Poland: Jewish Revival Marred by Anti-Semitism of All Stripes

The JCC’s festive opening occurs against the backdrop of a stubborn persistence in Poland of latent — and sometimes not-so-latent — anti-Semitism, calling into question just how secure a Jewish revival can be. 

In the past year alone, the Jewish cemeteries in Warsaw and Myslenice have been vandalized; gravestones in Blonie, Kalisz and Otmuchowie have been defiled and destroyed, and anti-Semitic graffiti has been scrawled at the monument to resistance hero Mordechai Anielewicz in the Warsaw ghetto and on the synagogues in Gdansk and Zamoc. 

There are routine incidents of anti-Semitism, too, at soccer matches in Lodz and Krakow, and statements from public figures such as prominent historian Krzysztof Jasiewicz, who argued in April that the Holocaust “was only possible because the Jews themselves participated in the murder of their own people.”

More: Jewish Forward