Polish Jewish/Israeli relations today

[Bonobo]

KRAKOW (EJP)---Krakow' s 18th Jewish Culture Festival ended on Sunday after an evening's gigantic closing ceremony which was broadcast live on national Polish television.
Every year, in the midst of the Polish summer heat, the festival takes its place in Kazimierz, the city's historical Jewish quarter.
An astounding variety of Jewish related cultural and folklore events took place for nine days.
During the festival, thousands of visitors from all over the world and many local Poles got a chance to sample Jewish and Israeli related art exhibitions, theatre, music and Hazzanut concerts, film screenings, lectures, Yiddish and Hebrew lessons, Klezmer and Hassidic dance workshops, as well as tours to Kazimierz's historical synagogues and Jewish cemeteries and monuments.
This year's festival stood in the framework of Israel's 60th anniversary and the Polish Year in Israel.
Consequently, Zionism and Judaism were present throughout the themes of the festival.
Prof. Shevah Weiss, former speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, and a former Israeli ambassador to Poland, told EJP: "Israeli art and culture are now an integral part of the festival, and the distinction between Israel and Judaism is fading. Those who take interest in Jewish culture usually associate Israel with being Jewish."
Krakow's annual Jewish Culture Festival, which is one of the largest cultural Jewish events in the world, is a fully fledged commercial endeavor, organized by local non-Jewish Pole Janusz Makuch and aimed mainly at a non-Jewish crowd.
The local Jewish community as well as Jewish voices worldwide have long expressed mixed feelings about the event.
Some view it as an attempt to capitalize on popularizing Jewish heritage, in a place where the Jewish world has known its darkest times.
The visiting crowd, however, seemed so enthralled by the opportunity to absorb the Jewish culture, that it's hard not to view the event as a `win-win' situation for everybody.
"To see how a crowd warms up to a band performing Jewish folk songs with kippah's on their head was very touching," says Sammy Frankel, a British Jew who moved to live in Israel 3 years ago, and is now visiting the festival.
Ewa Szmal, a Polish Christian who came to the festival from Warsaw, explains that "the Jewish legacy was a shaping force in Polish culture and it's important for us to learn about it, especially after the communism has taught us its own false version of our history."
Apart from the sudden cloudburst at its ending ceremony, it seems that this year's Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow will be labeled a success by most of its visitors.

Pics from different years




Slideshow here:
fzp.net.pl/galeria/slides/IMG_0163.html

[Bonobo]

Today the Polish President lit the first candle in the Jewish Synogogue oin Warsaw, thus symbolically starting the Jewish holiday of Chanukah.
www.tvn24.pl/-1,1578390,0,1,lech-kaczynski-zapalil-chanukowa-swieczke,wiadomosc.html

He said that the holiday is the last (but not least) accord in the series of celebrations of Polish independence.

President on the left, wearing a Jewish cap.


I feel really impressed by his action.

[tufta]

Dec 21, 2008 22:29:32 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Today the Polish President lit the first candle in the Jewish Synogogue oin Warsaw, thus symbolically starting the Jewish holiday of Chanukah.
www.tvn24.pl/-1,1578390,0,1,lech-kaczynski-zapalil-chanukowa-swieczke,wiadomosc.html

He said that the holiday is the last (but not least) accord in the series of celebrations of Polish independence.

President on the left, wearing a Jewish cap.


I feel really impressed by his action.

In the past he has been in Orthodox church, in Islamic, Protestant. Obviously he's got much better idea about what democracy is than some of his non-voters ;D ;D ;D

[Bonobo]

Polish Catholic Church marks Day of Judaism
Polish Radio
15.01.2009

For the 12th year in a row, the Catholic Church in Poland celebrates the Day of Judaism on the 17th of January. Various events are organized on this occasion both in Warsaw and locally, with diverse religious and non-religious groups getting involved in the celebration spread over the whole week.

Although the central celebrations are scheduled to take place on Saturday, the 17th of January, at the Warsaw All Saints' Roman Catholic Church and the nearby No¿yk Synagogue, scores of other events have already been held since the beginning of the week and are still underway. These include: religious gatherings, ecumenical prayers, intellectual debates, movie screenings, photo exhibitions, concerts and others.

The memory of the Holocaust and of the Polish and Jewish solidarity of that time is traditionally remembered during the Days of Judaism. In Poznañ, another Polish couple has received the prestigious "Righteous Among the Nations" award for their heroic defense of Jews during World War Two. Concerts honoring Irena Sendler, the woman who saved an estimated number of twenty five hundred Jewish children from Holocaust, ar e held at several locations all over the country.

[Bonobo]

First book in Poland co-authored by rabbi and priest
10/15/09

WROCLAW (EJP)---For the first time in the history of Poland, the Catholic Church has published a new book co-authored by a Polish rabbi and a Catholic priest.

The book, entitled Introduction to Jewish Literature and Biblical Exegesis, was written in Polish and published recently by the official publishing house of the Catholic Church.

The idea behind the book came from Professor Mariusz Rosik, a Polish priest in Wroclaw, Poland, who approached Rabbi Yitzchak Rapoport, an emissary of the Jewish organization Shavei Israel in the city of Wroclaw. The priest proposed that they co-author a book on Jewish sources that would present both the Christian and Jewish perspective.
Rabbi Rapoport gave Professor Rosik his consent only after obtaining an explicit promise from the Church not to edit or alter his text in any way.

In the book, Rabbi Rapoport discusses the traditions surrounding the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and explains the structure and function of the Talmud and exegesis in Jewish tradition and thought as well as in Biblical commentary.

According to the Wroclav rabbi, the publication of the book represents a significant development in relations between Poland's Catholics and Jews.

"This book is of special significance. Until it was written, all Polish Catholics knew about Jews is what the Church told them.For the first time ever, this book reveals what Jews think about themselves and about Judaism, and that is what makes it unique," he said.

It represents "a dramatic and significant step in a process that has been taking place in the Polish Catholic Church in recent years, a process in which the Church is becoming more open and tolerant towards Jews," he added.

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Polish synagogue to hold Shabbat services again
October 14, 2009

(JTA) -- Shabbat will come to a Polish synagogue for the first time since the Holocaust.

Services will be held Friday night and Saturday at the Kielce synagogue, which was reconstructed after World War II and since 1951 has been used as the district archives. A traditional Shabbat dinner, a guided walk through Jewish Kielce and a Havdalah ceremony will be followed by a party.

Interfaith meetings will include prayers in two Christian churches.

