Jewish Culture Festival, 2015

Written 26.6.-30.7.2015 On the border of June and July I visited Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków. Great opportunity to get to know better and more about Judaism and one of the greatest place, Kraków.

In my city Brno after war was only 1% of jews survive, actually right now. Also we have a problem that sometimes we have not enought man to read from torah, as former Wife of rabbi says, before they left to Izrael. So It is not so mouch possibilities to know jews in my town. Outstanding synagogue and old cemetery in my town, it is all. So I decided to change it and go to Kraków. (lately I discovered remote branch of Prague jewish museum in Brno)

On my first day here I visited the musical Sabbath with Moiše band and first women Polish rabbi Tanja Segal. She led the Sabbath and It was amazing experience and ceremony. I know a lot of charistamic women as her, but it is still hard problem in our society, that they must so fight to be equal in mostly men's spiritual world and it is even more significant because some of them can bring much more then men.
Second day I visited many events but for me was the most memorable to meet with the famous Galicia photographer Jason Francisco. he travelled through the whole Galicia and he was mapping and taking the images of former jewish live, mainly graves and synagogues.
Somebody told me, that most of Polish people are anti-Semites and also young Polish people. But Jason change my mind. He told me the story "One day the old guy was sunbathing on the meadow. I ask him, do you know that you are sunbathing on the jewish mass-grave? I am not he said, the man sunbathing on the mass grave. And he was contiuning with his rest and nothing change him and his mind. In next villiage Jason meet the similar situation, but grave was officialy marked. Somebody, elder, was sunbathing again on marked mass-grave. Jason ask him the same question as before, but still get the same response but only with change, elder told him, that people underneath them, jewish, could survive, if they change their believe to Jesus Christ as regular Christians, and the Saviour also can save them also, but only in case, if somebody accepted Jesus as savior and not only else." Even after that Jason told me: "Don't believe in general things, even if I meet these people I don't believe that Polish people are anti-Semites.
Meetings with Tanya Segal and Jason Francisco were for me really deep, passionate and edutaced, so this is how I started my Journey to Polish heart of Judaism. I really suggest you to go for the Next Jewish Festival in 2016.