Ursus
Rodzina Polska
Shalom Rafal. My name is Yitzhak Eisenberg. Polski zyd but born and raised in Israel after my parents moved here in 1957 thanks to Gomulka.
They came from Ursus, Warszawa, where my father worked at the tractor factory in the 50's. But originally they came from Przeworsk my mother, and Losice my
father. They survived the war and the Germans in the USSR per chance.
And I grew up in Israel surrounded by po polsku and Yiddish.
I always felt Polski and in 2002 I made my first visit to
Polska. It completely transformed me. I discovered both my heritage and
my identity, all at once.
I became a polski israeli zyd. I suddenly knew who I was and who I could have been, had the Final Solution not taken place.
I would have been a polski zyd from Przeworsk or Losice. As simple as that !
But humanity and history took another direction.
And
I went to Poland again in 2003 and started renovating the Jewish
cemetery in Losice which is there now again, but alas it has been
vandalized a few times already. It is a lonely and sad cemetery,
isolated and constantly threatened by waves of hatred.
I have not been back since.
But now I have the polish citizenship and I am very interested always to reconnect with the place and the people.
I read about your "I miss you Jew" project and immediately
identified with it, I also felt when in Polska how absent yet present
the Jews are in the air, in the city streets and in the shtetls. It was
an amazing sensation for me. And I realized how much I was Jewish and
how much Polska represented home for me though I never lived there. I
was actually cut off from my original home through the brutal story of
extermination and human evil.
And now back in Israel after many in Paris I live in Jerusalem and I miss you Polski.
Missing someone is often mutual.
You miss your Jew and I miss my Polski. I miss all the
communication and contacts to Polish men and women I might have had
should history have taken a different direction.
And I miss the culture, the language, the food and the Poles. And the Polish Jews, hassidic, secular, religious or assimilated.
I
also know I could have been one, a true original polski zyd...you know,
it is such a strange sensation ?!!! I could have been the same Yitzhak,
yet someone else....!
That is my short story or just the
beginning of it. I would like to get to know you and your friends and
start some kind of communication, and form a sense of connection between
Israel and Polska, me and you. Mostly you and other Polish people like
you, who miss their Jews and the lost Polish-Jewish coexistence.
We can create something new together.
A new sense of bonding.
And
I often wonder why in Israel, Poland has such a bad reputation and
Germany such a good reputation. I have many theories on this particular
problem. Much has to be explained in Israel and to Israelis. And much
has to be told in Israel about the continuous and important presence of
Jews in Poland. And their spiritual force and their contribution to
Polska.
Hopefully we can also explain the complexity of the Polish
story during the Second World War and the way the Germans used Poland
for the execution of their murder industry.
So please write me, talk to me.
Express yourself.
You are most welcome to share with me your thoughts and feelings about our common past and perhaps better future.
I am here for you and the door is open whenever you decide to visit Jerusalem and Israel.
Keep me in mind and keep in touch please.
I miss Polska.
I
also sometimes miss the imaginary polski zyd I could have been. The
imaginary polski Yitzhak Eisenberg, who was finally born and raised in
Israel, as an Israeli.
Be well Rafal.
Thank you for your project, your talent and your consideration.
Do zobaczenia.
W Polska.
Yitzhak