The fourth Singer's Warsaw Jewish Culture Festival will be held in Warsaw Sept. 2-9. The event is named after Nobel Prize-winning Jewish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, who lived in Warsaw before World War II.

Organized by the Shalom Foundation, the festival will bring back the prewar atmosphere of the city to an area around Grzybowski Square. A Jewish street will be recreated on Próżna Street, with cafes, small stores and service shops as well as typical figures of this prewar Jewish quarter such as merchants, craftsmen, newsboys, street performers, painters, organ grinders and florists.

The festival features 90 events, including theatrical performances, movie screenings, exhibitions, literary meetings, recitals and concerts. Participants will get to take part in a number of workshops and learn about Jewish dance and cuisine, theater, photography and klezmer music. The festival aspires to set a new Guinness record with the largest number of people performing a Hasidic dance. Every visitor to the festival can take part in an international project entitled "The Nations of the World Copy the Bible" by hand-copying one line from the Book of Ruth.

Kids will find a number of attractions at a family picnic, where they will learn to bake Jewish egg bread called challah, build a synagogue from Lego bricks, and read fairy tales by Singer.

The festival will also feature well-known international artists such as American cantor Joseph Malowany, who will perform at an opening concert along with his students Erick Freeman and Berel Zucker, accompanied by the Hasidic Cappella cantor choir from Moscow. Three Jewish Divas is a concert by Canada's Joanne Borts and Adrienne Cooper and Teresa Tova from the United States. Polish jazz pianist Leszek Możdżer will give impromptu performances with Zohar Fresco from Israel. The Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra, conducted by Jacek Kasprzyk, will play a grand concert entitled Warsaw Survivor.

The final concert will be held on Próżna Street, which fills with hundreds of dancing spectators every year. Part of this year's festival will be an academic session entitled "Jewish Cultural Life in Poland in the Early Postwar Years."

Mirela Hein

For a detailed program of the festival, go to:
www.shalom.org.pl