Some 25,000 Jews lived in Kielce before World War II; 20,000 were murdered by the Nazis. The town is infamous as the site of the last pogrom in Poland, a massacre of 42 Jews by a mob who attacked the Jewish community house more than a year after the war was over, on July 4, 1946.

The Kielce weekend is the latest in a series of Shabbaton programs in long-disused Polish synagogues organized by Michael Traison, an American lawyer who has an office in Warsaw. Earlier events took place in Pinczow, Piotrkow Trybunalski, Przemysl and Lublin.

Traison said he wanted to remember the destroyed communities, and to demonstrate that the Jewish people survived and thrived, and still exist in Poland. He also wanted to bring together Poles and Jews, as well as "provide a Jewish religious experience for people who would like to participate in such an experience and enjoy a good Shabbat."

[Bonobo]

Jewish Studies in Wrocław
06.04.2010 16:50

The University of Wrocław, south-western Poland, is to offer a three-year course in Jewish studies.

The university authorities describe the move as a symbolic return of Jewish studies to the city, after they had been banned by the Nazis at what was then Breslau University in 1938.

The curriculum of the course, to be launched in the 2010/2011 academic year, will comprise Jewish literature, culture and history, Polish-Jewish relations, Judaism, as well as Hebrew and Yiddish classes. The syllabus also includes study tours, research projects, student exchanges and international conferences.

The tradition of Jewish studies in Wrocław goes back to the middle of the 19th century.

The spokesman for Wrocław University has said that the city has numerous institutions which highlight its multi-cultural character. ‘The opening of Jewish studies will further enhance the city’s cultural diversity and openness’, he said.

www.thenews.pl/international/artykul128910_jewish-studies-in-wroclaw-.html

[Bonobo]

Jewish holiday of Hanukaah in Polish Parliament

[Bonobo]

Polish Church holds Jewish Day
17.01.2011 10:57

Yesterday the southeastern city of Przemysl hosted the 14th Day of Judaism in the Polish Roman Catholic Church.

Sunday’s event was led by Roman Catholic Archbishop of Przemysl, Jozef Michalik, who was joined by Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich, Greek Catholic Archbishop of Warsaw and Przemysl Jan Martyniak and Chief Rabbi of Galicia Edgar Gluck.

“I am grateful to the Jews for cultivating the cult of the Holocaust (Jestem wdzięczny Żydom, że kultywują kult Holocaustu),” Michalik pronounced during Sunday’s press conference, “because it arouses the conscience of the world that this kind of history cannot repeat itself.”

Michalik emphasized that relations between Christians and Jews have no place for dislike, unkindness, and above all hatred, recalling Pope John Paul II’s statement that “Christ leads us to Judaism.”

Tributes were made to local Christians that had given their lives to aid Jews during the Second World War, including Greek Catholic rector Emilian Kowcz, and the Ulm family from the village of Markowa.

On Sunday evening, an exhibition was opened in Przemysl’s Higher Seminarium connected to the latter family. Jozef Ulm, together with his wife Wiktoria, sheltered seven Jews during the occupation. Following a probable denouncement, all the inhabitants of the house were shot by German soldiers, in line with Nazi regulations. The victims included both the hiding Jews, Mr Ulm’s pregnant wife and her six children.

Archbishop Michalik announced that a museum will be raised in tribute to the matter.

Prior to the war, there were approximately 3.3 million Jews in Poland. Today, 4000 people are listed as members of Jewish community organisations. However, it is believed that about 20,000 Jews reside in Poland.

[valpomike]

See, all can work together, and do so, in Poland.

Mike

[Bonobo]

Jan 18, 2011 16:48:09 GMT 1 valpomike said:

See, all can work together, and do so, in Poland.

Mike

Yes, better late than never.

[valpomike]

It could have been under the Russian control, they could not, even if they wanted to, get all along.

Mike

[Bonobo]

Kosher supervisors for Polish Jews
17.02.2012 10:20
A group of 17 people have been granted official certificates as kosher supervisors in Poland.

They passed the necessary tests at the end of the four-day course in the city of £ód¼, which attracted over forty men and women, both professional chefs and the lovers of Jewish culinary traditions.

The training session was organized by the Jerusalem-based group Shavei.

The programme of the course included all aspects of religious dietary laws related to milk and meat and the rules of running a kitchen before and during Shabbat and the Passover.

The 17 graduates will be given the Hebrew title ‘Mashgiach Kashrut’ from the Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich, which will allow them to look for job opportunities in hotels and restaurants that offer kosher food.

Rabbi Schudrich told the Polish Press Agency that even though many people obtained the ‘Mashgiach Kashrut’ certificates in the post-war period, it was for the first time that a course for kosher supervisors has been organized in Poland.

With a growing number of Poles returning to their Jewish roots, there is an increasing demand for locally produced kosher food.

[Bonobo]

Jewish Community Feels Secure in Krakow

We feel safe here. We want to show the world that Poland is place of Jewish life and not of Jewish death,” says Jonathan Ornstein, director of Krakows Jewish Community Centre (JCC).

Voicing a feeling of safety seems like a mild claim, but it’s not something that all Jewish communities in 21st century Europe would automatically affirm. Its even more extraordinary given that this Jewish community lives in a place that is a symbol of European Jewish tragedy.

Just an hour from Auschwitz-Birkenau, Krakow is home to a fledgling Jewish community. But this is a community more interested in gay rights, vegetarianism and street art than dwelling on the harrowing chapters that have punctuated the history of Judaism in Poland.

The community around the JCC is young, progressive and has its eyes firmly on the future. Ornstein has some interesting perspectives on the revival of Jewish life in a country that has faced repeated accusations of anti-semitism.

Krakow is a unique platform for this revival. We are the community near Auschwitz, a symbol of the worst thing in Jewish history, but there is an energy in Krakow we are able to capitalise on and a desire to connect to Jewish culture we could not have expected.

But is Krakow an atypical bubble in Poland? Only last weekend vandals defaced a Jewish cemetery in Wysokie Mazowiecki by daubing swastikas and the slogan This is Poland not Israel; on graves and monuments to those killed during World War II.

Add to this a recent survey carried out by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League that found anti-semitic sentiment in 48 per cent of Poles questioned. This compared to 10 per cent in the Netherlands, 17 percent in the UK and 63 per cent in Hungary.

According to Ornstein, the Jewish community in Krakow actively challenges these prejudices.

