World Monuments Fund 2012 Watch List -- two Jewish interest sites

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Two sites of Jewish interest are included in the 2012 Watch List issued by the World Monuments Fund. Initiated in 1996, the Watch List is published every two years to call international attention to cultural heritage around the globe that is at risk from the forces of nature and the impact of social, political, and economic change.

The 2012 list includes the Portuguese (Sephardic) Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk, in The Netherlands, famous for is distinctive carved tombstones.

Portuguese Jews settled in Amsterdam after fleeing persecution in Spain in the sixteenth century. Although northern Europe was tolerant during this violent period, the Portuguese Jews were refused a Jewish cemetery in the city. The community instead purchased land 31 miles from Amsterdam in 1614 at the confluence of the Bullewijk and Amstel rivers. Beth Haim covers 10 acres and has over 27,500 graves from over four centuries. The Portuguese Jewish community thrived in Amsterdam until the early twentieth century, and Beth Haim, which means “house of life,” is replete with refined carvings and inscriptions devoted to the dead.

The location of the cemetery at the confluence of two rivers has led to significant water issues, compounded by a lack of regular maintenance. The local community today is committed to the preservation of the cemetery, but resources are limited. Open for public tours and in close proximity to Amsterdam, the local stewards of the site strive to raise public awareness and preserve the site for future generations.

The other site is in Macedonia -- the ruins of the ancient city of Stobi, which include traces of two synagogues, one on top of the other: one dates from the 2nd or 3rd century, the other from the 4th century. Among the finds is a well-preserved mosaic floor with Jewish symbolism.

Stobi lies at the confluence of the Crna and Vardar Rivers, and was an important urban, military, administrative, trade, and religious center of the Roman and early Byzantine empires. Thought to have been first inhabited in the sixth century B.C., significant urban development and demographic expansion occurred from the first to third centuries A.D. and Stobi continued to develop and expand until it was abandoned around the turn of the seventh century. The archaeological remains within the city walls occupy 27 hectares on three terraces that slope towards the Crna; suburbs and cemeteries are located outside the city walls. The site contains 26 exposed buildings, including a theater, synagogue, palaces, houses, basilicas, and baths, and has been excavated for nearly a century. Due to poor site drainage, Stobi is constantly threatened by flooding and rising subterranean water, and lacks an integrated plan for research, conservation, interpretation, and community engagement.

Stobi is one of the most significant and well-known archaeological sites in the Republic of Macedonia and provides insight into the historical events, material culture, and urban planning of the Hellenistic, Roman, and early Christian settlements in the area. A management plan is needed to guide continued research, protection, and tourism development.

Macedonia -- Good Review of New Holocaust Museum

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Economist magazine gives a good review of the new Holocaust/Jewish Museum in Skopje, Macedonia.

The first thing that greets visitors to the museum is a memorial with digital photo frames with changing pictures of the dead, including 3,500 identity photos which the Bulgarians demanded from the Bitola Jews. The museum is not yet finished but today its main exhibition charts the history, not just of Macedonia’s Sephardic Jews, but also those of other parts of the Balkans and especially the former Yugoslavia. What is striking, in comparison with the museums in Paris and Berlin, say, is the lack of objects. The community was wiped out so comprehensively that virtually nothing remained, says Mr Sadikarijo.

For decades the spot where the new museum stands was a rough patch of ground that served as a bus station. The whole area, which was more or less empty, was the old Jewish quarter of Skopje, many of whose remaining houses collapsed in a devastating earthquake in 1963. When the Macedonian government began its post-communist programme of returning property nearly a decade ago, it was found that there were no heirs to much of the former Jewish property. So a fund was established, which in turn created the museum.

The memory of this community has been saved from oblivion in a way that is neither flashy, political, nor full of raw emotion. Perhaps it will serve as an exemplary model of sober remembrance in the Balkans in years to come.

Macedonia -- New Holocaust Museum Opens

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

There have been several articles about the opening of the new Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Skopje, Macedonia last week -- the opening marks an important step in coming to terms with the past and also was made possible by a landmark decision on post-Holocaust compensation.

The Forward writes:

The inspiration for the center came from Ivan Dejanov, president of the Macedonian Israeli Friendship Association, and its implementation has been led by principal consultant and Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum and by Victor Mizrahi, honorary consul of Israel in the Republic of Macedonia. It became possible, however, only with the enactment of the Law on Denationalization, which allows for restitution of money and property rights of Jews, even those without living heirs. The Macedonian government allocated 17 million euros to the Holocaust Fund for the Jews of Macedonia, and this eventually went toward the completion of the center and helped in the construction of the country’s only synagogue, in 2000. “It is almost unprecedented for a government to have acted in this way,” Mais said. “It’s an exemplary phenomenon.”

 It says:

The official celebrations marked only the first phase of the center. A special children’s museum will open in the complex in March 2012, to be followed by the permanent exhibition, in March 2013. The completion of all phases of the project coincides with “Skopje 2014,” a $273 million initiative to transform the city into a competitive European capital and rebuild its infrastructure after a 1963 earthquake that destroyed about 80% of the city’s architecture.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/136212/#ixzz1Gz1hi9FY

 There are about 200 Jews in Macedonia -- I was present at the inauguration of Skopje's little synagogue in 2000 and have posted about other efforts to restore Jewish heritage.

Macedonia --Jewish Cemetery in Shtip to be Restored

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Good news -- the web site balkantravellers.com reports that the abandoned Jewish cemetery in Shtip (or Stip) Macedonia will be restored. Announcement of the project was made last month by the Institute and Museum of Shtip, which is in eastern Macedonia.

“The money for the reconstruction project was secured by the government, and with the project the Jewish cemetery will become a monument of culture,” Zaran Chitkushev, head of the Shtip Institute and Museum told the Dnevnik newspaper today.

The project involves the building of parking lots, pedestrian alleyways, benches, monuments, and the whole area of 14,000 square metres will be fenced by a wall.

“We are in constant contact with the European community in Macedonia. We will also invite an archaeologist from Israel as an associate,” Chitkushev added.

According to the jewish-heritage-europe.eu web site, there are about 120 gravestones still visible in the cemetery, but all have been vandalized and heavily damaged. There are probably many fragments scattered along the slope.

UPDATE -- Sam Gruber has posted pictures of the Stip cemetery -- click HERE.

Jewish settled in Stip in the 16th century -- as in much of the region, they were Sephardic Jews fleeing Iberia. In 1943, along with almost all the other Jews of Macedonia, the 560 Jews in Stip were deported to Treblinka death camp.

There is a Holocaust memorial in Stip, but as far as I know, no Jews live in the town anymore -- or maybe there are one or two still there. Eight or nine years ago, when I was in Macedonia for the annual ceremony marking the anniversary of the deportation of Macedonian Jews, I met a man who was described at the time as the last Jew in Stip....

Today, about 200 Jews lived in Macedonia, virtually all of them in the capital, Skopje, where there is a small, functioning synagogue. A Holocaust memorial museum and education center is under construction.

Elsewhere in Macedonia, renovation of the gateway to the historic Jewish cemetery in Bitola was recently completed -- see pictures on Sam Gruber's blog.