The Festival of Jewish Culture in Cracow is one of the most important and biggest events of this kind anywhere. Most of the Festival events are taking place in the synagogues, art galleries and small streets of the Kazimierz district of Kraków. They all engender the extraordinary atmosphere of a Jewish cultural holiday. The Festival is not confined to music alone. It differs from other artistic Jewish events in that it is multi-thematic and diversified. Apart from concerts, the programme includes film festivals, theatre performances, painting, graphic art and photo
exhibitions, lectures and meetings, as well as highly popular workshops in Yiddish, Jewish dances, Klesmer music, Chasid songs, Hebrew calligraphy and even in Jewish cuisine specialties. ”This festival is very tightly set in the Ka-
zimierz context. I have in mind the nearly 700-year long presence of Jews in this place. The remarkable cultural, material and spiritual wealth that had been built up during these years. Traces of the Jewish spiritual culture are ever less visible, but trade of their material culture are still
evident”, says Janusz Makuch, the Festival director.
The beginnings of the Festival date to 1988 when its first edition was arranged by Janusz Makuch and Krzysztof Gierat out of their fascination with Jewish culture. It was at first a modest event but as years passed, it turned into a major annual fixture on Kraków’s cultural calendar attracting a steadily growing number of visitors from home and abroad. One can hardly imagine present-day Kazimierz without this Festival. It was this particular event that prompted the reconstruction and renovation of many of the district’s devastated buildings preserving at the same time their old climate and traditions. Since the Festival began, there has been a booming growth in Jewish-themed restaurants, bars, bookstores, souvenir shops and small hotels.

The 18th Festival of Jewish Culture in Kraków, the world’s largest event of this kind, will take place this year from June 28 to July 6. The nine-day festival will feature some 200 events of all kind. More than 130 artists, performers and lecturers from Poland, European countries, the United States and Israel will be involved in the cultural and educational events.
The cultural events this year will predominantly feature on Israel to commemorate its emergence as a state 60 years ago. The Festival organizers intend to display the rich mosaic of Ashenasic, Sephardic and Yemeni cultures which created Israel as well as the impact of Israel’s culture on Jews dispersed in the Diaspora throughout the world. The programme of events envisages performances by world-renowned cantors Benzion Miller (USA), Itzhak Meir Helfgot (USA) and Azi Schwartz (USA) with the Neimah Choir (UK), concerts by Erik Friedlander (USA), David D’Or (Israel) as well as Leopold Kozłowski and Friends (Poland). For the first time, a concert in the series “Klezmers and Romanis” will help present these two cultures. Apart from all these concerts to be played in the evenings, a series of “Concerts between the Synagogues” will be held with the performers appearing in frequently astonishing arrangements and repertoires. The Festival will culminate with the final concert called ”Shalom on Szeroka Street” , once the heart of the Jewish district of Kazimierz rendering a medley of music, songs and dances presented by artists attending the Festival.
Other events planned during the Festival this year include an exhibition of Israeli posters arranged in cooperation with the Farkash Gallery in Jaffa. A show of present-day films devoted to Jewish themes and related to Israel that were produced in various countries, predominantly in Israel in the run up to the 60th anniversary of that country, will be held in the “Kino pod Baranami” cinema.
A number of events will be connected with the Festival educational programme. These will include workshops on various topics as well as a series of lectures on “Basic issues of Judaism” and on various aspects of Israel’s life and history to be delivered by David Peleg, (the Israeli ambassador to Warsaw), Eli Barbur, Martin Gilbert and Shevach Weiss. Lectures will be given by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett on Ashkenazic, Sephardic and Israeli cuisine. Genuine Israeli pita bread with koumiss will be served at the Municipal Civil Engineering Museum courtyard by Drusian girls especially invited for the occasion from Israel. On the same site vanguard music projects will be presented by the Festival’s off-stage.
Maciek Proliński