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A child at a JDC-supported Medem sanatorium. Miedzesyn, Poland. 1930.
From the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, to the Jewish Enlightenment, Poland has been a global center of Jewish life for more than a thousand years. And since JDC’s founding, we have partnered with Poland’s Jewish community to build a future that’s authentic, vibrant, and relevant to their own lives.
Poland has a long and illustrious Jewish history. Jews first arrived in Poland in the 10th century, and established communities in Krakow, Warsaw, and elsewhere. By the start of World War II, Warsaw boasted the second-largest Jewish population of any city in the world, with dozens of synagogues, Jewish schools, an active Jewish press, and a prolific literary scene. This rich cultural legacy came to an end when the Nazis enclosed the city’s Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, where thousands died from disease, starvation, and deportation to death camps. And for the next four decades, the communists further suppressed Jewish life.
Until World War II, JDC established Jewish health and social welfare services to Poland’s most vulnerable Jews, as well as restored and supported Jewish schools and community institutions. During the war, JDC worked clandestinely to help Polish Jews escape from Europe, aided Jews living in ghettos, and helped fund the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. JDC was expelled from Poland after World War II, but reentered in 1981 with the aim of providing aid to Poland’s vulnerable Jewish elderly, the majority of whom were Holocaust survivors.
Despite its difficult history, Jewish Poland has seen a powerful revival in recent years. Over the past four decades, JDC has partnered with Poland’s Jewish community to build Jewish life, leadership, and institutions across the country. JDC continues to care for Poland’s Jewish needy families and children, while also supporting training programs for Jewish community leaders and professionals.
JDC is proud to help foster Jewish life in Poland – a community that rose from the ashes of history to create a Jewish future all its own.
JDC provides lifesaving aid to Poland’s most vulnerable Jews through its partnership with local Jewish welfare organizations and programs. JDC supports the provision of aid for children and families, including medical aid, school supplies, utility payments, and emergency funding And through the Humanitarian Relief Fund, JDC provides financial assistance to families affected by the pandemic.
In 2013, JDC launched JCC Warsaw, a dynamic center of Jewish life in Poland’s largest city. JCC Warsaw offers educational, social, and cultural activities for all walks of Jewish life. A major venue for adult education, JCC Warsaw hosts monthly lectures, Hebrew lessons, parenting groups, holiday celebrations, and cultural events. Youth programming includes Moadon, a club where children learn about Jewish traditions; Uga, a club where parents and children cook and eat Shabbat dinner together; and Hultaj, a teen youth group. At the start of the pandemic, JCC Warsaw shifted its programming online, offering Hebrew lessons, cooking classes, teen activities, and children’s classes via Zoom.
In 2008, JDC helped found JCC Krakow, a hub for Jewish life and culture in Poland’s second-largest city. JCC Krakow’s 7@nite Synagogue Festival, first created and launched by JDC in 2011, is an annual night-festival that continues to bring visitors to seven synagogues throughout the city.
Through a wide array of seminars, camps, and workshops, JDC promotes the next generation of Jewish leadership in Poland.
JDC offers scholarships for youth to attend Szarvas, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation-JDC International Jewish Summer Camp in Hungary. For many children, Szarvas is their first introduction to the Jewish world, and many campers go on to occupy key leadership positions in their communities. JDC also supports the Madrich Training Program, a series of seminars for teens and young adults that aim to increase knowledge of Judaism and Jewish life, and prepare them to lead camps, year-round youth activities, and take on leadership positions in their communities.
Jewish community professionals are invited to apply for Yesod, an organization dedicated to strengthening Jewish Europe by investing in Jewish community professionals and educators. Young adults are invited to join Junction, a partnership between JDC, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, and Yesod that brings together young Jewish activists from across Europe to exchange ideas and build community. And through JDC’s Buncher Community Leadership Program, JDC plays an important role in training Jewish community professionals and volunteer leadership across Poland.
JDC provides lifesaving aid to Poland’s most vulnerable Jews through its partnership with local Jewish welfare organizations and programs. JDC supports the provision of aid for children and families, including medical aid, school supplies, utility payments, and emergency funding And through the Humanitarian Relief Fund, JDC provides financial assistance to families affected by the pandemic.
In 2013, JDC launched JCC Warsaw, a dynamic center of Jewish life in Poland’s largest city. JCC Warsaw offers educational, social, and cultural activities for all walks of Jewish life. A major venue for adult education, JCC Warsaw hosts monthly lectures, Hebrew lessons, parenting groups, holiday celebrations, and cultural events. Youth programming includes Moadon, a club where children learn about Jewish traditions; Uga, a club where parents and children cook and eat Shabbat dinner together; and Hultaj, a teen youth group. At the start of the pandemic, JCC Warsaw shifted its programming online, offering Hebrew lessons, cooking classes, teen activities, and children’s classes via Zoom.
In 2008, JDC helped found JCC Krakow, a hub for Jewish life and culture in Poland’s second-largest city. JCC Krakow’s 7@nite Synagogue Festival, first created and launched by JDC in 2011, is an annual night-festival that continues to bring visitors to seven synagogues throughout the city.
Through a wide array of seminars, camps, and workshops, JDC promotes the next generation of Jewish leadership in Poland.
JDC offers scholarships for youth to attend Szarvas, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation-JDC International Jewish Summer Camp in Hungary. For many children, Szarvas is their first introduction to the Jewish world, and many campers go on to occupy key leadership positions in their communities. JDC also supports the Madrich Training Program, a series of seminars for teens and young adults that aim to increase knowledge of Judaism and Jewish life, and prepare them to lead camps, year-round youth activities, and take on leadership positions in their communities.
Jewish community professionals are invited to apply for Yesod, an organization dedicated to strengthening Jewish Europe by investing in Jewish community professionals and educators. Young adults are invited to join Junction, a partnership between JDC, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, and Yesod that brings together young Jewish activists from across Europe to exchange ideas and build community. And through JDC’s Buncher Community Leadership Program, JDC plays an important role in training Jewish community professionals and volunteer leadership across Poland.
JDC provides lifesaving aid to Poland’s most vulnerable Jews through its partnership with local Jewish welfare organizations and programs. JDC supports the provision of aid for children and families, including medical aid, school supplies, utility payments, and emergency funding And through the Humanitarian Relief Fund, JDC provides financial assistance to families affected by the pandemic.
A child at a JDC-supported Medem sanatorium. Miedzesyn, Poland. 1930.
Young children eating at a JDC-supported children’s home. Krakow, Poland.
Transporting supplies to a JDC warehouse. Warsaw, Poland. 1946 – 1947.
Seniors enjoy a kosher meal at the JDC-supported Jewish Community Center (JCC) Warsaw. Poland, 2004.
Photo credit: James Nubile.
Young adults playing a card game in summer camp near Krakow, Poland. Poland, 1960.
Photo credit: Jean Mohr
Men praying in a synagogue. Wroclaw, Poland. 1960.
Photo credit: Jean Mohr
A Passover cooking class at JCC Warsaw. Warsaw, Poland. 2018.
An adult Jewish education class at JCC Warsaw. Warsaw, Poland. 2018.
A main room at the JCC Warsaw. Warsaw, Poland. 2018.
An improv class for children at the JCC Warsaw. Warsaw, Poland. 2018.
Europe
|Entrée
Europe
|Dessert
Europe
|Entrée
8 cups flour
4 tbsp. yeast
¼ cup olive oil
About 1 ¾ cup water, warm but not boiling (400 ml)
About 7/8 cup sugar (165 grams)
1 tbsp. honey
1 tsp. salt
3 eggs, divided
I’ve been working on my recipe for over three years to achieve perfection. My challah is electrifyingly fluffy.
— Kaja Siczek
Teen coordinator at Warsaw JCC
1 big bowl
5 cups of wheat flour
2 packets of dry yeast
1.5 cups of warm milk
¼ cup of warm water
2 eggs
½ cup of powder sugar
2 tsp. of vanilla sugar
½ tsp. of salt
3 tbsp. of butter
1 bar of white chocolate
A dash of milk
1 tbsp. of butter
Food coloring of your choice
7 oz raw horseradish
5 oz raw beets
1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp salt
1/2 cup vinegar Chrein
1 fish head and bones (when buying your fish, ask the fish monger to keep the head and bones in a bag for you; if you’re filleting and cleaning your own fish, make sure to keep the head and bones)
1 carrot, peeled and sliced into rounds
1 onion, quartered
1 bay leaf
5 whole peppercorns
5 whole allspice berries
1 parsley stem
1 beet, peeled and quartered (optional)
Water
7 cups, carp, ground
3 cups, whitefish, ground (pickerel or rockfish, cod, and haddock are also acceptable replacements)
1 onion, chopped finely (you may fry your onion first for additional flavor; if doing this, take care not to brown onion)
1/2 cup matzah meal. (For a gluten-free alternative, replace this with GF matzah meal or omit altogether)
2 tbsp sugar
4 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
2 tbsp sunflower oil1 egg
Large lettuce or kale leaves, for presentation Equipment
1 jar
1 large pot
1 8-inch X 8-inch piece of cheesecloth
1 8-inch piece of kitchen twine
1 large serving dish
JDC
P.O. Box 4124
New York, NY 10163 USA
+1 (212) 687-6200
info@JDC.org