Warsaw and Prague Jew-y Food and Synagogue Pics + "People Love Dead Jews" book
I just returned from visiting Warsaw and Prague and this newsletter will share some highlights (mostly in pictures).
I’m also sharing a book recommendation for the haunting and timely “People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present”. I could not stop thinking about this book while visiting Central Europe.
And finally, I’m sharing a new recipe from Feeding Women in the Talmud, Feeding Ourselves.
Warsaw Highlights
Visiting POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. The museum is on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto. The Hebrew word Polin in the museum's English name means either "Poland" or "rest here" and relates to a legend about the arrival of the first Jews to Poland. (Image from www.archdaily.com)
Visiting the fresh food market at Hale Mirowskie, two enclosed food halls and markets located in the Mirów district of Warsaw, Poland. Here is my collage of the beautiful produce. Not pictured but definitely memorable were the smoked fish and local honey selections.
Charlotte Menora cafe, Warsaw, Próżna 7 had some beautiful Challah bread. This cafe is also in the area of the former Warsaw Ghetto.
Prague Highlights
Visiting the breathtaking Spanish Synagogue, a Moorish Revival Style synagogue built in 1868. It is so decorative and the colors are regal: gold, deep reds and greens.
Eating these open egg salad on dark rye bread sandwiches at Bistro Sisters
Enjoying Shabbat dinner with 100+ at Chabad House Prague. I have no pictures of the food because it was Shabbat :)
Trying this local plum alcohol: Slivovitz or slivovice. It is a is a fruit spirit (or fruit brandy) made from damson plums.
People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present
There were many times during this trip where I found myself thinking about Dara Horn’s book “People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present” - about how so many prefer the mythologized, dead Jewish victim to living Jews. The juxaposition of all the antisemitism in the United States highlighted in the news these past weeks and these central European cities that have Holocaust memorials, synogogues that are no longer used for Jewish prayers, and tiny (too small) Jewish populations today.
It felt haunting and deeply sad.
Here are some facts about pre and post Shoah in Poland and Prague From Vad Hashem:
On the eve of the German occupation of Poland in 1939, 3.3 million Jews lived there. At the end of the war, approximately 380,000 Polish Jews remained alive, the rest having been murdered, mostly in the ghettos and the six death camps: Chelmo, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In the 1930’s the Jewish community in Prague was flourishing. The community numbered around 35,000 Jews. Following Hilter’s [sic] rise to power, many refugees from Germany arrived in Prague, increasing the Jewish population to about 56,000. After the German invasion in March 1939, the Western regions of Czechoslovakia – Bohemia and Moravia – became a German protectorate. Between October 1941 and March 1945 46,067 Jews were deported from Prague mostly to Theresienstadt – a ghetto where Czech Jews were concentrated. For most of these Jews, however, Theresienstadt was only a transit camp and from there they were transported to their death in Auschwitz. After the war, some 5,000 Jews of Prague returned from the camps; another 227 had managed to evade deportation and had been living underground.
I would love to hear from you!
My family’s visit to Warsaw and Prague really affected me and I’m curious to know if others have felt similar? What thoughts stayed with you after reading “People Love Dead Jews”? Please write me a comment to share your thoughts.
Looking forward to connecting with you,
Kenden