Lo Tishkach Works to List All European Jewish Cemeteries

Lo Tishkach Works to List All European Jewish Cemeteries & Laws That Affect Them
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) The Lo Tishkach (Hebrew: ‘do not forget’) Foundation European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative was founded in 2006 as a joint project of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The Foundation's goal is to guarantee the effective and lasting preservation and protection of Jewish cemeteries and mass graves throughout the European continent.

This is hardly the first such effort, but it may be the best organized to date, though according to Executive Director Philip Carmel, the Foundation works on a tight budget, and is dependent on a small staff and the efforts of many volunteers. One of the biggest challenges since 2006 has been to gain the trust of and forge partnerships with the many local regional and countrywide organizations that have already invested heavily in time, labor and funds in the documentation of Jewish cemeteries and in some cases, organizing their protection and preservation. Carmel notes that this is not a competitive effort but a cooperative one. The number of Jewish cemeteries in Europe remains unknown, but with 8,593 already listed in Lo Tishkach's database, it seems certain that more than 10,000 sites will eventually be identified. Just listing the cemeteries and trying to gain some little information about them is a difficult job, and keeping track of even a part of these is an almost impossible task. There is room for everyone's participation.

I should know, since I've probably been as involved in this work over the past twenty years as anyone. Through my work with the World Monuments Fund, and then as Research Director of the US Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, I've helped organize countrywide inventories and site surveys of Jewish cemeteries in a dozen countries. I'm delighted that there will now be a central place where this information and more up-to-date reports can be processed, stored and made public. More importantly, since Lo Tishkach is affiliated with the Conference of European Rabbis, there is hope for establishing some consistent standards for documentation and conservation. Now, efforts are often haphazard, and so-called conservation and preservation measures are often destructive rather than protective.

Still, whether Lo Tishkach will become an umbrella organization or part of a network remains to be seen. I think if the project can stay funded and active for a few more years, it will earn its position and the respect and appreciation of other organization,s institutions and the hundreds of Jewish communities across Europe. ISJM has agreed to make its files and lists of cemeteries available to Lo Tishkach for use.

Based in Brussels, Lo Tishkach received its official royal decree formally establishing the organization as a Foundation of Public Utility under Belgian law (no. 899.211.180) in June 2008.

The foundation has set itself two important start-up goals. First, is the creation of a comprehensive publicly-accessible database featuring up to date information on all Jewish burial grounds in Europe. This work obviously builds on previous inventories compiled by the Commission and its partners, and by local Jewish communities and monuments authorities. It is doubtful that any country has a complete list of all Jewish cemeteries, since over time, especially in Western Europe, most pre-modern cemeteries have been lost to memory. In Central and Eastern Europe and in the Balkans the destruction of the Holocaust and the policies of Communism have wiped out traces of hundreds of cemeteries, and added to these are the (often unknown) sites of mass graves.

The second goal is the compilation of a compendium of the different national and international laws and practices affecting these sites, to be used as a starting point to advocate for the better protection and preservation of Europe’s Jewish heritage. This is a policy begun by the Commission in the early 1990s (see the reports I edited with Phyllis Myers on Poland and the Czech Republic). But laws change, and in many countries there are many different types of laws that affect burial sites. These include cultural heritage laws, land use laws, religious practice laws, human rights policies, etc.

Lo Tishkach is systematically attempting to identify all laws in effect for each country and to post these. Gradually, they are being analysis to see their affect upon cemetery protection and preservation. In many cases laws need to be changed - but governments many government have been loathe to do so. Some of these laws are already posted on the Lo Tishkach website. Some reports are not yet posted, but are available from the Foundation. Legislation has currently been obtained for some 15 of the 48 countries in the remit of the project (see the Compendium of Legislation for more details).

According to the Lo Tishkach website: "A third aim of the project is to engage young Europeans in this process, bringing Europe’s history alive, giving a valuable insight into Jewish culture and mobilising young people of all faiths to care for our common heritage. Groups trained by Lo Tishkach will visit Jewish burial sites across Europe, beginning in Poland and Ukraine, gathering vital information on Jewish life and culture in each area and submitting cemetery condition reports that will be used as the basis for actions to preserve and protect these important sites."