“Our student club do presentations around Poland to talk to non-Jewish students about Jewish life. The goal is to say to them: ‘Look Jews don’t dress how you imagined them back in 1939. We don’t wear traditional clothes and beards. We’re young. We look like you.’ This is a huge component of our student program and it’s focused on reaching out to the wider community through education.”

Alicja Beryt, a 26-year-old philosophy student from Poznañ, moved to Krakow to study and connect with what was then a community in the shadows.

“When I first moved to Krakow we had five or six people at Shabbat dinner, now we have up to 70. A lot of these people were already living in Krakow but there was little community spirit. Bit by bit the movement gained momentum, but not without challenges.”

The presence of a Jewish community in trendy Kazimierz – an area thronging with cafes, art galleries and vintage shops – is becoming one of the quarter’s defining characteristics. Post-war Kazimierz’s was beset by neglect and criminality, but the last decade has brought a remarkable turnaround in its fortunes.

For Ornstein, this new vitality is a testament to the revival of Jewish culture in the city: “Jewish tourists come here and expect to see death in a place that is essentially, for them, a cemetery. Instead they are confronted with the opposite. A growing, thriving community in a city that has little anti-semitism, especially compared to other European cities. We feel very normal here.”

The success of the community reached a new high last month when they held their first bat mitzvah for a young girl from Krakow. This everyday Jewish ritual would have been unimaginable just a decade ago and is emblematic of what this small community has achieved.

“For me ,the interesting part was how normal the whole thing was. She grew up Jewish, her friends know she is Jewish. There was no secrecy or emerging from shadows. It reminded me of the bat mitvahs in my native New York,” said Ornstein.

Ornstein believes this openness in the celebration of Jewish identity is becoming an everyday occurrence thanks to the support of the wider community.

“I see the Jewish Community Centre as a community centre first and foremost. I think there are values which we see as not exclusively Jewish values but the values of being open and tolerant – values we try to promote. We cooperate with Queer May, women’s groups and vegetarian groups. A whole plethora of organisations contribute to our view.”

This pluralistic vision has brought together a community that is growing in size and dynamism as it slowly reawakens the Jewish heart of Kazimierz.

Visit Krakow’s Jewish Community Centre website
www.jcckrakow.org/


Photo: JCC voluntary workers (courtesy of the Jewish Community Centre, Krakow)
(Visited 479 times, 164 visits today)

[Bonobo]

link

Polish Episcopate condemns anti-semitism as 'a sin'
20.10.2015 09:26
The Polish Episcopate has published an extensive condemnation of anti-semitism on the 50th anniversary of a landmark Vatican declaration on relations with non-Christian religions.


In a special pastoral letter entitled 'The shared spiritual heritage of Christians and Jews', the Episcopate stressed that “anti-semitism and anti-Judaism are sins against the love of thy neighbour.”

The letter notes that the Church organises an annual 'Day of Judaism', affirming however that “Christian-Jewish dialogue must never be treated as 'the religious hobby' of a small group of enthusiasts, but it should increasingly become part of the mainstream of pastoral work.”

The Polish clerics also acknowledged that the Holocaust, which was planned by “Nazi Germany and largely carried out on the territory of occupied Poland,” nevertheless “sometimes met with indifference among certain Christians.”

According to the Episcopate, “if Christians and Jews had practised religious brotherhood in the past, more Jews would have found help and support from Christians.”

In that respect, the Espiscopate particularly praises the 'Righteous among Nations' who “risked their lives and those of their loved ones, heroically rescuing Jews” during the war. Under the Nazi occupation, giving shelter to Jews by Poles was punishable by death.

“In many places in our country there are no Jews, only traces of their religion and culture, often in neglected cemeteries,” the letter notes.
- See more at: www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/225535,Polish-Episcopate-condemns-antisemitism-as-a-sin-#sthash.XbSYpFID.dpuf

[Bonobo]

Poland's Chief Rabbi launches Festival of Lights
07.12.2015 10:14
Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich inaugurated Hanukkah on Sunday evening in Warsaw, the eight-day Festival of Lights celebrated by Jews across the world.
Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich lights candles on Grybowski Square Warsaw. Photo: PAP/Rafał GuzChief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich lights candles on Grybowski Square Warsaw. Photo: PAP/Rafał Guz

Following custom, Rabbi Schudrich lit candles on Warsaw's Grzybowski Square, where he was joined by other members of the country's Jewish community, as well as Polish gentiles.

“Hanukkah is a festivity during which we celebrate the freedom of religion,” the rabbi noted.

“It reminds us that everyone has the right to practise their religion according to their tradition.

“Let this year's Hanukkah inspire us to deepen our respect and understanding for others,” he said.

Grzybowski Square was part of the Jewish Ghetto that the Nazi Germans created in Warsaw during the World War II.

Prior to the war, over 3 million Jews lived in Poland. About 90 percent of them perished in the Holocaust. Waves of emigration after the war further reduced the community. However, following the collapse of communism in 1989, a gradual renaissance of Jewish life has taken place.
- See more at: www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/231817,Polands-Chief-Rabbi-launches-Festival-of-Lights#sthash.l4XtQgMa.dpuf

[Bonobo]

'Open a door to Israel' show in Warsaw
13.03.2016 12:39
An interactive virtual exhibition called ‘Open a Door to Israel’ has opened in Warsaw.
Photo: Press materials/Open a Door to IsraelPhoto: Press materials/Open a Door to Israel


Organized under the auspices of the Israeli Ministries of Foreign Affairs and for Strategic Affairs, it is built around nine doors that tell the story of Israel.

The curator of the exhibition, Zavi Apfelbaum of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has told Polish Radio that each door introduces visitors to a different aspect of life in Israel.

“We can see a family at a birthday party, having a good time together, like every Italian or Polish family. There is also a Druze family enjoying their afternoon tea. Family ties are very very important for Israeli people, as indeed for most people around the world”, he said.

The exhibition gives insights into many aspects of the Israeli scene – the country’s heritage, its culture, music, education, innovative technologies and the city of Jerusalem, with its sacred places for Jews and Christians.

The exhibition is part of a promotional campaign by the Israeli government. It was previously shown in Rome, where it attracted over 30,000 people. From Warsaw, it will go to Paris, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro during the Summer Games there, and then to China and the United States.

It remains on show in Warsaw at the Soho Factory (Praga district) until 20 March
- See more at: www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/244472,Open-a-door-to-Israel-show-in-Warsaw#sthash.arHzIssg.dpuf

[pjotr]

President slams xenophobia as Poland remembers pogrom

04.07.2016 14:56

Polish President Andrzej Duda has spoken out against anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia at the anniversary of a 1946 massacre of Jews in Kielce, southern Poland.


Photo: PAP/Grzegorz Michałowski

“Such behavior must be condemned,” the president said, speaking at Monday’s commemorations of the killing of some 40 Jewish residents by their Polish neighbours 70 years ago.

The commemorations were attended by former Knesset speaker Shevach Weiss and Poland's Chief Rabbi, Michael Schudrich.

In a speech, Duda said that the Polish state strives to guarantee security to all its citizens “regardless of their background, their religious convictions or lack thereof, and the language that is closest to their heart.”

The Kielce Pogrom was carried out by Poles on 4 July 1946, ten months after the official end of World War II.

As many as 42 people perished in the massacre, and the crime prompted thousands of Jews who had survived the war to emigrate.


President Duda (R) and Rabbi Schudrich (L) lighting the Hannukah candles during an earlier meating, in december 2015.

The pogrom was sparked by false claims that a Polish Catholic boy named Henryk Blaszczyk had been kidnapped by Jews, thus raising the ancient spectre of ritual murder.

Communist Police and soldiers, accompanied by an angry mob of hundreds of locals, surrounded a building occupied by members of the Jewish community. Waves of violence broke out shortly thereafter.

Some Jews were murdered within the building, while others were dragged out into the street and beaten by the mob. Nine death sentences were later handed down to some of those accused of taking part in the murders.

Some voices cite the massacre as a crime instigated by the communist security services. Others, such as Polish-born US academic Jan Gross, have placed the emphasis on long-running currents of anti-Semitism in certain sections of Polish society, exacerbated by the ordeal of war. (aba)


A tenement house in Kielce, where the tragic events took place. Photo: Grzegorz Pietrzak/Wikimedia Commons

Source: IAR

[Bonobo]

Polish president sends Rosh Hashanah wishes to Jewish community
03.10.2016 14:37
Polish president Andrzej Duda has written a letter to the Jewish community celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
The holiday, this year held between 2-4 October, is also known as the Feast of Trumpets.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

“May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year” – this is a typical Jewish greeting on the first day of the month of Tishri. For one thousand years these words have also resonated in the land of Polin [the Hebrew word for Poland – ed.], the land inhabited jointly by both our nations. It is my pleasure to join in the wishes which you exchange on the occasion of the Jewish New Year. May it bring to the Jewish Community in Poland good, health, peace and prosperity.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me wish you with all my heart: “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year”.

President of the Republic of Poland

Andrzej Duda

[pjotr]

Bo,

I hope that Polish Roman-Catholics and jews form one nation. Polish jews are Poles like any other Poles, am I right? The land inhabited jointly by both our nations implies that the 'Polish Jews' or 'Jews in Poland' formed a different nation next to the ethnic Western slav Polish Roman-Catholic people? A Yiddish Ashkenazi nation next to a West Slavic Polish Catholic nation?

Ofcourse I am being a detail freak over here, but fact is that I get the impression that the president speaks about two ethnic identities, two peoples, two cultures and two religions. It feels like we in the Netherlands speak about autochtonen (native West-Germanic European orgininal people of the Netherlands) and allochtonen (people with a non-Western, migrant background or one parent who was born abroad -like my mother, who was born in Warsaw- therefor I am allochtoon), white and black schools in the Netherlands, and christians and muslims (while my country is largely secular).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allochtoon

Fact is that sometimes both the jewish minority in a country considers themselves to be a seperate group by religion, heritage, customs, traditions, culture and ethnicity and the surrounding non-jewish majority, whether they are anti-semitic, philosemitic or neutral/objevtive or indifferent (like many people are today).

In practice many jews or most jews in Poland will be autochtoon people, but they will be considered as allochtoon, meaning that they are not Roman-Catholic, have another culture and etc. Am I exaggerating or not? I read articles that Poland and for instance the Czech republic is safer for jews than for instance the Netherlands, Germany, *France or *Belgium with it's muslim migrant anti-semitism, native (far right) anti-semitism and anti-semitic hooliganism. (in the case of the Netherlands)

Cheers,
Pieter

* In France and Belgium there were terrorist attacks on Sinagogues, Jewish schools, a jewish supermarket and a Jewish Museum (in Brussels).

[Bonobo]

www.jta.org/2017/01/09/news-opinion/world/non-jewish-poles-don-yarmulkes-to-protest-anti-semitism


Non-Jewish Poles don yarmulkes to protest anti-Semitism
By Cnaan LiphshizJanuary 9, 2017 11:43am
8815shares
A man wears a kippah as he takes part in a silent march to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogroms on November 9, 2013 in Berlin, Germany. (Carsten Koall/Getty Images)

(JTA) — On a quiet Thursday evening, Café Foksal in central Warsaw suddenly filled up with about 50 people wearing kippahs.

The event was unusual for a city with very few observant Jews and an insignificant number of Israeli tourists. What made it exceptional is that almost none of the yarmulke wearers were Jewish.

It was the latest twist in a media storm that has brewed around Café Foksal since a bartender was accused of anti-Semitic behavior toward two patrons, who were ejected allegedly for discussing Israel.

The New Year’s Day incident, which surfaced originally in an unsigned post on the Gburrek blog, was amplified in the mainstream media and on social networks. Amid counter allegations that the complainants provoked the bartender with anti-Christian rhetoric, the affair highlighted the polarization between liberals and conservatives that is dividing Polish society. It was also the latest public rejection by a critical mass of people of any form of hate speech, anti-Semitic or otherwise.

Led by Ryszard Schnepf, a former ambassador of Poland to the United States, the kippah wearers – journalists, activists and others — came to Café Foksal aiming to defuse the tensions stoked by the media’s publication of the allegations, which the bartender claims are false.

Before the delegation arrived, hundreds of people joined a Facebook group calling for a boycott of the cafe over the unverified — and hotly disputed — charges of anti-Semitism.

Hundreds more joined a rival Facebook group vowing support for Café Foksal, whose management has categorically denied the anti-Semitism accusations. They claimed the patrons were tossed for engaging in anti-Christian hate speech about the Virgin Mary while under the influence of alcohol.

The media, including the prestigious Gazeta Wyborcza daily, were sucked into the ensuing debate. That’s what prompted Schnepf to organize the kippah-wearing expedition in a bid to show that Jews were welcome at Café Foksal and that anti-Semitism is not tolerated in Polish society.

