Since my parents both are jewish, me and my sisters are too. It never had much meaning to me (My parents are not religious at all and we eat just what we like, not limited by religion or tradition), until my oldest sister got married to a religious jew. For me any kind of religion is 'believing in myths', and the jewish one is no exception to me, but I started thinking more about what it means to be a jew... I guess I'll add my thoughts about it on this page.
When I was younger, boys and girls at the schoolyard 'teased' me for being a jew, but the most important to tease me was not the fact I'm jewish, the most important was that my dad was a member of the communist party. When I grew older noone called me a 'jew' or teased me for it, although most of the people knew it (since my father is quite a 'public' personality).
In the past Poland was very kind for jews and many jews fled from the pogroms in Russia to the kinder regions of Poland. Before WWII 20% of the polish population was jewish. But fascism also got Poland in his grip and the myth of the jews who are responsible for the crusifiction of christ got very popular among catholics and during the period between both wars, antisemitism grew and grew...
It was not without a reason that the destructioncamps were build in Poland... many people escaping them were killed by stupid farmers thinking they were doing their christ a favor...
Nowadays Poland is not as antisemitic anymore, although the polish people tend to deny the black pages in their past history.
For some strange reasons people keep on asking me what I think of the situation at the 'Holy Country' (they mean Israel I guess), whenever they hear I'm jewish. But please for me no country is 'holy' and especially not when one people cannot live next to the other people. The simple fact that I'm jewish does not make me 'pro Israel' or 'anti Palestinian'. As long as they do not live together in peace, I'll cry with the mothers who see their childeren killed and mutilated by a war to crazy for words.