Jewstalgia: after they’re gone, you may even start to miss them
This NY Times article was both touching and disturbing, almost in equal measures.
It describes a phenomenon in present-day Poland that might be described as philo-Semitism, the opposite of anti-Semitism. Now that there are virtually no Jews in that country—a land in which one in ten citizens had been Jewish, pre-WWII—there’s a movement to revive and revere the Jewish culture that was lost. It’s an illustration of the old adage that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
In the Poland of today, especially among the trendy young:
“Jewish style” restaurants are serving up platters of pirogis, klezmer bands are playing plaintive Oriental melodies, derelict synagogues are gradually being restored. Every June, a festival of Jewish culture here draws thousands of people to sing Jewish songs and dance Jewish dances. The only thing missing, really, are Jews.
Poland is not alone in its Jewstalgia. Russia seems to be experiencing something of the sort as well, and a year or two ago I read an article describing a similar (and even more ironic, if such a thing be possible) longing in Germany, in connection with an article about the opening of the new Jewish Museum there.
The museum is apparently the most well-attended museum in the country. And I also recall a story—perhaps apocryphal, since I can’t find any links for it—that there was a conference a few decades ago in Germany on its population’s lack of a sense of humor, and the conclusion was that the country destroyed all its comedians when it murdered its Jews—an example of the law of unintended consequences, no doubt.
It all puts me in mind of some of the lyrics to the Joni Mitchell song “Big Yellow Taxi:”
They took all the trees
Put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see em
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till its gone…
But Poland itself has a mixed history regarding the Jews (as does Germany, by the way). Why were so many there in the first place? Because Poland was originally one of the most welcoming and tolerant nations in Europe for the Jews. The history of Poland’s long and relatively intimate relationship with its Jewish population includes a golden age in which the Jewish community there flourished.
Poland is a country with a past that includes multiple and lengthy occupations by foreign powers. Russian, German, and Austrian-Hungarian influences dominated the nineteenth century there, and anti-Semitism and violence against Jews increased during their reigns. Then the Nazi occupation, of course, resulted in the effective destruction of Polish Jewry, and the Communist takeover that followed drove the remainder away, leaving Poland essentially Judenfrei.
But “Judenfrei” is a German word; the Poles themselves had a much more complex relationship than that with their Jewish citizens. And in fact, although many Poles participated in the Holocaust with an attitude of enthusiastic cooperation, Poland was also home to a large number of what Israel calls “Righteous Gentiles,” those who risked their lives to save Jews.
Their varied motivations are delineated in a remarkable book entitled When Light Pierced the Darkness, by Nechama Tec. Some did it for money, some out of political or religious conviction, and some for personal reasons related to the good relations they had previously enjoyed with their Jewish neighbors and friends.
When I write that these people risked their lives, I don’t think the phrase conveys exactly what that meant. But I’ll add an anecdote that might illustrate the situation more graphically (unfortunately, I can’t find a link to it, nor can I recall the source). When the Nazis entered a Polish village and caught someone who had sheltered or aided Jews, they called a meeting of the town. It was compulsory to attend, and villagers were treated to a spectacle guaranteed to discourage further such assistance: a public execution of the offender and his or her family and relatives, including the children.
Effective, no? I would challenge all of you to ask yourselves how brave and noble you would have been in the face of such a threat; I’m by no means absolutely certain of my own answer.
And yet, even under such circumstances, quite a few Poles considered it their duty to help the Jews who had been part of the fabric of their lives. This is not to whitewash the Polish history during the Holocaust. As I said, there were many enthusiastic participants, and it wasn’t just Nazi coercion that caused this behavior. One of the saddest and most horrific chapters of Polish-Jewish history were the killings that occurred after the war, when some Jewish-Polish Holocaust survivors who had somehow managed to return home were murdered by their former neighbors in a pogrom sparked by that standby of anti-Semitism, the blood libel.
In the Poland of today, the Judeophiles are mostly the young, people who are finally becoming free of both the country’s Nazi past and the Communist yoke that followed it. As such, they may represent the original Polish spirit of tolerance that flourished in most of the early years of the Jewish presence there.
It is deeply ironic, of course, that this is only happening in the absence of the Jews of Poland, like a sort of museum diorama in tribute to the vanished passenger pigeon. But nevertheless, it is to be welcomed.
maybe we will one day see Islamophiles in Israel
Elvis: Maybe. If the Muslims quit murdering people I’m sure everyone would be a lot more fond of them.
