By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use LGBTQ+ activists in a flash mob at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw in June 2020 after Polish President Andrzej Duda signed homophobic legislation Łańcut County was the last locale with such a zone and now its governing body has voted to abolish it to avoid losing European Union funding The last “LGBTQ-free zone” in Poland has been abolished The governing council of Łańcut County voted last Thursday to repeal the resolution that created the zone, formally called a Charter of Family Rights, Notes From Poland reports Council members made clear, however, that they were motivated only by financial considerations. The European Union is withholding funds from cities and counties that had such zones “The [council] is of the view that the over 80,000-strong community of Łańcut County cannot be deprived of benefits resulting from participation in many programs and grants,” said a statement from the council The decision “is therefore aimed solely at preventing the exclusion of residents of Łańcut County.” The county’s only hospital stood to lose 175,600 Euros Nearly 100 municipalities adopted the Charters of Family Rights after the far-right Law and Justice Party won control of Parliament in 2019. Łańcut County had been the first. Some did not specifically mention LGBTQ+ people they express support for marriage as being exclusively between a man and a woman and pledge to ‘protect children from moral corruption’ (language often used as part of anti-LGBT rhetoric) Many have been brought down in court cases Law and Justice lost its majority in Parliament in late 2023. There is now a governing coalition of liberal and centrist parties, and Donald Tusk, a moderate, has succeeded Mateusz Morawiecki as prime minister. Conservative Andrzej Duda remains president but the president has less power than the prime minister Duda is term-limited and will not be up for reelection this year He has endorsed fellow right-winger Karol Nawrocki in the election LGBTQ+ activists who created an “Atlas of Hate” to map the LGBTQ-free zones welcomed the Łańcut County move while noting that it was due to pressure from the E.U over a hundred discriminatory anti-LGBT resolutions and family charters have disappeared from Poland,” Paulina Pająk told broadcaster TVN “These resolutions were an extreme manifestation of systemic discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.” “I am very glad that this stage is coming to an end,” added Jakub Gawron “But that does not change the fact that these resolutions should not have been passed at all.” Apr 27, 2025 | Law, Politics, Society Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers We cannot do what we do without your support The last local authority in Poland to still have an anti-LGBT+ resolution in place has repealed the measure around one third of the country’s area was covered by such resolutions in large part due to the threat of losing European funds The “Atlas of Hate” showing local authorities in Poland that have active anti-LGBT resolutions (in red) and those that have rejected or withdrawn them (in green) Areas in yellow show where lobbying for such resolutions has taken place councillors in the county of Łańcut in southeast Poland held an extraordinary session with just one item on the agenda: whether to retain or repeal a so-called “charter of family rights” they had adopted in 2019 A majority of 13 out of the 18 council members voted to repeal it In a statement issued afterwards the local authorities made clear that the decision had been made for financial reasons: due to the charter being in place the county’s only medical centre is set to miss out on 750,000 zloty (€175,600) in EU funds “The [council] is of the view that the over 80,000-strong community of Łańcut county cannot be deprived of benefits resulting from participation in many programmes and grants,” they wrote Their decision “is therefore aimed solely at preventing the exclusion of residents of Łańcut county” This is a final appeal for our emergency campaign to save Notes from Poland we may lose the major grant that sustains our work If you value the service we provide, please click below and make a donation to help it continue https://t.co/0gVkMlaA0W — Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 22, 2025 over 100 local authorities around Poland adopted anti-LGBT+ resolutions Some specifically declared their regions to be “free from LGBT ideology” but most were the so-called “charters of family rights” which do not mention the term “LGBT” specifically Instead, they express support for marriage as being exclusively between a man and a woman and pledge to “protect children from moral corruption” (language often used as part of anti-LGBT rhetoric) After repealing its charter of family rights Łańcut council maintained that it had “not contained any provisions discriminating against any group of people or individuals” It hit out at the “aggressive” and “unfair” criticism the resolution had faced “It shows that the people or groups criticising the resolution in question probably did not even familiarise themselves with its entire contents,” wrote the local authority A local authority that was the first of many in Poland to adopt a resolution declaring itself “free from LGBT ideology” has now voted to withdraw the measure It did so under the threat of losing millions in EU funding over the issue https://t.co/kNP4jaSlhm — Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 2, 2023 the LGBT rights activists behind the creation of an online “Atlas of Hate” that has mapped Poland’s anti-LGBT resolutions told broadcaster TVN of their “relief and satisfaction” at Łańcut’s decision “Thanks to the efforts of many people over a hundred discriminatory anti-LGBT resolutions and family charters have disappeared from Poland,” said Paulina Pająk “These resolutions were an extreme manifestation of systemic discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.” “I am very glad that this stage is coming to an end,” added Jakub Gawron “But that does not change the fact that these resolutions should not have been passed at all.” Gawron also noted the important role the EU had played in bringing about the repeal of all the resolutions by prohibiting financing of projects involving local authorities that adopt discriminatory resolutions Uchwała SKPR powiatu łańcuckiego została uchylona Na bloga puściliśmy podsumowanie historii stref i Atlasu Nienawiści Uprzedzam – komunikat jest długi, bo dużo się działo przez te 6 lat 📷https://t.co/eJFSjpusIj pic.twitter.com/sTFn6Xf2Zi — Atlas Nienawiści | Atlas of Hate ✨🦋| 🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈 (@AtlasNienawisci) April 24, 2025 In July 2021, the European Commission launched legal proceedings against Poland due to its anti-LGBT resolutions which it argued “may violate EU law regarding non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation” Soon after, Brussels “put on hold” funding for Polish regions that had passed such resolutions who were informed that “declaring LGBTIQ-free/unwelcome territories…constitutes an action that is against the values set out in the Treaty on European Union” The EEA and Norway Grants programme, which is separate from the EU and provides funds to Polish local authorities, also announced that it would not finance projects run by places that have passed anti-LGBT+ resolutions Poland has been ranked as the worst country in the EU for LGBT+ people for the fifth year in a row https://t.co/5ciljeroir — Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) May 15, 2024 Most of the resolutions were passed with the support of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party which led Poland’s national government at the time During PiS’s time in power, it led a vociferous campaign against what it called “LGBT ideology” and “gender ideology”. As a result, Poland slid to be ranked as the worst country in the EU for LGBT+ people President Duda has not signed into law a government bill criminalising anti-LGBT+ hate speech Instead, he has sent it to the constitutional court for consideration, saying he has concerns it violates the right to free speech enshrined in the constitution https://t.co/jLHQvlCtup — Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 17, 2025 Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications , , The proportion of Poles saying the US has a positive influence on the world has also fallen to its lowest recorded level , , Poland has recorded the strongest rise in consumer sentiment across the EU this year , , , The stunt has also been criticised by Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland as well as politicians from Poland’s main ruling party Apr 30, 2025 | , , , That response will include “large Polish and NATO exercises in Poland” Apr 29, 2025 | , , , Those employed in Poland work on average the third-longest hours in the European Union Apr 28, 2025 | , , , , Westinghouse and Bechtel were first chosen in 2022 as partners on the 192 billion zloty ($51 billion) project please consider helping us to continue and expand it [email protected] Copyright © 2025 Notes From Poland | Design jurko studio | Code by 2sides.pl Senior Research Fellow at the Global Europe Centre ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR Weronika Strzyżyńska is currently studying journalism at Goldsmiths as a Scott Trust Bursary recipient She  has written on issues immigration and Brexit for New Statesman and Prospect Agnieszka Wądołowska is managing editor of Notes from Poland She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and assistant professor of history at the Pedagogical University of Krakow The Independent and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR Stanley Bill is the founder and editor-at-large of Notes from Poland.He is also Senior Lecturer in Polish Studies and Director of the Polish Studies Programme at the University of Cambridge Stanley has spent more than ten years living in Poland He founded Notes from Poland in 2014 as a blog dedicated to personal impressions cultural analysis and political commentary He is committed to the promotion of deeper knowledge and understanding of Poland He is the Chair of the Board of the Notes from Poland Foundation ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR Professor of European Studies at Oxford University ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR Professor at the Institute of History of the Jagiellonian University ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR Executive Director of Taube Family Foundation ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR Associate Professor at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Science ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR The last local authority in Poland with an “LGBT-free zone” resolution has repealed the measure Advocates are hailing the move as a significant victory The repeal marks a reversal from just a few years ago representing one-third of the country’s area passed laws either directly or indirectly encouraging the exclusion of LGBTQ people from society Some of those localities passed “family charters” emphasizing that marriage is restricted for opposite-sex couples Other cities or voivodeships (provinces) declared themselves “free from LGBT ideology,” seeking to prohibit the dissemination of information that depicts LGBTQ identity or relationships as normal or promotes LGBTQ rights Former U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders were immensely critical of such laws seeing them as an attack on human rights and the dignity of LGBTQ people Last week, council members in the county of Łańcut, in southeast Poland, held a special session to repeal a “charter of family rights” that was passed in 2019. Thirteen of the 18 council members voted for repeal, reports Notes from Poland the council members also made clear that the reason they voted for repeal was due to financial reasons including the potential loss of 750,000 zloty ($200,000) in funding from the county’s sole medical center “Despite the fact that the Local Government Charter of Family Rights is not illegal the Łańcut County Board is of the opinion that it is not possible to exclude the over eighty thousand-strong community of Łańcut County by depriving them of participation and benefits resulting from