Around the Bloc: Hundreds Protest Planned Statue of Hungarian Anti-Semite
Private group behind the statue, which includes people linked to the far-right Jobbik party, got state and municipal funding.
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Private group behind the statue, which includes people linked to the far-right Jobbik party, got state and municipal funding.
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The study refers to the last five kings of the kingdom of Judah. Alongside the characterization of the 5 kings and the political and religious situation of the country, there will be observed as well the interventions of the Jewish prophets, in order to return the people to the full obedience to God. Of the five kings of Judah, only Josiah was a good king, who has done a series of reforms for the people, and the other four kings allowed the people to sink into idolatry and moral decay. Even if they have tried all sorts of variants of political support, particularly with Egypt, in the end they were conquered by the Babylonians and most of them taken into captivity, from where only after 70 years certain groups begin to return home and begin rebuilding the country.
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The paper offers a review of Erica Lehrer’s Jewish Poland Revisited, a publication presenting outcomes of an anthropological research on Jewish-Polish memory projects in Cracow's former Jewish district of Kazimierz. In a discussion of the book's theses, the author critically analyses Lehrer's postulate of 'ethnography of possibility' and the resultant strategy of approval for contemporary Kazimierz as a 'space of encounter' alongside with its rules of participation, imposed by the Polish proprietors of the district on its visitors. The article focuses on two such rules that condition a visitor’s possibility of participation in shrinking public spaces of Kazimierz. First of these laws is discussed as an imperative of abandoning the immediacy of district's physical space and its histories signified by the surviving built environment. Instead, Lehrer introduces a conceptual division of "social" and "physical" spaces, which leads to silencing of otherwise immediately present evidence of the violent past. The second rule is analyzed as a requirement of accepting the contemporary Polish owners’ role of 'brokers" and "purveyors" of Jewish heritage, consequential with an approval of a doubtful legal and moral title to the appropriated spaces. Through focusing on these rules of participation that determine and perpetuate the conditionality of Jewish presence in the space of Kazimierz, the author argues for a necessity of questioning and re-defining the traditional divisions of disciplines that establish conceptual separations of "social" and "built" spaces, as well as for a necessity of a critical outlook on contemporary Central European understandings of "heritage". Such an inquiry is discussed as conditional for overcoming the largely avoided yet still present "heritages" in the history of Polish-Jewish relations: the traditions of violence and exclusion, either social and spatial.
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The purpose of this article is to show the survival strategies and the everyday life of Jewish women living on the so-called Aryan side in occupied Krakow and its surroundings. Ego-documents are the core source: relations and diaries collected in the Archive of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, the Archives of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the Archives of the Metropolitan Curia in Kraków. A thorough analysis of the phenomenon is very complex, therefore this article only discusses the fate of the Jewish women who co-existed amongst Polish society rather than those who did not have ‘Aryan documents’ or could be betrayed by their appearance, and were thus forced to remain in hiding the whole time. The article not only pays attention to the survival strategies and ways in which they disguised their origins and identities, but it also explores the everyday life, family relationships, work and religious life of these women. The author’ s aim was not to analyse aid provided to Jewish women by non-Jews, or symmetrically, to synthesise problems regarding the selling out of Jews in occupied Krakow. Both issues do appear in the article, but rather as background to the individual cases, since they were, in fact, inseparable elements of any survival strategy on the Aryan side in the GG ‘capital’. The article also notes the absence of certain topics in the interviews, related to the daily life of Jewish women in hiding, which makes a more comprehensive analysis difficult.
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The article centres on the theme of Holocaust in literary work of Marian Pankowski: its sources, relations with the concentration camp theme, particular works and their poetics, as well as aesthetic, social and political problems related to the theme of Holocaust.
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Tuwim’s approach to the “Jewish question” has already been analyzed by Polish and foreign scholars. The article is intended to consider some “survival strategies” of the Polish poet from a slightly different angle. In Poland, in the period between the wars Jewish writers were persuaded to accept total polonization and a rejection of their ethnic identity; yet, at the same time they often suffered rejection from the circles of Polish artists. Any attempt of highlighting their Jewish identity or even a slight interest in Jewish culture incited brutal Jew-bashings. Tuwim considered his being a Polish Jew not only as a fact to be proud of, but also as an opportunity for engaging with self-criticism. He painfully felt the Jewish question as “a powerful wedge cleaving [his own] worldview”. However, like many other Polish-Jewish writers he masked its enduring presence in his own psyche, constructing his public persona through a process of self-fashioning. This paper tries to follow the traces of this “wedge” in Tuwim’s works: from poems supposedly having nothing to do with the “Jewish question”, to encrypted allusions to the great Yiddish writers, from his relentless questioning of all forms of intolerance and nationalist rhetoric, to his conviction that a new poetic language could “reform the world” and become a homeland for all readers regardless of their nationality.
