Are there Jewish Heritage sites close to your heart and memory? What are they? And what do they mean to you?
With our new #MyParallelTraces campaign, launched in cooperation with Jewish Heritage Europe, we ask you to send us a virtual post card and let us know.
Travel may be difficult now; museums, exhibitions, and heritage sites are closed. But that doesn’t mean we can’t continue to rediscover and explore Jewish heritage throughout Europe – and #MyParallelTraces is an exciting, interactive platform to help do this. Even though we can’t physically visit the places we hold dear, we can still engage with them – telling their stories and our own. It’s easy – and, we hope, fun.
Everyone likes to get postcards, and #MyParallelTraces lets you create, send and receive them online. We provide a fill-in form where you can post a picture of a Jewish heritage site and add both a brief explanation of its historical context and – importantly – a brief personal reflection on your own connection with that site. It can be a family connection, a historic connection, or a connection that is religious, urban, literary, or one rooted in memory, work, art, or – indeed – anything else. Think of it as a picture postcard with a printed caption and your own personal message you’re sending to a friend or loved one.
The postcards we receive – with their photos and reflections – will be uploaded to our web site as a growing gallery: an open and pluralistic approach to Jewish heritage that offers a more personal perspective. It will provide space to interpret and reinterpret the heritage, and to ask ourselves about the meaning of each site – not just in the past, but also in the present and future.
Following the guidelines of The Council of Europe’s Faro Convention, #MyParallelTraces is a new means of looking at heritage by reframing relations among stakeholders in a way that highlights the essential role of inhabitants and heritage communities alike.
Jewish heritage is both a source and a resource, and everyone’s opinion, interests and aspirations count. Including yours!
The #MyParallelTraces virtual mailbox is open – so fill in the form and send us your virtual postcards!