July 12, 2014
3:28 pm

A small crowd attends the dedication ceremony of a monument at the Jewish cemetery in Rychwal, Poland. (Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

Has Poland become a model of Holocaust memorials?

A renewal of memory — from Belzec to Rychwal — leaves room for optimism, says chief rabbi Michael Schudrich

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

June 28, 2014
6:07 am

Bride Katka Reszke and groom Slawomir Grunberg, made their wedding a celebration of Polish Jewish revival, June 22, 2014. (Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

Big fat Polish Jewish wedding celebrates communal renewal

Couple turns nuptials into open-air public event with klezmer bands, kosher food and two officiating Orthodox rabbis

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

June 13, 2014
4:35 pm

Passersby look at the Holocaust-related and other memorabilia left by citizens protesting the monument to the 1944 German occupation, under construction behind sheeting across the street in downtown Budapest. (Photo credit: JTA/Ruth Ellen Gruber)

Boycotting state Holocaust commemorations, Hungary’s Jews forge new path

Groups refuse nearly $1 million in government grants to protest what they see as the whitewashing of country’s complicity in Shoah

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

May 24, 2014
4:48 am

Pope Francis greets people during a meeting with members of the associations founded by Blessed Luigi Novarese at Paul VI audience hall on May 17, 2014 at the Vatican. (Photo credit: AFP Photo/Tiziana Fabi)

‘Outreach’ and ‘interfaith’ buzzwords for Pope’s Israel trip

Argentina’s Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Sheik Omar Abboud join former colleague on visit; pinnacle to be ecumenical joint prayer service at Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulcher

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

April 25, 2014
10:40 pm

Pope John Paul II places a letter between the stones of Jerusalem’s Western Wall on March 26, 2000. (photo credit: Amos Ben Gershom/Israel Government Press Office via Getty Images/JTA)

From pope to saint: Two men who revamped Jewish-Catholic ties

On the even of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Vatican will canonize two former pontiffs who focused on reconciliation

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

June 22, 2013
7:24 am

Author Adam LeBor (photo credit: Szabolcs Dudas)

New novel gives spy games a feminist sabra spin

Creating a modern Israeli heroine, author Adam LeBor crosses Lisbeth Salander with biblical Yael and lets her loose at the UN

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

April 23, 2013
12:38 pm

People laying flowers at Umschlagplatz at the Warsaw Ghetto, the monument at the site from which Jews were deported to Treblinka. (photo credit: Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

An alternative Warsaw Ghetto Uprising memorial

During last week’s commemorations, the grave of the uprising’s last surviving commander was blanketed in daffodils. Here’s why

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

April 18, 2013
8:46 pm

Aerial view of the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw (photo credit: courtesy)

At long last, Warsaw’s Museum of the History of Polish Jews

More than 20 years in the making, the museum’s dedication this week coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

February 13, 2013
6:24 pm

Pope Benedict XVI leads a mass in the Kidron Valley, outside Jerusalem's Old City, in May 2009 (photo credit: Lior Mizrahi/Flash90)

Benedict’s papacy: Close Jewish relations with occasional bumps

‘History will view him as the last of the traditional European pontiffs, the last pope who personally experienced World War II and the Holocaust,’ says AJC’s senior interreligious adviser

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

January 23, 2013
4:11 am

Villa Torlonia, in Rome, Italy (photo credit: CC-By-SA, Lalupa, Wikimedia Commons)

Italy still years away from first Holocaust museum

Facility to be built on site of Mussolini mansion, where ancient Jewish catacombs were discovered

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

December 13, 2012
12:58 pm

The restored synagogue in Jicin, Czech Republic, will serve as one of 10 sites in a planned network of new Jewish museums. (Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

Czech Jewish museum will literally be ‘scattered around the country’

Nationwide tribute to Jewish history will be spread across former synagogues in 10 cities

