In Poland, lamp of Jewish culture shines anew

[Jaga]

at least they do not talk about Holocaust as the first thing Poland is related to a Jewish history, but they chose nicer subject...

An estimated 70 percent of Jews of European ancestry - and two-thirds of Jews in the United States - can trace their origins to Poland. Now Poland's small but growing Jewish community, while remembering the tragedy of the Holocaust, is trying to get both their fellow Poles and the world to think not just of death but of life.

Groundbreaking on a new Jewish museum here took place in June. By not focusing on the Holocaust and Nazi persecution, organizers hope the museum will foster remembrance and celebration of Jewish life in Poland before the war, a subject that many, even inside the country, know little about.

The new attempt to place the Holocaust in the larger historical perspective of Jewish culture in Poland comes as the community is experiencing a period of growth and renewal triggered by the end of communism. Somewhat surprising is that the recent efforts to cultivate and nurture the revival have been driven not just by Jews.
...

www.boston.com/travel/articles/2007/09/30/in_poland_lamp_of_jewish_culture_shines_anew/?p1=MEWell_Pos2

[bescheid]

Jaga

This is indeed a breath of fresh air...For always with the speaking of Israeli culture and history, is the total subject of the war time Holocaust. This in self, is a cloud to obscure the primary substance that is of the Jews.

For these people are a very remarkable people. For their name, their works, their culture, touches us all in our every day lives in so many manners of ways.

For Poland has been rich with their presence in their land. It is good to hear of these new museums of Israeli history and their culture. For it is a learning tool for young and old, to see the exhibits and items of that of Israel.

To see an exhibit is much different then to simply read a dry book written in a 3rd hand version. I would hope that the museum people will have on hand for display, artifacts from the times of the two Israels {Israel and Judah}, also that of the time of Assyria in the conquer of Assyria by Persia freeing the Jews to return to Jerusalem. Or exhibits of the time of Abraham/Lot in the land of Purple {Lebanon}{also the land of ceder}.

Yes, Poland is very fortunate to be home to so much of the European Jewish people.

I am very confident further post replies will bring forth details of exploits and contributions to Poland from the ancient to the present.

Charles

[Jaga]

Charles,

from what I saw there are much more positives than negatives from Jewish renowned presence in Poland, especially in my hometown Krakow, where Jewish people helped to renew a district Kazimierz and we had days of Jewish culture organized.

[pieter]

Jaga,

In the past, present and future Jews made a positive contribution to Poland as middle class and in promoting the commercial interests of Poland, soldiers in Pilsudski's Legions, merchants, artists, musicians, scientists, doctors, politicians and journalists.
In the same time you had many assimilated jews who had mixed marriages with catholics.
Many Poles don't know about their jewish roots!

Pieter

[pieter]

Jews in Poland from the second half of the 20th century until today

1967–1989
In 1967, following the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab states, communist Poland broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. The Israeli victory over the Soviet backed Arab states in 1967 was greeted by Poles with glee; "Our Jews have given the Soviet Arabs a drumming!" By 1968 most of Poland's 40,000 remaining Jews were assimilated into Polish society, but over the next year they became the center of a Soviet backed, centrally organized campaign, equating Jewish origins with Zionist sympathies and thus disloyalty to Poland.
In March 1968 student-led demonstrations in Warsaw (Polish 1968 political crisis) gave Gomulka's government an excuse to channel public anti-government sentiment into another avenue. Thus his security chief, Mieczyslaw Moczar, used the situation as a pretext to launch an anti-Semitic press campaign (although the expression "Zionist" was officially used). The state-sponsored "anti-Zionist" campaign resulted in the removal of Jews from the Polish United Worker's Party and from teaching positions in schools and universities. Due to economic, political and police pressure, 25,000 Jews were forced to emigrate during 1968–1970. The campaign, though ostensibly directed at Jews who had held office in the Stalinist era and at their families, affected most of the remaining Polish Jews, whatever their backgrounds.
There were several outcomes of the March 1968 events. The campaign damaged Poland's reputation abroad, particularly in the U.S. Many Polish intellectuals, however, were disgusted at the promotion of official anti-Semitism and opposed the campaign. Some of the people who emigrated to the West at this time founded organizations which encouraged anticommunist opposition inside Poland.
During the late 1970s some Jewish activists were engaged in the anticommunist opposition groups. Most prominent among them, Adam Michnik (founder of Gazeta Wyborcza) was one of the founders of the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR). By the time of the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989, only 5,000–10,000 Jews remained in the country, many of them preferring to conceal their Jewish origin.

