Ticia Verveer, at The Blogs

Feb 29, 2024, 3:41 PM

When I sauntered last year around the almost 2,000-year-old synagogue of Ostia Antica, I tried to imagine its long-vanished ancient residents who once populated its streets, houses and apartments, taverns and baths, warehouses, shops, and temples. These astonishing ruins,...

Aug 15, 2020, 7:27 PM

Shish Kebab and Ghoriba in Lockdown

Our true name is Cohen. Abraham Salomon, my fifth great-grandfather, was forced in 1815 to choose a different surname. Verveer became the family name of my Dutch Jewish family. They were members of the Ashkenazi community in The Hague, but you...

Jun 22, 2020, 5:01 PM

The synagogue and the king

This striking photo, taken in 1915, shows the Rue Castara in Lunéville, France, where Rabbi Ernest Weill was murdered, along with other Jewish and non-Jewish civilians, by Bavarian soldiers during World War One. The tragic event took place at this...

Dec 21, 2019, 10:55 PM

The Light of Florence

The Nazis grossly defiled the Synagogue of Florence in August 1944, when they detonated several mines in the interior and used the building as a garage where they repaired trucks. The synagogue, at the Tempio Maggiore Israelitico, was ransacked and...

Aug 7, 2019, 7:40 PM

The absence of names is silence

When the Second World War came to a fiery and dramatic close in the Netherlands, the horror of what happened became clear. Most of Jewish, Roma, and Sinti descent did not survive the war. Approximately 107,000 out of 140,000...

Jun 17, 2019, 6:51 PM

The multiple pasts of Cretan Jewry

There is this cozy synagogue in Chania, snugged between narrow nostalgic Cretan streets, built by a community that ceased to exist 75 years ago, a Jewish monument that almost fell victim to complete destruction. The Etz Hayyim synagogue was damaged...

Feb 6, 2019, 6:08 PM

Featured Post

The Wondrous Judean Underland

The Judean Lowlands of Israel is home to hundreds of underground complexes, part of a spectacular subterranean world

Jan 23, 2019, 12:28 AM

Don’t play around with the Holocaust for your own political needs

On January 22, Dutch opinion columnist Ebru Umar wrote that asylum seekers should undergo forced sterilization when they apply for asylum in the Netherlands. When they do get pregnant, they should be immediately deported. This disturbing column was published...

Oct 24, 2018, 5:41 PM

Time Travel

The Ben-Gurion House. Photo Ticia Verveer.

My dad had a fascination for tracking down historic homes and travel routes of historic figures. Sometimes those locations were transformed into house museums, but his true call was to find the unmarked ones, the off-the-beaten-path homes. Often, we found...

Sep 7, 2018, 12:48 AM

The Ancient Cry of the Shofar

In my experience, the sounding of the shofar is one of the most emotionally charged moments on Rosh Hashanah. Its piercing cries break through our consciousness and implore us to better ourselves. The magical, almost supernatural cry of the...

About Me

I have had the privilege to work as a professional archaeologist on a vast number of archaeological sites in the Middle East, Sahel and North Africa. I write about Jewish history, culture and heritage, from ancient texts to modern politics.