Connected to

Judaica Europeana Project Partners

Everything is connected, Mira Zelechower-Aleksiun, EAJC grantee

European Association for Jewish Culture
www.jewishcultureineurope.org

The mission of the European Association for Jewish Culture (EAJC) is to foster and support artistic creativity and achievement, and promote access to Jewish culture across Europe.  The EAJC is an independent body which was established in 2000 in London and Paris with the support of the EC Culture 2000 grant. 

Since its creation, the EAJC has initiated and supported over 150 projects including exhibitions and catalogues, performances and recordings as well as documentary films in 22 European countries by collaborating with artists, scholars, museums and other heritage professionals. The EAJC has organised international conferences and seminars for the cultural sector to promote Europe-wide collaborations, encourage best practice and help create networks of artists and other heritage professionals. The aims of the EAJC include helping to realize the potential of new technology to facilitate access to Jewish culture. In recent years the EAJC has worked with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) in the UK to stimulate the digitisation and cataloguing of Jewish interest collections within MICHAEL, the Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Resources in Europe www.michael-culture.eu/ The EAJC is an Associate Member of MICHAEL AISBL. The EAJC is also an Associate Member of the Association of European Jewish Museums. 

Lena Stanley-Clamp is the Director of the European Association for Jewish Culture and Project Manager of Judaica Europeana.  
Dov Winer is the Scientific Manager of Judaica Europeana.

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Judaica Collection, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Library, Frankfurt am Main
http://www.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/ssg/Judaica_en.html

The Judaica collection of the central library of the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main, constitutes the largest collection of literature on Judaism and Israel in the Federal Republic of Germany and is one of the most important collections worldwide.

The collection was founded at the end of the 19th Century with the generous support of Frankfurt Jews. The curator, Professor Aron Freimann, who looked after the collection from 1898 -1933, made it the largest and most significant Judaica collection of the European continent before the war.  Especially valuable is the collection of Hebrew manuscripts, the Hebrew incunabula and the historic collections of Yiddish and Jewish-German Prints. However,  the collection extends to all aspects of Jewish life and culture in every place and period, with a comprehensive coverage of Jewish life and culture in Germany. The collection includes books, pamphlets, periodicals, microfilms, maps, newspapers, posters, broadsides, photographs, microforms, sound recordings, videotapes, electronic databases and other ephemera. Materials in all languages are acquired, special emphasis is placed on Hebrew. 460 foreign and 40 German periodicals are bought on subscription.

Dr Rachel Heuberger is the Head of the Judaica Collection of the Goethe University Library, who act as Coordinator of the project.

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Alliance Israélite Universelle, Paris
http://www.aiu.org/bibli

Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) is one of the first international institutions devoted to the education and protection of Jewish communities. Founded in Paris in 1860, AIU developed over the years an important network of Jewish schools. At present, the AIU carries out its work through a network of schools in France, Israel, Canada, Morocco, Switzerland and Belgium, as well as through adult education with programmes of study and conferences.
From the beginning the AIU established an important library, which currently houses over 130,000 books, 3000 collections of periodicals and important archival collections of documents, manuscripts and photographs. The Library and Archives of the AIU are the most important resource for Jewish studies and research in France. The Library is developing a digitization programme and has participated in a number of international digitization projects. 
The AIU Library plays a major role in the preservation and dissemination of the Jewish cultural heritage. The AIU Library is involved in several networks: the Réseau européen de bibliothèques de Judaica et Hebraica (European Network of Judaica and Hebraica Libraries) and the site www.rachelnet.net which gives access to the catalogue RACHEL.

Jean-Claude Kuperminc is Director of the Library and Archives of the Alliance Israélite Uuniverselle. The AIU in collaboration with Paris Yiddish Centre - Medem Library are one of the major content providers to Judaica Europeana.

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The Jewish Museum of Greece, Athens
http://www.jewishmuseum.gr

The Jewish Museum of Greece in Athens was founded with the aim of collecting, studying, preserving and exhibiting the artefacts that reflect the history and traditions of the Greek Jews. Its collection includes more than 8,000 rare artefacts of great historical significance. The Museum has a library and a photographic archive and has contributed significantly to the study and preservation of Jewish tradition in Greece. It collaborates with Greek and foreign institutions and it records and photographs Jewish monuments, synagogues, cemeteries etc. which are slowly disappearing as a result of the passage of time and the decrease of the Jewish population in Greece. The Museum contributes to the studies of the life and traditions of the Romaniote and Sephardic Jews of Greece.

