Local Jewish music festival in my area of Warsaw

Polish-Jewish ties run deep. This isn’t a theoretical statement. For example, I’ve just been told by an acquaintance that there’s a Jewish culture festival in my area of Warsaw (right on the edge of the city).

This isn’t unusual, if you know even a bit about Warsaw’s history. Jewish presence in Warsaw dates back to the beginnings of the city. Even today, you’ll find former synagogues and other monuments – all around the city. Former synagogues, repurposed, now serve as clubs, Churches, and even apartment buildings. People don’t pay attention because they don’t notice something that’s always been there. People don’t pay attention to inscriptions on stones in Polish and Hebrew. The biggest synagogue in the world was in Warsaw (blown up by Nazi-German SS in 1943). Now, there’s a skyscraper in its place.

As you can see when you click the link, no need to read Polish, there’s a revival of the Jewish culture here. Does everyone like it? Of course not. Some stereotypes about Poland some of you have aren’t entirely unfounded. Let’s put it this way. Diplomatically. But that’s life. There’s a dramatic difference between harboring negative stereotypes here and there and outright genocidal hatred displayed by Hamas, Hezbollah, and others.

While Poland has a thousand years of Jewish history cut short so tragically, there are Poles who ignore our long shared history. On a positive note, Jews are also known to be Polish patriots and many prominent Poles have some degree of Jewish heritage. It’s a fact, regardless of what some  Poles may think.

When October 7 happened, I’m sure there were many Poles who had been personally affected by that hecatomb – many of us know a lot of people in Israel. Polish passports are pretty popular in Israel, to my knowledge.

Instead of relying on stereotypes about Poland, use the internet or ask people like me – I’ll tell you what’s really going on here. No sugarcoating, as it doesn’t help anyone. And what I can tell you is that incidents of antisemitism (doesn’t that also mean anti-Arab?) do happen, but they are marginal. Just ask the Orthodox Jews visiting a small southern Polish town of Zakopane, one of the (supposedly) most conservative areas of Poland. But, as they say, pecunia non olet.