- Table View
- List View
Seeking Zion: Modernity and Messianic Activity in the Writings of Tsevi Hirsch Kalischer (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
by Jody MyersTsevi Hirsch Kalischer (1795-1874) was one of the first Orthodox rabbis to advocate direct political action in order to radically transform Jewish life. Kalischer lived in a time when Jewish tradition was increasingly challenged by rational thought and social integration. Applying his knowledge of rabbinic literature to the unusual historical events unfolding around him, he became convinced that behind the rise of individual Jews to great power was a divine plan to prepare the way for messianic redemption. Kalischer anticipated that in his own lifetime he would see the ingathering of the Jews, the renewed cultivation of the land of Israel, and the restoration of sacrificial worship. This would be achieved not through supernatural agency but by the efforts of the Jews themselves, in the spirit of the time. The Jewish people was obligated by God to 'seek Zion'. Kalischer began his quest as early as 1836 when he approached the banker Amschel Mayer Rothschild with a plan to acquire Jerusalem and revive sacrificial worship. However, lacking Rothschild's co-operation and the approval of his rabbinic colleagues, Kalischer set aside his dream for almost twenty years. In 1862, spurred to action by the granting of equal rights to Jews and European assistance to the Jews of Palestine, he published his theories in Derishat tsiyon (Seeking Zion). From then until his death, Kalischer promoted and raised funds on behalf of the establishment of agricultural communes in Palestine. In this book Jody Myers explores for the first time the full range of Kalischer's writings-philosophical essays, correspondence, halakhic research, and biblical exegesis-presenting and critically analysing his groundbreaking formulation of modern messianic activism, which paved the way for later religious Zionism. She shows how Kalischer's approach marks a pivotal transition in the history of the messianic idea, and explains how he designed his arguments to appeal both to religious Jews and to the newly emancipated Jews of western Europe who, grateful for their own fortune, wanted to assist the impoverished Jews of the Middle East. At the same time, his proposals generated controversy and uncovered the growing schisms between Jews in modern times. Through Kalischer's eyes, the reader gains a fascinating perspective on what it means to be both religious and modern.
Marrano Poets of the Seventeenth Century: An Anthology of the Poetry of João Pinto Delgado, Antonio Enríquez Gómez and Miguel De Barrios (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
by Timothy OelmanThe story of the Marranos (the Jewish converts to Christianity in Spain and Portugal) has long been a source of fascination for Jews interested in their heritage and for all those concerned with the struggle for freedom of conscience against authoritarianism. In this volume are presented the selected works of three Marrano poets, together with translations into English and explanatory notes. Each of the three poets is introduced with a biography and brief critical assessment. In a general introduction the editor explains the historical and literary background of their works and examines the inter-relationship between the Jewish and Christian cultural elements. Drawing on a wide range of published and manuscript sources, he gives a balanced picture of the Marranos and describes the process of Jewish re-education they had to undergo in order to reach their goal of integration with authentic Judaism in the Jewish communities outside the Iberian peninsula. The three poets—João Pinto Delgado, Antonio Enríquez Gómez, and Miguel de Barrios—are presented against this background as exemplifying three different 'paths to Judaism', which nonetheless have in common the dramatic experience of life under the Inquisition and the halfway house of the Marrano communities. Symbols of exile and insecurity abound. Each poet shares a sense of guilt over his past observance of Christianity and endeavours to reach out towards the authentic sources of the Jewish tradition, such as the Talmud and the rabbinic commentaries, to invest his writings with a greater cultural depth. The poems in this volume have been selected with the aim of giving a representative view of each individual poet's experience and particular literary talents. Through the translations and notes the general reader is provided with insight into their significance and purpose. The specialist reader, too, will gain from finding the writings of three little-known poets of similar background brought together for the first time and set in context.
