The AEPJ General Assembly meeting was held online on Friday, June 30th.

Led by AEPJ President François Moyse, representatives of AEPJ member institutions were present at the General Assembly, during which they shared constructive feedback regarding the projects of the previous year. AEPJ Director Victor Sorenssen also shared information pertaining to new projects and initiatives for the AEPJ, especially regarding the development of the European Days of Jewish Culture, the European Route of Jewish Heritage, certified by the Council of Europe, and additional European projects in collaboration with partner institutions. Additionally, Patrick Bikard was named as new AEPJ Treasurer.

The AEPJ network continues to grow in terms of its members, institutions and future projects and collaborative initiatives that allow us to be very optimistic about the future.

With its unique partnership of major Jewish networks, the NOA Project aims to evaluate EU Member States’ policies across areas, from education to culture and security, and to help them develop holistic national action plans to address and prevent antisemitism. The AEPJ is very happy to have taken part in the NOA Project over the past three years, a project financed by the CERV programme of the European Commission and whose first edition is coming to an end.

Members from the AEPJ team were invited to attend and to speak during the two-day NOA conference, which brought together over 100 representatives from civil society organisations and public authorities to reflect on the results, lessons, measures and experiences in addressing, preventing and fighting antisemitism, informed by the tools developed in the NOA Project.

We are happy to announce that, following the regular evaluation that each of the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe program undergoes every three years carried out by the EPA Governing Board, the renewal of the certification of the European Route of Jewish Heritage, one of our flagship projects, has been approved.

We are very proud to participate in this program and to be the institution that represents Jewish heritage in Europe. It is our commitment to continue working not only to meet the technical requirements, but also to promote European values in all our projects and initiatives in European Jewish heritage and culture, in an open, pluralistic, collaborative, and inclusive way.

We thank and congratulate all of the AEPJ members who have worked toward the preparation of the dossiers for the evaluation, the AEPJ team, as well as our external evaluator, Maria Laura Gasparini from the University of Bologna, who accompanied us at the Incubator in Izmir, having had the opportunity not only to know our work first-handedly, but also to offer us good recommendations for further improvement.

The event “Preserving heritage, inspiring tourism: Building on the Europeana – Cultural Routes collaboration” will bring together representatives from two key networks in digital culture and tourism—the Europeana Initiative and the Cultural Routes of Europe—and aims to inspire participants to build strong connections and explore viable collaborations.

The first part of the event will introduce the two initiatives and highlight the strategic importance of this partnership in the context of the  common European data spaces. Next, it will highlight the practical outcomes of this collaboration within the Jewish History Tours project and present tools, services, example products and evidence-based recommendations for developing engaging touristic experiences with digital cultural content. Jewish History Tours is an innovative project that leverages the power of location-based storytelling to create engaging and high-quality tours on Jewish life and culture, dealing with pan-European topics, such as multiculturalism, persecution and migration.

Held in Périgueux-Montignac and Les Eyzies de Tayac in Dordogne, France, the 10th edition of the Training Academy on Cultural Routes has come to a close this afternoon. Marc Francesch Camps and Victor Sorenssen represented the AEPJ and the European Jewish Heritage Route.

The theme of the Training Academy 2023 was “Looking to the Future: visibility, cooperation and sustainability in the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe.” During three days of intensive meetings, the Representatives of 34 Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe exchanged their experiences and proposals in the management of their respective Cultural Routes to further increase the notoriety of the programme, which brings together more than 3000 members from 60 countries. 

Each of the themes, visibility, cooperation and sustainability, was presented by a working group that aimed to prepare the ground and present proposals to develop these crucial fields in heritage management.

The tenth edition of the Council of Europe’s Cultural Routes Training Academy, organized by Rock Art Trails, in cooperation with the Dordogne department and the European Institute of Cultural Routes, kicked off this morning, May 31, in Périgueux, France.

The program, as usual, combines different types of sessions, workshops and study visits. This year, there are three main themes that will be worked on by the representatives of the 35 cultural routes present: Cooperation, Visibilization and Sustainability.

On behalf of the AEPJ, Marc Francesch Camps, Project Manager of the European Route of Jewish Heritage, and Victor Sorenssen, AEPJ Director, represent our European network in Périgueux. In addition to actively participating in the sessions, AEPJ is the coordinator of the working group on cooperation.