September 2020. A new portal of Jewish funerary culture has been launched, bearing relevance to the “Reconfiguring Diaspora” project. PEACE  (https://peace.sites.uu.nl/), standing for Portal of Epigraphy, Archaeology, Conservation and Education on Jewish Funerary Culture, is an international project comprising partners from Brown University, the Steinheim Institute, and of course Utrecht University. Part of the portal’s Epigraphic section is the FIJI database: Funerary Inscriptions of Jews from Italy (https://fiji.sites.uu.nl/), created by Ortal-Paz Saar as a part of her research on “Reconfiguring Diaspora” project.

11 June 2018. “All That Remains” workshop began this morning in Utrecht, with interesting speakers and guests. The atmosphere, despite the topic, was very lively. #allthatremains

14 May 2018. The international academic workshop “All That Remains: The Conservation and Education on Jewish Funerary Culture” will take place next month, on Monday-Tuesday, 11-12 June 2018, at Utrecht University. Entrance is free, but by advance registration only. To register please email the organizer, Ortal-Paz Saar, at o.p.saar@uu.nl .

22 February 2018. The international Winter School “Digital Humanities and Jewish Epigraphy”, organized by Ortal-Paz Saar and generously sponsored by the European Association of Jewish Studies (EAJS) and the Rothschild Foundation, took place at Utrecht University on 19-21 February 2018. The main instructors were Thomas Kollatz and Max Grüntgens from the Digital Academy that forms part of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur/ Mainz. The School participants included ten graduate students and early career researchers, as well as four experienced researchers active in the field of Jewish epigraphy. The geographical background of the participants extended over nine different countries:

Antonello Vilella (Bari, Italy), Antony Perrot (Paris, France), Asaf Gayer (Haifa, Israel), Daria Vasyutinsky Shapira (Beer Sheba, Israel), Ekaterina-Kate Belkina (St. Petersburg, Russia), Esther Zyskina (Jerusalem, Israel), Fabio Porzia (Toulouse, France), Kacper Ziemba (Warsaw, Poland), Matt Bartlett (Exeter, UK), Mikhail-Michael Vasilyev (Moscow, Russia).

Elíshabá Mata-Lopez (Salamanca, Spain), Michael Nosonovsky (Wisconsin, USA), Yosef Stepansky (Israel), Haim Sidor (Safed, Israel).

The Winter School report may be found on the EAJS website. See link.

12 December 2017. The kick-off meeting of PEACE: A Portal of Epigraphy, Archaeology, Conservation and Education on Jewish Funerary Culture, currently entailing a partnership between Utrecht University (Netherlands), The Steinheim Institute (Germany) and Brown University (USA), takes place on 12-13 December 2017. This research consortium is generously sponsored by a three-year grant from the Rothschild Foundation. The three partner teams meet in the Netherlands to draw the road map of their cooperation over the next three years, and to decide on the first steps for aligning the data of the PEACE portal.

28 September 2017. The international academic workshop “All That Remains: The Conservation and Education on Jewish Funerary Culture” is on its way. Twelve participants from six different countries will convene at Utrecht University on 11-12 June 2018. The full program and abstracts will become available online soon. The workshop is organized by Ortal-Paz Saar and generously sponsored by the Rothschild Foundation, as part of the larger grant awarded to the PEACE project.

13 March 2017. “Letters in the Dust” workshop report published online on the European Association of Jewish Studies (EAJS) website. See link.

10 November 2016. We would like to thank all the participants of the “Letters in the Dust” workshop for a splendid academic event, a fruitful discussion, and their potential future collaboration on the topic of Jewish funerary culture.

28 October, 2016. The full program of the round-table workshop “Letters in the Dust: The Epigraphy, Archaeology and Conservation of Medieval Jewish Cemeteries” is now online.

1 August, 2016. Prof. Leonard V. Rutgers and Dr. Ortal-Paz Saar have received an EAJS Conference Grant for convening an international academic workshop titled “Letters in the Dust: The Epigraphy, Archaeology and Conservation of Medieval Jewish Cemeteries”. The workshop will take place at Utrecht University on 7-8 November 2016, and will include fourteen speakers from nine different countries.

July 12, 2016. The updated database of funerary inscriptions of Jews from Italy will be online soon.