Kolbuszowa – The City of Peace, i.e. the 6th David Psalms Festival

Tadeusz Poźniak Fotografia / Fundacja im. Rodziny Ulmów SOAR

The most recent edition of the David Psalms Festival was held on Sunday, 22 August, in Kolbuszowa (south-eastern Poland). It was a call for peace expressed by outstanding artists performing Polish and Jewish music. Among them were: Michał Lorenc, Józef Skrzek, The Golec Brothers, Piotr Rubik, Darek Malejonek, Michał Jurkiewicz, and Symcha Keller.

The David Psalms Festival “Honoring the Righteous and the Saved” has been organized in Kolbuszowa for 6 years. The main theme of this year’s event was peace. The concert included psalms of reconciliation and peace. The artists performed at the Municipal Stadium. The second edition of the festival will be held on 15 December in Rome.

“We invited outstanding composers to participate in this work. Fourteen completely new works based on the Psalms of David were created, ” said Bogdan Romaniuk, vice-president of the Foundation YES TO Life and founder of the SOAR Ulma Family foundation which organizes the festival in Kolbuszowa.

This year, a new event was initiated as part of the festival – the Colloquia Kolbuszoviensia. Christian and Jewish Conversations on Psalms, with the participation of Rabbi prof. Dalia Marx, Fr. Dr. hab. Wojciech Węgrzyniak, Rabbi Prof. Jonathan Magonet, and Fr. Dr. hab. Adam Kubiś.

Before the concert began at 6.30 pm, young people and all guests gathered to pray for peace in the parish of All Saints in Kolbuszowa under the leadership of Msgr. Jan Wątroba, Bishop of the diocese of Rzeszów. The Blessed Sacrament was exposed in the monstrance of the Queen of Peace from Medjugorje, which, after visiting Polish parishes, will ultimately return to the chapel in Medjugorje.

Bogdan Romaniuk emphasized the importance of the message of peace that was heard that day in Kolbuszowa:

Polish and Jewish biblical scholars talked about the theme of peace in the psalms. Later, there was a prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in the Medjugorje monstrance. Then the David Psalms Festival. All this made Kolbuszowa a city-symbol crying out for peace that day, a city of peace.

As Bogdan Romaniuk pointed out, the festival is a project which “required a great deal of effort on the part of the SOAR Ulma Family Foundation. It took a year to prepare.”

Each year, musicians from Israel also participate in the project, but due to the pandemic situation, Polish artists Symcha Keller and Piotr Bunzler performed Jewish music this year.

The musicians on the stage in Kolbuszowa sang, calling for peace, but the other important theme of the event was the protection of the life of the unborn and the well-being of families.

“We are convinced that the Ulma family will ultimately patronize families not only in Poland, but also throughout the world,” emphasized Romaniuk, referring to the tragic fate of the Ulmas, patrons of the SOAR Foundation.

The SOAR Ulma Family Foundation was inspired by the life and death of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, who, together with their children, including one unborn, were killed by German soldiers for hiding Jews. The tragedy occurred on 24 March 1944 in Markowa (Podkarpackie Voivodeship, formerly Lwów). In 1995, the Ulmas were posthumously honored with the title of Righteous Among the Nations. In 2010, the President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, decorated them with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. Their beatification process has been underway since 2003, which is now at the Vatican stage.

Bogdan Romaniuk has already announced the seventh edition of the festival for next year, under the theme of Mercy.