Rethinking Poles and Jews: Troubled Past, Brighter Future
These probing essays make a profound contribution to enhanced understanding between today’s democratic Poland and the Jewish people. (David A. Harris, executive director, American Jewish Committee)In a masterful fashion and with breathtaking reach, the authors in this collection both complicate and clarify the historically tense relationship between Jews and Poles. As stereotypes are replaced with facts by Jewish and non-Jewish authors alike, the powerful truth emerges: that without the work of Polish non-Jews the Polish Jewish historical and cultural heritage would be lost. The value of this conclusion will not be lost on readers whose work and lives depend on the preservation of that heritage. Robert Cherry and Annamaria Orla-Bukowska are to be congratulated on their stunning accomplishment. (Holli Levitsky, Loyola Marymount University, Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Poland, 2001-2002)This collection of essays represents a compelling analysis of the complex, tortured, and often tragic relationship between Poles and Jews. Taken as a whole, the book exposes the distortions, inaccuracies and misunderstandings that have divided these two peoples in recent history. While exploring the roots of mutual antagonisms, the essays do not whitewash the real issues that continue to separate Jews and Poles, even today. While offering an honest, objective examination of persistent sources of Polish anti-Semitism as well as Jewish anti-Polanism, the authors nevertheless find many hopeful signs of improved relations...In sum, this new study is a welcome and most necessary curative to the high inflammatory dialogue that has often set Jews and Poles apart. (Donald Schwartz, California State University, Long Beach)The authors of the essays written for this volume, Poles and Jews, are some of the most knowledgeable and committed participants in the contemporary Polish-Jewish dialogue. Their writings are a ray of light amidst the acrimonious and generally uninformed polemics that still dominate so much of Polish-Jewish relations today. (Michael C. Steinlauf, Gratz College; author of Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust)As vast as they are vexed, controversies about the relationships between Polish Christians and Polish Jews continue to swirl long after the Holocaust, which intensified so many tensions between those communities. Robert Cherry and Annamaria Orla-Bukowska have performed an important scholarly and ethical service by enlisting highly qualified scholars to analyze those wartime relationships and their aftereffects. This carefully crafted book does more than clarify complex interactions. It shows how sound scholarship can improve human understanding. (John K. Roth, Edward J. Sexton Professor of Philosophy and director, Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, Claremont McKenna College)In my home town, Otwock, before WWII there used to be five synagogues and just one Roman Catholic church. Today there are ten churches and no Jews. But more and more ethnic Poles discover that our collective memory would be false without Jews. Unfortunately, Jewish-Polish relationships are full of stereotypes. If you want your opinions on the relations between these two ethnic groups to be based on facts,Rethinking Poles and Jewsis a must. The authors precisely distinguish truth from misconceptions. (Zbigniew Nosowski, Editor-in-chief of the Warsaw Catholic monthly review WIEZ, Consultor of the Pontifical Council for the Laity (in the Vatican), Chairman of the Citizens' Committee for Remembrance of the Jews of Otwock and Karczew)I strongly recommendRethinking Poles and Jews: Trouble Past, Brighter Futureedited by Robert Cherry and Annamaria Orla-Bukowska for a series of essays that pierce the stereotypes which have obscured historical reality. (Deborah E. Lipstadt, Emory University; author of Denying the Holocaust)The contributors toRethinking Poles and Jewsare knowledgeable persons, experienced in Polish-Jewish dialogue, whose individual efforts over the years have helped to bring about the 'brighter future' foreseen in the subtitle. (The Polonia Portal)The essays in this book attempt to demystify the claims and charges made, to shed some light on an emotional issue and to provide information and perspective in our search for understanding and reconciliation. The editors, Cherry and Orla-Bukowska, are to be commended for their efforts. (Jewish Book World)