Polina Pailis, an incredible guardian of bona fide Litvak culture here in Vilnius, with her 96th (!) consecutive monthly exhibition at the premises of the Jewish Community of Lithuania at Pylimo 4. On a completely voluntary basis (her day job is at the National Library), Polina, on the last working day each month, sets up the new month’s exhibition.
The mini-exhibits are bilingual (Yiddish and Lithuanian) and each month focused on a different aspect of Litvak and Yiddish culture. The modest, straightforward, low-tech presentation on simple shelves, with high caliber culturally authentic content, is the classic synthesis of a Litvak who doesn’t let a day, or a month go by without studying something new, with little time for low-content high-tech razzmatazz. We must think of how to celebrate the project’s 100th exhibition coming up this spring. . .
Incidentally, for many years, Polina acted in Milan Chersonski’s Yiddish theater, featuring in such famous productions as ‘Mírele Éfros’ and ‘Di Bróder Zínger’. Her parents hailed from Šauliai (in Yiddish: Shavl).
PS: The monthly exhibition project, in my view, has had one fault. When you walk into the community building, the tendency is to head straight for the stairs or elevator, and some don’t notice Polina’s exhibition to the sharp left. Maybe a multilingual sign, “Please look left before heading further”?
Dovid Katz