The Lo Tishkach European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative founding partners are: The Conference of European Rabbis federates Jewish religious leaders in over 40 European countries and includes all the continent’s chief rabbis and senior rabbinical judges. The CER holds consultancy status as an international non-governmental organisation at the Council of Europe and within the institutions of the European Union.

The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany works to secure compensation and restitution for survivors of the Holocaust and heirs of victims. Since 1951, the Claims Conference – working in partnership with the State of Israel – has negotiated for and distributed payments from Germany, Austria, other governments, and certain industry; recovered unclaimed German Jewish property; and funded programs to assist the neediest Jewish victims of Nazism.

OPERATIONAL PARTNERS

• European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS)
• Foundation for Jewish Cemeteries in Hungary (MAZSIT)
• Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ)
• JewishGen
• Jewish Community of Cyprus
• Jewish Community of Warsaw
• International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS)
• Rabbinic Commission for Cemeteries (Poland)

The Foundation is looking for assistance with the collection of any legislation which does not currently feature in the Compendium, and particularly for those countries for which legislation has not been found. As a guide, appropriate legislation may include that dealing with the protection of monuments, burial sites or war graves.

The Foundation aims to collate all appropriate legislation in both English and the original language, we would also greatly appreciate any voluntary assistance with translation from anyone fluent in an Eastern or Central European language and English.

For further information please e-mail volunteering@lo-tishkach.org or telephone +32 (0) 2 649 11 08.

Cemetery Condition Reports

The foundation also invites volunteers to use the website to fill out forms about visited cemeteries. If you have recently visited a Jewish cemetery anywhere in Europe, or plan to make a visit in the future you can send a Cemetery Update. This inclusive practice is adapted from the policy of the Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, but with the intent of greater scrutiny for consistency and accuracy. If you are interested in volunteering as a Cemetery Condition Officer and submitting reports for a number of cemeteries in your area, please contact volunteering@lo-tishkach.org or telephone +32 (0) 2 649 11 08.

Symposium: The Holocaust Effect in Contemporary Art

Symposium: The Holocaust Effect in Contemporary Art

No single topic has more dominated art by Jews and so-called Jewish art since the 1960s than the Holocaust. Even today, when new themes have begun to surface among Jewish artists; Holocaust images, interpretations, and meditations appear frequently - and increasingly commonplace. At any give time there are at least several - and often dozens - of exhibitions of Holocaust-era art,Holocaust-inspired art, or art the in some ways references to Holocaust.

An upcoming symposium at San Francisco's California College of Art will address the topic of "The Holocaust Effect in Contemporary Art."

Sunday, January 25, 2009
Symposium: The Holocaust Effect in Contemporary Art

2:00 PM – 4:00 PM, reception will follow
Timken Lecture Auditorium, California College of the Arts (CCA), 1111 8th Street, San Francisco

The effect of the Holocaust on the literature of late 20th-early 21st century has been well documented. Its effect on visual representation and the art of the second and third generations only has come to attention more recently. The panel discussion brings together three Bay Area artists all CCA graduates whose recent projects have been infused with the theme of the Holocaust, an art historian and a curator in an attempt to define the new visual parameters of the Holocaust effect.

The symposium is co-sponsored by the California College of the Arts and co-presented by the Holocaust Center of Northern California.

For more information, please contact Allison Green at agreen@magnes.org or 510.549.6950 ext. 337.

A Little History: Controversies on Moving Graves Nothing New

A Little History: Controversies on Moving Graves Nothing New
by Samuel D. Gruber

The controversy in Spain over the excavation of medieval Jewish cemeteries and the removal of the bones is a serious matter - and one that needs to be addressed. But while some action may set precedents, we can also expect no universal agreement over what actions should be taken, and disagreements are likely to be found within the Jewish community, too. This is nothing new, and it should not be assumed that all Jews have always disapproved of the removal of Jewish bones. We know that in antiquity is was common to gather bones and place them in ossuaries, though scholars disagree on how widespread was this practice, and for how long it was maintained. In recent years, some Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe have been accused of selling off parts of cemeteries for income to maintain other (social and religious) programs.

