Jewish Kazimierz

Krakow, Poland - Krakow has seen a huge increase in tourism in recent years, and one of the drawcards is the city's Jewish heritage. Jews come by the busload - especially from Israel and from the US - to retrace their roots and to pay their respects to their brethren that were killed in the Holocaust.
Even visitors who are not Jewish want to visit the old Jewish quarter Kazimierz. Much of Schindler's List was filmed here, and every tour guide knows where the scenes were shot and where Spielberg stayed. Last week on my bike tour, the guide even brought along a portable DVD player so he could show us a scene while we were standing in the very same courtyard where it was shot.
The renewal of interest in Jewish heritage has led to a resurgence in Jewish culture in Krakow. There is a huge Jewish festival every year in June. The main thoroughfare of the Jewish quarter - ulica Szeroka - is lined with restaurants like Ariel and Klezmer-Hois - all of which promise Jewish cuisine and klezmer music.
I'm not exactly a connoisseur of Jewish cuisine, but Avi - my friend from Israel - claims these restaurants are not really authentic. (When I asked him where to get the best Jewish food in Krakow he answered "Come to my house.") Most of the synagogues are not active - although some house bookstores or exhibits with Jewish themes. There are no Jews playing in those klezmer bands. In fact, the total population of Jews in Krakow is estimated at 200 (down from about 60,000 in 1938).
There is a part of me that is put off by the phenomenon. I mean, I value authenticity when I travel, and this is clearly something that's being invented for the tourists. It seems sort of, well, fake.
At least that's what I thought until I read an interesting interview with Chris Schwarz, founder of the excellent Galicia Museum in Kazimierz. He said that "... it's very important to keep Jewish culture alive to remind the country of what it has lost and what it still retains."
It was 1264 when King Boleslaw invited Jews to settle in Poland. He recognized that their skills in accounting and administration would benefit his developing country, so he granted unprecedented rights and protections to the Jewish people. Slowly but surely, they started migrating east and settled in Poland, especially as they got kicked out of other places like England, Germany, Spain and Italy. Anyway, that's about 800 years of history and culture which are being sustained by about 200 people!
I spent a day wandering around Kazimierz (sans tour guide) to discover "what it has lost and what it still retains."
The Remuh Synagogue, founded in 1553, is an excellent place to start. This tiny building is the only functioning synagogue in Krakow, which is a pretty good indication of something that has been lost.
But it is active. It's honors and remembers the celebrated 16th-century scholar Rabbi Moses Isserles Auerbach, who is buried here. Pilgrims still come to visit the grave and pay their respects to the esteemed teacher. This history has been retained.
The Galicia museum is a few blocks off the main drag of ulica Szeroka. Schwarz was a British Jew who moved here in 2004 to open this museum (though he has since died). When I visited, there were several intriguing exhibits, but the best was a collection of Schwarz's photographs Traces of Memory.
These contemporary photographs capture the remnants of Jewish culture in Poland today. There were the obvious Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust memorials, but there were also street signs in Hebrew and synagogues in ruins ... poignant reminders of what once was - what has been lost. But there were also snippets of contemporary Jewish life - festivals and fairs that are sustaining these memories. What has been retained.