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Life is a gift from God. It is sacred for God is the absolute holiness. Being received as a gift from God, it is our duty to bring her to its holiness and then give it back to God to render it eternal, not to let it be spoilt by our nature that was corrupted by the original sin. Meant to support human life, the Human Rights Declaration considers life to be the right of rights, which is the greatest right which ultimately surpasses the others. In other words, all the other rights are meant to give quality to life. Based on these realities, according both to divine right and human right, we all have the holy duty to respect our personal life and its proper dignity (values) and in the same time we have the duty to respect in all respects the life of our brother. All attempts to take someone’s life are forbidden.
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Our Class was received in Poland with enthusiasm. The author was praised for his courage and his voice was considered a balanced part of the Jedwabne pogrom discussion, taking place in Poland since 2000. Why this enthusiasm now, when the publication of the Neighbours was received without it? What changes to narration about Jedwabne provided by Słobodzianek were so successful? The article described the drama’s reception which turns out to be selective. It also refers to the play’s text, bringing out two orders of presenting and explaining the events. Firstly, Our Class creates a picture of interpersonal relations where social mechanisms of discrimination are erased. This thread is picked up and developed by the Polish reviewers. The Slaughter on Jews becomes an outcome of a conflict between two equal groups with similar possibilities of action and agency and therefore not linked to domination of the majority over the minority. Hence, the symmetry of harm and as a consequence, the question of guilt and the alleged tragedy of the characters becomes unsolvable. That is supported by psychological explanations of motives and behaviours, modelled on family relations. The viewpoint of the event’s participants, that is a discrimination symptom itself, is being treated as an objectifying description. Seen up close and psychologized fates of the characters veil the background of the dominating group’s violence. This violence can be explained only in sociological terms. However Słobodzianek refers also to descriptions on a social level. In that manner he constructs the scene of Rachelka’s wedding and the handling of her salvation after the war relating it to extraordinarily described phenomena of the Righteous Among the Nations’ social functioning. He notices and describes subordination rituals organised for the Survivors and the Survivor’s mimicry. Those threads were completely ignored by the reviewers, however. They were also unable to break through the narration structures of the first type, which are more recognisable.
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The paper provides a reconstruction and proposes the deconstruction of the conception of the Polish experience of the Holocaust as collective trauma. The analytical framework is based on the revision of concepts such as Polish witness (bystander/onlooker – according to Hilberg) and indifference on the part of Polish majority society towards the persecution and murder of the Jews. The text postulates that the concept of indifference as well as that of the non-Jewish witness (bystander/onlooker) be dropped from the standard terminology used when describing the Holocaust. It proposes that the concept of the non-Jewish witness (bystander/onlooker) be replaced by the concept of participating observer – with a different understanding from that established within cultural anthropology. Thus, watching would be a form of activity, a way of having an influence on the events, of agency, and therefore participation. A significant part of my argument includes an attempt to address the question of the construction of watching during the Holocaust. From this it follows that watching constitutes the most basic form of power (droit de regard – according to Foucault and Bourdieu). Therefore, the question arises of whether or not one can describe the margins of the Holocaust within the terms of panoptic reality (le panoptisme – according to Foucault). A further question under consideration is whether one can depict the dominant majority as an unofficial authority wielding something akin to social control over the completion of the Holocaust understood as the German Nazi system of persecution and extermination of the Jews. The argument also foregrounds the actual functions of the concepts of the non-Jewish witness (bystander/onlooker) and indifference as well as the idea of the Holocaust as a trauma for the non-Jewish witness (bystander/onlooker). These functions resulted several times in the elimination of the historical concrete and its societal-cultural conditions from the field of vision. In this sense, the conception of unacquired memory (i.e. the Polish trauma of the Holocaust) would be a strategy for acquiring the memory of the Holocaust in such a way that it does not endanger the dominant narrative about the past and the identity of the majority. Furthermore, the paper proposes the deconstruction of the concept of Polish-Jewish dialogue by identifying the phenomena of false symmetry and false universalization that frequently result in defining anti-Semitism and the Holocaust within the categories of a groups conflicts. The inspiration to undertake such a critical analysis came from the paradigmatic work by Michael C. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, published in 1997. (The Polish-language edition entitled Pamięć nieprzyswojona. Polska pamięć Zagłady [Memory unacquired. The Polish memory of the Holocaust] came out in 2000, translated by Agata Tomaszewska.)
