Romania -- Radauti synagogue restoration moving forward

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Edgar Hauster posts on his blog that the renovation of the synagogue in Radauti is moving ahead -- the restoration of the facade is nearing completion.... he has posted a picture of the exterior of the building, taken a few days ago. According to Hauster, the work is being carried out with funding from the Federation of Romanian Jewish Communities, as well as from the town itself.

Radauti synagogue restored. Photo: Edgar Hauster, http://hauster.blogspot.com/

Romania -- Dorin Fraenkel 1945-2011

September 2009. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I was shocked and deeply saddened to learn today of the sudden death of Dorin Fraenkel, in Radauti. Dorin, who was 66, apparently suffered a heart attack on Wednesday. The writer Edgar Hauster spent a couple of days with him this past week and says there was no indication that he was unwell.

Dorin was a kind and charming man, and the repository of a wealth of knowledge about Radauti, its Jews and its Jewish history. He helped many people delve into family history and Jewish genealogy and knew the ins and outs of dusty research.....I met him in 2009, when I traveled to Radauti with three of my cousins -- he took us to the town archives and pored over old record books to find information about our ancestors.

It is only now, after the news of his death, that I have found out that he was a accomplished musician, who wrote music and played the piano; according to YouTube he uploaded this piece not long after our visit to Radauti. May his soul be bound up in the bond of life.

Poland -- Home of WW2-era Warsaw Zoo director who sheltered Jews to become a museum

by Ruth Ellen Gruber




The two-story home where the Warsaw Zoo’s director Jan Żabiński and his wife Antonina sheltered about 300 Jews and others from the Nazis during World War II is to become a small museum dedicated to the couple and their heroism.

According to a report on Polish radio, the museum will be opened in the fall.

The Zabinskis were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among Nations in 1965.

Zabinski was allowed to enter the Warsaw Ghetto as a municipal official. There he connected with people he knew and, according to testimony on the Yad Vashem web site, helped get Jews "over to Aryan side, provided them with indispensable personal documents, looked for accommodations, and when necessary hid them at his villa or on the zoo’s grounds.”

With the Zabinskis' help, many Jews found temporary shelter in the zoo’s abandoned animal cells, until, the web site puts it,  "they were able to relocate to permanent places of refuge elsewhere." In addition, the couple, aided by their son, sheltered nearly a dozen Jews in their two-story private home on the zoo's grounds.

According to the Polish radio report, when Nazis officials visited, Antonina Zabinska would play a certain piece of music on the family piano to warn Jews in the house that they should hide.




The Yad Vashem web site  describes Zabinski as an active member of the  Polish underground Armia Krajowa (Home Army), who 

participated in the Polish uprising in Warsaw of August and September 1944. Upon its suppression, he was taken as a prisoner to Germany. His wife continued his work, looking after the needs of some of the Jews left behind in the ruins of the city. Jan wrote in his own testimony explaining his motives: “I do not belong to any party, and no party program was my guide during the occupation... I am a Pole – a democrat. My deeds were and are a consequence of a certain psychological composition, a result of progressive-humanistic upbringing, which I received at home as well as in Kreczmar High School. Many times I wished to analyze the causes for dislike for Jews and I could not find any, besides artificially formed ones.”

The Zabinskis' story was recounted in the 2007 book by Diane Ackerman, "The Zookeeper's Wife."

Publishers Weekly wrote:

Using Antonina's diaries, other contemporary sources and her own research in Poland, Ackerman takes us into the Warsaw ghetto and the 1943 Jewish uprising and also describes the Poles' revolt against the Nazi occupiers in 1944. She introduces us to such varied figures as Lutz Heck, the duplicitous head of the Berlin zoo; Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, spiritual head of the ghetto; and the leaders of Zegota, the Polish organization that rescued Jews. Ackerman reveals other rescuers, like Dr. Mada Walter, who helped many Jews pass, giving lessons on how to appear Aryan and not attract notice. Ackerman's writing is viscerally evocative, as in her description of the effects of the German bombing of the zoo area: ...the sky broke open and whistling fire hurtled down, cages exploded, moats rained upward, iron bars squealed as they wrenched apart.

Ukraine -- Jewish Travel Web Site and Tours, etc

Fortresslike 16th century synagogue building in Sharhorod, Ukraine. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

People are always asking me for advice on "traveling Jewish" in Ukraine -- arranging trips and tours, finding places, accommodation, information, etc.

A new (or newish) web site and organization, "JUkraine" may now be the answer.

I just came across the web site -- jukraine.com -- and it looks at if it will be very helpful.

I hope so! Ukraine is a huge country, rich with fascinating Jewish heritage sites and also home (in some places) to active Jewish communities. To date, my chapter on Ukraine in Jewish Heritage Travel is one of the only Jewish guides to the country -- but it only minimally scratches the surface.

Poland -- Politics and Shake-ups at the Jewish History Museum in Warsaw.....

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Forward runs a fascinating piece about the shake-up at the top of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw that saw the forced resignation of longtime director Jerzy Halbersztadt, one of the creators of the institution.

The museum -- nearly 20 years in development -- is now scheduled to open in 2013. Its building is largely complete, but work is still going on regarding the exhibits and installations. The Forward notes that Halberszadt's departure under pressure "is provoking concern about the future of the ambitious project, which aims to preserve a legacy of 1,000 years of Jewish life in Poland."

Photo: Handhouse Studio

Jerzy Halbersztadt, the museum’s project director since its conception in 1996, announced his resignation at an April 22 press conference after months of indecision by Poland’s Ministry of Culture about renewing his five-year contract. Halbersztadt’s contract had lapsed five months earlier.

Since Halbersztadt’s announcement, the museum has been run by his former deputy, Agnieszka Rudzińska, while the institution’s trustees search for a successor.

Halbersztadt’s unexpected departure came about as a result of repeated clashes with the Ministry of Culture over what he regarded as inadequate funding for the museum’s day-to-day operations. But in a March statement to the press, Culture and National Heritage Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski said that Halbersztadt was unable to cooperate with others and that he believed it was time for the project to have a new director.

Halbersztadt told the Forward that after his most recent contract lapsed, “They reduced my authority as director. I was unable to make any strategic financial decisions and even a [lost my] right to contract staff.”

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/138075/#ixzz1NNOS0vpM

Poland -- Krakow's Night of the Synagogues program

Here's the program (in Polish) for the Night of the Synagogues in Krakow, June 4:

For more information, click HERE

Krakow -- "Night of the Synagogues" coming up

An exhibition in High Synagogue. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The night of June 4 will be the "Night of the Synagogues" in Krakow, according to the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. All seven historic synagogues in the old Jewish quarter, Kazimierz -- the gothic Old Synagogue, the Remuh Synagogue, the High Synagogue, the Kupa Synagogue, the Izaak Synagogue, the Popper synagogue and the Tempel synagogue -- will remain open and will feature concerts, performances and other events.

According to the article, "Instead of klezmer bands in the Tempel synagogue  you can listen to contemporary Israeli rock music." There will be a Dj in the Old Synagogue and also various art workshops.

The full schedule of events will be available Monday.

Lithuania -- Jewish cemetery site (with map)

Old Jewish Cemetery, Valbanikas, Lithuania. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I've just come across this web site about Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania -- which includes a map of all known cemetery locations, photographs from some cemeteries, and reports on efforts to clean some of them up and restore damaged gravestones. The epitaphs on a number of stones are also translated.

I visited a number of Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania in 2006, when I was updating Jewish Heritage Travel -- and most were in rather poor, neglected condition. The tombstones themselves were much less ornately carved than in other countries, such as Poland, Romania, and Ukraine.

I have already posted on this blog about my experience visiting the ruined Jewish cemetery in Kalvarija, where my great-grandfather came from -- and about efforts to repair the cemetery and read the gravestones there.

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

One of the most interesting (and well maintained) Jewish cemeteries I saw in Lithuania was the old Jewish cemetery in Valbanikas, a village that also has two disused masonry synagogue buildings. Some of the gravestones exhibited carving, and the cemetery was also one of the few that I found actually signposted from the road.

