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Lost and Found? Jewish Historians, Jewish History, and Narrativization of Order in East European Cities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2017

Scott Ury
Scott Ury*
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
*
scottury@post.tau.ac.il
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Abstract

This article argues that the long-standing turn to “the Jewish community” as a central organizing principle in works dedicated to Jewish history in east European cities has helped create and institutionalize a specific communal model of Jewish urban history, one that prioritizes narratives of Jewish communal order over explorations of the chaos and fluidity that characterize many other studies of the modern city. The article begins by discussing the central place of “the community” in foundational works of Jewish history, continues by examining the critical role played by communal record books (pinkasim) in the construction of east European Jewish history, and then analyzes several works that embraced and reinforced the communal model of Jewish urban history. The article concludes by examining two key archival collections and discussing the various ways that the source material amassed in them illustrates how scholars like Jacob Shatzky and Israel Klausner used historical research and writing as a means to narrativize, domesticate, and make sense of the intersection between Jews and cities.

Type
Jews and Cities
Information
AJS Review , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , April 2017 , pp. 9 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2017 

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Footnotes

Research for this article was made possible by a generous grant from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), Grant No. 361/12 as well as a Dr. Emanuel Patt / Workmen's Circle Visiting Professorship in East European Jewish Studies at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York. I would also like to thank Eli Lederhendler, the different editors of AJS Review, and the blind readers for their constructive suggestions regarding earlier versions of this piece.

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10. See Bhabha, Homi K., “DissemiNation: time, narrative, and the margins of the modern nation,” Nation and Narration, ed. Bhabha, Homi (London: Routledge, 1990), 291Google Scholar. “The nation fills the void left in the uprooting of communities and kin, and turns that loss into the language of metaphor.” On biopolitics, see Foucault, Michel, “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976, trans. Macey, David (New York: Picador, 1997), 243–245 Google Scholar.

11. For more on Dubnow, see Frankel, Jonathan, “S. M. Dubnov: Historian and Ideologist,” introduction to The Life and Work of S. M. Dubnov, by Dubnov-Erlich, Sophie, ed. Shandler, Jeffrey, trans. Vowles, Judith (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 1–33 Google Scholar.

12. See Dubnow, Simon, “Autonomism, the Basis of the National Program,” in Nationalism and History: Essays on Old and New Judaism, ed. Pinson, Koppel S. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1958), 142Google Scholar. Also see Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” in Arendt, Illuminations, 254. “In other words, our image of happiness is indissolubly bound up with the image of redemption. The same applies to our view of the past, which is the concern of history. The past carries with it a temporal index by which it is referred to redemption. There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our coming was expected on the earth.” For more on such actions in a Jewish context, see Ury, Barricades and Banners, 261–72.

13. See, for example, Dubnow, “Autonomism, the Basis of the National Program,” 138. “Up to the period of emancipation communal Jewish autonomy as described above served as a substitute for government, for a state, and for citizenship….”

14. Prominent examples of early studies of Jewish communities in east European cities include: Perles, Joseph, Geschichte der Juden in Posen (Breslau: Schletter, 1865)Google Scholar; Bałaban, Majer, Żydzyi Lwowscy na przełomie xvi i xvii wieku (Lwów: Wawelberg, 1906)Google Scholar; and Bałaban, , Historja Żydów w Krakowie i na Kazimierzu (1304–1868), 2 vols. (Kraków: Nadzieja, 1931 and 1936)Google Scholar. For additional examples regarding the emphasis on the Jewish community, note Mordecai Kaplan's comment that “There are two social institutions which are indispensable to Jewish life in those countries where our political status is of the American type—the Synagogue and the Kehillah.” Kaplan, Mordecai M., “The Synagogue and the Kehillah,” in Jewish Experiences in America: Suggestions for the Study of Jewish Relations with Non-Jews, ed. Lasker, Bruno (New York: Inquiry, 1930), 172Google Scholar.

15. Dubnow, “Autonomism, the Basis of the National Program,” 133, ellipses in source.

16. [Baer, Yitzḥak and Dinaburg, Ben-Zion (Dinur)], “Megamatenu,” Ẓion 1 (1935): 1–5 Google Scholar. On Zion and the Jerusalem school, see Myers, David N., Re-Inventing the Jewish Past: European Jewish Intellectuals and the Zionist Return to History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 109–10Google Scholar.

17. “Megamatenu,” 3. The founders of the Jerusalem school were not the only practitioners of Jewish history who turned to the community for intellectual and narrative order. See, for example, Baron, Salo Wittmayer, The Jewish Community: Its History and Structure to the American Revolution, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1948)Google Scholar.

