bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Must a Jew Believe Anything?
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

The crucial question for today's Jewish world is not whether Jews will have Jewish grandchildren, but how many different sorts of mutually exclusive Judaisms those grandchildren will face. This book argues that the Orthodox practice of framing the debate with non-Orthodox movements in terms of dogmatic fidelity contrasted with heresy is not the traditional Jewish approach, and that the debate could well be framed in other ways, ways that would allow all Jews to work together towards a less polarized Jewish future.
Two Types of Faith
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter shows that the Torah and the Talmud see religious faith in terms of steadfast loyalty and trust which find expression in behaviour, and not in terms solely of intellectual acquiescence in certain propositions. It is this characteristic of classical Judaism which explains why systematic theology and dogma are so foreign to its spirit. To that end, this chapter considers the occurrence of the term emunah in the Torah. In perusing a concordance and examining the verses in context, the chapter asserts that the basic, root meaning of emunah is trust and reliance — not intellectual acquiescence in the truth of certain propositions. From there, the chapter argues that the Torah teaches belief in God, as opposed to beliefs about God. Furthermore, the Torah teaches, occasionally explicitly — more often implicitly — certain beliefs about God, the universe, and human beings; notwithstanding this, the Torah has no systematic theology.
Rabbinic Thought
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter looks at how later generations of Jews have looked back into the talmudic texts and found therein various ideas for which rabbinic authority is then claimed. This often leads to reading later systematic ideas back into rabbinic texts. However, the Talmud and midrashim are simply not the sorts of works in which one can generally find systematic thinking and formulation. As such, there is very little if any ‘settled doctrines’ about anything, including such questions as whether or not Judaism has a systematic theology or how Judaism understands faith in God. Despite all this, the chapter contends that the examination of rabbinically ordained practices and rabbinic texts can help in formulating answers to questions such as those raised above. In particular, the chapter considers what can be learned from rabbinic texts about Jewish conceptions of faith in God.
Maimonides: Impact, Implictions, Challenges
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: February 2021

This chapter addresses Maimonides' impact on his contemporaries and upon subsequent generations of Jewish thinkers and halakhic authorities. It reveals that Maimonides' position on the nature of Judaism and the centrality of dogma in it enables — indeed, necessitates — the application of theological tests of Jewish legitimacy. Nevertheless, the chapter shows that while many other thinkers accepted Maimonides' claim that Judaism has dogmas, almost none accepted the theological substrate of that position. Medieval critiques of Maimonides are also addressed in this chapter. While medieval Jewish thinkers did not, in general, engage directly with Maimonides' claims about the nature of faith, his assertion that the Torah includes commandments to know or believe certain things was subjected to incisive and convincing criticism. To conclude, the chapter provides a discussion of an apparent inconsistency in Maimonides' treatment of heresy.
Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy
Authors: Shapiro Marc B.
Published: February 2021

The span of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg's life (1884–1966) illuminates the religious and intellectual dilemmas that traditional Jewry has faced over the past century. Rabbi Weinberg became a central ideologue of modern Orthodoxy because of his positive attitude to secular studies and Zionism and his willingness to respond to social change in interpreting the halakhah. But Weinberg was an unusual man: even at a time when he was defending the traditional yeshiva against all attempts at reform, he always maintained an interest in the wider world. He left Lithuania for Germany at the beginning of the First World War, attended the University of Giessen, and increasingly identified with the Berlin school of German Orthodoxy. He was soon recognized as German Orthodoxy's most eminent halakhic authority in its efforts to maintain religious tradition in the face of Nazi persecution. His approach derived from the conviction that the attempt to shore up Orthodoxy by increased religious stringency would only reduce its popular appeal. This book discusses many aspects of Weinberg's life. It elucidates many institutional and intellectual phenomena of the Jewish world: the yeshivas of Lithuania; the state of the Lithuanian rabbinate; the musar movement; the Jews of eastern Europe in Weimar Germany; the Torah im Derekh Eretz movement and its variants; Orthodox Jewish attitudes towards Wissenschaft des Judentums; and the special problems of Orthodox Jews in Nazi Germany. Throughout, the book shows the complex nature of Weinberg's character and the inner struggles of a man being pulled in different directions.
Afterword
Authors: Shapiro Marc B.
Published: February 2021

This concluding chapter addresses the issue of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg's lasting importance. Because Weinberg's form of Orthodoxy has been forced on to the defensive in recent years, it is no surprise that the so-called Modern Orthodox look towards him as a guiding light in their encounter with modernity. His name is often brought up in Modern Orthodox writings, for he identified with the ideals of this ‘movement’. He believed in a halakhah which responded to social change wherever possible, and was frightened by the rising extremism in Orthodoxy. Therefore, the chapter reveals that the Modern Orthodox claim Weinberg as one of their own, and draw inferences from his published opinions to cases which were not yet relevant in his time. As such, Weinberg stands out as an icon of Modern Orthodoxy.
Is There a Jewish Philosophy?
Authors: Roth Leon , Ullendorff Edward
Published: February 2021

