International Conference on Polish Jews in Jerusalem

Summary

The international conference on the history and culture of Polish Jews, which took place in Jerusalem from 31Januaryto 5February1988 was the largest, most ambitious and most successful of the series of conferences which have been organised on this topic, which began at Columbia University, New York, in Spring 1983. The conference was organised by the Center for Research on History and Culture of Polish Jews at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in cooperation with the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies, Oxford, and was held under the auspices of the Hebrew University, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the World Union of Jewish Studies and rad Vashem. It was by far the largest of the Polish-Jewish conferences, attended by nearly 300 scholars including over 80 from Poland. Nearly 170 papers were delivered in 44 sessions, whose themes ranged from ‘The Jews in Poland during the Middle Ages' to ‘The Jews in Poland after World War II’ and from ‘The Image of the Jew in Polish Folk Culture’ to ‘Problems of Language and Linguistics’. A full list of sessions and topics is appended. There were so many papers that 3 sessions were usually held simultaneously and it was often extremely difficult to decide which to attend. The success of the conference was attested by the very high quality of the papers presented. Among the contributions which particularly remain in the mind are Jerzy Jedlicki's brilliant account of ‘The Polish Intelligentsia and the Jewish Question 1897-1914’, Andrzej Bryk’ s thought-provoking ‘Poles and Jews during the Holocaust. The Hidden Complex of the Polish Mind’ and Marian Turski's moving ‘Reflections of the Holocaust through a Selection of Memoirs’. Equally memorable were the contributions of all the participants to the symposium, ‘Ethical Problems concerning the Holocaust in Poland’, which was devoted to a consideration of the issues raised by Jan Błoński's article, ‘The Poor Poles look at the Ghetto’. (Józef Gierowski, Rafael Scharf, Viktor Erlich, Jan Błoński, Jerzy Turowicz, Władysiaw Bartoszewski andJan Tomasz Gross).

As at previous conferences, there were a number of events which took place alongside the main scholarly discussions. A Polish-Jewish film festival was held at the Jerusalem Cinemateque.