participation in many programs and grants awarded by government institutions,” the council wrote “The adopted resolution is therefore aimed solely at counteracting the exclusion of residents of Łańcut County.” The council also complained about the way the charter of family rights was portrayed in the media as “anti-LGBT,” despite never explicitly mentioning the LGBTQ community The council also argued that the country’s Commissioner for Human Rights never expressed any problems or issues with the resolution — though it should be noted that both the current and former commissioners were appointed by the Polish Parliament by the right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS) That party, like many of its right-wing counterparts around the world, has urged localities to pass such ordinances under the guise of “protecting children” and frequently uses LGBTQ identity as a wedge issue in political campaigns In July 2021, the European Commission launched legal proceedings against Poland due to its “LGBT-free” resolutions arguing that the statutes likely violated EU law by discriminating against people based on sexual orientation the European Union froze funding for Polish regions that had passed such laws which is distinct from the EU and provides funds to Polish local authorities announced it would not finance projects run by governments with anti-LGBTQ resolutions in place LGBTQ rights advocates — including those who created the “Atlas of Hate,” a map outlining where anti-LGBTQ laws are in place — celebrated the repeal “I am very glad that this stage is coming to an end,” Jakub Gawron Cincinnati Pride announced it will cut ties with several corporate sponsors in response to the companies' decisions to eliminate diversity and inclusion (DEI) policies and initiatives The organization acknowledged that it would be a struggle to replace the funding for its annual Pride parade But it has also said it is essential to stand by its values which include respect for the history and diverse culture of the LGBTQ community Cincinnati Pride says it doesn't want to work with corporate sponsors that are viewed as hostile to those values and would rather work with companies that have demonstrated a genuine ongoing commitment to LGBTQ causes throughout the calendar year according to Cincinnati NBC affiliate WLWT The Human Rights Campaign PAC has endorsed Democrat Abigail Spanberger to be the next governor of Virginia The endorsement by the nation's largest LGBTQ advocacy organization comes at a time when some Democrats are urging members of their party to distance themselves from the LGBTQ community one of the more conservative members of the Democratic House Caucus during her six years in the U.S has been praised by some pundits for her criticism of left-leaning voices within the Democratic Party House and Senate Democrats have reintroduced their respective versions of the Equality Act a landmark civil rights bill prohibiting discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity which passed the House of Representatives in previous years under Democratic-led leadership would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to enshrine protections for LGBTQ people But it has never been able to gain the 60 votes needed to start debate on the bill or overcome a potential filibuster in the Senate It stands little chance of currently passing either chamber as long as Republicans control Congress Under the previous conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government around one hundred local authorities adopted measures declaring themselves ‘LGBT-free zones’ or opposing what they referred to as ‘LGBT ideology’ These declarations drew sharp criticism from human rights organisations as well as the European Union Brussels responded by suspending cohesion funds for regions that passed such resolutions arguing they violated the EU’s core values the Supreme Administrative Court ruled that the declarations infringed upon the dignity and private lives of certain groups of residents and stressed that the state has a duty to protect all its citizens — including minorities Following this ruling and financial pressure from the EU most of the resolutions were eventually withdrawn leaving Łańcut as the last municipality where such a measure remained in place known for his interactive ‘Atlas of Hate’ map highlighting areas with such resolutions described the council’s vote as a significant message “councillors have learnt a lesson not to be swayed by propaganda that appeals to their emotions,” Polish Radio reports The Hungarian government has banned the annual Pride march and legally defined gender as strictly male or female These changes are part of a series of controversial constitutional amendments passed b… Greece has announced a new legislative amendment that makes it impossible for gay and single men to become parents through surrogacy Minister of Justice Giorgos Floridis presented the amendment You must enable JavaScript to submit this form Made by Violet88 to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic We also share information about your use of our site with our social media and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you’ve provided to them or that they’ve collected from your use of their services You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website Narodowy Bank Polski is putting into circulation commemorative coins of the series “Discover Poland” The 5 złoty commemorative coin, with a decorative reverse featuring the image of the castle in Łańcut, has been minted in circulation standard in up to 1,000,000 pieces. It will be possible to exchange the coin at its face value at all NBP regional branches remained in the hands of the Lubomirski family and then of their heirs but also a place where public and cultural life thrived Over the centuries it hosted numerous guests which was of strategic importance for the whole of south-eastern Poland two-storey palace with four towers in the corners inscribed in a regular pentagon of old Dutch-type bastion fortifications the former fortress was transformed into a comfortable luxuriously furnished residence surrounded by a park The reconstruction was initiated by the last of the family after whose death the Duchess’s grandson The entail established by him in 1830 meant that the entire estate together with the castle survived was maintained thanks to its modern agro-industrial character the building once again underwent reconstruction which gave it its present shape and appearance The position and importance of the owners of the castle is evidenced today by its art collections and the large book collection The interiors of the castle are distinguished by the richness of style and architectural craftsmanship of the individual suites abounding in original decorations – baroque whose designers were prominent Polish and foreign architects and decorators The individual rooms are furnished and decorated with sets of furniture paintings and other works of art and objects of daily use appropriate to their function The castle is surrounded by a vast park with historic buildings such as the Stables and Coach House the Horticultural House and the revitalised Orchid House There are also plenty of sports facilities and small architecture the Łańcut castle and its historic surroundings were converted into a museum More information can be found in the brochure The next issue is scheduled on14 November 2024 Narodowy Bank Polski will be putting into circulation two silver collector coins of the series “The Enduring Soldiers Accursed by the Communists” – “Henryk Flame ‘Bartek’” and “Rev Contact for collectors: e-mail kolekcjoner@nbp.pl Contact for the media: e-mail press@nbp.pl Narodowy Bank Polski holds the exclusive right to issue banknotes and coins in Poland Issuing collector items is an occasion to commemorate historic figures and anniversaries as well as to develop the interest of the public in Polish culture High-resolution images of the coins: https://nbp.pl/en/coins-and-banknotes/collector-coins/catalogue/ Poland – Point guard Corey Sanders dribbled the ball near the foul line then made an efficient entry pass to big man Adam Kent who laid the ball off the backboard for a first-quarter basket here on a Sunday afternoon last month the former Kathleen High star from Lakeland gave a quick thumbs up with both hands to American teammate Kent as they played on the road in the top pro basketball league in Poland Being adept at non-verbal communication comes in handy for Sanders, 26, who has travelled the globe – or at least a good swath of Europe – since his three-year run ended at Rutgers but the international game of basketball helps ease the transition His overseas hoops odyssey began in the eastern European country of Georgia in 2019 and it was a four-month gig,” Sanders recalls You are kind of excited because you are playing professionally Since then, he has played in Portugal, Italy, Greece, the Dominican Republic, Israel, and Lithuania. He also played in two games with the Lakeland Magic of the NBA G League in 2019-20 my biggest thing was to play in the NBA,” says Sanders standing near a baseline here after the game in southeast Poland making it to The League is goal number one going into college at a Power Five school “It never really crossed my mind about going overseas until I have seen guys like Brandon Jennings go overseas,” Sanders says of California native Jennings one of the first Americans to go straight from high school to pro hoops overseas before joining Milwaukee of the NBA the next year “It started being something that was on my mind.” took the more conventional route to a pro career After playing at Kathleen and as a senior at West Oaks Academy in Orlando the 6-foot-2 Sanders averaged at least 12.8 points 3.1 assists and 1.3 steals per contest in each of his three seasons of college in New Jersey He declared for the NBA draft as an early entry in 2018 – but wasn’t chosen he has gone where the basketball has taken him The style of play is different in Europe – there is more defensive pressure on every possession compared to the NBA – and so is the culture and marketing with at least five ads on both the front and back of Sanders’ black jersey “The best part is that I get to do what I love every day,” he says “I wake up and get to play basketball and I am healthy “The worst part of it is not being able to see my family and my kids and being so far away,” the point guard said “There is a six-hour difference with the time zone That is where the (culture) shock comes in I found my (life) recipes and ways to get over it.” He has a daughter who is 7 and a son who just turned 3 and they live in Lakeland His daughter came to visit him when he was playing in Portugal “Every possession over here is important because everybody knows how to take advantage of your mistakes Most of the guys have been professionals for a long time especially the guys who are from Europe,” Sanders says “I feel like (the Europeans) have the ups on us The rules are different and there are things that go your way or not go your way.” He spent the 2020-21 season with Bydgoszcz he joined Lancut and averaged 17.7 points and 6.8 assists per contest the rest of the way He had other options for this season but returned to Sokol Lancut but it seems to allow me to lock in,” Sanders says Sanders is averaging 12.3 points and 6.3 assists per game That is not always the case for some European mentors which causes added challenges for American players who haven’t picked up the local language Lukomski spent a good part of the first quarter of the game last month yelling Get back!” after Sokol Lancut scored a basket at the other end Lancut is a town of about 18,000 people in southeast Poland and the team made the drive of about 90 miles north to play in Lublin A few diehard fans of the Lancut club were on hand the players for Sokol Lancut showed their appreciation after the game to its rabid followers The best: Which Polk County football student sections bring the spirit? The game was back-and-forth in the first half before the hosts took a 19-point lead early in the fourth quarter Lancut almost trimmed the lead to single digits before falling 99-83 as Sanders had 12 points and seven assists while playing 26 of 40 minutes The American teammates of Sanders are Kemp who is from upstate New York and played at Marist a guard from Georgia who ended his college career at Akron in 2020 Sanders keeps in touch with his children who live with their mother “I watch a lot of Netflix and ESPN,” he said Sanders said he feels comfortable living in Europe – and tells his friends who haven’t been overseas as much I am here for nine months out of the year,” said Sanders There is just something about being overseas (Local residents) understand I am here to play basketball I try to stay in the good graces of everyone.” And that approach has led to a pro career much different than the one he hoped for in the NBA Sofonisba Anguissola (1532?