A visit to Antwerp, Belgium evokes both the transitions and continuity of Jewish history. A new museum in the port features the mass emigration from Europe, much of it Jewish, that passed through the city en route to the New World. While in the city’s Jewish quarter a different picture emerges: those who remained, linked to Antwerp by a traditional community and industry.
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Jewish Sofia
The two-millennia-old Jewish community of Bulgaria has survived Ottoman, Fascist, and Communist rule, and now is emerging as a young, vibrant Jewish community in the Balkans. This video narrates the remarkable rescue of Bulgaria’s Jewish population from the Holocaust, and the rebuilding of the community today, thanks to the JDC and local leaders.
Culinary Experience in Segovia
Segovia, Spain. This Castillean city, where Jews once lived 500 years ago, has joined the network of Spanish cities to highlight their Jewish heritage. Here, in the former Jewish quarter, you will find El Fogon Sefardi (The Sephardic Cookpot), a restaurant that evokes the culinary past of Spanish Jewry. . Delicious preparations of stews, dried fruits and fish. (Not kosher.) During the making of our film, “Rediscovering Sepharad – A Journey Through Spain’s Jewish Past”, we stopped here for lunch and watched the chef work his magic. We also include a segment by Paco Diez , the Spanish musician and catalyst for reviving popularity of Sephardic music and instruments. He regales us about the noble eggplant.
Jewish Trieste
Trieste, the port city on Italy’s Adriatic coast, with a great heritage of Jewish commerce and culture. The oldest official document available mentioning a Jewish settlement in Trieste goes back to the year 1236 and it is composed of a notarial deed that mentions an economic transaction made by a certain Bishop Giovanni: he paid 500 ‘marche’ to the Jew Daniel David, who had spent them to fight thieves on the Carso.
Jewish Spain
A preview of a travel documentary film where we discover the Jewish heritage of Spain.
The history of the Jews in the current-day Spanish territory stretches back to Biblical times according to Jewish tradition, but the settlement of organised Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula possibly traces back to the times after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The earliest archaeological evidence of Hebrew presence in Iberia consists of a 2nd-century gravestone found in Mérida. From the late 6th century onward, following the Visigothic monarchs’ conversion from Arianism to the Nicene Creed, conditions for Jews in Iberia considerably worsened
Hungarian Jews in Budapest
An annual street fair, “Judafest” invites Hungarian Jews to connect with their heritage. Sponsored and organized by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Jewish Heritage Europe
A project by Louis A. Davidson and now hosted by the Bet Hatfutsot web site, Synagogues360 allows you to visit individual synagogues located all over the world, by means of interactive 360 degree panoramic photos. You can look around, zoom in, explore details.
The web site also has put together a number of thematic “Synagogue Tours” that you can follow — linking synagogues by architectural or artistic style.
Třebíč is a small town in the Czech Republic not far from Brno that has one of the largest and most intact old Jewish quarters in central Europe. The Quarter includes two synagogues, the Jewish town hall, and many other buildings amid the streets and squares of the original layout of the district. The old Jewish cemetery spreads out on a hill above.
The ensemble of the Jewish Quarter, the old Jewish cemetery and the nearby Basilica of St. Procopius are included on the UNESCO roster of world cultural heritage sites; among the few specifically Jewish heritage sites on the list.
Jewish Italian Tours
Virtual Tour of Jewish Italian Itineraries is a Project that comes from the Cultural Heritage Commission of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities. The project aims to spread knowledge of Jewish cultural heritage by developing possible virtual routes in the main places of cultural interest of Italian Jewish Communities. The first four cities that have this innovative guided tour are Bologna, Casale Monferrato, Rome and Venice. Soon other sites and routes will be available.
Thanks to the Virtual Tour the Jewish sites now have a new shape made of a very high resolution 360° photographies and media contents available both in Italian and English. The Virtual Tour provides a self-guided, room-by-room walking tour through the jewish sites and the zoom function allows the viewer to explore from closer the astonishing architectural and artistic details of the jewish sites, enriching uniquely your visit and the cultural experience.
Jewish Cemetery in Budapest
One of the most unusual cemeteries in Hungary, the Salgótarjáni Street Jewish Cemetery was established in 1874, in the neighbourhood of the public cemetery of Budapest at the time, today the Fiumei Road Cemetery. Until 1892 this was the only functioning Jewish cemetery in Pest. The relatively small area, 4.8 hectares, was full by the turn of the century. Most of the mausoleums built as the final resting place for the Jewish elite of Pest city were designed by Sándor Fellner and Zsigmond Quittner. The tombs decorated with Jewish symbols and Hungarian folk motifs, the ceremonial and gate buildings are the work of Béla Lajta, genius of the Hungarian Art Nouveau.
After the siege of Budapest, the majority of the dead from the Budapest Ghetto were buried here. However, the cemetery was barely used after 1950; the last funeral was held in the years after the turn of the Millennium. The apparently unstoppable decay of the cemetery started in the 1960s. Vegetation overgrown the gravestones, the mausoleums were damaged and plundered, the cupola of the ceremonial building collapsed in the 1980s. In 2002, the whole cemetery was declared protected monument. In 2016 the cemetery was put under the administration of the National Heritage Institute.
The Town of Trebic
Třebíč, a city of UNESCO monuments, is located in the west of Moravia, in the southeastern tip of the Vysočina region. Třebíč is located on both banks of the river Jihlava, and the beginnings of the city are connected with an important Benedictine monastery, which was founded by Moravian princes as early as 1101. Thanks to the city’s rich history, visitors can admire many valuable monuments, the most important of which are listed on the prestigious list of world cultural and UNESCO natural heritage – the Basilica of St. Prokop, the Jewish quarter and the Jewish cemetery.
However, the city and its surroundings will satisfy not only history and culture lovers but also nature lovers – Třebíč is located in one of the most ecologically clean areas of the Czech Republic. The picturesque character of the local landscape and clean nature create suitable conditions for relaxation and active rest in the form of hiking or cycling.
