Visit of the founder of the Matzevah Foundation

On 20.12.2022 we were visited by Steven D. Reece. Coming from the USA, Steven is a Baptist pastor who has been caring for Jewish cemeteries in Poland for almost eighteen years. He is the founder of the Matzevah Foundation, which continues these activities in dozens of Polish localities. In the current academic year, Steven is a lecturer and researcher at the Institute of History at the University of Szczecin under a prestigious Fulbright scholarship. He has worked for years with the Rabbinical Commission for Cemeteries and many activists. He brings together people of different religions and nationalities. Steven is interested in the problem of how, through Polish-Jewish cemetery restoration projects, to bring together various interested groups to promote dialogue and reconciliation. According to Steven's thesis, a model for connecting, mobilizing and assisting those involved in Polish-Jewish cemetery restoration projects can open the way to preserving Polish-Jewish heritage and resolving fundamental problems in Jewish-Christian relations. So he conducts talks, surveys and interviews with people working in this field, and this is what brought him to Mszana Dolna. We are happy about this visit, conversation, getting to know such an interesting person, and we keep our fingers crossed for his research work and all activities related to the concern for memory, which is also close to us :) And maybe something more will come out of this meeting? Cooperation, new projects, participation in our commemorations?

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