News
Check out Ruth’s up to date blog reports on Jewish Heritage issues and on the Imaginary Wild West. October 2009 Ruth is editing a book to be published in Vienna by Centropa. Tentatively titled “To Begin Anew”, it is a collection of essays by a dozen Jews in central Europe recounting the impact of the fall of Communism in 1989 on their lives and identity. It will be published in November to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism. September 2009 Ruth traveled to northern Romania in the first 10 days of September to work on her project (Candle)sticks on Stone: Representing the Woman in Jewish Tombstone Art. She made photographic documentations of women’s tombs in the Jewish cemeteries of Radauti, Botosani, Siret, Solca and Gura Humorului. She also took part in European Day of Jewish Culture events in Radauti and in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, presenting a new book on Jewish cemeteries in the Bucovina region, by Simon Geissbuehler, for which she contributed a Foreword. March 2009 A book event for “Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere)” was held March 23 in Budapest at Austeria bookshop. Ruth was interviewed on Czech Radio -- click HERE Ruth has been awarded the Michael Hammer Tribute Research Grant by the Hadassah Brandeis Institute, for a project called “(Candle)sticks on Stone: Representing the Woman in Jewish Tombstone Art”. Each year the HBI awards 20 to 30 grants to support academic and artistic projects about Jews and gender. Debby Olins, the program director, said Ruth’s project was selected by the HBI board as "an exceptional research award" to be dedicated to the memory of Michael Hammer, the husband of one of the board members, who died last year. It centers around the richly decorated tombstones of women in the Jewish cemetery in Radauti, Romania, where Ruth’s own great-grandmother, Ettel Gruber, is buried. See more by clicking HERE. October 2008 Ruth gave the keynote speech at the conference on Jewish urban history and heritage, held in L’viv, Ukraine, Oct. 29-31 and organized by the Center for Urban History. After the conference, she traveled to several locations near L’viv to continue her ongoing documentation of Jewish heritage sites. On Oct. 21, National Geographic published a new, lavishly illustrated coffee table book on which Ruth was a contributing author and photographer -- Sacred Places of a Lifetime: 500 of the World’s Most Peaceful and Powerful Destinations. September 2008 On Sept. 21 Ruth gave a presentation in The Hague to the board of the Dutch Jewish Humanitarian Fund on the situation and future of Jewish communities in post-communist Europe. August 2008 Ruth followed part of the Czech tour by the American banjoist Tony Trischka with the Czech group Druha Trava. She interviewed Trischka about his experiences, dating back to the 1980s, of bringing U.S. bluegrass music to the Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia. Ruth posted photos and video from the tour on her Sauerkraut Cowboys blog and YouTube channel and will be posting the interview. July 2008 Ruth was a VIP guest of the 21st Country Rendez-vous country music festival in Craponne, France, July 24-27. The next weekend, she attended the European Bluegrass Festival in La Roche-sur-Foron, France. On July 1, JTA launched a regular column by Ruth. After some to-ing and fro-ing about what the column should be called, we went the punning route and have named it “Ruthless Cosmopolitan.” They can be viewed on the JTA web site or elsewhere, including a “Ruthless Cosmopolitan” blog that will enable readers to subscribe by RSS June 2008 Ruth spoke at the conference on Modern Jewish Culture, held at Wroclaw University, Wroclaw, Poland. From there, she went (as usual) to the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow, where she gave a talk at the formal book launch of Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere). May 2008 Ruth attended the International Country Music Conference in Nashville and gave the presentation “Sturm, Twang and Sauerkraut Cowboys: Country Music and Wild Western Spaces in Europe.” She also spoke on “Jewish Heritage and Jewish Heritage Travel” at the annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee chapter in Cincinnati, Ohio, May 28. April 2008 When Prince Charles of England was in Krakow to open a new Jewish Community Center, he was presented a copy of “Letters from Europe (andElsewhere)” by publisher Malgosia Ornat. Ruth attended the “Pop Conference” at the Experience Music Project in Seattle and present a paper on European country music and Wild Western Spaces. February 2008 Half hour video interview with Ruth on Jewish genealogy TV show -- Click HERE Ruth spent five days in Brno, Czech Republic, working with the award-winning Czech singer-songwriter Robert Krestan, of the “Czechgrass” group Druha Trava, on English translations of his songs. The group hopes to cut a CD of the songs this spring. Interview with Ruth in The Forward Click HERE to read a Q and A with Ruth, published Feb. 7 January 2008 Ruth spent more than two weeks in the United States, giving talks in the New York area and Washington DC. At the Limmud NY conference/gathering in the Catskills, she took part in a panel discussion on the future of Jewish life in Europe and presented three talks. In Washington DC, she spoke about Jewish Heritage Travel to a sold-out audience at the Smithsonian Institution and gave a presentation on Europe’s Real Imaginary Spaces -- Sauerkraut Cowboys and Klezmer Cafes, at the Sixth and I Synagogue. At that event, she also read from her new book, Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere). New book -- Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere) The Krakow publisher Austeria published a new book by Ruth. Called Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere), it is a collection of personal essays that Ruth has written since 1997 for the magazine The New Leader. The topics range from politics to pop music, from architecture to local cuisine. The datelines include Warsaw, Sarajevo, Bucharest, London, Budapest, Brno, Nuremberg, Paris, Morruzze (Italy) -- and more. Though published in Poland, the book is in the original English. It is illustrated with Ruth’s photographs. It can be ordered online HERE December 2007 A (glowing) review of Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe by James Rudin: “Eastern European Jewry, Past, Present, and Future” http://www.kansascity.com/609/story/393904.html November 2007 Ruth took part in a strategy conference for a new, EU-funded project, The Other Europeans, dealing with Yiddish and Roma music and cultural exchange. She spoke on “new authenticities” and the way people make free cultural identity choices. October 2007 Ruth chaired seminars at UCLA and the Western History Workshop at the Autry National Center/Institute for the Study of the American West. She presented papers on Country Western Music and Bluegrass in Europe and on “New Authenticities” and “Real Imaginary Spaces” in Europe. July 2007 Weimar Yiddish Summer Ruth presented a paper on Country Music and Bluegrass in Europe at a Symposium on Europe’s Other “Other” Musics during the Weimar Yiddish Summer festival in Weimar, Germany. Ruth wins a journalism award In awards announced July 3, Ruth was awarded the third place Simon Rockower Award for Excellence in Jewish Journalism in the “personality profiles” category for her article ‘Ride ‘Em Jewboy,” a profile of iconoclastic Texas singer, writer and political figure Kinky Friedman. The article ran on JTA in February 2006. Click HERE to read it. June 2007 Ruth gave slide-illustrated lectures in Prague and in Krakow to launch “Jewish Heritage Travel” in Europe. The Prague talk, June 18, was sponsored by the Prague Jewish Museum. In Krakow, her talk -- held on the stage of the hot music club Alchemia -- took place within the framework of the annual Festival of Jewish Culture. During the festival, Ruth also participated in a 2-day international conference in Krakow on the regeneration of Jewish quarters in central Europe. May 2007 A note on Ruth on the blog of the French Country Rendez-vous Festival: http://leblogdecraponne.blogspot.com/ A review of Jewish Heritage Travel by Marilyn Henry: The culture that ‘refuses to go away’ New Jersey Jewish Standard, NJ  By Marilyn Henry On Yom HaShoah last month, some 8000 Jews silently walked two miles from the gates of Auschwitz to ... April 2007 JTA runs a package of articles on National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel -- Updated Travel Guide Sets Sights on Jewish Revival in Eastern Europe -- So Many Sites, So Little Time: Author Lists Top 10 Destinations April, 2007 The New York Jewish Week calls National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel a “splendid guidebook.” Read the review by clicking HERE. March 20, 2007 Today is the official publication date for National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: a Guide to Eastern Europe. February, 2007 Click HERE for a link to the press release for Ruth’s new book, National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: a Guide to Eastern Europe, which is formally out on March 20! Click HERE to purchase the book at amazon.com! February, 2007 Ruth took part Feb. 6 in a one-day conference at Georgetown University in Washington DC on Poland and Judaism Today: Understanding a New Era in Polish-Jewish and Polish-Israeli Relations. The Moderator was former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. Other participants including the writer Konstanty Gebert, Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich, the American Jewish Committee’s Guy Billauer, the founder and director of the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival Manusz Makuch, the Taube Foundation’s Shana Penn, the scholars Jonathan Webber, Piotr Wrobel and Antony Polonsky, the Israeli Ambassador to Poland David Peleg, and Polish diplomat Joanna Hofman. December 2006 Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe went to press... it will be published in March 2007 by National Geographic November 2006 Visiting Lecturer, NYU Program, Prague: Adventures in Travel Writing May 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship
NEH Summer Stipend 

Ruth won a Guggenheim Fellowship to continue and consolidate work on her project on Imaginary Wild Wests in Contemporary Europe. She was one of 187 artists, scholars and scientists chosen from nearly 3,000 applications. She plans to begin her Fellowship year on January 1, 2007. Ruth also was awarded a Summer Stipend grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to work on the same project. 

For press release and list of year 2006 Fellows, go to www.gf.org. 
 New Book Contract National Geographic has commissioned Ruth to prepare a new, updated and expanded edition of her ground-breaking book Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to East-Central Europe (John Wiley & Sons, 1992/1994; Aronson 1999). It will be called National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe and is to be published in Spring 2007. Ruth expects to be spending most of the spring and summer months this year on the road, updating sites in more than a dozen countries. In March and April she looked at sites in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. While most Jewish heritage sites are often still neglected and overlooked, many places have changed almost out of recognition -- and most of the time for the better, with many abandoned Jewish cemeteries fenced and cleaned up and a number of synagogues restored. January 27-29, 2006 Fort Worth, Texas Scholar-in-Residence, Jewish Federation of Fort Worth and Tarrant County. 

December 15, 2005 Rome, Italy Moderator and co-organizer of "Spaghetti Cowboys, Indian Dreams: the Wild West in Italy," a one-day conference at the Centro Studi Americani (American Studies Center), Rome, Italy.http://jewish-heritage-travel.blogspot.com/http://sauerkrautcowboys.blogspot.com/http://www.radio.cz/en/issue/114246http://jewish-heritage-travel.blogspot.com/2009/03/i-receive-hbi-research-award.htmlhttp://www.lvivcenter.org/en/http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1426203365/ref=s9subs_c1_14_at1-rfc_g1-frt_g1-3237_p_si2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=1WXJ3T2ZD3S7G4A3W9WQ&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463383351&pf_rd_i=507846http://www.jhf.nl/nlhttp://sauerkrautcowboys.blogspot.com/http://it.youtube.com/user/realimaginaryhttp://www.festivaldecraponne.comhttp://www.jta.orghttp://ruthless-cosmopolitan.blogspot.com/http://jewishfestival.pl/index.php?lang=ehttp://www.internationalcountrymusic.org/http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6726456003361339265http://www.forward.com/articles/12617/http://austeria.pl/http://www.thenewleader.com/http://www.jarden.pl/towar.php?t=672http://www.kansascity.com/609/story/393904.htmlhttp://www.the-other-europeans.eu/kinky%20friedman.htmlhttp://leblogdecraponne.blogspot.comhttp://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/0-0&fp=463b1ed9c2dfc22d&ei=LFs7RsUXk-qoA--xmbsD&url=http%3A//www.jstandard.com/articles/2634/1/The-culture-that-%2591refuses-to-go-away%2592&cid=1116013983http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/20070425travelguidebook.htmlhttp://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/20070425travelbooksidebar.htmlhttp://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=13883http://press.nationalgeographic.com/pressroom/index.jsp?pageID=pressReleases_detail&siteID=1&cid=1171997738370http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Jewish-Heritage-Travel/dp/1426200463/sr=8-21/qid=1167586732/ref=sr_1_21/102-1037728-3774551?ie=UTF8&s=bookshttp://www.gf.org/shapeimage_3_link_0shapeimage_3_link_1shapeimage_3_link_2shapeimage_3_link_3shapeimage_3_link_4shapeimage_3_link_5shapeimage_3_link_6shapeimage_3_link_7shapeimage_3_link_8shapeimage_3_link_9shapeimage_3_link_10shapeimage_3_link_11shapeimage_3_link_12shapeimage_3_link_13shapeimage_3_link_14shapeimage_3_link_15shapeimage_3_link_16shapeimage_3_link_17shapeimage_3_link_18shapeimage_3_link_19shapeimage_3_link_20shapeimage_3_link_21shapeimage_3_link_22shapeimage_3_link_23shapeimage_3_link_24shapeimage_3_link_25shapeimage_3_link_26shapeimage_3_link_27shapeimage_3_link_28shapeimage_3_link_29