Jewish Educational Itineraries

Great opportunities for Jewish Heritage Educational customized tours conducted by the local Taube Foundation scholars in Poland. Tours are designed for individuals and small groups in Warsaw and in Krakow.

Three itineraries are available upon request: 

Optional Tour One

Krakow's Old Town: “Culture under Duress: Underground Vitality and Cultural Resurgence in Polish History  (Time: approx. 3 hours)

Tour begins at the Basements of U Krzystofory – Tadeusz Kantor’s Performance Space. Here we will enjoy an introduction to Tadeusz Kantor and his basement performance space as a symbol of both powerful intellectual and cultural currents kept alive in times of duress; and memory – inparticular the memory of a multi-cultural, diverse Polish-Lithuanian Republic.

Our visit here will be followed by "Memory Underground" an introduction to the Preservation and Resurgence of Culture and Memory in Poland.

In our session today we will explore the powerful tradition in Polish history of keeping culture alive – underground, or in hiding – in times of repression or occupation. We will consider the revival of Jewish culture in Poland as a very strong example of this trend in Polish history.  And, we will link the survival and revival of Jewish culture in Poland throughout the post-war era of the PRL and now in post 1989 Poland to a long tradition of struggling to keep what is most valuable in Polish culture alive under duress.

 We will touch on the history of dissident political cabaret, independent theater. The introduction will also consider how the intellectual current in Poland that favors and supports Jewish revival
and study of the Jewish past represents a long and noble tradition – that identifies with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – a ‘nationalities state” – rather than a narrowly Polish-Catholic definition of Polish culture and history – a “nation state”. Importance of organizations like Borderlands that foster this identity for Poland today.

We continue to the Main Market Square. Here we will discuss the layers of history beneath the paving stones – “Shoes from Asia”: the market as a crossroads, major trade route. Role of Jews

in the trade that passed through Krakow.   Our highlights here: Sukiennice, Potocki Palace – Cabaret Pod Baranami – dissident cabaret under communism; Mickiewicz monument – changing
attitudes toward Jewishness in contemporary Poland – architecture of the facades on the Rynek – Café Szara that during the Partitions was a center of gun-running, political cabaret, hotbed of intellectual life and Polish resistance.

On to the Museum of the City of Krakow, we will descend briefly  into the restored basements of the City museum to view the table model of the city in the Medieval period – and Kazimierz as a separate city divided by the river; and onto the Collegium Maius Museum.

In front of the museum is the Krakow’s former/Original Jewish Quarter – early history of Jews in medieval Krakow.  Inside the Renaissance courtyard are the exhibits from the time of the removal of the Jews from higher education and the prohibition of publishing on Jewish history and culture in Poland.

Following the museum we begin our walk toward Kazimierz, we will have several visits stop on the way:  First is the remains of the Prayer House at ul. Grodzka 11 - here We will view the ruins of the last Beit Ha-Midrash (Torah school) in Krakow’s Old Town and review the plans for the
restoration projects and problems in Krakow: why this hasn’t been restored.

We will also pay a visit to Grodzka 8 under Wawel Castle – the former Fischer publishing House and will hear a word on the "Haskallah" - Jewish incitement and the importance of Jewish publishing in Krakow.

Next stop is at the corner of Dietla and Krakowska: “The King’s Jews” and we will have a better understanding of Kazimierz, " A Medieval City with a Difference" -  Jews in the Medieval period economy/Golden Age.

LUNCH at Klezmer Hois

 
Optional tour Two

Tour of Krakow’s Kazimierz, the former Jewish Quarter
(approx. 3 hours)

Our  tour begins with a short talk in Tempel Synagogue, that will frame a number of important questions in considering the fascinating dynamics, and the unique problems, of Jewish Memory in Poland and Kazimierz.  We will discuss why Kazimierz is such an important site of Jewish memory (architecturally, historically, in proximity to Auschwitz, and because of present-day activities of Jewish revival), unique in Europe and in the world. We will consider a number of basic questions which arise for many visitors to Krakow’s former Jewish quarter, and some questions that they may not have considered: 

Whose memory is it? Whose history is it? Ownership of the past and of culture.

