Happy Birthday, Gordon and Poland!

It’s Gordon Haber’s birthday, and he’s giving you a gift. Several years back, we published his brief dispatch from Poland called “The Only Jew For Miles.”

I noticed very quickly that marble is hard on the knees. Presumably, that was the point–a Christian pilgrimage is supposed to have some echo of Jesus’ agony. But I was a Jew, for God’s sake; what the hell was I doing? I rounded the corner behind the altar. A narrow hallway, a profusion of glittering plaques–one, I saw, from the firemen of Gdansk. But no painting. No painting. The pain was awful and I wanted to get up. No, I told myself. Show some respect.  After all, Mary is a Jewish mother. But I was weak. 

It came out of his year-long sojourn there, the full story of which is now told in his ebook The Guest Is God: An American Jew in Poland. Is it too Jewish for Poland or too Polish for the Jews? You be the judge. For Poland’s 100th birthday, he’s giving away copies to anyone who contacts him. DM Gordon on Twitter https://twitter.com/gordonhaber