Description
Book SynopsisThe Kingdom of Poland, also known as the Congress Kingdom or Russian Poland, was created by a decision of the Congress of Vienna as part of its attempt to set up a post-Napoleonic European order. It incorporated lands that for many decades had been the most important centres of Polish politics, finance, education, and culture, and which also had the largest concentration of Jews in eastern Europe. Because of these factors, and because its semi-autonomous status allowed for the development of a liberal policy towards Jews quite different from that of Russia proper, the Kingdom of Poland became a fertile ground for the growth of Jewish cultural and political movements of all sorts, many of which continue to be influential to this day. This volume brings together a wide range of scholars to present a broad view of the Jewish life of this important area at a critical moment in its history. In the nineteenth century, tradition vied with modernization for Jews’ hearts and minds. In the Kingdom of Poland, traditional hasidic leaders defied the logic of modernization by creating courts near major urban centres such as Warsaw and Łódź and shtiblekh within them, producing innovative and influential homiletic literature and attracting new followers. Modernizing maskilim, for their part, found employment as government officials and took advantage of the liberal climate to establish educational institutions and periodicals that similarly attracted followers to their own cause and influenced the development of the Jewish community in the Kingdom in a completely different direction. Their immediate successors, the Jewish integrationists, managed to gain considerable power within the Jewish community and to create a vibrant and more secular Polish Jewish culture. Subsequently Zionism, Jewish socialism, and cultural autonomy also became significant forces. The relative strength of each movement on the eve of the rebirth of Poland is extremely difficult to measure, but unquestionably the ferment of so many potent, competing movements was a critical factor in shaping the modern Jewish experience.
Table of ContentsNote on Place Names Note on Transliteration PART I: Jews in the Kingdom of Poland, 1815–1918 The Kingdom of Poland and her Jews: Introduction GLENN DYNNER & MARCIN WODZIŃSKI Jews in the in the Discourses of the Polish Enlightenment RICHARD BUTTERWICK-PAWLIKOWSKI The Jews in the Duchy of Warsaw: The Question of Equal Rights in Administrative Theory and Practice ALEKSANDRA ONISZCZUK ‘English Missionaries’ Look at Polish Jews: The Value and Limitations of Missionary Reports as Source Material AGNIESZKA JAGODZIŃSKA ‘Languishing from a Distance’: Louis Meyer and the Demise of the German Jewish Ideal FRANÇOIS GUESNET 'Each for his Own': Economic Nationalism in Łódź, 1864–1914 YEDIDA KANFER The Attitude of the Jews towards Poland’s Independence SZYMON RUDNICKI Anti-Jewish Pogroms in the Kingdom of Poland ARTUR MARKOWSKI Theology in Translation: Progressive Judaism in the Kingdom of Poland BENJAMIN MATIS 'Who Has Not Wanted Ro Be an Editor: The Yiddish Press in the Kingdom of Poland, 1905–1914 JOANNA NALEWAJKO-KULIKOV Jews in the Kingdom of Poland, 1861–1914: Changes and Continuities THEODORE WEEKS Feliks Perl on the Jewish Question JOSHUA D. ZIMMERMAN Yiddish Language Rights in Congress Poland during the First World War: The Social Implications of Linguistic Recognition MARCOS SILBER PART II: New Views The Anti-Favus Campaign in Poland: Jewish Social Medicine RAKEFET ZALASHIK Władysław Raczkiewicz and Jewish Issues JACEK PIOTROWSKI After Złote żniwa: An Attempt to Assess the Social Impact of the Book ANTONI SUŁEK Righteousness and Evil: Jedwabne in the Polish Theatre KATHLEEN CIOFFI From Brzeżany to Afula: A Child’s Journey from Pre-War Poland to Israel in the 1950s: A Conversation with Shimon Redlich GABRIEL N. FINDER Obituaries Jacob Goldberg Hasidism without Romanticism: Mendel Piekarz’s Path in the Study of Hasidism Paula Hyman Vitka Kempner-Kovner Roman Totenberg Zenon Guldon Notes on Contributors Index