Theology and Poetry: Studies in the Mediaeval Piyyut (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
by Jakob PetuchowskiIn the Middle Ages, unconventional theological views were often expressed in poetic form. Jakob Petuchowski provides parallel texts of ten medieval theological poems in the standard liturgy that express unconventional and daring theological ideas, each with a commentary on the poem and its author, and a survey of Jewish thought on its particular theme.
Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, Index to Volumes 1-12 (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry)
This consolidated index to the first twelve volumes of Polin will be a vital tool for scholars and students interested in any area of Polish Jewish studies. * Table of contents by volume-each volume at a glance * Chronological table of contents-each historical period at a glance * Index of persons-more than 4,500 people * Index of subjects-almost 6,000 detailed entries * Index of books reviewed * Index of contributors-listings of scholars and their contributions * Notes on contributors * A chronological table of Polish history * Maps Over the years, Polin has attracted contributions from many disciplines-among them architecture; economic, social, and political history; literature and film studies; Holocaust studies; rabbinic; sociology; women's studies; and Yiddish studies-and from a wide variety of viewpoints. Every period of Polish-Jewish history and every area of settlement has been covered, in more or less detail. Some topics have been the subject of ongoing debate in successive volumes, and the coverage of the different towns and geographical areas has likewise often extended through several volumes. However, only since the Littman Library began to publish Polin (starting from volume 8) have any indexes been provided. This long-awaited volume will greatly facilitate serious research in the field of Polish-Jewish studies.
Polin: Poles and Jews: Renewing the Dialogue (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #1)
by Antony PolonskyIn this volume of Polin, scholars from the fields of history, sociology, politics, anthropology, linguistics, literature, and folklore explore central themes in Jewish and European history. Launching what was to become a comprehensive and vigorous forum for discussion of all aspects of the Jewish experience in Poland, this first volume established the pattern of bringing together work by established and younger scholars from many countries.CONTRIBUTORS: Israel Bartal, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, David Biale, Jan Blonski, Alina Cala, Andrzej Chojnowski, David Engel, Jozef Garlinski, Jacob Goldberg, Gershon David Hundert, John D. Klier, Moshe Mishkinsky, Magdalena Opalski, M. J. Rosman, Rafael Scharf, Robert M. Seltzer, Chone Shmeruk, Jerzy Tomaszewski, Paul Wexler, Steven J. Zipperstein.
Polin: Jews and the Emerging Polish State (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #2)
by Antony PolonskyThe focus is on how the Jews were affected by Polish independence in 1918. Other topics covered include Jan Blonski's article ‘The Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto’; Polish historiography on the privileges granted to the Jews; the decline of the kahal in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the social perception of Jews in the eighteenth century; representations of Jews in nineteenth-century literature; nineteenth-century synagogues; the Jewish Polish-language press in the interwar period; and antisemitic slogans in Endecja political campaigns. CONTRIBUTOR: Wladyslaw T. Bartoszewski, Research Fellow, St Antony's College, Oxford. Eugene C. Black, Ottilie Springer Professor of History, Brandeis University. Andrzej Bryk, Lecturer, Institute for Constitutional History, Jagiellonian. University, Kraków. Jan Blonski, Professor of the History of Polish Literature, Jagiellonian University, Kraków. Sh. Cygielman, Senior History in Jewish History, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-heva. David Engel, Tel Aviv University. Mieczyslaw Inglot, Professor of Polish Literature, University of Wroclaw. Paul Latawski, Assistant Professor of International Relations, New England College, Arundel. Eli Lederhendler, Lecturer in Jewish History, Tel Aviv University. George J. Lerski, Emeritus Professor of Modern European History, University of Chicago. Józef Lewandowski, Professor of History, Uppsala University. Maria and Kazimierz Pietchotka, architects and architectural historians. Edward Rogerson. Szymon Rudnicki, Docent and Deputy Director, Historical Institute, University of Warsaw. Michael G. Steinlauf, Brandeis University. Daniel Stone, Professor of History, University of Winnipeg. Bernadeta Tendyra, London School of Economics. Anna Zuk, Lecturer, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Marie Curie-Sklodkowska University, Lublin.
