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Fast Forward Krakow Chief Rabbi Irks Many Poles With ‘Don’t Like Jews’ Remark
(JTA) — On the way to his first appearance as Krakow’s new chief rabbi, Eliezer Gurary passed a group of young demonstrators holding signs with messages of affection for Jews. “I [heart] Jews,” one sign read. “Yes to tolerance,” read another. But the demonstration last week outside Krakow’s Old Synagogue was no support rally. Organized…
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News Holocaust Study Debunks Myth of ‘Ungrateful Jew’
(Haaretz) — In Poland, they were known as the ungrateful Jews. These were Jews who survived the Holocaust because of the selfless acts of thousands of Polish rescuers who put their lives on the line for them but were never properly thanked. As soon as the war was over, these Jews headed out to greener pastures…
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Fast Forward Krakow’s New Chief Rabbi: All Non-Jews Dislike Jews
Several Polish rabbis and Jewish lay leaders criticized Krakow’s new chief rabbi for saying all non-Jews do not like Jews — a statement he was recorded making in an interview and then denied uttering. On Friday, six rabbis who belong to the Association of Rabbis in Poland said in a statement that they “firmly oppose”…
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The Schmooze 2 Jewish Lawyers and Hitler’s ‘Butcher’ Share Stage
(Reuters) — The improbable tale of three music-loving lawyers linked to Ukraine – two of them Jews and one a Hitler aide known as the “Butcher of Poland” – has made it to the stage in a work premiered at the Hay Festival. “The Great Crimes” tells how the lives of Hersch Lauterpecht, who formulated…
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Culture When Auschwitz Was a Jewish Town
Of all the things and places to give an endearing Jewish name, Auschwitz would seem the most unlikely. Oshpitzin — which comes from the Aramaic word for guest, ushpizin, and is the name of a traditional Sukkot prayer that welcomes guests — was how Jews once referred to Oswiecim, the Polish town that would become…
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Fast Forward Polish MP Calls For End to Jewish World War II Property Restitution
Polish MP Slawomir Kopycinski called for the shuttering of the Regulatory Commission for Jewish Communities, a Polish body that restores property owned by Holocaust victims to its legal heirs. Kopycinski called the commission ”the fourth partition of Poland” in a Thursday press conference, alluding to previous partitions of the country in the 1700s and again…
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Culture Still Waiting for Godot
Killing the Second Dog By Marek Hlasko, translated from the Polish by Tomasz Mirkowicz New Vessel Press, 143 pages, $15.99 In the aftermath of World War II, while Europe was responding to the dissipation of the old empires and feudal orders by reconfiguring itself around capitalist and communist ideologies, its novelists took it upon themselves…
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The Schmooze ‘Ida’: Conversation with Director Pawel Pawlikowski
“Ida,” a fascinating and disquieting Polish language film written and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, is a post-Soviet Polish rumination, a mystery with religious and political overtones. Pronounced as “Eeda,” Pawlikowski told me during our chat: “I needed a good name and remembered the Jewish Polish actress Ida Kaminska. It was a name I liked, but…
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Fast Forward Why some Satmar Hasidic leaders endorsed Zohran Mamdani as mayor, stunning many Jewish voters
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News How Mamdani became New York’s next mayor, with Jews divided between fierce opposition and fiery support
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Culture Mamdani quoted Eugene Debs in his victory speech — there’s a long Jewish history there
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Opinion Why a concert hall should be the last place for a protest — particularly an antisemitic one like this
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Looking Forward What Hailey Bieber smoothies and instant matzo ball soup reveal about American Jewish taste
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Culture Mamdani’s first statement on antisemitism as mayor-elect got some weird pushback
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Film & TV On the trail of a priceless dove, a group of Palestinians and Israelis find that peace is for the birds
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