Greater Chicago Jewish Folk Arts Festival Records

Manuscript Collection No. 737

1980-2004. 4.8 Linear ft.

ACCESS AND PROVENANCE
The Greater Chicago Jewish Folk Arts Festival Records were donated to the American Jewish Archives by Michael Lorge in August, 2006.

All property rights have been assigned to the American Jewish Archives. All literary rights to materials in the collection are held by the individuals or his/her heirs. Questions concerning rights should be addressed to the Director of the American Jewish Archives. The collection is open to all users and available in the reading room of the American Jewish Archives.
INSTITUTIONAL SKETCH top

The Greater Chicago Jewish Folk Arts Festival is organized every other year by the Jewish Production Organization for Cultural Events and Theatre (P.O.C.E.T.)., a production group comprised of professionals in the fields of art, music, theater, dance, radio, television, communications, community relations, graphic arts, education, engineering, finance and law. The brainchild of Michael Lorge, it has been produced biennially wholly by volunteers since 1980. The festival draws more than 40,000 attendees, and requires planning a year in advance. The event's prospectus lists the following rationale for producing the festival:

Bringing together the best of the community’s professional and amateur performers and artists.

Demonstrating to Jewish children and the larger community that the Jewish community does not just gather in time of crisis.

Educating the Jewish community about its multi-faceted culture.

Reaching out to the general community to show the breadth
and depth of the Jewish community.

Providing an avenue for Jewish artists and performers to develop and present their work and encourage them to work on Jewish themes within their fields.

Encouraging tolerance by bringing the entire Jewish community together to celebrate our culture, identity and diversity.

The festival includes continuous music on two stages, a family stage, a story telling/dance tent, a juried art fair, a hands-on activity area, a book sale, a craft tent, an ethnic food fair and organization information booths. It is one of the largest and longest-running Jewish festivals in the United States. The festival’s organizers refer to it as The Heart and Soul of Jewish Chicago.

Publicity is another area of tremendous importance to the festival. Festival planners’ increasing sophistication where advertising is concerned can be seen as each year’s documents include more and more newspaper clippings, the bulk of which are ads. The use of billboards necessitates deciding the most advantageous locations; ordering caps and t-shirts raises the obvious question, “How many?” The timing of such orders is critical, as is the design of the items. The advantage of an attractive festival logo becomes obvious! Appearances on local television by the festival’s founder, Michael Lorge, also serve to promote awareness of the festival.

Production, the actual nuts and bolts of making a festival happen, requires endless arrangements. If there is one thing that cannot fail to impress, it is the attention to details, both large and small. Nothing is left to chance. Michael Lorge and his co-chairs are never too busy to write a thank-you note; they are never disinterested, never disorganized.

SCOPE AND CONTENT top

The Greater Chicago Jewish Folk Arts Festival consist of correspondence, advertising, contracts, meeting agendas, applications, permits, prospectuses, budgets, insurance policies, and other documents. Each year of the festival, with the exception of the first, 1980, is represented by documentation about art and artists, the festival budget, kosher food vendors, insurance, performers (some from overseas), post-festival correspondence, a yearly prospectus, publicity, sponsors/fundraising, and volunteers. While sponsors and fundraising may be heavily represented one year, and performers the next, a very complete picture of what it takes to produce a festival attended by 40,000 people is created..

The collection is arranged into one chronological series, with the same subjects arising in planning and producing each year’s festival. Certainly the researcher who is interested in learning about finding sponsors, corresponding with them, writing a prospectus to tell them what they can underwrite and the “opportunities” that exist for them to communicate their name to a particular community, the Jewish community in this case, can find examples of all of these in this collection.

The records are housed in twelve Hollinger boxes. In most cases, one year of the festival takes up one box. The collection includes one audiocassette. One compact disc recording of music from the 2000 festival has been removed to the AJA disc collection and has been cataloged as CD-769. The American Jewish Archives owns the records for Festivals through 2004. The GCJFAF is ongoing. For more information about the Festival, go to www.pocet.org.

BOX AND FOLDER LIST top

Box	Folder	Contents

1980-1983 Festivals.

1	1	1980 Festival.
	2	1981 Festival.
	3	Art.  1983.
	4	Budget. 1983.
	5	Food Vendors.  1983.
	6	Jewish Production Organization for Cultural Events 
		And Theatre (P.O.C.E.T.).
	7	Performers.  1983
	8	Permits.  1983
	9	Photographs.  1983
	10	Post-Festival Correspondence.  1983.
	11	Production.  1983.
	12	Prospectus.  1983.
	13	Publicity.  1983.
	14	Sponsors/Fundraising.  1983.

1986 Festival.

2	1	Art.  1986.
	2	Budget.  1986.
	3	Craft/Book Fair.  1986.
	4	Food Vendors.  1986.
	5	Hands On.  1986.
	6	Insurance.  1986.
	7	Invitations.  1986.
	8	Participants/Organizations.  1986.
	9	Performers.  1986.
	10	Photographs.  1986.
	11	Post-Festival Correspondence.  1986.
	12	Production.  1986.
	13	Prospectus.  1986.
	14	Publicity.  1986.
	15	Sponsors/Fundraising.  1986.
	16	Steering Committee.  1986.
	17	Suppliers.  1986.
	18	Volunteers.  1986.

