As promised, we spent Wednesday learning about Jewish life in Krakow now and throughout history, again guided by Tomasz. Like Prague, Krakow has a giant Jewish quarter filled with synagogues that are mainly used as museums. Krakow has seven synagogues, and while some were used by the Nazis to store supplies, none were destroyed. (The synagogue that had been destroyed in Prague was not destroyed by the Nazis, but by Americans who accidentally bombed Prague because they thought it was Dresden. Oops.) The Jewish quarter in Krakow felt even more grotesque than in Prague. Everywhere you turned, there were stores selling menorahs and little figurines of caricatures of Jewish men, and restaurants advertising “Jewish food” with bands playing music from Fiddler on the Roof (one of these bands started immediately after Tomasz said “I am trying to convince you that Jewish life in Krakow was more than Fiddler on the Roof”). When we came to a market with stalls selling antique menorahs and other Judaica, I couldn’t help but think about where all this stuff had probably come from. Even though I knew that the people selling it in 2015 were obviously not the people who had stolen it from it from its original owners and that it was far too late to give it back, I didn’t feel comfortable buying any of it. There were few signs of local Jews, but plenty of foreign Jewish tourists. We saw a group of Hasidic men and boys speaking Yiddish and taking lots of pictures, who our guide said were probably from either New York or Israel. The most common Jewish tourists here are Holocaust survivors and their families, who come to see Auschwitz, and Hasids, who come to see the places where Hasidism was born and to pay homage to the founders of Hasidism. We visited the grave of a famous Hasidic rebbe, which is a major pilgrimage site. His tombstone was filled with little notes stuffed into the cracks asking for him to intercede in people’s problems. Tomasz said this was a custom that Jews had adopted from Catholics.
At the end of our tour, after seeing what the Jewish quarter looks like today, we saw a film of life in the Jewish quarter filmed in 1935, showing all the places we had just seen, filled with an amazing diversity of Jews. It was heartbreaking to know that all the life shown in that film was completely destroyed within 7 years.
One stop on our tour was the JCC (Jewish Community Center). Yes, it’s called the JCC, in English. This was a beautiful brightly decorated building with a wide open gate, and as they proudly pointed out to us, no security. We got an introduction to the place from Sebastian, a non-Jewish Polish volunteer, and Jessica, a young New Yorker on a one-year internship to make connections between the Krakow Jewish community and various American Jewish groups. (It didn’t dawn on me till later how weird it was that we didn’t actually meet any Polish Jews at the JCC. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I met any Polish Jews the entire time I was in Krakow.) Sebastian and Jessica explained that the function of the JCC is to revive Jewish life in Poland and to support people who discover they have Jewish roots in rediscovering what it means to be Jewish. It serves as a community center, synagogue, and educational center all in one. They have Shabbat dinners every Friday, holiday celebrations, classes, and outreach. To be a member, you have to “have one Jewish grandparent or be in a reasonable state of conversion.” There are also many non-Jews who are not members, but volunteer and participate in order to learn about Jewish history and culture. Sebastian explained that many non-Jews recognize that Jewish culture is a huge part of Polish history that suddenly disappeared in 1942, and they want to learn about it in order to better understand their own culture.
It is very common for Poles today to suddenly “discover that they are Jewish,” meaning that their parents or grandparents were Jewish and hid it even from their children, because being Jewish was dangerous under both the Nazis and the communists. Since communism fell in 1989, it has finally become safe to be Jewish, and many young people are getting interested in their roots and discovering these things. And when they do, the JCC is there to teach them all about how to be Jewish. Sebastian made it clear that the JCC views anyone who has discovered they have Jewish roots as a “potential Jew,” and that their goal is to convince these people to become Jewish. They emphasized that they have a very inclusive definition of what it means to be Jewish and they welcome everybody, no matter what their heritage, their denomination, or their degree of religiosity. I know that the question of who counts as Jewish is a very controversial one in the US, and I asked them a few questions about this. In response, they made it very clear that this is not controversial question at all here, because their community is too small to be picky. They said if they ever reach the point where different denominations start fracturing and arguing, they will consider it a success that their community has gotten large enough for that to happen. But in Prague the tiny Jewish community is already completely fragmented, so I don’t think you have to be large for that to happen.
The JCC is all about emphasizing Jewish life in Poland, in contrast to too many organizations and individuals who emphasize death by coming to Poland only to visit concentration camps. In response to the March of the Living, they organize a yearly event called “Ride for the Living”, in which people bicycle from Auschwitz to the JCC. This year they will have a participant from the US, an 80-year-old American Holocaust survivor who had to walk from Auschwitz to Krakow after the war, and is now returning to Poland for the first time to retrace his journey in a new context. (If you do the math, he must have been 10 years old in 1945 when he made the first journey.) I told them they should have giant billboards outside of Auschwitz, to reach the people who only go there and don’t know that there is any Jewish life in Poland.
Sebastian said that unlike the rest of Europe, anti-semitism is pretty much non-existent in Poland today, so they don’t need security at any kind of Jewish place. (Other people I’ve talked to since have disagreed with this statement.) He said there was one anti-semitic incident in Warsaw a few years ago, but the perpetrators were visiting German neo-Nazis, not Poles. This sounds lovely, but I couldn’t help but think that it’s easy not be anti-semitic when there are almost no Jews in your country, and you view Jews through a romantic historical lens. From my study of Jewish history, my understanding is that anti-semitism becomes most prevalent when there are economic problems, and Jews are in important roles in society that can be perceived to be responsible for those problems. Since there are almost no Jews in Poland today, they play no significant role in economics or politics, so it makes perfect sense to me that there is no anti-semitism. It is not clear to me that this will remain the case if the JCC is successful in its mission. On the other hand, in Prague there was plenty of security when we went to Shabbat services, so maybe it is possible to have anti-semitism even in a place with almost no Jews. And Olivier just reminded me that anti-semitism was particularly virulent in England after they had already expelled all their Jews.
I have mixed feelings about the JCC, and am still trying to make sense of them. Questions of who counts as Jewish and evangelism bring up my issues around so-called Jewish tribalism and Christian universalism, and make me feel uncomfortable as a convert with practically no Jewish ethnic background. Overall, I loved the JCC. It felt like a beacon of hope and life in a place where Judaism could have easily died and become a fossil. Everyone there was incredibly enthusiastic and they are clearly filling an important role in satisfying the hunger of both Jews and non-Jews who are desperate to learn more about Judaism. But there was also something uncomfortable about it. The approach of the JCC feels like a weird mix of evangelism and tribalism to me: trying to convince people to become practicing Jews because of their ethnic background, even if those people are baptized adults who have been practicing Christians their whole lives. This brings up lots of questions for me about what it means to be Jewish. Should someone be expected to be Jewish just because of their ethnic background? Certainly if their parents are Jewish and they grow up knowing they are Jewish, their parents have a right to expect them to continue to be Jewish (even if ultimately their parents have no control). But if their parents chose to lie to them and baptize them? Are they still Jewish simply by virtue of their genes?
Sebastian described two adult brothers he knew who recently discovered their Jewish ancestry, one of whom dived head-first into Judaism, learned everything he could, had a bar mitzvah and became shomer shabbas and kosher, and the other of whom continued to practice Christianity. He said the JCC still sees the second brother as a “potential Jew.” I understand that Jews are a tiny minority, especially in Poland, and hanging on to anyone we can is important for our own survival. But while supporting the first brother in every way we can seems really awesome to me, I am uncomfortable with seeing the second brother as a “potential Jew” rather than respecting his choice to continue to practice the religion he grew up with and has devoted his life to.
I also asked how common it was for Poles with no Jewish ancestry to convert to Judaism. Sebastian said it happened occasionally but wasn’t common. Apparently there are tons of non-Jews who are fascinated by Judaism and want to learn all about it and participate and volunteer at the JCC, but don’t really consider converting. I think part of my discomfort about the second brother was that it seemed weird to me that Sebastian was so committed to trying to get this brother, who was not interested in Judaism, to become Jewish, but it didn’t occur to him to become Jewish himself, when he was clearly incredibly passionate about Judaism.
On the other hand, I am also uncomfortable with the approach of Reform Judaism, which is almost exactly the opposite of the JCC. In Orthodox Judaism, you are considered Jewish if you have a Jewish mother or if you have converted through an Orthodox synagogue. If you have a Jewish mother, it doesn’t matter what you have done or how you live your life, you are Jewish. I knew that Reform Judaism had changed the rules to recognize paternal descent and make them more egalitarian, a very controversial decision that had many Orthodox Jews complaining. I only found out a couple weeks ago that Reform Judaism had changed the rules in more ways than that. According to Reform Judaism you are Jewish if you have a Jewish father OR mother, AND you have been raised Jewish, or if you convert through any synagogue. This means that if you have a Jewish mother but were not raised Jewish, according to Reform Judaism, you’re not Jewish. So in one sense, reform Judaism is actually MORE strict than Orthodox Judaism about who can be counted as Jewish. I had trouble believing this when I first heard it, and thought it must be wrong until it was confirmed by a Reform rabbi. I was somewhat surprised that my reaction to learning of this rule was utter horror and anger at the leaders of Reform Judaism. If the Holocaust hadn’t happened, this might be a reasonable rule, but in the light of the Holocaust, it seems disgusting and completely insensitive to the context of the worst tragedy in Jewish history. When so many Jewish children grew up in concentration camps or in hiding, and were not raised Jewish because it would have threatened their survival, it seems like a cruel joke for the Reform community to declare that those children are not Jewish. My own strong reaction here teaches me that I actually do believe that Jewish ancestry matters, regardless of how you were raised.
(I’m laughing at how many times in this blog post I have written “on the other hand.” I’m starting to sound like Tevye in the Fiddler on the Roof. This blog must be my version of his processing things through conversations with God.)
At the end of our tour, after seeing what the Jewish quarter looks like today, we saw a film of life in the Jewish quarter filmed in 1935, showing all the places we had just seen, filled with an amazing diversity of Jews. It was heartbreaking to know that all the life shown in that film was completely destroyed within 7 years.
One stop on our tour was the JCC (Jewish Community Center). Yes, it’s called the JCC, in English. This was a beautiful brightly decorated building with a wide open gate, and as they proudly pointed out to us, no security. We got an introduction to the place from Sebastian, a non-Jewish Polish volunteer, and Jessica, a young New Yorker on a one-year internship to make connections between the Krakow Jewish community and various American Jewish groups. (It didn’t dawn on me till later how weird it was that we didn’t actually meet any Polish Jews at the JCC. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I met any Polish Jews the entire time I was in Krakow.) Sebastian and Jessica explained that the function of the JCC is to revive Jewish life in Poland and to support people who discover they have Jewish roots in rediscovering what it means to be Jewish. It serves as a community center, synagogue, and educational center all in one. They have Shabbat dinners every Friday, holiday celebrations, classes, and outreach. To be a member, you have to “have one Jewish grandparent or be in a reasonable state of conversion.” There are also many non-Jews who are not members, but volunteer and participate in order to learn about Jewish history and culture. Sebastian explained that many non-Jews recognize that Jewish culture is a huge part of Polish history that suddenly disappeared in 1942, and they want to learn about it in order to better understand their own culture.
It is very common for Poles today to suddenly “discover that they are Jewish,” meaning that their parents or grandparents were Jewish and hid it even from their children, because being Jewish was dangerous under both the Nazis and the communists. Since communism fell in 1989, it has finally become safe to be Jewish, and many young people are getting interested in their roots and discovering these things. And when they do, the JCC is there to teach them all about how to be Jewish. Sebastian made it clear that the JCC views anyone who has discovered they have Jewish roots as a “potential Jew,” and that their goal is to convince these people to become Jewish. They emphasized that they have a very inclusive definition of what it means to be Jewish and they welcome everybody, no matter what their heritage, their denomination, or their degree of religiosity. I know that the question of who counts as Jewish is a very controversial one in the US, and I asked them a few questions about this. In response, they made it very clear that this is not controversial question at all here, because their community is too small to be picky. They said if they ever reach the point where different denominations start fracturing and arguing, they will consider it a success that their community has gotten large enough for that to happen. But in Prague the tiny Jewish community is already completely fragmented, so I don’t think you have to be large for that to happen.
The JCC is all about emphasizing Jewish life in Poland, in contrast to too many organizations and individuals who emphasize death by coming to Poland only to visit concentration camps. In response to the March of the Living, they organize a yearly event called “Ride for the Living”, in which people bicycle from Auschwitz to the JCC. This year they will have a participant from the US, an 80-year-old American Holocaust survivor who had to walk from Auschwitz to Krakow after the war, and is now returning to Poland for the first time to retrace his journey in a new context. (If you do the math, he must have been 10 years old in 1945 when he made the first journey.) I told them they should have giant billboards outside of Auschwitz, to reach the people who only go there and don’t know that there is any Jewish life in Poland.
Sebastian said that unlike the rest of Europe, anti-semitism is pretty much non-existent in Poland today, so they don’t need security at any kind of Jewish place. (Other people I’ve talked to since have disagreed with this statement.) He said there was one anti-semitic incident in Warsaw a few years ago, but the perpetrators were visiting German neo-Nazis, not Poles. This sounds lovely, but I couldn’t help but think that it’s easy not be anti-semitic when there are almost no Jews in your country, and you view Jews through a romantic historical lens. From my study of Jewish history, my understanding is that anti-semitism becomes most prevalent when there are economic problems, and Jews are in important roles in society that can be perceived to be responsible for those problems. Since there are almost no Jews in Poland today, they play no significant role in economics or politics, so it makes perfect sense to me that there is no anti-semitism. It is not clear to me that this will remain the case if the JCC is successful in its mission. On the other hand, in Prague there was plenty of security when we went to Shabbat services, so maybe it is possible to have anti-semitism even in a place with almost no Jews. And Olivier just reminded me that anti-semitism was particularly virulent in England after they had already expelled all their Jews.
I have mixed feelings about the JCC, and am still trying to make sense of them. Questions of who counts as Jewish and evangelism bring up my issues around so-called Jewish tribalism and Christian universalism, and make me feel uncomfortable as a convert with practically no Jewish ethnic background. Overall, I loved the JCC. It felt like a beacon of hope and life in a place where Judaism could have easily died and become a fossil. Everyone there was incredibly enthusiastic and they are clearly filling an important role in satisfying the hunger of both Jews and non-Jews who are desperate to learn more about Judaism. But there was also something uncomfortable about it. The approach of the JCC feels like a weird mix of evangelism and tribalism to me: trying to convince people to become practicing Jews because of their ethnic background, even if those people are baptized adults who have been practicing Christians their whole lives. This brings up lots of questions for me about what it means to be Jewish. Should someone be expected to be Jewish just because of their ethnic background? Certainly if their parents are Jewish and they grow up knowing they are Jewish, their parents have a right to expect them to continue to be Jewish (even if ultimately their parents have no control). But if their parents chose to lie to them and baptize them? Are they still Jewish simply by virtue of their genes?
Sebastian described two adult brothers he knew who recently discovered their Jewish ancestry, one of whom dived head-first into Judaism, learned everything he could, had a bar mitzvah and became shomer shabbas and kosher, and the other of whom continued to practice Christianity. He said the JCC still sees the second brother as a “potential Jew.” I understand that Jews are a tiny minority, especially in Poland, and hanging on to anyone we can is important for our own survival. But while supporting the first brother in every way we can seems really awesome to me, I am uncomfortable with seeing the second brother as a “potential Jew” rather than respecting his choice to continue to practice the religion he grew up with and has devoted his life to.
I also asked how common it was for Poles with no Jewish ancestry to convert to Judaism. Sebastian said it happened occasionally but wasn’t common. Apparently there are tons of non-Jews who are fascinated by Judaism and want to learn all about it and participate and volunteer at the JCC, but don’t really consider converting. I think part of my discomfort about the second brother was that it seemed weird to me that Sebastian was so committed to trying to get this brother, who was not interested in Judaism, to become Jewish, but it didn’t occur to him to become Jewish himself, when he was clearly incredibly passionate about Judaism.
On the other hand, I am also uncomfortable with the approach of Reform Judaism, which is almost exactly the opposite of the JCC. In Orthodox Judaism, you are considered Jewish if you have a Jewish mother or if you have converted through an Orthodox synagogue. If you have a Jewish mother, it doesn’t matter what you have done or how you live your life, you are Jewish. I knew that Reform Judaism had changed the rules to recognize paternal descent and make them more egalitarian, a very controversial decision that had many Orthodox Jews complaining. I only found out a couple weeks ago that Reform Judaism had changed the rules in more ways than that. According to Reform Judaism you are Jewish if you have a Jewish father OR mother, AND you have been raised Jewish, or if you convert through any synagogue. This means that if you have a Jewish mother but were not raised Jewish, according to Reform Judaism, you’re not Jewish. So in one sense, reform Judaism is actually MORE strict than Orthodox Judaism about who can be counted as Jewish. I had trouble believing this when I first heard it, and thought it must be wrong until it was confirmed by a Reform rabbi. I was somewhat surprised that my reaction to learning of this rule was utter horror and anger at the leaders of Reform Judaism. If the Holocaust hadn’t happened, this might be a reasonable rule, but in the light of the Holocaust, it seems disgusting and completely insensitive to the context of the worst tragedy in Jewish history. When so many Jewish children grew up in concentration camps or in hiding, and were not raised Jewish because it would have threatened their survival, it seems like a cruel joke for the Reform community to declare that those children are not Jewish. My own strong reaction here teaches me that I actually do believe that Jewish ancestry matters, regardless of how you were raised.
(I’m laughing at how many times in this blog post I have written “on the other hand.” I’m starting to sound like Tevye in the Fiddler on the Roof. This blog must be my version of his processing things through conversations with God.)
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