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Zeugnisformen: Berichte, künstlerische Werke und Erzählungen von NS‑Verfolgten
Translated Title: Forms of Testimony: Reports, Works of Art, Stories of Those Persecuted under National Socialism
Editor(s): Knellessen, Dagi; Bachmann, Ralf
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Interviews, Holocaust Survivors, Oral History and Biography, Methodology, Jewish Museums, Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Education
Abstract: Was bleibt, wenn die Zeuginnen und Zeugen der nationalsozialistischen Verbrechen gestorben sein werden? Seit Jahren ist diese Frage in allen gesellschaftlichen, wissenschaftlichen und pädagogischen Debatten über den Umgang mit der NS-Geschichte präsent. Was bleibt, sind die Zeugnisse, die Überlebende in ganz unterschiedlicher Form abgelegt haben: ihre Berichte, ihre literarischen, musikalischen und bildnerischen Verarbeitungen, ihre lebensgeschichtlichen Erzählungen, ihre Zeugenaussagen vor Gericht. Sie vermitteln eindrücklich die Auswirkungen und Schrecken der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung. Aber sind sie Garanten dafür, dass die spezifische Erfahrungsgeschichte der NS-Opfer auch künftig in der öffentlichen Erinnerungskultur und in der Bildung bewahrt werden wird? Welchen Stellenwert haben sie in der Geschichtsforschung zu Nationalsozialismus und Holocaust? Und wie lassen sie sich in der Bildungspraxis am besten einsetzen? Die Veranstaltungsreihe "Entdecken und Verstehen. Bildungsarbeit mit Zeugnissen von Opfern des Nationalsozialismus" der Stiftung "Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft" (EVZ) ist diesen Fragen nachgegangen. In fünf Seminaren wurden neueste Forschungsergebnisse sowie konkrete Bildungsmodule zu den wichtigsten Zeugnisformen vorgestellt und diskutiert. Die Resultate der Reihe sind in diesem Band dokumentiert
From Testimony to Story. Video Interviews about Nazi Crimes. Perspectives and Experiences in four Countries
Abstract: The stories of Holocaust survivors and others who were persecuted by the Nazis are an invaluable resource for understanding what effect persecution had on victims and how they dealt with this experience over time. In recent
decades, researchers in many countries began videotaping contemporary witnesses as they told their stories, allowing their voices to be heard, when personal encounters are no longer possible. In the interviews, biographical
narratives and personal memories are used to document the mass crimes committed by the Nazis and also to illuminate how survivors processed these memories in their lifetime.
This multi-faceted historical source poses special challenges to educational work. This volume reflects international developments, trends and debates about the videotaped contemporary witness interviews and their digital
archives. Different interview collections and educational approaches from Israel, the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany are presented. These essays document the exchange that took place between education experts from
these four countries as part of the series Entdecken und Verstehen. Bildungsarbeit mit Zeugnissen von Opfern des Nationalsozialismus ("Discovering and Understanding: Educational Work with Testimonials from Victims of
National Socialism") that was initiated and organized by the Foundation EVZ in 2010 and 2011.
Preserving Survivors' Memories: Digital Testimony Collections about Nazi Persecution: History, Education and Media (
Editor(s): Apostolopoulos, Nicholas; Barricelli, Michele; Koch, Gertrud
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Interviews, Holocaust Survivors, Oral History and Biography, Methodology, Jewish Museums, Holocaust Memorials
Abstract: Due to the generation shift, the central challenge has become to preserve the memories of the survivors of National Socialist persecution and to anchor these within 21st century cultural memory. In this transition phase, which
includes rapid technical developments within information and communications technology, high expectations are being made of the collections of survivors' audio and video interviews. This publication reflects the interdisciplinary debates currently taking place on the various digital techniques of preserving eyewitness interviews. The focus is how the changes in media technology are affecting the various fields of work, which include storage/archiving, education as well as the reception of the interviews.
Interactions: Explorations of good practice in educational work with video testimonies of victims of National Socialism
Editor(s): Dreier, Werner; Laumer, Angelika; Wein, Moritz
Abstract: According to estimates, there are over 100,000 video testimonies with victims of National Socialism. Many of the interview archives are easily accessed, including some that are available in the Internet for free. While teachers are hesitant in making use of this treasure of source materials, learners are familiar with the figure of the eyewitness as communicated via film and television. But what can be taught with the help of what in cinematographic terms is often criticised as "talking heads"? What constitutes a good learning setting? And how do users interact with the – usually digitised – video testimonies and the collections that are often available online? In January 2017 experienced educators and researchers attended an international workshop on "Localisation of video testimonies with victims
of National Socialism in educational programmes" and discussed the question of what is good practice in this specific form of educational work. This volume is the result of that process. It provides an insight into the conceptual and practical ideas on which the various programmes are based. The book also has a focus on video testimonies presented at historical exhibitions and includes contributions from many countries, such as Belarus,
Canada, Israel, Macedonia, the Netherlands and South Africa.
Controluce, Counterlight, Gegenlicht: Arte e museologia della Shoah, nuovi contributi
Translated Title: Controluce, Counterlight, Gegenlicht: Art and museology of the Shoah, new contributions
Editor(s): Coen, Paolo
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Jewish Museums, Holocaust Memorials, Memory, Restitution and Reparations
Abstract: L'arte e il Museo rappresentano due settori all'avanguardia nella ricerca e nella trasmissione della Memoria della Shoah. Esattamente queste due frontiere disciplinari si occupano fra l'altro dei molti e diversi modi in cui la Memoria stessa è vista, comunicata o percepita. Il libro, frutto di uno studio durato molti anni, accoglie contributi di specialisti fra i più accreditati nei due temi: persone, situazioni e realtà nuove e a tratti sorprendenti aiutano il lettore a comprendere meglio i volti, le sembianze della Memoria della Shoah nel mondo di oggi e di domani.
Maya Zack, Counterlight
Clara Ferranti, Per una definizione linguistica del totalitarismo del XXI secolo: "radiografia" controluce dell'epoca contemporanea
Paolo Coen, Da Richard Serra in qua. La memoria dell'Olocausto nell'arte e nel Museo, fra continuità, fratture e intersezioni
Eleonora Palmoni, Proposta per musealizzare una delle località di internamento fascista nelle Marche: la Villa Giustiniani-Bandini di Urbisaglia
Daria Brasca, "Holocaust-Era Looted Art" nel contesto italiano: le collezioni private ebraiche tra rimozioni storiche e mancata coscienza nazionale
Manfredo Coen, Il Parco del Cardeto ad Ancona
Chiara Censi, Il patrimonio ebraico di Ancona e delle Marche. La musealizzazione del Cimitero Ebraico di Ancona
Lola Kantor-Kazovsky, Post-Holocaust Reflexion in Moscow Non-conformist Art of the 1960s and Michail Grobman's Israeli Leviathan group
Danielle Pardo Rabani, La memoria del Bene, Brindisi accoglie: proposta per il recupero e la valorizzazione della ex Stazione Sanitaria Marittima di via Mater Domini
Giorgia Calò, Rappresentare il non rappresentabile. Il volto della Shoah
Anastasia Felcher, Of Their Own Design: Curatorial Solutions to Commemorate the Shoah in Museums across Eastern Europe
Elenco delle immagini
Jews in Museums: Narratives of Nation and 'Jewishness' in Post-Communist Hungarian and Polish Public Memory
Author(s): Manchin, Anna
Editor(s): Guestnet, François; Lupovitch, Howard; Polonsky, Antony
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memory, Jewish Museums, National Identity
Holocaust lists and the Memorial Museum
Author(s): Lustiger Thaler, Henri
Topics: Jewish Museums, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust Memorials
Abstract: The article looks at Holocaust related death lists in the permanent exhibition of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial Museum. The museum opened to the general public in October of 2007. I argue that Holocaust lists are best understood as memorial objects which project a particular kind of aura. This aura also surrounds the sacral and criminal landscape of Bergen-Belsen, which the lists have come to represent and mediate. It is the relationship of list to landscape that structures their shared auratic resonances, in the interplay between presence (what is documented in the list) and absence (names that have been destroyed, never to be retrieved). In the case of the lists of Bergen-Belsen this is even more nuanced, in that there were two landscapes where the detritus of the genocide unfolded: the iconic mass graves of Belsen and the displaced persons camp, several kilometers down the road from the concentration camp, where the sick and dying were transported after the liberation. Given that there is no original list of the dead in the mass graves of the concentration camp, the death lists in the displaced persons camp take on a more complex memorial meaning. In conclusion, I make the argument that the memorial experience of Bergen-Belsen is a useful template from which to view other transnational sites of destruction and crimes against humanity.
Experiencing memory museums in Berlin. The Otto Weidt Workshop for the Blind Museum and the Jewish Museum Berlin
Author(s): Souto, Ana
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums
Abstract: This article explores memory studies from the audience's perspective, focusing on the perception of Holocaust narratives in two museums in Berlin. This research builds on and contributes to a number of emerging issues on memory studies, tourism perception and museum design: the debate on experiential authenticity, Dark Tourism, as well as the analysis of memory studies from the perspective of the user. The main data facilitating the analysis is based on responses shared on TripAdvisor; the case studies being the Otto Weidt Workshop for the Blind Museum and the Jewish Museum Berlin. The analysis of these museums, focusing on their narratives, design features and comments from visitors, will highlight a potential shift from the traditional object-focused museum, to a phenomenological subject-focused one. It will be argued, then, that the understanding and consumption of authenticity encompasses a very flexible definition, not only based on the nature of the objects exhibited, but on the production of authentic experiences.
Not what we expected: the Jewish Museum Berlin in practice
Author(s): Chametzky, Peter
An extensive existing literature studies Daniel Libeskind's deconstructivist design for the Jewish Museum Berlin (JMB). This article focuses instead on the museum's exhibits from 2001 to today, their evolution in response to visitor criticisms, and their discursive setting, all of which exhibit museum and marketing professionals' attempts to deal with, and to an extent to overcome, the theory driven and Holocaust-laden architectural programme. The JMB, in practice, while including the Holocaust as one component of visitors' experiences, instead emphasizes Jews and things Jewish as a positive component of a 'postnational' version of the German national narrative.
Value of Augmented Reality to enhance the Visitor Experience: A Case study of Manchester Jewish Museum
Author(s): tom Dieck, M. Claudia; Jung, Timothy
Abstract: There is an increase in Augmented Reality (AR) adoption in the tourism sector and increasingly
visitor attractions, museums and art galleries start to use AR for the enhancement of the visitor
experience. However, smaller organisations often fear high investments without the proof of
concept due to risks of failures. Therefore, the present study uses a small museum in Manchester
to investigate the value of AR for different target markets, visitors and the museum itself.
Internal and external data collection was conducted using focus groups with eight museum
visitors and ten interviews with museum staff as well as teachers. Findings show that AR is
considered the way to move forward to preserve history, enhance visitor satisfaction, generate
positive word-of-mouth, attract new target markets as well as contribute to a positive learning
Remembering Southern Germany's Jewish past – initiatives and developments since the 1980's
Author(s): Renghart, Martin
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memorial, Jewish Museums, Holocaust Memorials
Abstract: The following article tries to give an overview of the memorial work and the preservation of Jewish heritage in Southern Germany, mainly in its rural regions, since the 1980s. Theere exist around 20 memorials in in the State of Baden-Württemberg and about the same number in Bavaria. Varying in size and ambition, many of them are housed in former synagogues or other buildings formerly in Jewish ownership. They are concentrated in the North of Bavaria, in the regions of Upper, Central and Lower Franconia and in
the North of Baden-Württemberg, where from the 17th century till the 1930s many Jewish communities existed. What were
the reasons for the sudden rise of interest in local Jewish history? What is on display? What were the main intentions of the initiators, and what have they achieved? What form of resistance, conflicts and criticisms occurred?
Polskie judaika jako magnes turystyczny
Translated Title: Polish Judaica as a tourist magnet
Author(s): Małkowska-Bieniek, Ewa
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Heritage, Jewish Museums, Tourism
Abstract: After a comprehensive presentation of the main types and buildings of the Jewish material heritage in the area of Poland, the author first presents the idea and design of the Museum of Polish Jews as the center for collecting and passing on the cultural heritage of this historic group of inhabitants of Poland and, potentially, one of the most important destinations of ethnic excursions. Next, she points out to the forms and leading themes of cultural tourism in which the heritage of Polish Jews could be used.
Generation of a Tourism Product: Jewish Heritage Tourism In Spain
Author(s): Krakover, Shaul
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Heritage, Tourism, Jewish Museums
Abstract: This paper aims to study the supply side of an emerging new tourism attraction. Specifically, the research focuses on the transformation of Jewish heritage to a unique tourism product. Actual objectives are to assess the physical elements composing the Jewish heritage product and to examine their diversity in a sample of twenty Spanish towns and cities, members of Red de Juderias de Espanã organization. Affiliation with a central actor raised the question to what extent different localities are affected by the central guidelines so as to generate a homogeneous product of a repetitive nature. A survey of all artifacts related to Jewish heritage tourism in these cities provided the data for the assessment. The results shed light on the process of converting abstract heritage to a tangible tourism product. The Jewish heritage product embraces a set of specific elements listed in descending order of their appearance: Jewish quarter, Jewish museum, a synagogue, a local Jewish persona, ot...
Dla kogo i o czym? Muzeum Polin, historiografia Żydów a Żydzi jako "sprawa polska"
Translated Title: For whom and about what? The Polin Museum, Jewish historiography and Jews as a "Polish cause"
Author(s): Kijek, Kamil
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Memory, Antisemitism, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Jewish History
Abstract: Artykuł ten przedstawia najważniejsze wątki krytycznej debaty wokół treści wystawy stałej Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich Polin. Analizując różnice między dwoma polami badawczymi – studiami żydowskimi i studiami nad relacjami polsko-żydowskimi – autor broni tezy, że wiele krytycznych głosów w debacie wynika z niezrozumienia różnic między przedmiotem badań tych dwóch pól, po części wynikającego z obecnej sytuacji – panującego nacjonalizmu i etnocentryzmu, wywierających wpływ również na polskie debaty historyczne. Domaganie się od wystawy opowiadającej tysiącletnią historię Żydów na ziemiach polskich, aby koncentrowała się głównie na stosunku społeczeństwa większościowego do Żydów, grozi popełnieniem błędu teleologii, to jest interpretowaniem wcześniejszych wydarzeń i procesów jako nieuchronnie prowadzących do Zagłady, a także pomijaniem wszystkich tych elementów dziejów żydowskich, które z perspektywy Holokaustu i badań nad antysemityzmem nie mają znaczenia. Tego rodzaju postulaty i stojące za nimi metahistoryczne założenia grożą pozbawieniem Żydów roli podmiotów w ich własnej historii. Z drugiej strony autor tekstu wskazuje na elementy narracji wystawy stałej Muzeum Polin, w których rzeczywiście w niedostateczny sposób uwzględniona została problematyka antysemityzmu jako ważnego elementu żydowskiego doświadczenia i kluczowego czynnika dziejów Żydów w Polsce. Przywrócenie rzeczywistego dialogu i komunikacji pomiędzy przedstawicielami studiów żydowskich i badaczami relacji polsko-żydowskich, przy zachowaniu autonomii tych dwóch pól i zrozumieniu różnic pomiędzy nimi, jest też istotne z punktu widzenia niewątpliwych zagrożeń w postaci prób wykorzystania Muzeum Polin w budowie upolitycznionych, bezkrytycznych wizji historii Polski i stosunku Polaków do Żydów.
Poland and Polin: New Interpretations in Polish-Jewish Studies
Editor(s): Grudzińska-Gross, Irena; Nawrocki, Iwa
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Culture, Jewish Heritage, Memory, Holocaust Memorials, Jewish Museums
Abstract: The contributions in this volume reflect discussions and controversies during the Princeton University Conference on Polish-Jewish Studies (April 18–19, 2015). The debates examined the politics of history in Poland, as well as the scholarly and pedagogical need to move beyond national and diasporic narratives in researching and teaching Polish-Jewish subjects. They focused on the role and meaning of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
The Hungarian Holocaust Memorial Year 2014. Some Remarks
Author(s): Kovács, Éva
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Antisemitism, Holocaust Memorials, Jewish Museums, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations
Abstract: From the perspective of the past two (almost three) years, it seems that the significant anniversary of 2014 went down in the annals of history as a remarkable fiasco of Hungarian memory politics. Controversial Monument, Divided Hungarians, Angered Jewish Community – these newspaper headlines are still fresh in our minds. Over the course of the year, the Hungarian Holocaust Memorial Year turned to become somewhat infamous, and scandal followed upon scandal not only in domestic media but also in foreign newspapers. However, everything had started off well in the beginning. This essay will first briefly introduce the broader context of this fiasco, discussing the main differences between Eastern and Western European memory politics before and after 1989. It will then distinguish some milestones of the Hungarian ambiguity and delay in coping with the European tendencies in Holocaust remembrance. After that, it will turn to its central subject, analysing the main events of the Hungarian Holocaust Memorial Year 2014. Toward the end, the essay will map the different initiatives between the coordinates of memory politics and show some unintended consequences
of the unsuccessful governmental intentions.
Inside the Museum: A Museum in a museum—the experience of exhibiting Jewish collections in the Russian Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg
Author(s): Lakerson, Shimon; Shcherbakova, Marina
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Ethnography
Inside the Museum: The Museum of Jewish History in Russia, Moscow
Author(s): Kaspina, Maria; Kazovsky, Hillel
Inside the Museum: The Jewish Museum of Chisinău (Kishinev)
Author(s): Shikova, Irina
Reportage: Small exhibits, major steps: four post-Soviet Jewish museums
Author(s): Felcher, Anastasia
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Memory, Post-1989, Jewish Community
Abstract: The small-scale Jewish museums in Chișinău (Moldova), Odessa (Ukraine), Lviv (Ukraine), and Minsk (Belarus) narrate the history of once flourishing Jewish communities, and document their disappearance. Their permanent collections, which consist of the private belongings that emigrating Jewish families gave them in the early 1990s, are the basis for their exhibitions. These museums opened in the early 2000s under the auspices of local Jewish cultural and charitable organizations. They are not state museums and lack a solid financial foundation and stable professional curatorial team. Much depends on the personal vision of their directors. Despite both limited exhibition space and locations not frequented by tourists, these museums are important agents of memory and identity for local Jewish and non-Jewish audiences, as well as for international visitors.
Reportage: The Bukharan-Jewish Museum in Samarkand: memory preservation of a rapidly-diminishing community
Author(s): Levin, Zeev
Inside the Museum: Galicia Jewish Museum: Re-defining the role of the Jewish museum in a post-communist Poland
Author(s): Nowakowski, Jakub
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Memory, Post-1989
Inside the Museum: Nothing is going to change? Adaptation of the Jewish Pre-Burial House in Gliwice
Author(s): Romik, Natalia
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Memory
Abstract: This article discusses the architectural conversion of the historical Gliwice Pre-Burial House into the Museum of Upper Silesian Jews. It describes the former function of the building in the context of the specific history of Upper Silesian Jews, the Haskalah movement, and funeral rites in Judaism. The main part of the paper is devoted to the presentation of the architectural design and the functional division of the planned museum as proposed by the architectural collective that the author is part of. Special attention is given to a discussion of the conceptual framework of the design which tries to reveal the continuity of unformatted architectural memory. The features of proposed design, such as the central installation of The Cloud, merge commemorative aspects with new functions related to hosting public events and historical display. In this way, the design negotiates between remembrance of the Jewish community and the needs of the new inhabitants and users of the space. Thus, the paper contributes to the larger discussion about the adaptation of former Jewish facilities for new public functions.
Reportage: Romania and its Jewish museums
Author(s): Julean, Dan-Ionuţ
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Jewish Community, Jewish Heritage
Abstract: After the proclamation of the People's Republic of Romania, at the end of 1947, until 1988, about 300,000 Jews have left Romania. Currently, in Romania, the Jewish population is around 12,000–15,000, generally aging. Despite the general interest of the Romanian society in Judaism and the Jewish communities, as the article highlights, there are only about half a dozen Jewish museums, most of them being rather unknown and modest community exhibitions, dusty and decrepit. The article focuses on these particular museums and their collections, but trying to point out the resources and real potential of the Jewish heritage in Romania, envisaging that it is high time to experience new Jewish museums
Reportage: Beyond Prague's "Precious Legacy": post-communist Jewish exhibits and synagogue restorations in the Czech Republic
Author(s): Gruber, Ruth Ellen
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Post-1989, Synagogues, Jewish Community, Jewish Heritage
Abstract: The 10 Stars project, a linked network of restored or re-restored historic synagogues, associated buildings, and exhibitions in 10 towns around the Czech Republic, is the most ambitious single Jewish heritage project to be carried out in the Czech Republic since the fall of communism. Inaugurated in 2014, it falls within (and is the culmination of) a multifaceted program for Jewish heritage preservation and promotion in that country that was already being implemented in the early 1990s, thanks to the strategic vision of Jewish communal leaders and the active involvement and participation of municipalities, NGOs and others. As a result, in the past quarter century, the Czech Republic has seen the restoration of more than 65 synagogues, as well as the creation of regional Jewish museums and the installation of many local exhibits on Jewish history and heritage. This essay examines elements of the strategic process that achieved these results and shows how the various stages of its implementation led up to the 10 Stars.
Inside the Museum: When Orthodox synagogue meets museum: the New Jewish Community Museum in Bratislava
Author(s): Borský, Maroš
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Memory, Post-1989, Synagogues, Jewish Community
From Restored Past to Unsettled Present: New Challenges for Jewish Museums in East Central Europe
Author(s): Deme, Katalin
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Memory, Post-1989, Jewish Identity
Abstract: This article examines the institutional development of Jewish museums in Prague, Budapest, and Bratislava from 1989 to the present, with special reference to their role as agents of cultural memory. I consider how these museums contribute to the formation of Jewish identities in post-communist societies, which are themselves struggling to form collective identities. After analyzing the institutional structures and exhibition concepts of these museums in relation to shifts in the politics of representation, I propose a core area on which each museum could base its future development.