Is this part of the growing nostalgia for Communism in Russia and Poland?
There are already lots of Islamophiles in Israel. As well as lots of Muslims. Israelis are as susceptible as anyone else to romanticizing other ethnic cultures. Also half of Israel’s Jews come from Muslim countries so they still have customs and arts from those cultures. There’s a big revival of interest in Middle Eastern culture these days in Israel.
“…… there was a conference a few decades ago in Germany on its population’s lack of a sense of humor, and the conclusion was that the country destroyed all its comedians when it murdered its Jews…..”
When the Jews were driven out of Iraq in 1950, Iraq lost its symphony orchestra. Most of Iraq’s musicians were Jews. 1/4 of Baghdad’s population was Jewish.
I used to and still do note how some of the Poles sold out their fellow citizens during WWII. But I’d classify American Liberals in the same group now.
How do you figure that, cappy?
It’s the pro-war crowd that’s pocketing all the defense money.
It’s simple. Liberals merrily and eagerly sell out their neighbors to foreign murderers.
first, I have to thank the owner of this blog for the zoo collection of primitive , low-brow neanderthals, who are very good at parroting governmental and propagandists talking point. Quite intolerant crowd as well. none of the participants came up with any arguments for the last couple of days to refute the arguments and just plain facts presented by me , UB and kadet.Welcome back to USSR. They would have been the great fodder for brainwashing by the Stalinist Bolsheviks as well.
Second, to the point of your article.
It is true, that Jews do not have any more open government oppression in Russia, or other post-soviet republics.
But the anti-Semitism is still rampant, there is still great bitterness and animal hate towards the new billionaires who impersonate in the minds of the Russian citizenry everything what went wrong after collapse of the USSR.
Especially if everybody knows how those instant fortunes has been made.
And guess how many Jews in that new rich category.
It is not an excuse for the Russian anti-semitism, not at all. That disease is well known , wide spread and ancient in Russia.
But your premise about the love for Jews( can’t say anything about Poland) is not based on any facts.
BTW the Jewish population in Russia is also much bigger then in Poland , somewhere in the vicinity of 2 000 000 people.
cappy , do you have any facts to prove your blatant lie.
show me the liberal who sold his neighbor to foreign murderer. Otherwise, just shut up, Stalinist
Sashal most (but not absolutely all) so-called “liberals” in the west seem more than happy to sell the lives and freedoms of muslims to islamofascists as long as said “liberals” can blame it on everyone but themselves and thus receive the payment of self-gratification and mock superiority.
I hope much of it is out ignorance because morally it’s as if these “liberals” were having a picnic in Auschwitz during 1942 complaining about the soot without realizing the cause. Not even the America First Committee was that clueless in 1942.
That’s how obscene it is sashal. Now please open your eyes and help those who are fighting for the freedom of muslims, they deserve it just as much as you and I do.
And why is it that western “liberals” don’t listen to middle eastern liberals and communists who all seem to favour the US and Coalition?
Readers of Neoneocon’s journey know that it’s not a trivial task but it’s not too late for members of the “anti-war” movement to revise their stance and start supporting the liberal ideals they claim to have.
Freedom for all.
Boy, sashal, where does one begin?
While you don’t know about Poland, anti-semitism still exists in Russia, where they are exposed to so many Jews(2,000,000 by your count, correct?) And while you’re not “excusing it”, it’s understandable, because so many Jews are getting rich, again, like they always do(if you knew how they got so rich, so fast, you’d understand).
So what you’re saying is anti-semitism naturally exists anywhere people get to see Jews in action on a regular basis. Not “excusing it”, just pointing out a well-known fact of life. Only a Stalinist dupe can’t see it.
And Alpo has the nerve to question the people and groups we’ve allied with in Iraq. This guy’s on your side, Alpo…
One of the 77% of the Great American Populace who’ve seen the light and now know it was all just a snow job. He’s one of you, Alpo…
It’s great to hear about a better perception of Jews in Poland, though it’s ironic as I just got a message in my inbox from the Wiesenthal center urging me to write a Bishop in Poland to remove an Antisemitic Priest there. It pains me as a Catholic, but there are still some like that, particularly in Europe. That’s why my wife’s family fled eastern Europe, more so than because of Communism.
Are you suggesting America should invade Poland and Russia to combat anti-Semitism, Lee?
It would make about as much sense as invading Iraq to combat “Islamofascism.”
