The European Days of Jewish Culture, this year under the umbrella of the CERV programme
The European Days of Jewish Culture festival, which has been organised since 1999 by the AEPJ, pursues to highlight the diversity and richness of Judaism and its local, regional and national historical importance, with the firm intention of promoting dialogue, recognition and exchange through conferences, concerts, performances, guided tours and other activities, which take place simultaneously throughout the continent.
The pan-European festival of the European Days of Jewish Culture 2023 will take place in an extraordinary context and under the umbrella of an exceptional programme: the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme of the European Union. The AEPJ-led European funding project has been awarded €486,760.00 for the development of this edition, which will include a face-to-face EDJC Organisers and Coordinators meeting in Paris , online training on Memory, a Remembrance seminar in the Netherlands, a photographic European exhibition in Paris, an online exhibition on theinternational holocaust remembrance day, and much more. The consortium is composed of the main EDJC national coordinators and AEPJ members located in the European Community: B’nai B’rith Europe, Patronat Call de Girona, JECPJ-France, Taube Center, Tarbut Sighet, Burgenland Research Society, and Jewish Community of Lithuania. In addition, key actors in the dissemination of European Jewish memory through culture are also part of the consortium: Memorial de la Shoah, Liberation Route Europe, and MahJ.
In addition, as every year, this project will be reinforced by the collaboration with the National Library of Israel, which has acted as a means to develop all kinds of exhibition and educational materials, which have given an important added value to the festival while facilitating its celebration throughout the continent.
So far, the initiatives have been a an absolute success, with the organisation of more than 1200 activities and reaching around 220,000 participants, in more than 400 cities in 25 countries on the European continent. We want to maintain these numbers which, although they were affected during 2020 and 2021 by the health crisis situation, have been extended and expanded with the digitisation of the festival. If 2018 and 2019 were years of growth in participating cities, activities and attendees and 2020 and 2021 were years of digital transformation and development of the more online side of the Festival, we want 2022 and 2023 to be the years of awareness, consciousness-raising and quality.
In this especial edition of 2023, centred around “Memory”, we aim to keep up and improve the number of participants that follow our events, and we believe that it will be the case, thanks to an ambitious and engaging agenda of activities and the implication of key actors, such as the Memorial de la Shoah, the MahJ and the LRE Foundation. We aim to take advantage of the growth of our network of partners across Europe, many of them with initiatives with a transnational component, to deliver the EDJC 2023 Memory message to all corners of the continent. A deep and well thought-out statement, a message of reflection, sensitivity and awareness. An authentic reflection that considers to transform research, memorial sites and testimonies into practical educational tools for all parts of society in particular multipliers such as policymakers, state officials and societal leaders. In the short term, the EDJC is expected to create a motivating effect among participants that will be involved, directly or indirectly in the activities, since its nature, preparation and international component are engaging drivers to awaken interest. It has been so in the past editions of the festival and this year, with the routes, the webinars, the exposition in Paris and the thrilling range of activities that are programmed in all the cities that are taking part in this year’s edition, the number of people that will be involved is expected to increase greatly.
The EDJC entails an emotional factor that will surely remain as a positive impact in each of the participants that take part in the activities foreseen and will drive a keen interest in the Jewish culture and heritage, making it visible and empowering the Jewish communities across Europe. With the theme “Memory” for the 2023 edition, many people will have the opportunity to reflect about the historical memory of Europe, including the most difficult pages of its history. But, with a constructive outlook, through historical transmission, education, art and culture, which will seek to be a call for the joint construction of a Europe, with the highest humanist values, which celebrates its diversity, looking at the past and reflecting on the future.
