Kuzmir / Kazimierz –
In Search of Lost Time
Kuzmir, in Polish: Kazimierz – the Jewish heart of Christian Krakow, the generous land of the Galician Jews, protected for centuries by the walls of Tradition; and within these walls – gates of knowledge, tears and mercy, where peaceful, quiet, God-fearing people live. The rhythm of life, as prescribed by the Torah, is marked by the eternal repetition of holidays. If you think about it for a moment, Kuzmir / Kazimierz used to be a separate world, an Ark of salvation in the sea of the Diaspora; everyone was there: from the Hasidim to the Zionists, the great rabbis buried in this very land and those whose bones are hidden in the soil of Israel, the adversaries of Aristotle, Rambam, and Spinoza, the Kabbalists, the mystics, God’s creatures gone astray, the Hebrew verses of the Psalms, the Song of Songs, and the omnipresent Yiddish language heard in the shops and the bakeries; the smell of ink, tar, bagels, challahs, fish in wooden vats outside Isaac’s Synagogue, the bustle of the famous market on Szeroka Street, the weekly holy Shabbat created out of time, and the breath of children hasting to school.
For more than five hundred years, time has been kind here, whilst the gentle eye of God watched over the generations; the place contained the daily piety, the glorification of knowledge, charity and ordinariness, the cradle of civilization and our common foundation, and now what was left behind – what?
The seven synagogues – the seven lamps of the Menorah – once ablaze with a fervent prayer, the famous yeshiva of Rabbi Remu, the small prayer rooms scattered around, the cheder, the beit hamidrash, i.e. “house of learning”, where young boys study the Talmud from dawn to dusk, argue about its commentaries, and about commentaries on commentaries, as everything is a constant commentary on what has already been, on what is to be, although what is to be, has already been; Kuzmir / Kazimierz, Bait Chaim, House of Life, “little Jerusalem”, Ir V’Em b’Yisrael – the City and the Mother in Israel, Temple in exile, If I forget you, Yerushalayim / Kuzmir, let my right hand wither…
In 1988, following the steps of the generations of the Jews, present here for more than five centuries, we came to Kazimierz, dedicating our Jewish Culture Festival to all of them . Since then, I have lived in this realm of time lost in a City whose soul is filled with Jewish eternity to the brim. And to this bright soul in the dark picture of Kazimierz, that we dedicate this year’s 34th Jewish Culture Festival.
Janusz Makuch
