Poland appears to have pioneered postmodern anti-Semitism, an anti-Semitism without Jews.

Witold Pilecki - Jews and Poles

This Polish Army officer volunteered to go to Auschwitz to help organise the prisoners and bear witness to what was taking place.

He remained there for several years before escaping, but continued to advocate action to free all inmates.

The story of Jews in Poland is long and complex, simplistic articles like the one above do not do it justice.

Am I alone in thinking that comparing a meeting with a pogrom shows little understanding of the latter?

With respect, action is generally preceded by words.

People who've been paying attention the past few years will have noticed an alarming increase in anti-Jewish rhetoric. Similarly the statistical data regarding actual attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions is anything but reassuring. In my state alone attacks and vandalism have soared. In Europe, obviously Jewish people have been violently attacked. I can provide plenty of detail if you're interested.

We've seen this in the past and history will show where it leads.

There is ample reason to fear.

This has nothing to do with the obvious efforts of modern Poles to reach out to the Jewish community nor does it diminish in any way the heroism of the Polish Underground in WWII, nor the courage of individual Poles who helped Jewish people escape the Holocaust.

Surely we can point out modern antisemitism without being accused of conflating rhetoric with pogroms? And surely it's obvious that the one has historically led to the other?

Meanwhile I think it's crucially important to understand history and the attacks on Holocaust survivors are part of that history. This is particularly sensitive in view of the Bevin government's policy of trying to force Holocaust survivors back to Europe, and in view of vicious Middle Eastern rhetoric, cartoons, TV and attacks on Jews both then and now. There is a direct link between modern events and recent history and when we start to see not only overlaps but repetitions of old patterns, we'd better pay attention.

Finally, anti-Jewish rhetoric is nearly always a sign that much is amiss with the world. Attacks on Jews, historically, usually mean some kind of social, political and economic stress and it bodes ill for all of us - not just Jews. Connect the dots: the world needs to pay close attention right now to environmental stress if not outright catastrophe, to shortages and price-gouging in key resources and industries, and to O.T.T. rhetoric and violent identity politics: if we're not careful we will see the delicate balance of our economic and socio-political systems completely undone and great harm will ensue.

Sophia, first let me thank you for your respectful and considered response, you raise several interesting points.

Action is often preceded by words but sometimes dialogue can prevent a situation being escalated.

I am new to this site and am not aware of your state, but it is not obvious that in Europe Jewish people are being violently attacked, in fact so many Jewish people in Europe are integrated that it is not possible to identify them as Jewish, or distinguish them from other citizens.

I would also politely disagree that there is reason, let alone ample reason, for Jewish citizens in Europe to experience fear for their safety.

That said, there is every reason to point out anti-semitism but one of my issues with the Haaretz article is that this group should not be considered representative of all Poles.

"The kikes will not continue to spit on us." quotation is strange as Poles do not use the word "kike" and so it is unlikely to be seen on a poster or flyer. The reference to spitting could be related to reports of Christians and Christian symbols being spat upon in the Holy Land/Israel (Haaretz, Nov 15, 2007 - Amiram Barkat).

This spitting was condemned as “a huge disgrace.” by Shmuel Evytar and I am certain that Christians would not consider this activity in is in any way representative of the attitude of the Jewish community in Israel or elsewhere.

My attempt to point out that it is incongruous to compare a church meeting with a pogrom was only an effort to keep a sense of context as I would hope to see with the spitting mentioned above. Neither incident should be allowed to sour relations between communities if they really are the actions of a minority of extremists.

Understanding history is vital, But I am not certain how this involves attacks on Holocaust survivors, the reference made to the Bevin government or Middle eastern rhetoric. Could you expand upon these topics?

With regard to the history of Jews in Poland, they were welcomed for many centuries and prospered so well they became the largest Jewish community in Europe. This is difficult to reconcile with a feeling of anti-semitism, especially as many non-Jewish groups were also criticised, at least according to the article.

Jan Jensen,

First let me say I agree with you that dialogue can prevent damaging action.

I also don't think that the Ha'aretz article meant to condemn all Poles or to stereotype - not at all! - Ha'aretz has published many articles about growing cooperation between Israel and modern Poland. We all appreciate and respect both German and Polish outreach with respect to the Jewish community and have great hope for the future.

But - the article and peoples' response to it does reflect a deep-seated fear, growing from increasing numbers of attacks, by increasingly brutal rhetoric and more and more open antisemitism even in the respectable press, that the cycle of judenhass is beginning once again.

People are afraid, and not without reason. There is simply no reason NOT to be afraid. As I said above, we've seen this before. I'll bet there is not a Jew alive today, in Israel or in the Diaspora, whose family hasn't suffered some kind of loss in the last 100 years and many of us have lost entire families, to pogrom, war, terrorism, in the Soviet Union, or to the Shoah - or all of the above. Our raw numbers are approximately two million people LESS than in 1930. So this isn't an abstraction to us.

