(post)Jewish… Shtete Apt trought the eyes of Majer Kirsenblatt

This richly illustrated companion publication to the exhibition (post)JEWISH… Shtetl Opatów Through the Eyes of Mayer Kirshenblatt expands on the themes explored in the show and invites readers to rediscover the less-known history of Opatów, one of the many Polish towns that before the Second World War were home to both Jewish and Polish communities. Through the paintings and memories of Mayer Kirshenblatt, it reconstructs a world that was destroyed in the Holocaust, while
bringing back the people, places, customs, and everyday experiences that once shaped the life of the shtetl. Using Opatów as both a specific case study and a symbol of hundreds of similar towns across Poland and Eastern Europe, the publication reveals the coexistence of two intertwined yet unequally remembered histories: that of the Polish inhabitants, still present in local memory, and that of their Jewish neighbors, often forgotten or left untold. Kirshenblatt’s vivid, imaginative, and often humorous paintings serve as a unique visual archive of this vanished world, opening a window onto shared Polish- Jewish history. The book is a collection of essays by prominent specialists, looking at Kirshenblatt`s paintings and the Opatów shtetl from the perspective of history, art history, architecture, anthropology or local memory.