“It was friendly and fun,” Schnepf wrote on Facebook about his visit to the controversial cafe, where he was photographed wearing a kippah. “That’s how you do it, for tolerance and friendship.”

Café Foksal’s management also expressed its satisfaction with the event, sharing a picture of it on their Facebook page.

“A very nice evening in the company of dozens of terrific men and woman wearing kippahs,” they wrote. “Thanks for a nice initiative against those who would divide us.”

It was a positive spin amid the bad publicity that followed the publication Tuesday of the unsigned blog post offering an account of what transpired Jan. 1 at the 24-year-old pub.

The unnamed writer, who said he was 32 and never involved in a brawl prior to the incident, wrote that he and a friend were asked by the bartender not to speak about Jews after the bartender overheard the two discussing Israel.

“The bartender turned out to be an anti-Semite,” the blogger wrote.

After they refused to leave the bar, security threw them out. Police arrived a half-half later, taking no action, the blogger added. The post did not say whether the blogger or the friend was Jewish.

But the bartender and management told the media that the two patrons reacted rowdily after she asked them not to use hate speech against Catholics and were sent out of the establishment.

Jonny Daniels, founder of the From the Depths group, which works on Holocaust commemoration and Polish-Jewish relations, told JTA he interviewed the bartender, and she told him that the two were using profanities against the Virgin Mary. After she asked them to refrain, they pelted her with small objects, including peanuts, the bartender said.

“I wasn’t there so I don’t know what happened, but this doesn’t seem to me like a straightforward case of an anti-Semitic incident,” Daniels said.

Anti-Semitic incidents are relatively rare in Poland, which is home to some 20,000 Jews, according to Michael Schudrich, the country’s chief rabbi. But such incidents receive massive attention in a country where anti-Semitism is a sensitive issue.

Approximately 90 percent of Poland’s 3.3 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. The vast majority were killed by Nazi Germans. Thousands of courageous Poles, including Schnepf’s mother, saved Jews. But a small minority of Poles joined the killing, massacring several thousand Polish Jews at the least.

On Thursday, Adam Abramowicz, a lawmaker for the ruling Law and Justice party, who is not Jewish, reportedly said he wrote to Warsaw’s chief of police demanding the release of the report on the Café Foksal incident.

If the accusations the blogger made against the bartender are correct, then the employee, and perhaps the establishment, should be legally accountable for discrimination, Abramowicz said he wrote in the letter. But if accusations are false, then the accusers are answerable for defamation and making a false deposition, he added.

Until then, “What really went on there remains unclear,” Daniels said. “But what is clear is that when it comes to anti-Semitism, Polish society is anything but indifferent.”

[Bonobo]

www.jta.org/2016/12/23/news-opinion/world/in-warsaw-students-flock-to-hanukkah-event-following-classmates-anti-semitism

In Warsaw, students flock to Hanukkah event following classmate’s anti-Semitism
By Cnaan LiphshizDecember 23, 2016 12:20pm
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Rabbi Michael Schudrich, right, speaking to students attending the Judaic Department Hanukkah event at the University of Warsaw on Dec. 20, 2016. (Courtesy of Michael Schudrich)

Rabbi Michael Schudrich, right, speaking to students at the Judaic Department’s Hanukkah event at the University of Warsaw, Dec. 20, 2016. (Courtesy of Schudrich)

(JTA) — If a Polish ultranationalist student intended to delegitimize his university’s main Hanukkah event, his plan seems to have backfired.

On Monday, on the Facebook invitation for a Hanukkah event at the University of Warsaw, Konrad Smuniewski inveighed against “Jew communists” and called Judaism a “criminal ideology” of “racism, xenophobia and hatred.”

His posts, however, generated a backlash that propelled the normally modest Hanukkah party at the university’s Judaic Department into the spotlight — garnering coverage in the Polish media that was highly critical of Smuniewski’s remarks and leading to a doubling in attendance at the event the following day.

“I cannot accept this sort of behavior, which I do not understand,” said Asia Bakon, 19, who is studying the history of arts and Hebrew, though she is not Jewish.

Bakon said she and approximately 40 other non-Jewish students came to the Hanukkah party for the first time this year “mainly out of solidarity over these hateful comments” by Smuniewski.

In a country where many left-wing liberals are accusing the rightist government of mainstreaming xenophobia since its rise to power last year, the anti-Semitic views expressed by Smuniewski — a devout Catholic and Donald Trump fan who studies history at the university — were particularly shocking to some of his critics because he couched them in pseudo-academic language.

“The phrase ‘Jew communists‘ is a scientific term. What’s offensive about it?” Smuniewski told the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, which many consider Poland’s daily of record, in a 600-word article on the incident published Wednesday.

Radio Zet, Warsaw’s first private radio station — its share of the national listenership is approximately 16 percent — also reported on the controversy.

In a statement on its website, the university said that a disciplinary committee is reviewing Smuniewski’s remarks following complaints.

To Bakon, Smuniewski’s decision to publish hate speech under his own name, and to then defend it in the national media, is typical of what she described as how rising nationalism in Poland is emboldening racists.

“I’m afraid this is connected to how nationalism has grown in Poland over the past four, five years,” she told JTA. “I see it as connected to events in Poland and around the world.”

Wojciech Karpieszuk, a journalist who covered the story for the left-leaning Gazeta Wyborcza, concurred.

“In my opinion this is related. The right-wing populism is on the rise in Poland now,” he told JTA. “And right-wing populists are more open to share with their views.”

Karpieszuk also said the incident touched a nerve at Warsaw University because of anti-Semitism there in the 1930s and during Poland’s communist years.

The incident is unusual because it involves Poland’s top-ranked university, but it comes amid a string of racist incidents in recent months, including the burning of a haredi Orthodox Jew effigy at an anti-immigration protest last year in the city of Wroclaw.

In its October report on hate crimes in Poland last year, the European Tolerance Center reported a decline in the prevalence of anti-Semitic discourse in Poland. Yet Poland’s Never Again Association, which tracks racist and xenophobic incidents in the country, revealed in September that it was getting reports of 10 racism incidents daily, whereas this used to be the weekly tally less than two years ago.

Amid rising tensions over immigration into the European Union by Muslims and fear over Russian expansionism, racist incidents recorded this year in Poland included the beating of a Syrian man on a Warsaw street; the barring of a black child from a playground in a town southeast of the capital and the formation of vigilante patrol groups to guard against possible illegal immigrants in Lodz, according to the Financial Times.

Government data show that 962 hate crimes were investigated in Poland last year — a 38 percent increase over 2014, the Financial Times reported in September.

