About us
JKFest exists to open spaces where art, history and experience make the distance between people smaller. We convey Jewish culture as a living part of Trondheim, and create a festival where experience, reflection and human encounters can work together.
This is what we do
Through concerts, literature, performing arts, film, lectures and conversations, JKFest opens up spaces for encounters with Jewish culture, history and contemporary times.
The Jewish Cultural Festival Trondheim has developed over fifteen years into an important arena in the city's cultural life. The festival is rooted in Trondheim, but also points beyond the city and into larger questions of minority, identity, democracy and belonging.
It addresses both the Jewish community and a broad public audience. That is precisely where its strength lies: in its ability to be clearly rooted and at the same time open, relevant and inviting.
We are JKFest
JKFest is built on a simple but demanding idea: that encounters between people matter. Not as polite ideals, but as actual experience. When we share space, listen, are touched, and see the world through the expressions and stories of others, something happens to us.
That's why the festival exists. To make Jewish culture and experience visible as a living part of Trondheim, and to create a place where curiosity has greater space than distance and prejudice.
Part of our city
JKFest is more than a series of events. The festival is a public arena where minority and majority meet through art, knowledge and conversation. It helps to highlight Jewish life and history in Norway, and to place these experiences within a larger conversation about democracy, belonging and society.
We don't believe that a festival alone can solve big problems. But we believe that it can open something crucial: a space where people see more, understand more and fear less. That's why we want to create a festival with room for complexity, different perspectives and questions that don't always have easy answers.
Jewish culture is not an addition to Trondheim's history. It is part of it.
Community mission
We will make it harder for prejudice to take hold. We will open more spaces where people can meet with greater curiosity, knowledge, and attention to each other.
Through art, history and conversation, the festival works for a public space with more depth, more historical awareness and a greater ability to live with difference.
A work in progress
JKFest is developed with a clear structure around the expertise that already exists in and around the festival. Artists, professionals, volunteers, partners and institutions are not external contributions to the festival, but part of what gives it form, content and direction.
The existing work is managed with gratitude and further developed with clarity. This puts the festival's strengths in a larger context, gives them a clearer shape and good conditions for operating over time.
How we build
The festival is created through the interaction of artistic impulses, professional perspectives, practical work and relationships between people.
What has been built gives JKFest both character, experience and a distinct place in the city.
Structure around competence
The festival is organized so that the different parts of the work meet in a common direction. This provides better coherence between idea, content, collaboration and implementation, and makes it possible to work with greater precision throughout the year.
Organization is not something that is added to the festival. It is a way of taking care of what already exists in terms of experience, relationships and expertise, and giving it a clear framework to work within.
Organization
JKFest is being developed through a clearer structure where artistic choices, practical implementation and institutional anchoring are interconnected.
It makes the festival more precise, more sustainable and better equipped to grow without losing direction.
The program is shaped together
JKFest is developed through a program council that brings together perspectives from art, research, volunteerism, pedagogy, and Jewish experience. This breadth gives the festival continuity, depth, and a stronger connection between content, social mission, and audience engagement.
For us, programming is more than booking. It's about developing content that has direction, relevance and integrity. When different people get to work together on what questions the festival should raise, who it should reach and what experiences it should open up, the program becomes both freer, sharper and more meaningful.
Program Council
The festival is shaped through a program council where different experiences, professional views and cultural perspectives work together on the content.
This gives the program both breadth, depth and a clearer anchoring in the festival's identity.
People in daily work
Behind JKFest lies continuous work of planning, coordination, communication and follow-up. It is about getting many different parts to meet each other in a good way: artists, volunteers, partners, program council, audience and institutions.
The work is done with respect for what the festival has already become, and with a determination to manage and further develop this legacy with care. When roles and responsibilities are clear, it becomes easier to work precisely, stay on track and give the festival a good framework for further development.
The team
The festival is developed and implemented by us, who plan, coordinate and monitor the work throughout the year.
Clear roles make it easier to keep the whole together and provide space for collaboration, professionalism and implementation.
Strategy and Annual Reports
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Jewish Cultural Festival Trondheim
Architect Christies gate 1b,
7012 Trondheim
+47 991 28 083