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Arts & Entertainment
Ereplach In Kazimierz
Nostalgia for Krakow's lost Jewish culture becomes
a celebration of survival.
RUTH E. GRUBER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
la
enryk Halkowski flops
down in an armchair in
the Klezmer Hois restau-
rant and orders a bowl of
chicken soup with kreplach.
The Klezmer Hois, located in a
building that once housed a mikvah, is
one of a score of upscale new "Jewish-
style" restaurants and cafes that dot
Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter of
Krakow.
Its cozy dining room is furnished
with antiques from pre-World War II
Poland; its menu features Eastern
European Jewish specialties; and a CD
featuring the Israeli singer Chava
Alberstein and the Klezmatics plays
softly in the background.
"Shall I tell you my obsession?" asks
Halkowski, a burly, bearded writer,
local historian and member of the tiny
•Krakow Jewish community.
"What we need in Kazimierz is a
study center, a museum, or some sort
of institution that presents Jewish life
as it really was here," he says. "What
an apartment was like, for example;
what a cheder (schoolroom) was like,
what a workshop was like. How the
people here really lived. Something to
inject a bit of reality into the gentrifi-
cation."
Fears of anti-Semitism may be stalk-
- ing some parts of Europe, but you
would never know it in this unique
neighborhood located about a mile
from Krakow's spectacular main mar-
ket square.
Since the fall of communism,
Kazimierz has undergone a remarkable
transformation into a district that
prides itself — and sells itself — on its
Jewish history.
The district encompasses one of
Europe's important complexes of
Jewish historical monuments: seven
synagogues that date back centuries,
nearly a score of former prayer houses,
two cemeteries, marketplaces,
dwellings and other structures.
Once a bustling home to 65,000
.
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Ruth E. Gruber is the author of
7/26
2002
82
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"Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish
Culture in Europe" (University of
California Press, 2002).
Jews, it was left a ghost town after the
Holocaust. Under communism, it
became a rundown slum.
Today, Krakow has 800,000 resi-
dents. Only 200 are Jewish.
Prewar Chic
During the past dozen years a major
tourist, cultural and educational
industry has developed, based on
Jewish memory and the Jewish associa-
tions of the Kazimierz distritt.
Local travel agencies run Jewish her-
itage tours, along with tours of sites
related to the movie Schindler's List,
which was shot in Krakow.
A center for Jewish culture located
in a renovated former prayer house in
Kazimierz presents lectures, concerts
and exhibits on Jewish themes; several
historic synagogues have been
restored; and the chic new "Jewish-
style" restaurants, cafes, bookstores
.and galleries draw a growing number
of patrons.
These include Britain's Prince
Charles, who met with local Jews for a
drink in the district's Cafe Alef last
month after touring Jewish sites.
"The district is becoming more and
more the 'in place' to be — for
Krakovians," says Konstanty Gebert,
publisher of the Polish Jewish monthly
Midrasz.
"The main market square has been
abandoned to mass tourism," he says.
"Kazimierz is the alternative — there
is a different atmosphere here. This is
where I meet my friends from
Krakow."
The commercial development of
Kazimierz initially perplexed and even
alienated some Jews.
Most of the new enterprises are run
by non-Jews, basing their appeal on a
nostalgia for the lost Jewish past. With
their quaint decor and names like
Klezmer Hois, Alef, Ariel, Anatewka
and Ester, they evoke a literary image
of the prewar Jewish world that has
little to do with the way local Jews
really lived then or, indeed, live now.
"Many Jews were upset by what they
saw as commercialization built on a
history of tragedy; they saw it as a
form of necrophilia," says one observer
who has watched the development of
KAZIMIERZ on page 84