“All too often we are disappointed by the lack of reaction to anti-Semitism,” said Michael Schudrich, the chief rabbi of Poland, who also attended the Hanukkah event at the university. “This time the reaction was quick and very clear in its condemnation of anti-Semitism. I am moved by the reactions of the university and of the students. All of Europe can learn from this response on how you can and must fight react against anti-Semitism and all forms of hatred.”

In Poland, there are some who connect the country’s hate crime problem with the political rhetoric of several of its leading politicians.

“Everything started with the electoral campaign” last year, Adam Bodnar, Poland’s commissioner for human rights, told the Financial Times. He was referring to the 2015 elections that ended with an upset victory for the nationalist conservative Law and Justice party under President Andrzej Duda.

“At that time those were not only statements but also demonstrations, hate speech, increase of hate on the internet,” Bodnar said.

These included remarks by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a former prime minister and leader of Duda’s party, who warned that accepting Muslim refugees would “threaten Poland’s security.” This was a refined version of his remarks from before last year’s elections — that immigrants could bring “parasites” and “diseases.”

Zbigniew Ziobro, the country’s justice minister, meanwhile has said the Law and Justice party is the only defense against “Islamic districts in Poland.”

In July, Duda said at the commemoration of the Kielce pogrom, an outbreak of violence against Poland’s Jewish community in 1946, that in Poland “there is no place for any kind of prejudice, no place for racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism.” Also last year, he said anti-Semites are “an insult” to non-Jews who risked their lives in Poland to save Jews from the Holocaust — a group also known as Righteous Among the Nations.

His government is responsible for directing unprecedented attention and honors for thousands of righteous gentiles, of which Poland has the highest number of any other country. Under Duda, Poland and Israel have pursued even friendlier ties.

But also under Duda, Holocaust revisionism has taken root in some of the country’s highest offices.

Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz, whom the Anti-Defamation League last year said demonstrated “profound and virulent anti-Semitism” by defending the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” forgery, claimed in July that Russians were responsible for the killings of Jews that mainstream historians attribute to Poles and Ukrainians.

And Jaroslaw Szarek, the president of Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, said over the summer that the perpetrators of the Jedwabne massacre of Jews, which has been widely accepted as having been perpetrated by Poles, “were the Germans, who used in their own machine of terror a group of Poles.”

Meanwhile, Jan Gross, the Polish-American Jewish historian, is under a criminal investigation opened against him this year for saying that Poles killed more Jews during the Holocaust than Poles killed Germans. The probe was opened following complaints against Gross that alleged he broke a law that criminalizes insulting “the honor of the Polish Nation.”

Yet despite all these issues, “Poland is one of the best – if not the best – nations in Europe in which to be Jewish today,” Matthew Tyrmand, a columnist and son of the well-known Polish-Jewish writer Leopold Tyrmand, wrote in a recent op-ed, which the Warsaw Point published in April.

“In today’s Poland, violent anti-Semitic acts are few and far between,” he noted, adding: “In most large Polish cities there are now active synagogues, nonsectarian Friday night Sabbaths, lectures and the wearing of Jewish symbols such as the Star of David have become de rigueur.”

[Bonobo]

Polish President welcomes American Jewish Committee to Warsaw
28.03.2017 13:12
Polish President Andrzej Duda welcomed members of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) at a gala opening the organisation's Warsaw office on Monday.

In a letter which was read out during Monday’s opening of the organisation’s regional office in Warsaw, Duda referred to the event as a way of strengthening transatlantic ties, of which Poland has always been a staunch advocate.

In his letter, Duda also wrote about the common history of Poles and Jews.

“This unique political community … was annihilated by the aggression of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, but despite the inhumane terror, crime and mass extermination, the solidarity between our nations has survived,” Duda wrote.

He added that he hoped Poles and Jews will successfully cooperate in defending the good name of Poland and historical truth.

The American Jewish Committee was founded in 1906 to protect the Jewish community outside the United States. In addition to Poland, its Warsaw bureau is also in charge of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

[Bonobo]

Warsaw hosts Jewish Motifs film festival
24.05.2017 14:03
The 13th Jewish Motifs international film festival kicks off in Warsaw on Wednesday.
At the capital’s Kino Muranów cinema, viewers will be able to see over 30 films with Jewish themes from all over the world and attend debates with the filmmakers.
Audiences will also be able to watch movies by celebrated Polish director Andrzej Wajda that have Jewish motifs, including “The Promised Land” and “Korczak”, about legendary educator Janusz Korczak, who refused to abandon the orphanage that he ran for Jewish children in spite of the Nazi German occupation of Poland in World War II.
Festival coordinator Aleksandra Grażyńska said the event offers an insight into Jewish culture, serves as a reminder about the common past of Poles and Jews, and promotes ​​tolerance and cultural openness through the language of film.
The festival runs until Sunday. Entry to screenings is free.

[Bonobo]

A Sabbath dinner with guests from Israel, PiS ministers and politicians wore Jewish caps. Wow.

[pjotr]

There must be a lot of mixed families of Roman-Catholic and Jewish partners or families with jewish branches of Jewish relatives. In Europe were the jews lived for more than thousand years between the native Europeans Ashkenazi jews got Western slavic and Germanic elements because there were clandestine relations between jews and christians and later marriages become common. I know many Dutch jews with a jewish mother and a christian father. The same will be the case in Poland.

[pjotr]

I hope that there will be a day that it is normal to be Jewish, Eastern-Orthodox, Lutheran, Calvinist, Muslim or Hindu in Poland next to Roman-Catholic.

[Bonobo]

Dec 18, 2017 23:58:38 GMT 1 pjotr said:

There must be a lot of mixed families of Roman-Catholic and Jewish partners or families with jewish branches of Jewish relatives. In Europe were the jews lived for more than thousand years between the native Europeans Ashkenazi jews got Western slavic and Germanic elements because there were clandestine relations between jews and christians and later marriages become common. I know many Dutch jews with a jewish mother and a christian father. The same will be the case in Poland.

It might be, but never on the scale which prevailed before the war, simply due to the fact there are very few Jews in Poland.

