museo-on.com

08/12/2023

10/12/2022

The prayer book is currently in Washington DC’s Museum of the Bible.

10/12/2022

Abdul Manan Shiway e-Sharq, the former deputy minister for information and publications of Afghanistan, has relocated to Germany and is continuing his campaign to safeguard his country’s multicultural heritage — and repatriate looted antiquities.

09/12/2022

A Jewish Afghan American and an anonymous partner from Afghanistan team up to preserve the Jewish community’s heritage.

09/12/2022

מעצבת תכשיטים יהודיה שהיגרה לאצות הברית נענתה לפנייתו של אזרח אפגני מוסלמי, וביחד השניים פעלו לשחזור בית העלמין , בתי הכנסת והמקוואות בעיר הראט שבאפגניסטן

08/12/2022

The Yu Aw synagogue is located in Herat, which once boasted a significant Jewish community.

18/02/2022

18/02/2022

Among the evacuees pulled from Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover in autumn 2021 were the last of Afghanistan's Jewish community. We explored the Jewish...

02/02/2022

9,2 Millionen Afghan*innen sind innerhalb ihres Landes auf der Flucht oder benötigen als Rückkehrer Hilfe beim Wiederaufbau. Hilf jetzt mit DEINER Spende, um...

01/09/2021

01/09/2021

ARIS is the united voice of Rabbis living and working in the Muslim world. ARIS aims to be advising governments and other organizations on all matters of interfaith, coexistance, tolerance and peace.

31/08/2021

Saving the Last Remnants of Jewish Historic And Religious Artefacts in Afghanistan !

31/08/2021

The four synagogues and the Jewish cemetery of Herat, Afghanistan represent a powerful testimony to the Jewish presence and history in western Afghanistan. These structures speak to the complex spectrum of transnational and international religious activities between Islam and other religious traditions as an integral and even constitutive part of the history of the local civil society. A variety of dynamic forces such as urban development and the influence of new religions shaped the history and character of Herat city after the enormous demographic impact of the Mongol invasion of Central Asia (1219–24 CE), which culminated in the conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire by Genghis Khan. The strength of subsequent metropolitan development in the region is best testified by the remains of numerous large cities, such as Herat. Central Asian cities were highly cosmopolitan, with their citizens following many different religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Manichaeism, and Zoroastrianism.
In the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, Herat was home to one of the largest, most diverse Jewish communities in modern Afghanistan. As in many areas of the world, Herat’s Jews were deeply involved in all levels of trade (internal, inter-community, and international). Their influence reached its peak after World War I when the Jews of Afghanistan became a significant religious and economic force in Central Asia. Herat’s four synagogues represent a microcosm of the present state of the city’s historic and vernacular architecture, making both its Muslim and non-Muslim architectural heritage worthy of investigation.
Herat—like other Islamic cities such as Aleppo, Cairo, Fez, Isfahan, Jeddah, and Sana’a—is the embodiment of a living city with traditional Islamic influences. Its architectural design was, for the most part, predetermined by Herat’s geometric urban concept and system, which was designed to meet the Islamic requirement to face Mecca (qibla). The city’s historic and vernacular architecture, and its exceptional surviving architectural heritage of both Muslim and non-Muslim origins, illustrate the complex processes of a global cultural transition.
Targeting the “internationalist dimensions” of two world religions (Islam and Judaism) by using reverse theoretical approaches and methods, the investigation of Herat’s four synagogues in an urban context illustrates the complex processes and design elements through which like-minded believers could be identified through their shared beliefs (“communities of opinion”). It also reveals the role of religion as the driving force reflecting the unity and diversity of the Muslim and Jewish identities and the practices of the Jewish Diaspora living in the Muslim world.
The Mullah Yoav Synagogue, one of Herat's four synagogues, built from 1788 through1808, was abandoned in the late 1970s but was already in disrepair by the time fighting broke out in the western quarter of the Old City after the 1978 uprising.
The restored Mullah Yoav Synagogue is now used as an educational center for children from the surrounding neighborhood, reflecting both the building’s adaptive use and the change the Jewish Quarter of Herat has undergone since its abandonment in the late 1970s.
Documentary evidence analyzed for this research has enabled a partial reconstruction of the original architectural structure of Herat’s four synagogues. Their design and construction followed styles that combined both local and universal elements—while also deeply influenced by variations in Jewish tradition.
The history of these four remarkable buildings—beginning with their construction from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries—to the time when they closed in the 1950s, Herat being abandoned completely by Jews in 1978, and then bombed by the Soviets in the 1980s—is one of transition, cultural adaption, and reciprocal influences between Herat’s Jewish minority and the majority Muslim population. This reciprocity is demonstrated in the intricacies of Herat’s Jewish life on the macro and micro scale—from Herat City to the detailed interiors of the four synagogues.

In examining sacred realities in an urban context, religious cultural exchanges, and the transnational historical experience of different faith communities in an increasingly globalized and politicized world, the present study suggests that we need to rethink our current understanding of the concepts of “religion,” “religious identity,” and “freedom of religion” in the modern world.

Indeed, it is hoped that this challenge will contribute to a critical understanding of both ancient and contemporary globalized religious dynamics. It suggests the need to critically reflect on intercultural influences (political, social, religious) in light of religious multiculturalism and the transnational historical experience of different faith communities.

Finally, our common research may also spark an interest in determining how intercultural and international negotiations on (religious) self-definition can both reduce conflicts and facilitate the peaceful coexistence of different religious communities.

This area of inquiry is becoming visibly important, based on the growing and increasingly unscrupulous influence of religious splinter groups that attempt to promote their own political interests while disregarding the long-held traditional beliefs that have hitherto bound together and governed communities of faith.

30/08/2021

We're a digital scholarship program at Penn Libraries for creative research and development in Jewis

30/08/2021

The Jewish Quarterly Review is a quarterly journal that has been publishing high-quality scholarship

30/08/2021

The Center for Jewish Studies of the University of Rochester promotes research, scholarship, and education in Jewish Studies.

30/08/2021

IMAGES invites scholarly articles on Jewish art and visual culture, ranging in time from Greco-Roman

30/08/2021

ISJM is a non-profit, educational organization dedicated to the documentation, study, care and cons

18/06/2021

Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group Loucine · Ara Malikian Royal Garage ℗ 2019 Concert Music Entertainment S.L., bajo licencia exclusiva de PICOS...

19/05/2021