–1625) has been lauded as one of the most prolific portrait painters of the early modern period but her devotional images have been largely understudied This essay examines her Self-Portrait with Madonna and Child a painting showcasing both Sofonisba’s style and that of other artists as a form of emulative adaptation: in her visible imitation while also alluding to her fitness for such a position through the embedded devotional image The Self-Portrait with Madonna and Child features Sofonisba gazing out at the audience painting an image of the Madonna and Child her brush coloring the flesh of Christ (fig The Madonna is youthful and idealized with her hand gently cupping the back of a nude Christ Child’s head while the other delicately rests against his cheek in preparation for a symbolic nuptial kiss Sofonisba inserts herself into Boccaccio’s history of illustrious women from his Concerning Famous Women (1374).1 In his text Boccaccio refers to women from all different stations but he specifically describes three famous classical artists She was known for her chastity and was often conflated with the Madonna in the early modern period.2 It is likely that Sofonisba would have read Boccaccio’s text and may have identified with Thamyris.3 By painting the Madonna Sofonisba places herself in dialogue with Thamyris her own desire for recognition as an artist.4 This desire was further exemplified by the fact that she sent such images to powerful courts throughout Europe her future employer.5 Such images could have functioned as an informal sort of job interview in which Sofonisba marketed her skills to appeal to the courts she turned to Baldassare Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier (1528) for a description of how the ideal courtier could represent herself.6 Castiglione’s work features an open dialogue between various members of the Gonzaga Court in Urbino but early modern readers viewed the text as prescriptive.7 It is this sort of reading that likely informed Sofonisba’s self-portrayal she goes beyond an austere self-fashioning directly fitting into one of the ways an ideal courtier could dress according to Castiglione Sofonisba’s expression in her self-portrait is “grave and sober,” as she wears a plain black dress with a high neckline which respectively aligns with Castiglione’s description of an ideal courtier as she paints with the most “pleasing” color and shows the “sobriety which the Spanish nation so much observes.”8 She signals key characteristics that Castiglione ascribed to the ideal courtier: modesty and sprezzatura—an affected appearance of ease Sofonisba shows her propensity for labor in her partially rotated pose All are signs emblematic of the diligenza she employs in her art and By relying on the prescriptions of Castiglione in her self-fashioning Sofonisba presents herself as a courtier before ever working at a court and she demonstrates her ease of assimilation in this performance as a courtier which Castiglione esteems as a positive characteristic for a courtier as shown through the two modes and two styles in which she paints fluidly Sofonisba paints in a manner established for her other self-portraits she employs the manners of Correggio and Parmigianino This oscillation is also representative of an affected appearance of ease Her self-fashioning reflects the concerns of Castiglione’s court and her own desire to adapt to such a setting Sofonisba portrays herself according to Castiglione’s outline and the embedded easel painting in the Self-Portrait may further show her ability to assimilate her style to that of other artists which Michael Cole contends Sofonisba aspired to be.9 Assimilation acted as the mechanism by which Sofonisba would be able to become a court artist as the Spanish sought continuity in their portraits.10 The Madonna and Child is rendered in a style different from the one she uses to portray herself and akin to that of the painters Correggio and Parmigianino Sofonisba would have been exposed to the style of Correggio through her teacher Bernardino Campi and she may have seen Parmigianino’s work through the large number of prints he disseminated throughout his career.11 Sofonisba’s Madonna resembles the Madonna of Correggio’s Virgin Adoring the Christ Child (fig borrowing Correggio’s soft portrayal of flesh Sofonisba’s Christ Child also adopts Correggio’s blonde fine curls visible in works such as Madonna and Child with an Angel (fig This is in contrast to the figures in her early non-devotional genre scenes in which her sisters are shown in a non-idealized fashion but with a naturalism characteristic of Lombard art.12 Sofonisba’s embedded canvas alludes to Correggio but her image is not a one-to-one copy of Corregesque style The limbs of the Virgin closely parallel the long sinuous body shape of the Madonna from Parmigianino’s Madonna of the Long Neck (fig The Christ Child is similarly composed of Parmigianino-esque features with a thinner body and a jutting hip: this infant does not echo the pudgy children of Correggio but instead heightens the sexual nature of Parmigianino’s images The sexualization of the pose of the Child is further carried out through the nuptial kiss shared with his mother There is no other image in Sofonisba’s oeuvre that is so sexualized a nuptial kiss in which the Madonna is at once ‘sposa madre e figlia’ to Christ as the bridegroom the Madonna was generally shown holding Christ but they were not usually engaged in a kiss.13 In contrast Margaret features a sexual charge between the saint and Christ Child (fig Margaret looks longingly and kneels before the Christ Child on his mother’s lap and she leans close though does not directly kiss the Christ Child This sexualized religious image was not unusual for Parmigianino who appears to adapt her subject manner and style to be more like Parmigianino’s her Maria Lactans and Holy Family with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist feature rounded and chubby-limbed infants as opposed to the Self-Portrait Christ Child’s bonier body Sofonisba demonstrates her stylistic range showing her proclivity for adaptation as a form of imitation as a means of navigating between different forms of grace While Sofonisba’s self-portrayal in the Self-Portrait is unornamented following the conventions outlined in Agnolo Firenzuola’s 1548 treatise.14 As Elizabeth Cropper discusses in her article on Parmigianino’s paintings Firenzuola defined ideal female beauty in specific terms equating the perfect silhouette with that of a capital.15 As the tenets put forth by Firenzuola were perhaps inspired by Parmigianino’s Madonna of the Long Neck there is a capital in the Parmigianino painting echoing the beauty of Parmigianino’s perfected Madonna includes a capital next to the Madonna in her Self-Portrait presumably as an analog for the Madonna’s beauty The capital’s inclusion acts as a purposeful allusion to the kind of grace promulgated and articulated by Parmigianino and Correggio as opposed to the less idealized grace of Sofonisba’s own style.16 Her easy navigation between the two distinct types of grace is a kind of performance for which Castiglione coined a term in his Book of the Courtier: sprezzatura.17 Sofonisba’s self-fashioning as a courtier is a kind of affected performance but the canvas within the self-portrait can be considered a performance in its own right Sofonisba not only thinks about the appearance of courtly manners but also about Correggio and Parmigianino’s type of invention the oscillation between styles and inventions heightens the appearance of sprezzatura the negotiation between her own style and Correggio’s and Parmigianino’s becomes part of the painting’s mission Sofonisba was not just considering Castiglione’s text as a prescriptive manual for the courtier: she was engaging with and interpreting the text identifying ways to make her own form of sprezzatura recognizable in her work I contend that through her emulative adaptation the demonstration of her ability to assimilate to the style of others Sofonisba gained a position at the court of Philip II there are still many unanswered questions regarding this work and others like it: What other forms of imitation did Sofonisba practice How do her devotional images reshape the artist’s oeuvre provide future avenues of scholarship surrounding this standout Renaissance artist: here’s looking at her.18 Emma Lazerson received her BA from Emory University in 2022 and is currently a first-year MA candidate in Art History at Case Western Reserve University Her research focuses on early modern Italian female artists Sofonisba’s Lesson (Princeton: Princeton University Press Renaissance Self-Portraiture (New Haven: Yale University Press “I prefer [the courtier] always [in dress] to tend a little more toward the grave and sober rather than the foppish I think that black is more pleasing in clothing than any other color; and if not black then at least some color on the dark side…I would have our Courtier’s dress show that sobriety which the Spanish nation so much observes since external things often bear witness to inner things.” Baldassare Castiglione There has been little scholarship directly relating to Sofonisba’s imitation “New and Improved: Repetition as Originality in Italian Baroque Practice and Theory,” The Art Bulletin 86 Loh discusses both the early modern notion of misto or mixing other styles into one composition For a discussion of the Spanish interest in copying practices among their court artists The First Great Woman Artist of the Renaissance (New York: Rizzoli regarding Sofonisba’s introduction to Correggio’s style Painters of Reality: The Legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy (New Haven: Yale University Press Christ and the Madonna as bridegroom and bride was a common theme In these medieval examples the two actors were usually represented as close in age “Art of the Misbegotten: Physicality and the Divine in Renaissance Images,” Artibus et Historiae 30 and the Vernacular Style,” The Art Bulletin 58 Konrad Eisenbichler and Jacqueline Murray (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press “Amazing Grace: Parmigianino’s ‘Vision of Saint Jerome’,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 58 “…practice in all things a certain sprezzautra so as to conceal all art and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it And I believe much grace comes of this: because everyone knows the difficulty of things that are rare and well done; wherefore facility in such things causes the greatest wonder.” Castiglione Here I reference the titles of Perlingieri’s book and Mary Garrard’s “Here’s Looking at Me: Sofonisba Anguissola and the Problem of the Woman Artist,” Renaissance Quarterly 47 These authors were some of the first modern scholars to write about Sofonisba This essay is indebted to their contributions View all posts As a Reform Jew growing up in suburban New York antisemitism seemed as removed from my own experience as Sunday school stories of Jonah and the Whale No matter the lessons of “Never Again,” no matter the concentration camp films no matter Elie Wiesel and the mandatory Holocaust education in my public school my own experience was one of complete acceptance in American society When these efforts would end in a pitch for my contemporary support of Israel I couldn’t make the connection: why do these past events as I learned about and questioned the occupation the answer I heard most recalled foremost the destruction of the Jews during the Holocaust seemingly salving our contemporary dilemma with past injustices perpetrated against us I was taught that each human is made in G-d’s image (Genesis 1:27) and yet no connection was made to our ancestors’ suffering and that of innocent Palestinians today unable