Harry Kelly, Global Community Manager
Warsaw is a city with a rich, varied, and at times painful Jewish history. Many of us are rightly very familiar with this history, particularly the more painful parts. Indeed, it is likely that in one way or another, many of us will have a personal family connection to this Jewish history in Warsaw. We may have had family who lived in the Warsaw Ghetto or who took part in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. We learn these stories of uprising, of our ancestors who bravely stood against the Nazis and fought for their freedom. We remember them. However, there is a side to Polish Jewish history that we are likely not as aware of, the post-war Jewish history.
Just before Pesach, a group of 25 Moishe House community builders from across Europe and Israel came together just outside Warsaw for a Jewish Learning Retreat titled “Uprise for Freedom: Pesach in Warsaw”. Using stories of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto and across Eastern Europe, we explored what it means to be free, and how you can fight for freedom. We were led in sessions by experienced community builders on the power of storytelling, and about forgotten Jewish heroines from Eastern Europe. Most poignantly, one community builder shared a family story of her relative, Judit Spiegel, who exercised resistance against the Nazis through creating pottery during the war, including in one of the camps.
At Moishe House we are privileged to have an amazing staff member and educator, Maria Kos, Global Community Manager, who is based in Warsaw, and who is intimately familiar with the Polish and Warsaw Jewish community. In planning this retreat, it was important to the staff team that we take time to speak at this retreat about Jewish Poland’s post-war story, present, and future. We were able to learn from Maria about the post-war Jewish history of Poland, and what Jewish identity is like in Poland today. We were also honoured to be joined by Marcin Grynberg, of the Puszke Foundation, a local charity set up by Jews that initially worked to increase philanthropic giving in the Polish Jewish community, and since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has been supporting Ukrainian refugees in Poland. Our community builders were able to gain a strong understanding of what Polish Jewish life is like today, and what it has meant to uprise for freedom in Poland in the post-war period.
Walking away from this Jewish learning retreat, I can honestly say that my understanding of this part of Jewish history is deeper, richer, and more meaningful for having attended. Each year, we come together at our Pesach seders and retell the exodus from Egypt, asking four questions of why this night is different from all others, and reflecting on what stories we can learn from this that may apply to our lives today. We recognise that learning our history and applying it is an essential commandment. Having the opportunity to be in Warsaw, the weekend before the annual commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and two weeks before the start of Pesach, with our community builders from across Europe and Israel, was an intensely powerful and emotional experience. Being with these amazing people who are so deeply invested in cultivating Jewish communal life today, it was impossible not to feel the parallels to those young people who led the Warsaw Ghetto uprising 81 years ago, fighting for their freedom. It was clear whose shoulders we stand on today.
