Join us for an evocative charity evening that explores Jewish life, memory, and loss through art and photography.

The first half of the event journeys into the vibrant prewar shtetl through the work of Mayer Kirshenblatt. Teaching himself to paint at the age of 73, Kirshenblatt devoted his later years to preserving the world of his youth in Poland — a rich, everyday Jewish life remembered through colour, humour, and personal memory. His paintings offer a rare, intimate window into a community that once thrived.

Curated session on the works of Mayer Kirshenblatt based on the original exhibition at POLIN Museum, Warsaw, designed by the Taube Center for Jewish Life & Learning, with support of the AEPJ.

After a short break for drinks and light bites, the evening continues with special guest Lewis James Phillips, a landscape and documentary photographer and volunteer with The Together Plan. Currently working on projects in Poland and planning future work in Belarus, Phillips’ photography turns a quiet, contemplative lens on sites of memory and absence. His extraordinary work plays a vital role in how we tell stories of place, loss, and remembrance in the present day and is a very personal and unusual journey of discovery. In conversation with The Together Plan’s CEO Debra Brunner, Lewis will share his story and what led him to his now personal mission to shed light on the Holocaust in the east.

Together, the two halves of the evening create a powerful contrast: the lived communities of the past and the ways we remember them today — through art, photography, education, and personal responsibility.