What a week! The 18th Jewish Culture Festival , the largest Jewish festival in the world, began the day we arrived in Krakow. Centeredin Kazimierz , the ancient Jewish districton UNESCO's World Heritage List , this livelyfestival is attended by people from all over the world, and featurestheatre performaces, lectures, films, tours, concerts, classes, workshops, art installations, museum exhibits, and much much more. The music is extraordinary. We heard music spilling fromsynagogues, much as Dora must have done when she lived here in 1918. We heardmany different styles ofKlezmer music, as well asHasidic, classical, and Jewish folk music. The culminatingconcert, Shalom on Szeroka Street , attended by thousands, started with rain showers in the evening and didn't end until two a.m. &
Final Concert Overview by KPBS, on Flickr
Byron and I took a week-longfree, butintensiveYiddish class this week taught by wonderful Anna Gulinska at the Galicia Jewish Museum , and participated in a Yiddish singing workshops taught by Jeff Warschauer in the afternoons. We attended & free Klezmer concerts held on tiny cobbled squares, & surrounded by people from all over the world. &
Konsanans Retro Ukraine by KPBS, on Flickr
One of our favorite groups we heard perform at the daily evening free "Concert between Two Synagogues." Konsonans Retro is & a group of family members from the Ukraine.
When Byron and I were here in 2001, Kazimierz was a bit depressing, with little life left in the narrow lanes. Only & old photographs, like this one below, & showed the Jewish life on the ancient & streets.