Leon Roth (1896–1963) was the first professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He saw it as his purpose to encourage his students to think, and to think about their Judaism. Typical of his approach is the question with which this book opens: in what sense can we talk about Jewish philosophy, and what can we expect to find if we look for it? Defining philosophy as ‘the search, through thought, for the permanent’, the book argues that in order to say whether there is a truly Jewish philosophy, one has to ‘rethink fundamentals’: those elements in our lives, in history, in nature which appear to be not incidental and trivial but basic. The twelve essays published here represent a selection of Roth's explorations of various aspects of his theme. The title essay ends with the contention that Judaism must be seen as the classic expression of monotheism; as the antithesis of myth; and as the essence of ethics and morality. The emphasis that Roth placed on ethics as the essence of Judaism was not merely theoretical: in 1951 he resigned from the Hebrew University and left Israel in response to what he perceived as the betrayal of Jewish ethics by the rulers of the newly established State of Israel. The book's foreword is an appreciation of Roth's singular personality, grace, and moral stature, and of his devotion to an interpretation of Judaism that is rational and humane. A complete bibliography of Roth's writings rounds out the picture of the man and his achievements.
Baruch Spinoza His Religious Importance for the Jew of Today
Authors: Roth Leon
Published: February 2021

This chapter turns to Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632, and died at the Hague in 1677. His fame rests principally on two books, the Tractatus Theologico-politicus published anonymously in 1670 and the Ethica published in 1677 by his friends as a part of his Opera posthuma. Of these two books it was the former, the Tractatus Theologico-politicus, which in its time created the stir. The Ethica waited for notice a full hundred years. Yet, once noticed, the Ethica came into its own; the Tractatus passed into history. The Tractatus belongs to time, the Ethica to eternity; and it is this distinction, the distinction between the things of time and the things of eternity, so strikingly exemplified in the history of Spinoza's own work, which is the main lesson that men of religion today can derive from the study of Spinoza.
Moralization and Demoralization in Jewish Ethics
Authors: Roth Leon
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at certain instances of ‘deflation’, or even ‘debasement’, in Jewish ethics. These instances cut very deep. Each pair of readings involves a contrary moral attitude; and it is imperative for us, in the normal workings of our lives, to receive guidance between them. The chapter thus questions if the view of Judaism on the subject of the place of the non-Jew in the restored Jerusalem is that indicated by the Masorah and the American Jewish version; or can we follow the Septuagint and, most explicitly, the Targum, and read the text with a sheva and not a pataḥ? Is the view Judaism on the subject of the sacredness of life that indicated by the printed text of the Mishnah, i.e., apparently, that only Jews count; or can we, with the manuscripts and early authorities and Professor Albeck's second Afterthoughts, omit the word meyisrael? These are important issues, and this chapter considers which of the contrary views one should to account as Judaism.
The Fourth Part
Authors: Sahula Isaac Ibn
Published: February 2021

2 Cf. Num. 27: 17. Conceivably the he is here used as a vocative (Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar, 405, §126d (e)), addressed to Saul: ‘O thou commander of troops’, but this seems clumsy.

3 The meaning of at Prov. 30: 31 is quite uncertain (continued in ...
The Fifth Part
Authors: Sahula Isaac Ibn
Published: February 2021

THE END : ACCORD

ALL PRAISE TO GOD

CREATION’S LORD

5 This glances at the rabbinic principle in jurisprudence that penalties for offences are not to be imposed unless they have already been formally enunciated: Siphrey, ‘Shopheṭim’, 173 on Deut. 18: 12, ed. Finkelstein, 220. Cf. BT ...
Dedication
Authors: Sahula Isaac Ibn
Published: February 2021

1 Regarding the form (properly Suhula) and meaning of the name, see the Introduction, p. xv. There is play here on Sahula and the Hebrew segullah as used in Exod. 19: 5 of Israel as God’s peculiar possession. S. M. Stern (‘Rationalists and Kabbalists’, 74) tacitly deduced that the family name was not Ibn Sahula, as conventionally cited, but [Ibn] Abi Sahula....
Is It Traditional?
Authors: Jacobs Louis
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers in greater detail how the historical critical method sheds light on the term “from” and whether the position can be considered to be in any way traditional. It talks about the doctrine that the Torah is from Heaven, emphasizing that every word of the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses, was communicated directly by God to Moses during the forty years the Children of Israel journeyed through the wilderness. This demonstrates that there are faint glimmerings in talmudic statements that enable non-fundamentalists to claim new theological formulations. The point of quoting talmudic and similar references from the past is to show how much more flexible the rabbis were in matters of dogma than whose stark formulation is often hurled against the legitimacy of the “liberal” approach. What is involved in any new formulation of dogma is a greater awareness of the real history of Judaism.
Orthodoxy
Authors: Jacobs Louis
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on Orthodox Jews. These Jews at the end of the twentieth century are divided into a number of groupings, each following its own specific pattern of religious conduct. It describes the Sephardi Jews that are generally content to have their religious life modelled on the traditional behavioural norms of their ancestors without too much reflection on its theological underpinning. The Ashkenazi Jews have been compelled to become more theologically inclined due to the great impact made on European Jewry by the Emancipation and the Enlightenment. The chapter gives details on the Ashkenazim that are divided into the haredim or ultra-Orthodox and the Modern Orthodox.
Modernism and Interpretation
Authors: Jacobs Louis
Published: February 2021

This chapter connects theological approach to the historical critical one by considering three significant Jewish themes: the purpose of creation, “enjoyment of life”, and the doctrine of imitatio dei. It examines the history of the three themes in Jewish thought with a view to showing how precarious is the position of moderns, to be so convinced both that their new ideas are valuable and that the sources they anticipated become guilty of anachronism in their interpretations. The chapter also discusses Sa'adya Gaon's topic on “creation” in his Sefer ha'emunot vehade'ot as response to those who wonder the purpose God's creation of all creatures. Sa'adya suggests that God, being God, does not, like a human being, need a motive for what He does and may not have had any motive in creating the world. He seems to be saying that arbitrary acts are possible for God.
Jewish Reaction to the Soviet Arrival in the Kresy in September 1939
Authors: Żbikowski Andrzej
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines why the Jews welcomed the Soviet armies entering the Kresy (Polish eastern borderlands) in September of 1939. It highlights a number of factors which led the Jews to welcome the Soviet troops. Perhaps the most important phenomenon is the fact that a wave of peasant revolts swept over the Kresy in September of 1939, the principal victims of which were the landowners and the Jews, as in the revolts of Khmelnytsky and Gonta. It may be worth recalling the often expressed adage that a vacuum in state authority creates danger for any minority surrounded by hostile neighbours—a view which has been confirmed by the long history of the Jewish diaspora in Europe. Certainly, for the Jews, any kind of authority was better than anarchy. Moreover, to all Jews it was obvious that the Soviets prevented the Germans from entering the area. The German attitude towards the Jews was widely known, and refugees arriving in the east gave graphic accounts of how the Jews were treated in central Poland. Finally, and importantly, under the new regime, antisemitism was prohibited.
Reflections on Soviet Documents Relating to Polish Prisoners of War Taken in September 1939
Authors: Schochet Simon
Published: February 2021

This chapter investigates the Katyn massacre, looking at the Katyn death lists of Polish prisoners of war seized by the Soviets in September of 1939. The author's research among the Soviet documents is prompted by a wish to find documentation concerning the Polish Jewish officers who were killed in Katyn. Although they were murdered not because they were Jews, but rather because they were Polish officers serving their country, they nevertheless belong to and are a definitive part of the history of Polish Jewry as well as of the Polish nation. However, the skill with which Soviet propagandists were able to fabricate their innocence in the Katyn murder is well known, and the possibility that some documents, although archival, may contain erroneous or dubious information is very high. In order to establish the fate of these prisoners of war, one must first determine precisely the total number of Polish prisoners taken by the Soviet forces in 1939, but the available Polish and Russian documents defy the historian's ability to do so.
The Demography of Jews in Hiding in Warsaw, 1943‒1945
Authors: Paulsson Gunnar S.
Published: February 2021

This chapter provides a demography of the Jewish fugitives in Warsaw during the Holocaust, considering the Berman Archive. This archive contains the records of the Jewish National Committee (Żydowski Komitet Narodowy: ŻKN) and the personal papers of its chairman, Dr Adolf Berman. The documents from the Berman Archive that are of greatest interest to the chapter are lists of people who were receiving financial assistance from the committee. These lists contain, all told, some 7,500 individual entries, each consisting of some of the following information: name (of an individual or family group); number of people in the group; receipt number and amount received; age, or date, and place of birth; other identifying information such as occupation and place of origin; name of the responsible activist; and comments of various kinds. The interpretation of these documents requires some knowledge of the structure and function of the ŻKN and, indeed, of the whole organized effort to bring relief to Jews in hiding.
The Bund and the Jewish Fraction of the Polish Workers’ Party in Poland after 1945
Authors: Szaynok Bożena , Zlatkes Gwido
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores the General Jewish Workers' Union, the Bund, which was established in Vilna in 1897. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Bund in the USSR was forcibly united with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In independent Poland, the Bund by the 1930s moved to a less revolutionary and more social-democratic position and established itself as one of the principal parties on the ‘Jewish street’. It retained its basic programme of establishing ‘national-cultural’ autonomy for the Jews in Poland, once a democratic socialist state had been achieved. After the Second World War, it was also active in countries other than Poland. Although the activists of Bund chapters outside Poland supported the Polish Bund with funds, the Polish Bund remained fully independent in its work in Poland. The Bund in post-war Poland began its activity in the autumn of 1944. Like other parties, the Bund started its work in Poland by searching for its pre-war members and taking care of Jewish youth regardless of orientation.
Bełżec
Authors: Reder Rudolf
Published: February 2021

