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The Schmooze Polish President Honors Survivor Sigmund Rolat
“Not every Pole is an anti-Semite and not every Jew is anti-Polish, “ has long been the mantra of Czestochowa-born Holocaust survivor Sigmund Rolat, an orphan and survivor of a Nazi slave-labor camp in Czestochowa who in 1948 arrived in New York City as a penniless teenager. On September 23, he was honored at a…
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Fast Forward World Jewish Congress Slams Polish Magazine Over Claim of Mismanaging Restitution Funds
The World Jewish Congress slammed a Polish magazine report that alleged corrupt practices in the restitution and management of Jewish property in Poland. In a statement issued Sept. 18, WJC President Ronald Lauder called the report in the Polish edition of Forbes magazine “littered with factual errors” and “sensationalist,” and its allegations “unfounded and slanderous.”…
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Fast Forward Majdanek Prisoner’s Cap Will Be Returned to Concentration Camp Museum
A prisoner’s cap from the Majdanek concentration camp — likely stolen decades ago from the museum there — was found in the United States. The gray-and-blue-striped cap was scheduled to be transferred to the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage on Thursday and returned to the museum. Experts who checked the cap confirmed its…
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Fast Forward Krakow Jews and Muslims Unite on Ritual Slaughter
The directors of the Jewish Community Center of Krakow and the Krakow Islamic Center are joining forces to fight Poland’s ban on Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter. Jonathan Ornstein, the JCC’s executive director, and Dr. Hayssam Obeidat, director of the Islamic Center, issued a joint open letter Tuesday saying their “communities stand united and call…
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Fast Forward Polish Torah Scroll Hidden in Monastery Since Holocaust, Returned
A Torah scroll that since 1942 has been hidden in a Tuchow monastery was returned to the synagogue in Dabrowa Tarnowska in southern Poland. The Torah was returned earlier this month but reported for the first time on Saturday. It had been brought to the monastery in Tuchow, approximately 60 miles from Krakow, by an…
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News Finding Dasha
Esther C. Werdiger met a long lost relative named Dasha who lived nearby in New York. They met, chatted for hours, and said they’d get together again soon. But they never did. Click on the thumbnail to the right for a larger version. Esther C. Werdiger is a writer and artist from Melbourne. Her essays,…
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Fast Forward Polish Jewish Cemetery Used for Topless Photo Shoot
Polish photographer Lukasz Szczygielski has apologized for conducting a photo shoot with a half-naked model at the Jewish cemetery in the southern Polish town of Checiny. Szczygielski explained that he wanted to draw attention to the neglected cemetery. “I wanted to draw attention to the neglect of the place. The cemetery is forgotten, he told…
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Culture The Resurrection of Chmielnik
About 15 years ago, when he was in his mid-20s, Piotr Krawczyk had a revelation that changed his life; in many respects it also ended up changing the life of Chmielnik, the sleepy little town in South Central Poland where he lives. “I found a book on the history of Chmielnik, and I read it,”…
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Fast Forward Cory Booker has long embraced Jewish tradition. Now he has married a Jewish woman.
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Looking Forward My favorite Christmas scene in literature — and why it makes me feel so Jewish
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Opinion Americans are waking up to right-wing antisemitism. We’re still ignoring the root problem
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Film & TV A lackluster exhibit gives short shrift to Claude Lanzmann’s legacy — and to the Shoah’s victims
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Sponsored The moral imperative of a name: Yad Vashem documents five million Holocaust victims
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