Resurrecting the Jew: Nationalism, Philosemitism, and Polands Jewish Revival

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An in-depth look at why non-Jewish Poles are trying to bring Jewish culture back to life in Poland today.

Since the early 2000s, Poland has experienced a remarkable Jewish revival, largely driven by non-Jewish Poles with a passionate new interest in all things Jewish. Klezmer music, Jewish-style restaurants, kosher vodka, and festivals of Jewish culture have become popular, while new museums, memorials, Jewish studies programs, and Holocaust research centres reflect soul-searching about Polish-Jewish relations before, during, and after the Holocaust. In Resurrecting the Jew, Genevive Zubrzycki examines this revival and asks what it means to try to bring Jewish culture back to life in a country where 3 million Jews were murdered and where only about 10,000 Jews now live.

Drawing on a decade of participant-observation in Jewish and Jewish-related organizations in Poland, a Birthright trip to Israel with young Polish Jews, and more than a hundred interviews with Jewish and non-Jewish Poles engaged in the Jewish revival, Resurrecting the Jew presents an in-depth look at Jewish life in Poland today. The book shows how the revival has been spurred by progressive Poles who want to break the association between Polishness and Catholicism, promote the idea of a multicultural Poland, and resist the Far Right government. The book also raises urgent questions, relevant far beyond Poland, about the limits of performative solidarity and empathetic forms of cultural appropriation.

Reviews

"[An] erudite and engaging book."---Sheldon Kirshner, Sheldon Kirshner Journal
"Extensively researched and clearly presented, Zubrzyzckis book is unique in awarding attention to issues of Jewishness in todays Poland through the perspectives of both non-Jews and Jews, and as filtered through the agendas both of Catholic nationalists and of those who seek to build a more diverse and inclusive society."---Howard Freedman, The Jewish News of Northern California

Author Bio

Genevive Zubrzycki is professor of sociology and faculty associate of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, where she also directs the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia. She is the author of The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland and Beheading the Saint: Nationalism, Religion, and Secularism in Quebec.