Social and cultural boundaries in pre-modern Poland 9781904113621, 9781904113379

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THE INSTITUTE FOR POLISH-JEWISH STUDIES The Institute for Polish—Jewish Studies in Oxford and its sister organization, the American Association for Polish—Jewish Studies, which publish Po/in, are learned societies established in 1984, following the First International Conference on Polish—Jewish Studies, held

, in Oxford. The Institute is an associate institute of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and the American Association is linked with the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University.

Both the Institute and the American Association aim to promote understanding of the Polish Jewish past. They have no building or library of their own and no paid staff; they achieve their aims by encouraging scholarly research and facilitating its publication, and by creating forums for people with a scholarly interest in Polish Jewish topics, both past and present. To this end the Institute and the American Association help organize lectures and interna-

tional conferences. Venues for these activities have included Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Institute for the Study of Human Sciences in Vienna, King’s College in London, the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, the University of Lodz, University College London, and the Polish Cultural Centre and the Polish embassy in London. They have encouraged academic exchanges between Israel, Poland, the United States, and western Europe. In particular they seek to help train a new generation of scholars, in Poland and elsewhere, to study the culture and history of the Jews in Poland. Each year since 1987 the Institute has published a volume of scholarly papers in the series Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry under the general editorship of Professor Antony Polonsky of Brandeis University. Since 1994 the series has been published on its behalf by the Littman

Library of Jewish Civilization, and since 1998 the publication has been linked with the American Association as well. In March 2000 the entire series was honoured with a National Jewish Book Award from the Jewish Book Council in the United States. More than twenty other works on Polish Jewish topics have also been published with the Institute’s assistance.

For further information on the Institute for Polish—Jewish studies or the American Association for Polish—Jewish Studies, contact . For the website of the American Association for Polish—Jewish Studies, see .

THE LITTMAN LIBRARY OF

JEWISH CIVILIZATION |

Dedicated to the memory of

Louis THOMAS SIDNEY LITTMAN who founded the Littman Library for the love of God and as an act of charity in memory of his father

| 712 DIDI ND

JOSEPH AARON LITTMAN

| ‘Get wisdom, get understanding: Forsake her not and she shall preserve thee’ PROV. 4: 5

The Littman Library of Fewish Civilization is a registered UK charity Registered charity no. 1000784

STUDIES IN POLISH JEWRY

VOLUME TWENTY-TWO |

Social and Cultural Boundaries in Pre-Modern Poland

| and

Edited by

ADAM TELLER, MAGDA TETER | ANTONY POLONSKY

Published for

The Institute for Polish—Jewish Studies and The American Association for Polish—Jewish Studies

Oxford « Portland, Oregon

The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization : 2010

The Littman Library of fewish Civilization

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ISBN 978—1-904113-62--1 ISBN 978—-1-904113-37-9 (pbk)

Publishing co-ordinator: Janet Moth Production: John Saunders Copy-editing: Bonnie Blackburn Proof-reading: Mark Newby and Foyce Rappoport Index: Bonnie Blackburn Cover design: Pete Russell, Faringdon, Oxon. Typeset by Hope Services (Abingdon) Ltd Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by the MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King’s Lynn

Articles appearing in this publication are abstracted and indexed in EMstorical Abstracts and America: History and Life

This volume 1s dedicated to the memory of —

ALEXANDER (ALIK) LEMPICKI 1922-2007 a fighter in the Armia Krajowa during the Second World War, a distinguished physicist, a humanist, and a committed believer in Polish—fewish understanding

This volume benefited from grants from

THE MIRISCH AND LEBENHEIM CHARITABLE FOUNDATION THE LUCIUS N. LITTAUER FOUNDATION VICTOR MARKOWICZ

and THE TAUBE FOUNDATION FOR

JEWISH LIFE AND CULTURE

Editors and Advisers EDITORS Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, Lublin Israel Bartal, Jerusalem Antony Polonsky (Chair), Waltham, Mass. Michael Steinlauf, Philadelphia

Jerzy Tomaszewski, Warsaw. EDITORIAL BOARD

Chimen Abramsky, London Elchanan Reiner, Te/ Aviv David Assaf, Tel Aviv Jehuda Reinharz, Waltham, Mass. Wladystaw ‘IT. Bartoszewski, Warsaw Moshe Rosman, TJe/ Aviv

Glen Dynner, Bronxville, NY Szymon Rudnicki, Warsaw David Engel, New York Henryk Samsonowicz, Warsaw David Fishman, New York Robert Shapiro, New York ChaeRan Freeze, Waltham, Mass. Adam Teller, Haifa

Jozef Gierowski, Krakow Daniel Tollet, Paris

Jacob Goldberg, ferusalem Piotr S. Wandycz, New Haven, Conn. Yisrael Gutman, Jerusalem Jonathan Webber, Birmingham, UK

Jerzy Kloczowski, Lublin Joshua Zimmerman, New York Ezra Mendelsohn, ferusalem Steven Zipperstein, Stanford, Calif. Joanna Michlic, Bethlehem, Pa.

ADVISORY BOARD

Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Warsaw Heinz-Dietrich Lowe, Heidelberg

Jan Blonski, Krakow Emanuel Meltzer, 7e/ Aviv

Andrzej Chojnowski, Warsaw Shlomo Netzer, Te/ Aviv Andrzej Ciechanowiecki, London Zbigniew Pelczynski, Oxford Norman Davies, London Alexander Schenker, New Haven, Conn. Frank Golczewski, Hamburg David Sorkin, Madison, Wis. Olga Goldberg, ferusalem Edward Stankiewicz, New Haven, Conn.

Jerzy Jedlicki, Warsaw Norman Stone, Ankara

Andrzej Kaminski, London Shmuel Werses, ferusalem Hillel Levine, Boston Jacek Wozniakowski, Lublin

Stanislaw Litak, Lublin Piotr Wrobel, 7oronto

Preface Tuts volume of Polin, dedicated to pre-partition Poland, aims to open a new dis-

cussion on inter-group relations in late medieval and early modern eastern Europe. Combining new research about Jews in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth and its neighbours to the east and west with earlier studies hitherto untranslated into English, it examines the meeting points between Jews and nonJews, as well as between various groups within Jewish society. These include the wealthy and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, religious and lay elites, Polish Jews and German Jews, and transgressing others. Boundaries—physical, political, social, religious, or cultural—made up the framework of life in this period, and the ways in which they were honoured, crossed, or otherwise negotiated are at the heart of these essays. They focus on connections between Jews in Poland and the rest of Europe, as well as on legal and religious boundaries and on political, social, and economic interactions, including the vexed question of conversion. In this collection an international group of scholars from the US,

Europe, and Israel thus reconsiders traditional views of Jewish history and Jewish—Christian relations in the region.

The New Views section examines a wide range of subjects, including ritual murder accusations in nineteenth-century Poland, the career of the Russian Jewish

integrationist politician Mikhail Morgulis, and the attitude of Boleslaw Prus towards Jewish assimilation and his relationship with the Jewish journalist Nahum Sokolow. Other chapters investigate women in the Mizrahi movement in Poland, Polish patriotism among Jews, and the treatment of the Jewish issue in the Polish underground press during the Second World War. In addition there are pieces on the impact of the war on the views of Julian Tuwim and Antoni Slonimski, on the shtetl in the work of two American Jewish writers, Allen Hoffman and Jonathan Safran Foer, and the initial Polish response to Jan Gross’s new book Fear. Polinis sponsored by the Institute of Polish—Jewish Studies, which is an associated institute of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and by the American Association for Polish—Jewish Studies, which is linked with the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University. As with earlier issues, this volume could not have appeared without the untiring assistance of many individuals. In particular, we should like to express our gratitude to Professor Jehuda Reinharz,

president of Brandeis University, Mrs Irene Pipes, president of the American Association for Polish—Jewish Studies, and Professor Jonathan Webber, treasurer of the Institute for Polish—Jewish Studies. These three institutions all made substantial __ contributions to the cost of producing the volume. A particularly important contribution was that made by the Mirisch and Lebenheim Foundation. The volume also

Viii Preface benefited from grants from Robert and Rochelle Cherry, Victor Markowicz, and the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation. Finally, this volume could not have been published without the constant assistance and supervision of Connie Webber, managing editor of the Littman Library, Janet Moth, publishing co-ordinator, Pete Russell, designer,

and the tireless copy-editing of Bonnie Blackburn, George Tulloch, and Joyce Rappoport. Plans for future volumes of Po/in are well advanced. Volume 23 examines the history of the Jews in Krakow, and volume 24 will investigate the long trajectory in the relations between Jews and their neighbours in the area, while volume 25 will analyse the history of Jews in Lithuania. Further volumes are planned on Jewish— Ukrainian relations, on Polish Jewish literature, and on Jewish elites in the lands of the former Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth. We should welcome articles for these issues, as well as for our New Views section. We should also welcome any suggestions or criticisms. In particular, we should be very grateful for assistance in extending the geographical range of our journal to Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania, both in the period in which these countries were part of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth and subsequently. We note with sadness the deaths of Jan Blonski, a major Polish literary critic and a key figure in the reassessment of the Polish Jewish past, Henryk Hatkowski, a devoted student of the history of Jews in Krakow, and Joanna Wiszniewicz, who has done so much to illuminate the post-war history of Jews in Poland.

POLIN

Sees HINO THO PSOE OR:

We did not know, but our fathers told us how the exiles of Israel came to the land of Polin (Poland).

When Israel saw how its sufferings were constantly renewed, oppressions increased, persecutions multiplied, and how the evil authorities piled decree on decree and followed expulsion with expulsion, so that there was no way to escape the enemies of Israel, they went out on the road and sought an answer from the paths of the wide world: which is the correct road to traverse to find rest for their soul? Then a piece of paper fell from heaven, and on it the words: Go to Polaniya (Poland)!

So they came to the land of Polin and they gave a mountain of gold to the king,

and he received them with great honour. And God had mercy on them, so that they found favour from the king and the nobles. And the king gave them permission to reside in all the lands of his kingdom, to trade over its length and breadth, and to serve God according to the precepts of their religion. And the king protected them against every foe and enemy.

And Israel lived in Polin in tranquillity for a long time. ‘They devoted themselves to trade and handicrafts. And God sent a blessing on them so that they were

blessed in the land, and their name was exalted among the peoples. And they traded with the surrounding countries and they also struck coins with inscriptions in the holy language and the language of the country. These are the coins which have on them a lion rampant from the right facing left. And on the coins are the words ‘Mieszko, King of Poland’ or ‘Mieszko, Krol of Poland’. The Poles call their

king ‘Krol’. ,

And those who delve into the Scriptures say: “This is why it is called Polin. For thus spoke Israel when they came to the land, “Here rest for the night [Po /im].” And this means that we shall rest here until we are all gathered into the Land of Israel.’ Since this is the tradition, we accept it as such. S. Y. AGNON, I916

POLIN Studies in Polish Jewry VOLUME 1 Poles and Jews: Renewing the Dialogue (1986) VOLUME 2. fews and the Emerging Polish State (1987) VOLUME 3. The fews of Warsaw (1988) VOLUME 4_ Poles and Jews: Perceptions and Misperceptions (1989)

VOLUME 5 New Research, New Views (1990) VOLUME 6 fews in Lodz, 15820-1939 (1991) VOLUME 7 Jewish Life in Nazi-Occupted Warsaw (1992) From Shietl to Socialism (1993): selected articles from volumes 1~—7 VOLUME 8 _ fews in Independent Poland, 1915-1939 (1994)

VOLUME g_ fews, Poles, and Socialists: The Failure of an Ideal (1996) VOLUME 10 _ Jews in Early Modern Poland (1997) VOLUME 11. Aspects and Experiences of Religion (1998)

VOLUME 12. Galicia: Fews, Poles, and Ukrainians, 1772-1918 (1999) Index to Volumes 1-12 (2000)

VOLUME 13. The Holocaust and its Afiermath (2000) VOLUME 14 Jews in the Polish Borderlands (2001)

VOLUME 15 Jewish Religious Life, 1500-1900 (2002) VOLUME 16 fewish Popular Culture and its Afterlife (2003) VOLUME 17_ The Shtetl: Myth and Reality (2004)

| VOLUME 18 Jewish Women in Eastern Europe (2005) VOLUME 19 Polish—Jewtsh Relations in North America (2007)

VOLUME 20 Making Holocaust Memory (2008) VOLUME 21 1968: Forty Years After (2009) VOLUME 22. Social and Cultural Boundaries in Pre-Modern Poland (2010) VOLUME 23. Jews in Krakow (2011)

Contents

Note on Place Names XV

Note on Transhteration XVII PART I

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL BOUNDARIES IN PRE-MODERN POLAND Introduction: Borders and Boundaries in the Historiography of the

Jews in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth 3 ADAM TELLER AND MAGDA TETER

Hugo Grotius and the Blood Libel Trials in Lublin, 1636 47 MEIR BALABAN

from 1665 68

The Boundaries of Memory: A Central European Chronograph ELISHEVA CARLEBACH

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands outside Poland—Lithuania 83 MOSHE ROSMAN

Telling the Difference: Some Comparative Perspectives on the Jews’ Legal Status in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth

and the Holy Roman Empire 109

ADAM TELLER

The Role of the Jewish Community in the Socio-Political Structure

of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth 142

JACOB GOLDBERG

Fifteenth Centuries 156

The Jewish Economic Elite in Red Ruthenia in the Fourteenth and JURGEN HEYDE

Crossing the River: How and Why the Jews of Krakow Settled in

Kazimierz at the End of the Fifteenth Century 174

HANNA ZAREMSKA

xii Contents The Rubinkowski Family: Converts in Kazimierz 193 ADAM KAZMIERCZYK

Jews in Public Places: Further Chapters in the Jewish—Christian

Encounter in Seventeenth-Century Vilna 215

DAVID FRICK

“There should be no love between us and them’: Social Life and the

Bounds of Jewish and Canon Law in Early Modern Poland 249 MAGDA TETER

PART II

NEW VIEWS Blood and the Hasidim: On the History of Ritual Murder Accusations

in Nineteenth-Century Poland 273

MARCIN WODZINSKI

Integration and its Discontents: Mikhail Morgulis and the Ideology of

Jewish Integration in Russia 291 BRIAN HOROWITZ

Bolestaw Prus and the Assimilation of Polish Jews 316 AGNIESZKA FRIEDRICH

Dialogue or Monologue? The Relationship between Jewish and Polish

Journalists in Warsaw at the End of the Nineteenth Century 332

ELA BAUER |

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy: The Women of the Mizrahi

Movement in Poland, 1916-1939 346 ASAF KANIEL

between the Wars 368

Patriotism and Antisemitism: The Crisis of Polish Jewish Identity DAVID ABERBACH

The Nazi Murder of the Jews in Polish Eyes: Views in the

Underground Press, 1942-1945 389

KLAUS-PETER FRIEDRICH

The Spring that Passed: The Pikador Poets’ Return to Jewishness AI4 MARCI SHORE

Contents xiii Resisting a Phantom Book: A Critical Assessment of the Initial Polish

Discussion of Jan Gross’s Fear 427 ,

MONIKA RICE

Imagined Diaspora: The Shtet/in Allen Hoffman’s Small Worlds and

Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated 454 JEREMY SHERE

OBITUARY

John Doyle Klier 467

Glossary 473 Notes on the Contributors 479 JOANNA B. MICHLIC

Index 483

BLANK PAGE

Note on Place Names POLITICAL connotations accrue to words, names, and spellings with an alacrity unfortunate for those who would like to maintain neutrality. It seems reasonable to honour the choices of a population on the name of its city or town, but what is one to do when the people have no consensus on their name, or when the town changes its name, and the name its spelling, again and again over time? The politician may always opt for the latest version,

but the hapless historian must reckon with them all. This note, then, will be our brief reckoning. There 1s no problem with places that have accepted English names, such as Warsaw. But every other place name in east-central Europe raises serious problems. A good example is Wilno, Vilna, Vilnius. There are clear objections to all of these. Until 1944 the majority of the population was Polish. The city is today in Lithuania. ‘Vilna’, though raising the fewest problems, is an artificial construct. In this volume we have adopted the following guidelines, although we are aware that they are not wholly consistent.

1. Towns that have a form which is acceptable in English are given in that form. Some examples are Warsaw, Kiev, Moscow, St Petersburg, Munich.

2. ‘Towns that until 1939 were clearly part of a particular state and shared the majority nationality of that state are given in a form which reflects that situation. Some examples are Breslau, Danzig, Rzeszow, Przemysl. In Polish, Krakow has always been spelled as such. In English it has more often appeared as Cracow, but the current trend of English follows the local language as much as possible. In keeping with this trend to local determination, then, we shall maintain the Polish spelling.

