This project was created especially for the 29th Jewish Culture Festival, however thanks to great reception and will be continued during the future editions of the JCF. The tent was put up right in the heart of Kazimierz: at the intersection of Józefa and Wąska streets, right next to the High Synagogue and Cheder – our festival club.

This year, we are putting up our tent in the land of Kazimierz. It will be our common, Festival Tent of Meeting – the centre of events, lectures, workshops, concerts and meetings.

Why a tent? We were inspired by the history of “biblical” tents, starting from the one that Moses put up in the desert to talk to God face to face.

The tent, from the beginning of human history, has been inextricably connected with man’s existence. When the Jews, led by Moses, the forming the future nation of Israel, set out across the desert to their Promised Land, they lived in tents for forty years. To this day, not to forget it, when they celebrate one of the three pilgrim holidays, the Sukkot Festival, the Jews pray and eat in the so-called Sukkahs which are nothing more than a representation of these tents.

Every day of the seven-day Sukkot Festival, the tent is visited by special guests, the Ushpizin. They are biblical characters, Tzadikim, the righteous, the Seven Faithful Shepherds: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron and David. (…)

We put up our Tent of Meeting because we want to welcome all of you inside regardless of where you come from, what faith you profess, what your family language is.

We put up our Tent of Meeting in Kazimierz, saddened by the fact that it has become a tourist playground. It’s not a bad thing, but we don’t consent that it be treated like a zoo, a place of beer fun and electric cart safari. (…)

We put up our Tent of Meeting in this patch of land that has permanently produced the fruits of Jewish religion, culture and science.

The Tent of Meeting is both a symbol of life and its passing. We return to the sources, to the beginnings – Polish nomads on Jewish soil. We open our tent to all who being the fruit of the Earth, are also part of our common Polish-Jewish universe.

Janusz Makuch
founder and director of the JCF

photos: Bartosz Dittmar, Edyta Dufaj, Pan Borsuk

Festival Tent was a venue for most of the events of the 29th JCF: workshops, lectures, artistic happenings and events, DJ-parties, radio broadcast, events of the Literary Program and Workshops for Seniors. Festival cafe, Cheder, also operated in the Festival Tent.

Thanks to the presence of the Tent in the public space of Kaimierz, our festival became more visible, marked in a very clear way Jewish identity of Kazimierz and went out to meet our guests: they did not have to look for the events, events were there for them.

From numerous festival guests, participants and also by-passers, we have heard that never before in Kazimierz there was an event that would be so inclusive, inviting, site-specific and so perfectly tailored for both identity and architecture of Kazimierz.