The Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków has been organized since 1988 and over time it has become one of the most important and largest events of its kind in the world. One of the sponsors of the festival was The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation, which carries out the corporate social responsibility mission of Citi Handlowy. This year the Festival featured a total of 200 various events: concerts, theater performances, exhibitions, lectures, and workshops. It was the fourth time that the Foundation had financed educational workshops organized as part of the Festival - starting from Jewish dancing through the history of Jews in Poland to learning Yiddish.
This year the Festival's musical program enjoyed the greatest popularity. The guests were attracted by famous artists who came to Kraków to take part in the Festival as well as by the great variety of musical genres represented by them. Modern interpretations of Sephardic songs were presented by the founders of the Hesperion XX ensemble, Montserrat Figueras, and Jordis Savall. Other performers of the Festival included Yasmin Levy, Jeniffer Charles from Brooklyn, and Oren Bloedow. Another important event was "The Other Europeans," which took place in the Temple Synagogue and whose goal is to explore the common roots of Yiddish and Roma music.
The Festival was also a wonderful opportunity to organize the greatest exhibition of works by Jewish artists associated with Krakow in the years 1873-1939. The historical Museum of the City of Kraków managed to collect 130 paintings, graphics and sculptures by more than 40 artists. The exhibition featured art works by the precursors of the Jewish painting in Poland - Maurycy Gottlieb, Szymon Buchbinder, Maurycy Trebacz, Artur Markiewicz, and many others.
The program of the Festival also included numerous and extensive workshops such as Yiddish and Hebrew lessons, Hebrew calligraphy, Hasidic dancing and singing, as well as Jewish cooking. Theater performances included the Puppet Theatre from Białystok performeing "Cinnamon Shops" and the British performers presenting "Chi Chi Bunichi." The Festival also featured an exhibition of photographs entitled "Made in Israel" by Aharon Farkash, at which posters and photographs from Palestine and Israel were displayed. The Festival ended with a concert by Leopold Kozłowski in the Temple Synagogue.