In my research on 19th-century American synagogues, I came across an 1880s dispute within the congregation of Temple Beth El, which had been joined by Congregation Anchi Chesed in 1873. Two years later a move to sell the now-valuable Manhattan cemetery of Anchi Chesed led to a legal challenge within the newly expanded congregation. The dispute was chronicled in the pages of the New York Times. I am preparing a paper about these and other Jewish cemeteires in Manhattan, in which I hope to be able to tell the full story of the Anchi Chesed - Beth El dispute.

Removal of Jewish Cemeteries
(New York Times, March 22, 1875)

A meeting of about twenty members of the Congregation Anchi Chesed was held yesterday morning at the Teutonia Assembly Rooms, to protest against the threatened disinterment of the bodies in the cemeteries in Forty-fifth street and Sixth avenue, and Eighty-ninth street, near Madison avenue. Last week the Congregation of Beth El issued a notice that the Trustees had obtained a permit form the Board of Health for the removal of the bodies to the Union Field Cemetery [a newer cemetery on Long Island]. The members of the Congregation Anchi Chesed are opposed to the measure on the ground that it is contrary to their faith to disturb the bones of the dead, and complain that the only motive of the Congregation Beth-El is to dispose of the land to the highest bidder. The claim of the Congregation Beth-El to the ground is founded in its consolidation with the Anchi Chesed two years ago, when a magnificent temple, costing $250,000 was built for the joint membership. It is now sought to pay off a heavy debt on this structure by the proceeds of the sale of the graveyards. This will be contested by the old members of the Congregation Anchi Chesed, who claim the deeds for the lots stand in their names, and that the other society have no right whatever to them. The grounds are valued at from sixty to eighty thousand dollars. The meeting yesterday was presided over by Mr. Heiman, who stated its object and spoke, in indignant terms of the proposed desecration of the graves of their relatives and friends. After remarks of a like tenor by others, a committee of three was appointed to engage counsel and take other steps to frustrate the plans of the Congregation Beth-El. The meeting was then adjourned until Wednesday evening, to meet at No. 98 Avenue C.

On March 29, 1875 a longer article appeared in the New York Times

A Congregational Controversy: The Removal of the Jewish Cemeteries - Opposed by the Anchi Chesed, and Favored by the Adas Jeshurun - An Appeal to the Law Intended

A bitter controversy is now going on between the two parties composing the Jewish congregation of Beth El, which now owns the magnificent temple on Lexington Avenue. The Beth-El is an amalgamation of two congregations, that of Anchi Chesed, formerly worshiping in Norfolk Street, and a body formerly worshiping in an edifice in Thirty-ninth street, then called the temple Adas Jeshurun...[a detailed history of the acquisition of the contested cemetery plots and their history follow, and a repetition of the week's earlier article, with a list of Anchi Chesed members likely to take legal action.]

Five years later, the matter still seems unresolved, but the disinterment appears to be moving ahead. An article in the Times of February 28, 1880, reads:

Reinterring Jewish Dead

The Trustees of the Temple Beth-El, Sixty-third-street and Lexington Avenue, recently adopted a resolution to the effect that the remains of the persons now buried in the cemetery at Eighty-ninth-street near Madison avenue, should be disinterred on and after March 8, 1880, and removed to the new Union Fields Cemetery of the congregation, there to be reinterred in an appropriate manner. The old cemetery in Eighty-ninth-street occupies a plot about 100 feet long by 50 feet wide near Madison-avenue, and contains 53 graves with head-stones and a number of others unmarked. The cemetery has not been used for the past 25 years, is overgrown with grass and weeds, and bears a generally neglected appearance. It was originally opened in 1839 by the congregation Anchi Chesed, which in 1852-3 [??] became the Temple Beth-El. The new burial grounds to which the bodies from the old cemetery will be transferred are pleasantly located near the Brooklyn Water-works. D. Kohns, Secretary of the congregation, stated to a TIMES reporter yesterday that the removal of the bodies would be made as expeditiously as possible. Relatives of the deceased who prefer reinterment to be made in their own cemetery plots are expected to give notice of the fact to the Secretary. In case the relatives cannot be ascertained or are too poor to meet the necessary expense of reinterment in a a separate plot, the congregation will provide for them. Mr. Kohns said that the old Eighty-ninth street cemetery has been used only about 15 years, from 1839 to 1855, and that there was consequently very little history connected with it. There will be no ceremonies attending the reinterment.

Spain: Barcelona Museum Hosts Seminar on Jewish Cemeteries

Spain: Barcelona Museum Hosts Seminar on Jewish Cemeteries
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) The Museum of History of Barcelona will host the two-day conference "Archaeological Intervention on Historical Necropolises: Jewish Cemeteries" on January 15th and 16th, 2009. This is a timely topic, given the current controversy about the medieval Jewish cemetery at Toledo.

The mission of the museum "is the reassessment of the historic heritage of Barcelona, whether the items are movable or immovable. In other words, the museum is responsible for the conservation, research, and dissemination of the objects and buildings that are significant for our collective history and that exemplify the city's past... the best city museum is the city itself, and that it is in its streets, squares, and buildings where we can interpret the passage of time and the interaction of the men and women that have made, throughout the centuries, today's Barcelona possible"

According to the program, the seminar has been organized because:

The artistic, historical and cultural heritage forms an asset which, following its institutional recognition and classification, is safeguarded by the public administrations. This heritage, formed by elements and ensembles which the successive historical legacies have left in a territory,consists of very different types of cultural goods in which the respective collectives as a whole recognise themselves. In the case of the medieval Jewish legacy, Barcelona has recently opened the Barcelona Jewish Quarter Information Centre and the city also possesses an important Jewish necropolis on Montjuic hill. These are historical expressions of a period in the city's past when the Jewish community played a highly significant role.

The Jewish inheritance is a valuable legacy of Barcelona which is being added progressively to the city's visible heritage. For this reason, before acting on the necropolis of Monjuic, it is appropriate to sediment [sic] the legal and scientific arguments which will allow action to be taken there will all due rigour and the necessary sensitivity. This conference, which is open to all interested persons and which will be welcoming experts and professionals from different places in the world, proposes to analyze the vicissitudes experienced in other actions on Jewish necropolises, and then to approach the case of Barcelona from the legal and scientific standpoints.

The need for forums in Catalonia and throughout the rest of Spain for discussion of issues related to the documentation, protection, preservation and presentation of Jewish heritage is great, therefore the scheduling of this conference in Barcelona is important. I fear, however, that the views expressed by the invited experts may not reflect a representative sample of opinion. The very wording of the statement of purpose of the seminar, which sets out to examine the question of the Barcelona Jewish cemetery from a "legal and scientific" standpoints suggests that others approaches - religious, ethical, moral, historical and cultural - may get short shrift. I hope not. These approaches need to be considered as part of archaeology, too.

The seminar features presentations from distinguished speakers - many of whom I admire greatly. From the program, however, it appears that the bulk of presentations are by archaeologists - some of whom are on record as being dissatisfied with resolutions where human remains from medieval cemeteries have been re-interred, or those in the field of heritage site management. There is no presentation of Jewish law or tradition from a scholar or authority on Jewish burial practices to provide appropriate balance. There is participation of one representative from the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain on the round table "Models and protocols of intervention on medieval cemeteries in Catalonia." Given that the Federation recently signed a protocol (since rejected) which would have allowed the essentially unhindered excavation of cemeteries in favor of development projects, this particular representation does necessarily speak to the protection of cemetery sites. Without the discussion of the religious factors and inclusion of religious viewpoints as part of the discussion, any solutions proposed from the seminar are bound to be questioned and are likely to fail. Including all sides in the discussion is, of course, a messy business. But so is digging up cemeteries.

The seminar organizers seem to accept a priori that the Jewish cemetery in Barcelona (and by association, all other such cemeteries in the region) is first and foremost an archaeological site and can and should be considered as part of the archaeological heritage of the region. Even the seminar speakers who I can recognize as being Jewish come from mostly an archaeological background, or are professionally engaged in the presentation of archaeological sites.

I would put forward the claim the Montjuic is not an archaeological site - but a religious, historical, cultural and urban site - both sacred and communal - and therefore needs to be considered under a different set of assumptions, standards and expectations than archaeological sites.

True, many archaeological techniques of survey, mapping, testing, conservation and interpretation can be applied at Montjuic, without excavation of the human remains. This is the type of "scientific" work that should be proposed and pursued.

I hope that the conference will be recorded and/or transcribed. The presentation will certainly be important contribution to the continuing discussions on how to interpret and preserve the medieval Jewish heritage in Spain.