The Museum aims to demonstrate to visitors the common roots of Jews and Christians. The Museum shows their common heritage based on strong cultural bonds, dating from the Hellenistic era. The Greek Jewish heritage is an important part of the international Jewish and world heritage. Education is another of the Museum’s priorities and special attention is given to educational programmes. The Museum holds that by bringing the young generation into contact with another culture, one whose traditions flourished side by side with their own, it encourages them to embrace difference and develop intercultural awareness. Special emphasis is put on educating children about the Holocaust. The social impact of the work of the Jewish Museum of Greece reinforces its mission to collect, preserve, study and present all aspects of the culture and the history of the Greek Jews.

Zanet I. Battinou is the Director of the Jewish Museum of Greece and a Curator. The JMG is a content provider to Judaica Europeana

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Hungarian Jewish Archives, Budapest
www.milev.hu

Postcard depicting the three phase of the marriage. The reading direction follows the Hebrew-Yiddish rules, so the first picture is at the right side. Issued in New York, c. 1910. Hungarian Jewish Archives, Kohn Collection.

The Hungarian Jewish Archives belong to the Federation of the Hungarian Jewish Communities as a historical collection of the Hungarian Jewry. The Archival collection contains approx. 500 m of documentary papers, including vital records, illustrated Chevra kadishah books and visual documents (photographs, postcards). The main collections are:

• the records of the Pest Israelite Community 1800-1950
• the records of the Central Board of Hungarian Jewry 1868-1950
• the records of Óbuda (Alt-Ofen or Oben Yashan) Jewish Community 1787-1920
• vital records from 61 Hungarian cities
• collection of Hungarian newspapers and articles concerning the Jews, Jewish Communities, and the so-called “Jewish Question”.
•  3600 testimonies about the Shoah, published at the www.degob.hu. This is one of the largest sources of Holocaust testimonies on the internet.

The Archive offers lectures for study-groups about the sources of the Hungarian Jewish history and Hebrew palaeography. The collections are used by the Jewish secondary school, which has special interest groups for the study of Jewish History.   In the last ten years the main task was to provide the Holocaust survivors with certificates about the persecution for restitution claims.  The Archives are increasingly used by scholars in Jewish studies.

Zsuzsanna Toronyi is the Chief Archivist at the Hungarian Jewish Archives.

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Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali – Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities, Rome
http://www.beniculturali.it/mibac

The Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBAC) aims at fostering and improving integrated services among archives, libraries and museums in Italy. In the field of Information Society, MiBAC’s projects include:

•       The Italian Culture Portal
•       Development of the Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale (National Library Service)
•       Creation of the Italian Digital Library

The Italian Culture Portal is a project born to correlate all the
ministerial initiatives in the field of the ICT, in particular the large
data-bases of its institutes. SBN - Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale (National Library Service) - is the Italian network created by MiBAC in co-operation with the Regions and Universities. At present there are about 1200 libraries participating in the SBN network. The SBN Index
contains the Union Catalogue of the libraries which are part of the network. It can be consulted by users via terminals at their local library or via personal computers connected to Internet, and enables them to browse the bibliographic databases of SBN OPAC or carry out complex searches (http//opac.sbn.it).

MiBAC is a major content and technology provider to Judaica Europeana. MiBAC will digitize large quantities of Jewish books and documents on the Jews in Italy from the State Archive of Venic, and the National Library of Parma.

Rossella Caffo, Director of ICCU, the Union Catalogue of the Italian Libraries, and Giuliana de Francesco, also at ICCU, are the contact persons for Judaica Europeana at MiBAC.

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Amitié, Bologna
http://www.amitie.it
Amitié was created in 1991 as a part of a University-Enterprise Training Partnership in the framework of COMETT Programme, sponsored by the European Commission. As a training research centre, Amitié aims to promote training activities in software and information technology in the European Community, mainly addressing the Less Favoured Regions of Europe. Its main objectives are:

• to identify training and technology needs;
• to launch actions to increase awareness of the strategic importance for industry and commerce;
• to set up an infrastructure for university-enterprise exchanges and to promote the training of trainers;
• to create working groups in specific industrial sectors to study the possible applications of software and information technology.

Amitié organises research and dissemination activities on the introduction of new technologies in the cultural field. Seminars, courses and information days are held to promote the new projects and products. Amitié has been co-ordinating the Italian node of the MIDAS-NET network, promoted by the INFO2000 Programme of the European Commission with a focus on the cultural sector. Starting from 1995, it launched a series of awareness, training and dissemination activities together with the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage (MiBAC), focusing on the use of new technologies in the book sector.

Pier Giacomo Sola is the Director of Amitié and coordinator of joint projects with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage for training activities on information society technologies in libraries.

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The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw
www.jewishinstitute.org.pl

The Jewish Historical Institute (JHI) was established in 1947. It is the largest depository of Jewish-related archival documents, books, journals, and museum objects in Poland. The JHI Archives are one of the most important repositories of primary sources for the study of the history of Jews in Poland. Particularly valuable part is the unique clandestine Warsaw Ghetto Archive, known by the name of the man who created it, The Ringelblum Archive. In 1999, the Archive was added to the UNESCO “Memory of the World” register. The JHI Library currently holds over 80,000 volumes and is constantly growing. The JHI’s important Judaica collection includes over 11,000 objects. There are items from synagogues and an excellent collection of Jewish paintings, sculptures and graphics. There are also historical mementos, for the most part objects from the ghettos and camps.

The aims of the Institute are to protect holdings, to give wide access, to educate. JHI preserves the memory, history and culture of Polish Jews, promotes research,  reaches out to the public with knowledge and study of Jewish history and culture, and  promotes tolerance. The principal fields of the JHI activity include: Collections’ care (conservation, creating databases – cataloguing and indexing, microfilming, digitalization) exhibitions, publications;  scholarly research; organization of conferences, sessions, and seminars; education, including classes for young adults and courses for teachers;  providing documentation for Righteous Among the Nations. (6) Providing documentation for the victims of Nazi terror; Providing scholarly supervision for the historical sites and monuments conservation; publishing  the Quarterly and  books as well as catalogues and  educational materials.

Edyta Jolanta KUREK is the Deputy Director of the Jewish Historical Institute. 
The JHI is a content provider for Judaica Europeana.

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Jewish Museum London
http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk

The Jewish Museum London (JML) aims to explore and preserve Jewish heritage, celebrate diversity and challenge prejudice. Since it was established 75 years ago, the museum has become:

• A landmark cultural and educational resource that provides a focal point in promoting a positive recognition of cultural diversity.
• An Accredited museum that has been awarded Designated status by the Museums, Libraries & Archives Council in recognition of the outstanding importance of its collections as part of the national heritage.   These collections include:
• Wide ranging items relating to Jewish history in Britain and especially London  that reflect the diverse roots of Britain’s Jews and the different migrations that brought them there.
• One of the world’s pre-eminent collections of Jewish ceremonial art.
• Oral history interviews and sound recordings relating to many aspects of Jewish life including migration, settlement and working lives
• A Photographic Archive covering Jewish life from the late 19th century to the present day
• Prints and drawings, incorporating a collection of 18th and 19th century British political cartoons 
• An experienced digitiser, undertaking projects to digitise different items from the Museum collections and delivering content online
• A major contributor to the cultural life of London through a wide-ranging programme of special exhibitions. 
• A provider of a programme of education and learning, making an important contribution to Citizenship education, interfaith understanding and dialogue. Through its wide-ranging programmes of exhibitions, education and events, the Museum plays a vital role in challenging stereotypes and prejudice in all its forms.

Louise Asher is a Curator in Social History at the Jewish Museum London. She is responsible for the care of social history collections and  the  Manager of JML’s digitisation programme. 

