What is PEACE?

PEACE stands for Portal of Epigraphy, Archaeology, Conservation and Education on Jewish Funerary Culture.

When studying the history of a people one may learn a myriad of details from the ways in which they chose to remember—and consequently immortalize—their dead. These details, best summarized by the term “funerary culture”, are found at the heart of our project. The PEACE portal explores Jewish funerary culture through the ages.

The project was launched in 2017 at Utrecht University, initially funded by a grant of the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe (L.V. Rutgers and O.-P. Saar). The PEACE portal was established by Dr. Ortal-Paz Saar, and brings together several partners, the first of whom are the Steinheim Institute Epidat project, and the Brown University Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine project.

Why a portal?

Since the sources on Jewish funerary culture cover a vast temporal and spatial expanse, the only effective way to comprehensively analyze them is by computerized means. A great amount of the data is already digitized and available online, yet it is spread across various websites, whose databases are unrelated to one another. Consequently, scholars wishing to explore a concept or a phenomenon over a long period of time or across a wide geographical range, cannot. The PEACE portal provides for the first time the means to do so.

Who contributes to PEACE?

At the moment (November 2025) the PEACE project comprises three major partners: Utrecht University, where the project is based (including the FIJI project and the Jewish epitaphs from North Africa database), the Steinheim Institute Epidat project, and the Brown University project Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine. Additionally, individual partners are contributing to the PEACE portal, for instance Dr. Elíshabá (Isabel) Mata López from the University of Salamanca, Dr. Sonia Fellous from the CNRS, France, and Mr. Haim Sidor (independent scholar, Safed).

Where do we go from here?

The PEACE portal started with a focus on epigraphic data. We are increasingly developing the other sections of the portal and adding new partners from all fields: archaeology, conservation, and education. The portal is increasingly becoming a central hub of Jewish funerary culture through the ages. The information it contains is open access and available to all. The PEACE portal facilitates scholarly analyses of different types of sources (epigraphic, archaeological) as well as joint projects of conservation and education. Additionally, the PEACE portal serves as a digital archive of physically endangered Jewish heritage.

Summing up, in more than one sense, this project started from the ground, but given its prospects, the sky is the limit.