Two Countries: Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents

The new anthology, Two Countries: Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents, contains an essay by me and poems by John Guzlowski. You can buy the book at Amazon here.

The Tablet: "The Specifically Jewy Perviness of Harvey Weinstein"

In recent days, US media has been flooded with allegations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein.

Given that I'm the author of Bieganksi: The Brute Polak Stereotype, Its Role in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture, I wanted to see how much these accusations would be taken up by anti-Semites and interwoven with traditional images of Jews as sexual predators.

Given that the standard stereotype of Jews in the West depicts Jewish men as being less manly – Jews read, Jews write, Jews, stereotypically, don't fight with their fists – it may seem odd that Jews would be depicted as sexual predators, but they have been.

A hundred years ago, Jews were disproportionally represented in international sex trafficking. A good book on this topic is Edward W. Bristow's Prostitution and Prejudice: The Jewish Fight Against White Slavery, 1870-1939.

The Forward ran a piece on the anti-Semitic alt-right pouncing on the Weinstein story. The Forward story begins,

"White supremacists on the 'alt-right' are gleefully jumping on accusations that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed employees and actresses for decades as 'evidence' of their anti-Semitic worldview.

Pointing to Weinstein, some on the far right say his story illustrates that Jews have a perverse and degenerative effect on American society — and are contributing to the 'downfall of the white race.'

'Harvey Weinstein story … is a case study in the corrosive nature of Jewish domination of our media and cultural industries,' David Duke … wrote on his website. Duke devoted two separate podcasts, each over an hour long, to Weinstein's career-long 'assault on American culture.' 'It's really shocking that this Jewish pervert could be revealed to be a Jewish pervert,' Duke said with sarcasm."

I did not expect a Jewish publication to identify Weinstein's crimes as specifically Jewish, but the Tablet has done so.

The Tablet relates Weinstein's despicable and criminal assaults to Philip Roth's writing.

"As a boy, Portnoy fantasized about attaining a mythical shiksa goddess whom he nicknamed Thereal McCoy (get it?), who ice-skates 'in her blue parka and her red earmuffs and her big white mittens—Miss America, on blades! With her mistletoe and her plum pudding (whatever that may be),' but as a grown-up he graduates to the real woman he nicknames The Monkey. And what does he do to abase her? He has her perform with an Italian whore. Yes, he eventually joins in, but not before they enact a bad movie—not Hollywood, but San Fernando Valley triple-X. And his nickname for her, The Monkey? That comes from an episode in her life, from before Portnoy met her, when a couple swingers picked her up and wanted her to eat a banana while she watched them copulate. For having a past that gets him hot, she gets degraded with an animalistic nickname …

Harvey is cut from the same cloth. Growing up in Queens, he fantasized of fame and fortune … he harassed women not necessarily to use them as instruments of his pleasure, but to use them as instruments of his power.

It goes without saying that nearly every one of these women—Rose McGowan, Ambra Batillana, Laura Madden, Ashley Judd, etc.—was a Gentile, all the better to feed Weinstein’s revenge-tinged fantasy of having risen above his outer-borough, bridge-and-tunnel Semitic origins."

Here's the thing.

Stereotyping Harvey Weinstein's crimes as "Jewish" crimes has been rapidly and powerfully condemned. Society recognizes that stereotypes of Jews are dangerous and society acts on that knowledge.

Stereotyping Poles as Bieganski is standard operating procedure. See previous post in this blog. Some Polish Catholics prayed the rosary, and they were roundly and internationally condemned as dangerous, racist, ignorant, violent, backward bigots.

Shylock Bad.

Bieganski Good.

And only Polonia can change that – and Polonia is doing nothing to change it.

You can read the full Tablet piece here.

You can read a subsequent apology here

The Forward objects, as do many other press organs. See one piece here.

Fox News posted an article arguing that Harvey Weinstein is an embarrassment for Jews. You can read that article here

Polish Catholics Pray; Elites Panic

Wojtek Radwanski / Agence France Press / Getty Images 

Polish Catholics held a public prayer event, sponsored by churches. They prayed along the Bug River, Poland's border. 

And elites panicked. 

Islamophobic! they accused. 

For heaven's sake. These are Catholics praying the rosary and people are *afraid*? 

