MIRETAGE Partner Interview: Victor Sorenssen on Jewish Heritage and European Identity
Discover how MIRETAGE is helping rethink European cultural heritage through community engagement, participatory methodologies and the stories of religious minorities.
Victor Sorenssen is the founder of Mozaika, a Jewish cultural platform based in Barcelona, and Director of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage (AEPJ). In this interview, he reflects on Mozaika's contribution to MIRETAGE, the importance of making minority heritage visible, and how participatory approaches can foster dialogue, challenge prejudice and strengthen a shared sense of European identity.
1. What is your name and the organisation you represent?
My name is Victor Sorenssen, and I am the founder of Mozaika, a Jewish cultural platform based in Barcelona. I am also the Director of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage (AEPJ), a European network dedicated to Jewish heritage, cultural cooperation and intercultural dialogue.
2. Where is your organisation based, and what does it do?
Mozaika is based in Barcelona, where we work to promote Jewish culture, heritage and contemporary Jewish life in Catalonia.
Our ambition has always been to create an open space where Jewish culture can be explored, experienced and shared, both within the Jewish community and with wider society. Through cultural events, educational programmes, publications and community initiatives, we seek to make Jewish culture a visible and meaningful part of Barcelona's cultural landscape.
One of our key initiatives is Toldot Barcelona, a project dedicated to exploring and interpreting the city's Jewish heritage through educational activities, guided visits and cultural experiences. Through Toldot, we aim not only to recover historical narratives but also to connect them with contemporary questions of identity, belonging and cultural diversity.
3. What has been your main role in the MIRETAGE project?
Mozaika, particularly through Toldot Barcelona, has contributed its experience in Jewish heritage interpretation, cultural mediation and community engagement.
Our work has focused on developing and testing participatory approaches to heritage education, especially through the Heritage Labs organised in Barcelona.
I would particularly like to highlight the contribution of my colleagues Goretti and Eva, who have played a central role in bringing these activities to life. Their work in coordinating and facilitating the local activities, engaging participants and translating the project's methodologies into meaningful experiences on the ground has been essential to Mozaika's contribution to MIRETAGE.
For us, an important dimension of the project has been connecting practical experience in heritage interpretation with the research and educational approaches developed by our European partners.
4. Are you involved, or have you been involved, in any other projects or initiatives related to minority religious heritage?
Yes. Much of my professional work has been dedicated to the preservation, interpretation and promotion of Jewish heritage in Europe.
Beyond Mozaika and Toldot Barcelona, I direct the AEPJ, which coordinates several European initiatives, including the European Route of Jewish Heritage, certified as a Cultural Route of the Council of Europe, and the European Days of Jewish Culture, which brings Jewish culture and heritage closer to audiences across the continent.
We also work closely with municipalities, heritage institutions and Jewish communities through initiatives such as Cities Embracing Jewish Heritage, encouraging local authorities to recognise Jewish heritage as an integral part of their cities' cultural identity.
Across these initiatives, our approach is based on a shared conviction: minority heritage should not be understood as something belonging exclusively to a particular community, but as an essential component of our common European heritage.
5. Why is a project like MIRETAGE important in the current European context? What can it contribute to society?
I believe MIRETAGE addresses one of the fundamental challenges facing Europe today: how we understand and narrate our collective identity.
Europe's cultural heritage is profoundly diverse, yet the stories we tell about our past have often been selective. Religious minorities, including Jewish and Muslim communities, have contributed enormously to European history, culture and intellectual life, but their experiences have frequently remained at the margins of mainstream heritage narratives.
Recognising this heritage is therefore not simply an exercise in historical preservation. It is also a question of cultural recognition, democratic participation and belonging.
There is another dimension that I consider particularly important. Too often, minority heritage is presented almost exclusively through the lens of absence, persecution or loss. These histories must be remembered, of course, but they cannot be the only narratives we tell. We must also speak about creativity, exchange, everyday life, continuity and the living communities that continue to shape European societies today.
This is where I see the particular value of MIRETAGE. By developing participatory methodologies and involving communities directly in the interpretation of their heritage, the project challenges the idea that heritage is simply something transmitted by experts to passive audiences.
Instead, heritage becomes a space for dialogue, shared learning and collective reflection. It helps us understand that European diversity is not a recent phenomenon or an external addition to our identity. It has always been part of who we are.
At a time when polarisation, antisemitism, Islamophobia and exclusionary narratives are increasingly visible across Europe, initiatives like MIRETAGE remind us that cultural heritage can help build bridges, challenge prejudices and strengthen our sense of shared responsibility for the societies we inhabit.
6. What has been the most exciting or rewarding part of the project for you?
What I have found most rewarding is the opportunity to bring together different ways of understanding and working with heritage.
At Mozaika and Toldot, we approach heritage primarily through cultural practice, education and direct engagement with communities and audiences. MIRETAGE has allowed us to place this practical experience in dialogue with academic research, participatory methodologies and the perspectives of organisations working with other minority religious traditions.
I have particularly appreciated seeing how the ideas developed collectively within the project have taken shape through the Heritage Labs in Barcelona, thanks in large part to the dedication and creativity of my colleagues Goretti and Eva.
The project has also encouraged us to rethink something as familiar as a heritage route. A route may appear to be a simple cultural or educational activity, but it also involves choices about whose stories are told, which places are considered significant and who has the authority to interpret the past.
Perhaps the most valuable lesson of MIRETAGE is that heritage is not just about what we inherit, but also about what we decide to recognise, share and transmit to future generations.
And that is a conversation worth continuing well beyond the lifetime of the project.
