I'm interviewed in USAToday -- 10 great places to experience Jewish history

The bimah and top of the ark in the synagogue Mikulov, CZ, part of the 10 Stars project

The newspaper USAToday has run an interview with me by Larry Bleiberg, in which I note 10 of my favorite Jewish heritage sites -- not just in Europe, but also a couple in the United States.

I gave him a much, much longer list, but he had to pare it down to just 10, to keep variety and also geographic spread -- alas, as he had to leave out some of my very favorite places. The article runs in the travel section as 10 Great Places to Experience Jewish History.

The 10 include: the art nouveau synagogue in Subotica, Serbia; the ghetto in Venice; the Amsterdam Jewish Cultural Quarter; the Hamburg Altona Jewish cemetery; the synagogue in Iasi, Romania; the pioneer Jewish cemeteries in the American west; KKBE synagogue in Charleston, SC; the Belzec Nazi death camp memorial in Poland; the 10 Stars project sites in Czech Republic; and Sataniv and other fortress synagogues in Ukraine.


Read the full USAToday article

In the Venice ghetto

When my book National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel, a Guide to Eastern Europe came out in 2007, JTA also ran a story asking me to list my favorites -- the geographic scope was more limited, so the list is a bit different, though it does include some of the same sites, such as the synagogue in Subotica, the Belzec memorial, fortress synagogues including Sataniv, synagogues (like Iasi) in northern Romania, and the synagogues and Jewish quarters in the Czech Republic -- see it HERE.

It includes: the historic Jewish cemeteries and painted synagogues in northern Romania; the Jewish cemeteries and fortress synagogues in Ukraine, including Sataniv; the baroque synagogue and Jewish cemetery in Mad, in northeastern Hungary; the synagogues in Lancut, in southeastern Poland, and in Tykocin, in northeastern Poland; the old Jewish quarters, synagogues and cemeteries in small towns the Czech Republic; anything to do with the Hungarian architect Lipot Baumhorn (1860-1932), modern Europe’s most prolific designer of synagogues, such as the grand synagogue in Szeged, Hungary, and Baumhorn’s tomb in the Kozma utca Jewish cemetery in Budapest; the remaining few wooden synagogues, about a dozen of which survive in out-of-the way villages in Lithuania; the elaborate synagogue in Subotica, Serbia; the Holocaust monument complex in Belzec in southeastern Poland; The Holocaust memorial in Plunge, Lithuania, which features a profoundly moving installation of massive wooden sculptures by the late Jewish wood-carver Jakob Bunkas and his artist friends.

Read the JTA article

This post originally appeared on my En Route blog for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Hmm. I spent much of the morning in Warsaw today talking with an E-Book and App publisher about creating apps and interactive E-Books from my own writing,  on various platforms. So I am quite convinced that going mobile is the way to get around. Still, I’m somehow a little teentsy weentsy bit uneasy with “Anne Frank’s Amsterdam” —even though it clearly is a very serious project aimed to instruct visitors while showing the city. It is available on various smart phone platforms, and created by Anne Frank House. Maybe it’s just the promotional aspect of the project….From the Anne Frank House website:

discover for yourself Anne Frank’s and her contemporaries’ stories at thirty special places in the city with the Anne’s Amsterdam mobile application. The Anne Frank House has developed this App together with Repudo and LBi with the aim of making the city’s wartime history better known. Anne’s Amsterdam is available in Dutch, English and German and suitable for smart phones with iOS, Android and WP7.

With Anne’s Amsterdam you can view personal stories, film footage and unique photographs from the past at the same location today. There are images of Anne Frank and her friends on the Merwedeplein, German troops entering the city on the Rokin and the raid on the Jonas Daniël Meijerplein. This link between the past and the present enables you see the city in a different way by which events of the war come to life. You can collect the stories, films and photos for your digital album on your telephone. You can also send your items per e-mail and encourage others to use the App via Facebook and Twitter.

The items collected link to the website Anne Frank’s Amsterdam. A visual timeline gives in depth information and context. Personal stories, not previously published on the internet, from Jewish and non-Jewish eyewitnesses give a view of life during the occupation. The period before and after the occupation are also discussed, placing Amsterdam’s war time history in a broader perspective.

I will download it—hope it works with the iPad!

Netherlands -- In Amsterdam, the Dutch Queen attends reopening of the Portuguese synagogue after restoration

By Ruth Ellen Gruber


Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands attended the dedication ceremony in Amsterdam Dec. 20 of the Portuguese Synagogue -- or "Esnoga" -- which was reopened after renovation. She also attended the the first presentation of the synagogue's treasure rooms with many special ceremonial objects.

The synagogue's web site called the occasion "an important moment in the history of this monumental complex."

In January 2010 the current restoration project began. This restoration was necessary because the annexes were in very poor condition and had never previously been restored from the foundations. The aim of the restoration and provision of access was to maintain the Synagogue's authenticity.


Renovation of and rearrangement to ensure easy access to the Portuguese Synagogue is a wonderful and unique addition to the city's cultural features. It will reinforce the cultural and economic infrastructure and make the city and region more attractive for residents and visitors. This heritage is unique, in that it remains a lively building with an equally vibrant community that uses it to this day.


The Esnoga is a pearl for Amsterdam and the Netherlands. In use for centuries, it is now literally opening its doors to the general public. Visitors will be able to view the art treasures, which are maintained according to museum preservation standards, in their natural context. The functional areas will also be made visible and accessible to visitors, who will thus feel like guests in the community. Visiting this historic complex is like taking a stroll through the past and present of a community that has been celebrating its religion and culture for three centuries within these walls.

To see specifics of the restoration, click on the following links:  

Photo from: www.portugesesynagoge.nl

The "Esnoga" and annexes

The main building has undergone quality restoration to the gables, the roofs, the cast-iron windows and the sandstone ornaments. The interior of the synagogue, however, has remained in its original state following the restoration. The building will continue to be lit by nearly one thousand candles in the copper chandeliers.

• Treasure chambers
  
  
  Special climate-controlled spaces will accommodate the valuables of the Portuguese Synagogue. In the future, the concealed treasures will be on public display here.

Amsterdam -- slice of history

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Nir Hasson reports in Ha'aretz how the discovery of a 25-year-old book in Israel reveals a fascinating slice of the Jewish history of Amsterdam -- as well as a clutch of mysteries.

Friday June 3, 1768, was an exciting day in the sizable Jewish community of Amsterdam. That day, the Stadtholder (chief executive) of Holland, William V of the House of Orange, arrived for a rare visit to the Jewish quarter and the synagogue, accompanied by his wife, Wilhelmina of Prussia. "Their Highnesses sat on the bench of the community elders, the other ministers and dignitaries were seated on two velvet benches on the north and south sides of the synagogue. As they entered the synagogue, the Holy Ark was opened, the cantors and vocalists had begun to sing 'Baruch Haba' [Welcome]" [...].

Stefan Litt, an archivist at the National Library in Jerusalem, found this description in the course of his research into the registries of the Ashkenazi communities (pinkassei kahal ) in the 17th and 18th centuries. The registry goes on to note that a community elder, Gumpel Klev, bestowed on the royal couple a keepsake from the community: "Two books printed on white satin, the cover pages beautifully ornamented with their insignia."

Two weeks ago, Litt located one of these two books, which were printed on cloth nearly 250 years ago, in the storerooms of the National Library in Jerusalem. Did the Stadtholder leave the book on his seat when he got up to leave? What was scribbled in Dutch on the last page? And why was this scribble erased? Why are there traces of one of the pages being singed? How did the book make its way to the National Library? All of these matters are still shrouded in mystery.

Read the article on Ha'aretz

Amsterdam -- quick Jewish tour

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

JTA's "Transatlantic" blog by Alex Weisler runs a rapid-fire travel story on Jewish Amsterdam, with a main emphasis on the Anne Frank House.

It was my first time in Holland, and I was struck by the city’s warmth and beauty and by the way it seems to gleefully dart back and forth between the seedy and the genteel.

