Hundreds of Poles cheered, sang and danced into the night last week in Kazimierz, the heart of Krakow’s former Jewish district, at a marathon open-air concert of Jewish music.
The concert, which lasted more than five hours, concluded the city’s weeklong Fourth Festival of Jewish Culture.
Throughout the festival week, Kazimierz and other parts of the city were the scene of concerts, theatrical performances, exhibitions, film presentations and workshops devoted to various aspects of Jewish cultural heritage.
The overwhelming majority of the thousands of people drawn to the festivities were non-Jewish Poles, though there was a smattering of American Jewish tourists as well as members of the local Jewish community.
City walls and billboards were plastered with the festival’s distinctive poster — a big Star of David composed of brilliantly colored pastel crayons, illuminated by a shaft of light.
The Festival of Jewish Culture was launched in 1988, when Poland was still under a Communist regime, by two young Poles, Janusz Makuch and Krzysztof Gierat.
Like many Polish intellectuals of their generation, the two men had become interested in Poland’s rich but tragic Jewish history and heritage.
The festival, held every year, has increasingly become a key part of the summer cultural scene in a city which before the Holocaust was home to nearly 70,000 Jews and which today has about 200.
Most of Krakow’s Jews are elderly, although a small youth group, most of whose members recently discovered their Jewish roots, has sprung up in the past six months.
AUSTRIANS ALSO SPONSOR EVENTS
Testifying to the festival’s impact, an overlapping series of Jewish cultural events — Vienna-Krakow Days of Jewish Culture — was sponsored in Krakow by the Austrian Consulate.
There were also various independent events, as well as lectures and exhibitions at the recently opened Center for Jewish Culture in Kazimierz.
Kazimierz contains a wealth of important Jewish historical monuments, including centuries-old synagogues, nearly a score of former prayer houses, two cemeteries, marketplaces and houses.
Szeroka Street, where the festival’s final concert was held, is an elongated square at one end of which is the Gothic Old Synagogue, now a Jewish museum. At the other end is the 16th century Rama Synagogue, still in use by local Jews, and the historic Old Jewish Cemetery.
Performers included American klezmer bands Brave Old World, Ellis Island Band and David Krakauer Trio; Bukharian Jewish music ensemble Shashmaqam, and Polish klezmer group Kroke.
The irony of a Jewish culture festival for a predominantly non-Jewish audience was noted.
“I think it should be called a festival of Jewish art and music,” not Jewish culture, said Jonah Bookstein, an American Fulbright scholar active in forming the Jewish youth group.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
