Jewish Culture/Music/Etc Festivals 2010

 Posters for last year's Quarter6Quarter7 Hanukkah festival in Budapest. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

                                                                                            

A number of Jewish culture festivals of all sorts take place around Europe in the spring and summer (and beyond). Some are dedicated just to music. Some to film. Others are much broader. As far as I know, there is no central web site where you can find information on all of them. I will begin to post information here on dates and venues. I ask my readers to please send me information to include!

The culture festivals and other smaller events make good destinations around which to center a trip. Some, like the annual Festival of Jewish Culture in Krakow, are huge events lasting a week or more, which draw thousands of people and offer scores or sometimes hundreds of performances, lectures, concerts, exhibits and the like. Other festivals are much less ambitious. Some are primarily workshops but also feature concerts. Many of the same artists perform at more than one festival.

 The list will be growing and growing -- and again,  I ask my readers to please send me information and links to upcoming events. Thanks!


ALL OVER EUROPE -- 11th annual European Day of Jewish Culture. The first Sunday in September -- Sept. 5. Events take place in nearly 30 countries. The theme this year is Art and Judaism.

AUSTRIA

April 22-27 -- Vienna --  Stay Jewish! (Film Festival)

October 14-November 14 -- Vienna -- Yiddish Culture Autumn (web site under construction)

November 6 -  21 -- Vienna -- KlezMORE festival (this year's program is not up yet)

CROATIA

Aug. 23-31 -- Opatija -- Bejahad 2010


CZECH REPUBLIC

July 8-11 -- Boskovice -- Boskovice Festival. Mainly jazz, but also an emphasis on Jewish culture, given the importance of the well-preserved former Jewish quarter, cemetery and Jewish museum in the restored synagogue.

July 29-31 -- Trebic -- Seventh edition of the Trebic Jewish Culture Festival, held in the Czech Republic's most extensive preserved former Jewish quarter

FRANCE

April 9 - July 18 -- Paris -- Radical Jewish Culture exhibit (and concerts), Jewish Museum

June 13-28 -- Paris --  6th Festival of Jewish Cultures

July 5-9 -- Paris -- Klezmer Paris festival Lots of workshops from an all-star international team of  musicians and teachers.


GERMANY

March 5-14  -- Fürth -- Fürth International Klezmer Festival (12th edition)

July 3-August 2  -- Weimar -- Yiddish Summer Weimar

October 17-31 -- Dresden -- The 14th Yiddish Weeks Dresden

November 20-30 -- Munich -- The 24th Jewish Culture Days, Munich (devoted this year to Jewish Berlin)

HUNGARY

April 2-4 -- Budapest -- Mini-Israeli-Film-Festival, Kino cinema club

August 5-8  -- Bank Lake -- Bankito Festival

August 26-Sept. 6 -- Budapest -- Jewish Summer Festival


 ITALY

 March 11 -- Barletta --  Festival Musica Judaica 2009-2010

April 17-21 -- Ferrara -- Festival of the Jewish Book in Italy


April 23-May 23; Sept. 26-Oct. 31 -- Casale Monferrato -- OyOyOy Festival

NETHERLANDS

April  18-25    -- Leeuwarden -- Yiddish Festival Leeuwarden (takes place every other year)

Oct. 28-31 -- Amsterdam -- International Jewish Music Festival

POLAND

April 9-11 -- Warsaw -- Festival of New Jewish Music

April 20-25 -- Warsaw -- Jewish Motifs International Film Festival

May 23-28 -- Wroclaw -- 12th Simcha Jewish Culture Festival (note -- other events take place May 5-9, with the gala re-opening of the newly restored White Stork Synagogue)

May 15-23 -- Warsaw -- "Otwardatwarda" festival

May 23-26 -- Warsaw --  13th Jewish Book Fair

 June 13-19 -- Sejny -- Musicians' Raft

June -14-16 -- Bialystok -- Zahor Festival of Jewish Culture

June 19-20 -- Chmielnik -- The Eighth "Meetings with Jewish Culture" festival

June 22-26 -- Piotrkow Trybunalski -- Days of Judaism

June 26-July 4 --Krakow -- Festival of Jewish Culture --20th Edition!

