The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ) announces a new "ADOPT-A JEWISH-CEMETERY" initiative to help save Jewish cemeteries in Poland.

We invite individuals, families, groups, communities, and organizations who are interested in starting a commemoration project to partner with us. Projects can be as small as designing and mounting a memorial plaque to remind visitors and locals that a particular site is a Jewish cemetery (even if no headstones exist there today) or as large as erecting a fence, gate, or elaborate lapidarium-style memorial. Our goal is to engage new partners who have been wanting to do something here in Poland to physically commemorate a place, a family, or a community but who have not known where to turn for advice and help on the logistics, paperwork, and details. more»

The 17th century large baroque synagogue of Leczna on Boznicza Street (known as the Great Synagogue) is a rare survivor of the pre-War Jewish community. During the War the building was seriously damaged and afterward suffered from neglect and active dismantling by the local community.  Plans for demolition were discussed in the 1950s but fortunately withdrawn, and in the mid-1960s the building was reconstructed, with some modifications but largely preserving the synagogue's most significant architectural features, among them the central four-column brick bimah with ornamental renaissance-style cornices, and the two-columned brick Torah ark with decorative 17th century stucco details and ochre-colored Hebrew inscription "Know before whom you stand - before the King of the Kings; Holy, Blessed He".

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Between November 18-20 2014 an international scientific conference “Jewish Press in Poland. Yesterday and Today”, took place in the Synagogue Center of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Zamosc. The conference was organized by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, The Polish-Jewish Literature Studies Center and the International Centre for Research on the History and Cultural Heritage of the Jews of Central and Eastern at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. more»

The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland is undergoing efforts aimed at revitalizing the 18th century synagogue in Przysucha (mazowieckie province).We want to restore the synagogue and turn it into a vibrant cultural center that will serve the needs of the visiting Jewish groups and the local community. more»

REVITALIZATION OF THE RENAISSANCE SYNAGOGUE IN ZAMOSC FOR THE NEEDS OF THE CHASSIDIC ROUTE AND THE LOCAL COMMUNITY.

The Renaissance synagogue in the Zamosc Old City is one of the most spectacular monuments of Jewish heritage in Poland. The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland has been the owner of the building since 2005. Our goal is to transform the synagogue into a modern cultural institution that will serve both Jewish visitors to Zamosc and the local community. The opening of the  "Synagoge" Center took place on April 5th, 2011. The President of the Republic of Poland Bronislaw Komorowski assumed honorary patronage over the ceremony.

Within the framework of the project an activity “Restoration of the synagogue complex in Krasnik - phase I (protective works from further decay)” was also implemented. The works in Krasnik (a town 90 km away from Zamosc) were conducted in 2010.

The “Revitalization of the Renaissance synagogue in Zamosc for the needs of the Chassidic Route and the local community” project is supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. more»

Within the frames of the Chassidic Route project, the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, in cooperation with the Municipal Council of Krasnik, is carrying out the project of revitalizing the synagogue complex in Krasnik, aiming to create there a cultural center for youths and tourists. It is to become the most important element of the Chassidic Route, along with the synagogue in Zamosc.

In 2010 in the synagogue complex in Krasnik the 1st phase of restoration works was completed. The activity "Restoration of the synagogue complex in Krasnik - phase I (protective works from further decay)" was implemented within the framework of the project "Revitalization of the Renaissance synagogue in Zamosc for the needs of the Chassidic Route and the local community" which received a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. more»

The Foundation is very proud of its project known as the Chassidic Route, covering a large area in southeast Poland known for its high pre-War Jewish populations (in some towns Jews represented >60% of the total population) and rich religious and architectural legacy. The project has already been joined by 28 local Polish communities.

A map of the Chassidic Route can be downloaded on this website and used by descendants, family historians, and others planning ancestral heritage tours (an important and growing phenomenon in Poland) or wishing to visit sites along the historic routes of Jewish pilgrimage. It is our hope that the Chassidic Route project, in addition to exposing visitors, tourists, scholars, and students to rare and beautiful architectural survivors of pre-War Jewish culture, but also serve as an incentive forJewish descendants to come to Poland to reconnect with their family towns and roots. more»

On November 6-8, 2013 an International Multidisciplinary Academic Research Conference ‘Jan Karski – Witness, Emissary, Man’ took place at the Zamość 'Synagogue' Center of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland. The conference was organized by the Foundation in partnership with the Polish-Jewish Literature Studies Center at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland and The Union of Jewish Communities in Poland. The conference was held under the honorary patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland Bronisław Komorowski.

Project is co-financed by the Department of Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland within the framework of the contest 'Cooperation in the field of public diplomacy 2013'. more»

The  ‘Haverim – Friends. Polish-Jewish youth meetings’ derives directly from the ‘To Bring Memory Back’ educational program implemented by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland’ since 2005. more»

On June 19, 2009 Foundation for Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland signed the agreement with the Headquarters of Polish Prison Services. It concerns cooperation and organizing cleaning works on the Jewish cemeteries in Poland. Thanks to this agreement Foundation became the partner in the Polish and Israeli Prison Services project "Tikkun – Restoration". more»

We cannot ignore any acts of anti-Semitism; consequently, we inform appropriate authorities about all the recognized anti-Semitic incidents (leaflets dissemination, public speeches, graffiti) or acts of vandalism directed against Jewish heritage monuments in Poland.

We invite all the interested to read the list of anti-Semitic incidents reported by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland to the Public Prosecutor’s Office or the Police between 2003-2013.  more»

Multimedia web portal POLIN – Polish Jews’ Heritage www.polin.org.pl was established by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland in 2006. The aim of the project was to create a platform presenting information on the development of Jewish communities throughout Poland, the Holocaust and monuments of Jewish historical heritage. more»

In 2010, the Foundation for Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland and Peacework www.peacework.org have joined together to offer unique educational and service experiences around the Holocaust for American college and university students. more»

RESEARCH ON THE ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE JEWS AND THEIR HERITAGE, COOPERATION WITH LOCAL PARTNERS IN 15 SELECTED TOWNS, EDUCATION FOR TOLERANCE.

The goals of the project are:
To gather viable information on attitudes towards the Jews and their heritage;
To make the information gathered available to a large number of people;
To educate for tolerance;
To initiate local cross-sector collaboration towards the implementation of projects for tolerance. more»

The goal of the project is to restore the neglected Jewish cemetery in Izbica and to bring back its proper look. The project is coordinated by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland and supported by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany and by Tvschoenfilm, a German documentary producing company.  

Until the end of 2006 the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage had finished the first stage of the project, during which the following results were achieved:
- the matzevot, stolen during World War II and used to build a Gestapo prison in Izbica, were moved to the cemetery and secured;
- a monument commemorating the Jewish community of Izbica was erected at the cemetery;
- pamphlets presenting the history of Izbica were published in Polish and in English;
- a workshop on Jewish history and culture was organized for the students of the Izbica School Complex. more»

Our Foundation's primary mission is to protect and commemorate the surviving sites and monuments of Jewish cultural heritage in Poland. We also place high value on education. We are therefore  very excited to announce the 2015 re-launch of our “To Bring Memory Back” educational project.  The purpose of the project is to engage Polish students of secondary schools and high schools to discover the pre-war multicultural heritage of their towns. The program envisions using available archival information and testimonies of elderly locals, plus other historical data and resources, to reconstruct the history of the pre-war Jewish community. The “To Bring Memory Back” program is being supported by the Polin Museum of History of Polish Jews and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.

To read about the types of projects created by participating students in past years:
http://fodz.pl/PP/?d=1&l=en

And find this project now also on Facebook more»