Abstract: In the twenty-first century, Rome’s former Jewish Ghetto has experienced rapid “foodification,” in which food businesses come to dominate a previously residential or mixed-use neighborhood. Why and how has foodification taken place in Rome’s former Ghetto, and how unique is this case? What can this example teach us about foodification as a phenomenon? Foodification is influenced by broader forces, including gentrification, but is also affected by factors particular to this neighborhood. These include Jewish heritage tourism; religious dietary laws; and a growing curiosity about hyper-local food, such as cucina ebraico-romanesca (Jewish-Roman cuisine), and about dishes outside the Italian canon. Jewish-style and kosher restaurants have developed to stimulate and satisfy multiple demands, serving “traditional” Jewish-Roman dishes; Middle-Eastern and North African dishes; new interpretations of popular Italian dishes; and kosher versions of international foods popular in Italy, like hamburgers and sushi rolls. Contrary to the idea that this diversity threatens the Jewish-Roman tradition, I argue that the neighborhood’s foodscape reflects the variety of communities and tastes in contemporary Rome, where local specialties persist alongside a wide range of other options. This article argues that although foodification is often connected to gentrification and tourism, it should be distinguished from these phenomena. By asking how the former Ghetto’s new restaurants communicate heritage and identity, I demonstrate that foodification can take place in ways that are specific to a particular neighborhood, and that the food has become one of the major means by which the former Ghetto’s past and present character is articulated in Rome.
Abstract: Visitor Experience at Holocaust Memorials and Museums is the first volume to offer comprehensive insights into visitor reactions to a wide range of museum exhibitions, memorials, and memory sites.
Drawing exclusively upon empirical research, chapters within the book offer critical insights about visitor experience at museums and memory sites in the United States, Poland, Austria, Germany, France, the UK, Norway, Hungary, Australia, and Israel. The contributions to the volume explore visitor experience in all its complexity and argue that visitors are more than just "learners". Approaching visitor experience as a multidimensional phenomenon, the book positions visitor experience within a diverse national, ethnic, cultural, social, and generational context. It also considers the impact of museums’ curatorial and design choices, visitor motivations and expectations, and the crucial role emotions play in shaping understanding of historical events and subjects. By approaching visitors as active interpreters of memory spaces and museum exhibitions, Popescu and the contributing authors provide a much-needed insight into the different ways in which members of the public act as "agents of memory", endowing this history with personal and collective meaning and relevance.
Visitor Experience at Holocaust Memorials and Museums offers significant insights into audience motivation, expectation, and behaviour. It is essential reading for academics, postgraduate students and practitioners with an interest in museums and heritage, visitor studies, Holocaust and genocide studies, and tourism.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Visitors at Holocaust Museums and Memory sites
Diana I. Popescu
Part I: Visitor Experience in Museum Spaces
Mobile Memory; or What Visitors Saw at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Michael Bernard-Donals
Visitor Emotions, Experientiality, Holocaust, and Human Rights: TripAdvisor Responses to the Topography of Terror (Berlin) and the Kazerne Dossin (Mechelen)
Stephan Jaeger
"Really made you feel for the Jews who went through this terrible time in History" Holocaust Audience Re-mediation and Re-narrativization at the Florida Holocaust Museum
Chaim Noy
Understanding Visitors’ Bodily Engagement with Holocaust Museum Architecture: A Comparative Empirical Research at three European Museums
Xenia Tsiftsi
Attention Please: The Tour Guide is Here to Speak Out. The Role of the Israeli Tour Guide at Holocaust Sites in Israel
Yael Shtauber, Yaniv Poria, and Zehavit Gross
The Impact of Emotions, Empathy, and Memory in Holocaust exhibitions: A Study of the National Holocaust Centre & Museum in Nottinghamshire, and the Jewish Museum in London
Sofia Katharaki
The Affective Entanglements of the Visitor Experience at Holocaust Sites and Museums
Adele Nye and Jennifer Clark
Part II: Digital Engagement Inside and Outside the Museum and Memory Site
"…It no longer is the same place": Exploring Realities in the Memorial Falstad Centre with the ‘Falstad Digital Reconstruction and V/AR Guide’
Anette Homlong Storeide
