POLISH-AMERICAN PUBLIC RELATIONS COMMITTEE
Dana I. Alvi - Chairwoman
P. O. Box 3206
Santa Monica, CA 90408
Tel & Fax 310 - 829 -1527
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.poland.org
www.3w3.net/PAPUREC
December 12, 2000
16. POLISH History Polonia Judaica
MOMENT, February 1998
By Konstanty Gebert
POLAND ? By 2050 Poland will become an economic powerhouse with Polish
Jews as its driving force.
In retrospect, it all seems so obvious that one is puzzled by the
inability of late-20th-century observers to spot the trend. Already the
reemergence of Polish Jewry in the last quarter of that century should
have given an indication of the way events were moving. Notwithstanding
the Shoah, post war pogroms, half a century of Communism, and a chaotic
democracy emerging from the shambles of a corrupt system, Polish Jews
survived. As soon as it was safe to creep out of the woodwork again,
the children and grandchildren of those who, under illusion or duress,
had abandoned yiddishkeit, found their way back to Jewish
institutions. Some joined the synagogue; others promptly set up
nonreligious associations. All cooperated, however, to reestablish
kindergartens, schools, and youth programs.
By the year 2000 Poland already had a Jewish community of some 30,000,
six times more than in 1989, when the Jewish renewal started in
earnest. The demographis challenge had been won, and the community
continued to grow, if at a slower, more natural pace. The political
challenge proved manageable. In their determination to join the
European Union and to shed the politics that had kept their nation
hostage to history for 200 years, young Poles gave up both bad
traditions and good ones. They preferred to learn German rather than
the history of wars with Germany. They studied computer programming
rather than murky conspiracy theories. Anti-Semitism was sidelined to
the lunatic fringe. But entire chunks of national identity and
traditions were forgotten. "Very unpatriotic" said Polish Jews,
disaprovingly. As soon as Polish Jews finished rebuilding their
identities and institutions, they started a special program to preserve
Polish traditions. Now in 2100, Jewish professors dominate departments
of Polish history and tradition in universities.
When Poland finally joined the European Union, it discovered allies
outside Poland. Generations of Polish Jews who had fled the country and
remade their lives elsewhere on the continent brought up their children
with a nostalgia for the Old Country: weeping willows and charging
cavalrymen, vodka and Frederic Chopin. A Polish Jewish lobby soon
developed, which coupled with the surprising development of the Polish
economy, helped produce the Polish economic miracle. By mid-century,
Poland had become a continental economic powerhouse, and Polish Jews,
Europe-wide, were its driving force. The community made up in chutzpah
what it lacked in original scholarship. Apart from some specialists
documenting the history of Hasidism, anti-Semitism, and the Shoah, most
Polish Jews were happy to make money and to import American rabbis and
professors to make up for the rest. Jewish educational institutions had
to draw their purse strings. But a continental position was not to be
sneered at, and by the mid-21st century Jewish learning was being
massively imported into Central Europe from the United States. Ten
years later, it was no longer imported. After ten more years, Polish
Jews were not only producing Jewish scholarship, they were exporting
it. This was the straw that broke the camels back. American
authorities rallied to American Jewish organizations, who accused Polish
Jews of unfair academic competition, much as the United States had
accused the European Union of unfair economic competition in the past.
Israel, long furious at Central Europe for its manifest lack of Zionist
feeling and eager to score points with the United States, joined the
Americans. Eventually both sides fought themselves to a standstill.
Descendants of Polish Jews in America and Central Europe negotiated a
truce with Polish Jews. And to honor the role of Central European Jewry
in helping to integrate the continent ? after all, the Jews found it
easier to swear allegiance to Europe than did the other citizens of the
various nation-states ? the European Union government in Brussels
awarded the Baron de Rothschild first European award to a Polish Jew.
-- End
* Konstanty Gebert is editor in chief of Midrasz, Polands only Jewish
monthly. He was formerly with Gazeta Wyborcza, Polands largest daily
newspaper. In 1978 he helped set up the Jewish Flying University, a
study group which meets to discuss Jewish issues. He was one of the
founders of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews in 1990.
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ZEBY POLSKA BYLA POLSKA
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Dana I. Alvi
