tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1475101831756932332024-03-12T20:56:36.502-07:00Travel Between CountriesTrip around the world from country to countryasuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comBlogger506125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-85979700919407748112015-11-04T04:03:00.004-08:002015-11-04T04:03:53.249-08:00Disclaimer for Travel Between Countries<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
Disclaimer for Travel Between Countries</h1>
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Disclaimers for http://rebeccacluett.blogspot.co.id/:</h2>
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By using our website, you hereby consent to our disclaimer and agree to its terms.
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Update</h3>
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This site disclaimer was last updated on: Wednesday, November 4th, 2015<br /><i> · Should we update, amend or make any changes to this document, those changes will be prominently posted here.</i><br /></div>
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asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-9316029492687932492015-11-04T03:52:00.000-08:002015-11-04T03:52:17.029-08:00Privacy Policy for Travel Between Countries <div style="text-align: justify;">
If you require any more information or have any questions about our privacy policy, please feel free to contact us by email at Privacy.</div>
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<b>Update</b><br />This Privacy Policy was last updated on: Wednesday, November 4th, 2015.<br /><em>Should we update, amend or make any changes to our privacy policy, those changes will be posted here.</em></div>
asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-87653270998918890542012-09-14T01:48:00.002-07:002012-09-14T01:48:44.893-07:00Looking at cheap air tickets and passenger protections on airlines<div class="articlecontents" style="text-align: justify;">
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In 2011, the US Department of Transport introduced a series of new
regulations to offer greater protection to airline passengers. The
intention is to improve the level of service actually delivered at
airports and to achieve a better level of transparency on fares before
you book. This is a brief summary of the new protections:</div>
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<strong>1. Lost baggage </strong></div>
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If a bag is lost, the airline is required to refund the fee charged
for carriage, and to hold that reduced fee on any continuing or return
flights. Compensation is also to be paid. Although this is not intended
as a substitute for you carrying travel insurance, basic losses should
be covered immediately when loss or damage is obvious. Compensation
remains payable even if the bag is not lost but merely delayed.</div>
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<strong>2. Bumping</strong></div>
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Airlines continue to overbook, especially when cheap air tickets are
held, despite the best efforts of regulators worldwide. The new rules
double the amount of compensation payable if you are denied a flight. If
you cannot be delivered to your intended destination within two hours
of the scheduled time, you're entitled to compensation of double the
face value of the ticket up to a maximum $650 per ticket. But if the
delay is longer, you're entitled to four times the face value of the
ticket up to a maximum of $1,300 per <a href="http://www.airexpedition.net/airline-passenger-protections.html">air ticket</a>. These compensation amounts will be adjusted to stay in line with inflation every two years.</div>
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<strong>3. Transparency</strong></div>
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Applicable charges for providing meals, handling bags and so on must
be listed by all airlines on their website. All government fees and
taxes must be included in the ticket prices collected. Unless the
government fees and taxes rise, the prices cannot be increased after you
pay.</div>
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<strong>4. Reservations</strong></div>
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If you make a reservation for full-price or <a href="http://www.airexpedition.net/">cheap air tickets</a>, the quoted prices must be held for at least 24 hours. If you decide to cancel, the airline is not allowed to impose a penalty.</div>
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There was no variation of the tarmac delay rules. Secretary LaHood
has been satisfied by the improvement in airline's performance although
the new rules do require more disclosure on delays and cancellations to
improve monitoring of the airlines.</div>
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asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-47298787704157774722012-09-10T00:17:00.000-07:002012-09-10T00:17:31.541-07:00Keeping cheap car rental rates means delaying new purchases <div class="articlecontents" style="text-align: justify;">
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The world sometimes tries to simplify itself when the going gets
tough. Reducing everything to the core activities and doing them well is
often the way just to survive if prospering is too difficult. Although
the US recession is supposed to be over, there's little sign of it in
the economy. People are staying home and not spending. It's still
thought prudent to pay down the debts. In such circumstances, one of the
most obvious savings is to put off replacing the old with new. With a
little patching and mending, we can all get by with what we have. As
applied to the car rental companies, this means putting off renewing the
fleet. It's cheaper to recruit a few extra maintenance staff to keep
the existing vehicles running smoothly than to sell off each block of
vehicles at fixed dates and replace with new. Indeed, most of the
publicly quoted rental companies have been reporting increased profits
as a result.</div>
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The problem now falls on to the manufacturers. For the last few
decades, the US manufacturers have relied on the steady buying of
standard models in volume. Although the prices charged were heavily
discounted, this is money turned over quickly. If sales have to go
through a dealer network and rely on credit from lenders less than
excited by lending, sales are always going to be slow. The latest
figures from the motor manufacturers show a 40% drop in sales to rental
fleet customers.</div>
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GM's sales dropped by almost 20% and it's now losing market share to
Ford, Chrysler, Toyota and Honda. That's the case even though Ford's
sales have also fallen slightly. This leaves the labor market in the
manufacturing industry in a worried state. If rental companies do not
resume their volume buying soon, there will be lay-offs. Yet, with those
rental companies maximizing their return on the capital they have
invested in their stock of vehicles, profits are up and, if you are
prepared to accept an older model, <a href="http://www.lowcostrental.net/keeping-cheap-car-rental-rates.html">cheap car rental</a> is within your grasp. Which is more important. Being seen in a brand new fleet car or paying a <a href="http://www.lowcostrental.net/">cheap car rental</a> rate and driving a tidy older vehicle?</div>
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asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-19443696970242395332012-09-05T21:10:00.000-07:002012-09-05T21:10:08.120-07:00 How big is the enthusiasm for adopting Cialis among the French? <br />
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When it comes to France, it all stems from the CanCan and Paris as a center for artistic nudity on the stage. Names like Moulin Rouge have passed into mythology. And we are used to think about Frech as a sexy natonality. Yet, when it comes to the reality, the French are probably just as boring as the rest of us and rather tired of being typecast as the greatest European lovers - probably preferring to leave that particular label for the Italian stallions. This does not mean, however, that the French are not interested in their own attitudes to sex and so it's interesting to see the publication of a new research report from the University of Paris.</div>
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Attitudes to sex in France and <a href="http://www.edsupertabs.com/articles/sexy-french-men.html" style="color: #276187;">Cialis</a></h2>
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Like the rest of the world, there was a major population explosion in France immediately following the end of World War II. Their Boomers are rapidly advancing into retirement and the French healthcare services are preparing themselves to deal with the anticipated rise in demand as bodies and minds go into decline. Because France has socialized medical services, the cost to the taxpayer is also an important factor in this research which will help decide where resources are most needed.</div>
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The results currently show about 65% of men aged 70 years have some degree of erectile dysfunction. This rises to 78% by the age of 75. This seriously undermines the quality of life for those couples who would prefer to maintain an active sexual life. Yet with the men suffering major psychological problems in the loss of self-esteem, there's little enthusiasm for adopting <a href="http://www.edsupertabs.com/" style="color: #276187;">Cialis</a> even though it has proved highly effective in the treatment of seniors. In other words, the French seem to be involved in what the researchers call pathological aging. There are treatments available both for the erectile dysfunction and associated heart and lower urinary tract problems. But French men seem reluctant to seek help. Presumably American men will take Cialis and have fewer problems on the relationship front. They are prepared to live life to the full and not give up.</div>
asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-13077870048113730432012-09-01T07:14:00.000-07:002012-09-01T07:14:04.165-07:00 Cheap fights and the changes in comfort<br />
<div style="color: #486976; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: justify;">Some of you reading this article may be seniors. Remember there can be some very attractive cheap flights on offer to you in your silver and golden years. You will be old enough to remember what it used to be like or, for those of you with richer parents and grandparents, there will be stories from the earliest years of powered flights. Not to put too fine a point on it, the first sixty or seventy years were positively dangerous. We're used to aircraft being the safest form of public transport with the fewest number of fatalities per passenger mile. But when they were just starting out, engines would fail and, in the wrong conditions, there would be damage to the wings or control surfaces. If you were lucky, the landing was a controlled crash. If you were unlucky, the chances of walking away were small. Yet flying was the glamorous way to travel. Mostly, it was the preserve of the rich and the reckless who huddled together in the noisy and vibrating cabins as the plane slowly made its way in the direction of the stated destination.</div><div style="color: #486976; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: justify;">Only in more recent years have the cabins been pressurized and soundproofed. Now we can look out of the windows and not be frightened by seeing the wings flexing up and down as we might expect in a bird. Yet, for all there's been an improvement in the general level of comfort, the seats remain uncomfortable in the general cabin area, there's very little leg room, and sleeping is difficult on long hauls. Yet this is the price we willingly pay for cheap flights. If we don't want airlines to charge higher rates, we have to tolerate them cramming more seats into the same space to make their profit from passenger volume. And talking of volume, the rise in the number of people who are overweight is making the seats even more uncomfortable for everyone. So here's the big decision for you. Is price so important you will always prefer <a href="http://www.flightsairtickets.net/" style="color: #276187;">cheap flights</a> no matter how uncomfortable? Or will there come a point when you will pay a little more to be comfortable?</div>asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-64868344374770033252012-07-25T13:12:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.741-07:00U.S. Special Envoy Hannah Rosenthal Visits her Family's Heritage Sites in Poland<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-size: x-small;"><i>This post also appears on my <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/us_special_envoy_hannah_rosenthal_visits_family_heritage_sites_in_poland_/">En Route blog</a> for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal</i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>By Ruth Ellen Gruber<br /><br />Hannah Rosenthal, the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, took time out on a trip to Poland and Germany this month to honor her ancestors at sites of her own family history.<br /><br />Rosenthal’s family came from what is now Bytom, Poland. All were murdered at Auschwitz in 1942 except for her father, who was the last Rabbi in Mannheim, Germany, and survived interment in Buchenwald.<br /><br />In <a href="http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/poland_jewish_memory">a post Tuesday on the State Department’s official blog</a>, Rosenthal recounted that she visited sites in Bytom where her family had lived and also visited the Jewish cemetery there, hoping to find the graves who her grandmother and uncle, who had died before World War II “and therefore would have graves.”<br /><br />Visiting Bytom, she wrote, was “both exhilarating and devastating.”<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">When we went to see the gorgeous synagogue, where Dad had celebrated his Bar Mitzvah and loved to tell us great stories about, there was no synagogue. Just a dilapidated gray apartment building. When we went to the cemetery, we hoped to find the graves of my grandmother and uncle who died before the war—and therefore would have graves. But Polish activist Wlodzimierz Kac had something else in mind. He had researched my family and ended up showing us 18 Rosenthal graves. My grandmother Selma, my uncle Martin, great and great-great grandparents, great and great-great uncles, and aunts and cousins. Eighteen Rosenthals who we could honor. I am the last Rosenthal in my family. </span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">Bytom now has not a single Jew and hardly any Jewish presence. Where once a bustling community thrived, there is not one single survivor. We visited two of the places Dad’s family had lived. He had described his home’s music room and parlors. Now the buildings are dark, dank, depressing. And mostly empty. We wondered how we could help restore a school or a prayer house, or clean up the cemetery, when there is no one to keep it up. The absence is profoundly present.</span></blockquote><br />During her trip to Poland, she wrote, she met Jewish community leaders and representatives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, the Forum for Dialogue Among Nations, and the Judaica Foundation.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">I learned about the present-day Jewish community in Poland and civil society engagement on Jewish history and culture. These organizations are doing important work, fostering interaction between Jews and non-Jewish Poles through dialogue, education, and cultural exchange. Several programs focus specifically on fostering interaction among Polish non-Jewish and Jewish youth. It was moving to meet the extraordinary people working to keep the memory and spirit of Poland’s absent Jews alive.</span></blockquote><br />On July 9, during her visit to Germany, Rosenthal took part in a ceremony in Mannheim at which a “stumbling stone” memorial was dedicated to her father. Stumbling stones are plaques the size of cobblestones that are placed on the street in front of houses in which Holocaust victims and survivors lived.<br /><br />asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-11223216770796884202012-07-25T13:06:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.741-07:00<br /><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-size: x-small;">This post also appears on my <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute">En Route blog</a> for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal</span></i><div><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Photo" height="300" src="http://www.jewishjournal.com/images/bloggers_auto/IMG_4663.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The replica of the Neolog Synagogue in Bratislava, next to the highway. Photo(c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></span></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>By Ruth Ellen Gruber<div><br />I’ve already posted on this blog about the new ITunes app called Oshpitzin that uses smart phone technology to teach and tour pre-WW2 Jewish Oswiecim—the town where Auschwitz was built—which before the Holocaust was a majority Jewish town.<br /><br />I<a href="http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/07/23/3101321/new-projects-aim-to-bring-life-to-forgotten-jewish-pasts">n this JTA story </a>I write about how this project and the Lost City project in Bratislava—which puts back on the map the old Jewish quarter of the Slovak capital, which was utterly demolished by the Communist authorities in the late 1960s to built a new highway and bridge across the Danube. Centerpiece of the Lost City project is a replica of the destroyed Neolog synagogue, on the spot where it really did once stand.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote><b>In Poland and Slovakia, restoring awareness of a forgotten Jewish past</b> </blockquote><blockquote><br />By Ruth Ellen Gruber · July 23, 2012 </blockquote><blockquote>KRAKOW, Poland (JTA)—Thanks to a new iTunes app, new tourist routes and a towering replica of a destroyed synagogue, two “lost” Jewish cities in Europe are back on the map. </blockquote><blockquote>One is the historic Jewish quarter of Bratislava, the Slovak capital, which survived World War II only to be demolished by communist authorities in the late 1960s. The other is Oshpitzin—the prewar Yiddish name for Oswiecim, the once mainly Jewish town in southern Poland where the Auschwitz death camp was built. </blockquote><blockquote>The two projects differ in scope and structure, but their goals are the same: to restore awareness of the forgotten Jewish past in an effort to foster a better understanding of the present—for tourists and the locals. </blockquote><blockquote><a href="http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/07/23/3101321/new-projects-aim-to-bring-life-to-forgotten-jewish-pasts">Read full story here</a></blockquote></div></div></div>asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-90760085564741358192012-07-16T01:11:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.741-07:00Wonderful Exhibit in Warsaw of Gwozdziec synagogue panels<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-size: x-small;"><i>A version of this post appeared on my <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/106159/">En Route blog</a> for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal</i></span></div><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv_ADo2UNdUg5xPehfCKZaofJREk1D2Y-82Td2F46GT1bL9E-kFMKVwz44qJgia6U-d8VFUWKVjyPMh7yJEojWeT7qbVe7jnQAi_i9_FSSsv9irgLAcM3LmEuhfe_72j4sF6cGMYpflwY/s1600/gwozdziec.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv_ADo2UNdUg5xPehfCKZaofJREk1D2Y-82Td2F46GT1bL9E-kFMKVwz44qJgia6U-d8VFUWKVjyPMh7yJEojWeT7qbVe7jnQAi_i9_FSSsv9irgLAcM3LmEuhfe_72j4sF6cGMYpflwY/s400/gwozdziec.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Preview of the Exhibition. Photo courtesy of Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>By Ruth Ellen Gruber</div><div><br />A <a href="http://www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu/ai1ec_event/gwozdziec-wooden-synagogue-reconstruction-exhibit?instance_id=">wonderful exhibition</a> opens today at the Arkady Kubickiego (Kubicki Arcade) of the <a href="http://www.zamek-krolewski.pl/?page=3383">Royal Castle in Warsaw</a> and runs til the end of the month—the colorful ceiling panels that have been painted this summer as part of the <a href="http://www.handshousestudio.org/the-gwozdziec-synagogue/">Gwozdiec synagogue reconstruction project</a>.