The [Jewish] museum is apparently the most well-attended museum in the country.
I don’t know if something similar stands for the Jewish Museum (this one being the big one in Berlin; there are lots of smaller ones scattered about the country), but I’ve been told by German friends here that all German schoolchildren are required to make a trip to Dachau (near Munich) and usually do so with their classes. I’m not sure if this is true nationwide, or if they all have to go to Dachau specifically or to one of the camps in Germany in general (the people I heard this from all grew up in various parts of southern Germany, so Dachau would be the closest, I believe), but the fact that it’s a requirement in at least some states is interesting.
Guess I feel good tonight. For once I almost agree with ol’ Alpo.
To say we’re fighting “terrorism” would be like saying WWII was fought against “global blitzkrieg” and the “kamikaze”. To end it, we had to go to the sources. And not just the nations, but the religious ideals they represented. In one case, we had to prove The Emperor was just a man, not a god. The kamikaze went away.
The Nazis went away, but the ideal still continues, as sashal can tell you. That one’s been a little harder. That whole ‘Hitler’s new view of life” kinda crap, his ‘Aryan Utopia’ so to speak, still “creates SS”, to put it in the modern vernacular. But it’s pretty much been driven underground because in theory(Mein Kampf), and practice(Nazi Germany), it sucks. Like Communism. Obey the State. There is no god. The State is God. (Hitler, “The State” Communism)
Before we can fight “Islamofacists”, we have to adress the “Islam” which creates the “facists”, but we don’t.
Millions will die if we don’t, Alph.
“Are you suggesting America invade Poland and Russia to combat anti-semitism, Lee?”
We invaded North Africa, Italy, France, the Low Countries, and Germany to combat anti-semitism, Alphie.
Millions will die even if we do, Lee.
That’s why religions that promise an afterlife will always be around.
Here’s a clue for you, Alph: People die. All of them. Eventually. We’d just like it if the lives they lived before that were as free as possible.
And yeah, some of us are willing to die a little early to make sure that happens whenever it’s feasible.
I think we can all agree that’s a noble sentiment, AiD.
The disagreement comes over the definition of “free.”
Free from what, exactly?
Is that it with you, Alpo?
It doesn’t matter, they’re all gonna die anyway. So why not be a dweeb and just make our guys stop trying to make it happen, so I can sleep knowing it’s “them” that’s doing it, not “us”.
That’s it. Glib remarks and snappy comebacks don’t wash for truth, anymore. Don’t you get it? You’re not “that” stupid, are you? I just put you(you) next to a nazi(sashal) and said to the blogosphere world: “It’s amazing who will align themselves with whom in order to make “hate Bush” polls go up to prove a point”.
And all you can do is glibly ask if nations should be invaded because of a “bad idea” like sashal’s?
So what do you think, Alpo?…
Should nations be invaded because they spread “bad ideas”?
Or do you agree with sashal..
It’s all the joooooosssss……
Aaah,
Was that what sashal was saying?
I couldn’t really follow him.
Shame on you, sashal.
As for invations, I think a country being invaded is always justified in defending itself.
As for invading countries, few are justified, maybe one in twenty.
I just wrote a small post on the French invasion of Germany in 1923, turned out a lot like Iraq.
Probably gave the world Hitler and the Holocaust as an unintended consequence.
All because of a missing shipment of telephone poles.
Invasions are a very tricky business.
Oh, I dunno, Alphie, maybe free from a government that kills and tortures its citizens while promoting the idea that they should help them out by killing themselves trying to destroy the west.
They’re both just anecdotes, of course, but Neo’s story about what happened to Poles who harbored Jews reminds me a lot of the story Yon reported about al Qaeda feeding children to their parents. Neither of them are proof positive, completely documented evidence, but beyond the fact that there is probably at least some truth in both of them (Gentiles who harbored Jews were certainly killed by Nazi governments; al Qaeda has no qualms about ensuring people’s cooperations through various sorts of killings or tortures), the stories are important because they show what the people living under those governments believe happens–and could happen to them.
And that’s the sort of constant, twitching terror that everyone deserves to be free from.
Lots of people didn’t believe the Nazis really did such things to Jews and Jew-friendly Gentiles alike at the time, but we have more than enough proof now that they did–and the only people who argue that that wasn’t one of your “one in twenty” justified invasions are…
Oh wait, let me think…
Islamic states and Muslim jihadists.
You are right about one thing, though, Alphie: Invasions are a very tricky business.
