ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about the cultural identity of the young generation of Polish Jews, the models of constructing modern identifications with the Polish society, the Jewish people and the State of Israel. 'Polishness' is said to be an important part of the Polish-Jewish ethnic identity. The ambivalence manifests itself as a desire of a long-lasting identification. The young Polish Jews are a group with diverse forms of cultural identity, still trying to find appropriate forms of self-identification. The young Polish Jews talk about the impossibility of following all principles of Orthodoxy in the modern word. This desire is accompanied by inability to build a consistent field of identification, and furthermore by the sense of responsibility for the condition of the community and the awareness of merely symbolic existence of 'Jewishness' within the Central and Eastern European Diaspora. It can be a form of nostalgic identity.
