bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Comparative and Feminist Perspectives
Authors: Katzburg-Yungman Mira
Published: February 2021

This chapter compares Hadassah to other American Zionist organizations. In particular, the chapter compares it to the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), Pioneer Women, and the Mizrachi Women's Organization of America, and also with WIZO, the Women's International Zionist Organization. Through these comparisons, the chapter aims to better understand Hadassah's sources of strength. In addition to these, Hadassah drew strength from its apolitical character. The avoidance in principle of any affiliation with any political party, either in the United States or in Israel, was based on the central objective of Hadassah to be a popular, mass-based Zionist movement of Jewish women. This motive was coupled with the accepted view at the time of its establishment that political involvement was not appropriate for women. Indeed, to this day the largest women's organizations, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, are mainly involved in humanitarian work, and declare themselves non-partisan.
The Social Implications of Very Early Marriage
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses premature or very early marriage. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many east European Jews married off their children at the age of 13, 12, or even younger. They saw this practice as a typical characteristic of traditional east European Jewish society. However, it was common only in one sector or class of the Jewish community — the upper class — a group that included the wealthy and the learned. Most of the Jewish community, the simple masses, were unable to allow themselves the ‘luxury’ of early marriage. Their children had to wait and save up until they had sufficient resources to set up a new household and until they were relatively certain that they could support themselves. The chapter then looks at the reasons for the popularity of very early marriage among east European Jews in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, tracing the connections between early marriage and the social needs of the Jewish community. It also analyses Jewish marital patterns.
Scientific Welfare and Lonely Old People: The Development of Old-Age Homes
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter traces the historical development of Jewish old-age homes to examine the place of the elderly in the Jewish family, along with broader issues of communal organization. Traditionally, the social welfare needs of the indigent or the ill in east European Jewish communities were attended to directly in their homes. However, a number of changes in the conditions of Jewish life made old-age homes increasingly necessary. In many respects, the interest in homes for the aged was actually indicative of an increased sense of responsibility of the Jewish community vis-à-vis the elderly. The Jewish family per se was not weakening; rather, organized communities now undertook to supply services that were once left to individuals. The perceived need for homes for the aged reflected not only the increasing number of elderly, but also much higher expectations for their support. Not surprisingly, this process took place in different places at different times, depending on the course of modernization and local conditions. Despite the limited success of homes for the aged in serving a wide population, many did provide an impressive service.
Literacy among Jews in Eastern Europe in the Modern Period
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter describes the literacy of the Jews of eastern Europe in the modern period. This is an interesting topic because, on the one hand, these Jews were heirs to a long tradition of literacy. At the same time, they lived in a multilingual world. In that society, Jews usually spoke Yiddish to each other; prayed in Hebrew; came into contact with bureaucrats who spoke the languages of rulers such as Russian or German; and dealt with customers and clients who spoke Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Belorussian. Most of the latter were oppressed languages with limited possibilities for publication and literary expression. Thus, when considering the literacy of east European Jews, one has to consider literacy in their vernacular (Yiddish), in their literary language (Hebrew), and also in non-Jewish languages. Literacy in the first two categories is significant as a reflection of cultural patterns and exposure to the written word. Meanwhile, literacy in the last category is a reflection both of acculturation and exposure or openness to general culture and society.
Is the Question the Answer? The Context and Consequences of an Educational Pattern
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter studies the role of questions in east European Jewish education. The importance attributed to question asking by children and students may appear to be a rather trivial aspect of traditional Jewish education in eastern Europe. However, attitudes to questions shed light on a number of educational and historical issues, and reflect basic cultural styles. The chapter demonstrates this by comparing the strategies used in two communities — that of east European Jewish society and North African Muslim society — in relation to sacred sources. While asking questions was a highly regarded skill in traditional east European Jewish education, writing answers — and writing in general — was of peripheral importance. The respect and import attributed to asking questions was closely connected to one of the more overlooked aspects of Jewish education: the special nature of literacy and schooling in the east European Jewish ḥeder from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.
Hasidic Yeshivas in Interwar Poland
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses hasidic yeshivas in interwar Poland. The distinction between hasidim and mitnagedim with regard to yeshivas disappeared in Poland between the First and Second World wars, when one of the most striking phenomena of hasidism was the dramatic rise in the number of yeshivas, their ubiquity, and their role in the education of the young males of the hasidic elite. Some of these yeshivas were clearly identified with specific hasidic courts, while others were identified instead with hasidism in general. The multiplication of hasidic yeshivas, and the creative solutions they offered to the challenges hasidim thought they were facing, are clear evidence of the creativity and resourcefulness of interwar hasidism. The chapter then explains that the Polish hasidic yeshiva did not develop in a vacuum, but had as very visible potential models the Lithuanian and Hungarian yeshivas. Lithuanian rabbis were often employed in hasidic yeshivas, and methods of study that developed in Lithuania on occasion influenced talmudic study in Poland.
The Inheritance of the Rabbinate in Eastern Europe
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter investigates the inheritance of the rabbinate in eastern Europe. Inheritance of rabbinical posts is almost taken for granted in many contemporary Orthodox or strictly Orthodox Jewish communities. This is true not only in hasidic groups, where inheritance is an integral element of the dynastic system, but in yeshivas and other Orthodox communities as well. It would be tempting but incorrect to assume that there was an unbroken tradition of inheritance of rabbinical posts from antiquity to the modern period. Granted, in many Jewish societies, inheritance of rabbinic leadership was accepted. However, for centuries, the standard pattern of Ashkenazi Jewry was quite different. In medieval and early modern Ashkenazi Jewry, inheritance of rabbinic posts was actually prohibited. In other words, although contemporary inheritance of rabbinical posts appears very traditional and even archaic, in reality it is also a modern innovation. The chapter suggests that it was a practical and reasonable response to changes that took place in the structure of the Jewish community in modern times and that clarifying this development sheds light on the nature of the east European rabbinate and the characteristics of the Jewish community.
The Controversy over Sheḥitah and the Struggle between Hasidim and Mitnagedim
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter assesses the controversy over the knives used in sheḥitah, or slaughtering of animals. In east European Jewish society, meat was a central element of the diet, and the observance of the kosher laws was one of the most obvious ways in which Jews were distinguished from non-Jews. Moreover, a rigorous observance of these laws was one of the ways in which individual Jews demonstrated their piety. The quality of the ḥalaf, or knife used for sheḥitah, is one of the key elements in determining whether meat is kosher or not. During the early days of the hasidic movement, a dispute over the type of knife that should be used — specifically a demand that slaughtering knives be sharpened or ‘polished’ in a special way — played a major role in the struggle between the hasidim and their opponents, particularly the mitnagedim. The decline of this dispute contributed to the establishment of a degree of peace, or at least coexistence, between the groups.
From George Washington to the League of Nations
Authors: Ansell Joseph P.
Published: February 2021

This chapter marks a period in Arthur Szyk's life which was spent in increased travel, usually due to exhibitions of his work. However, the worldwide economic crisis that followed the 1929 crash drastically reduced the market for elaborate, deluxe illustrated books, and speculative printings like that of the Statute of Kalisz were no longer feasible; consequently, most of Szyk's projects, for some time to come, were self-motivated rather than commissioned. Yet he did undertake some of his major projects during this period. His interest in America, for instance, was realized on a grand scale in his next major project — an extended series of miniature paintings devoted to the history of the American Revolution. In addition, motivated by his belief in the goals of the organization, Szyk began an illuminated version of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Like the manuscript of the Statute of Kalisz, this work employs historical scenes and portraits as well as allegorical and symbolic motifs.
An Ambassador for Co-operation
Authors: Ansell Joseph P.
Published: February 2021

This chapter follows Arthur Szyk's career toward the outbreak of the Second World War. This period marked a period of increased political activism on his part. Supported by the highest levels of the Polish government, Szyk's work continued to spread the message of mutual co-operation and freedom, meeting with positive responses during his exhibits. He once again took up the pen as a political caricaturist during this period, adding contemporary images to the message he believed was already embodied in the statute, to help alert people to the worsening situation in Germany. He contributed drawings to several Polish newspapers, highlighting the threats posed by the rise of the Nazi party and commenting on the sad state of affairs experienced by his fellow Jews living in Germany.
From Miniature to Caricature
Authors: Ansell Joseph P.
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines Arthur Szyk's career as a political caricaturist during World War II. In less than four months, since the September 1939 German invasion of Poland, Szyk had created a significant number of images directed against the Nazi aggressors. The range of subjects treated in these works is broad. There are the expected caricatures of Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders, ridiculing them and indicting their ideas and actions. Others depict Nazi ‘types’, anonymous members of the Schutzstaffel (SS) or the war staff; they are shown as brutal and unthinking, with an air of superiority that is patently false and hollow. These images express the trenchant political invective associated with caricature. Yet there is another group of works which, although in the same style as the caricatures, might best be described as political drawings. This significant portion of Szyk's images concentrates on Polish citizens and their struggle to survive.
The Turn towards Peace
Authors: Ansell Joseph P.
Published: February 2021

This chapter further explores Arthur Szyk's work during wartime. During the war his fame as a politically engaged artist and illustrator reached its peak. His popularity was overwhelming. While he had been known before, and would be known later, for his politically and socially didactic art, at no other time during his career did he enjoy so pervasive and international a reputation. Nor were there other periods during which he produced such politically direct and clearly effective works. Throughout the almost six-year duration of the Second World War, his anti-Axis and pro-Allied illustrations were omnipresent. They were seen by many millions of people, military and civilian, in numerous exhibitions and publications; literally dozens of magazines and newspapers in the United States and in other countries printed his drawings and satires; they were used in films, in advertising, on posters, and in a variety of other formats.
In a Changing America
Authors: Ansell Joseph P.
Published: February 2021

This chapter encompasses Arthur Szyk's final years. It shows his continued dedication to freedom struggles around the world even as it contemplates on the dwindling number of exhibitions he held during this period. During this time, the United States was also turning inward after the Second World War. This attitude was one which Szyk did not share and which his work, with its liberal and international themes, did not support. Moreover, the chapter reveals his growing sympathy towards the Soviet Union, which was so evident in the political cartoons and related works from the years of alliance during the Second World War. It also shows that, by the early years of the Cold War, his health was somewhat precarious, forcing him to choose his activities carefully.
Creating Arthur Szyk
Authors: Ansell Joseph P.
Published: February 2021

This chapter creates a portrait of Arthur Szyk through his life and works. Significantly, there were a number of instances throughout his career when Szyk acted on his own to enhance his standing — as a Pole, as a Jew, as a Polish Jew, and as an artist. In some cases, it is not clear how carefully and deliberately he was directing the public's perceptions of him. In others, one can see him seizing an opportunity and acting to establish himself in a role he wished to inhabit. The chapter goes on to show how the various personal activities from throughout his life and career show Szyk as an artist with a clear belief in himself as a major participant in the myriad social and political issues of his day. He created himself in the same way that he created a drawing or painting.
Jewish Self-Hatred in Germany and England
Authors: Endelman Todd M.
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses the term 'Jewish self-hatred', which describes Jews who experienced their Jewishness as a cruel plight and echoed the antisemitic slogans of the day that invites controversy. It explains how Jewish self-hatred has been used more often to attack opponents than to understand them since its emergence in the twentieth century, most prominently as the title of Theodor Lessing's polemic Der jüdische Selbsthass in 1930. It also mentions writers Philip Roth and Isaac Rosenfeld from the late 1940s and 1950s who did not respect communal pieties and were frequently accused of self-hatred and betrayal of the Jewish people. The chapter looks at intracommunal debates in recent decades in which right-wing circles have invoked Jewish self-hatred to disparage liberals and radicals who support a two-state solution to the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. The chapter cites ultra-nationalist ministers in Israeli cabinets who have denounced Jewish officials in the Obama administration as self-hating Jews.
Who Am I?
Authors: Michlic Joanna B.
Published: February 2021

Prudently, the Orlowskys and I decided not to mention my being Jewish. And so it was that I became an orphaned relative, surnamed Orlowsky, charitably taken in by the family. I was not apprehensive that Polish people who had known me five or six years before would recognize me. In 1944 I was a fourteen-year-old with long braids who spoke fluent, unaccented Polish. Now, in 1944, my new identity was perhaps not yet entirely comfortable. But as months wore on, being a Polish Catholic orphan felt increasingly natural, like a well-worn pair of shoes gradually molded to one’s feet....
Jewish Collaborators on Trial in Poland 1944–1956
Authors: Finder Gabriel N. , Prusin Alexander V.
Published: February 2021

DURING the Second World War, the German military and civil administration in occupied Europe relied heavily on certain elements in local occupied populations—sympathizers, careerists, opportunists, pragmatists, and confused and terrorized people, not to mention antisemites—to advance German objectives. The character of a local population’s compromised relation with the German occupiers—the term ‘collaboration’ emerged only in the immediate aftermath of the war—varied from country to country and region to region, ranging from compliance and cooperation to collusion and complicity....
From Silence to Recognition
Authors: Szuchta Robert
Published: February 2021

MORE than three and a half million Jews lived in Poland before the Second World War, constituting the country’s second largest minority. Most of them did not survive the Holocaust. After the war and throughout the communist period, students in Polish schools seldom explored Poland’s multi-ethnic traditions in the past and the destruction of the Jewish community in the years 1939–45. The Polish educational system promptly subsumed the Jewish victims of the Holocaust under the total number of six million Polish citizens killed during the war. In history lessons the Holocaust was treated as a peripheral phenomenon, often depicted as a part of the struggle and martyrology of the Polish nation. The authors of history textbooks discussed the fate of the Jews only within the framework of Polish national history. Chapter headings stressed the Polish ethnic character of the wartime struggle and suffering: ‘Polish National Struggle for Freedom’; ‘Poles Fight to Regain their Freedom’; ‘Polish Nation Resisted the Occupier’; ‘Polish Struggle for Freedom in 1939–1944’; ‘Nazi Extermination Policy towards the Polish Nation’; ‘Polish Lands during the Second World War’; and ‘The Situation of the Polish Nation after the Loss of Independence’. For several generations of graduates of the Polish school system, this contextualization impaired understanding of the fate of the Jews during the war—both Polish citizens and Jews from other countries who were deported to Nazi-occupied Poland and murdered in death camps, ghettos, and concentration camps....
What Story to Tell?
Authors: Steinlauf Michael C.
Published: February 2021

FOR a number of years, I have had the privilege to be involved in the process of planning the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which is scheduled to open in Warsaw in several years’ time. The museum will be dedicated to teaching and commemorating the nearly one-thousand-year-old history of Jewish civilization in the Polish lands. While it is the destruction of this civilization that has come to loom largest in popular consciousness, chronicling this destruction will constitute only a small part of the museum’s mission. Its focus will be on centuries of life rather than on the intervals of catastrophe....
Józefa Singer
Authors: Grol Regina
Published: February 2021

WEDDINGS are happy occasions, and perhaps it is our need to be reassured of the potential for harmony and love that makes us attracted to such communal events and public expressions of commitment. According to Northrop Frye, literary renditions of marriages or weddings are associated with the archetype of summer; they are expressions of ‘the triumph phase’ in both human lives and nature....
The Synagogues of Poznań
Authors: Krinsky Carol Herselle
Published: February 2021

SYNAGOGUE BUILDINGS have stood in Poznań from the Middle Ages to the present day. Today only one survives—ironically because it was converted in 1941 or 1942 by the Nazis into a swimming pool, which purpose it serves today. Neglect and the effect of water have had a seriously deleterious effect on its structure and its preservation. A more appropriate use is now a matter of urgency, particularly since the Member of the European Parliament for Poznań, Marcin Libicki, has called for its demolition and several synagogues which survived the Nazi occupation were demolished after 1945. It therefore seems useful to record the city’s Jewish architectural history to show the importance and the value of preserving its last remnant....
The Changes in the Attitude of Polish Society Toward the Jews in the 18th Century
Authors: Goldberg Jacob
Published: February 2021

This chapter evaluates the changes in the attitude of Polish society toward the Jews in the 18th century. The transformations in the social structure, politics and culture of 18th-century Poland had their impact upon the evolution of the predominant attitudes of Polish society towards the Jews. The large numbers of the latter constituted in the second half of the century the largest concentration of Jews in the world. They amounted to about ten per cent of the country's population, which means that their numbers roughly equalled those of the szlachta. This is why in the last century of the Commonwealth's existence, the demographic factor determined Polish attitudes towards the Jews far more than ever before. However, the growth in the demographic potential of the Jewish population coincided with the impact of the ideas of the Enlightenment, with the result that the two factors compounded one another in rendering all problems concerning the Jews highly visible and in considerably influencing the designs for social and political reforms at the time of the Four-Year Diet.
Eros and Enlightenment: Love Against Marriage in the East European Jewish Enlightenment
Authors: Biale David
Published: February 2021

This chapter details how the nascent Eastern European Jewish Enlightenment or Haskalah turned its sights on the Jewish family as part and parcel of its attack on the medieval practices of the Jews. In the period from the early part of the 19th century to about 1870, the Haskalah was a tiny movement, persecuted by the Jewish communal authorities. Yet it was during these years, perhaps even as a result of persecution, that the maskilim or disciples of the Haskalah evolved the fundamental arguments of their movement. While the maskilim shamelessly borrowed their ideas often word for word from the European Enlightenment, they integrated them into a peculiarly Jewish framework, that is, into their own reality. The chapter focuses on the conjunction between ideology and identity in the early Haskalah, for what is most interesting in the thought of this movement is not so much the ideas themselves but how they resonated against the problems of Jewish adolescence: early marriage and the teen years spent in the house of one's in-laws.
The Secular Appropriation of Hasidism by an East European Jewish Intellectual: Dubnow, Renan, and the Besht
Authors: Seltzer Robert M.
Published: February 2021

This chapter studies the role that Hasidism played in the thought of the modernized Jewish intelligentsia of Eastern Europe toward the end of the 19th century. Simon Dubnow played a pivotal role in the emergence of this new image of Hasidism. In his autobiography, Dubnow describes in some detail the influence on him at that time of Leo Tolstoy and Ernest Renan. The influence of Renan's History of Christianity is quite evident in the structure of Dubnow's History of Hasidism as well as in some of Dubnow's solutions to problems of interpretation. Like Renan, Dubnow opened with a discussion of the social and intellectual background of a movement that can be traced to a founder known only for a long time through oral sources which retained the character of legend or saga. Applying Renan's statement that such pious biographies have a historical core, Dubnow stripped the life of the Baal Shem Tov, as recorded in the Shivhei ha-Besht, of its supernatural elements to reveal a simple, humble man who loved nature, especially the forests of the Carpathian mountains; a man who had immense affection for the common people and disdain for the proud, aloof scholars of his time and who preached a lofty doctrine of religious pantheism and universal brotherhood.
Some Methodological Problems of the Study of Jewish History in Poland Between the Two World Wars
Authors: Tomaszewski Jerzy
Published: February 2021

This chapter identifies some methodological problems of the study of Jewish history in Poland between the two World Wars. The growing public interest in the history of Polish Jews between the wars has been the reason for the publication of many books and articles. Some are based on only a superficial survey, others present a deep and penetrating analysis of specific problems. This body of literature deserves methodological consideration, together with a critical review of the most important sources, so that some queries, doubts and suggestions can be raised. During at least the past hundred years, a tradition developed in some Jewish and Polish political circles of treating the Jews as a kind of alien body within Polish society. This attitude can also often be observed in contemporary historical studies, despite the authors' declared intentions. This can partly be explained in terms of the distant past, when Jews constituted a distinctly different class of people with its own legal status and institutions, but there is no reason to maintain such an approach when investigating the history of the 20th century.
Is There a Jewish School of Polish Literature?
Authors: Błonski Jan
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines how the generation born about 1910 found propitious conditions for the creation of a ‘Jewish school’ of Polish literature. Life, including their most inner life, was lived through the Polish language. Yet this life was marked by unexpectedly strong Jewish features. Jews had certainly made themselves felt in Polish literature much earlier. Already at the turn of the century, writers of Jewish descent played an important role in the intellectual elite. Their role was to increase considerably in independent Poland. However, those who desired assimilation had to abide by the tacit understanding that they were not to explore their Jewish experience, at least not in their literature. Thus, the first intellectuals to surface as identifiably Jewish in their work were critics and historians; then came poets. Yet prose writers were significantly absent. Novelists base the substance of their work on their life experience, particularly the experience of youth; the Polonized Jews preferred to leave their past in the dark.
Pińsk, Saturday 5 April, 1919
Authors: Tomaszewski Jerzy
Published: February 2021

This chapter recounts a drama which took place in Pińsk, a small town in Polesie, on the evening of April 5, 1919: 34 Jews were shot dead by the order of the commander of the local Polish military garrison. The event took place when a number of strangers were present in the town, so that the news arrived in Warsaw as early as April 6 and on April 7, a member of the Food Distributing Commission sent a report to the Jewish Parliamentary Club. On April 8, Jewish deputies submitted a question in Parliament, based partly on this report. On April 9, Warsaw newspapers brought out more or less comprehensive accounts, including information contained in the parliamentary question and an announcement of the official Polish Telegraphic Agency (PAT). The executions in Pińsk, which, as further investigations have shown, were a glaring example of lawlessness and abuse of authority committed by the military, had wide international repercussions.
Some Thoughts on Polish-Jewish Relations
Authors: Bartoszewski Władysław
Published: February 2021

This chapter assesses Polish–Jewish relations. The Poles and Jews shared the same lands within the same country for hundreds of years. The overwhelming majority of the Jews of Poland rejected assimilationist tendencies, steadfastly maintaining the primary value of their separate identity, and a significant number of Orthodox Jews preferred actual isolation from the non-Jewish environment. The Poles too, having numerous links with the Jews arising from the practicalities of everyday life, were not overly eager to break down barriers dividing them. Each side also displayed tendencies of superiority towards the other. Ultimately, the hundreds of years of Polish Jewry demand historical remembrance. Despite the unfavourable environment in Poland, serious interest has developed in the social history of Jews in Poland, in the religion, customs, and culture of people who are no longer there.
Linda Gordon. Cossack Rebellions. Social Turmoil in the Sixteenth Century Ukraine. Albany: State University of New York Press. 1983. Pp. xiv, 289.
Authors: Wójcik Zbigniew
Published: February 2021

This chapter investigates Linda Gordon's Cossack Rebellions (1983). This very interesting work focuses its attention above all on social questions, and not only on those prompted by the first Cossack rebellions in the Ukraine towards the close of the 16th century. The book deals more generally with the Cossack problem as it appeared in the Polish–Lithuanian Republic in the 16th century and, to a certain extent, in the 17th century. The Jewish question or, to be more precise, the question of anti-semitism has only a few pages. In these brief commentaries, the author cautions particularly against simplification of the question. At the turn of the 16th–17th centuries, according to the author, the Jewish population of the country came to 120,000 and so constituted a sizeable and wealthy minority group.
Henry Rollet. La Pologne au XXe siècle. Paris: Pedone. 1985. Pp. 604.
Authors: Lewandowski Józef
Published: February 2021

This chapter assesses Henry Rollet's La Pologne au XX siècle (1985). This recently published history of contemporary Poland by the outstanding French historian Henry Rollet deserves careful attention both for its grasp of the subject and its discussion concerning nationalism in general and Jewish nationalism in particular. The book consists of four chronological sections: ‘Towards Independence’ (Poland to 1918); ‘The Second Republic’ (the inter-war period); ‘Poland during the Second World War’; and ‘The “People's Democracy”.’ In the presentation of the events down to 1918, the most noticeable observation is Rollet's view that until 1876, the Poles were best off under Prussian occupation. Another statement which also provides much food for thought is that during the liberal period, voluntary, spontaneous Germanization made consistent progress.
Jacob Goldberg, editor. Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth. Charters of Rights Granted to Jewish Communities in Poland-Lithuania in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Critical Edition of Original Latin and Polish Documents with English Introductions and Notes. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 1985. Pp. xxvi, 477.
Authors: Hom Maurycy
Published: February 2021

This chapter addresses Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth (1985), which was edited by Jacob Goldberg. This valuable book edited by a leading Israeli scholar who left Poland in 1968 has three parts: an extensive introduction, 63 privileges granted to Jewish communities in the Polish Commonwealth in the 16th to 18th centuries, and three indexes. The introduction, in turn, is divided into short remarks on the evolution of the work and the language of the documents and the sources, and a comprehensive introduction. In the introduction, the author defines the character of the privileges granted to the Jews in old Poland; analyses the 1264 privilege of Bolesław the Pious and the general privileges granted by the Polish kings to the Jewish populace; the special rights accorded to specific groups of the Jewish community and individual Jews; and finally, in great detail, the privileges of the Jewish communities. The second and most important part of the work is the alphabetical index by town of the privileges of the Jewish communities.
Maurycy Hom, editor. Regesty dokumentów i ekscerpty z Metryki Koronnej do Historii Żydów w Polsce 1697-1795. T.I: Czasy saskie (1697-1763); T.II: Rządy Stanisława Augusta (1764.-1795, Część I: (1764.-1779) [Summaries of Records and Excerpts of the Crown Registry Relating to the History of Jews in Poland, 1697-1795. Vol. I: The Saxon Era (1697-1763); Vol. II: The Reign of Stanislaw August (1764-95), Part I, 1764-79] (Warsaw, Ossolineum, 1984). Pp. x, 166, and vi, 212. Jewish Historical Institute (Żydowski Instytut Historyczny).
Authors: Hetnal Adam A.
Published: February 2021

This chapter describes Maurycy Horn's Regesty dokumentów. Regesty dokumentów is divided into two volumes and covers the period of 1697–1795. Volume I deals with the Saxon era (1697–1763), while volume II, composed of two parts, is devoted to the reign of Stanislaw August Poniatowski (1764–95). Horn's introduction, his editorial comments, and his three excellent indexes are of great help. He informs his reader as to the state of the records, their size, and their present location, indicating losses and damage inflicted on them because of the partitions, the numerous wars and risings, and, above all, the destructive Nazi occupation of Poland (1939–45).
O. O. Gruzenberg. Yesterday: Memoirs of a Russian-Jewish Lawyer. Edited by Don C. Rawson. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1981. Pp. xxx, 235.
Authors: Seltzer Robert M.
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses O. O. Gruzenberg's Yesterday: Memoirs of a Russian-Jewish Lawyer (1981). This book is a nostalgic reminiscence of selected episodes from the life of Oskar Gruzenberg (1866–1940), a noted Russian-Jewish attorney whose courtroom successes in a wide range of political trials during the last two decades of the tsarist regime culminated in his brilliant defence of Mendel Beiliss in the notorious 1913 ritual murder trial in Kiev. Gruzenberg recounts scenes of his youth and of legal dramas in which he was a participant. He also describes some of the well-known writers he knew and relates several successful interventions with Russian bureaucrats during World War I in order to avert miscarriages of justice. Gruzenberg comes across in these memoirs as a skilful lawyer, eloquent advocate, humanitarian liberal, and passionate lover of the Russian language and literature.
Steven E. Aschheim. Brothers and Strangers. The East European Jew in German and German Jewish Consciousness, 1800-1923. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1983. Pp. 331.
Authors: Michalski Sergiusz
Published: February 2021

This chapter investigates Steven E. Aschheim's Brothers and Strangers (1983). In the 19th century, German Jews made their great social, political, and cultural bid for a sort of assimilation. In becoming Prussian and German citizens and diehard patriots, they desperately tried to minimize or totally break off the already limited relations with the neighbouring Jewish world of Eastern Europe. Around 1850 and later, the term ‘Ostjude’ stood for an image of an uncivilized, superstitious Easterner totally alien to the German Jew. Only when the assimilationist process suffered its first serious setbacks did some doubts, affecting the validity of the stereotype, creep in. For certain Jewish circles, especially Jewish intellectuals drafted into the German eastern front armies during World War I, the Ostjude became the very image of a Jewish cultural hero. Aschheim's book discusses both the stereotypes and the ideological discourse which manifested itself in the relations between these two great Jewish populations.
Ezra Mendelsohn. The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1983. Pp. xvi, 300.
Authors: Tomaszewski Jerzy
Published: February 2021

This chapter looks at Ezra Mendelsohn's The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars (1983). The book is divided into chapters dedicated to the individual countries: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Lithuania, with a single chapter on Latvia and Estonia. This does not mean that it is a collection of separate studies that could equally well stand alone. To the book's great advantage, Mendelsohn often approaches his subject — Jewish communities in these countries, governmental politics, and patterns of change — in a comparative manner. As a result, and despite the initial impression, the book constitutes a logical whole and is thus all the more useful. The author's interest lies mainly in the area of specifically Jewish history.
Randolph L. Braham, editor. Perspectives on the Holocaust. The Hungarian Jewish Catastrophe. A Selected and Annotated Bibliography. (Holocaust Studies Series.) New York: City University of New York. 1984. Pp. 501.
Authors: Roth Stephen
Published: February 2021

This chapter describes Perspectives on the Holocaust (1984), which was edited by Randolph L. Braham. Probably the most unknown and unexplored part of Jewish history is the story of Hungarian Jewry. Its language, bearing no similarity to any other living language, is an impenetrable mystery for the foreigner. Hungarian Jews themselves have not been very assiduous in recording the history of their tribe – a quite surprising fact considering the notable achievements of Hungarian Jews in so many branches of science, scholarship and literature. Moreover, the little that exists of Hungarian Jewish historiography is sadly antiquated. There are, of course, numerous monographic works on specific periods or issues but the general history of Hungarian Jewry remains still to be written. In these circumstances, any book that could facilitate the filling of the historiographical gap is particularly welcome, and Braham's bibliography, which is the second edition of a small version of 1962, falls into this category. Unfortunately, it is limited to the period of the Holocaust, its immediate background and the aftermath.
Yisrael Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw 1939-1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1982. Pp. 487.
Authors: Wynot Edward D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter reviews Yisrael Gutman's The Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt (1982). Yisrael Gutman, Professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Director of the Yad Vashem Research Center, has undertaken the challenging task of describing the major trends and developments that occurred in the Warsaw Ghetto during its unhappy existence. Himself a former resident of the Ghetto and participant in the Uprising, the author sets three major objectives for his work. The first objective is to consider the ‘character and conduct’ of the Warsaw Jews under increasingly stressful conditions. The second is to discuss the intellectual and psychological methods used to deal with the many pressures of daily living. The third objective is to analyse the evolution of the militant Jewish resistance movement that culminated in the Uprising. In pursuing his goals, Gutman focuses on the three main collective actors in this complex story: the Germans and their collaborators, their Jewish victims, and the Poles, both those in Warsaw and in the London-based exile government.
Karin Wolff, editor. Hiob 1943. Ein Requiem für das Warschauer Ghetto. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner Verlag. 1983. Pp. 322.
Authors: Bartoszewski Władysław
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines Karin Wolff's invaluable and successful anthology of poetry and prose, entitled Hiob 1943. A Requiem for the Warsaw ghetto. The anthology contains 50 literary texts and accounts by authors of all ages, Poles and Polish Jews, including texts by people who did not manage to survive the war. There are also prominent pieces by universally acclaimed writers of the older and middle generation. Karin Wolff, a translator of great merit of Polish literature into German, a German in her middle age living in the German Democratic Republic, has contributed greatly to familiarizing East German readers with Polish writing on the experiences of Poles and Jews during the war and the occupation of 1939–1945. Her work was recognized and rewarded in 1981 when she was given the Polish Pen Club annual award for the most outstanding translator of works from Polish into another language.
Lucjan Dobroszycki, editor. The Chronicle of the Łódź Ghetto 1947-1944. New Haven, Connecticut and London: Yale University Press. 1984. Pp. 551.
Authors: Fox John P.
Published: February 2021

This chapter investigates The Chronicle of the Łódź Ghetto 1941–1944 (1984), which was edited by Lucjan Dobroszycki. In a truly devastating manner, the Chronicle highlights such questions as the role and behaviour of the Jewish Council, but above all it shows the day-to-day struggle of the inhabitants of the ghetto to survive in the face of extreme poverty, overcrowding, disease, hunger, and starvation, not to say the threats and then the actual fact of physical extermination at the hands of the Nazis. But for the Jews of the time, and indeed for present-day historians, the one question which dominates everything is this: was there anything that the Jews could do which would help determine their own fate or even survival when confronted with different Nazi policies at different times? And the short answers which the Chronicle so tragically provides is: very little for most of the time, and nothing at all when the Nazi authorities had finally and firmly decided upon the physical annihilation of the Jews. The particular value of the Łódź Chronicle is that it consists of contemporary records and accounts of the daily life of the Jewish ghetto in a city which before the outbreak of war contained a Jewish population of some 250,000 souls.
Fr. Tadeusz Sroka. Dziennik izraelski czyli religijny wymiar ludzkiego losu (An Israeli diary, or the religious dimension of man's fate). Warsaw: Spokania. 1985.
Authors: Krajewski Stanisław
Published: February 2021

This chapter looks at Fr. Tadeusz Sroka's An Israeli Diary, or the Religious Dimension of Man's Fate (1985). An Israeli Diary takes the form of excerpts from a diary written in the years 1970–71. Each entry opens with press news about political events in the Middle East, followed by pondering over the Bible or the fate of the Jewish people. There are hardly any data concerning contemporary Israel, except a few facts showing Arab intransigence and the hopeless situation of Israel ‘in human terms’. The author says very little about Jewish history and nothing about Judaism; the Talmud is not mentioned, even in places where it could have been useful, for example in reflecting on capital punishment. The author's perspective is metaphysical; he assumes that the election of Israel is eternal. This, incidentally, is the official standpoint of the Catholic Church today, confirmed more than once by John Paul II. As a result, Israel is seen as the centre of the world. Next, the fate of the Jews reveals the ultimate perspectives of the human condition: on one pole the Holocaust, on the other the re-creation of the state by visionaries, in defiance of reason. Israel is a sign for the world, and today's secular Israel is an appropriate sign for the contemporary materialistic world.
Ḥasdai Crescas
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter turns to Rabbi Don Ḥasdai Crescas. He was one of the most prominent religious and communal leaders of Aragonese Jewry in the latter part of the fourteenth century. Crescas's many communal activities left him little time for writing, but he was able to produce his philosophic/dogmatic treatise, Or Adonai (Light of the Lord). The Or Adonai was intended to be the first part of a comprehensive philosophic and halakhic work, Ner Elohim. In planning a work which combined both dogmatic and halakhic elements, Crescas adopted the model of Moses Maimonides, who began his halakhic compendium, the Mishneh Torah, with ‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’. Crescas's Or Adonai is structured according to its author's dogmatic system. Hence, the chapter shows how Crescas presents what may be called a multi-tiered, hierarchical system of dogma.
Shalom, Arama, and Yaveẓ
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter covers three figures who have written on the principles of Judaism. All of them are late fifteenth-century Spanish Jews, who each composed theological works in which dogmatic questions are given fairly brief and unsystematic attention. Abraham Shalom (d. 1492) is the author of Neveh Shalom, a work ostensibly devoted to justifying the Aggadic portions of the Talmud but which also includes a series of philosophic discussions devoted to discovering which teachings of philosophy accord with the Torah. Isaac Arama (1420–1494) wrote a popular homiletical commentary on the Pentateuch, Akedat Yiẓḥak. Finally, there is R. Joseph ben Ḥayyim Yaveẓ (1438-1507), who devoted two short works to the principles of Judaism.
Abraham Bibago
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on Abraham Bibago (d. c.1489). He served as a rabbi, seminary head, and communal leader in Huesca and Saragossa. Bibago was highly regarded by many of his contemporaries and successors, some of whom used extensive portions of his work without attribution. Bibago completed his most important work, Derekh Emunah (Path of Faith), about 1480. This work is based upon Bibago's contention that human felicity (haẓlaḥah) depends upon intellectual perfection and that there are two separate routes to that goal: the path of philosophic investigation and the path of faith. The path of faith, when coupled with the path of investigation, is superior to the path of investigation alone. On its own, the path of faith is not inferior to the path of investigation. The chapter shows here a position which, while resembling that of Maimonides on the surface, is actually far removed from it.
Four Minor Figures
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter turns to four contemporaries of Abravanel who also explored the question of dogma in Judaism. Yorn Tov Lippmann Muehlhausen (d. after 1450) is the only medieval Ashkenazi Jew known to have commented on the principles of Judaism. Muehlhausen included two lists of principles in his well-known anti-Christian polemic, Sefer Ha-Niẓẓaḥon. Elijah ben Moses Delmedigo (c.1460–1497) was a philosopher and rabbinic scholar active in Italian renaissance circles. In 1496, he composed his Beḥinat ha-Dat, a work with strongly Averroist overtones dealing with the relationship between religion and philosophy. Delmedigo's countryman, Rabbi David ben Judah Messer Leon (c.1470–1526), is best known as the author of a responsum, Kevod Ḥakhamim. The last figure to deal with the principles of Judaism before the Haskalah was Rabbi Moses ben Joseph Trani (1500–1580), known as the ‘Mabit’), the Safed halakhist. Trani devoted the lion's share of his Bet Elohim to an ethical, homiletical, and philosophical commentary on Maimonides’ thirteen principles.
Summary and Conclusions
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This concluding chapter summarizes some of the main points discussed in the previous chapters. It then draws some conclusions. The chapter first turns to the question of heresy. When considering the theological debate within medieval Judaism against the canvas of medieval theological debate, the chapter reveals the absence of schisms and sects and by the absence of charges of heresy. It considers why that is so against the backdrop of the underlying question of what can be considered a principle of Judaism. Finally, the chapter turns to creation and the Messiah as part of the overall discussion on dogmas of Judaism.