The best of both worlds: Creating the Żyd–Polak

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

I have tried to summarise my general argument about the course of Polish–Jewish relations in my article ‘Poles, Jews, and Russians, 1863–1914: The Death of the Ideal of Assimilation in the Kingdom of Poland’, Polin: A Journal of Polish–Jewish Studies, Vol. 12, 1999, 242–56.

For simplicity’s sake, and following general nineteenth-century usage, I will use ‘Pole’ to mean Christian Poles unless the context indicates otherwise.

Aleksander Guterman, ‘Three Generations of Warsaw Assimilationists and their Attitude towards Conversion, 1820–1918’, Gal-Ed, Vol. 12, 1991, 57–77 (in Hebrew).

On the more liberal brand of Polish nationalism, see Andrzej Walicki, The Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Nationhood: Polish Political Thought from Noble Republicanism to Tadeusz Kosciuszko (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989). On the more unpleasant version, see Brian A. Porter, When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century Poland (New York: Oxford UP, 2000).

As is well known, Lithuanian peasants led by Polish priests were among the most diehard of the 1863 rebels. On the Belarusians in this period, see Theodore R. Weeks, ‘“Us” or “Them”? Belarusians and Official Russia, 1863–1914’, Nationalities Papers, Vol. 31, No. 2, June 2003, 211–24.

T. Weeks, ‘Polish “Progressive Antisemitism”, 1905–1914’, East European Jewish Affairs, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1995, 49–68.

The Frankists deserve a new look from modern researchers. Meanwhile, Aleksander Kraushar’s Frank i Frankiści polscy 1726–1816 (Frank and the Polish Frankists, 1726–1816) (Cracow: Gebethner, 1895) is still useful despite its age. For a ‘short course’, see Bernard Weinryb, The Jews of Poland (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 5733/1973), 236–61; and Abraham Duker, ‘Frankism as a Movement of Polish–Jewish Synthesis’, in Bela Kiraly (ed.), Tolerance and Movements of Religious Dissent in Eastern Europe (Boulder: Eastern European Monographs, 1975), 133–64.

On the ‘Jewish question’ in this period, see Artur Eisenbach, ‘Postulat asymilacji Żydów i jego implikacje w dobie Stanisławowskiej’(The Postulate of the Assimilation of the Jews and Its Implications in the Stanisławski Era), Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego (BŻIH), No. 3–4, 131–32, July–December 1984, 3–30 and his ‘The Four Years’ Sejm and the Jews’, in Antony Polonsky et al. (eds.), The Jews in Old Poland, 1000–1793 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1993), 73–89. For further details, see Ernest Deiches (pseud. for Ernest Łuniński), Sprawa żydowska w czasie Sejmu Wielkiego (The Jewish Question in the Era of the Great Sejm) (Lwów: Przymierze Braci, 1891); and Alexander Guterman, ‘Hatsaotihem shel yehudei polin le-tikunim be-maamadam ha-hoki, ha-kalkali, ha-hevrati ve-ha-tarbuti be-tkufat ha-seim ha-gadol (1788–1792)’ (Polish Jews’ Proposals on the Reform of their Legal, Economic, Social and Cultural Position during the Era of the Great Sejm) (MA thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1975).

Stanisław Staszic, Przestrogi dla Polski (Warnings for Poland), in Pisma filozoficzne i społeczne (Philosophical and Societal Writings), Vol. 1 (Warsaw: PWN, 1954), 298–303. This section (chapter 35) is translated in Harold B. Segel (ed.), Stranger in Our Midst: Images of the Jew in Polish Literature (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1996), 38–42. Staszic takes up the issue of Jewish ‘socialisation’ (that is, polonisation) in O przyczynach szkodliwości żydów, i o środkach usposobienie ich, aby się społczeństwu użytecznemi stali (Warsaw, 1817).

This is not to say, of course, that the Enlightenment’s ‘solutions’ to the ‘Jewish question’ were entirely positive. On their deeply problematic nature, see Arthur Hertzberg, The French Enlightenment and the Jews (New York: Columbia UP, 1968).

An extensive selection of documents relating to discussions of the ‘Jewish question’ in the Great Sejm appears in Artur Eisenbach, Jerzy Michalski, Emanuel Rostworowski, Janusz Woliński (eds.), Materiały do dziejów Sejmu Czteroletniego (Materials on the History of the Four-Year Sejm) (Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1969), Vol. 6.

‘Urządzenie ludu żydowskiego w całym narodzie polskim’, in ibid., 491–515.

Tadeusz Czacki, Rozprawa o żydach i karaitach (Treatise on Jews and Karaites) (Lwów: Ksigarnia Polska A. D. Bartoszewicza, 1885; originally published Warsaw, 1807).