"Ways of seeing". Visitor response to Holocaust Photographs at ‘The Eye as Witness: Recording the Holocaust’ Exhibition
Diana I. Popescu and Maiken Umbach
Dachau from a Distance: The Liberation during The COVID-19 Pandemic
Kate Marrison
Curating the Past: Digital Media and Visitor Experiences at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Christoph Bareither
Diversity, Digital Programming, and the Small Holocaust Education Centre: Examining Paths and Obstacles to Visitor Experience
Laura Beth Cohen and Cary Lane
Part III: Visitors at Former Camp Sites
The Unanticipated Visitor: A Case Study of Response and Poetry at Sites of Holocaust Memory
Anna Veprinska
"Did you have a good trip?" Young people’s Reflections on Visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and the Town of Oświęcim
Alasdair Richardson
Rewind, Relisten, Rethink: The Value of Audience Reception for Grasping Art’s Efficacy
Tanja Schult
"The value of being there" -Visitor Experiences at German Holocaust Memorial Sites
Doreen Pastor
"Everyone Talks About the Wind": Temporality, Climate, and the More-than Representational Landscapes of the Mémorial du Camp de Rivesaltes
Ian Cantoni
Guiding or Obscuring? Visitor Engagement with Treblinka’s Audio Guide and Its Sonic Infrastructure
Kathryn Agnes Huether
Abstract: This article focuses on the management of heritage and cultural tourism related to the complex identity of minority groups, where different components tend to produce different visions and practices. It highlights the impacts of globalized transnational networks and influences on political, cultural and religious identities and affiliations over long distances. In fact, diverse views, approaches, perceptions and representations may lead to disagreement and conflicts even within apparently compact ethnic or religious communities. The issues related to dissonant heritage management strategies and the related authorized heritage discourse, in terms of unbalanced power relations and diverging narratives, are considered. The theme of Jewish heritage tourism (J.H.T) is analysed, with a focus on the case of Syracuse, Italy. This historically cosmopolitan and multicultural city specializes in cultural tourism and tends to develop niche products, including J.H.T, in order to strengthen and diversify its international cultural destination status. Different components of the Jewish world, as well as non-Jewish stakeholders, practice different approaches to heritage tourism. Actors, discourses and reasons behind Jewish culture management and promotion will be highlighted and the reactions, perceptions and suggestions by the various stakeholders and groups involved will be portrayed, with the aim of contributing to the discussion about the complexity of niche heritage tourism processes in a multi-ethnic site.
Abstract: The article examines intercultural perception during the Hasidic pilgrimage in Ukraine on the examples of Uman and Medzhybizh. Pilgrimage is defined as a form of religious tourism, which is specifically expressed in the role of the sacred - the pilgrims do not need encounters with the Other (cross-cultural interaction), they search for the direct presence by the sacred object. Taking into account the closed character of this religious community, methodical emphasis of the research was made on semi-structured interviews with the locals (24 interviews in Medzhybizh, 10 interviews in Uman) and several Hasids (1 in Medzhybizh and 2 in Uman), as well as annual observations in Uman during the pilgrimage period in 2009-2012. The research gives ground to assert the existence of the conceptual differences in the perception of pilgrims by the locals of two mentioned settlements. Two basic topics are revealed in the perception of the phenomenon of pilgrimage: violation of the residents' comfort zone (leading theme in interviews with the locals) and a source of income for the population of Ukraine (one of the basic themes in interviews with the Hasids). The findings suggest that local residents perceive pilgrims mostly under the phase of «culture shock» or «honeymoon» phase, according to the three-phase concept of cross-cultural perception, offered by Furnhem and Bochner. This is facilitated by the multiplying image of an «eccentric pilgrim» in Ukrainian mass media and, at the same time, short-term nature of pilgrimage, closeness of the Hasidic community and consistent policy of mutual segregation. It is suggested that personal contacts with pilgrims affect more positive perception of pilgrimage, in a whole. Pilot interviews with the Hasids reveal that residents are perceived by pilgrims rather fragmentary: as landlords of apartments or representatives of the local Jewish community. Spatial isolationism, which accompanies the pilgrimage, narrows the possibilities for cross-cultural interactions.
