Third edition of the TISH* Jewish Food Festival is going to be unique: it will be held both in-person and online, with audiences all across Poland and the globe in mind. POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews invited famous chefs and renowned culinary experts from the United States, Poland and Israel to join in debates on Jewish food, to discover its history together and also to learn how to prepare it. ‘CLOSENESS’ is the key word of this year’s TISH Festival edition.

The experience of the past few months of the pandemic and the need to keep two-metre distance from another human being made us rethink the meaning of the word “close.” TISH Jewish Food Festival provides an opportunity to build a community, despite physical distance, and to seek things—such as food—which bring us all together. Yet again, we will point to close links between Polish and Jewish cuisine, and to the ways they permeate and inspire each other. POLIN Museum also invites you to explore the history of the area it is located in by touring the current temporary exhibition titled Here Is Muranów. For “closeness” may also refer to being part of one’s local environment and immediate neighbourhood.

POLIN Museum has planned various activities for the five Festival days: cooking together without the need to leave your home, sharing family stories connected to food, embroidering a unique Festival tablecloth together at the Museum as well as culinary walks through old Jewish Warsaw where languages, flavours and fragrances intermingled. Festival guests will find out what dishes they could fix based on a pre-war Yiddish cookbook and they will realise that barley and pasta actually go well together. During workshops, children and their parents will learn how to make a Shabbat challah and will find out why a tree growing sweet yellow fruit has become a protagonist of a book. POLIN Museum also invites you to join in decorating a sukkah—a traditional hut erected each year in front of the Museum building to celebrate the joyous Jewish holiday of Sukkot.