Lithuania -- Jewish tour guides

In Vilnius this week, I re-connected with my old friend Ilya Lempertas, who is a historian and independent Jewish tour guide, and our seminar group was guided around Jewish Vilnius by another guide, Yulik Gurvich, who with his son runs the JeruLita travel agency.

That means that I have now been guided in Lithuania by four different guides -- two based in Vilnius and two in Kaunas. I had good experiences with all of them, so here are their contacts:

Ilya Lempertas, Vilnius --  E-mail: lempertas@gmail.com

Yulik Gurevich, Vilnius --  JeruLita Tours

Simonas Dovidavicius, Kaunas. (Simon is executive director of the Sugihara House.) E-mail: sugiharahouse@yahoo.com  


Chaim Bargman, Kaunas. P. Luksio str. 37 – 22, 3043 Kaunas, Lithuania. Tel: (+370 7) 77 99 48 Mob: (+370) 6 8177166.

You can find more at the Pushelat web site, though some of the information may be out of date.

Romania/Ukraine -- The Bucovina Cemeteries Guidebook is Launched

Jewish cemeter, Gura Humorului, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Swiss Diplomat Simon Geissbuehler's guidebook to Jewish cemeteries in the Bucovina region straddling the Romania-Ukraine border was launched last week in Bucharest and has been getting appreciative reviews in the local media. The book is available in various languages.

'This work is a combination of a tourist guide and an art album and I'm speaking of the fact that the text written by Simon Geissbuhler is in the form of a traveller's journal, but the images in the album make one think the work is an art album', said Adrian Manafu, the editor of Noi Media Print publishing house that published the volume.

Manafu, moreover, believes the Jewish cemeteries in Bucovina can be deemed genuine works of art. He explained the work refers the cemeteries in historical Bucovina, an old Romanian territory that has been shared by Ukraine and Romania after World War Two.

Read full story

I was glad to see that an article in one of the local media highlighted the sorry fact that the wonderful Jewish cemeteries in Bucovina are woefully ignored. The journalist Annett Muller picks up my own contention that these cemeteries could form the basis of a fascinating artistic a spiritual tourism route -- and she points out how the famous "Merry Cemetery" in Sapanta, with its brightly painted grave markers, is a popular attraction, even if it is in a fairly remote location. Few people realize that there is also a Jewish cemetery in Sapanta, well maintained and well marked.

Jewish cemetery in Sapanta, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

I wrote the Foreword to the book, and Simon kindly pointed out an article in the local media where this was highlighted.

I am hoping to get to Radauti at the end of the summer, when a launch of the book is scheduled to take place there -- at the same time, I'll be working on my photo documentation of the beautifully decorated tombs of women in the Jewish cemetery there, a project for which I received a grant from the Hadassah Brandeis Institute.

Romania -- New Guidebook News

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

A Romanian web site (using my pictures....) is highlighting Simon Geissbuehler's new guide to Jewish cemeteries in the Bucovina, for which I wrote the Foreword. The launch of the book in Bucharest is this Friday.

Volumul intitulat „Cimitirele evreieşti din Bucovina” al diplomatului elveţian, dr. Simon Geissbühler, va fi lansat joi, 25 iunie a.c., ora 18.30, la IF Gallery din Str. Tokio nr. 1, Bucureşti. Publicată de editura „Noi Media Print”, cartea este disponibilă în română, germană, engleză, franceză şi ucraineană.

Vernisajul va cuprinde scurte alocuţiuni ale directorului editorial al editurii „Noi Media Print”, Adrian Manafu, ale preşedintelui Federaţiei Comunităţilor Evreieşti din România, dr. Aurel Vainer, şi ale autorului, deschiderea unei expoziţii de fotografie cu cimitirele evreieşti din Bucovina, cât şi un cocktail unde vor fi servite cele mai bune vinuri româneşti.

Celebra scriitoare, fotografă şi jurnalistă americană, Ruth Ellen Gruber, deţinătoare a două premii Simon Rockover pentru jurnalism iudaic, o autoritate în domeniul chestiunii evreieşti din Europa, a apreciat că “prin publicarea acestui ghid turistic Simon Geissbühler face un pas important, prezentând publicului larg o serie de localităţi minunate. Domnia sa deschide astfel, noi dimensiuni pelerinajului spiritual, adresându-se aparţinătorilor tuturor credinţelor şi orientărilor religioase, care doresc să intuiască nemijlocit frumuseţea, semnificaţia istorică şi vitalitatea cimitirelor evreieşti din Bucovina”.

