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Die Anfänge des Antisemitismus im Königreich Polen in der zweiten Hälfte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts
- Alina Cala, Von J. Rojahn
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- Journal:
- International Review of Social History / Volume 30 / Issue 3 / December 1985
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 05 January 2009, pp. 342-373
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Seit der großen Wanderungsbewegung im späten Mittelalter konzentrierte sich die Masse der aschkenasischen Juden auf dem Gebiet der alten polnischen Republik. Mit den Teilungen gelangten sie unter die Herrschaft dreier verschiedener Mächte, die weitaus meisten unter die Rußlands, das 1815 gemäß den Beschlüssen des Wiener Kongresses aus Teilen der annektierten Gebiete ein autonomes Königreich Polen (fortan kurz: Königreich) schuf. Für das gesamte russische Reich wurde das Niederlassungsrecht der Juden auf den sog. Ansiedlungsrayon beschränkt, der im wesentlichen die ehemals polnischen Gebiete, einschließlich des Köningreichs, umfaßte. 1865 lebten im Königreich über 700000 Anhänger des judaischen Glaubens; bis 1885 war diese Zahl auf beinah 1, 1 Millionen gestiegen, wobei nach den offiziellen Angaben das Tempo des Wachstums der jüdischen das des Wachstums der christlichen Bevölkerung übertraf. U.a. war das auf den Zustrom aus den östlichen Teilen des Ansiedlungsrayons ins Königreich, wo den Juden 1862 die formale Gleichberechtigung gewährt worden war, zurückzuführen. Seit den achziger Jahren nahm der Zustrom durch die neuerliche Einengung des Ansiedlungsrayons noch zu.
Jewish Socialists in the Kingdom of Poland
- from PART I - POLES, JEWS, SOCIALISTS: THE FAILURE OF AN IDEAL
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- By Alina Cała, assistant at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.
- Edited by Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University, Massachusetts, Israel Bartal, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Gershon David Hundert, McGill University, Montréal, Magdalena Opalski, Carleton University, Ottawa, Jerzy Tomaszewski
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- Book:
- Jews, Poles, Socialists: The Failure of an Ideal
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 23 November 2019
- Print publication:
- 06 March 2008, pp 3-13
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Summary
SOCIALISM at the end of the nineteenth century owed much to the assimilated Jewish intelligentsia. Their presence was noted in all Socialist organizations, parties, spin-offs and factions in the Russian Empire, across the three partitions of Poland, and in Europe. Among the political prisoners sentenced to Siberia by the Tsar between 1878 and 1880, about 4 per cent were Jewish Socialists. They played the leading role in Russian social democracy, and were activists in all the revolutionary organizations of Russia, Lithuania, and Poland. With great fervour they produced underground press material and smuggled it across the border, worked among the Polish, Lithuanian, and Russian workers, and, dressed as peasants, agitated in the villages of the Empire. They were not, however, very interested in the problems of their own group. They saw the emancipation of the Jewish masses as dependent upon the emancipation of the entire proletariat. They perceived the ‘dumb, backward’ Jewish masses much as this group was regarded by assimilation activists, seeing in them solely ‘insignificant gesheftists and profiteers'.
In the Vilna circle of narodniks, the companions of Józef Pilsudski were Aron Zundelewicz, Izaak Kaminer, Aron Samuel Lieberman, Abe Finkelstein, Leon Jogiches, Charles Rapoport, J. Martov-Tsederbaum, Yosif Mill, and Arkady Kremer (subsequently founder of the Bund), as well as Izaak Dembo, who was later implicated in plans to assassinate the Tsar and the Prussian Emperor. It was in Vilna that Zofia Sandberg, sisters Rachel and Fanny Puzyrenski, Ewa Gordon, and sisters Ester and Elzbieta Gordon-later activists in the organization Proletariat-began their activist careers.
Things progressed to the point where a conspiratorial circle was active even in the Vilna Rabbinical School. One of its partisans was Aron Samuel Lieberman (1844-80). The grandson of the rabbi of Łuna (Grodno province) and son of a maskil and Hebrew publicist, in 1874 he began to work in Zundelewicz's group within Narodnaya Volya [The People's Will]. Barely a year later, threatened with prosecution, he escaped across the border. In London he associated himself with Piotr Lavrov's narodnik publication Vperiod [Forward]. Lavrov, in an effort to reconcile revolution with tradition, had discerned threads of Socialism in the beginnings of Christianity as well as in the institution of obshchina, an archaic form oflandownership still maintained among Russian peasants into the nineteenth century.
The Second Competition of Scholarly Works on Polish Jewish Themes
- from PART II - NEW VIEWS
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- By Alina Cała, assistant at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.
- Edited by Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University, Massachusetts, Israel Bartal, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Gershon David Hundert, McGill University, Montréal, Magdalena Opalski, Carleton University, Ottawa, Jerzy Tomaszewski
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- Book:
- Jews, Poles, Socialists: The Failure of an Ideal
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 23 November 2019
- Print publication:
- 06 March 2008, pp 232-244
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IN 1992 the Polish-Israeli Friendship Society and the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw organized the second competition of master's theses on Polish Jewish and Israeli subjects, this time also including doctoral theses; not many of the latter were submitted, although, according to available information, many more have been defended than were entered in the competition. Whereas 40 theses were submitted to the first competition in 1990, in 1992 there were 67 and the level was higher, which forced the jury to evaluate them in stages: 35 master's and 5 doctoral theses reached the second stage, and 12 master's and 5 doctoral theses reached the final stage. The choice of winners was extremely difficult. The jury was composed of Dr Alina Cala, the Jewish Historical Institute (ŻIH), Warsaw, (chairman); Eleonora Bergman, MA, ŻIH; Prof. Stanislaw Frybes, Department of Polish Philology, Warsaw University; Prof. Jakub Goldberg, Department of History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Prof. Daniel Grinberg, ŻIH; Jan Jagielski, MA, ŻIH; Prof. Aleksandra Jasińska-Kania, Institute of Sociology, Warsaw University; Prof. Aleksander Lewin, Institute of Pedagogical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences; Prof. Irena Maciejewska, Institute of Polish Philology, Warsaw University; Prof. Jerzy Malinowski, Arts Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences; Prof. Szymon Rudnicki, Department of History, Warsaw University; Prof. Franciszek Ryszka, Department of Journalism and Social Studies, Warsaw University; and Prof. Jerzy Tomaszewski, Department of History, Warsaw University. It was decided to award two equal first, second, and third prizes, one special award, and five distinctions in the master's category, and three prizes and two distinctions in the doctoral category.
The awards reflect the level of the competition. They were funded by the Israeli Embassy in Poland, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture and Arts, the Mayor of Warsaw, the Polish Committee for UNESCO Affairs, the Stefan Batory Foundation, the ‘Shalom’ Foundation for the Promotion of Polish Jewish Culture, the Polish Council of Christians and Jews, and the Socio-Cultural Society of Jews in Poland.
The first prize in the doctoral category went to EUGENIA PROKOP-JANIEC's thesis, entitled ‘Polish Jewish Literature between the Two World Wars’, defended in 1990 at the Institute of Polish Philology, Jagiellonian University, under the direction of Prof.
Ruta Sakowska, Ludzie z dzielnicy zamkniętej
- from BOOK REVIEWS
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- By Alina Cała, assistant at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.
- Edited by Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University, Massachusetts, Israel Bartal, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Gershon David Hundert, McGill University, Montréal, Magdalena Opalski, Carleton University, Ottawa, Jerzy Tomaszewski
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- Book:
- Jews, Poles, Socialists: The Failure of an Ideal
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 23 November 2019
- Print publication:
- 06 March 2008, pp 297-299
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The first edition of this book, published in 1975, was limited to 2,000 copies, which disappeared with lightning speed. Evidence of its popularity is the none too edifying fact that all copies were stolen both from the library of the University of Warsaw and from the Jewish Historical Institute. For this reason alone the reissue of this weighty volume is a laudable initiative by the publisher.
Ludzie z dzielnicy zamkniętej is the first work in the Polish language which describes life in the Warsaw ghetto based on documents of the underground archives of the ghetto, named, after its founder, the Ringelblum Archives. The author attempted to engage polemically with the most popular stereotypes, as much those prevalent among Poles as those which Jews often hold with reference to their own history. One of these is the conviction of the passivity of the Jewish population in the face of annihilation. This characteristic was supposedly never challenged until the resistance of ‘a handful of heroes, fighting for human dignity’. Such statements, suggesting a lack of dignity in those who missed taking an active part in the fight, appear even today, repeated ad infinitum in the press coverage of the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. That is why I heartily recommend this book to all journalists and ask them not to repeat this thoughtless slogan in the future.