Abstract: This dissertation illustrates how a moral burden of history manifests itself in social relationships, cultural processes, and material products. Specifically, it argues that what appears to many as a superficial, commercially motivated revival of Jewishness in Poland is also a significant joint venture between non-Jewish Poles and Jewish visitors to Poland in exploring inter-ethnic memory-building and reconciliation. The findings are based on 18 months of ethnographic research in the historical Jewish quarter (Kazimierz) in Krakow, Poland, with further research in Israel and the United States among diaspora Jews. My research reveals that the notion of uniform Holocaust tourism disguises a movement to contest lachrymose conceptions of Jewishness as victimhood. I document a sense of Jewish connection to Poland---overlooked in mainstream discourses---that animates new generations of Jews and Poles to seek each other out. Similarly, much of the Jewish revival in Kazimierz is orchestrated by non-Jewish Poles. I show how they use identification with Jewishness to reconfigure their own Polishness and their visions for a pluralistic Polish nation state. I conclude that (1) popular cultural products, practices, and spaces can be important manifestations of---and tools for---moral reckoning; (2) identification with someone else's ethnicity/religion (often called appropriation) can be understood as an enlargement of, rather than an escape from, the self, and (3) Kazimierz in Krakow represents the cutting edge of Polish-Jewish relations via local grassroots culture brokers who use Jewishness to expand the Polish universe of obligation.
Abstract: В работе проанализированы особенности организации религиозного туризма евреев хасидского направления в Украине. Акцентированы особенности локализации сакральных мест хасидов, которые приурочены в основном к местам захоронений еврейских праведников и проповедников. Детально охарактеризованы хасидские религиозные святыни г. Умань (могила цадика Нахмана), пгт. Меджибож (могила основателя хасидизма Баал-Шем-Това), а также прочие крупные еврейские религиозные дестинации, расположенные на Подолье, Закарпатье, западной Украине и т.д. Отдельно рассмотрены центры паломничества евреев к местам массового уничтожения населения в период Холокоста и немецко-фашистской оккупации. Детально рассмотрены современные религиозные центры еврейской общины, созданные для проведения религиозно-культовых мероприятий.
Определены основные проблемы развития хасидского религиозного туризма в Украине. Среди них следует особо выделить отсутствие серьезных научных исследований, касающихся выявления, определения ценности и демаркации еврейских сакральных мест паломничества, а также недостаточно развитую законодательную базу, которая бы обеспечила надлежащую правовую защиту и охрану объектов еврейского паломничества.
Среди серьезных угроз развития еврейского религиозного туризма можно также выделить опасность полного уничтожения и застройки сакральных мест и объектов паломничества, использование их территории в хозяйственных или иных нерелигиозных целях, вандализм. Также возникают дополнительные угрозы исчезновения сакральных мест в результате природных процессов запустения, эрозии, выветривания. Также, среди общих проблем туризма еврейскими сакральными местами в Украине можно выделить отсутствие развитой туристской инфраструктуры соответствующего уровня, плохую транспортную доступность недостаточное экскурсионное обеспечение. Насущной проблемой остается наличие религиозных и этнических конфликтов.
Для решения насущных проблем, следует выполнить целый ряд задач общегосударственного и регионального характера. Среди них ключевое значение имеет поиск еврейских сакральных мест на территории Украины и определение религиозной ценности. Необходима также передача прав собственности на объекты паломничества представителям региональных еврейских религиозных общин, заключение соглашения о поддержке данных мест в надлежащем состоянии. Для развития еврейского религиозного туризма нужно создать соответствующую инфраструктуру надлежащего уровня, которая бы удовлетворяла потребности туристов и паломников, а также разработать программы по созданию культурно- просветительских центров на базе этих мест.
Abstract: The good air transport links with most major European cities and Malta, has led to an increase in tourists from all over the world. This has also led to an increase in tourists of the Jewish faith. These tend to be mainly coming from North America, and the cultural tours that are planned for them, always provide a number of visits to Jewish related historical and cultural locations. The itineraries that are planned make sure that the Jewish heritage on the islands is visited. What are these locations that attract the attention of Jewish visitors to Malta?
The earliest mention of a Jewish community in Malta is securely dated to the first centuries of the Common Era. In various underground burial places, around the old capital city of Malta, there are catacombs with Jewish symbols carved on the walls of burial places. These tend to confirm the presence of a substantial Jewish community in Malta. The fate of this community is not known. The 13th century sees Abraham Abulafia, considered as a prophet, living in Malta and presumably dying here. Documentary evidence from the 13th century, point to a small Jewish community living here. By the 15th century it is clearly evident that there was a Jewish community, forming part, and taking part within the everyday life of Medieval Malta. Jews were to be recorded in Malta throughout the following centuries.
