JACOB JR, MY JEWISH WORLD - POLIN - MUSEUM OF THE HISTORY OF POLISH JEWS - WARSZAWA/POLAND
Friday, Nissan 7, 5775. March 27, 2015.
Shalom! World.
"1000 YEARS HISTORY OF POLISH JEWS"
Polin Museum's building, designed by the Finnish studio Lahdelma & Mahlamäki, is an architectural gem. Its minimalist exterior, clad in glass, encloses a dramatic interior of undulating walls.
The first Jews to arrive in the Polish lands were traveling merchants form western and southern Europe. You will see the journey of Ibrahim ibn Yakub, a Jew from Cordoba, who was sent by the Caliph on a diplomatic mission across Europe around 960 (c.e.). One of the very first mentions of the "Land of Miezko!, as Poland was known, is to be found in his travel account, which he wrote in arabic.
Boleslaw the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland, in 1264, gave Jews permission to settle, follow their religion, be protected from harm, engage in various occupations, and even play a role in the minting of coins.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - 1569-1648 (e.c.)
The Jews developed a rich culture here. The communities were allowed to govern themselves locally, regionally, and nationally. Jews played an important role managing assets on noble estates. And, the Jewish population expanded rapidly. Why Poland? The Commonwealth, one of the largest, most diverse, and most tolerant countries in Europe at the time, never experienced the religious wars that were tearing apart Western Europe, although there were incidents of anti-Jewish violence. The outbreak of the Khmelnytsky uprising in 1648, however, devasted Jewish communities, and, together with the wars of the 17th century, left the Commonwealth in ruins.
Rabbi Moses Isserles, known as the Remu, considered the greatest Rabbi in the history of Polish Jews. Visiting the Museum you can read excerpts from his most famous work - The Code of Jewish Law, Shulhan Arukh, with his glosses, which reflect the customs of Polish Jews and guide Jewish religious life to this day.
Krakow and Lublin became major European centers of Jewish printing in the 16th century. The Museum shows an original Jewish book printed in Poland 400 years ago.
The Council of Four Lands represents a degree of Jewish communal autonomy unique to the Commonwealth. Representatives from the Jewish communities of Lesser Poland, Greater Poland, Red Ruthenia, and Volhynia began to assemble on a regular basis in the 16th century. The Council soon became a body that adressed matters of importance to Jewish communities across the land, setting disputes, and passing laws.
The census of 1764 and 1765 was taken, there were about 750.000 Jews living in the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth had become home to the largest Jewish community in the world and a center of Jewish life.
Jan Zamoyski and Zamosc.
Zamoyski invited Jews to settle in his private town (Zamosc) and contracted them to manage assets on his estate - mills, forests, fisheries, salt mines, taxes, and more.
1648 - 1772
The breathtaking painted Synagogue ceiling and the bimah - the platform for the reader's desk. Almost 400 volunteers from Poland and abroad used traditional tools, materials, and techniques to reconstruct the ceiling and the roof of the wooden Synagogue that once stood in Gwozdziec, today in Ukraine. The Syangogue was built in the mid-17th century, and the renovation of the paintings was completed in 1729. Noticethe signs of the zodiac around the base of the cupola and the messianic animals along the middle band - the Leviathan, Behemoth (a red ox), and the unicorns.
The 18th century was a period of spiritual quest and messianic yearning. There was also a crisis of rabbinical authority and communal leadership. Yisrael ben Eliezer, known as the Ba'al Shem Tov, was later claimed as the founder of Hasidism. Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, known as the Gaon of Vilna. Is considered the founder of the modern yeshiva. Mendel Lefin represents the Jewish Enlightenment.
Holocaust 1939 - 1945 (e.c.)
The story of the Holocaust is presented within the borders of occupied Poland and focuses on the experience of Jews. German repressions separete and isolate Jews and force them into ghettos. Diaries and documents preserved in the secret archive created by Emanuel Ringelblum and his team provide a unique perspective on the Warszawa ghetto and the the Warszawa guetto uprising. A bridge symbolic of the one across Chlodna Street offers a view from above of the so-called Aryan side. The view from below reveals the harsh reallity of German terror against Poles, how the Polish underground state resisted the occupation, and how ordinary people responded to the Jewish fate on a spectrum from help to indifference and even betrayal.
Repressive German orders depriving Jews of basic rights. Forced labor, beatings, lootings, and executions became the norm. Were created 600 ghettos in occupied Poland. At its peak, around 460.000 Jews were crowded into the Warszawa ghetto. Accompany Emanuel Ringelblum, the historian who organized a clandestine archive documentig ghetto life, and Adam Czerniakow, the chairman of the Warszawa Judenrat (Jewish Counsil), through the Warszawa ghetto. Quotations from their diaries desscribe, and helplessness in the face of German terror, but also the struggle to retain one's humanity under such inhumane conditions.
Adam Czerniakow has commited suicide, having refused to sign the order to "resettle" Jews, which meant to deport them to their death. On 22 July 1942 the Germans begaan the deportation of Jews from the ghetto.
In January 1942, at a conference in Wannsee german officials and army officiers planened the annihilation of Europe's eleven million Jews. The germans located all the death camps in occupied Poland, because this was where Europe's largest Jewish population lived.
The monument to Jan Karski, the envoy of the Polish Underground State. In the autumm 1942 he went to Great Britain with his most more important mission. As an eyewitness of the extermination of the Jewish nation he gave his testimony to the Allied Forces.
1945 - Today
Barely 300.000 Polish Jews survived the war, most of them in the Soviet Union. The most urgent question for them was whether to stay in Poland or to leave. Many left, most of them for British Mandate Palestine, where they played an important role in the creation of the State of Israel. Those who remained in Poland helped to rebuild the country and also Jewish communal life. Following the antisemitic campaign of 1968, only about 10.000 Jews remained in Poland. After 1989, with the fall of commmunism, there is a renewal of Jewish life on a small scale. The enormous Jewish presence in Polish consciousness is seen in festivals of Jewish culture, films and books, courses in Jewish Studies and many artistic projects. The Polin - Museum of the History of Polish Jews is also part of this story.
"To stay or to leave?" This continued to be a pressing question for many Jews in postwar Poland. To your right is the story of leaving, to your lleft story of staying. Around 150.000 Jews left Poland in the second half of the 1940s. Often they did not have the strengh to rebuild their lives or they were fleeing violence. Many wanted to build a Jewish state in Palestine. Others decided to stay in order to rebuild Poland and the world of Polish Jews.
The flickering television screens and blaring loudspeakers on either side of this corridor were the tools of a state-orchestrated antisemitic campaign in March 1968. In an effort to discredit student protests, the communist govermment launched a propaganda war that blamed Jews - they were slandered, thrown out of work, and expelled from the university. About 14.000 Jews felt they had no option but to emigrate. Among them were many intellectuals and artists. All of them received a one-way travel document stating that they were no longer Polish citizens. Warszawa Gdanska railway station, from which many Jews departed, became a symbol of those times.
Since the collapse of communism in 1989, there has been a renewal of Jewish life on a small scale. Listen to Jews in Poland today answer such questions as: Did you always know you were Jewish? Who can make Jewish culture? Is there antisemitism in Poland? Is there a future for Jews in Poland? What does Israel mean to you?
Conclusion
Polin - Museum of the History of Polish Jews faces the Monument to the Ghetto Heros in Muranow, Waszawa prewar Jewish neighborhood and during the Holocaust, the site of the Warszawa ghetto. The Museum completes the memorial complex. At the monument, we honor them who perished by remebering how they died. At the Museum, we honor them, and those who came before and after, by remembering how they lived.
Jan Zamoyski and Zamosc.
Zamoyski invited Jews to settle in his private town (Zamosc) and contracted them to manage assets on his estate - mills, forests, fisheries, salt mines, taxes, and more.
1648 - 1772
The breathtaking painted Synagogue ceiling and the bimah - the platform for the reader's desk. Almost 400 volunteers from Poland and abroad used traditional tools, materials, and techniques to reconstruct the ceiling and the roof of the wooden Synagogue that once stood in Gwozdziec, today in Ukraine. The Syangogue was built in the mid-17th century, and the renovation of the paintings was completed in 1729. Noticethe signs of the zodiac around the base of the cupola and the messianic animals along the middle band - the Leviathan, Behemoth (a red ox), and the unicorns.
