A Year for Polish Jewry

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Photo copyright Getty Images
Nearly 20 years in the making, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw finally opened this fall. With its reported 9-figure budget, its seven main galleries, and more than 40,000 square feet of space, the museum was dubbed “The Louvre of Jewish Museum,” by Forward art critic A.J. Goldmann.
Now, finally, a millennium of Jewish and Polish history is being told in the midst of a city that, before the Holocaust, boasted the world’s second largest Jewish population after New York.
In an interview with the Forward, museum director Dariusz Stola said he wanted to show that, for centuries, Jewish life was an integral part of Polish life, and that the museum would not put undue emphasis on anti-Semitism.
“I’m not doing a museum on anti-Semites,” he said. “Someone else can do fundraising for that.”
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
, editor-in-chief