Maimonides Synaoguge, Cairo, Egypt (Photo courtesy of David Cowles)

For thousands of years Jews lived in communities throughout the region, but in the past few decades most of these ancient communities have ceased to exist. Every day synagogues, schools, cemeteries, and community centers, are physically disappearing and being erased from historical memory, as the last generation that lived with these sites passes on.

Utilizing cutting-edge technology, Diarna is ensuring that future generations will have untrammeled access to Mizrahi heritage sites and the oral history of these communities — but we are in a race against time to preserve priceless cultural heritage before it is forever lost.

You can help in important ways:

1) Volunteer as a researcher, videographer, technical developer, graphic designer, or translator (see our volunteer postings on Idealist).

2) Share photos and memories of heritage sites (email us at info@diarna.org).

3) Make a tax-deductible contribution by clicking the PayPal “donate” button (below) or sending a check (payable to Digital Heritage Mapping, Inc., 304 Newbury Street, No. 311, Boston, MA, 02115).

Here is how your donation helps:

• $36 maps a heritage site
• $100 supports filming the testimony of a Jew indigenous to the Middle East (see Mukhluf Mamman discussing Saba Synagogue in Fez’s Mellah, here)
• $250 enables the production of a YouTube video documenting a Mizrahi heritage site (tour a village in Tighedouine or  Ourzazate’s Mellah)
• $500 sponsors a website update/one site exhibit in our series “Documenting Heritage Before Its Too Late” (Ezekiel’s Tomb or the Benchimol Hospital)
• $1,000 sponsors the creation of a complete site write-up with scholarly notes and multimedia gallery (naming opportunity, see select site examples, here)
• $2,000 underwrites a three-dimensional digital reconstruction of a heritage site (naming opportunity, see the example of Beirut’s Magen Avraham Synagogue)

In addition, donate $250 or more and receive your choice of 11X14 full-color limited edition Diarna photographic prints of these rare heritage sites (When checking out on PayPal click “Add special instructions…” and note your print selection’s number):

	Print 1: Jewish Cemetery, Ifrane d’Anti-Atlas, Morocco, one of the southernmost Jewish cemeteries in North Africa (Hebrew fragment reads: “The old man died…”)
	Print 2: Hananya Al-Fassi, Jewish guardian of the tomb of Rabbi Shlomo Ben Lhans, Aghbalou, Morocco
	Print 3: Amzrou Mellah, Southern Morocco
	Print 4: Hanan (Etz Haim) Synagogue, Cairo, Egypt
	Print 5: Rabbi Shmuel Abuhatzera Shrine, Erfoud, Morocco
	Print 6: Women caretakers of the Synagogue in Ighil’n'Ogho (Tallouine region), Morocco
	Print 7: Abandoned Synagogue, Amzrou, Morocco

Whatever form your help may take, thank you, in advance, for your support.