And, with respect I agree the spitting incidents, however rare, are wrong and disgraceful and an embarrassment to all of us. However, the history is completely different here. Christian theocracy continues to stress, in spite of some progress, that Jews are inferior, even damned, and have been replaced in G*d's grace by Christians; and Jews continue to identify Christian symbols with centuries of very real persecution. This is not to excuse the behavior of these individuals, but the context must be acknowledged. There is also the simple fact of ongoing incitement from groups like Sabeel and the Latin patriarch in Jerusalem, who is as much a Palestinian nationalist as a religious figure.

The concentration of state and Christian church power has bedeviled Jews since the days of Rome and many bitter chapters have been written into THAT long book: the expulsion from Spain, from Portugal, from France, from England, from the German kingdoms; the Inquisition, the expulsion from Britain, blood libels, pogroms -

Thus, the verbal assault on Jews in Poland, which was the site of the worst death camps in the Nazi machine, as well as attacks on Holocaust survivors, is not in the same order of magnitude pyschologically or historically, I think, as the incidents you mention. I'm sure you can see the distinction, upon reflection, especially as it resonates within the Jewish community but also, as to how the incitement from the pulpit might resonate within the European community and throughout the international community, given the historical record. We HOPE that it's a meaningless statement by an extremist but we worry that it isn't, that it's yet another in a growing array of Bad Signs.

As far as danger to Jews in Europe is concerned - please study the statistics. The UN is one reliable source but there are others including the US State Department, and organizations in Britain also keep their own records. It may seem safe to you but to the Jewish community, it seems increasingly dangerous. It's the topic of a lot of discussion.

Attacks on Jewish people and institutions haven't reached 19th or 20th century standards, thank heavens, but it's soared sharply upwards even in Britain and France. Sometimes we fear the primary reason it isn't worse in Eastern Europe is due to the fact that most Eastern European Jews are dead. I am sorry to be so blunt but there it is: real fear. So when we hear comments attacking us, or see vandalized graveyards or swastikas on Jewish institutions, or read about Jews who've been attacked for wearing kippa, we shudder.

Jewish institutions and businesses, where there are any, require 24/7 security (in Europe) and there are often separate security protocols in place at airports, etc, for Jewish travellers. Jews who are obviously Jewish have been attacked, there are several recent incidents on record and there are also, on record, disturbing accounts of rising antisemitism in the Ukraine - again, in a region where there USED to be lots of Jews, and again, which is a graveyard for millions.

I think it's best not to whitewash Jewish history, or rather should I say, European history with regard to Jews. With respect there did indeed used to lots of Jews in Poland but they were frequent objects of attack and religious bias; they were subject to separate laws and different treatment at various times - of course this is also true of Poland itself, which has suffered terribly too.

But vis a vis the Jews, mistreatment persisted even after the Holocaust, which was the topic of Gross' book, the publication of which sparked the verbal assault on Jews in the Polish church. And indeed the very success of some Jews was cause for envy - I know; I have German and Polish in-laws - I've heard earfuls - and - the relationship between Polish people and the Jewish community was hardly a simple one although as you point out it was often peaceful and harmonious. But I've actually heard my in-laws excuse the brutalization of Jews based on the fact that "the Jews had all the money" (a canard in itself actually).

Finally, the Bevin government's treatment of Holocaust survivors is shameful and is part of this record. The fact that Bevin acted as he did in view of the Holocaust and the bitterness and anger that persisted in Europe against the survivors, makes the actions of the British government toward the survivors, and toward the Jewish community in the Middle East, all the more shocking. Please read about this if you aren't acquainted with the history; I apologize if in fact you have studied this but judging from your comment perhaps it didn't reach your heart yet.

As to my state, I'm in the US, where indeed we are seeing increasing and increasingly open verbal attacks on Jews. There have also been actual attacks and severe cases of vandalism; I have seen several chilling examples in my own neighborhood and am acquainted with religious Jews who've been hassled on the street. Statistically Jews are by far more likely to be victims of hate crimes than any other religious group though of course white vs black racism is exponentially a worse problem, endemic and proving to be difficult to surmount - to our great shame here in America.

Nevertheless I am hopeful that someday this racism will disappear and all Americans will truly be equals in fact as well as before the law. But antisemitism is so old, so universal - even where there aren't any Jews - like Malaysia; unfortunately it is reinforced even now from the pulpit and by top academics and national leaders - and persists even where there are no longer any Jews - it's so completely irrational - that I despair of ever seeing it truly understood let alone, truly vanquished.

