After a two-year break, the Gdańsk Jewish Culture Festival Shalom Polin is returning. It will be the seventh event aimed at introducing Jewish culture and combating stereotyping. Participants will be able to look at Israel from different perspectives – incl. through culinary workshops and film screenings. The festival will start on Friday – April 1st.

The event will begin with the lecture “Gdańsk Exodus. Jews in the Free City of Gdańsk in 1933-1939” by Dr Krzysztof Ulanowski. Then, Krystyna Weiher-Sitkiewicz will talk to Maria Ka – a singer, pianist, composer and songwriter who performs music mainly in Yiddish. There will be also a break for food from an Israeli restaurant, and the day will end with the screening of the film “Love in the days of extermination” (2020) directed by Maya Sarfaty.

On the second day of the festival, participants will learn how to prepare Jewish potato pancakes and learn the basics of the Yiddish language. Three film blocks have been prepared for film fans – a short films show from the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival, ” Proof of Identity” (2021), directed by Mikołaj Grynberg and “My name is Sara” (2019) dir. By Steven Oritt. Between screenings, Krystyna Weiher-Sitkiewicz will talk to Patrycja Dołowy – the author of the book “Treasures. Raiders and guardians of Jewish memory”.

On the last day, Dr Martyna Wielewska-Baka will talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – one of the most famous geopolitical conflicts of recent times. There will be also Yiddish lessons – Dr Wielewska will conduct workshops on learning the Hebrew alphabet. Later, Dr Rafał Kowalski will talk to Rafał Hetman, author of the book “Izbica, Izbica”, and in the evening, at the end of the festival, guest will watch a screening of two films: “Desert Apples” (2014) by Arik Lubetzky, Matti Harari and “Zero Motivation” (2014 ) directed by Talya Lavie.

The project is implemented as part of the statutory activity of the Alternator Academic Center for Culture of the University of Gdańsk.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński