by tskzSpichlerz Kultury Foundation together with its partners would like to invite you to the 10th jubilee edition of Pardes Festival – Encounters with Jewish Culture – which will take place from 6th to 11th September 2021.
TSKŻ is this year’s Pardes Festival partner, and “Jewish Word” is a media partner of the event.
The detailed agenda of Pardes Festival is available at: https://pardesfestival.pl/
The hosts of the Festival are happy to present a vast and varied programme of the event held in the atmosphere of openness and tolerance for religious, ethnic and cultural diversity of the Lubelskie region and other parts of Poland. The Festival aims at combining the past with the present: we will try to discover the traces of a long-term presence of our Jewish neighbours from Kazimierz Dolny, Janowiec, Lubelskie region and other parts of Poland, which have been pushed out of memory, but still remain alive in stone, in historical accounts, in memories and in works of art – the presence which was tragically interrupted in September 1939.
Before we go to Kazimierz Dolny and Janowiec, we should first take part in a special event co-organised with State Museum at Majdanek. On Sunday, 4th September, we will gather together at a guided tour devoted to the Holocaust in the General Government region, commemorating the 80th anniversary of Aktion Reinhardt.
The first Festival event scheduled on 6th September, 12:00 noon, is a curator guided tour of outstanding collection of Judaica items of the Museum of Goldsmiths’ Art (i.e. at the main edifice of the Vistula Region Museum in Kazimierz Dolny). Surrounded by the Vistula region’s small town landscape, in the spirit of respect towards nature and material heritage, we will have an opportunity to encounter many artists and outstanding experts in the field of local history, Jewish and multicultural themes. The Festival guests will traditionally follow the Jewish footsteps present in Kazimierz Dolny, visit the Synagogue and acquaint themselves with the history of Jewish cemeteries. One of the guided tours around Kazimierz will recall the fate of Holocaust survivors and the Górecki family, who were awarded the Righteous Among the Nations Medal in 1996. Pardes Festival is an opportunity to bring us back to the mythical shtetl and discover a microcosm of the multicultural cities and towns of old Poland. The memory of interwar multicultural Lublin and the history of the famous Krawiecka Street will be recalled by Joanna Zętar from the Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre Centre.
Pardes Festival is an attempt to revive the non-existent world, which has been filtered through sensitivities of various artists from past and present times. This year’s Festival is full of various art forms and diversified topics. Three art exhibitions are going to be presented by the Festival’s hosts. On 6th September, a photo gallery of Zbigniew Nita, who has been documenting the changing landscape of Kazimierz Dolny for many years, will be opened. As the artist he says: “Kazimierz Dolny has been a part of my life. A very important part, which has remained inside me ever since, although in a somehow different dimension. The people have changed, so has the reality”.
On Wednesday, 7th September, an exhibition of paintings by Grażyna Ulman will be opened. Goddess Gaia’s Herbarium is a unique personal cycle of art paintings which has been summarised by the artist herself as follows: “Even though my herbarium is named in Latin, I am also searching for Hebrew names of specific plants. Although my family roots are generally Christian, I have recently discovered that I have some Jewish ancestors too”.
On Sunday, 11th September, at the Municipal Cultural Centre in Janowiec, we will meet Greta Grabowska, an artist whose paper collages titled “The Forgotten Neighbourhood / Kazimierz Portfolio” were displayed last year in Kazimierz Dolny. This time the artist is going to present a collage cycle inspired by the Jewish history of Janowiec: “The Forgotten Neighbourhood / Janowiec Portfolio”. The exhibition’s opening will be followed by unique paper collage workshops for children and adults.
This year the Festival hosts have planned a cycle of encounters under the common title: Pardes Means a Garden. Piotr Kowalik who represents POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews is going to present and explain symbolic and practical functions which are performed by wine in the Jewish tradition, being, as such, its integral part. Over the centuries wine has become, and still is, the core element of Jewish family and community life. Regarded as a beverage of special significance, with its own blessings, both before and after consumption, wine is an indispensable addition to many Jewish holidays and major life events.
As part of Pardes Means a Garden cycle, the Festival hosts are planning to hold for the third time in the history, a garden party within the premises of the Janowiec Open Air Museum – in line with the motto Pardes Means a Garden / Milk, Honey and Wine (Saturday, 10th September). The event’s agenda includes, among others, visiting of an ethnographic exhibition, Jewish papercutting workshops, pottery workshops, storytelling about Sabbath earthenware and, most of all, delicacies offered by local manufacturers. The garden party will end with a concert by Galicia Orchestra dedicated to Ukraine fighting against the Russian aggressor.
The agenda of Pardes Festival also includes a unique musical event which will take place in Kazimierz Dolny. On Thursday evening, 8th September, the Festival hosts in co-operation with TSKŻ, are happy to invite you to a concert by Anna Rivero, a charismatic artist who will sing a collection of Sephardic songs. The singer will be accompanied by a brilliant guitarist, Michał Pindakiewicz.
On Friday, 9th September, at 8:00 pm, a performance titled “The Righteous” commemorating the Poles who saved Jews under the Nazi occupation will be presented at the Parish Church of St John the Baptist and St Bartholomew the Apostle in Kazimierz Dolny. The project has been initiated by the Institute of National Remembrance, and the show was written and directed by Artur Hofman.
Pardes Festival – Encounters with Jewish Culture in Kazimierz Dolny and Janowiec is a series of events aimed at restoring the memory of Polish Jews, Jewish towns, traditions and customs, non-existent world and entire the Jewish life which has been irreversibly wiped out from the Polish cultural landscape.
Please visit our website: https://pardesfestival.pl/
and follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PardesFestival/
Pardes Festival has been organised under the honorary patronage of the Marshall of the Lubelskie Voivodship, Jarosław Stawiarski, lubelskie.pl
and POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Author: Aleksandra Markiewicz, Pardes Festival Programme Director
