April 13, 2012 | 5:29 pm

Crystal Cruises Expands Jewish Heritage Tours

Posted by Ruth Ellen Gruber

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Here’s what looks like some good news for my first En Route post…. Crystal Cruises has announced it will expand its Jewish heritage tour options for the 2012 season.

According to a press release,  the tours “visit neighborhoods, museums, monuments, synagogues, and more somber sites in/near Palamos, Berlin, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Dublin, Hamburg, Rome, Odessa, St. Petersburg, and Israel. “

Announced highlights include:

Haifa: A kibbutz, the ancient holy city of Safed, Golan Heights, and a second-century Jewish burial ground.

Girona: El Call, one of Europe’s best-preserved Jewish Quarters, by Segway or foot.

Dublin: The homes of Dublin’s Jewish Lord Mayors and ex-Israeli President Herzog, the first dedicated day school, and Jewish cemetery.

Stockholm: The Jewish Museum and three local synagogues, from Stockholm’s first (1790) to one whose interior is originally from another synagogue in Hamburg.

Berlin: Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, the Grosse Hamburger Strasse deportation area, Otto Weidt’s broom-making factory, and the 205,000-square-foot Holocaust Memorial (two different excursions).

Athens: Athens’ Jewish Museum, containing 8,000+ domestic and religious artifacts from 2,300 years of Greek Judaism.

Odessa: Kosher refreshments, Ukraine’s only Jewish history museum, Shomrei Shabbos synagogue, and Beit Grand Jewish Cultural Center.

Hamburg: Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, home of 100,000+ WWII prisoners.

Ashdod: Jerusalem’s Western Wall, Old City, and Holocaust artifact-filled Yad Vashem memorial.

For more details see the Press Release

 

April 12, 2012 | 6:05 pm

Introducing Ruth Ellen Gruber

Posted by Ruth Ellen Gruber

The award-winning American writer Ruth Ellen Gruber has chronicled contemporary Jewish developments in Europe for more than two decades. As the author of National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe, she has roamed thousands of miles around Europe’s historic Jewish heartland to bring Jewish heritage to light for on-site explorers and armchair travelers alike. Her books include Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe and Upon the Doorposts of Thy House: Jewish Life in East-Central Europe, Yesterday and Today, and her articles have appeared in numerous publications.  She is the coordinator of the web site www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu—an online clearing house for information on Jewish monuments and heritage sites. Ruth’s current projects also include “Sauerkraut Cowboys, Indian Dreams: Imaginary Wild Wests in Contemporary Europe,” an exploration of the American frontier in the European imagination. Her awards and honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and fellowships at the Hadassah Brandeis Institute and Autry National Center. In September 2011 Poland awarded her the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit, one of its highest awards to foreign citizens. Find out more at Ruth’s web site—www.ruthellengruber.com.

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