18. Dubnow, Simon, ed., Pinkas ha-medinah: ’O, pinkas vaʻad ha-kehilot ha-rashiyot bi-medinat Lita’ (Berlin: ʻAyanot, 1925)Google Scholar.

19. Dubnow, “Mevo’,” Pinkas ha-medinah, xi.

20. For similar comments, see Dinur, Ben-Zion, “Galuyot ve-ḥurbanan,” in Dorot u-reshumot: Meḥkarim ve-‘iyunim ba-historyografyah ha-yisra'elit (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1978), 175–92Google Scholar.

21. Dubnow, “Mevo’,” Pinkas ha-medinah, xi.

22. Ibid.

23. Halperin, Israel (Halpern), ed., Pinkas vaʻad ’arbaʻ ’araẓot: Likute takanot, ketavim u-reshumot (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1945)Google Scholar.

24. For additional examples of works that emphasize the communal aspects of Jewish history in different contexts, see Gartner, Lloyd, History of the Jews of Cleveland (Cleveland: Western Reserve Historical Society, 1978)Google Scholar; Max Halpert, “The Jews of Brownsville, 1880–1925: Demographic, Economic, Socio-Cultural Study” (PhD diss., Yeshiva University, 1958); and Robert M. Shapiro, “Jewish Self-Government in Poland: Łódź, 1914–1939” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1987).

25. Gershom Scholem to Walter Benjamin, 19 April 1934, n.p., in Scholem, , ed., The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932–1940, trans. Smith, Gary and Lefevere, Andre (New York: Schocken, 1989), 106–7Google Scholar.

26. Halperin, , ed., Takanot medinat Mehrin (Jerusalem: Mekiẓe Nirdamim, 1951)Google Scholar.

27. Avron, Dov, ed., Pinkas ha-kesherim shel kehilat Pozna (Jerusalem: Mekiẓe Nirdamim, 1966)Google Scholar; and Halperin, Israel and Nadav, Mordechai, Pinkas kehal Tiktin, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1996–99)Google Scholar.

28. Bałaban, Żydzyi Lwowscy na przełomie xvi i xvii wieku; Bałaban, Historja Żydów w Krakowie i na Kazimierzu (1304–1868); and Ringelblum, Emanuel, Żydzi w Warszawie: Od czasów najdawniejszych do ostatniego wygnania w r. 1527 (Warsaw: Towarzystwo Miłośników Historji, 1932)Google Scholar.

29. For a discussion of these and related points, see Brauch, Julia, Lipphardt, Anna, and Nocke, Alexandra, “Exploring Jewish Place: An Approach,” in Jewish Topographies: Visions of Space, Traditions of Place (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 1–23 Google Scholar.

30. For more on the etymology of the phrase, see the website of the Academy of Hebrew Language: http://hebrew-academy.org.il/2011/05/29/%D7%94%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A8-%D7%95%D7%94%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%94/. Accessed January 2, 2015.

31. Vital, David, A People Apart: The Jews in Europe, 1789–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

32. For different examples of the influence of these two genres, memorial books and communal histories, on one another, see Schutzman, M., ed., Sefer Tchenstoḥov, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: ’Enẓiklopedyah shel Galuyot, 1967–68)Google Scholar; Shohet, Azriel, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881–1941, ed. Mirsky, Mark Jay and Rosman, Moshe, trans. Tropper, Faige and Rosman, Moshe (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012)Google Scholar; and Grünbaum, Yitzhak, ed., Varshah: ’Enẓiklopedyah shel galuyot, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: ’Enẓiklopedyah shel Galuyot, 1953–73)Google Scholar. Note Grünbaum's comments in the introduction to the second of three volumes: “The community that went up in flames will not rise again; and when Polish Jewry does not rise, the suffering is great and so is the national creativity.… But their memory will not be erased from their people who dwell in their land that has just arisen—thanks, in part, to their suffering and blood—like in every other place in the diaspora. Their memory will shine a dear light on the path of the eternal Jewish people.” Grünbaum, “Be-sha'ar ha-sefer,” in Varshah: ’Enẓiklopedyah shel galuyot, vol. 2 (1959), unpaginated. For an overview of the phenomenon of memorial books, see Kugelmass, Jack and Boyarin, Jonathan, introduction to From a Ruined Garden: The Memorial Books of Polish Jewry (New York: Schocken, 1983), 1–22 Google Scholar.

33. See Dr. Klausner, Israel, “Vilnah,” in ‘Arim ve-’imahot be-Yisra'el, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1946), 141–75Google Scholar; and Gelber, N. M., Toldot yehude Brody: 1584–1943 (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1955)Google Scholar. In addition to his work as a historian, Gelber was also a fairly high-ranking Jewish bureaucrat having served as the secretary of the World Zionist Congress and the director of the Jewish National Fund. Like Gelber, Klausner was employed in a position of much responsibility in the quasi-state sector as the assistant director of the Central Zionist Archives. He also authored several early histories of Zionism including Toldot ha-ẓiyonut (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 1975)Google Scholar.

34. For example, the entries written by leading scholars on “Bratislava,” “Brody,” “Homel,” “Stanisławów” (Ivano-Frankivs'k) and other cities in the definitive YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe all refer to volumes that appeared in the Jewish Mother Cities series as key sources. See Hundert, Gershon David, ed., The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, vol. 1 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 227–30Google Scholar, 246–47, 750–51, 811–12.

35. For more on Kahane, see, “Ha-Rav S. D. Kahane,” Ma‘ariv, December 4, 1953.

36. Kahane, Rabbi Shlomo David, “Divre hakdamah,” to Varshah, ed. Flinker, David (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1948)Google Scholar, unpaginated, emphasis in original.

37. Flinker, “Divre petiḥah,” Varshah, 9.

38. For more on this point, see Ury, Scott, “Who, What, When, Where and Why Is Polish Jewry? Envisioning, Constructing and Possessing Polish Jewry,” Jewish Social Studies 6, no. 3 (Spring 2000): 205–28Google Scholar.

39. Shatzky, Jacob, Geshikhte fun yidn in varshe, 3 vols. (New York: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 1947–53)Google Scholar.

40. Shapiro, Robert Moses, “Jacob Shatzky, Historian of Warsaw Jewry,” in The Jews in Warsaw, ed. Bartoszewski, Władysław T. and Polonsky, Antony (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 367Google Scholar.

41. Shatzky, Jacob, “Balance Sheet of a Jewish Historian,” in The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe, ed. Dawidowicz, Lucy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), 269Google Scholar.

42. For an insightful discussion of similar narrative strategies in regard to the east European shtetl, see Miron, Dan, “The Literary Image of the Shtetl,” Jewish Social Studies 1, no. 3 (1995): 1–43 Google Scholar.

43. Shatzky passed away in 1956 and was never able to complete the fourth and final volume of the study. As such, the last published volume of Shatzky's masterful trilogy ends in 1896.

44. Shatzky, Geshikhte fun yidn in varshe, vol. 2, chaps. 3, 4, 7, and 9.

45. Ibid., chaps. 5, 2, and 12, and pp. 56–64.

46. Ibid., vol. 3, chaps. 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

47. Ibid., pp. 137–45 and 118–29, respectively.

48. Ibid., chaps. 17–18. On modern Jewish political organizations as substitutes for traditional Jewish communities, see Lederhendler, Eli, The Road to Modern Jewish Politics: Political Tradition and Political Reconstruction in the Jewish Community of Tsarist Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and Scott Ury, Barricades and Banners.

49. Shatzky, Geshikhte fun yidn in Varshe, vol. 3, pp. 95–109 and 406–23.

50. See Dynner, Glenn and Guesnet, François, eds., Warsaw, The Jewish Metropolis: Essays in Honor of the 75th Birthday of Professor Antony Polonsky (Leiden: Brill, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51. For more on this process, see Ury, Scott, “Civil Society, Secularization and Modernity among Jews in Turn of the Century Eastern Europe,” in Secularism and Its Discontents: Jews and Judaism in Modern Times, ed. Joskowicz, Alexander (Ari) and Katz, Ethan (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 142–67Google Scholar.

52. Klausner, Israel, Vilnah, Yerushalayim de-Lita’: Dorot ’aḥaronim, 1881–1939, ed. Barantchok, Shmuel, 2 vols. (Loḥame Ha-getaʼot: Bet Loḥame Ha-getaʼot, 1983)Google Scholar; and Klausner, Israel, Vilnah, Yerushalayim de-Lita’: Dorot rishonim, 1495–1881, ed. Barantchok, Shmuel (Loḥame Ha-getaʼot: Bet Loḥame Ha-getaʼot, 1988)Google Scholar.

53. S. Barantchok, “‛Im ha-sefer,” in Klausner, Vilnah: Dorot ’aḥaronim, vol. 1, first page of unpaginated introduction.

54. Klausner, “Hakdamah,” in Vilnah, Dorot ’aḥaronim, vol. 1, last page of unpaginated introduction.

55. Klausner, Vilnah, Dorot ’aḥaronim, 2:554–55 and 558, respectively.

56. Ibid., 2:554. Klausner is referring to his prewar study: Klausner, Israel, Toldot ha-kehilah ha-‘ivrit be-Vilnah (Vilna: Ha-kehilah Ha-‘ivrit be-Vilnah, 1938)Google Scholar. Also see Klausner, Israel, Korot bet ha-‘almin ha-yashan be-Vilnah (Vilna: Ha-kehilah Ha-‘ivrit be-Vilnah, 1935)Google Scholar.