There are cemeteries dating from the 4th and 6th centuries, and others from the 19th century onwards. There is an indication of where the Jewish Silk Market was located during the Medieval times. Nowadays, pilgrimages are taking on a different aspect. The religious aspect of such a visit is not of great importance, while visiting places associated with the Jewish communities in Malta throughout the centuries, is of great significance. This can be referred to as nostalgic pilgrimage, and not necessarily a religious and spiritual pilgrimage. This is part of a cultural type of pilgrimage, identifying with previous communities of the same religious views.
Abstract: Introduction: The importance of multiculturalism for the development of tourism, consistently emphasized in the literature, shows the long history and rich tradition of this form of tourism. Poland has
historically been a land of transition between East and West, a land where different cultures have existed
side by side: German, Jewish, Polish, and Russian. For centuries Poland was a meeting place of different
religions and cultures and today’s landscape still shows evidence of this. The catastrophe of World War II
brought the annihilation of a multicultural society and created a homogeneity, unprecedented in our history.
Jewish heritage and urban cultural tourism: In their almost 2000-year diaspora, Jews have been
present in Poland for eight hundred years: from the early middle ages until the Holocaust, the annihilation during World War II. The Jews were distinguished from other community groups by their religion,
language, customs, art and architecture. In the interwar period of the 20th century, Poland was home to
the largest Jewish community in Europe, distinguished by its enormous cultural and intellectual vitality.
Pandemic time: The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the tourism sector hard, and travel
restrictions still apply to us. Therefore, it is necessary to verify the forecasts and prepare new recommendations for cultural tourism destinations during and after the pandemic.
Conclusions: Recently there has been a revival of interests in Jewish heritage and many tourists
(both domestic and foreign) want to explore Jewish culture and remaining monuments of the past.
Despite pandemic time restrictions it is also possible, however new actions and policy are required to
secure sanitary recommendations and rebuild consumer confidence.
Abstract: Culture is the cornerstone where societies have always supported their respective identities. It is a way of life, as long as it expresses not only the values, but also the education, the art, and the daily life of all those who live and work in a society. Thessaloniki has been a multicultural city, gathering populations from different nations and religions over time. The city was a refuge destination for many persecuted Jews in Europe, between 1492 and 1943, which led to the creation of a large Jewish community. As a result, the long tradition combined with the several elements of Jewish cultural interest attracts a large number of tourists from Israel every year. This paper presents the main research results conducted in Thessaloniki regarding tourists’ from Israel motivations and characteristics, but also their main elements of interest. Thessaloniki has all the essential elements, such as history, tradition, monuments, infrastructure, and services for the development of cultural tourism. These, however, need to be improved, so that the city of Thessaloniki becomes a more popular tourist destination for Israelis.
Abstract: Throughout the Middle Ages, Jewish quarters, known as juderías, were vibrant spaces in Navarrese cities and towns. However, although Jewish past significantly contributed to Navarre's historical identity and has occupied an important place in regional historiography, Jewish heritage has only recently awakened interest in historians, archaeologists and local councils. This article aims to carry out case studies of three different juderías, specifically in Tudela, Estella and Pamplona, as cultural and tourist assets and discuss the weaknesses and strengths of their touristic potential. Tudela has been making use of this potential for several years now, while Estella only rather recently began to explore the diverse ways of taking advantage of its latent qualities. On the contrary, to date, Pamplona seems to have totally ignored the Jewish component of its medieval past. This article argues that the (in)visibility of Jewish heritage is an apt indicator of the recognition that supply-side stakeholders give this cultural and touristic asset.
Abstract: Tourism destinations located within rich and complex cultural contexts tend to offer a wide range of different experiences to visitors, spanning from standardized to more alternative ones. The quest for authenticity is central in the construction of tourism image and business, but easily raises questions related to appropriation, commercialization and trivialization. This study focuses on Jewish heritage tourism, a niche segment gradually turning into a mass tourism experience, through a qualitative research made in Krakow, Poland. Jewish-themed tourism in the area has gone through intense growth in spite of its dwindling Jewish population. As a consequence, the representation and consumption of the related heritage mostly occurs independently from the Jewish community itself and shows clear signs of commercial exploitation. The study results show that, in spite of the issues related to simplified narratives and staged practices, commodification, with its partial and functional reconstruction of the past, does not interfere with the religious or secular activities of the Jewish community, which is more pragmatically focused on present-day life.
