(JHE) — The EU co-funded, 18-month project on Jewish cemeteries undertaken jointly by the ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, Centropa, and the Foundation for Jewish Heritage is at its conclusion, with the publication of three detailed reports and a wrap-up conference to be held online July 3.
The €1.2 million grant focused on outreach, awareness-raising, and educational activities regarding Jewish cemeteries in seven countries — Georgia, Hungary, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine, including integrating Jewish cemeteries into the school curriculum. (Click here to read our post about the parameters of the grant)
It built on two previous major grants. The first, announced in January 2019, was to the ESJF alone and allocated €800,000 to a pilot project to map and survey 1,500 Jewish cemeteries in Greece, Moldova, Slovakia, Lithuania and Ukraine. The second, announced in December 2019, allocated €1 million to the ESJF-led consortium (with Centropa and the FJH) for the project “Protecting the Jewish cemeteries of Europe: Continuation of the mapping process, stakeholders’ involvement and awareness raising.”
The third grant project developed a web site, with links to publications, an interactive map of Jewish cemeteries in the target countries, lesson plans, webinars, and other material and activities developed during the grant period.
The three final reports tackle three different elements inherent in the project: Jewish Cemeteries as Visitor Destination; Jewish Cemeteries as an Educational Resource in High School Education, and a Deep Dive Report into seven specific projects. Each sums up research and proposes recommendations and models that can be used elsewhere.
Jewish Cemeteries As Visitor Destinations
Dr. Paul Darby conducted a feasibility study exploring the potential of Jewish cemeteries as cultural tourist sites. He built on the initial results of the ESJF publication ‘Jewish Cemeteries and Sustainable Protection,’ for which JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber wrote the section on Jewish cemetery tourism.
The aim of Darby’s report was “to share current practice and act as springboard for further work in the focus countries and is offered to provide possible solutions for those securing and promoting Jewish cemetery sites for future generations of visitors.”
The 158-page report consists of individual sections for each country, which detail results of research on a series of elements, from stakeholders to digital opportunities to tourism infrastructure to potential audiences, and the like.
Each country report is very much a ‘snap-shot’ of the situation as it currently is, and the potentialities for the future. It is not intended to be an in-depth study of each of the countries and is not exhaustive of the resources and initiatives which are taking place.
It also
analyses the current picture of Jewish heritage tourism, successful examples of Jewish cemeteries which are developing themselves as heritage sites, considers the audience for such products, and the role which environmentally and socially responsible tourism and innovative technologies might have in both maintaining sites and engaging new audiences.
Click here to read the full report
Jewish Cemeteries as an Educational Resource in the High School Education: Exploring current practices, challenges and future opportunities in teaching about Jewish Heritage and the Holocaust in seven European countries
Dr. Joanna Michlic addressed the specific educational potential of Jewish cemeteries – how Jewish cemeteries can serve as ‘outdoor classrooms’; a tool for teachers to use in educating pupils about local Jewish history and experience.
Jewish cemeteries, she writes, provide a “uniquely compelling educational sphere for students of all ages to encounter Jewish heritage on a local, regional and patio al level.”
In the first part of the 120-page report, she provides detailed political and social context on a general level, and offers nine specific recommendation.
The second part provides “snap shot” reports from each of the seven countries, with extensive historical and political background as well as description of the current educational situation.
In all seven countries, the report finds:
most individual high school teachers of History, Literature, Civic Studies/Ethics and Geography have enthusiastically endorsed the idea of Jewish cemetery as a rich educational resource. But they have stressed that they require in-service teachers’ training. Teachers recognize that the textbooks and pedagogical methods are bound together and define the outcome of learning.
Deep Dive Report
Coordinated by Dr Rachel Lichtenstein, the report takes a “deep dive” into selected cemeteries in the seven countries, and details specific educational and/or cultural projects and endeavours that were developed and carried out– each keyed to a particular burial ground.
The idea behind this is that they could operate as models, demonstrating how Jewish cemeteries could serve contemporary purposes, drawing attention to local Jewish history in a creative way, and demonstrating how Jewish cemeteries can play a part in today’s society as living cultural heritage.
The projects were:
Click here to read the full report
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Find link to register for the July 3 online conference
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We wish the final reports were downloadable by those who could not attend
You can read them online on the ISSUU platform