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A debate over the morality of Kosher slaughter [Shechita (Hebrew: שחיטה)] has raged in Poland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark, where the Jewish ritual slaughter was outlawed. The more the debate goes on, the more awareness arises to Shechita as a basic Jewish religious practice. Yet veganism is a Hebrew religious operation too. This article discusses Hebrew vegan belief in terms meaningful to Jews, yet considering its utopian nature, in terms applicable to others as well. Both Shechita and veganism have universal Hebrew claims. Yet both claims are to be studied. Within this vast theme, I will analyze here veganism only, with respect to its utopian role and as a theological structure of one, yet global, community: the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem. They believe themselves to be the descendants of Judah, the fourth son of Jacob Israel. They are Jewish by their cultural nature: they observe Shabbat, Torah and a weekly fast. In 70 A.D. after the Romans destroyed the second temple they escaped and fled southward and westward to various nations in Africa two millennia ago where they were sold as slaves and were enslaved in America. They left America in 1967 led by their spiritual leader Ben Ammi, defined their departure as an exodus from America. Via Liberia – where they became vegans – they arrived in Israel in 1969, established an urban kibbutz, a collective communal living which is located in a desert region. Like most Jews, their diet has tremendous importance, but unlike most Jews they are vegan. The African Hebrews have very specific vegan dietary practices. Their tradition includes teaching and studying a special diet, which is vegetarian, organic and self-produced. They observe Shabbat strictly. On Shabbat, they fast and cleanse. This mirrors their spiritual outlook that eating is a hard labor of which they are obliged to rest from by the Ten Commandments. This article presents a breakthrough idea that fasting on Shabbat indeed reflects an ancient Israelite religious tradition. “Food for Peace” s a metaphor for the theology of the Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem unfolding their messianic utopia through which they believe people may achieve inner peace and even world peace, encompassing decades of powerful hopes, realities and nutritious lifestyle.
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The Targums are early Jewish translations of books of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic. According to the definition, but also in practice, Aramaic translations operate at two levels: translation of the Hebrew text and its interpretation. The Pentateuch is at the centre of Jewish life, therefore more than one Aramaic versions of the Torah have been created: Targum Onqelos, Palestinian Targum (Targum Neofiti, fragments from Cairo Geniza, Fragment Targums, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan). The character of these versions depends on the date, place and dialect of at the original targumic tradition. The targumists read the Torah as the Scripture transmitted to them and their contemporaries. Their reflection on the text led to the contribution of new elements to it. The material was added to the Aramaic translations of the biblical text not for linguistic reasons, but because of current theological exegesis, formed inside Jewish religious communities. The Aramaic translators used a variety of methods and techniques of translation. Significantly, they resorted to contemporarization of the Sacred texts, which occurred at three levels: historical, cultural, and religious. The targumists tried not only to convey the text of the Pentateuch, which included the law of Moses, but also to solve problems associated with the interpretation of the meaning of the Torah. Thus the Targums can be seen as an attempt to adapt the Scripture to the official Jewish law (halakah). With regard to the liturgical context, the Aramaic translations became midrashic and exgegetical commentaries. The targumists aimed at reconciling the ancient text books of the Hebrew Bible with its later theological vision. This phenomenon is defined as the targumization or ideologization of the Biblical Hebrew text. The aim of this article is to describe the characteristics of targumic literature and present selected examples of different Aramaic “actualizations” of the Torah.
