Strolling through Manhattan, time and time again, I encountered a familiar query from Jewish boys: "Are you Jewish?" Such inquiries seemed to be quite a standard part of the vibrant tapestry of this eclectic city. Each time I answered them – no – and moved on.
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For how do I explain that I am Polish but Jewish, that my grandfather, a communist from Crimea, at one point in his life had to deny his Jewish identity, and that my mother's mother was from a family of Jewish converts to Catholicism? Finally, that my own identity, being Catholic, also includes Jewish lineage-36.6% of Jewish blood runs in my veins: I treat this approximate number symbolically, like the temperature of a healthy body.
A healthy memory and awareness of the nuances, of Polish, Jewish, and Central European history, about which, if we want to say something certain is that it is not obvious.
These questions about roots coincided with the sight of religious Jews carrying lulav leaves during the joyful holiday of Sukkot. I also saw them at the airport when I was running to catch my plane to Warsaw the next day. Nothing foreshadowed the nightmare that loomed ahead.
On October 7, I had already arrived in Warsaw when news of the heinous Hamas attack was unfolding near Gaza. After a brief period of chaos, the pieces started to fall into place. Hamas had launched the largest Jewish massacre since the Second World War, in southern Israel.
The magnitude hit hard.
Experienced with the information war related to Ukraine, I knew that we had to start broadcasting information from the source as swiftly as possible before others would begin dictating what we should present. Our reporter Diana Skaya, who had been living in Israel for some time was in Tel Aviv and thanks to her we were able to begin on-the-ground coverage from the very first moments after the Hamas massacre unfolded.
I was sure we had little time before the larger media took control of the narrative. It was clear to me that after years of being fed the slogan "Never Again", we needed to acknowledge that "again'" is now. Setting aside all the political and historical disputes about Israel and Palestine, we need to understand the cause-and-effect course of the ongoing war. As a news channel head and Polish patriot, I couldn't separate this from the Polish-Jewish context.
Objectivity guided our reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian struggle against Hamas terrorism. And it simultaneously fostered huge empathy towards Israel in Polish society. This was without comparison to Western Europe.
This is certainly influenced by the sense of a shared threat from our eastern neighbor and the realization that ultimately, in the event of danger, we are primarily self-reliant. I hope this shared struggle cultivates a new view of Poland for Jews. As their ally, not just in words, but in the many interpersonal connections.
And for me, the resounding question "Are you Jewish?" remains akin to asking "Are you human?." In the same way, we used to say a few years ago "Je suis Charlie", today we declare "Je suis juif", recognizing the interconnectedness of our humanity in such challenging times.
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