European Route of Jewish Heritage

Jewish communities have shaped European civilization for two millennia, yet the itinerary of that presence — its synagogues, cemeteries, market squares, and study houses — is little known to most Europeans. The European Route of Jewish Heritage, a Council of Europe Cultural Route since 2004, traces this presence across the continent, connecting sites of creation and catastrophe alike. The route passes through Amsterdam's Portuguese Synagogue, where Spinoza's community worshipped; through the medieval Jewish quarters of Prague and Krakow; through Vilnius, the great centre of rabbinical learning known as the Jerusalem of Lithuania; through Thessaloniki, where Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 built a new Jerusalem on the Aegean; and through Warsaw, where the largest Jewish community in the world was destroyed between 1939 and 1945. To walk this route is to encounter the full arc of Jewish European life: the medieval ghetto and the Enlightenment salon, the thriving shtetl and the extermination camp, the post-war rebuilding and the contemporary revival. It is among the most essential and demanding journeys European culture offers.