Polin: The Jews of Warsaw (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #3)
by Antony PolonskyA central core of articles on Jewish Warsaw over the centuries covers the history of Jewish settlement; Jewish population in the eighteenth century; the background to the 1790 pogrom; relations with Christians in the early Partition period (1795-1861); the acculturation of the nineteenth century; Warsaw as a Yiddish literary centre; Jewish Warsaw before the First World War; the history of the Warsaw ghetto; and Warsaw Jewish historians Emanuel Ringelblum and Jacob Shatzky. Other topics covered include the religious orders and the Jews during the Holocaust, and the integration of the Jews in Radom.
Polin: Poles and Jews: Perceptions and Misperceptions (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #4)
by Wladyslaw BartoszewskiThe theme of this rich and highly focused volume is Polish perceptions of Jews and Jewish perceptions of Poles from the Middle Ages to the present. Essays by Leszek Kolakowski and Wladyslaw Bartoszewski set the parameters of the debate. Contributors analyse sources ranging from Yiddish folk-songs to Hebrew, Yiddish, and Polish literature to Polish plays, and the discussions range over the entire period. Norman Davies writes on ethnic diversity in twentieth-century Poland, and other essays deal with related political aspects. There is also an important exchange between Stanislaus Blejwas and Shmuel Krakowski entitled 'Polemic as History'. CONTRIBUTORS Gershon C. Bacon, Israel Bartal, Wladyslaw T. Bartoszewski, Stanislaus A. Blejwas, Andrzej Bryk, Michael Burleigh, Andrzej Chojnowski, Norman Davies, David Engel, M. R. D. Foot, Frank Golczewski, Adam Hetnal, Julian Ilicki, Iwona Irwin-Zarecka, Krystyna Kersten, Stefan Kieniewicz, Leszek Kolakowski, Pawel Korzec, Shmuel Krakowski, Jack Kugelmass, Anna Landau-Czajka, Sergiusz Michalski, Magdalena Opalski, Antony Polonsky, Eugenia Prokopowna, Peter Pulzer, Anna Radziwill, Alexandra Reiche, Murray J. Rosman, Michael C. Steinlauf, Jerzy Szapiro, Jean-Charles Szurek, Janusz Tazbir, Nechama Tec, Chava Turniansky, Roman Zimand.
Polin: New Research, New Views (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #5)
by Antony PolonskyThis volume focuses on Polish Jews in Germany; Zionism in Poland; and art and architecture. More specifically, this latter section considers the physical impact of the Jewish presence in Polish towns-in general, and in Gora Kalwaria, home to the Gerer hasidic dynasty; there is also a map of synagogue buildings still standing in 1988 and an inventory showing their current use, and an illustrated article on recent Jewish monuments in Warsaw. Several of the remaining articles relate to Polish or Yiddish literature. Contributors: Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, Jozef Adelson, Mark Baker, Wladyslaw T. Bartoszewski, Eleonora Bergman, Andrzej S. Ciechanowiecki, Artur Eisenbach, John P. Fox, Jedrzej Giertych, Joseph Goldstein, Karel Grunberg, Jan Jagielski, Stanislaw Jankowski, Paul Latawski, Krystyn Matwijowski, Jadwiga Maurer, Moshe Mishkinsky, Israel Oppenheim, Adam Penkalla, Maria and Kazimierz Pietchotka, Krzysztof Pilarczyk, Tomasz Polanski, Laura Quercioli-Mincer, Chone Shmeruk, Laurence Weinbaum
Polin: Jews in Lodz, 1820-1939 (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #6)
by Antony PolonskyThis volume is devoted to the part Jews played in the history of Lódz between 1820 and 1939. Specifically, it focuses on the place of the Jews in the industrial elite of this multi-ethnic textile town, and on its role as a centre of the modern movement and of Jewish artistic and literary creativity. It is the result of a collaborative venture with the Historical Institute of the University of Lódz. CONTRIBUTORS Kazimierz Badziak, Natan Gross, Julian K. Janczak, Maria Kaminska, Tamara Karren, Stanislaw Liszewski, Jerzy Malinowski, Leszek Olejnik, Wieslaw Pus, Stefan Pytlas, Yosef Salmon, Pawel Samus, Robert Moses Shapiro, Chone Shmeruk, Jerzy Tomaszewski, Yehiel Yeshaia Trunk, Barbara Wachowksa, Jacek Walicki, Janusz Wrobel
Polin: Jewish Life in Nazi-Occupied Warsaw (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #7)
