Poland’s tiny Jewish community is deeply concerned with resurgent anti-Semitism, even as momentous political change is taking place, an expert on Eastern Europe reported here this week.
Dr. Lukasz Hirszowicz, of the London-based Institute for Jewish Affairs, said the democratic changes in Poland have had no effect on rightwing groups, which are “heirs to the anti-Jewish tradition of Polish politics.”
What worries Polish Jewry, according to Hirszowicz, is not the anti-Semitism alone, but that it has been met by silence from the Polish Communist Party and its affiliates.
Anti-Semitic propaganda is being disseminated in complete freedom all over the country, without a word of criticism from the Communists, he said.
Hirszowicz cited what he called the “unusually strong language for a Polish Jewish newspaper” in recent editions of Folks-sztyme, Poland’s Jewish weekly.
Its Oct. 20 edition stated, “This year’s High Holidays in Warsaw passed with Jews in a depressed mood, due to rising anti-Semitic incitement throughout the country — a result of the Jew-hating oration of Poland’s Cardinal Glemp.
“Everywhere, in shopping lines, on trams and buses, and at tenants’ meetings, anti-Jewish slander accusing the Jews of guilt for all Poland’s calamities is being spread,” Folks-sztyme reported.
According to Hirszowicz, the one positive note is that leading Solidarity figures protested against Glemp’s homily.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
