazimierz and taking pictures there in the late 1970s and continues to document the neighbourhood and its people today.
Have Your Say: In Search of the Lost Shtetl (and the impact of the war in Ukraine on Holocaust studies and memory)
April 10
Dr. Magdalena Waligórska at Humboldt University in Berlin leads a team of international scholars in a project aimed at investigating what happened in and to the former shtetls of eastern Europe after the Holocaust left them devoid of their Jewish residents. In this Have Your Say essay, she describes the project – and, importantly, she also reflects on the inevitable, dramatic impact that the war in Ukraine will have not just on her project, but on the field of Holocaust studies – and memory — in general.
Lithuania: In 2019-2021 Maceva Litvak Cemetery catalog translated 3,125 epitaphs in several Jewish cemeteries, including Lithuania’s largest surviving Jewish cemetery, in Kaunas (where a matzevah-carver left his phone number…)
January 5
Maceva, the Litvak Cemetery Catalogue, has made available photos and translations of gravestones from more than half of Lithuania’s largest surviving Jewish cemetery, the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery in Kaunas. The documentation of seven out of of the 12 sections of the cemetery, which has nearly 6,000 graves, was uploaded to Maceva’s web site at the end of 2021. Maceva says it hopes to post the translations of the matzevot in the remaining five sections in 2022.
Poland/Ukraine: Three former synagogues in SE Poland offered for use as hubs to help refugees from Ukraine
March 3
The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ) offered three former synagogues it owns in southeast Poland for use as hubs to aid refugees from Ukraine. The synagogue building are in the towns of Zamość, Łęczna, and Przemyśl.
Have Your Say: In Vienna, a University Program Teaches Jewish Cultural Heritage, Filling a Growing Professional Need
January 25
Since 2015, Central European University has offered a unique MA specialization program in Jewish Cultural Heritage. The program enables students in CEU’s two-year MA degree in Cultural Heritage Studies to simultaneously enroll in CEU’s Jewish Studies program for a combined degree. In this Have Your Say essay, CEU Prof. Carsten Wilke, who originated the joint program, writes that it was conceived to fill a new professional need in the face of growing interest in preserving Jewish heritage, particularly in places where there is no Jewish community. He describes the program and introduces some of the students.
1 comment on “JHE Year in Review: Check out our most popular posts of 2022”
Thank you for including the Bialystok Cemetery Restoration Fund and our projects in your stories about this type of important work occurring across Europe. We perform this work to Right-a-Wrong. It is a mitzvah to honor the dead even more so in places where the Nazis wiped out the Jewish inhabitants. There are basically no Jews left to perform the required repairs and upkeep for thousands of cemeteries across Europe. To find out more about the BCRF please visit bialystokcemeteryrestoration.org