This chapter looks at the testimony of Rudolf Reder, a survivor of Bełżec death camp. Bełżec murder camp was the first camp set up by Aktion Reinhard, an operation whose purpose was to dispose, in the least obtrusive manner, of the Jewish population of the General Government and adjacent countries under Nazi rule. Into this camp, Rudolf Reder was brought with one of the first transports of Jews from Lemberg caught during the great Aktion. Reder arrived in Bełżec at the height of the camp's activity. Because of his position as odd-job man, he was allowed considerable freedom of movement. He was therefore able to describe the camp, its installations, and its functioning in considerable detail. But his story is also the deeply harrowing account of someone who witnessed with horror the slaughter of innocents which went on day after day. And this, together with the relevant details which, without his description, might have remained forever obscure, make Reder's booklet, Bełżec (1946), a unique document of this terrible but little-known chapter in the history of the Holocaust.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum: From Commemoration to Education
Authors: Świebocka Teresa
Published: February 2021

This chapter highlights the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The great majority of those who began to create the museum in 1947 were former prisoners of Auschwitz and other camps. They recognized intuitively that it was their duty and responsibility to protect all remaining traces of these crimes so as to preserve not only the buildings but also the memory of Auschwitz and to pass this on to future generations. But preservation is only a part of the problem; it is also important to decide what the place is supposed to be. Is it a memorial, a museum, a cemetery, or a place of education? Or is it all of these? From the very beginning of the museum's existence, there have been educational activities addressed to the future, to guide young people so that the tragic past of Auschwitz should not be repeated. The museum also tries to be diverse in its activities. It conserves and safeguards the relics and the former camp buildings; it collects, describes, and presents documents and other historical items; and it collects works of art that relate to Auschwitz.
Black is Black
Authors: Musiał Stanisław , Zlatkes Gwido
Published: February 2021

This chapter investigates how Poles react to the Revd Henryk Jankowski's antisemitic statements. If in any Western country, a cleric (a Catholic priest as well known as the Revd Jankowski) presented such antisemitic opinions, many people of good will would protest in the streets. In Poland, it is still impossible. Though in Polish society, sensitivity and solidarity seem to be awakening today, they express themselves in only one context: where an exceptionally hideous murder has been committed. The chapter argues that in Poland, it will be a long time before antisemitic excesses or statements will get people moving. After all that happened in the land at the hands of the Nazis, there is still no social awareness that antisemitism is deadly by its nature, and in every form, even if often not directly or immediately. In this regard, the past is taking its toll: not long ago the subject of antisemitism was taboo, and to be a patriot meant, in the interpretation of the ruling Communist Party, to be anti-Zionist, which in practice equalled being an antisemite.
Jewish Theatre in Poland before the Second World War: Its Audiences and its Critics
Authors: Peretz Maya
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores reviews of the Jewish theatre before the Second World War. Reviews allow a glimpse into Polish–Jewish relations as indirectly reflected in the views of Polish drama critics. They can be more revealing than the sources in which emotions are more rigidly controlled. In particular, the chapter looks at the reviews reprinted in the 1992 single-issue volume of Pamiętnik Teatralny devoted to the Polish Yiddish theatre. The paucity of material in itself is an indication of the most striking characteristic of Polish–Jewish relations during the sixty or so years these reviews cover: a gulf that separated the two ethnic groups, and the scant interest in the Polish community in bridging the gap. Among Catholic Poles, the lack of information about Jewish culture was almost total. The Jewish critic Jakub Appenszlak grieved that Polish reviewers kept avoiding Jewish theatre even when truly great art could be seen there.
Review Essays Recent Books on the Catholic Church in Poland
Authors: Pawlikowski John T.
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores four review essays. The first essay considers recent books on the Catholic Church in Poland, which raise issues that are crucial to a continued Polish–Jewish dialogue. The second essay recounts how, in the course of 1997, a handful of publications of a distinctly antisemitic character found their way onto the shelves of bookshops in Poland, and some contain the infamous nonsense about ‘ritual murder’. Some of the publications also talk about a ‘Jewish-masonic plot’ aimed at world domination. The third essay presents a Lithuanian account of life in the Nazi concentration camps. Finally, the fourth essay considers analyses of world antisemitism published between 1991 and 1997.
A Lithuanian Account of Life in the Camps
Authors: Udrenas Nerijus
Published: February 2021

BALYS SRUOGA, Forest of the Gods: Memoirs

(Vilnius: Vaga, 1996); pp. 340

JEWS, along with many other people, suffered a tragic fate in east central Europe during the Second World War at the hands of Nazis and their allies. Some survived. What was the main difference between death and survival? Death did not visit individually: it selected groups. The Nazis slaughtered Jews for being Jews, no matter how diverse they were; they killed Gypsies, no matter where they came from. Death came ...
Salo Wittmayer Baron: Architect of Jewish History
Authors: Liberles Robert
Published: February 2021

