It took less than a week after landing in Israel for her new job as first secretary in the Tel Aviv Polish Embassy for Katarzyna Rybka-Iwanska to hear her first joke about Polish women. It was not complimentary. Perhaps it was this one:What’s the difference between a Polania and a Rottweiler?The Rottweiler eventually let’s go.Ouch! Or this one?
A Polania gets on a flight and after half an hour starts shouting, “Doctor, doctor! Emergency!”A doctor rushes to her side.“I’d like you to meet my daughter!” Rybka-Iwanska, 35, a serious, goal-oriented diplomat who is blessed with an easy laugh, was not amused. Nor was she mollified when reassured the barbs are not flung at her, a Catholic Pole, but at Jewish women of Polish descent.“I was not insulted. Not angry. I just do not find them funny at all,” says Rybka-Iwanska, in charge of communication and public diplomacy at the embassy. “Maybe it’s the cultural difference. It’s not my sense of humor. It’s kind of bizarre to have so many jokes about one particular group of people. I realized early on that it’s deeply entrenched in Israeli culture.”Entrenched indeed.There is not a person in Israel that does not know a few Ima Polania (Polish mother) jokes. The term can be used casually in conversation directed at women of all ethnic backgrounds as in: “Don’t be such an Ima Polania,” with the meaning clearly understood.Don’t be nagging, controlling, manipulative, guilt-inducing, self-sacrificing and over-protective, among other stellar qualities. The Polania is sister to the Jewish mother in jokes told by American Jewish comedians.A man calls his mother: “Mom, how are you?”“Not so good,” says the mother. “I’m very weak.”“Why are you so weak?”“I haven’t eaten in a month.”“Why, mom? Why haven’t you eaten in a month?” “ I didn’t want my mouth full of food in case you should call.”But Rybka-Iwanska gets the last laugh with her own punchline. To counter the phenomenon and to engage with Israeli audience, she launched her own YouTube channel “Polin B’Ivrit” – Poland in Hebrew – where she posts short videos about Polish “Wonder Women,” heroines in a variety of fields.“I wanted to present to Israelis the history of Polish women,” she says. “I thought that this is a way to have a conversation with the people of Israel, which is also what my posting is all about, to build relationships, to build connections with the society.”With her recently acquired Hebrew, flavored with a charming Polish accent, she tells the stories of:– Irena Szewinska, nee Kirszenstein, one of the world’s foremost athletes for nearly two decades, the only athlete in history to have held the world record in the 100, 200 and 400-meter races.– Ida Kaminska, the matron of Yiddish theater, who produced more than 70 plays and performed in more than 150. She starred in the 1965 film The Shop on Main Street, which won an Academy Prize for best foreign film.– Queen Jadwiga, crowned as Polish monarch in Krakow in 1384, who established new hospitals, schools and churches, promoted the use of vernacular in Church services and restored the University in Krakow.– Sara Schenirer, a pioneer of Orthodox Jewish education for girls who in 1917 established the Bais Yaakov schools in what was then considered a revolutionary approach to female education. Today there are Bais Yaacov schools in many locations worldwide with sizable orthodox communities. US President Joe Biden picked a Bais Yaakov graduate, Anne Neuberger, as his deputy national adviser for cybersecurity.– Stefania Wilczyńska (Pani Stefa an educator, who chose in August 1942 to accompany the orphans under her care to the Treblinka Death Camp along with the head of the orphanage, Janusz Korczak.– Wanda Rutkiewicz a mountain climber and computer engineer, the first woman to reach the summit of the deadly K2 mountain on the Pakistan- Chinese border and the third to climb Mount Everest.The 14 (and counting) podcasts, some with English subtitles, are dedicated to fighter pilots, artists, women in medicine and science. Each episode is preceded by fiery, creative brainstorming session between Rybka-Iwanska and her colleague at the embassy, Yael Rusek. Her latest podcast released in January with English subtitles tells the story of the women who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto.“We aim to reach 100 biographies of Polish women,” says Rybka-Iwanska who is already thinking about the next step, to turn the stories of her Polish heroines into a book – in Hebrew. Whenever possible she ties in references to Israel. For example, in a segment about female WWII fighter pilots, she says she was not surprised to learn that Israel’s first female IDF fighter pilot has Polish roots. Roni Zuckerman is the granddaughter of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Zivia Lubetkin and Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman. She films the short podcasts, usually less than 10 minutes, in her living room, in what started as a COVID-19 attempt to switch to digital diplomacy. “When I realized we can’t organize public events we had to find a new, creative way to do the work,” she says. “Israelis know very well how in a time of crisis to recreate themselves. We were sent here to do a job, and COVID-19 is not an excuse. It’s an incentive to work differently to find new ways to reach people in an innovative way.”Rybka-Iwanska graduated from the faculty of politics at Warsaw University and worked in Poland’s diplomatic service for eight years in the department of strategy and planning in Warsaw. Israel is her first posting, and she came two years ago here with her family. There were about 150 postings available, but Israel is the only post for which she applied. As a teenager in a remote small town on Poland’s Russian border she participated in a national contest held by the Golda Tencer Shalom Foundation. Her essay on the Warsaw Ghetto got her into the finals, a trip to Warsaw, a visit to the Presidential Palace, the Jewish Theater and an interest in Jewish history. “When Israelis listen to me speaking Hebrew with my strong Polish accent, memories of their mothers and grandparents come back to them,” she says. “I didn’t expect that. It melts my heart.”SHE BEGINS each podcast with the same introduction, in Hebrew, of course:“Shalom, I am Katarzyna, I am from Poland and I live in Israel and I am studying Hebrew. In short videos I tell the stories of women from my country.