Laughter in Lublin

In a Polish city where the once world-famous yeshiva stands today as a Medical Academy and where a field is crowned by a blanket of snow instead of the synagogue that once stood there in the shadow of the local castle, Polish Jewish laughter rings again.

Twenty Jewish youth from around Poland – from Gdansk to Poznan, Czestochowa, Wroclaw, Warsaw, and Lodz – gathered recently in Lublin for the second in a series of youth leadership seminars sponsored by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). These youth are the future of Polish Jewry, against all odds and against the presumptions of those who visit Poland on Holocaust study trips.

This is the newest generation of Jewish leaders in Poland. Mostly teenagers, they are too young to remember Communism, and their favorite movie this year is Harry Potter. Unlike most “new Jews” in Poland, they have been aware of their Jewish roots from a young age and have directly benefited from the renewal of Jewish life in Poland, having attended Jewish summer camps and Jewish seminars aplenty.

The JDC youth leadership seminars have a few goals: to give theoretical and practical training that the youth can bring back to their communities and to gather kids together in an informal Jewish atmosphere. For many of them, this is the time to meet with their Jewish friends from around the country and to talk about Jewish topics in an open environment.

Led by Karina Sokolowska, Director of Youth Programs for the JDC for the past eight years, the youth discussed what it means to be a leader and assessed different types of leadership. They broke into regional groups and planned programs for their chapters of the Polish Union of Jewish Students (and, I should add, have since executed these programs successfully). We also did a text study of different types of Jewish leaders throughout history and explored the Jewish history of Lublin itself.

But the real essence of the weekend was the delightful moments of creativity and the indomitable Jewish energy and enthusiasm that pervaded every activity.

While hesitant at first on Friday evening, the youth quickly warmed after kindling the Chanukah lights and performing the story of Chanukah using strange props such as Kermit the Frog, toilet paper, and a sunflower.

They also rose to the challenge of designing their own Havdallah ceremony, exploring new rituals that would make the ceremony that ends Shabbat more meaningful to them personally and as a group. And I have to say that this was the most memorable Havdallah of my life! Instead of the traditional twisted candle, every one had his own candle, and we joined all the flames together to symbolize the participation of every person (Unfortunately, we chose to stand right under the fire alarm which went off and brought the bewildered hotel desk clerk running). Instead of wine, we used Red Bull, a popular high-caffeine soft drink, in order to “raise our spirits.” Finally, we extinguished the candles in the snow, as a reminder of the natural world that we live in.

But the crowning moment took place later that evening in our Chanukah celebration at a local Jewish-style pub called Szeroka 28, named for the former address where much of the Chassidic community lived before World War II. We attended the weekly performance of a local Klezmer band Va Banque, where, unfortunately for the band, the kids provided the greater entertainment. Throughout the evening, the kids often out sang the band and many times jumped up and grabbed me to join them in the tiny spaces between the tables to dance the Hora. They played dreidl and traded chocolate gelt, and some even tried to beat me at shesh-besh, the Israeli version of backgammon.

We, in America, have heard the stories of dying Jewish communities in Poland, of people who have hid their Jewish identities even from their children, and of anti-Semitism.

However, this evening in Lublin was a dazzling display of true joy in Judaism and the inherent embodiment of the spirit of our religion and culture. At this moment, I witnessed the height of Jewish pride of Polish Jewish youth who publicly celebrated a Jewish holiday and generously shared their Jewish knowledge with other patrons sitting at adjacent tables. I saw the joy in the eyes of the girls who threw back their heads and sang and laughed “Heveinu Shalom Aleichem.” I felt the warmth of the candles’ glow reflecting off their faces straining to read the dreidl’s Hebrew letters.

If you are someone who ever doubted Jewish continuity, I wish you had been there with me a month ago, listening to the young Polish Jewish laughter in Lublin.