KRAKOW, POLAND—Thousands of people converged on the historic Jewish quarter of the southern Polish city of Krakow last week to attend the annual Krakow Jewish Festival, in the largest such event on the continent.

The festival, which was initially launched three-and-a-half decades ago for a non-Jewish audience in a country where Jews were decimated during the Holocaust, was held amid a wave of global antisemitism across the globe, spurred by the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel and as a new generation of young Poles has discovered a shared past in their mixed history.

“We seek to reintroduce the Jewish contribution to Polish culture to mainstream Polish society after many decades under Communism, where Jewish issues were banned in the country, and people didn’t know that Jewish contributed so much to our heritage,” Krakow Jewish Festival director Robert Gadek told JNS. “The paradox is that Poland is perceived abroad as a very antisemitic country, and here you have a Jewish festival that is being held in the open air, and everyone feels safe.”

Some three million Polish Jews were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, about 90 percent of the pre-World War II population.

Homage to the city’s storied Jewish past

The annual festival was launched in 1988, just before the fall of Communism, as a homage to the city’s Jewish past and its cultural contributions. It gathered steam over the last quarter century when a new generation of Poles in this homogeneous Roman Catholic country was awakened to the long-hidden Jewish history, brought to life by Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Academy Award-winning film Schindler’s List, which transformed local tourism in the city.

“The discovery of Jewish roots in Poland is quite normal,” said Jonathan Ornstein, executive director of the Jewish Community Center in Krakow, which is a partner in the festival. “Grandchildren are finding out who their grandparents are and are now acting on it.”

Only about 100 Polish Jews live in Krakow, a city which was home to 70,000 Jews before World War II, all but 5,000 of whom were murdered during the Holocaust.

In recent years, the minuscule Jewish population in the city has grown by the hundreds with the addition of Ukrainian Jews fleeing the war with Russia, and Jews relocating from other places in Europe.

Ornstein said that some Jews in Western Europe are asking themselves if they should live in a place that was unsafe for their grandparents or a safe place for their children.

‘A Jewish and an Israeli cultural festival’

Held annually in Krakow’s historic former Jewish quarter, Kazimierz, the five-day festival, which concluded on Sunday evening, featured about 180 events, including concerts, workshops, lectures, tours and exhibitions.

The festival, whose budget is $800,000, is primarily sponsored by the city of Krakow and the Polish Ministry of Culture, alongside two American Jewish Foundations, an Israeli-American Foundation, private donors and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Its popular mass outdoor concert, which has long been the highlight of the event, has been canceled since COVID, both due to security and economic considerations, the festival director said.

While in its first years the festival was predominantly attended by Poles and focused on Klezmer music, it has since been broadened to include trendy Mizrahi music and artists and now attracts about 70 percent Poles and 30 percent international tourists from around the world, led by Israel.

“We say we are a very Israeli festival because Israel is the real place where Jewish culture in its full authenticity grows,” Gadek said.

‘We need more of what unites us’

The festival director noted that the gathering is being held at a time when antisemitism is getting worse, even in now-safe Poland.

“There are more spaces in public life where antisemitism has become much more acceptable,” he said. “Now hate speech is part of the public discourse.”

“Compared to what we see going on in Europe, Poland is much more tolerant of Jews,” Israeli Ambassador to Poland Yaakov Finkelstein told JNS. “Most Poles are aware of Jewish culture, which was part of their culture, and this event is a reminder that we need to do more of what unites us instead of what divides us.”

“As a non-Jewish supporter, it was especially moving to attend this event at this time of global antisemitism, and to have this deep and powerful experience,” said Anne-Marie Glover, 61, of Cincinnati, Ohio, who volunteered with the JCC for the event.

Israeli volunteer Nadav Gabai, 22, who came to the festival straight after his Israeli military service, said he saw how culture can bring two different peoples together.

“During this festival, I saw how our Jewish culture can be a reason for celebration and could unite Jews and Poles as one,” he said.