11 December 2008

Italy: Economic woes threaten Jewish heritage

Ruth Ellen Gruber, in her Jewish Heritage Travel blog, points to an Italian article by Lucilla Efrati in the Italian Jewish Communities online newsletter on how Italy's current economic crisis and budget cuts may impact Jewish heritage in Italy.

In 2009, planned state funding for conservation and restoration work on Jewish cultural, architectural and archival heritage is expected to be cut by some 25%.

Centuries-old synagogues, cemeteries, and other sites, according to the Italian article, "form part of the country's artistic patrimony [and] need care, maintenance and restoration work." Even limited cuts in the funds budgeted for the care of these sites, she writes, risks rolling back the force of recent legal decisions that have enabled a number of important projects to proceed.

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