(New York: New York University Press, 1995); pp. xiii + 426

Salo Baron (1895‒1989), born in Tarnów, Galicia, became one of the foremost Jewish historians of the twentieth century and one of the pioneers of academic Jewish studies in the United States. Liberles attempts to interweave two stories in this first full-length study of Baron and his ...
Naphtali Herz Wessely and the Cultural Dislocations of an Eighteenth-Century Maskil
Authors: Breuer Edward
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on Naphtali Herz Wessely, who was best known for his book Divrei shalom ve'emet (Words of Peace and Truth). Regarded as the formative text of the Haskalah, this book was a passionate response to Joseph II's Edict of Tolerance; in it, Wessely urged the Jews of the Habsburg Empire to enrol their children in state schools where they would follow a balanced curriculum, studying Jewish religious subjects as well as languages, science, and the humanities in an orderly fashion. The chapter then departs from the usual portrayal of Wessely and depicts him as alienated from both traditional and modernist Jews, as well as from the other maskilim, at least during the later years of his life. It describes Wessely's indecision and frustration, in particular his sense that no one properly understood his vision of cultural renewal, and it shows how Wessely's alienation was compounded by his anxiety about the growing dimensions of religious heresy and by his disaffection from traditional circles. The chapter also analyses Wessely's early writings, revealing that his major interests were twofold: the revival of biblical Hebrew as an essential tool for a more precise understanding of rabbinic literature, and an affirmation of the credibility of the Oral Torah that was being criticized by European scholars.
Enlightened Rabbis as Reformers in Russian Jewish Society
Authors: Salmon Joseph
Published: February 2021

This chapter focuses on the rabbis in Russia in the 1860s and 1870s who, with a measure of enlightenment, aspired to reform Jewish society. In this period, the gap between maskilim and traditional Jews was not as wide as is usually thought. The chapter then cautions against a simple dualistic view of the relationship between Haskalah and tradition, describing a group of Lithuanian rabbis who were involved in demands for reform in the spirit of an Enlightenment which turned Zionist in the 1880s. Like the moderate maskilim in eastern Europe, these rabbis tried to fuse Enlightenment and tradition. Ultimately, they can be regarded as the source of modern Orthodoxy in Israel and the United States.
Jewish Mysticism
Authors: Elior Rachel
Published: February 2021

Mysticism is one of the central sources of inspiration of religious thought. It is an attempt to decode the mystery of divine existence by penetrating to the depths of consciousness through language, memory, myth, and symbolism. By offering an alternative perspective on the world that gives expression to yearnings for freedom and change, mysticism engenders new modes of authority and leadership; as such it plays a decisive role in moulding religious and social history. For all these reasons, the mystical corpus deserves study and discussion in the framework of cultural criticism and research. This book is a lyrical exposition of the Jewish mystical phenomenon. Its purpose is to present the meanings of the mystical works as they were perceived by their creators and readers. At the same time, it contextualizes them within the boundaries of the religion, culture, language, and spiritual and historical circumstances in which the destiny of the Jewish people has evolved. The book conveys the richness of the mystical experience in discovering the infinity of meaning embedded in the sacred text and explains the multivalent symbols. It illustrates the varieties of the mystical experience from antiquity to the twentieth century. The translations of texts communicate the mystical experiences vividly and make it easy for the reader to understand how the book uses them to explain the relationship between the revealed world and the hidden world and between the mystical world and the traditional religious world, with all the social and religious tensions this has caused.
Between Germans and Poles: The Jews of Poznań in 1848
Authors: Makowski Krzysztof A.
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers the stance of the Jews of Poznań during the tumultuous Spring of Nations in 1848. It attempts to put an end to the simplifications, myths, and stereotypes in the historical literature concerning the Spring of Nations in the Poznań region. With a few exceptions, the stereotypes formed in 1848 in evaluations of the attitude of Poznań's Jews have been continually and uncritically repeated, and, as a result, have become established in historical literature. In many publications, the judgement of authors has additionally been clouded by emotion and bias, not to mention occasionally even partisanship or hatred. Therefore, the chapter seeks to re-evaluate the attitude of the Jews in the Grand Duchy of Poznań to the events of the Springtime of the Nations in a way that is free of oversimplification. Because of its limited framework, the chapter only summarizes and gives a critique of the literature on the subject to date. It also pays some attention to how the events of 1848 resonated beyond the Duchy.
The Zhitomir Rabbinical School: New Materials and Perspectives
Authors: Melamed Efim
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines the Zhitomir rabbinical school, one of the most controversial institutions in nineteenth-century Jewish life in the tsarist empire. It draws upon the documents of the rabbinical school in the State Archive of the Zhitomir Region. The objective here is to analyse state motivations in creating ‘rabbinical colleges’, the composition and profile of the student body, and the educational backgrounds and goals of its staff and teachers. Here, the internal life of such schools are examined from a new perspective. Indeed, the chapter shows in the case of Zhitomir, that one central reason for the failure of the rabbinical schools lay in the fact that within their walls the self-professed ‘leaders of the Jewish people’ were alienated from the very people they claimed to lead.
The Policies of the Sanacja on the Jewish Minority in Silesia, 1926–1939
Authors: Piotrowski Jacek
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers relations between the Sanacja and Silesia's Jewish minority. The Jewish minority possessed particularly strong links with German cultural circles in this region, thus making them quite important to the Sanacja. The Silesian Sanacja described the de facto union between the German and Jewish minorities as an alliance between forces hostile towards the Polish state. Pointing out the lack of Jewish independence in this alliance, the ruling camp's journalists sharply criticized both minorities. The alliance was based, in their view, on a hatred of independent Poland. The participation of the Jews in the National Minorities' Electoral Bloc, formed in autumn 1927 and headed in Silesia by the detested Germans, constituted a huge disappointment for local Sanacja activists.
Tsevorfene bleter: The Emergence of Yung Vilne
Authors: Cammy Justin D.
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines Yung Vilne (Young Vilna, 1929–1940). In the decade preceding the outbreak of the Second World War, a group of young, unknown Yiddish poets, writers, and artists helped turn Vilna into the dominant Yiddish cultural centre in Poland. These young men and women, the majority of them from Vilna itself or its neighbouring towns, emerged at a moment when Jewish Vilna's culture was defined by its commitment to Yiddish culture and youth. Drawn together under the rubric Yung Vilne, the group synthesized the aspirations of individual members for artistic experimentation and freedom of expression with a collective concern for the social, political, and cultural life of the city. In doing so, Yung Vilne earned the distinction of being both the last of the major Yiddish avant-garde movements in inter-war Poland, and the literary group most evocative of the pressures of time and place.
The Transfer of Vilna District into Lithuania, 1939
Authors: Liekis Sarunas
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses the transfer of Vilna and the surrounding district to the Lithuanian republic in a 1939 treaty. After this transfer, the Lithuanian republic annulled the previously operating Polish laws and introduced its own legal system. The new Ministry of Education announced that under Lithuanian law the kehilah of the Jewish community, which had exercised authority during Polish rule, would have to be re-elected in May 1940. As a consequence, the kehilah's structure and its operating rules would be changed. This led the leaders of the Jewish community to petition that kehilah's status as a legal entity be restored and to allow it to continue its activities as under the laws of the former Polish state.
Christian Servants Employed by Jews in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Authors: Kalik Judith
Published: February 2021

This chapter studies Christian servants employed by Jews in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It shows how this can improve understanding of Jewish isolationism in this state and clarify issues regarding intercultural contacts between the Jews and their neighbours. Here, most Jewish–Christian contacts were economic. With a few exceptions, employment of Christians by Jews as servants was the only way in which it was possible for Christians to obtain close and intimate contact with Jews, their way of life, language, religion, and culture. It allowed for interpersonal exchange, and even personal sympathy, well beyond business relations. It is clear that such contacts with Christian servants also made it possible for Jews to make better acquaintanceships with Christians and the nuances of their culture, though on a limited scale since these Christians were disconnected from their natural background and lifestyle.
Boleław Prus and the Dreyfus Case
Authors: Friedrich Agnieszka
Published: February 2021

This chapter discusses Bolesław Prus's (1847–1912) coverage of the ‘Dreyfus affair’. Quite apart from its impact on French domestic politics at the turn of the century, the Dreyfus affair was a starting point for many significant intellectual and social processes, including the formation and consolidation of institutionalized Zionism. The name Dreyfus first appeared in Bolesław Prus's column ‘Weekly Chronicles’ (Kroniki Tygodniowe), which he contributed to the newspaper Kurier codzienny on 15 November 1896. Prus, one of the leading Polish prose-writers of the second half of the nineteenth century, wrote journalistic ‘chronicles’ of this type throughout his mature life from 1874 until 1911. They had a fixed place in the most well-known newspapers which appeared in Warsaw in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Jewish War Cemeteries in Western Galicia
Authors: Bartosz Adam
Published: February 2021

This chapter is an overview of the Jewish war graves in western Galicia. Jewish soldiers were part of the multinational Austrian army. They fought on all fronts of the First World War and were killed with their comrades in arms of other nationalities and religions, but if identified as Jews they were buried separately. In western Galicia, bloody battles between Austrian and Russian armies lasted until May 1915. There are hundreds of military cemeteries and military sections in parish cemeteries in this area. In spite of continuing war (there were battles in eastern Galicia and in Bukovina), a systematic burial of the dead at newly established cemeteries began. It was carried out by the War Graves Division (K. u. k. Kriegsgräber-Abteilung) established in the spring of 1915 and located in Kraków. Between summer 1915 and autumn 1918, the War Graves Division designed and constructed 365 cemeteries.
New Sources on the History of the Old Town Synagogue in Łódź
Authors: Stefański Krzysztof
Published: February 2021

This chapter presents updated information on the Old Town Synagogue in Łódź. It reveals new inter-war files which contain extremely important references to the history of the synagogue in the old town on Wolborska Street. In addition to a less interesting, undated blueprint for a synagogue at Północna Street, a large file bearing the call number 457 and described in Russian as ‘Plany sinagogi’ (Blueprint for the Synagogue) contained architectural drawings of the utmost importance. These are: the design for the renovation of the Wolborska Street synagogue, dated 1895; an inventory drawing of the building from 1894; and a plan for renovations to a smaller prayer house on Wolborska Street — all done by the well-known Łódź architect Adolf Zeligson. The first two items greatly expand our knowledge of the Old Town Synagogue, which served as the main prayer house for the Jewish community of Łódź.
A Fish Breaks through the Net:Sven Norrman and the Holocaust
Authors: Lewandowski Józef
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at Sven Norrman (1892–1979), a little-known Swedish engineer who waged his own private war against Nazism. He was the first man to break the news of the Nazis' large-scale genocide operations to the British. The process of mass murder had been in operation for several months before any information about it managed to break through the web of Gestapo surveillance. Certainly, some signals penetrated earlier, but they were vague and unconfirmed, and seemingly too fantastic, and they were easily drowned out in the clamour of war information. Aside from his correspondence regarding the Holocaust, Norrman's activities in Poland also involved carrying the materials gathered by employees of the Polskie Towarzystwo Elektryczne (PTE). He also gave regular support to Jewish employees of PTE hiding on the ‘Aryan’ side; to those who were in the ghetto he sent help through people who knew how to slip into the ghetto.
The Image of the Holocaust in Polish Historical Consciousness
Authors: Tych Feliks
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines the low level of historical consciousness, cultural awareness, and moral sensitivity regarding the Holocaust in Poland. It shows how the majority of Polish society up to this very day has some peculiar mental block concerning the Holocaust. On the whole, it mainly results from historical ignorance caused by the shortcomings, or rather conscious distortions, of the communist public education system of the first 45 years after the war. But it is also the product of what the family and social milieu have said on the matter, and is influenced by the endemic antisemitism of pre-war Poland, both of a religious nature and resulting from economic competition between Poles and Jews. This residual pre-war antisemitism was strengthened through the war years by witnessing the unashamed Nazi crimes against the Jewish population.
Upside-Down History
Authors: Tomaszewski Jerzy
Published: February 2021

This chapter reviews an article by David Cymet, entitled ‘Polish State Antisemitism as a Major Factor Leading to the Holocaust’. The article was published in Britain in the Journal of Genocide Research. The chapter considers a number of peculiarities and mistakes present in the article. It questions the sources drawn by the article to expound its thesis. Moreover, the chapter analyses the article's thesis that the views and deeds of Polish antisemites influenced the Nazi policy of genocide in Germany, occupied Poland, and other countries. It argues that the German authorities in occupied Poland were not under the influence of Poles. Indeed, while there were rare cases of individual Polish politicians offering to co-operate with Germany against the Soviet Union, these proposals met with no response.
Sophia Kemlein
Authors: Tomaszewski Jerzy
Published: February 2021

This chapter reviews The Jews of Poznań 1815–1848: Development of a Polish Jewry under the Rule of Prussia. It shows how this book enlarges our factual knowledge and enables us to correct the errors of older publications. It also shows in what way and why Polish Jews in the Prussian partition gradually became loyal subjects of Prussia, and then Germans of Mosaic faith. An important gap which plagues not only scholars of the history of the Jews in the Prussian partition is the scarcity of sources relevant to the evolution of the attitudes of ordinary people. The chapter asserts that Sophia Kemlein was able to use important records and memoirs that originated from among the wealthy, especially the intelligentsia; but these only partly disclose the views of other strata within the Jewish community. With these limited resources, however, and using many other sources from German and Polish archives, Kemlein has managed to create a convincing picture of the evolution of the whole community.
Leszek Ziątkowski
Authors: Wodzinski Marcin
Published: February 2021

This chapter explores The Jewish Population of Breslau, 1812–1914. This book is a fragment of a doctoral dissertation by Leszek Ziątkowski. Only the part discussing two key issues in the life of the Breslau Jewish community: its demographic development and its socio-topography was published. Despite the book's many strengths, the chapter mostly addresses its many weaknesses. It remarks that the book's title promises much more than we get. In vain one looks for information on important events in the history of Breslau Jews: on the emancipation edict and the impact of the Prussian ‘Jewish’ legislation on the everyday work of the Breslau kehilah; on religious life (including the famous Tiktin–Geiger controversy); on social, economic, and political life; on the role played by the Jewish Theological Seminar, and other key issues. This thus leaves the reader with a sense of dissatisfaction — more so for the fact that there is currently no monograph describing this period in the history of Breslau's Jews.
Naomi Seidman
Authors: Frank Esther
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines Naomi Seidman's A Marriage Made in Heaven, the first book-length study of the importance of issues of gender to modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature and to cultural processes. The perspective of the study is comparative. As such it provides new insights into interrelations of gender and Jewish literature and expands our understanding of Jewish cultural development in important ways. Ties between language and gender in Jewish languages have already been noted by Jewish critics such as Shmuel Niger and Max Weinreich. Seidman's study, however, is the first to show how these connections corresponded to and reinforced the culture's social division along sexual lines. It demonstrates how the sexual linguistic system worked in Hebrew and Yiddish literature in the late nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century, and emphasizes how specific intersections between linguistic and gender structures eventually connected language ideologies to ideals of modern nation-building in later decades of the twentieth century.
Rafael F. Scharf
Authors: Martin Sean
Published: February 2021

This chapter takes a look at Rafael F. Scharf's collection of writings. The writings concern the author's own relationship to Poland, various aspects of the history of the Holocaust, and, the subject closest to the author's experience, Kraków. The chapter shows how this book can reveal much about the history of Polish–Jewish relations. Here, the value of Scharf's writings lies in their personal nature. A native of Kraków, Scharf describes Jewish life in the city from the perspective of a middle-class Jew who grew up in the heart of Kazimierz. In recalling the details of his childhood and young adulthood, Scharf emphasizes his connection to the Polish language, literature, and landscape.
Jerzy Turowicz
Authors: Polonsky Antony
Published: February 2021

This chapter considers the life of the late Jerzy Turowicz (1912–1999). Turowicz played a key role in the preservation of liberal values in Poland and in its re-emergence as a democratic and pluralistic state. As the long-standing editor of the independent Catholic weekly Tygodnik powszechny, he aired matters which were taboo in the official press, and also attempted to move the Polish Catholic Church to a more open and tolerant view of the world. This was not always an easy task. In 1951, he became editor of the paper, which was founded in 1945, and retained this position until his death, with only one hiatus. After the death of Stalin he was removed from his position because of his refusal to publish an obituary of the Soviet dictator, and the weekly was handed over to the pro-government Catholic grouping Pax. Turowicz returned as editor only in December 1956 after the Polish ‘October’ and the establishment of a national communist regime under Władysław Gomułka.
Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 15
Authors: Polonsky Antony
Published: February 2021

This book highlights new research on Jewish spiritual and religious life in Poland before modern political ideas began to transform the Jewish world. It covers a range of topics. Three articles deal with rabbinic scholarship in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and a fourth presents accounts of Purim festivities at that time. The eighteenth-century studies focus on Jewish spirituality. Four articles deal with the Frankist movement, the main topics being Frankist propaganda; non-Christian Frankists; Jonathan Eibeschuetz and the Frankists; and the influence of Frankism on Polish culture. There are four articles on hasidism; the childhood of tsadikim in hasidic legends; the fall of the Seer of Lublin; and the hasidism of Gur and one about Nahman Krochmal. The chapters further the study of Jewish religious traditions in Poland, a topic central to an understanding of Jewish society and history in Poland but one which has long been considered marginal by the academic world. Substantial space is given to new research in other areas of Polish–Jewish studies. There is an extensive survey of the papal Holocaust papers, as well as contributions relating to education for girls, to Auschwitz as a site of memories, and to aspects of Jewish literature, politics, society, and economics. The review section includes two separate essays with contrasting opinions on Yaffa Eliach’s monumental study of Eishyshok.
Early Recordings of Jewish Music in Poland
Authors: Aylward Michael
Published: February 2021

This chapter examines a discography of commercial recordings of Jewish music made in Europe on cylinders and shellac records. The range of musical genres covered by the discography is wide, but may be broadly defined as applying to traditional Jewish music. For example, it excludes works by Jewish composers working in the European classical tradition; art music, even if specifically Jewish in tone and content; and non-Jewish music performed by Jewish artists. It does, however, extend to non-musical recordings such as comic monologues and dramatic recitals. In addition, there are separate appendices dealing with categories such as ‘Jewish’ music performed by non-Jewish artists and Jewish parodies performed by non-Jewish artists, the latter a fairly common genre among pre-revolutionary Russian recordings, but rare in Polish ones of the same era. The chapter then looks at those aspects of the discography that apply especially to Poland.
Excerpts From Yidishe Neshomes
Authors: Litvin A.
Published: February 2021

This chapter presents some excerpts from A. Litvin's Yidishe neshomes (Jewish Souls). The first deals with the Jew and the ‘look-box’. There is a very large portion of the Jewish masses for whom the entire world of aesthetics, beauty, and art is unknown. The Jewish folk artist comes to their help. Still today, as in the past, the aesthetic needs of the very poorest are met by the Jew with the ‘look-box’. The look-box is simultaneously a theatre and a museum; it also teaches history, geography, and other important things. Meanwhile, the second excerpt concerns the blind Jewish musicians, who are nearly all former artisans.