3. Towns that are in mixed areas take the form in which they are known today and which reflects their present situation. Examples are Poznan, Torun, Kaunas, Lviv. This applies also to bibliographical references. We have made one major exception to this rule, using the common English form for Vilna until its first incorporation into Lithuania in October 1939 and using Vilnius thereafter. Galicia’s most diversely named city, and one of its most important, boasts four variants: the Polish Lwéw, the German Lemberg, the Russian Lvov, and the Ukrainian Lviv. As this city currently lives under Ukrainian rule, and most of its current residents speak Ukrainian, we shall follow the Ukrainian spelling. 4. Some place names have different forms in Yiddish. Occasionally the subject matter dictates that the Yiddish place name should be the prime form, in which case the correspon-

ding Polish (Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian) name is given in parentheses at first mention.

BLANK PAGE

Note on Transhteration HEBREW An attempt has been made to achieve consistency in the transliteration of Hebrew words. The following are the key distinguishing features of the system that has been adopted: 1. No distinction is made between the a/eph and ayin; both are represented by an apostrophe, and only when they appear in an intervocalic position. 2. Veit is written v; het is written 4; yod is written y when it functions as a consonant and 7 when it occurs as a vowel; khafis written kh; tsadi is written ts; kof is written k. 3. The dagesh hazak, represented in some transliteration systems by doubling the letter, is not represented, except in words that have more or less acquired normative English spellings that include doublings, such as Hallel, kabbalah, Kaddish, rabbi, Sukkot, and Yom Kippur.

4. The sheva na is represented by ane.

5. Hebrew prefixes, prepositions, and conjunctions are not followed by a hyphen when they are transliterated; thus betoledot ha’am hayehud..

6. Capital letters are not used in the transliteration of Hebrew except for the first word in the titles of books and the names of people, places, institutions, and generally as in the conventions of the English language. 7. ‘The names of individuals are transliterated following the above rules unless the individual concerned followed a different usage.

YIDDISH Transliteration follows the YIVO system except for the names of people, where the spellings they themselves used have been retained.

RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN The system used is that of British Standard 2979:1958, without diacritics. Except in bibliographical and other strictly rendered matter, soft and hard signs are omitted and word-final

-, -Mi, - bi, -1 in names are simplified to -y.

BLANK PAGE

PART I

Social and Cultural Boundaries in Pre-Modern Poland

BLANK PAGE

Introduction Borders and Boundaries in the

Historiography of the fews in the Poltish-—Lithuanian Commonwealth ADAM TELLER and MAGDA TETER SCHOLARSHIP ON the pre-modern period of Polish Jewish history has now recognized that the Jews did not live in isolation as a separate group in eastern Europe, yet the ways in which Polish Jews and Christians interacted and the significance of these interactions for both groups still need to be examined in depth. As a corollary, the relationships between the Jews of Poland—Lithuania and their co-religionists elsewhere in Europe (and beyond) need to be re-examined in order to understand the complex interplay of cultural and social forces from outside Poland which shaped the ways in which the Jews lived among themselves and interacted with their Polish

surroundings. The goal of this volume of Polin, focusing on social and cultural borders and boundaries in Poland—Lithuania, is to achieve a more nuanced understanding of the place of the Jews in this large and multicultural east European State.

The concept of borders or boundaries can prove particularly valuable in this endeavour. In contemporary historical research, borders are no longer viewed simply as political demarcation lines between national or ethnic groups—a view which has tended to examine them as sites of tension and conflict.! Instead, borders are often understood as ‘meeting places and locales of exchange’, where different societies encounter each other, with the consequent meeting and interaction of differ-

ent cultures.* This has led to increased interest in the study of cross-cultural

1 For an early exposition of this new position, see F. Barth, ‘Introduction’ in id. (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (Bergen, 1969), 11-38. For a more recent view, see P. Burke, ‘Cultural Frontiers of Early Modern Europe’, Przeglad Historyczny, 46/2 (2005). 2 One of the most famous studies of this kind of cultural contact is M. Sahlins, Islands of History (Chicago, 1985), which deals with the meeting of the Europeans led by Captain Cook and the inhabitants of Hawaii in the 18th c.

4 Introduction contacts, with a particular focus on those groups and individuals who crossed the cultural boundaries and so facilitated cultural exchanges.° Cultural borders are not only geographical in nature, but can be found within individual societies: the study of gender is essentially a study of the cultural demarcation lines between men and women.* In the study of pre-modern Europe, estate (or class) boundaries provide another excellent case of such cultural boundaries, with different groupings in any society developing different cultural formations.°

These estate (and gender) boundaries were by no means hermetic in nature. Indeed, various phenomena and developments were able to move from one group to another.® Inter-group relations (as well as phenomena which cross the boundaries of gender) have also become an increasingly popular subject for historical research. ‘ 3 For a broad treatment of intercultural contacts in the ancient and medieval world, encompassing Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and China, with a particular focus on religious , contacts, missionaries, and conversion, see J. Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (Oxford, 1993). 4 J. Kelly, Women, History and Theory (Chicago, 1984), 51-64. On ‘women’s history’, see J. W. Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1988); N. Z. Davis, ‘‘““Women’s History” in Transition:

The European Case’, Feminist Studies, 3/3—-4 (1976); E. DuBois, ‘ “Through Women’s Eyes”: The Challenges of Integrating Women’s History and U.S. History in the Writing of a College Textbook’, OAH Magazine of History (Mar. 2005). A similar quest has been experienced by scholars of African

American history, and more recently also queer studies; see e.g E. B. Higginbotham, ‘AfricanAmerican Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race’, Signs, 17/2 (1992); J. Terry, “Theorizing Deviant Historiography’, in A.-L. Shapiro (ed.), Feminists Revision History (New Brunswick, NJ, 1994), esp. 277, 283, 288. Colonial studies have also grappled with similar questions of inclusion of ‘marginal’ groups and of moving away from the narrative of oppression and victimhood to cultural exchange. For recent examples, see E. V. Young, “Iwo Decades of Anglophone Historical Writing on Colonial Mexico: Continuity and Change since 1980’, Mexican Studies, 20/2 (2004); M. V. Petrov,

‘Everyday Forms of Compliance: Subaltern Commentaries on Ottoman Reform, 1864-1868’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 46/4 (2004); S. Chari, ‘Provincializing Capital: The Work

of an Agrarian Past in South Indian Industry’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 46/4 (2004); G. H. Forbes, ‘Reflections on South Asian Women’s/Gender History: Past and Future’, Journal of Coloniahsm and Colomal History, 4/1 (2003); J. Wolfe, “Those that Live by the Work of their

Hands: Labour, Ethnicity, and Nation-State Formation in Nicaragua, 1850-1900’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 36/1 (2004).

° There is a great deal of literature on the social structure of early modern European society, e.g. M. Bush (ed.), Social Orders and Social Classes in Europe since 1500: Studies in Social Stratification (Harlow, 1992).

© G. Duby, ‘The Diffusion of Cultural Patterns in Feudal Society’, Past and Present, 39 (1968), 3-10; M. Bogucka, ‘Miejsce mieszczanina w spoleczenstwie szlacheckim: Aktrakcyjnos¢ wzorcow zycia szlacheckiego w Polsce XVII w.’, in A. Wyczanski (ed.), Spotleczenstwo staropolskie: Studia 1 szkice, 1 (Warsaw, 1976).

’ For discussions of this in Poland—Lithuania, see A. Maczak, ‘Confessions, Freedoms, and the Unity of Poland—Lithuania’, in id., Money, Prices and Power in Poland, 16th—-17th Centuries: A Comparative Approach (Aldershot, 1995), Essay VII; cf. also id., ‘The Structure of Power in the Commonwealth of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, ibid., Essay XIV. On the importance of an approach to gender studies which overcomes simplistic views of an inherent antagonism between male and female, see Scott, Gender and the Politics of History, 28-50.

Introduction 5 So, too, the study of social and cultural boundaries has had significant consequences for the study of religious history. Influenced by social theories, scholars have begun to emphasize the complexity of people’s identities and behaviours, while demonstrating the process of construction of religious boundaries by religious elites.> The historiography of early modern Christian religious history in Europe has also moved away from the narratives of religious conflict, violence, and

wars of religion. Increasingly, scholars of early modern European history soften the sharp distinctions between Protestants and Catholics and demonstrate the complexity of religious observance at the time, and accommodations between the different Christian religious groups in daily life and religious rituals that had previously been painted in sharply antagonistic terms.® Beyond this, geographical border regions are now being examined as areas of socio-cultural mixing, with the importance of the boundary line itself put into

question.'° In this context, ideas such as ‘hybridity’, championed by the postcolonial school of Indian history, have come to the fore.*! In many respects, this parallels new understandings of the term ‘culture’ itself, severing it from an essentialist view, which sees culture as the defining element of nationality or ethnicity, and embracing a more fluid conception. According to this view: ‘It is no longer possible to assume that the world is divided up into discrete “societies” each with its corresponding and well-integrated “culture”.’’” Instead, we should think of cultures as ‘normally being contradictory, loosely integrated, contested, mutable, and highly permeable’.’? A culture is therefore best understood not by examining its literary, artistic, or other creations, which somehow express its essential nature, but rather by examining the points or regions where it is contested. In these formulations, then, a focus on boundaries permits the political, social, and cultural definition of any group, through understanding the ways in which it 8 For an example of re-examining the split between Judaism and Christianity in antiquity and the mutual dialogue and influences between cultures of Jews and non-Jews, see D. Boyarin, Border Lines:

The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia, 2004), and P. Schafer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton, 2007). » Illustrating these new approaches, Keith Luria has shown that ‘people of competing faiths can and do get along in daily life’. See K. P. Luria, Sacred Boundaries: Religious Coexistence and Conflict in Early-Modern France (Washington, DC, 2005), p. xiv. 0 In his study of the development of the Franco-Spanish border in the Pyrenean Cerdanya valley, Peter Sahlins has argued: ‘At the end of the Old Regime, the boundaries of linguistic use and of iden-

tity remained fluid, just as the territorial boundary of France and Spain remained permeable.’ P. Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley, 1989), 167.

™ On this, see R. Guha, ‘The Prose of Counter-Insurgency’, Subaltern Studies, 2 (1983), 1-42, and

esp. H. Bhabha, ‘Sly Civility’, in id.. The Location of Culture (London, 1994), 93-101. Cf. also L. A. Benton and J. Muth, ‘On Cultural Hybridity: Interpreting Colonial Authority and Performance’, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, t/% (2000).

‘2 W. H. Sewell Jr., “The Concept(s) of Culture’, in V. E. Bonnel and L. Hunt (eds.), Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture (Berkeley, 1999), 35—61, esp. 57.

‘8 Ibid. 53.

6 Introduction interacted with other groups, in terms of both conflict and negotiation. This is particularly important in the study of cultural ‘minorities’, like Polish Jewry, who tried jealously to guard their identity by creating (or, at least, imagining) firm religious and cultural boundaries between themselves and their neighbours.’* At the same time, Polish Jews survived and developed through a constant and complex

process of cultural interaction with their neighbours. The situation of Polish Jewry as one of a group of religious and ethnic minorities in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth meant that it was involved not just in a bilateral relationship with

the ethnically Polish and religiously Catholic majority, but also with a range of other ethnic and religious groups. On the other side, the web of relationships which developed between the various groups also determined, to some extent at least, both attitudes towards Jews and the places they could occupy in society.!° Moreover, these groups, and especially the ethnically Polish (and Polonized) society of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth, were not monolithic. For example, the nobility, with its position of hegemony, interacted with Jews (and not only with them) in ways quite different from townspeople or peasants. Even within the

nobility, the wealthiest magnates could treat Jews in ways quite different from the lower strata of the szlachta.‘° On the Jews’ side, too, while their relations with the townspeople were marked by economic competition and hostility, they often entered into the economic service of the nobility, whose lifestyle and material

culture they seem to have admired.'’ Thus, understanding the significance of social boundaries within the early modern Commonwealth can be of crucial importance in determining the development of Jewish society and culture there. Boundaries within the Jewish world were significant, too. Inside Polish Jewish society, the relations of the socio-economic elite with their neighbours were different from those of the rabbinic elite. Similar differences can be seen in the interactions between ‘middle-class’ Jewish merchants and craftsmen and Polish society and those of the urban poor and marginal groups.'® In the geographical sphere, the Jews of Poland felt the borders between them and the Jews in other countries as

both dividing lines and meeting places. Their cultural affinity with the other Ashkenazi, Yiddish-speaking Jews, was clearly understood by them. At the very 14 See M. Teter, ‘Kilka uwag na temat podzialow spolecznych i religijnych pomiedzy Zydami i Chrzescianami we wschodnich miastach dawnej Rzeczpospolitey’, Kwartalnik Histor Zydéw, 207

(2003), 327-35. , ,

15 For a treatment of some of these relationships, see G. D. Hundert, ‘On the Jewish Community in Poland during the 17th Century: Some Comparative Perspectives’, Revue des études juives, 142 (1983), 349-72. 16 See J. Goldberg, ‘Al yahas hahevrah hapolanit kelapei yehudim’, in id., Hahevrah hayehudit bamamlekhet polin-hta (Jerusalem, 1999), 9-79; M. J. Rosman, The Lords’ Jews: Magnate—fewish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1990).

17 A great deal has been written on this topic in recent years. For a convenient summary, see G. D. Hundert, fems in Poland—Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity (Berkeley, 2004), 32-56. 18 See Goldberg, ‘Al yahas hahevrah hapolanit kelapei yehudim’.

Introduction 7 basic levels of language and religion (understood also as a kind of lived culture), Polish Jews had more in common with Jews in the Holy Roman Empire than with their non-Jewish neighbours in Poland.'? At the same time, however, they also defined themselves as ‘Polish’ Jews—a separate socio-cultural grouping within the Jewish world.2° They were not only different from the Sephardi Jews, who hailed from pre-expulsion Spain, but also from the Ashkenazi Jews who continued to live in the historic lands of Ashkenaz (i.e. the German-speaking regions of central

Europe). Any attempt to understand the social and cultural characteristics of Polish—Lithuanian Jews must therefore take into account both their social stratification and their place in the Jewish world of the day as marked by their relationships with the different groups within it.

It is in response to this series of problematics that the articles here collected were written. The authors have tried, in various ways, to revisit the question of the nature of the geographical, social, and cultural boundaries which defined Polish Jewry, whether in relation to their non-Jewish neighbours within the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth or in relation to Jewish societies in other countries. These are, of course, by no means new questions. From the very earliest days of research into Polish Jewry’s past, scholars have struggled with the question of how Jews were able to live on Polish soil for so many centuries, while preserving their own social and cultural characteristics. This was, of course, not a specifically Polish question (it was asked in all the societies where Jews continued to live), but the size and proportional strength of Polish Jewry within Polish society lent it a special significance. As both Poles and Jews struggled to find a new modus vivendi in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the ways in which they did so

affected their interpretation of their past relationships. The events of the Holocaust on Polish soil, as well as developments within both Jewish and Polish society in the post-Holocaust world, have also engendered changing perspectives on these issues. In order to understand just how new the approaches suggested in this volume are, it would seem sensible to take stock of the ways in which past generations of scholars have understood the nature of the boundaries that defined Polish Jewry in the early modern period. The discussion that follows represents an attempt to trace this development in historical writing over the last century and a half. Though the changing perceptions of Polish Jewry’s place within both Polish and Jewish society were clearly affected by the cultural constellations within which each generation (and each individual scholar) wrote, it is not this ‘causal’ relationship that is of ‘9 On this, see J. Katz, Tradition and Crisis: Fewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages, trans. B. D. Cooperman (New York, 1993) and also the discussion below. Cf. M. Rosman, ‘Innovative Tradition: Jewish Culture in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’, in D. Biale (ed.), Cultures of the jews: A New History (New York, 2002), 519-70. 20 See e.g. J. Davis, ‘The Reception of the Shulhan ‘Arukh and the Formation of Ashkenazic Jewish Identity’, AZS Review, 26/2 (2002).

8 Introduction central importance here. Instead, the goal is to examine the historical writing itself

and show how different themes and interpretations within it have evolved and declined over the years. By comparing the results of contemporary scholarship with those of previous generations, we will be able more clearly to understand the direc-

tions historical research is presently taking and so direct ourselves towards even more fruitful approaches. The first attempts in Poland to write specifically on the history of the Polish Jews sought to understand the Jews’ place in society by focusing particularly on the history of their legal status.*! In an age before social history had become an acceptable branch of the historical discipline, the study of legal status allowed these scholars to examine a particular group within Polish society, using the classical tools of diplomatic and philological analysis.2* At bottom, these studies, clearly a product of the discussions of the Jews’ legal status in the era of emancipation, were aimed at defining the legal boundaries of the Jews’ existence as a separate group in pre-

modern Poland.?° |

The approach was not always simplistic. Ludwik Gumplowicz, for example, who would later leave his native Krakow for Graz in Austria, where he focused on the newly emerging discipline of sociology, devoted his first academic work to the history of the Jews in Poland, writing a full-length study of Polish legislation relating to the Jews.‘ In doing so, he became perhaps the first scholar to identify the Jews as an integral part of pre-modern Polish society: In Poland, the Jews made up a class of the nation, forming an integral part of its make-up as well as the nobility, the peasants, and the burghers. In Poland, the nation had classes, which were different from castes in that mutual relations were not legally forbidden, and movement from one to the other was possible. Amongst these classes of the nation, the Jews 21 ‘These included works by a number of leading non-Jewish scholars, such as Tadeusz Czacki in the

early 19th c., Wladyslaw Smolenski in the 1870s, and Stanislaw Kutrzeba in 1901. See T. Czacki, Rozprawa o Zydach i Karattach (Vilna, 1807); W. Smolenski, Stan 1 sprawa Zydow polskich w XVIII w.

