The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry..

WAR IN UKRAINE

he Holocaust of the European Jews, the sight is downright paralysing. As if everything had come to a standstill, Chapter 37 of the Book of Ezekiel no longer budges after the first two verses. No sinews are put back on the bones. No flesh grows over them. No spirit ascends into them. And one certainly does not notice that the final words of the prophecy have been fulfilled: „Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.”.

On the contrary; many - "embedded in the landscape of gallows" - seem to nod in agreement with Professor Barbara Engelking when she states: “As well lie among the dead, men laid low in the grave,” (Psalm 88, 6). Many undoubtedly also agreed when, accepting the 2018 St George's Medal, she spoke of her discovery that "evil is stronger than good", adding, "Holocaust research made me realise the futility of existence".

Professor Engelking's other words from the speech initially seem to suggest a way forward from the chilling past. "I contrast care with the recently popular memory that is historical, closed, focused on the past. Caring is alive and current. It belongs to the present." Nevertheless, the parsimonious explanation Engelking later offered about the nature of such caring nevertheless leads back to the past - specifically, to "andragogy", which means, in a way, instilling in adults the paralysing sight of eternally dry bones.

"I can't warn anyone, save anyone, bring anyone back to life."

* * *

A few months ago, Dara Horn - an American, professor of Jewish Studies and novelist - published a provocatively titled book, People Love Dead Jews, whose first words develop the title in a hardly surprising direction: "People love dead Jews. Living Jews, not so much". Written in a witty style that does not hide the author's indignation, Horn's book stigmatises the morbid institutionalised obsession with a universalised evil that renders the ethnicity and religion of the actual victims secondary to considerations of theodicy - rendering living Jews invisible.

Among the many telling examples given by Dara Horn are two from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. The first concerns how, in late 2017/18, the museum banned a young employee from wearing a kippah in public: "The museum's managing director told newspapers that a living Jew wearing a yarmulke could 'interfere' with the museum's 'independent position'. After six months, the museum finally relented, which seems quite a long time for the Anne Frank House to consider whether it is a good idea to force a Jew into hiding."

Horn then shares a story a year earlier, pointing not to unrelated incidents but to a mindset. The audioguide to the museum, in keeping with worldwide practice, included small icons of national flags for the languages that could be selected. So there was the flag of Japan next to the Japanese language button, the flag of Italy next to Italian, and so on. But visitors noticed one single exception - the Hebrew language selection was not accompanied by an Israeli flag. A climate of discomfort towards living Jews apparently caused the "erasure", as Horn put it.

Before I present a list of almost paint-by-numbers examples from contemporary Polish institutions, it is important to stress that the betrayal of Jews by liberal circles is by no means an anomaly. One could start earlier than with Theodor Herzl, but - as his most important biographer Jacques Kornberg explains - it was Herzl's acute disillusionment with the Viennese liberals that led to his "conversion" to Zionism.

Of course, it is usually right-wing anti-Semitism that gets the most media attention and is rightly condemned by political and church leaders, NGOs, etc. Examples: the ugly affair in Kalisz or the pile of rubble dumped by the All-Polish protesters in front of the Israeli embassy last June. But many people - myself included - are convinced that the 'left-liberal' antisemitism present in the Amsterdam museum, and especially the so-called empowered criticism of Israel (practised by, for example, Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party in the UK, the UN Commission of Inquiry, Amnesty International, intersectionalists - and the anti-Zionist left everywhere) is far more deserving of attention. Especially as it means that Israelis (half the world's Jews) face the miasma of a global delegitimisation campaign on the one hand and a genocidal, nuclear threat on the other.

Here are 'living Jews, not so much'. The irony becomes even more bitter when (as in Amsterdam) it applies to otherwise philosemitic institutions and circles.

* * *

It is a well-known fact that neither the Germans, nor the Russians, nor any other nation drills into the soul of the Poles as the Jews do. Or rather, it does not drill "With a small red lamp fastened to his forehead", as Miłosz put it in his poem " A Poor Christian Looks At The Ghetto".

There are many different ways in which Poles deal with this torment, to cite only the healthiest from a very long list: extensive historical research; the building of museums, etc., which has been intensified over the years; the organisation of events commemorating the fate of Jews during the occupation; grassroots campaigns to care for Jewish cemeteries, which involved as many as 10,000 volunteers in 2021. ; and countless conferences via Zoom during the pandemonium on topics such as shtetl commemoration, Catholic-Judaic dialogue, the longed-for advance of feminism in the rabbinate... Yet all this at a time when Israel is under threat of shelling. From Gaza, yes, but above all from Iran, a subject that barely exists in public discourse in Poland.