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The anti-Semitism of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin became, at the beginning of the Cold War, an anti-Semitic paranoia and took on the most radical form during the campaign against Western influence on Soviet society. Soon after the destruction of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, the Doctors’ Plot campaign was launched at the end of 1952; it soon became a perfect basis for blaming all Jews as disloyal to the Soviet regime. In the republics of the USSR the local Communist leaders supported the anti-Semitic campaign in Moscow with allegations about Jewish medical crimes at the local level.Despite much circumstantial evidence and many testimonies there still is no strong basis for the conclusion that the anti-Semitic campaign of 1952-1953 would soon turn into a large-scale repression campaign or wholesale genocide of the Jewish population in the USSR, but the clear anti-Jewish policy and the Soviet practice of the mass repression of nations leaves little doubt that the Soviet society was mentally prepared for the deportation of Jews to Siberia. The Soviet regime practiced constant archive purge campaigns, and documents about politically sensitive issues or regime crime were destroyed on a regular basis. Despite all regime efforts, some traces of anti-Semitic campaign preparation, control, and coordination may be found not in the central state institutions of the USSR but in the Communist Party archives of the republics. At the republican level Communist party Central Committees some top secret documents of the anti-Semitic campaign of 1953 were preserved in specific archive units, the so-called Osobaja Papka.In the USSR the reports of local party leaders to Moscow always described never-existing enthusiastic popular support for Soviet policies; thus the true scale of anti-Semitism in society can’t be determined on the basis of such sources. But they demonstrate that local Soviet institutions supported the spread of anti-Semitism during the infamous Doctors’ Plot campaign of 1953. They also permit the conclusion that any anti-Semitic campaign would not be limited to negative propaganda and at least part of Soviet society was ready to accept some repression of Jews.Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 put an early end to the anti-Semitic campaign. Soon Stalin’s political heirs quashed charges against the doctors and even punished a few distinguished instigators of the campaign, but there was no official and public condemnation of that anti-Semitic campaign. Thereupon anti-Semitism became less aggressive but still remained very strong in the USSR.
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« Nous ne voulons pas que notre histoire soit oubliée ! » » Ceci résume bien les motivations d’un bon nombre d’écrivains juifs francophones originaires des pays arabes. Or pendant longtemps, l’oubli menaçait d’une seconde disparition la civilisation séfarade. Aujourd’hui pourtant, cette mémoire resurgit comme jamais. “We don’t want our story to be forgotten !” This statement sums up the motivations of many French-speaking Jewish writers from Arab nations. For a long time, loss of memory threatened to make Sephardic civilisation disappear for a second time. Today,however, these memories are flourishing like never before. Keywords : Forgetting, silence, Sephardic memory, literature, Sephardic history Giovanni Rotiroti, « Perspectives psychanalytiques du regard : Gherasim
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The article discusses the reception of Tuwim’s manifesto in Israel, focusing in particular on the 1940s. The author analyses various critical reponses to the poem expressed by Jewish critics in Palestine. Tuwim’s reception in Israel is presented from a new perspective which has not been explore so far.
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The term “post-Jewish property” has a descriptive function in Polish. It is present in both colloquial speech and academic discourse. This specific collocation usually does not raise semantic suspicions and is considered a carrier of neutral content used to describe certain material assets, that is the property of Jews who were murdered by the Germans during the Holocaust, in particular – the real estate remaining in Poland, whose owners changed. The problem with the term “post-Jewish property” understood in this way is that it is based on false foundations and incorporates functions assigned to it in order to ensure the comfort of the Polish national community. The key objective of this paper is to deconstruct this highly convenient and useful conceptual collocation, indicate its origin and, primarily, to answer the question of what it tries to erase/conceal.
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This article is an attempt to show the impact of demographic processes on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The author characterized and described the demographic processes occurring in both communities. The study highlighs the importance of increasing proportion of non-Jewish citizens of Israel. A demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state has been analysed. The article also describes a proposal to resolve the conflict through the creation of one state for two nations. The author also shows how demographics will affect relations between the two communities in the future.
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Despite the hopes of the Palestinians, the outbreak of the Arab Spring, instead of accelerating positive changes, led to a significant deterioration of the situation in the region and in the Palestinian Authority itself. Positive economic processes have been stopped. Successive Israeli military operations devastated the Gaza Strip. The divisions on the West Bank ruled by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip deepened. Social sentiment among Palestinians has deteriorated. In view of the emergence of the so-called Islamic State in the region, the international community, in particular the US, lost interest in resolving the Middle Eastern conflict. The moving of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in May 2018, was a blow to the Palestinians. But what’s the worst, is the loss of Israeli trust to the Palestinians, especially the fact that the idea of a two-state solution has been questioned in Israel. The partial success that the Palestinians achieved by obtaining the status of an observer in the United Nations in 2012 does not balance the losses that the 2011–2018 period brought to the Palestinian cause. There are many indications that the Palestinian National Authority is at a crossroad, on the eve of changes that will have to take into account the changes that have taken place in recent years.
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Social, political and economic changes have taken place both in Israel and the Middle East in the last decade. Also the scope and character of great powers’ engagement in this region have evolved. The aim of this paper is to determine if Israel’s environment transformation from 2011 is significant enough to induce a major change in the Middle Eastern strategy of this state. In the first part, the main new determinants (on national and international level) of the Israeli foreign policy are depicted. In the second part, the key features of this policy in the recent years are analysed. The analysis focuses on: 1. combating threats to the national security, 2. cooperation with the regional actors, 3. reacting and inlfuencing great powers’ actions in the region.
