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Post by Jaga on Jul 13, 2007 15:44:55 GMT -7
Hello. I have a good Jewish friend in Idaho Falls. She is very educated. We rarely discuss any Polish-Jewish relations, we usually talk generally about the politics. Recently we had the exchange with her by e-mail. I asked her to read the article in Jewish press which suggest that Poland is not anti-semitic like it used to be. She wrote me the interesting e-mail.
Here is the beginning. I do not understand why Poles are accused of helping Germans to put Jews into the ghetto. The fact is that Poles did not really had any autonomy. I do not believe that Polish blue police was helping out. Jews also had their own government, their own police, of course not completely independent, Judenrat council and some control over their population.
What do you think? Can you help me to discuss with her these difficult times?
quote:
I can't forget that the Poles allowed the Nazis to collect the Warsaw Jews into a ghetto, starve them, and then murder them, or that Jews returning to Poland after the war found their homes occupied by Poles who refused to acknowledge that Jews had ever lived there. In that, anti-Semitic Poles (and Europeans generally) are no different than many people in the U.S., unfortunately. Even though the hatred is no longer given open support by communities and the government, the Articles of the Elders of Zion is still circulated in the U.S.
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Post by pieter on Jul 14, 2007 7:24:20 GMT -7
Hello. I have a good Jewish friend in Idaho Falls. She is very educated. We rarely discuss any Polish-Jewish relations, we usually talk generally about the politics. Recently we had the exchange with her by e-mail. I asked her to read the article in Jewish press which suggest that Poland is not anti-semitic like it used to be. She wrote me the interesting e-mail. Here is the beginning. I do not understand why Poles are accused of helping Germans to put Jews into the ghetto. The fact is that Poles did not really had any autonomy. I do not believe that Polish blue police was helping out. Jews also had their own government, of course not completely independent, Judenrat council and some control. What do you think? Can you help me to discuss with her these difficult times? quote: I can't forget that the Poles allowed the Nazis to collect the Warsaw Jews into a ghetto, starve them, and then murder them, or that Jews returning to Poland after the war found their homes occupied by Poles who refused to acknowledge that Jews had ever lived there. In that, anti-Semitic Poles (and Europeans generally) are no different than many people in the U.S., unfortunately. Even though the hatred is no longer given open support by communities and the government, the Articles of the Elders of Zion is still circulated in the U.S.Jaga, I think it is partly true what she says, in the perspective of the Blue Police, because my Catholic Polish grandmother who lived in Warsaw during the war told my father just the same as you yewish friend. From the other hand you have to look at the number of the blue Police, 12.000. 12.000 people on a population of 30 million people. You also have to see the fact that the Blue police was built up from Poles and Ukrainians, and that the Blue Police had no autonomy, and that all of its high ranking officers came from the ranks of the German police (Kriminalpolizei). It was a force of collaborators! ControversyThe role of the Blue Police in its collaboration with the Nazis is difficult to assess as a whole, and is often a matter of dispute. A significant part of the police personnel belonged to Polish underground resistance organization Armia Krajowa, mostly in the counter-intelligence of the Home Army and the Pa?stwowy Korpus Bezpiecze?stwa. Some authors underline that the Blue Police followed German orders reluctantly and that the officers had little choice but to obey their orders or face death. The Blue Police often disobeyed German orders or even acted against them, and some of its officers were awarded with the Righteous Among the Nations award. On the other hand the police did take part in street roundups and in the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, as well as in numerous executions, of both Polish and Jewish citizens. In German-occupied Poland, all household members were punished by death if a hidden Jew was found in their house. This was the most severe legislation in occupied Europe. Links: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Policeen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Anti-Semitismen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
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Post by bescheid on Jul 14, 2007 7:36:27 GMT -7
Jaga Your friendship with the Jewish lady sounds as of a sensitive nature, in as close friendships are. Are you sure you wish to risk a violation of her trust to bring forth of what you have both shared in confidence? Just only of a comment to share. In past, also have I enjoyed some good friendship with Jewish individuals, it mattered of not a witt between us of our nationalities. Some friendships were professional whilst others were social. The difference though, was these were Israelis {Nationals}, with two as war camp survivors {long in years}. People are people. Your friend, is she European, or North American Jewish? What I am thinking, is this: There are not so many people know of this: {The articles of The Elders of Zion}{Jewish Conspiracy for World Domination} This is European {Russian and Nazi hate propaganda}{Die Protokolle der Weisen von Zion}. users.foxvalley.net/~goertz/treu.htmlWhat little I see from your transcript, is some what revealing of a possible connection she holds with {The Preussisch Treuhand GmbH} They have some offices located in Frankfurt am Main and Munich under {Deutsland und Polen}. Other wise, you both have a strong friendship and of this, it is always to let professional lives as kept separate with your friendship kept as sacred. I am so sorry to have not better to offer Charles
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Post by pieter on Jul 14, 2007 7:42:45 GMT -7
Jews of Poland within the Russian Empire (1795–1918)
(the previous history, before independant Poland)
For more details on this topic, see History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union. Official Russian policy would eventually prove to be substantially harsher to the Jews than that under independent Polish rule. The lands that had once been Poland were to remain the home of many Jews, as, in 1772, Catherine II, the tzarina of Russia, instituted the Pale of Settlement, restricting Jews to the western parts of the empire, which would eventually include much of Poland, although it excluded some areas in which Jews had previously lived. By the late 1800s, over four million Jews would live in the Pale.