by Antony PolonskyPublished in the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, this volume has a special section with memoirs and other material dealing with aspects of Jewish life in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Topics covered in other articles include the autobiographies of Salomon Maimon and Jakob Fromer, entitled 'From the Ghetto to Modern Culture'; Jan Czynski and the question of equal rights for all religious faiths; education of Jewish women in the nineteenth century; ritual slaughter as a political issue; and the Jewish press in Krakow in the inter-war years. Contributors: Zygmunt Bauman, Czeslaw Brzoza, Joanna Rostropowicz Clark, Anna Clarke, Adam Galkowski, Jan Marek Gronski, Dora Katzenelson, Mark W. Kiel, Ariel Joseph Kochavi, Jerzy Lewinski, Zenon Nowak, Laura Quercioli, Richie Robertson, Marek Rudnicki, Szymon Rudnicki, Shaul Stampfer, Aharon Weiss, Tomasz Wisniewski, Josef Wrobel, Aleksander Zyga
Polin: Jews in Independent Poland, 1918-1939 (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #8)
In the period between the two world wars, Poland's Jewish community was second only in size to that of the United States, and was the laboratory in which the ideological orientations which dominated the Jewish world - Zionism, Bundism, Neo-Orthodoxy, Assimilation - were tested. There has been much disagreement as to the character and strength of anitsemitism in Poland at that time, and the extent to which the experience of the Jews aided the Nazis in carrying out their genocidal plans. This latest volume of Polin includes contributions from Poland, western Europe, Israel, and North America, which together provide a clearer understanding of the issues which have in the past proved so divisive. It also includes a number of personal testimonies from people who experienced the interwar period at first hand. The result is a book that will be essential reading for all those interested in modern Jewish history and in the problems of ethnic minorities in post-Versailles Europe.
Polin: Jews, Poles, Socialists: The Failure of an Ideal (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #9)
by Antony Polonsky Israel Bartal Gershon Hundert Magdalena Opalski Jerzy Tomaszewski‘The less antisemitism exists among Christians, the easier it will be to unite the social forces . . . and the sooner workers’ solidarity will emerge: solidarity of all who are exploited and wronged . . . Jew, Pole, Lithuanian.’ Józef Pilsudski, 1903 The Socialist ideals of brotherhood, equality, and justice have exercised a strong attraction for many Jews. On the Polish lands, Jews were drawn to Socialism when the liberal promise of integration into the emergent national entities of east and central Europe as Poles or Lithuanians or Russians of the Hebrew faith seemed to be failing. For those Jews seeking emancipation from discrimination and the constraints of a religious community, Socialism offered a tantalizing new route to integration in the wider society. Some Jews saw in Socialism a secularized version of the age-old Jewish messianic longing, while others were driven to the Socialist movement by poverty and the hope that it would supply their material needs. But in Poland as elsewhere in Europe, Socialism failed to transcend national divisions. The articles in this volume of Polin investigate the failure of this ideal and its consequences for Jews on the Polish lands, examining Socialist attitudes to the ‘Jewish question’, the issue of antisemitism, how the growth of Socialism affected relationships between Poles and Jews, and the character of Jewish Socialist groups in Poland. The result is a significant contribution to the history of Jews in Poland. It also sheds light on the history of Socialism in east-central Europe and the complexity of national problems there. Editors and contributors: Israel Bartal, Daniel Blatman, Alina Cala, Stephen D. Corrsin, David Engel, Sylvia Barack Fishman, Gershon Hundert, Ross Kessel, Shmuel Krakowski, Dov Levin, Pawel Machcewicz, Stanislaw Meducki, Erica Nadelhaft, Magdalena Opalska, Richard Pipes, Antony Polonsky, Dina Porat, Teresa Prekerowa, Michal Sliwa, Janusz Sujecki, Jerzy Tomaszewski, Barbara Wachowska.
Polin: Focusing on Aspects and Experiences of Religion (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #11)
by Antony PolonskyAddressing various aspects of Jewish life and religion, particularly in the last two centuries, this book examines different aspects of the Hasidic tradition; present-day contacts between Bobower Hasidism in New York and Bobowa in Poland; and how a rabbi trained in the Lithuanian tradition adapted to the very different conditions of the United States. The modifications of Jewish religious tradition practiced in the modern pre-war synagogues in Warsaw, L dz, and Lw w are considered, as is the attempt by Hillel Zeitlyn to re-interpret Jewish tradition in the interwar years.
Polin: Focusing on Galicia: Jews, Poles and Ukrainians 1772-1918 (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #12)
by Israel Bartal Antony PolonskyFrom 1772-1918 Jews were concentrated more densely in Galicia than in any other area in Europe. Bartal (modern Jewish history, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Polonsky (Judaic and social studies, Brandeis University) are joined by a number of other scholars of Judaism to explore the Jewish community in Galicia and its relationship with the Poles, Ukranians, and other ethnic groups. Essays include discuss of the consequences of Galician autonomy; Galician Jewish migration to Vienna; the reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II in the 18th century, the assimilation of the Jewish elite; and levels of literacy among Poles and Jews.
Polin: Focusing on the Holocaust and its Aftermath (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #13)
by Antony PolonskyThe assessment of the Nazi genocide in Poland, an issue which has deeply divided Poles and Jews, lies at the core of this volume. Also included are discussions of Polish attitudes to the nearly 300,000 Jews who tried to resettle in post-war Poland; the little-known testimony of Belzec survivor Rudolf Reder; a discussion of Holocaust victims as martyrs; and a presentation of how the Auschwitz Museum sees its future.
Polin: Focusing on Jews in the Polish Borderlands (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #14)
by Antony PolonskyThe Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, created in 1569, covered a wide spectrum of faiths and languages. The nobility, who were the main focus of Polishness, were predominantly Catholic, particularly from the later seventeenth century; the peasantry included Catholics, Protestants, and members of the Orthodox faith, while nearly half the urban population, and some 10 per cent of the total population, was Jewish. The partition of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and the subsequent struggle to regain Polish independence raised the question of what the boundaries of a future state should be, and who qualified as a Pole. The partitioning powers, for their part, were determined to hold on to the areas they had annexed: Prussia tried to strengthen the German element in Poland; the Habsburgs encouraged the development of a Ukrainian consciousness in Austrian Galicia to act as a counterweight to the dominant Polish nobility; and Russia, while allowing the Kingdom of Poland to enjoy substantial autonomy, treated the remaining areas it had annexed as part of the tsarist monarchy. When Poland became independent after the First World War more than a third of its population were thus Ukrainians, Belarusians, Germans, Jews, and Lithuanians, many of whom had been influenced by nationalist movements. The core articles in the volume focus especially on the triangular relationship between Poles, Jews, and Germans in western Poland, and between the different national groups in what are today Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. In addition, the New Views section investigates aspects of Jewish life in pre-partition Poland and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are also the regular Review Essay and Book Review sections.
Polin: Focusing on Jewish Religious Life, 1500-1900 (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #15)
by Antony PolonskyThis volume 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-on the tsadik and the ba'al shem; the childhood of tsadikim in hasidic legends; the fall of the Seer of Lublin; and the hasidism of Gur-and one about Nahman Krochmal. Of the contributors to the core section on Jewish spiritual and religious life, four are Polish. Three contributors are working in Germany, where Jewish studies is likewise re-establishing itself. Other contributors are scholars from Canada, Israel, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Some are themselves religious, others are secular; taken together, their contributions 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. As in earlier volumes of Polin, 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. A young Polish scholar from Jedwabne has contributed a moving article on local reactions to news of the massacre of the Jews of that town. The review section include two separate essays with contrasting opinions on Yaffa Eliach's monumental study of Eishyshok.
Polin: Focusing on Jewish Popular Culture and Its Afterlife (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #16)
by Michael Steinlauf Antony PolonskyScholarship on the civilization of Polish Jews has tended to focus on elite culture and canonical literature; even modern Yiddish culture has generally been approached from the perspective of 'great works'. This volume of Polin focuses on the less explored but historically vital theme of Jewish popular culture and shows how, confronted by the challenges and opportunities of modernity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it blossomed into a complex expression of Jewish life. In addition to a range of articles on the period before the Second World War there are studies of the traces of this culture in the contemporary world. The volume as a whole aims to develop a fresh understanding of Polish Jewish civilization in all its richness and variety. Subjects discussed in depth include klezmorim and Jewish recorded music; the development of Jewish theatre in Poland, theatrical parody, and the popular poet and performer Mordechai Gebirtig; Jewish postcards in Poland and Germany; the early Yiddish popular press in Galicia and cartoons in the Yiddish press; working-class libraries in inter-war Poland; the impact of the photographs of Roman Vishniac; contemporary Polish wooden figures of Jews; and the Krakow Jewish culture festival. In addition, a Polish Jewish popular song is traced to Sachsenhausen, the badkhn (wedding jester) is rediscovered in present-day Jerusalem, and Yiddish cabaret turns up in blues, rock 'n' roll, and reggae garb. There are also translations from the work of two writers previously unavailable in English: excerpts from the ethnographer A. Litvin's pioneering five-volume work Yidishe neshomes (Jewish Souls) and several chapters from the autobiography, notorious in inter-war Poland, of the writer and thief Urke Nachalnik. As in earlier volumes of Polin substantial space is also given to new research into a variety of topics in Polish Jewish studies. These include the origins of antisemitism in Poland; what is known about the presence of German forces in the vicinity of Jedwabne in the summer of 1941; and the vexed question of Jews in the communist security apparatus in Poland after 1944. The review section includes an important discussion of what should be done about the paintings in Sandomierz cathedral which represent an alleged ritual murder in the seventeenth century, and an examination of the 'anti-Zionist' campaign of 1968. CONTRIBUTORS Michael Aylward, Nathan Cohen, Walter Zev Feldman, Natan Gross, Ruth Ellen Gruber, Francois Guesnet, Ellen Kellman, Ariela Krasney, Anna Landau-Czajka, Erica Lehrer, Alex Lubet, Yaakov Mazor, Barbara Milewski, Andrzej Paczkowski, Brian Porter, Edward Portnoy, Alexander B. Rossino, Wlodzimierz Rozenbaum, Shalom Sabar, Jeffrey Shandler, Joshua Shanes, Michael C. Steinlauf, Andrzej Trzcinski, Bret Werb, Marcin Wodzinski, Seth L. Wolitz, Gwido Zlatkes
Polin: The Shtetl: Myth and Reality (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #17)
by Antony PolonskyThe shtetl is one of the key concepts for our understanding of the Jewish past in Eastern Europe. Although today most Jews live in big cities, the majority of Jews in Poland historically lived in the villages and small towns known as shtetls; even as late as 1931, only 43% lived in towns with a population of more than 20,000. The shtetl was thus the main context and arena for Jewish life in Poland, but much of what we know of shtetl life still comes from literary accounts rather than historical research.This volume attempts to redress that imbalance. Among the topics covered are the Jewishness of the shtetl; Polish--Jewish relations and social relations more widely in the shtetl; inter-religious contacts; the hasidic conquest of shtetl life; cultural evolution in the shtetl; Polish shtetls under Russian rule and Soviet shtetls in the 1920s; and a contemporary account of returning to visit a shtetl. Other articles consider how shtetl life has been reflected in Hebrew, Polish, and Yiddish literature.The New Views section analyses the work of the Russian Jewish writer Lev Levanda and the correspondence of an interwar Polish Jew, Wolf Lewkowicz. There are also two articles on the Gesiowka concentration camp established by the Nazis to clear the remains of the Warsaw ghetto. A special section is devoted to whether the incidents in Przytyk in 1936 constituted a pogrom, while another is devoted to discussing two important documents illustrating Wladyslaw Gomulka's attitude to Jews.
