News

The European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative is launching an online course on the applications of UAVs and photogrammetric modeling in heritage protection projects. The course is open to all who are interested, but a science, engineering, architecture, or other technical background is recommended. Surveys and photogrammetry are among the core areas of expertise at the ESJF, […]

With COVID-19 lockdowns coming into effect across Europe, ESJF is taking appropriate measures to ensure the safety of our staff. We have closed our head office in Kyiv, and our employees around Europe are now set up to work from home. We are closely monitoring the situation, but with no clear end to the new […]

The European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative (ESJF) continues its educational outreach in Ukraine. On February 20, Students gathered at Lviv Polytechnic University to learn about the ESJF’s cultural heritage preservation work from both a historian’s and a technologist’s perspective. ESJF’s Olena Andronatiy introduced students to the project, providing an overview of ESJF’s mission, methods, and results […]

Ukraine has been and remains a home for many ethnic and religious groups, each of which has left its influence on the culture of the country. But today these communities are decreasing in number and have in some places dissapeared entirely— their heritage sites going unnoticed, lost or forgotten, despite being important parts of Ukraine’s […]

The European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative (ESJF) visited the Lomonosov lyceeum in Orhei, Moldova today. Olga Sivak of the Itzik Manger Jewish library gave a guest lecture to the 11th and 12th grades. Students learned about the history of Orhei’s Jewish community (which dates all the way back to the 17th century), its historical events, people, […]

In the framework of the pilot project Mapping the Jewish Cemeteries of Europe, co-funded by the European Commission, we already held teacher training seminars in Greece and Slovakia in 2019. These seminars help us to bring Jewish heritage to classrooms beyond the framework of the project itself, enhancing educators’ practices, and providing a platform for […]

ESJF has teamed up with Centropa, an NGO that focuses on Jewish education, to organise a seminar for 35 secondary school educators in Greece. Titled “Teaching 20th century multicultural Greek history through Jewish family stories, promoting interreligious tolerance in the Balkans”, the seminar invited participants to develop approaches to bring Jewish history to the classroom […]

The European Commission has awarded a grant of 1 million Euros to a consortium led by the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative (ESJF) to continue the mapping and surveying of Jewish cemeteries in Europe, and to facilitate awareness-raising, education, and stakeholder engagement. The consortium brings together the renowned international Jewish education NGO Centropa, along with the […]

The completion of the educational project in Vyshnivets, Kyiv oblast on November 14th marks the end of the ESJF’s secondary school outreach programme in Ukraine, under the pilot project co-funded by the European Commission. Students from four schools in Vyshnivets and the surrounding towns of Stary Vyshnivets, Butyn, and Bodaki were invited in small groups […]

ESJF’s educational activities have begun in Ukraine, under the pilot project sponsoring the mass surveys from 2018-2020. On November 6th, educator and Jewish cemetery expert Dr. Alexandra Fishel led 50 secondary school students on an excursion to the Jewish cemetery in Bohuslav, Kyiv oblast. ESJF’s educational projects work in close cooperation with schools and educators […]