„Klęska czerwonej asymilacji”. Emigracja z komunistycznej Polski do Izraela w oczach izraelskiej prasy
„The Red Assimilation Disaster.” Emigration from Communist Poland to Israel as Seen by Israeli Press

Summary/Abstract: When Poland opened its doors to emigration in 1956, tens of thousands of Jews emigrated over a space of two years, almost all of them going to Israel. The next, but much smaller tide, of emigrants arrived after March 1968. The author traces back the approach of the Israeli press to immigrants from communist Poland. This was a peculiar mirror reflecting the complicated Jewish-Polish relations of those times. Poland was the homeland of many Zionist leaders and many Israeli politicians. In the years 1956-1958 almost the whole Israeli press, from the right to the left wing, only except the communist papers, looked at immigration from Poland as a return of brethren who lost their way to the fold of the family, which was ready to absolve them of all sins provided they confess those sins in public and express remorse. This was Zionism in the classic form, an ideology according to which Israel was the only home for all European Jews who retained their national identity; sooner or later, Europe would reject them and Israel become their safe harbour. In March 1968, the anti-Zionist campaign of the Polish government moved into a new phase. The communist regime exploited the protests of students and intellectuals against censorship as a pretext for intensified attacks against the Jewish community. For the Jews in Israel in the 1960s the choice made by the Jews who stayed in the communist countries was unacceptable. Predictably, a great majority of commentators in the periodicals condemned the anti-Semitic overtones of the March ’68 propaganda but that did not stop them from criticizing the oppressed Jews themselves. Just as before, their sin consisted in the communist assimilation, which the Israeli press condemned without any hesitation. As it turned out again and again, the Jews could not escape from their ethnic identity.

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