A lecture given at King's College London on 20 November 1996 under the auspices of the Institute for Polish–Jewish Studies and the Polish Cultural Institute

Ten years ago, in the first issue of Polin, Rafael Scharf wrote:

No-one is under any illusion that the few thousand Jews remaining in Poland, who openly consider themselves to be such and who, as it were, apologize for being alive, are not physically and spiritually a community in terminal decline. They have no schools, no synagogues, no rabbis, no contact with Israel, no leadership, no future. It has to be admitted, albeit regrettably, that world Jewry has ceased to care for them: they have been written off as lost. Therefore, from the Jewish point of view, we are talking not about current affairs but exclusively about history.

The title of Rafael Scharf's paper was ‘In Anger and in Sorrow: Towards a Polish–Jewish Dialogue’. Ten years ago the world looked, and was, just as he described it. Poland at that time had a very different political regime, and no one could possibly have foreseen how profoundly and how soon the situation would change.

Today there are about 10,000 people living in Poland who consider themselves (and who are considered to be) Jews. There are nine religious congregations, operating under an umbrella organization called the Union of Jewish Religious Congregations; seven functioning synagogues, and other synagogue buildings being reconstructed; three rabbis; and there is also a new Association of Polish Jews, which means that the Jewish life of the community is no longer limited to religious congregations and the state-sponsored Social and Cultural Association of Polish Jews.

A Jewish primary school has been operating since 1994 with the support of the Lauder Foundation. For the first time since the Second World War there is a Union of Polish Jewish Students. No one could have imagined, even ten years ago, that such an organization could have about 150 active members. There is even a Maccabi Sports Club. And there is the Association of Holocaust Children with about 700 members.