Beit Polska Blog

FOSTERING A VIBRANT RENEWAL OF JUDAISM IN POLAND

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Poland, a Green Land

By Leave a Comment Filed Under: Freighted Legacies

A Provocative Reflection on Aharon Appelfeld’s Novel

Posthumously, Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld (died 2018) released his final book in English translation this Spring 2023. The haunting, evocative writer of over forty books who acquired the Hebrew language late in life may have come full circle. This last book, Poland, A Green Land’s continuity with Appelfeld’s past writing, points to the confrontation of a second generation of Israeli Jews that grew up in an “Israeli” ethos of forgetting and being alienated from their European Jewish survivor generation (VIEW PDF).[…]

Perspectives for Our Time

By Leave a Comment Filed Under: Freighted Legacies

Marking the Polish Translation of Transcending Darkness: A Girl’s Journey Out of the Holocaust

A Conversation with author Estelle Glaser Laughlin

Estelle Glaser Laughlin is a child Holocaust survivor who was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1929. We are marking the Polish translation of her book Transcending Darkness: A Girl’s Journey Out of the Holocaust. This interview and other testimonies by Mrs. Laughlin will constitute a curriculum unit for Polish High school students.

In September 1939, Estelle’s family lived in Warsaw when Poland was attacked.. Along with her parents and sister, Freda, they were confined to the 1.3 square mile Ghetto area.[…]

In Solidarity With the Nation and State of Israel

By Leave a Comment Filed Under: Beit Polska News, In the World, Official Statements

Statement from October 8, 2023

Beit Polska The Union of Progressive Jewish Communities, together with the European and World Reform Movement, as part of the Jewish Family, stands in solidarity with the Nation and State of Israel.

The criminal attack by Hamas terrorists and the cruelty against Israeli civilians is a challenge not only to Israel.[…]

Wisdom and Unwavering Joy

By Leave a Comment Filed Under: Holidays, Sermons

Thoughts on Simchat Torah 5784

Why do we read the Book of Kohelet, the most ‘existentialist’ book of the Hebrew Bible, on Sukkot – the most joyous among the Jewish holidays? It seems to contradict the spirit of Sukkot! Did the rabbis want to put limits on our joy and happiness? Were they afraid that we might have become too happy? That’s exactly one of the (many) answers! Rabbi Azaryah Figo (1579-1647) in his Binah L’itim (published in Venice in 1648) connects the[…]

Mądrość i niezachwiana radość

By Leave a Comment Filed Under: Holidays, Polish Sermons

Refleksja na Simchat Tora 5784

Dlaczego czytamy Księgę Koheleta, najbardziej “egzystencjalistyczną” księgę Biblii hebrajskiej, w Sukkot – w najradośniejsze ze świąt żydowskich? Cz nie wydaje się to sprzeczne z duchem tego święta? Czyżby rabini chcieli ograniczyć naszą radość i szczęście? Czy obawiali się, że możemy stać się zbyt szczęśliwi? Taka jest dokładnie jedna z (wielu) odpowiedzi! Rabin Azaryah Figo (1579-1647) w swoim Binah L’itim (opublikowanym w Wenecji w 1648 r.) łączy lekturę Kohelet z radością Sukkot:[…]

The Meaning of Fasting

By Leave a Comment Filed Under: Holidays, Sermons

Kol Nidrei Sermon 5784

How much control did we have over the world when we were children? Very little. The whole process of growing up, learning and so called socialization is about gaining control over our own behavior and the close environment that surrounds us. Over time we gain more and more control over ourselves and our close environment; this makes us able to create small worlds of our own, like our own family, our own business or any kind of structure, like an organization or a religious community. In this way we change the world and participate in the process of its creation.[…]