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The British Library, London
http://www.bl.uk

The British Library (BL) is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest libraries. The Library receives a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland in a collection which includes 150 million items, in most known languages and grows by approximately three million new items every year. It has been involved in digitising items from its collection since 1993 and has developed great expertise in text and image digitisation of items created over the last 2000 years.
The Library has been involved as a partner in many projects funded at national, European and international levels. An example being The European Library (TEL), which started as a British Library led, European Commission funded project established with the express aim of giving the virtual user access to the digital and non-digital collections of the National Libraries of Europe. Current projects include PLANETS (coordinated by the BL), EDL and UKWAC (web archiving). The Library supports Higher Education through its collections, services, partnerships and strategic activities. BL has Independent Research Organisation status with the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC). BL’s Higher Education team currently collaborate on research projects such as Italian Academies and Digital Lives.

Dr Joanna Newman is Head of Higher Education at the British Library. Her previous career includes serving as executive director of the London Jewish Cultural Centre.

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Associate Partners

MAKASH Advancing CMC Applications in Education, Culture and Science
http://www.makash.org.il

MAKASH (1989) is a spinoff of the Applied Research Unit of the P.Sapir Academic College. It was one of the first institutions in Israel to develop a wide program for the application of Information and Communication technologies in education and culture. It took the initiative in 1998 of introducing the Israel Ministry as a member of the consortium of European Ministries of Education for ICT in education (EUN - European Schoolnet) serving as NCP for Israel. It has participated in many EC projects dealing with ICT in education and in culture. It disseminates in Israel the EUN LRE –Learning Resources Exchange having introduced the concept and practice of Learning Objects in the country through the CELEBRATE project. MAKASH coordinated WP1 (Content selection, aggregation and access) of the FP6 project: MOSAICA Semantically Enhanced Multifaceted Collaborative Access to Cultural Heritage. It coordinates Israel participation in ATHENA – Access to Cultural Heritage across Europe, one of the EUROPEANA projects. MAKASH participates in two actions of the European Science Foundation: A32 – Open Scholarly Communities in the Web and IS0704 - An Interoperable Supranational Infrastructure for Digital Editions (Interedition).

Dr. Eviatar Shulman is the Chairman of MAKASH.

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The Central Zionist Archives at the World Zionist Organization
http://www.zionistarchives.org.il

The Central Zionist Archives (CZA) are the archives of the Zionist movement. Its records cover the years 1880-1970 and document the growth of the Zionist movement worldwide, the development of the Jewish Home in Palestine and various aspects of the history of the Jewish people in the last 130 years.
In particular, the Archives aim to collect,  preserve and encourage the use of the archives of the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Fund and Keren Hayesod, as well as the archives of the World Jewish Congress and other bodies. The CZA  holds the private papers of individuals active in the Zionist movement and in the development of Palestine and Israel. In addition, the CZA houses over half a million photographs, 50,000 maps and plans, over 18,000 posters and announcements, a large collection of ephemera, 13,000 newspapers and periodicals, a library and a microfilm collection. Along with the Hebrew University, the CZA also runs the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive, which houses over 3,000 film and video titles.

Dr. Motti Friedman is the Academic Director of the Central Zionist Archives and the director of the Herzl Museum in Jerusalem.
Rachel Rubinstein is the deputy director of the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem.

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Paris Yiddish Centre – Medem Library
http://www.yiddishweb.com

The Medem Library of the Paris Yiddish Centre is the largest multimedia resource on Yiddish culture in Europe. Since its establishment in 1929, its collection grew from 500 books to 30,000 volumes mainly in Yiddish but also in French, Hebrew, English, German and Polish. The Library’s catalogue includes material on Judaism in general with a special focus on Ashkenazi Jewish culture: Jewish literature, history of the Jewish communities, sociology, Jewish thought. The audio-visual collection includes 6000 recordings of Yiddish songs, klezmer and liturgical music, 500 music scores and many videos.  The library continues to grow with new acquisitions and donations. It often rescues from destruction the collections that would otherwise be lost.  Stemming from the engagement in socialist ideals of its original founders, the Library’s orientation remains secular, but today the collection reflects all philosophical tendencies and diverse aspects of Jewish life. The archives of a number of Yiddish writers are a valuable addition to the collection. The Centre is also engaged in a wide-ranging publishing and translation programme. The Library assists the creation of Yiddish collections at universities and community centres by distributing some of the books it receives.  Working in collaboration with the Alliance Israélite Universelle, the Medem Library is a content provider for Judaica Europeana.

Gilles Rozier is the Director of the Medem Library.

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