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Culture Excavating Poland’s Last Remaining Mezuzas From Before the Holocaust
Helena Czernek and Aleksander Prugar have been trekking around Poland both as artists and as archaeologists: They’re searching for traces of mezuzas on Jewish homes that were abandoned or destroyed during the Holocaust. For the artists’ project, “Mezuzah From This Home,” the duo first identifies what Prugar calls “marks of existence” on doorframes across the…
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Fast Forward Polish Jews Win Medals of Honor
Three Jewish leaders were awarded Bene Merito medals in recognition of their actions in promoting Poland abroad. The medals were conferred upon Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich; Helise Lieberman, director of the Taube Center for the Renewal of Jewish Life in Poland; and Jonathan Ornstein; director of the Jewish Community Center in Krakow, The national…
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Fast Forward Sobibor Memorial Plans Suspended Amid Controversy
Polish authorities suspended the planned construction of a controversial memorial monument at the former Sobibor Nazi death camp, activists against the plan said. The suspension of the plan followed talks last month between the Polish ministry of culture and Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem, over concerns that the proposed construction would…
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Fast Forward Polish Jews Ready for Dialog With New President
Leaders of Poland’s Jewish community said Polish Jews are ready to cooperate with the country’s new president. Andrzej Duda won Sunday’s presidential elections in Poland. Duda, whose father-in-law Julian Kornhauser is a well-known Polish-Jewish poet, garnered 51 percent of the vote, according to official results certified on Sunday night. His opponent, former president Bronislaw Komorowski,…
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Fast Forward Polish Home Where Jews Hid Will Be Museum
A private entrepreneur plans to establish a museum in a house in southeastern Poland in which Jews hid from the Nazis. The house, located on Tatarska Street in Przemysl, hid 13 members of the Diamant family during the Holocaust. Beginning in 1942, the orphaned Catholic sisters Stefania and Helena Podgorski, ages 16 and 9, hid…
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Fast Forward Polish President Defends Holocaust Massacre Apology
In an election debate, Poland’s president defended his acknowledgment of the complicity of some his countrymen in the Holocaust. Bronislaw Komorowski offered his defense during a televised debate earlier this week against Andrzej Duda, a conservative candidate who criticized the president’s apologies in recent years for the massacre that Polish farmers perpetrated against their Jewish…
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News Warsaw Ghetto Memorial to Righteous Suffers New Setback as Design Is Tossed
A dispute over designs is the latest roadblock to hit a controversial Holocaust memorial planned for the site of the Warsaw Ghetto that would honor so so-called Righteous Gentiles who rescued Jews. In the latest twist on the hotly disputed project, the New York philanthropist who launched it has rejected the choice of plans made…
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Fast Forward Wladislaw Bartoszewski, Righteous Polish Official Who Survived Auschwitz, Dies
Former Polish Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a former prisoner of Auschwitz who was named a Righteous Among the Nations, has died. Bartoszewski, who was also a social activist, journalist and historian, died on April 24 at the age of 93. Bartoszewski in 1940 was sent to Auschwitz due to his social activism. He was released…
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Opinion I’m an Israeli who lives in New York. Here’s why I’m voting for Mamdani
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Culture Mamdani quoted Eugene Debs in his victory speech — there’s a long Jewish history there
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