Genealogy / I have Jewish DNA, but only know of Polish ancestry . [120]


Not one name sounds Jewish to me. Your Jewish ancestors, if there were any, probably converted and then changed their names to keep you from finding out about your roots.

History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]


Definitely trolling. Every now and then, when things get quiet on PF, someone tries to start an argument by bringing in the anti-semitism issue. I don't see anything new or interesting in this discussion.

If someone has anything original to say about Polish-Jewish relations, I'd like to hear it. For example, how about the portrayal of Jews in Polish literature, and of Poles in Jewish literature? The cultural identity of Jews in pre-war Poland (polish / german / russian / lithuanian influences etc), Jews in the Polish army and in the 19th century rebellions, Jewish participation in the Polish films industry, influence of Polish nationalism on Jewish nationalism (zionism). There are a lot of good topics to discuss, but the trolls just want to rehash the old boring arguments.

News / Does Poland support the idea of Slavic unity? [142]


Pay up!

News / Poland fines singer for bashing Bible [159]


Couldnt resist the chance to put The Jews in this discussion, could you?
For the record, I find it surprising that she should be fined for saying that she doesn't believe in the Bible. Is that a crime in Poland? You don't believe in the bible and no one bothers you. If you believed in it, you would know who was "chosen".

News / A devestating verdict on the Polish church [279]


In other words, you're saying that we only let them have restaurants while we set up the trains to ship them off to extermination camps? That's the conclusion your ridiculous analogy leads to. No. They are simply not starving. There is no shortage of goods in the West Bank. Their economy has grown about 7% lately. In Gaza the situation is not good, but still there is plenty of food to eat. If not for Hamas, they'd be in the same situation as the west bank. For more information about the economic situation in the palestinian territories, try this link:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Palestinian_territories

News / A devestating verdict on the Polish church [279]


Stupid comment. The persecution of christians is common all over the Muslim world, not just in the palestinian areas. Did the iraqi muslims bomb that church out of solidarity with the palestinians?

blogs.news.sky.com/foreignmatters/Post:589c662c-561b-4078-80cd-939232efc60d

And for your "starving" palestinians, here's a list of restaurants in Ramallah they might want to try.

paltour.net/palestine-tourist-services/palestine-restaurants/restaurants-in-ramallah/187.php

News / A devestating verdict on the Polish church [279]


Ethnically they are Arabs, so they try to be as "palestinian" as their muslim neighbors. But the palestinian national movement is increasingly dominated by the muslims. In the past they had a bigger role but they've been overpowered.


I'd love to call you anti semite if i thought you were, but what did you say that was supposed to offend me?


Long story. Sure we're cousins, but there's a big quarrel over who gets the family estate.


Giving them territory won't finish the dispute. As our outspoken foreign minister said, even if we give them Tel Aviv, they won't call an end to the dispute. They already control most of the west bank and all of Gaza. The dispute defines them as a nation. Without it, they'd just be arabs, no different than syrians or jordanians.

News / A devestating verdict on the Polish church [279]


He wouldn't find that very pleasant. The arab christian population is gradually leaving the palestinian controlled areas because they are bullied by the Muslims, especially in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

News / A devestating verdict on the Polish church [279]

All your quotes are from the New testament. Not my bible. You'd have to ask a christian about that. In the Jewish Bible Lot isn't referred to as righteous.

By the way, while we're on this topic, notice that Noah got drunk and was molested by his son Ham after the flood, and Lot was made drunk by his daughters and then molested (for lack of a better word) after the destruction of Sodom. Apparently the trauma of seeing the world destroyed led to screwed up behavior in some people.

News / A devestating verdict on the Polish church [279]


Point of information:
Lot was not the ancestor of the Jews. He was the ancestor of the nations of Moab and Ammon. His uncle Abraham was the ancestor of the Jews and several other nations.

And by the way, as far as the discussion of biblical morality, the Bible gives no indication that Lot was a role model for anything. He was just Abraham's nephew who was always getting into trouble.

History / Poles should emulate Jews? [153]

I was waiting to see where this discussion is going, before I jump in, but it's not going anywhere. People are just repeating their opinions for or against "The Jews". Nothing interesting yet.

Polonius, what reactions did you expect from your idea?

History / Ghetto Uprising better known than Warsaw Uprising? [111]


I reserve the right to be unreasonable, argumentative and one-sided just like anyone else.

Genealogy / Funny Polish surnames [64]


Excuse me? Hebrew is not a Jewish language?

History / Ghetto Uprising better known than Warsaw Uprising? [111]


There's no question that after the war Jews emphasized the heroic uprisings, (Warsaw, Kovno, Vilna, Sobibor, Treblinka, bands in the forests) rather than the masses that were killed with almost no physical resistance. It arouses pride and it's easy to explain. But was Janosz Korchak less of a hero than Mordechai Anilevitch? Was a father who stayed with his terrified kids instead of escaping the ghetto a coward? Can you say that the Jews from Hungary, who when they came out of the cattle trains were already inside the gates of Birkenau and were gassed within hours, were cowards for not organizing resistance within hours? So the real measure of heroism or cowardice is not so simple. I'm sure that many of the Poles who were murdered didn't die with a rifle in their hand either. Maybe that's why Poles emphasize the Warsaw uprising. Everyone wants to look like a hero.

