Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places (New Anthropologies of Europe)
"Since her first visit to Poland in 1990, Erica Lehrer has been exploring what might be called 'Jewish presence in Polish consciousness' in a country that was once home to the largest Jewish community in the world and now to one of the smallest. The result is a vivid ethnography and masterful analysis of Jewish heritage tourism in Poland today. Jewish Poland Revisited is a major contribution to the new anthropologies of Europe." —Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, New York University</P> (Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, New York University)"Jewish Poland Revisited is a timely book on an important topic. Based on extensive fieldwork spanning over two decades, Lehrer’s account of 'Jewish Poland' after the Fall of Communism is rich and nuanced, highlighting the subtle reconfigurations of complex, interwoven Polish and Jewish memoryscapes. Lehrer captures the mood of Krakow’s Jewish district of Kazimierz at the crucial moment of its reinvention in the 1990s. In her vivid prose, all of the social and sensorial textures of the Jewish quarter come to life." —Geneviève Zubrzycki, University of Michigan(Geneviève Zubrzycki, University of Michigan)"Lehrer offers a fresh and delightful portrait of Jewish renewal in Poland.... Highly recommended." —Choice(Choice)"[T]he main asset of Lehrer’s work is its huge potential and argumentative power to influence and change the prevailing... negative attitudes towards Poland among many people in the international Jewish community. Thanks to her work perhaps more Jews will no longer conceive Poland only as the site of Holocaust and as a widely antisemitic country, but rather as a place full of hope and future for the recognition of Polish Jewish culture, history and heritage and for the Jewish communities here." —New Eastern Europe(New Eastern Europe)"The unquiet nature of Poland as a Jewish heritage place is changing rapidly, and Lehrer’s Jewish Poland Revisited is an up-to-date and detailed guide to the shifting landscape." —Canadian Jewish News(Canadian Jewish News)