Jews, America and Poland

Polish Prime Minister,Mateusz Jakub Morawiecki (Jerusalem Post)

There was some antisemitic vandalism in Chicago over the weekend.  There was an attempted arson at Anshe Sholom, a synagogue in the Lakeview neigborhood. There was also vandalism outside a Shul in my own Rogers Park neighborhood. Those incidents are being investigated by the police and the FBI. No one was hurt and the damage was minimal.

One might say that this is further evidence that antisemitism is alive and well in this country. Unfortunately that is true. What is equally true is that all it takes is one. One antisemite can do a lot of damage. As we know all to well from the events in Poway, California a few weeks ago and the events in Pittsburgh before that. In each of those cases one individual was responsible for death, destruction and pain. The measure of a nation’s antisemitism is not in what a few hateful individuals do. It is in how its society reacts to it. Which in the case of America could not be a better reflection of what his nation is all about: One nation, under God, with Liberty and justice for all.

And yet I cannot get over how many people use these events and others like it to ‘prove’ just how antisemitic America is. It is almost as though there is a siege mentality among far to many of us that sees events like this as a harbinger of yet another Holocaust, God forbid. How many times have I heard a Jewish public figure say it’s 1939 all over again?!

Well, it isn’t. Yes, antisemitic acts have increased. But not antisemitism. What has happened is that the few antisemites that do exist in this country have been emboldened to act. Why that is the case is a serious question that needs to be addressed. One might blame presidential rhetoric for that. Which may or not be a factor. But this is not really the subject I want to discuss.

I want to reiterate my complete confidence in the American people. The vast majority of whom are not only NOT antisemitic, but Philosemitic. American Jews that believe we are hated by our fellow non Jewish citizens need to be disabused of that notion.

Not long ago, I had a conversation with some close friends where I made these points. They all immediately jumped all over me asking how I could say that! Wasn’t it obvious to me how antisemitic this country was by the increased number of antisemitic incidents?  A short whole later one of those friends told a story of how his car got stuck in the mud late at night a few days before and he couldn’t pull it out. Moments later someone saw what was happening pulled up and jumped out of his car to help. He managed to somehow get that car out of the mud. My friend was wearing a Kipa. The ‘good Samaritan’  was not Jewish. He saw a fellow human being in trouble and instinctively helped him out. That is the real America, I noted. Not the antisemitic one he imagined it to be. 

I bring all of this up in contrast to the inherent antisemitism that has always defined Europe. Especially Poland even in our own day. What makes Polish antisemitism even more insidious is their denial of it. Which is kind of like Louis Farrakhan denying it. Actions speak louder than words. Especially when it comes from public officials high up on the totem pole of public service.

There are at least 3 incidents that sadly reflect that reality. One happened a while back when Poland made it illegal to call Auschwitz a polish death camp. (That law has since been rescinded).  Another incident happened during a political debate. From VIN: 

Former Polish Foreign Affairs Minister Anna Fotyga was presenting her party’s views when a man approached her from behind and placed a Jewish skullcap above her head as she was speaking, Amichai Stein from KAN reported.

Fotyga is a member of the current ruling Law and Justice Party [PiS].
“They [PiS] bow down to Jews,” the man reportedly said. “They will sell this country for money.”  

The 3^rd incident is perhaps the most antisemitic of all. Poland’s Prime Minister has made one of the most outrageous nonsensical comments I can imagine. From the Jerusalem Post: 

Poland refuses to provide restitution for Jewish property taken during World War II when the country was under Nazi control, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said over the weekend, explaining that such a move was akin to making Hitler victorious. 

I suppose he thinks that since it was Hitler who confiscated property from the Jewish people, the Poles that moved into those homes are not culpable and therefore have a right to keep them. How dare the original Jewish owners claim any rights to that property?!

Really? They think it’s OK for their people to steal Jewish property because someone else stole it first?  The  original owners are not entitled to be compensated? Just because they were not thrown out by the current occupants… who benefited at the hands of their Nazi occupiers over 70 years ago?

Lest anyone think it is only Polish public officials that are antisemitic, that is far from the case. My father, a Holocaust survivor, used to tell me that Poland was far more antisemitic than Germany. He lived there and ought to know. That was true even after the Holocaust. Here is what happened to him.

After our people were liberated, many of them tried to reclaim their homes. But they were rebuffed by the polish squatters that moved in to them. My own parents tried to re-establish their lives in Poland then, only to have numerous pogroms hurled at them by local residents. They apparently could not care less about the atrocities their fellow Jewish citizens suffered. They still hated Jews and wanted them to know it. That’s when my parents decided to immigrate to this great country.

That is what Polish antisemitism looked like then and what it looks now. Not much has changed. I could not be more grateful to God for guiding my parents in making their decision to live here in America… and leaving that cesspool known as Poland far behind as a distant painful memory.