{"id":86848,"date":"2021-06-11T17:00:14","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T15:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=86848"},"modified":"2021-06-11T07:41:41","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T05:41:41","slug":"21-00-62","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=86848","title":{"rendered":"Polish City of Krakow Announces Crackdown on Antisemitic \u2018Lucky Jew\u2019 Figurines"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Polish City of Krakow Announces Crackdown on Antisemitic \u2018Lucky Jew\u2019 Figurines<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Algemeiner Staff<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Paintings on sale in Poland promoting the antisemitic trope that links Jews with money. Photo: Tomasz Sikora Facebook page.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The municipal authorities in Poland\u2019s second-largest city have called for an end to the sale of so-called \u201clucky Jew\u201d figurines and paintings, which depict Orthodox Jews with stereotypically antisemitic facial features counting gold coins.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese figurines are antisemitic, and it\u2019s time for us to realize that,\u201d Robert Piaskowski \u2014 the cultural representative of Krakow\u2019s mayor, Jacek Majchrowski \u2014 declared on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn a city like Krakow, with such a difficult heritage and a painful past, it should not be sold,\u201d Piaskowski said. \u201cEnough of sweeping it under the rug.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The statement followed a consultation process launched in 2020 over the continuing sale of the figurines, which have aroused ire both inside and outside Poland. Museums, religious associations and other institutions were canvassed as to their views on the matter by the Krakow municipality.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur position is a breakthrough,\u201d Piaskowski remarked. \u201cWe finally named the phenomenon, we showed it. I hope this will be the beginning of an important conversation about Polish-Jewish relations, empathy and seeing the other.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While the city cannot impose an outright ban on merchants selling the offending figurines, it has introduced a policy that conditions licenses for market stall holders and other retailers on a commitment not to sell them going forward.<\/span><\/p>\n

Piaskowski said that he had visited several stores selling the figurines to persuade them otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRecently, I was in three stores. Two owners agreed with me that the figures are inappropriate, one started to laugh,\u201d he recalled. \u201cBut it\u2019s not funny for foreign tourists, who are often outraged by this particular depiction of a Jew. I get a lot of letters from them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The phenomenon of \u201clucky Jew\u201d figurines in Polish homes, normally made out of wood, has soared in popularity over the last 20 years. At one point, the figurines could even be purchased in the Polish parliament\u2019s official gift shop, until protests from Jewish groups in 2017 stopped their continued sale. More recently, in Dec. 2019, the German-owned retail giant OBI removed<\/a> similar products from 58 of its stores around Poland, including paintings of Jews wearing traditional religious items as they sat and carefully counted out their coins.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the figurines are commonly defended in Poland as harmless totems designed to bring about financial good fortune, Jewish groups and historians counter that they conjure up the dangerous stereotype of Jews as avaricious moneylenders that triggered pogroms and other anti-Jewish atrocities over the centuries.<\/span><\/p>\n

The former head of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman \u2014 who survived the Holocaust in Poland \u2014 has long urged educational efforts to expose the antisemitic character of  the figurines.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPoland is full of images of the Jew in statues, sculptures, paintings celebrating the age old antisemitic canard about Jews and money \u2026 It killed Jews in Poland during the Holocaust and after the Holocaust,\u201d Foxman told<\/a> The Algemeiner<\/em> in March.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Polish City of Krakow Announces Crackdown on Antisemitic \u2018Lucky Jew\u2019 Figurines Algemeiner Staff Paintings on sale in Poland promoting the antisemitic trope that links Jews with money. Photo: Tomasz Sikora Facebook page. The municipal authorities in Poland\u2019s second-largest city have called for an end to the sale of so-called \u201clucky Jew\u201d figurines and paintings, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86848"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86848"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86877,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86848\/revisions\/86877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}