Timisoara Tour Guide

Aaaand my genealogy tours made the Serbian news! So exciting! The article was actually only published on the printed issue of Temišvarski Vesnik (the Timișoara Tribune). A bit difficult to read since it's written in Cyrillic letters and in Serbian, but you get the gist. It speaks about family stories and heritage, about the return to the Old Country, about those of us who pitch in and make it happen. A big "hvala lepo" to my Serbian colleagues and friends who've always been there to support me and guide me through the intricacies of their culture and denomination. Also a thought goes out to Mrs. Rancov, the founder of the Cenei village museum, an amazing host who so warmly welcomed me and my guests, and whom unfortunately we lost last year.

2026 started off really well. Good food, friends and family around. And then today, on the third day of the year, it snowed! I love snow, but Timișoara rarely gets any. Imagine my excitement today when I got to do this year's first tour while jumping around in the white miracle like a little kid. What more could I have possibly asked for? Happy new year, everybody!

It's that time of year. The 36th since for the people of Timișoara December brings joy and sorrow alike. It's the holidays, a time for celebration and introspection, but for us this collides with the duty to march for and commemorate the heroes and martyrs of the 1989 Romanian anti-communist revolution that sparked in Timișoara in the 16th of December. It's a mix of sadness and frustration, gratitude, community feeling and pride, but most importantly political revindication and a fair warning that you don't mess with the people, you don't mess with democracy.

This will most likely be deemed a sad post. And I guess it is. But my actual intention is to share these images with my guests whose families (or they themselves) studied in the Jewish high school of Timișoara between 1919 and 1940, so they can have a glimpse of the interior. After WWII, the building became the Sports high school and then the Arts high school, but starting 2013 its doors remained locked until last summer. For now, the building, no longer a historical monument unfortunately, has survived the threat of being destroyed by the ambition of real estate developers and was bought by the Orthodox Church in the process. In June 2025 students of the Architecture faculty had the initiative to put together an exhibition based on a study they performed on the high schools in Timișoara. The study was meant to raise awareness and hopefully get the current owners to consider renovating the building and turning it into a school again. I’m personally rooting for this.