Krakow Jewish Festival draws thousands amid renewed interest in Poland's Jewish heritage

(JNS) - KRAKOW, POLAND-Thousands of people converged on the historic Jewish quarter of the southern Polish city of Krakow last week to attend the annual Krakow Jewish Festival, in the largest such event on the continent.

The festival, which was initially launched three-and-a-half decades ago for a non-Jewish audience in a country where Jews were decimated during the Holocaust, was held amid a wave of global antisemitism across the globe, spurred by the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel and as a new generation of young Poles has discovered a shared past in their mixed history.

"We se...