The book is a study of references to Poles, Poland and Polishness in Jewish-American fiction created after World War II. The analysis of seventy novels by Jewish-American writers of several generations reveals portrayals of Poles as secondary or unimportant characters, either in the Old World or in the new American environment.

The book adds new studies of memories and interactions between Jews and non-Jews to the historical and cultural research on this topic. It gathers in one volume the results of work by scholars from several countries, while the topics of the articles cover various disciplines: history, sociology, psychology, literary and language studies. The specific themes refer to the cultures and interactions with non-Jews in places such as Kiev, Vienna, Ireland, Springfield, Sosua as well as reflect upon interactions in literary texts by Czeslaw Milosz and other Polish writers, some contemporary Jewish-American novelists and South American writers. Finally there are texts referring to the experience of the Holocaust and the post-Holocaust trauma as well as German-Israeli and Polish-Jewish relations and heritage.