About a week ago, the Jerusalem Post reported about a recent attempt to revive the Jewish religious literary tradition in Krakow, Poland.  Today, fewer than 1,000 Krakow residents identify with the Jewish community.  Yet before the Holocaust, the city was home to 80,000 Jews – and some of the greatest religious writings to come out of Eastern Europe from the early modern period onward were written by the rabbis of Krakow.  Haviv Rettig Gur reports:

The new Polish-language book Dovev Siftei Yeshenim (The Utterings of the Lips of the Sleepers), written by Krakow’s Rabbi Boaz Pash, is an effort to bring back to life the voices of the city’s rabbinic tradition in the place where it all happened. The book is a collection of interpretations on the weekly Torah portion written by some of the greatest rabbis Krakow ever produced.

“Everyone has heard about the rabbis and sages of Krakow, but who can quote them?” asks Pash. “What member of the current generation that is living and growing up in Poland can open their books? This book and others of its kind represent an attempt to meet that need.”

The book begins with 15th century scholar Rabbi Yom Tov Milhausen, and continues with such luminaries of the Jewish bookshelf as the 16th century giant Rabbi Moshe Isserles, better known as the Rama, and the 17th-century halachist Rabbi Yoel Sirkas, the Bach.

(Interestingly, Dovev Siftei Yeshenim is coming on the heels of a possible re-publication of a German edition of Mein Kampf! That’s irony for ya.)  The publication of this book is indicative of a larger trend in Polish Jewish life:

Source: http://climbingsinai.com

“Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, more and more young Poles are rediscovering their Jewish roots and expressing a desire to draw closer to the Jewish people and the State of Israel,” according to the Israel-based chairman of Shavey Yisrael, Michael Freund.

“At the same time, Jewish communal life in Poland is gradually gaining strength. We cannot turn our backs on these exciting historic developments and must do everything we can to facilitate them,” Freund said in a statement announcing the publication of Dovev Siftei Yeshenim.

I’m thrilled that they’re publishing this book in Polish, so it will be accessible to Polish Jews and non-Jews alike.  At the same time, however, I’d love to see an English translation of the book.  It sounds like an absolute gem.

- Naomi