REDISCOVER project(2018-2021)
gateway to the Jewish past
and cultural heritage
in East-Central Europe
Anca Filipovici, Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities
A large European Jewish population perished during the Holocaust. Many of those who survived left postwar Europe. The small communities who still live here today are the messengers of a vanished world in a dynamic process of rediscovering. Not only the new generations of Jews from abroad look for their religious and cultural origins when visiting the lands of their ancestors, but also gentiles – non-Jewish individuals interested in historical and cultural discoveries, youngsters or curious tourists – explore on various occasions the European Jewish past. It is about a captivating journey facilitated by local Jewish communities, historians, public institutions or private tour operators who create spaces of memory and sites of cultural material and immaterial heritage eager to be (re)discovered.
The motif of “rediscover” inspired the developing of a complex project with 18 partners from 8 countries with mid-sized cities connected to the Danube River (Szeged/Hungary, Galați & Timișoara/Romania, Murska Sobota/Slovenia, Osijek/Croatia, Regensburg/Germany, Subotica/Serbia, Kotor/Montenegro, Banja Luka/Bosnia and Herzegovina). The project aims to create products and local tourism services that will revive and present hidden and less-known available Jewish cultural heritages.
“Rediscover, expose and exploit the concealed Jewish heritage of the Danube Region” (2018-2021) is a project financed by the European Regional Development Fund within the Danube Transnational Programme under the specific objective of fostering sustainable use of natural and cultural heritage and resources.
Municipality of Szeged as Lead Partner coordinates the partnership between cities in creating inspiring synergies that will boost the regional and local development through Jewish cultural tourism. Main areas that will frame the local resources of Jewish heritage correspond to gastronomy, built heritage, events and oral history. The project builds thus on other initiatives (i.e. Jewish Heritage Europe or AEPJ Jewish Heritage) deployed in larger cities and areas, who had offered their input for Rediscover team.
One of the main partners in REDISCOVER project is the Municipality of Galați (Romania) supported by the Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities (RIRNM) (Cluj) as associated strategic partner.
A port city at the Danube, Galați enjoys a rich historical past of multiculturalism. The first compact Jewish communities began to develop here in the 17th century, experiencing a rich religious life and traditional institutional organizations with synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, Israeli hospitals and primary schools, craft guilds, charity societies, ritual baths, Hevra Kadishah etc.
East-Central Europe today is one of the richest sites of Jewish cultural heritage. Cradle of vibrant and diverse communities in former centuries, this space bears the history of tragic times, but also an impressive cultural Jewish heritage that shapes the historical identity of the region.