Genealogy / Is your line of the Polish family noble? [74]


Ha! Shimon Peres was born in Poland.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]


Now I've learned about this artist who i didn't know. Thanks.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]


I never heard of this artist, although I did read the Ringelblum diaries. I'm not aware of any exhibits here in Israel but I see there's an exhibit in Warsaw: jewishinstitute.org.pl/en/wystawy/czasowe/5.html

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]


They didn't tell me.


We're causing a diplomatic row?! Turkey sends 6 boats with anti-Israel activists to break our blockade of terrorist-ruled Gaza and their prime minister curses us day after day, and we're the ones starting a row? We should have sent home the Turkish ambassador, not the other way around. We only did not do it because we know that the Turkish army and many of it s citizens are friendly to israel. We don't want to break off relations with a country just because they happen to have a stupid prime minister right now who wants to use tensions with israel as a political tactic. This is all part of Erdogan's move away from Europe and toward the Arab world. He didn't do all this because of the flotilla or any concern for human rights.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]


I remember you asked me that and I had never heard that word. But now that you mention that in Fiddler the rabbi says it and the people repeat it, I now realize what you mean. The word is "umain". That's "Amen", which is what you answer to a blessing. ("So be it.")

The Jews from Galicia and Hungary pronounce it "Umain". Jews from Lithuania pronounce it "Omain". Sefaradi Jews and Israelis say "Ahmen."

Another mystery cleared up.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]


Well done.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]


A few technical corrections:
B'ezrat Hashem is Hebrew, not Yiddish. It means "with G-d's help".

The word Hashem means literally "the name" and it refers to G-d whose name we don't say or write. It has nothing to do with Shem the son of Noah.

Hebrew is close to Arabic, but Yiddish, which is based on German, has nothing to do with Arabic. It uses Hebrew loan words but is not a semitic language at all.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]


They don't impact at all on religious freedoms. People here can follow whatever religion they like. Likud is politically center-right, but it includes both religious and secular people.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]

It's not clear what the conditions are. It would include repentance for having done idol-worship. Since we haven't touched the stuff since ancient times, I think that's been fulfilled. I think the main condition is that as soon as the geo-political situation made it possible for us to return en masse, we did.

I am also Orthodox. Most of the Orthodox groups that opposed zionism before the war changed their minds since then. Now it's a very small minority that opposes it actively. Their reasons are totally religious and have nothing to do with anyone's human rights. They see the zionist movement as a rebellion against the exile decreed by G-d. They have no doubt about our eventual right to the land, but they want to keep it in the realm of a supernatural messianic age. In my eyes, they are like a hostage who has been imprisoned so long that he is afraid to leave captivity and believes he is meant to stay like that.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]


I'll oblige.


I don't think you're anti-semitic. I think you have very superficial knowledge about Jews, our history and you get most of your information about Israel from biased sources. You have a lot of assumptions about jews that are based on stereotypes. To be fair, I know very little about Scotland and its history, but then I don't give my opinions on Scottish affairs.


Why would G-d be against Zionism? His prophets predicted our return to Israel more than 2000 years ago.

History / Question about Warsaw Ghetto (shared building?) and Monument [29]

The Law Courts building had an entrance from the Aryan side on Ogrodowa Street, and for the Jewish side on Leszno Street. I've never seen a picture of it.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]


I have to correct you on the history. The word "Ashkenazi" in classical Hebrew simply means "German". The Ashkenazi Jews first formed a distinct identity in the rhineland in the early middle ages, and then spread to other parts of germany and france. In the late middle ages they started migrating Eastward to poland and later to Ukraine and Lithuania. The movement was from west to east until the 19th century when it reversed.

You can see this trend by looking at where the famous ashkenazi jewish scholars came from. Gershom Ben Yehuda was born in Metz in the 900s. A century later there was Rashi in Troyes and his grandchildren were the Tosafists who lived in Worms, Mainz and Speyer. (They were descendants of Jews who migrated from Italy and elsewhere.) Later scholars were in Rothenberg and Frankfurt. In the rennaissance period the big Jewish scholars were in Prague and German cities. You start hearing about big Polish and Lithuanian Jewish scholars in the 17th century. That's when the Hassidic movement was born. The greatest scholar of the 18th century was Elijah of Vilna. From then, the center of gravity for Jewish scholarship was Lithuania and Poland till WWII. During the 19th century Ashkenazim drifted to western europe the US and Palestine. The main centers of scholarship are now in Israel and the US, reflecting where most jews live.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]


Bachur in Hebrew means young man. (Bachura means young woman).
Maybe it made its way to Polish through Yiddish, where it is pronounced "Bochur".

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]


I suppose a Jew of this generation born in Poland could say that, but there aren't many of those living in Israel. There are more than a million people here who's ancestors came from Poland, but it would be extremely unusual for one of them to move from Israel to Poland. I've never heard of such a case. There's not a lot of violence in Israel despite the impression from the news, but if someone did find life here not to his taste, he would be more likely to move to the US, or western europe.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]


Maybe there was once, but I never heard of it.

this is making me hungry.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]


Bagels are not a Jewish food. Only in the US they think it's Jewish. In Israel it's looked at as an American food.


You are probably only familiar with Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, which is heavily influenced by Polish cuisine, but there are lots of different kinds of Jewish cuisine, and in Israel they all come together.


I don't know about real cross-cultural influence, but there is i think a mutual fascination, sometimes attraction and sometimes repulsion. Why am I on a Polish forum if I wasn't drawn somehow to Poland? Why are there Jewish style restaurants in Krakow?

But I think in the next generation or two the relationship will fade away – no love, no hate.