1st Day in Krakow - Friday, June 26, 2009
Posted Jul 2, 04:31 PM by Ellie Shapiro
Festival Director Ellie Shapiro is currently at the 19th Jewish Cultural Festival in Krakow, Poland and then goes on to Lublin and Ukraine with the 2008 JMF Ark Project. She is periodically sending back reports to share with friends of the Jewish Music Festival. Read on!.
Thursday night—first stop, Vincent’s for pierogi. Then stocking up on food at a small grocery store and crashing.
Friday: moving into my apartment for the next 12 days—there is no color—so I buy a small bouquet of flowers to brighten things up, an artsy postcard of the patterned red bricks the older buildings, and a little Jew, plastic, for 5 zlotys (about $2.50). He’s holding a coin. I ask the saleslady what the doll is supposed to be, she says it’s supposed to bring the owner prosperity.
The evening is kabbalat Shabbat, the greeting of Shabbat at the Tempel Synagogue. A fifteen member men’s choir from England support some of the leading cantors in Jewish music including Emil Zrihan and Ben Zion Miller, both JMF alums. The synagogue, originally built as a reform temple is intimate—holding a few hundred. Mostly tenor, the cantorial voices remind me why I got into the business of Jewish music to begin with. Actually this was why I was attracted to Judaism to begin with. The melodies still and I suppose will always go right through me. I have never heard this particular Lecha Dodi melody and it’s gorgeous.
In contrast to the cantorial voices, a weak, rasping singer ends the service, I look over the balcony to see an old man close to the bima. I assume that he is a survivor. He looks like he is there with his grandson. At the end of his closing prayer he wraps his arm around the neck of one of the Hasidim there in a tight embrace. The moment is clearly emotional for him.
I run into Festival musician Jeff Warschhauer after the service and he tells me that while he was standing in the back, a Polish man next to him hesitantly asked him how long the service was. He said he didn’t know, but they were going slowly. The man said apologetically that this was his first time at a Jewish service and he was sorry that he had to leave early. But before he left he turned to Jeff and gave him a bear hug and said that he loved Jewish people. As Jeff said, that was a “Krakow moment.” Who knows what that means or why he said it, but the sincerity is heartfelt and deep.
After, I head back to the Eden Hotel, where Cantor Benzion Miller is hosting a Shabbat dinner for guests, which include a small tour group mostly from England. The cantors and choir are there, and the singing begins all over again. Then comes the homemade gefilte fish, sweet, in the style of Galicia. Ben Zion’s family is originally from Oswecim, the town, now most known by its German pronounciation, Auschwitz, located about an hour and a half drive from Krakow.
I sit down next to Amira, visiting from Herzliya, in Israel. She is in Krakow on holiday with Brazilian friends; Jewish and non-Jewish and had no idea that there was a Jewish music festival happening this week. We are also with Marcel, the man responsible for organizing the tour, who comes every year and is now organizing klezmer concerts at a pub in London; and a couple from Miami. But it turns out the woman, also, is originally from Brazil. Amira and I chat in Hebrew and later I show her the place to be tomorrow night, the Alchemia club, where there will be jamming every night throughout the festival.
-Ellie Shapiro, Jewish Music Festival Festival Director
Welcome to the JMF Blog! 2nd Day in Krakow - Saturday, June 27, 2009