(Warsaw, 1876); S. Kutrzeba, ‘Stanowisko prawne Zyd6w w Polsce w XV stuleciu’, Przewodnik Naukowy i Literacki (1901), 1007-18, 1147-56. On attitudes towards Jews in the general Polish historiography of the 19th c., see J. Pisulinska, Zydzi w polskie; mysli historyczne; doby porozbiorowes (1795-1914) (RzeszOw, 2004).

22 It is worth noting that the beginnings of Russian Jewish historiography were also characterized by studies in the legal history of the Jews. 23 In 1918 Kutrzeba returned to Jewish history in order to write a short history of the ‘Jewish ques-

tion’ in Poland: Motivated by accusations of Polish violence against Jews (which he denied) and clearly apologetic in nature, Kutrzeba’s study surveyed the Jews’ social and economic status as well as their mutual relations with Polish society from the early modern period until 1914. S. Kutrzeba, Sprawa &ydowska w Polsce: Szkic historyczny (Lwow, 1918).

24 L. Gumplowicz, Prawodawstwo polskie wzgledem Zydéw (Krakow, 1867). On Gumplowicz, see K. Bytomska, ‘Ludwik Gumplowicz: Polak, Zyd, tworca europejskiej socjologii na wrogim tle swoich czasow’, in G. Borkowska and M. Rudkowska (eds.), Kwestia gydowska w XIX wmieku: Spory o tozsamosé Polakéw (Warsaw, 2004), 181-91; H. Kozinska-Witt, ‘Ludwig Gumplowicz’s Programme for the Improvement of the Jewish Situation’, Polin, 12 (1999), 73-8.

Introduction 9 were by no means the most inferior, since they were completely on a level with the burghers—and in many respects even higher.”°

Though he would later become known as a disciple of social Darwinism and develop sociological theories emphasizing the fundamental significance of conflict in social relations, in this early work, Gumplowicz looked beyond the conflicts between the Jews and the Church (as well as the burghers) in order to posit a more organic view of Polish society which actually included the Jews.”° This did not

lead him to see any Polish elements or influences within Jewish society. He expressed his view of the separateness of Jewish life in graphic terms: “The Polish kahals and their rabbis . . . are small republics with elected presidents at their head

... If you were guided blindfold .. . from one kaha/ to another . . . you would believe that you were not in Poland, but in Palestine.’?’ A different approach to research on Polish Jewry in the late nineteenth century was exemplified by Alexander Kraushar, who came from Warsaw. Like Gumplowicz, he grew up in assimilated Jewish society in the mid-nineteenth century, and began his career with an interest in Jewish issues, before eventually converting to Christianity.”° His initial study of Polish Jewish history was also legal in nature, focusing on the ways in which medieval Polish legislation forced the Jews to become a separate group in Polish society.2? This was a development which, he argued, was supported and encouraged by the Jews’ religious leadership. This view led him to devote a fulllength study to Jacob Frank and his movement, which, in the name of an obscure messianism, opposed the Polish rabbinate and the very ‘Talmud itself in the second half of the eighteenth century.®° In the two volumes of the study, Kraushar amassed a huge amount of hitherto unknown sources in an attempt to understand one of Jewish history’s most enigmatic figures.°! 25 “W Polsce Zydzi stanowili klase narodu, do jego skladu nalezeli jako czesé integralna, tak dobrze jak szlachta, chlopi, mieszczanstwo. Byly to w Polsce klasy narodu, ktore tem sie od kast roznity, ze laczenie sige wzajemnie prawnie nie bylo zakazane, a przejscie z jednej do drugiej bylo mozebne. Miedzy temi klasami narodu, Zydzi bynajmniej nie byli najposledniejsza, stali bowiem zupelnie na rowni Z mieszczanami, a w wielu wzgledach nawet 1 wyzej.’ Gumplowicz, Prawodawstwo polskie, 109.

26 On Gumplowicz’s sociological thought, see W. Adamek and J. Radwan-Praglowski, ‘Ludwik Gumplowicz: A Forgotten Classic of European Sociology’, Journal of Classical Sociology, 6 (2006), 381-98. 27 ‘Kahaly polskie z rabinami . . . sq to male rzeczypospolite z prezydentami wlasnego wyboru na

czele ... gdyby z zawiazanemi oczyma prowadzono go po nieliczonych tych miasteczkach, z jednego | kahalu do drugiego. .. mniemalby sie nie w Polsce, ale w Palestynie.’ Gumplowicz, Prawodawstwo polskie, 118.

28 J. Shatzky, ‘Alexander Kraushar and his Road to Total Assimilation’, YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Studies, 7 (1952), 146-74. 29 A. Kraushar, Historya Zydéw w Polsce, 2 vols. (Warsaw, 1865-6). 30 A. Kraushar, Frank i frankisct polscy, 1726-1816: Monografia historyczna osnuta na Zrodtach archiwalnych 1 rekopismiennych, 2 vols. (Krakow, 1895). For an English translation, see A. Kraushar, Jacob Frank: The End to the Sabbatian Heresy, ed. Herbert Levy (Lanham, Md., 2001). 31 M. Galas, ‘Aleksander Kraushar als Erforscher des Frankismus’, Judaica, 55/1 (1999), 42-53.

110) Introduction Perhaps motivated by nineteenth-century perceptions of the need for Jewish reform, religious and social, as a precursor to emancipation, Kraushar used the introduction to the book to interpret Frank’s actions not as a radical break with Judaism but as an attempt to reform it.°” He went on to argue: ‘we must accept him [i.e. Frank] as an individual . . . whose goal was to lead his old co-religionists away from their separation from the other elements of eighteenth-century society to a progressive life, able to accept European civilization’.*° Kraushar here seems to have understood his materials in the sense that the adoption of Christianity was a way of crossing the border which divided Jewish from Polish (i.e. civilized) society. Still, in the terms in which it was presented, this approach may be seen to prefigure postmodern sensibilities, which tend to view conversion as a form of integra-

tion, and the convert as an individual who in some way connects Jewish and non-Jewish society. It is noteworthy, however, that in the rest of the two-volume study, Kraushar abandons this idea, viewing Frank the mystic with all the cynicism

of a nineteenth-century rationalist and interpreting the Frankist conversion as a means of achieving an improved social and economic status for him and his followers.*4

The examples of Gumplowicz and Kraushar, then, seem to suggest that although future scholarship would bring significant methodological and ideological advances to the study of Polish Jewish history, the critique of these scholars

(and others of their generation) as having a simplistic and one-dimensional approach is overly harsh. Both scholars were indeed heavily influenced by the ideology of emancipation, and so sought in their work to provide an academic basis for the idea of integrating the Jews into Polish society. ‘This led them not only to highlight those legal structures and religious prejudices which they felt had per-

petuated the Jews’ separate status, but also to identify various connections and possible links between Polish and Jewish society in the pre-modern period. Though their goal was apologetic in nature (to show that the Jews could be integrated), the results of their research could serve to attenuate the stereotypical view of the Jews as a separate society which was so prevalent in both Polish and Jewish culture at the time. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that, in political terms, this approach was unsuccessful. Its influence was felt much more in the development of Jewish historiography in future generations.

The potential for understanding Polish Jewish history that the work of Gumplowicz demonstrated may perhaps become evident in the early scholarship

of Moses Schorr, a leading scholar in the field at the turn of the twentieth 32 The immediate reason for undertaking the project seems to have been a social polemic concerning the descendants of the Frankist movement in Poland which broke out in the 1880s. Kraushar made his stand on this issue quite clear in his introduction: “The children of the first followers of the “Lord”

became true and believing Christians and citizens of their country ... Today. . . the great-great grandchildren have nothing to do with, nor wish to have anything in common with, their past history.’

Quoted from Kraushar, Jacob Frank, ed. Levy, 55. 33 Tbid. 49, 50. 34 Tbid. 181.

Introduction II century.®°? Schorr was a friend of Ludwik Gumplowicz’s son, Maksimilian, and following the latter’s suicide, maintained an occasional correspondence with the father, by then a leading sociologist in central Europe.°° His letters show Schorr to have been familiar with—and influenced by—Gumplowicz’s work, whether in the field of Jewish history or in sociological research. Certainly, when he came to write his doctoral thesis on the development of Jewish autonomous bodies in early modern Poland, Schorr was exploring a topic whose significance in historical research had first been identified by Gumplowicz.®’ In addition, Schorr also viewed both the kehalim and the va’adim as institutions of a significantly Polish character: The organization of Polish Jews bears . . . in many details, signs of the society in which it was formed and developed. It could not have been otherwise. The influence which they felt in various directions on their internal life as a result of their constant contacts with the burghers and the nobility had, of psychological necessity, to leave its mark on their constitution.*®

This seems to be a development of Gumplowicz’s view of the Jews as one the estates which made up Polish society, with the additional explanation that it was constant social contact with non-Jewish society which shaped the Polish nature of the Jews’ institutions.

Schorr viewed the previous general histories of the Jews in Poland, like that written by his friend’s father, to have been without proper basis in the sources.*? In order to rectify matters, he engaged in two important projects: the scientific publi-

cation of source material relating to the history of Polish Jewry and detailed research on a more limited topic—in his case, the Jewish community of Przemysl, where he was born.

His monograph on the history of the Jews in Przemysl was a pioneering study on a number of accounts.*° First, it established what would soon become a 35 M. Dold, ‘“A Matter of National and Civic Honour”: Majer Balaban and the Institute of Jewish Studies in Warsaw’, East European Femish Affairs, 34/2 (2004), 55-72, esp. 59-60. On Schorr, see Michael Beizer and Israel Bartal, ‘The Case of Moses Schorr: Rabbi, Scholar, and Social Activist’, Polin, 21 (2008).

36 Schorr’s letters to Gumplowicz have been published with introductions on both Schorr and Gumplowicz by R. Zebrowski (ed.), Mojzesz Schorr 1 jego listy do Ludmika Gumplowicza (Warsaw, 1994).

37 Tt is noteworthy that the title of Schorr’s published doctorate on the organs of Jewish autonomy in early modern Poland—Lithuania, Organizacja Zydow w Polsce, is the same as that of an article on the

same topic published by Gumplowicz in the Lwow Dziennik Literacki of 1861 (and reprinted in his

Prawodawstwo, 107-18): ‘Organizacja Zydow w Polsce’.

35M. Schorr, Organizacja Zydéw w Polsce od najdawniejszych czaséw az do r. 1772 (Lw6w, 1899), 4: ‘Organizacja Zydow nosi na sobie . .. we wielu szczegolach cechy spoleczenstwa, wsrod ktorego powstala i rozwinela sie. Inaczej tez byé nie moglo. Wplyw, jakiemu Zydzi ulegali w roznych kierunkach zycia wewnetrznego przez ciagle obcowanie z mieszczanstwem i szlachta, musial sie z psychologiczna koniecznosciq 1 w ustroju ich odbi¢é.’

39 See J. Goldberg, ‘Mojzesz Schorr: Pionier badan dziejow Zydow polskich’, in M. Schorr, Zydzi w Przemyslu do konca XVIII mieku (Jerusalem, 1991), 9-22, esp. 14. 49 M. Schorr, Zydzi w Przemyslu do konca XVIII wieku (Lwow, 1903).

12 Introduction dominant genre in Polish Jewish historical research—the communal history.*? Second, he took the opportunity to publish a whole set of sources of both Polish and Jewish provenance as appendices to the volume. Third, and most importantly here, examining the situation of the Jews in a single city allowed him to distinguish

more clearly their relationships with the different strata which made up Polish society, in this case the king, the nobility, and the burghers. In his formulation, the Jews and the burghers were precisely parallel groups, whose situation was based on an even-handed royal approach: “The king exhorted the municipal council to honour in every word the privileges granted to the Jews, and at the same time threatened the Jews with severe penalties if they abused their

privileges.’** The conflict between the burghers and the Jews was, he argued, forced on them by Poland’s political system: ‘From this point of view, the question whether it was the burghers or the Jews who were responsible for this conflict loses

its meaning. Both were driven into conflict by the nobility, not so that one side might prevail over the other, but that each should ruin the other.’** The apologetic tone here is quite clear: Schorr is interested in playing down as much as possible the conflict between the Jews and the burghers. However, by portraying them as equals, both enjoying royal support and both undermined by the nobility, he envisions Polish Jewry as an integral part of Polish society, not just in terms of their social structures, but also in their legal, social, and economic relationships. ** For Schorr, then, the boundaries that divided Polish Jews from their neighbours were not entirely different from those that divided other groups in Polish society. Moreover, these borders did not completely isolate the Jews. In Schorr’s writing, Jewish society not only came into contact with the other groups (with more or less positive consequences), it was also influenced by them. Unfortunately, these rather challenging ideas were never fully developed, since, in the first decade of the twentieth century, Schorr chose to leave the field of Polish Jewish history in favour of Ancient Near Eastern civilization and Semitic studies, in which field he received

academic posts first at the University of Lwow and later at the University of Warsaw.*° 41 Tn fact, the articles by Joseph Perles on the history of the Poznan community, where he served as preacher and rabbi in the 1860s, published in the Monatsschrift fiir Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, were issued in book form in 1865 (Joseph Perles, Geschichte der Fuden in Posen (Breslau,

1865)), thus making him the author of the very first Polish Jewish communal monograph. Nonetheless, it was not until Schorr’s study that the genre became popular.

a2 ‘To krol napomina magistrat, aby sie scisle stosowal do przywilejow Zydom udzielonych, to znowu Zydom grozi karami surowemi na zaduzycie przywilejow.’ Schorr, Zydzi w Przemyslu, 16.

43 ‘7 tego punktu widzenia pytanie czy mieszczanstwo, czy Zydzi w tej walce ponosza wine, traci swa racye. Jednych i drugich pchnela do tej walki szlachta, nie po to, by jedna strona druga pokonala, lecz by sie nawzajyem zrujnowaly.’ Ibid. 17.

44 On the apologetic approach adopted by Schorr (among others), see N. Aleksiun, ‘Polish Jewish Historians before 1918: Configuring the Liberal East European Jewish Intelligentsia’, East European Jewish Affairs, 34 (2004), 41-54. 45 On Schorr’s career, see Zebrowski (ed.), Mojzesz Schorr, 13-58.

Introduction 13 Undoubtedly, the most significant advances made during the twentieth century

in the historical study of Polish Jews are connected with the name of Simon Dubnow. Born in Mstislavl, eastern Belarus, in 1860, Dubnow combined a great interest in history with a passionate belief in Jewish diaspora nationalism, developing a sweeping new approach to Jewish history in general, and the history of the Jews in eastern Europe in particular. He described his methodology as ‘sociological’, by which he meant that his focus was what he termed the social institutions of Jewish society, largely its bodies of self-government. These he viewed as expressions of a Jewish national spirit. It was this openly nationalistic approach to Jewish history that coloured the way he treated the east European Jewish past and allowed him to develop a range of new perspectives.*° Dubnow famously came to study the Jews in Poland and Russia in response to

the hostile treatment they had received at the hands of Heinrich Graetz in his monumental—and highly influential—history. In Dubnow’s formulation, the Polish Jews’ social and, particularly, spiritual life, far from being signs of reactionary fanaticism (as he felt Graetz had suggested), were both expressions of a vibrant national spirit. In common with the ideologies of his day, Dubnow looked to the common people—the Vo/k—as the carriers of this ideology, so that his studies are among the first to examine the social stratification of east European Jewry. In this light, he views the hasidic movement as the spiritual struggle of the simple Jews against the harsh authoritarianism of the rabbinic elite.*’ Its success, he argued, broke down pre-existing social and cultural boundaries, permitting the

appearance of a new social and religious elite. This approach to the history of hasidism proved enormously influential, holding sway for the better part of a hundred years.*®

A key concept for Dubnow was autonomy. He identified the Jews’ ability to survive as a nation in diaspora with their ability to preserve their social and cultural autonomy in the different locations to which the history brought them. Following 46 See R. M. Seltzer, ‘The Secular Appropriation of Hasidism by an East European Jewish Intellectual: Dubnow, Renan, and the Besht’, Polin, 1 (1986), 151-62. 47S. Dubnov, Toledot hahasidut (Tel Aviv, 1930).