<br /><br />The reconstruction of an 85 percent scale model of the tall peaked roof and richly decorated inner cupola of the wooden synagogue that once stood in Gwozdziec (now in Ukraine) is a project of the Handshouse Studio and the forthcoming Museum of the History of Polish Jews—I wrote about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/arts/16iht-synagogue16.html">the first stages of the project last summe</a>r, when students, master timber-framers and volunteers gathered in Sanok, southeastern Poland, to build the structure, using hand tools that would have been used centuries ago. The reconstructed roof and cupola will be a major installation at the new Museum, which is due to open in the autumn of 2013.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;">Its elaborate structure and the intricate painted decoration on the cupola ceiling will reproduce a form of architectural and artistic expression that was wiped out in World War II, when the Nazis put the torch to some 200 wooden synagogues in Eastern Europe. Many of them, like that in Gwozdziec, were centuries old and extraordinarily elaborate, with tiered roofs and richly decorative interior painting.</span> </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;">The Gwozdziec Synagogue, built in the 17th and 18th centuries, was a “truly resplendent synagogue that exemplified a high point in Jewish architectural art and religious painting,” the architectural historian Thomas C. Hubka, an expert on the building, has written.</span></blockquote><br />This summer, at <a href="http://www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu/2012/05/29/poland-gwozdziec-synagogue-painting-project-is-under-way/%E2%80%9D">workshops held in synagogues around Poland</a>, teams of students and volunteers have been carrying out the colorful, elaborate paintings that cover in the interior of the cupola—and it is these that will be displayed for the next two weeks in Warsaw.<br /><br />It’s terrific—and fascinating—work, and this will be a rare chance to see the panels up close before they are mounted as part of the cupola installation!</div>asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-75396020600732305432012-07-14T02:44:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.742-07:00Smartphone App for Oshpitzin/Oswiecim<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-size: x-small;"><i>A version of post also appears on my <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/106131/">En Route blog</a> for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal</i></span><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbRVhxGahCHxDU1A7YOc4WzS-wrnW0RWvgtSi63hnK_Yu_MdbsiCwuCxaDuYyIEn1oOqG8ZNRApnxw3m-aB6c0n3NvQp3m_bN2MOXGWENeuJ2OAJdJSDTTG2S0jz5P5BEugIGcPvqtuBY/s1600/oshpitzinapp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbRVhxGahCHxDU1A7YOc4WzS-wrnW0RWvgtSi63hnK_Yu_MdbsiCwuCxaDuYyIEn1oOqG8ZNRApnxw3m-aB6c0n3NvQp3m_bN2MOXGWENeuJ2OAJdJSDTTG2S0jz5P5BEugIGcPvqtuBY/s320/oshpitzinapp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />By Ruth Ellen Gruber<br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">The latest Jewish travel app for smartphones and tablets takes you to a place that no longer exists except in memory: <a href="http://oshpitzin.pl/map/">Oshpitzin</a>.<br /><br />Oshpitzin was the Jewish name for <a href="http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/07/21/3088653/oswiecim-pushing-its-town-today-no-longer-running-from-its-auschwitz-past">Oswiecim</a>, the small town in southern Poland where the Nazis built Auschwitz which had a majority Jewish population before the Holoc</span><span class="Apple-style-span">aust -- I’ve written a lot about the town and its difficulty in balancing its Holocaust identity with its pre-WW2 past, starting in the mid 1990s, when I dealt with the issue in the long chapter “Snowbound in Auschwitz” in my book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Upon-Doorposts-Thy-House-East-Central/dp/0471595683/sr=8-2/qid=1167586380/ref=sr_1_2/102-1037728-3774551?ie=UTF8&s=books">Upon the Doorposts of Thy House: Jewish Life in East-Central Europe, Yesterday and Today</a>, which was a sort of diary and meditation on nearly four days blocked in Oswiecim by a freak snowfall…...<br /><br />Last year, the <a href="http://ajcf.org/about-the-center/">Auschwitz Jewish Center</a>—a prayer, study and research center in Oswiecim—launched a project aimed at putting Oshpitzin back on the map. It started with a printed guidebook and followed on with<a href="http://oshpitzin.pl/">an interactive web site, www.ospitzin.pl</a>, that includes a map, pictures, history, testimonies and more.<br /><br />Now, the Center as followed through with a smartphone App that can be used by armchair travelers as well as actual visitors to the town. It has an interactive map, videos, audio, photographs, etc.<br /><br />Most of the sites the project—be it the guide book, the web site or the App—describes no longer exist. But it all entails a way to learn about the Jewish history (and general history) of a town that existed for hundreds of years before “Auschwtiz” changed its identity from a place of Jewish life into a place of Jewish murder.<br /><br />As of now, the App is available in the iTunes store for IPhone and IPad—but it will soon be available on Android, too.<br /></span></div>asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-27752831580022071072012-07-12T14:20:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.742-07:00Staying in Krakow<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px;"><i>This post also appears on my <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/106104/">En Route blog</a> for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal</i></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">By Ruth Ellen Gruber</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">I've just been to Krakow for the last few days of the annual Jewish Culture Festival - the best party around. This year I did a couple of lectures to groups who were attending (and observing) the festival. It led to some reminiscing with friends who -- like me -- have been going to the Festival since the early 1990s.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">One of the things we talked about what where we had stayed in Krakow in those early years -- because, until the late 1990s, there were very few if any places to stay in Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter where the Festival now takes place. Nowadays, there is a wide variety of choices all over the city -- from top flight hotels to inexpensive hostels and rental rooms and apartments.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">In the early years, the artists at the Festival used to be put up at the Forum Hotel -- I should say, the late Forum Hotel, because the Forum as it was then does not exist anymore. It is a hulking empty relic on the Vistula that serves as a prop for huge advertising posters....</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">I used to stay at the Hotel Pollera, an old-fashioned place in the Old Town near the main market square, or Rynek, about a 20-minute walk (or more) from Kazimierz.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">For the past dozen years, though, I've stayed in Kazimierz itself whenever I've been in Krakow -- usually at one of two hotels that, I have to say (full disclosure), are run by friends.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">One is the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><a href="http://www.klezmer.pl/" style="color: #336699;">Klezmer Hois,</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">operated by Wojtek and Malgosia Ornat, the couple who founded the first Jewish-style cafe in Krakow. I still remember vividly sitting with Wojtek in 1992 or so, at an umbrella-shaded wicker table, eating strawberries and looking out at the devastation of Szeroka street, the main square of Jewish Kazimierz, which then was a ring of dilapidated buildings.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">The Ornats opened Klezmer Hois -- their third locale -- in the mid-1990s, in a building that once housed a mikvah. It evolved into a hangout for Krakow Jews and visiting Jewish artists and others -- and it still fulfills that purpose, at least for us older crowd. Sitting in the garden during Festival time, is a delight, a constant round of people dropping by, conversing, eating, drinking. Klezmer Hois is, actually, the one "Jewish style" cafe in Krakow that I go to. The Ornats also run the Austeria Jewish publishing house (which has published my book "Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere)") and the associated Austeria bookstore.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">The hotel rooms are old-fashioned and up creaking flights of stairs -- and the breakfast is spectacular, a delicious combination of table service and partial buffet.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjitc1J53xGAWwvIzhdUm1zlz_dpUDzfzqBudtztUJE2WqKY9U-IPOkbtuxS_bqlYniKXNadUiqZUW7mXs0G76RBp1kXI6kP4g-KOjUe2pCNV96_0u-BhUxVaJPnYbCKtdxiEt7pE_FyGI/s1600/breakfast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #336699; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjitc1J53xGAWwvIzhdUm1zlz_dpUDzfzqBudtztUJE2WqKY9U-IPOkbtuxS_bqlYniKXNadUiqZUW7mXs0G76RBp1kXI6kP4g-KOjUe2pCNV96_0u-BhUxVaJPnYbCKtdxiEt7pE_FyGI/s400/breakfast.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10px; text-align: center;">Breakfast at Klezmer Hois Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">The other hotel in Kazimierz that I stay in is the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><a href="http://www.hoteleden.pl/home.html" style="color: #336699;">Hotel Eden</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">, on Ciemna street, a wonderfully friendly place, founded in the mid-1990s by the American Allen Haberberg, that started out as a kosher hotel. Though no longer kosher, the Eden still caters to Jewish travelers and has a mikvah -- which has been used for conversions as well as ritual baths. Each room has a mezuzah on the door, and there is also wifi throughout the building. I asked Allen not long ago why the Eden was no longer kosher (although it will still provide kosher food for those who ask) -- he told me one reason was that there are now good kosher caterers as well as an upscale kosher restaurant (the Olive Tree) in Krakow.