A tearful rebirth in Krakow

Jewish World Review ^ | 11-17-05 | Michael Freund

[SJackson]

KRAKOW — This past Sabbath, Benjamin Klein had every reason to let the tears flow freely.

The scene was this city's famed Rema synagogue, where the great 16th century scholar Rabbi Moses Isserles once presided. The small sanctuary was filled to capacity, as the melodies of Friday evening hymns and supplications filled the room.

The Rema Synagogue

Hundreds of religious Israeli high-school girls packed the women's section, overflowing into the hall while dutifully reciting the service. The men's section represented a microcosm of world Jewry, ranging from aging Polish Holocaust survivors to a Bnei Brak rabbi to members of a high-powered AIPAC mission from the United States.

It had been 66 years since Klein had last prayed here when, as a Jewish youth growing up in Poland, he was forced to flee in the face of the Nazi onslaught.

At the time, he no doubt thought he might never see his birthplace again, let alone experience a traditional Sabbath service in the synagogue of his childhood.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

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[A. Pole]

In the heart of this blood-soaked land, where Jews had been so ruthlessly hunted down and killed by their former neighbors and friends, the melody of Lecha Dodi ("Let us go and greet the Sabbath bride") was once again being recited in all its power and glory.

These evil Poles, not only they exterminated Polish Jews, they also invaded their peaceful German neighbors and stole from them Silesia, Pomerania and half of East Prussia. :(

Seriously, I was in this synagogue once, I took my Jewish high school friend there. She was granted special honor by the members of congregation as they allowed her to stand in the male part together with me :) They had prayer books in Hebrew and every other page in Polish.

[dennisw]

I'm half Polish myself. Polish Jewish. Good post!

[Sam Gamgee]

Do you think current anti-Jewish racism in Poland is exagerated?

[Grzegorz 246]

"These evil Poles, not only they exterminated Polish Jews, they also invaded their peaceful German neighbors and stole from them Silesia, Pomerania and half of East Prussia. :("

Oy vey !

[A. Pole]

Do you think current anti-Jewish racism in Poland is exagerated?

Do you think current anti-Jewish racism in USA is exagerated?

[Sam Gamgee]

It seemed like you were implying that there is much friendship between Poles and Jews. I had heard some stat recently that suggested 40% of Poles regard Jews with suspicion. Just trying to get at the truth. I wasn't being rhetorical.

I really don't know as far as your question is concerned. I live in Canada, and I believe anti-semitism is worse than what is to be believed in my country.

[A. Pole]

It seemed like you were implying that there is much friendship between Poles and Jews.

I did not imply anything. I just applied YOUR question to another country. OK, you live in Canada so:

Do you think current anti-Jewish racism in Canada is exagerated? Did you stop beating your wife? Are you less racist than some people think?

[Sam Gamgee]

Your hostility is not necessary.

[A. Pole]

Your hostility is not necessary.

I pointed a mirror toward you and you see hostility.

[Sam Gamgee]

You just need to relax. What, you took it personally that I asked you if there is anti-semitism in Poland? Did I ask YOU if you were racist?

[TASMANIANRED]

All the French Jews would do well to think about migrating to Poland...

[A. Pole]

What, you took it personally that I asked you if there is anti-semitism in Poland?

Why do you ask such question if you know very well that in EVERY country there are people who hate others?

The original nasty passage from the article is:

"this blood-soaked land, where Jews had been so ruthlessly hunted down and killed by their former neighbors and friends"

In EVERY nation there will be people who will collaborate with the oppressors and who will be traitors. It ALSO applies to the Jews who had many collaborators among themselves too.

But this passage does not express this universal human condition - it rather project the evil on the Poles and makes them into scapegoats.

[A. Pole]

Before you pick on Poles and other East Europeans, and before you think that you or your country would pass the test of foreign occupation better, heed the warning of Solzhenitsyn who said in his "controversial" Harvard address (referring to 1977 riots in New York):

"[...]There are meaningful warnings that history gives a threatened or perishing society. Such are, for instance, the decadence of art, or a lack of great statesmen. There are open and evident warnings, too. The center of your democracy and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then, the social system quite unstable and unhealthy.[...]"

[Sam Gamgee]

I do understand your distaste with the implication that Poles were unique in collaborating or turning in Jews. France collaborated and handed in Jews most readily. And America and Canada refused boatloads of Jews in the 30s.

I can't find the poll I had heard recently and it was probably something I heard in passing in the news. I was actually astounded by the stat because I had always assumed that Poles and Jews would find common ground with each other. Both have been victims of history for a long time, and treated with much prejudice. They both also fought in resistance groups against the Nazi occupation - although the Jewish resistance was rather small after the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto.

So that was the reason for my question. Yes, Canada has plenty of anti-Jewish racism. Probably a fairly high percentage of the population, depending on how a question is worded.

[Sam Gamgee]

I hope my last post alleviates your thinking that I am picking on Poles. I don't want you to think that and I'm sorry that was the impression I gave. I use to have a apartment manager who showed me his prison numbers from his imprisonment in both German and Russian concentration camps. It was really quite sad. I love that Poles were the first to topple their Soviet oppressors, that they gave us Chopin, and gave pilots to the RAF to save Britain from Hitler. I know they have a sad history of being torn apart by Austria, Germany and Russia, many times completely subjugated.

No, your nation passed the test of occupation thrice as well as ours would in this present time. Canadians are not freedom fighters and would probably live with occupation with the least resistance they could. I believe that our entire generation would easily sell its democratic soul for peace and bread.

[A. Pole]

I do understand your distaste with the implication that Poles were unique in collaborating or turning in Jews. France collaborated and handed in Jews most readily. And America and Canada refused boatloads of Jews in the 30s.

I am glad that you understand. And Jews themselves had many willing colaborators. The problem is not with the Poles, or with the Jews or with any particular nation. The problem is with the fallen human nature which is shared by all.

One of the mechanisms of vilification/dehumanization of some group is projecting the universal tendency toward evil on the selected group. This was used against Jews by the Nazis, it was used by the West against the Serbs. But the border between good and evil goes through the every heart. As Solzhenitsyn said:

"It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments.

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil."
(Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago )

If someone wanted to be a hero, at the time of WWII he would protect the Jews, if someone wanted to be fair in 1999 he would raise the voice to defend the Serbs (heroism was not needed in 1999, little civil courage and honesty was enough)

[Sam Gamgee]

Well certainly we all have a fallen nature. If I was to be honest I have certain bigotries.

That is essentially why we require systems of government that limit the use of our nature against another's. That's why I would regard any totalitarian form of government as conducive to evil.

Of the Serbs I probably need some convincing. It seems strange that Milosovic was the last communist hold out. I have a hard time believing that he was doing anything other than playing the "nationalist" card for his own political ends. So I am interest how it is you feel the West vilified Serbs.

I have to admit I would naturally have taken side against Serbia itself, because the history I know, regarded her as an aggressive nation. One that attacked it's neighbors as the Ottomans shrunk from Europe, and staged acts of terrorism against Austria-Hungary in order to gain the aid of Russia to expand the borders of its own nation.

[Sam Gamgee]

http://www.serbia-info.com/enc/history/modern.html

http://www.serbia-info.com/enc/history/conquest.html

Thought I would do a Google and see what I could find. Indeed Catholic Europe owes much to the Balkans people who were the vanguard against Islam. I was surprised to find out 58% of the male Serbian population was wiped out in WWI. The site implies that Austria used the assassination as a pretext for war against Serbia. That seems to contradict the fact that Austria was having a hard enough time keeping peace in the empire and the last thing it wanted was another ethnic peace to its puzzle.