to connect with my fellow American Fulbright peers who were not Jewish and for whom this did not evoke communal nightmares to see the need to combat anti-Semitism in this part of the world the country which homed my sheltered childhood where I felt the soothing sense of security and belonging upon landing at Ben Gurion on the Warsaw-Tel Aviv route Living in Poland showed me the need for a home for every human and the particular need for a Jewish home for our people It hit me: those Holocaust films weren’t so long ago I now aspire to a Zionism that holds both the unending need for a Jewish homeland and the humanistic Jewish need for a better world That means fighting unjust immigration policy in America the deportation of asylum seekers in Israel and for the establishment of a Palestinian state That means teaching “Never Again” for all people not just Ashkenazi Jews and not just those in the tribe particularly against our more traditional and orthodox fellow Jews I know our Reform community is uniquely situated to help and as a young Jew I need our community to continue to lead and do more The stories of biblical times and the generation of my grandparents hold warnings and inspirations for today Let us commit as Reform Jews to heed their warnings and strive for their inspirations Sam Rubin is the presidential executive fellow at the Union for Reform Judaism where he studied Polish-Jewish relations and contributed to The Forward Koelner Rawplug reports that its EN 14399 sets manufactured at its Łańcut factory in Poland are one of its fastest developing products in its sales portfolio Koelner Rawplug is clear that there is no place for unreliability “Defining and preventing potential risks before producing HV sets is the key to success and building long-term customer trust,” explains Koelner Rawlplug we know that we are not just selling a product but also the reliability and safety of the connections that our products create We know our customers and we know that they need a product that is reliable and easy to use with no room for compromise in either of those key areas Our offer of EN 14399-4/6 sets is a direct response to the requirements of our customers The HV high strength bolts are produced at Koelner Rawlplug’s Łańcut factory which is often described by visitors and customers as one of the most modern fastener production sites in Europe – thanks to the modern machinery advanced technology and over 65 years of experience of producing fasteners “Thanks to the continuous modernisation of the Łańcut factory machine park it has become one of the most modern production plants in the fastener industry – widely recognised for its reliability and high production standards,” points out Koelner Rawlplug “Products with the ŁF mark are well known for meeting even the strictest customer requirements – with fasteners made in the Łańcut factory suitable for a wide variety of industries from automotive to construction building.” Almost all processes in the cycle of production are performed on-site in Łańcut which ensures independence and absolute certainty of maintaining the highest production standards In addition to its vast manufacturing capabilities with Koelner Rawlplug sets available from M12 – M36 the company is also able to provide customers with a choice of packaging methods “The components can be packed in separate boxes or all together in one box – with packaging of pre-assembled sets also available,” points out Koelner Rawlplug “It all depends on what are the individual expectations of our customers.” The company also ensures that the labels on the boxes are easy to read and include all the information necessary for handling in both small and large warehouses “We also made sure to provide clear assembly instructions supplemented by more detailed descriptions in the HV User Guide available on our website,” mentions Koelner Rawlplug we ensure full traceability of our bolts and nuts combined with the record in our ERP system allows us to quickly identify the exact batch of the product which in turn ensures full traceability of production and easy access to detailed test results.” Due to the environments and applications HV sets are used Koelner Rawlplug is under no doubt about the essential role its products play in installations – with no room for compromise our HV sets are resistant to even the harshest weather conditions – making them a safe choice even in the most challenging constructions such as wind turbines at sea or bridges,” states Koelner Rawlplug customised coating of our nuts we continue to provide the reliability that our customers require The improved coating is less susceptible to the influence of moisture and provides greater adhesion thanks to which the K-factor value is within the requirements for the combined and modified method An additional advantage is the reduction of soiling by molybdenum disulfide.” From the very beginning of the HV set project the Koelner Rawlplug team has utilised its experience from the automotive industry and implemented the same standards and quality in the steel construction field especially in the field of friction coefficient tests made it possible to develop a lubricating coating on the nut that provides high repeatability of the clamping force rate It is thanks to the refined nut coating that we know that our sets will meet the requirements of assembly using the combined K1 and modified methods,” explains Koelner Rawlplug “This allows our customers flexibility of choosing the preferred method of assembly We deliberately narrowed down the K-factor gates to always be ready to prepare an order dedicated to the K2 controlled moment method this solution gives high repeatability of the results obtained.” Another area in which relevant experience is essential is in obtaining high strength classes in the production of fasteners “We have used our achievements in the production of high strength fasteners for the automotive industry and ensured the heat treatment process is carried out in our modern continuous and chamber furnaces,” points out Koelner Rawlplug we closely monitor every batch of steel delivered to our factory in order to ensure high repeatability of the mechanical parameters of the bolts Our bolts are also hot dip galvanised without the use of acid thanks to which we have reduced the risk of hydrogen embrittlement generated from the production process We have implemented our own original method of testing the susceptibility of high strength bolts to hydrogen embrittlement and regularly check our HV sets this way Koelner Rawlplug is also able to provide active technical support in the challenges related to the design and assembly of steel structures The company can guarantee the assistance of its engineers in case of any quality concerns Well equipped in-house laboratories also make it possible to confirm process and product compliance as well as to carry out advanced research and development work “Exhibiting at the Fastener Fair Global show in Stuttgart will enable us to showcase our HV bolts as well as present the full range of possibilities of our Łańcut factory,” states Koelner Rawlplug “With so many new investments and modernisation projects going on That is why visitors need to visit our stand to make sure they do not miss out on any exciting developments.” Will joined Fastener + Fixing Magazine in 2007 and over the last 15 years has experienced every facet of the fastener sector - interviewing key figures within the industry and visiting leading companies and exhibitions around the globe Will manages the content strategy across all platforms and is the guardian for the high editorial standards that the Magazine is renowned This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Maciej Mroczka is 42 years old and operates a food truck called Syty Wół about 50 miles from the western border of Ukraine Mroczka serves burgers and other sandwiches In 2021 he was nominated for the European Street Food Awards when he takes the truck on the road to festivals and other outdoor happenings “We are not afraid of mass events,” Syty Wół’s website boasts “We are able to feed hundreds of people throughout the evening.” word reached Łańcut of refugees coming through the border in nearby Korczowa people who were hungry and cold and who needed help,” Mroczka told me the relief organization founded by Spanish American chef José Andrés for the express purpose of marshaling the energy and expertise of chefs and cooks in emergencies WCK has gone from the earnest sideline of a celebrity chef to a relief juggernaut responding to some of the biggest crises of our time—the 2010 earthquake in Haiti in the process turning Andrés into a humanitarian star Though much smaller than behemoth relief organizations like the Red Cross and in part because of its strategy of using local resources like restaurants “We are very much the Airbnb or Uber of relief,” Andrés had told me this past winter Mroczka and his food truck found themselves parked on the border in Korczowa to a stream of refugees that soon became a river “It was mentally difficult because most of the refugees are women with children,” said Mroczka the gratitude and smiles of the people we helped gave extra strength and enthusiasm.” After 11 days his one truck alone had served 18,100 meals “The people were amazing: random people who believed they had to do something which was beautiful to see,” Andrés told me He was calling from another border crossing where WCK continued to feed a steady flow of displaced Ukrainians as they boarded buses bound for processing elsewhere in Poland and across Europe after which things get at least incrementally better each day “Sometimes it can be very quiet here and then chaos.” He hummed a snatch of “Ride of the Valkyries.” Andrés had spent nearly four weeks sending out messages from the Ukraine border and inside the war-torn country itself Many were the signature selfie videos that have become a vital part of WCK’s storytelling and identity and are often among the first images on the ground that the world sees following a disaster We saw a bakery in Lviv turning out thousands of loaves for refugees sheltering at the train station; chefs in Kyiv making cabbage-and-potato-stuffed pyrizhky to send to orphanages; the food hall in Odesa turned into a food donation and distribution center; WCK’s signature giant paella pans repurposed for massive batches of borscht and applesauce; 18-wheelers filled with flour and other staples headed to areas of fighting too intense to set up cooking operations “Everywhere we go in Ukraine…food is at the center of resistance!” Andrés tweeted Andrés and I had spent time together in Chicago It seemed then that COVID-19—during which WCK had offered a lifeline to some 2,500 restaurants in 400 cities across America paying them to provide meals for those in need—had been the calamity for which Andrés and WCK had been unwittingly preparing all along man-made disaster that seemed to be drawing on and testing the full range of its strategies and resources I thought of a conversation we had on a cold afternoon in December standing on the patio of his new restaurant right now with World Central Kitchen I have the biggest most powerful network of hardware in the history of mankind,” he said even if they don’t know it yet.” He took a puff and reflected It’s just the way I see it: We are the biggest organization in the history of mankind Even if we only have 75 people on payroll.” Scratch the surface of the most lyrical dish—the one evoking the feel of sunshine on your face or your grandmother’s warm embrace—and you will find portion sizes all of them expressed in plastic containers marked with blue tape So when José Andrés says that he wants to feed the world has done his best to feed everybody in between Andrés often invokes Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath: “Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat His omnipresence can almost be comic: One moment you hear about a disaster someplace in the world and the next all at the same time,” says golfer Sergio García but it feels that way.” There are operations you may have forgotten or have only been dimly aware of: the crews and passengers stranded on docked cruise ships in Japan and in Oakland at the very outset of COVID; fires in the Bronx and in Boulder County Colorado; typhoons and tsunamis in the Philippines and Indonesia; the volcanic eruption in La Palma Andrés and his team are so conversant in storms gone by they can sound like kindergarten teachers reading class rolls: Sally If emergency has become the permanent condition of our globe it’s hard to think of a single face more associated with addressing it than Andrés’s a journalist asked Andrés: If he could invent anything That story came up recently as Andrés sat with some staff in his office at the headquarters of his ThinkFoodGroup Andrés paused and considered the magic pot anew once again the fanciful sliding into the pragmatic “I think probably it could happen,” he said You could feel the staffers make a mental note that this might be something that would have to be looked into To say Andrés wants to feed every human on earth is itself not quite precise regarding either human or earth: Not long before the conversation about the magic pot one of the R&D chefs working in the kitchen outside his office had opened a gray vacuum pouch to let me taste a pisto with Ibérico pork slated to be served during Axiom Space’s Ax-1 mission to the International Space Station; not long after Andrés mused aloud about yet another potential new front in the mission: pet food World Central Kitchen has served nearly 70 million meals in practically every corner of the globe What was once a nonprofit with two employees offering ad hoc aid Jeff Bezos stepped off his New Shepard spacecraft to announce a $100 million award for Andrés to spend as he wished a portion of which he has since committed to work in Ukraine And even all that is but a small piece of Andrés’s ultimate vision World Central Kitchen recently established a $1 billion Climate Disaster Fund to address the root cause of so much of what they are called on to respond to Andrés imagines a full-time Food First Responders Corps ThinkFoodGroup (TFG) occupies three floors of a building in Penn Quarter where Andrés also has six of the 28 restaurants he operates in seven cities across America plus the Bahamas (with new projects in L.A at age 23 and ushered in America’s tapas era the 12-seat tasting-menu spot that was among the first in the U.S to employ the molecular gastronomy Andrés encountered as a young cook at the legendary El Bulli in Spain a visiting chef from Barcelona auditioning for a job and staff from the newly formed José Andrés Media There was also a certified master ham carver from Spain who I got the feeling simply hung around should any ham appear in need of masterful carving—which Both organizations have learned to operate without their leader’s physical presence each making room for him to reenter with a nudge when he returns from his business with the other Some might see certain contradictions inherent in the two sides of Andrés’s life If you believe that capitalism is at the root of all or most disasters “I have to make a living,” he says with a shrug when I ask if he thinks about giving up that part of his life Andrés says he lost between 20 and 30 percent of his own equity in TFG during the pandemic I’ll admit to a touch of cynicism when Andrés’s team invited me to meet him for the first time at the opening of his new restaurants in Chicago (“Everybody wants to come to the emergencies now,” he would later tell me I would come to see the two halves of Andrés’s life as an extension of the central insight that fuels WCK: that the temperament and skill set it takes to feed people in a restaurant—entrepreneurism charisma and celebrity—are uniquely suited to feeding them in an emergency And that both spring from the same single-minded José Andrés at a World Central Kitchen operation in Lviv March 2022.Courtesy of World Central KitchenThere’s a woman in Honduras who thinks José Andrés may have cured her cancer he saved a man from choking on a piece of bratwurst delivering the Heimlich maneuver and then melting into the crowd leaving no clue as to his identity but the panache with which he poured the victim a glass of water: “You could tell he worked in hospitality,” the man told The Washington Post it seems that Andrés was not not responsible for Sergio García’s Masters win; Andrés only agreed to come cook for the golfer if he promised to finally win his first major There are whole islands in the Caribbean where it is all but impossible for Andrés to buy himself a drink The youngest of his three daughters finally demanded that the WCK logo be removed from the family Jeep as it attracted so many people wanting to say thanks; Andrés grumbles that he gets more parking tickets now He has turned half of his social media following into a Nobel Prize–nominating committee while his most ardent followers are aiming for straight beatification following his work in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.) In every spare corner and surface of his offices and his home jumbles of etched Lucite that resemble miniature Fortresses of Solitude “You should see what’s in storage,” Andrés says you can almost lose sight of the fact that it’s P.R It helps that Andrés does not hide his more mortal characteristics To spend time with him is to get the sense of a roiling He is by turns excitable and contemplative generous to the teams of people tasked with carrying out his visions and oblivious to the ripples his constantly changing impulses and plans can send through their ranks Sometimes you feel in the company of the consummate host sometimes as though you’ve been lashed to Ahab it was very simple: “Are we feeding everybody or are we not I did go to the opening party for Andrés’s restaurants in Chicago which are stacked one on top of the other in the new Bank of America skyscraper guests mingled beneath an enormous glowing octopus sculpture and snacked on Spanish tuna sashimi stations offered Andrés classics: the spherified olives that are still a small briny pop of joy; the foie gras cotton candy that is still mildly nauseating the Spanish treasure that Andrés is responsible not only for popularizing in the U.S jumping over a battlefield of regulatory hurdles in the ’90s “Now chefs just pick up the phone,” he told me gesturing at a counter covered with the stuff “I’m just saying: Nothing came easy to me.” Andrés stopped for a selfie every few feet He posed for a photo holding a leg of Ibérico over his shoulder aided by a 21-day fast at a facility in Spain and newsboy caps have given him the old-world aspect of a Zorba or Hemingway He looks older than his 52 years but somehow more powerful than when he was younger onetime director of the United Nations World Food Programme who had been lobbying for Andrés’s support for a White House conference on food issues Never far from hand was Andrés’s chief of staff a 30-year-old former Peace Corps volunteer named Satchel Kaplan-Allen whose portfolio includes bits of everything from policy strategy to scheduling to making copies one of his duties was making sure that in the dozens of conversations his boss was having he was “not promising to do anything that would then have to be done.” Andrés seemed to find more places to wall himself off to the obvious terror of the shuckers working there and began preparing oysters topped with sea urchin smoking a cigar and looking back through the giant Andrés and I sat at the bar at Topolobampo a hurricane had taken a troublesome turn in the Gulf or an explosion had devastated a city in Venezuela an entire series of events would have gone into effect WCK WhatsApp channels would spring to life; weather specialists would be consulted and maps downloaded to phones in case of interrupted connectivity Equipment would begin to move from one of WCK’s Relief Operations Centers located in suburban Maryland; Oxnard California; and soon to be in New Orleans: amphibious vehicles; water purifiers; solar ovens; the so-called deployable kitchen unit a 30-by-30-foot geodesic--dome field kitchen stored in modular containers ready to be stacked on an airplane or truck if the situation warranted Andrés himself traveling to the affected area one of several ready-and-waiting backpacks would be retrieved by the time he walked out the doors of the restaurant it would be to a waiting car with a plan in place broadcasting from the location in question On his phone was a list of WhatsApp channels dedicated to various WCK operations “We visit every one of these points every day,” he said he could see a detailed report of meals served and to whom—exactly the kind of report he might get on how many croquetas or endive salads were sold at Jaleo the night before That morning had begun with a meeting with Richard Wolffe managing director of Andrés’s newly established media company Andrés would review the opening menu at Bar Mar; tape a segment for The Daily Show With Trevor Noah discussing food insecurity; head to the top of the Willis Tower to address the Executive Club of Chicago where he lectured business leaders on the need to eliminate pyramidal management structures; and revise the amount of foie gras on an appetizer at Pigtail the new Ibérico-centric cocktail bar beneath Jaleo Is it any surprise that his WCK deployments come as a kind of relief One of his rituals upon hitting the ground is to divide up a map of the affected area and jump in a jeep to go looking for people who need food and water a fisherman with whom he can contract to buy the next day’s entire catch of spiny lobster as happened on the Colombian island of Providencia after Hurricane Iota Andrés has cultivated a persona that is part Charles Grodin’s accountant in the 1993 movie Dave who solves the country’s budget woes using the plain common sense that politicians forget and part rogue cop with no taste for rules or regulations the one the boss would fire if he wasn’t so damned good He tells his people never to spend more than half an hour in any meeting There is nothing he likes better than commandeering a helicopter as he says he did in the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian Most of the world got the first taste of Andrés’s swagger in June 2015 when Donald Trump kicked off his presidential campaign by characterizing Mexican immigrants as drug dealers and rapists Andrés canceled plans to open a Japanese Spanish restaurant in Trump’s new Washington hotel establishing himself as one of the president’s most prominent public critics and one of the few with an intuitive sense of how to troll a troll Andrés taunted that his deposition in the ensuing lawsuit was longer than the famously size-obsessed president’s But the harsher rebuke to the Trump administration would come after Hurricane Maria which pulverized Puerto Rico in September 2017 leaving 3,000 people dead and an American territory all but paralyzed Andrés went to Puerto Rico with two chefs and a wallet of credit cards He stayed three months and served over 3.7 million meals essentially standing in for a derelict federal response a former documentary filmmaker who joined Andrés in Puerto Rico and would soon become WCK’s first CEO “We were professionalizing the work that we do “And it was something that we could do all around the world deploying in a moment’s notice and being on the front lines.” José and the WCK team reached communities in Bucha and Irpin with hot many residents had not seen a new face in a month April 2022Courtesy of World Central KitchenWhen you walk alongside Andrés and he starts to get passionate about what he’s saying Mine was growing sore as we made our way around Chicago’s Loop Andrés bulling through the wind with short strides But now we were stopped dead on a street corner “What the fuck are you talking about?” he said What I had said was that most Americans didn’t feel free to knock on their representatives’ doors to express their opinions it was a unique feature of American democracy It’s one of your duties as a citizen!” he continued you made this happen because you’re José Andrés,’ I get very upset When I went to the prime minister of the Bahamas and said I need a fucking helipad do you think he knew who he was talking to probably he would have taken me less seriously He only saw a guy who was very determined and almost a little upset It’s what made Andrés such a natural and effective Trump foil: He actually believes everything about America that Trump thinks is for suckers It’s the archetypal fervor of an immigrant are you 100 percent in or not?” he finally says Andrés sailed into the New World like Columbus himself in the rigging of the Juan