Abstract: In this article, I discuss what I term “Jewface” minstrelsy performance and “Jewfaçade” display in three contemporary contexts with highly divergent historical backgrounds: East-Central Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Jewish Autonomous Republic, a fictitious-sounding but real colony established by Stalin in far eastern Russia near China and still extant today. Jewface encompasses music, dance, theater, and extra-theatrical modes of performance, in which non-Jews dress up and act like “Jews,” as historically imagined; Jewfaçade encompasses museum-type installations, as well as architectural and decorative constructions, depicting imagined “Jewish” life. These “Diaspora Disneys” vary from the education- and tolerance-oriented to the crassly exploitative and commercial to the bizarrely confused. None have much to do with actual Jews, but all convey a tremendous amount regarding dominant “host” cultures’ anxieties over not only their roles in past persecution and genocide but also their own present cultures, politics, and positions in the wider world today. Further, they present a wide array of models of memoriological projection and desire, in what I explicate as spectra of “plethoric” to “voidic” memoriological scenarios and “negotiatory” to “constitutory” memoriological strategies.
Abstract: A “Jew-themed” restaurant provides its patrons with broad-brimmed black hats with foot-long sidecurls to wear, and the menu has no prices; patrons must bargain, or “Jew,” the staff down. A play billed as a tribute to a lost Jewish community ends in a gag: Death throws back his shroud to reveal an open-brain-pate wig, à la the horror flick Nightmare on Elm Street. In a “traditional Jewish wedding dance,” “Jewish wealth” is represented by a local luxury: vacuum-packed juice boxes. In parts of the world where Jews, once populous, have nearly vanished because of oppression, forced exile, and genocide, non-Jews now strive to re-enact what has been lost. In this essay, I will consider three general cases of what I term “Jewface” minstrelsy and
“Jewfaçade” display, in Krakow, Poland; the village of Hervás in western Spain; and Birobidzhan, capital city of Russia’s far-eastern Jewish Autonomous Region, which is known as Birobidzhan as well. Jewface-resembling the “blackface” prevalent in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries-is the practice of music, dance, theatre, and/or extra-theatrical types of performance, primarily by non-Jews, intended to convey notions of historical Jewish life and culture. Jewfaçade involves architectural and decorative constructions, again mainly by nonJews, meant to evoke ideas of the Jew in similar ways. Ruth Ellen Gruber, the team of Daniela Flesler and Adrian Pérez Melgosa, and other journalists and scholars have documented what Michael Brenner has called “Jewish culture without Jews” in Poland and Spain, as well as elsewhere in Europe (Brenner 1997: 152). However, no comparative study has been made, and no scholar has approached this topic with regard to Birobidzhan. I will provide brief overviews of Jewface and Jewfaçade activities in Krakow, Hervás, and Birobidzhan. I will then demonstrate the ways in which the notions of the figure of the Jew and of local Jewish history are performed, or acted out in these three comparative geographical contexts. These cases, as, in conclusion, I will argue, represent three very different approaches to public memory and memorialization with regard to the Jew, and perhaps in regard to troubled historical legacies more generally.
Abstract: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Jewish socialist movement played a vital role in protecting workers’ rights throughout Europe and the Americas. Yet few traces of this movement or its accomplishments have been preserved or memorialized in Jewish heritage sites.
The Remembered and Forgotten Jewish World investigates the politics of heritage tourism and collective memory. In an account that is part travelogue, part social history, and part family saga, acclaimed historian Daniel J. Walkowitz visits key Jewish museums and heritage sites from Berlin to Belgrade, from Krakow to Kiev, and from Warsaw to New York, to discover which stories of the Jewish experience are told and which are silenced. As he travels to thirteen different locations, participates in tours, displays, and public programs, and gleans insight from local historians, he juxtaposes the historical record with the stories presented in heritage tourism. What he finds raises provocative questions about the heritage tourism industry and its role in determining how we perceive Jewish history and identity. This book offers a unique perspective on the importance of collective memory and the dangers of collective forgetting.
