Synagogues and Jewish sites at serious risk, a call by the Foundation for Jewish Heritage
Over 400 synagogues are at risk because of the war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine. The evaluation comes from the Foundation for Jewish Heritage, a London based charity working internationally to ensure that important Jewish sites, monuments and places of cultural significance are preserved. While acknowledging that of course the safety of human life is paramount, historic buildings should also be carefully protected, reads a note.
“All armed forces have an absolute responsibility to protect cultural property and places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples are protected during war under the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, signed by more than 130 countries, and its two Protocols (1954 and 1999); the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, and customary law, such as the 1907 Hague Regulations”. “Intentional damage to buildings dedicated to religion can be a war crime, prosecutable at the International Criminal Court”, points out the appeal.
Jewish heritage sites in Ukraine, remarks the Foundation, have special significance given that they are linked to Jewish communities that were decimated or annihilated in the Holocaust. “They stand as testimony to man’s potential for inhumanity with crucial lessons for today”.
Working with the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Foundation mapped the historic synagogues of Europe. The list can be found here.
Above, the Synagogue Jakob Glanzer in Lviv, Ukraine.