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The „Oneg Shabat” cash book is the only direct source material produced by the ring of Ringelblum’s associates that makes it possible to trace back its composition and evolution. Kept from November 1940 to August 1942, it contains the names of the persons who received hardship allowances or fees as authors and the names of those who subsidized the activity of „Oneg Shabat”. An analysis of recurrent entries of names makes it possible to revise the list of “Oneg Shabat” contributors known from literature. This means, for example, that one should reconsider the place of such persons as Izrael Winnik, Jakub Zylberberg, Rabbi Chitowski, Sz. Szajnkinder, Melech Fajnkind, Cwi Klejnman in „Oneg Shabat” group.
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Taking as its starting point the radical transformation of the Polish cultural and historical landscape that has resulted from Poland’s post-1989 Jewish revival, this article presents a proposal for a substantial reconfiguration of ethno-nationally, philologically based University programs in Polish Studies. Proposed is a reimagination of Polish Studies – and by extension other Slavic Studies programs- as inherently multilingual, culturally pluralistic spaces of encounter; and attendant changes to degree requirements that reflect this post-national shift in perspective. Making reference to the concept of doikeyt or “hereness”, a cultural and political attitude promoted within the pre–World War II Jewish world, particularly within Bundist and Yiddishist discourse, that saw Jewish culture and languages as native to Eastern Europe—as belonging in Poland and in Russia—the author asks whether Jewish languages (Yiddish and Hebrew), and by extension other minority languages and cultures, should have an equal place within the curriculum and course requirements that contribute today to a degree or a major in Polish Studies.
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This article is an attempt to critically analyze Alexander Gorlin’s book "Kabbalah in Art and Architecture" in the context of contemporary research on Jewish mysticism, magic and the Kabbalah. These issues have become a subject of interest for many researchers, which has given rise to numerous international conferences, professional and academic publications, and substantive debates in academic circles. However, Gorlin’s book faces questions in terms of whether the author’s suggestive and subjective pairing of works of art and architecture with passages from Kabbalistic texts represents an attempt to inscribe them within this academic context, or whether it merely represents a casual nod to a non-reflective reader.
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He was a Jew who adored light, who blessed the world. He was a Jew, but went to the ghetto in the uniform of a Polish officer. He was a Polish writer and an individual. He neither looked for nor needed straightforward answers to the question of who he was.
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The heritage of Auschwitz from the local perspective of Oświęcim appears differently − personally. It is a stigma the town residents have to face every day when fulfilling their own needs and life aspirations, both in the semantic sense (a stigmatising name) and in the material sense (the remains of the camp in the city space). Comments, opinions and criticism concerning the city’s development are received from all over the world. The former camp conservation requirements impose development restrictions for the protection of the place which was created without the participation and consent of the local community. The question asked many times in Oświęcim: “Where does the former camp end and normal life begin?” may be incomprehensible from outside, but is painfully valid here. Highly publicised conflicts, unsolved for years, in which the local heritage becomes meaningless, are caused by the coexistence of the memorial place and urban space. The population of Oświęcim living “in the shadow of Auschwitz” become a social minority for the world, marginalised in the face of the atrocities of the genocide committed here. On the other hand – the moral dimension of Auschwitz either paralyses local initiatives or supports extreme attitudes. The worldwide debate about Auschwitz lacks the local perspective, whereas the local community lacks the historiosophical view and the understanding that today you can reach Oświęcim only through Auschwitz.
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This is a review of Hédi Fried's book, Frânturi dintr-o viaţă. Drumul la şi de la Auschwitz, EdituraVremea, Bucureşti, 2007, 216 p.Hédi Fried, A treia viaţă, EdituraVremea, Bucureşti, 2011, 182 p.
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The article presents a Polish translation of the Introduction to War at the Gates (hebr. לחם שערים) Shelomo ben Aharon of Poswol, a Karaite learned man and cleric from the late 17th and early 18th century, better known as the author of a text entitled Uczynił sobie lektykę (Hebr. אפריון עשה לו). The author of the article briefly described the whole text (presenting a Karaite halakha in respect of the differences compared to the Rabbinic halakha – this is the main part of the work, written in the responsa style), rather than the poetic Introduction alone, although this is the part that received an in-depth analysis. In addition to that, the article contains a brief biographic and intellectual portrayal of the author of both these treatises.
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When a “Jew boy” appeared on Mt. Zawrat, a fact that Witkacy found so horrifying, no one had any doubts regarding his identity. In post-war Poland, however, after the majority of Jewish survivors had emigrated, the remaining ones were frequently unclear about their identity. After 1968 it seemed that soon there would simply be no more Jews left in Poland, a situation that changed in the wake of the events of 1989. Jewish life underwent a modest but conspicuous revival, with Polishness (language, culture, and customs) as the point of departure for its participants. The process of disassimilation taking place within the range of Polishness results in Jewish involvement, which, nevertheless, does not make these participants less Polish. Are they true Jews? Their status is sometimes questioned. The answer depends on assorted criteria and the world of Jewish institutions has changed in comparison to its pre-- and post-war counterparts but remains genuine. Now the Jews on Mt. Zawrat are different but just as authentic.
