Popular Images of Jews in Poland: Folk Art or Stereotypical Caricatures?

TABLET MAGAZINE
By Dara Bramson

POLAND---“Everybody wants to be a Rothschild,” an older Polish woman joked as we gazed at the wooden figurine holding a gold coin. These figurines are recognizable to many people who have been to Poland: they depict stereotypically devout Jews holding objects such as prayer books, musical instruments, or, more notably in recent decades, coins or bags of money.  Those varied reactions were what we hoped for that day last August, as I led a discussion at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow, about a controversial exhibit, Souvenir, Talisman, Toy. The exhibit opened earlier that month during the city’s annual Jewish Culture Festival, and I had been involved with it for the past year. [link]