On the November 1830 uprising, see Robert F. Leslie, Polish Politics and the Insurrection of November 1830 (London: Athlone Press, 1956) and, more recently, Władysław Zajewski, Powstanie listopadowe 1830–1831. Polityka–Wojna–Dyplomacja (The November Uprising, 1830–1831: Politics, War, Diplomacy) (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, 2002).

Jürgen Hensel, Polnische Adelsnation und jüdische Vermittler 1815–1830. Über den vergeblichen Versuch einer Judenemanzipation in einer nicht emanzipierten Gesellschaft (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1983).

Petition of Dr Józef Wolff and Natan Glücksberg to Tsar Alexander I, dated Warsaw, 1 December 1815, quoted in Szymon Askenazy, ‘“Ze spraw żydowskich w dobie kongresowej”’ (On Jewish Affairs in the Congress Period), Kwartalnik poświęcony badaniu przeszłości Żydów w Polsce, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1913, 30–31. This petition estimated that at that time 40 families of ‘distinguished Jews’ resided in Warsaw. Askenazy (p. 28) gives the names and occupations of 26 such.

Michał Strzemski, ‘Warszawska Szkoła Rabinów (1826–1863). Najdziwniejsza w świecie’ (The Warsaw Rabbinical School, 1826–1863: The Most Peculiar on Earth), Znak, No. 339–340/2–3, February–March 1983, 361–64.

See Antony Polonsky, ‘Warszawska Szkoła Rabinów: Orędniczka narodowej integracji w Królestwie Polskim’ (The Warsaw Rabbinical School: An Instrument of National Integration in the Kingdom of Poland), in Michał Galas (ed.), Duchowość żydowska w Polsce. Materiały z konferencji (The Jewish Religion in Poland: Conference Materials) (Cracow: Uniwersytet Jagielloński Katedra Judaistyki, 2000), 287–307; Sabine Levin, ‘Bet ha-sefer le‐rabinim ve-varshe be-shanim 1826–1863’ (The Warsaw Rabbinical School, 1826–1863), Gal-Ed, Vol.11, 1989, 35–59; and Aron Sawicki, ‘Szkoła rabinów w Warszawie (1826–1863)’ (The Warsaw Rabbinical School, 1826–1863), Miesięcznik żydowski, Vol. 3, No. 1–2, 1933, 244–74.

Sawicki, ‘Szkoła’, 247–48.

Ibid., 256–58; Levin, ‘Bet ha-sefer’, 41–44.

Majer Bałaban, Historja projektu szkoły rabinów i nauki religii mojż. na ziemiach polskich (The History of the Rabbinical School Plan and the Teaching of the Mosaic Religion in Poland) (Lwów: Nakładem Przełożeństwa Zboru Izraelickiego, 1907), 22.

Luigi Chiarini, Le Talmud de Babylone (Leipzig: J. A.G. Weigel, 1831).

Abraham Buchner, Prawdziwy Judaizm (Warsaw, 1846) and Der Talmud in seiner Nichtigkeit dargestellt (Warsaw: Missionsdrückerei, 1848).

Sawicki, ‘Szkoła’, 251–52; Strzemski, ‘Warszawska Szkoła Rabinów’, 363; Levin, 43–44. For more on Buchner, see Jacob Shatzky, Yidishe bildungs-politik in Poyln fun 1806 biz 1866 (Jewish Education Policies in Poland from 1806 to 1866) (New York: YIVO, 1943), 199–207.

D. K., ‘Montefiore w Warszawie’ (Montefiore in Warsaw), Kwartalnik poświęcony badaniu przeszłości Żydów w Polsce, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1912, 74–95 (this article contains the French text of Montefiore’s petition to Nicholas I of November 1846 as well as a Polish poem presented to him on his departure from Warsaw); Jacob Shatzky, Geshikhte fun yidn in Varshe (The History of the Jews in Warsaw) (New York: YIVO, 1948), Vol. 2, 86–88, 108–114; and ‘Montefiore w Warszawie’, Kurjer Warszawski, No. 147, 27 May 1846, reprinted in Shatzky, Geshikhte fun yidn in Varshe, Vol. 2, 284.

For these discussions, see Russian State Historical Archive, St Petersburg, f. 1269, op. 1, dd. 5A, 5B. At this point, it should be remembered, legal restrictions on Jews within the Polish provinces exceeded those in the Pale of Settlement.

On Neufeld and Jutrzenka, see Marian Fuks, ‘Prasa żydowska w Warszawie XIX w.: ‘Jutrzenka’ (1861–1863)’ (The Jewish Press in Warsaw in the Nineteenth Century: Jutrzenka, 1861–1863), BŻIH, Vol. 90, No. 2, 1974, 25–46. See also the obituary in Izraelita, Vol. 6, No. 41, 11/23 October 1874, 329–30.

