Anna Włodek

There are two parts to these high school workshops – the first is held at the Jewish cemetery at Gliwicka street in Tarnowskie Góry, the second back in the school. The workshops aim to arouse students’ interest in the town’s multicultural history, but also in Judaism and Jewish culture in general. In the course of these sessions, I try to address many aspects of Jewish identity so that as many participants as possible find something of interest that may prompt them to further study, read or conduct meetings related to the topic. At the cemetery, I begin by presenting students with a short overview of the site characteristics and its history. I talk about significance of the cemeteries for observant Jews, I introduce rules of conduct in such sites. Next, I hand out supplementary materials with some of the most popular tombstone inscriptions in Hebrew translated into Polish.

Students then have time for individual explorations to find inscriptions they are able to decipher. I also ask them to photograph symbols whose meanings seem unclear. We discuss all of this later, sharing newly gained knowledge and any doubts. In a sense, we “meet” at least some of those buried at the local Jewish cemetery. The supplementary handouts also include information on the Jewish calendar, so that we can place the date of our visit in the context of the Jewish year. The workshops are always held between September and October, which gives me a wonderful excuse to tell students about Rosh ha-Shanah or Yom Kippur. We continue talking about Jewish holidays in the second session back in the school, in the course of which we use materials prepared by older students from Multicultural Dialogue club and internet sources to learn about contemporary Jewish life in Poland.