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

NY Jewish Week profiles me & my Jewish heritage work

Me in Hostice, CZ, in front of the long-abandoned synagogue

Writing in the New York Jewish Week, travel writer Hilary Danailova profiles me and my Jewish heritage and Jewish heritage travel work, including the Jewish Heritage Europe web site. 

Heritage Tourism In Europe

10/13/15

Hilary Danailova

From Poland to Portugal, nobody knows Jewish Europe like Ruth Ellen Gruber.

On a given week, the Philadelphia-born journalist might be checking out a newly opened museum, inspecting the restoration of a prewar synagogue, or picking her way through forest brambles in search of long-lost tombstones. That explains how Gruber found herself recently in the wilderness south of Prague, where she stumbled onto an 18th-century Jewish cemetery in a clearing near a faded sign marking “Synagogue Street.”

“Here’s this place in the middle of nowhere, and actually, there used to be a synagogue here,” recalled Gruber, who was sleuthing with the aid of locals. “It gave me that sense of discovery that I used to find everywhere. When I find a place that thrills me or makes me feel that sense of wonder again … I loved it.”

The thrill of discovery is something Gruber shares with a growing number of enthusiasts through the website she oversees, Jewish Heritage Europe. A project of the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe, JHE is a comprehensive web portal for all things Jewish overseas: festivals, institutions, scholarship, synagogues and cemeteries.

Under Gruber’s direction, JHE has evolved into an essential travel resource. With an engaging redesign and the recent launch of “Have Your Say,” a feature that invites interactive commentary, JHE makes Jewish Europe more accessible — and more communal — than ever.

Gruber has long occupied a front-row seat for the show that is modern Europe. Since the 1970s, she has reported from abroad for many major news outlets in North America; currently JTA’s senior European correspondent, next summer she will lead her first European Jewish heritage tour for The New York Times. [...]

Read the entire article on the Jewish Week web site

News for Jewish Heritage Travel Blog

Here's some organizational news for this blog.....As of today I now have a travel blog called En Route: Jewish Heritage and Travel with Ruth Ellen Gruber that is hosted by the Los Angeles Jewish Journal.... so -- I will be posting items to that blog, and then reposting on this site (or, I guess, occasionally vice versa).

This will not affect the Jewish Heritage Travel Facebook page.

And all the archives and other material on this Jewish Heritage Travel blog will remain here intact.

Slovakia -- Trencin and the mixed emotions of visiting Jewish sites

Synagogue in Trencin, 1993. Monotype by Shirley Moskowitz (c) estate of Shirley Moskowitz

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

There usually comes a time when you visit sites of Jewish heritage in Eastern and Central Europe when the impact of the past -- the destruction wrought in the Holocaust -- breaks through and grabs you. I have experienced this often: I love looking at the synagogue buildings and admiring the architecture and recalling the richness of Jewish history and recognizing their importance to the cultural heritage of society at large and applauding the way that many by now have been restored for cultural use. Likewise when I thrill to the wonderful carving on Jewish gravestones and appreciate the creativity and aethestic verve that produced them. Still, I sometimes find myself unexpectedly choked up, even weeping.

I wrote about these contradictory feelings at length in the introduction to my book Jewish Heritage Travel.

And Rabbi Andrew Goldstein touched on this theme in the sermon he gave after our trip to Slovakia this month following the Slovak Jewish Heritage Route (which I posted HERE). That is why he and his wife, Sharon, held informal "services for synagogues" in a couple of the  synagogues we visited -- notably the still semi-ruined one in Liptovsky Mikulas and the Status Quo synagogue in Trnava, now an art gallery.

Sharon Goldstein chanting in the Trnava Status Quo synagogue. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

My friend, the wonderful (and wonderfully outspoken) musician Mark Rubin experienced this several years ago when he visited the Slovak town of Trencin and saw the magnificent synagogue there -- one of the most impressive buildings in town, besides the hilltop castle.

Trencin synagogue with hilltop castle in the background. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Mark wrote a lengthy, eloquent -- and angry -- post about his feelings on his blog.

There indeed is a fine synagogue in Trencin, but there will be no shabbes here. There are no Jews here. The stark, sudden and complete realization that though this building may still stand and from the outside is beautiful and all, there are no Jews here to pray with. Not tonight, and probably never again I imagine. A wave of depression and sadness flushes over me. I mean what was I thinking? Jews must have prospered here, I mean why else would you have such a grand house of worship? Sure, as if after all the pogroms, the harassment by fascists from within and without, and then the gentle graces of the Soviets and their labor camps that there would be anyone left? These are the kind of things I see every time I head into the Eastern parts of Europe and this is just the sort of internal conversation I have with myself nearly every time. Much like a child finding out over and over again that there is no Santa Claus, I have to tell myself yet again; “Jews used to live here.”

I have to say that I have never bit hit by this feeling when in Trencin -- and the first time I was there was about 20 years ago. On the contrary, I have always regarded the magnificent synagogue there as a magnificent survivor. You can't undo the Holocaust. But in contrast to many other synagogues, the Trencin synagogue was always maintained in pretty good shape and regarded by the town as a key component of its urban core. As long as I have been going there, it has been marked with a plaque identifying it as a former synagogue -- and there has also long been a plaque commemorating the Jews of Trencin who were killed in the Holocaust: some 1,619 Jewish lived in the city in 1940, but only 326  survived the Holocaust. Also, the synagogue complex includes a small prayer room which is still used by the handful of Jews that still do live in the town.

Today, the huge sanctuary is used as the municipal art gallery. The art on display was, um, not the best. But the sanctuary has been restored and is maintained. The wonderful stained glass and the intense blue painting of the cupola have long been cared for -- but recent restoration work has uncovered polychrome decoration on the walls that had been painted over in white. It's not sure whether this is going to be recovered.

Above photos (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber