Warsaw....

So... first of all, all of Poland surprised me.  It's a beautiful country - lush, green with rivers and rolling hills and beautiful architecture.  Modern Warsaw is a bustling, metropolitan city - tall buildings, luxury malls and restaurants. We stood in the main square of where the Jewish community once stood and there is tis enormous building standing shoulder to shoulder with more modern structures.  The windows are blown out, boarded up and instead of razing it or renovating it, the city placed huge posters on the edifice of the dilapidated building of pictures of the Jews who used to live in Warsaw before the war broke out. It's a glimpse of a community that once thrived. These pictures are not of the typical shtetl Jew that you automatically picture in your mind when you think of Polish Jewry, but these were pictures of the modern Jews of Warsaw, educated, cultured, stylish... 

Modern Jewish ideas brought about by the reform movement was spreading from Germany to Poland and the Jews were moving away from that old stereotypical "Jew" towards a more modern, enlightened Jew....