building a path to preserve and share Belarus’s Jewish heritage

At The Together Plan, our vision is clear: we strive for global recognition of Belarus’s 700 years of Jewish history. We aim to empower Belarusian Jews and non-Jews alike to engage in projects that uncover and celebrate this rich heritage, while ensuring that Jews in the Belarusian diaspora feel valued and connected to their roots. Our mission is to make this often underexplored history accessible to all, preserving it for future generations and bringing it into the global conversation.

In 2019, we took a significant step toward realising this vision by joining the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish History and Heritage (AEPJ). This incredible network of heritage practitioners, historians, academics, and museums located across Europe, is working together to build the European Route of Jewish Heritage (one of the 47 cultural routes of the Council of Europe). Through our involvement, we are developing a national Jewish heritage route through Belarus—a platform for researching, discussing, and exploring the Jewish story that has been woven into the fabric of Belarus for centuries.

Our vision for this route is not just about mapping sites on a page. Our plan is to create a dynamic web portal where travellers, history enthusiasts, and people interested in Jewish heritage can locate synagogues, cemeteries, memorials, museums, yeshiva buildings, and other sites with Jewish significance. The portal will offer visitors the opportunity to read about these sites, listen to audio tours, read personal stories, plan visits, and even learn where Jewish communities are thriving in Belarus today.

Being part of the AEPJ has provided us with invaluable resources to enable us to learn, grow and develop in this field so that we are best placed to make this dream a reality. The AEPJ members benefit from access to a scientific committee, training opportunities, workshops, and collaboration with other heritage professionals across Europe. It also enables us to work collaboratively with professionals and academics in the field to develop models for best practice. One of the most impactful aspects of the AEPJ network is its annual Incubator Conference, where route managers gather to share new ideas and strategies for developing cultural heritage routes. This year’s conference, held in Oxford, was an inspiring opportunity to learn from experts and innovators in the field which brought together 42 participants from 16 European countries.

 

 

 

The theme of this year’s incubator was Jewish Palaces, Villas, and Country Houses, with a focus on the Jewish Country Houses Project in the UK. We visited three significant heritage sites;  Waddesdon Manor, Gunnersbury Park Museum and Strawberry Hill House and studied how the Jewish Country Houses Project, led by Professor Abigail Green from Oxford University a

nd Pippa Shirley of Waddesdon Manor, has created a collaborative model for uncovering Jewish history through heritage buildings. Oliver Cox, Head of Academic Partnerships at the V&A Museum gave the opening keynote ‘Powered by Research’ and Jeremy Leigh MA from Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem and member of the AEPJ Scientific Committee, ran a deeply thought provoking workshop entitled ‘Jewish Tourism in Turbulent Times’ looking at how the landscape in Jewish tourism has shifted since October 7th. Dr Jack Shepherd, lecturer at Mid Sweden University ran a fascinating session on ‘Using Cultural Routes as Forums for Dialogue’ looking at how cultural routes can and should be opportunities for peacemaking and sustainable development.

 

 

 

 

 

The extensive work that has been done to make the Jewish Country Houses thematic route a reality can now be explored in a stunning book ‘Jewish Country Houses’ edited by Juliet Carey and Abigail Green with extraordinarily evocative photography by Helene Binet. Some of the photographs are currently being exhibited at Strawberry Hill House.

The conference also gave us the opportunity to experience the importance of archives firsthand. We visited the Bodleian Library to view rare Hebrew manuscripts from the 13th to 15th centuries, witnessing how such artefacts and source materials from France, Spain, and Italy play a key role in preserving and informing Jewish history. Author Rebecca Abrams guided us through a hidden tour of Jewish artefacts at the Ashmolean Museum, showing how Jewish history can be uncovered in unexpected places—often without formal representation in museums. Rebecca’s book ‘The Jewish Journey – 4000 years in 22 objects from the Ashmolean Museum‘ is a rare gift where you can explore these treasures in detail.

 

 

 

This year’s incubator conference has left an indelible mark on us at The Together Plan. Debra Brunner, who attended the conference, will now share the key learnings with our team in Belarus. Together, we will explore new ideas, set strategies, and plan for the next twelve months as we continue to build the Belarus Jewish cultural route. The knowledge and insights gained from the time in Oxford will help shape the next steps of this ambitious project.

In these complex times, we may be a small organisation, but our vision is expansive. We’re thinking big, and with your support, we can make this dream a reality. We invite you to join us on this journey. Together, we will map history, build communities, and preserve a heritage that deserves to be known, understood, and celebrated.

Come with us on this exciting journey, and together, we’ll ensure that Belarus’s Jewish history takes its rightful place in the global story.

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If you or your family came from Belarus and you would like to share a story with us – please get in touch by filling in our ‘contact us’ form here