Institute of Jewish Studies

Thursday January 21st 2016

ONE-DAY CONFERENCE

Organised by the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies and the

Institute of Jewish Studies, UCL. Co-organised and supported by

the Embassy of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Cultural

Institute, London. 

Venue: Embassy of the Republic of Poland,

47 Portland Place, London W1B 6JH

Registration fee: £15  Student concession: £10, plus booking charges. 

Reservation is essential, online only:

The conference marks the launch of Studies in Polish Jewry:

POLIN VOLUME 28- Jewish Writing in Poland.

Since the Enlightenment, the cultural creativity of Polish Jews has found expression not only in Hebrew and Yiddish, but increasingly in Polish. There has been mutual and dynamic interaction between the cultural systems, but until the end of communism the trilingual Jewish culture of Poland was little studied. In this conference, scholars will investigate writers from across this spectrum and consider how they saw their Jewish (and sometimes Polish) identity, and what they thought of authors in the other linguistic or cultural camps. Together their work constitutes the first examination of Jewish literatures in Poland from the point of view of both linguistic and geographic diversity. The interwar years serve as the reference point, but material on the period before the First World War and since 1945 is also included. 

The conference will conclude with the screening of Raise the Roof (USA 2015), an inspiring documentary about the reconstruction of the synagogue of Gwoździec, now at the centre of the exhibition in the new Polin Museum of History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. 

For more information on the speakers and to download the programme please see below:

Jewish Writing in Poland