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7InokR-WY5my7FY4GtJTw8-EUvDw2uV2vYWmHNMCXOK5q6AXxbKmVZP2wZwrk8gKl7TNials0HU0fDbt59i1TtxNBe9EivkBx3GJ_tzZLgAyiPA8_wsuN4_CIna2Qm1b3xQkG1StMklQ/s1600/IMG_4194+copy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7InokR-WY5my7FY4GtJTw8-EUvDw2uV2vYWmHNMCXOK5q6AXxbKmVZP2wZwrk8gKl7TNials0HU0fDbt59i1TtxNBe9EivkBx3GJ_tzZLgAyiPA8_wsuN4_CIna2Qm1b3xQkG1StMklQ/s400/IMG_4194+copy.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rabbi Edgar Gluck and Allen Haberberg in front of the Eden Hotel. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Also on this trip though, for the first time in a long time, I stayed for a couple of nights near the Rynek, at the Hotel Saski -- where I think I stayed with my mother in about 1992.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">It doesn't seem to have changed much -- but the Old Town has.... Krakow is the city that doesn't sleep ... at 3 a.m. the streets were as lively as in the middle of the afternoon.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjciaOC4Ki-vgtZL2sbB86GsAAFT76xh4MJSTcY6fUFBHVhHjITpEqPEh8Q81186_7ARgiVBgFZIRSrvsBR_7o54fqC8gMibtzyO6t7WriAuWjYJc1MWHIYyAgQQclVNoN-dPLGyyyCd60/s1600/IMG_5025+copy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #336699; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjciaOC4Ki-vgtZL2sbB86GsAAFT76xh4MJSTcY6fUFBHVhHjITpEqPEh8Q81186_7ARgiVBgFZIRSrvsBR_7o54fqC8gMibtzyO6t7WriAuWjYJc1MWHIYyAgQQclVNoN-dPLGyyyCd60/s400/IMG_5025+copy.JPG" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10px; text-align: center;">Lobby of the Saski. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span>asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-90167559010631048862012-06-23T06:36:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.742-07:00Smart phone apps for Jewish sites in Warsaw and Berlin<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i style="color: #990000;"> This post also appears on my <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/105444/">En Route blog </a>for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal</i></span><br /><br /> By Ruth Ellen Gruber<br /><br />I’ve been on the road for the past 10 days, and I have a backlog of material to catch up on with postings…. both items I have seen online and on-site visits I’ve made myself.<br /><br /> One new development is the release of smart phone apps that guide you around several Jewish sites in Berlin and Warsaw. Smart phone and tablet apps are clearly the self-tour guides of the future that are becoming the present….<br /><br /> The new ones I’ve noticed recently include an app that guides you around <a href="http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/cms/news/2514,my-warsaw-warsaw-is-mine/" target="_blank" title="the Warsaw of Holocaust hero Janusz Korczak">the Warsaw of Holocaust hero Janusz Korczak</a>. Called “My Warsaw,” it is a project of the forthcoming Museum of the History of Polish Jews—it’s available for free on the iTunes store, but I’m not sure about other platforms. This is what Virtual Shtetl says:<br /> <blockquote style="color: #741b47;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The application spans two tourist routes. The first one guides you through places related to Janusz Korczak’s early and late childhood while the other shows Korczak’s life story during World War II. Both routes comprise almost fifty described places. The “My Warsaw-Warszawa jest moja” project shows now nonexistent Warsaw through pictures, audio recordings, a quiz, quotations and the augmented reality system. It sets an example of a novel approach of learning by having fun by means of state-of-the-art technologies.</span> </blockquote><blockquote style="color: #741b47;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">You can download this bilingual Polish-English application on GooglePlay and AppStore for free.</span><br /> <span style="font-size: x-small;">The application is designed to be a modern tool for learning and teaching history. The only thing you have to do is take your Smartphone with you and take a walk with your family around Warsaw or organize a memorable outdoor history lesson. Tourists may use it as a city guide while Warsaw residents may discover their home town anew.</span></blockquote>Another new app guides users around<a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/06/21/germany-jewish-cemeteries-idINL5E8HL9A120120621" target="_blank" title=" three historic Jewish cemeteries in Berlin"> three historic Jewish cemeteries in Berlin</a> .<br /> <br />Berlin has <a href="http://www.berlin-juedisch.de/jewish-berlin/info-jewish_cemeteries.html" target="_blank" title="several Jewish cemeteries,">several Jewish cemeteries,</a> including the huge Weissensee cemetery.<br /> <br />This is what Reuters says about the Berlin cemetery app—but I’m not sure where to get the app, or what platforms it serves. I did not find it on iTunes:<br /> <blockquote style="color: #741b47;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The smartphone programme leads visitors to the graves of Jewish figures such as philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, hotelier Berthold Kempinski, publishers Rudolf Mosse and Samuel Fischermen and also of those who committed suicide to escape deportation to Nazi death camps.</span> </blockquote><blockquote style="color: #741b47;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">“There is an Internet code at the entrance of each cemetery which can be scanned by a smartphone and directly connects to the cemeteries’ website,” the cemeteries’ inspector Hilel Goldmann said.</span> </blockquote><blockquote style="color: #741b47;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">The Internet programme is steered by a GPS navigation device and enables the visitors to plan their own ‘tour’ choosing among about 160 of the 150,000 graves in the three Berlin cemeteries, Goldmann said.</span></blockquote><br />asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-66009248434182491682012-06-07T07:15:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.742-07:00NYTimes online on reassessing and reaffirming Jewish Culture in Poland<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i style="color: #990000;">This post also appears on my<a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/104875/"> En Route blog</a> for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal </i></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw2eaQv3DUG9FvXCYtkRakeJWo17eqF_IRgDqvOuiKIRzB1AbLxDc_ezn_myrFgoiNtUh7jsGX81445DPJm9Rl8hzz6akYmyunozmcHX0z6wwDaEHWQ4dBnl8cQpZQ0ZP7nFvgbbEhTyw/s1600/IMG_3943.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw2eaQv3DUG9FvXCYtkRakeJWo17eqF_IRgDqvOuiKIRzB1AbLxDc_ezn_myrFgoiNtUh7jsGX81445DPJm9Rl8hzz6akYmyunozmcHX0z6wwDaEHWQ4dBnl8cQpZQ0ZP7nFvgbbEhTyw/s400/IMG_3943.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poster for a play called "Zyd, "or "Jew" by Artur Palyga, which deals with anti-Semitism. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />By Ruth Ellen Gruber<br /><br /><br />The development of Jewish - and Jewish-themed—cultural expression and “production” in Poland and other countries is a theme that I have written about for many years, most notably in my book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Virtually-Jewish-Reinventing-Culture-Europe/dp/0520213637/ref=pd_sim_b_9">Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe</a> (BTW—Virtually Jewish is now available as a Kindle e-book.) <br /><br />I have focused in large part on the relationships between non-Jewish artists, musicians and others with Jewish culture and the way that they have used Jewish themes in their work. <br /><br />But, in recent years, Jewish artists have also increasingly been exploring Jewish themes and topics, some of them as a way to explore their own identity. <br /><br />In <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/arts/06iht-poleculture06.html?_r=2&src=twrhp">an article for the New York Times online</a> the journalist Ginanne Brownell reports on this trend, writing about how Jewish artists are reasserting and redefining Jewish culture in Poland. Brownell interviewed me when I was in Poland last month and quotes me in the article—and she also quotes quite a few of my friends! <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #990000;">[A] growing number of Jewish Poles in the artistic sphere ... are exploring the dichotomy of being both Polish and Jewish in 21st-century Poland. </span><br style="color: #990000;" /><br style="color: #990000;" /><span style="color: #990000;">Writers, playwrights, filmmakers and visual artists are tackling everything from anti-Semitism and the Holocaust to coming to terms with their families’ Communist pasts and issues of identity. </span><br style="color: #990000;" /><br style="color: #990000;" /><span style="color: #990000;">“You cannot imagine Polish culture without Jewish culture,” said Pawel Passini, a Lublin-based director and playwright who last year won two awards at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for his staging of “Turandot.” “I think most people are conscious of that, the problem is how to say it and let people deal with it.” </span></span></blockquote><br />She goes on: <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">From the late 1980s — thanks to things like the Krakow Jewish Festival that will take place from June 29 until July 8 this year — Jewish culture, or what is perceived as Jewish culture, has become more popular in Poland. Ms. Gruber described this in her 2002 book “Virtually Jewish” as “familiar exotica,” where there is pseudonostalgia for Jewish culture like the theatrical shtetl world of “Fiddler on the Roof” or wailing, clarinet-infused Klezmer music. <br /><br />Contemporary Jewish artists are broadening the definition of Jewish culture in Poland. Mr. Passini is a case in point, having become one of the most acclaimed young stage directors in the country. He admits that many of his works — including plays like “Nothing Human” about a young girl trying to find her roots and “Tehillim,” which used choreography based on Hebrew letters — have a focus on spirituality. </span></blockquote><br />Read the full story <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/arts/06iht-poleculture06.html?