 July 13-17 -- Kazimierz Dolny -- Klezmer Music Festival

July 23-25 -- Poznan -- 4th Tzadik Jewish Culture Festival

August 11 -- Lublin -- Shalom. Meetings with Jewish Culture

August 12-14 -- Rymanow -- Shabbat in Rymanow

August 28-Sept. 5 -- Warsaw -- Singer's Warsaw Jewish Culture Festival

ROMANIA

May 24-27 -- Timisoara -- Jewish Culture Days


May 26-29 -- Bucharest -- Czech Nine Gates Festival

June 19-22 -- Sighet -- Sighet Jewish Festival

September 2-5 -- Bucharest -- World of Yiddish Festival

RUSSIA

March 29-April 4 -- Moscow -- Yiddish Fest


SWITZERLAND

March 6-April 25 -- Geneva - Printemps Sefarade

U.K.

Feb. 27-March 7 -- London -- Jewish Book Week

June 21-24 -- London -- Cantors Convention

August 8-13 -- London -- KlezFest

Ukraine

July 25 -- L'viv -- LvivKlezFest

Austria -- Government to Help Fund Jewish Cemetery Restoration

 Historic Jewish cemetery in Eisenstadt, Austria. Photo: Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Austrian government is mandating 20 million euro over the next 20 years toward the care and restoration of abandoned and neglected Jewish cemeteries in Austria. An agreement reached Monday night broke what Austrian Jewish leader Ariel Muzicant said had been a stalemate lasting nine years, following an agreement made in 2001 under which Austria had committed to care for Jewish cemeteries as part of a compensation deal for Nazi crimes.

Vienna's Jewish community called the government's 20 million euros (29 million dollars) a "late Hanukkah gift." "Nearly nine years after the signing of the Washington Agreement, the last issue that was still open in terms of international law is settled," the community said in a statement. Under the new funding agreement reached late on Monday, Jewish communities are to raise an additional 20 million euros, while the city of Vienna and the province of Lower Austria also pledged contributions.

          Read full DPA story

          Read Associated Press story

There are about 70 Jewish cemeteries in Austria, about 20 of which are said to be in particularly bad condition. The Austrian Jewish Community web site has an extensive page listing all the cemeteries and giving their history, size, location, condition and notes on any current or recent restoration efforts.

Europe -- Jewish culture festivals

Cantorial concert Jewish Culture Festival Krakow, 2008. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

A number of Jewish culture festivals of all sorts take place around Europe in the spring and summer. Some are dedicated just to music. Others are much broader. As far as I know, there is no central web site where you can find information on all of them. I will begin to post information here on dates and venues. I ask my readers to please send me information to include!

The culture festivals and other smaller events make good destinations around which to center a trip. Some, like the annual Festival of Jewish Culture in Krakow, are huge events lasting a week or more, which draw thousands of people and offer scores or sometimes hundreds of performances, lectures, concerts, exhibits and the like. Other festivals are much less ambitious. Some are primarily workshops but also feature concerts. Many of the same artists perform at more than one festival.

Dance workshop, Krakow, 2008. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

A highlight this summer will be three concerts by the 14-person ensemble of The Other Europeans project on Jewish and Roma culture, music and identity. This is an EU-co-financed project of the Yiddish Summer Weimar, The Festival of Jewish Culture in Krakow and the KlezMORE Festival Vienna.

Here is a partial list, with links to web sites -- I will add to it (here or on separate posts) as information comes in:

All Over Europe -- 10th annual European Day of Jewish Culture. Sept. 6. Events take place in nearly 30 countries. The theme this year is Jewish Festivals and Traditions.