Stressing the strength of the civilian opposition in the ghettos, as well as its close connection with the conspiracy movement, the author calls attention to their mutual connection and co-operation, thanks to which social aid in the ghetto was conducted as much out in the open, through the work of institutions connected with the Judenrat, as in conspiracy in the form of voluntary, spontaneous activity by, for example, home committees, as well as through the organized activity of political organizations which arose in the underground but, simultaneously co-operated closely with the Judenrat. Various forms of civilian resistance, analysed in depth by the author, created an informal council in the ghetto; its existence and multifarious activity made possible an easy transformation into armed resistance.
lwona Irwin-Zarecka, Neutralizing Memory
- from BOOK REVIEWS
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- By Alina Cała, assistant at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.
- Edited by Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University, Massachusetts, Israel Bartal, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Gershon David Hundert, McGill University, Montréal, Magdalena Opalski, Carleton University, Ottawa, Jerzy Tomaszewski
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- Book:
- Jews, Poles, Socialists: The Failure of an Ideal
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 23 November 2019
- Print publication:
- 06 March 2008, pp 299-302
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It is not easy to review a book towards whose creation, at the risk of sounding immodest, I made a contribution, spending many hours in discussion with its author, who in her turn praises my work (though some inaccuracies can be found in her accolades). It may not be possible to maintain an appropriate level of objectivity, even more so because this review will be enthusiastic. I would very much like the book to be translated and published in Poland.
I shall begin with a few corrections of inaccuracies regarding my own work. On p. l 62 the author describes my experience in uncovering the bloody history of postwar Polish-Jewish relations. I conducted my first ethnographic research in 1975 (not 1974 as stated), and at that time I heard from the inhabitants of Lezajsk of the murder by a group of partisans (Polish or Ukrainian, of unknown political orientation, led by a certain ‘Wolyniak’) of about fifteen Jewish repatriates, who had arrived in the town under the protection of the Red Army. I knew then of the Kieke pogrom, and that it was not the only incident of that type after the war. When I continued my research in 1984, my questionnaire included questions about the postwar fate of surviving Jews. The results were shocking: in the area surrounding the town of Przeworsk, in south-eastern Poland, Jews were murdered after the war in nearly every town. This fact, not sufficiently documented by historians, reaches the consciousness of Poles with difficulty, which is not so strange. I felt, however, and still do, that above all, Poles should hear this truth; this is why I wished to publish the results of my research first in Poland and not abroad-not because I feared that it would be misunderstood. The publication of my work in Poland was not, however, easy to achieve at that time: it would not have passed the censors before 1989. That is why I decided to publish an English version through the Center for Research on the History and Culture of Polish Jews at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; unfortunately, this has yet to appear in print.
The Shtetl: Cultural Evolution in Small Jewish Towns
- from PART I - THE SHTETL: MYTH AND REALITY
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- By Alina Cała, researcher in the Żydowski Instytut Historyczny in Warsaw.
- Edited by Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
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- Book:
- The Shtetl: Myth and Reality
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 23 November 2019
- Print publication:
- 25 November 2004, pp 133-142
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THE territory of Poland has changed considerably over the course of history. From the sixteenth century on it was called the Republic of Two Nations, though in fact it was a federation of four lands: Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and a large section of Ukraine (including Bessarabia). The densest settlement of Jews in Europe was in these territories. When the Polish Commonwealth lost its independence in the partitions of 1772, 1792, and 1795, the greater part of the Jewish population inhabited central Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine, with a much smaller population in Lithuania. The Jews then became subjects mainly of Russia and Austria. Russian restrictions on Jewish settlement resulted in the establishment of the Pale of Settlement. The legal status of the Pale's inhabitants differed from that of the Jews in central Poland and in the Polish lands under Austrian rule.
The long history of coexistence between Jews and Slavs in the Polish Commonwealth involved the emergence of many cultural centres specific to each of the ethnic groups. Until the nineteenth century it was rare for a city or town to serve as a cultural centre for more than one group. The political and administrative significance of Warsaw in the pre-partition period was obvious to the Poles, but for the Jews the city's importance was exclusively economic. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Brody and Berdyczów were important centres of Jewish culture, but not of Polish or Ukrainian culture. As Zamość rose in significance for Jews, its status in Polish eyes was reduced to that of a provincial town. This situation was due as much to legal restrictions (some cities or regions had de non tolerandis Judaeis privileges until the mid-nineteenth century1) as to the isolation of the Jews as a group from Christians.
The process of urbanization was different for the two groups. The economic decline of medium-sized cities in the eighteenth century brought in its wake a reduction of the number of Christian inhabitants and led to their agrarianization. On the other hand, the Jewish populations grew in the towns. Following the partitions, the expulsion of Jews from the lands under Prussian rule, and their eviction from villages under the Russian administration, the Jewish population of many towns of central Poland and the Pale of Settlement reached 50 per cent or more.
The Question of the Assimilation of Jews in the Polish Kingdom (1864-1897): An Interpretive Essay
- from ARTICLES
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- By Alina Cała, Jewish Historical Institute
- Edited by Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
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- Book:
- Poles and Jews: Renewing the Dialogue
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 28 November 2019
- Print publication:
- 01 July 2004, pp 130-150
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At the end of the nineteenth century Polish publicists started to taik with increasing frequency about the bankruptcy of assimilation. Although vigorously denied by lzraelita, many of its sympathisers shared the opinion. They intensified their criticism of their previous activity, they acknowledged numerous mistakes and attempted to formulate a new programme. They blamed the Orthodox, the Zionists and the anti-semites for their own lack of widespread influence. They complained of Polish society's indifference to the problems that they were forced to face. The final words of the Lwów paper Ojczyzna were:
Tired and exhausted we yield. We once believed and still believe that the Jews could only be granted citizenship with the cooperation of native Polish society. We thought that the Polish community would extend its hand to this joint work toward our common advantage. We have been disappointed. What has the country contributed towards the moral and economic elevation of the Jewish masses during the quarter century of autonomous govemments?
It is worth looking closer at this question of the bankruptcy of assimilation. Did this bankruptcy really occur and why did assimilation decline, a movement which had seemed so dynamic immediately after the January Uprising? Are the assimilationists themselves more to blame for its failure than the Poles? Were ‘mistakes’ made by both sides?
First, however, I would like to draw attention to a problem of terminology. Various terms were used in the second half of the nineteenth century to describe this and related phenomena: assimilation, the attainment of citizenship (uobywatelnienie), emancipation, civilizing and progressiveness. These were often used interchangeably. No research was done at the time into the phenomenon of assimilation, neither was a theory developed that could adequately describe this process. Approaches to it were, on the whole, intuitive. Assimilation, many publicists assumed, meant the same as the attainment of citizenship, emancipation or, for that matter, progress. Polonized Jews were called ‘postfępowy’ (progressives) or civilized. These words were used by all groups, Jews and Poles alike, although they understood them somewhat differently. The Ha-Tsefirah group for instance saw emancipation as interconnected with acculturation; Poles of the Mosaic persuasion, on the other hand, understood emancipation as linked to assimilation. The latter group saw assimilation as a natural outcome of possession of equal rights. That was what in fact happened, on the whole, in Poland in the first half of the nineteenth century as well.
The Social Consciousness of Young Jews in Interwar Poland
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- By Alina Cała
- Edited by Antony Polonsky, Jerzy Tomaszewski, Ezra Mendelsohn, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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- Book:
- Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 8
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 16 July 2020
- Print publication:
- 01 December 1994, pp 42-65
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SOURCES
THIS paper attempts to analyse the Polish-language section of a collection of autobiographies of Jewish young people from the archives of YIV0 in New York. This collection derives from competitions organized by YIVO in Vilna in 1932, 1934, and 1939; the institute also collected and copied some older diaries. In this way it managed to collect about 900 autobiographies, of which 300 have survived in the YIVO archive in New York. A large proportion of the surviving pieces were written in Yiddish, 71 in Polish, nearly sixty in Hebrew, and a few in other languages such as German and Spanish. The oldest one was written between 1916 and 1924, but some were sent in as late as July 1939. The diaries belonged to people aged between 15 and 24.
Who were these young people who took up their pens to respond to the YIVO appeal in Polish? Contrary to what might be expected, not many of our group came from assimilated families, and not one declared affiliation to the Assimilationist movement. Half, i.e. thirty-five persons, belonged to various Zionist organizations or a least sympathized with them. Three declared their Socialist views, without, however, belonging to any party; five were Communists. Five considered themselves to be Orthodox, and two of this group combined their religious position with Zionist sympathies. The rest did not state any specific political convictions. Only six came from assimilated families, and six others described their parents as ‘progressive' or ‘moderately religious', by which, as appears judging from the context, they really meant that their parents maintained a tolerant stance while continuing to preserve a traditional lifestyle. The majority came from large Orthodox families, either poor or destitute. Fifteen writers, among them all those who had been brought up in Polonized families, described their homes as prosperous or rich.
Only one participant had had no formal education: this is the oldest diary of 1916-24, belonging to Jula Wald. Fifteen had had only four to seven years of primary education, eighteen had completed secondary school, in either a grammar or a technical school, and seven were enrolled in higher education.