An article presenting testimony of the killing of Jews committed after World War II by their Polish neighbors is a small, yet, for us, highly significant element in the reconstruction of the history of Polish complicity in the Holocaust. » first published in April 2015 In August 2014, 69 years after the murder of…
magazyn żydowski
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A Two Percent Chance of Survival
John Calvin will soon be able to work again as a vendor after regaining the right to work in Canada, which was taken from him last fall. However, this year the fall season may mean something worse for him than losing his job. November 4th has been set as the date of his final deportation…
Zvi Rav-Ner upon Finishing his Diplomatic Mission in Poland
Excerpt from the article: Zvi Rav – Ner: We will never get back to having a Jewish community of 3.5 million people in Poland. Before the war, 80% of the inhabitants of Białystok were Jews. Now there is only one person there, and this person is introducing non-Jewish people to Jewish culture and tradition. It is…
One of two fathers
Families with two fathers or mothers no longer raise eyebrows in Israel. The discussion about allowing homosexual couples access to surrogacy in the country has resurfaced following the earthquake in Nepal, one of the places where Israeli gay couples go to have children via surrogacy. At the very time that we had agreed to meet,…
Jews Remain Jews, and Jesus Remains the Messiah
In the past few decades our generation has witnessed milestone events and historic gestures that have significantly transformed relations between Christians and Jews. Thanks to these developments, today the dialogue between Christianity and Judaism seems so natural and obvious that we rarely think the mutual relations had not always been that cordial. Before the…
What does Judaism Say about Homosexuality, Birth Control and Gender Equality?
Homosexuality is a deviation, and as such, it should be banned. Birth control denies our natural duty to procreate. Abortion is infanticide. Some social roles are strictly meant to be carried out exclusively by men – after all, Jesus did not choose any women to be apostles. These are just some arguments that were used…
On the Opening of the Core Exhibition at Polin Museum
The opening of the core exhibition at POLIN Museum (Museum of the History of Polish Jews) marked, in my opinion, a fundamental change within the Diaspora in Poland. I had been skeptical about this project, fearing it might border on the kitsch and not be entirely free from manipulation. I am happy to say that…
How Jewish is the Jewish museum?
Magdalena Wójcik, Michał Bojanowski: Is the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews a Jewish institution or not? Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett: Until very recently the website URL was jewishmuseum.org.pl. Taxi drivers would call us either the Jewish Museum or the Holocaust Museum. I would like to think of us as an international museum and…
Wrocław Jewish Community
Although the history of the Jewish Community in Wrocław dates back to the thirteenth century, its most fascinating period started in the nineteenth century, parallel to the Jewish emancipation in Prussia which fueled the community’s unprecedented development. It was at that time that one of the most important Haskalah centers arose there and where the…