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Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present

In this provocative and insightful book, Joanna Beata Michlic interrogates the myth of the Jew as Poland's foremost internal “threatening other,” harmful to Poland, its people, and to all aspects of its national life. This is the first attempt to chart new theoretical directions in the study of Polish-Jewish relations in the wake of the controversy over Jan Gross’s book Neighbors. Michlic analyzes the nature and impact of anti-Jewish prejudices on modern Polish society and culture, tracing the history of the concept of the Jew as the threatening other and its role in the formation and development of modern Polish national identity based on the matrix of exclusivist ethnic nationalism.

In the late nineteenth century and throughout the greater part of the twentieth, exclusivist ethnic nationalism predominated over inclusive civic nationalism in Polish political culture and society. Only in the aftermath of the political transformation of 1989 has Polish civic nationalism gradually gained predominance. As civic nationalism has become more assertive, Polish scholars have begun to unearth and critically examine the legacies of Polish anti-Semitism and other anti-minority prejudices. Michlic conducted extensive research in Polish, British, and Israeli archives for this book. Poland’s Threatening Other contributes to modern Jewish and Polish history, the study of nationalism, and to a new school of critical inquiry into the nature of anti-Jewish prejudices.

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Yet another historical stereotype that passes for truth. And the truth is that if it weren't for Poland, the Jews would be extinct now. They were given safe heaven in Poland in late Middle Ages, when they were murdered or ousted by Western European states. They have been given the freedom of religion and political representation. There were no enmity for a couple of centuries, gradually more and more Jews stifled by rigid Jewish religion and tradition started to chose polonization as an escape way. This brought violent reaction in more traditionalistic religious and political Jewish strata and led to development of Poland as 'oppresor' image. As time went by and Poland started to desintegrate, traditional Jewry habitually sided with Poland enemies, especially in the time of partitions of Poland and tightly collaborated with occupying powers. That brought violent reaction from humiliated and despaired Poles, who started to develop the image of a Jew as a immoral and hostile parasite, greedy and concerned only with their own interest. There also went into equation a new economic factor, oftentime renegades both Polish and Jewish were paid for their 'services' with assets confiscated from freedom-fighting Polish nobility, who were exiled to Siberia and had their property confiscated. This way, the bad feelings on both sides deepened with time and both Polish and Jewish nationalism started to grow stronger and, despite some efforts on both sides, eventually led to open enmity on both sides. In present time, when for first time there is a ground for reconciliation, influential circles in US started again propaganda war by disseminating 'news' about 'Polish' concentration camps and book like 'Painted bird' (many people read the book and believed the author that it presents actual facts, but not many read the article in which he eventually admitted that he lied, presenting the book plot as actual events). And such 'news' bring again a new wave of resentment among Poles and the vicious circe is restarted again. On the other hand American Jewry keeps mum about French, who in fact herded Jews and sent them to Auschwitz and Treblinka as well as some other Western nations that did the same. They also keep mum about their own role in Holocaust - by refusing Hitler's offer to let Jews out of Nazi Germany in exchange for substantial amount of money as well as about Jewish renegades collaborating with Nazis.

Summing things up - both sides have a long litanies of misdeeds and prejudices, but on propaganda front there is virtually no Polish voice, all we see is Jewish part of the story, especially American Jewish part. Polish - Israeli relations are quite good as are relations between Poles and Jewish minority in Poland. The problem seems to be confined to American Jewish traditionalists, as the majority of problematic publications originates in USA and in institutions funded by US Jewry, which obviously has its own agenda and try to pass themselves as a representant of all Jews, which is not true. The Jewry is fragmented and polaried more then ever before, facing serious problems of identity end re-examinig its own history and values in rapidly changing world. The Israelis are now more concerned with abandoning the religion and Jewish identity by young generation, with Jews intermarrying with other nationalities and with more and more vocal revision of core Jewish ideology than with historical relations with non-Jews.

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