Lucky Jews: Poland’s Jewish figurines (Na szczescie to Zyd: Polskie figurki Zydów) by Erica Lehrer

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In Poland today, “Lucky Jews” outnumber Polish Jews. Figurines and images of Jews holding money have proliferated in Poland with the country’s transition is capitalism. These good luck charms hang in homes and sit by cash registers in shops and restaurants across the country. Are these images positive or negative? Do they divide Poles and Jews or bind them together? Are they souvenirs, talismans, toys? Holocaust ghosts or patron saints of Polish capitalism? By exploring what Jewish figurines mean to those who make and buy them, Lucky Jews offers a provocative perspective on the place of Jews in Polish consciousness.

Erica Lehrer is an American cultural anthropologist and curator. She is the author of Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places (2013). She teaches at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.

Bilingual Polish-English exhibition catalog, images & scholarly essays.

Published by Korporacja Ha!art, Kraków 2014

Year first published: 2014