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This page is was inspired by the work of Ed Milewski, web-master of www.stjoes.net, the St. Joseph's Church website, representing the predominantly Polish church that was the heart and soul of Camden's Whitman Park neighborhood for so many years. Ed has been sending me marvelous links about Polish-Jewish relations, Poles and Jews during the Holocaust, and other related subjects.... so many that the only responsible thing to do was to collate them, and post them on a single web-page. As I have e-mails scattered across 3 or 4 systems (my embarrassing secret is out!), look for more to be added to this page as time goes by.... and I know Ed will find more as well! Relations between the Poles and the Jews have been problematic over the centuries. Religious and linguistic differences often got in the way of the fact that both groups were being oppressed, often by the same people! Human nature seems to dictate that different peoples trying to live in the same places at the same time will have their differences, even when cooperation and tolerance would benefit everyone. Still, Poland was a place where Jews lived, thrived, and survived for centuries before the Holocaust of the 1940s. Although some would deny it, the Jewish people gained much from their years in Poland, and gave much back, to the villages, towns, and cities where they lived. Once in America, both the the Jews and Poles quickly became dynamic parts of their communities wherever they went, their cultural contributions crossing all racial, religious, ethnic, and economic boundary. Possibly the most world-changing example would be twenty-or-so year association of two Polish-born Jewish brothers and a group of Black musicians in Chicago which gave us Chicago Blues, and served as a foundation for rock'n'roll and a great deal of Western civilization's popular music since the mid-1950s. On this page, then, will you find links to other sites on the Internet that tell of this, and also links of interest about Jewish people, Polish people.....for ALL people! Phil
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Letter
sent to the English translation by Ms. Gosia Zglinska From:
Dyrektor Gabinetu Szefa Kancelarii Walentyna Jendrych Warsaw, July 26 2004 Dear
Doctor Resnizky, On
behalf of the President’s Office I am writing to thank you for
your letter notifying us of the creation of The Centre of
Polish Heroes in Your
initiative is very much appreciated by the Head of the President’s
Office, Minister Jolanta Szymanek-Deresz. All
activities directed against xenophobia and every other
kind of prejudice deserve the utmost support. This is particularly
important when it comes to relations between Poles and Jews, whose
nearly 1000-year-old co-existence in the same country was brutally
interrupted by the Holocaust. We are interested in spreading
worldwide the truth about Polish-Jewish relations in its entirety.
We fully share your view that it is essential to commemorate the
deeds of those Poles who risked their own lives to help their Jewish
compatriots during World War II. Ms.
Szymanek-Deresz has passed your letter to the President, who has
expressed his deep interest in and recognition of your initiative. On
behalf of Ms. Szymanek-Deresz, I would like once again to thank you
for all your achievements and wish you every success in your noble
mission. Yours sincerely, (signed)
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Progressive rabbi installed in PolandBy VANESSA GERA, Associated Press Writer A Polish Jewish community installed its first Progressive rabbi since World War II Friday in a ceremony filled with lively music and solemn remembrance of those who perished in the Holocaust. The arrival of Rabbi Burt Schuman, a New Yorker with Polish roots, represents another milestone in the revival of the Jewish life nearly extinguished by Adolf Hitler. The Progressive movement, a major branch of Judaism, is equivalent to the Reform movement in North America. The Progressive community's members said Schuman would help them revive the branch of Judaism that flourished alongside Orthodox Judaism in Poland before the Holocaust. "Tonight is the realization of a dream, of serving a community in my ancestral homeland," said Schuman, a charismatic and lively 58-year-old. "I think it's a tremendous watershed for the liberal movement. We are on the map in Poland." Schuman was installed at Beit Warszawa, home to Warsaw's small Progressive community, in a ceremony presided over by Israeli Rabbi Uri Regev, the president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. In a congregation hall filled with bright abstract paintings, Schuman held Torah scrolls as Regev blessed him and hailed him as "the first full-time permanent rabbi since the Holocaust." Regev also commented on the formative influence that Poland's Jews — who settled in this eastern European land 1,000 years ago — had in shaping modern Jewish life. "One may think that they can live a full Jewish life in New York or Jerusalem," Regev told the congregation of nearly 100 people. "But without you, we are not complete." Until the war, Poland was home to nearly 3.5 million Jews, most of whom perished in the Holocaust. Of those who survived, many ended up settling in the United States and Israel. Today many Jews in both countries have Polish ancestry. Those Jews who remained in Poland after the war suffered a further tragedy during the repression of communist times, most notably in 1968 when thousands were expelled from the country. Since the fall of communism in 1989, the Jewish community has grown slowly throughout eastern Europe, but has been dominated by the Orthodox movement. Some estimates put the numbers of Jews in Poland today at around 30,000 out of a population of 38 million. |
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Old
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The Story of the Chess Brothers |
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Creating American Jews |
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OSCAR BIELASKI: |
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American Polish Advisory Council Links Page |
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The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Poland |
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Association of Next Generation Townspeople in Poland |
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The
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Polish Jews & the Blues
They came to the U.S. from Motele, Poland, in 1928, two Jews bearing a name that cried out for some vowels, "Czyz". They gave their name a vowel, 'e', and gave the world the bulk of what we now call "Chicago Blues". http://home.comcast.net/~cherhoyt/Czyz.htm http://www.bsnpubs.com/chess/chesscheck.html |
| Yasef and Cyrla Czyz and their three young children lived in a close-knit Jewish community of Motele, Poland in the 1920s. They had three children: Malka, in 1915; Lejzor, in 1917; and Fiszel, in 1921. In 1922 Yasef came to America and settled in Chicago changing his name to Joseph Chess, all the better to fit into this new American life. http://hometown.aol.com/_ht_a/bookviewzine/issue141.html |
| The Bottom Line
Many consider Motown Records to be the father of modern day Rock and
Roll. If so, then Atlantic and Chess Records MUST be considered the
Grandfather. http://www.epinions.com/content_3686244484 |
| These are achievements that few could have foreseen when the label was founded by Leonard and Phil Chess in the 1940s. http://nothinbutdablues.bizland.com/ReadingRoomMay01.chtml |
| Leonard and Phil Chess were already the proprietors of several Chicago nightclubs when they bought into the Aristocrat label in 1947http://www.rhythmandtheblues.org.uk/labels/chess.shtml |
| It’s a crisp, gray afternoon in south Chicago, and a resolute
group of middle-aged tourists from Japan are stopping traffic as they
snap photograph after photograph of the building that stands before me
at 2120 South Michigan Avenue. The inconspicuous, two-story edifice is
far from the mainstream of Michigan Avenue shopping, and they are not
here by accident. http://www.bluesaccess.com/No_36/chess.html |
Nadine Cohodas |
| Chess Records From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Records |
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Spinning Blues into Gold The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records http://www.semcoop.com/detail/0312261330 |
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CHESS RECORDS http://www.musicweb.uk.net/encyclopaedia/c/C111.HTM |
