Return of the Jew

Return of the Jew traces the appearance of a new generation of Jews in Poland that followed the fall of the communist regime. Today more and more Poles are discovering their Jewish heritage and beginning to seek a means of associating with Judaism and Jewish culture. Reszke analyzes this new generation, addressing the question of whether there can be authentic Jewish life in Poland after fifty years of oppression. Based on a series of interviews with Jewish Poles between the ages of 18 and 35, her study provides an illuminating window into the experience of being, and for many becoming, Jewish in these unique circumstances.

Katka Reszke (PhD Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is a researcher in Jewish history, culture, and identity. She has lectured in Israel, Poland, and France. As a documentary filmmaker, her work focuses on human rights, social justice, minority and gender issues, and Polish-Jewish history.

Book News, Inc.:
Writing in the accessible style of first-person nonfiction for interested general readers, in a book structured as an anthropological investigation, Reszke documents her search to discover how new Polish Jews define themselves and their culture.

Geneviève Zubrzycki, University of Michigan:
“Return of the Jew is not a diary, confession, or manifesto in which the author places herself front and center. Rather, it is a theoretically informed and fine-grained study in which Reszke uses her dual positions as an insider within that small community and a social scientific outsider to extract rich and earnest narratives from her interviewees and then critically analyze them. The result is a textured account of identity building. . . . Reszke’s insightful analyses of the narratives that third-generation post-Holocaust Jews have created to explain, to themselves and others, their identifications and personal trajectories are an important contribution. It opens the path for studying the relationship between the Jewish revival and Polish philosemitism. As such, this book will be of interest to anyone interested in understanding this new twist in Jewish life in contemporary Poland and, more broadly, the complex dynamics of identity formation in societies that have endured radical traumas and ruptures.”

Connie Webber:
"Thoughtful and articulate, Polish by birth and Jewish by destiny. . . Reszke is perfectly placed to present the experience of young adults in contemporary Poland who discover, or as she graphically puts it, “stumble over,” their Jewish roots. . . .The book abounds in vignettes that clarify the predicaments, the passion and the pain involved in constructing a Jewish identity in today’s Poland. . . . If you want to understand contemporary Jewish life in Poland, this is the book to read."

Professor Stanislaw Krajewski, the University of Warsaw, Poland, Author of Poland and the Jews. Reflections of a Polish Polish Jew:
“Most Jews think there are no more Jews in Poland. This is not true even though in comparison with the millions of Jews before World War II the present number seems like nothing. The Jews who were born in Poland after the war and have lived there come mostly from assimilated and mixed families. Their search for roots and their readoption, or reconstruction, of some sort of Jewish identity provides for a fascinating story. Katka Reszke has been able to tell the story, building on her own involvement in it and on many interviews with young adults. The book gives an insight into their identity search and the expansion of Jewish presence in present day Poland—an unexpected bonus of the demise of Communism in 1989.”

Ruth Ellen Gruber, award-winning American writer, editor, and photographer:
“Uniquely positioned as both an insider and an acute outside observer, Katka Reszke provides an insightful analysis of a controversial and still developing phenomenon that has bemused, perplexed and sometimes enraged the outside Jewish world. In doing so, she gives rare and welcome voice to the actual protagonists, Poland’s new Jews, and sets in complex context their unprecedented, and often poignant, quest for place, identity and selfhood amid the brave new Jewish realities of post-communist Poland.”