_r=2&src=twrhp">HERE</a>asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-74370007005488922422012-05-27T05:51:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.742-07:00Regarding Jewish Culture Festivals, as Anchors for Travel<i style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> A version of this post originally appeared on <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/article_highlights_jewish_culture_festivals_in_europe_20120527/">my En Route blog </a>for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal</span></i><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit55SclSdBx3uUcX0x0NmQcKpsHLIZVv0WsEqD3pirTEmQRXZht3QKLeKqYo7UXmhib4cJhnnb7PB3mKyczIXjronva9QV497hpKK0IqmNnlX1D9-Fhh0QzqPFKn3MWLe1cJtsc6u2eIg/s1600/IMG_0911.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit55SclSdBx3uUcX0x0NmQcKpsHLIZVv0WsEqD3pirTEmQRXZht3QKLeKqYo7UXmhib4cJhnnb7PB3mKyczIXjronva9QV497hpKK0IqmNnlX1D9-Fhh0QzqPFKn3MWLe1cJtsc6u2eIg/s400/IMG_0911.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Long line waits to visit Old Synagogue on the Night of Synagogues, 2011. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br />By Ruth Ellen Gruber<br /><br />An <a href="http://forward.com/articles/156823/finding-jewish-life-in-eastern-europe/" target="_blank" title="article in The Forward">article in The Forward</a> advocates something that I have long urged travellers to do—use some of the many Jewish culture and other such festivals in Europe as anchor points for summer travels.<br /> The article highlights just two festivals—the wellknown Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow, and the lesser known festival in Trebic, Czech Republic. <br /> <blockquote style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Třebíč festival is made up of storytellers, musicians, historians and dancers. Most are local, though some come from nearby Prague; the well-known mix with newcomers, locals who are investigating their history by learning the music, dance and literature of the past. </span></blockquote><blockquote style="color: #990000;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Krakow and Třebíč offer an alternative way to feel what was lost and experience what remains. Festivals are a means for heritage-oriented tourists to engage in more than anguish; a chance for those who want to experience a center of Jewish culture to do so unabashedly and, in the process, meet locals of a variety of faiths gathered for a communal celebration of Jewish life. </span></blockquote><blockquote style="color: #990000;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Read more: http://forward.com/articles/156823/finding-jewish-life-in-eastern-europe/?p=all#ixzz1w3Ye4ja1 </span></blockquote>But—as I point out in the <a href="http://jewish-heritage-travel.blogspot.it/2012/03/jewish-culture-and-other-festivals-in.html" target="_blank" title="annual list of festivals that I compile for jewish-heritage-travel.blogspot.com ">annual list of festivals that I compile for this blog </a>—there are dozens of Jewish culture and other festivals around Europe each year. My annual list includes only a fraction. There may be as many as 20 or 30 in Poland alone.<br /><br /> One of the most exciting—and one of the ones that actually has a direct connection to reviving Jewish life—takes place next weekend, June 2-3. It is the second edition of <a href="http://www.7atnite.pl/" target="_blank" title="7@Nite,">7@Nite,</a> or what I called the <a href="http://jewish-heritage-travel.blogspot.it/2011/06/poland-krakows-night-of-living.html" target="_blank" title=""night of the living synagogues" ">“night of the living synagogues” </a>in Krakow.<br /><br /> On that night, all seven synagogues (and former synagogues) in Krakow’s historic Jewish district, Kazimierz, are open to the public, each one hosting a different event or activity that highlights contemporary Jewish life.<br /><br /> As I wrote in<a href="http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/06/15/3088156/never-better-in-krakow" target="_blank" title=" a JTA column last year"> a JTA column last year</a>, after the first 7@Nite:<br /> <blockquote style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I’ve never seen anything quite like it, even though I’ve followed the development of Kazimierz for more than 20 years—from the time when it was an empty, rundown slum to its position now as one of the liveliest spots in the city. </span></blockquote><blockquote style="color: #990000;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">I’ve witnessed—and chronicled—the development of Jewish-themed tourism, retail, entertainment and educational infrastructure in Krakow, including the Jewish Culture Festival that draws thousands of people each summer. And I’ve written extensively about the interest of non-Jews in Jewish culture. </span></blockquote><blockquote style="color: #990000;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">But Seven at Night was something different. For one thing, nostalgia seemed to play no role. And also, unlike many of the Jewish events and attractions in Kazimierz, this one was organized and promoted by Jews themselves. </span></blockquote><blockquote style="color: #990000;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">It was their show, kicking off with a public Havdalah ceremony celebrated by Rabbi [Boaz] Pash that saw hundreds of people singing and dancing in the JCC courtyard.</span></blockquote><br /><br />asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-3922462524948029592012-05-21T02:33:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.742-07:00Hadassah Magazine likes Jewish Heritage Travel<br /><a href="http://www.hadassahmagazine.org/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=twI6LmN7IzF&b=6725377&ct=11714661&notoc=1">Hadassah Magazine gives a nice review </a>to Jewish Heritage Travel and Jewish Heritage Europe! <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="color: #990000;"><i>"From touring shuls in Ukraine to visiting a Sarajevo Jewish cemetery, travel writer Ruth Ellen Gruber’s blog, jewish-heritage-travel.blogspot.com and Jewish <span class="text_exposed_show">Heritage Europe, jewish-heritage-europe.eu, a new aggregate site coordinated by Gruber, serve as complementary guides to the continent. Jewish Heritage Europe is a comprehensive resource, fostering interest in Jewish heritage sites for academia and tourists. The blog lends a personal touch, for example, by taking readers to a concert at a synagogue in Slovakia."</span></i></div></blockquote><br /><br />asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-65533297991963472122012-05-17T11:17:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.743-07:00Jewish museums at the European Night of Museums, May 19<i style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> This post originally appeared on <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/104189/">my En Route blog</a> at the Los Angeles Jewish Journal</span></i><br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ4lVp66X_E0ejRqE-BCKD2DlZoMjbmreNVowqthULXvlrYcHDilRpzXDAo7RPL9vLxg2w5OysI0IEOjBZYwNoG-vcVYleNBmlPC1q5TEQZW4vGRsfdOmmmtNo_8toHTJoQHi8Q4zKEK0/s1600/DSC07079.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ4lVp66X_E0ejRqE-BCKD2DlZoMjbmreNVowqthULXvlrYcHDilRpzXDAo7RPL9vLxg2w5OysI0IEOjBZYwNoG-vcVYleNBmlPC1q5TEQZW4vGRsfdOmmmtNo_8toHTJoQHi8Q4zKEK0/s400/DSC07079.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Museum of Jewish Culture in Bratislava, one of the participating institutions. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><br />By Ruth Ellen Gruber<br /><br /><br />Jewish museums and other cultural institutions in a number of European countries will be open from dusk on Saturday until the wee hours Sunday as part of the annual European Night of the Museums. The Night of the Museums was founded in 2005, and more than 4,000 institutions in 40 countries took part last year, offering free entrance and special programs for visitors.<br /><br /> This year, Jewish museums and other cultural institutions in Spain, Serbia, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Slovakia, England, Poland, France, and elsewhere are opening their doors as part of the event. There will be concerts, performances and special exhibits and programs as well as free visits to the museums and institutions themselves.<br /><br /> You can find information for some of the events on the Calendar of the web site <a href="http://www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu/" target="_blank" title="www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu">www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu</a>asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-79763177028949396842012-05-14T01:07:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.743-07:00More on Oswiecim Life Festival<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8dgQKi5XZ0WmLAN10mWFTnB_p2Jh9F4_fO6MTYq7Yf2S5B80ObZuZL0J_V6Nbj8ojVOvFknlazMZF1CEp8YfWhmRFXqc7I9CK3h6e6pH2Tw_qQYCqMf62O-il4e06EresvB1aUfAOkdI/s1600/poster.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8dgQKi5XZ0WmLAN10mWFTnB_p2Jh9F4_fO6MTYq7Yf2S5B80ObZuZL0J_V6Nbj8ojVOvFknlazMZF1CEp8YfWhmRFXqc7I9CK3h6e6pH2Tw_qQYCqMf62O-il4e06EresvB1aUfAOkdI/s400/poster.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />By Ruth Ellen Gruber<br /><br />I was very glad to have gone to Oswiecim for the <a href="http://www.lifefestival.pl/">Oswiecim Life Festival</a>, even though I missed the big final stadium concert Sunday night with Peter Gabriel as headliner -- it apparently was Gabriel's only appearance (perhaps first apperance?) in Poland, and I even saw the concert advertised on a city bus in Warsaw. Tickets were pricey, and there was a press center set up in the International Youth Meeting Center, next to the stadium.<br /><br />I stayed at the Center -- run by a German foundation, it hosts groups on study tours to Auschwitiz and organizes programs on tolerance and dialogue. (When I went in for breakfast, two tables occupied by burly young men were designated "Hamburg Polizei.) The Center has been around since 1986, and I wrote about it in my 1994 book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Upon-The-Doorposts-Thy-House/dp/0471595683">Upon the Doorposts of Thy House</a>, whose final chapter is a day to day description of my being snowbound in Oswiecim for nearly 4 days, and a reflection on how the shadow of the Auschwitz camp looms over the city.