Jewish minority has been a part of Polish society for over 1000 years, during which the country has experienced alternating periods of development and destruction. Polish-Jewish relations were particularly affected by the tragic period of the Holocaust. After the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel and the tightening of Soviet-dominated Poland, the problematic knowledge of shared history with widely different interpretations translated into the complexity of Polish-Israeli relations. It contributed to a build-up of mutual distrust.[…]
Kielce Lecture and Concert
Good evening. I bring you greetings from my home city Los Angeles, with one of the largest Jewish populations in the world, approx.. 600,000! And I feel honored to share this solemn remembrance of the 1946 Kielce Pogrom with you. Music has always had healing powers and I hope that our program of classical music for violin, cello and piano will have a transformative and comforting effect for us.[…]
Chava Rosenfarb’s, The Tree of Life
Our webinar with Goldie Morgentaler will discuss her mother Chava Rosenfarb’s Yiddish novel of Lodz, Poland January 1939 until the end of Lodz Ghetto in 1944. Dr. Morgentaler translated the book from Yiddish to English. Now there is an excellent Polish translation by Dr. Joanna Lisek .[…]
Dybbuk Remix: Dancing Between Worlds, A Story of Possession
Karen Goodman will introduce a folkloric trope of Ashkenazic dance through the work of four artists: S. An-sky, Nathan Vizonsky, Judith Berg and Benjamin Zemach.
S. An-sky wrote the 1915 play, The Dybbuk or Between Two Worlds, which was based on his ethnographic research between 1912-14 amongst rural Jews in what is now Ukraine.[…]
In the Matter of Ukraine
Three noted academics will address the challenges shaping Ukraine today. The bravery of the Ukrainian people is inspirational. What has created the remarkable resistance and cohesion the world has witnessed?
Letters to My Father
Excavating a Jewish Identity in Poland and Belarus with author Kathleen A. Balgley
Join Kathleen A. Balgley in a discussion of just released Letters to My Father:
Excavating a Jewish Identity in Poland and Belarus. Kathleen Balgley’s memoir begins with her childhood discovery of her father’s hidden Jewish[…]