Initially, Russian policy towards the Jews of Poland was confused, alternating between harsh rules and somewhat more enlightened policies. In 1802, the Tsar established the Committee on the Improvement of the Jews in an attempt to develop a coherent approach to the Empire's new Jewish population. The Committee in 1804 suggested a number of steps that were designed to encourage Jews to assimilate, though it did not force them to do so. It proposed that Jews be allowed to attend school and even to own land, but it restricted them from entering Russia, banned them from the brewing industry, and included a number of other prohibitions. The more enlightened parts of this policy were never fully implemented, and the conditions of the Jews in the Pale gradually worsened. In the 1820s, the Cantonist Laws passed by Tsar Nicolas kept the traditional double taxation on Jews in lieu of army service, while actually requiring all Jewish communities to produce boys to serve in the military, where they were often forced to convert. Though the Jews were accorded slightly more rights with the emancipation reform of 1861, they were still restricted to the Pale of Settlement and subject to restrictions on ownership and profession. The status quo was however shattered with the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, an act falsely blamed upon the Jews.
Pogroms The assassination prompted a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish riots, called pogroms, throughout 1881–1884. In the 1881 outbreak, pogroms were primarily limited to Russia, although in a riot in Warsaw twelve Jews were killed, many others were wounded, women were raped and over two million rubles worth of property was destroyed. The new czar, Alexander III, blamed the Jews for the riots and issued a series of harsh restrictions on Jewish movements. Pogroms continued in large numbers until 1884, with at least tacit government approval. They proved a turning point in the history of the Jews in Poland and throughout the world. The pogroms prompted a great flood of Jewish immigration to the United States, with almost two million Jews leaving the Pale by the late 1920s, and the pogroms set the stage for Zionism. An even bloodier wave of pogroms broke out from 1903 to 1906, and at least some of the pogroms are believed to have been organized or supported by the Tsarist Russian secret police, the Okhranka. Some of the worst of these occurred on Polish territory, where the majority of Russian Jews lived then, and included the Bialystok pogrom of 1906, in which up to a hundred Jews were killed and many more wounded.
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Post by pieter on Jul 14, 2007 7:46:09 GMT -7
Politics in Polish Territory By the late 1800s, Haskalah and the debates it caused created a growing number of political movements within the Jewish community itself, covering a wide range of views and vying for votes in local and regional elections. Zionism became very popular with the advent of the Poale Zion socialist party as well as the religious Polish Mizrahi, and the increasingly popular General Zionists. Jews also took up socialism, forming the Bund labor union which supported assimilation and the rights of labor. The Folkspartei (People’s Party) advocated for its part cultural autonomy and resistance to assimilation. In 1912, Agudat Israel, a religious party, came into existence. Unsurprisingly, given the conditions under Imperial Russia, the Jews participated in a number of Polish insurrections against the Russians, including the Ko?ciuszko Insurrection (above), and the January Insurrection (1863) as well as the Revolutionary Movement of 1905.
