PATRIZIA FAGIANI
VARSOVIA / POLONIA
PROJECT: RETURN
Every year a significant number of Hassidic Jews travel from Europe, Israel, Canada, USA, Ukraine, towards small villages in the South of Poland. They travel with a small paper in their hands, where they have written their wishes.
They will leave this paper on the ohel, the grave of the tzadik. On the anniversary of its death, the tzadik is believed to come back on Earth to collect the wishes and bring them directly to God. For the few days of the jorcajt, the anniversary of the tzadik’s death, the small villages of Lelow and Lezajsk resonate again of the steps, the songs, the dances, the prayers of the Hassidic Jews. As it was before Second World War, when in Lezajsk the majority of the population was Jewish. In their voices, the voice of their fathers and their forefathers, for whom this land was home.
The tzadik Elimelech Weissblum died in Lezajsk on 1786 and the tzadik Dawid Biderman died in Lelow on 1814.
Starting from the 18th century, the Hassidic movement spread all over Central Eastern Europe. After the Holocaust, the Hasidic community was practically extinct there.