Sebastián de Elcano first finding work in Barcelona kitchens and then alongside Ferran Adrià at El Bulli That pedigree got him a plush assignment as private chef to a Spanish admiral when it came time for his compulsory military service but Andrés talked his way aboard the Juan Sebastián de Elcano as a cook instead He had seen the ship in port with his father as a boy and now it brought him to the wide world: the Canary Islands “The City of Five Flags,” as Andrés invariably refers to it as though the Florida Panhandle town remains as exotic a port as any in the world He tasted his first crab cake and first soft-shell crab and was hooked Andrés has never entirely stopped being a military man he took his senior team to get buzz cuts at a barber in Oakland’s Chinatown And what is the vision of WCK if not an idealistic view of what good old American imperialism can accomplish the Smithsonian announced that Andrés’s portrait would be placed in the National Portrait Gallery; the chef didn’t have to imagine what that might look like For years Andrés used the gallery’s two lobbies and interior courtyard as the most direct path for dashing from Zaytinya his Mediterranean restaurant on Ninth Street N.W. There can be no overstating the importance of Andrés ending up in Washington “Nothing would have happened if I was not here,” he says the gears of power and how to work them would have been abstract; in D.C. former New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan lived around the block and was both a regular and a friend Former Republican senator Lamar Alexander came by the restaurant to show off Grainger County tomatoes from Tennessee I hope you will pass the legislation to protect them!” Andrés’s biggest impact going forward may in fact be as a savvy he and WCK staff maintained regular communication with members of the administration Senators of both parties have lined up to visit President Biden paid a visit when in Warsaw in March Andrés is a vocal member of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Food and Nutrition Security Task Force has been advocating legislation to extend child-nutrition programs He is circumspect about exactly who might be in his Rolodex though the secondary interviews his team offers me suggests it is a deep and influential roster indeed Vice President Kamala Harris sent a statement noting her and Andrés’s work together on the FEED Act the 2020 legislation that allowed the federal government to pay restaurants to provide relief meals “His work is a reminder to all of us that our tables are always big enough to welcome those in need and one person—like José Andrés—can have a monumental impact on people’s lives,” Harris said South Carolina’s Republican senator Tim Scott noting that the legislation had been inspired by WCK’s model “I never had anything against Republicans,” Andrés says “I have something against one Republican.” “Our whole model of disaster response is one where outsiders fly to a place to ‘save’ that place and I don’t think that’s a good model,” says Devin De Wulf the founder of a creative and nimble nonprofit in New Orleans called the Krewe of Red Beans as New Orleans experienced an especially harsh first wave of COVID-19 his organization raised a million dollars in six weeks to pay 45 local restaurants to provide meals for frontline health care workers only to see WCK arrive and essentially take over “I think all disasters should be locally run Locals understand the cultural landscape and the political landscape in a way that somebody who’s parachuting into town will not.” Andrés and Mook say that WCK’s entire model is connecting with local resources with an increasing emphasis on leaving infrastructure in place when it departs “What I’ve learned is that in those events You don’t have the cash to start from zero That’s why an organization like ours comes in with a clear sense of the best response and then on top of that works with locals.” Andrés characteristically oscillates between acceptance and frustration at this and other criticism because right now you just need one person to say something accusational and you need one journalist to write that one accusation and then it’s: ‘People are saying.…’ It’s not people saying anything It’s one person.” He catches himself mid-rant “I start to feel like Trump with his ‘fake news,’ ” he grumbles It seems indisputable that José Andrés the humanitarian has a positive effect on José Andrés the businessman The social media feeds that project his dispatches from Lviv and other disaster areas bring the same million-plus followers news of his restaurant openings and business partnerships Andrés points out that his relief work also distracts from his main business “When I disappear into the middle of Puerto Rico for 90 days if I put 100 percent of my energy into my company I could be playing the Ryder Cup celebrity game Courtesy of World Central KitchenThis is at the end of a long day in Washington It is one of those evenings when Andrés changes his mind about what to do every few minutes: The restaurant critic for The Washington Post is at minibar so he should stop in there; a group of visiting Spanish chefs are coming to his house to watch Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open final opting instead to deliver a trunkful of food from his Peruvian-Chinese-Japanese restaurant China Chilcano to his daughter Inés who knows more about crabs than anybody else in America Andrés religiously ignores the advice of Siri as we drive out of downtown D.C. and through sleepy streets of Bethesda to the lone glowing light of the restaurant for a cooler bag filled with Champagne and Armenian wines He keeps glassware at the restaurant for just such a purpose was working at the Spanish Embassy when she met Andrés She has the warm and tolerant poise of a first lady and the confidence of a woman who wears a white coat to a crab house “I always thought he was a funny guy,” Patricia says when I ask her for her first impression of her husband “Why can’t you say I was the hot guy?” Andrés complains I only want to be like my mother and my father when they were feeding me and my brothers “I became a husband before I even became a grown-up boy You become a dad before you become a good husband You need to be a big-boy businessman before you even know how to be a boy cooking in the kitchen And I’m bold enough and crazy enough to think I can do it,” he says “But then you say: I still have a daughter who needs me near her And my wife needs me and my partners need me And everything’s on here.” He pats his shoulders as COVID dissipates and WCK operates increasingly like a well-oiled machine with or without him Andrés brightens as a steaming tray of crabs lands at the table He picks up a crab and quickly removes all of its legs he pries off the hinged mouth of the crustacean traces the lines of the softer shell beneath The crab is telling me where to cut,” he says “Are you with me?” He turns to the other half of the body and the legs briskly filling the upturned top shell into a bowl filled with a snow-white meat He splashes drawn butter on the pile of meat adds a squirt of white vinegar and a dusting of spice powder “Life is about knowing how to eat,” he says “Everybody thinks it’s about knowing how to cook but it’s much more important to know how to eat.” Inside Ben Affleck’s Plan to Remake Hollywood The 24 Best New Watches From Watches and Wonders 2025 Why the Algorithm Loves Gen Z’s ‘It Couple’ Livvy Dunne and Paul Skenes Inside the New Private Mountain Clubs Where Billionaires Ski Poker Night with Timothée Chalamet Sign up for Manual to receive useful advice on style, health, and more, five days a week. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article Area 6,890 square miles (17,846 square km) The Historical Museum in Sanok houses many Ruthenian icons and features cottages and other structures typical of the Ruthenians is located in an open-air museum near Krosno in Bóbrka The mass relocation resulted in the almost total depopulation of the lands in the Bieszczady and Lower Beskid mountains By submitting the above I agree to the privacy policy and terms of use of JTA.org Agnieszka Traczewska and her subjects developed a connection that allowed her to shoot some intimate moments of prayer When New York natives Duvid and Naomi Singer went to Poland about a decade ago and spent some time visiting the gravesite of a revered Hasidic rebbe they spotted something unusual beyond the 30 or so Jews reciting Psalms in the Bobowa cemetery “We were a little surprised to see this woman with a camera,” said Duvid Singer who leads tours of Poland primarily for American Hasidic Jews and she came over to us and started asking questions.” The woman turned out to be Agnieszka Traczewska a Polish photographer and film producer working on a project to photograph Hasidic Jews visiting historic sites in Poland The idea was to pay homage to the history of Jews in Poland – something most Poles today overlook “My education left me with unbelievable gaps and one of the most significant gaps was the story of the Jewish nation which lived with the Polish nation side by side for a thousand years and vanished in the Holocaust,” Traczewska said The result of her decade-long effort is a collection of photos titled “Returns,” that Traczewska turned into a 208-page book The collection is being exhibited as well at sites ranging from European cultural festivals to the U.N The book focuses on the thousands of Orthodox Jews who make pilgrimages to Jewish sites in Poland each year We see men lighting yahrzeit candles and praying in former synagogues and outside in the rain Everyday scenes show men smoking cigarettes and chatting at the edge of a cemetery The goal was to “visualize their spiritual connection to” the Jewish sites Even though the men in the photos often live in insular communities and typically are cautious toward contact with women outside their immediate family they not only spoke with Traczewska but also flocked to her photo exhibits and asked her to autograph their copies of her book Hasidim withstand a downpour during a visit to a Jewish cemetery in the Polish town of Krynica Gorska Traczewska’s work has been featured at synagogues and the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw The photographs in an exhibit titled “Bracha-A Blessing: Back to the Polish Shtetls” have been presented all over the world they were on display at the United Nations in New York at a show organized by the Consulate General of Poland there in cooperation with Poland’s U.N The opening included a stirring performance by a cantor that seemed to leave both Jews and non-Jewish Poles in the audience deeply moved “She’s extremely charismatic and found this niche that no one else has covered that no one else was interested in,” said Naomi Singer who runs Heritage and Discovery Eastern European Trips with her husband “Perhaps people were interested in the cemeteries whereas she was interested in those who were returning.” Traczewska first connected with Hasidic Jews about 11 years ago when she traveled to the small Polish town of Leżajsk while Jews were there for the yahrzeit — the anniversary of the death — of Elimelech Weisblum Thousands of Jews travel to Poland each year for the occasion A Jewish friend had told Traczewska that she might find the gathering interesting But her friend also warned her: “For a woman with a camera taking care to dress modestly and approach her camera-shy subjects gently to win their trust Traczewska eventually earned access and made friends Naomi Singer introduced her to other Hasidim on trips and more often than not they acquiesced to being photographed The photographs in Traczewska’s collection are not limited to Poland She won second place in the 2014 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest for her image of two 18-year-olds in Jerusalem following a wedding ceremony for their arranged marriage connected with Traczewska after seeing her photos on Facebook She took photos of Lemmer using a branch in an effort to clean off some illegible letters on two tombstones at a gravesite near where his grandparents lived He thought one of his ancestors might be buried there cleans off a tombstone at a cemetery in Jasliska Lemmer said he was particularly moved by a Traczewska photo of a puddle reflecting a family standing outside the gates of the Auschwitz