Poland
World War II and the Impossibility of Polish HistoryWednesday, February 27, 2013 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Must any history of Poland in the Second World War therefore put the Jews and the Holocaust at the center? If it does not, is that originality or revisionism?
Speaking What Must Be SpokenThursday, February 14, 2013 by Diane Cole | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The sheer number of books on the Holocaust has long demanded a guide to Holocaust literature that would be as accessible as it was comprehensive and scholarly. Now we have one.
Raider of the Lost KnishWednesday, January 30, 2013 by Laura Silver | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
More than Hebrew School, a Torah scroll or the eternal light in the synagogue, the knish provided sanctuary. It encapsulated my identity: ethnic, funny, and grounded in the past.
Where Did the Gaon Go?Tuesday, December 18, 2012 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Eliyahu Stern's new book portrays the Vilna Gaon as Eastern Europe's Moses Mendelssohn. But can the ascetic, who backed the persecution of Hasidim, seriously be associated with individualism and democracy?
The Turning of the Torah TideTuesday, December 4, 2012 by Diana Muir Appelbaum | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
“Torah Judaism today retains more of its youth than at any time since the Haskalah.” Historian Marc Shapiro recently made this remark. Can he possibly be correct?
I. B. Singer’s Last LaughMonday, August 6, 2012 by David G. Roskies | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Like millions of his fellow immigrants to America, Isaac Bashevis Singer started over. In the beginning, he was a deadly serious Polish-Yiddish writer with world-literary ambitions.
Editors' Picks
Fallen Soldier Joseph Berger, New York Times. Boruch Spiegel, who was one of the last survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, escaped the Nazis via the sewers, only to return to the city to fight with Polish partisans a year later.
Warsaw: 70 Years On David Samuels, Tablet. "I was never so afraid as when I helped Jews," recalls Polish rescuer and statesman Władysław Bartoszewski. "Despite the fear, one has to do what has to be done. The right thing."
Bipolar Poland John Connelly, Nation. Historians of World War II have viewed Poland either as a nation of heroes or as a nation of collaborators. How can these two narratives be reconciled?
Communist Colluders Anne Applebaum, Jewish Chronicle. After World War II, East European Communist parties sought to burnish their image as nationalist patriots. How did they do it? Anti-Semitism, of course.
Poland’s Casualties of War Suzanne Rozdeba, Tablet. In Nazi-occupied Poland, Wladyslaw Gugla risked death as a Jew and a teacher of Slavic children. Protected by villagers, he survived—only to die from habits formed in hiding.
Who is an Arab Jew? Albert Memmi, Israel Academic Committee on the Middle East. “The much vaunted idyllic life of the Jews in Arab lands is a myth! The truth, since I am obliged to return to it, is that from the outset we were a minority in a hostile environment.” (1975)