[Bonobo]

Polish gov't supports Jewish cemetery conservation
23.12.2017 10:02
The Polish government has donated PLN 100 million (USD 28 million) to restore the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery, one of the largest such sites in Europe.
From left to right: Anna Chipczyńska (President of the Warsaw Jewish Community), Michael Schudrich (Chief Rabbi of Poland), Piotr Gliński (Poland's culture minister), Michał Laszczkowski (President of the National Heritage Foundation) at a press conference on a PLN 100 milion donation to preserve the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery on Friday. Photo: PAP/LesFrom left to right: Anna Chipczyńska (President of the Warsaw Jewish Community), Michael Schudrich (Chief Rabbi of Poland), Piotr Gliński (Poland's culture minister), Michał Laszczkowski (President of the National Heritage Foundation) at a press conference on a PLN 100 milion donation to preserve the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery on Friday. Photo: PAP/Les


The government has transferred the funds to Poland’s Cultural Heritage Foundation, which will oversee the restoration process in cooperation with the Warsaw Jewish Community.

A special agreement on the donation was signed on Friday by Poland’s deputy prime minister and culture minister Piotr Gliński and head of the Cultural Heritage Foundation, Michał Laszczkowski.

At a Friday conference Gliński said: "This area of over 33 hectares where Polish Jews are buried is part of the Polish cultural and national heritage."

Laszczkowski stressed that hundreds of the cemetery's tombstones are dilapidated.

According to Anna Chipczyńska, the president of the Jewish Community in Warsaw, the donation "has been the most important gesture of the Polish state aimed at protecting the Jewish material heritage."

Michael Schudrich, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, said that it is about "honoring the dead, which is very important in our culture."

Warsaw's Okopowa Jewish Cemetery currrently houses over 250,000 graves.




Polish Catholic Church celebrates Judaism Day
17.01.2018 13:17
Polish Catholic Church celebrates the 21st Judaism Day with several events in the country’s capital Warsaw on Wednesday.
Rabbi Michael Schudrich and Bishop Rafał Markowski at the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw. Photo: PAP/Tomasz Gzell.Rabbi Michael Schudrich and Bishop Rafał Markowski at the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw. Photo: PAP/Tomasz Gzell.


The main events were held at the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw and at the site of the former Jewish ghetto, the largest one established by German Nazis on Polish soil.

Poland’s chief Rabbi, Michael Schudrich and Catholic Bishop Rafał Markowski, who is in charge of ecumenical dialogue, prayed together in Hebrew and in Polish.

The celebrations in Warsaw started on Tuesday and will last until Sunday. They will include movie screenings, concerts and discussions. (tf/vb)

[Bonobo]

Jan 28, 2018 4:16:27 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

A new Polish law about penalties for using the phrase Polish death camps caused incredible uproar in Israel. Israelis claim there WERE Polish death camps and Poles participated in Holocaust.
www.timesofisrael.com/decrying-new-bill-yad-vashem-says-polish-death-camps-a-misrepresentation/
www.dw.com/en/israel-says-polish-death-camp-rephrasing-bill-amounts-to-denial/a-42338752
www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Israel-strongly-opposes-Polish-bill-outlawing-term-Polish-death-camps-539972
www.nytimes.com/2018/01/27/world/middleeast/poland-holocaust-law-israel.html


The first claim is false because there weren`t Polish death camps for Jews. The second is true - yes, some Poles participated in Holocaust, like it happened everywhere in Europe.



MPs back jail terms for references to 'Polish' death camps
26.01.2018 16:46
Polish deputies on Friday voted through a law under which anyone who uses the phrase "Polish death camps" would face up to three years in prison or a fine.
The new law would also allow criminal proceedings to be launched against anyone who denies crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalists between 1925 and 1950, such as the Volhynia Massacre during World War II, a black page in Polish-Ukrainian relations.
The use of the term “Polish death camp” by international media outlets in reference to camps runs by Nazi Germans in occupied Poland during World War II has sparked numerous complaints from Warsaw in recent years.
Deputy Justice Minister Patryk Jaki told MPs on Friday: "Non-governmental organisations indicate that every other day the phrase ‘Polish death camps’ is used around the world."
'Insults to the Polish nation'
He said: “In other words, German Nazi crimes are attributed to Poles. And so far the Polish state has not been able to effectively fight these types of insults to the Polish nation.”
The new law would apply to both Polish citizens and foreigners "regardless of the rules in force in the location where the act was committed,” according to the official wording.
But artists and academics would be exempt from prosecution.
Under the rules passed on Friday, anyone who publicly ascribes blame or joint blame to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by Nazi Germany or for war crimes or other crimes against humanity would be liable to penalties.
The new law was backed by 279 deputies on Friday, while five were against and 130 abstained. The bill will now go to the Senate, the upper house of Polish parliament, for further debate.

Oops, I predict a serious deterioration of Polish Israeli relations after the new bill is finally introduced. I don`t suppose that PiS government will back off from the current draft, besides it is supported by the opposition, too and Jews won`t give up their stance, either. Both nations can get really hysterical when it comes to their historical issues, especially the joint ones.

Pity. A Polish Jewish Cold War is looming on the horizon? Poles will never admit there were Polish death camps because it is not true. Jews/Israelis fear that the new bill will stiffle the discussion on Polish pogroms of Jews during and after WW2 and warn it is a sort of whitewashing the past.


www.jta.org/2018/01/27/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/polands-parliament-wants-to-criminalize-the-term-polish-death-camps

Poland’s parliament pushes forward bill that would criminalize the term ‘Polish death camps’
January 27, 2018 2:03pm

The entrance to Auschwitz (Wikimedia Commons)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu protested a bill passed by the lower house of the Polish parliament which would make it illegal to use terms such as “Polish death camps” to refer to the camps set up by the Nazis.

“The law is baseless; I strongly oppose it,” Netanyahu said in a statement Saturday. “One cannot change history and the Holocaust cannot be denied. I have instructed the Israeli Ambassador to Poland to meet with the Polish Prime Minister this evening and express to him my strong position against the law.”

The legislation, designed to make it clear that Nazi Germany is responsible for the crimes against humanity that took place in the camps, calls for calls for prison sentences of up to three years. It still needs approval from Poland’s Senate and the country’s president.

The law passed by the lower house of parliament a day before the observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day was drafted in response to the use of the term Polish death camps in foreign media reports. It contains a provision excluding scholarly or academic works.

The camps, such as Auschwitz, were built and run by the Nazis after they occupied Poland in 1939.

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin said in a statement about the legislation that there were Polish people who aided the Nazis and those who fought against them.

“Only 73 years have passed since the gates of hell were flung open. Living Holocaust survivors are disappearing from the world and we still have to fight for the memory of the Holocaust as it was,” Rivlin said.