Daniel Neufeld, Urządzenie konsystorza żydowskiego w Polsce (The Establishment of the Jewish Council in Poland) (Warsaw: Nakładem autora, 1863).

Jutrzenka, Vol. 1, No. 1, 5 July 1861, 1.

Ibid., Vol. 1, No. 6, 9 August 1861, 41–42, quotation from p. 42.

Ibid., Vol. 3, No. 9, 27 February 1863, 81–84.

Ibid., 84.

Andrzej Walicki, Philosophy and Romantic Nationalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982).

Magdalena Opalski and Israel Bartal, Poles and Jews: A Failed Brotherhood (Hanover and London: Brandeis UP, 1992), 44–8. See also the (twentieth-century) painting by Artur Szyk, ‘The Young Jew Michael Landy [sic] Taking Up the Cross from the Hands of a Wounded Priest during the Demonstration of April 8, 1861 in Warsaw’ reproduced in Segel, Stranger in Our Midst, 88.

Efraim Kupfer, Ber Meisels i jego udział w walkach wyzwoleńczych narodu polskiego (1846, 1848, 1863-1864) (Ber Meisels and His Part in the Struggles to Liberate the Polish Nation, 1846, 1848, 1863–1864) (Warsaw: ŻIH, 1953), 108–16.

I. Kramsztyk, sermon given (in Polish) at the Warsaw synagogue on 9 March 1861, quoted in Artur Eisenbach, D. Fajnhauz, A.Wein (eds.), Żydzi a powstanie styczniowe. Materiały i dokumenty (The Jews and the January Uprising: Materials and Documents) (Warsaw: PWN, 1963), 11–14.

M. Jastrow, Kazania miane podczas ostatnich wypadków w Warszawie (Sermons Delivered During the Recent Events in Warsaw) (Poznań: Ludwik Merzbach, 1862). See also Jastrow’s short memoir published in Tsiyon, No. 13, 1966, 210–22.

Kupfer, Ber Meisels, 117–23; Shatzky, Geshikhte fun yidn in varshe, Vol. 2, 234–7.

For a short overview of this period of ‘russification’, see Theodore R. Weeks, Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1863–1914 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois UP, 1996), 96–109.

On this law and discussions leading up to its acceptance, see Artur Eisenbach, The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland, 1770–1870 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 451–75.

John D. Klier, ‘The Polish Revolt of 1863 and the Birth of Russification: Bad for the Jews?’, Polin 1, 1986, 96–110.

On Peltyn, see the laudatory obituary by his successor N. Sokołów, ‘S. H. Peltyn – Wizerunek literacki’ (Peltyn, a Literary Sketch), Izraelita, Vol. 31, Nos. 46–50. The account of Sokołów’s views and actions as editor is simultaneously an excellent source on the journal’s first decades.

Jacob Shatzky, Geshikhte fun yidn in varshe (New York: YIVO, 1953), Vol. 3, 31–32.

‘Słów parę na uwagi Gazety Polskiej w. N. 251 p. n. ‘Izraelita i Szomer Izrael’ (A Few Words about Gazeta Polska in No. 251 of Izraelita i Szomer Izrael), Izraelita, Vol. 9, No. 45, 8/20 November 1874, 359–60.

On ‘moderate’ vs. ‘radical’ assimilationists, see Alina Cała, Asymilacja Żydów w Królestwie Polskim (1864–1897): postawy, konflikty, stereotypy (The Assimilation of the Jews in the Kingdom of Poland, 1864–1897: Figures, Conflicts and Stereotypes) (Warsaw: PIW, 1989), 49–59 (on Izraelita) and 87–101 (on radical assimilationists).

‘Judaizm i oświata’ (Judaism and Education), Izraelita, Vol. 1, No. 1, 8/20 April 1866, 1.

‘Indyferentyzm religijny’ (Religious Indifference), Izraelita, Vol. 1, No. 6, 13/25 May 1866, 41–3.

The point that traditional customs and rituals (that is, specific Jewish garb) could be changed without transgressing against fundamental religious precepts is made in ‘Listy Rabina z Prowincyi’ (Letters from Rabin in the Province), Izraelita, Vol. 9, No. 25, 14/16 June 1874, 197–9.

An excellent ‘programmatic document’ revealing Peltyn’s – and hence Izraelita’s – stance on religious reform is a short book published anonymously by Peltyn: Judaita, Projekt reformy w judaizmie ze szczególnem uwzględniem jego strony etyczniej (Judaita, A Reform Project in Judaism with Particular Reference to Its Ethical Side) (Warsaw: E. Skiwski, 1885). In general on discussions of religious reform in Jutrzenka and Izraelita, see Alexander Guterman, ‘Ha-fulmus be-ktvei ha-et ha-yehudim be-polonit be-davar tikunim be-dat 1861–1885’ (The Controversy in Polish and Jewish Periodicals Regarding Religious Reform, 1861–1885), Gal-Ed, Vol. 10, 1987, 41–63.