Interwar period 1918–39
Independence and Polish Jews Jews also played a role in the fight for independence in 1918, some joining Józef Pilsudski, while many other communities decided to remain neutral in the fight for a Polish state. In the wake of World War I and the ensuing conflicts that engulfed Eastern Europe — the Russian Civil War, Polish-Ukrainian War, and Polish-Soviet War — many pogroms were launched against the Jews by all sides. As a substantial number of Jews were perceived to have supported the Bolsheviks in Russia, they came under frequent attack by those opposed to the Bolshevik regime. Just after the end of World War I, the West became alarmed by reports about alleged massive pogroms in Poland against Jews. Pressure for government action reached the point where President Woodrow Wilson sent an official commission to investigate the matter. The commission, led by Henry Morgenthau, Sr., announced in its report that the reports of pogroms were exaggerated, and in some cases may even have been fabricated (Morgenthau Report). It identified eight major incidents in the years 1918–1919, and estimated the number of victims at 200–300 Jews. Four of these were attributed to the actions of deserters and undisciplined individual soldiers; none were blamed on official government policy. Among the incidents, in Pisk a Polish officer accused a group of Jewish civilians of plotting against the Poles and shot thirty-five of them (Pinsk massacre). In Lviv (then Lwów) in 1918, after the Polish Army captured the city, hundreds of people were killed in the chaos, including some seventy-two Jews. In Warsaw, soldiers of Blue Army assaulted Jews in the streets, but were punished by military authorities. Many other events in Poland were later found to have been exaggerated, especially by contemporary newspapers such as the New York Times, although serious abuses against the Jews, including pogroms, continued elsewhere, especially in Ukraine.[4] The result of the concern over the fate of Poland's Jews was a series of explicit clauses in the Versailles Treaty protecting the rights of minorities in Poland. In 1921, Poland's March Constitution gave the Jews the same legal rights as other citizens and guaranteed them religious tolerance.
Jewish and Polish culture
The newly independent Second Polish Republic had a large Jewish minority – by the time World War II began, Poland had the largest concentration of Jews in Europe. According to the 1931 National Census there were 3,130,581 Polish Jews measured by the declaration of their religion. Estimating the population increase and the emigration from Poland between 1931 and 1939, there were probably 3,474,000 Jews in Poland as of September 1, 1939 (approximately 10% of the total population). Jews were primarily centered in large and smaller cities: 77% lived in cities and 23% in the villages. During the school year of 1937–1938 there were 226 elementary schools and twelve high schools as well as fourteen vocational schools with either Yiddish or Hebrew as the instructional language. Jewish political parties, both the Socialist General Jewish Labor Union (The Bund), as well as parties of the Zionist right and left wing and religious conservative movements, were represented in the Sejm (the Polish Parliament) as well as in the regional councils.
The Jewish cultural scene was particularly vibrant. There were many Jewish publications and over 116 periodicals. Yiddish authors, most notably Isaac Bashevis Singer, went on to achieve international acclaim as classic Jewish writers, and in Singer's case, win the 1978 Nobel Prize. Other Jewish authors of the period, like Bruno Schulz, Julian Tuwim, Jan Brzechwa and Boleslaw Lesmian were less well-known internationally, but made important contributions to Polish literature. Yiddish theatre also flourished; Poland had fifteen Yiddish theatres and theatrical groups. Warsaw was home to the most important Yiddish theater troupe of the time, the Vilna Troupe, which staged the first performance of The Dybbuk in 1920 at the Elyseum Theatre.
Growing anti-Semitism
Persecution of Jews in Poland was most visible during the early and latter years of the Second Republic. Jews were often not identified as true Poles; a problem caused by both Polish nationalism, supported by the Endecja government, and the fact that a substantial proportion of Jews lived separate lives from the Polish majority: 85% of Polish Jews listed Yiddish or Hebrew as their native language, for example. The matters improved for a time under the rule of Józef Pilsudski (1926–1935), who opposed anti-Semitism. Pilsudski replaced Endecja's 'ethnic assimilation' with the 'state assimilation' policy: citizens were judged by their loyalty to the state, not by their nationality. The years 1926-1935 were favourably viewed by many Polish Jews, whose situation improved especially under the cabinet of Pilsudski’s appointee Kazimierz Bartel. However a combination of various reasons, including the Great Depression, meant that the situation of Jewish was never too satisfactory, and it deteriorated again after Pilsudski's death, which many Jews regarded as a tragedy. Further academic harassment, anti-Jewish riots, and semi-official or unofficial quotas (Numerus clausus) introduced in 1937 in some universities halved the number of Jews in Polish universities between independence and the late 1930s. In 1937 the Catholic trade unions of Polish doctors and lawyers restricted their new members to Christian Poles while many government jobs continued to be unavailable to Jews during this entire period. This was accompanied by physical violence: in the years between 1935 and 1937 seventy-nine Jews were killed and 500 injured in anti-Jewish incidents. Violence was also frequently aimed at Jewish stores and many of them were looted. At the same time, persistent economic boycotts and harassment including property-destroying riots, combined with the effects of the Great Depression that had been very severe on agricultural countries like Poland, reduced the standard of living of Polish Jews until it was among the worst among major Jewish communities in the world. The result was that at the eve of the Second World War, the Jewish community in Poland was large and vibrant internally, yet (with the exception of a few professionals) also substantially poorer and less integrated than the Jews in most of Western Europe.