“The Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the entire world must ensure that the Holocaust is recognized for its horrors and atrocities. Also among the Polish people there were those who aided the Nazis in their crimes. Every crime, every offense, must be condemned. They must be examined and revealed. There were also others among them who fought and were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations,” Rivlin said.

Opposition Leader Isaac Herzog called on Netanyahu to recall the ambassador to Poland for “urgent consultations” over the law and “to make our protest against it clear to the Polish Government and Parliament.”

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked called the legislation an attempt to “rewrite history” and to absolve Poland of any responsibility for what took place on its soil during the Holocaust.

Going even further, Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid Party, wrote on Facebook that “Poland was complicit in the Holocaust,” adding that “Hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered on its soil without them having met any German officer.” According to Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich, no more than 2,500 Jews were killed by Poles during the Holocaust and directly thereafter. Lapid got into an argument on Twitter with the Polish Embassy in Tel Aviv over the legislation.

“I utterly condemn the new Polish law which tries to deny Polish complicity in the Holocaust. It was conceived in Germany but hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered without ever meeting a German soldier. There were Polish death camps and no law can ever change that,” Lapid tweeted on Saturday afternoon.

The embassy tweeted the link to a statement from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance which stated its support of refraining from using the term Polish death camps.

“Your unsupportable claims show how badly Holocaust education is needed, even here in Israel,” the embassy tweeted. “The intent of the Polish draft legislation is not to ‘whitewash’ the past, but to protect the truth against such slander,” it also tweeted.

“I am a son of a Holocaust survivor. My grandmother was murdered in Poland by Germans and Poles. I don’t need Holocaust education from you. We live with the consequences every day in our collective memory. Your embassy should offer an immediate apology,” Lapid responded.

Yad Vashem,Israel’s Holocaust memorial, said in a statement issued Saturday night that it opposes the new legislation, saying it is “liable to blur the historical truths regarding the assistance the Germans received from the Polish population during the Holocaust.”

“There is no doubt that the term ‘Polish death camps’ is a historical misrepresentation,” the statement also said. “The extermination camps were set up in Nazi-occupied Poland in order to murder the Jewish people within the framework of the ‘Final Solution.’ However, restrictions on statements by scholars and others regarding the Polish people’s direct or indirect complicity with the crimes committed on their land during the Holocaust are a serious distortion. Yad Vashem will continue to support research aimed at exposing the complex truth regarding the attitude of the Polish population towards the Jews during the Holocaust.”

[Bonobo]

Jan 28, 2018 4:38:09 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Pity. A Polish Jewish Cold War is looming on the horizon? Poles will never admit there were Polish death camps because it is not true. Jews/Israelis fear that the new bill will stiffle the discussion on Polish pogroms of Jews during and after WW2.

Today two spokespeople, PiS` and President`s declared the draft bill won`t be changed. "We have had enough of being accused of running the so called Polish death camps.
The Israeli Parliament opposition leader calls for withdrawing Israeli ambassador from Poland.


If Israeli/Jewish/Polish stance doesn`t change, the tension will escalate, with losses on both sides. Poland`s reputation will suffer when Jews go on accusing us of antisemitism. On the other hand, I can imagine PiS government might block funding for certain Jewish projects in Poland, e,.g, Warsaw Jewish cemetery, as retaliation.

Again, pity.







The new law is described by Poles as anti Polish death camp phrase law. However, it doesn`t contain this exact phrase, it is more general. I understand why Jews see it in a different dimension:

According to the law, which was approved on Friday by the country's lower parliament, anyone who publicly attributes guilt or complicity to the Polish state for crimes committed by Nazi Germany, war crimes or other crimes against humanity, will be liable to criminal proceedings. Punishment will also be imposed on those who are seen to "deliberately reduce the responsibility of the 'true culprits' of these crimes."

The new law will apply both to Polish citizens and to foreigners regardless which country the statement is supposed to have been made in.

The implication of the new law means that in theory, a Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland who lives in Israel, who may make a statement such as "the Polish people were involved in the murder of my grandfather in the Holocaust," or "my mother was murdered in a Polish death camp," would be liable for imprisonment in Poland.

www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/poland-pm-defends-holocaust-law-auschwitz-isn-t-a-polish-name-1.5768123






An Israeli historian explains it further:

The reason, according to Zuroff, is that the bill is part of a larger effort by Poland’s right-wing government, led by the Law and Justice party, to dismiss “any criticism of how Poles behaved during the Holocaust,” he said.

According to Zuroff, with the exception of the Netherlands, Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where resistance activists set up a special organization dedicated to saving Jews. But at the same time, Polish resistance groups, such as the Home Army, refused to accept Jews in many cases — and in others killed them.

“Everybody knows that many, many thousands of Poles killed or betrayed their Jewish neighbors to the Germans, causing them to be murdered,” Zuroff said. “The Polish state was not complicit in the Holocaust, but many Poles were. The country was a hotbed of anti-Semitism before the Holocaust, too. It’s foolish to ignore it.”

If that is true, it hasn’t stopped Polish historians and officials from doing just that.

In 2016, a year after Law and Justice’s big election win, Polish Education Minister Anna Zalewska said there are “different scenarios” about what happened in Jedwabne, a town in eastern Poland where in 1941 locals butchered 1,500 to 2,500 of their Jewish neighbors, reportedly without interference from the Germans (revisionist historians in Poland have disputed this for decades).

In 2001, the publication of a book on Jedwabne by Princeton historian Jan Gross triggered a public debate on the issue. In 2016, he was summoned to appear before police for saying that Poles killed more Jews than they did Germans during the Holocaust. He was suspected of insulting the honor of the Polish nation, which is illegal in the country.

In a separate, but not entirely unconnected debate, some leaders of Polish Jewry have accused the Law and Justice party of ignoring the rise of ultra-nationalists in Poland, which they said creates a security concern for the community and a “low point” in its history. Other Polish Jewish leaders dismissed these claims as part of a “political war” against the government.

“Before Law and Justice won the election, there was a feeling that progress had been made, with successive Polish heads of state recognizing that, alongside the heroism of some Poles who saved Jews, others murdered them and betrayed them. But it seems that now the Polish government is reversing course and it’s generating a lot of anger, as is visible in Lapid’s reaction,” Zuroff said.

Poland’s embassy in Israel, for its part, quoted on social media what they called Lapid’s “unsupportable claims.” They show, an embassy spokesperson said, “how badly Holocaust education is needed, even here in Israel.”

www.timesofisrael.com/its-complicated-inaccuracies-plague-both-sides-of-polish-death-camps-debate/