This course will give a broad introduction into the major areas of Jewish heritage, including religious and secular architecture and art, written, oral, and intangible heritage, museums and commemoration sites, current principles and methods of salvaging, documenting, and displaying Jewish heritage, legal ownership and restitution issues, and the place of Jewish heritage in European culture. The material and immaterial testimony of Jewish history in Europe is an inseparable component of the continent’s cultural heritage, yet it calls for considerations of its own. The research, preservation and display of Jewish cultural heritage, which this seminar will explore, can be seen a test case for minority monuments that have often been unclaimed, neglected, or even rejected and suppressed by their environment. The progressive pluralization of European societies after 1989 has kindled a new interest and empathy all over the continent. This rise of awareness is manifest in the proliferation of Jewish museums, heritage routes, and festivals.
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