48 Subsequent scholars would attempt to change one or other aspect of Dubnow’s historical scheme: Ben-Zion Dinur and Raphael Mahler downplayed the spiritual elements of Dubnow’s analysis in favour of a class-based, social approach to the history of hasidism, while Jacob Katz and his stu-

dent Immanuel Etkes attempted to reverse the trend by emphasizing the new spiritual message of early hasidism over its social innovations. All accepted, however, the basically nationalist interpretation laid down by Dubnow and his idea that hasidism arose through the challenging of decadent elites in Jewish society. It was not until Ada Rapoport-Albert’s pathbreaking study of the early 1990s on the historical development of hasidism that the basic paradigm of the way early hasidism was viewed began to change. See B.-Z. Dinur, ‘Reshitah shel hahasidut veyesodoteihah hasotsi’aliyim vehameshihiyim’, in id., Bemifne: hadorot (Jerusalem, 1955), 83-227; R. Mahler, Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment (Philadelphia, 1985); Katz, Tradition and Crisis; A. Rapoport-Albert, ‘Hasidism after 1772: Structural Continuity and Change’, in ead. (ed.), Hasidism Reappraised (London, 1996), 76-140.

14 Introduction the destruction of the second Temple, he argued, there arose ‘new forms of the scattered people’s struggle for national unity; it was not in governmental but in other forms that Jewry’s indomitable aspiration for autonomic [sic] existence, social and cultural originality in the midst of alien nations, was manifested. To this end the entire spiritual activity of the nation has been directed.’*”

In his approach to the development of Jewish autonomous institutions in Poland—Lithuania, Dubnow was influenced not only by his conceptions of Jewish nationalism, but also by the previous scholarship of Gumplowicz and Schorr.°° This becomes clear in his three-volume history of the Jews in Russia and Poland, in which he discusses the development of the Jewish bodies in the following terms:

‘[the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth] was a country with sharply divided estates, which could not but legalize the autonomy of the Jewish kahal after having legalized the Magdeburg Law of the Christian urban estates, in which the Germans constituted the predominant element’.°! This clearly echoes Gumplowicz’s and Schorr’s understanding of the place of the Jewish bodies as an integral part of the early modern polity. In terms of Polish—Jewish relations, however, Dubnow preferred to see a total separation between the social groups, which he felt was caused in no small measure by the kahal itself: ‘It [1.e. the kahal] had an educational effect on the Jewish populace, which was left to itself by the government, and had no share in the common life of the country.”°”

The background to Dubnow’s thought on autonomy is often sought in the development of nationalism among the minorities of the multinational Habsburg ~ and Romanov empires.°? While this is undoubtedly true, the appeal of Dubnow’s history extended far beyond these environments. This is because his writing did not really reflect the history of the Jews as a national minority in multinational

settings—an approach particularly apt for the history of the Jews in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth. His was a full-blown national history where “9 S. Dubnow, History of the Fews, i: From the Beginning to Early Christianity (South Brunswick, NJ, 1967), 27.

°° See Schorr’s letter to Gumplowicz of 8 Mar. 1900 following the publication of Schorr’s doctorate: “I received a very complimentary letter from one of the greatest experts on the history of the Jews in Poland, Dubnow in Odessa, in which he said, “Since the work of Gumplowicz, I have not known such a well-grounded scientific monograph dealing with the Jews in Poland”; he will include it in the important Russian journal Voskhod.’ Zebrowski (ed.), Mojzesz Schorr, 147. On Dubnow’s attitude towards the bodies of Jewish autonomy, see also I. Bartal, ‘Dubnov’s Image of Medieval Autonomy’, in K. Groberg and A. Greenbaum (eds.), 4 Missionary for History: Essays in Honor of Simon Dubnov (Minneapolis, 1998), 11-18. ol S. M. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland from the Earhest Times until the Present Day, i (Philadelphia, 1916), 103.

°2 Tbid. 113. Dubnow also published the pimkas (record book) of the early modern Council of Lithuanian Jews: Pinkas hamedinah, ed. S. Dubnow (Berlin, 1925).

°8 On this, see O. Janowsky, The Jews and Minority Rights (1989-1916) (New York, 1933). Cf. D. Weinberg, Between Tradition and Modernity: Haim Zhitlovski, Simon Dubnow, Ahad Ha’Am and the Shaping of Modern fewish Identity (New York, 1996), 145-216.

Introduction 15 the subject—the Jewish nation in all its social, cultural, and spiritual glory— was the focus of attention, while the environments in which the nation developed and declined were very much of secondary importance. The complexities of intergroup relations and the web of mutual influences which so influenced the rise of minority nationalism in pre-First World War eastern Europe certainly do not seem to have left much mark on his studies of Polish—Lithuanian Jewry. In his History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Dubnow paints a largely dismal picture of early modern Jews cut off from their surroundings and suffering persecution at the hands of most, if not all, of Polish society.°* Though he does dis-

tinguish between the different groups within it, and, like his predecessors, suggests that the monarch was interested in protecting the Jews, who brought him significant income, he adds: ‘The King was powerless, however, to shield the Jews against other unpleasant manifestations of the Polish class regime, such as the extortions of the officials.’’? In describing the nobility, he differentiates between the magnates who were ‘favourably disposed towards the Jews and . . . the petty Shlakhta ... who were looking for places in . . . state service [and] arrayed them-

selves on the side of the burgher class, which had always been hostile to the Jews’.°° However, the magnates, too, were motivated by self-interest: “The protection which this class accorded the Jews . . . was in exact proportion to the services rendered by the Jews as middlemen between them and the peasants. ‘The magnates accordingly were entirely indifferent to the welfare of the rest of Jewry, the toiling masses of the Jewish population.’°’ In a situation where the Jews were under attack

from all levels of Polish society, not only was social and cultural interaction between them largely impossible, the distinctions within that society tended to lose their meaning. Both his Russian cultural orientation®® and his nationalist view of Jewish history meant that Dubnow was considerably less interested in questions involving interactions between Poles and Jews than he was in the place of Polish Jewry in the broad sweep of Jewish history and in the Jewish world of its day. Since geography was of significant importance in his historical conception of ‘moving centres’ in Jewish historical development, his work emphasized the importance of the geo-

graphical and cultural borders which divided one Jewish group from another, though his basic nationalist view enabled him to subordinate these differences to an overarching concept of a unified Jewish experience.°” In this way, his work

°6 Tbid. 77. >” Thid. 69. °4 Dubnow, History of the Fews in Russia and Poland, i. 66—102. °° Thid. 76.

°8 On this, see J. Veidlinger, ‘Simon Dubnow Recontextualized: The Sociological Conception of Jewish History and the Russian Intellectual Legacy’, Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts, 3 (2004), ALI-27.

°9 He described his method of working in the following terms: ‘It is necessary to expound the history of each epoch in each of the various countries and to account for both the outward and the inward life of the people in each, as well as for the interrelations between one and another. The history of the different groups within a given epoch must first deal with its chief hegemonic center, and next with

16 Introduction allowed for a significant broadening of approach to the history of the Jews in Poland in its Jewish much more than its Polish context. The borders that really interested Dubnow, then, were those which separated Jew from Jew rather than

those which separated the Jews from their non-Jewish neighbours. | Simon Dubnow’s contemporary Sergey Bershadsky had a different view. Bershadsky saw Jews as much more integral to non-Jewish society. His view was shaped by sources he used and published. Bershadsky combed through numerous archives for materials concerning Jews. In court records he found Jews not separated from their non-Jewish neighbours but interacting, often in friendly manner.© Though Bershadsky’s source collections were enormously influential, and used by generations of scholars, his conclusions concerning the nature of the boundaries between Jews and non-Jews in Lithuania were largely ignored by contemporaries and the following few generations of scholarship. It was Dubnow’s work that proved much more influential for the development of Polish Jewish historical research. Even his younger contemporaries, such as Meir Balaban and Yitzhak Schiper, who had started their academic careers before Dubnow achieved his pre-eminent status, were clearly influenced by him.°! Of the two, Schiper shared Dubnow’s breadth of vision, composing economic histories of the Jews in the medieval and early modern worlds. Unlike Dubnow, he received a university training in the field of law at the University of Vienna—he was awarded the title of doctor ituris in 1907. Armed with the linguistic and diplomatic skills he had acquired in Vienna, he then embarked on a number of studies whose goal was to elucidate the causes and consequences of Jewish economic life in the Middle

Ages, with a particular focus on eastern Europe. This ambitious programme forced him to examine developments in western Europe and the Mediterranean basin in the west and south, extending to the Khazar kingdom in the east, giving his work a very broad geographical scope. Schiper’s research on economic issues was extremely important not just because it opened up the study of one of the fundamental realms of life for Polish Jewry other countries, in the order of their importance for the history of the people as a whole.’ Dubnow, History of the Jews, i. 37. Cf. R. M. Seltzer, ‘Simon Dubnow and the Nationalist Interpretation of Jewish History’, in M. Rischin (ed.), The fews of North America (Detroit, 1987), 144-52. 60S. A. Bershadsky, Litovskie evrei: Istoriya ikh yuridicheskogo i obshchestvennogo polozheniya v Litve ot Vitovta do Lyublinskoi uni, 1353—1569 g. (St Petersburg, 1883); Russko-evreiskiu arkhiv: Dokumenty 1

regesty k istoru ltovskikh evreev, ed. S. A. Bershadsky, 3 vols. (St Petersburg, 1882-1903); S. A. Bershadsky, Avraam Iozofovich Rebichkovich, podskarbu zemsku, chlen rady Velikogo knyazhestva

Litovskogo: Otryvok 1z istorii vnutrennikh otnosheni Litvy v nachale XVI veka (Kiev, 1888); id., Litovsku statut 1 pol’skie konstitutsi: [storiko-yuridicheskoe issledovanie (St Petersburg, 1893).

°! For Balaban’s appreciation of Dubnow, see M. Balaban, Szymon Dubnow z powodu jego stedemdziesigtych urodzin (Warsaw, 1931).

62 For an analysis of Schiper’s writing on Jewish economic history, see J. Litman, The Economic Role of the Jew in Medieval Poland: The Contribution of Yitzhak Schipper (Lanham, Md., 1984). For some

appreciations of Schiper and his work and Hebrew translations of a number of his works, see S. Eidelberg (ed.), Yitshak shiper: ketavim nivharim vedivrei ha’arakhah (New York, 1967).

Introduction 17 (and, of course, not only for them), but also because it exposed a major arena of interaction both among Jews and between Jews and non-Jews. The reasons for this became clear in his first major study, the Beginnings of Capitalism among the Fews of Western Europe in the Early Middle Ages, written in open reaction to the claims of

early twentieth-century scholarship that the economic structure of Jewish life was determined by the Jews’ cultural—or even racial—characteristics: The Jew’s special propensity to acquire money has often been explained by means of the abstract nature of his thought. We, who believe that ways of thought are influenced and determined by the external conditions of life, cannot possibly be satisfied with such an explanation, but must analyse the Jews’ worship of money against the background of the historical developments which brought it into being.®*

He reserved special criticism for those scholars who examined Jewish economic activity, ‘but almost completely ignored its economic significance’, and those ‘who publish superficial data [on Jewish credit activities], without devoting any attention to the cultural conditions of the early Middle Ages which drove the Jews into this profession and even permitted them to prosper from it’.®4 Like Dubnow, Schiper sought expressions of Jewish national life in Jewish social—and particularly economic—activity: They [the great men of Jewish historiography to date] have given us a splendid picture of the spiritual leaders of Diaspora Jewry. We are, however, left completely in the dark about the history of the hundreds of thousands whose claim to recognition does not rest on the riches of the spirit but on their toil and labor. We know the Sabbath Jew with his holiday spirit, but it is now high time to become acquainted with the weekday Jew and the weekday ideas, and cast a beacon of light on Jewish labor.®°

While Dubnow’s focus on the institutions of autonomy allowed him to view Jewish society as in, but not of, early modern Poland—Lithuania, Schiper’s study of eco-

nomic activity forced him to examine day-to-day interactions between Jews and , their neighbours. Whether due to Dubnow’s influence, his own Zionism, or the worsening situation of the Jews in an increasingly nationalist Poland, the apologetic tone of previ-

ous generations was not strong in Schiper’s writing. In the introduction to his study on Jewish economic activity in the Middle Ages, he attacked Schorr’s study

of Jewish autonomy: “The author [Schorr] develops L. Gumplowicz’s entirely mistaken concept that the Jews of Poland somehow became (differently from in the West) “an integral part, a part of the nation like the nobility, the burghers” etc.’©° Schiper seems to have seen the Jew as an independent actor on the Polish °° T. Schiper, Anfange des Kapitalismus bei den abendlandischen Fuden im friiheren Mittelalter (bis zum

| shiper, 138. 64 Tbid. 71, 72 Ausgang des XII, Fahrhunderts) (Vienna, 1906). The translation here follows Eidelberg (ed.), Yitshak °° The translation here follows Litman, The Economic Role, 247. 66 Y. Shiper, Di virtshafisgeshikhte fun di yidn in poiln besn mitlalter (Warsaw, 1926), 13.

18 Introduction economic stage, one faced by—and successful in overcoming—significant obstacles put in his way by different groups in non-Jewish society.° On the other hand, in his 1937 monograph on the history of Jewish trade in Poland, Schiper also attacked the famous economic historian and Endek supporter Roman Rybarski for portraying the Jews as a negative force in the early modern Polish economy.®® Herein lies his own apologetic: for him, the Jews’ integration in Poland was not social but economic. Their contribution to Poland’s develop-

: ment was economic in nature and of great historical importance. Once it was understood and appreciated, the way would be open to neutralize those forces which hindered the Jewish worker in his task, and the path to the Polish Jews’ attainment of equal rights and equal economic opportunities would be much smoother.®°°

This is not to say that Schiper understood Jewish life solely in material terms— he devoted considerable attention to issues of Jewish culture. He was particularly interested in the development of Jewish theatre, which he understood, in a nationalist spirit, as the expression of the Jewish collective consciousness. Interestingly,

| though, in the introduction to his History of Jewish Theatrical Art and Drama from the Earliest Time until 1750, he demonstrated a comparative approach: ‘Our research ... has made clearer .. . the connection of Jewish drama and theatre with the culture of the peoples among whom the Jews happen to live and to create. Our research has, therefore, in many aspects developed into a comparative-historical

study.’’° The full significance of this methodological innovation would not be picked up until many years after his death.”’ Nonetheless, it is in the realm of Jewish economic history that Schiper made his

most lasting impression. Despite his somewhat uncritical (and often downright idiosyncratic) reading of the sources, his monumental study of Jewish trade in Polish lands remains a classic study of both Polish Jewish history and Jewish economic history.” His basic view that it was the economic conditions of life which determined both Jewish economic activity and the Jews’ interactions with their surroundings has proved extremely influential. Moreover, his analysis of the economic background to the attitudes of the various groups in Polish society (including the Church) towards the Jews has been very widely accepted by later 67 As far as Schiper was concerned, these forces could sometimes include the king and the magnates, who were generally regarded as the Jews’ main protectors. See I. Schiper, Dzzeje handlu

zydowskiego na ziemiach polskich (Warsaw, 1937), 221-31. 68 Ibid. 57-8. 69 Litman, The Economic Role, 243. For a broader view, see N. Aleksiun, ‘Stosunki polskozydowskie w pismiennictwie historykow zydowskich w Polsce w latach trzydziestych XX wieku’, Studia fudaica, 9/1 (2006), 47-67. % Y. Shiper, Geshikhte fun yiddisher teater-kunst un drama, i (Warsaw, 1927), 11.

"1 Yitzhak Schiper died in Majdanek in the summer of 1943. For an account of his last days, see M. Strigler, ‘Im doktor yitshak shiper bamaydanek’, in Eidelberg (ed.), Yitshak shiper, 65—8.

2 Above, n. 67.

Introduction 19 generations of scholars of Polish Jewish history.’ His economic perspective thus allowed him to present a highly complex picture of the place of Polish Jews in their relations with the non-Jewish world—relations, he suggested, which should also be examined in the context of the development of Jewish culture. Schiper’s more prominent contemporary, Meir Balaban, took a rather more conservative approach. ’* Throughout his academic career, Balaban remained fascinated by the Jewish community, a topic to which he devoted a huge amount of research.’° He also published the extremely important and rare constitution of the Krakow community drawn up in 1595.’° He understood community history in a complex way that combined Schorr’s monographic approach to writing the history of the Jewish society in a particular town with Dubnow’s emphasis on the community council as the representative body which administered Jewish life there. His choice of Poland’s leading communities as topics for monographs—Lwow, Lublin, and particularly Krakow—meant that though the studies themselves were limited to a single location, they did stand in a certain way as histories of Polish Jewry in

general.’ In terms of his view of Polish Jewish history, Balaban attempted to dissociate himself from the views of the assimilationist scholars who had preceded him. He argued: it is not the task of a Jewish historian to integrate the past of the Jews who live in this coun-

try into the general history of Poland and the majority of its people. He ought rather to integrate Jewish history in Poland into the complex of Jewish history throughout the world .. . We must look at the Jews’ development in connection with Poland’s evolution . . . However, in doing so, time and again we will encounter phenomena which cannot be explained by Polish history alone . . . We will therefore always look at what is beyond the borders of the Polish state. ”®

These were brave words, but ones which Balaban did not generally live up to in practice. His research, on the whole, focused quite narrowly on Polish Jewry in its Polish context. Paradoxically, however, this dissonance gave Balaban’s writing— “3 Schiper’s insistence that it was economic factors which shaped Polish Jewry has continued to resonate in historical research on Polish Jewry even in recent years, when Jewish historical research in general has posited the predominance of culture and religion in determining the contours of Jewish life. See below.

4 On Balaban, see J. M. Biderman, Mayer Bataban: Historian of Polish Jewry (New York, 1976); J. Goldberg, ‘Majer Balaban: Der fuihrende Historiker der polnischen Juden’, Judaica, 51 (1995), 3-17; Dold, ‘ “A Matter of National and Civic Honour” ’. See Biderman, Mayer Bataban, 87-156. 7 M. Balaban, ‘Die Krakauer Judengemeindeordnung von 1595 und ihre Nachtrage’, Jahrbuch der Jidisch-Laterarischen Gesellschaft in Frankfurt a.M., 10 (1913), 315-17, 323-4, 331-3.

7 M. Balaban, Zydzi Iwowscy na przetomie X VI-go i XVII-go wieku (Lwow, 1906); id., Die Judenstadt von Lublin (Berlin, 1919); id., Historja Zydow w Krakowie 1 na Kazimierzu (1304-1868), 2 vols. (Krakow, 1931-6). *8 Quoted from Dold, ‘ “A Matter of National and Civic Honour” ’, 55-6.

20 Introduction particularly in his great two-volume history of the Jews in Krakow—added depth:

he seemed to be examining the universal aspects of Jewish history through his detailed treatment of a single community in its local context. Balaban’s approach to writing the history of Polish Jews was regarded in its day

as quite unsophisticated. Schiper accused him of simply collecting facts together. ’? Certainly, the frameworks within which he wrote—and particularly the community monograph—were not methodologically sophisticated. Nor was his view of the Jews’ isolated place in urban society: ‘The Jewish element was distinct

and self-contained. It had its aims and aspirations, its institutions, authorities, courts, synagogues, and schools, its seyms and diets .. . its streets and . . . its ritual and its own law recognized by the Rzeczpospolita; its clothing, customs, guilds and brotherhoods, but above all its own original language.’°° In the nature of things, he also devoted a very great deal of attention in his research to the Jews’ political and

legal struggle for survival in the face of the hostility of the non-Jewish towns-

people. Nonetheless, he was capable of important insights. One such was concerned with the structure of the Jews’ communal autonomy, which Balaban demonstrated was closely based on that of the towns in which they lived, clearly a sign of some kind of influence.*! And yet, he did not explore the contradiction between this insight and his view of the Jewish community as living in isolation from its non-Jewish neighbours. Even more than Schiper, Balaban followed Schorr’s lead in integrating sources of both Jewish and Polish provenance in his research.®? This enabled him to devote

significant attention to questions of the Jews’ religious and cultural life in the Commonwealth. While he tended to focus on the activities, lifestyle, and religious

customs of the social elite, his descriptions included the position and role of women, Jewish dress, and the nature and furnishing of the Jews’ apartments in the early modern period.®’ In some respects, though not marked by a sophisticated methodological approach, Bataban’s writing here actually pre-dates the flowering of European social historical research usually attributed to the Annales school in France.®* Nonetheless, true to his historical vision, he does not ask to what extent this Jewish lived culture might have been similar to that of their neighbours, the non-Jewish burghers. 79 Litman, The Economic Role, 232-3. The critique was of Balaban’s popular book Dzieje Zydéw w Galicyi iw Rzeczypospolite; krakowskie;, 1772-1868 (Lwow, 1916).

8° Quoted from Dold, ‘“A Matter of National and Civic Honour” ’, 58. See also Aleksiun, ‘Stosunkr’,

62. 81 Balaban, Historja Zydom, i. 328-35. 82 See Goldberg, ‘Majer Balaban’, 3-17. °3 Balaban, Zydzi lwowscy, 508—51; 1d., Historja Zydow, 1. 418-46. The chapter in the Lwow book was written in the first years of the 2oth c.—a generation or more before the French school developed.

°4 On the Annales school, see P. Burke, The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School, 1929-1989 (Cambridge, 1990). The Polish equivalent of the French journal, Annales d’histoire economique et sociale, whose first issue was published in 1929, was called Roczniki Dztejow Spotecznych

1 Gospodarczych, and began publication in 1931.

Introduction 21 It was only with the publication of his Hebrew study of the Frankist movement in Poland in 1934 that Balaban really succeeded in giving expression to his concept of a national Jewish history. This 1s a study of epic scope and broad range, dealing with the seventeenth-century Sabbatian roots of Frankism, examining eighteenthcentury messianism in both its European and its Ottoman contexts, and viewing the Frankist movement in both religious and social terms.®° The heart of the study is its analysis of relations between the Catholic Church and the Jews, and it was, as Balaban stated in the introduction, first inspired by the renewal of the blood libel in east-central Europe at the end of the nineteenth century.°° Still, Balaban did not content himself with presenting Christian—Jewish relations in terms just of conflict, but examined the ‘diplomatic’ contacts between the Jewish representatives and Poland’s political and religious leadership on the question of how to deal with Frank. In addition, he clearly viewed Frank and his followers as Jewish sectarians until their conversion, which he characterized as a complete break with Judaism and Jewish society. Thus, without abandoning his view of the fundamental separation between Jewish and non-Jewish society, his study of Frank allowed Balaban to examine some of the nuances of that relationship. He insisted on it having a relicious, rather than an economic basis, while at the same time examining not only the conflict between the religions but also the different ways in which Jewish society negotiated on religious matters with their Christian neighbours.®/ Thus, despite a certain lack of methodological innovation, Balaban succeeded in portraying many different aspects of Polish Jewish society. In his view, the boundaries between Jewish and non-Jewish society were largely impermeable, separating the one from the other. Nonetheless, he did identify forms of influence and areas of negotiation between the two. His research is sensitive both to different groups within Polish Jewish society (he was among the first Polish Jewish historians seriously to examine women’s history, even if briefly) as well as the place of Polish Jews in the wider Jewish world. ‘Taken together, then, Balaban’s work can provide a relatively sophisticated and multifaceted picture of the boundaries he understood as defining early modern Polish Jewry. Owing to the rather short period in which they were able to work, the genera-

tion of historians that reached maturity in the inter-war years was not able to develop these trends as fully as they might have.®° In studies produced by, among

others, Emanuel Ringelblum, Raphael Mahler, Dov (Bernard) Weinryb, Isaac Lewin, and Israel Klausner, Jewish society in pre-modern Poland emerged in rich,

86 Tbid. 1-2. 87 Tbid. 192—208. 85M. Balaban, Letoledot hatenuah hafrankit (Tel Aviv, 1934).

88 For overviews of the Polish Jewish historiography of the inter-war period, see P. Friedman,

‘Polish Jewish Historiography between the Two Wars (1918—1939)’, Jewish Social Studies, 11 (1949),

373-408; A. Eisenbach, ‘Jewish Historiography in Interwar Poland’, in Y. Gutman et al. (eds.), The Jews of Poland between Two World Wars (Hanover, NH, 1989), 453-93; Aleksiun, ‘Stosunki’. Cf. also Dold, ‘ “A Matter of National and Civic Honour” ’.

22 Introduction variegated colours. These scholars succeeded in mapping out in a much more detailed way than their predecessors the structure and shape of Polish Jewish society itself. On the other hand, the interplay between Polish and Jewish society and culture was portrayed in a rather more monochrome fashion, with great emphasis _ laid on inter-group hostility, while the question of Polish Jewry’s place in the wider Jewish world was barely explored.®° In a number of ways, these scholars continued trends already laid down before

them. The materialist approach championed by Schiper gained a great deal of - popularity, with the importance of economic factors in determining the fate of the

Jews almost unquestioned. Nonetheless, the socialist (and in Mahler’s case, Marxist) outlook of many of these historians encouraged them to examine the social and cultural stratification within Jewish society. This was particularly prominent in studies on the eighteenth century, which was a period when tensions were rife between the social elite and other groups within Jewish communities—a phenomenon which easily lent itself to an interpretation based on class.”° In his introduction to his study on the Jews of Warsaw during the Kosciuszko uprising, Ringelblum emphasized: ‘[Previous| scholars also committed a basic error in that they employed the general concept “Jews” at a time when Jewish society was already differentiated and divided into groups with different types of economic interests and a different level of consciousness etc.’?! His next sentence reads almost like a demand: ‘It is striking that the general concept “Jews” serves exactly those historians who see in eighteenth-century Polish society a clear division into estates and social groups (e.g. the urban estate into wealthy, middling, and poor burghers), each reacting differently to the issue of the uprising.’®* Study the Jews as you would study the rest of society is the call here, and seems to be a sign that Ringelblum viewed the Jews as an integral part of that society, despite all the hostility towards them. Beyond Ringelblum’s groundbreaking work, Raphael Mahler’s demographic studies based on his reading of the materials from the 1764-5 census of Polish Jewry allowed him to present some aspects of the social and economic stratification of eighteenth-century Polish Jewry.’? A great deal more emphasis was put on examining the situation of the poorer groups within Jewish society, such as crafts89 Two studies approaching this issue published in these years are I. Halperin, ‘Va’ad arba aratzot un zeine batsiungen mit oysland’, YIVO hustorishe shrifin, 2 (1937), 63-79; D. Weinryb, ‘Yehudei polin valita veyahaseihem lebreslav bame’ot 16-19 (mishar, hityashvut vetarbut)’, in id., Mehkarim batoledot hakalkalah vehevrah shel yehudet polin (Jerusalem, 1939), 65—89. °° It is perhaps worth speculating that the very stormy nature of the inter-war period both in relations within Polish Jewish society and between Jews and non-Jews attracted many scholars to this period.

“1 FE. Ringelblum, Zydzi w powstaniu kosciuszkowskiem (Warsaw, 1938), 6. 92 Ibid. “3 R. Mahler, ‘Statistik fun yidn in der lubliner voyevodstvo’, Yunger Historiker, 2 (1929), 67—108;

id., ‘Di yidishe befelkerung oyfn shetah fun der lodzher voyevodshaft in yor 1764’, Lodzher visen-

shaftliche shrifin, t (1938), 32-54. Mahler published a full study of the materials only after the Holocaust: R. Mahler, Yidn in amoltkn poyln in hkht fun tsifern (Warsaw, 1958).

Introduction 23 men and labourers.*4 Israel Klausner’s study of Jewish Vilna in the eighteenth cen-

tury revealed the huge tensions that this pronounced social stratification caused within Jewish society.?? When combined with earlier research on the social and economic elites, like that of Balaban, a wonderfully detailed portrait of the social stratification of the Jewish population began to emerge. Paralleling Polish national historiography, which blamed the magnates for the

collapse of the Polish state at the end of the eighteenth century, in terms of Polish—Jewish relations the period of the eighteenth century was characterized as one of decline and general pauperization, for which the nobility—and particularly the magnates—was also held at fault. When the animus of the non-Jewish townspeople and the Catholic clergy was also taken into account, the situation of Polish

Jewry in the eighteenth century was portrayed as extremely grim, a situation which meant that their social and cultural contacts with surrounding society were extremely limited.?° A great deal of attention continued to be paid to community history, though

alongside community monographs, more specialized studies began to be produced, such as Weinryb’s research on Jewish community budgets.?’ Most studies continued to view Jewish society as separate and largely cut off from its neighbours, though there were signs that a more sophisticated approach was in the offing. In his study of Warsaw Jewry during the Middle Ages, Ringelblum wrote: recent studies of the inner life of the Jews have been dispelling the widely held myth of a

Chinese wall that separated the Jewish community from the Christian community. Research on the history of Warsaw Jews shows us that each world penetrated the other .. . from Christians, Jews borrowed fashions, clothing, family names, first names, habits and customs .. . By the same token Jewish culture and especially popular culture developed under the strong influence of the Christian world.%® 94 See e.g. M. Kremer, ‘Leheker hamalakhah vehevrot ba’alei hamalakhah etsel yehudei polin bame’ot ha-16-ha-18’, Tsiyon, 2 (1937), 294-325; P. Kramerowna, ‘Zydowskie cechy rzemiesInicze w dawnej Polsce’, Miesiecznik Zydowski, 2 (1932), 259-98; B. Mandelsberg, ‘Lubliner yidishe hantverker

un di shtat-tsekhn in der ershter helft fun XVII yorhundert’, Yunger historiker, 2 (1929), 54-66; D. Weinryb, ‘Al yahasan shel hakehilot bapolin leva’alei malakhah velapo’alim’, Yedtot ha’arkhiyon vehamuzeon shel tenuat ha’avodah, 3—4 (1938), 9-22.

95 Y. Klausner, Vilna bitkufat hagaon: hamilhamah haruhanit vehahevratit bekehilat vilna bitkufat hagra (Jerusalem, 1942). °6 See E. Ringelblum, Projekty i préby przewarstwowienia Zydéw w epoce stanistawomskiej (Warsaw, 1934). Ringelblum notes that it was only the narrow socio-economic elite that maintained cultural contacts with its non-Jewish surroundings. See Ringelblum, Zydzi w powstaniu kosciuszkowskiem, 18-25.

°7 ‘Two of the most comprehensive such monographs to be published by this generation of scholars are Y. Klausner, Toledot hakehilah ha’torit bevilna (Vilna, 1935), and D. Wurm, Z dziejow éydostwa brodzkiego za czasow dawne Rzeczypospolites Polskie; (do r. 1772) (Brody, 1935). °8 FE. Ringelblum, Zydzi wm Warszawie od czaséw najdawniejszych do ostatniego wygnania w r. 1527

(Warsaw, 1932), 129. The translation follows S. Kassow, ‘Polish—Jewish Relations in the Writings of Emanuel Ringelblum’, in J. Zimmerman (ed.), Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust

and in its Aftermath (New Brunswick, NJ, 2003), 144. On Ringelblum see also S. Kassow, Who Will Write our History? Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto (Bloomington, 2007).

24 Introduction Judging from most of the historiography produced in this period, Ringelblum’s vision remained largely unfulfilled, but his comments are a sign that a more inteerative approach to the study of Jewish culture was becoming conceivable. An interesting example of this may be seen in Isaac Lewin’s study of the use of the herem in early modern Lithuania.°? Taking as its (unstated) starting point the

fact that the Jews formed an integral part of Polish—Lithuanian society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this monograph treats the Jewish ban, whose roots stretch back to the Talmudic period, as one of the institutions of Polish public law.1°° The sources used for the study include not only Jewish legal compendia (such as the Shulhan arukh) and rulings by the Jewish councils, communities, and rabbis of early modern Lithuania, but also orders and privileges granted by the monarch, who made use of the herem as an administrative tool when

dealing with Jewish society. The herem is here analysed using categories drawn from Polish legal history and compared in various ways with the institution of excommunication used by the Catholic Church in the same time and place. Thus, though the topic of research is an ‘internal’ Jewish legal institution, it is treated in both its Jewish and its Lithuanian context as an integral part of public life in the Grand Duchy in the early modern period.'?! Despite the influence of Zionism—and particularly Labour Zionism—on the life and works of Polish Jewry’s leading young historians in the 1930s, a broad nationalist approach is largely lacking in their scholarship.‘ Very little attention is paid either to the place of Polish Jewry in the larger world or to the importance of cultural influences from Jewish communities outside Poland. Instead, early modern Polish Jews are generally presented as a rather isolated national group within a broader—and very hostile—Polish society. Whether or not this narrowing of interest would have continued in future years remains an academic question, since the onslaught of the Holocaust led to the destruction of most Polish Jewish scholarship together with Polish Jewry itself. As a result, the ways in which Polish Jewish history was perceived were transformed in the most fundamental fashion. Despite this, from the perspective of the twenty-first century, various lines of continuity to post-Holocaust developments can begin to be traced.'°° The first is clearly the historical writing of those scholars who survived the catastrophe. Prominent among these was Raphael Mahler, who spent the war years

in the United States before settling in Israel, where he became Professor of History at Tel Aviv University. Immediately after the war, he published a Hebrew

10° Tbid. 10-17. 101 Tbid. 35-53. 99 J. Lewin, Klatwa zydowska na Litwie w XVITi XVIII wieku (Lwow, 1932).

102 On the group as a whole, see R. Mahler, ‘Hug hahistoriyonim hatse’irim bevarsha’, in B. Mandelsberg-Shildkroit, Mehkarim letoledot yehudei lublin (Tel Aviv, 1965), 29-38.