Staging Traumatic Memory: Competing Narratives of State Violence in Post-Communist Hungarian Museums
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Memory, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Education, Holocaust Memorials, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Post-1989, Communism
Abstract: The article examines the way three contemporary Hungarian museums–the House of Terror Museum, the Jewish Museum and the Holocaust Memorial and Documentation Center–represent the history of the Holocaust and the history of Jewish/non-Jewish relations. Reflecting different political agendas, each of the three museums offers a different interpretation of how the Holocaust fits into the larger narrative of Hungary's 20th century history. The article argues that post-communist public memory has been constructed through debates about these histories. By analyzing the three museums' displays, narratives and the debates surrounding them, the article argues that Hungarian public discourse has yet to come to terms with the meaning and place of "Jewishness" (and the way it has informed "Hungarianness") in modern Hungarian history. Despite the centrality of Jews and Jewish-non-Jewish relations to the museums' narratives, none are able to offer a clear definition of what "Jewishness" means and how it functioned at different times throughout the 20th century.
Inside the Museum: Curating between hope and despair: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Author(s): Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Memory, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Education, Holocaust Memorials, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations
Abstract: The reception of the core exception of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which opened in Warsaw on 28 October 2014, is the focus of this essay. While eschewing a master narrative, the exhibition is guided by metahistorical principles and a distinctive approach to mode of narration. Both have proven controversial as evidenced by answers to the following questions. What is the difference between a history of Polish Jews and a history of Polish Jewish relations? What is the most important period in the history of Polish Jews? Can visitors be trusted to draw the proper conclusions from a multi-voiced narrative based largely on quotations from primary sources, supported with scholarly commentary? Is a museum whose core exhibition features relatively few original objects a museum? What is the role of intangible heritage in such a museum?
The Square of Polish Innocence: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw and its symbolic topography
Author(s): Janicka, Elżbieta
Abstract: The text refers to the space around the Nathan Rapoport's Monument to the Fighters and Martyrs of the Ghetto and the Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN in Warsaw (Poland). The site of death – at the heart of the former Warsaw Ghetto – has now become a site overloaded with other symbolic messages. Two main symbolic centers (the 1948 Monument and the 2013 Museum) are today encircled by ten other, additional memorials. The message emerging from the content as well as the proportion of commemorations is that Polish solidarity with the Jews was a fact and it stood the test of terror and death brought by the Germans. Although it does not undermine the veracity of the few and isolated exceptions, such a version of events is drastically different from the actual facts. Both symbolic centers are perceived as emblems of Jewish minority narrative. Additional artefacts are a message formulated by the Polish majority. They constitute a kind of symbolic encirclement, block. Emphasizing the dominant majority's version of the events in this place is in fact a symbolic pre-emptive action. It is meant to silence the unwanted narrative or suppress even the mere possibility that it might emerge. What turns out to be at stake in the dominant Polish narrative about the Holocaust and Polish-Jewish relations is the image of Poland and the Poles. This shows not only the topographic and symbolic situation but also the socio-cultural context of the functioning of the new Museum.
Inside the Museum: Torahs, Tanks, and Tech: Moscow's Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center
Author(s): Nathans, Benjamin
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Memory, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Education
The shtetl in the museum: representing Jews in the eras of Stalin and Putin
Author(s): Yalen, Deborah
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Post-1989, Jewish Revival, Memory, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Education, Communism, Soviet Jewry
Abstract: This article considers the representation of the shtetl in two museum narratives devoted to Jews in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. The first, the state-funded 1939 exhibit "The Jews in Tsarist Russia and the USSR" was organized by the Jewish Section of the State Museum of Ethnography in Leningrad and remained on display to the Soviet public until the Nazi invasion in June 1941. The second is the privately funded Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, which opened in 2012. Though conceived under radically different ideological and political circumstances, each exhibition conveys a significant message about the place of Jews in Soviet and post-Soviet society, respectively, and each positions the shtetl as a formative arena for Jewish civic identity vis-à-vis the Russian homeland. Across the chasm of over seventy years, these two museum projects raise strikingly similar questions about how and why cultural institutions are mobilized to define the relationship of Ashkenazi Jews and the state. In both cases, the shtetl plays a significant role in narrating this unequal relationship.
The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow: Judaism for the masses
Author(s): Gershenson, Olga
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Post-1989, Jewish Revival, Memory, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Education
Abstract: In 2012, a new Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center opened in Moscow – an event unthinkable during the Soviet regime. Financed at the level of $50 million, created by an international crew of academics and museum designers, and located in a landmark building, the museum immediately rose to a position of cultural prominence in the Russian museum scene. Using interactive technology and multimedia, the museum's core exhibition presents several centuries of complex local Jewish history, including the Second World War period. Naturally, the Holocaust is an important part of the story. Olga Gershenson's essay analyzes the museum's relationship to Holocaust history and memory in the post-Soviet context. She describes the museum's struggle to reconcile a Soviet understanding of the "Great Patriotic War" with a dominant Western narrative of the Holocaust, while also bringing the Holocaust in the Soviet Union to a broader audience via the museum. Through recorded testimonies, period documents, and film, the museum's display narrates the events of the Holocaust on Soviet soil. This is a significant revision of the Soviet-era discourse, which universalized and externalized the Holocaust. But this important revision is limited by the museum's choice to avoid the subject of local collaborators and bystanders. The museum shies away from the most pernicious aspect of the Holocaust history on Soviet soil, missing an opportunity to take historic responsibility and confront the difficult past.
Introduction: New Jewish museums in post-communist Europe
Author(s): Gershenson, Olga; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Post-1989, Jewish Revival, Memory, Holocaust Commemoration
The constructed Jew. A pragmatic approach for defining a collective Central European image of Jews
Author(s): Gantner, Eszter B.; Kovács, Mátyás
Editor(s): Šiaučiunaitė-Verbickiene, Jurgita; Lempertienė, Larisa
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Culture, Jewish Heritage, Jewish Museums, Klezmer, Jewish Music, Jewish Revival, Post-1989
The House of Terror and the Holocaust Memorial Centre: Resentment and Melancholia in Post-89 Hungary
Author(s): Creet, Julia
Editor(s): Mithander, Conny; Sundholm, John; Adrian, Velicu
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust Memorials, Jewish Museums, Memory, Memorial, Communism, Post-1989
Abstract: The Terror Háza (House of Terror, 2002) and the Holocaust Dokumentacios Kozpont es emlekgyujtemeny (The Holocaust Documentation and Memorial Centre, 2004) opened in Budapest within two years of each other. Together, these two museums are illustrative of the phenomenology and competing affective narratives of Hungarian national memory post-89, and of post-communist countries more generally. While each museum purports to tell a specific history, both are manifestations of the political struggle over the national memory of the Second World War and its aftermath, a history that has been substantially rewritten since the end of Communism. The House of Terror enacts the 'double occupation' of Nazism and Communism and the Holocaust Memorial Centre archives and the deportation of the Hungarian Jews and Roma. Each museum aestheticises an affective phenomenology of historical victimisation, provoking ressentiment and melancholia respectively in visitors as a means of staging moral values and perpetuating contested memories.
Public History beyond the state: Presenting the Yiddish past in contemporary Europe
Translated Title: Public History oltre lo Stato: presentare il passato Yiddish nell'Europa contemporanea
Author(s): Zaagsma, Gerben
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Yiddish, Language, Memory, Jewish Museums, Jewish Culture, Jewish Heritage, Jewish History, Universities / Higher Education
Abstract: This article analyses how Europe's 'Yiddish past' is presented, commemorated and engaged with in contemporary Europe from a Public History perspective. It investigates the ways in which Yiddish, its culture and its speakers, are inscribed in representations of Jewish history in museums, websites, and other settings. In doing so a distinction is made between Western Europe, where Yiddish-speaking immigrants and their culture formed but a part of local Jewish populations, and Central/Eastern Europe, where Jewish life was to a large extent Yiddish life. The article shows how a growing attention for migration in Western Europe, and the demand for Jewish heritage from abroad in Central and Eastern Europe, drive new and revised versions of Jewish, as well as national, historical narratives. It also contrasts such larger developments and contexts with local, 'bottom-up', activities. At the same it moves beyond national contexts and considers the role that European institutions play in preserving Yiddish heritage. The article argues that definitions of Public History, which predominantly focus on how professional historians take history to a broader non-academic public, are insufficient. The case of Yiddish in Europe also highlights the important role of the state in driving public history activities. Key words: Jewish history; Yiddish; Europe; Public History; Representation; Museums.
Der Shop als Spiegel des Museums Ausstellungsobjekte, Souvenirs und Identitätspraktiken im Jüdischen Museum Berlin und im Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
Translated Title: The shop as a mirror of the museum, exhibition exhibits, souvenirs and identity practices in the Jewish Museum Berlin and in the Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
Author(s): Peleikis, Anja; Feldman, Jackie
Editor(s): Schnepel, Burkhard; Girke, Felix; Knoll, Eva-Maria
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Holocaust Memorials
Jewish Heritage and the New Belarusian National Identity Project
Author(s): Waligórska, Magdalena
Topics: Jewish Heritage, Jewish Museums, Nationalism, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Abstract: Focusing on three contemporary grassroots initiatives of preserving Jewish heritage and commemorating Jews in Belarus, namely, the Jewish Museum in Minsk, Ada Raǐchonak's private museum of regional heritage in Hermanovichi, and the initiative of erecting the monument of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda in Hlybokae, the present article discusses how local efforts to commemorate Jews and preserve Jewish heritage tap into the culture of political dissent, Belarus's international relations, and the larger project of redefining the Belarusian national identity. Looking at the way these memorial interventions frame Jewish legacy within a Belarusian national narrative, the article concentrates in particular on the institution of the public historian and the small, informal social networks used to operate under a repressive regime. Incorporating the multicultural legacy of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth into the canon of Belarusian national heritage and recognizing the contribution of ethnic minorities to the cultural landscape of Belarus, new memory projects devoted to Jewish history in Belarus mark a caesura in the country's engagement with its ethnic Others and are also highly political. While the effort of filling in the gaps in national historiography and celebrating the cultural diversity of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania overlaps in significant ways with the agenda of the anti-Lukashenka opposition, Jewish heritage in Belarus also resonates with the state authorities, who seek to instrumentalize it for their own vision of national unity.
Cultural Representations of Jewishness at the Turn of the 21st Century
Editor(s): Waligórska, Magdalena; Wagenhofer, Sophie
Topics: Jewish Heritage, Jewish Culture, Jewish Museums, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Abstract: The present volume is a collection of selected essays first presented at the interdisciplinary conference "Representations of Jews in the Contemporary European Popular Culture", held by the Department of History and Civilization of the European University Institute in Florence from 24 to 26 November 2008.
"Romantic Auschwitz": examples and perceptions of contemporary visitor photography at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Author(s): Bogue, Nicole
Topics: Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Commemoration, Jewish Museums, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Abstract: Visitor photography at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is becoming increasingly popular in the age of the Internet, social media and digitalization. People visit the Auschwitz Museum for a number of reasons, and their motivations for taking photographs at the site also vary. Several of the primary reasons to photograph Auschwitz given by the sixteen participants in this study will be explored in this paper. The ethical dilemma surrounding the taking of 'selfies' will also be considered.
The concentration camp brothels in memory
Abstract: This paper examines the differing representations of the history of concentration camp brothels. It examines how two specific sites of memory, Ravensbrück Gedenkstätte and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum have taken dichotomous approaches in whether to explore this difficult and marginal experiences of around two hundred women who were forced to serve in prisoner camp brothels. Building on research visits to both sites in 2013, it evaluates and argues that differing national sensitivities, roles the topographies play in memory and history and the pressures of visitor numbers to the sites are fundamental in these juxtaposing representations.
Between Evidence and Symbol: The Auschwitz Album in Yad Vashem, the Imperial War Museum (London) and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Author(s): Ashworth, Jaime
Topics: Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust, Jewish Museums, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Mokum is Home: Amsterdam's Jewish Historical Museum
Author(s): Ostow, Robin
Topics: Jewish Museums, Cities and Suburbs, Jewish Heritage, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Abstract: Mokum is 'Amsterdam' in the local dialect of Yiddish. Deriving from the Hebrew word makom, meaning 'place', Mokum affectionately designates the Dutch capital as 'the place' for Jews. Judith Belinfante, director of Amsterdam's Jewish Historical Museum from 1976 to 1998, explained: 'Amsterdam was, for a long time, the only place where Jews could come without any restrictions'. Already in the early seventeenth century, Jews began arriving, from Portugal and from Central and Eastern Europe. And, in contrast to the rest of Europe, in Amsterdam, they were given unlimited freedom to settle, and were never confined to ghettos, or forced to wear a distinctive sign. The extent of Jewish institutional integration in Amsterdam, and today, throughout the Netherlands, is nowhere more evident than in the history and exhibitions of Amsterdam's Jewish Historical Museum. It's a classical Heimat or 'home town' museum. It celebrates the city, and displays Amsterdam and Dutch Jewry as a dynamic, loyal and well-integrated minority
Jødisk liv i Norge: Den norske jødiske minoritetens egenfortellinger belyst ved menighetsbladet Hatikva og Jødisk Museum i Oslo, 2012-2014
Translated Title: Jewish life in Norway: The Norwegian Jewish minority's stories illustrated by the magazine Hatikva and the Jewish Museum in Oslo, 2012-2014
Author(s): Bogen, Marthe
Topics: Minorities, National Identity, Integration, Jewish Identity, Media, Jewish Museums, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Abstract: Denne masteroppgaven er en tekstanalyse av menighetsbladet Hatikva, som er organ for De Mosaiske Trossamfunn, og utstillingene ved Jødisk Museum i Oslo i tidsrommet 2012-2014. I dette tidsrommet har det utkommet 12 utgaver av Hatikva, og tre utstillinger har vært tilgjengelig for besøk ved Jødisk Museum. Gjennom oppgaven undersøker jeg hvilke egenfortellinger som kan identifiseres i dette materialet, hva egenfortellingene legger vekt på og hvordan norsk tilhørighet markeres. Gjennom arbeidet med materialet identifiserte jeg fire egenfortellinger: Fortellingen om opprettholdelse, fortellingen om integrasjon, fortellingen om utelukkelse og tilsidesettelse, og fortellingen om stigmatisering. Egenfortellingene gir uttrykk for en sterk norsk identitet blant den jødiske minoriteten: Norge er fedrelandet og norske jøder er opptatt av å opprettholde et jødisk samfunn i Norge. Samtidig gis det også uttrykk for at den jødiske minoriteten ikke er helt inkludert i «det norske vi». Samlet sett antyder derfor egenfortellingene en ambivalens i forholdet til storsamfunnet.
Chrismukkah as Happy Ending?: The Weihnukka Exhibition at the Jewish Museum Berlin as German-Jewish Integration Fantasy
Author(s): Nathenson, Cary
Topics: German-Jewish Relations, Jewish Museums, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Abstract: In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
In the mid-1940s, a little girl on the South Side of Chicago really, really wanted a Christmas tree. This commonplace request was complicated by just one thing: the girl, like most of her neighbors, was Jewish. The temper tantrum must have been ferocious, because the girl somehow got her mother to give in. A tree was procured and smuggled down the alley into the apartment, lest the neighbors get wind of the shande. The girl enjoyed her Christmas tree, alongside her Hanukkah menorah, until one day she developed a fever, and the tree was hastily stuffed into a closet before the pediatrician, Dr. Rosen-bloom, arrived.
The stress of this secret Christmas was ultimately too much bother, so this would be my mother's one and only "Chrismukkah" celebration. Of course, she didn't know to call it that, nor did she know that craving a Christmas tree placed her on a historical continuum with her German-Jewish ancestors, some of whom might have celebrated the hybrid holiday called "Weihnukka" (from Weihnachten, German for "Christmas.") Weihnukka was not an actual holiday but referred instead to the practice of some assimilated—but not converted—Jews who adopted Christmas rituals in the private sphere. In some German-Jewish bourgeois homes of the Wilhelmine era, trees, advent calendars, wreaths and other, mostly superficial trappings of the holiday co-existed, if not usurped, the rituals of Judaism's winter holiday, Hanukkah. To the extent the term was used at all, Weihnukka was probably mostly heard mockingly by Jews who were embarrassed by this behavior.1 The Christmas these Jews celebrated was less about the birth of Jesus Christ than it was about fitting in with neighbors. Christmas was widely seen as belonging to and defining of the German nation rather than a religious festival, and therefore celebrating the holiday was just something that "real" Germans did, regardless of their religion. While some German-Jews no doubt experienced feelings of embarrassment, even shame, at assimilating Christmas into their family traditions, others achieved what was certainly the main objective: a sense of normalcy as Germans while maintaining self-identification as Jewish.
For one assimilated Jewish-German child, Christmas was so fully part of his normal family life that the tree in the gute Stube appeared without question each December. It was only after National Socialist racial laws required him to attend special Jewish-only schools that he learned that Jews actually celebrate Hanukkah, not Christmas. Not coincidentally, these are the recollections of Michael Blumenthal, a Jew from Oranienburg, just north of Berlin, who would escape fascism and later became Treasury Secretary under U.S. President Jimmy Carter and who now heads the Jewish Museum Berlin.2 The cultural-historical oddity of German-Jewish Christmas celebrations was the subject of a temporary exhibit at the museum. The show, titled "Weihnukka: Geschichten von Weihnachten und Chanukka" (Chrismukkah: Stories of Christmas and Hanukkah), was on display from October 2005 to January 2006. Now, even several years later, it is apparent that the Weihnukka show can be read as a significant moment along a line of the continuity and discontinuity of Jewish, German, and "Jewish-German" identity.
The exhibit mostly featured artifacts and texts documenting nineteenth-and early-twentieth- century holiday practices, explaining Hanukkah for non-Jewish museum visitors, and casting Christmas as a celebration in the German-nationalist context of the era.3 While the fraught navigation of Jewish-German identity in Gründerzeit Germany is at the core of the exhibit, what captured my attention were the elements of contemporary American popular culture used to conclude the show. The museum administration contends that they were included merely to bring this cultural history up to date for visitors.4 This was no doubt their intention, and yet I will argue that these American aspects of the Weihnukka exhibit have important functions and meanings beyond the superficial level of visitor experience. I look back, then, at this exhibit, in order to interrogate its implications for global identity and even the traditional idea of diaspora in the context of today's German-Jewish community, and what this temporary exhibit tells us about the ongoing function of the Jewish Museum Berlin...
Jewish Revival in Crete
Author(s): Clark, David
Topics: Community Development, Outreach, Renewal and Renaissance, Synagogues, Jewish Renewal, Jewish Heritage, Jewish Museums, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Abstract: The author sheds light on the efforts made by Nicholas Hanna-Stavroulakis, the mastermind behind the revitalization of the Jewish community in Crete. After the Holocaust, most Jews had been removed from the island; however, in 1979, Hannan-Stavroulakis initiated the creation of the first Jewish museum in Athens. He then moved on to restore Etz Hayyim Synagogue, which was badly damaged during the war. The goal was to orchestrate a Jewish community, which hadn't existed since the war, around the newly restored synagogue. By 2003, the synagogue became the center of a flourishing Jewish community in Crete, with regular Jewish and non-Jewish members who are active members and volunteers of the synagogue.
Sites of Remembrance? Jewish Museums in Contemporary Germany
Author(s): Offe, Sabine
Topics: Jewish Museums, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Memory, Memorial, Holocaust Commemoration
Museum without a collection: Jewish culture in the new Italian multiculturalism
Author(s): Feldman, Jeffrey David
Topics: Jewish Culture, Multiculturalism, Jewish Museums, Jewish Heritage, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Sites of Memory or Aids to Multiculturalism? Conflicting Uses of Jewish Heritage Sites
Topics: Jewish Museums, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Abstract: The immediate postwar in Europe was characterised by collective amnesia concerning where Jews had lived prior to the Holocaust. By the 1970s and mid-1980s, there was a revival of interest in residential areas, synagogues and cemeteries connected with a Jewish past, right throughout Europe, including former communist countries in the 1990s. This resulted in much renovation and the attempt to provide new uses for such sites as museums and cultural centres.
My paper focuses on the shift in emphasis from the need to preserve such sites as places of memory to an increasing concern with other issues. Such issues range from tourism promotion to the promotion of multiculturalism. This emphasis on preparing the younger generation for a future in a new multicultural state provides much of the motivation for central and local government to lend support to such initiatives, whether in Sweden, Germany or Italy, for instance.
The paper focuses on the Jewish Museum in Bologna, where I conducted fieldwork between 1999 and 2002. The study illustrates the mix of policy objectives involved, such as heritage preservation, urban regeneration, cultural policy and educational objectives. The theoretical discussion seeks to combine Clifford's notion of the museum as a contact zone (Clifford, 1997) with Foucault's notions on discourse formation (Foucault, 1972). In the process, the analysis of the museum's political economy extends beyond the four walls of the museum into the adjoining space of the ghetto and the city.