Maybe if the French had made more sure they actually finished the job in 1923, we wouldn’t have had Hitler.
So many little details influence history. It’s not like the French invasion was the sole cause of World War II, either. Nobody’s ever said this wasn’t tricky.
Which is why it’s all the more important we do it right and see it through to the end.
Yep.
Shame on “bad ol’ nazi sashal”, there.
So inoffensive, Alpo here “didn’t even notice”.
I also noticed you justified Hitler’s rise to power.
So tell me, Alpo, why do all you nazis call yourselves “libertarians” today?
Once again, I request that people stop responding to Alfie. Every thread where Alfie gets to be the star is a total waste of time.
I was going to write something about the German nostalgia for Jewish culture in Berlin, but now I’m feeling crabby, so I won’t.
Neo writes interesting posts, but her threads are almost always hijacked by Alfie. He’s the class clown.
Elvis:
You got that backwards. Better to say that maybe there will be Judeophiles in the Arab countries. After all, if Neo’s talking about absence making the heart grow fonder…after the Jews are gone, that relates to the Arab countries, which kicked out almost a million Jews and have almost none left.
Sashal:
There were about 2 million Jews in Russia originally. I hear that the number now is around 700,000. Your description of ongoing antisemitism in Russia may well be accurate, but it doesn’t gainsay Neo-neocon’s point, which is that it’s a mixed picture in Poland and Russia. You have a strong strain of antisemitism there with deep roots, but you also have a strain of philosemitism. It’s not all black and white. It’s a mix.
Lee:
The US did not invade North Africa, Italy, France, the Low Countries, and Germany to combat anti-semitism. Sorry, but that’s rank nonsense.
Saving the Jews was not even on the American and British radar. Remember about the Bahamas conference and the one in Evian? No country wanted to take in Jews, including Britain and the USA. During the war, the British and Americans never bombed the camps to slow down their operations, even though the camps were easy targets. And when they “liberated” the camps, that was only when our soldiers came across them as they pushed the Nazis back. The camps were not the goal, they were just there.
We went to war because we were attacked by Japan. Roosevelt may have wanted war, but it wasn’t to save the Jews, it was to save Britain and roll back the Nazi presence in Western Europe. Only with the intercession of Henry Morgenthau did Roosevelt reluctantly save some 200,000 Jews.
So…the USA invaded France and North Africa (North Africa!) to save the Jews? Nahhhhh.
What a crazy thread, sorry. One commenter’s nuttier than the next.
I think you guys misunderstood *sashal at least in one aspect; he probably meant the anti-semitism didn’t go anywhere in post-Soviet Russia and continue along same old lines. As someone who used to live in both Russia and in Western Ukraine (which in happier times used to belong to Poland), I am familiar with both country’s attitude towards Jews.
Neoneo is right in that it’s always easier to be affectionate towards someone extinct (especially if first you had worked real hard at extinction). However, I’m not inclined to agree with NYTimes’ conclusions that Poles today are very fond of Jews and Jewish culture. I think there exist even funnier phenomenon: Jews are no more, but the hatred lives on.
From last fall’ ADL report (after the election of the new government):
Anti-Semitic content broadcast on Radio Maryja includes ugly stereotyping, conspiracy theories, claims that Jews were responsible for communist-era repression and accusations that Jews are using the Holocaust to leverage compensation payments from Poland. In March 2006, the commentator Stanislaw Michalkiewicz declared on air: “Jews have humiliated Poland internationally by demanding money…Kikes sneak up behind us to try to oblige our government to pay them money on the pretext of these demands”. Such statements are very much in keeping with the views of Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, the power behind the station, who has stated on-air that Judaism is a “trade, not a religion.”
Note the same stance re: communists=Jews as by *alphie* above.
Joanne,
We didn’t bomb the POW camps, either. We knew where they were, too. Did that mean we didn’t care about our own servicemen? In fact, a few places which received indirect damage from bombs sped up the process of killing Jews, and the closer the Russians got to Auschwitz, the more desperate the Germans were to kill as many Jews as they could while they still had it.
Our stated goal may not have been to “make the world safe for Judaism”, but Roosevelt knew what Hitler was about. We were in an undeclared naval war with Germany 6 months before Pearl Harbor. Remember Lend-Lease? The U.S.S. Kearney and U.S.S. Reuben James? Why, after Pearl Harbor, did we concentrate on the defeat of the Nazis first? We fought for the destruction of the political\religious ideology called “National Socialism”. Some actually had read Mein Kampf before September, ’39(like Roosevelt) and knew what a nation-state that sponsored such an ideology was capable of.