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In 2009-2010 Marcin Giżycki and Małgorzata Sady made the film: Alfred Schreyer z Drohobycza. This is the story of an extraordinary person whom the nightmare of wartime, the loss of his family and motherland, and harsh life in the Soviet Union did not deprive of humanity, dignity, and nobility of the spirit nor undermined his belief in a world of professed values.
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In his study: Odys gość. Esej o gościnności Cezary Wodziński presented archaic Greek tradition, which unconditionally enjoins the welcoming of the other, the stranger, and granting him our house and the whole world so that they might be at his disposal. The event known as: Zakopane teaches us that today, due to the Jews, the lowlanders, and the tubercular, hospitality requires a confirmation of the existing order and that alienness is seen primarily as a defective, impaired “nativeness”.
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Fragment of a book about Maryan (Pinchas Burstein, 1927-1977), a painter of Jewish descent born in Nowy Sącz and a Holocaust survivor, to be printed by the Nisza publishing house. After the war Maryan lived in Jerusalem, Paris, and New York, where in 1975 he made Ecce Homo, a film based on his horrifying plight and not worked through experiences as a concentration camp inmate.
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The authors of Jewish ritual art did not find the mere image satisfactory and upon numerous occasions introduced texts – Biblical verses, the words of prayers, and blessings – for the purpose of supplementing ornaments and symbols. Suitable examples may be found in, i.a. painted decorations of synagogues, embellished Torah scrolls, embroidered curtains of the ark containing scrolls, matsevah bas-reliefs or papercuts. In what manner does the image correspond to the text? Certain texts are devoid of corresponding illustrations some are illustrated directly, and some visual arts motifs are not accompanied by a text, but it is still possible to decipher inspirations borrowed from a concrete fragment of the Torah, the Talmud, or Midrash literature. The presence of verses in the case of visual art depictions facilitates the interpretation of their symbolic meaning whenever we are dealing with an ambiguous symbol.This subtle game played with the image and the word has inspired Jewish artists from the distant past to this very day. Take the example of the Jewish papercut, which flourished in particular in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe. From their earliest schooling the authors of such papercuts were familiar with the Torah, the Talmud, and other exegetic texts. Their works fulfilled assorted functions in ritual life as well as within the annual and life cycle, and calligraphic texts depended upon such purposes.When the author of this essay became interested in Jewish paper cutting she was enthralled with the manner in which folk artists expressed diverse contents by means of lacy paper images that did not observe the principles of proportion and perspective or the law of gravity. She regards their works as an inspiration, albeit by no means the sole one, and derives assorted motifs also from Jewish tradition outside the canon of the papercuts of old as well as from her own experiences. This approach is reflected in the I Seek Paradise, Dybbuk, and Burning series, works combining frottages from matsevah bas-reliefs with the papercut, and the Tatras and Psalms series. The author perceives the mountains as a place where the Psalms and the elements meet. Here beauty and awe are so powerful that they are equalled only by Biblical comparisons and blessings said while viewing imposing summits or lightening or hearing the sound of thunder: “Blessed are You, Hashem, our God, King of the universe, for His strength and His power fill the universe”. This is why in this particular series impressions generated by the world of the mountains are collated with verses of the Psalms and other Hebrew religious texts.The Tatras and Psalms exhibition is presented at the Museum of Zakopane Style at Villa Koliba, a branch of the Tatra Museum; its opening accompanied an anthropological conference organised by the editors of the quarterly “Konteksty” and the Residents of Zakopane in Search for Identity Foundation.
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The present study is a page of economic micro-history of the city of Iași, focused on one of the most acute problems in the public agenda: the control of the beef market by the Jewish traders. The prohibition of the treif and kosher meat – the latter generically called in those days “passed through the hakham’s knife” –, an economic and social experiment implemented in Iași over a period of 10 months between 1867 and 1868, was the result of the decisions made by the local authorities under the pressure of the Romanian bourgeoisie. From a larger perspective, this action marked the enforcement of the idea of economic nationalism, which aimed, among other things, at taking the control from the hands of the Jewish entrepreneurs. By using the anti-Semitism entailed by the ritual of the kosher kitchen, prescribing differences in the food area and inevitably raising social, cultural and political barriers between the Jews and the non-Jews, the local authorities inflicted heavy losses to the Jewish businesses. Mainly, these dealt with the reorganization of the market on anti-competitive bases, laying on a legislation that represented a combined form of boycott, prohibition and segregation of consumption, on ethnic and religious criteria. From the perspective of the local officials, Romanians could not be humbled by being given a product that the Jews deemed inferior and impure (the treif meat), a fact established under the decisions of the city council of Iași. The results of the prohibition had a major impact upon the financial status of both the Romanian and the Israeli communities, leading to an artificial food crisis and to a social revolt situation. Forced by a powerful economic failure, the authorities gave up the anti-Semite economic policies, going back to the principles of free competition.
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Rev. of:The Oxford Annotated Mishnah. A New Translation of the Mishnah. With Introductions and Notes, Edited by Shaye J. D. Cohen, Robert Goldenberg, and Hayim Lapin, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2022, (New York 2021), 1256 pp.
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Presented paper consists of the first complete translation of the XIII c. kabbalistic treatise. Annotations, foreword and appendix are added. The main theme of this booklet is the figure of the serpent, which - according to the interpretation of the translator - represents the notion of life. Therefore, the biological perspective is proposed to understand the content of the text.
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