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Fast Forward Polish Jews Will Build Western Wall Replica
A wall modeled on the Western Wall in Jerusalem will stand at the site of the Jewish cemetery in Bilgoraj, in south-eastern Poland. The wall, which is being funded by the Isaac Bashevis Singer Association of Bilgoraj, will display the names of Jews who lived in the town. One name that will be included on…
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News Nazi-Era Case Reopens Old Polish Wounds
Poland has just reopened a 71-year-old case involving the rape and murder of 20 Jewish women. In the 1941 case — in the midst of World II, and two years after the Nazi invasion of Poland — six Poles allegedly beat the Jewish women to death with metal-tipped clubs outside the hamlet of Bzury, in…
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Culture Finding Jewish Life in Eastern Europe
Pavel Fried was born in the village of Třebíč, Czechoslovakia, in 1930. Fried lived a middle-class Jewish life; he was in the midst of preparations for his bar mitzvah when his family was deported to Terezin. In the camp, he told interviewers from the Vienna-based oral history project Centropa, he had a secret ceremony. Pavel…
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News Polish Priest Ousted at Jewish College
The abrupt dismissal of a Catholic monk from the college of Jewish studies he founded in the northern Polish town of Torun has shattered his dream and brought turmoil to his parish. Two days before Christmas, the Franciscan Order dismissed Father Maksymin Tandek from his position as director of the Higher School of Hebrew Philology,…
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News Every Polish Town Had Own Holocaust
Every Polish town and village had its own Holocaust. That’s what Zuzanna Radzik wants Polish children to learn. Her task is not easy. Although Polish children are taught about the Holocaust, they don’t learn what happened in their own towns. The killing did not just happen in the death camps that they are taught about,…
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News Not Your Grandma’s Poland Anymore
When Poland’s new Sejm, or Parliament, was seated recently, the nationally televised event showed something never before seen in this conservative nation: a transsexual woman and an openly gay man being solemnly sworn in along with other parliamentarians. The seminal event was a consequence of the emergence of Palikot, a new, explicitly anti-clerical, libertarian-oriented party…
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The Schmooze ‘Jihad’ Banner Unveiled at Polish Soccer Match
In the latest news about the anti-Semitic behavior of European football fans, supporters of Poland’s Legia team unfurled a huge “Jihad” banner during a recent Warsaw game against Hapoel Tel Aviv. The banner was green, and “Jihad Legia” was written across it in white Arabic-style font. Green is one of Legia’s team colors, but it…
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The Schmooze Forward Columnist Masha Leon Honored by Poland
Columnist Masha Leon, who has covered social events for the Forverts and then the Forward for more than 30 years, was honored Thursday night by the government of Poland for her articles and other work that have helped further the understanding of Polish-Jewish lives, history and culture. The president of Poland, Bronislaw Komorowski, pinned a…
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