Although, Joanne, you do make a point. Even when the camps were “discovered” by our troops, many “couldn’t believe it”. Some to this day claim it was a “hoax”. I actually do wonder how many would have volunteered for “Roosevelt’s Jew War”.
Even today, people are wondering if the Iraqis were “better off under Saddam”. If people can tell themselves Saddam wasn’t “that bad”, would you expect them to believe a Hitler could be “worse”?
But most knew the Nazis were anti-semetic, just not to what extent. To them, that was just their “rhetoric”, what they used to create fear and allegience. But they wouldn’t go “that far”.
So it’s probably a good thing we didn’t declare war on “anti-semitism”, Joanne. It had to be seen to be believed.
Our “cold war” against Communism included frank, open discussions on the “merits” of communism based on it’s own “scriptures”(Manifesto, Das Kapital, Engles, etc) in addition to real-life examples of it in practice(Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, etc.). We won, but many think the gulags, the purges, etc. never happened.
Today, muslims and “lefties” like Alpo tell us “The Jews brought down the Twin Towers and hit the Pentagon. See, the Protocals ARE real. See, Hitler and Allah are right. The Jews are evil.”
To repeat myself:
Before we can fight “Islamofacism”, we have to address the “Islam” which creates the “facists”.
Alfie writes:
————————–
The disagreement comes over the definition of “free.”
Free from what, exactly?
————————–
Oops, cat’s out of the bag. “Freedom from …” is the negative formation, which presupposes oppressors. When you’re not allowed to name an oppressor, you must consider yourself free.
But our Constitutional rights are Freedoms of, not Freedoms from.
Bit of a difference there.
zoo collection of primitive , low-brow neanderthals, who are very good at parroting governmental and propagandists talking point.
Jeez, sometimes things won’t go right for the left even if they paid it to. For an example of sas walked into a minefield and thought himself beloved, go to this link about neanderthals. Real neanderthals btw.
Knowledge; something the Left has gone without for quite some time now.
It has long been known that Neanderthal’s show much evidence of treating their companions with compassion and care. Klein (1989, p. 334) writes:
“However, the same skeletal pathologies and injuries that show that the Neanderthals lived risky lives and aged early also reveal a strikingly ‘human’ feature of their social life. The La Chapelle-aux-Saints and Shanidar 1 individuals, for example, must have been severely incapacitated and would have died even earlier without substantial help and care from their comrades. This implicit group concern for the old and sick may have permitted Neanderthals to live longer than any of their predecessors, and it is the most recognizably human, nonmaterial aspect of their behavior that can be directly inferred from the archeological record.”
The commenters should be pleased by sas’s praise of them.
Promethea Says:
July 14th, 2007 at 10:16 am
I suggest bringing up notepad and then writing your reply to Neo’s post, right after you finish reading her post without reading the comments. This way, your mind is not polluted by the negative vibes being produced.
It’s a quick fix that is surprisingly effective for unbiased inspiration.
Are you suggesting America should invade Poland and Russia to combat anti-Semitism, Lee?
It would make about as much sense as invading Iraq to combat “Islamofascism.”
When extreme anti-semitic groups sponsored and supported and given safe haven by Russia and Poland attack us and kill thousands and cause billions in damage, hell yeah we should attack them. Since Islamofascists did just that, we attack them where they are, and in Iraq, attack those who would consider using them as proxies, and who we had legal status to invade.
But you keep those bumpersticker slogans coming, alph.
Alfie, you don’t have to go to Poland to combat anti-semitism; start in New York, where the heads of Osama ben Sharpton and Jesse Al-Zawahiri will do for a start!
I would just like to point out that Jews have been one of the most persecuted ethnicities in the history of mankind.
Does anyone take a step back and truly question why? From a Judeo-Christian standpoint, it’s as simple as those who hate God hate his people.
But take this from a secular standpoint. No nation has ever been so hated, or been such a catalyzing influence in world politics. Nazis came and went, and while they are not the only ones of their kind to exist, they don’t create near the tension and hate that a simple ethnicity has, simply by being good with their finances!
America once chose to help the Jews, cum end of WWII. America flourished afterward, creating what everyone likes to think rosily of as America’s golden age, the good ol’ 1950’s with Mom and Pop, a green yard and a white picket fence.