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Post by pieter on Jul 14, 2007 8:01:35 GMT -7
The Holocaust: German-occupied Poland
The Polish Jewish community suffered the most in the Holocaust. About 6 million Polish citizens perished during the war, half of them (3 million) Polish Jews - all but about 300,000 of the Jewish population - who were killed at the Nazi extermination camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec, Sobibór, Che?mno or died of starvation in ghettos.Many Jews in what was then eastern Poland also fell victim to Nazi death squads called Einsatzgruppen, which massacred Jews, especially in 1941.
Some of these German-inspired massacres were carried out with help from, or even active participation by, Poles themselves: for example, the massacre in Jedwabne, in which between 300 (Institute of National Remembrance's Final Findings) and 1,600 Jews (Jan T. Gross) were tortured and beaten to death by part of Jedwabne's citizens. The full extent of Polish participation in the massacres of the Polish Jewish community remains a controversial subject, in part due to Jewish leaders refusing to allow the remains of the Jewish victims to be exhumed and their cause of death to be properly established. The Polish Institute for National Remembrance identified twenty-two other towns that had pogroms similar to Jedwabne. The reasons for these massacres are still debated, but they included anti-Semitism, resentment over alleged cooperation with the Soviet invaders in the Polish-Soviet War and during the 1939 invasion of the Kresy regions, greed for the possessions of the Jews (although the majority of Polish Jews prior to the war constituted some of Poland's poorest citizens), and of course coersion by the Nazis to participate in such massacres. The Germans also established a number of ghettos in which Jews were confined, and eventually killed. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest, with 380,000 people and the ?ód? Ghetto, the second largest, holding about 160,000. Other Polish cities with large Jewish ghettos included Bia?ystok, Cz?stochowa, Kielce, Kraków, Lublin, Lwów, and Radom. Ghettos were also established in smaller settlements. The first ghetto uprising is believed to have occurred in 1942 the small town of ?achwa in the Polesie Voivodship. The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the German Governor-General Hans Frank on October 16, 1940. At this time, the population of the ghetto was estimated to be about 380,000 people, about 30% of the population of Warsaw. However, the size of the Ghetto was about 2.4% of the size of Warsaw. The Germans then closed off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world on November 16 of that year, building a wall around it. During the next year and a half, Jews from smaller cities and villages were brought into the Warsaw Ghetto, while diseases (especially typhoid) and starvation kept the inhabitants at about the same number. Average food rations in 1941 for Jews in Warsaw were limited to 253 kcal and 669 kcal for Poles as opposed to 2,613 kcal for Germans. On July 22, 1942, the mass deportation of the Warsaw Ghetto inhabitants began; during the next fifty-two days (until September 12, 1942) about 300,000 people were transported by train to the Treblinka extermination camp. The deportations were carried out by fifty German SS soldiers, 200 soldiers of the Latvian Schutzmannschaften Battalions, 200 Ukrainian Police, and 2,500 Jewish Ghetto Police. Employees of the Judenrat, including the Ghetto Police, along with their families and relatives, were given immunity from deportations in return for their cooperation. Additionally, in August 1942, Jewish Ghetto policemen, under the threat of deportation themselves, were ordered to personally "deliver" five ghetto inhabitants to the Umschlagplatz train station. On January 18, 1943, some Ghetto inhabitants, including members of ?OB (?ydowska Organizacja Bojowa, Jewish Combat Organisation), resisted, often with arms, German attempts for additional deportations to Treblinka. The final destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto came four months later after the crushing of this Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, one of a number of failed Ghetto uprisings. Some of the survivors of this uprising still held in camps at or near Warsaw were freed a year later during the larger Warsaw Uprising led by Polish resistance movement Armia Krajowa. The fate of the Warsaw Ghetto was similar to that of the other ghettos in which Jews were concentrated. With the decision of Nazi Germany to begin the Final Solution, the destruction of the Jews of Europe, Aktion Reinhard began in 1942, with the opening of the extermination camps of Be??ec, Sobibór, and Treblinka, followed by Auschwitz-Birkenau. The mass deportation of Jews from ghettos to these camps, such as happened at the Warsaw Ghetto, soon followed, and more than 1.7 million Jews were killed at the Aktion Reinhard camps by October 1943 alone. Poland was the only occupied country during World War II where the Nazis formally imposed the death penalty for anybody found sheltering and helping Jews. Also because the food rations for Poles were very small (669 kcal per day in 1941) and black market prices of food were high it was technically difficult to hide members of the Jewish population by Poles and it was almost impossible to hide entire Jewish families. Despite these draconian measures by the Nazis, Poland has the highest amount of Righteous Among The Nations awards at the Yad Vashem Museum. The Polish Government in Exile was also the first (in November 1942) to reveal the existence of Nazi-run concentration camps and the systematic extermination of the Jews by the Nazis, through its courier Jan Karski and through the activities of Witold Pilecki, member of Armia Krajowa and the only person who volunteered for imprisonment in Auschwitz and organized a resistance movement inside the camp itself.[12] The Polish government in exile was also the only government to set up an organization (?egota) specifically aimed at helping the Jews in Poland.
