Product Description
Tuesday 7th November
1.00pm
FREE
Mr Janusz Makuch, the founder and director of the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow will give a talk on the Jewish Culture Festival, an annual event and one of the foremost celebrations of Jewish culture in the world today.
The festival was founded in 1988 in Krakow, Poland, which had been a major flourishing centre of Jewish culture before the Second World War. Within the span of two decades, the festival has become one of the most significant events of its kind in the world.
In 2017 the festival hosted over 200 events including musical performances, workshops, lectures, guided tours and attracted some 30,000 visitors. The festival gathers around 200 artists and workshop leaders from all over the globe. The New York Times has described it as “the Jewish Woodstock,” whilst The Guardian has characterised it as “the most prominent symbol of Jewish renaissance.”
Janusz Makuch, in common with all other festival organisers, is not Jewish. In 2008, he became the first recipient of the prestigious Irena Sendler prize awarded by the Taube Foundation for preserving and revitalising Jewish heritage in Poland.
“It’s a way to pay homage to the people who lived here” says Janusz Makuch when asked about the original purpose of organising the festival. “We never have been and never will be a klezmer festival! We are a festival of diverse worlds: the worlds of Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Oriental, and finally of Israeli culture.”
Mr Makuch is in Australia at the invitation of the Australian Institute of Polish Affairs.
Booking required. Please RSVP by email to [email protected] or call 9360 7999.
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