Lucky Jews for Sale
On the second day of my trip, in a jet-lagged haze, I wandered through Krakow’s eclectic Old Town.
Because the relatively small city (now about 800,000) was miraculously saved from destruction in WW2 — nearly half of the buildings in Polish cities were destroyed, and Warsaw was almost completely razed — there are many impressive buildings standing from almost every era from Gothic to Baroque to Renaissance.
Down the middle of the massive square (the largest in Europe), there is a huge medieval market building with a beautiful arcade through the center filled with stalls that at one time sold imported cloth and other goods, but now basically sell tourist tchotchkes.
Shopper that I am, I scanned all the stalls, noticing that the goods were largely mass-produced and uninteresting. But then I saw something… odd…
On the shelf above the Krakow ashtrays and the Jesus, Mary, and Joseph statues…
I saw a variety of wooden Hasidic/Orthodox Jew statues. They wore black robes and tallits (prayer shawls)… some carried prayer books, many had accordions or violins. They were all cartoon-like and happy looking.
It was totally bizarre.
I didn’t quite know what to make of this. I certainly didn’t want to BUY one (a made-in-China fake Jew statue sold by a non-Jew? Yeah no.)
I knew it felt weird, but I didn’t quite have an analysis yet. I moved on.
Then… I started seeing them everywhere.
But they were even worse than the “Fiddler on the Roof” dolls from the market hall –
They were Jews counting money… gold coins and money bags piled around them.
And as I traveled through Poland, I saw a huge variety of them, in statue form, but also magnets, and even works of “fine art” depicting these money-counting Jews!
This was definitely NOT ok. (!!!)
Deep breath.
I learned that these statues were called “Lucky Jews,” and Poles buy them to bring good fortune with money. In fact, some people actually turn them upside down on Shabbat (so the money falls out of the pockets.)
😱
Yeah, it’s a problem.
Where did this come from, and how can people think this is ok?
And, how much of this is “ignorant micro-aggression” vs full-blown, hateful, anti-semitism? Some people think that because it’s a “positive” stereotype (Jews symbolize luck with money!) that it’s somehow a compliment maybe? That’s what I hear.
I don’t honestly know. I spent just two weeks in Poland, and I have only my impressions and bits and pieces I’ve learned.
What I do know is that historically in Poland, Jews were only allowed to be merchants, tax collectors, shop owners, etc. They couldn’t own land, for example. (Although they could lend money for other people to buy land.)
So any stereotypes about Jews and money have to be placed in context. Jews didn’t have a choice about the professions they went into. And yet, the Jews-and-money connection is a pillar of anti-semitism.
But that context is ignored here.
Also overlooked is the fact that non-Jews are now making money selling these ridiculous cliche objects. There aren’t enough Jews to even sell them — not that I’d want Jews selling them either.
→ As one article I read put it — there are more Lucky Jews on sale in the markets of Poland than actual Jews.
That really hit it home. 💔
The Lucky Jew dolls are so extra f’ed up because they (stereotypically) depict an entire people who were wiped out.
“But we’ll just sell cute doll versions of them.”
It’s just too painful and frankly shocking as a Jew to see this. I still have a sick feeling in my stomach as I write.
It’s not lost on me that this is very similar to white people “celebrating” (capitalizing on) Indigenous art, ideas, sacred objects, plants and practices, or Indian warriorship etc, when Indigenous people themselves were largely wiped out and are still treated terribly in the US.
But here’s a little good news…
There are some really clever artist/activist Jews in Krakow that put on FestivAlt, an event that runs parallel to the very popular 10-day summer institution, the Jewish Culture Festival.
Through a hilarious, creative and provocative campaign, one of their founders, actor Michael Rubenfeld, dressed up like an authentic “Lucky Jew.”
I won’t give away the whole story, but let’s just say his Lucky Jew inventory sold out.
And he got the attention of Krakow’s mayor. Krakow has now taken steps to at least remove the statues with money in them (there are still a lot of fiddle-playing Jew statues around, but ok…??).
It’s not binding, and there are still Lucky Jews all over the rest of Poland, but it’s a start.
(I highly recommend reading/watching more about this project via the links below.)
***
There’s a larger story about anti-semitism and cultural appropriation in Poland that I’m very much still piecing together.
There are Jewish tourists coming to Poland, and there are also a lot of non-Jews who come to visit places like Auschwitz (2.3 million visitors/year, definitely not all Jewish).
They visit the old Jewish quarter of Kazimierz in Krakow, maybe buy a Lucky Jew (hopefully not), and then can hop on an open-air tour bus around town to see the old Jewish synagogues, cemeteries, and Holocaust plaques and monuments, even the local death camp turned city park (I’ll write about that in another post.)
And most of those tourism companies are not run by Jews.
So it’s a fine line… like on one hand, we want people visiting these sites and remembering this history, hopefully learning a bit about Jewish culture… and on the other hand, who is benefitting from it?
And, not to mention, what is their messaging to tourists around these Jewish sites and their history?
Our guides were vetted and amazing. But the guide at the Schindler museum, not organized by our Taube Center tour, regularly shared how WWII was as bad for the Poles as for the Jews. This is a common way of telling WWII history here.
(WWII was absolutely horrific for non-Jewish Poles, with over 2 million murdered. And, they were not murdered because they were Poles. It’s an important distinction.)
There are even a couple restaurants in the old Jewish quarter of Krakow that not only serve traditional Jewish food (which I think is ok, plus it’s freaking delicious, you can have your bubbe’s brisket!) but also Jewish “themed” restaurants that depict Jewish stereotypes in their decor or are attempting to resemble a shtetl pub from a hundred years ago — which feels pretty yuck.
There was even a “Jewish” restaurant that sold Lucky Jews! (I did not eat at that restaurant, needless to say, despite the tempting menu of mandel bread, chopped liver, matzo ball soup, latkes, and gefilte fish.)
So there’s a market for “Jewish.” And it’s being responded to.
And all that said, I wouldn’t say there’s an overwhelming amount of appropriation (i.e., making money off of Jewish culture). And I didn’t feel like I was walking around at Epcot Center like some folks have written about.
I had two possible experiences of anti-Semitism… but it wasn’t clear to me whether it actually had to do with Jewishness. For example, it was definitely edgy to celebrate Shabbat publicly and have a drunk guy try to “join” us. He was fairly belligerent. Just the alcohol? Who knows. I’ll share the other story in a different post.
But here’s my controversial truth:
On some level, I don’t care if there’s anti-semitism in Poland. I don’t care if Poles were awful to Jews then or even now.
While I didn’t know it before I left, I went there to create my own relationship with that land, with my ancestors, with the history of that place. And, relationships with people who are there now, MANY of whom are definitely not anti-semitic (And I mean, hello, look at the US, there are plenty of anti-semites.)
Yes, our recent ancestors needed to or were forced to leave and very understandably had no interest in going back. Yes, Jews were killed and forcibly removed from Poland up until 1968. And yes, there has been a lot of anti-semitism since then, to a point where it’s just in the last 30 years that the Jewish community has started to emerge and thrive again.
But — it’s my birthright (and yours, Ashkenazi Jews) to make my own connections to the place my ancestors dwelled for literally hundreds of years.
***
PS — A huge thanks to the ongoing conversations with my travel mates, who have helped me put more words to my feelings over the last few days.
Links to learn more:
Looking for the Heart of Jewish Krakow (Tablet Magazine): https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/heart-of-jewish-krakow
No funding for academics “who insult Poles, the greatest victims of WW2”, says education minister (example of current conservative government’s stance): https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/04/25/no-funding-for-academics-who-insult-poles-the-greatest-victims-of-ww2-says-education-minsiter/
Learn all about the Lucky Jew from artist: https://festivalt.com/en/event/lucky-jew-shop-2/ an https://festivalt.com/en/addressing-polands-lucky-jews/
Why ‘Lucky Jew’ dolls are more popular than actual Jews in Poland (Times of Israel):
https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-lucky-jew-dolls-are-more-popular-than-actual-jews-in-poland/