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Post by pieter on Jul 14, 2007 8:10:41 GMT -7
The Kielce pogromThe Kielce pogrom refers to the events that occurred on July 4, 1946, in the Polish town of Kielce, when 37 Polish Jews were murdered and 82 wounded out of about 200 Holocaust survivors who had returned home after World War II. Among the victims were former prisoners of concentration camps as well as Jewish soldiers and Russian Jews on their way to Palestine; two or three Gentile Poles also died, killed by the Jews defending themselves. While far from the deadliest pogrom against the Jews, the pogrom was especially significant in post-war Jewish history, as the attack took place fourteen months after the end of World War II, well after the Germans were defeated and the extent of the Holocaust was well known to the world. pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom_kielecki (in Polish) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielce_pogrom (in English) de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom_von_Kielce (in German) www.fathom.com/course/72809602/session3.htmlwww.poloniatoday.com/kielceix.htm
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Post by Jaga on Jul 14, 2007 10:23:45 GMT -7
Pieter,
thanks for so much information about this delicate issue. I think you are right with the blue police, still I would not equal a blue police to the Polish citizens. It was not spontaneous reaction of Polish people to help to round up Jews.
Charles, I will post more from her email. She is a very nice person and she does have her doubts about some of the Jewish actions. She is secular, she is non-observant Jew. Recently her mother died, they had a reception at home. They do not believe in God. This was hard for me because I wanted to say "She is probably in God's hands now" but how to do it if they are so non-religious.
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Post by Jaga on Jul 14, 2007 10:29:56 GMT -7
The next part of the post is her reaction to the article which was brought up to the forum by Pieter (at least I think so). ++++++++++++++++++++++ There is a new Poland
By Adar Primor
KRAKOW - The associations are familiar, the stereotypes are well known: Poland is the cradle of anti-Semitism; the land of persecution and pogroms; a nation of murderers and collaborators; the graveyard of the Jewish people.... +++++++++++++++++++++
Below is her response (the whole letter with the beginning which I included in the first mail). See how critial she is towards orthodox Jews:
Jagoda, I finally read the article all the way through. I have a lot of different reactions to it.
I can't forget that the Poles allowed the Nazis to collect the Warsaw Jews into a ghetto, starve them, and then murder them, or that Jews returning to Poland after the war found their homes occupied by Poles who refused to acknowledge that Jews had ever lived there. In that, anti-Semitic Poles (and Europeans generally) are no different than many people in the U.S., unfortunately. Even though the hatred is no longer given open support by communities and the government, the Articles of the Elders of Zion is still circulated in the U.S. by groups who believe implicitly in that ugly forgery. I simply don't trust the veneer of change. People like you and the other people in the Nation discussion group are both knowledgeable and sincere, but I know that when the restraints are off, the people who froth at the mouth with hatred and contempt of "Mexicans" or gays will find it easy to include niggers and Jews and shoot us all. I work to keep that from happening, that's why I take such an interest in politics, but I also know my history.
That remark about Polish identity being frozen in time was interesting. What I have read about all of eastern Europe tells me it's true -- and that there is a great deal of anti-Jewish sentiment there, despite all the Jewish festivals in Poland. The Nazis didn't invent anti-Semitism; it was widespread in Poland before the war.