No, it's not quite the same as Campo di Fiori („and the crowds were laughing/on that beautiful Warsaw Sunday”) – but here, too, there is denial and neurosis. It may be a bit like my old friend who, when for whatever reason his old car broke down, he did one thing: he panically changed the oil, because that was the only thing he knew how to do. It could also be like the joke we all know about the man who, returning from a wild party, lost his keys somewhere, but nevertheless went to the lamp-post to look for them - because it is light out there.

After all, Israel, along with the Zionist movement that gave birth to the Jewish State, is forced into hiding in Poland. Jewry in general is reduced to the ghastly years of World War II, its anti-Semitic prelude in Poland - and its local anti-Semitic hiccups afterwards. Such tunnel vision removes contemporary Israel from view, from honest portrayal - which again brings to mind Milosz's poem: “I am afraid, so afraid of the guardian mole”.

* * *

The anecdotal evidence of Poland's fearful 'erasure' of Israel is overwhelming. It is best to start with fresh examples. In November 2021. The Jewish Historical Institute Association (ŻIH) awarded twenty-four small grants totalling almost 135,000 zloty. Most of the topics concerned the Holocaust, restoration of Jewish cemeteries, ghetto insurgents, etc. Each of these topics, it must be stressed, is worthy of praise in its own right.

The problem is that none of the 24 recipients of the grant intend to examine or portray the long-standing vibrant Zionist movement in Poland. And this despite the fact that two by far the most important events in Jewish history in recent centuries are, tragically, the Holocaust and, happily, the rise of modern Israel in the ancient Jewish homeland. The grants handed out by the Jewish Historical Institute put an invisibility cap on the latter.

As for POLIN, I will never forget a Warsaw lunch meeting with the doyenne of Israeli historians of Zionism. She had just toured POLIN and was shaking with anger, repeating to me that she could not believe that it paid so terribly little attention to Zionism. I later mentioned this to someone associated with the museum, to which he replied: "Whereas in the Polin exhibition there is too little about Zionism - there is also too little about every other subject. I have heard dozens of such complaints...". But one omission is not equal to another: to repeat, in the last millennium of Jewish history, the national Jewish revival has overshadowed every other event except the Shoah.

This line of thinking - which, although ubiquitous, is probably not always realised - is also manifested in POLIN's Jewish heritage education programme, whose declared mission is: "To protect memory and shape the future - this is the educational mission of the POLIN Museum, and at the same time the mission of the Jewish Cultural Heritage project. They are united by the belief that learning about the history of Polish Jews strengthens the historical awareness of Poles, Jews and Europeans because it is part of the history of Poland, Europe and the Jewish Diaspora."

It is, after all, also part of Israel's history. And the omission of this fact leads one to suspect that the term "Jews" in the previously mentioned set of three groups does not include Israelis at all.

Further on in the statement POLIN explains that "The aim of the project is to protect and popularise the heritage of Polish Jews through educational and cultural programmes, in line with the belief that learning about the rich and dramatic history of Polish Jews not only deepens knowledge but also teaches respect for people of different faiths and cultures, counteracts xenophobia, and prepares young people for life in today's diverse society".

The point is not that the belief in teaching respect for third parties is most often delusional (as, given the anti-Semitic attitudes of the progressive left in the UK and the US, many have recently had to admit). Rather, the point is that the passage ignores the fact that popularising the heritage of Polish Jews can, properly presented, foster healthy ties with Israel.

It is enough to add that the last six finalists for the POLIN 2021 Prize - and they are all very deserving indeed - are people concerned with the Holocaust and with preserving the memory of the shtetl. Only slightly different, though still glaringly uneven, is the case with the museum's new Legacy Gallery, where among the twenty-four figures depicted there is only one lone Zionist: David Ben-Gurion.

Numerus clausus would let more of them in. At the same time it should be stressed that the statement of Professor Barbara Engelking given to Tomasz Lis on television a few years ago - "Polish history is not a Swedish table from which we can choose only what suits us" - remains in the realm of wishful thinking.

The Polish Council of Christians and Jews (PRCHiŻ) is also reluctant to get involved in issues relating to Israel. Last May, the Council did not speak out when rockets fired from Gaza struck Israeli towns blindly. But when, only a month later, a pile of rubble was dumped in front of the Israeli Embassy in Warsaw, with the caption 'Here is your property', the Council strongly condemned it. And rightly so. But why was there no condemnation when Jewish civilians were bombed and killed?

