Jewish culture festival in Offenbach at the end of July

On December 11, 321, an edict from Emperor Constantine allowed Jews to be appointed to offices in the city administration of what was then Cologne. This date is considered to be the first evidence of Jewish life in what is now Germany. Nationwide, this year of “1700 Years of Jews in Germany” is being celebrated with many events – and Offenbach is taking part:

Offenbach – On July 22nd and 23rd, Offenbach’s cultural management and numerous cooperation partners celebrate the “Chai Festival” in the city with the citizens. The name says it all: “Chai” stands for “life” in Hebrew. And that is exactly the intention behind the two-day festival full of joy: to show Jewish life, to introduce it and make it tangible. The organizers have planned a lot for this.

Practically since the festival of lights in 2019, the Chai Festival will be the first major festival since the outbreak of the corona pandemic. Nevertheless, one will avoid mass gatherings, assures Lord Mayor Felix Schwenke, the festival extends over many places at the same time over the city area. A diverse program of artistic interventions and performance art, a large open-air music festival and a panel discussion will provide an intensive insight into Jewish culture – and especially Jewish life in Offenbach.

A digital city map provides a framework for the festival. On this map, places and biographies of Jewish life from the past and present are presented with text, image and audio material. With the smartphone in hand, the Jewish places in the city can be explored on a walk. Britt Baumann from cultural management promises that this map will be further developed and supplemented over the next few years for this exciting project, which is being developed in cooperation with the Germany-wide platform Jewish Places.

In the city center, the diverse artistic program will be available on both days of the festival from 3 to 8 p.m.: The town hall, the Klingspor Museum or the Capitol Theater are just a few places where calligraphy, installations and sculptures, text panels and video projections, among other things, are on will be seen. On Friday evening there will be a performance by Adi Liraz behind the Isenburg Palace, which will find its way “from water to fire” with a walk between two places and end in the Jewish Sabbath.

In Ella Ponizovsky Bergelson’s contribution, Jewish culture is united with the Offenbach theme of printing history: the artist writes a poem in Hebrew on the windows of the city library and the Klingspor Museum.

In terms of music, both days are mainly in the festival center in Büsingpark. National and international artists ensure a multifaceted musical spectrum: from singer-songwriter Daniel Kahn to rap by Ben Salomo or electronic sounds by Liraz from Tel Aviv. Of course there is also classic klezmer presented by the band Vagabund, but this one on Friday evening in the courtyard of the Jewish community.

The second day starts with a panel discussion in the festival center, during which the participants of the festival exchange ideas about whether Jewish art can be labeled at all and what difficulties one encounters as a Jewish artist in the cultural scene.

Also included is the Offenbach project “Meschugge” of the DRK district association, in which young Offenbachers are involved against anti-Semitism and racism. For the Chai Festival, the young people between the ages of 20 and 24 developed an audio walk on current and historical sites of Jewish life in Offenbach, which will also be available online. “We made it a subject of the fact that there is still anti-Semitism. The hatred that divides us concerns us all, so we want to send a clear signal that there is no place for this hatred in Offenbach, ”explains project manager Fatmagül Tuncay.