Before World War II, there were 3.3 million Jews in Poland–ten per cent of the population. By 1945, ninety percent of Poland’s Jews had been murdered. Few Jews are left in Poland today, but the work of caring for the memory of their lives, their culture, and their stories is being carried out by non-Jewish Poles. Leora Tec, creator of The Neshoma Project, describes them as “Rescuers of Memory.”
In this three-week class, students will learn about the work of some of the Rescuers of Memory and how they are fighting the erasure of Jewish lives and stories through scholarship, teaching, guiding, museum work, grassroots activism, and the arts. We’ll discuss what it means to rescue memory and how this “memory work” fits into the “politics of memory” in Poland. We also will do a deep dive into one cultural memory institution in Lublin, Poland.
Class will meet on Wednesday evenings:
March 8, 15 and 22 from 8:00-9:15 pm on Zoom
Tuition is $54 and please mail in the registration form. (Scholarships are available)
Credit Card Payment and Online Registration is Available Here through Temple Isaiah
Please register by March 1 to give the instructor time to be in touch with course participants.
Leora Tec is the founder of Bridge To Poland and Special Projects Partner to Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN in Lublin, Poland. She was a Wellesley College Stevens Traveling Fellow (2018-2019). In cooperation with Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN Leora has created the online video archive, The Neshoma Project: Conversations with Poles Rescuing Jewish Memory. She has written numerous articles and sits on several boards related to her work. She has a B.A. from Wellesley and a J.D./LL.M. from Duke.
LIJS (the Lexington Institute of Jewish Studies) is a long-running collaboration between Temple Isaiah and Temple Emunah.
Questions?: Contact Wendy Liebow at wliebow@gmail.com, Steven Krich at krich.steven@gmail.com, or Bob Frankel at sfrankel@rcn.com
Monday – Thursday, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm
Friday, 8:30 am – 3:00 pm
