News

It is with great pleasure that the ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative invites you to take part in a EU-funded Webinar and Hackathon under the ‘Preserving Jewish Cemeteries’ grant online on 19th & 20th June. With sessions on the application of drones in the work of the ESJF from Office Manager, Alexander Bessarab and on […]

On the 14th, 18th and 19th December 2022, the ESJF was proud to meet with 50 Ukrainian Jewish heritage activists for a three-day EU Masterclass on the importance of preserving Jewish cemeteries. A total of 148 registered to receive the recordings of the event and shared their input via email. Connecting online from countries far […]

The Batrad Jewish cemetery in Ukraine was cleared of over-growth early this month. The ESJF fenced and protected this burial site in 2016 with funding from the Auswärtiges Amt. The exact period of the cemetery’s establishment is unknown, but it can be assumed that it emerged in the 19th century. The ESJF recently cleared this […]

The EU workshop we hosted last week over the 16th and 17th November 2022 was exciting, interesting and above all a great success! Over the two days, we gained a small insight into the difficulties the citizens of Ukraine have, unfortunately, on a daily basis. The first day started in the basement instead of the […]

Yesterday, on the 17th November 2022, a rededication ceremony took place at the Seroczyn Jewish cemetery in Poland, which the ESJF fenced and protected earlier this year with funding from the Auswärtiges Amt. Jewish settlement in Seroczyn dates back to the early 18th century. The small community of 179 Jews that lived in the village […]

Drones, unfortunately, have been rather a common site in Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine in recent weeks and months, targeting civilians and infrastructural installations as part of the Russian war effort against Ukraine. Now, Kyiv hosts a conference on drones for their positive usage as the ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative conducts an EU […]

We are happy to announce that our team is in the Nitra and Zilina region of Slovakia to survey and map Jewish cemeteries. During our previous work in Slovakia, we surveyed 343 Jewish burial sites, which is just under half of all the cemeteries in the country. Notable features of Jewish cemeteries in Slovakia are […]

Did you know that an autumnal clearing makes all the difference to the long term maintenance of Jewish cemeteries? And here’s why… This week, the ESJF visited the Nadvirna Jewish cemetery in Ukraine, one of the few sites which the ESJF has fenced and protected that also has received additional sponsorship for yearly clearings.   […]

Between the 23rd and 24th of October, 30 participants, involved in the protection and care of Jewish cemeteries, came together for the ESJF’s EU Masterclass to intensively discuss and exchange their experiences and knowledge on the topic of Jewish cemeteries in Poland. As a result of the Holocaust, most of the 1,500 existing cemeteries in […]

We are happy to announce that we will be collaborating with the Brama Grodzka (Grodzka Gate) – NN Theatre Centre in Lublin, Poland for our next two-day masterclass, which will be dedicated to the heritage of the Jewish cemeteries in the south-eastern Poland. During the masterclass, we will also launch our Regional Cemetery Association initiative […]

Last week, as a continuation of our legal research within our European Commission grant with Centropa and Foundation for Jewish Heritage, the ESJF met with our partner, Martin Kornfeld, CEO of the Federation of Jewish Communities (Židia na Slovensku) in Slovakia. The discussion centred around the local challenges that Slovakian Jewish communities face regarding legal […]

Over the past two days, it has been a great pleasure to host our second European Commission Masterclass and the first of the series to take place in person for local engaged leaders in Chișinău, Moldova. After an opening statement from Ion Duminica, Director of the Center for Ethnology of the Institute of Cultural Heritage, […]