What does Poland represent in Israeli culture? The question of “Polishness” comes up for discussion occasionally, and in almost every case, it’s presented in a mocking if not humiliating manner. The latest opportunity for locals to sneak in a joke about Polishness comes in connection with the new Polish television series “Sexify” (currently available on Netflix), a light comedy revolving around young Polish women who invent an app meant to improve orgasms.
Wonder of wonders, contemporary Poland is turning out witty, feminist cultural products. But in Israel, reviews of the series immediately whipped out the usual clichés about the frigidity of Polish women, as though it’s a self-evident trait. This genre of jokes, which is Israel-specific, has its origins in relations between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim. In other countries, no one attributes greater frigidity to Polish women than to their German, Russian or British counterparts. In Europe, if there is a stereotype that’s identified with Polish women, it’s actually their surpassing beauty – an image implanted already in the poems of Heinrich Heine in the 19th century. In addition, Poles are considered romantics and sentimentalists. Anything but being cold fish.
In any event, when it comes to Polishness, you can say whatever you like in Israel. This apparently stems from the assumption that Polish culture is a dominant culture here. “Polishness” equals “Ashkenaziness,” which equals “whiteness.” In fact, however, most of us don’t know the first thing about Polish culture. Even though many Israelis are indeed of Polish descent, Polish culture is actually almost nonexistent in Israel. In large measure, it can be even be described as a suppressed culture.
Just so there’s no question here: I’m not one of those who claim that Ashkenazi culture in Israel has been suppressed by Mizrahi culture. Even if in the past few decades the cultural balance of forces has shifted to some degree in the Mizrahi direction, it’s clear that the Ashkenazim remain dominant in the cultural, academic and political elites. I’m saying something different: Since the advent of Zionism, Polishness has been subjected to internal suppression by Ashkenazim. And what trampled it underfoot has in fact been, primarily, Russian culture.
There is nothing new about this – the situation dates from the period of the Second Aliyah (the 1904-1910 wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine). In 2014 literary scholar Yigal Schwartz published a book titled “The Ashkenazim: Center vs. East” (Hebrew). Schwartz describes the divide between two cultural types that existed in European Jewry: the Russians, those who lived under the Russian Empire; and the Galicians (or Galitzianers), the central European inhabitants of this region of modern-day Ukraine and Poland, who lived under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian empire. (German Jews are barely mentioned by Schwartz). There are differences in mentality between Russians and Galicians, which he exemplifies by comparing the works of S.Y. Agnon, David Vogel and Gershon Shofman, though he also brings in later writers, even from the present day.
Until a few decades ago, jokes still abounded in Israel about Galitzianers and the Galitzianer accent. Such as: “Why did God stop talking to us?” “Because he didn’t want us to know he’s a Galitzianer.” How many people in today’s Israel even know what a Galitzianer Jew is, and what the difference is between them and Russian Jews? For those who grew up in Israel’s circumscribed culture, with its simplistic images, it’s very difficult to grasp the difference.
In fact, many Ashkenazim don’t even know where they came from. The differences are viewed as immaterial nuances, but Schwartz shows that these are two different mental worlds.
In general terms, the Russian ideal type is alert, frenetic and public, with a tendency toward the didactic and the declarative. Conjure up a Russian radical delivering a fire-breathing speech at a political rally, or their local equivalents, the Mapainiks – from the long-hegemonic Mapai party, forerunner of Labor – ranting at a meeting of a workers council. That type was certainly dominant in the Second Aliyah and afterward. In contrast, the Galitzianer type is reflective and awkward, and tends to view reality from a corner angle. They’re melancholy and escapist and are prone to probing themselves psychologically.
It’s easy to see that in the Zionist climate, the Russian type ran roughshod over the Galitzianer one, quite literally. Some maintained that Hebrew culture underwent “Russification.” Being ideological, political, somewhat raucous and tending to dramatic gestures, the Russians set the tone. Schwartz doesn’t say this explicitly, but it can be noted that the result of this is evident in general Israeli culture: boisterous, frenetic and resolute. In accordance with Russian cultural codes, both masculinity and femininity here tend to be extreme and lacking in intermediate levels.
Schwartz’s insights are eye-opening, but he applies them exclusively to works of literature. The interesting challenge is to identify the continuation of these types in Israeli culture, among politicians, celebs, chefs and even ordinary people. Because, as Schwartz notes, these two character types continued to exist within the local context – even among those with no genetic connection to either Russian or Galician Jewry.
The Polish factor
Another problem is that Schwartz refers to Galicians but without including the Polish factor in the equation. This is a complicated issue, because Poland did not exist as an independent state per se between the end of the 18th century until World War I. It was divided repeatedly and then conquered by its powerful neighbors German and Russia. Thus, many Jews were on the spectrum between Polish influence and Russian influence. Nevertheless, Polish language and culture never ceased to exist. Urban Polish culture shaped generations of Jews, not only in Galicia (where the Poles were the dominant cultural element), but also in the parts of Poland that were under Russian rule.
Unfortunately, Polish culture had very few significant agents in Israel. Even Polish speakers preferred to submit to Russian dominance. More sophisticated Israelis looked to Germany or France, before everything was washed away in the turgid waters of American culture. A rare exception was the late critic and translator Yoram Bronowski, who contributed more than anyone else to making the Polish intellectual tradition an abiding presence in Israel. After him there remained mostly translators of Polish poetry, which is popular here. But poetry afficionados are a small, quiet group. How much richer Israeli culture would be if the young men and women who love literature carried in their knapsacks the novels of Stanisław Witkiewicz or Witold Gombrowicz. Regrettably, there are hardly any of that ilk.
Since my first visit to Poland years ago, when I look in the mirror, I see a Polish guy. Nor am I alone. Many of us are Poles, and not only those whose grandparents or parents were born in Poland. It’s not a matter of pride or of shame – but it’s high time we started to understand what it means.
The Link LonkMay 16, 2021 at 03:27PM
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Why Israelis see Polish culture as a joke - Haaretz
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