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Before World War II, Romania was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe; Bucharest, the capital of Walachia, once called the Paris of the East, had a Jewish community of close to 100,000. Not much remains of the past. Bucharest is a gloomy city, and Lipcani, the Jewish quarter, was nearly totally destroyed, not by the fascists, but by the communists. Dictator Ceausescu had most of the Jewish quarter bulldozed to make room for his urban renewal plans. Today there are around 4,000 Jews living in the Romanian capital and the Jewish heritage that can be found in the city are remnants of the glorious past. Photographer Julian Voloj takes us on a trip exploring the last traces of Bucharest's Jewish heritage, as part of a wider project on capturing Jewish heritage in Central and Eastern Europe.

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Julian Voloj was born in Muenster, Germany, and grew up in a Jewish community of just 80 members. His grandparents, Holocaust survivors, had emigrated to Colombia but returned to Germany. His personal background inspired him to explore issues of identity and heritage in his work as a photographer and writer. Voloj emigrated to the United States in 2003. The same year he was awarded with the Second Prize at the Washington Post Annual Photography Contest. In 2006, the Forward commissioned Voloj to photograph prominent New Yorkers such as Ed Koch, Edgar Bronfman and Abe Foxman for its anniversary book (to be released in 2007). Voloj was also commissioned for the exhibition "Germany, Land of Ideas" at the Deutsch-Historisches Museum in Berlin, one of Germany's most prestigious museums. His photographs appeared in the New York Post, the Jewish Week and other publications. Julian Voloj lives and works in New York City. To learn more about his projects, visit the website at http://www.julianvoloj.com.