For April 2020 the Cukunft Jewish Association has planned numerous activities in cooperation with Polish schools and universities of the III Age in the Lower Silesia. We have planned to visit Walbrzych city once again and organize a separate 2-day workshops and lectures on local Jewish history and culture combined with the 77th anniversary of uprising in Warsaw Ghetto and distribution of paper yellow daffodils in the city center.
Unfortunately, because of the Pandemic of Covid-19 we decided to extend this part of the project in a few months and organize it online via zoom and FB streams in a formula of ON-LINE SEDERS – DINNERS as a part of PASSOVER (8-9 April) and JEWISH NEW YEAR-ROSH HASHANAH 5781 (19 September) in cooperation with #CookJewishBeJewish and JewSalsa from France.
All Meetings were led in Polish and English and were open to public to those who registered in advance in order to provide our participants with a sense of security, inclusiveness and comfortable atmosphere. Our idea was to involve participants in creating educational content of these meetings. Our aim was to engage and motivate our participants in searching new ways of Jewish expression – in culture, religion, music, photography, storytelling, social work, local architecture and sepulchral cemetery art relating to the slavery, Exodus and Jewish leadership.
Every participant had his/her part of the event to lead. Main coordinators of these Seder-Dinner meetings were Jan Kirschenbaum (2011 Berlin Fellowship), Rabbi Maciej Kirschenbaum (2010 Berlin Fellowship, Rabbi of Bromley Reform Synagogue), Slawek Pastuszka (Jewish Community-TSKZ Katowice), Laurina Todesaite (#CookJewishBeJewish) and Aleksandra Wilczura (Cukunft).
Rabbi Maciej Kirschenbaum as a member of our EVZ-HIA Project Team provided us with Jewish religious content for holidays and also led the second one with Jan Kirschenbaum. Both educational and socio-cultural online meetings in April 8-9 2020 gathered 50 people. For 2 hour online meetings we discussed Jewish tradition of Exodus from the perspective of Polish-Jewish-German history and Holocaust. We also talked about our contemporary difficult situation of all national and religious minorities caused by the Pandemic of Covid-19 not only in Poland but worldwide. It was very meaningful time for all of us, especially that it was the fist time that we celebrated online the most important Jewish holidays. So did most of Jews around the world what was really unique in our global Jewish history.
*This project is generously supported by the Foundation EVZ. It does not represent an expression of opinion by the Foundation EVZ. The authors bear the responsibility.
**Action Projects are independent initiatives of Humanity in Action Fellows and Senior Fellows that address social and human rights issues around the world.