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A SITE SELECTION INVESTMENT PROFILE
From Site Selection magazine, May 2014
Leading a New Wave of Tech and Life Sciences Transformation
The Wistar Institute and Life Sciences Greenhouse foster innovation and expansion in Pennsylvania's biotech, pharmaceutical and medical device sectors.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett was named the 2013 BIO Governor of the Year at the 2013 BIO International Convention in Chicago. BIO — the biotech industry's largest annual trade convention — will return to Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in 2015.
Photo courtesy of Pennsylvania Governor's Office
by RON STARNER
uilding the right environment for life science success is a task that many states undertake but few master.
"Pennsylvanians are synonymous with independence, creativity and a fiercly competitive can-do spirit that is leading the nation and changing the world," said Gov. Tom Corbett.
Pennsylvania is providing the blueprint for the other 49 states in the form of two initiatives that have produced stellar results: The Wistar Institute and the Life Sciences Greenhouse.
Wistar, an independent, nonprofit biomedical research center in Philadelphia, is the oldest and arguably most successful such establishment in the country, having developed vaccines for rabies, German measles and the rotavirus. Founded in 1892, Wistar has also identified the genes associated with breast, lung and prostate cancer and developed monoclonal antibodies.
In short, millions of people around the world are alive today thanks to the research originating out of Wistar, and the institute's leadership role in disease prevention and cure makes it a pillar of the Pennsylvania life science economy.
"Our purpose is to conduct biomedical research and support educational activities in the training of scientists and post-doctoral degree people," says Dr. Russel E. Kaufman, president and CEO of The Wistar Institute. "We also have a biotech training program, about 15 years old, where we train young people to be research technicians through a two-year program in partnership with a local community college. Virtually 100 percent of our students go on to join the biotech industry in technical jobs."
While it's hard to measure the exact amount that Wistar has contributed to the Pennsylvania economy over the years, individual contributions are staggering. Take Merck: the pharmaceutical company manufactures the rotavirus vaccine developed at Wistar in Pennsylvania, and annual sales worldwide top $800 million — and that doesn't even count the impact of the thousands of workers who make the drug.
Making a Little Go a Long Way
With an annual budget of $65 million, Wistar clearly punches well above its weight class. "Our research and our products have a profound effect," says Kaufman. "The Centocor drug used in the treatment of psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease was developed at Wistar and it is being manufactured in Malvern, Pa. That will be a billion-dollar-a-year drug."
An HIV preventive drug developed at Wistar will go to clinical trials later this year, notes Kaufman. "We think that our little institute has, pound for pound, produced more drugs than any other place in the United States," he says. "We were the first National Cancer Institute in Pennsylvania. We were the first in Philadelphia — now there are four here. We have been an NCI cancer center since 1972."
Dr. Russel E. Kaufman, president and CEO, The Wistar Institute
With about 400 employees and students in training, Wistar is growing rapidly. "We are just completing a new research tower that will enable us to increase our size by 25 percent," says Kaufman. "We have a robotics center that can screen for drugs and do high-throughput analysis. We have a genomics center. We train post-doctoral researchers who go off into companies and other prestigious leadership positions."
Centocor is a case in point. The $4 billion company, owned by Johnson & Johnson, started as a Wistar spinoff.
"Eight major pharmaceutical company leaders were trained at The Wistar Institute," he adds. "People view Philadelphia as a destination for their life science operations. For the best and brightest in this industry, the jobs are here."
Those jobs are also being created by the 12-year-old Pennsylvania Life Sciences Greenhouse Initiative, which has three locations in the commonwealth: the BioAdvance Biotechnology Greenhouse of Southeastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the LSPGA Life Sciences Greenhouse of Central Pennsylvania in Harrisburg and the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse.
A dozen years ago, the initial $100 million in seed funding for the greenhouses resulted in more than $3 billion in business investment across the state, says Dr. Mel Billingsley, president and CEO of the Life Sciences Greenhouse. "We have provided funding for over 197 projects, and several have launched IPOs," he says. "There has been a tremendous creation of value, all the way from startup through exit."
The numbers alone tell an incredible story: more than 3,838 new life science jobs created at an average annual salary of $90,267, 175 life-saving technologies that have originated at LSG; more than $97 million in federal follow-on funding and a return on state funding of 43 to 1.
Success Stories Abound
Pennsylvania success stories growing out of LSG include companies such as Avid/Lilly, NuPathe, Maculogix and ALung.
"Avid developed the first FDA-approved test for detection of Alzheimer's plaques," says Billingsley. "In Pittsburgh, a startup known as Renal Solutions developed a much more portable dialysis filter. They exited the greenhouse and now their product is on the market."
Dr. Mel Billingsley, president and CEO, Life Sciences Greenhouse
Billingsley says the LSG program "invests across the spectrum — diagnostics, therapeutics and the health care IT field. Each greenhouse has a very small nucleus of five to six people, each with domain experience in life sciences. Our talent includes medical doctors, Ph.D.s, people with experience in large pharmaceutical companies and more."
Legislation enabled the Greenhouses in 2001. The first charters were adopted in 2002, and the first investments came in 2003. "Each of the three greenhouses has subtle differences in its model," says Billingsley. "The greenhouses typically center around universities, and we are known for our international connections, particularly with Australia and Israel."
NuPathe in Malvern, for example, has an Israeli connection and developed an FDA-approved patch for treating migraines. Unilife Corp. in York has an Australian connection and makes innovative single-dose syringes.
"There was a complete ecosystem here when we launched this program," notes Billingsley. "A lot of the clients are pharmaceutical companies that are based in the Greater Philadelphia region. Pennsylvania is a top five state for biotech and has the supporting facilities for life sciences. We have the labs and the contract research. On the device side, there are multiple prototype shops and full manufacturers. And we have a very strong workforce in life sciences, from large pharma and device firms to entrepreneurs and tech support. We have everything a company needs in order to grow."
This Investment Profile was written under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development. For more information, visit www.newPA.com or call 1-866-466-3972.
LIFE SCIENCE: Live Your Best Life Working in Life Science (Nov 15, 2021)
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS: Life Science flourishes in St. Louis (Oct 14, 2021)
INNOVATION: Hong Kong's Science of Life (Dec 30, 2016)
SAXONY-ANHALT, GERMANY: Visualizing the Future (Nov 24, 2015)
INVESTMENT PROFILE: Pennsylvania (Mar 27, 2014)
INVESTMENT PROFILE: Pennsylvania (Oct 31, 2013)
COMMENTARY: North Carolina's Life Science Success Story (Jan 23, 2012)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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HomeFeaturesArtPhilly T-shirt brand aims to give credit where deserved
Philly T-shirt brand aims to give credit where deserved
T-shirt project UnderRepped, is helping recognize lesser known greats.
19 March 2013 Patricia Madej Art, Fashion, Features, People You Should Know
UnderRepped T-shirts are available for purchase on the company's Kickstarter page. Every T-shirt features a lesser-known historical figure. | ABI REIMOLD / TTN
Although Nikola Tesla may not currently be on your radar, Paul Leonard is aiming to make sure Tesla and other unsung heroes of history become staples in your wardrobe.
Leonard, a medical student at Jefferson University, recently funded his project, UnderRepped, through Kickstarter. UnderRepped Clothing, a business aimed at promoting the lesser known greats of the world with men's and women's T-shirts, has successfully raised more than $10,000 in 30 days.
The idea came to Leonard and his father while walking down the street, looking at all the passerbys wearing shirts with the same familiar faces repeated on each one. He and his father decided it was time for a change.
"Why is it that in our culture, we don't celebrate more people that have done good things in our society?" Leonard said.
Leonard began raising money by himself to print T-shirts featuring famous scientists, musicians, politicians and more. And though his father supported his project, Leonard took this on for himself with help from his girlfriend, Hannah King.
With no previous formal business experience, the process was overwhelming in the beginning, Leonard said.
"It was moderately expensive, and it was completely out of pocket. Once you really put your money where your mouth is, it's a game changer. There's no guarantee of getting it back," he said.
Initially, he decided on five people to be put on the shirts: Adolph Rickenbacker, who invented the first electric guitar, Rene Laennec, who invented the stethoscope, Roald Amundsen, who headed the first voyage to the North Pole and discovered the South Pole, Victoria Woodhull, who was the first woman to run for the presidency of the United States, and Nikola Tesla, who created alternating current.
"That was probably the hardest part. In essence, they were going to brand my brand," he said.
When he would come up with an idea, he'd consult a group of friends who would help him decide whether or not to go through with the design. The difficult part was picking people who were under represented but also known to more people than just him, he said.
Leonard also said he felt it was important to have a diverse set of people. Picking those in the medical field was easy since that's what he studies, but he wanted to choose people that others felt needed to be represented as well. So he and his friends did some heavy duty Googling.
"It was fun. You're going through stories and learning history," he said.
After the idea was on paper, it was time for execution. Leonard decided upon a discharge process for printing on the shirts as opposed to plastisol for quality purposes, he said.
The discharge absorbs into the shirts and leaves less room for chipping or peeling, whereas plastisol lies on top of the fabric and has more potential to chip or peel. However, finding a company that manufactured shirts this way was almost as difficult as deciding who would go on the shirts themselves to the point where he finally partnered with a screen printing company in Camden, N.J., where each shirt is handmade.
"I wanted a good product. I didn't want to have a good idea and sell a cheap product," he said.
Printing with discharge allowed for a softer shirt and worked better with darker colors.
Though Leonard said he would have loved to design the images on the shirts himself, he instead looked through freelance artists that best represented the idea he was looking for.
After the grueling process, Leonard's idea started to take off on Kickstarter. With intial support from his family and friends, the young entrepreneur started to notice support from not only around the country, but the world, including a donation from an Australian pharmacy student.
"It's very flattering when people from across the world contact you," he said. "Why not? Why not have people in California wear your stuff?"
As an incentive, Leonard promised that after he reached his goal of $10,000 he would add a new face to the line.
The most popular shirt continues to be the one of Amundsen, not because of his contributions, but because of his mustache, Leonard said.
To promote himself, Leonard began sending out emails left and right, the majority of which, he said, went ignored.
There would be days where there would be multiple backers, and days where there would be no backers at all, which Leonard calls a "day-by-day adventure."
"I was confident that if I kept pushing until the end, things would come together. If you give up easily, Kickstarter isn't the place for you," he said.
The day before the end of the funding, UnderRepped was at $9,000; still a grand short of its goal. At just an hour before the end, Leonard's campaign finally reached the goal, hitting $10,010.
As promised, a new face, Ada Lovelace, who is often recognized as the first computer programmer, was added to the line.
Most of UnderRepped's supporters have been individuals with one or two stores, but Leonard said he hopes to change this in the future with more sales to shopkeepers.
"I think this is more of a brand and could use help from stores and their ability to show the product, but I don't want to lose the story behind it," he said.
Leonard said he hopes to develop an official website in the future, as well. Nonetheless, he said he is confident the business will continue to grow in the coming months.
"It's encouraging people to expand their horizons for knowing and thinking of what other people have done and expressing their own interests," he said.
To purchase the shirts, visit kickstarter.com/projects/underrepped/underrepped-clothing. Anyone can submit ideas for who UnderRepped should represent next.
Patricia Madej can be reached at patricia.madej@temple.edu.
Patricia Madej
Competition not focus of dance company
Ice Hockey: Coaches resign, players adjust
Under the Radar: Variety Show, Maya Majesty, Couples Yoga, Wine 101
12 November 2012 Christina Morgeneier Features, Museums, Theater
Under the Radar, week of Nov. 13 2012.
Candidates kickstart exhibit funding
29 January 2013 Marcie Anker Art, Events, Features
Like most working professionals in the art industry, Tyler School of Art students are constantly hunting for funding for their artwork.
Philadelphia's historical sites have stories to share
07 February 2017 Samantha Wong Commentary, Opinion
Students should learn about the three centuries worth of history within the city.