Priorities, people. 

If you want to read about why Polish Catholics praying is a bad, bad thing, something you need to fear and revile, visit the "Notes from Poland" Facebook page, which can always be relied on to tell you that Poland is backward, xenophobic, violent, racist, drunken, and a complete failure.

Here's one quote, "idiots, these are the rednecks of Europe who live in the 10th century, their backward christian thinking is quite astonishing, especially when compared to the Christians of the middle east who adopted Christianity 1000 years before the Poles did"

And another, "I'd write something, but I only have expletives on my mind, and I need to remind myself that not all Christians are short-sighted, easily manipulated fanatics..."

And another, " I wish these so-called "Christians" would listen to their own Bible for a change! John 14,27: "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid." Being "afraid" is exactly what their Jesus told them NOT to do!!"

There are much too many more to quote them all here. You can find them all here under a post from October 7. 

The event was covered in several press organs. You can read the New York Times coverage here.

Jihadwatch.org covered the event here

Pro-Jihad Forces Deface Sobieski Monument

Why did Osama bin Laden choose September 11? 

On September 11-12 in 1683, jihad's one-thousand-year advance stopped. After that, Islam began to contract. 

It's possible that OBL chose 9/11 as a way of saying, "Guess what. Islam is advancing again." 

September 11-12, 1683, Jan Sobieski of Poland, united with other forces, defeated the Turks at the Battle of Vienna. 

Pro-jihad forces have vandalized a monument to Jan Sobieski. I googled it and found the news stories linked below. I don't know how reliable they are. 

This news sources say that the pro-jihad forces spray-painted the Sobieski monument with the word "Nazi." So, Polish Catholic Jan Sobieski, who fought in 1683, is, in the mind of the pro-jihadi, a "Nazi." 

It always astounds me when I witness my fellow, beloved Polonians cheering for Team Anti-Western-Civilization. 

Their ancestors have been fighting and sacrificing *for* Western Civilization for hundreds of years.  And now, some Polonians sound just like clueless rich, white liberals. "America is the world epicenter of hate and racism! Islam means peace! Antifa is adorable!" 

One can only shake one's head.

Thanks to Chris Helinsky for this news. 

Read more here and here

Vatican Attack on Americans

Post on my other blog about a recent Vatican attack on American Christians. You can read it here

Notes from Poland Facebook Page. I Don't Understand.

Can someone explain to me the "Notes from Poland" facebook page? It's here

The page proprietor, AFAIK, identifies only as "Notes from Poland." 

What I was seeing in my Facebook feed was mostly posts saying that Poland is a backward / Catholic / conservative / racist / Islamophobic / homophobic / anti-Semitic wasteland, and that it really needed Westerners to learn how to be *progressive.* Good, worthy people like Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron could teach Poland to rise up from its lowly state and become something worthy.

By the way I just googled Macron's name to see if it is spelled with an "a" or an "e" but I found this headline instead: "Since Taking Office, Macron Has Spent $31,000 to Keep Looking Young." This is the person who can educate Poland on how to be acceptable.

Back to "Notes from Poland."

So, what gives? Why would a facebook page call itself "Notes from Poland" and yet dedicate itself to news clips denigrating Poland as a fetid backwater where Neanderthals scratch their crotches while taking a break from torturing Muslims and feminists?

Look. I get it that Poland is a conservative, traditionally Catholic country. That is one reason I don't live there. I like living in the US, especially New Jersey, which is a wild mix of languages, skin tones, religions, cultures, cuisines, dresses.

I did feel a bit ... claustrophobic at times in Poland, which, simply, has tighter cultural horizons than my native US.

I really didn't like, for example, Sundays in any given small, Polish town. Frankly, I just wanted to scream. Everything felt so slow, so pinned down. In America, you can imagine anything happening at any given moment. In a small Polish town on Sunday, you can't imagine *anything* happening. Except a good part of the male population drinking too much.

But Poland is Poland and that is its beauty, too. There is a communal feeling in Poland, an intimacy, an intense connection to place, that I have never encountered in the US. 

I remember asking my friend Beata, if you were reincarnated, what would you come back as? She replied, as one of the stones in the wall around Krakow.

I can't imagine any American saying anything similar. We are always on the move; our eyes are always on the next opportunity.

