The Polish Promised Land

Don’t thank me just yet, Diaspora Jews, but I took the liberty of scoping out a possible safe haven — given how inhospitable, and unlivable, many Western countries have become.

The reasons for my reconnaissance are obvious. Violent antisemitic street demonstrations. College campus anti-Israel unrest. A widespread disdain for the existence of a Jewish state. And a tacit acceptance that harming Jews — no matter where they reside — constitutes no crime so long as Palestinian “liberation” is the ostensible motive. 

Jews, everywhere, are thinking twice about making their presence known. Once-proud Jews have been forced into silence. Unworn Star of David necklaces and retired yarmulkes have piled up in cosmopolitan cities across the West. Dodger, Yankee, Maple Leaf and Manchester United caps, however, are suddenly in great demand.

Surely relocating must have crossed your mind. If you’re a French, British, Swedish, Spanish, Canadian or Belgian Jew, you’ve either already moved to Israel, or are investigating emigration options. Getting home each night and miraculously avoiding Muslim mobs who take their orders not from local authorities, but the Koran, requires a stiff drink — to celebrate another day of life.

L’chaim.

As for American Jews, now that the Harris-Walz ticket has triumphed, I have heard that nearly all delegates to the Democratic National Convention will be cloaked in keffiyeh scarves, cheering wildly when Kamala Harris proclaims a permanent ceasefire in Gaza as the most important issue facing the United States. 

So, here’s some good news: Poland might be the answer. Yes, Poland. Hard to fathom, given that it has historically been the worst nation to ensure Jewish survival. Now, with the world positively seething with rage against Israel, and holding global Jewry accountable, Poland, improbably, reveals itself as a promised land outside of Israel.  

Aside from being clean and beautiful, with friendly people and excellent food, here’s the great part: Antisemitism is barely visible. After spending a week in nearly all its major cities, I saw only one instance of Gaza graffiti, no pink-haired social-warrior antisemites screaming about an imaginary genocide, no Polish politician prepared to die on an anti-Israel hill, and no Muslims hunting down Jews because, well … Poland has so few of either.

Poland is certainly a nation without Muslims. During the Syrian Civil War, Poland refused to give sanctuary to escaping Muslims. Germany, England, France, Belgium and Sweden did, of course. The result 15 years later is very stark. Poland may be on the same continent with the rest of Europe, but its population resembles a different planet.

Diversity is not perceived as a national virtue. You won’t find many Asians or Africans. Poland’s government likes its citizenry to be white Catholic and native Poles. And they see no upside in providing a home for anti-Western, anti-Christian Islamists who wish to slit the throats of Polish infidels.

Poland has a dearth of Jews, too, largely because it is the landscape of so many dead Jews. Only 10,000 now live in the country. Many are converts to Judaism. There are probably thousands of others who, after the Holocaust, when Poland descended into the communist abyss, don’t even know they are Jewish. And there are those who choose not to check the religion/ethnicity box on the census. It’s all part of the tragedy of Poland — a tragedy most Poles don’t experience viscerally, or intellectually. 

Before the Holocaust, 3.2 million Jews lived in Poland — 90% of whom were killed in the ghettos, camps and killing fields. The Nazis claimed the lives of two-thirds of European Jewry. But Polish Jewry represented half of the Six Million. The Holocaust is mainly a Polish story: It’s where most of the Jews lived, and where the Nazis placed their death camps — designed, specifically, for Jews.

It’s unimaginable what Poland lost. Jews who either fled Poland before the Nazi invasion or somehow survived the Holocaust left their mark on world science, commerce and culture in unsurpassable ways. 

Five Nobel Prize winners: physicists Isidor Isaac Rabi and Tadeus Reichstein; economist Leonid Hurwicz; peace activist Joseph Rotblat; and novelist Isaac Bashevis Singer. The virtuoso musician Arthur Rubinstein. Cosmetics entrepreneurs Helena Rubinstein and Max Factor, Sr. (Faktorowicz). The film directors Roman Polanski and Agnieszka Holland. And the original Hollywood studio chiefs: the four Warner (Wonsal) Brothers, and Samuel Goldwyn (Gelbfisz) of MGM. 

Israel’s founding leaders were largely Polish Jews. 

That’s just a small sample. Who might have been among the 3 million murdered? Perhaps a scientist who cured cancer. The great books that would have been written, art created, and music composed. The world-changing technology that would have been launched.

The vastness of the loss, the eradication of all that possibility is truly staggering.

After the Warsaw Pact alliance toppled, some vestiges of Jewish life in Poland returned. The revival of the Nožyk Synagogue in Warsaw, and the Jewish Community Center in Krakow, were singular achievements. The latter hosts an annual Jewish Culture Festival. There are Shabbat dinners, community meetings, educational activities and Holocaust remembrances. Yet, the total number of Jews has not grown appreciably — especially since so many are converts from Poland, and not those who made a reverse aliyah back to the cradle of European Jewish civilization.

A tour guide blithely explained why the remnants of Polish Jewry left the motherland after the Holocaust: “They no longer had any friends in Poland.”

That’s only partly true. Yes, the vast majority of Polish Jews had been killed, but tens of thousands who had survived were not welcomed back by their Polish neighbors, who were unquestionably not their “friends.” Many had stolen the property of deported Jews with no intention of returning it, reasonably assuming that the Jews would never make it back from the dead. Some villages, most despicably Kielce, slaughtered their former neighbors, finishing the job the Germans had started.

Antisemitism is so pervasive among the Polish people that even while they fought valiantly against the Nazis, the one thing Poles had in common with their German occupiers was determination to rid Poland of its Jews. Many collaborated with the Germans and sold out their hidden neighbors for money.

Since the end of the Holocaust, Poland has engaged in a national project of delusional, magical thinking: Not the Jews, but Polish Catholics, were the primary victims of the Nazis; many Polish Jews were rescued by the good people of Poland; and Poles bear no responsibility at all for their neighbors vanishing. Indeed, a Polish law criminalizes the blaming of Poles for what happened on their soil.

All of this is obscene. The country is replete with such distortions of the historical record on Polish complicity. The one notable exception is Warsaw’s Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which accurately and sensitively curates the dark side of Poland’s relationship with its Jews.

In so many respects, Poland is the ideal destination for returning Jews. Given the rising tensions of Middle East politics, it is a nation that does not stigmatize Israel or glorify Palestinians. It has steadfastly refused to grant Islamists a foothold to instigate jihad. Besides, there is no one to radicalize. Polish Catholics are true believers. 

Don’t pack your bags just yet. There is no welcome home party awaiting your arrival. And that’s a shame. Poland would benefit enormously and could use the moral redemption.

Yet, Poland is a nation languishing in the bottom European quartile in both per capita GDP and educational attainment. Those deficits can all be remedied in a Jewish jiffy. 

But would the Poles want to boost their stock if it required a critical mass of Jews? They have scrupulously avoided terrorism. Naturally, Jews don’t bring jihad, but they apparently pose a different kind of danger — a deep-seated resentment — that Poles have repeatedly made clear they loathe just as much. 

Don’t pack your bags just yet. There is no welcome home party awaiting your arrival. And that’s a shame. Poland would benefit enormously and could use the moral redemption. And it is the one place where Jews have the most history outside of Israel.

Speaking of which, do you still need a reason for the existence of a Jewish state?

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled “Saving Free Speech … From Itself,” and his forthcoming book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Is Israel Fighting a Just War in Gaza?”