I recently spent a week in western Ukraine, where I gave the concluding talk, July 27, in a series of lectures called “Jewish Days in the City Hall: (Un)Displayed Past in East European Museums.”
Category Archives: Jewish Heritage
In an interview, I reflect on Jewish Heritage Europe
Me in front of the ruined Great Synagogue in Kalvarija, Lithuania — the town my great-grandparents came from. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber
February 2017 marks the fifth anniversary that www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu — the web site that I run as a project of the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe — has been online.
In a lengthy interview with Liam Hoare of eJewish Philanthropy, I reflect on developments since I’ve been involved with Jewish heritage work — where we’ve been, and where we may be going.
By Liam Hoare
eJewish Philanthropy
Since its launch five years ago, Jewish Heritage Europe has become an essential one-stop shop for news, information, and resources concerning, as the name indeed suggests, matters of Jewish culture and built heritage in Europe: museums; synagogues; cemeteries, and so on. Ruth Ellen Gruber, the author of Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe who has chronicled Jewish life in Europe for over twenty-five years for the JTA among other places, edits the site, which is supported by the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe. Here, I talk with Gruber about the site
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Video of My talk on Jewish Heritage and Social Engagement
In June, I spoke at the big conference on Jewish Cultural Heritage held at the POLIN Museum in Warsaw — it was three days after my eye operation so I wasn’t 100 percent, but here is the full talk.
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My farewell to the other Ruth Gruber
RG and REG – at the launch of my first book, in New York in 1992
My namesake, the noted author and photojournalist Ruth Gruber, has died at the age of 105 after a remarkable life and career.
In a JTA article, I reminisced about how for decades people had confused us and conflated our biographies.
One Ruth Gruber Says Goodbye to Another
November 21, 2016
(JTA) — When you share a name with someone you respect and admire, you always try to live up to the connection, because sometimes outsiders aren
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Two new articles in Hadassah Magazine
Hadassah Magazine runs two articles by me about Venice — one on the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Venice Ghetto, and one on general sight-seeing tips for the Lagoon City.
Venice, 500 Years of the Ghetto
By Ruth Ellen Gruber, August 2016
Venice university professor Shaul Bassi stops beneath an elegant marble plaque affixed to an inner wall of the Jewish community building just off the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, the
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Symposium: New Jewish Museums in 21st Century Europe
I took part in a symposium Jan. 10 at the Center for Jewish History in New York that celebrated the publication of a special double issue of the journal East European Jewish Affairs that was devoted to new Jewish museums in the 21st century.
Post-Communist Eastern Europe is experiencing a museum boom as it explores new definitions of national identities not possible under communism. This has generated a wholesale revival of interest in Jewish culture and institutions on the part of non-Jews, paradoxically, in the near absence of Jewish populations. The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow and Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw are prime examples of this trend, but there are many others.
I have an article in the journal called “Reportage: Beyond Prague
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Article profiles me and my heritage work
Me in front of the abandoned synagogue in Hostice, CZ
The New York Jewish Week runs a (rather blush-worthy!) article by travel writer Hilary Danailova about me and my Jewish heritage work, including the Jewish Heritage Europe web site.
Heritage Tourism In Europe
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Auschwitz: Balancing Memory and Mass Tourism
Here’s my recent article for JTA on how commemoration and mass tourism collide at Auschwitz.
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Article on “Roots” travel quotes me
Me outside the ruined synagogue in Kalvarija, Lithuania, the town from which by great-grandparents emigrated to the US around 1880
A long article on Jewish roots travel by Hilary Danailova in New York Jewish Week quotes me at length about changes in the Jewish heritage and Jewish heritage travel scene over the past quarter century.
Dark Tourism: A Comparative Perspective
Drayton Hall “big house”
I wrote this piece for the web site of the Drayton Hall plantation outside of Charleston. It grew out of a session with descendants of both the enslaved people and slave-owners who lived there. I touch on parallels between presenting and interpreting Jewish history and heritage in post-Holocaust Europe and presenting and interpreting African American history and heritage in the Lowcountry.
By Ruth Ellen Gruber
Distinguished Visiting Chair in Jewish Studies, College of Charleston
April 28, 2015
More than 20 years ago I wrote a book called Upon the Doorposts of Thy House: Jewish Life in East-Central Europe, Yesterday and Today. The title referred to the mezuzah
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