"Jewish Revival" in Poland

[Elena Gapova]

I'd love to add a couple of points. But first, a link to the info that in
Belarusian Vitebsk two more buildings  will be erected in the Chagall
memorial quater (there is already a museum etc.) imitating a house that he
painted in one of his pictures etc.:
http://naviny.by/rubrics/culture/2007/07/05/ic_news_117_273393

So my first point is that if "Jewish heritage" (previously despised) has
turned into social capital and sells, one is to expect that it will be
produced for consumption while there is demand.

My second point concerns the absense of Jews form these "games". You might
remember that Svetlana Boym wrote in "Common places" that when Soviet Jews
began to arrive in the US in the 1970s, they were secular, urban and
educated, and this was a disappointment for the American locals, who wanted
to see what their grandparents had told them about the old country. I think
this is an important observation. In Eastern Europe, Jewishness stopped
being "about faith", which was seen as an obstacle to modernity. There are
now visible attempts to reverse the trend, very mich inspired and financed
by Israel and US, which, again, turns whatever genuine revival there is,
into a consumer product.

e.g.

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