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Mordechai Anielewicz is known as the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. However, a re-examination of documents and testimonies raises significant questions about Anielewicz’s role and authority in the Jewish Fighting Organization. Based on a careful reading of these sources, the author of the article places Anielewicz in a broad historical context and sheds light on the methods of the ŻOB both before and during the uprising, thus enabling a renewed and indepth assessment of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto.
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The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out on April 19, 1943 when the German forces entered the ghetto to liquidate it. It was the most wide-ranging, extended and most famous Jewish resistance in occupied Europe during the Holocaust. Studies have already shown that although the Jewish undergrounds had a major part in it, the Jewish population in the ghetto that was hiding in the bunkers also had an important part in this Uprising. Women took part in both of them. As female fighters in the Jewish Undergrounds, the ŻOB (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa) and the ŻZW (Żydowski Związek Wojskowy), women fired guns, threw bombs, stood guard and linked battle positions. Doing that, they crossed the boundaries of gender and fought like the men did. Women hid in bunkers and fought for the lives of those close to them, first and foremost children, and for their own lives. This article examines the life and death of women in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Uprising, and the impact their participation in the Uprising had on their status and roles as women. The article looks at three aspects in the lives of Jewish women in the Warsaw Ghetto in three aspects. First, as female fighters in the underground, who participated in battles and carried out the same roles as the men. Second, as mothers who struggled to protect their children’s lives and to tend to their physical and mental needs. Third, as daughters, girls and young women, who stood at the forefront of the struggle to save their families and survive. Yet, as the article shows, during those 27 horrible days, women kept their traditional roles as women, and existing gender boundaries remained. The combination between their inherent inferiority as women in a patriarchal society and the total destruction of the ghetto and the displays of brutality by the Germans degraded them to the abyss in the struggle to maintain a human image, certainly to stay alive. In all matters, the traditional division of sex roles remained solid. Their methods of coping and expressions of resistance did not blur the boundaries of gender.
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This article focuses on a cluster of institutions rooted in Polish rural life that were co-opted by German authorities into the lowest level of rule in occupied Poland from 1939–1945. It identifies these institutions as key meso-level structures that shaped the behavior of individuals on the ground. Specifically, it places the axis of analysis on the figure of the village head (sołtys). It argues that the village security system, combined with the introduction of collective responsibility and imminent violence, was at the heart of a process of community-making, in which village heads inescapably played an important role. In this new dynamic of accountability, notions of “community” and “belonging” evolved relative to notions of “security” and “self-preservation” in the changing circumstances of life under occupation. The reimagined community forged in this wartime crucible was one of transformed identities, ingrained ethnic categories, new lines of solidarity, and new antagonisms. A collective biographical approach to village heads in this period culminates in the collective ethical dilemma as a category of historical analysis. The article draws primarily on testimonies found in postwar August Decree trials of individuals tried for collaboration in historic Western Galicia or District Krakow of the General Government. It employs a thick description of the subject to map personal narratives onto the broader social processes under examination.
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The letters and dispatches featured here were sent by members of the Jewish underground to their comrades and allies outside of occupied Poland. They offer valuable insight into the history of the Jewish underground from June 1943 to March 1944. The letters and dispatches were sent on behalf of the Jewish National Committee, which coordinated the activities of various organizations, as well as by activists of specific political movements. The correspondence is currently stored in various archival collections, and the common theme among the published documents is the effort to seek rescue for Jews who survived the second phase of the Holocaust. The author discusses the escapes from occupied Poland through Slovakia and Hungary and on to Mandate Palestine in the introduction as one of the rescue methods, accessible only to a few Jews.
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The author analyzes a testimony submitted to the Central Jewish Historical Commission just after the war by Józef Ubfal, who before the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising worked at a metal products factory at Bonifraterska St. 11/13, owned by Ivar Holger Mikkelsen. Ubfal recalls not only the fate of those who were on the premises of this factory in April 1943, but also the hitherto unknown attempt by a Danish citizen to save some Warsaw Jews. Mikkelsen, a pre-war businessman married Helena, née Zuckerwar during the occupation, made efforts to save his relatives, friends, as well as Jews employed at the factory he had taken over, including the Ubfal family.
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The article focuses on the presence of music in the commemoration of the various anniversaries of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The author creates the category of “musical commemoration” through which she describes the ways, strategies, and forms that both composers and those responsible for the construction of the program have adopted and are adopting. Describing the repertoire of anniversary concerts and celebrations, she also outlines the historical and political changes that are also noticeable in the choice of compositions and the nature of the events. It also addresses the subject of new works commissioned by various artists and their role, importance and relevance to the commemoration of the fighting in the uprising. The article seeks to explain why the role of music during the celebration so crucial, and what content the organizers’ repertoire choices is may carry.
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Review of: More than Parcels. Wartime Aid for Jews in Nazi-Era Camps and Ghettos, red. Jan Láníček, Jan Lambertz, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2022, 367 s.
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