Name Missing on the Wall, Memorial de la Shoah, Paris, 26/02/2012
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Name Missing on the Wall, Memorial de la Shoah, Paris, 26/02/2012

Sulzburg Jewish Cemetery, 29/01/2012:

Sulzburg contains a Jewish cemetery at the edge of the Black Forest. Jews have been buried there for hundreds of years and you can see the change in Jewish economic status through the changing design of the tombstones. The tombstones prior to the 1850s (when the Jews were emancipated) were minimally decorated. After the emancipation of the Jews, the tombstones were more ornate but also clearly Christian in origin. The stone masons for Sulzburg were Christian and all “stock” tombstones were intended for Christian use. The only difference for the Jewish graves was the use of Hebrew instead of German.

The first image shows the monument to the Jews of Sulzburg that were killed in the Holocaust. As you can see by the stones piled on top, many visitors have paid their condolences. When I saw the monument, I too took a stone from the ground and placed it on top after saying a quick prayer for peace.

Final Day in Dublin, 22/01/2012:

Sunday was our final day in Dublin. Since most of the shops and museums open late on Sundays (Catholic country and all), my parents and I headed to the Dublin Jewish Museum in the old Jewish quarter. The museum was in a small, two-story house that used to be synagogue.

I had never though of Dublin (or Ireland) as being particularly Jewish, and my assumption was mostly correct. The museum highlighted the Jewish history of Dublin until 1985 (the founding of the museum) and it was fairly short. Small groups of Jews came to Ireland, but the population never exceeded 5,000. As the Irish emigrated during times of hardship, so did the Irish Jews, thus reducing the population.

Currently, there are less than 1,000 Jews in the greater Dublin area and most of them live in the suburbs. As the need for synagogues within the city decreased, this synagogue was converted to a museum. Upstairs, most of the sanctuary is intact, and it feels a bit like a ghost town, since I would expect people to soon sit down to pray but I know that they will never come.

The museum was small, so we decided to walk back to our hotel through St. Stephen’s Green one last time before leaving for the airport. I guess Sunday worship had just ended, because the park was full of families enjoying the (rare) sunshine and having lunch. I snapped a few pictures of some of the fun.