In 1945, many hundreds of synagogue buildings across Europe were left as reminders of once vital and dynamic Jewish communities. Municipal authorities, local entrepreneurs, and returning Jews were confronted with the question of what to do with these former places of Jewish worship. While there were local and national differences, the decimated Jewish communities were often left to their own devices in their attempts to care for the synagogues. This lecture will analyse, from a comparative perspective, how Jews and non-Jews, politicians, and urban planners negotiated the future of synagogue buildings in Poland and the rest of Europe after 1945. It will address how renewed attention for synagogues transformed the spatial function of these buildings, offering a few guidelines for the management of Jewish heritage in the 21st century.
Prof. Dr Bart Wallet is a full professor of Jewish Studies and Early Modern and Modern Jewish History at the University of Amsterdam. He specialises in Jewish urban cultures and is currently leading several projects on Jewish urban spatiality. He is a member of the executive committee of the European Association of Jewish Studies and is editor-in-chief of Studia Rosenthaliana, the book series Jewish Urban Cultures and the European Journal of Jewish Studies. His publications include Reappraising the History of the Jews in the Netherlands (Liverpool, 2021).