<br /><br />Saturday afternoon, the Center hosted an intense -- and hours-long -- panel discussion on hate speech in the Polish internet scene and what can be done to combat it. Tomek Kuncewicz of the Auschwitz Jewish Center told me that he would like to see future editions of the Life Festival include more workshops and other events like this.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoXtTS8sQVmk3TG-4qcy36FikeKD3cmAe_FfUs_joCQ1VEipwKSBvGegdJ_3N8ZsMeMEwm_Q9WcbafzEGQRO82_KN81xwV7OJflM_rArtkijs_qsMux2gmds9u80XdLsfDRiQWnD_GK8E/s1600/theatre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoXtTS8sQVmk3TG-4qcy36FikeKD3cmAe_FfUs_joCQ1VEipwKSBvGegdJ_3N8ZsMeMEwm_Q9WcbafzEGQRO82_KN81xwV7OJflM_rArtkijs_qsMux2gmds9u80XdLsfDRiQWnD_GK8E/s400/theatre.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Outside the theatre. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />Besides concerts and a theatre performance, the Festival also sponsored public art projects -- a big mural, as well as other murals painted on walls around town that featured Polish and other figures of moral authority (Pope John Paul II, Vaclav Havel, Jacek Kuron, etc) with quotations from them about civil rights, tolerance, etc etc.<br /><br />The one of the pope -- painted near the market square just opposite the city's main church -- specifically addressed anti-Semitism.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyctKFOnowXEucVXLz0QEO45_Hyd3NkGdU5d1kYoHNUC1iPqmceF1Mrlkv2006tHpgik3as8TIE4JiKHmkBCLW1nRfHep4bZvQEdrzvgKuuF9pTJKFK7StOK8fLZ_O_q1JXT6pIsSGWm4/s1600/pope.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyctKFOnowXEucVXLz0QEO45_Hyd3NkGdU5d1kYoHNUC1iPqmceF1Mrlkv2006tHpgik3as8TIE4JiKHmkBCLW1nRfHep4bZvQEdrzvgKuuF9pTJKFK7StOK8fLZ_O_q1JXT6pIsSGWm4/s400/pope.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Anti-Semitism is a Sin against God and Humanity" Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />At the Life Festival, I did go to the free concert Saturday night in the Rynek, or town square -- a space that is slated for redevelopment this summer.<br /><br />The concert began in cold rain -- only a handful of people braved the weather to hear the Israeli <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjroy2BsyJY">Schahar Gilad band</a>. I went for dinner with friends and then came back for the final set -- a terrific performance by a legenday Polish blues rock band called Dzem, which has been around for 25 years or so..... The weather had cleared and the square was packed.<br /><br />We stood at the very back of the crowd, on the edge of the square -- it was worth it just two watch this dude get into the music:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7KisYuyViWA" width="560"></iframe> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-644794933535510282012-05-12T05:16:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.743-07:00Life Festival in Oswiecim<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> This post originally appeared on my <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/life_in_oswiecim_20120511/">En Route blog </a>for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal</span></i><br /><br /><br />By Ruth Ellen Gruber<br /><br /> I’ve been in Warsaw the past week and just came down yesterday to Oswiecim—the little city in southern Poland outside of which Auschwitz is located. I’m not here to pay homage at the death camp (which I have visited a number of times) but to attend part of the third edition of the Oswiecim Life Festival, which is aimed at using (mainly) youth-oriented music and arts to promote tolerance. There are concerts (I’ll have to miss the biggie—Peter Gabriel and others Sunday night in the local stadium), performances, educational programs and public meetings. Last year, Matisyahu was the headliner—I wrote about it in a <a href="http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/07/21/3088653/oswiecim-pushing-its-town-today-no-longer-running-from-its-auschwitz-past" target="_blank" title="JTA article about the city of Oswiecim wrestling with its past">JTA article about the city of Oswiecim wrestling with its past.</a><br /><br /> Last night, I went with my friend Tomek Kunciewicz, the director of the <a href="http://ajcf.org/" target="_blank" title="Auschwitz Jewish Center">Auschwitz Jewish Center</a>, to a stage performance in the town’s theatre, which is part of the local cultural center. It was the Polish language version of the English play “Shirley Valentine,” and starred the great Polish actress Krystyna Janda. Ahead of the play was the formal presentation of a mural symbolizing the arts and peace—each year another, different mural on these themes is painted on a city wall and left there as a permanent reminder of the Festival.asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-25878174711207221232012-05-11T01:21:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.743-07:00<h1 id="headline"> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span></h1><h1 id="headline"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This post first appeared in <a href="http://blogs.forward.com/the-jew-and-the-carrot/155951/stuffed-cabbage-from-the-polish-border/#ixzz1uXyjmns4">The Jew & the Carrot blog </a>of The Forward </span></span></i></span></h1><h1 id="headline"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></h1><h1 id="headline"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://blogs.forward.com/the-jew-and-the-carrot/155951/">Stuffed Cabbage From the Polish Border</a></span> </h1><h4>By Ruth Ellen Gruber</h4><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://forward.com/image/2/290/0/5/assets/images/articles/poland-5912.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Mayhill Fowler</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="blog-photo" id="article-image-box2" style="width: 290px;"> <a href="http://forward.com/workspace/assets/images/articles/poland-5912.jpg" rel="shadowbox" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" title="Mayhill Fowler"> </a> <div class="photo-credit2"><br /></div></div>SEJNY, POLAND — The first time I visited Lithuania in 2006 I was overwhelmed by the extraordinary sensation that I was traveling through a giant Jewish deli that extended across the entire country. Blintzes! Latkes! Sour cream! Herring! Smoked fish! Black bread! And even — on the breakfast buffet of one hotel I stayed in — vodka, at 8 in the morning.<br /><br /> Recently I spent a week in the far northeast of Poland in the town of Sejny, so close to the border with Lithuania that my cell phone kept jumping back and forth between the two national networks.<br /><br /> I was there for a series of events hosted by Borderland Foundation, an organization that works toward inter-ethnic cultural and artistic interchange, along with promoting an understanding of Jewish culture, heritage and memory.<br /><br /> Throughout the week, a range of symposia, concerts and debates, hosted at an old Yeshiva and at a manor house where the Nobel-prizewinning Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz spent holidays in his youth, provided much food for thought. At the same time, a veritable feast for the palate was provided by two local chefs — Grażyna Łowiagin, who runs a country restaurant call Gospoda in the nearby village of Dusznica, and Wojtek Konikowski, who heads the kitchen at the Skarpa restaurant in Sejny — who served a range of wonderful local specialties each day at lunch and dinner. It was East European comfort food at its best: bliss for me, as I just can’t find this type of cuisine in Italy, where I spend much of my time.<br /><br /> Meals featured traditional regional dishes found in this border area of Poland and Lithuania. We had potato pancakes served with sour cream sauce; <em>kartacze</em> — huge, chewy potato dumplings stuffed with meat or white cheese; <em>kiszka</em> (<em>kishkes</em>; intestines) stuffed with potato; and <em>soczewiaki</em> and <em>kakory</em> — deep fried or baked potato cakes stuffed with lentils and kasha: they are so characteristic of the region that they have been registered on a list of traditional products. Soups included <em>chlodnik</em> (cold borsht with cream and dill); and cucumber soup. For dessert, there was a dry, semi-sweet cake called <em>sekacz</em>, shaped like a miniature tree.<br /><br /> One standout dish was a vegetarian version of <em>golabki</em>, or stuffed cabbage — a dish found in many varieties all over eastern and central Europe. In Yiddish it’s called <em>holishkes</em> and is often served at Sukkot, topped with a sweet and sour sauce made with tomatoes, apples and raisins.<br /> Stuffed cabbage it is typically made with a meat filling, and I have to say that I never really liked my mother’s own recipe that called for a filling of minced meat and rice, but chef Konikowski at the Skarpa restaurant prepared a delectable version stuffed with kasha and mushrooms, accompanied by a sauce made from double cream and mushrooms.<br /><br /> I persuaded chef Jonikowksi to part with his recipe for kasha and mushroom stuffed cabbage. His quantities and measures are a little ad hoc, and he warned me that much of the recipe had to be carried out “to taste,” including how long to bake it at the end.<br /><br /> <em>Filling:</em><br /><em> </em> <br /> 2.2 pounds Kasha (buckwheat groats) (You may not need this much!)<br /> Salt, black pepper<br /> One egg<br /> 3-4 tablespoons breadcrumbs<br /> 12 ounces chopped fresh mushrooms<br /><br /> Boil the kasha, drain then let it cool (wholegrain kasha should take about 20 minutes)<br /><br /> Saute the chopped mushrooms in butter until tender (some cooks also like to sautéed chopped onions). Remove from heat and let cool down.<br /><br /> Add the egg, breadcrumbs and sautéed mushrooms (and onions if used) to the kasha, season to taste with salt and pepper and mix well.<br /><br /> <em>Wrappers:</em><br /><em> </em> <br /> Remove the hard stalk and boil one whole head of cabbage until the leaves can be removed whole – white cabbage will do (and is what Konikowski used for the <em>golabki</em> he served us, but he says he actually prefers Savoy cabbage, which gives a more delicate flavor and texture.) This can take up to 40 minutes. Some cooks remove the outer layers as they become tender, leaving the inner ones to cook.<br /><br /> Remove any hard core from the leaves<br /><br /> Place stuffing on the leaves and roll them into envelopes, folding over the edges to put the “seam” underneath.<br /><br /> Place the rolls, seam down, tightly packed into a pan greased with butter, add water to just cover the rolls, cover and then bake for about 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven. You can then uncover and bake for another 10 minutes or so to let the rolls brown.<br /><br /> <em>Sauce:</em><br /><em> </em> <br /> Saute mushrooms in butter; stir in sour cream or double cream until it reaches the “runniness” and consistency you prefer. Season with salt, pepper to taste and pour over the hot cabbage dumplings.<br /><div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br />Read more: <a href="http://blogs.forward.com/the-jew-and-the-carrot/155951/stuffed-cabbage-from-the-polish-border/#ixzz1uXyjmns4" style="color: #003399;">http://blogs.forward.com/the-jew-and-the-carrot/155951/stuffed-cabbage-from-the-polish-border/#ixzz1uXyjmns4</a></div>asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-68107750946101244072012-05-08T08:59:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.743-07:00<i style="color: #741b47;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This post originally appeared on my <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/103837/">En Route blog</a> for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal </span></i><br /><br />By Ruth Ellen Gruber <br /><br />Hmm. I spent much of the morning in Warsaw today talking with an E-Book and App publisher about creating apps and interactive E-Books from my own writing, on various platforms. So I am quite convinced that going mobile is the way to get around. Still, I’m somehow a little teentsy weentsy bit uneasy with <a href="http://ls2.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Annes-Amsterdam/" target="_blank" title=""Anne Frank's Amsterdam" ">“Anne Frank’s Amsterdam” </a>—even though it clearly is a very serious project aimed to instruct visitors while showing the city. It is available on various smart phone platforms, and created by Anne Frank House. Maybe it’s just the promotional aspect of the project….From the <a href="http://www.annefrank.org/en/Worldwide/news/2012/May/Anne-Franks-Amsterdam/" target="_blank" title="Anne Frank House">Anne Frank House</a> website:<br /> <blockquote style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">discover for yourself Anne Frank’s and her contemporaries’ stories at thirty special places in the city with the Anne’s Amsterdam mobile application. The Anne Frank House has developed this App together with Repudo and LBi with the aim of making the city’s wartime history better known. Anne’s Amsterdam is available in Dutch, English and German and suitable for smart phones with iOS, Android and WP7.</span> </blockquote><blockquote style="color: #990000;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">With Anne’s Amsterdam you can view personal stories, film footage and unique photographs from the past at the same location today. There are images of Anne Frank and her friends on the Merwedeplein, German troops entering the city on the Rokin and the raid on the Jonas Daniël Meijerplein. This link between the past and the present enables you see the city in a different way by which events of the war come to life. You can collect the stories, films and photos for your digital album on your telephone. You can also send your items per e-mail and encourage others to use the App via Facebook and Twitter.</span> </blockquote><blockquote style="color: #990000;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">The items collected link to the website <a href="http://ls2.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Annes-Amsterdam/" target="_blank" title="Anne Frank’s Amsterdam">Anne Frank’s Amsterdam</a>. A visual timeline gives in depth information and context. Personal stories, not previously published on the internet, from Jewish and non-Jewish eyewitnesses give a view of life during the occupation. The period before and after the occupation are also discussed, placing Amsterdam’s war time history in a broader perspective. </span></blockquote>I will download it—hope it works with the iPad!asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-59761875716806118212012-05-06T10:25:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.743-07:00Synagogues in Northeastern/Eastern Poland<br /><i style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This post first appeared on my <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/synagogues_in_northeastern_poland_20120506/#">En Route blog</a> for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal </span></i><br /><br /><br />By Ruth Ellen Gruber<br /><br />I spent the past week in Sejny, a small town in the far northeast of Poland near the Lithuanian border—and coincidentally just ran across a very good video about the synagogues and Jewish quarters in Sejny and several other towns in eastern/northeastern Poland. It’s worth watching.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dJKmQ0hghts" width="560"></iframe> </div><br /><br /><br /><br />The video deals with the synagogues and Jewish districts in Sejny, Orla, Tykocin, and Bialystok. Lena Bergman, of the Jewish Historical Institute and one of the foremost experts on Jewish heritage in Poland, describes the architecture of the buildings and also the historical context in which they were/are set.<br /><br />The 17th century synagogue in Tykocin was rebuilt in the 1970s as a Jewish Museum; that in Sejny, the so-called “White Synagogue”, now forms part of the premises of the Borderland Foundation, an innovative organization devoted to cultural, social and artistic interchange. (I was in Sejny for celebrations marking Borderland’s 22nd anniversary.)<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho7rIyNRpjMiFRnUQP7llGHBc6Ta-o9ixjBTjhg56RkJQc4dLZ9aHl7sVoM53g5223vOo3d7YeR4t5BCWiNQHKaD2DrRhoWrSF_kVyJO6URXYAznK8otIJakHI8TAn7jxu9hMC1UazNeY/s1600/IMG_2364.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho7rIyNRpjMiFRnUQP7llGHBc6Ta-o9ixjBTjhg56RkJQc4dLZ9aHl7sVoM53g5223vOo3d7YeR4t5BCWiNQHKaD2DrRhoWrSF_kVyJO6URXYAznK8otIJakHI8TAn7jxu9hMC1UazNeY/s400/IMG_2364.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The White Synagogue in Sejny. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br />asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-15073522324478675372012-04-29T04:33:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.743-07:00Impressive Jewish Visitors' Center in Brno<i style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This post originally appeared on my<a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/103554/"> En Route blog</a>, for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal </span></i><br /><br /><br />By Ruth Ellen Gruber <br /><br />Once again I have to hand it to the Czechs for the exemplary way that they preserve and promote Jewish heritage, heritage sites and memory.<br /><br />I spent a day this past week in Brno, the Czech Republic’s second largest city and the capital of Moravia. I was there for a totally different —- non-Jewish—reason (a country music concert and a meeting related to the Czech country music and bluegrass scene) but I took the time to visit the Jewish Tourism and Information Center that was opened last year at the city’s Jewish cemetery, a sprawling and beautifully maintained expanse that includes about 9,000 grave markers, from simple matzevot to grand family tombs.<br /><br />The Center operates as part of the <a href="http://www.jewishbrno.eu/" target="_blank" title="Jewish Brno Project">Jewish Brno Project</a>, a collaborative initiative of the Jewish community in Brno and the city’s Tourist Information Center.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimslXQG9PQ5EupyrPvnfph_gYrgEF7ZWoFGReJBvlFqh74SXhv9ZeJNpZcP6ukh2A6Wz8meow4-8Gz48OFQ3-Nikt1a9t8poSTXBIesqVV-BGqSomXW2IF-viTiytFw4qrTbwV_FhmgJY/s1600/IMG_3857sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimslXQG9PQ5EupyrPvnfph_gYrgEF7ZWoFGReJBvlFqh74SXhv9ZeJNpZcP6ukh2A6Wz8meow4-8Gz48OFQ3-Nikt1a9t8poSTXBIesqVV-BGqSomXW2IF-viTiytFw4qrTbwV_FhmgJY/s400/IMG_3857sm.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A deceptively boring view of the Jewish Visitors Center. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />I was already a big fan of the project’s web site <a href="http://www.jewishbrno.eu/" target="_blank" title="www.jewishbrno.eu">www.jewishbrno.eu</a>—an informative and easy to use portal to Jewish heritage in Brno and at least 16 towns in southern Moravia where there are historic synagogues, cemeteries and old Jewish quarters – Mikulov, Boskovice, Trebic, Ivancice, et al.<br />The Brno Jewish Visitor’s Center opened in January 2011, and it sports the green “i” logo of general Czech tourist info centers. It occupies one of the three early 20th century buildings that form the mortuary complex.<br /><br />The Cemetery is located at Nezamyslova 27, in the Zidenice district of town, an easy tram ride from the city center. Trams 8 and 10 from the main railway station stop right in front.<br /><br />The Visitors Center provides a range of services, including guided tours of Brno Jewish sites, tourist packages and itineraries outside the city. There are stacks of free informational material, including well-produced brochures in various languages on local and regional Jewish heritage. The Center has free WiFi internet access, and there is an English-speaking staffer.<br /><br />For the cemetery itself, it provides individual free tours as well as free audio guides. A brochure guide to the cemetery includes a map locating the graves of prominent people interred there – the brochure provides brief biographies and photos of their gravestones. And there is also a computer screen with a link to the cemetery database, so that you can search for individual tombs.<br /><br />I didn’t have much time the day I visited, but I spent a very pleasant half hour strolling around the cemetery and following the map up and down the rows of tombs – most of them stately obelisks, and many (in the style of the late 19th century) bearing laminated photographs of the deceased.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAtquhgAc8HUk4OFnPFvGxwZFyszW8fmeUu1-7TDF6CdMg_W_fAisOBkjmv4yiKFB6uLRMe4fVUEmiBKBWB8fFttfXaGTKCStJr3rZbFF_-2uoJ31ATH-GONgOL5W5lc5hBeH-cY75rNk/s1600/IMG_3847sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAtquhgAc8HUk4OFnPFvGxwZFyszW8fmeUu1-7TDF6CdMg_W_fAisOBkjmv4yiKFB6uLRMe4fVUEmiBKBWB8fFttfXaGTKCStJr3rZbFF_-2uoJ31ATH-GONgOL5W5lc5hBeH-cY75rNk/s400/IMG_3847sm.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brno was a center of modernist architecture. Here's a modernist gravestone in the Jewish cemetery. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJFASIaVNeSoUjnP-ByLxRJhrYW3K9rpOB0O_j7kFOoF2qjjDsE5KZOXdSiLNN_AirCeVN_ZNUbSQq-Dpz41Ij4RQLG7tZhcE5CBjGY3xZVZc4sBK8WOXxuhgadVHOV2hEVMvfLDLKrAA/s1600/IMG_3844sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJFASIaVNeSoUjnP-ByLxRJhrYW3K9rpOB0O_j7kFOoF2qjjDsE5KZOXdSiLNN_AirCeVN_ZNUbSQq-Dpz41Ij4RQLG7tZhcE5CBjGY3xZVZc4sBK8WOXxuhgadVHOV2hEVMvfLDLKrAA/s400/IMG_3844sm.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><b>Jewish Tourism and Information Center</b><br /><br />Nezamyslova 27<br />615 00 Brno, Czech Republic<br />Email: tic@jewishbrno.eu<br />Tel: +420 544 526 737<br /><br /><b>Brno Tourist Information Center</b><br /><br />Radnicka 8<br />658 78 Brno, Czech Republic<br />Email: info@ticbrno.cz<br />Tel: +420 542 427 150<br /><a href="http://www.ticbrno.cz/" target="_blank" title="www.ticbrno.cz">www.ticbrno.cz</a><br /><br />asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-9179415081210880522012-04-22T02:27:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.744-07:00Jewish Cemetery Rescued in SlovakiaBy Ruth Ellen Gruber<br /><br />Bravo to the local <a href="http://www.leustach.sk/uvod" target="_blank" title="Leustach civic association">Leustach civic association</a> for organizing a clean up operation for the long-abandoned and overgrown 18th century Jewish cemetery in the village of Janikovce, near Nitra in central Slovakia!<br /><br />Here's a link to my <a href="http://www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu/2012/04/22/clean-up-operation-for-slovak-jewish-cemetery/%E2%80%9D" target="_blank" title="Jewish Heritage Europe reports">Jewish Heritage Europe report</a> (with links to galleries of before and after pictures):<br /><blockquote style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dozens of volunteers, aged from 9 years old to over 70, took part, clearing brush, cutting down trees and removing waste from the cemetery, which for many years has been used as a dump site. They found discarded refrigerators, construction waste, car parts, tires, construction material, plastic and asbestos tiles on the site. Many of the volunteers were pupils at a local middle school. [...] </span></blockquote><blockquote style="color: #990000;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">The idea is to clear and clean up the cemetery and maintain it as a sort of park, but also to restore the memory of the Jewish community that had lived there for centuries until the Holocaust.</span></blockquote>asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-22255064930004077442012-04-20T02:25:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.744-07:00Web Site Aimed at Jewish Visitors to the Summer Olympics in London<i style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This post originally appeared on my <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/103290/">En Route blog</a> on the Los Angeles Jewish Journal</span></i><br /><br /><br />By Ruth Ellen Gruber<br /><br /><br />The Summer Olympic Games in London, July 27-August 12, are just around the corner (more or less) and to help Jewish visitors and sports fans, the Jewish Committee for the London Games has launched <a href="http://www.visitjewishlondon.com/" target="_blank" title="VISIT JEWISH LONDON ">VISIT JEWISH LONDON </a>—a web site with a wide variety of information, from sightseeing to synagogue-going.<br /><br />It looks like a very useful and easy to use resource. This is what the web site says it aims to do:<br /><blockquote style="color: #741b47;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Our goal is to ensure that all visitors have access to relevant Jewish cultural and religious information. To this end we have created this website for you, which aims to provide a one stop shop presenting comprehensive information on Jewish London and the U.K. as a whole in order to help you access everything that you may need during your visit. </span></blockquote><blockquote style="color: #741b47;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">The site is also intended to provide appropriate and updated information about the 2012 London Olympic Games, which includes links to partner groups and networks concerned with the wider values and the future legacy of the Games, as well as the Official site of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Metropolitan Police, public bodies and other faith based and religious organisations specifically involved with the Olympic Truce. The Olympic Truce is an original Olympic ideal which aims to ensure that competitors and visitors travel to the Games in peace and security. </span></blockquote><blockquote style="color: #741b47;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">You may want to attend a synagogue while you are here in order to participate in a shabbat service, make up a minyan or perhaps you have a yahrzeit and want to say kadesh. We can point you in the direction of a designated commemoration associated with the Games or where shabbat hospitality is available. We have also provided details of the Jewish Museum, Judaic books and gift shops, guided walking tours as well as particulars of other interesting iconic, cultural and famous historical Jewish sites in London. </span></blockquote><blockquote style="color: #741b47;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">We aim to provide you with a variety of opportunities to ensure you enjoy a warm, welcoming and interesting visit whilst taking advantage of all that the great city of London has to offer its guests. If you keep strictly kosher, you will need to know where to go to eat, so we have provided information about where you can find kosher or deli style provisions and dine in a wide range of supervised and unsupervised restaurants. So whether you’re into chopped liver, chicken soup, shwarma, falafel, humus, pitta or pizza, we’ve got the nosh for you!</span></blockquote>asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-147510183175693233.post-2748187654935372492012-04-18T02:46:00.000-07:002012-08-08T09:31:41.744-07:00Jewish Life -- Life! -- in Krakow<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">This post first ran in my<a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/enroute/item/103185/"> En Route blog</a> on the Los Angeles Jewish Journal</span></i><br /><br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGNBOb4br6HRD_ojUvrHdDkJKxlqq7uxp8sykEJBjAqxftz3pxtC7QpUg7Ij0dWOHP3KKUNiqQNnXwEvgrIut4cpRiR3rkWx2MOTub6WK5btUzFLOdK_nvBp4F0FHGZJddHF0KYqMb-yA/s1600/IMG_0852.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGNBOb4br6HRD_ojUvrHdDkJKxlqq7uxp8sykEJBjAqxftz3pxtC7QpUg7Ij0dWOHP3KKUNiqQNnXwEvgrIut4cpRiR3rkWx2MOTub6WK5btUzFLOdK_nvBp4F0FHGZJddHF0KYqMb-yA/s320/IMG_0852.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber</td></tr></tbody></table><br />By Ruth Ellen Gruber<br /><br />I’ve written a lot about the Jewish scene in Krakow over the years— the “virtually Jewish” side of both homage to and nostalgic exploitation of the past—but also the new Jewish life. (See, for example, my <a href="http://www.momentmag.com/Exclusive/currentyear/02/201002-Poland.html" target="_blank" title="long piece in Moment Magazine">long piece in Moment Magazine</a> where I view the city, the scene, and the changes I’ve seen over the past 20-some years).<br /><br />New York Jewish Week now runs <a href="http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/international/american_style_jcc_thriving_krakow" target="_blank" title="a long piece by Steve Lipman ">a long piece by Steve Lipman </a>that provides a good look at some of what’s been going on, focusing on the activities of the JCC, founded in 2008. Steve writes:<br /><blockquote style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Poland’s former capital, Krakow is a natural magnet, he says — Poles come because of the city’s open, cosmopolitan nature; visitors, because of nearby Auschwitz. </span></blockquote><blockquote style="color: #351c75;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">At the first-night seder I conducted last week — using supplies donated by J. Levine Books & Judaica, in Manhattan, and by local friends Lisa Levy, Michael Wittert and Debby Caplan — the chairs were filled with singles and young families, children and Holocaust survivors, American college students and tourists from several foreign countries. </span></blockquote><blockquote style="color: #351c75;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Unlike the participants at the seders in many other Polish cities, most of the Polish natives at the JCC seder seemed familiar with the Haggadah’s reading and rituals, thanks to the seders the institution has hosted in recent years. As a sign of the growth of Jewish resources here, other seders took place this year under the auspices of Chabad, the Reform movement, and Rabbi Boaz Pash, an emissary of the Shavei Israel outreach organization. </span></blockquote><blockquote style="color: #351c75;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">The JCC was initiated by Prince Charles, who during a visit to Krakow a decade ago, was moved by a meeting with aging Holocaust survivors and asked what the Jewish community needed. A senior center, he was told. Officials of World Jewish Relief, headquartered in London, suggested that a facility serving the entire Jewish community would be more worthwhile. In April 2008, with the Prince in attendance, the JCC, largely funded by WJR and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, opened its doors.</span></blockquote>Lipman highlights the wonderful <a href="http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/06/15/3088156/never-better-in-krakow" target="_blank" title="7@Night event that debuted last June ">7@Night event that debuted last June </a>—when all seven of the synagogues and former synagogues in the old Jewish quarter, Kazimierz, were open to the public and hosted programs that illustrated contemporary—not nostalgic—Jewish culture.asuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13677744672152372797noreply@blogger.com