RENEWAL & RESISTANCE:

The revitalization of Jewish culture

in post-Holocaust, post-Communist Poland

OCTOBER 18-19, 2006

Click here for a pdf of flier

Symposium co-sponsored by the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union and the Institute of Slavic, East European & Eurasian Studies, University of California Berkeley

FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

PROGRAM

Wednesday, October 18, 2006, Dinner Board Room, Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Road, Berkeley

6:30 PM – Reception and Welcome

President James A. Donahue, Graduate Theological Union

7:00 pm – Keynote: “The Post-War Chapter: Reflections from the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Poland” 

Dr. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Professor of Performance Studies, and Affiliated Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University; Leader, Core Exhibition Development Team, Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw (click here for more information)

Thursday, October 19, 2006, Graduate Theological Union, Easton Hall, 2401 Ridge Road,  Berkeley

Presenters: Visiting Fellows from Poland (click here for details)

9:00 am – Registration

9:30 am – Welcome: Dr. Naomi Seidman, director, and Shana Penn, visiting scholar, Center for Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union

 
10:00-11:30 am

PANEL I: Culture, Memory and Renewal

In Poland, the unanticipated revitalization of Jewish culture 60 years after the Nazi genocide raises many questions about what kind of recovery and renewal is possible. 

This panel will explore the questions: What has been lost? What is being recovered, and by whom? What are the trends, and how have they evolved? How do these developments shape Jewish consciousness in Poland? How do they influence Poland’s mainstream culture? What is the reaction of the larger Jewish world to these developments?

Moderator: Dr. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, New York University

Panelists:

Dr. Eleonora Bergman, deputy director, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw

Konstanty Gebert, journalist/publisher, Midrasz Magazine, Warsaw; visiting professor, Department of History, University of California Berkeley

Shana Penn, visiting scholar, Center for Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union

 
11:45 am – 1:00 pm

PANEL II: Post-Communist Identity Formations

Identity politics is no longer a suppressed subject in Poland, as it was in the communist era. New discourses now differentiate religious, ethnic, class and gender identities.

 As pertains to the reemergence of Jewish communal and cultural life in Poland, questions include: Who is a Jew? Who is a Catholic? Who is making the decisions? What are the sources and locations of cultural learning and identity? What are the sources of tensions? Of permanence?

Moderator: Konstanty Gebert, journalist/publisher, Midrasz Magazine, Warsaw; visiting professor, Department of History, University of California Berkeley

Panelists:

Anka Grupinska, author/oral historian, Centropa, Warsaw

Daniela Malec, co-director, “Czulent” Polish Student Union, Krakow

Janusz Makuch, director, Jewish Culture Festival, Krakow

Yale Reisner, co-director, Lauder Genealogy Research Center

2:00 pm – 3:30 pm

PANEL III: Secular Jewish Culture, Then and Now

The Jewish response to democracy has given rise to both secular and religious developments. Secular Jewish culture in today’s Poland draws upon the previous two centuries’ secular traditions, as is evidenced in a growing field of Yiddish studies as well as in the proliferation of secular Jewish arts and media programs. Secular Jewish culture attracts Jews and non-Jews as scholars, artists, producers and audience.

What accounts for the interest in secular Jewish culture among Jews and non-Jews in Poland? What are its products?  What has been its pattern of development, and where is it going? How does it compare to trends in other parts of post-communist Europe?

Moderator:  Dr. Naomi Seidman, director, Center for Jewish Studies, GTU

Panelists:

Dr. Eleonora Bergman, deputy director, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw

Janusz Makuch, director, Jewish Culture Festival, Krakow

Chris Schwarz, director/photographer, Galicia Jewish Museum

4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

PANEL IV: Video Presentations on Art, Loss and Recovery

How are artists expressing communal loss, tragedy and recovery using cultural resources and various mediums to commemorate and educate?

Moderator: Shana Penn, visiting scholar, Center for Jewish Studies, GTU

Panelists:

Janusz Makuch, director, Jewish Culture Festival, Krakow

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblet, Museum of the History of Polish Jews

Chris Schwarz, director/photographer, Galicia Jewish Museum

Anka Grupinska, author/oral historian, Centropa, Warsaw

5:00 pm

Closing Remarks

Dr. Naomi Seidman, Shana Penn, Center for Jewish Studies, GTU

 
Support for this symposium is provided by the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture, Koret Foundation Funds, and the Posen Foundation Grant for the Study of Secular Judaism.

TO REGISTER, PLEASE CONTACT THE CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES, GRADUATE THEOLOGICAL UNION

Tel: 510/649-2482

Email: cjs@gtu.edu

PARTICIPANTS (click here for full bios and pictures)

Dr. Eleonora Bergman, deputy director, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw, architect and historian of architecture, author of several histories of Warsaw synagogues and of wooden synagogues in Poland

Konstanty Gebert, visiting professor, Department of History, UCB; publisher, Midrasz Magazine; columnist, Gazeta Wyborcza; former Solidarity activist.

Anka Grupinska, director, Centropa-Poland; oral historian, author of Holocaust histories. Po Kole (“Round the Circle: Interviews with Members of the Jewish Fighting Organization of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising”).

Dr. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Professor of Performance Studies, and Affiliated Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University; Leader, Core Exhibition Development Team, Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw.

Daniela Malec, co-director, “Czulent” Polish Jewish Student Union, Krakow.

Janusz Makuch, director, Jewish Culture Festival, Krakow.

Shana Penn, visiting scholar, Center for Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union.

Yale Reisner, co-director, Lauder Genealogy Project, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw.

Chris Schwarz, founder/curator, Galicia Jewish Museum, Krakow.