Taube Center for Jewish Life & Learning

14/08/2026

We are delighted to congratulate Dianne Taube on her appointment as Honorary Consul of the Republic of Poland for the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dianne, Chairman and CEO of Taube Philanthropies, succeeds her late husband, our founder, Tadeusz “Tad” Taube, who served as Honorary Consul from 2007 to 2025.

The appointment was presented by Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski during a ceremony in Menlo Park. In her new role, Dianne will support diplomatic, cultural, and economic ties between Poland and the United States, while strengthening relationships with Polish-American communities in the Bay Area.

For decades, Dianne and the Taube family have supported initiatives connecting Poland and the United States, with a particular commitment to Jewish life, cultural heritage, and education. We are delighted to see this important relationship continue in a new chapter.

Congratulations, Dianne!

Dianne Taube, chairman and chief executive officer of Taube Philanthropies, has been appointed Honorary Consul of the Republic of Poland for... Read More

13/08/2026

Why is the synagogue floating?

Venice's historic synagogues were often located on the upper floors of buildings, reflecting restrictions on how visibly Jewish religious spaces could occupy the city. Nabatele takes this history and quite literally lifts the synagogue into the sky.

Created by artist Anna Kamyshan for the 2026 Yiddishland Pavilion in Venice, Nabatele reimagines the wooden shtetl synagogue as a structure suspended above the lagoon.

Drawing on histories of migration, displacement, and Jewish life carried across borders, the work offers a fascinating contemporary reflection on what it means for heritage to remain rooted - even when the ground itself is no longer fixed.

Take a look at this remarkable project below. 👇

This is a wooden shtetl synagogue in the sky, floating above the Venice Lagoon. The open-air art installation, called Nabatele, was launched this month as part of the 61st Venice Biennale international art exhibition. It was made by the artist Anna Kamyshan, curated by Maria Veits and Yevgeniy Fiks for the 2026 Yiddishland Pavilion, and organised by the Montreal Jewish Museum.

Synagogues in Venice were once forbidden on the ground floor and were built instead on the upper levels. The floating synagogue on a rock shows a Jewish life shaped by wandering, where belonging does not depend on fixed ground, but can be carried. The glowing windows recall the ‘ner tamid,’ the eternal flame, showing a fragile but enduring beacon of resilience in response to the turbulence and uncertainty of our times, and all of Jewish history, in fact.

Constructed as a helium-filled balloon, Nabatele’s movement follows the rhythm of the atmosphere. Ascending, descending, drifting.

A must-see for travellers to Venice this summer. The installation in the Arsenale Nord will be up until September 16, 2026.

Photo (C) courtesy of the Montreal Jewish Museum

10/08/2026

📌 Save the date!

TJHTalks is coming back this September - and this time, we’re gathering around the table.

𝐓𝐉𝐇𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐬 #𝟓𝟒
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐭 𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐭 & 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞:
𝑨 𝑺𝒄𝒉𝒎𝒐𝒐𝒛𝒆 𝑨𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝑪𝒖𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒆

Where does one culinary tradition end and another begin? Inspired by this year’s TISH Jewish Food Festival theme, “Together,” our opening talk of the new season will explore the connections between Polish and Lithuanian Jewish cuisines - traditions shaped across shifting borders and carried between communities.

Join us for a schmooze about Ashkenazi Jewish food and the histories carried with it.

📅 Wednesday, September 9, 2026

Presented in partnership with Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN and TISH Festival.

More details coming soon!

06/08/2026

Ida Fink was a Polish-Israeli writer and Holocaust survivor whose quiet, deeply human prose transformed memory into literature. Rather than recounting history through grand narratives, she focused on fleeting moments, ordinary lives, and the ways trauma reshapes our experience of time itself.

In her writing, memory is not static - it lives in fragments, gestures, and everyday details that refuse to be forgotten. Through this distinctive literary voice, Fink reminds us that history is measured not only by dates, but also by individual lives and lived experience.

04/08/2026

Thank you to everyone who joined us for TJHTalks #53: Jewish Life in Poland: Here and Now, Part II.

In this conversation, we again explored what Jewish life in Poland looks like today - its diversity, challenges, and the ways local organizations are responding to the needs of their communities, including support for Ukrainians.

If you missed the live event or would like to return to the discussion, the full recording is now available on our YouTube channel. (Link in comments)

01/08/2026

On August 1, at 5:00 p.m., Warsaw pauses.

The sirens mark “W Hour” — the moment in 1944 when the Warsaw Uprising began. For 63 days, the city witnessed extraordinary courage from people who chose to resist, despite overwhelming odds. The costs were devastating. Yet their determination remains one of the most powerful chapters in the city’s wartime history.

Each year, the sound of the sirens brings daily life to a halt. For one minute, streets, squares, and crossings become places of quiet reflection — a shared gesture of respect for those whose lives were forever marked by the war.

Today, we stand in silence and remembrance.

31/07/2026

Ludwik Zamenhof was a Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist, linguist, and the creator of Esperanto. Born in Białystok, he grew up in a multicultural city where linguistic, religious, and national divisions shaped everyday life. His vision of a shared international language grew from a belief that understanding begins with communication.

More than a linguistic project, Esperanto reflected Zamenhof's hope for dialogue across cultures and communities. His work reminds us that building bridges often begins with listening to one another.

29/07/2026

Today marks Tu B'Av (the 15th of Av), one of the most joyful days in the Jewish calendar. Observed on the fifteenth day of the Hebrew month of Av, Tu B'Av has evolved from its ancient roots into a celebration of connection.

In ancient times, according to the Mishnah, young women wore borrowed white garments so that no one would be embarrassed by not owning fine clothes. They would dance in the vineyards, while young men sought their future partners. The Talmud presents Tu B'Av as a celebration not only of love, but also of equality and new beginnings.

Falling under the full moon of Av, Tu B'Av reminds us that even in a month associated with mourning, there is still light to be found.

27/07/2026

It’s great to come back to our tour led by Dr Anita Friedman, which brought participants into the layered story of Jewish Poland - its centuries-long community life, the Holocaust, postwar memory, and the vitality of Jewish culture today.

Across Warsaw and Kraków, with visits beyond the major cities, the group visited museums, archives, cemeteries, synagogues, community institutions, and cultural events connected to the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival. Thanks to the variety of locations and activities, our participants were able to encounter questions that may not be the first ones that come to mind when thinking about Jewish history.

The journey invited participants to consider Polish Jewish heritage not only as history, but as a living field of memory and dialogue. Through these experiences, we could all reflect on how memory is transmitted, how heritage is interpreted, and how meaningful encounters can deepen our understanding of Jewish life in Poland.

24/07/2026

How do we teach the Holocaust without beginning with death?

In June, we hosted a group of educators from South Carolina on a journey through Poland, from Warsaw and Kraków to Treblinka, Bełżec, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Tykocin, and smaller towns where Jewish life once shaped the rhythm of everyday streets.

This tour was built around a simple but demanding idea: before we can teach about destruction, we need to understand what had existed before.

We visited synagogues, cemeteries, museums, archives, and places where only traces of the past remain. Each stop added another layer to the story, similarly to how the Jewish communities in Poland were - full and complex. This was the real world long before it became a site of memory.

For educators, that context changes everything. It helps us speak about the Holocaust with greater care, while keeping individual lives and local histories at the center.

That is why these journeys matter. They give teachers not only facts to bring back home, but a deeper sense of responsibility for how the story is told.