Celebrating life – Holidays giving hope

School of Fine Arts, Częstochowa

In these difficult times, we appreciate more than ever how precious life is. That is why we decided to focus on celebrating life itself. We realize that holidays, national traditions, spending time with families, cooking, and feasting together give us hope and strength to carry on no matter how hard life can get. The aim of our project is to create an online publication on Polish and Jewish holidays. While learning about each other’s traditions and customs we can fight negative stereotypes and build a bridge between our nations. Challenges set for each other -simple artistic or cookery tasks connected with each holiday -made us cooperate and as a result establish bonds that will last long after the project is completed. Our holidays are different but people’s needs and emotions are the same; holiday celebrations give us hope in the same way: each holiday, whether Polish or Jewish, is about the same thing – a victory of good over evil.

and:
Ort Danciger, Kiryat Shmona

This year we had the pleasure of taking part in the project “Windows of Hope” alongside the School of Arts from Poland. We had productive meetings via Zoom with the Polish counterpart. All of our online meetings were interesting and helped us meet and become familiarized with a new culture. Through the project we grew familiar with the Polish culture and holidays, and we also gave them a taste of our own culture and holidays. For the students this was a unique experience that will last for a lifetime. Despite the pressures of graduation and final exams, we managed to carve a brave new relationship and friendships that will last for lifetimes. We are feeling blessed and honored to have taken part in this exciting project.

To view the project, click here.

To read statements by participants of this project, click here.