7. Berlin Biennale: And Europe Will Be Stunned. Erster internationaler Kongress des Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP)

Die Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland wurde 2007 von der israelischen Künstlerin Yael Bartana gegründet. Sie fordert die Rückkehr von 3.300.000 Jüd_innen nach Polen, wo die jüdische Community nahezu vollständig ausgelöscht wurde. Die Bewegung ist zugleich eine Antwort auf das Scheitern alter Utopien. Ziel des ersten Bewegungs-Kongresses im Rahmen der → 7. Berlin Biennale ist es, eine reale Aktions-Plattform zu schaffen und gemeinsam einen Plan für die Zukunft zu erstellen. Ausgangspunkt des dreitägigen Kongresses (11.–13. Mai 2012) im → Hebbel am Ufer (HAU 1) ist ein Brief des verstorbenen Anführers der Bewegung, Sławomir Sierakowski, der nach seiner Ermordung aufgefunden wurde:

To my friends and comrades,

I can feel that I might be gone soon, but I know that you won’t run out of strength and imag­i­na­tion to change the world. Ties and imag­i­na­tion are what we need to enable the social change that we promised our­selves when we sum­moned 3.3 mil­lion Jews to return to Poland. What we want is to cre­ate a world in which such a plan would not sim­ply be dis­missed as utopian. Utopia for us seems to be the con­vic­tion that there are no alter­na­tives to the existing world.

In today’s world, we are still ruled by fear for our safety and by shame about get­ting involved. Man is still a wolf to his fel­low man, since no tale of a bet­ter world engages him more than his own pri­vate inter­est. If we want to over­come the glob­al­ized «state of nature» in which we live, we should cre­ate social ties. Because only the trust that we have for each other will allow us to get involved in build­ing a bet­ter world beyond our per­sonal affairs.

I had a dream about what should be changed in Poland. But we need more dreams and imag­i­na­tion to change Europe and the Middle East. And I can promise you that these changes will be big and dif­fi­cult to carry out. That’s why I’m ask­ing all of you to think about them together. Argue, debate, and choose those that will best serve our cause. The cause of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMIP)!

I know that if you get together and trust each other, you will be able to come up with excit­ing sug­ges­tions and give a demo­c­ra­tic man­date to our dreams.

Each and every one of us is respon­si­ble for social change!

Here is my pro­posal for changes in Poland:

1. Polish cit­i­zen­ship to all immi­grants!

2. Reintegration tax to cover the costs of mov­ing 3.3 mil­lion Jews to Poland!

3. Hebrew as the sec­ond offi­cial lan­guage in Poland!

4. Dismissal notice of the Polish state con­cern­ing the con­cor­dat with the Vatican state – each reli­gious insti­tu­tion should act on the same level!

5. Minorities House instead of Senate in Polish Parliament!

Once again I wish you ties and imagination!

… and Europe will be stunned!

Sławomir Sierakowski

Das Programm, eine Liste der Delegierten sowie die Dokumentation der Tagung findet sich auf der Website der → Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland.