Connecting Jewish heritage at scale
The project addresses a structural gap in European Jewish heritage by enabling individuals, families, and communities to be reconstructed from dispersed archival sources.
It transforms preserved but fragmented material into structured, connected data, making it possible to understand Jewish history across archives, jurisdictions, and languages.
Making archives more usable
A large body of Jewish archival material has already been preserved and, in many cases, digitised.
However, its value remains limited because records are not connected.
By linking records across sources, the project:
- increases the usability of existing archives
- enables reliable identification of individuals across records
- supports reconstruction of families and communities
This enhances the impact of prior digitisation and cataloguing work.
Adding a human dimension to heritage
The project connects individuals and families to specific places.
This allows historic buildings, neighbourhoods, and artefacts to be understood within the lives of the people associated with them, rather than as isolated sites.
It supports a more grounded interpretation of Jewish heritage, linking physical locations to identifiable communities and histories.
Public value
For descendants, educators, researchers, and heritage institutions, the project makes Jewish history more:
- discoverable
- contextualised
- accessible
It enables engagement with identifiable individuals and communities, rather than abstract historical summaries.
Supporting mapping and spatial understanding
The structured data supports mapping and spatial visualisation.
By linking individuals, families, and communities to specific places, the project enables patterns of movement, settlement, and connection to be understood geographically.
This strengthens interpretation of Jewish heritage across Europe and beyond.
Complementing existing work
The project complements existing digitisation and built heritage initiatives.
It does not replace archival catalogues or heritage sites, but adds the missing layer that connects them: the people and communities represented in the records.
A foundation for wider application
The Western Sephardic diaspora is the starting point, not the endpoint.
The methodology is designed to be extended to other Jewish communities, including those across North Africa and the Middle East, where archival material is similarly dispersed.