Rabbi Haim Beliak
Sometimes being a Jew demands living in at least two, maybe more historical dimensions all at the same time. The town names, the fleeing refugees in Europe, Holocaust memories, and an inspiring President Zelensky of Ukraine trigger many incongruities.
At this moment Putin’s attack on Ukraine and the brave defense by the Ukrainian forces vex all of us. The refugees fleeing to Poland hope that they will soon be able to return. Beit Polska is organizing to aid refugees.
Reflecting on this through a Jewish lens we see with “old eyes” that aspects of the past are resurfacing in the present. Dr. David Myers organized a forum of four outstanding scholars to help us reflect. As part of the forum, Eliyana Adler informs us there are deep resonances in seeing the struggling women carrying children from the landscapes that echo in Jewish history. Most of the exhausted refugees are not Jews but we have joined the ranks designated by Polish intellectual Adam Michnik: “We are all Ukrainians now.” Yet, we have mixed associations.
On March 20, 2022 we will discuss with Dr. Adler her groundbreaking study of Jews fleeing east into the wartime Soviet Union. One offshoot of the book is a primer for setting this moments conversation on refugees. “What’s in a Name? How Titles Construct and Convey Knowledge about Migrants”
Survival on the Margins: Polish Jewish Refugees in the Wartime Soviet Union tells the story of those who found refuge in the arctic regions of the Soviet Union; at a later stage some of those refugees found warmer climates in Uzbekistan and Kazakstan. Some even traversed from Iran to Palestine. But the vast majority came back to Poland and left almost immediately for the displaced person camps in Germany! The latter group made up the majority in the camps by 1946. One Ukrainian Progressive rabbi sheltering now in Warsaw pondered her fate remarking her reverse journey eighty years later to her grandparent’s Warsaw.
In this week’s essay, responding to the “easy analogy club” Dr. Adler writes “it is misleading to allow analogies and inherited trauma to distort understandings of the present conflict…. If we can learn from the past at all, let us focus on the care for refugees.
Be sure to read the opening chapter of the book in both English and Polish. Register for the conversation.
Friends of Jewish Renewal has a daily update on the aid we are extending. Help us to do more.
Leave a Reply