3.02.2010

Evidence for a new Poland

I don't want to misstate something which is largely unspoken. So, fellow Jews, correct me if I'm wrong. But I think it is a widely held belief among Jews that Poles are especially virulently anti-Semitic, second only to Germany.

This article claims that Poland's anti-Semitism is on the wane. Which would be quite interesting if true. But the only support cited in defense of this claim are: a rabbi's assessment that things are changing, a Polish TV star who "came out" as a Jew after achieving fame and claims he now has more fans, and Pawel, the main focus of the story, a former neo-Nazi who discovered he had two Jewish grandparents, and is now a convert to Hasidic Judaism.

While Pawel's story is really interesting, I don't see how it's meant to tell us anything about the changing state of Poland. He seems to have evolved not because his country evolved, but because he made a personal discovery and because he seems the type to embrace an extreme sort of lifestyle. Indeed, he mentions that he is regularly harangued in the street by anti-Semites. He's a worthy subject of an article alone, without serving as support for a strained and speculative point.

But it was all worth reading for this sentence Pawel utters: "Oy vey, I hate to admit it, but we would beat up local Jewish and Arab kids and homeless people."

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