Pictures from an exhibition: new Jewish calendar on display in Lodz, Poland
The faces of 15 Jewish students from the Polish town of Lodz will be featured in a stunning new calendar to be released this fall. The calendar is being sponsored by Shavei Israel and the Emuna Foundation, which began working in Poland in 2016 to promote Jewish culture and religion.
Students from one of Emuna’s main projects, the kindergarten Gan Matanel, took part in the photo shoot for the calendar. Gan Matanel is run by Miriam Szychowska who, along with her husband Rabbi Dawid Szychowska, works as a Shavei Israel emissary to Lodz. The other pictures in the calendar are of students studying in Lodz’s Jewish Sunday School, which is sponsored by the JDC Poland Foundation.
The idea for the calendar came from Mrs. Karwacka who has run the Sunday School in Lodz for the past several years. His original thought was to hang pictures of smiling Jewish children on the walls of the Jewish Community’s building in Lodz.
Karwacka contacted Magdalena Franczuk, a professional photographer, photography student at the Polish National Film, Television and Theater School, and a member of HaMakom, the Jewish youth organization in Lodz.
The photographs she took are now on display in the Jewish Community of Lodz beginning. The exhibition, which marks the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Jewish community in Lodz, opened on June 19, 2016.
Franczuk was so enthusiastic about the photos she took that she came up with the idea of turning them into a more permanent “touring” exhibition: a calendar in English and Polish that could be distributed not only in Lodz but around the Jewish world.
Franczuk’s friend Agnieszka Wąsik handled all the graphics. Printing and distribution of the calendar will take place in time for it to be used by the Jewish High Holy Days later this year.
Shavei Israel’s emissary Miriam Szychowska says that exhibition and calendar is meant to show “that Jewish Community in Lodz is not missing children.” It is a striking and visual testament to the resurgence and tenacity of Jewish life in Poland.
If you’d like to order a copy, please contact the Shavei Israel office. If you’d like to support the production and printing of more calendars, or get involved in Shavei Israel’s important work with the “Hidden” Jews of Poland, please visit our donate page.
Here are some pictures from the opening of the exhibition last weekend:
And here are a few more pictures from the calendar itself:
