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Sent: Mon Jun 20 20:35:12
2005
Subject: JTA Complete (June 21,
2005)
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
IN THIS EDITION:
The U.N. at 60
Museum looks at history of
'Protocols'
German's vandalism has political
message
Czech town hosts historic bat
mitzvah
Recovering a Polish Jewish
past
NEWS AT A GLANCE:
* Palestinian terrorists killed
an Israeli in the
Rider, 28, from the Hermesh settlement, was shot in the
forehead Monday
while driving, and a 16-year-old passenger was wounded.
Islamic Jihad
claimed responsibility for the attack. In the
woman was caught trying to smuggle a bomb into
border crossing. Media reports described her as a member
of the
Palestinians' ruling Fatah Party who was due to receive
treatment in an
Israeli hospital.
* The
calling on the Palestinians to quash terrorism and on
settlements. The statement was issued Monday after
President Bush met with
E.U. Council President Jean-Claude Juncker, E.U foreign
policy chief Javier
Solana and European Commission President Jose Manuel
Barroso. Also Monday,
the U.S. State Department said the Palestinian Authority
must act against
terrorism after terrorists killed an Israeli soldier and
an Israeli civilian
in recent days.
* A
accompanying the Israeli prime minister's car in
witnesses said. The motorcade circumvented him while a
police car gave
chase. Under interrogation, the suspect said he merely
heckled
* The international organization
of the Likud Party issued a legal
challenge to Ariel Sharon. World Likud, home to a strong
faction that
opposes the Israeli prime minister's plan to withdraw
from the Gaza Strip,
is arguing that
Ra'anana Mayor Zeev Bielski to head the Jewish Agency
for
World Zionist Organization, Ha'aretz reported. In
nominating Bielski, Sharon
didn't first consult with World Likud, which Sunday
chose former Cabinet
minister Natan Sharansky as its candidate. Sharansky and
Bielski are
scheduled to appear in Jerusalem District Court on
Tuesday.
* The Reform and Conservative
movements on Monday endorsed Zeev
Bielski's candidacy to head the Jewish Agency for
organizational arms of the liberal movements are in
gathering of the Zionist General Council. The movements'
support was
expected to bolster Bielski's chances of being elected
JAFI chairman during
a meeting of the agency's general assembly and its board
of governors next
week.
*
meeting would be held in
Tuesday's talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon and P.A.
President Mahmoud Abbas had been held up after the
Palestinians expressed
displeasure at the prospect of meeting in
demand as the capital of their own future state.
Officials said Monday that
the Palestinian Authority relented after
was the only option.
* A U.S. House of
Representatives subcommittee approved funds for
operations subcommittee approved standard levels of
assistance for a number
of
Palestinians, to $150 million, per President Bush's
request. That $150
million is in addition to the same amount approved
earlier this year in
emergency assistance to the Palestinians. The
subcommittee also approved the
expected $2.28 billion in military assistance to
for
* Two pro-Israel measures were
attached to the U.N. reform act passed
by the
which recommends funding cuts if the United Nations
fails to adopt
accountability reforms, also would expand the Western
European and Others
Group at the United Nations to afford
rights and privileges, said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
(R-Fla.), who authored
the pro-Israel measures. The other pro-Israel measure
would withhold funds
commensurate with the cost of running offices "focused
on the Palestinian
agenda" until such offices are eliminated or
consolidated into other U.N.
groups.
* The Bush administration wants
Congress to maintain current levels of
aid to
the various forms of aid that we grant to
Condoleezza Rice said Monday in a talk at the
"We would like the Congress to support the
administration's proposal for aid
to
* An Israeli journalist visited
published an account Monday of a recent trip to the
Islamic Republic, in
what appeared to be a first for the Israeli press.
Azoulai, who did not say
how she gained an Iranian entry permit, described
spending Shabbat with the
Jewish community of
cohesive and politically insecure, many of them dreaming
of joining
relatives in
* An Israeli Arab who defrauded
Muslims and Islamic organizations,
including terrorist groups, is pleading with Canadian
officials not to
deport him to
Agbareia, a 39-year-old
has been deported from
authorities in
* Larry Collins, who co-authored
"O Jerusalem," a best-selling account
of
authored a number of best-selling documentary books with
Dominique Lapierre.
"O Jerusalem," published in 1971, was an account, based
on a wide range of
interviews and research, of
end of World War II and its founding in 1948.
* An American journalist who
rescued more than 2,000 artists and
writers from the Nazis will be posthumously honored.
Varian Fry will have a
street in his hometown of
ceremony June 26.
In 1940 Fry traveled to
network to rescue refugee intellectuals being persecuted
by the Nazis. He
succeeded in saving artists Marc Chagall, Marcell
Duchamp, Max Ernst and
Jacques Lipschitz and writers Franz Werfel, Lion
Feuchtwanger and Hannah
Arendt, among others.
* A bar mitzvah boy donated more
than $14,000 in gifts to the
UJA-Federation of
New Yorker Jesse Graff's donation, through the UJA's
"Give a Mitzvah-Do a
Mitzvah Project," will pay for the finals of the Israel
Association of
Community Centers' Junior Soccer League, which organizes
games among Jewish
and Arab youth. The family included a request in Jesse's
bar mitzvah
invitations asking guests to donate money to the Israeli
association rather
than give him gifts.
* A media
watchdog group gave its first "Dishonest Reporting
award to a Canadian Broadcasting
Company reporter. CBC reporter Neil
Macdonald, whose repeated negative
references to
on-air clarifications and an
admission by a CBC ombudsman of a perception of
bias, took the "prize" sponsored by
HonestReporting
son of former Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau, was a runner-up for "The
Fence," a nationally televised
documentary about Israel's West Bank security
barrier that romanticized the leader
of the Al Aksa Brigades in Jenin as a
"skinny renegade" on the run from
Israeli ambushes.
* "The Da Vinci Code" tops
Israeli high-schoolers' lists of favorite
books. According to an Education Ministry study released
this week, Dan
Brown's best-selling book, as well as Mark Haddon's "The
Curious Incident of
the Dog in the Night-Time," are the books most read by
Israeli 11th- and
12th-graders. In junior high schools, J.K. Rowling's
"Harry Potter and the
Prisoner of Azkaban" won out.
* A French court opened a
preliminary investigation into the
distribution of a free journal with anti-Semitic
contents. "The Book of
Cultural Philosophy" has been distributed at the
University of Lyon-III
since the end of 2004. The journals include passages
that question "invading
foreigners of Semitic culture, with their behavior,
customs and habits,
rites and cultures."
* Argentine Jewish leader Leo
Werthein died June 14 at age 69.
Werthein led the Tzedakah Jewish Foundation from
1995-2001. He also served
as president of the Argentine Rural Association.
* Eating grapes can reduce the
risk of heart disease, Israeli
researchers believe. According to a
month in the U.S.-based Journal of Nutrition after two
years of research,
grapes in powdered form, fed to mice who had been
exposed to high levels of
cholesterol, reduced their risk of heart attack by 50
percent compared to a
control group. The grapes' salutary value was ascribed
to anti-oxidants in
their skin.
IN-DEPTH COVERAGE:
BEHIND THE HEADLINES
For U.N.'s 60th birthday,
Jewish groups have a few wishes
By Rachel Pomerance
60th anniversary of its founding in
bittersweet for Jewish observers.
It was the United Nations that sanctioned the State of
Israel's birth in
1948, but it gave the Jewish state the status of an ugly
stepchild --
constantly singling out
among U.N. member-states, from full membership in the
regional groupings
that apportion key positions at the world body.
That said,
In the past year, the U.N. Department of Public
Information convened a
daylong conference on anti-Semitism, devoting more time
to the topic than
the United Nations ever before had.
In commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the
liberation of the Nazi death
camps, the U.N. General Assembly held a special session
and a Holocaust
exhibit in the lobby of U.N. headquarters was launched
with the playing of
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also attended the
opening of the new Yad
Vashem museum in
to
This month, the Conference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish
Organizations, an umbrella group of 52 Jewish
organizations, reported a very
friendly meeting with Annan.
And last week,
General Assembly vice presidents, the first time
position in more than half a century.
"All these things, beyond their symbolic importance, are
also things that
herald a totally new treatment of
symbolism in this very difficult and hostile environment
is also very
important," Gillerman told JTA.
The recent Jewish achievements and the 60th anniversary
of the United
Nations -- founded on June 26, 1945 -- come as Annan
strives to push through
a package of reforms for the world body.
Jewish officials praise Annan for backing some critical
Jewish initiatives,
but say a test of the secretary-general's strength is
the extent to which he
makes fair treatment of
Annan's reform package doesn't explicitly cite fairer
treatment of
but Jewish officials believe that steps he is demanding
to streamline the
organization bode well for
U.N. Commission on Human Rights into a smaller council
-- not populated by
serial human-rights violators -- could change that
body's agenda.
In addition, Annan plans to review any committee that
has existed for more
than five years. That would include special committees
devoted exclusively
to the plight of the Palestinians that
propaganda organs and are eager to close.
"The singling out of
reform debate," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of
U.N. Watch in
It dominates and monopolizes so many U.N. bodies."
As examples, Neuer cited the U.N. Commission on Human
Rights, which issues
more resolutions against
World Health Organization, which last month held a
special session on the
alleged damage
a resolution opposed by only a handful of countries.
Furthermore, Annan's supportive statements, while
positive, need to reach
beyond the Jewish community, Neuer said.
For example, in his
participation in the Western European and Others Group.
membership in the regional group at U.N. headquarters in
at U.N. offices in
But when he spoke in April to the Human Rights
Commission in
"didn't mention a word of it -- and that's where the
change has to happen,"
Neuer said.
On the other hand, Felice Gaer, director of the American
Jewish Committee's
Jacob Blaustein Institute for Human Rights, praised the
fact that Annan told
the Human Rights Commission it was not credible and
needed to be replaced.
"Kofi Annan has been courageous and has broken with past
secretaries-general
in reflecting honestly on the U.N.'s failings when it
has come to
anti-Semitism, but he still needs to do more," she said,
pointing to
entrenched bias at the institution.
"We're finally beginning to get these issues out from
the shadows. We
finally have the straight talk about anti-Semitism from
the front office.
What we don't have is it coming from the political
bodies," she said. "I
would like to see the secretary-general's leadership
mirrored by others who
serve as top officials of the U.N."
Amy Goldstein, director of U.N. affairs for B'nai B'rith
International, had
sharper words.
Ever since the United Nations fulfilled the Jewish right
to
self-determination by granting
rights, she said.
"After 60 years, we need to reform the United Nations to
return it to the
original ideas of the framers and to make it a place
where all peoples,
including the Jewish people, are treated equally,"
Goldstein said.
Others feel more optimistic.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the
Presidents Conference, said
the recent meeting with Annan was a success.
The meeting addressed many issues, including the
Israeli-Palestinian peace
process, anti-Semitism,
Darfur and
"He was actually pretty responsive to everything,"
Hoenlein said of Annan.
Hoenlein noted that Annan "indicated support for the
idea of pursuing the
'road map' " -- an internationally backed peace plan --
and not backing the
Palestinian demand to jump immediately to final-status
negotiations before
the two sides have met their commitments in intermediate
stages.
For his part, Gillerman views the recent advancements as
irreversible.
A new world view is taking shape among member states
after Sept. 11,
Gillerman said, pointing to shifting politics in the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process to
General Assembly, where Gillerman said he will try to
steer the agenda away
from the usual slew of anti-Israel resolutions.
the only U.N. body with binding authority.
"Nothing is impossible for
available, we will fight for," Gillerman said. "The
sky's the limit."
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_____
ARTS & CULTURE
History of a lie: Museum
traces
the story of infamous 'Protocols'
By Avi Mayer
foreign clerics in
American Jewish Committee, had been asked by the State
Department to help
convey to the guests the American ethos of tolerance and
mutual
understanding.
So it was a bit of a shock when one of the visitors, a
Muslim cleric from
the
book about the Jews" at the Cairo Book Fair: "The
Protocols of the Elders of
Berger now is director of communications at the United
States Holocaust
Elders of
history.
The modest exhibit includes copies of the book that
Hitler looked to for
inspiration and Henry Ford disseminated for general
consumption.
Berger said that the book seems to have "a new life."
"It confounds people," he said. "I can't explain it."
The Protocols outline a plan for world domination
supposedly compiled by a
gathering of Jewish leaders held during the First
Zionist Conference in
1897. In the account, the characters lay out a
step-by-step strategy to fool
gentiles -- referred to as "goyim" -- into doing their
bidding.
Plans range from the replacement of the pope to the
establishment of a
global Jewish government and the appointment of a "king
of the Jews."
The exhibit includes copies of the Protocols from
(1974) and
images, including representations of globes trapped in
the clutches of
massive "Jewish" snakes, arachnids, tentacled,
squid-like creatures and
conniving, hook-nosed faces.
A German-language copy from 1920
prayer book or an early Zionist manual, complete with a
blue-and-white Star
of David flag and golden type reading, "All Israel are
responsible for one
another" in Hebrew.
The language that appears most prominently among the
artifacts is Arabic,
with numerous issues from
Last year, Wal-Mart was found to be selling an
English-language edition of
the Protocols on its Web site. The company made a
"business decision" to
remove the book from the site after widespread
criticism.
According to Kenneth Jacobson, associate national
director of the
Anti-Defamation League, the persistence of the
phenomenon is simple: The
Protocols satisfy virtually every manifestation of
contemporary
anti-Semitism.
From Holocaust denial to conspiracy theories surrounding
Sept. 11 and the
"The Protocols are representative of the pernicious and
insidious nature of
anti-Semitism," he said. "They portray the Jews as
secretive,
conspiratorial, alien, all-powerful."
Of particular note is the resurgence of those themes in
bookstores and
television screens around the Islamic world, Jacobson
said.
"The Protocols never died," Jacobson said. "They've
never gone away. They're
at the core of historic anti-Semitism."
Though the origins of the Protocols remain uncertain,
scholars believe much
of the work was plagiarized from an 1864 pamphlet
written by French satirist
Maurice Joly lampooning Napoleon III's political
ambitions, and had nothing
to do with the Jews.
Hermann Goedsche, a German spy, swiped Joly's pamphlet
and excerpts from a
novel by Alexandre Dumas in his book "
In a chapter entitled "The Jewish Cemetery in
Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel,"
Goedsche depicted a secret
rabbinical council which met in the cemetery at midnight
every 100 years to
plan the agenda for the Jewish conspiracy.
The book was translated into Russian in 1872. In 1891,
the Czarist secret
police were using it to incite popular ire against
population and divert public attention from the
country's political woes.
The work appeared in its final form and under the title
"The Protocols of
the Learned Elders of Zion" in 1897, apparently compiled
by Mathieu
Golovinski, an associate of Czar Nicholas II.
The Protocols first reached American shores in 1917 when
Russian emigre
Boris Brazil translated them into English.
In 1920, industrialist Henry Ford sponsored the printing
of 500,000 copies
of the work and included excerpts of the Protocols in
his weekly
Independent through 1927. The
Ford's own diatribe, "The International Jew."
British diplomat Lucien Wolf -- who in 1917 had strongly
supported the
issuance of the Balfour Declaration, the document
pledging British support
for a Jewish homeland in the
Goedsche's writings, and published his findings in
Later that year, The Times of London ran a series of
articles proving that
the work was a forgery, and American Herman Bernstein
authored a book
documenting its history.
By 1924, however, the Protocols had been translated into
German and found
their way to Hitler's prison cell. Taken by the book,
Hitler referred to it
in "Mein Kampf."
"To what an extent the whole existence of this people is
based on a
continuous lie is shown incomparably by the 'Protocols
of the Elders of
become the common property of a people the Jewish menace
may be considered
as broken."
The
Protocols published in Nazi Germany in 1933.
The collection is on display through the end of the
year.
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_____
German's 'art' has political
motive:
stopping honor for Waffen SS dead
By Toby Axelrod
Kastner has been destroying private property. Someone
has to do it, he says.
It's not just any property Kastner is after. Virtually
every Nov. 1 since
1993, he has gone to a cemetery in
from wreaths laid at the graves of veterans of the
Waffen SS, a military
division that took part in war crimes.
The
public property. Because Kastner declined to answer the
last summons from
request of Austrian courts.
The state prosecutor in charge, Martin Hofmann, said
patience with Kastner
is running out.
"I could discontinue the case because of the low level
of guilt," he told
JTA in a telephone interview. "But Mr. Kastner does it
again every year. He
knows he does something illegal but does it again and
again, out of his
political convictions," as well as a desire for
publicity.
Still, Hofmann said he's unlikely to request a heavy
sentence: Kastner could
get up to 2 years on probation or an unspecified fine if
convicted.
Juergen Arnold, Kastner's attorney, called state
prosecutors "dumb."
"The court sees simply 'damage to property,' but they
don't care that it is
damage to the property of a criminal association," he
said.
"It's typical German authoritarian thinking, not to the
left or right but
straight ahead, as in 'We have our laws and have to
apply them,' "
said. "This is how they thought 60 years ago, and this
is how they will
think in 100 years."
For years, Kastner, who is married to a psychologist,
has been calling
attention to aspects of the Nazi past that some would
rather forget. In
German, his work is called "Aktionskunst," or art as a
means of political
protest.
"Art cannot be punished in
Kastner received official permission last fall to place
a temporary
installation of 17 suitcases outside a building in
had been deported. The names of the deportees are
written on the suitcases,
which are painted white.
Kastner says he won't remove the installation until the
building, which is
used as a library, places a plaque in remembrance of the
Jews who lived
there.
In January 2005, Kastner was one of five Germans to
receive the annual
Obermayer German Jewish History Award for his dedication
to remembering the
past.
He began his annual Austrian protest action in 1993,
snipping the ribbons
from wreaths that comrades and relatives of Waffen SS
left at
cemetery on Nov. 1, a general holiday for remembrance of
the dead.
Some of the comrades have been forced in the past to
remove badges and
medals bearing swastika symbols, but the wreaths
dedicated to the Waffen SS
are perfectly legal.
But "I can't ignore it," said Kastner, who placed the
cut ribbons in a
Kastner has urged others to join him, and the actions
are reported regularly
in the Austrian press. One article reported that the SS
wreaths had been
"beschnitten," which means both "cut" and "circumcised."
"The Nazis were especially upset about that headline,"
Kastner said.
Kastner seems to enjoy rattling the wreath layers. In
2001, he succeeded in
getting permission for a klezmer group to play a song in
the cemetery at the
same time as those honoring the Waffen SS members were
accompanied by a
marching band.
"I would really like to stop my actions," Kastner told
JTA. "But I have to
go on as long as it is necessary, and as long as I can."
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_____
AROUND THE JEWISH WORLD
Czech town explores history
as
first bat mitzvah held since 1938
By Dinah A. Spritzer
names of Shoah victims to an international audience and
television crews, in
a country that's not her own.
It's safe to say that Hana Pike's bat mitzvah wasn't
your typical passage
into adulthood.
Hana recited the names of the departed in
Czech town long known as the site of Napoleon's greatest
military victory
over
But Slavkov and its 6,000 or so residents now have a
modern claim to fame:
On June 4 the town hosted its first bat mitzvah since
1938.
There were a few twists, which one has to expect in a
country where most of
the Jewish population was wiped out by the Holocaust.
For one, Hana is
British.
Second, the Slavkov synagogue that Hana's
restore has no regular religious services, since there's
only one Jew in
town.
The bat mitzvah was not so much a sign of things to come
but a remembrance
of the town's Jewish past.
"I especially think of the former Jewish children of
this town who, like me,
celebrated good times and worshipped with their parents
in their synagogue
-- but who, unlike me, were deprived of celebrating
their bar or bat
mitzvah," Hana said at the start of the service.
It was a Torah from Slavkov, held by the
brought the two towns together.
"To come here for my daughter's bat mitzvah was
extremely special," said
Hana's father, Neil Pike. "Not just a historic occasion
in her life, but in
the context of the town.
"To see 90-year old Erik Stracht," a Czech native now
living in
"after the service embrace Hana, who was named after his
6-year-old niece
who died in
continued.
The 24 members of the Nottingham Progressive Jewish
Congregation who came to
wish Hana the best were not strangers to Slavkov.
In fact, they've been bombarded with information about
the town since 1990,
when Neil Pike discovered that the congregation's Torah
scroll originated in
Like more than 1,000 other congregations around the
world,
received a Torah on permanent loan from the Memorial
Scrolls Trust in
1,500 Czech scrolls that were discovered in the basement
of a
synagogue in the early 1960s.
Unable to speak Czech, Pike felt stymied in his search
-- until an article
in the magazine of another British congregation piqued
his interest.
It turned out that author Erik Stracht, whose mother and
many relatives had
come from Slavkov, was the only member of his family to
make it alive out of
Nazi-occupied
In 1990 Stracht went back to the area for the first time
since before World
War II. He discovered Slavkov's only remaining Jew, Ruth
Matiovska, 74, and
Ruth's former schoolteacher, a non-Jew dedicated to
chronicling the town's
history, including that of the 90 Jews who lived there
before the war.
Through extensive research and letter writing, Pike,
Stracht, Matiovska and
the former schoolteacher discovered the fate of the
Austerlitz Jews, which
camps they died in or where they might have fled to.
They also gained the interest of those related in some
way to the town's
previous Jewish residents, re-establishing links that
had been cut by Nazism
and communism.
The fruit of their efforts is "The Jews of Austerlitz,"
a book in English
and Czech.
But that wasn't enough for Pike. After his first visit
to the town in 1994,
he raised funds for the placement of a memorial stone
outside Slavkov's
Jewish cemetery.
"At first the town council was not interested in
bringing up matters from
the past, but when they saw that perhaps remembering
Slavkov's Jewish
heritage might attract more visitors, they began to
change," he said.
Change was much needed, according to Stracht, who
describes what he found in
1990:
"To my surprise the old synagogue was in a neglected
state and was used as a
furniture store. There was not a single sign in the town
that referred to
its Jewish citizens who had perished in the Holocaust,
including my
grandmother and two cousins."
After the initial push from Pike and Stracht, the town
awakened to its
Jewish history.
Children who didn't even know what the Holocaust was
suddenly were given
first-hand accounts in the classroom by Matiovska,
Holocaust studies were
introduced in high school, along with general lessons on
tolerance and the
perils of racism.
The
students at the Slavkov high school; each year, the
winner receives a
menorah.
Back in
members of the congregation read aloud the names of the
10
children who died in the Holocaust.
"This helps these kids realize what the 6 million means
much more than any
book or lecture," Pike said.
Pike also commissioned a play about
actors under the eye of a professional director.
The play, the "Austerlitz Scroll," which focuses on the
town's Jewish
citizens and particularly Matiovska, was translated into
Czech and performed
by high school students on the day of Hana's bat
mitzvah.
Still, Pike wasn't satisfied: Here was this empty
synagogue, dating to 1867,
that needed restoration. The town needed little
convincing and came up with
its own plan to renovate the synagogue, with the support
of the district
government.
Another historic site, the town's Jewish school, was
reopened on the day of
Hana's bat mitzvah as a center or exhibitions on Jewish
life.
Following Slavkov's projects with the
interest in Jewish subjects has become "enormous," town
administrator Pavel
Dvorak said. He said he has been flooded with calls from
people wanting to
visit the Jewish school.
He noted that 60 people from the area were invited to
Hana's bat mitzvah,
but more than 120 showed up. The bat mitzvah attracted
Jews from
Two
the BBC and Czech Television covered the celebration.
Meanwhile, the celebration also marked a turning point
for Matiovska, now a
member of the
"It's important for people today to know what happened
in the past, about
the Holocaust," Matiovska said, "but also about Jewish
culture -- and that
is why having a bat mitzvah in this town means so much."
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_____
ARTS & CULTURE
Exhibit on Polish city's Jewish
past
reverberates beyond museum walls
By Carolyn Slutsky
city of
population, is taking on a life of its own.
"Coexistence, Holocaust, Memory" opened last spring
displaying photographs
and stories depicting pre-war Jewish life in
of World War II was home to 30,000 Jews, or about a
third of the city's
population.
Just 37 Jews live in
After a successful run in
viewed the exhibit, it moved to
Historical Institute last fall.
But the effect of the photographs and the stories they
told did not stop at
the museum doors.
Anna Maciejowska, principal of
Arts, saw the original exhibit and wanted to find a way
to incorporate its
lessons into students' art projects.
Maciejowska decided to involve her students in their own
multidisciplinary
exhibit, called "From the Inspiration of Jewish
Culture." The show opened
this month at the National Library in
Approximately 250 students from the school viewed the
and studied artists such as Chagall and Bruno Schulz,
producing artworks
ranging from paintings and photographs to collages,
sculptures, linoleum
prints, jewelry and metal bas relief carvings.
Students also studied the work of famous Polish Jewish
and Israeli writers
such as Julian Tuwim, Henryk Grynberg and Amos Oz, and
created small books
illustrated with the writers' words in Polish, Hebrew
and Yiddish.
Szymon Szurmiej, longtime director of the Yiddish
Theater in
"The Dreadful
Many of the students were reluctant to speak about their
projects,
preferring to let their work speak for itself.
Katarzyna Polus, who made a painting based on a
photograph she found of an
old Jewish building, said she read Singer stories,
histories and other texts
to prepare for the project.
"I know more than I knew, and I know I'll try to have
more contact with
Jewish things in the future," she said.
Justyna Rumik, who designed and crafted a pair of
earrings subtly shaped
like a Jewish star, said she was "fascinated with the
delicacy of Jewish
ornaments" and had read and heard lectures about Jewish
history.
A friend of Rumik's said the project had helped him
discover his Jewish
roots.
His great-grandfather died in Treblinka and his
grandparents had taught him
bit by bit about what it means to be Jewish, said the
student, who declined
to give his name.
Maciejowska's daughter, Julia, said she always
remembered her mother being
interested in Judaism. During the course of the project,
Maciejowska
realized she was interested in Jewish history not only
as an observer, but
that she also was on a quest for her roots.
She now is proud to say that she is one-eighth Jewish, a
fact she sensed but
never confirmed until the exhibit shed light on the
Jewish background of her
city and -- as she began to do research -- on her own
Jewish heritage.
In November, "Coexistence, Holocaust, Memory" will come
to
including the
of Jewish Heritage in
It also will make stops at
Maria, home to the oldest Polish community in
Interest in things Jewish among Poles has grown in
recent years. In fact,
for many Poles, Jewish history and culture are a
fascinating part of the
country's past that they have had the chance to explore
freely only in the
past 15 years.
Until World War II,
consisted of all kinds of Jews from Orthodox to secular,
a well-respected
Jewish high school, Jewish artists and workers.
The Nazis invaded in September 1939 and built the Hasag
concentration camp.
Most of the town's Jews perished there or were sent from
there to Treblinka.
Sigmund Rolat, a
the Holocaust, was a co-creator and sponsor of the
exhibition, along with
his cousin, Alan Silberstein, who was born in a
Displaced Persons camp in
Europe but raised in the
after the war.
Rolat had returned to
Recently, after scaling back his business, he found
himself with more time
and wanted to reconnect with his hometown, he told JTA.
Since the exhibit opened last year, he said, "I now
spend 95 percent of my
time on these projects."
Piotr Stasiak, a longtime friend of Rolat's from
people in
which later leads to commitment.
"They do this not because of their roots but because of
their hearts," he
said.
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