57. Barantchok, “‘Im ha-sefer,” in Vilnah: Dorot ’aḥaronim, vol. 1, page 1 of unpaginated introduction.

58. Klausner, Vilnah: Dorot ’aḥaronim, 2:309–87.

59. Ibid., 2:388–444, 445–565, and 565–633, respectively.

60. See Shatzky, Geshikhte fun yidn in varshe, 3:95–109; and Klausner, Vilnah: Dorot ’aḥaronim, 1:134–51.

61. Klausner, Vilnah: Dorot ’aḥaronim, 1:79–99 and 151–57, 172–76, and 224–46, respectively.

62. Klausner, Vilnah: Dorot rishonim, 3–115.

63. Ibid., 288–97.

64. Klausner, Vilnah: Dorot ’aḥaronim, 1:227.

65. Dubnow, “Mevo’,” Pinkas ha-medinah, xi.

66. Shatzky Collection, RG 356, YIVO Archives (YIVO), New York.

67. Shatzky Collection, RG 356, f. 113–16 and f. 121–27, respectively, YIVO.

68. Shatzky Collection, RG 356, f. 131, 136, 137; 123, 125; 128, 129, and 143, respectively, YIVO.

69. On Ringelblum's sense of a historical mission, see the breathtaking Kassow, Samuel D., Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

70. For more on role of lists in the process of historical writing, see Geary, Patrick J., Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 115–33Google Scholar.

71. Shatzky Collection, RG 356, f. 98, 97, and 115, respectively, YIVO.

72. See Israel Klausner Collection, P-34, boxes 450–52, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP), Jerusalem. Klausner's collection is currently undergoing a process of reorganization at the CAHJP and some of the archival citations may change as a result of this endeavor.

73. See Klausner Collection, P-34, boxes 450, 451, 451, and 450, uncatalogued material, CAHJP.

74. Klausner Collection, P-34, box 452, uncatalogued material, CAHJP. See, Klausner, Korot bet ha-‘almin ha-yashan.

75. Klausner Collection, P-34, box 452, uncatalogued material, CAHJP. For more on this topic, see Klausner, Toldot ha-kehilah ha-‘ivrit be-Vilnah, 46–54 and 168–85, respectively. Note that the Shatzky Archive also includes a folder dedicated to “Statistics.” Shatzky Collection, RG 356, f. 147, YIVO.

76. Klausner Collection, P-34, box 450, f. 30, CAHJP.

77. For more on these and related questions, see Diner, Hasia R., We Remember with Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth of Silence after the Holocaust, 1945–1962 (New York: New York University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

78. Klausner Collection, P-34, box 450, uncatalogued and unidentified newspaper clipping, dated 22 December 1939, CAHJP.

79. S. Barantchok, “‘Im ha-sefer,” in Vilnah: Dorot ’aḥaronim, vol. 1, first page of unpaginated introduction.

80. See, for example Tencer, Golda, ed., And I Still See Their Faces: Images of Polish Jews (I ciagle widze ich twarze: fotografia Zydow polskich) (Warsaw: Fundacja Shalom, 1996)Google Scholar.

81. Klausner Collection, P-34, box 450, f. 5, CAHJP. Rasza-Tehila (Klausner) Spokoyni's fate was registered by her brother in the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, on Friday, December 30, 1955. Accessed electronically on January 9, 2017, http://db.yadvashem.org/names/nameDetails.html?itemId=731491&language=iw#!prettyPhoto[gallery2]/0/.

82. Shapiro, “Jacob Shatzky, Historian of Warsaw Jewry,” 373.

83. Cited in Shapiro, “Jacob Shatzky, Historian of Warsaw Jewry,” 373.

84. For examples of recent works that offer potential new directions for the study of Jews in cities, see Auerbach, Karen, The House at Ujazdowskie 16: Jewish Families in Warsaw after the Holocaust (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013)Google Scholar; Bemporad, Becoming Soviet Jews; Greenblatt, To Tell Their Children; Lehrer, Erica, Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013)Google Scholar; Mann, A Place in History; Pinsker, Shachar M., Literary Passports: The Making of Modernist Hebrew Fiction in Europe (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Siegmund, The Medici State and the Ghetto of Florence; and Roemer, German City, Jewish Memory.

85. On the process of narrativizing the past, see White, Hayden, “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality,” in The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 1–25 Google Scholar.