Close
Promised Lands: Jews, Poland, and the Land of Israel
07 February 2023, 9:30 am–5:00 pm
An in-depth investigation of how Polish Jews, Polish Zionism, and Polish culture influenced Israel’s cultural and political development
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- £15.00
Organiser
-
Institute of Polish Jewish Studies
Location
-
Embassy Of The Republic Of Poland47 Portland PlaceLondonW1B 1JHUnited Kingdom
Aa conference to launch Polin 35, an in-depth and multifaceted investigation of how Polish Jews, Polish Zionism, and Polish culture influenced Israel’s cultural and political development, as well as of how the Zionist project influenced Jewish life in Poland.
From its inception as a political movement, Zionism had as its main goal the creation of a ‘New Jew’ who could contribute to building a Jewish state, preferably in the historic homeland of the Jewish people, where Jews would free themselves from the negative characteristics which, in the view of the ideologues of Zionism, had developed in the diaspora. Yet, inevitably, those who settled in Palestine brought with them considerable cultural baggage. A substantial proportion of them came from the Polish lands, and their presence significantly affected the political and cultural life of the Yishuv, and later the State of Israel. In this volume, scholars from Israel, Poland and elsewhere in Europe, and North America explore different aspects of this influence, as well as the continuing relationship between Israel and Poland, up to the present day.
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME (Please view the most up to date programme here)
9.30am Registration
10.00am Welcome
Ms Agnieszka Kowalska, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of the Republic of Poland
Mr Vivian Wineman, President of the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies
10.15am Panel 1: Introduction to the volume
Professor (Emeritus) Israel Bartal (Hebrew University, Jerusalem), Professor François Guesnet (UCL), Professor Antony Polonsky (Brandeis University/UCL), Scott Ury (Tel Aviv University)
11.00am Coffee break
11.30am Panel 2: Jews, Poles, and the Land of Israel: Religious and Cultural Perspectives
Uriel Gellman (Bar Ilan University): The Hasidic kolelim in Palestine
Wiesiek Powaga (London): Ksawery Pruszyński and Mojżesz Pomeranz: missed links in the emergence of the State of Israel
12.30pm Lunch (kosher, provided)
1.30pm Panel 3: Between Poland and Israel
Hanna Lerner (Tel Aviv University): Henryk Hechtkopf: Art and Society between Poland and Israel
Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska (Maria Curie-Skłodowska University Lublin): Mordecai Tsanin: Fighting for Yiddish in the State of Israel
Jagoda Budzik (Wroclaw University): Third post-Holocaust Generation’s Journeys to Poland and their challenge to Israeli Discourse
3.30pm Tea break
4.00pm Concluding discussion: Poland and Israel Today
Introductory remarks by Yifat Gutman (Ben Gurion University, Ber Sheva) on the legacies of Polish-Israeli relations, in conversation with the volume editors and the audience.
5.00pm Conference ends
Concessions
£10 + booking feeAbout the Speakers
Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska
Professor of Comparative Literature at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland
Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska is Professor of Comparative Literature at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland. Her books include A Shtetl of Various Dreams (2006), My Home Used to Be There... Memorial Books of Jewish Communities (2009, co-editor), Jewish Presence in Absence: The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Poland 1944-2010 (2014, co-editor), Jewish Writing in Poland (2016, co-editor). She has translated more than 20 books from English and Yiddish into Polish. In 2004 she received the Jan Karski & Pola Nirenska Award for her research on Yiddish literature and language.
Israel Bartal
Professor (Emeritus) of Jewish History, and the former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Israel Bartal is Avraham Harman Professor (Emeritus) of Jewish History, and the former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2006-2010). He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and one of the founders of Cathedra, a leading scholarly journal on the history of the Land of Israel. Among his numerous publications are: The Jews of Eastern Europe. 1772-1881 (2005, 2006), To Redeem a People: Enlightenment and Nationalism in Eastern Europe (2013) [Hebrew] and Tangled Roots: The Emergence of Israeli Culture (2020).
Jagoda Budzik
Assistant Professor at The Taube Department of Jewish Studies (University of Wrocław, Poland)
Jagoda Budzik is an Assistant Professor at the Taube Department of Jewish Studies (University of Wrocław, Poland). She is the author of the book Eretz Sham. Poland in the writings of the third post-Holocaust generation in Israel (in press). Her work combines elements drawn from three major disciplines of literature, cultural and memory studies.
Uriel Gellman
Faculty member at the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Bar-Ilan University
Uriel Gellman is a faculty member at the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Bar-Ilan University, where he holds the Marcell and Maria Roth Chair in the History and Culture of Polish Jewry. His fields of interest include the social and cultural history of Jews in Eastern Europe, especially the history of Hasidism, Jewish Orthodoxy, popular religion, and the Haskalah. He is the author of The Emergence of Hasidism in Poland (2018) and co-author of Hasidism: A New History (2018).
François Guesnet
Professor of Modern Jewish History in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London
François Guesnet is Professor of Modern Jewish History in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London. He holds a PhD in Modern History from Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg im Breisgau, and specializes in the early modern and 19th century history of Eastern European, and more specifically, Polish Jews. He has held research and teaching fellowships at the Hebrew University Jerusalem, the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), the University of Oxford and Dartmouth College and is co-chair of the editorial board of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry.
Yifat Gutman
Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ben-Gurion University
Yifat Gutman is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her research focuses on memory activism and reconciliation in and after conflict. She also examines memory laws, historians’ involvement in peace agreements, and alternative memorial ceremonies. She is the author of Memory Activism: Reimagining the Past for the Future in Israel-Palestine (2017) and co-editor of the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism and of Memory and the Future: Transnational Politics, Ethics and Society (2010).
Hanna Lerner
Head of the School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs at Tel Aviv University
Hanna Lerner is Head of the School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on comparative constitution making, religion and democracy, global governance and international labor rights. Her interest in history and art centers around the work of the painter, illustrator, film-maker, graphic designer and social activist Henryk Hechtkopf. She is the author of Making Constitutions in Deeply Divided Societies (2011) and co-editor of Global Justice and International Labour Rights (2016), Constitution Writing, Religion and Democracy (2017), and Comparative Constitution Making (2019).
Antony Polonsky
Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University
Antony Polonsky is Chief Historian of the Global Educational Outreach Program, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw and Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University. He is co-chair of the editorial board of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, and the author of many published works, the most recent being The Jews in Poland and Russia, volume 1, 1350 to 1881; volume 2 1881 to 1914; volume 3 1914 to 2008 (2010, 2012), published in 2013 in an abridged version The Jews in Poland and Russia. A Short History.
Wiesiek Powaga
Carpenter, translator, correspondent
Wiesiek Powaga was born in Poland. He settled in London in 1981. After graduating with a degree in philosophy at King’s College, London, he worked as a carpenter, translator, correspondent for a music magazine and senior editor for the UK publisher Marshall Cavendish. He has published translations of Polish prose such as the anthologies Deadalus Book of Polish Fantasy (1996) and Modern Polish Short Stories (1996), and books by numerous Polish authors and poets. His discovery of Ksawery Pruszynski’s involvement in the UN “Partition Plan” of 1947 is the background to his Polin Vol. 35 contribution.
Scott Ury
Senior Lecturer in the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University
Scott Ury is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University and Director of the Eva and Marc Besen Institute for the Study of Historical Consciousness and Senior Editor of History & Memory. He is currently the Weinstock Visiting Lecturer of History at Harvard University. His publications include Barricades and Banners: The Revolution of 1905 and the Transformation of Warsaw Jewry (2012), and several co-edited volumes including, Key Concepts in the Study of Antisemitism (2021).