Since 1989

With the fall of Communism in Poland, Jewish cultural, social, and religious life has been undergoing a revival. Many historical issues, especially related to World War II and the 1944–89 period, suppressed by Communist censorship have been re-evaluated and publicly discussed (like the Massacre in Jedwabne, the Koniuchy Massacre, the Kielce pogrom, the Auschwitz cross, and Polish-Jewish wartime relations in general).
According to the Coordination Forum of Countering Antisemitism there were eighteen anti-Semitic incidents in Poland in the period from January 2001 to November 2005. Half of them was propaganda, eight were violent incidents such as vandalism or desecration (the last of them took place in 2003), and one was verbal abuse. There were no anti-Semitic attacks by means of weapons in Poland. However, according to a 2005 survey, the portion of the population holding anti-Semitic views is somewhat higher than in some European countries. According to a survey carried out by CBOS and published in January, 2005, in which Poles were asked to assess their attitudes toward other nations, 45% claimed to feel antipathy towards Jews, 18% to feel sympathy, while 29% felt indifferent and 8% were undecided. Those surveyed were asked to express their feeling on the scale from -3 (strong antipathy) to +3 (strong sympathy), with 0 taken to indicate indifference. The average score for attitude towards Jews was -0.67. Another contemporary nationwide survey indicated that as of January 2004 40 percent of Poles believed that their country with the Jewish population of less that 20,000 out of 39 million populations is still "being governed by Jews".
In the meantime Jewish religious life has been revived with the help of the Ronald Lauder Foundation, the Polish Jewish community employs two rabbis, operated a small network of Jewish schools and summer camps, and sustains several Jewish periodicals and book series events. In 1993 the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland was established with the aim of organizing the religious and cultural life of the members of the communities in Poland.
Academic Jewish studies programs were established at Warsaw University and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Kraków became home to the Judaica Foundation, which has sponsored a wide range of cultural and educational programs on Jewish themes for a predominantly Polish audience. The building of the new Museum of the History of Polish Jewry in Warsaw will be based on a design of a Finnish architect, Rainer Mahlamaecki. The plot of land for the museum and an additional $13 million were donated by the city of Warsaw and additional $13 million were donated by the Polish government.

Of the Communist Bloc countries that interrupted diplomatic relations with Israel in 1967 (i.e. all communist countries less Romania), Poland was the first to restart them again in 1986, and to fully restore them in 1990. Government relations between Poland and Israel are steadily improving, resulting in the mutual visits of the presidents and the ministers of foreign affairs. There have been a number of Holocaust remembrance activities in Poland in recent years. In September 2000, dignitaries from Poland, Israel, the United States, and other countries (including Prince Hassan of Jordan) gathered in the city of Oswiecim (the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp) to commemorate the opening of the refurbished Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot synagogue and the Auschwitz Jewish Center. The synagogue, the sole synagogue in Oswiecim to survive World War II and an adjacent Jewish cultural and educational center, provide visitors a place to pray and to learn about the active pre–World War II Jewish community that existed in Oswiecim. The synagogue was the first communal property in the country to be returned to the Jewish community under the 1997 law allowing for restitution of Jewish communal property. Additionally, in April of each year, the March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau to honor victims of the Holocaust, draws Poles as well as marchers from Israel and elsewhere. There are also more general activities, like the Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków.
In 2000, Poland's Jewish population is generally estimated to have risen to somewhere between 8,000 and 12,000 — most living in Warsaw, Wroclaw, and Bielsko-Biala, though there are no census figures that would give an exact number. According to the Polish Moses Schorr Centre and other Polish sources, however, this may represent an undercount of the actual number of Jews living in Poland, since many are not religious. The Centre estimates that there are approximately 100,000 Jews in Poland, of which 30,000 to 40,000 have some sort of direct connection to the Jewish community, either religiously or culturally.