National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe

by Ruth Ellen Gruber

Journalist, author, and travel expert Ruth Ellen Gruber presents a new edition of her acclaimed 1992 guide to Jewish heritage sites in Eastern Europe. Widely acknowledged as the best and most comprehensive book of its kind, this is the only Jewish travel guidebook that takes visitors to hundreds of fascinating sites in small villages and remote hamlets as well as major cities.

This expanded and updated edition includes new coverage of Austria, Ukraine, and Lithuania in addition to Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and all of the former Yugoslavia, areas that are the ancestral home to the great majority of North American Jews. Gruber provides specific historical and cultural information about these Central and Eastern European nations. Then she journeys across each country, exploring Jewish roots in major cities and small shtetls, describing the vestiges of each Jewish community and offering personal insights and reflections on the various people she meets.

Readers will find a wealth of practical travel information throughout, including a language guide, listings of useful local addresses, and up-to-date details on sites that have only recently become accessible to visitors. From exploring the massive 16th-century synagogue in the historic Polish town of Pincrow to strolling among the 12,000 headstones crowded into the old Jewish cemetery in Prague, to meeting resident Jews proudly embracing their ancient culture in Slovenia, this volume takes you on a very special and memorable tour.

Genres: Jewish, Travel

352 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 2007

About the author

Ruth Ellen Gruber is an award-winning American writer, editor and photographer who has long been based on Europe. She has chronicled European Jewish issues for more than twenty years and works on cultural topics including an ongoing project called "Sturm, Twang and Sauerkraut Cowboys" documenting how Europeans embrace the mythology of the American Wild West.

A former correspondent for United Press International, she has written for the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, JTA, Tablet Magazine, The Forward, Hadassah Magazine, Moment, the New Leader, the London Independent and many other publications. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Hadassah Brandeis Institute, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and others.

She coined the term "Virtually Jewish" to describe the way the so-called "Jewish space" in Europe is often filled by non-Jews: klezmer music, culture festivals, museums, tourism, and kitsch as well as serious and sensitive study and involvement.

Her books include National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe, (2007), Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere) (2008), Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe (2002), and Upon the Doorposts of Thy House: Jewish Life in East-Central Europe, Yesterday and Today (1994).

Reviews

[Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you skip the travel sections of this book it can serve as an incredible in-depth history of Judaism in Eastern Europe. Each chapter is broken up by country, and begins with an overview of Jewish history in that country. Prepare to be devastated. I’ve read countless books about the Holocaust, but this was the first time I saw such detailed statistics about the decimation of Jewish communities. In many regions of Eastern Europe, over 95% of Jewish people were killed. The list of completely eradicated Jewish communities in this book is impossibly long. In addition, I learned about large persecution events that are not well known. The resilience of the Jewish people is remarkable.

The research this person put in is unparalleled. If you want to learn as much as possible about Jewish history, this is your book. Sometimes the research is a little too detailed, which is why I recommend skimming through some parts. This book also expects you to already understand some Jewish religion, culture and history. It may be hard for gentiles to understand some parts.