extermination camp He said the reflection illustrates the memory of the Holocaust Traczewska used photos of Duvid Singer looking out the window of a Jewish center in Katowice and his written reflection on how he and his father a native of Poland who fled before World War II after reciting the Kaddish not heard in these parts for nearly 60 years asked me not to allow their memory to be erased,” wrote Singer who in 1996 started leading about four trips each year to Poland Traczewska has developed close friendships with the Singers as well as other Hasidim Her speech is now peppered with Yiddish terms as she describes how she “schlepped” on countless trips from her Krakow home to take photos in towns like Bobowa Lelov and Radomsko – all once the homes of eponymous Hasidic dynasties it was curiosity that really compelled her to acquaint herself with this community that once was such an integral part of Poland Despite their much different life circumstances hailing from two different worlds that coexisted long ago the photographer and the Hasidim were able to find common ground Traczewska was even allowed to photograph intimate moments of prayer She said the process that led to the exhibition was beautiful and the connections she forged with her subjects opens a door for hope if someone had told me this would be possible I wouldn’t have believed it,” Traczewska said “I felt like I had an obligation to my people to educate them and toward Hasidim who shared with me so much trust and the obligation not to fail this trust.” JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York a diplomatic mission of Poland’s Foreign Affairs Ministry that promotes comprehensive knowledge of Poland This story was produced by JTA’s native content team I accept the Privacy Policy. At the entrance to Rav Tzvi Moshe Schlifstein’s home in Har Canaan It announces simply that this is the “Schlifstein home,” where guest rooms are available to visitors wishing to imbibe the atmosphere of the city of the mekubalim and many legends have attached themselves to this home that has hosted numerous illustrious and mysterious individuals over the years Among them was the great mekubal Rav Yosef Waltuch ztz”l and he affixed a mezuzah to the door of one of the house’s rooms a Jew with a radiant face and a youthful spirit despite his advanced age it is as if the events occurred only recently; his memory is clear The advanced age and the clear memory are both part of the family legacy a legacy that stretches back to one of his illustrious ancestors: Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lyzhensk Reb Moshe Schlifstein was born in 5679 in the city of Lancut It was thanks to his being a resident of Lancut that Reb Moshe entered the lore of Belz Chassidus despite the fact that his family were not chassidim of the Belzer Rebbe The surprising event took place during the early days of the Second World War “It was Friday afternoon,” Reb Moshe relates but no one knew what the results would be and how long it would continue “My father had a small radio in his office he was glued to the radio waves in order to pick up any information about what was happening on the battlefield He announced his rabid hatred on the radio declaring that the Jews were ‘responsible for everything’ and that he would allow ‘only a single Jew to survive He understood that the Germans or the Poles were likely to capture the strong youths first and use them for whatever purposes they wanted The rest of the family will remain here until the picture becomes clearer A group of about 32 strapping young men quickly came together — Reb Moshe among them — and fled from the city planning to escape into Russia through the forests “We didn’t have cars or buses to take us there Even horses and carriages had been taken by the government for the war effort covering hundreds of kilometers almost without a break.” Reb Moshe pauses to fill a glass with water and recite the brachah of shehakol nihyeh b’Dvaro “The story I’m about to tell will prove just how much everything comes from the Word of Hashem.” “had already begun to make their way toward eastern Galicia Due to the dread that they had succeeded in sowing panic gripped the town of Belz and the bochurim who learned under the Rebbe were sent home in order to be with their parents the number of people present in Belz for Rosh HaShanah that year was relatively small we reached the town of Belz just a few days before Rosh HaShanah The Germans were at a distance from this area so the sounds of battle were not yet heard But it was a tense sort of quiet; it was enough for us to take a break from our journey and to remain there until after Rosh HaShanah “We stayed in the home of one of my acquaintances Even though not all of the bochurim were chassidim and some of them were even members of more liberal groups we all davened in the Rebbe’s beis medrash I remember that on the first night of Rosh HaShanah he davened in what was called the groisse shtub The atmosphere of war created antagonism toward the Jews and the Poles wanted to play a role in the wave of hatred They began plundering everything they could take from the homes of the Jews They couldn’t do anything to oppose the thieves because they feared reprisals “The gentiles began physically attacking Jews in addition to robbing them of their belongings The Jews of Belz hurried to the Belzer beis medrash But the many mispallelim were afraid to intervene we went to have the Yom Tov meal at our inn When I poured the cup of Kiddush for myself I suddenly felt a soft touch on my shoulder “I turned around to see who it was who knew my name I was not a Belzer chassid; I was born a Ropshitzer chassid — Reb Naftali Tzvi Ropshitz lived in Lancut at the end of his life and is buried there.] I found myself facing my father’s good friend Reb Ephraim Zwiebel He was the one who had brought me the message I followed him and tried to ask if he knew the reason for the urgent summons Reb Moshe recalls that as he ran through the streets the municipal authorities had deliberately turned out the streetlights to prevent a bombing in the event that German planes might pass overhead “I entered the Rebbe’s home and found him seated in his chair ‘A person who saves one Jewish life is considered as if he had saved the entire world.’ Reb Ephraim was standing on the side The Rebbe repeated the tune again and again the bochurim must do something about the matter!” Reb Moshe stared at Reb Ephraim Reb Ephraim motioned that the Rebbe was referring to the pillaging of Jewish homes and that he expected Moshe to contribute to a solution there is nothing I can do,” Moshe said deferentially and Chazal tell us that it is forbidden to rely on a miracle.” think,” the Rebbe said and continued to sing “A person who saves a single Jewish life …” The young Schliffstein obeyed the Rebbe’s command until he finally came up with an original strategy After a brief debate and a consultation with Reb Ephraim Reb Moshe came up with a plan that didn’t seem realistic but “We have neither sticks nor metal poles with which to fight them while the attackers are certainly armed with axes and knives But maybe we can take down the large copper chandeliers from the municipal shul which are not being used because of the blackout forced upon the city’s residents We might be able to deal a blow to the hooligans with the chandeliers.” Reb Moshe quickly returned to his friends and told them to accompany him they climbed atop the tables in the shul and took down the chandeliers that hung from the ceiling which was intensified by the fact that it was a moonless night The group of young men was quickly joined by dozens of other Jews who joined the mission Two hundred men marched boldly through the streets toward the marauders who were in the process of looting Jewish homes terrified at the sight of the group of “armed” Jews Reb Moshe told his friends to return most of the chandeliers to the shul keeping only a small quantity in case of emergency The Jews’ property had been temporarily saved thanks to the Rebbe and to Reb Moshe’s quick thinking Reb Ephraim had been standing outside the Rebbe’s home Reb Moshe rushed to brief him on what had transpired Reb Ephraim took the opportunity to tell Reb Moshe about what had taken place immediately before the Rebbe had sent Reb Ephraim to find Reb Moshe The Rebbe had summoned Reb Ephraim and asked if there were any courageous strong bochurim who were prepared to do battle against the marauding thieves Reb Ephraim replied that Belz was a small town the gentiles might be able to identify them the next day and retaliate against anyone who had dared defend themselves “Perhaps there are visitors from outside Belz whom the locals will not be able to identify?” It was then that Reb Ephraim replied that there were a number of bochurim from Lancut in Belz The Rebbe asked to see the leader of the group Since Reb Moshe was the only one that Reb Ephraim knew personally he was the one who was summoned and was given the responsibility of defending the Jews of Belz Reb Moshe and his friends returned to their Yom Tov meal Reb Ephraim appeared again at the threshold “The Rebbe is in the middle of the small tisch that he is holding in his room He wants to give you shirayim,” he told Moshe When Reb Moshe returned to the Rebbe’s home the Rebbe took Moshe’s hand in his own two holy hands and said to him He continued to hold Moshe’s hand in his grasp whispering words that Moshe could not understand the Rebbe gave him a piece of challah from the large loaf that he had cut along with additional pieces for his companions who both survived the murderous Nazi onslaught Reb Berish became close to many gedolei Yisrael That incident did not mark the end of Reb Moshe’s connection with Reb Aharon of Belz my father wanted to visit the Rebbe at his home in Tel Aviv wrote the names of my father’s children on his kvittel and read them aloud to the Rebbe How is he?’ My father told him that I had survived the war and I was also in Eretz Yisrael my father returned home and told me about the incident ‘Why did the Rebbe ask about you?’ my father asked I had never told him about what took place in Belz I realized that if the Rebbe had taken an interest in me Reb Chaim was considered to be one of the most affluent Jews in Poland and a close associate of the Rebbe I am going with you!’ When we entered the Rebbe’s sanctum ‘Baruch Hashem that we are meeting!’ I was later told that any Jew who had survived the Holocaust was treated by the Rebbe with the utmost care and respect ‘He is a good yungerman,’ Reb Chaim answered in my place ‘sometimes a Jew without a beard is better than a beard without a Jew.’ I thought about reminding the Rebbe about the incident that had taken place a decade earlier on Rosh HaShanah I understood the meaning of that ‘yasher koach.’ “Reb Chaim was frightened by the Rebbe’s rebuke ‘I don’t know what sin I committed to be addressed in that way.’ I explained to him that during the war many Jews had been forced to shave off their beards but had remained good The Rebbe therefore found no fault with that who served for many years as the gabbai of the beis medrash of the Pshevorsker Rebbes in Antwerp told me that he had managed to retain his impressive beard throughout the Holocaust years but after the war he had been forced to shave it due to his fear of the Polish anti-Semites in the zchus of the brachos that the Rebbe whispered during that tisch in Belz.” That may be one explanation for Reb Moshe’s longevity Reb Moshe is related to the Bnei Yissaschar of Dinov was given to him after the Bnei Yissaschar just like the Bnei Yissaschar’s original family name The Bnei Yissaschar changed his family name during his youth all young men were required to enter the army and it was very difficult to evade the draft The soldiers came to look for him in his home and the chazzan was in the middle of reciting Akdamos They scrutinized all the mispallelim and asked the young Bnei Yissaschar his name He looked down and found himself gazing at the words minan u’man hu rechimach ‘My name is Tzvi Elimelech Shapira,’ he responded who was also the grandmother of the Bnei Yissaschar was the sister of the Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lyzhensk Reb Elimelech once became angry at his sister and rebuked her strongly for something specific She began crying bitterly out of fear of his anger That blessing appears to have been applied to her progeny as well many our family members have experienced that blessing He lived in Haifa and used to deliver a daf yomi shiur I have a picture of him dancing energetically at the mitzvah tantz of one of his descendants Reb Moshe retells the well-known story of the birth of the Bnei Yissaschar But he adds some important details that were preserved in the annals of family tradition and passed along from father to son The holy brothers Reb Elimelech and Reb Zusha of Anipoli once came to stay at his great-grandmother’s home for a few days during the period of their self-imposed exile they decided to give Reb Moshe’s great-grandmother a gift to demonstrate their appreciation for the hospitality they had enjoyed “The Bnei Yissaschar was born to my great-grandmother’s daughter as a result of Reb Elimelech’s brachah at that auspicious time who had been born sickly and were unable to survive their visit took place close to Purim and this megillah was written by Reb Zusha himself That megillah was preserved and handed down from generation to generation hid in a dank cave for a period of two years He kept the megillah with him throughout that time and it may be in that merit that he was saved was captured by a Nazi soldier and murdered “They say that Reb Elimelech once said that anyone who harmed a relative of his would suffer a bitter fate That soldier was captured after the war and placed on trial He was sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad Reb Elimelech’s promise was fulfilled,” Reb Moshe relates The megillah later came into Reb Moshe’s possession and he would read from it every year on Purim in Tzfas’s Romanian shul The megillah is no longer in his possession since it is now on loan to a museum in Eretz Yisrael as many of the members of Moshe’s minyan passed away it was infused with new life when a group of Chabad chassidim revived the disintegrating shul Reb Moshe comments that Chabad has specific traditions instituted by the founders of the Chassidus regarding how the megillah should be written the Shefa Chaim of Sanz was in possession of the megillah written by the Tzemach Tzedek of Lubavitch which he had received as a gift from a Lubavitcher chassid That megillah contains the words “v’ish lo omad lifneihem,” as opposed to bifneihem The first time that the megillah was read by a Chabad chassid in Reb Moshe’s shul a number of the members commented on the deviations from the megillah reading to which they had been accustomed “When I checked my own megillah,” Reb Moshe relates “I discovered that Reb Zusha had written it in a way that was very similar to the Lubavitch tradition I feel that this tradition was derived from their shared rebbi These recollections about Reb Zusha and Reb Elimelech lead naturally to a discussion of a famous story that occurred during the war concerning Reb Elimelech’s kever after most of the Jews of Lyzhensk were deported by the Germans the Germans decided to dig up the Jewish cemetery where Reb Elimelech is buried,” Reb Moshe explains “The Germans thought that the wealthy Jews of the city had buried their money and property in the cemetery and they asked a few gentiles to help them search for hidden treasure “The local residents were seized by terror They were well aware of the tzaddik’s kedushah a few bold gentiles gave in to the Nazis’ demands after being promised a portion of the spoils saw that the tzaddik’s body was still intact they were terrified and fled from the spot Some gentiles asked the few Jews who were still in Lyzhensk to cover up the open grave two Jews — the oldest and youngest — should be the ones to preserve the niftar’s honor two Jews who answered to those criteria came to the cemetery and covered up the burial plot with great respect and sensitivity the accursed Poles tried to take the lives of the 38 surviving Jews in Lyzhensk by throwing grenades into the house where they were staying Twenty people were killed by the explosion and the rest were wounded “The younger one realized that there was nothing for him in that anti-Semitic town and he moved to Krakow he told me the entire story with great excitement I understood from his account that the ohel itself had not been restored I asked him to join me in completing the job but he demurred fearing that he might meet his death if he returned to Lyzhensk I therefore took three Poles with me and disguised myself as a gentile I met the man who guarded the grave from harm and from unwanted visitors I saw that the door of the ohel had been broken down and that the entire area was neglected so I took a substantial sum of money from my pocket and handed it to the guard to persuade him to fix the door I didn‘t want anyone to discover my Jewish identity.” he met Reb Shlomo of Bobov ztz”l while the latter was visiting Eretz Yisrael Reb Moshe told the Rebbe about his actions in Lyzhensk told him that he had visited Lyzhensk with an American passport have the fence around the cemetery rebuilt and finish the work that I began by restoring the ohel.’ The Rebbe agreed to the challenge and instructed his chassidim to take action “If Jews visit Lyzhensk today,” Reb Moshe says emotionally “it might be said that I had the privilege of preparing the area for them.” The city of Tzfas seems to answer Reb Moshe “The Jews of Belz hurried to the Belzer beis medrash ‘I don’t know what sin I committed to be addressed in that way’ their visit took place close to Purim and this megillah was written by Reb Zusha himself” “I understood from his account that the ohel itself had not been restored fearing that he might meet his death if he returned to Lyzhensk” There are three buildings all near to one another that used to be synagogues has been renovated and is now the city’s art gallery a grassed park with trees marks the site of a Jewish cemetery A large stone bears a plaque commemorating the fact the gravestones were removed during the Communist era to pave the local roads Many Polish families hid Jewish people during the events of 1939-45 and their memorial is tucked away in the tiny village of Marowa This is the site of the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in World War Two which opened in March complete with a monument dedicated to Holocaust victims while nameplates fixed to the pavement and a wall of remembrance commemorate the many Poles who took part in the campaign help to save Jewish lives the displays include memorabilia from Józef and Wiktoria Ulma after whom the museum is named and who ultimately lost their lives for providing shelter to eight Jews The Ulmas were posthumously named in 1995 as ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ whose 17th century fortress has been left largely unscathed by war while the interior is furnished with original items and feels as if people are still living there we had to cover our shoes to protect the parquet floors the marquetry of which was different in each room Another particularly impressive feature was the library with thousands of leather-bound books lining its shelves the Chassidic synagogue built in 1761 has been preserved who is not Jewish but says he feels an affiliation to the Jewish community The synagogue doesn’t look anything special from the outside but inside is a different story as visitors are confronted by a Baroque interior One of the most important tzadiks of Chasidism studied and had discussions with other Chasidim His room is maintained together with some of the broken pieces of gravestones that have been rescued Lancut’s synagogue forms part of the Chassidic Route a tourist trail that takes visitors in the footsteps of the Jewish communities that were once found through south-eastern Poland Twenty-nine communities are involved in the project which is another of the ways in which the Jewish history of the country is being preserved Our next destination was reached via a new type of bicycle that seats four people that travels along an old disused railway line I cycled the two kilometers needed to reach the brewery of URSA Maior has a label which has been designed to look as if the words are written in Hebrew where the open-air Museum of Folk Architecture has more than 150 wooden buildings dating from the 17th to 20th centuries A minimum of two-and-a-half hours is needed to appreciate this interesting venue fully A Galician market square with the interiors of the houses and shops recreated to look like those from the turn of the 19th century has been established and includes two Jewish houses Ryanair flies into Rzeszów from Stansted Airport: www.ryanair.com Natasha used Polish guide Pawel Pasztyla: Email ppasztyla@gmail.com Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage In Poland: http://fodz.pl Ursa Maior Brewery: www.ursamaior.pl Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5 £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with 100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline removing any financial barriers to connecting people The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large We hope you agree all this is worth preserving Cultural Diplomacy Specialist from the Embassy of the Republic of Poland The diplomat was briefed about the evolution of the newspaper over the past two decades since its establishment and its mission vision and the role of the newspaper’s website The diplomat and the Editor-in-Chief discussed cooperation between the Poland embassy in Doha and the newspaper The Benedict the Pole awards were presented for the seventh time on Saturday a symposium on "Polish research and exploration in an international context - Laureates of the Benedict the Pole 2021 Awards" was organized The Benedict of the Pole award has been awarded annually since 2015 a Pole and a foreigner (in 2020 it was exceptionally three Laureates for outstanding exploratory and research achievements on the ground The patron of the award is a friar - Franciscan Benedykt the Pole together with the Italian friar Giovanni da Pian del Carpine made an envoy to the Mongol Khan in the years 1245-1247 and were received in the then capital of the Empire These envoys then gave the Europeans the first detailed description of Asia 50 years before the famous work of Marco Polo The winners of the 7th edition of the Prize were ex aequo dr Hacer Topaktaş Üstüner (Department of Polish Language David Frick (Department Of Slavic languages ​​and literatures The winner of the Main Prize in the category for the Polish citizens was dr associated with the Centre of Mediterranean Archeology of the University of Warsaw in Cairo The jury also awarded a Special Award to Mr Maciej Grzelczyk (Jagiellonian University) in recognition of his discoveries of rock art in Tanzania who read a congratulatory letter from Deputy Prime Minister prof Marshal of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship Władysław Ortyl Vice-Rector of the University of Rzeszów prof Paweł Dowgier Honorary Consul of Turkey in Krakow Tsakhiur Urtnasan Honorary Consul of Mongolia in Krakow who read the congratulatory letter of HE Dorj Barkhas Jacek Magdoń Chairman of the Committee for Foreign Liaison with Poles of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship Representatives of the City Council Włodzimierz Wołyński Congratulatory letters were also sent by President Andrzej Duda and HE Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio which took media patronage over the ceremony this ceremony was granted the Honorary Patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland and the prize pool was funded by the Minister of Culture The event was sponsored by the Marshal's Office of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship the Ministry of Education and Science and the PZU Group The event was also supported by the Department of Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland which disseminated information about the Award through the diplomatic missions of the Republic of Poland abroad it is worth adding that two of this year's Laureates are people nominated by diplomatic missions: dr hab Hacer Topaktaş Üstüner (by the General Consultate of the Republic of Poland in Istanbul) and Maciej Grzelczyk MA (by the Polish Embassy in Dar es Salam) the ARSO Subcarpathian Philharmonic Group presented a chamber music concert followed by a cocktail in honor of the Laureates issued by the Marshal of the Podkarpackie Province.