103 For brief surveys of Polish Jewish historiography after the Holocaust, see G. Hundert, ‘Polish Jewish History’, Modern Judaism, 10 (1990), 259-70; M. Rosman, ‘Historiografiah shel yahadut polin:

1945-1995’, in I. Bartal and I. Gutman (eds.), Kiyum vashever: yehudet polin ledorotethem, 1 (Jerusalem, 2001), 697-724.

Introduction 25 history of the Jews in Old Poland.‘ Based on his pre-war research, and especially his readings of the 1764—5 census (which he later published in a separate study), !°° he gave free rein to his Marxist view of history, interpreting his sources with an eye to historical materialism. He identified elements of class struggle both between Jews and Poles, as well as within Jewish society. Though this form of historical interpretation is today deeply unfashionable, it undoubtedly sensitized Mahler to the socio-economic aspects of early modern Polish Jewish history and allowed him to present a highly articulated picture of Jewish society in its internal relations as well as its interactions with Polish society. On the other hand, his basic world view was one of conflict, which meant that he treated the social and cultural borders he identified simply as barriers between groups. The stranglehold of communism (and, for a time, Stalinism) meant that historical research in Poland too was dominated by Marxist theory imposed by the state. Understandably, in the aftermath of the war, much of the work of historians who had survived focused on documenting the atrocities of the Nazi genocide, paralleling the efforts by the Polish government to commemorate and document the Nazi crimes. In addition, little or no official encouragement was given to Jewish historical research, which meant that only a few intrepid scholars published studies in the field, which were often veiled in the discourse of class struggle. The earliest works focused mostly on the role Jews played in the economy of Poland and their relations with those in power—the king and the nobles. Yet, even though attention was mostly on economic topics, some of the scholars made a concerted effort to move beyond the model of national history narrative and to present Jews as an integral part of society in Poland—Lithuania./°°

Another scholar of Polish Jewish history who had left Poland before the Holocaust was Israel Halperin. Immediately after the war, he published the enormously important and influential compendium of sources relating to the Council of Four Lands, Pinkas va’ad arba ha’aratsot.'°’ In the succeeding two decades or so, he wrote a series of studies on various aspects of early modern Polish Jewish history, including the history of Jewish autonomy, Jewish publishing, and the fate 104 R. Mahler, Toledot hayehudim befolin (ad hame’ah ha-19): kalkalah, hevrah, matsav mishpati

(Merhavia, 1946). 105 See above, n. 93. 106 e.g, J. Goldberg, ‘Rolnictwo wsrod Zydow w ziemi wiclunskiej w drugie} polowie XVIII wieku’, Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego (hereafter BZIH), 27 (1958); id., ‘Ludnos¢ zydowska w Lutomiersku w drugiej polowie X VIII wieku 1 jej walka z feudalnym uciskiem’, BZ/H, 15 (1955). See also e.g. J. Morgensztern, ‘Der onteil fun yidn in wirtshaftlechn lebn fun krashnik in krashniker giter biz der helft fun 17 yorhundert’, Bleter far geshichte, 15 (1962-3), 3-48. Morgensztern also published

sources and abstracts of sources; see e.g. J. Morgensztern, “The Inventory of the Property of the Zamosc Merchant Lejba Jozefowicz (1675), BZ/H, 70 (1969), 51-72; id., ‘Abstracts of Documents

from the Royal Registry and Sigillata for the History of Jews in Poland (1660-1668), BZIH, 67 (1968), 67—108; id., ‘Abstracts of Documents from the Royal Registry and Sigillata for the History of Jews in Poland (1669—1696)’, BZ/H, 69 (1969), 71-109. 107 Pinkas va’ad arba aratsot [Acta Congressus Generalis Judaeorum Regni Poloniae] (1580-1764), ed. I. Halperin (Jerusalem, 1945).

26 Introduction of Jewish refugees in central and eastern Europe in the seventeenth century.!°® His work combines a mastery of Jewish, particularly rabbinic, sources with the ability to integrate those Polish sources to which he had access in the difficult years of the 1950s and 1960s. Thus, though his studies tend to focus closely on their Jewish subjects to the detriment of their surroundings, the integral use of Polish sources clearly sites the phenomena under discussion in their Polish context. The Hebrew University, where Halperin researched and taught, became, during the late 1950s, a highly important centre for research on the Jews in the Polish— Lithuanian Commonwealth with the studies of four scholars, who would all become among the most prominent historians of their generation: Shmuel Ettinger, Haim Hillel Ben Sasson, Chone Shmeruk, and Jacob Katz. Shmuel Ettinger wrote his doctorate on the Jews in Ukraine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with particular reference to the period of colonization following the Union of Lublin in 156g. It was published in article form in the mid-fifties.‘°? In masterful fashion, he established the parameters of Jewish settlement and demographic development, as well as their deep penetration of the economy. In the sections dealing with the Jews’ legal and social status, he moved away from the paradigm of relations laid down by Dubnow and followed by future generations, but was influenced more by the neglected study of Bershadsky.''? Though he did point to cases of conflict, he wrote: _ ‘the majority of the nobles were, in general, careful not to harm the Jews . . . In that, there was no great distinction between the secular and the ecclesiastical nobility; all this also applied to the Catholic clergy.’''' He went on to state: ‘Co-operation

between the burghers and the Jews, intended essentially for defence, existed in other areas as well.’''* Perhaps because he felt that the forms of interaction he described were destroyed in the onslaught of the 1648 Khmelnytsky uprising, Ettinger’s study was not influential in changing the perceptions of Polish—Jewish relations. The same can be said of another of the major studies produced in these years in Jerusalem. Haim Hillel Ben Sasson produced a study of the social thought of the

Polish Jewish elite in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.‘'*? Ben Sasson’s knowledge of Polish allowed him to make a little use of comparative material from contemporary Polish literature, but the book is on the whole a close

study of rabbinic literature. Of more interest here is Ben Sasson’s attempt to 108 T, Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah (Jerusalem, 1968).

109 'S. Ettinger, ‘Ma’amadam hamishpati vehahevrati shel yehudei ukra’inah bame’ot ha-15-17’, Tstyon, 20 (1955), 125-52; id., “Helkam shel hayehudim bekolonizatsiyah shel ukra’inah (1569— 1648)’, Tszyon, 21 (1956), 107-42. The first article was published in an English version in 1992 as S. Ettinger, ‘The Legal and Social Status of the Jews of Ukraine from the Fifteenth Century to the Cossack Uprising of 1648’, Journal of Ukrainian Studies, 17/1~2 (1992). 110 Ettinger, ‘Ma’amadam’, 125 11 Tbid. 168. He goes on, however, to describe clerical conflicts with the Jews over the building of

new synagogues. 412 Ettinger, ‘Ma’amadam’, 170; id., ‘Legal and Social Status’, 127. 118 H. H. Ben-Sasson, Hagut vehanhagah (Jerusalem, 1959).

Introduction 27 discern socio-economic tensions within Jewish society. Though he viewed them through the prism of an elite literature and generally analysed them in anachronistic class categories, Ben Sasson extended the pre-war interest in eighteenthcentury socio-economic tensions to an earlier period.

Another scholar working in Jerusalem, Chone Shmeruk, who would later become Professor of Yiddish at the Hebrew University, began his career with a study of the hasidic movement, in which he tied its early development to economic

tensions within the Jewish community. The first part of the study examined the question of hasidic slaughter of meat, not just as a spiritual but as an economic

question.'+ By examining the importance of income from kosher slaughter in community budgets, Shmeruk was able to show that hasidism’s insistence on carrying out its own slaughter played an important role in its development as a social movement. Though Ben-Zion Dinur had attempted a class-based interpretation of the rise of hasidism a few years previously, Shmeruk’s economic perspective was seen as revolutionary. The second part of the study, published years later, returned to this perspective in no less revolutionary fashion, showing how the hasidic leadership won popularity with the masses by solving questions of economic competition between poor Jewish arendarze.*!? In this short piece of research, Shmeruk presented the stereotypical view of the Polish nobility as decadent and hostile to the Jews that was prevalent in pre-war literature. This reflected his view that in pre-modern times there was little or no cultural contact between Poles and Jews: ‘For centuries Jews lived in Poland as an isolated cultural-religious entity . . .’.''® In later years, Shmeruk produced a major study on the development of Yiddish literature in pre-1648 Poland, including a full bibliography.**’ By far the most influential piece of research on early modern Polish Jewry in the decades following the Holocaust was Jacob Katz’s book Tradition and Crisis: Fewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages.‘** Influenced by trends in pre-war German

scholarship as much as by a Dubnowian conception, Katz termed his study sociological, by which he meant that he intended to study social institutions. However, - in order to achieve this goal, he felt he had to present an abstract picture of them,

synthesized from numerous examples—a Weberian ideal type.’'? Katz railed 114 Ch. Shmeruk, ‘Mashma’utah hahevratit shel hashehhitah hahasidit’, Tszyon, 20 (1955), 47—72."4 Td., ‘Hasidut ve’iskei hahakhirot’, 7siyon, 35 (1970), 182-92. For Dinur’s article, see above, n. 48. 116 Ch. Shmeruk, The Esterke Story in Yiddish and Polish Literature (Jerusalem, 1985), 46. 117 Td., ‘Kavim lidemutah shel sifrut yidish befolin uvelita ad gezerot tah vetat’, Tarbits, 46 (1977), 258-314. 118 YY. Katz, Masoret umashber: hahevrah hayehudit bamotsa’et yemet habeinayim (Jerusalem, 1959). For the English edition of Masoret umashber, see J. Katz, Tradition and Crisis: fewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages, trans. B. D. Cooperman (New York, 1993).

119 J. Katz, ‘The Concept of Social History and its Possible Use in Jewish Historical Research’, Scripta Hierosolymitana, 3 (1956), 292-312, repr. in id., Emancipation and Assimilation: Studies in Modern Fewish History (London, 1972), 173-93. On the impact of Jacob Katz on Jewish studies, see B. Cooperman, ‘Afterword: Tradition and Crisis and the Study of Early Modern Jewish History’, in Katz, Tradition and Crisis, 237-53.

28 Introduction against the community monograph so popular in the pre-war period: “The history of a single community can be written through a description of the single event, the history of the community . . . as an institution . . . must be written through a general abstraction.’!“° The specific details of any community’s life were unnecessary for Katz, who was looking for the grand outline. This approach led Katz to ignore almost all the borders that defined early modern Polish Jewry: in chronological terms, he argued that no significant changes occurred in the development of Jewish society and culture from the period of the Talmud until the end of the eighteenth century. In geographical terms, he posited a single region, which he termed ‘Ashkenaz’, by which he meant the Yiddishspeaking area covering all the regions of Alsace, Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, Lithuania, and western Hungary. As far as he was concerned,

this formed a single socio-cultural unit, in which the differences between the Jewish societies in the various regions were not significant. In social terms, he argued that the ideals of Jewish tradition united Jewish society much more than socio-economic differences divided it. Finally, he argued that the boundaries between Jewish and non-Jewish society kept the Jews effectively isolated from their neighbours, thus negating any need to study the Jews’ surroundings in order to understand their history.'*! In this fashion, Katz was able to bring the social institutions of Jewish society into very sharp focus. Building on his earlier research, he even included the family in his analysis, giving the book added depth. His detailed descriptions and analyses, as well as his use of sociological terminology, gave the book such great appeal that it became a standard textbook for generations of students of Jewish history. The price for this was the blurring of all the geographical, social, and cultural

boundaries which defined Polish Jewry (and all the other Jewish groups in Yiddish-speaking Europe). In many ways, then, this was a retrograde step in which the results of nearly a century of research into the history of early modern Jewry in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth were set aside.'*?

Despite the popularity of Katz’s book there, his position was not always embraced in the United States. Starting in the late 1950s a team of scholars specializing in Yiddish language and culture began to prepare what would eventually be published as the The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry.'*® By means of the most detailed geographical analysis of both linguistic features in spoken Yiddish and cultural phenomena of pre-Holocaust Ashkenazi Jewish

120 Katz, Masoret umashber, 13. 121 Tbid. 11-18. 122 ‘Though there was a certain degree of critique of the book on its publication, criticism of it (and other aspects of Katz’s work) has developed since his death in 1998. See J. M. Harris (ed.), The Pride of facob: Essays on Jacob Katz and his Work (Cambridge, Mass., 2002); Y. Bartal and Sh. Feiner (eds.), Historiografiah bamivhan: iyun mehadash bemishnato shel ya’akov kats (Jerusalem, 2008). 123 U. Weinreich, M. Herzog, and V. Baviskar (eds.), The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazac

Jewry, 3 vols. (Tiibingen, 1992-2000).

Introduction 29 society, the team succeeded in developing a series of maps, demonstrating not only

the linguistic and cultural borders between, for example, Polish and German Jewry, but also the internal, regional geography of east European Jewry. Though the source material came largely from the twentieth century, the results of the research had many implications for understanding the development of Jewish culture in the early modern period. The research pointed neither to an 1solation of Jewish culture nor to a close correlation between developments in Slavonic and Jewish cultures. It did, however, suggest forcefully that there is a need to add a regional element to our understanding of Polish Jewish culture. *** | Two other American Jewish scholars, both born in Poland before the Holocaust, wrote full-length studies of early modern Polish Jewry in the 1970s. Salo Baron devoted a volume (XVI) of his massive Social and Religious History of the Jews to the issue, and Bernard (Dov) Weinryb wrote a textbook of medieval and early modern

Polish Jewish history.'*° Both studies were marked by a move away from the Dubnowian and Katzian nationalist views of Jewish society as isolated from its surroundings, pointing out the many social and economic connections between Jews

and Poles, particularly in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Neither book laid very great emphasis on the development of Jewish autonomy in this period, with Weinryb not devoting even a chapter to the issue of the Jewish regional councils and the Council of Four Lands. On the other hand, Weinryb developed a concept of Polish Jews as highly rooted in their local environment, downplaying

their emotional connections with the Land of Israel. He also polemicized with Gershom Scholem over his claims that the messianic, Sabbatian movement was a significant force connecting all parts of the Jewish world in the seventeenth century, holding that ‘the preserved Jewish and non-Jewish documents give the impression of [Polish Jewry as] a stable, galut-oriented Jewish community .. . the bulk of Polish Jewry was scarcely involved in the messianism of those years, and Polish Jews were not active in the whole movement’.!“° Here, the move away from the nationalist conceptions of Jewish history seems to have allowed Weinryb to understand better the social and cultural specifics of Polish Jewry. The Polish Jewish historian Maurycy Horn, though working largely in isolation from these developments in the West, exploited his possibilities for intensive use of archival material to write a series of studies which also sought to place Jews within the broader social and political context of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The best example is perhaps his major study on Jewish settlement in Red Rus before 1648, in which he situated the development of Jewish society there as part 124 For a short summary of some of the relevant conclusions, see M. Herzog, “The Yiddish Language in Poland: Some Maps and Historical Inferences’, in J. Micgiel, R. Scott, and H. B. Segel (eds.), Conference on Poles and Jews: Myth and Reality in the Historical Context (1983: Columbia University ) (New York, 1986), 142-60. 1225S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, xvi (Philadelphia, 1976); B. Weinryb, The Jews of Poland: A Social and Economic History of the Jewish Community in Poland from 1100 to 1500

(Philadelphia, 1973). 126 Weinryb, The Jews of Poland, 231.

30 Introduction of Poland’s economic and political expansion eastwards.'*" Horn’s work furthered

our understanding about Jewish guilds and their relationship with Christian cuilds, demonstrating how they developed and functioned in Polish cities.*° Beyond this, his monograph on the Jews’ participation in defence of towns during wars served to break down an old stereotype according to which pre-modern Jews neither served in the army nor held weapons.'*? This and other studies by Horn elucidates the Jews’ deep participation in all aspects of urban life. His articles presented Jews as purveyors, craftsmen, and physicians 1n royal courts, forming part of a larger body that also included the Christian workforce.'°° Towards the end of his life, Horn published a number of articles in which he highlighted the dependence of the Polish Jewish leadership elites on royal power, further underlining his view that the borders between Jewish and non-Jewish society were as much regions of negotiation as they were barriers.'?"

Such were also the conclusions of two other scholars, both born in pre-war Poland, but later working in different countries. Mordechai Nadav in Israel returned to the pre-war genre of community monograph to write a monumental 227 M. Horn, Zydzi na Rusi Czerwonej w XVI i pierwszej potowie XVII w. (Warsaw, 1975); cf. also id., ‘Najstarszy rejestr osiedli zydowskich w Polsce z 1507 r.’, BZIH, 91 (1974). 128 M. Horn, Zydowskie bractwa rzemieslnicze na ziemiach polskich, bialoruskich i ukrainskich w latach 1613-1850 (Warsaw, 1998). 129M. Horn, Powinnosci wojenne Zydéw w Rzeczypospolitej w XVI i XVII wieku (Warsaw, 1978).

