At least four big Jewish culture festivals are on in Europe this week and next — in Warsaw; Budapest; Pula, Croatia, and Italy’s Puglia (Apulia) region — ahead and after the “really big” one — the European Day of Jewish Culture, marked next Sunday, Sept. 2. According to the web site, EDJC events will take place in 19 European countries — Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. (Some participating countries are not included on the EDJC web page — there were some events in Slovakia already last weekend and Croatia also has events planned for Sept. 2).
This will be the 13th (bar mitzvah?) edition of the European Day of Jewish Culture — and the theme this year is “The Spirit of Jewish Humor.”
Participation in the EDJC varies from country to country, from many events to a few token offerings. Italy consistently is one of the most enthusiastic participants. This year there are events in more than 60 locations up and down the Italian peninsula, and each year attendance in Italy is about 60,000 — roughly twice the number of Jews in Italy.
Hilary Larson in New York Jewish Week previews this year’s events:
Introducing Jewish life to non-Jews in the most accessible and relevant way possible is the goal of the Day’s sponsor, the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage, which is organized by two groups: B’nai Brith Europe and Red de Juderías de España – Caminos de Sefarad, the Spanish network of Jewish heritage sites. […]
Even before the concerts and lectures start, though, the European Day keeps Jewish culture visible in the most basic sense of the word. From Bologna to Belgrade, Groucho Marx’s signature bushy eyebrows, glasses and mustache are plastered across billboards and kiosks.
Unsurprisingly, given the theme, films (and talks about Jews in film) are a big part of this year’s event. And it’s more than a little ironic that so many iconic Jews hail from America, not Europe: the Marx Brother, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Philip Roth.
But each country’s organizers have made a point of highlighting local connections to Jewish history and humor. You can taste kosher vino and Italian-Jewish aperitivi in Trani, Italy, while in Novi Sad, Serbia, you can hear local Sephardic music for clarinet. At the Alsace Jewish Museum, scholars will discuss the Marx Brothers’ Alsatian roots. And in Istanbul, where the event is postponed to Oct. 7, Turkish-Jewish cuisine and music are the focus.
Interestingly, the big festivals in Warsaw, Budapest and Pula this week do not seem to have any affiliation with the EDJC.
The Lech Lecha festival in Puglia, however, starts with EDJC events on Sunday and then carries on for another week — with concerts, readings, food and wine tastings and other events in nearly a dozen towns on Italy’s heel. Lech Lecha, which has civic as well as Jewish community support, is part of recent efforts to revive Jewish life and culture in Puglia and elsewhere in southern Italy, half a millennium after Jews were expelled from the region.
Warsaw’s Singer Festival (or, Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Warsaw Festival) which ends Sunday is Poland’s biggest Jewish culture festival after that in Krakow. It is organized by Golda Tencer’s Shalom Foundation. This year’s lineup stars prominent musicians who have also been regulars at the Krakow festival — David Krakauer, the Klezmatics, Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird, Canton Benzion Miller, Jeff Warschauer and Deborah Strauss, Joshua Nelson, Frank London….. See Haaretz’s take on it.
The festival — which also includes lectures, readings, films, theater performances, etc — takes place in and around Plac Grzybowska and Prozna Street, one of the sole remaining streets in the downtown Jewish quarter that survived World War II and the razing of the Warsaw Ghetto.
In Budapest, the annual Summer Jewish Festival ends September 4. It take places in and around the downtown Jewish quarter, in the Seventh District. Its program is more limited, with more emphasis on classical concerts — though the Balkan Beat Band and Shlomo Bar are also on the program. Another highlight is the bazaar held in Gozsdu Udvar, a unique series of linked courtyards in the heart of the Seventh District.
Pula, on the Adriatic Coast, is hosting the annual Bejahad – Jewish Cultural Scene festival, which is largely a gathering aimed at Jews from all the countries of the former Yugoslavia. It includes performances, lectures, exhibits and a lot of socializing.
1 comment on “End of Summer Jewish Culture Festivals”
Does anyone have a current email/phone for Bejahad festival in Zagreb? Their website is under construction! In regards to concert bookings for klezmer music. Thanks
Naomi