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The larger the gap between languages, cultures and religions involved in the translation process, the more challenging it becomes, as was the case with the Septuagint [LXX] rendition of the Hebrew Bible [HB], which aimed at compromising Hellenistic and Semitic entourages. Valuable insight into the translator’s work is offered by an analysis of a particular word or phrase which undergoes a linguistic and cultural transmission. The word nephilim appears just three times in the Masoretic text of the HB: once in Genesis 6:4 and twice in Numbers 13:33. In the LXX both of these instances have been rendered by the Greek gigantes, which means that the translator identified the mysterious antediluvian figures as the primeval inhabitants of one of the Canaanite valleys and, at the same time, interpreted both of them as the Semitic equivalent of the Greek giants. Given the etymological and semantic differences between nephilim and gigantes, the question arises: why was this particular decision made? This study follows the hypothetical process of interpretation and translation by reconstructing the ancient Greek mythical complex of giants and by analyzing the biblical sources (Genesis 6:1–4; Numbers 13:28–33; Ezekiel 32:22–27) where the nephilim/nophelim appear. Moreover, this article outlines the factors that have influenced the translation. Finally, by scrutinizing the issue of the nefilim–gigantes this article describes the ancient biblical translator’s workshop on the particular example. Given the limitations of every translation, it is crucial to acknowledge the ambivalent nature of this process: undoubtedly, the translator strives to find the most appropriate term being the closest semantic equivalent of the word in question at the same time, however, the particular decision reducing the semantic uncertainty blurs other interpretative options. In other words, whatever had been the initial interpretation of the mysterious nephilim in these passages, it was in a way “overwritten” and thus substituted by the Greek gigantes.
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This essay examines the rhetoric and practice of translation in the Russian Empire’s Hebrew and Yiddish cultural communities and focuses on the intriguing fact that by 1917, many of the writers, critics, intellectuals, and publishers committed to a Jewish nationalist vision of Hebrew or Yiddish cultural renaissance were convinced that a massive program of literary translation was their most essential task. The study reconstructs the guiding translation program of this divided intelligentsia, which posited a universal canon of European and even world literature that had to be incorporated whole into Hebrew and Yiddish literature systematically and rapidly, without any sort of Judaization or popularization, and with an emphasis on the expansion of the expressive capacities of the target language and its writers. The essay traces how this commitment was expressed and embodied in translation theory, practices of selection and publishing, and in several acts of translation themselves. It further demonstrates how this translation program and its practices were linked to a larger vision of programmatic ‘de-Judaization’ or ‘de-parochialization’ of Hebrew and Yiddish culture propounded by some of the most committed Hebraists and Yiddishists in Russia. Finally, it argues that this translation program expresses a more general and seemingly paradoxical variant of East European Jewish cultural nationalism which held that a modern Jewish national culture could only be truly worthwhile and compelling to modern creators and consumers if it was universal in its expressive potentials and demarcated from other national cultures by language rather than content.
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This article addresses the complex relationship of both Jews and non-Jews to Yiddish language and Jewish literature in Poland. It analyses the evolution of translators’ motivations and their approach to the original texts, as well as the reactions of readers of Jewish literature during three decades (1885–1914). The study opens with the first translations from Yiddish into Polish (and at the same time the first translations from Yiddish to foreign languages in general): Klemens Junosza-Szaniawski’s Donkiszot żydowski (The Jewish Don Quixote, 1885) and Szkapa (The Nag, 1886) by Mendele Moykher Sforim (Sholem-Yankev Abramovitsh). Their publication was a notable event in Warsaw’s intellectual circles and provoked lively polemics in the press. In his introduction, Junosza used the expression “the Great Wall of China” to define the barriers dividing the Jewish and Polish societies, which he hoped to overcome at least in part through his translations. The phrase was later adopted by critics and the following generation of translators, who regularly, albeit with different intentions, made references to the work of their predecessor. Apart from the translations of Mendele’s novels, the article also discusses the texts published by Yiddish-language writers in assimilatory periodicals in Congress Poland (Izraelita in Warsaw) and in Galicia (Ojczyzna in Lwów). They were programmatically hostile to the language of Ashkenazi Jews, but their relationship to Yiddish literature turns out to have been more complex and changing with time. The analysis also includes: the anthology Miliony! (Millions!, 1903) translated by Jerzy Ohr, a journalist close to the extreme right circles; Miasteczko (The Shtetl, 1910) by Sholem Ash, whose introduction reflected the radicalization of Polish-Jewish relations; and Safrus (1905), a collection of fiction and essays edited by Jan Kirszrot, who represented the Jewish nationalist milieu. These translations and their reception illustrate well the complex issues of identity, cultural belonging, assimilation, return to the roots, image of the Other, cultural stereotypes or fascination and rejection, characteristic of a multicultural and a multinational society.
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Existing studies on interwar Polish editions of translations of Hebrew and Yiddish literature have focused on various literary genres published in a book form (mostly prose but also poetry and drama). This article analyses Polish-Jewish cultural relations from the bibliological point of view, concentrating on the different book-forms in which translations from Jewish languages were published, such as almanacs, books for children, textbooks and series. The analysis of the editorial framework, designs, illustrations, information on covers, and book structure can not only provide insight into the editorial strategies of publishers but also give information on intended readers. Moreover, a comparison of pre-WWII and post-war editions sheds light on the changes in the reading public, its needs, expectations and knowledge about Jewish culture.