Carved gravestone in Valbanikas. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Signpost to Old Jewish Cemetery. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Festivals -- At least 30 on my list of Jewish culture/arts/music etc festivals in Europe

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I just added a few more events, bringing the number on my list of this year's Jewish culture/music/film/books/arts etc festivals around Europe  to 30 -- and I know there are a lot more going on that I have not (yet) included. (Or which had already taken place before I got around to compiling the list...)

Everyone by now knows about the big Jewish culture festival in Krakow -- the oldest and largest festival, taking place at the end of June/beginning of July. But all around Europe you can find other varied events, big and small -- from the OyOyOy festival in northern Italy, to Bankito in Hungary to Yiddish Summer Weimar in Germany to UniJazz in the Czech Republic to the Life Festival at Oswiecim, Poland (the town where the Auschwitz camp is located), to Ethno Fusion in the courtyard of the synagogue in Belgrade.

The variety is great -- and so is the range of locations and festival focus. From book fairs highlighting local publishers to film festivals to klezmer and other Jewish music fests, to arts, to grand mash-ups, such as in Krakow, that feature a range of events, concerts, guided tours, targeted workshops and so on.

Locations range from big cities, to former (or present) Jewish quarters and neighborhoods, to villages to the countryside.

Moldova -- Survey of Jewish Heritage Sites is Now Online

Ruined synagogue, Vadul Rashkov. Photo: U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The first and most complete survey of Jewish heritage sites in Moldova has been published online on the website of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad. It includes synagogue buildings, Jewish cemeteries, Holocaust memorials and sites of mass burials, Jewish communal buildings and other sites.

The survey was carried out by Igor Teper, and Sam Gruber, who oversaw the survey, carries a long report on the process -- with lots of pictures -- on his blog.

Few countries in Central and Eastern Europe have as rich a Jewish history and collection of Jewish history sites as small Moldova, nestled in between Romania and Ukraine. Long a crossroads of cultures, modern Moldova today, however, is little known and rarely mentioned. Jewish communities and Jewish heritage sites in neighboring countries garner more attention and more tourists, though most of the Jewish sites in the region are starved for funds for basic maintenance, let alone restoration. Seven years ago the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage, of which I was Research Director, teamed with the Joint Distribution Committee to identify, document and survey as many Jewish historical and Holocaust-related sites as possible within a year.

 Sam also posts his introduction to the Survey -- a summary of the history of Jewish sites in Moldova, as well as the typology of sites and their condition.

Prior to the Holocaust, the area that is present-day Moldova was home to a thriving Jewish culture that built and maintained a large number of community buildings for religious, educational, and charitable purposes. In addition, there were many Jewish cemeteries throughout the country serving Jewish communities. The second half of the 19th and the early 20th centuries witnessed the greatest growth of organized Jewish institutions and that is the period from which most surviving buildings date. These include synagogues and community buildings such as schools, hospitals, and old age homes. Some of these institutional buildings are the Jewish sites that have survived best because the facilities have been most easily adapted and reused by successor institutions, often providing services similar to the original.

The destruction wrought during the Holocaust, when German and Romanian occupiers destroyed many synagogues and other Jewish sites, was severe. Further destruction continued during the nearly half century of Soviet rule when scores of buildings were either demolished outright, or were destroyed over time by neglect; and when hundreds of buildings were confiscated by the state and adapted to new uses. It is only in the past several years that efforts have begun to identify all these sites. One important reason is to negotiate the return of many community properties to the Jewish community, or to arrange for proper financial compensation for many others which are not easily returned.

 My friend, the Swiss diplomat Simon Geissbuhler, has written about some of these places in his book "Like Shells on a Shore: Synagogues and Jewish Cemeteries of Northern Moldavia."

Bob Cohen posted a wonderful description on his Dumneazu blog about going home to his ancestral shtetls, Telenesti and Orhei.

Jewish cemetery, Telenesti. Photo; U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad