We invite you to a meeting with Dorota Bidzińska, journalist, reporter, and author of the book "Republic of the Devout. The Hasidic History of Poland". ✨ November 26, 6:00 PM, ul. Anielewicza 6, Warsaw Host: Katarzyna Jankowska Dorota Bidzińska traveled through Hasidic Poland – once the spiritual center of Europe, now a collection of half-forgotten stories and an atlas of cemeteries. She visited places marked by the presence of mystics, tracing not only the footsteps of the most important leaders and teachers, but also others without whom this history would be incomplete: women, contemporary Hasidim, artists, and guardians of memory. This is how a book was created about a culture where song was prayer and dance – a celebration. About faith that meant community, imagination, and rebellion. About memory that endures in stories, in music, in annual pilgrimages to the graves of tzaddiks. And about the Holocaust, which interrupted this world but did not invalidate it. This is not a journey into the past. It is a meeting with what remains and still returns. "How to write about Jewish life here in Poland without the word 'Holocaust' devouring everything alive? And at the same time, not to close oneself in a drawer labeled 'Fiddler on the Roof and goose necks'? Not to drown all those lives woven of blood and flesh in a space tailored to folklore, where they are forever frozen in caftans, with a glass of pejsachówka and a witty joke. With a goat in the room or without. Absolutely paper and dead."