180 M. Horn, ‘Ustugi chrzescijanskich i zydowskich rzemieslInikéw i przedsiebiorcow na rzecz dworu krélewskiego w Polsce i na Litwie za ostatnich Jagiellonow (1506-1572), cz. 1: Literatura 1 zrodla. Rzemiosta spozyweze, wlokiennicze, skérzane, drzewne, budowlane i metalowe’, BZ/H, 154 (1990); id., ‘Ustugi chrzescijanskich i zydowskich rzemieSInikow 1 przedsiebiorcow na rzecz dworu krélewskiego w Polsce i na Litwie za ostatnich Jagiellonow (1506-1572), cz. ii’, BZTH, 158 (1991); id., ‘Udzial Zydow w kontaktach dyplomatycznych i handlowych Polski i Litwy z zagranica w XV-XVII

w. (ze szczegélnym uwzglednieniem roli serwitor6w i faktorOw krolewskich 1 wielkoksiazecych)’, BZIH, 155 (1990); id., ‘Dostawcy dworow krélewskich w Polsce i na Litwie za ostatnich Jagiellonéw,

1506-1572 (ze szczegdlnym uwzglednieniem dostawcéw zydowskich), BZIH, 150 (1989); id., ‘Medycy nadworni wladcow polsko-litewskich w latach 1506-1572 (ze szczegolnym uwzglednieniem lekarzy i chirurgow zydowskich)’, BZIH, 149 (1989); id., ‘Zydzi i mieszczanie w stuzbie celnej Zygmunta Starego i Zygmunta Augusta’, BZIH, 141 (1987); id., ‘Zydzi i mieszczanie na sluzbie kréléw polskich i wielkich ksiazat litewskich w latach 1386-1506, cz. ii: Zupnicy, zarzadcy mennic, dostawcy, rzemiesinicy 1 lekarze dworscy. Udzial w podrozach dyplomatycznych’, BZIH, 137 (1986); id., ‘Chrzescijanscy i zydowscy wierzyciele i bankierzy Zygmunta Starego i Zygmunta Augusta’, BZIH, 139 (1986); id., ‘Zydzi i mieszczanie na stuzbie krolow polskich i wielkich ksiqzat litewskich w

latach 1386-1506, cz. i: Uwagi wstepne. Bankierzy i celnicy’, BZ/H, 135 (1985); id., ‘Powstanie i rozw6j serwitoratu za Jagiellonéw’, ibid.; id., ‘Dzialalnosé gospodarcza Zyd6éw polskich w Sredniowieczu na tle rozwoju osadnictwa’, BZIH, 126 (1983).

181 M. Horn, ‘Jewish Jurisdiction’s Dependence on Royal Power in Poland and Lithuania up to 1548’, Acta Poloniae Historica, 76 (1997); id., ‘Ewolucja zaleznosci zydowskiego sadownictwa od wladzy monarszej w Polsce i na Litwie do 1572 roku’, BZIH, 175 (1995). For a more modern and sophisticated approach to this question, see Jiirgen Heyde, ‘Jiidische Eliten in Polen zu Beginn der frithen Neuzeit’, Aschkenas, 13 (2003), 117-65.

Introduction 31 history of his home town, Pinsk.'’* Amassing an impressive range of (largely published) sources, his work clearly demonstrates what might be termed the ‘mechanics’ of Jewish existence in this royal town, examining not only Jewish communal life but Jewish—Christian relations in all their forms. Nadav did not even shy away

from showing how the Jews managed to overcome the burghers’ opposition to penetrate urban life very deeply in the wake of the mid-seventeenth-century wars, portraying the Jews as a more efficient urban group, better able to reconstruct their life following the destruction.'*? In Poland, Anatol Leszczynski, following Horn (and a general trend in post-war Polish historiography), wrote a regional study of the Jews in the Bielsk region.'°* Such studies became a very widespread genre in

the historiography of Polish Jews written in Poland, allowing the authors to broaden the focus from an individual community to a complete region, taking a further step towards understanding the Jewish geography of Poland—Lithuania. This study (and others like it) is heavily based on unpublished Polish archival sources and is marked by a descriptive approach focusing quite closely on the Jews’ economic life. Though there is little analysis of the Jews’ place in broader society, the sources themselves often provide important insights into the forms of interaction. One of the important conclusions of Leszczynski’s study was to show that the eighteenth century was not simply a period of decline and pauperization for the Jews—it demonstrated wide-ranging Jewish economic activity at all levels.

The re-emergence of interest in Jewish history in Poland from the late 1970s on was initially deeply concerned with mapping out the picture of Jewish settlement

in the early modern Commonwealth. The demographer Zenon Guldon wrote a whole series of studies, first analysing the major sources for early modern Jewish demography in Poland, then offering his conclusions for various regions and per1ods.'°° Though his sources are not generally of a nature to allow him to draw firm demographic conclusions, Guldon contributed greatly to the growing picture of Jewish regional development. He also began to devote attention to the Jews’ place in society, first (with his student Waldemar Kowalski) by looking at them alongside

another ethnic minority group, the Scots, showing how both survived largely 132 MI. Nadav, Pinsk: sefer edut veztkaron lekehilat pinsk-karlin, 1: Kerekh histori (Tel Aviv, 1973). The

book was recently published in English: M. Nadav, M. Mirsky, and M. Rosman, The Jews of Pinsk, 1506 to 1880 (Stanford, 2008). 183 Td., ‘Kehilat pinsk bitekufah shemigezeirot tah-tat ad shalom andrushov (1648-1667)’, 7szyon,

31 (1966), 153-06. . 134 A. Leszczynski, Zydzi ziemt bielskiej od polowy XVII m. do 1795 r. (Wroclaw, 1980).

189 7, Guldon and N. Krikun, ‘Przyczynek do krytyki spisow ludnosci zydowskiej z konca XVIII wieku’, Studia Zrodloznawcze, Commentationes, 23 (1978); Z. Guldon, ‘Zrodia 1 metody szacunkow liczebnosci ludnosci zydowskiej w Polsce w X VI-XVIII wieku’, Kwartalnik Historu Kultury Materialney, 2 (1986); Z. Guldon and K. Krzystanek, Ludnos¢é zydowska w miastach lewobrzezne) czesct wojemodziwa sandomierskiego w XVI-X VIII wieku (Kielce, 1990). For a similar study, see J. Muszynska, Zydzi w miastach wojewodztwa sandomierskiego 1 lubelskiego w XVIII wieku (Kielce, 1998).

32 Introduction through carving out their own economic niche.'*° He then, together with another student, Jacek Wijaczka, examined an example of a phenomenon unique to the

Jews among the groups that made up Poland’s population—the accusation of the blood libel.!8” Taken together, then, his studies hint at the complexities of the geographical, ethnic, and religious boundaries which defined Jewish life in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth. One of the most complete portrayals of these complexities was given by Jacob

Goldberg, by then at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in his 1974 article ‘Poles and Jews in the 17th and 18th Centuries: Rejection or Acceptance?’!?* This was the first systematic attempt to survey the Jews’ relations with all the different groups which made up Polish society. Goldberg later argued: the history of these relations transcends the range of dichotomic stances, both negative and positive, which became apparent on both sides. One cannot rest satisfied with a presentation of the hostile or friendly attitudes towards the Jews expressed by representatives of the various estates of Polish society, but must search for other characteristic stands maintained by groups and individuals.!°?

This study opened the way to a more or less systematic questioning of the conclusions of previous generations concerning the Jews’ interactions with other groups, starting with the nobility. Following Goldberg, research particularly began to challenge the notion of the nobles as oppressors of the Jews, which had been popularized by twentieth-century Yiddish literature and given academic grounding in the inter-war period. Goldberg also revealed the complexities of Jewish—burgher relations with his publication of nearly 150 community privileges and analysis of their contents, in which he showed the array of forces at work determining the Jews’ status in the towns, demonstrating clearly that in order to understand these relations, it is crucial also to understand the role of the nobility.‘4° His other research, grounded mostly in sources of the eighteenth century, has raised questions about the Jews’ legal status in rural areas within the noble domains: for example in his article ‘Between Freedom and Bondage: Forms of Feudal Dependency of the Jews in 136 Z, Guldon and W. Kowalski, Zydzi i Szkoci w Polsce w XVI-XVII wieku: Studia i materiaty (Kielce, 1990). Despite its promising title, the book does not deal much with comparative studies of these two groups. 187 7. Guldon and J. Wijaczka, Procesy 0 mordy rytualne w Polsce wm XVI-X VIII wieku (Kielce, 1995).

‘88 J. Goldberg, ‘Poles and Jews in the 17th and 18th Centuries: Rejection or Acceptance?’, Jahrbicher fur Geschichte Osteuropas, 22/2 (1974), 248-82. For a greatly expanded Hebrew version of this article, see above, n. 16. 189 J. Goldberg, ‘On the Study of Polish-Jewish History (1993)’, in A. Teller (ed.), Studies in the History of the fews in Old Poland in Honor of Jacob Goldberg, Scripta Hierosolymitana 38 (Jerusalem, 1998), 10. 40° Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth: Charters of Rights Granted to Jewish Communities in

Poland—Lithuania in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, ed. J. Goldberg, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1985-2001).

Introduction 33 Poland in the 16th—18th Centuries’, and following that in a series of studies on Jewish arendarze and tavern-keepers, explaining the range of economic interests that tied Jews and nobles.'*' He also examined the bodies of Jewish autonomy, such as the communities and the Council of Four Lands (Va’ad Arba Aratsot), showing how they functioned not as expressions of Jewish separatism, nor just as Jewish parallels to non-Jewish bodies, but actually as an integral part of the administrative system of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth. '*”

Goldberg’s world view is summarized in a succinct but poignant sentence he included in his 1993 speech accepting an honorary doctorate from the University of Warsaw: “There is no history of Poland without the history of the Jews, and no history of the Jews without the history of Poland.’'*° In this formulation, the border between Jews and Poles is what connects them in the most fundamental way. In order to get to the heart of this connection, Goldberg became one of the first historians of the Jews in Poland to begin to explore seriously the topic of Jewish conversions to Christianity in early modern Poland. Before him, this topic had been ignored, used for antisemitic propaganda, or treated with overt disapproval for the converts by Jewish historians.'** He grasped that by examining those who actually crossed from Judaism to Christianity, the nature of the border between the two would become clearer. Later, other scholars, including two contributors to this volume, have added to existing research on this topic, showing where, how, and to what degree the boundary between Christianity and Judaism might have been negotiated in the early modern period, as well as the significance of this for both Jews and Poles.'*° Many of Goldberg’s insights inspired the new generation of historians that was emerging in the United States, chiefly in New York. The results of their research

have dramatically changed the direction of scholarly research in the field of early modern Polish Jewish history, which has seen what might almost be termed a renaissance since the 198os. In 1978, Gershon D. Hundert completed his groundbreaking Ph.D. dissertation,

‘Security and Dependence: Perspectives on Seventeenth-Century Polish-Jewish Society Gained through a Study of Jewish Merchants in Little Poland’, which, as ‘41 J. Goldberg, ‘Bein hofesh lenetinut: sugei hatelut hafeudalit shel yehudei befolin’, in Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress of Fewish Studies (Jerusalem, 1969), ii. 107-13; English abstract, 214. 142 His articles on these topics are collected in J. Goldberg, Hahevrah hayehudit bamamlekhet polin-

lita (Jerusalem, 1999); see also his article on p. 142. 148 Goldberg, ‘On the Study’, 9. 144 Id., Hamumarim bemamlekhet polin-lita (Jerusalem, 1985); id., ‘Konwersja i mariaz’, Kwartalnik

istoryczny, 91/1 (1984); id., “Die getauften Juden in Polen-Litauen im 16.-18. Jahrhundert: Taufe, soziale Umschichtung und Integration’, fahrbiicher fiir Geschichte Osteuropas, 30/1 (1982); 1id., ‘Zydowscy konwertyci w spoleczenstwie staropolskim’, in A. Izydorczyk and A. Wyczanski (eds.), Spoteczenstwo staropolskie: Studia 1 szkice, iv (Warsaw, 1986).

49 See the works by Magda Teter and Adam Kazmierczyk. See also E. Fram, ‘Perception and Reception of Repentant Apostates in Medieval Ashkenaz and Premodern Poland’, AZS Review, 21/2 (1996).

34 Introduction the title suggested, questioned the commonly accepted view that Jewish life in eastern Europe was marked by severe persecution and alienation. In this dissertation, as well as in articles that followed, Hundert challenged the very vocabulary used in discussing Jewish society in early modern Poland, which had, since the inter-war years, been heavily grounded in modern nationalist discourse. He argued: There is a considerable doubt that the term ‘minority group’ aptly describes the situation of the Jews in the Polish Commonwealth. The term generally applies only in the modern nation state where there is, presumptively, a homogenous citizenry. In premodern times society was characterized by a multiplicity of loyalties and memberships; there was no majority. Local patriotism was the order of the day and there was little sense of the belonging to a nation-state. 14°

Hundert’s work complicated the simplistic view of Jews as an ‘isolated minority’. Though it had long been recognized that the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth

had had a multi-ethnic and multicultural character, he was the first scholar to explore the full significance of this for the study of Jewish history: Urban ethnic heterogeneity was one of the striking features of the Polish Commonwealth.

In addition to Germans, whose legal traditions shaped the development of the Polish municipality, there were Italians, Bohemians, Dutch, Armenians, Scots, Muscovites, Greeks, French, Hungarians, ‘Tatars, and others. Since most of these groups were concentrated, like the Jews, in the cities, and many of them were substantially involved in commerce, it seems singularly inappropriate to speak of the Jews as a minority at a time when less than one-fifth of the Commonwealth’s population was urban, and less than 40 per cent of the Commonwealth’s population was Polish.!*“

Hundert took the argument further by saying that Jews ‘were neither a minority nor were they middlemen—at the least, they were not the only middlemen’.'*° He

forcefully contested the notion of Jewish segregation from Christian society, demonstrating that both economic and social boundaries were much less distinct and that Jews and Christians lived interspersed together.'* He did this by returning to the by-then traditional genre of the community monograph, but, in rather subversive fashion, used it to stress how much Jews were part of the broader society in which they lived. He went so far as to call one of the chapters of his book on Jews in Opatow, provocatively, ‘Jews and Other Poles’, a controversial notion that challenged the very heart of nationalist terminology.'°° ‘46 G. Hundert, ‘An Advantage to Peculiarity? The Case of the Polish Commonwealth’, AFS Review, 6 (1981), 24. For an attempt to analyse the Jews’ place in the multi-ethnic population in the city of Lviv, see H. Petersen, Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde in Polen: Lemberg, 1356-1581

(Wiesbaden, 2003). 147 Hundert, ‘An Advantage to Peculiarity?’, 25. 148° Thid. 49 Thid. 34-5. See also G. Hundert, ‘Poland: Paradisus Fudaeorum’, fournal of Jewish Studies, 48/2 (1997); id., ‘Jews, Money and Society in Seventeenth-Century Polish Commonwealth: The Case of Cracow’, fewish Social Studies, 43/3-4 (1981); id., ‘On the Jewish Community of Poland during the Seventeenth Century: Some Comparative Perspectives’, Revue des études juives, 142/3—4 (1983). 189 G. Hundert, The Jews in a Polish Private Town: The Case of Opatém in the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore, 1992).

Introduction 35 Another serious challenge to the commonly held views of Jewish life in premodern Poland came from Moshe Rosman. In 1982 he defended a Ph.D. disserta-

tion, “The Polish Magnates and the Jews: Jews in the Sieniawski-Czartoryski Territories, 1686-1731’, which became the highly influential book The Lords’ Jews: Magnate—femish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Eighteenth Century.'°! Rosman’s work moved Jews from, as he writes, ‘a secondary (and unsavory) role’ to that of a ‘protagonist’,!°? demonstrating that Jews were not just marginal ‘catalysts’ but active players in the magnate Jatifundia. Rosman suc-

cessfully shattered the perception dominant in scholarship and popular literature that Jews were ‘subject to the capriciousness and arbitrariness of their noble lords and resulted in terrible suffering for individual Jews’.1°? He was able to do so by moving away from polemical works, literature, proverbs, and prescriptive sources, such as Polish and rabbinic legal works, and by heavily grounding his writing in archival research. But 7he Lords’ Jews did more than make Jews protagonists of the story. In demonstrating how crucial they were for the nobles’ economy, it also revealed how complex the mutua/ relationship between Jews and the magnates was,

and how influential it was on Jewish life beyond commerce. The book demonstrated how limited the hitherto frequently emphasized Jewish autonomy was and how it was shaped by the direct interference of the lords. More importantly, the book demonstrated that there is no separation between Jewish and Polish histories:

they are one, intrinsically connected and interwoven. It also made evident to historians of Poland that, contrary to the view prevalent in Polish historiography, the nobles were deeply involved in the business affairs of their estates and were also careful managers of their possessions.'°* Polish scholarship also began to take an interest in relations between the nobility and the Jews. A young scholar from Krakow, Adam Kazmierczyk, examined the noble legislation on Jewish issues issued by the sejms and sejmiki in the second half of the seventeenth century.'°? (Simultaneously, the same problematic was dealt with by an Israeli contemporary of Kazmierczyk’s, Judith Kalik.‘°° This was perhaps a sign that connections between Israeli and Polish—as well as between Jewish and non-Jewish—scholarship on the history of Polish Jewry were beginning to

151 Rosman, The Lords’ Jews. 52 Tbid., p. x. 153 Tbid., p. xi. 194 Such a view was heavily influenced by the need to explain the collapse of the Polish—Lithuanian

Commonwealth at the end of the 18th c. The Polish partitions, perhaps compared only to the impact of the French Revolution on the study of pre-revolutionary France, had a tremendous influence on the way the history of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth was written; historians tended to look for someone to blame, and the ‘excessive’ lifestyle of some magnates and the abuse of /iberum veto became symbols of what was wrong with pre-partition Poland. Moshe Rosman’s groundbreaking study received mixed reaction among more traditional Polish historians; see a review of his work by J. Tazbir, ‘Latyfundia rajem dla Zydow?’, in Nowe Ksiqzki, 8 (2005). 155 A Kazmierczyk, Sejmy i sejmiki wobec Zydéw w drugie) polowie XVII wieku (Warsaw, 1994). 196 YY, Kalik, Ha’atsulah hapolanit vehayehudim bamamlekhet polin-lita beret hatehikah bat hazman (Jerusalem, 1997).