Gross's book documents an incident that occurred in the town of Kielce wherein forty Jewish citizens were murdered, were slaughtered, by Poles, roughly one year after the end of WWII, on July 4, 1946. Previously (an earlier book) he documented a similar, though still single incident of limited scope (i.e. nothing like the Katyn massacre) in the town of Jedwabne, Poland. To underscore the limited quality of what Gross leverages, Gross himself sites the figures presented by other historians' estimates of the total number of Jews killed by Poles after the war as being between 600 and 1,500. As this reviewer puts it, Gross "doesn’t take into consideration that many of these murders could have been of a criminal rather than of an ethnic nature, a phenomenon not uncommon for societies that are emerging from the chaos of war." Then adding, "Gross’ crime-followed-by-fear explanation is at best a hypothesis that warrants further examination, one which could eventually serve as part of a larger interpretative puzzle."

From the two incidents and limited estimates he acknowledges, Gross begins to cut a much wider swath, virtually indicting all of Poland. He is not as excessive with his rhetoric and leveragings as Goldhagen was in relation to all Germans, nonetheless (and despite the fact that excessiveness, when it comes to the holocaust, is in some ways understandable) Gross overly leverages his data, his historical information.

There are other factors as well, for example when the Russains invaded Poland from the east (one month after the Molotov/Ribbentrop Pact was executed), many, many leftist oriented Polish Jews positively and enthusiastically welcomed the Soviet Russian invaders. Those Soviet invaders transported well over a million Poles to Russian prisons and gulags, they exterminated many, many Poles, they in fact committed the Katyn massacre and similar acts (Kalinin, several others), including similar acts on Russian territory among those million-plus Poles who were transported.

There is the fact, already alluded to in general terms, that Poles are represented in Vad Yashim more than are any other national group.

A further, two paragraph excerpt from the review cited above highlights a certain contrast, one that illuminates Gross's method and analysis:

"At the outset of his book, Gross clearly states that 'the nature of prejudice is to make unwarranted totalizing claims, whereas understanding advances through elucidation of careful distinctions.' In his analysis, he makes much needed and careful distinctions when writing about the behavior of people of Jewish origin. Gross indicates, for example, that highly placed Jews in communist security services were 'second to none in cruelly abusing their prisoners.' He does not object to their being described as 'instrumental in imposing communism on Polish society after the war-a fine proposition, provided that "they" signifies "zealous Communist apparatchiks," not "Jews," and that ethnicity does not factor into the equation.' Gross is also careful not to confuse instances of violent behavior with some sort of obsessive hatred. When judging the cruel actions of these communist secret-police officials, who happened to be Jewish, Gross writes: 'Frankly, there is not much to say in direct reply except that these were bad people.'

"Gross unfortunately does not make the same analytical effort when examining the behavior of non-Jews. A small minority of Poles violently killed returning Jews is, in Gross’ eye, a warrant to write about all Poles being anti-Semitic. 'What stands out on this gruesome occasion' of the Kielce pogrom 'is the widely shared sense in Polish society that getting rid of Jews, by killing them if necessary, was permissible.' On the same page, Gross describes a casual conversation between a Polish policeman and a truck driver in which the latter agrees to transport a Jewish woman and her child to be murdered: 'The only thing that matters is that [the conversation] could have taken place, indeed that it did take place, and that it was a completely comprehensible exchange between strangers in Poland in Anno Domini 1946.' To make such totalizing statements is simply unfair to the vast majority of Poles who did not participate in violence against Jews."

To say the least, drawing fine distinctions in one case while foregoing such distinctions in the other case (indeed, leveraging specific and more limited examples across the wider Polish population), does not reflect a more conscientiously applied method of interpretation. It's a far more complex and multi-sided set of issues - historically, socially, nationally/internatonally, ethnically and otherwise - than Gross is representing. On one level, it's entirely understandable, but from the standpoint of a more self-critical scholarship and related points of view Gross is too selective with his conscientiousness.

Cf., imagine a sociologist (which apparently Gross is, rather than a historian) taking the much larger example of Jews who were saved by Poles during Hitler's war and extermination program (and who did so at the risk of their own lives) and using that data to suggest all Poles were equally righteous and that therefore there was a pervasive philosemitism in Poland - rather than the opposite leveraging which Gross promotes.

I came here by accident and I realize it's been a long time that the article has been posted but let me just add my two cents. In this case Haaretz misrepresented the incident. "Local residents were informed of the service by posters that proclaimed: "The kikes will not continue to spit on us."" Those words were not printed on the posters. They were hand-written on one (several?) of them by somebody. In other words it was an anonymous graffiti added to posters that were already printed and displayed on the streets. This is what Gazeta Wyborcza reported and the Haaretz article was largely based on their material. Also, (for what it is worth) Wolniewicz corrected himself and said that he meant a certain group of American Jews. This is not to say that there are no anti-Semites in those circles, but I found Haaretz title rather misleading.

Well I live in Krakow and for the last three years Kazimierz. I don't think the general feeling in Poland is one of Antisemitism. I think you will find bigots anywhere in the world. And that the average Pole feels that what happened during WWII to the Jews was a tragedy. I recommend www.krakow-poland.com for an interesting article on the Jewish Ghetto in Krakow.