Polish Jewish memory (memory of Jews and Jewish culture by mostly non-Jewish Poles) and Jewish memory of Jewish culture by Jews abroad, or by the few Polish Jews remaining in
Poland.

The question of reconstructing memory/history out of a (post-WWII/PRL) void Archaeology/reconstruction – return of the repressed -- as the basic model vs. preservation/continuity seen in other countries.

Other points for discussion:

What is the role of Poles today as caretakers of Jewish history?

What place can Poland play for Jews around the world in the construction and development of a Jewish identity?

Why does Jewish culture and history hold a fascination for Poles? In what ways (and there are a variety) are Poles today interested in Jewish culture, and what does this mean?

What kind of engagement have international Jewish organizations and independent founders begun to have in participating in this caretaking and reconstruction of the Jewish past in Poland?

The visits will also include:

The “Tempel Synagogue” on Miodowa with a complete orientation as we are seated in the Synagogue balcony. We will review the renovation of Tempel Synagogue, with challenging problems and questions that it raised about how to restore or preserve Jewish sites.

Next visit is to the Krakow JCC (next door to Tempel Synagogue on Miodowa) with a brief introduction by him to JCC initiatives and present-day Jewish life in Krakow. Then on to Szeroka Street visiting the the Remuh Synagogue and Cemetery, we continue to the Old Synagogue and a walk down the local Jewish history lane at
Jozefa.

Following the visits we will continue our walk through the passageway with arch, back to Meiselsa and Plac Nowy, formerly Plac Zydowski, Fundacja Judaica, Plac Nowy, Synagoga Izaaka

We will finish our in depth tour with coffee and cake/hors d’oeuvres on the main square.


Optional Tour Three

Route: Pinczow-Chmielnik-Szydlow-Kurozweki-Nowy Korczyn
(Two day tour)

Szydlow & Environs: The Jewish Shtetl in Poland at the Turn of the Century:

This two-day study-tour to three former shtetls in the Kielce region of Poland (north of Krakow) will offer participants an opportunity to deepen their exploration of pre-WWII Jewish life in Poland, and to discuss the modern Eastern European Jewish experience in a landscape which is inseparable from, and still powerfully evocative of, that experience. A series of four talks will be given at historic synagogues which will be our stopping places on the trip (Pinczow, Chmielnik,
Szydlow, Nowy Korczyn), and these will be supplemented by informal discussion of the topics raised throughout the trip. Participants will spend the night at the restored palace and grounds of Kurozweki, a noble estate dating from the 15th century.

The shtetl is remembered in the popular imagination as a mythic and timeless “old country” where Jewish identity was unquestioned -- yet the focus of this tour will be precisely the dynamic, turbulent period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pre-WWII, when that traditional life was shaken by competing modern movements:  Socialism and the growing Bund movement, Yiddishism, Zionism and assimilationism, as well as emigration to the United States.  We will discuss the tensions between secularizing and orthodox tendencies within the society, and between assimilation to the dominant or surrounding national culture, and the cultivation of a distinctly Jewish national identity.

 By way of introduction, the tour will provide a background to the economic geography of the Jewish community of Poland and its role in the Polish feudal economy, and discuss the rise of the predominantly Jewish towns or shtetls in provincial Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania.  We will discuss the portrayal of the Jewish town in the literary works of modern Yiddish and Polish writers, and also jump forward to explore the complicated and often painful situation of Jewish memory in Poland today.  Participants will be provided with a small pack of maps and readings, including excerpts of autobiographical, historical and literary texts, as background to our discussions.

All the optional tours are designed by Instructor Karen Underhill, Dept. of Slavic Languages & Literatures, University of Chicago Director, Krakow Open Forum on Central & Eastern Europe

Book online or Call: 1-800-355-9994

Our Jewish Heritage Tours are based on groups of 15 and more.
Individuals and smaller groups can still enjoy the tour at additional supplement.