I was surprised and pleased to learn that Poland is undergoing such a revival of respect and enthusiasm for Jewish arts and customs. (Cantorial singing? You have to go to Chicago or New York or maybe Los Angeles to find that here!) But I also see in it the same blind enthusiasm for what is exotic and distant that you find in people who see a golden age in everything medieval, or who rebel against the narrow-minded dogma of their own religions by embracing Buddhism, or who see in the Native American culture the epitome of environmental stewardship (but know nothing about modern Indians' fight against alcoholism or unemployment or exploitation by mining or development interests, or who feel no obligation to reimburse Japanese Americans for imprisonment and loss of lands and property during WWII). As the article says, there are almost no Jews OR Arabs in Poland. So Poles study Jewish customs out of context, like people I have met who sing the songs and wear the graphics of the Wobblies, without realizing that the Industrial Workers of the World still exists as an organization today. Israel itself was founded by totally secular Zionists largely to the opposition of orthodox Jews, and they despised each other. All Jews are not orthodox, and most reject the orthodox traditions of dress and behavior that crystallized in 19th century eastern Europe and Russia, as well as their blind ignorance and rigidity in their interpretation of the Bible. (I have met some absolutely wonderful people among orthodox Jews, and also some of the worst bigots.) As I'm sure you gathered from our discussion the other day, Israel's government is under fire from Jews as well as Palestinians for its militarism and repressive policies and unjust treatment of Palestinians. Poland's support for Israel has parallels with England's support for Bush's war in Iraq. Thanks, but maybe they should look more closely at what is going on there!
I followed one of the links you gave to Ha'aretz newspaper, and read an article about the Israeli government's policies that keep Palestinians isolated, unable to make a living from their agricultural lands, and unable to get to hospitals because the Israeli Defense Force does not staff barrier gates 24 hours a day. Most of the on-line letters in response were appalling. This one caught my attention:
I visited Israel recently and was surprised to meet secular Israeli Jews who hate religious Jews with a passion. They come off as open minded and liberal when you here them talk about peace with the Palestinians but in the same breath they would speak of orthodox Jews as if they were their sworn enemy.
No one who knows anything about Israel and its history could write such an ignorant letter, or could be surprised that liberal-minded Israelis reject orthodoxy. The extreme religious right in Israel is as rigid and as intolerant as the Taliban, and if they had their way would establish Israel as a theocracy with themselves in charge. They are also the driving force behind the armed and barricaded settlements in the West Bank. I visited the Jewish settlement in Hebron years ago, and a more arrogant, bigoted, violent bunch of people I hope never to meet. And I repeat, I spent several months in an Orthodox school for American women in Jerusalem, and met a lot of good people among them, but also a few real sons of bitches. The Peace movement in Israel has good reason to view orthodox Jews as enemies to their efforts. But knowing that, I find the idea of non-Jews in Poland holding seminars on Jewish religious practice positively weird. I find Poland's unquestioning support of Israel equally weird -- and dangerous.
I understand that Poland has made a real effort to educate its people and to counter the prejudice that existed before and during and immediately after WWII. This is a very good thing. But I put more faith in people like you who have traveled and done the kind of research you have put on your web site and who have met and talked with people like me and discussed what is happening in the real world. People who read about the Jewish religion and listen to klezmir music at festivals in Poland and who show their solidarity with the Jewish people by their support for Israel have no context for what they are doing. They aren't dealing with the real world, and are likely to have their illusions shattered and are likely to reject their fragile idealism when they run into real people and real politics.
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Post by pieter on Jul 22, 2007 13:15:11 GMT -7
Jaga, An Israeli journalist which articles I read regulary in the last years in the English edition Haaretz newsletters I saw the same sort of opinion as your secular-Jewish friend. Amira Hass is one of the Israeli jews who can see the situation in the Middle-East from the perspective of the Palestinians, because she had the courage to live amongs the "enemy" in occupied land. She is regarded as traitor by many hardline, Nationalist Israeli's. I knew or heard Israeli's and diaspora jews who called people as your friend selfhating jews, because they regard sympathy or empathy with the "other side" as weakness, while the Sabra (the New Israeli Jew) must be tough and can never be weak towards the Arabs. It looks like these people don't want any criticism for Israel and want to stop every critical remark about Israel, by a jew or goy ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goy )! Pieter Amira Hass Amira Hass (born 1956) is an Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper Ha'aretz. She is especially famous for living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and reporting on events from the Palestinian perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The daughter of two Holocaust survivors (Bergen-Belsen), Hass was born in Jerusalem. She began her journalistic career in 1989 as a staff editor for Ha'aretz and started to report from the Palestinian Territories in 1991. As of 2003, she is the only Jewish Israeli journalist who lives full-time among the Palestinians, in Gaza from 1993 and in Ramallah from 1997. Hass was the recipient of the Press Freedom Hero award from the International Press Institute in 2000, the Bruno Kreisky Human Rights Award in 2002, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2003, and