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Don't Kid Yourself (sports edition)
My opinions should be your opinions!
Tag: Chicago Bears
Shut up, Brian!
Brian Urlacher is a hell of a football player. He is a sure-fire, first ballot Hall of Famer.
No doubt about it.
However, this isn't about his accolades or accomplishments, it's about him questioning his own fans.
Sunday in Chicago the Bears lost against their rival, the Green Bay Packers, 21-13 in what was their fifth loss in their last six games. Four of the five losses came in Soldier Field.
The fans were frustrated and disappointed after starting the season 7-1 only to lose 5 of 6 to end up 8-6 with two games remaining, so they booed. They booed loud and often.
"Our crowd was pretty good today for the most part," Urlacher said Sunday during his weekly segment on Fox Chicago. "They were loud for a minute there. The boos were really loud, which is always nice. The only team in our division to get booed at home is us. It's unbelievable to me."
Why is it 'unbelievable' to you? You started 7-1 and easily led your division, then dropped 5 of 6 to fall to 8-6 where you currently sit on the outside looking in at the playoffs.
Is it so unbelievable that your loyal fans would be pissed off at the possibility of missing the playoffs for the fifth time in the last six seasons? Is there some rule that states only 'real' fans don't boo their team?
That's bullshit.
You bought the ticket and paid for the parking and the excessive food and drinks, you have every right in the world to boo the shit out of your team if they play the way you've played. The 'unbelievable' thing to me would be the fans not caring enough that they didn't boo.
The booing, to me, shows they care more than you think they do. It means they don't want to settle for what you're giving them. It means they actually care how you're playing. That's a good thing.
Your offense managed a pitiful 107 passing yards on Sunday against a not-so-good Packers defense. In week 11 against the 49ers you threw for, wait for it, 58 yards. Disgusting.
So, Brian Urlacher, your fans have every right in the world to boo you. Play better or shut up.
Will King	NFL	1 Comment December 18, 2012 1 Minute
The DKY NFL Power Rankings 2012 (Week 11)
TO THE POINTS I SAID!;
1. Thanks 49ers & Rams. Ties fucking suck.
(While I say that, if it were my team I would much rather tie than lose. Ties are better than a loss.)
2. The Giants are playing like a bunch pansy's. I said it, pansy's! There's really no way to express how bad the Giants have played in all facets of the game. If they manage to make the playoffs playing like this they would get demolished.
3. Funny to hear the Saints complain about another player(s)/team being classless after the offseason they had. Comical.
4. The Saints are extremely dangerous if they can win enough games to make the playoffs. Would you want your team to play them in the 1st round?
5. The Eagles are done. Fire Andy Reid and blow most of the roster up. It's time. All the chips were pushed in and it didn't work.
6. The Cowboys pushed their rival to this point with the beatdown they laid on them, 38-23.
7. If the Broncos go 11-5 and win their division (both extremely plausible), how is Peyton Manning not the NFL MVP?
8. The answer is, Peyton Manning would 100% be the MVP.
ON TO THE RANKINGS! Continue reading "The DKY NFL Power Rankings 2012 (Week 11)" →
Will King	NFL	1 Comment November 13, 2012 1 Minute


The method I am going to show you is not new, in fact the idea has been floating around the blogosphere for awhile. But it's very simple and it works. Isn't that what matters anyway? Simple and easy.
This is in my master bedroom.
1.Remove everything from the walls.
2. Use craft paper, butcher paper, or the backside of wrapping paper (this is what I used) and lay a large piece of the paper on the ground.
3. Begin to lay the frames on top of the paper, playing around with it until you come up with an arrangement that you like. I started with my largest piece and then worked around that. Keep in mind balance and proportion. You don't want to put a tiny frame by itself next to a big frame; it will look unbalanced.
Mirrors, empty frames, sconces, initials, and original artwork were some of the pieces I incorporated. Gold frames unified everything.
4. Use a Sharpie to trace around each item.
I had 2 groupings of wall hangings- one for each sided of the doorway. The 2 groupings were mirror images of each other to achieve a sense of symmetry and balance.
5. Hang the paper on the wall where you want the arrangement to be.
*Tip- I tried and tried to get several kinds of tape to stick to my walls. Finally my hubby suggested used thumbtacks to hold the paper up, and it worked!
Keep in mind that you want the pictures to be at eye level. One of the most common mistakes people make, including myself, is hanging things TOO HIGH!
6. Begin hanging each item in its rightful place. Make sure to use a level to make sure things are STRAIGHT!! I usually try to just "eyeball-it" but I'm always glad when I go ahead and just use a level.
7. Once everything is hung on the wall, you will have to remove everything so you can take down the paper. Then re-hang, and you're done!
This is my fail-proof way to hang artwork on your walls and get it to look good! The entire process went much more quickly than I expected.
I cannot tell you how glad I am that you posted this. We re-arranged my office and I have all the stuff that needs to be re-hung on the wall. I always wait for the hubs to help. I think I could do this by myself. What a great idea!!!
Thanks Brandy!! I'm so glad it helped!!


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Pre-arrival requirements for Penn State students for return to campus, community
Student compact, pre-arrival checklist for returning to campus
As part of Penn State's Back to State plans, the University has shared requirements for students to meet prior to returning to campus and local communities this semester. Image: Patrick Mansell
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As part of Penn State's Back to State plans shared at a town hall meeting in preparation for the fall, the University has developed requirements and expectations for students to meet prior to returning to campus and local communities this semester. Along with stocking up on face masks, hand sanitizer, soap and disinfectant wipes, students should prepare for back to school by reviewing the following criteria and completing these steps.
Before returning to Penn State, all undergraduate and graduate students at every campus location must:
Read and sign the new required "Penn State Coronavirus Compact" that outlines expectations for the semester.
Complete mandatory pre-arrival COVID-19 testing, if notified. Select students living in counties across the United States with high infection rates will be contacted by the University on an individual basis in August to complete mandatory testing.
Self-quarantine for at least 7 days immediately prior to arrival.
Review Penn State and local requirements for masking and social distancing.
Students who are already living on campus or have moved in to off-campus housing should also complete the above steps before the start of classes.
"We are looking forward to welcoming all of our students back to our campuses this fall. While this will be a different kind of semester than any we have experienced before, these criteria have been developed to support the health and safety of our students, faculty, staff and community members in accordance with public health guidance and our own infectious disease specialists," said Penn State President Eric Barron. "We know our students want to do their part to not only help reduce transmission of the virus within the community, but also to increase our chances and ability of remaining on campus for the semester. These are concrete steps students must take as Penn Staters to do their parts."
In preparation for the semester, the University developed the "Penn State Coronavirus Compact" for students to acknowledge their responsibility and to agree to follow the rules outlined in the compact, as well as other directives from the University, to protect campus and local communities from the risks posed by COVID-19. Students who are not able to sustain these commitments throughout the semester may forfeit their ability to continue with on-campus activities, classes and living.
"We know this is a uniquely challenging time for many of our students, and our goal is to help support you, provide necessary resources, and also set clear expectations and requirements for this semester — as the behavior of one individual can impact the collective," said Damon Sims, vice president for Student Affairs. "I urge every student to take their behavior seriously — whether on or off campus — and to consider the impact of your decisions not only on your own health, but that of your friends, teachers, staff and local community members."
The following offers additional information about each pre-arrival requirement and expectations:
Read and sign the "Penn State Coronavirus Compact"
All students will be given access to carefully read and sign the "Penn State Coronavirus Compact" in LionPATH in August. The agreement covers a variety of critical topics and health and safety expectations and requirements for the upcoming semester, including agreeing to participate in COVID-19 testing and contact tracing throughout the semester, isolate or quarantine if needed, wear face masks and social distance on campus, adhere to travel policies, and get a flu vaccination when available. The agreement also covers potential consequences for failing to abide by the compact in ways that risk others' health and safety, such as through the student conduct process.
Self-quarantine for at least 7 days immediately prior to arrival
Quarantine helps prevent the spread of disease that can occur before a person knows they are sick or if they are infected without feeling symptoms. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people in quarantine should stay home, separate themselves from others and monitor their health. Students should fulfill this requirement in order to reduce the impact of the virus on the community.
All students:
Should self-quarantine — even if you do not feel sick or have no symptoms — for at least 7 days immediately prior to your arrival on campus, prior to moving into off-campus housing, or prior to starting classes if you are already living off-campus.
For those who are sick, think you have been exposed to COVID or are experiencing symptoms, should continue to isolate and not return to campus until cleared by a medical professional in accordance with CDC guidance.
If you test positive at a location away from campus, including in a different state, you should immediately contact University Health Services.
Complete pre-arrival COVID-19 testing
As part of the University's comprehensive pre-arrival, asymptomatic and symptomatic testing and contact tracing strategy, in August, Penn State will contact approximately 30,000 students, faculty and staff who have been chosen for pre-arrival COVID-19 testing based solely on the infection rates in the counties where they reside. Students living in coronavirus "hot spots," or areas with high or rising virus rates, will be sent a COVID-19 test kit in the mail and asked to complete the test before returning to campus, moving into on-campus residence halls or beginning classes.
Students selected for mandatory pre-arrival testing:
Will be contacted by email in August with instructions regarding how to register for testing. They will then be mailed a kit with instructions for taking and mailing the test back.
Tests results will be shared with the student and the University. Those who test positive should not travel to campus until they are cleared to come to campus by a health care provider in accordance with CDC guidance.
Review Penn State and local requirements for masking and social distancing
To reduce the risk of widespread virus transmission and in alignment with public health guidelines and Gov. Tom Wolf's requirements for higher education institutions, students will be required to wear face masks and practice social distancing at all times in campus buildings and wear face masks outdoors when social distancing is not possible. Per a statewide order, wearing face masks is mandatory in Pennsylvania in public places and outside when social distancing is not possible, including, for example, when on a busy sidewalk, waiting in line or congregating when others are present.
By signing the "Penn State Coronavirus Compact" students will agree to:
Wear face coverings at all times in campus buildings, outdoors when you cannot social distance from others, and wherever state or local laws require.
Honor the physical distancing requirements established in classrooms, other campus locations, and all other gatherings on campus; do so in any other context off-campus that requires distancing.
Follow guidance from the University and other authorities, including signage, postings, emails and other notifications.
Students also should review local policies, as communities across the state, including State College Borough, have passed or are exploring mask-wearing ordinances that could include warnings or citations for those who do not comply.
As previously shared, the University will provide every student with two cloth face masks at the start of the semester. More information will be soon be provided for how and when students living on and off campus can collect their masks.
Additional pre-arrival considerations for students
To help students navigate the new complexities of academic and campus life this semester, a Student Coronavirus Handbook will be shared with students across Penn State's campuses this fall. The handbook will contain guidance about a variety of topics — from what to do if you are sick to contact tracing, isolation and quarantine protocols — and information about helpful campus resources.
In addition, students should:
Consult with Student Disability Resources if they may need special accommodations and/or are immunocompromised or at-risk.
Review travel guidance and safety tips from the CDC prior to traveling to a Penn State campus.
Review information about the on-campus and off-campus move-in process.
COVID-19 vaccine strongly recommended for community when available to public
Coronavirus FAQ: Do I need a negative COVID test before entering my lab?
The Medical Minute: How you can donate blood safely now
Administration, Campus Life, Health and Safety


Background: Cancer subtype identification is an active research field which helps in the diagnosis of various cancers with proper treatments. Leukemia is one such cancer with various subtypes. High throughput technologies such as Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid (DNA) microarray are highly active in the field of cancer detection and classification alternatively.
Objective: Yet, a precise analysis is important in microarray data applications as microarray experiments provide huge amount of data. Gene selection techniques promote microarray usage in the field of medicine. The objective of gene selection is to select a small subset of genes, which are the most informative in classification.
Method: In this study, multi-objective evolutionary algorithm is used for gene subset selection in Leukemia classification. An initial redundant and irrelevant gene removal is followed by multiobjective evolutionary based gene subset selection. Gene subset selection highly influences the perfect classification. Thus, selecting the appropriate algorithm for subset selection is important.
Results: The performance of the proposed method is compared against the standard genetic algorithm and evolutionary algorithm. Three Leukemia microarray datasets were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Perfect classification was achieved for all the datasets only with few significant genes using the proposed approach.
Conclusion: Thus, it is obvious that the proposed study perfectly classifies Leukemia with only few significant genes.
Keywords: Classification, gene selection, microarray, multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, redundant and irrelevant gene, significant genes.
Keywords:Classification, gene selection, microarray, multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, redundant and irrelevant gene, significant genes.