‘Historja prawa w stosunku do reform religijnych w Judaizmie’ (History of the Law with Regard to Religious Reforms in Judaism), Izraelita, Vol. 3, No. 17, 19 April/1 May 1868, 133–4.

‘Odrębncość żydowska’ (Jewish Separatism), Izraelita, Vol. 9, No. 10, 24 February/5 March 1874, 73–4.

S. Peltyn, ‘Nasza solidarność’ (Our Solidarity), Izraelita, Vol. 13, No. 3, 6/18 January 1878, 17–9.

See, for example, the following articles: ‘Nasza intolerancja’ (Our Intolerance), Izraelita, Vol. 3, No. 22, 24 May/5 June 1868, 173–4; ‘Wady żydowskie’ (Jewish Vices), Izraelita, Vol. 5, No. 25, 12/24 June 1870, 197–9; and A. J. Cohn, ‘Owe massy ciemne’ (Those Dark Masses), Izraelita, Vol. 14, No. 16, 13/25 April 1879, 131–2.

The similarity to Judah Leib Gordon’s concept of the Russian Jew is, of course, no accident – these were, after all, contemporary solutions to very similar ‘Jewish questions’. On Gordon and the Russian situation, see Michael Stanisławski, For Whom Do I Toil? Judah Leib Gordon and the Crisis of Russian Jewry (New York: Oxford UP, 1988).

S. Peltyn, ‘Czem być winniśmy?’ (What Should We Be?), Izraelita, Vol. 13, No. 2, 30 December 1877/11 January 1878, 9–10. It is likely that Peltyn used the neutral ‘krajowcy’ instead of ‘Polacy’ (Poles) to avoid trouble with the Russian censor.

Ewa Ihnatowicz, ‘Aleksander Kraushar: Warszawski Mecenas’ (Aleksander Kraushar, Warsaw Maecenas), in Janina Kulcycka-Saloni and E. Ihnatowicz (eds.), Warszawa pozytywistów (Warsaw of the Positivists) (Warsaw: Instytut Literatury Polskiej UW, 1992), 78–81 (this short article unfortunately fails to deal at all with Kraushar’s Jewish–Polish identity); Jacob Shatzky, ‘Alexander Kraushar and his Road to Total Assimilation’, YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 7, 1952, 146–74. See also Kraushar’s own various reminiscences, for instance, ‘Wspomnienia. Kartka z niedawnej przeszłości (Reminiscences: A Page from the Recent Past), in Księga jubileuszowa dla uczczenia pięćdziesięcioletniej działalności literackiej J. I. Kraszewskiego (Jubilee Book in Honour of the 50th Anniversary of J. I. Kraszewski’s Literary Activity) (Warsaw: Józef Unger), 505–27; Czasy szkolne za Apuchtina (1879–1897). Kartka z pamiętnika (School Years Under Apuchtin, 1879–1897: A Page from a Memoir) (Warsaw: S. Orgebrand, 1915); and his memoirs of 1863–4 in Krzysztof Dunin-Wąsowicz (comp.), Warszawa w pamiętnikach Powstania Styczniowego (Warsaw in Memoirs of the January Uprising) (Warsaw: PIW, 1963), 95–117, 163–216, 511–21.

Shatzky, ‘Alexander Kraushar’, 146–7.

Ibid., 155.

Jan Kołodziejczyk, Jan Bloch (1836–1902): Szkic do portretu ‘Króla polskich kolei’ (Jan Bloch (1836–1902): Sketch for a Portrait of ‘The King of Polish Railroads’) (Warsaw: PIW, 1983), 180, originally in Kraj, 1886.

Shatzky, ‘Alexander Kraushar’, 170.

Janusz Urbach, Udział Żydów w walce o niepodległości Polski (The Role of the Jews in the Struggle For Polish Independence) (Łódź: Związek Żydów Uczestników Walk o Niepodległość Polski, 1938).

Brian Porter, When Nationalism Began to Hate, 237.

For an excellent overview of the anti-Semitic atmosphere of the fin-de-siècle period, see Albert Lindemann, The Jew Accused: Three Anti-Semitic Affairs. Dreyfus, Beilis, Frank, 1894–1915 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991). On the ‘Dreyfus affair’ in Poland, see Antony Polonsky, ‘The Dreyfus Affair and Polish–Jewish Interaction’, Jewish History, Vol. 11, No. 2, 1997, 21–40; and Stanisław Wiech, ‘Les Répercussions de l’affaire Dreyfus dans la presse régionale polonaise: L’Exemple de la “Gazette de Kielce”’, Revue des études juives, Vol. 158, No. 1–2, January–June 1999, 213–26.