Equally telling is the fact that the PRCHiZ includes several old church Protestants who take the position that God has renounced the biblical Covenant with the Jews - a position that is in sharp contradiction to Catholic doctrine since "Nostra Aetate" of 1965, and strongly reiterated in "Evangelii Gaudium" of 2013: "We take a very special look at the Jewish people, whose Covenant with God has never been revoked because „God does not repent of the gifts he makes, or of the calls he issues.” (Romans 11, 29)”.

Another thing is that the Evangelical Reformed Church is said to have a membership of just over 3,000, which (if this is really the case) can be put unkindly within the bounds of statistical error. However, one should suspect that the real number of its members is much smaller. Today in Poland the Evangelical-Reformed Church has only two active churches - in Warsaw and Zelów. And when, which rarely happens, I go to the church in Warsaw, I hardly ever see more than 70-80 people.

On the other hand, Polish evangelical Protestants (i.e. Baptists, Pentecostals, etc.) are not represented in the Council at all, despite the fact that - having about 70 thousand people in churches all over the country - they are incomparably more significant than the Evangelical-Reformed Protestants. The absence of evangelicals in PRCHiZ is all the more astonishing because, in keeping with evangelicalism worldwide, they are fervently pro-Israel. Yes, Protestants of the old churches also fervently focus on Israel - or more precisely, on Israel's sins. Indeed, the Evangelical Reformed Church in the USA (that is, the Presbyterian Church - to which I myself belong) supports the BDS [Boycott - Disinvestment - Sanctions] movement against Israel.

The membership of some and the non-inclusion of other Protestants therefore helps to understand why the PRCHiZ has not, for example, issued an appeal to the Polish authorities to condemn at EU and UN fora the actions of Hamas or the genocidal threats of Iran. And it helps to understand why the Jews to whom the Council addresses itself (or whom it imagines) sometimes seem to be "disembodied", or at least not living in Israel.

Another example is the Day of Judaism,10-20 January 2022. A specially honoured Jewish figure was Rabbi Akiva Eger (1761-1837) of Poznan. Yes, "the most important Talmudic scholar of his time". (Jody Myers), but a figure completely overshadowed in history by his students Elijahu Guttmacher and Tzvi Hirsh Kalisher of Torun. After all, these two rabbis laid the foundations of the Zionist movement and the Jewish State. Rabbi Eger, on the other hand, firmly rejected the Zionism of Rabbi Kaliszer, and so he cannot very well serve Polish-Israeli relations - although Rabbis Kaliszer and Guttmacher can serve them perfectly well.

Instead, traditionally and this year, the emphasis was on a better understanding of the spiritual roots of Christianity, inherent in Judaism detached from contemporary Israel. After all, living Jews - except, of course, for the well-known leaders of the Jewish community in Poland - are hardly needed for the reflection on Christian identity promoted by the Day of Judaism: "The initiative is intended to help Catholics discover the Judaic roots of Christianity, to deepen their awareness that, as John Paul II reminded us, the Jewish religion is not an external reality to Catholicism, but something internal."

There are more cases like this one, where otherwise philosemitic organisations or actions omit Israel. Take, for example, the website of "Otwarta Rzeczpospolita: Association Against Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia", where, regarding Israel, one can again read about the scandal in Kalisz and the wheelbarrow of rubble in front of the embassy. There is also an article about "Israel Sunday". (organised in... the Evangelical-Reformed Church in Warsaw) and the text 'A breakthrough for the LGBT community in Israel! Transgenderism has been removed from the list of diseases" - but there seems to be no call to oppose the campaign to delegitimise Israel, or to draw attention to Iran's actions.

The "Never Again" Association, whose publication "The Brown Book" monitors, among other things, manifestations of anti-Semitism, also shuns Israel. It is astonishing that "Never Again" boasts of its role in reissuing George Eliot's novel "Middlemarch", although her Zionist book "Daniel Deronda" (1876) has still not been published in Polish, which is a phenomenon among European languages. And this despite (because of?) the fact that "Daniel Deronda" was one of the most important sparks that ignited the first Zionist movement, the Chowewei Zion, in the early 1880s.

To conclude this brief list, last August I joined friends from Falenica who invited me to the anniversary of the liquidation of the local ghetto by the Nazis. A moving ceremony in a small square was followed by a long evening of reading from survivors' accounts. These were written down as part of the activities of the Israeli associations - once common organisations in Israel bringing together people who were united by their place of origin, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe. In the case of the Falenica survivors - Israelis from Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem - the testimonies read concerned, as one might expect, only what had happened during the occupation.

After the meeting, at a small reception several of the long-time organisers lamented that the event had become formulaic. But what else could be done if the formula was fixed? I suggested that we should show the hitherto overlooked post-war stories of many of the survivors from Falenica (Otwock, Józefów, etc.), tell how they started families and made a life for themselves in the newly formed Israel. I had the impression that the idea appealed.

* * *

So as not to be misunderstood, I stress once again that historical research, commemorating anniversaries, plaques in memory of places where synagogues once stood, cleaning up cemeteries, wearing daffodils, learning about Judaism - all this is worthy of the greatest respect. Not so, in my opinion, if it resembles the recent satire 'Don't Look Up', when it is accompanied by an anaesthesia towards the current threats against the same people - when one sees only 'dead Jews'.

Anti-Israelism is, of course, sometimes a significant variant of anti-Semitism, usually a sublimation of dislike and fear of Jews. This statement needs no special justification in a region of the world where the terms Zionism/Zionist were used by communist regimes as camouflage for anti-Semitism. Indeed, to this day the term Zionism is tainted in Poland, as I recently (and not for the first time) experienced in connection with a planned lecture in Silesia. I was asked to remove the word "Zionism" from the title of my presentation because "the word 'Zionism' evokes too Gomułka-like associations in academic circles, and besides, I myself do not want to evoke various ghouls"..

The available statistics are also significant in this respect. Recently, the "Action & Protection League" (allegedly "the most important organisation in Europe fighting anti-Semitism") conducted extensive research in 16 European countries. It showed that as many as 74% of Poles aged 18-75 express anti-Israelism, with Poles coming out slightly better only than Austrians - in their case the percentage is 76%.

The deep pessimism about negative attitudes towards Israel is therefore entirely justified, especially since anti-Israelism in Poland is "structural" (a word I use sparingly, and indeed I reject "structural racism" when referring to the US). After all, for several decades, the institutions here - from academia and publishing to museums to countless NGOs - have narrowed the subject matter for virtually everyone interested in Jewish affairs to the Holocaust and/or anti-Semitism. It is a well-known fact that these are the institutionally reigning topics almost indivisibly - and that other cultivated areas (e.g. the history of Zionism, contemporary Israel) can be searched in a waste bucket.

Moreover, there is a growing feeling that the above "innocent" for some, examples of left-liberal anti-Zionism in Poland are only the first swallows. These examples testify to the lack of real firewalls against the virulent anti-Zionism of the progressive West, whose demands in various areas are already contagious here.

* * *

I have never, ever been to any march in my life. It wasn't until last spring that this changed, when Polish evangelical Christian friends invited me to a demonstration in front of the Israeli embassy during the Gaza attacks.

The most poignant moment came when Pastor Edward Ćwierz urged the gathering to turn towards the embassy and chant in Hebrew: "Am Israel Chai!, Am Israel Chai!" - "The people of Israel are alive!". The contrast with the common approach in Poland, where one sees (well) only "dead Jews" - was a revelation.

It made me wonder anew when Ezekiel 37 after verse 2 would be unfrozen: “Will you doubt, then, the Lord’s power, when I open your graves and revive you? When I breathe my spirit into you, to give you life again, and bid you dwell at peace in your own land?”. When will we in Poland finally enjoy news such as the establishment of peaceful relations between Israel and the countries of the Arab world? The Abrahamic Accords, the joint military manoeuvres with the Emirates and Bahrain, the historic agreement with Jordan to exchange water in return for huge solar energy farms, the participation of a Palestinian Arab party in the current government... It seems to me that these landmark events have passed unnoticed.

When we learn from the press that: "It has been decided: Poland will move its embassy to Jerusalem"? Or: "The Polish government applies to Brussels to condemn Iran for producing enriched uranium", or "The POLIN Museum invites you to a new permanent exhibition on Zionism of Polish Jews". "Torun invites you to a festival named after Rabbi Kaliszer and to a newly opened chamber of memory dedicated to him".

Instead, we have a frozen look back at a valley full of dry bones. The contemplation of crime and the lost world overshadows the world of today. "We are ourselves only thanks to the memory of the past," wrote Jan Blonski exactly 35 years ago, tanatically deepening the ruts of the Polish "mentité". All the easier to erase living Jews. The harder it is to see happy breakthroughs in Israel - and the harder it is to see the forces that seek to destroy it.

– Philip Earl Steele
– Translated by Tomasz Krzyżanowski

The author is a historian, translator and publicist. He graduated from Boise State University and the University of Idaho. In the years 1992-2003, he lectured at the University of Warsaw. He has published, among others, in 'Gości Niedzielny', 'Więź', 'Przegląd Powszechny', 'International Political Review' and 'Znak'. He is the author of the book "The Conversion and Baptism of Mieszko I". He is an evangelical, living with his family in Poland.