Home  / CZK24

Reportage: Beyond Prague's “Precious Legacy”: post-communist Jewish exhibits and synagogue restorations in the Czech Republic

Author(s)

Publication Name

Publication Date

Abstract

The 10 Stars project, a linked network of restored or re-restored historic synagogues, associated buildings, and exhibitions in 10 towns around the Czech Republic, is the most ambitious single Jewish heritage project to be carried out in the Czech Republic since the fall of communism. Inaugurated in 2014, it falls within (and is the culmination of) a multifaceted program for Jewish heritage preservation and promotion in that country that was already being implemented in the early 1990s, thanks to the strategic vision of Jewish communal leaders and the active involvement and participation of municipalities, NGOs and others. As a result, in the past quarter century, the Czech Republic has seen the restoration of more than 65 synagogues, as well as the creation of regional Jewish museums and the installation of many local exhibits on Jewish history and heritage. This essay examines elements of the strategic process that achieved these results and shows how the various stages of its implementation led up to the 10 Stars.

Topics

Genre

Geographic Coverage

Original Language

Volume/Issue

45(2-3)

Page Number

264-278

Related

Introduction: New Jewish museums in post-communist Europe (Part of same volume)
Reportage: Beyond Prague's “Precious Legacy”: post-communist Jewish exhibits and synagogue restorations in the Czech Republic (Part of same volume)
From Restored Past to Unsettled Present: New Challenges for Jewish Museums in East Central Europe (Part of same volume)
Reportage: Small exhibits, major steps: four post-Soviet Jewish museums (Part of same volume)
Staging Traumatic Memory: Competing Narratives of State Violence in Post-Communist Hungarian Museums (Part of same volume)
Inside the Museum: The Jewish Museum of Chisinău (Kishinev) (Part of same volume)
The Square of Polish Innocence: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw and its symbolic topography (Part of same volume)
Inside the Museum: Curating between hope and despair: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews (Part of same volume)
Inside the Museum: Nothing is going to change? Adaptation of the Jewish Pre-Burial House in Gliwice (Part of same volume)
Inside the Museum: Galicia Jewish Museum: Re-defining the role of the Jewish museum in a post-communist Poland (Part of same volume)
Reportage: Romania and its Jewish museums (Part of same volume)
The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow: Judaism for the masses (Part of same volume)
The shtetl in the museum: representing Jews in the eras of Stalin and Putin (Part of same volume)
Inside the Museum: Torahs, Tanks, and Tech: Moscow's Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center (Part of same volume)
Inside the Museum: The Museum of Jewish History in Russia, Moscow (Part of same volume)
Inside the Museum: A Museum in a museum—the experience of exhibiting Jewish collections in the Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg (Part of same volume)
Inside the Museum: When Orthodox synagogue meets museum: the New Jewish Community Museum in Bratislava (Part of same volume)
In search of a liberal polity: the Rukh Council of Nationalities, the Jewish question, and Ukrainian independence (Part of same volume)
Reportage: The Bukharan-Jewish Museum in Samarkand: memory preservation of a rapidly-diminishing community (Part of same volume)

DOI

Link

Link to article (paywalled), Reportage: Beyond Prague's “Precious Legacy”: post-communist Jewish exhibits and synagogue restorations in the Czech Republic

Bibliographic Information

Gruber, Ruth Ellen Reportage: Beyond Prague's “Precious Legacy”: post-communist Jewish exhibits and synagogue restorations in the Czech Republic. East European Jewish Affairs. 2015: 264-278.  https://archive.jpr.org.uk/10.1080/13501674.2015.1061919