This Sunday in Krakow (also spelled Cracow) Poland, a Bishop preached a sermon against “the kikes.” n case you are unaware, kike is a horrible antisemitic slur akin (but not the same as) the n-word. I find it quite disturbing that the church a significant figure in a church (edited on 2/17 after reading comments below) is once again preaching hateful antisemitism.
Here is an excerpt from an article by Ha’aretz:
“This was not a pogrom, but it was close. Sunday’s incident in Krakow at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was rife with overtones of hatred. “The Jews are attacking us! We need to defend ourselves,” shouted Prof. Bogoslav Wolniewicz, to stormy applause.
“About 1,000 people gathered for special services Sunday at the church, organized by the Committee Against Defamation of the Church and For Polishness, along with the anti-Semitic Radio Maryja. Local residents were informed of the service by posters that proclaimed: “The kikes will not continue to spit on us.”
“The huge church was packed. People sat on the stairs and stood in the aisles. The service opened, as usual, with prayer and song, but after about half an hour, the 91-year-old bishop of Krakow, Albin Malysiak, began inflaming the crowd with his sermon.” [Click here to read full article.]
Much of the vitriol was spewed against Jan Gross, a scholar and Polish-American who grew up in post-war Poland. He has published a number of works, including “Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz” for which there are a number of reviews, including one by Publisher’s Weekly.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. [Signature]Reviewed by Deborah E. LipstadtRarely does a small book force a country to confront some of the more sordid aspects of its history. Jan T. Gross’s Neighbors did precisely that. Gross exposed how in 1941 half the Polish inhabitants of the town of Jedwabne brutally clubbed, burned and dismembered the town’s 1,600 Jews, killing all but seven.The book was greeted with a terrible outcry in Poland. A government commission determined that not only did Gross get the story right but that many other cities had done precisely the same thing. Now Gross has written Fear, an even more substantial study of postwar Polish anti-Semitism. This book tells a wartime horror story that should force Poles to confront an untold—and profoundly terrifying—aspect of their history. FearFear, the next time I hear someone say the Poles were as bad as the Germans, I will probably still challenge that charge —after all the damage wrought by the Germans cannot be compared to what the Poles did—but my challenge will be far less forceful. I may even keep silent. 8 pages of photos. (July 4)Lipstadt is director of the Rabbi Donald Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University and the author of History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Here is what two other blogs are saying about this hateful sermon:
What do you think?
Prof Wolniewicz is very stupid and old person. Among polish philosopher he is notice like peevish. Sorry for all Jewish for his words…And btw sorry for my english:))
This is not a balanced assessment of the phenomenon of anti-semitism in Poland, merely a corrective to your post, should you think I am being too sympathetic to the people you are shocked by.
Did you notice all the people you link to all have the same quotes? I expect they are all based on the same article.
I’ve had a good look through Gazeta Wyborcza, as being likely to be the most Jewish-and-left-sympathetic-and-respectable, and while it takes to task the Jesuits for giving Novak a platform, and both Nowak and Wolniewicz for the content of their speeches, all it mentions about the bishop is that he said “he who loves some great international entity rather than his own country loves really neither that great one nor that one, single, dear thing” (from the context the great international entity might be the EU? don’t see why they thought this was worth mentioning) the only other thing they quote from him is the last phrase of his sermon “Long Live the Glorious Polish Republic”, and that he was asked to recount how he saved Jews during the war.
I was a bit surprised by the “the Jews are attacking us” headline that Gazeta published, but again in context it phrase was used in talking about public debates – the Gross book, Bartoszewski not defending Poland against charges of anti-semitic violence, and what not, not anything more sinister and conspiracy they’re-coming-to-get-us-ish. What the audience took away I don’ t know, I am constantly surprised at people’s stupidity and willingness to render what is said into something quite different.
The Islamic reaction to the Pope’s Regensburg speech (and the reaction of much of the press!), ditto the Archbishop of Canterbury’s sharia law comment – consider them. Not that I agree with what the Abp of C did in fact say, but it was a loooong way from what he has been represented and hoo-ha’d and so on as having said. There’s enough hysteria and pleased outrage around, let’s not feed it. The unhyped truth is usually far more interesting, all else apart.
Not that the general tone sounds that healthy, on the contrary, but there’s no point in dressing up the facts, it just creates smoke and aggro – you’re only following the example of the people you’re condemming. Never heard of Nowak or this other guy (don’t really keep up with the news) but they sound a bit mad. And of course their rhetoric translates into violence on the streets by the braindead.
As much as I admire your blog. I always feel the need to correct sentences as ‘I find it quite disturbing that the church is once again preaching hateful antisemitism’. Please note that it is not the church, but the priest that is doing so. The chrurch, both the building and the institute, can’t preach for the simple reason that they don’t have vocal cords
I do obviously agree with your worries and feel the same way. Anno 2008 you’d think we would have learned something. It is indeed a shame.
Gut sjabbes for later today!