1988 Festival.

3	1	Art.  1988.
	2	Budget.  1988.
	3	Food Vendors.  1988
	4	Hands On.  1988.
	5	Insurance.  1988.
	6	Performers.  1988.
	7	Permits.  1988.
	8	Planning.  1988.
	9	Production.  1988.
	10	Prospectus.  1988.
	11	Publicity.  1988.
	12	Sponsors.  1988.
	13	Steering Committee.  1988.
	14	Suppliers.  1988.
	15	Video Release.  1988.
	16	Miscellaneous.  1988.

1990 Festival.

4	1	Art.  1990.
	2	Budget.  1990.
	3	Food Vendors.  1990.
	4	Hands On.  1990.
	5	Insurance.  1990.
	6	Invitations.  1990.
	7	Neighborhood Festival Application.  1990.
	8	Performers.  1990.
	9	Photographs.  1990.
	10	Production.  1990.
	11	Publicity.  1990.
	12	Sponsors/Fundraising.  1990.
	13	Steering Committee.  1990.
	14	Suppliers.  1990.
	15	Video Release.  1990.
	16	Volunteers.  1990
	17	Miscellaneous.  1990.

1992 Festival.

5	1	Budget.  1992.
	2	City Material  Coordination with the City of Chicago.  1992.
	3	Food Vendors.  1992.
	4	Insurance.  1992.
	5	Maps.  1992.
	6	Performers.  1992.
	7	Production.  1992.
	8	Publicity.  1992.
	9	Sponsors/Fundraising.  1992.
	10	State Material.  Ethnic Affairs, State of Illinois.  1992
	11	Steering Committee.  1992.
	12	Suppliers.  1992.
	13	Volunteers.  1992.
	14	Miscellaneous.  1992.

1994 Festival.

6	1	Art.  1994.
	2	Budget.  1994.
	3	City Regulations.  1994.
	4	Food Vendor.  1994.
	5	Hands On.  1994.
	6	Insurance.  1994.
	7	Invitations.  1994.
	8	Neighborhood Festival/City of Chicago.  1994.
	9	Performers.  1994.
	10	Photographs/Negatives.  1994.
	11	Post-Festival Correspondence.  1994.
	12	Production.  1994.
	13	Prospectus.  1994.
	14	Publicity.  1994.
	15	Sponsors/Fundraising.  1994.
	16	Steering Committee.  1994.
	17	Suppliers.  1994.
	18	Volunteers.  1994.

1996 Festival.

7	1	Accounting.  1996.
	2	Art.  1996.
	3	Food Vendors.  1996.
	4	Insurance.  1996.
	5	Invitations.  1996.
	6	MarkeTown.  1996.
	7	Performers.  1996.
	8	Photographs/Negatives.  1996.
	9	Production.  1996.
	10	Publicity.  1996.
	11	Sponsors/Fundraising.  1996.
	12	Steering Committee.  1996.
	13	Suppliers.  1996.
	14	Video/Audio Release.  1996.
	15	Volunteers.  1996.
	16	Miscellaneous.  1996.

1998 Festival.

8	1	Art.  1998.
	2	Budget.  1998.
	3	Food Vendors.  1998.
	4	Insurance.  1998.
	5	Invitations.  1998.
	6	Maps.  1998.
	7	MarkeTown.  1998.
	8	Performers.  1998.  Includes audiocassette: The 1997 North American Zionist Song Competition.
	9	Photographs/Negatives.  1998.
	10	Post-Festival Correspondence.  1998.

9	1	Production.  1998.
	2	Prospectus.  1998.
	3	Publicity.  1998.
	4	Publicity.  1998.
	5	Raffle Prizes.  1998.
	6	Sponsors/Fundraising.  1998.
	7	Steering Committee.  1998.
	8	Suppliers.  1998.
	9	Video.  1998.
	10	Volunteers.  1998.
	11	Miscellaneous.  1998.

2000 Festival.

10	1	Art.  2000.
	2	Budget.  2000.
	3	Festival CD. Planning.  2000.
   CD-769       Festival CD. Sunshine & Jewish Stars. 2000.
	4	Festival T Shirt.  2000.
	5	Food Vendors.  2000.
	6	Insurance.  2000.
	7	MarkeTown.  2000.
	8	Performers.  2000.
	9	Post-Festival Correspondence.  2000.
	10	Production.  2000.
	11	Publicity.  2000.
	12	Sponsors.  2000.
	13	Suppliers.  2000.
	14	Video/Audio.  2000.
	15	Volunteers.  2000.

2002 Festival.

11	1	Art.  2002.
	2	Budget/Accounting.  2002
	3	Food Vendors.  2002
	4	Hands On.  2002
	5	Insurance.  2002
	6	Performers.  2002
	7	Performers.  2002.
	8	Post-Festival Correspondence.  2002
	9	Production.  2002
	10	Production.  2002
	11	Prospectus.  2002
	12	Publicity.  2002
	13	Sponsors/Fundraising.  2002 
	14	Steering Committee.  2002.
	15	Video/Audio.  2002
	16	Volunteers.  2002

2004 Festival.

12	1	Art.  2004
	2	Budget.  2004
	3	Food Vendors.  2004.
	4	Insurance.  2004
	5	Performers.  2004.
	6	Post-Festival Correspondence.  2004.
	7	Production.  2004
	8	Prospectus.  2004.
	9	Publicity.  2004.
	10	Sponsors/Fundraising.  2004
	11	Volunteers.  2004