Abstract: Отношение к кладбищам в еврейской традиции амбивалентно: оно является одновременно и сакральным объектом – на идише оно называется «святое место», хейлике орт, – и местом нечистоты, которое связано с нечистотой мертвого тела и может осквернять людей. В статье рассматриваются практики, связанные с паломничеством к могилам хасидских цадиков, распространенные в настоящее время в России, Украине, Израиле и США. В большинстве случаев мы имеем дело с различными вариациями почитания праведников в хасидизме, причем многие индивидуальные практики на могилах цадиков перекликаются с историческими и мемуарными свидетельствами о поклонении этим же людям при их жизни. На могилах оставляют записки с просьбами о помощи, иногда кладут на них монеты и различные предметы, которые требуют благословения. Приходя к месту погребения, соблюдают правила поведения, установленные самими цадиками: не поворачиваются спиной к могиле, снимают кожаную обувь, читают определенные псалмы и молитвы. Отдельно в статье рассматриваются паломнические практики, связанные с субститутами могил праведников: с местами бывших захоронений, перенесенных в другую страну или к могиле жены праведника, которая находится в Иерусалиме.
Abstract: The 2015 law granting Spanish nationality to the descendants of Jews expelled in 1492 is the latest example of a widespread phenomenon in contemporary Spain, the "re-discovery" of its Jewish heritage.
In The Memory Work of Jewish Spain, Daniela Flesler and Adrián Pérez Melgosa examine the implications of reclaiming this memory through the analysis of a comprehensive range of emerging cultural practices, political initiatives and institutions in the context of the long history of Spain's ambivalence towards its Jewish past.
Through oral interviews, analyses of museums, newly reconfigured "Jewish quarters," excavated Jewish sites, popular festivals, tourist brochures, literature and art, The Memory Work of Jewish Spain explores what happens when these initiatives are implemented at the local level in cities and towns throughout Spain, and how they affect Spain's present
Abstract: Krakow's Jews, scattered around the world, reminisce about their hometown. The main reasons for returning to Krakow are recurring images of the past and the urge to see their life story as a coherent whole. The returnees rediscover their hometown through their own traces of memory, although there are shared stops on the way. These are the places associated with their childhood and their family history, but also with the heritage of Krakow's Jews and the Holocaust. Such diverse stops on the trail of memories show dual identity of the city – the city of a once glorious past but also stigmatised by blood, murder and loss. The absence of the families of the murdered Jewish community is equivalent to the lack of natural environment of commemoration. Those returning are looking for a new commemorative milieu, and everyone who remembers will also become part of it (e.g. their school friends, teachers, neighbours etc.). Finally, the returnees are coming back home – to the house where they were born, but one that is not home anymore.
Abstract: Lelov, an otherwise quiet village about fifty miles south of Cracow (Poland), is where Rebbe Dovid (David) Biederman founder of the Lelov ultra-orthodox (Chasidic) Jewish group, - is buried. His grave is now a focal point of the Chasidic pilgrimages. The pilgrims themselves are a Chasidic hodgepodge, dressed in fur-brimmed hats, dreadlocked, and they all come to Lelov for the same reasons: to pray, love, and eat with their brethren. The number of pilgrims has grown exponentially since the collapse of Communism in Poland in 1989; today about three hundred ultra-orthodox Jews make a trek. Mass pilgrimage to kevorim (Chasidic graves), is quite
a new phenomenon in Eastern Europe but it has already became part of Chasidic identity.
This thesis focuses on the Chasidic pilgrimage which has always been a major part of the Jewish tradition. However, for the past fifty years, only a devoted few have been able to undertake trips back to Poland. With the collapse of Communism, when the sites in Eastern and Central Europe became more open and much more accessible, the ultra-orthodox Jews were among the first to create a ‘return movement’. Those who had been the last to leave Poland in search of asylum are now becoming the initiators of the re-discovery of Jewish symbols in this part of the world.
Abstract: How are local understandings of identity, relatedness, and belonging transformed in a global era? How does international tourism affect possibilities for who one can become?