Amsterdam also has much to offer the Jewish traveler.

The Anne Frank House should be at the top of any yiddishe tourist’s itinerary. The museum, housed in the building where the diarist and seven others hid from the Nazis in the famous “Secret Annex,” is just a short walk from the Dam, one of the city’s central squares and a main center for shopping. It’s a remarkably subtle installation – helped by the fact that photos are not allowed, forcing visitors to fully immerse themselves in the experience.

I was caught off-guard by how emotional the exhibit made me, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been. There’s something timeless about Anne’s story and something to be commended about the way the museum has chosen to present it – respectfully but not morbidly, powerfully but without bombast. It may well have been the most effective Holocaust memorial I’ve ever visited.

 He also highlighted the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam, as well as some other sites.

If you have one more attraction in your system, I’d recommend the Jewish Historical Museum, housed near the Dam in four conjoined former Ashkenazi synagogues. (Across the street is the city’s Portuguese Synagogue, a spare, compelling space that is also worth a visit.) The museum explores Jewish rituals, from life-cycle events to Torah study, as well as examining Jewish history in the Netherlands since 1600.

Amsterdam -- Jewish Music Festival Coming Up

Just got sent the link for another upcoming Jewish culture festival -- the 15th International Jewish Music Festival in Amsterdam, to be held Oct. 23-25.

From the web site:

The 15th edition of the International Jewish Music Festival will be held in Amsterdam October 23-25, 2009 the brand new concert halls of the Amsterdam Conservatory. Last year, 24 ensembles from 15 countries battled it out for prize money, concert engagements and a chance at a recording contract with Universal Records. This year we welcome back the winners for a weekend full of concerts, workshops, an open podium and much more...

The ensembles will give concerts and workshops in the most diverse Jewish music sub-genres: hip-hop and reggae for kids, Yiddish song, Sephardic music, klezmer and Balkan music, close harmony and classical.

The free Open Podium gives starting ensembles and soloists a chance to take the stage and show what they've got. The bustling Jewish Cultural Market will feature booksellers, CDłs, sheet music and various Jewish cultural organisations. And our grand prize winner from last year, She'Koyokh, will host a swinging jam session open to everyone.

Amsterdam -- No More Anne Frank Apartment

I just checked the web site that was advertising an "Anne Frank apartment" where you could "live like Anne Frank" (and which I wrote about on this blog and in a Ruthless Cosmopolitan column).... the site still advertises the apartment, but I'm happy to report that it no longer is named after Anne Frank, nor does it use its tasteless advertising come-on....

Anne Frank Apartment -- Action Being Taken

I contacted a friend at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and alerted him about the agency that has named one of its rentals the "Anne Frank Apartment" and advertises it with the slogan "Live like Anne Frank...." (I posted on this yesterday.)

My friend has informed me that the Anne Frank Foundation will be taking some sort of action. The name "Anne Frank" is in fact registered legally to the Foundation, precisely to prevent it from being used for commercial or touristic exploitation.

"The Foundation is the legal owner of the name Anne Frank," he said. "No-one can use it without our permission." Otherwise, he added, "we would have the whole neighborhood filled with Anne Frank cafes and the like..."

(The Foundation does give permission for the use of the name for Anne Frank schools and similar institutions -- and in the past it has been locked in controversy over other use of Anne's name or writings -- earlier this year, for example, over a Spanish musical based on Anne's diary. The Foundation supported the musical, but the Swiss-based Anne Frank Fonds, established by Anne's father in 1963 and the copyright holder of the diary itself, opposed it. )

Amsterdam -- "Anne Frank" apartment: talk about poor taste in advertising!

Thanks to my friend Eli Valley, I have come across a web ad for the Anne Frank apartment, a garret for rent in Amsterdam near the Anne Frank House Museum, for €155 a night...

In what has got to be one of the worst lapses of taste in tourist promotion I've seen in quite awhile, it advertises the place with the promo "Live like Anne Frank, lovely Amsterdam attic apartment".

I mean, what can one say? It ranks with the hats with peyes at the "Jewish style" cafe in L'viv....