Austria

Vienna -- KlezMORE Festival -- The festival itself is Nov. 7-22. But on June 28 it will present The Other Europeans concert. For detrails contact weimar@the-other-europeans.eu or Ruth Schwarz, tel. +43(0)699 - 1270 8645; e-mail: ruth(at)klezmore-vienna.at


Canada

Montreal -- International Yiddish Theatre Festival -- June 17-25. Not in Europe,
but with a lot of European Jewish/Yiddish Theatres participating.

Laurentian Mountains, Quebec -- KlezKanada Summer Institute, Aug. 24-30

Czech Republic

Boskovice -- Boskovice Festival 2009. July 16-19. Many types of music, performance and exhibitions, etc, aimed at supporting the restoration and promotion of the historic Jewish quarter


France

Paris -- Klezmer Paris -- July 6-10. Mainly workshops in dance, singing, playing.

Germany

Weimar -- Yiddish Summer Weimar. Workshops and concerts the whole month of July. The Other Europeans concert will be July 5.

Great Britain

London -- Nine Gates International Festival of Czech-German-Jewish Culture. May 30-June 1.

London -- Klezfest. August 9-14. There is also a Yiddish crash course August 2-7.

Hungary

Bank Lake -- "Jewstock", August 6-8 (Now called Bankito, with new web site.)

Budapest -- Jewish Summer Festival, Aug. 30-Sept. 7

Lithuania

Vilnius -- Klezmer Festival. Aug. 25-29 (This will take place within the framework of the Third Litvak Congress, a meeting of Jews with origins in Lithuania, Aug. 23-31)

Poland

Wroclaw -- Simcha - 11th Jewish Culture Festival in Wrocław. May 31-June 5

Gdansk -- 10th Baltic Days of Jewish Culture. June 14-15

Lodz -- Jewish Culture Days, Lodz. June 14-30.

Bialystok -- 2nd Zachor Festival of Jewish Culture. June 15-16

Chmielnik -- VII Meeting with Jewish Culture, June 19-21

Krakow -- Festival of Jewish Culture, June 27-July 5. The Other Europeans concert will be July 3.

Warsaw -- Singer's Warsaw Festival of Jewish Culture, Aug. 29-Sept. 6. A big festival, increasingly similar in scope to that in Krakow.

Lodz -- Festival of the Dialogue of Four Cultures. Usually in September

Romania

Oradea, Cluj, Sighet -- Mamaliga and Gefilte Fish. Klezmer workshops and dance house. June 16-24. Oradea June 16, Sighet June 21, Cluj june 24. For Information contact klezromania@gmail.com

Austria -- Jewish Guidebook to Salzburg

I'm delighted to note that Stan Nadel's walking tour guide to Jewish Salzburg has just been published in English. (The German edition came out a few years ago.) It's called Salzburg and the Jews: A Historical Walking Guide and is published by Wipf and Stock.

From the Preface:

When I moved to Salzburg in 2002 I followed in the footsteps of thousands of others and fell in love with this quaint old city and its beautiful surroundings. I am a historian by trade and I was enchanted with walking the city's streets and identifying where various historical events had taken place. I am also Jewish, so I read all I could about the history of Jews in Salzburg and began to fit what I learned into the geography of the streets and buildings that I so much enjoyed. As I learned more about the city and its history, I found it unsettling to see the shadows of a very ugly past in the city I have come to love. I liked my first apartment, but I was not happy that one of Adolf Eichmann's associates lived in an apartment downstairs after it had been taken away from an elderly Jewish man...

There are many such shadows in Salzburg, but it remains a beautiful city with many attractions. I certainly do not want to discourage anyone from coming to Salzburg to enjoy, as I do, its beauty, culture, food and wonderful beers. To the contrary, I would like to encourage others to come and share my pleasure. But I also want to share what I have learned with visitors to Salzburg who might like to know about some aspects of its history that are often neglected by the standard tourist guidebooks.