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

October 21, 2012
11:28 pm

Historian Ariel Toaff prepares to taste a goose roasted in the style of medieval Italian Jews in Bevagna, Italy. (Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

Medieval Italian banquet resurrects forgotten Jewish delicacies

Goose — known to some as ‘the Jewish pig’ — among the ancient recipes back on the menu in small Umbria town

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

October 3, 2012
12:47 am

Used for centuries as a church, the former synagogue in Trani, Italy, has returned to its original role as a Jewish house of worship. (Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

In southern Italy, long-lost Jews return to the fold

A burgeoning community rediscovers the religion its ancestors were forced to abandon centuries ago

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

September 27, 2012
10:03 pm

Francesco Lotoro introduces a concert of cabaret music composed in concentration camps, part of the Lech Lecha festival of Jewish culture in Trani, Italy, earlier this month. (Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

Italian pianist revives music created in concentration camps

A convert to Judaism, Francesco Lotoro has salvaged thousands of scores, diaries and other artifacts left by victims of the Holocaust

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

July 29, 2012
12:50 am

A sign denotes the empty space where the destroyed Great Synagogue in Oswiecim, the town in southern Poland where Auschwitz was built, once stood. (Ruth Ellen Gruber)

In Poland and Slovakia, restoring awareness of a forgotten Jewish past

Using new technology, the ‘lost cities’ of Bratislava and Oshpitzin come to life and foster a better understanding of the present — for locals and tourists alike

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Writer: Ruth Ellen Gruber

Has Poland become a model of Holocaust memorials?

A renewal of memory — from Belzec to Rychwal — leaves room for optimism, says chief rabbi Michael Schudrich

Big fat Polish Jewish wedding celebrates communal renewal

Couple turns nuptials into open-air public event with klezmer bands, kosher food and two officiating Orthodox rabbis

Boycotting state Holocaust commemorations, Hungary’s Jews forge new path

Groups refuse nearly $1 million in government grants to protest what they see as the whitewashing of country’s complicity in Shoah

‘Outreach’ and ‘interfaith’ buzzwords for Pope’s Israel trip

Argentina’s Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Sheik Omar Abboud join former colleague on visit; pinnacle to be ecumenical joint prayer service at Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulcher

From pope to saint: Two men who revamped Jewish-Catholic ties

On the even of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Vatican will canonize two former pontiffs who focused on reconciliation

New novel gives spy games a feminist sabra spin

Creating a modern Israeli heroine, author Adam LeBor crosses Lisbeth Salander with biblical Yael and lets her loose at the UN

An alternative Warsaw Ghetto Uprising memorial

During last week’s commemorations, the grave of the uprising’s last surviving commander was blanketed in daffodils. Here’s why

At long last, Warsaw’s Museum of the History of Polish Jews

More than 20 years in the making, the museum’s dedication this week coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Benedict’s papacy: Close Jewish relations with occasional bumps

‘History will view him as the last of the traditional European pontiffs, the last pope who personally experienced World War II and the Holocaust,’ says AJC’s senior interreligious adviser

Italy still years away from first Holocaust museum

Facility to be built on site of Mussolini mansion, where ancient Jewish catacombs were discovered

Czech Jewish museum will literally be ‘scattered around the country’

Nationwide tribute to Jewish history will be spread across former synagogues in 10 cities

Medieval Italian banquet resurrects forgotten Jewish delicacies

Goose — known to some as ‘the Jewish pig’ — among the ancient recipes back on the menu in small Umbria town

In southern Italy, long-lost Jews return to the fold

A burgeoning community rediscovers the religion its ancestors were forced to abandon centuries ago

Italian pianist revives music created in concentration camps

A convert to Judaism, Francesco Lotoro has salvaged thousands of scores, diaries and other artifacts left by victims of the Holocaust

In Poland and Slovakia, restoring awareness of a forgotten Jewish past

Using new technology, the ‘lost cities’ of Bratislava and Oshpitzin come to life and foster a better understanding of the present — for locals and tourists alike

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