Turystyka Żydów do Polski po 1990 roku

Jewish tourists in Poland after 1990

Summary: This paper presents an analysis of Jewish tourist visits to Poland since 1990. The history of Jews is inseparably connected with Poland. For centuries, Polin (the name for Poland, also meaning "rest here" in Hebrew) was home to millions of Jewish believers as well as a place of Jewish culture and religious blossoming. It was also Poland where the tragedy of the Holocaust took its most dramatic turn. Since the beginning of the 1990s, a significant increase in the number of Jewish tourists in Poland has been observed. This new trend is primarily the result of a variety of political changes that took place following the fall of the "iron curtain" in Europe in 1989. The characteristics of the places visited by Jewish tourists are emphasized in this work. Most Jewish tourists visit places somehow connected with the memory of the Holocaust. These include remnants of Jewish architecture such as synagogues and certain places favored by pilgrims such as tombs of the Tzadikim. Jewish interest in sites connected with the general history of Poland has also been observed (e.g. the Wawel Castle, the Sukiennice Cloth Hall, and the salt mine in Wieliczka). This work describes the characteristic forms of Jewish tourism in Poland, i.e. cognitive, ethnic, sentimental, religious, and pilgrimage-oriented. Special places of interest visited by large numbers of tourists, depending on their personal goals, are mentioned. Differentiation of visitors' travel plans with respect to their age and the level of their religiousness is also a key issue in the paper. Finally, various problems connected with the general image of Poland prevalent among Jewish tourists are analyzed.

Słowa kluczowe: turystyka żydowska, turystyka sentymentalna, turystyka religijna, turystyka poznawcza, groby cadyków, zabytki kultury żydowskiej

Słowa kluczowe (w języku angielskim): Jewish tourism, sentimental tourism, religious tourism, cognitive tourism, tzadik graves, Jewish heritage

Prace Geograficzne, 2009, z. 121, s. 147-158.

Instytut Geografii i Gospodarki Przestrzennej UJ

ISSN 1644-3586

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