La rândul său, preşedintele FCER, dr. Aurel Vainer, consideră că „această carte este şi trebuie să fie primul pas al autorului, la care ne alăturăm fără nici o rezervă, către un proces de cunoaştere şi recunoaştere a bogatei tradiţii culturale şi religioase evreieşti în sine şi ca parte din Patrimoniul Cultural Naţional”.

Romania/Ukraine -- New Guidebook Launch

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

"Jewish Cemeteries of the Bucovina," a new guidebook-brochure to Jewish cemeteries in the Bucovina region of Romania (and Ukraine) is being published this month. It was written (and photographed) by Simon Geissbühler, a Swiss diplomat based in Bucharest and will be available in English, German, French, Romanian, and Ukrainian.

The official launch is June 25 in Bucharest -- see the inviation above -- but there will be another launch in Radauti, on June 29.

I contributed the Foreword to this guide -- the cemeteries in this region, with their sculptural, wonderfully carved, tombstones have long been among my favorite Jewish heritage sites (and not just because the region is where my paternal grandparents came from.) My project (Candle)sticks on Stone focuses on these carved stones, particularly house women are represented on them by depictions of candlesticks.

Needless to say, I'm delighted to see this book come out, and I hope it attracts attention to these wonderful but overlooked places, which are located in the same region as Romania's splendid, and much more famous (and visited) painted monasteries.

Here's my Foreword:

A hand reaches out, grasps the branch of a tree and breaks it sharply off. The image is extraordinary, even surreal; so vivid that you can almost hear the crack of the wood.

The tree is the Tree of Life and the hand is the hand of God -- or maybe that of the Angel of Death. The portrayal, found repeated over and over in the Jewish cemetery in Radauti, in the Bucovina region of northern Romania, is one of the remarkable sculpted images found on Jewish tombstones in scores of Jewish cemeteries scattered over this part of East-Central Europe.

I first visited Radauti more than 30 years ago, in the bitterly cold December of 1978. It is the town from which my grandparents emigrated to the United States, and it is here, in the Jewish cemetery, that my great-grandmother Ettel Gruber lies buried.

Tilted now to one side, her tombstone is marked with the depiction of candlesticks that traditionally denote the tombs of Jewish women. Ettel, who died in 1947, was "a positive and dedicated woman, fair and kind in all her doing," her epitaph reads. She "offered hospitality and charity to the poor and set a full table for the Tzaddikim."

Jewish cemeteries are often described as "Houses of the Living," and, even when overgrown and abandoned, lives and life stories endure here in sculpted form.

Jewish tombstone decoration combines religious and folk motifs that in many cases refer to the name, lineage, profession or personal attributes of the deceased. Numerous gravestones bear symbols referring to death, such as broken candles and broken flowers as well as the hand of God breaking the branch from a tree. But many more refer to life.

Among the more common carved symbols are two hands in the spread-fingered gesture of priestly blessing on the gravestones of a Cohen (priest), that is, a descendant of the biblical High Priest Aaron. Another common symbol is a pitcher, or ewer, marking tombs of Levites, or descendants of the ancient tribe of Levi, priestly assistants who traditionally washed the hands of the priests.

Books mark the graves of particularly learned people; hands placing coins into charity boxes denote those who were particularly generous. Candlesticks -- as on my great-grandmother's gravestone -- often mark the tombstones of women, since in Jewish ritual women bless the candles on the Sabbath. The candlesticks are sometimes simple representations; others show ornate, almost braided candelabras, and some carvings include hands blessing the flames.

The images of a variety of animals also frequently decorate the stones. Lions may symbolize the tribe of Judah or personal names, such as Lev or Leib. Carved stags indicate names such as Zvi or Hirsch. Birds often appear, and mythical beasts, such as the winged griffin, are also common. There is often, too, a wealth of other decorative carving such as flowers, vines, grapes, and geometric forms.

All this imagery, and more, is found in the Jewish cemeteries of the Bucovina region. The decorated tombstones here, in fact, represent especially striking and sometimes startling examples of artistry, design and virtuoso stone-carving.

Baroque tombstones from the 18th and 19th centuries in particular employ a richness of texture and imagery that approaches that found in the rococo decoration in some churches. In some places carving styles are so distinctive that you can discern the work of individual, now anonymous, artists.