In urban Portugal today, hundreds of individuals trace their ancestry to 15th century Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism, and many now seek to rejoin the Jewish people as a whole. For the most part, however, these self-titled Marranos ("hidden Jews") lack any direct experience of Jews or Judaism, and Portugal's tiny, tightly knit Jewish community offers no clear path of entry. According to Jewish law, to be recognized as a Jew one must be born to a Jewish mother or pursue religious conversion, an anathema to those who feel their ancestors' Judaism was cruelly stolen from them. After centuries of familial Catholicism, and having been refused inclusion locally, how will these self-declared ancestral Jews find belonging among "the Jewish family," writ large? How, that is, can people rejected as strangers face-to-face become members of a global imagined community - not only rhetorically, but experientially?
Leite addresses this question through intimate portraits of the lives and experiences of a network of urban Marranos who sought contact with foreign Jewish tourists and outreach workers as a means of gaining educational and moral support in their quest. Exploring mutual imaginings and direct encounters between Marranos, Portuguese Jews, and foreign Jewish visitors, Unorthodox Kin deftly tracks how visions of self and kin evolve over time and across social spaces, ending in an unexpected path to belonging. In the process, the analysis weaves together a diverse set of current anthropological themes, from intersubjectivity to international tourism, class structures to the construction of identity, cultural logics of relatedness to transcultural communication.
A compelling evocation of how ideas of ancestry shape the present, how feelings of kinship arise among far-flung strangers, and how some find mystical connection in a world said to be disenchanted, Unorthodox Kin will appeal to a wide audience interested in anthropology, sociology, Jewish studies, and religious studies. Its accessible, narrative-driven style makes it especially well suited for introductory and advanced courses in general cultural anthropology, ethnography, theories of identity and social categorization, and the study of globalization, kinship, tourism, and religion.
Abstract: The study investigates the main motives for preservation of sites of Jewish heritage tourism (JHT) by studying three locations in Macedonia: Skopje (the capital), Štip (the largest city in the east part of Macedonia) and Bitola (the largest city in the southwest part of Macedonia). The article assesses the presence of several motivations, like: (i) Guilt; (ii) Interest in national history; (iii) Revival of a glorious Past; (iv) Economic benefits; (v) Display of sympathy; and (vi) Dark tourism development. The analysis is based on a qualitative research method and incorporates: (a) Qualitative data analysis, by conducting interviews in June 2016 with key stakeholders from central and local governments as the main policy makers; and (b) Analysis of secondary data sources, achieved by reviewing literature, historical, and statistical data related to Jewish history in Macedonia. Generally, the results point to the presence of strong iconic connection among Macedonians and the Jews that lived in Macedonia. The general findings indicate that by establishing and maintaining JH sites, stakeholders reflect sentiments of sympathy and even admiration to the perished Jewish community and a strong desire to revive a glorious past. Only in the case of Bitola, the potential economic benefits were surfaced as the main motive for initiating activities and investments in JH sites. Finally, the study recommends design and development of JHT product and tailor-made tourist packages as key elements that may boost tourism development in Macedonia alongside with commemoration of the Jews and their ties with the Macedonian people.
Abstract: Since the early 1990s, and coinciding with the celebratory events of the fifth centenary, new cultural initiatives related to the legacies of Spain’s Jewish inhabitants have been added to the marketing of the country as a tourist destination. This article analyses how these initiatives foreground convivencia [coexistence] as a uniquely Spanish cultural tradition and shape it into a marketable ideological product, by focusing on the town of Hervás, in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, as a prime example of the complexities inherent in these tourism initiatives. Over the last twelve years Hervás has organized a celebration of its Jewish identity in ‘Los conversos’ [‘The converts’], a three-day festival in which the town’s inhabitants dress up as ‘Jews’ and stage a collective performance of a theatre play related to its Jewish past. Through careful analysis of the gradual changes that have been incorporated into the festival and the play over the years, the article studies the entanglement of desires and anxieties and the multiple contradictions that arise as this town foregrounds its Jewish past to negotiate unresolved issues of transnational, national, regional and local identity. The article combines an analysis of textual sources, especially the literary works on which Hervás has relied to construct the image of itself promoted in the festival, and materials gathered from fieldwork there (promotional materials, video footage and photographs of the celebrations, interviews with organizers and participants, etc.). It also relies on the research undertaken by local historian Marciano de Hervás, and current theorizations of patrimonialization and heritagization (Urry 1995; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998) and the ‘reinvention’ of Jewish culture in Europe (Gruber 2002) in the field of tourism studies.
