bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Early Swedish Information about the Nazis’ Mass Murder of the Jews
Authors: Lewandowski Józef , Zlatkes Gwido
Published: February 2021

This chapter evaluates when and how the outside world came to know about the Nazi genocide during the Second World War. In Sweden, there has been considerable public and private debate on this question centred on a document from August of 1942, known as the Vendel Report, which contains a description of the situation in Germany and in German-occupied Poland. Karl Yngve Vendel, a 45-year-old officer of the Swedish consular corps, was transferred in January of 1940 from Holland and appointed as consul in Stettin. Vendel's principal assignment was to gather intelligence. Sweden feared German aggression, a justified fear, for only several months later Germany was to attack Denmark and Norway and conquer them easily. Vendel's account was one of the first revelations of the scale of the Nazi genocide to be sent to the West.
Letter to Father
Authors: Bychowski Jan Ryszard , Shapiro Robert Moses
Published: February 2021

This chapter looks at the author's letter to his father. In the letter, the author reveals his point of view on certain fundamental problems. He concludes that Poles are not yet up to independence and sovereignty and that Jews have nothing in, and must not return to, Poland. Governing a state is a certain art, requiring such characteristics as, above all, organizational ability, ability to compromise, and a sense of realism. All of these traits are lacking, not only among the mass of the author's fellow countrymen but also among the so-called intelligentsia. The political life of the Polish emigrant community on England's soil, the government's foreign ‘policy’, and the relations in the army all confirm his conviction that it is much worse with these people, and thus with Poland, than he had thought. The author then discusses Polish–Soviet relations.
The Sin of Antisemitism: A Response to Waldemar Chrostowski
Authors: Musiał Stanisław , Zlatkes Gwido
Published: February 2021

This chapter offers an answer to the previous chapter by Revd Waldemar Chrostowski. The author argues that his text speaks of a different matter than that of Chrostowski's. He, on the one hand, addresses the antisemitic character of one of Henryk Jankowski's public enunciations, and the lack of reaction, or inadequate reaction, to the antisemitism of this enunciation on the part of the episcopate. Chrostowski, on the other hand, discusses the political character of that enunciation of Jankowski's, and the bishops' reaction to this political character. The author limits his remarks about the Revd Chrostowski's article to making four corrections and to expressing his regret about two clearly antisemitic emphases present in Chrostowski's text.
Ludwik Rajchman: A Biographical Sketch of a Polish Jew
Authors: Balińska Marta Aleksandra
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on Ludwik Rajchman. Ludwik Rajchman's principal claim to fame is his role in the establishment of the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef). Until recently his story has gone largely untold. His contributions to Unicef, and to the World Health Organization, established by the League of Nations, however, deserve acknowledgement and further study, as do the reasons why his role in these institutions has largely been ignored. Rajchman was not a man who sought renown, and to compound this reticence, the last twenty years of his life were overshadowed by the painful contradictions of the Cold War, amongst which seems to have been the effacement of more than one interesting international figure. In addition, Rajchman's identification with three communities—the Polish, the Jewish, and the international—has meant that none has entirely ‘claimed him’ for its own.
Magic and Miracle-Workers in the Literature of the Haskalah
Authors: Etkes Immanuel
Published: February 2021

This chapter evaluates the widespread assumption that the maskilim opposed all forms of superstition, including magic and miracle-working, because they viewed it as a hallmark of hasidism and the ignorant masses. It rejects the Haskalah's twin allegations that tsadikim engaged in magic and that magic was the sole province of the hasidim. These allegations were inaccurate — not all tsadikim practised magic, and it was in fact also a central element in the culture of the Lithuanian mitnagedim — but they were convenient grist to the propaganda mill. The maskilim were so apprehensive about the danger that hasidism posed to the future of Jewish society that they had no compunctions about exaggerating its evils. This exaggerated image, together with a tendency to ignore hasidism's genuine spiritual elements, also coloured later scholarship on the movement.
The Infinity of Meaning Embedded in the Sacred Text
Authors: Elior Rachel
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses the hidden meanings embedded in the sacred text. Jewish mysticism developed within a traditional religious world that placed its collected holy scriptures at the focal point. The Torah was seen as evidence of the direct bond that existed at one time between God and the people of Israel. It was understood also as the written expression of the divine word, with unshakable authority and timeless validity. The creators of mystical literature that emerged in a culture that put a sacred text at its centre illuminated the Torah with a timeless mystical–mythical light. They experienced the power of the permanent presence of God in Scripture and searched for the infinitude of the divine word in the written text. Indeed, the mystical tradition is based on the assumption that the divine infinitude in space, time, thought, speech, and action is suggested in the Torah and is embodied and unfolded in language. A human being who studies the totality of revealed and hidden layers in the Torah, who interprets its duality and fulfils its explicit and implicit commandments, has various tools to reveal this dynamic infinity and to delve into many dimensions within their own consciousness.
The Mystic: Life without Limits
Authors: Elior Rachel
Published: February 2021

This chapter describes the mystic. A mystic is one who is gifted with spiritual greatness, vision, imagination, inspiration, and the ability to be exalted; one who is able, awake or in dreams, to cross boundaries of consciousness and to experience a feeling of immediate contact with higher worlds; one who experiences a transition from one reality to another through visions or dreams. By using mystical metaphors or kabbalistic symbols, the mystic is also able to reinterpret the literal meaning of the sacred text. By virtue of inner illumination or inspiration and authority from higher worlds, the mystic shatters existing frameworks, deconstructs established distinctions, and lives in the enigmatic world of Torah mysteries. In the Jewish tradition, people blessed with these qualities have been called prophets, visionaries, masters of secrets, kabbalists, tsadikim, or holy people. Their essential attributes were defined by a variety of concepts expressing the blurring of boundaries and the transcendence of limitations.
Mystical Language and Magical Language
Authors: Elior Rachel
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines the role of language in Jewish mysticism, explaining the concept of mystical language. In mystical thought, the basic assumption for understanding reality is that the upper and lower worlds are joined and related. The hidden world is implied in the revealed world and is seen in its unity despite its various contrasts, whereas the revealed world reflects in its variety the hidden world and draws its life and essence from it. This reciprocity is based on language, which according to the mystical point of view has a divine source whose existence is multifaceted. Speech is the unfolding of the divine being in language, and reality is simply the unfolding and revelation of the divine word. Divine language is thus a revelation in perceptible concepts of the infinite power of God within creation, understood by mystical doctrine as an infinite stream of letters or as a chain of letters and divine names whose links are connected from the highest level of the unknown being down to its revealed end. The letters are thus understood as a ‘ladder placed on earth whose top touches heaven’. Creative power is embodied in the letters of the sacred divine language, which constitute the building blocks of being and join one another in the process of creation.
The Work and Recommendations of the Polish–Israeli Textbooks Committee
Authors: Eden Shevach
Published: February 2021

This chapter presents discussions conducted by the national committees in Poland and Israel to examine history and geography textbooks and their treatment of the two nations. They were charged with drawing up recommendations for authors of textbooks in each country, with the aim of rectifying mistakes that could lead to the formation or aggravation of prejudices and distortions of the truth. The motives for this initiative varied. The political forces that began the negotiations were motivated by the pragmatic consideration that such a process would bring respectability in the eyes of some parts of the American and Jewish communities. Without a doubt, however, the influence of a group of Polish intellectuals who felt regret for the fate of the Jews in Poland and who understood the importance of the Jews' economic and cultural contributions to the history of Poland was of paramount importance. This led to intellectual interest in any subject connected to Judaism and its culture. The hundreds of books and articles published in recent years reflect this, as does the establishment of research centres and institutes concerned with Jewish history and culture.
David Assaf
Authors: Dynner Glenn
Published: February 2021

This chapter analyses David Assaf's The Regal Way: The Life and Times of R. Israel of Ruzhin. Here, Assaf draws upon an astonishing array of sources, several of which were hitherto unknown or neglected, and provides the first critical historical account of the life of the hasidic leader Israel of Ruzhin (1796–1850) and his court. R. Israel, dyslexic and uneducated, assumed hasidic leadership at the age of 16 on the strength of his personality and distinguished yikhus. R. Israel's accession on the strength of yikhus — prestige derived through the scholarly, mystical, or economic achievements of one's forebears and living family members — at so young an age and with so few scholarly qualifications marked, according to Assaf, the triumph of the principle of hereditary succession in Ukrainian hasidism. Throughout his description, Assaf attempts to navigate between the cynical denunciations of R. Israel's ostentatious lifestyle by contemporary maskilim (enlightened reformers) and the rationalizations of R. Israel and his followers.
Sixteenth-Century Accounts of Purim Festivities
Authors: Węgrzynek Hanna
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers some accounts of Purim festivities in the sixteenth century. Not much is known about folk Purim festivities in Europe in the sixteenth century. It is often assumed that they developed at the turn of the century, originating from the Venice carnival and from the custom, brought by the Jews of Provence to Italy, of appointing a Purim king. These festivities evolved around masquerades. But there are neither written narratives nor artistic presentations of celebrations involving public parodies with Haman personified, jeered at, and insulted, and in no other European country were charges brought for hiring a Christian to act as Haman. Therefore, it seems plausible that the type of Purim festivities known from Sochaczew, Przemyśl, and Lutsk developed originally in the Polish lands. The chapter attempts to assess exactly when and where this happened.
The Non-Christian Frankists
Authors: Doktór Jan
Published: February 2021

This chapter argues that Jakub Frank never abandoned the main elements of his Częstochowa doctrine, which was based on the requirement of seeking the truth of salvation hidden in the Catholic faith. In practice, this truth took the form of anti-institutional Judaeo-Christianity. However, in order to convince those Frankists who remained in Islam or Judaism, Frank and his children had to admit that one could achieve salvation without changing officially practised religions. In the long term even this compromise was not enough to ensure the stability of the Frankist movement. The various conditions in which the different groups lived, and their gradual assimilation, meant that at the beginning of the nineteenth century the paths of the Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish Frankists diverged once again — and this time the split was final.
Tsadik and Ba’al Shem in East European Hasidism
Authors: Grözinger Karl E.
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores hasidism in Poland. This powerful popular Jewish movement, which emerged in the middle of the eighteenth century in Podolia and spread from there over all parts of Poland is inseparably connected with this country and its geography. If one asks what the most characteristic feature of this movement is, the immediate answer would be the tsadik — the colourful religious leader who has dominated hasidism from its origins until today, and who exerted a strong attraction on enlightened and assimilated Western Jews and even on non-Jews. However, as this chapter shows, the function of the ba’al shem, an element prominent in the early legends of hasidism, tends to be missing from the scholarship on the subject. This is all the more surprising as Israel ben Eliezer, the founder of the movement, bore this very element in his own name.
The Messiah Son of Joseph according to Rabbi Zaddok Hacohen
Authors: Goetschel Roland
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers the writings of Rabbi Zaddok Hacohen Rabinowitz on the messiah son of Joseph. One of the most fascinating aspects of his work is the importance he attributes to historiosophy. It is within the context of these historiosophical considerations that this chapter situates his thinking on the messiah son of Joseph. For Zaddok, as indeed for his predecessors, everything begins with the sin committed by Adam, which led to the confusion between good and evil. From then on the entire history of mankind is to be considered an undertaking aimed at discerning and discriminating between good and evil. The chapter goes on to introduce a paradox: according to Zaddok, Joseph himself sought to become the messiah son of Joseph.
‘Ahavat yehonatan’: A Poem by Judah Leo Landau
Authors: Belling Veronica
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at Rabbi Judah Leo Landau’s poem, ‘Ahavat yehonatan’. Landau was a Hebrew poet and one of the fathers of modern Hebrew drama. ‘Ahavat yehonatan’ is based on a folk tale about the life of King Jan Sobieski. It relates the story of how Jan Sobieski was abandoned as a young boy and then brought up in the home of the rich Jew Bezalel, the leader of the Jewish community. The poem opens with a powerful description of the dark and stormy night when the J Bezalel, walking alone through the deserted streets in the Jewish quarter, discovers Jonathan (Jan) lying weak and abandoned next to a Jewish home. This dramatic description, in the pseudo-biblical style of the Haskalah, is characteristic of Landau’s later work and demonstrates a remarkable lyricism.
The Shtadlan of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth: Noble Advocate or Unbridled Opportunist?
Authors: Ury Scott
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines the Jewish intercessor (shtadlan) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, long the target of opponents’ bile and consistently defended by die-hard advocates. It addresses several fundamental questions regarding the shtadlan, his activities, and his role as a communal functionary. In doing so, the chapter attempts to draw a more well-rounded picture of the shtadlan, but also shed more light upon the relationship between Jewish communities in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the various powers that ruled the Commonwealth. Conclusions drawn from this analysis of the Jewish community are compared with the experiences of other communities, Jewish and non-Jewish, within the Commonwealth and elsewhere. This analysis is used to determine whether the shtadlan was a phenomenon particular to a specific space, time, and culture, or rather was representative of a more general pattern of political organization and behaviour practised in different Jewish communities throughout the ages.
Auschwitz: Site of Memories
Authors: Kapralski Sławomir
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines memory understood as a public discourse that helps to build group identity; memory that is entangled in a relationship of mutual dependence with other identity-building processes. Here, memory cannot be interpreted as a fixed, unchangeable entity. Rather, it is a representation of past reality, constantly revised according to the different demands of present-day identity. The latter is not a fixed entity either: it also changes, in part because of what is remembered by a given group at a given time. The discussion here focuses on Auschwitz. The fact that Auschwitz is such an important site of ‘memory work’, in which different ‘politics of memory’ seek to master the ‘unmasterable past’, can actually be taken for granted. To elucidate the essential nature of memory work or the politics of memory, however, the chapter asks why Auschwitz is such a ‘convenient’ location for displaying collective memories and identities.
My Jedwabne
Authors: Kurkowska-Budzan Marta
Published: February 2021

This chapter concerns Jedwabne. It first attempts to ‘reconstruct’ the Jedwabne of pre-war times, with its Jewish, Polish, and German inhabitants, and their houses, shops, crafts, markets, and everyday life. The chapter then investigates the memories of the oldest living generation of Polish Catholics. It also takes a look at how their individual memory been shaped by collective memory, including stereotypes and prejudices. The ‘world before the war’ here is explored whether as an arena of conflict or of coexistence. Next, the chapter deals with the tragedy of July 1941. It considers the effects of the tragedy upon the sociocultural memory of the three generations of Polish Catholics living in Jedwabne and how it is expressed in myths, superstitions, omissions, and fables. From there, the chapter considers why and how witnesses choose between testimony and silence. Finally, the chapter examines how the publicity on the matter influenced people’s memory.
Holocaust Survivors in Jadwiga Maurer’s Short Stories
Authors: Clark Joanna Rostropowicz
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at Jadwiga Maurer’s short stories. Maurer, a native of Kielce and Kraków and now a professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of Kansas, lends her own experience and knowledge from the heart of darkness to a voice free of personal constraints. It is the voice of a meticulous listener and observer of facts and fates; an observer of something that is unspeakable, not for the lack of words, but because of its massive commonality: suffering. Like all true artists, in her stories Maurer has created a world unlike any other. Maurer’s interest, the thrust of her art, is neither in the psychology of surviving the Holocaust, nor in the implied and often explored moral issues, but rather in the ontology of survival.
Polish Translations of Yiddish Literature Published in Wrocław
Authors: Tomaszewski Jerzy
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines works published by the Library of Jewish Writers. The Library of Jewish Writers has become an excellent means of popularizing Yiddish culture among Polish readers. Through this great literature, consciousness of the ties binding the two peoples living on the same land reaches the reading public, and the various stereotypes and legends that have arisen in circumstances of ignorance can be overcome. There can be no doubt as to the worthy contribution of the publishers in Wrocław. The majority of these books were translated by that indefatigable popularizer of Yiddish culture Michał Friedman, who has translated many books for other publishers as well.
Book Reviews
Authors: Nakhimovsky Alice
Published: February 2021

This chapter looks at how David Patterson’s book shows to what extent the early Hebrew novelists of czarist Russia achieved their goals. As writers of fiction, they certainly considered themselves Europeans. Artistic depth proved more elusive, but social portraits and social criticism abounded. It is in this area that the novels — and Patterson’s book — remain a rich source of information for modern readers. Believing, along with their Russian models, that fiction was a teacher of life, the Hebrew novelists wrote like reformers. As they idealized what they considered the proper path to a Jewish future and satirized what they saw as retrograde or false, the chapter shows how the book can be a valuable guide to what they themselves believed. Those parts of the novels that are descriptive without being tendentious are another source of information. Here the student of the Jewish past can find the physical details of daily life and an account of how to get along (do business, bribe, and dodge the draft) in the conditions of the Russian empire.
Shmuel A. Arthur Cygielman Jewish Autonomy in Poland and Lithuania until 1648
Authors: Fitelberg Gary
Published: February 2021

This chapter details a collection of documents on Jewish autonomy in Poland and Lithuania in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This collection is an English translation of the last section of Dr Shmuel A. Arthur Cygielman’s Hebrew-language version, which was published by the Shazar Center in Jerusalem in 1991. The chapter maintains that the book is a valuable tool for anyone who desires a better acquaintance with the primary sources on Jewish life in Poland and Lithuania. It is a fascinating study dealing with Jewish communal autonomy, and above all the kahal system, affording valuable insights into Jewish life in the towns where Jews lived. On the basis of excerpts from original source materials, the author describes the structure of Jewish self-government and the economic issues of concern to the Jews in their everyday lives.
The Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation The Jews of Poland
Authors: Zlatkes Gwido
Published: February 2021

This chapter presents the Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation’s recent publication, The Jews of Poland. This book uses personal narratives and comparison with today’s dilemmas and choices that work better for young readers than dry historical narration. A striking feature of The Jews of Poland is that it seems as if it has no author. Instead, it appears that Facing History and Ourselves has sole responsibility for the book’s strengths and weaknesses. As such, the chapter outlines several errors present in the book. Factual errors and lack of editorial care are found on almost every page. Still more serious are the methodological faults. Furthermore, the book is plainly ahistorical. Facts seem to be chosen haphazardly, with no regard to the importance assigned to them in standard Polish or Jewish historiography. Key events and figures are skipped over, sometimes bringing to the fore instead obscure personalities whose names are often misspelled.
Hirsz Abramowicz Profiles of a Lost World: Memoirs of East European Jewish Life before World War II
Authors: Zalkin Motti
Published: February 2021

This chapter presents Hirsz Abramowicz’s compilation of essays, arranged in five chapters. The first chapter deals with Lithuanian Jewish life and traditions, examining among other topics rural occupations, the shtetl, diet, and mental illness. The second is an account of reform and upheaval before the First World War, with sections on Jewish public figures such as Joshua Steinberg, Hirsh Lekert, and Anna Lifshits, and on tsarist prisons, Jewish gymnasiums, and so on. The third examines the First World War and its aftermath, with sections entitled ‘Joining the Militia’, ‘The Germans’, and ‘April 1919’. The fourth is a description of Jewish vocational education, focusing on ‘help through work’, agricultural schools, and other programmes. The final chapter consists of profiles of Vilna Jews such as Mark Antokolsky, Eliezer Kruk, and Moshe Shalit.
Robert Weinberg Stalin’s Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland. An Illustrated History, 1928–1996
Authors: Takao Chizuko
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at Robert Weinberg’s Stalin’s Forgotten Zion. In the book, Weinberg discusses the history of the ‘Birobidzhan project’, which officially began in March 1928 with a Soviet government decree. The book covers the seventy years of the chequered history of the project, which Weinberg regards as an experiment aimed at solving the ‘Jewish question’. The dream of establishing a Soviet Jewish homeland attracted foreign Jewish support, but the experiment failed mainly because of the great terror of 1937–1938. Though there was a short-lived renaissance of Yiddish culture in Birobidzhan after the Second World War, the repression by Stalin in his last years dealt a final blow to the experiment.
Remembrance of Things Past: Klezmer Musicians of Galicia, 1870‒1940
Authors: Feldman Walter Zev
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on the east European Jewish professional instrumentalist, the klezmer, and his music. The earliest known use of klezmer as a term for a musician occurs in a Jewish community document from Kraków dating from 1595. The chapter assesses the status of klezmer music throughout the region of eastern Galicia from roughly the 1870s until 1936. It presents a series of interviews with Yermye (Jeremiah) Hescheles, who had been the kapel-mayster (bandleader) of the klezmer ensemble of Gline (Gliniany). Besides confirming certain data known from other sources, Hescheles' descriptions and explanations offer a unique synthesis of the various kinds of information about Galician klezmorim and klezmer music unavailable elsewhere.
Jewish Theatre in Poland
Authors: Steinlauf Michael C.
Published: February 2021

This chapter investigates how theatre found a place in pre-modern Jewish societies. This was nearly exclusively a result of its association with the Jewish holiday of Purim. Closely linked to the celebration of Purim in Ashkenazi communities at least as early as the mid-sixteenth century was the performance of a Purim play, or purim-shpil. The actors were yeshiva students or artisans; dressed as non-Jews and where necessary as women, the purim-shpilers marched through town, performing their play in the wealthier Jewish homes, occasionally on an improvised stage. In eastern Europe, by the nineteenth century, the purim-shpil had become the property of the lower classes; it was often staged annually by the same group of players, with parts and even costumes passed down from father to son. Some of these groups travelled and performed in neighbouring towns. The earlier purim-shpils were apparently skits parodying local events; from the mid-seventeenth century, they began to be based on biblical stories.
Between Poland and Germany: Jewish Religious Practices in Illustrated Postcards of the Early Twentieth Century
Authors: Sabar Shalom
Published: February 2021

This chapter assesses the production of Jewish postcards in the early twentieth century. The fact that the Jews in this period wanted to participate in the postcard phenomenon carries an important social message, and, as is implied in the common Hebrew term for the postcard at the time, mikhtav galui (open letter), this desire was clear for all to see. The printing and acquisition of postcards signified acceptance of and support for the public image portrayed upon them. They are therefore a mirror of the ideology and values of turn-of-the-century Jewish society as that society wished to present them. At the same time, the postcards contain valuable ethnographic information about the lives of Jews during those years. The production of Jewish postcards was concentrated in three centres: two in Europe (Germany and Poland) and one in the United States (primarily New York). Germany may be considered the birthplace of the Jewish illustrated postcard: the earliest examples known were produced there in the 1880s. The chapter then considers the portrayal of Jewish religious practices in the postcards.
Exploiting Tradition: Religious Iconography in Cartoons of the Polish Yiddish Press
Authors: Portnoy Edward
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores religious iconography in cartoons of the Polish Yiddish press. Alongside the mainstream press, a Jewish satirical press began to flourish in the Yiddish language in both eastern Europe and America. In addition to jokes, humorous stories, poems, and many parodies, Yiddish satirical journals would come to include numerous cartoons and caricatures. Never having been seen previously in Jewish life, such visual parody was an unprecedented innovation among Yiddish-speaking Jews in Poland, partly because of its sheer novelty and partly because art without a religious connection was discouraged among Jews. Moreover, the vast majority of Jewish texts, particularly those used on a daily basis, did not contain illustrations of any kind. The cartoonists of the Yiddish press were therefore engaged not only in a radical subversion of Jewish tradition but also in a reassessment of what Jewish caricature should be, as opposed to the antisemitic caricature of the non-Jewish satirical press. In addition, Jewish cartoonists frequently applied traditional Jewish themes to critical commentary on current cultural and political events.
From ‘Madagaskar’ to Sachsenhausen: Singing about ‘Race’ in a Nazi Camp
Authors: Werb Bret , Milewski Barbara
Published: February 2021

This chapter studies the large and varied repertoire of songs created by Polish prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Most common of these compositions are parodies of songs popular before the war. Drawing on well-known melodies and familiar styles such as the tango, waltz, or foxtrot, prisoners who listened to, created, and performed these songs could reclaim, if only for a moment, some part of their lost popular culture. Yet paradoxically, and as many survivors attest, these same songs, with their unsparing depictions of camp life, helped prisoners push aside thoughts of life before captivity and so preserve their mental balance during those difficult years. The chapter then looks at one parody song, ‘Heil, Sachsenhausen’, and also examines the song parodied, ‘Madagaskar’, itself a satirical consideration of the Jewish predicament in inter-war Poland. ‘Heil, Sachsenhausen’ served not only as a narrative of camp experience, but also as a darkly comic condemnation of Nazi ‘racial purity’ laws. Moreover, this parody song may have functioned as a zone of inquiry for the author's personal reflections on German-Polish and Polish-Jewish relations before and during the Second World War.
Transmigrations: Wolf Krakowski’s Yiddish Worldbeat in its Socio-Musical Context
Authors: Lubet Alex
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines Wolf Krakowski's legendary CD Transmigrations, which was the first example of Yiddish worldbeat. Transmigrations comprises principally secular songs, although these are at times referenced, as is nearly unavoidable in chronicles of Jewish life. Two songs, ‘Shabes, shabes’ and ‘Zol shoyn kumen di geule’ (Let the Redemption Come), are traditionally devotional, if non-liturgical. The songs that address the Holocaust and other Jewish suffering pose basic spiritual questions that Jews must ask, though not in formal prayer. In determining any music's Jewishness, lessons from the sacred repertoire of Judaism may be applied. On utilitarian grounds, all settings of sacred Hebrew texts for use in Jewish worship are Jewish music. This principle extends to all Yiddish song, since Jewish languages are tools of Jewish community. This includes all twelve songs on Transmigrations. Ultimately, Transmigrations—an album of Yiddish folk songs and works by Yiddish theatre and literary artists, its melodies forthrightly Jewish—defies expectations of Yiddish song in broader aspects of style.
Languages of Community: The Jewish Experience in the Czech Lands
Authors: Kieval Hillel J.
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores Hillel J. Kieval's book, Languages of Community: The Jewish Experience in the Czech Lands. Kieval's Languages of Community demonstrates that the development of the community of Czech Jews in the period before the First World War was fraught with intense struggles against emerging Czech nationalism. In these interlinked essays, Kieval's primary emphasis is on the way in which the conflicts over language shaped the identities of the Czech Jews—a persuasive emphasis given the centrality of language in the definition of nationalisms in the Habsburg Empire. The fact that German was the primary spoken and written language of urban Jews was a particular irritant to Czech nationalists, who in the nineteenth century were seeking to turn Czech into the language of a new national culture. Like other Jews in the multi-ethnic empire, Czech Jews were caught between the German culture of the regime and the culture of their indigenous environment. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a Czech Jewish movement emerged which favoured the adoption of the Czech language and culture. But Kieval argues that this movement had only modest success, which was limited primarily to the abolition of German Jewish schools in the villages.
From Nationalism to Universalism: Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky and the Ukrainian Question
Authors: Kleiner Israel
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses Israel Kleiner's From Nationalism to Universalism: Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky and the Ukrainian Question. In this monograph, Kleiner focuses on V. Z. Jabotinsky's views of Ukrainian nationalism both in the period before the First World War and in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution and the ensuing civil war. After establishing Jabotinsky's general views on nationalism and cultural identity, Kleiner examines closely what he identifies as the courageous positions adopted by Jabotinsky in three critical moments. In Kleiner's view, Jabotinsky's support for Ukrainian nationalism was fully consistent with his fierce opposition to Jewish cultural assimilation. Jabotinsky not only condemned the Polish policies of active Polonization in Austrian Galicia, but also rejected tsarism's efforts to Russify the ethnic communities of the western borderlands of the empire. Instead, he welcomed the full development of Ukrainian cultural life and championed those expressions of Ukrainian nationalism that he believed would eventually result in an independent Ukraine. In Kleiner's exposition, Jabotinsky envisioned a future in which democratic nationalist movements would achieve their goals, thereby producing a non-threatening international order in which individuals could realize their own full potential as human beings without loss of national culture or ethnic identity.
Żydzi Lubelszczyzny 1914‒1918
Authors: Zieliński Konrad
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines Konrad Zieliński's Żydzi Lubelszczyzny 1914-1918 (Jews of the Lublin Region 1914-1918). Zieliński focuses on the period of the First World War and its influence on the Jews living in the region of Lublin at the time, more specifically in the area under Austro-Hungarian occupation. In writing about various developments, such as the shaping of Jewish political and cultural life, he draws on earlier materials dating to the end of the nineteenth century, when, in large towns such as Lublin, Chełm, and Zamość, the seeds of the Jewish political parties were sown. The revolution of 1905 proved to be of great importance for the region of Lublin because, to the surprise of both Poles and Jews, it demonstrated that the latter were capable of engaging in mass socio-political movements and often displayed great national awareness. But the decisive period for the shaping of Jewish identity in the provincial towns of the region of Lublin was the First World War, when news of Zionism, socialism, and communism reached such places as Markuszów, Biłgoraj, Hrubieszów, and Tomaszów Lubelski.
Malarstwo i rzeźba Żydów polskich w XIXi XXwieku
Authors: Malinowski Jerzy
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on Jerzy Malinowski's Malarstwo i rzeźba Żydów polskich w XIX i XX wieku (The Painting and Sculpture of Polish Jews in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). Among the men Jerzy Malinowski, an authority on Polish art and Polish Jewish culture, discusses are many unknown or virtually unknown artists. He begins his story in the mid-nineteenth century with the appearance of the first Polish artists of Jewish origin, of whom Aleksander Lesser was the most important. This was an easy decision, but other decisions made by the author are more difficult and more problematic. What exactly does he mean by Polish Jewish artists? More significant is the question of what Malinowski means by ‘Jewish artists’ and ‘Jewish art’. In his very brief introduction, he explains that he has included artists who identified themselves as belonging to the Jewish national camp, and artists who, even if they did not identify themselves in this way, took an active part in Jewish life. Those who qualify on neither of these grounds are branded as ‘assimilationists’ and omitted.
Introduction
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This introductory chapter describes the unique aspects of the yeshivas of nineteenth-century Lithuania. These yeshivas represented a major attempt on the part of traditional Jewry to cope with the challenges of modernity. The Jews of nineteenth-century Lithuania thus defined had several distinguishing characteristics. In religious terms, most were traditional, in the sense that they had withstood the innovations of hasidism; in fact, the strength of the opposition to that movement in Lithuania was such that they came collectively to be known as mitnagedim (opponents) — that is, opponents of hasidism. Economically, they were mostly poorer than Jews in other major areas of Jewish settlement, such as Poland or Bukovina, and lived in more crowded conditions. Until 1764, they benefited from self-government under the Va'ad Medinat Lita (Council of the Land of Lithuania). By the beginning of the eighteenth century this body had ceased to function, but the distinction between the Jews of Lithuania and those of the neighbouring regions continued to exist — not least because the Lithuanian Jews spoke a distinctive dialect of Yiddish. These and other factors ensured that they continued to maintain a separate identity among the Jews of eastern Europe until the First World War.
Origins and Early Years of the Volozhin Yeshiva
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at how the small town of Volozhin became one of the focal points of the Lithuanian Jewish world because of the yeshiva that was established there. The yeshiva of Volozhin represented a novel type of relationship between the Jewish community and Jewish learning: for most of the nineteenth century the Volozhin yeshiva was the most important institution of Jewish learning in all of eastern Europe, and ultimately it served as a model for the rest of European Jewry. The heads of the yeshiva were regarded as leaders of the Jewish community in the Russian Empire and beyond; thousands of young men studied there, many of whom went on to have a significant impact on the Jewish world. Patterns that were set in Volozhin are essentially maintained in yeshivas around the world till today. There are many curious myths about Volozhin, but the reality was even more interesting. A careful look at the history of the yeshiva reveals not only the yeshiva itself but how a society can change in ways that few could have predicted.
The Volozhin Yeshiva in the Second Generation
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter details the second generation of the Volozhin yeshiva. R. Hayim died in 1821, and his son R. Yitshak succeeded him as rosh yeshivah. It is often difficult to replace the founder of a successful institution. This is especially the case with charismatic individuals, since their very presence at the helm discourages the emergence of suitable successors. At Volozhin, R. Hayim had attended to all the affairs of the yeshiva himself, and until his last years no one else took administrative decisions. The appointment of a successor could have been problematic. Fortunately, the presence of a natural heir — R. Yitshak — solved the problem: he was considered the obvious person to take up his father's responsibilities. In contrast, as this chapter shows, the appointment of a rosh yeshivah in later generations was often surrounded by controversy.
The Organization and Operation of the Yeshiva
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at the organization and operation of the yeshiva. The way in which the yeshiva was administered largely reflected the personality and values of its leaders. There was no supervisory body, and the staff had wide leeway in determining goals and procedure, though there were often practical limitations on what could be done. In fact, it was the gap between reality and aspiration that determined much of what went on in the yeshiva. Here, the chapter explores how the yeshiva treat supervision and the assessment of progress. Then it turns to the shiur and the importance of this new study method. Finally, the chapter takes a look at staff–student relationships.
Life at the Volozhin Yeshiva
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter describes life at the Volozhin yeshiva. It begins with the study and daily routine, which reflected the values and goals of the rashei yeshivah. From there, the chapter turns to the yeshiva's annual cycle, as Volozhin offered a curious combination. There were days that were seen as the beginning of a study period (zeman) but no day that was seen as ending a study period. Sabbaths and festivals were breaks in the daily study routine. Additionally, reading Haskalah literature was never permitted at Volozhin, but it happened none the less. However, the extent of such activity varied in different periods, as did the attitudes towards it. The rashei yeshivah opposed the reading of secular literature, though R. Berlin did not issue an outright ban. Finally, the leisure pursuits that were tolerated at Volozhin were those which combined enjoyment with benefits to health or intellectual development.
The Closure of the Volozhin Yeshiva
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter analyses the developments that brought about the Volozhin yeshiva's closure. It reveals surprising conclusions that illuminate both the yeshiva's internal politics in the late nineteenth century and its precarious status. The ostensible reason for the closure of the yeshiva was its refusal to accept the government demand for far-reaching changes in the curriculum so as to incorporate secular studies and to devote a significant number of hours to these studies. However, it is highly probable that this was not the real reason. The chapter draws from the archives of the former Soviet Union to conduct an examination of internal government documents from the tsarist period. These archives can reveal more about what really motivated the authorities in various episodes affecting the Jewish community. The chapter shows that the authorities knew a great deal about the internal affairs of the yeshiva, and certainly far more than most Jews ever imagined.
The Telz Yeshiva
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at a third type of yeshiva — the Telz yeshiva. This yeshiva was a reaction to the perceived disintegration of traditional society and the decline in Torah study, but with no new values: its founders wanted to produce Talmud scholars capable of making profound halakhic decisions. Its importance in the history of Lithuanian yeshivas lies in its new organizational patterns: whereas Volozhin and Slobodka modelled themselves on the beit midrash, Telz was more like a modern educational institution. Other yeshivas eventually followed suit to varying degrees, so in that sense Telz marked a final stage in the development of the Lithuanian system. Later changes were very minor.
The Kolel Perushim of Kovno and the Institution of the Kolel
Authors: Stampfer Shaul
Published: February 2021

This chapter deals with the Kolel Perushim. This was a new type of institution found in Kovno. Like the yeshiva it became an important element in the provision of a traditional Jewish education. A kolel was, and is, an institution that regularly distributes money to a defined group of married men, usually young, who devote all their time to Torah study. Perushim are men who leave their families to study Torah in temporary celibacy, almost always in a place other than where their families live. The Kolel Perushim, then, was a framework for financial support for a group of married students. The chapter traces the founding and early history of the Kolel Perushim. It then explores how the institution operates and any opposition and conflict it encountered. Finally, this chapter takes a look at the kolel established by Yisra'el Brodsky.
A Young State with Many Needs
Authors: Katzburg-Yungman Mira
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at post-war immigration to Israel. When the State of Israel declared its independence in 1948, it opened its gates to unlimited Jewish immigration. From the Zionist perspective this marked an important achievement, for which the Yishuv had fought since the 1930s, and particularly in 1946–1948: offering a life in Palestine to any Jew who wanted to come. Israel, which had a population of 650,000 when it was established, absorbed more than as many Jews again in its first three years and eight months (from May 1948 until the end of 1951): some 687,000 immigrants, flocking to Israel from around seventy countries. No one had predicted how vast this wave of immigration would be. Absorption of the newcomers was a central aspect of Israel's existence after the War of Independence; it was a focus of attention for the entire Jewish population as well as the country's leadership, and required tremendous financial resources.
Welfare and Education Projects for Children and Teenagers
Authors: Katzburg-Yungman Mira
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses Hadassah's welfare and education projects. In addition to its involvement in health care, Hadassah was also engaged in a large number of projects to benefit children and teenagers, both during the Mandate period and after the State of Israel was established. These projects were consistent with the perception of appropriate realms of activity for women in the United States since the end of the nineteenth century — nursing (especially within the field of public health), social work, and education — and in this sense expressed Hadassah's identity as a women's organization more than its health and medical projects did. Hadassah's activity in this field also reflected the concerns of the time at which the organization was founded. No previous period in the history of the United States had been so focused on children as the Progressive era (1890–1920), during which many new movements emerged to benefit children and numerous new educational methods were developed. This focus on children and youth had considerable influence on the path that Hadassah took.