The wind howls as trams rattle by. Friday evening rain lashes the Rondo Babka in a northern district of Warsaw. In the complicated and strange rhythms of the Polish capital, Ronda Babka is a place which everyone knows but nobody holds in great affection. Taking its name from the Polish word for grandmother, Rondo Babka carries homely connotations. But who could ever fall in love with a roundabout?
Fifteen years ago, the Warsaw city authorities renamed the roundabout after an underground brigade which did brave things in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Street signs were changed, and the signs on the tram stop would now have one believe that this is Rondo Radosława. But true Varsovians, including everyone scuttling for shelter on this rainy Friday evening, still call the junction Rondo Babka.
Among the crowds making their way home after work are a number of families walking quietly through the rain to one of Warsaw’s most extraordinary Friday evening gatherings. The men are soberly dressed and evidently favour black. All are wearing hats. Tucked away in an office and shopping complex near the Babka Tower apartment block is the Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue.
The spell of Chabad
Rabbi Szalom Dov Ber Stambler is an amiable man in his mid-thirties. He was born in an Israeli community founded in 1949 by Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn — the sixth rebbe (or spiritual leader) of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. Rabbi Stambler is a Chabad man through and through. And he is in no doubt why he and his wife Dina moved to Warsaw eleven years ago: “I am here first and foremost for the Jews of Poland,” he says.
More than enough men have arrived to form a minyan (or quorum), so it’s time to turn to prayer. Rarely are the psalms sung with such gusto and evident enthusiasm. Yet there is no ritual, no prayer, which is so important that it cannot be interrupted by a warm handshake and a smile.
Rabbi Stambler is Poland’s leading advocate of a Hasidic tradition which had its origins in eastern Europe. The Chabad-Lubavitch branch originated in the late 18th century in the Belarusian territories of the Russian Empire, yet the affirming flame of Chabad belief and tradition was all but extinguished in Poland by the Nazis.
The rabbi admits that many are surprised to learn that Hasidism survives at all in Poland. “When I meet with Chabad rabbis from across the world at our annual convention in New York, and I say I am based in Poland, most times I note a predictable reaction.”
“They’ll ask ‘Why Poland? Surely there are no Jews left in Poland?’” says Stambler. “And I have to correct them. I tell them that Warsaw is a good place to be a Jew, Poland is a good place to be a Jew.”
The service of prayer and song which welcomes the Sabbath is called Kabbalat Shabbat. It is exuberant yet also touches that deep vein of almost mystical spirituality which lies at the heart of the Chabad tradition. The wave of prayer subsides, but there is no definitive end, for now tables are being laid for a communal Sabbath meal. “And why not?” says a young woman from Ukraine who ushers me towards a table. “Eating together is itself a prayer,” she adds.
By the time we reach dessert, the woes of the week have been replaced by a mellow sense of a community united by bonds of prayer and an interest in good food.
“The food is first class here,” notes a Polish man across the table as he tucks into a range of tasty salads. Before long, soup is being served, followed by a main course of chicken. Then Rabbi Stambler’s ten-year-old son Yossi takes to the podium and gives an animated homily without any notes. He turns just once or twice to his father for a cue, but the performance is extraordinary, even mesmerizing. Here, surely, is a Hasidic preacher in the making. Dina Stambler is clearly immensely proud of her precocious son and confides that the boy’s passion for the spoken word was already evident when he was still a toddler.
By the time we reach dessert, the woes of the week have been replaced by a mellow sense of a community united by bonds of prayer and an interest in good food. “If truth be told, I think there might be some people here for whom the food is the main attraction. It’s certainly better than what you get at Nożyk,” whispers a fellow diner in conspiratorial terms.
The ghost of Moses Mendelssohn
Nożyk is Warsaw shorthand for Synagoga Nożyków in the capital’s central Śródmieście district. It is the only Jewish synagogue in Warsaw which survived the German occupation of the city from 1939 until 1945.
While the Chabad meeting place is tucked away in Warsaw’s northern suburbs, Nożyk stands centre stage in the Polish capital. The building itself is striking, at one level a model of sober simplicity but with playful references to the architectural grammar of the Romanesque, Byzantine and even Renaissance periods. It is typical of many synagogues built in the westernmost part of the Russian empire (and elsewhere in central Europe) around the very end of the 19th century. Tragically, not many have survived.
The Nożyk congregation was from the outset dominated by the more affluent elements in Warsaw Jewry, namely the baalei batim — the merchants and householders who could afford to purchase a seat in the synagogue. This was traditionally a place where a more secular approach to the governance of the community (a style known as keter malchut) tempered rabbinical authority based on the Torah. That rabbinical style is known as keter torah. At Nożyk there has always been and still is perennial competition between the keterim, but Rabbi Moshe Bloom is at pains to emphasise that Nożyk is ultimately a very open and friendly place.
“If the ghost of Moses Mendelssohn were to come to our Sabbath service,” says Rabbi Bloom, referring to the great Jewish Enlightenment philosopher, “he’d feel very much at home here at Nożyk.”
Not quite kosher but very tasty — bagels and more at Charlotte Menora in Warsaw (photo © D Matlock courtesy of the POLIN Museum).
The ghost of Moses Mendelssohn does not appear at Saturday shul, but a sizeable crowd of Warsaw’s Jews do turn out, for the most part dressed in Sabbath best for the occasion. The community includes men and women born in the United States or the Soviet Union, individuals whose life trajectories have somehow led them by accident or design to Warsaw. But there are also some who were born in Poland, a few of whom may only recently have started to research and explore their Jewish family histories. “I was brought up as a Catholic,” says one man who explains that it was only when his mother was on her deathbed that she revealed to him that she was in fact Jewish.
Poland is a country rediscovering its Jewish roots. And nowhere is that more evident than in Warsaw. For young people keen to explore a possible Jewish family history, a first nervous step may be to attend a Friday evening supper or a Sunday brunch at Warsaw’s Jewish Community Center (JCC).
Recovering Jewish links
Joe Smoczyński is a JCC regular. “People come here who might be very apprehensive about visiting an Orthodox synagogue,” he says. “They may have been brought up as devout Catholics, and they may actually know very little about Jewish traditions and beliefs. But this is a place where they can explore,” he notes. “It’s not always easy,” says Joe. “For some people, it’s hard to admit that, when it comes to matters of faith, they have been living a lie.”
Joe runs a progressive Jewish community (Beit Centrum Ki Tov), but he is careful not to assert the authority of a rabbi. His business card describes him as a gabbai — someone who coordinates some aspects of a synagogue’s work and may assist in the reading of the Torah. “We are keen to create a very welcoming community, a place where a newcomer might feel at home.”
Many of those enjoying Sunday brunch at JCC will possibly never attend a service at Beit Centrum, let alone join the congregation at Chabad or Nożyk. Some are interested in exploring a thread of family history without making any commitment to the Jewish faith. Yet others have not a streak of Jewish DNA, but they are still keen to catch the pulse of Jewish culture.
Shift to the Charlotte Menora restaurant, just a stone’s throw from Nożyk, to meet the capital’s smart set at work and play. Advertising executives close deals over blintzes while would-be models pose with plates of caviar juif and tzimmes. The menu relies on a dash of French flair laced with a hefty dose of nostalgia for the Ashkenazi culinary traditions of Jewish Poland. It’s immensely impressive, all the more so because the restaurant works closely with the Museum of the History of Polish Jews (called POLIN for short) to ensure that Charlotte Menora stays true to Jewish traditions and culture. There are cooking classes where young Poles learn how to prepare the menus of yesteryear.
Magdalena Maślak, who manages the interface between POLIN and Charlotte Menora, has an office at one end of the restaurant. “In a city which has no end of chic hummus bars, it’s important to remind Varsovians that this is a place which once had its own very distinctive style of Jewish cuisine,” says Magdalena. “We try and make sure that at least one third of the dishes on the menu stay true to the Ashkenazi tradition. And Menora is kosher-friendly. No pork, and we don’t mix meat with dairy.”
Across the road in Synagoga Nożyków, Rabbi Bloom is quick to point out that kosher-friendly is not necessarily kosher. “That’s one of the big issues here,” he says. “It’s actually not so easy in Poland to really keep kosher. There’s a very limited number of properly approved kosher suppliers and it’s generally necessary to pay extra for kosher food.”
For many visitors, the immense richness of Jewish life in Poland is evoked not by attending a synagogue service, but by a visit to POLIN, the ambitious new museum which brings to life the history of Jewish settlement and culture within Poland.
“We’ve seen the rapid growth of Jewish-friendly enterprises and initiatives, and there’s a tremendous interest in all things Jewish,” says the rabbi. “That creates a favourable environment for us, but I am not sure how many of those listening to klezmer music really know very much about Judaism.”
I miss you, Jew
This, in a nutshell, is the Jewish dilemma in Warsaw and more widely in Poland. From the grand boulevards of the Polish capital to the back streets of the one-time Jewish districts of the city, there is a palpable sense of a lost metropolis. On the side of an abandoned warehouse in the Praga district of the city, someone has inscribed the slogan “Tęsknię za tobą Żydzie.” It means “I miss you, Jew.” The same poignant snatch of graffiti recurs around the city. When Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich first saw the slogan, he is reported to have remarked “It’s nice that someone misses us.”
Oyf der yidisher gas / On the Jewish Street 1918–1939: This exhibit at the POLIN Museum recreates Jewish life in interwar Poland (photo © M Starowieyska courtesy of the POLIN Museum).
While there has been a remarkable renaissance of Jewish life in Warsaw, any exploration of the theme inevitably involves chasing ghosts. One may pause and reflect by a preserved stretch of the former ghetto wall between Sienna Street and Złota Street or stop and ponder at the point where Jewish families would await deportation, but these are unquiet places, fractured by narratives of hate and violence — a world removed from the melodic rendering of the psalms at Chabad or Nożyk.
For many visitors, the immense richness of Jewish life in Poland is evoked not by attending a synagogue service, but by a visit to POLIN, the ambitious new museum which brings to life the history of Jewish settlement and culture within Poland. Just as the heart of any Jewish community is its synagogue, so the heart of POLIN is a reconstructed wooden synagogue. Its intensely beautiful, ornately painted interior with a stunning gazebo-style bimah (or platform) is a pivot of heaven on earth. “See, all this was made by hand, for the glory of God,” reads an inscription on the painted ceiling. Visitors to POLIN are quick to discern the reverence of the spot, and all are silent. The reconstruction of the Gwoździec Synagogue is a reminder that there were once hundreds of wooden synagogues in Poland. None of the originals have survived, and the Jewish landscapes of this part of Europe are now but memories. But the Polish capital is a place where a new chapter in the history of European Judaism is now being written.
POLIN: the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is open daily except Tuesdays from 10 am. Admission is 25 Polish złoty (15 złoty for concessions). All visitors are admitted free of charge on Thursdays. Find out more at www.polin.pl.