Imagine, if you will, that America had helped an Arab nation return to land currently occupied by another country, forcing them out and providing the invaders with our advanced technology. Does anyone have the illusion that Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt or any of the others would give a rat’s ______ that a smaller country couldn’t keep its own land? They wouldn’t care. They hate each other so much, what’s another Arab land?
But they hate the Jews, unequivocally. I don’t know what to tell you outside of my own Judeo-Christian reasons as to why. But why would you think that is – from a secular standpoint? Because they get rich so well and quickly? That’s hardly a reason to hate them so much.
So what do you think?
But why would you think that is – from a secular standpoint? Because they get rich so well and quickly? That’s hardly a reason to hate them so much.
I think in short and in essence it is because if you kill a Jew, the Jews won’t slaughter and annihilate your people as payback. For Americans, that’s not so true, not historically, but perhaps now a days things have changed. Or not.
The difference between the American response and the Jewish-israeli response is the fundamental reason why the Nazis and all our various previous enemies, with the exception of the Soviet useful idiots in the world, have stopped bothering the US.
When you squash an enemy flat and break his soul and feelings, they don’t tend to come back from that. Israelis have never done that because they have never wanted to do that. And thus is why their success is no shield, for they don’t use their success to ruthlessly crush their enemies.
The American philosophy of Total War is not present in Jewish beliefs or tradition.
Humanity is a hierarchical structure, so people will tend to take a crap out on the weakest member. Nerds in high school vs jocks is another one of those cliche stereotypes that is based upon a fundamental truth. If you are weak yet apparently successful or having something a physically stronger person wants, then the bullies will come. And they will keep coming until you slaughter enough of them that their blood fills the Hudson Bay.
Just saying.
Ymar,
Now that the ‘nerd'(Israel, Jews) fights back, we want to tie one arm behind the nerd’s back. Aren’t we supposed to be the nerd’s friend?
I know some of the “lefties” out there think Israel is the ‘bully’, but you and I know better. Why is America not even letting her defend herself, when our stated foreign policy is to “protect” Iserael?
We’re not doing anything to or about Israel that the US doesn’t do with everybody else. Israel has no excuse in the US, for the primary motivations for their actions have always been Jewish and israeli. Not because of American influences.
Why is America not even letting her defend herself
Israel doesn’t want any American on Israeli soil, helping them fight, or dying in/around Israel. America does not decide Israel’s foreign policy, the Israelis voted Olmert’s party in. Not us.
You should ask Olmert and the Israelis why they are making deals with terrorists and not defending themselves.
when our stated foreign policy is to “protect” Iserael?
You can’t protect someone when they don’t want you to.
A bit late, though I just wanted to say… I miss them before they are gone. I hope they always grace my nation, said differently. Perhaps, someday, some fun tomfoolery may be had at each other’s expense without so much as a thought of death or hate. In another day, perhaps. But for today, they are a protected class in my book. One of the few true endangered minorities. Elves, I should think. Perhaps vanishing.
Came across this blog while googling something else … have to say … notice the irony, at all, anybody? Anybody? At all?
Irony: You are engaging in the very activity you imagine yourselves to be criticizing.
You are talking *about* Poles and Poland, sounding very authoritative, and yet no one here, unless I missed it, is either Polish or is living in Poland, or has any insight at all into Poles or Poland, or Poles’ or Poland’s relationship to Poland’s Jewish heritage.
And no one had the humility to admit that lack, or the curiosity or intellectual integrity to fix it — to say, Hey, we are talking about Poles and Poland, going so far as to discuss invading Poland, here, let’s get a real, live Polish person and *interact with respect* with him or her. Start a dialogue, say.
but, maybe if you did that you would discover that your reduction of Polish-Jewish relations to the lyrics of a Joni Mitchell song wouldn’t seem so insightful.
One article from the NYT article is not reality; it is one publication’s one time take on reality.
In other words — you are all doing what you are accusing others of doing.
In an environment in which there are no Poles, you are denying Poles any flesh and blood reality, or voice, and animating, out of your own prejudices and imaginings, your version of a what a real, live Pole is — and talking about whether or not you should invade that person’s country.
Maybe next you’d like to give us the lowdown on Africa and Africans, after you read one article in the Daily News about Darfur, or the inside scoop on Aborigines and Aboriginal culture, after you flip through a National Geographic article in your dentist’s office.
No, really, why not read one article about Iraq and talk about invading that sovereign nation … ooops, sorry. Late on that one.
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