(Jewish Group) In Krakow, Jews celebrate their communitys revival amid rising xenophobia

[Behind the Aegis]

(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)

KRAKOW, Poland — At one of Poland’s plushest synagogues, leaders of this city’s small but vibrant Jewish community welcomed visitors from around the world to a celebration of what the hosts call their minority’s “revival” in this country.

The occasion for the party Sunday at Tempel Synagogue was the 10th anniversary of the adjacent Jewish Community Center of Krakow, located in the heart of the city’s historic Jewish quarter, Kazimierz.

Since its opening in 2008, the three-story building, with its club for some 60 Holocaust survivors and newly opened Jewish kindergarten, has become a symbol for the return of Jewish community life to the city near Auschwitz, where the Nazis obliterated centuries of Jewish presence.

“As we have grown, we have also been able to share the story of Krakow’s Jewish revival with hundreds of thousands of visitors,” a beaming Jonathan Ornstein, the New York-born director of JCC Krakow, told the 200 people attending the anniversary party. “Thank you for letting me be a part of the bright, beautiful Jewish future we are building together.”

Many of Krakow’s hundreds of Jewish residents acknowledge the progress made since communism, which drove underground what little remained of its Jewish community. But not all of them share Ornstein’s optimism in a country whose nationalist government recently unleashed what critics say is one of the worst waves of anti-Semitic rhetoric in decades.

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Pictures I took in Krakow in October 2017.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. My husband and I went to Poland on our honeymoon in 1980.

He had family from that part of the world.

In the U.S., even fellow Jews didn't recognize him as one of them, and he'd long ago learned how to let them know.

In Krakow, as we wandered the streets, Jews would quite literally crawl out of the woodwork and approach him. They'd speak to him in English (and trust me, back in 1980 very few people in Poland spoke English) and when he looked shocked they'd say, "Aren't you Jewish? Aren't you American?"

Perhaps the most amazing thing (at least to me) was that I, an American of pure Irish extraction) was invisible. They knew I wasn't one of them and so I didn't count. They only spoke to him.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't resent that, but was simply astonished. It was a completely amazing example of like recognizing like.