drora
Valley of communities
The Valley of the Communities in Yad Vashem is a massive 2.5 acre monument literally dug out of natural bedrock. Over 5000 names of communities are engraved on the stone walls in the Valley of the Communities. Each name recalls a Jewish community which existed for hundreds of years; for the inhabitants, each community constituted an entire world. Today, in most cases, nothing remains but the name.
The Valley was excavated out of the earth-nothing was built above ground. It is as if what had been built up on the surface of the earth over the course of a millennium-a thousand years of Jewish communal life- was suddenly swallowed up The names of the communities are engraved on the 107 walls which roughly corresponds to the geographic arrangement of the map of Europe and North Africa. The names of the communities are engraved and commemorated on the walls in the Valley for future generations who will identify with the memories and find their roots.
Valley of communities
The Valley of the Communities in Yad Vashem is a massive 2.5 acre monument literally dug out of natural bedrock. Over 5000 names of communities are engraved on the stone walls in the Valley of the Communities. Each name recalls a Jewish community which existed for hundreds of years; for the inhabitants, each community constituted an entire world. Today, in most cases, nothing remains but the name.
The Valley was excavated out of the earth-nothing was built above ground. It is as if what had been built up on the surface of the earth over the course of a millennium-a thousand years of Jewish communal life- was suddenly swallowed up The names of the communities are engraved on the 107 walls which roughly corresponds to the geographic arrangement of the map of Europe and North Africa. The names of the communities are engraved and commemorated on the walls in the Valley for future generations who will identify with the memories and find their roots.