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The article discusses foreign magical incantations within the healing practices of the East-European Jewry. Indicating the importance of the category of “strangeness”, it examines several magical texts, focusing on their adaptation and translation into Yiddish culture.
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Robert Gilbert (b. Robert David Winterfeld, 1899–1978) was one of Germany’s most successful writers of popular songs, many of them made famous by operettas and movies in the late years of the Weimar Republic (Ein Freund, ein guter Freund; Liebling, mein Herz läßt Dich grüßen; Was kann der Sigismund dafür?). In 1933, Gilbert emigrated to Vienna and later moved on to Paris, 1938, and New York, 1939. After his return to Europe in 1951, Gilbert started a second, again very successful, career as translator of American Musical Comedies, from My Fair Lady (1951) via Oklahoma or Annie Get Your Gun to Cabaret (1970). During his years in New York, he had acquired the English language he needed for this new activity. Recently discovered documents – manuscripts donated to the Vienna City Library by the Leopoldi family – give an insight into the translatory workshop and into the conditions of exile: Gilbert, together with the piano artist Hermann Leopoldi (1888–1959), produced a large number of songs, many of which were written in a mixture of German and English, with language (problems) as their subject. This paper traces Gilbert’s life and work, his translations and his thoughts on translation. The discussion focuses on the role of returning exiles as mediating agents and cultural translators between American (popular) culture and post-War Germany and Austria.
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Przekład jako polityka. Biblioteczka niemiecka po hebrajsku
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This article analyses the Polish translation of Yosef Haim Brenner’s short story The Way Out, carried out by Polish Zionist Józef Szofman and published in 1925 in Warsaw. It discusses the story’s origin and its reception, especially its writer’s status and his work with the Zionist discourse and imagery. Referring to interwar Polish-Jewish press, the article points to Szofman’s role in creating a mythological narrative about Brenner in the local Jewish milieus. The analysis of Szofman’s translation strategies raises the question about the intentions of the translator and the premises of his work.
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In the 16th and 17th centuries the history of Jewish printing in the Republic of Poland boils down to the history of printing shops operating in the royal cities of Kraków and Lublin. Despite the efforts launched by the Jews to start new shops in Poznań and Zamość, nothing came out of it. The situation changed toward the end of the 17th century, when printing houses in Lublin and Kraków stopped printing Hebrew and Yiddish books. Then King John III Sobieski gave his consent to the establishment of a new Jewish printing shop in Żółkiew, his private town. This is when the famous Amsterdam printer Uri Fayvush Halevi came to Poland, who already earlier produced books destined for the polish market, similarly as other Jewish printers active in Amsterdam. Between 1692 and 1705 it published some 20 titles in Poland. The Council of Four Lands looked at the situation that emerged after the new publishing house was established in 1696 and 1699, issuing a relevant ordinance on either occasion. Some years later Fayvush returned to Amsterdam and the Żółkiew printing establishment was taken over by his grandsons. It became the largest Hebrew printing house in Poland and for close to 70 years it was the only Jewish printing shop to operate in the country.
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The aim of the article is to shed some light on the output of Rozalia Saulson, who lived in the 19th century. Her works should be seen in the broad context of Jewish, German and Polish culture and literature. She wrote in Polish, producing works in diverse forms and on diverse subjects: works of a religious, lay, didactic or patriotic nature, from a guide to the Sudetes to translations and original prayers as well as belles lettres. The potential audience could be both Christians and Jews (Poles professing the Mosaic faith), adults and children alike. It is worth emphasizing that the ideas of acculturation and progress, so characteristic of the latter half of the 19th century, remain valid to this day. It is also possible to identify the strong impression they made on Rozalia Saulson, who was associated with progressive Warsaw circles, on her views and works..
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The history of the martyrdom of the Polish Roman Catholic clergy is still being researched. The present article refers to the content of one of the sources presenting the life in KL Dachau, where the largest number of clergy were imprisoned during the whole World War II. The source is a personal notebook authored by a member of the Society of St Francis de Sales, a seminarist Wiktor Jacewicz. He managed to survive a period of five years in Dachau. In his notes, we can find a description of different elements from the daily life of the concentration camp in Dachau such as prayer, sacraments, work, study, correspondence and sports. The source is a valuable contribution to our knowledge about the reality of life in KL Dachau.
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