The annual Restoring Jewish Cemeteries of Poland: The Task Ahead conference, now in its second year, is scheduled to take place on July 1.
The virtual gathering seeks to build on last year’s conference and bring together Jewish and non-Jewish leaders, scholars, and activists from the United States, Israel, Poland, and throughout Europe to discuss protecting and restoring around 1,200 Jewish cemeteries in Poland, organizers have said.
The conference—held by the Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland organization, the Matzevah Foundation, the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, the World Jewish Restitution Organization, and the Chief Rabbinate of Poland—is expected to feature speakers including Polish Deputy Culture Minister Jarosław Sellin, Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, and Tal Ben-Ari Yaalon, the chargé d’affaires at the Israeli embassy in Warsaw.
Poland once was home to Europe’s largest Jewish population. For more than a thousand years, the country had a thriving, vibrant Jewish community. Just before World War II, its Jewish population numbered around 3.3 million, of whom 90 percent were killed during the Holocaust, according to the World Jewish Restitution Organization.
During the Holocaust and the intervening years, many of Poland's Jewish cemeteries were destroyed, abandoned or neglected, according to conference organizers.
“The purpose of this conference is to bring together Polish and international thought leaders and activists to discuss the major challenges of restoring and preserving Jewish Polish cemeteries, build partnerships and explore best practices to ensure that the legacy of victims and survivors be kept alive,” said Dan Oren, President of The Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland.
Gideon Taylor, Chair of Operations at the World Jewish Restitution Organization and Co-Chair of the Foundation for Jewish Heritage in Poland, said: “This international virtual gathering is of tremendous importance. It is about people coming together across oceans, joined by a common, sacred commitment to honor the rich cultural Jewish heritage of Poland before the Holocaust and to save and restore Poland’s Jewish cemeteries—the final resting place and monuments to a once great and thriving Jewish community.”
More details at: jewishheritagepoland.org/conference
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Source: World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO)