From: pawel@tethys.ph.albany.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.polish
Subject: Re: Nazi camps
Date: 29 Sep 92 15:45:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: sarah.1992Sep29.154513.28006
Reply-To: pawel@tethys.ph.albany.edu
Organization: SUNYA School of Public Health, Albany, NY

>In article <1992Sep28.194855.28003@Princeton.EDU>, roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep28.160512.14104@sarah.albany.edu> pawel@tethys.ph.albany.edu writes:
>
>
>>For a Christian to marry a Jew was a good think to do as long as
>>partner was baptized.
>
>And, vice-versa, it was OK for a Jew to marry a convert to Judaism.
>Jews, however, do not generally allow conversion for the *purpose*
>of marriage, which makes a certain amount of sense, given the amount
>of commitment it takes to live a piously Jewish life.
>

    From your statement I understand that it is not quite vice-versa,
since "Jews do not generally allow conversion for the *purpose*
of mariage".  It seems to me that in Catholic church (although I am
not an expert, I am not Catholic) conversion for the purpose
of marriage is accepted and even encouraged as a mean to "save a soul".

>
>>  This problem was relevant only for religious people and it is not clear
>>to me whether assimilation has to mean a change of religion.
>
>As an expert on the subject (i.e., the descendant of several generations
>of assimilated Jews, some of them from Poland), I can categorically
>say: no.  My great-grandfather was quite assimilated, and was both 
>a leading lawyer in his town (serving all kinds of people) and the 
>president of the synagogue.  He resigned that post after his daughter
>married a Gentile, but remained highly respected in the community/
>communities.
>

   We have agreement here.

>
>>  The same is true about the participation in culture: both cultures
>>(Jewish and Polish) were strongly rooted in their respective religions,
>>thus full participation in the culture meant to large extent accepting
>>the religious tradition (even without accepting the actual beliefs).
>
>Not in urban life in the 20th century.  Educated citizens of Warsaw
>were quite able to get along with one another on a basis unrelated to
>church.  There was the opera house, the coffee house, the place of
>business, and plenty of other secular crossroads.
>

    "Urban life in the 20th century" is general statement. To narrow
our discussion I would like to point out that you are right as far as
larger cities in pre-39 Poland are concerned.  Such life was possible
(cofee houses and so on) in the "European" cities.  Unfortunately,
the situation was not quite the same in the small cities (stetl), not even
mentioning rural Poland.  Life in such places was focused around
the synagogue/church which was the center of the social life.
Atheism was hardly tolerated.
 
>
>>One has to understand the difference between traditional, national
>>cultures and contemporary secular pop-cultures (as for example US culture
>>to large extent).
>
>And, to a pretty large extent, urban culture back then, too.  Religion
>faded among the bourgeoisie all throughout the 19th century; this was true
>most obviously in Western Europe, but also elsewhere.  Secular culture,
>based to a great extent on music and art and commerce, replaced religion
>to some extent.  Once Jews were allowed by law to break out of the ghetto
>and take part in the new public culture, many of them did.
>
  You make very good point about art as a replacement of religion
in bourgeoisie's life in XIX and early XX centuries.  You are right
too that it was most obvious in Western Europe.  Unfortunately, most
of Poland was rather backward then (vast majority of the population
was rural, only recently (XIX century) freed from serfdom) and
not exposed to the secular culture.  The same was true about the Jewish
population in Poland - it remained mostly untouched be the Jewish  
elinghtment in XIX century and remained in the informal ghettos
under influence of not necessarily progresive rabbis (whatever
"progresive" means).

  You write "once Jews were allowed by law to break out of the ghetto
[...] many of them did".  We shouldn't forget that for multiple reasons
most of the chose not to do so.  You certainly know the reasons,
so I will list only few of them: own tradition, observation of religious laws,
which made the participation in the modern life nearly impossible, and last
but not least hostile environment, which to large extent has to be classified
as anti-Semitic.  Nevertheless, anti-Semitism in Poland hardly ever
called for the violence (unlike German or Russian), it was rather
an expression of xeonophobia and economical frustration.


>
>>  If you think about the assimilation as a participation in economical
>>life of the country there were NO FORMAL obstacles for Jews in pre-IIWW
>>Poland. 
>
>But, as we have read, licensing boards and similar gateways became closed
>to Jews in the 1930's, and de facto discrimination in the universities
>was also heavy.

  I agree, discrimination in Poland in late 30's became tolarated
by the goverment. Nevertheless you have to keep in mind
that Poland remained DEMOCRATIC country until 39, the opposition to
the intolerant laws was strong, elections were held and so on and NO
discriminatory laws were adopted by the goverment.

  I do not want to diminish the meaning of the shameful practices,
but the picture was not entirely gloom.

  Neither should we take the whole situation out of context.  If
I had to live in this part of Europe in between-wars period
I would certainly chose Poland, not Germany or USSR  (Czechoslovakia (sp?)
was even better place to be, but the Jewish community there was
rather small :-).

>
>> Again, you were free to chose your buisness partners
>>and for both sides it was often seen as a discrimination (for example
>>in Warsaw's stock market German was spoken until 1923).
>
>I don't follow the point of this example....
>

  The example shows you the situation in newly independant Poland
whith officialy adopted Polish language.  Since most of the businessmen
in Poland were either German or Jewish they used German in stock
market for their own covenience.  I suspect that some Poles
might have felt uneasy about this fact.

  Poland after WWI was not entirely industrialized country. Most
of the buisness was family owned and relatively small.  Personal
contact was very important andin this situation people
quite naturally would chose to deal with their relatives, friends and so on ...
You can observe similar attitudes in the US today - small businesses
tend to cluster in ethnic enclaves and often it is perceived as an
unjust competition, favoritism and so on ...

  This should be taken into account before any practice will
be called anti-Semitic, anti-Black or anti-whoever.


>
>>  The best way to study Jewish attitude approach to the assimilation
>>probelm is to study the political platforms of Jewish parties
>>in pre-39 Poland.  I am not well prepared to go into details now
>>but you can believe me that they were by no means unanimous.
>
>"Two Jews, three opinions."  This is news?  8-)
>
>Roger
>

  No, this is no news, just a reminder between two of us.

                                    Pawel Penczek