Talk about the proverbial sticking of the ostrich head in the sand! The optimistic side of me wonders if perhaps his isolation from society allowed for the sort of deep reflection and peaceful introspection monks enjoy, but that our oversimulated society prevents? Either way, I absolutely love that you are turning this story into a touchstone for 2014 – best wishes for the New Year!
It was nice running into you the other day. I meant to tell you, LOVE the natural hair!


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Scinax angrensis (Synonym: Ololygon angrensis, Hyla catharinae angrensis) ist ein neotropischer Frosch aus der Familie der Laubfrösche. Innerhalb der Gattung Scinax wurde die Art nach Faivovich et al. (2005) zu der Scinax-catharinae-Klade gezählt. Es wird diskutiert, welchen Umfang diese Klade haben soll und ob sie eine eigene Gattung darstellt, für die der Name Ololygon verfügbar wäre.

Verbreitung
Diese in Brasilien endemische Art kommt nur von Mangaratiba im Bundesstaat Rio de Janeiro bis Picinguaba im Bundesstaat São Paulo in Höhen bis 800 m ü. NN vor.

Lebensraum und Ökologie
Ololygon angrensis bewohnt Primärwald, vielleicht auch Sekundärwald. Reproduktionsgewässer der Art reichen von permanenten Fließgewässern bis zu künstlichen Tümpeln, wobei die Art bisher noch nicht außerhalb des Waldes und in der Nähe menschlicher Siedlungen gefunden wurde. Die Art reproduziert sich in permanenten oder temporären Bächen, kleinen, temporären Tümpeln neben Waldbächen und seltener in steinigen Tümpeln.
Die Kaulquappen ernähren sich von Algen, Protozoen, Rädertierchen, sehr kleinen Krebstieren, Nematoden, Detritus und Pilzhyphen.

Gefährdung
Die IUCN listet Scinax angrensis als "nicht gefährdet" (Least Concern), obwohl seine geschätzte potentielle Verbreitung nur 5000 km² beträgt und der Populationstrend rückläufig ist. Die Bearbeiter begründen die Einstufung damit, dass die Art noch häufig vorkommt und ihr Habitat im Moment nicht akut gefährdet ist. Zudem kommt Scinax angrensis in einigen Schutzgebieten vor. Waldrodungen gefährden die Art hauptsächlich.

Synonyme
 Hyla catharinae angrensis Lutz, 1973
 Hyla angrensis Pombal & Gordo, 1991

Pombal & Bastos (1996) stellten die Art in die Gattung Scinax.

Einzelnachweise

Literatur
 S. P. de Carvalho-e-Silva, A. M. Telles: Scinax angrensis. In: IUCN (2010): IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.1. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Abgerufen am 1. April 2010.
 Berta Lutz: Brazilian species of Hyla. University of Texas Press, Austin, London 1973.
 J. P. Pombal Jr., R. P. Bastos: Nova especie de Scinax Wagler, 1830 do Brasil Central (Amphibia, Anura, Hylidae). In: Boletim do Museu Nacional. Nova Serie, Zoologia. 371,  S. 1–11, Rio de Janeiro 1996

Weblinks

 Darrel R. Frost: Ololygon-angrensis, Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference, Version 6.0, American Museum of Natural History, 1998–2019, abgerufen am 11. August 2019

Knickzehenlaubfrösche
Scinax
Endemische Amphibie Brasiliens

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Humpback whales numbers return to those of a century ago
The Humpback whale was very recently on the brink of extinction due to whale hunting practices in the 1900s. as recently as the 1950s there were as few as 450 humpback whales in the south Atlantic Ocean. That is a frighteningly low number considering that at the start of the 20th century- a mere 50 or so years before, there were 27 000 humpbacks in the south Atlantic.
Whales became popular for their oil which was used in a host of things from beauty products to soap and as a result these sea mammals were ruthlessly hunted. In only 12 years as many as 25 000 were slaughtered. By the mid-1960s commercial whale hunting had been banned and a worldwide effort was put in place to help the ailing and under-threat humpback population recover. This global effort yielded positive results and heralded the start of good things. A new study conducted has revealed that the number of humpback has now reached its pre-20th century numbers, equating to approximately 25 000 whales in the wild. What's even more encouraging is that the numbers have managed to grow in such short time thus exceeding the expectations for recovery.
Although the hunting of these whales has been banned, they still face human threat and Countries such as Japan still hunt whale. Humans are undoubtably the biggest threat and are responsible for all the other things which threaten the global whale population. Shipping is a popular means of export and import and many whales fall victim to ship strikes when in commercial shipping lanes. Ocean rubbish and plastic also threaten whales and many of them die as a result of ingesting this stuff. Sounds from other underwater crafts and machines also disrupt the whales' sonar system which they rely on for feeding. One of the biggest threat, directly caused by humans is climate change. Climate change is causing sea temperatures to rise, and the change in sea temperatures is affecting the humpbacks most vital food source, krill.