Polin: Jewish Women in Eastern Europe (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry #18)
by Antony PolonskyJewish women's exclusion from the public domains of religious and civil life has been reflected in their near absence in the master narratives of the East European Jewish past. As a result, the study of Jewish women in eastern Europe is still in its infancy. The fundamental task of historians to construct women as historical subjects, 'as a focus of inquiry, a subject of the story, an agent of the narrative', has only recently begun. This volume is the first collection of essays devoted to the study of Jewish women's experiences in Eastern Europe. The volume is edited by Paula Hyman of Yale University, a leading figure in Jewish women's history in the United States, and by ChaeRan Freeze of Brandeis University, author of a prize-winning study on Jewish divorce in nineteenth-century Russia. Their Introduction provides a much-needed historiographic survey that summarizes the major work in the field and highlights the lacunae. Their contributors, following this lead, have attempted to go beyond mere description of what women experienced to explore how gender constructed distinct experiences, identities, and meanings. In seeking to recover lost achievements and voices and place them into a broader analytical framework, this volume is an important first step in the rethinking of east European Jewish history with the aid of new insights gleaned from the research on gender. As in earlier volumes of Polin, substantial space is given, in 'New Views', to recent research in other areas of Polish-Jewish studies, and there is a book review section.
Studies from Polin: From Shtetl to Socialism (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry)
by Antony PolonskyUntil 1939 Poland was the heartland of European Jewry, and the Polish Jewish community was still one of the largest and most important in the world. For nine centuries it was one of the central forces in the shaping of Jewish culture and its impact on the shaping of modern Jewry-religious and secular-was profound. An understanding of the history of the Jews of Poland is thus essential to a proper understanding of Jewish history. This book, comprising a selection of studies drawn from the first seven volumes of Polin, provides that understanding. Written by scholars from Europe (including Poland itself), Israel, and North America, it illuminates the most critical aspects of the history of the Jews in Poland and illustrates how these issues are being treated by the leading and most innovative scholars in the field. A broad spectrum of subjects is discussed, covering the origins and development of the community and the many crises it experienced from the earliest date of Jewish settlement in Poland to the establishment of Communist rule in postwar Poland. Maps and a chronology of Polish Jewish history are also provided, and the book is prefaced by an extensive introduction by Antony Polonsky, general editor of Polin. CONTRIBUTORS: Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, Israel Bartal, David Biale, Eugene C. Black, Jan Blonski, Norman Davies, David Engel, Jacob Goldberg, Gershon David Hundert, Krystyna Kersten, Stefan Kieniewicz, Pawel Korzec, Ewa Kurek-Lesik, Magdalena Opalski, Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka, Eugenia Prokopowna, Laura Quercioli-Mincer, M. J. Rosman, Szymon Rudnicki, Pawel Samus, Robert Moses Shapiro, Chone Shmeruk, Shaul Stampfer, Michael C. Steinlauf, Pawel Szapiro, Jean-Charles Szurek, Janusz Tazbir, Jerzy Tomaszewski, Paul Wexler, Anna Zuk
Hasidism Reappraised (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
by Ada Rapoport-AlbertHasidism has been a seminal force and source of controversy in the Jewish world since its inception in the second half of the eighteenth century. Indeed, almost every ideological trend that has made itself felt among Jews since that time-from Zionism and Orthodoxy to contemporary Jewish feminism and movements within the yeshiva world-has claimed to have derived some inspiration from this vibrant movement. While this is sure testimony to its vitality and originality, it has also given rise to many misconceptions as to what hasidism is about. This major work, the first comprehensive critical study of hasidism in English, offers a wide-ranging treatment of the subject in all its aspects by what is effectively the entire present generation of scholars working in the field. With contributions ranging from the history of theology and of ideas through social and economic history to contemporary sociology, Hasidism Reappraised encompasses a complete field of modern scholarship in a discipline that is central to the understanding of modern Jewish history and the contemporary Jewish world. The twenty-eight authors who have contributed to the main body of the book are almost without exception established scholars with international reputations. The volume as a whole is dedicated to the memory of Joseph Weiss, and its opening section assesses his contribution to the study of hasidism in the context of his relationship with Gershom Scholem and Scholem's long-standing influence on the field. The remaining contributions are arranged thematically under seven headings: the social history of hasidism; the social functions of mystical ideals in the hasidic movement; distinctive outlooks and schools of thought within hasidism; the hasidic tale; the history of hasidic historiography; contemporary hasidism; and the present state of research on hasidism. The book also incorporates an extensive introduction that places the various articles in their intellectual context, as well as a bibliography of hasidic sources and contemporary scholarly literature. Hasidism Reappraised shows an intellectual world at an important juncture in its development and points to the direction in which scholarly study of hasidism is likely to develop in the years to come.CONTRIBUTORS: Jacob Barnai, Israel Bartal, Joseph Dan, Rachel Elior, Immanuel Etkes, Shmuel Ettinger, Morris M. Faierstein, Roland Goetschel, Arthur Green, Zeev Gries, Karl Erich GROZINGER, Moshe Hallamish, Gershon David Hundert, Moshe Idel, Louis Jacobs, Jacob Katz, Naftali Loewenthal, Daniel Meijers, Yehoshua Mondshine, Gedaliah Nigal, Mendel Piekarz, Ada Rapoport-Albert, Moshe J. Rosman, Bracha Sack, Yoseph Salmon, Chone Shmeruk, Sara Ora Heller Wilensky, Elliot R. Wolfson.
The Jews of Vienna and the First World War (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
by David RechterThe First World War marked the final chapter in the history of Habsburg Viennese Jewry. In this book, the first study of Viennese Jews in this period, David Rechter explores the community's crises of ideology and identity during the traumatic war years. The book is also a study of modern Jewish politics. Viennese and Austrian Jewish political culture was a unique amalgam, combining the nationalism and radicalism of eastern Europe with the liberalism of the west. During the war, Zionism emerged the victor. The Jewish experience resembled that of other minorities in central and eastern Europe in this period, where ideologies of nationalism and ethnic self-determination became the prevailing norm. Despite this political transformation, Jewish world-views whether liberal, nationalist, or Orthodox survived the war remarkably intact. In analysing how Viennese Jews made the difficult transition from the Habsburg empire to the Austrian Republic, David Rechter offers a case study of Jewish politics and society in the crucible of war and brings to light an unexamined episode of modern Jewish history.
Is There a Jewish Philosophy?: Rethinking Fundamentals (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
by Leon RothLeon 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 selection of essays opens: in what sense, asks Roth, 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’, Roth 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 elegantly written 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. Edward Ullendorff's Foreword, based on long years of personal acquaintance, 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, compiled by Raphael Loewe, rounds out the picture of the man and his achievements.