The 18th century was a period of spiritual quest and messianic yearning. There was also a crisis of rabbinical authority and communal leadership. Yisrael ben Eliezer, known as the Ba'al Shem Tov, was later claimed as the founder of Hasidism. Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, known as the Gaon of Vilna. Is considered the founder of the modern yeshiva. Mendel Lefin represents the Jewish Enlightenment.
Holocaust 1939 - 1945 (e.c.)
The story of the Holocaust is presented within the borders of occupied Poland and focuses on the experience of Jews. German repressions separete and isolate Jews and force them into ghettos. Diaries and documents preserved in the secret archive created by Emanuel Ringelblum and his team provide a unique perspective on the Warszawa ghetto and the the Warszawa guetto uprising. A bridge symbolic of the one across Chlodna Street offers a view from above of the so-called Aryan side. The view from below reveals the harsh reallity of German terror against Poles, how the Polish underground state resisted the occupation, and how ordinary people responded to the Jewish fate on a spectrum from help to indifference and even betrayal.Adam Czerniakow has commited suicide, having refused to sign the order to "resettle" Jews, which meant to deport them to their death. On 22 July 1942 the Germans begaan the deportation of Jews from the ghetto.
In January 1942, at a conference in Wannsee german officials and army officiers planened the annihilation of Europe's eleven million Jews. The germans located all the death camps in occupied Poland, because this was where Europe's largest Jewish population lived.
The monument to Jan Karski, the envoy of the Polish Underground State. In the autumm 1942 he went to Great Britain with his most more important mission. As an eyewitness of the extermination of the Jewish nation he gave his testimony to the Allied Forces.1945 - Today
Barely 300.000 Polish Jews survived the war, most of them in the Soviet Union. The most urgent question for them was whether to stay in Poland or to leave. Many left, most of them for British Mandate Palestine, where they played an important role in the creation of the State of Israel. Those who remained in Poland helped to rebuild the country and also Jewish communal life. Following the antisemitic campaign of 1968, only about 10.000 Jews remained in Poland. After 1989, with the fall of commmunism, there is a renewal of Jewish life on a small scale. The enormous Jewish presence in Polish consciousness is seen in festivals of Jewish culture, films and books, courses in Jewish Studies and many artistic projects. The Polin - Museum of the History of Polish Jews is also part of this story.
"To stay or to leave?" This continued to be a pressing question for many Jews in postwar Poland. To your right is the story of leaving, to your lleft story of staying. Around 150.000 Jews left Poland in the second half of the 1940s. Often they did not have the strengh to rebuild their lives or they were fleeing violence. Many wanted to build a Jewish state in Palestine. Others decided to stay in order to rebuild Poland and the world of Polish Jews.
The flickering television screens and blaring loudspeakers on either side of this corridor were the tools of a state-orchestrated antisemitic campaign in March 1968. In an effort to discredit student protests, the communist govermment launched a propaganda war that blamed Jews - they were slandered, thrown out of work, and expelled from the university. About 14.000 Jews felt they had no option but to emigrate. Among them were many intellectuals and artists. All of them received a one-way travel document stating that they were no longer Polish citizens. Warszawa Gdanska railway station, from which many Jews departed, became a symbol of those times.
Since the collapse of communism in 1989, there has been a renewal of Jewish life on a small scale. Listen to Jews in Poland today answer such questions as: Did you always know you were Jewish? Who can make Jewish culture? Is there antisemitism in Poland? Is there a future for Jews in Poland? What does Israel mean to you?
Conclusion
Polin - Museum of the History of Polish Jews faces the Monument to the Ghetto Heros in Muranow, Waszawa prewar Jewish neighborhood and during the Holocaust, the site of the Warszawa ghetto. The Museum completes the memorial complex. At the monument, we honor them who perished by remebering how they died. At the Museum, we honor them, and those who came before and after, by remembering how they lived.
Shalom! Aleichem.
Suporte cultural: SOUL avec L'Integration d'Association avec Israel et dans le Monde/Fr .
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