The AEPJ General Assembly 2022 kicked off yesterday in Hannover, Germany. The various representatives of AEPJ member institutions will spend four days together in the capital of Lower Saxony, with a programme combining workshops, working meetings and study visits. Global Partnership Hannover acts as host of the Assembly, and is in fact the first German institution to be part of the Association. The plenary meeting of the Assembly will take place this Sunday morning.

Last night, at the State Museum of Lower Saxony, the welcome reception took place. The master of ceremonies was Anke Biedenkapp, CEO of Global Partnership Hannover. François Moyse, President of the AEPJ, Sylvia Löhrmann, Secretary General of Jüdisches Leben In Deutschland and Petra Rudszuck, Vicepresident of Hannover Region, spoke and addressed the event.

The AEPJ continues to participate in the ninth Training Academy on Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe, which is being held in the French city of Fontainebleau, home of the Cultural Route of the Impressionists. Today has been a very special day, as we have actively participated in the working group on international relations, presenting different actions that we have carried out with our European Routes of Jewish Heritage in collaboration with other Cultural Routes. We also gave a presentation of the Jewish History Tours project, in collaboration with Europeana, the European digital library, and Jewish Heritage Network. In the presentation we have shown the development of the project, the tours that are being developed by the members of the AEPJ, as well as the training seminars that have been carried out in the framework of the project.

The IX Training Academy of the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe just started in Fontainebleau, France, with the participation of 32 certified routes and 70 representatives from all over Europe, hosted by the Impressionism Routes.

In a scenario where heritage embraces the territory in an incomparable way, the meeting of representatives of the cultural routes certified by the Council of Europe has started. The programme of the Training Academy includes strategic meetings, presentations of good practices and round tables where the role of the routes in sustainable cultural tourism, the international relations of the routes and the development of cross-cutting cooperation of the routes are discussed.

The AEPJ is present and actively involved. Victor Sorenssen, AEPJ director and Pavel Katz, from Jewish Heritage Network have presented the European project Jewish History Tours, in collaboration with Europeana, the European Digital Library, as a good practice and a replicable model for other routes.

During the week of 23-27 May 2022, AEPJ, network carrier of the European Routes of Jewish Heritage, participated in the training week of the Fab Route project in Rimini, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. The AEPJ team was able to receive training and share knowledge in the areas that the project defines as priorities for the creation of the professional profile of the Route Manager of a Cultural Route of the Council of Europe; in addition to testing the training methodology itself.

As part of the consortium of this project, the AEPJ delivered a theoretical session on Governance and member’s participation, with the collaboration of the expert Montse Crivillers. This was followed by a presentation by the AEPJ team on member participation through the Task Force of the European Days of Jewish Culture as a Best Practice in this field and finally a practical workshop in collaboration with the Via Regia team.

On the first weeknd of May 2022 the last face-to-face seminar of the Mi Dor Le Dor programme was celebrated in Palermo, which offers training in Jewish heritage to young people from all over Italy, offered in collaboration between UCEI, the Taube Center in Poland and AEPJ.

During the three-day programme, participants had the opportunity to discover the impressive Jewish heritage of the Sicilian city, as well as to receive sessions from experts and finally, to present the projects they have been working on throughout the programme.

Victor Sorenssen, director of the AEPJ, as well as Federica Pastoret, project manager of the European Routes of Jewish Heritage attended, and witnessed first-hand the success of the seminar and the programme in general.

The need to combat antisemitism is an urgent concern for all – both Jews and non-Jews – who wish to live in societies that are free from hatred.

Led by the trainers of CEJI – A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe, the ‘Overcoming Antisemitism TTT’ trains two new cohorts of educators, one in English and one in French. These new trainers throughout Europe have been equipped to collectively reach 1,000 people during the NOA project and remain an anti-bias resource for the long-term. The training and manual is based upon the two-times award winning project Belieforama, focusing on educational approaches to change biased attitudes and discriminatory behaviors in order to create inclusive and equitable environments.

The Overcoming Antisemitism training course was developed within European Commission funded projects, most notably known as Belieforama: A Panoramic Approach to Issues of Religion and Belief, which was the first prize winner of the BMW Group Award for Intercultural Commitment.

A national trail in development and turning attention to Poland and Ukraine

Belarus remains a hidden gem on the landscape of Jewish cultural heritage in Europe. The Together Plan charity, member of the AEPJ since 2019, has a dedicated team in the country working to bring a national Jewish heritage route into focus. The Together Plan team comprises a Jewish author and historian, an experienced heritage coordinator specialising in the field of Jewish partisans and an administrative team. Across the country we refer to local archivists, tour guides and academics and outside of Belarus we look to collaborate with historians and specialists at the National Library of Israel, Yad Vashem and museums and libraries across the Diaspora.

Through our office in the UK, we broker connections to Jewish Belarusians across the globe, in search of stories and family archive information.

AEPJ participated last week in the first coordination meeting of the Erasmus + KA2 project “Youth4Culture”, which also includes the Routes of Emperor Charles V, the Route of the Olive Tree and the European Route of Ceramics, with the participation of the Jaranda Secondary School in Jarandilla de la Vera.

The project initiative aims to promote the participation and involvement of young people in cultural activities and tourism promotion, through the cultural routes of the Council of Europe.

Victor Sorenssen, director of AEPJ and Michelle Nahum Sembira, coordinator of the project Mi Dor le Dor Italy, attended the coordination meeting in the region of La Vera in Extremadura, Spain. During the week, the participants visited some of the sites that are part of the Emperor Charles V Routes Network, such as the Monastery of Yuste or Garganta La Olla, as well as Jarandilla de la Vera, the venue of the meeting.