Editorial [to the second English-language issue of CHIDUSZ]

We are pleased to present the second English-language issue of CHIDUSZ Jewish Monthly Magazine summing up another year of our work. It is a collection of the most important texts published in the original Polish version of the magazine from September 2015 to December 2016.

We put together a selective overview of the past 16 months especially for this issue in hopes of  presenting an accurate picture of the social and political situation in Poland during that period, highlighting the most important occurrences of Jewish life, and providing a context for the events mentioned in the articles.

Our choice of articles reflects the numerous disheartening events that have occurred in Poland over the past 16 months. The climate of intolerance and xenophobia is becoming more apparent. The Jewish community was an unwitting target when a Jewish effigy was burned on the Old Town Market in Wrocław during an anti-immigrant demonstration in November 2015.

Jews have a moral and historic obligation to speak out against any and all acts of intolerance and xenophobia even when those acts are not directed specifically against them.

Most of this issue focuses on dangerous tendencies that have come to the forefront in Poland. They do not, for the time being at least, dominate our public space and discourse and we hope they never will, though the recent situation does not appear overly optimistic.

CONTENT

2015 – 2016 in Review

The most important events of the past 16 months

End of Year Conversation

On the changes in Polish society

A Wrocław Triptych

The tale of Polish nationalism

Polish and Jewish Theater Wars

Drama in the theaters of Poland

The First Stolpersteine in Wrocław

On the difficulty of installing memory stones in Poland

How to Reconstruct a Dinosaur

The history of the first family commemorated with Stolpersteine

Anomalies of History

The Story of the Neue Synagoge wall in Breslau

Cities of Death

How Poles murdered Jews

A Quarter Million Trees Weighing Down upon Us

How Poland exploits its Righteous Among the Nations


Translation: Aga Zano

Proofreading: Barbara Pendzich

CHIDUSZ is published by CHIDUSZ Jewish Foundation