Few Jews live in the Bucovina today; the cemeteries thus form powerful memorials to a civilization that was wiped out in the Holocaust. Moreover, the liveliness and fantasy employed by the stone-masons adds a new dimension to how we may regard the spiritual, intellectual and artistic lives of Jews who lived in traditional East European shtetls.

To me, these elaborate sculpted gravestones are just as important manifestations of faith through art as are the marvelous painted monasteries that are also found in this region. Yet few people know of their existence, and even fewer ever visit.

With this important new guidebook, Simon Geissbühler introduces these wonderful places to a broader public and opens the way for spiritual pilgrims of all faiths and beliefs to experience their power, beauty and historical significance.

Ruth Ellen Gruber
Morruzze, Italy

Off (Geographical) Topic -- American Jewish Heritage Guide

Historical marker at the B'nai Abraham synagogue, Brenham, Texas. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

This, as I indicated in the title, is off topic -- geographically. In honor of May -- American Jewish Heritage Month -- Moment Magazine has published the first of what it says will be an annual Guide to Jewish Heritage in its current issue, which is also available online.

The average American knows more about the Jews who left Egypt 3,000 years ago than about the Jews who came to America over the past 355 years. When American history textbooks mention Jews, it’s often in connection with the Holocaust. But as the presidential proclamation makes clear, Jews have been part of the fabric of American life since their first steps on American soil in 1654. Jews have extended the boundaries of American pluralism, serving as a model for other religious minorities and expanding the definition of American religious liberty so that they and others would be included as equals. Jewish American history offers us the opportunity to explore how Jews have flourished in a free and pluralistic society where church and state are separated and religion is entirely voluntary. The institutions listed in this guide—archives, historical societies, museums and more—have taken the lead in preserving and recounting that story. Thanks to them, people here and abroad are becoming versed in the American Jewish experience. During Jewish American Heritage Month, in particular, we owe these institutions our gratitude.

The list includes Jewish Museums, Archives, Historical Sites and Historical Societies in North America and the Caribbean. Moment posts the following as a sample selection:

Washington, DC

Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington/Lillian & Albert Small Jewish Museum
701 4th St., NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 789-0900
www.jhsgw.org

New York City

Museum of Jewish Heritage
Edmond J. Safra Plaza
36 Battery Pl.
New York, NY 10280
(646) 437-4200
www.mjhnyc.org

Tenement Museum
108 Orchard St.
New York, NY 10002
(212) 431-0233
www.tenement.org/index.php

Philadelphia

National Museum of American Jewish History
Independence Mall East
55 North 5th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 923-3811
www.nmajh.org

Mississippi

Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life/Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience

213 South Commerce Street
Natchez, MS 39120

3863 Morrison Road
Utica, MS 39175

(601) 362-6357
www.msje.org

Miami Beach

Jewish Museum of Florida
301 Washington Ave.
Miami Beach, FL 33139
(305) 672-5044
www.jewishmuseum.com

Michigan

Janice Charach Gallery
D. Dan and Betty Kahn Building
6600 West Maple Rd.
West Bloomfield, MI 48322
(248) 432-5448
www.jccdet.org/culturalarts/gallery.shtml

Chicago

Spertus Museum
610 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60605
(312) 322-1700
www.spertus.edu

Berkeley, CA

Judah L. Magnes Museum
2911 Russell St.
Berkeley, CA 94705
(510) 549-6950
www.magnes.org

Denver

Mizel Museum
400 S. Kearney St.
Denver, CO 80224
(303) 394-9993
www.mizelmuseum.org

Tulsa

Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art
2021 East 71st St.
Tulsa, OK 74136
(918) 492-1818
www.jewishmuseum.net

Los Angeles

Simon Wiesenthal Center/Museum of Tolerance
9786 West Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90035
(310) 553-8403
www.museumoftolerance.com

Skirball Cultural Center
2701 North Sepulveda Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90049
(310) 440-4500
www.skirball.org

Toronto

Beth Tzedec Reuben & Helene Dennis Museum
1700 Bathurst St.
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5P 3K3
(416) 781-3511
www.beth-tzedec.org/museum

Virgin Islands

Weibel Museum/St. Thomas Synagogue
Originally built in 1796 by Sephardic Jews who migrated as a result of the Spanish Inquisition, the synagogue is one of the New World’s oldest.
15 Crystal Gade Charlotte Amalie
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
(340) 774-4312
www.onepaper.com/synagogue

Online

Jewish Women’s Archive
The archive functions as an online “Museum of the Jewish Woman.”
www.jwa.org

Kudos to Moment and to the Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces, which sponsored the guide.