Different places. Different cultures.

Progressives champion "tolerance" and "multi-culturalism" and "co-existence" and "diversity." And "peace" and "love" and "understanding."

But progressive are so very *intolerant* and opposed to multi-culturalism when they are talking about Europe's most Catholic country.

And all those "peace, love and understanding" progressives competed with each other to label anyone who diverged *one micrometer* from their agenda as "Hitler."

If I had a dime for every time I was denounced as a virtual Nazi on that page ... so much progressive peace, love, and understanding. So much tolerance. So much civility. I could choke.

The posts on the "Notes from Poland" page emphasized that Poland would not be any good until it stopped being Poland, and became a Muslim country, or at least a country with a sizable Muslim population. Until it became a not-Catholic country.

In short, all those "progressives" on the "Notes from Poland" page want cultural genocide -- of Poland. Of a Catholic country with its own mores and values and traditions and history.

And all those posts, insisting that Poland was a nauseating, evil place full of "block-headed nationalists" and "fascists" and "white supremacists" and "neo-Nazis" and  "Neanderthals" and -- shudder -- Catholics -- all those people hating on Poland, being intolerant of Poland, being racist against Poland -- all those progressives had Polish names.

What gives? Why are people named "Stanislaw" and "Basia" insisting that Poland is a giant geographic abortion that must be destroyed to become worthy?

Me, I don't know. Open to explanations.

Update: this story broke yesterday. A Polish man was beaten and his wife was gang-raped in front of him on an Italian beach by refugees. Story here

Another update. Robert Skarba offers the following:

Danusha, ever since the current Polish government took over in the fall of 2015, the West-loving (Germany-loving ,and often Germany-sponsored, to be exact) opposition has done everything and anything in their power to overturn them. That includes writing covert denunciatory articles in foreign press as well as smearing Poland any place possible as a backward, stupid, ultra-conservative, Nazi-like country... Take a look at some covers of the Polish edition of `Newsweek` published within the last few years, for example...

You Brute Polak, Let Me Educate You!

On August 10, 2017, a beloved Facebook friend shared a story he identified as one of "Degradation, humanity, survival and reunion. Read it."

I did read it. I discovered a bogus hoax that resorted to the Bieganski, Brute Polak Stereotype – exactly as described in my book of the same title.

You can read the entire story at the link below. Here's a summary: Polish women are invited by a Nazi to despoil Jews before those Jews are murdered. While despoiling the Jews in a brutal manner, one woman discovers a baby, which she raises with love and tenderness. The baby grows up, moves to Israel, and, sixty-two years after the start of World War II, after the 2001 Sbarro terror attack, meets her real father.

This much we know: the story is false. How do we know? There are only two possible sources for the story, both of them are dead, and the story depicts them in a very negative manner. How likely is it that a woman would tell a story depicting herself as an anti-Semitic monster? Not likely.

There's more. There are no facts in this story. No names. No dates. No numbers. If this really happened, would we not have at least one such fact? The name of the village? The name of the concentration camp or death camp? The name of any of the main characters?

Nazis kept the valuable property of conquered peoples for themselves. This is a widely-known fact. We have no reason to believe that Nazis would invite Polish women to take a fur coat, "gold jewelry, silver candlesticks and other heirlooms," or that Nazi guards would stand by passively as Polish women took these items. Everything we know about the Nazis tells us that this would never happen.

You can read about the Nazi's looting of conquered peoples' money and valuables here, here, here, and here.

The few facts mentioned beggar belief. The man at the end would have to be approximately ninety years old.

The Sbarro bombing received international attention. Would such an astounding and heartwarming story, if true, not have received international attention as well? And yet the only source for this story is Heroes of Faith, which is not a high-profile book. I wasn't able to find it, but I was able to find Heroes of Spirit, which may be the book the post cites. Titling it Heroes of Faith may have been an error. You can find Heroes of Spirit on Amazon, here.

For all these reasons, I have to assume that this story is invented, and that its inventor resorted to the Bieganski, brute Polak stereotype. Poles are the real bad guys of the Holocaust, not German Nazis, who simply stand around after inviting Poles to do horrible things to Jews.

I said so in my blog post on this topic, linked below. My blog post adheres to the facts at hand, and never veers into emotionality, though this hoax certainly might inspire outrage in a Polish reader.

A beloved Facebook friend responded. I would like to protect his anonymity, so I will call him "John Smith," meant to be a neutral pseudonym.

I like John Smith very much. He is, as his photos attest, handsome. He is very well educated. He is a professional, and, as such, he has a smooth public persona.

He is not the type to resort to all-caps or multiple-exclamation-point posting styles. He posts about substantial issues. He has numerous, vocal friends of a variety of viewpoints. He encourages them to express themselves on important matters in a civil fashion. All these aspects of his online presence attract me greatly.

After I posted about the above-summarized story, John posted on my page, "Danusha, at the risk of offending you on a subject you feel passionately about: During the Holocaust, some Poles looted and despoiled the Jews."

I assessed that comment as an insult.

John rejected my assessment. He attributed the problem in the conversation to me.

I wrote to John privately. I said, paraphrase, "Do you realize why what you said to me was so offensive? And, if not, may I please explain to you why what you said was so offensive?"

Let me break down John's comment.

"Danusha, at the risk…"

John opens by describing his talking to me as risky. Talking to a Polish woman apparently presents risks of which I am unaware. What does John fear I might do to him? I can only guess.

"…of offending you…"

Right. If a Jewish person mentions a historical fact to a Polish person that Polish person may become offended.

Yes, that assumption is offensive. Poles can handle facts. Facts don't automatically offend us. We are grownups. We have ethics. We don't live in denial.

"…on a subject you feel passionately about…"

Oooo boy.

I studied Polish-Jewish relations at the Jagiellonian University, the same university attended by Copernicus, Jan Sobieski, Malinowski, and Karol Wojtyla. I have an MA from UCB and a PhD from IUB. I published a prize-winning, well-reviewed book addressing the manipulation of stereotypes of Poles and Jews in retellings of the Holocaust narrative, the only, AFAIK, scholarly book expressly focused on that question. I've spoken about this topic in the US and Poland, at several different universities, including Brandeis and Georgetown.

But, to John, I am not a scholar. I am just about "feelings." "Passionate feelings."

By the way, John has not read my book.

Which is paramount in John's brain, I wonder? That I am just about "passionate feelings" because I am a Polak, because I am Catholic, because I am of peasant-descent, or because I am a woman?

Whereas he, the Jewish, professional man, is evidently not all about "passionate feelings."

In any case, please note that my original blog post, linked below, is not about feelings. Not even "passionate feelings." It's about facts. John addressed *none* of the facts.

John couldn't – with facts – defend the obscure, mistitled, and non-scholarly book that is the source of the anecdote. He could not defend the anecdote's absence of facts, or its contradiction of known historical facts.

No. He made no attempt to use any facts. He just attacked me, as an irrational creature of "passionate feelings."

"…During the Holocaust, some Poles looted and despoiled the Jews…"

This is the topper. It's lines like this that break my heart, anew, every time, and cause me to reflect that there may never be any serious long-term hope for Polish-Jewish reconciliation.

John and I have been Facebook friends for years. I genuinely like him. I have, I hope, been on good behavior with him. And yet he still looks at me, and sees Bieganski, the Brute Polak.

I am so stupid that I don't know that Poles did horrible things during World War II. And I need to be told this.

I am so venal that I can't confront, or don't care, that Poles did horrible things during World War II.

I am nothing more than a stereotype.

And John is flabbergasted, and completely clueless, why what he said to me was so offensive.

If this were just about John, that would be one thing. But it isn't just about John.

I can't count the number of times I've had this exact same experience. Poles are scary. It is risky to talk to Poles. Poles are "passionate" and can't address facts. Poles are in denial. Poles don't care about bad things Poles have done. Jews must educate Poles, but Poles are such brutes that education is impossible. Sigh. It's just so damn hard trying to talk to Poles.

I'm a real, living, breathing, flesh-and-blood human being, and John can't see me – because it serves him better to see the stereotype.

People ask me when the Brute Polak stereotype will fade. As I describe in my book, there is no reason to hope that it will fade as long as current cultural patterns continue. We are stereotyped for a reason, and those reasons still exist.

You can read the full text of the suspect story here.