the inaugural award from the Anna Lindh Memorial Fund in 2004. Her reporting is often sympathetic to the Palestinian point of view and generally critical of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians. During the years of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Hass also published several very critical articles about the chaos and disorder caused by militias associated with the Fatah party of Yasser Arafat and the bloody war between Palestinian factions in Nablus. Due to her frequent reporting of events or voicing of opinions contrary to the official Israeli and Palestinian position, Hass has often been the target of verbal attack and has encountered opposition from both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities. Recently she said Israel is an apartheid state with privileges reserved mostly for Jews. "The Palestinians, as a people, are divided into subgroups, something which is reminiscent also South Africa under apartheid rule," she says. www.zmag.org/meastwatch/amira_hass.htmglobetrotter.berkeley.edu/people3/Hass/hass-con0.html
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Post by kaima on Jul 22, 2007 18:20:03 GMT -7
Jaga, I knew or heard Israeli's and diaspora jews who called people as you friend selfhating jews, because they regard sympathy or empathy with the "other side" as weakness, while the Sabra (the New Israeli Jew) must be tough and can never be weak towards the Arabs. Pieter I wish they would play tough guy on their own two feet, without the US standing behind them 100% of the time and funding so much of their activity. Our foreign policy in this region is fully unbalanced and not in the best interest of the USA. This is never included as a factor in discussions of the feeding of frustration and terrorism against teh USA. Kai
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Post by pieter on Jul 25, 2007 13:10:00 GMT -7
You have a point there Kai. I think the sympathy for Israel by much American and European leaders and people lies in the fact that the Israeli's have an European culture, and that a lot of the Israeli's have the same roots as many Americans. Like in America a lot of Israeli's come from Poland, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, England and don't forget America (a lot of American jews immigrated to Israel and became Israeli).
The Palestinians and most Arabs have an oriental Mideastern culture and religion that stands far away form our Judeo-Christian foundations in Europe and America. The Holocaust was an European phenomenon! America started to support Israel, because the USA feared Israel might come into the influence zone of the SovjetUnion, with it's Labour dominated governments in the fourtees, fiftees, sixtees and early seventees. Next to that the Biblical evangelicals feel a devine connection with the Holy land, the land of the bible with the Israelites of their Old testamony. That today's Israeli's are not the same Israelites does not come into the mind of these so called true believers!
Pieter
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Post by kaima on Jul 25, 2007 15:24:41 GMT -7
Pieter,
That phenomenon of American Evangelicals being so pro-Israel is quite a surprise. When I was young it was common for the fundamental Christians in America to be quite racist (anti-black) and anti-Semitic. They have turned around in both regards. Personally, I don't see that we have to give God any assist in restoring Israel, effectively speeding up the Second Coming. If God wants it to happen our efforts will not make a whit of difference.
"The Second Coming" has been upon us for over 2 000 years now, and people still have the ego to think it must be in OUR lifetime!
Kai
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Post by ludikundera on Jul 27, 2007 2:40:01 GMT -7
I always find it immense: that seemingly logical jump people make from "anti-Semitism" to "death camp", as if one naturally followed the other.
Simply because some Poles may not have liked Jews before WWII, or, like the Endeks, wanted to limit their rights, does not make the Jewish Holocaust the next reasonable step, like so many people seem to believe.
There is a difference between hating and killing. There is a difference between limiting rights and killing. To "connect the dots" is not natural or easy or inevitable. On the contrary, it's rare and takes quite some doing.
The argument:
Polish interwar anti-Semitism + destruction of Polish Jews + Jedwabne = Polish guilt in Holocaust
...doesn't cut it. It's a false argument.
In the first "variable", for example, we already see an incorrect statement: not all interwar Poles were anti-Semites; in fact, not a lot were. Laws meant to put quotas on Jews entering University, for instance, were political maneuvers meant to keep one of two Polish political groups, the Catholic nationalists, happy. They were not "anti-Semitic" in the narrow, blindly hateful way that that labelling implies. Hell, you could even argue it was "affirmative action" meant to help ethnic Poles get more spots at University. At any rate, it's an incorrect variable.
The second variable is true. However, what is cynically left out is the fact that it was the Nazi Germans who destroyed the Jews. And, to a lesser degree, the variable makes no effort to show that Jews weren't the only victims, or to say anything about conditions in Poland under the Nazis. That, yes, Poland ended the war with many less Jews than she began it with is true. But she didn't kill them. And no matter how many arguments are made that WWII solved Poland's "Jewish Question", the fact remains that the Germans did the "solving".
The last variable, as far as I understand, is also true. But, much like the first, and in a much more extreme way, it is one incident (or a handful if you count the few other "pogroms") applied to the whole of Polish society. This is what Gross did in his book (quite openly in Fear) and this is what many people in North America believe: that the majority of Poles are a bunch of Jew-burners. Obviously, these same people have never visited Yad Vashem. Or, if they have, possess the hypocrisy to be able to point at a small group of Poles who killed Jews and say "these are what all Poles were like!" while ignoring a larger group who saved them.