Poland -- Some new Jewish travel resources

I'm doing a little updating on Jewish Heritage Travel, for inclusion in the Hungarian edition of the book that is currently undergoing translation, and in doing so I have come across various new (or newish) web sites that are useful for Jewish heritage travelers. Some have downloadable maps and recommendations for accommodation and dining.

Here are a few of them -- I'll be posting more:

Poland Jewish Heritage Tours -- a new program launched by the Taube Foundation

Jewish Krakow -- I'm not sure who runs this new English language site

Jewish Lublin (with a downloadable map) -- English language site of the Lublin branch of the Warsaw Jewish Community

Austria -- Jewish Guidebook to Salzburg

I'm delighted to note that Stan Nadel's walking tour guide to Jewish Salzburg has just been published in English. (The German edition came out a few years ago.) It's called Salzburg and the Jews: A Historical Walking Guide and is published by Wipf and Stock.

From the Preface:

When I moved to Salzburg in 2002 I followed in the footsteps of thousands of others and fell in love with this quaint old city and its beautiful surroundings. I am a historian by trade and I was enchanted with walking the city's streets and identifying where various historical events had taken place. I am also Jewish, so I read all I could about the history of Jews in Salzburg and began to fit what I learned into the geography of the streets and buildings that I so much enjoyed. As I learned more about the city and its history, I found it unsettling to see the shadows of a very ugly past in the city I have come to love. I liked my first apartment, but I was not happy that one of Adolf Eichmann's associates lived in an apartment downstairs after it had been taken away from an elderly Jewish man...

There are many such shadows in Salzburg, but it remains a beautiful city with many attractions. I certainly do not want to discourage anyone from coming to Salzburg to enjoy, as I do, its beauty, culture, food and wonderful beers. To the contrary, I would like to encourage others to come and share my pleasure. But I also want to share what I have learned with visitors to Salzburg who might like to know about some aspects of its history that are often neglected by the standard tourist guidebooks.

PL and CZ -- Useful Travel Web Sites

Pilsen synagogue. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The number of web sites with Jewish-related travel information is growing and impossible to keep up with (at least for me).

I keep adding links to my lists here on this blog, but I also want to flag some web sites in posts.

Two useful sites are the Krakow-based Polin Travel and Jewish Route in the Czech Republic's Pilsen Region.

Polin Travel is the site of a private guide and genealogy service, but the web site provides a lot of background and other information, including links -- but I do wish the photographs had captions.

Jewish Route in the Pilsen Region provides background information and photogalleries on a number of sites, as well as hotel and restaurant lists and other material.

Jewish Heritage -- New Resources

Old Jewish Cemetery, Roudnice nad Labem, CZ. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Bratislava Seminar provided the opportunity for representatives of various countries to present new printed or web resources on Jewish heritage, and in particular new maps, brochures and other material related to Jewish tourism and itineraries.

I try to keep track of these, but I generally can't keep up with the amount of material being published.

I have listed some of the web resources that were highlighted at the conference in the links list and travel resources list on this blog.

Other material presented includes:

-- Jewish Sights in the Usti Region (Czech Republic)

A very elaborate package of high-quality illustrated brochure, CD and DVD detailing Jewish sights in northern Czech Republic, including Decin, Libochovice, Louny, Most, Roudnice nad Labem, Teplice, Terezin, Ustek, and Zatec. In all these places, Jewish heritage sites have been restored or are undergoing restoration as part of local heritage. The material was written by my old friend Jaroslav Klenovsky, one of the pioneers of Jewish heritage research in CZ, and produced with funding from the EU and Usti regional authorities.

Jaroslav was one of several Czech representatives at the Bratislava meeting. The Czech Jewish community, through its Matana property management organization, has been a leader in developing -- and implementing -- a viable longterm strategy in Jewish heritage site preservation and management. This has included forging partnerships with local civic and private bodies as well a foreign donors, and working out a strategy of restoration of Jewish sites for cultural use including Jewish museums. In addition, numerous publications have been issued. (By the way, I linked in a recent post to a downloadable new brochure guide on Czech Jewish heritage put out by the Czech Tourism Office. Since then, the link seems to have been removed, though the brochure still exists in print... the Czech Tourism web site now had a page with links to several Jewish sites around the county -- click HERE.)

-- "Permanent Yiddishkeit" -- Jewish Heritage Map of Belarus

-- Jewish Latvia -- Travel Guide

-- Slovak Jewish Heritage Route -- new brochures