Abstract: Issues arise when trying to understand the motivation of policymakers to preserve the assets of cultures that do not belong to the mainstream population. Tunbridge and Ashworth's seminal study on ‘Dissonant Heritage’ and Bennett's developmental model of intercultural sensitivity (DMIS model) provide a basis to evaluate both the motivations and the existence of a cultural dissonance. As there is a growing worldwide trend towards preserving and developing Jewish heritage tourism (JHT) this study examines Jewish heritage sites in three Macedonian cities endowed with rich Jewish history. Unlike previous studies concentrating on the notion of dissonant heritage, this research focuses on the motivation for preserving such sites, an issue hardly tackled before. Previous studies suggested the prevalence of six possible motives: guilt, facing harsh history, emphasis on dark tourism, revival of a harmonious past, respect, and economic benefits. Data were obtained via face-to-face interviews conducted with policy-makers from central and local governments. The interviews were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively in order to determine the leading motives for preservation. The findings indicate that by establishing and maintaining Jewish Heritage sites, stakeholders reflect sentiments of respect and admiration for the perished Jewish community and a longing for the revival of an elusive harmonious past. The potential economic benefits and dark tourism surfaced only as minor motives. Practically, JH preservation is used to revive dialogue with a forgotten past that may also contribute to urban tourism development in the future. Conceptually, the interviews did not reveal any indication of heritage dissonance, a finding that stands in sharp contrast to the dissonant heritage theory.
Abstract: Throughout Europe products of Jewish culture – or what is perceived as such – have become viable components of the popular public domain. Jewish-themed tourism has emerged since the 1990s in a number of European cities after decades of “collective amnesia”, and some of the Jewish areas have recently undergone a ‘Jewish-thematisation’.
The focal point of this article is the usage of heritage in former Jewish areas. The aim is to understand in which ways and to what extent Jewish heritage is used for tourism purposes. A comparison between Krakow and Vilnius underlines what this difference in usage depends on, in the context of increasingly popular cultural and heritage tourism. In order to understand how Jewish-themed tourism has developed an inventory of Jewish heritage and Jewish-themed events in the two cities is made, showing that Jewish heritage is mainly used for economic development through tourism as well as commemoration in Krakow, whereas in Vilnius, it is used for commemoration and for the needs of the local (Jewish) community. The complexity of the topic and the importance of various local factors in the usage of Jewish heritage are shown. There does not exist, neither in Krakow nor in Vilnius, any specific public policies regarding Jewish heritage that can explain the ’degree’ of touristification and ’heritagisation’ of the areas.
Furthermore, a range of connected theoretical issues, such as authenticity, commodification of culture, or ownership of heritage, is raised.
Abstract: This story is about a kind of pilgrimage, which is connected to the course of events which occurred in Częstochowa on 22 September 1942. In the morning, the German Captain Degenhardt lined up around 8,000 Jews and commanded them to step either to the left or to the right. This efficient judge from the police force in Leipzig was rapid in his decisions and he thus settled the destinies of thousands of people. After the Polish Defensive War of 1939, the town (renamed Tschenstochau) had been occupied by Nazi Germany, and incorporated into the General Government. The Nazis marched into Częstochowa on Sunday, 3 September 1939, two days after they invaded Poland. The next day, which became known as Bloody Monday, approximately 150 Jews were shot deadby the Germans. On 9 April 1941, a ghetto for Jews was created. During World War II about 45,000 of the Częstochowa Jews were killed by the Germans; almost the entire Jewish community living there.The late Swedish Professor of Oncology, Jerzy Einhorn (1925–2000), lived in the borderhouse Aleja 14, and heard of the terrible horrors; a ghastliness that was elucidated and concretized by all the stories told around him. Jerzy Einhorn survived the ghetto, but was detained at the Hasag-Palcery concentration camp between June 1943 and January 1945. In June 2009, his son Stefan made a bus tour between former camps, together with Jewish men and women, who were on this pilgrimage for a variety of reasons. The trip took place on 22–28 June 2009 and was named ‘A journey in the tracks of the Holocaust’. Those on the Holocaust tour represented different ‘pilgrim-modes’. The focus in this article is on two distinct differences when it comes to creed, or conceptions of the world: ‘this-worldliness’ and ‘other- worldliness’. And for the pilgrims maybe such distinctions are over-schematic, though, since ‘sacral fulfilment’ can be seen ‘at work in all modern constructions of travel, including anthropology and tourism’.