And if anyone wants to talk "indifference" during the Holocaust, then it's not Poland that's the easy target, but the Jews in America who went on their way doing nothing. And, yet, lo and behold, it's quite often American-Jewish organizations who today applaud Gross and press for reparations from Poland.
Look no further than big budget Holocaust films, too! In American Jew Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, there's no mention of American Jews but there are evil Poles. In European (Polish/French, whatever you want to call him) Jew Roman Polanski's The Pianist, there's an overt mention of American Jews sitting idly in America while Hitler goes about his rounding up and killing.
As for a revival of Jewish culture and history: why is this automatically good? To me, it reeks of some kind of "atonement for our sins". I don't have a thing against Jewish culture, in Poland or elsewhere, and have enjoyed my fair share of Polish-Jewish art (Bruno Schultz, Polanski to name but two), but why is reviving it so great (other than tourist money)? It seems that these days even we Poles praise ourselves more for reviving Jewish culture than Polish culture.
Anyway, those are my $0.02 on the initial topic.
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Post by pieter on Jul 27, 2007 6:46:08 GMT -7
Kaima & Ludikundera, I read your replies with great interest and thought about the content. Kaima, in the Netherlands there is a differance between the reformed protestants with their Calvinist traditions (they are more church law and theological rational in their view of the christian religion and the bible, which they take very seriously, every Protestant in this tradition knows the bible from individual reading and teaching) and the Evangelical protestants who come more from a Baptist tradition (they are the minority of Dutch protestants, but in the same time the churches that grow the fastest). The Evangelicals have a more joyful or cheerful way of services and are more believers of the heart. What they share with their Dutch-reformed Protestant brothers is the central role of the bible in their faith (both old and new testamony). I talk about this to show you my perspective of how one can look towards our Protestant christian brothers. I find these Dutch protestants also too connected to Israel, and don't find that healthy, because these people have no family ties, no historical connection and no real knowledge of the country, but are loyal to it only because of a book of 2000 years ago! I am sceptical of their Philosemitism, because that love for the people of the book (the chosen ones) is purely hypothetical, theoretic and based on a Messianic, Utopic idea of a strict belief without logic or selfcritisizm. No putting things into perspective, no doubt about doctrinairy teachings, but following orthodox protestant teachings of ministers of the 19th and 20th century, and a biblical translation at a National Synod in 1619. The same criticism I have about a dated church structure of old men in the Vatican, the power of the Rabbinical dynasties in the various sorts of Judaism and the Imams of Islam, I have with the power of old doctrines in the Protestant churches and the power of fundementalist organistions and (democratic) institutions inside that churches. (I say democratic, because in many Protestant the reverend is chosen by a council of the church community). The Dutch connection or bond with Israel in the past was a Protestant and Social-democratic one, because Israel was for many decades ruled by Labour, and therefor a member of the Socialist international (David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Sharett, Levi Eshkol, Yigal Allon, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres). Later we heard more news from both sides, and critical news about the American-Israeli alliance, the Israeli lobby in the USA, the prefect Israeli propaganda machine, the close ties between the Mossad and the Western secret services, epecially with the German Bundes Nachrichtendienst (BND) and the CIA. We also heardabout the close ties between Israel and the South-African Apartheid regime, especially the nuclear cooperation between the two countries. The Israeli Militairy Industrial Complex is quite well known, and we also know that the Israeli's also do trade with their enemies, because business is business! Ludikundera, I knew and know that there was a fierce anti-semitism in Poland before and after the war, and know that that is not only a Polish phenomenon, because in most Catholic countries there was that Christian anti-semitism. What not many people know is that there was also a fierce anti-semetic tradition in Lutheranism and some parts of Calvinism too. And I know that there is quite unepleasent and fierce anti-Polonism and an anti-christian attitude among some of the jews in the diaspora and Israel too. But we have to keep in mind that not all Poles are anti-semetic and that not all jews are anti-Polonist. Pilsudski was against anti-semitism and in the same time the most popular Polish leader in history, and during his Sanacia regime his police opressed "progroms" or anti-jewish riots (I don't know how to exactly call them). Jewish Stalinists were as mean bastards as their Slavic ("christian") Polish and Russian fellow opressors. On the other side the victims were both Slav christians and jews! That is the fact of history. last thing I want to say is that I never made a differance between Polish Catholic and Polish Jewish artists, writers, filmdirectors and thus art and culture. For me the works of both people were and are Polish, because they were made in Poland and are part of Polish art, culture and history! Pieter
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