The Jüdische Kulturbund Project: A Global Arts Initiative

The Jüdische Kulturbund Project (JK Project) is a global arts and education initiative rooted in a historical truth: when freedom is restricted, creative expression can become a form of resistance. Inspired by Jewish artists in Nazi Germany who were expelled from their professional roles in 1933 and formed the Jüdischer Kulturbund to continue performing for Jewish audiences, the JK Project connects past and present through music, theatre, film, and digital storytelling.

This case study highlights the project’s origin and evolution, its international programming, and how fiscal sponsorship through PPF supports the team’s ability to focus on creative work and community impact.

Project Inspiration: Creativity as a Tool of Resilience

The JK Project began with Gail Prensky’s deep engagement with the story of Jewish artists who refused to let persecution silence their work. After being pushed out of mainstream cultural institutions, they created their own—sustaining community, identity, and dignity through performance under extraordinary constraints.

For Prensky, the Kulturbund’s legacy offered more than a historical narrative. It presented a lasting framework for understanding how art can help people hold onto identity, transmit memory, and build solidarity—even when political conditions attempt to erase culture, language, or voice.

That legacy shaped the JK Project’s core premise: artistic practice can preserve history, strengthen cultural identity, and help communities respond to oppression with imagination, courage, and connection.

Mission and Vision: Connecting Communities Through Story and the Arts

The JK Project encourages connection through shared experiences and advances freedom of expression in response to persecution. Fostering creativity in the face of adversity helps individuals and communities use culture, storytelling, and the arts to confront injustice, preserve memory, and inspire change.

Across its work, the JK Project treats storytelling as both an artistic practice and a civic one: a way to surface lived experience, build empathy across difference, and translate community realities into creative work that can be shared, discussed, and carried forward.

How the Project Works: Multi-Platform Storytelling

From the beginning, the JK Project has been designed to move across formats—meeting audiences and participants where they are while keeping a consistent thematic focus on resilience, cultural identity, and freedom of expression.

In practice, that includes developing productions and learning experiences that may take the form of performances, films, workshops, or digital storytelling trainings. The throughline is intentional: creative output is not separate from education and community engagement, but integrated with it.

Launching the Initiative: Research, Relationships, and Early Challenges

The project’s early work centered on historical research and interviews with surviving members and descendants of the original Kulturbund. These conversations and source materials helped shape the foundation for artistic development while ensuring the story remained grounded in lived memory and historical record.

From there, the team expanded its scope to include contemporary artists and communities navigating related themes—linking history to current realities through collaborative storytelling and arts-based learning.

Like many growing initiatives, the JK Project faced practical barriers while building momentum, including:

• Securing funding
• Assembling and coordinating a cohesive creative team
• Navigating restructuring challenges due to partnership issues, economic conditions, and the COVID-19 pandemic

Perseverance and adaptation were central to moving forward. The team adjusted course when needed while staying anchored to the project’s purpose and long-term vision.

Why Fiscal Sponsorship: Partnering With PPF

After transitioning from a previous fiscal sponsor, the JK Project partnered with PPF for fiscal sponsorship. The relationship provided a stable administrative and fiduciary foundation—enabling the project to receive and manage contributions while focusing its energy on programming and production.

For arts and education initiatives with ambitious creative goals, fiscal sponsorship can function as a practical bridge between vision and execution: it supports operational readiness while helping projects stay focused on craft, community relationships, and delivery.

The JK Project describes PPF as a true partner that embraced the project’s vision and helped support a smooth transition. With fiscal sponsorship in place, the team could devote more time and capacity to creative output and program development, supported by reliable back-end administration.

That support helps protect the most scarce resource in many mission-driven creative projects: focused time. When core administrative functions are handled consistently, the team can plan more intentionally, respond to partners more quickly, and keep production and program work moving forward.

Project Impact: Global Storytelling and Arts Programming

The JK Project has delivered digital storytelling training and arts programming across the United States and internationally, including:

• United States: Baltimore and Prince George’s County
• International programs and partnerships: Germany, Sweden, Kenya, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, and South Africa

Through these programs, the JK Project supports participants in shaping narrative—building skills and confidence to document experience, interpret history, and share stories that might otherwise be overlooked.

One signature example described in the case study is “Bullets to Books” in Juba, South Sudan, which helped raise funds to build permanent school structures and tripled student enrollment—illustrating how storytelling and arts practice can drive tangible, community-defined outcomes.

What the Work Makes Possible: Culture, Learning, and Action

The JK Project’s impact is not only measured in performances or productions. It also shows up in the learning ecosystems the project helps create—spaces where people can process history, articulate present-day realities, and imagine what resilience can look like in their own contexts.

By linking historic experience to contemporary creative practice, the JK Project offers a model for arts-led education that is both reflective and forward-moving: preserving memory while building tools for expression and connection.

Growth and Evolution: From a Single Film to a Multi-Platform Movement

What began as a vision for a single documentary evolved into a multi-faceted international initiative. Today, the JK Project’s work includes:

• Theatre performances
• Documentary and educational films
• Exhibits and workshops
• Music programs exploring historic and contemporary themes of resistance

Over time, the project has also shifted from seeking collaborators to attracting them—an indicator of growing recognition and a widening circle of partners drawn to the work.

Looking Ahead: New Goals and Continued Partnership

The JK Project aims to expand its programming and deepen collaboration, including plans to:

• Expand the America! digital storytelling program
• Advance “Songs of Freedom,” a music project blending opera, film, and water drama
• Launch Hannah’s Dance (version 2) with partners in Zimbabwe and the Virgin Islands
• Collaborate with German partners to develop a music drama/opera exploring the Kulturbund’s modern relevance

As the project grows, Prensky envisions continued partnership with PPF built on strong administrative support, with the potential to also facilitate fundraising opportunities and create spaces for sponsored projects to connect—through convenings that encourage networking, resource sharing, and collaboration across missions.

Advice for Changemakers: Keep the Story Moving

The JK Project’s trajectory reflects a common pattern in ambitious, mission-driven creative work: the path is rarely linear, but a clear purpose can help sustain progress through shifting circumstances. Staying rooted in community relationships, being willing to adapt structure and strategy, and protecting time for the work itself can help projects remain both resilient and effective as they grow.