36 Introduction develop.) Kazmierczyk followed up his study on the noble legislation with a full-

length monograph on the Jews’ judicial systems on the magnate estates of Poland—Lithuania.'°’ By examining the forms of litigation in cases between Jews and non-Jews, he highlighted the ways in which the Jews (and their courts) were integrated into the legal system which functioned on the magnate estates. Once again, though the distinction between Jews and non-Jews remained clear, the possibilities of negotiating the border and resolving conflicts equitably (in contemporary terms, at least) were equally great.

The discovery of the intricate interpenetration of the magnates and Jewish affairs within their domains led to subsequent historiographic challenges, notably by Moshe Rosman himself to the history of hasidism, and also by a younger colleague, Adam Teller. ‘The study of hasidism, especially its early history, had been dominated by the efforts to extract information from the legend surrounding the life of hasidism’s founder, Israel Ba’al Shem ‘Tov, the Besht. Archival sources discovered during Moshe Rosman’s research provided new information and allowed him to reconstruct the context in which the Ba’al Shem Tov lived and so to challenge common notions of his role and place within the community. Contrary to the view espoused by scholars before Rosman that the Ba’al Shem Tov was a rebel against the Jewish communal establishment, Rosman discovered that he was very much part of the community and its establishment. The Besht, in Rosman’s study, became ‘a man who fit in with the institutions, doctrines, and practices of his time, helped to perpetuate them, yet also developed them’.1°> Rosman also demonstrated the importance of the town of Miedzyborz at the time as a commercial centre, challenging the hasidic hagiography that placed most weight on the role of the Besht and hasidism in the development of the town itself. Rosman’s second book, like his first, once more integrated Jewish history ‘in a much more meaningful way with other vectors in the history of the Commonwealth’.!°° In so doing, it significantly changed the way Jewish cultural formations, such as hasidism, would be examined. They now had to be studied in both their Jewish and their

Polish context, since the boundaries between the two seemed increasingly porous. '°° Adam Teller’s work on the Jews on the Radziwill estates further contributed to our understanding of Jewish life in private domains and to the level of integration of the Jews into a broader society in Poland—Lithuania. He showed that the use of the Jews as economic agents was a crucial (and conscious) part of magnate estate administration, arguing that the success of this ‘Jewish policy’ was one of the fac157A Kazmierczyk, Zydzi w dobrach prywatnych w swietle sadownicze) i administracyjne) praktyki débr magnackich w wiekach XVI-X VIII (Krakow, 2002). 18 M. Rosman, Founder of Hasidism: A Quest for the Historical Ba’al Shem Tov (Berkeley, 1996), 187. 199 Tbid. 4. Cf. Rapoport-Albert, ‘Hasidism after 1772’. 160 For an example of a study on hasidism influenced by this approach, see G. Dynner, Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish fewish Soctety (New York, 2006).

Introduction 37 tors in the magnates’ rise to power in the eighteenth century.'°! Teller’s research also explored the question of Jewish communal autonomy raised in the work of Goldberg and Rosman, expanding it in new ways. Traditionally rabbinic culture and the structure and functions of the Jewish community have been studied from predominantly, if not solely, Jewish sources. Much like his immediate predecessors, Teller expanded his source base to non-Jewish documents.'®* This enabled him to show the high dependence of Jewish religious and communal institutions, including the rabbinate, on non-Jewish authorities, and the role these authorities had in creating and shaping the ostensibly autonomous Jewish institutions—a line of inquiry that has been increasingly prominent in Jewish historiography beyond eastern Europe.!©? Teller pursued this line in a later study on the social and organizational aspects

of the development of hasidism, showing to what extent it was the eighteenthcentury Polish environment in which it grew which crucially shaped its future development. He concluded further: ‘since . . . Hasidism adopted organizational and administrative patterns from the surrounding society, it was . . . despite its isolationist self-image, a movement which led to the development of a series of social and cultural phenomena which were common to both Jewish and nonJewish society in Eastern Europe’.'©* This formulation suggests the need to return to the comparative studies of Jewish and non-Jewish social and cultural institutions suggested by Schiper and Balaban in the inter-war years. Though the ravages of the Holocaust and post-war Jewish life in Poland meant that, after the 1960s, there were few scholars there able to study Polish Jewish cul-

ture in its original languages, this situation is now beginning to change. Anna Michatowska of the University of Warsaw has studied Jewish communal organiza-

tion in early modern Poland on the basis of both Hebrew and Polish archival 161 A. Teller, “Tafkidam hakalkali uma‘amadam hahevrati shel yehudim be’ahuzot beit radziwil belita bame’ah 18’ (Ph.D. thesis, Hebrew University, 1997); id., Kesef, koah vehashpa’ah: hayehudim be’ahuzot beit radziwil belita ba’me’ah ha-18 (Jerusalem, 2006).

62 A. Teller, ‘Laicyzacja wczesnonowozytnego spoleczenstwa zydowskiego: Rozw6j rabinatu w

Polsce w XVI wieku’, Kwartalnik Historyczny, 110/3 (2003); id., “The Shtetl as an Arena for Polish—Jewish Integration in the Eighteenth Century’, Polin, 17 (2004); id., ‘The Laicization of Early Modern Jewish Society: The Development of Polish Communal Rabbinate in the Sixteenth Century’,

in M. Graetz (ed.), Schdpferische Momente des europdischen Fudentums in der friihen Neuzeit (Heidelberg, 2000); id., “The Magnates’ Attitude to Jewish Regional Autonomy in the Eighteenth Century’, in id. (ed.), Studies in the History of the Jews in Old Poland (Jerusalem, 1998). '63 Teller, ‘Laicyzacja wcezesnonowozytnego spoleczenstwa zydowskiego’; id., “The Laicization’; id., ‘Judische Gemeinden im polnischen Feudalsystem’, fidischer Almanach, 87 (1998). For two recent

examples of scholarship demonstrating the role of non-Jewish authorities in creating Jewish ‘autonomous’ institutions, see B. D. Cooperman, ‘Ethnicity and Institution Building among Jews in Early Modern Rome’, A¥S Review, 30/1 (2006); S. B. Siegmund, The Medici State and the Ghetto of Florence: The Construction of an Early Modern Jewish Community (Stanford, 2006).

164 A. Teller, ‘Hasidism and the Challenge of Geography: The Polish Background to the Spread of the Hasidic Movement’, A¥S Review, 30/1 (2006), 1-29.

38 Introduction sources, some of which she has published.'®? Krzysztof Pilarczyk of the Jagiellonian University has studied the development of Hebrew printing in Poland, focusing on the publication of the Talmud there./©

Recent scholarship outside Poland has also been asking new questions about Jewish life and rabbinic culture in its rereading of sources traditionally used in

| Jewish historiography—trabbinic responsa. Seeking to understand more than halakhic arguments contained in rabbinic writings, Edward Fram’s groundbreaking dissertation ‘Jewish Law and Social and Economic Realities in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Poland’ and his book, [deals Face Reality, place these halakhic arguments within the broader political, economic, and social context in which they were created. Fram’s work treats rabbinic writings as historical sources

that can only be understood in such a broader framework. It moves beyond the traditional halakhic intertextuality and seeks to understand how the rabbis’ writings were shaped by their lives. Fram’s work is also groundbreaking in that it revised the nostalgic view of ‘traditional’ society as observant, pious, and learned. Instead, he shows that even the much-revered rabbinic works provide a textured

picture of Jewish life in pre-modern Poland. His protagonists are not the pious students of the Torah, persecuted by hateful Christian mobs. Instead they are very human—they interact with Christians, they have affairs, they drink, they are not punctilious in their religious observance. Fram’s book thus revisits the social structure of early modern Polish Jewish society in a challenging way. He shows that far from using its expertise in Jewish law to control Jewish life, the rabbinic elite was

ordinary Jews.'®" ,

| in fact forced to make many of its rulings under pressure from the demands of The connections between elite and popular culture have also been examined in recent studies on the effects of the printing revolution on the Jewish society of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth. Elhanan Reiner has shown how the advent of printing revolutionized the writing and study of halakhah, giving it a highly local, Polish Jewish character, while at the same time breaking down the cultural boundaries of the medieval world by allowing the penetration of Sephardi-Jewish texts 165 A. Michalowska, Miedzy demokracja a oligarchiq: Wladze gmin zydowskich w Poznaniu1 Swarzedzu

(od potowy XVII do konca XVIIT wieku) (Warsaw, 2000). She published the pinkas of the Swarzedz community: Pinkas kahatu swarzedzkiego (1734-1530), ed. A. Michalowska-Mycielska (Warsaw, 2005). 166K. Pilarczyk, Talmud i jego drukarze w pierwszej Rzeczypospolitej: Z dziejow przekazu religijnego w judaizmie (Krakow, 1998); 1d., Leksykon drukarzy ksiag hebrajskich w Polsce z bibhografia polonojudaikow w jezykach gydowskich (XVI-X VIL miek) (Krakow, 2004).

167 FE. Fram, Ideals Face Reality: fewish Law and Life in Poland, 1550-1655 (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1997); See also id., ‘Bein 1096 ve-1648-49—1yun mehadash’, 7siyon, 61/2 (1996); id., ‘Ve’adayin ein bein 1096 le-1648—49’, Tszyon, 62/1 (1997); 1d., ‘Creating a Tale of Martyrdom in Tulczyn, 1648’, in E. Carlebach, J. M. Efron, and D. N. Myers (eds.), Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor

of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (Hanover, NH, 1998); id., “Iwo Cases of Adultery and the Halakhic Decision-Making Process’, AZS Review 26/2 (2002); id., ‘Hagbalat motarot bakehilah hayehudit bekrakuv beshilhei hame’ah ha-16 uvereishit hame’ah ha-17’, Gal-ed, 18 (2002).

Introduction 39 into Ashkenazi culture.‘°® Chava Weissler, by focusing on the rise of vernacular— Yiddish—printing in Poland—Lithuania, was able to write a pioneering study on women’s religious and cultural life in early modern Polish Jewish society.'®? The subjects of her study were the Yiddish tekhines prayers recited by women in their daily lives. Of particular importance was her discovery that many of these prayers were actually written by women and that their content could be drawn from elite rabbinic sources, such as the Zohar (read, presumably, in contemporary Yiddish translations). The popularity of such prayers, largely ignored by both the contemporary rabbinic elite and later generations of historians, suggested to Weissler that the whole structure of early modern Polish Jewish culture was being fundamen-

tally misunderstood in historical research. Certainly there seems little hope of fully understanding Jewish social structure and religious-cultural development if the experiences of at least half the population are not taken into account. Another topic to undergo re-evaluation in recent years is Jewish—Christian relations and, in particular, relations between the Catholic Church and the Jews. Some

studies, such as that of Hanna Wegrzynek, have returned to the question of the blood libel, providing Polish scholars with a detailed examination of this phenomenon in their own language.'’? Others have taken upon themselves the task of contesting the existing historiography that has largely been based on polemical anti-Jewish works and some Church anti-Jewish legislation. In her 1998 dissertation and subsequent articles, Judith Kalik has shown the level of involvement of the Catholic Church in business affairs with Jews, despite the Church’s own legislation seeking to limit contacts and relations between Jews and Christians. Just as the Church frequently had close business ties with Jews, so too, Kalik persuasively

demonstrated, the Church often sided with Jews in cases between Jews and Christians.'’+ Here, the traditional view of the hostility of the Church towards the 168 FE, Reiner, “The Ashkenazi Elite at the Beginning of the Modern Era: Manuscript versus Printed

Book’, Polin, 10 (1997), 85-98; ead., ‘Temurot biyeshivot polin ve’ashkenaz bame’ot ha-16-ha-17 vehavikuah al hapilpul’, in I. Bartal, E. Mendelsohn, and Ch. Turniansky (eds.), Keminhag ashkenaz ufolin: sefer yovel lekhone shmeruk. Kovets mehkarim betarbut yehudit (Jerusalem, 1993), 9—80.

69 Ch. Weissler, Voices of the Matriarchs: Listening to the Prayers of Early Modern Jewish Women (Boston, 1998). Since Weissler’s book, more work has been done on early modern Polish Jewish women’s history. See e.g. M. Rosman, “The History of Early Modern Jewish Women in Poland: An Assessment’, Polin, 18 (2005), 25-56; E. Fram, My Dear Daughter: Rabbi Benjamin Slonik and the Education of Fewish Women in S ixteenth-Century Poland (Cincinnati, 2007).

"7° H. Wegrzynek, ‘Czarna legenda’ Zydow: Procesy 0 rzekome mordy rytualne w dawnes Polsce (Warsaw, 1995). Cf. also Guldon and Wijaczka’s study, above n. 137.

‘TY. Kalik, ‘Church’s Involvement in the Contacts between Jews and Burghers in the Seventeenthand Eighteenth-Century Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth’, Kwartalnik Historii Zydéw, 207 (2003);

Y. Kalik, ‘Patterns of Contact between the Catholic Church and the Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Jewish Debts’, in A. Teller (ed.), Studies in the History of the Jews in Old Poland in Honor

of facob Goldberg (Jerusalem, 1998); id., ‘Hakenesiyah hakatolit vehayehudim bemamlekhet polin-lita bame’ot ha-17—18’ (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 1998); J. Kalik, ‘Jews in Catholic Ecclesiastic Legislation in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth’, Kwartalnik Historit Zydéw, 209 (2004). |

40 Introduction Jews is subverted by showing how economic interests allowed the religious borders between them to be negotiated in different ways. Magda Teter, on the other hand, focused precisely on these religious borders by examining the ideology of the Church concerning Jews and placing it within the broader context of the Church’s other perceived ‘enemies’: ‘heretics and “bad and

disobedient Catholics”’.1’* Teter has argued that the anti-Jewish sentiments expressed in Church legislation and by many Catholic writers, often seen as evidence of the triumph of the Catholic Church during the Counter-Reformation in Poland, was in fact evidence of weakness of the Church and its sense of vulnerabil-

ity in the multi-ethnic and multi-religious state that the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth was.'’? This bold reversal of accepted thinking has shown that the attempt to portray Jewish—Christian relations in black and white terms 1s no longer sufficient. By asking whether the Catholic Church in Poland was strong or weak, Teter is also asking whether the Jews of Poland were powerless before it or not. Moreover, in examining the Church’s sense of vulnerability she is suggesting that we should also re-examine the Jews’ sense of vulnerability. Once this is done, the

border between Christian and Jew seems to become less of a predetermined, religious barrier and more of a contemporary cultural construct; less of a ‘frontier

of separation’ and more of a meeting place (and possibly even a ‘locale of exchange’)—an issue she also discusses in her article in this collection.' Lest we assume that research in this field is linear, it is worth examining two of the most recent studies in the field, which complicate our understanding of the borders that defined pre-modern Polish Jewry—those of Hanna Zaremska and of 172 M. Teter, fews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era (Cambridge, 2006), 3.

173 Tbid. See also M. Teter, ‘Kilka uwag na temat podzial6w’; ead., ‘Jewish Conversions to Catholicism in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Jewish History, 17/3 (2003). See also E. Fram and M. Teter, ‘Apostasy, Fraud, and the Beginning of Hebrew Printing in Cracow’, AZS Review, 30/1 (2006). 174 Other researchers have recently returned to the history of Frankism. Jan Doktor, relying largely

on Polish and German sources, has revisited the question of Frankism and Jewish conversion to Christianity. In his studies he has also tried to elucidate the elements of Jewish messianism which might have led Jews into close contact with Christianity, while remaining part of the Jewish community. See e.g. J. Doktor, Sladami mesjasza-apostaty: Zydowskie ruchy mesyanskiew XVIT1 XVIII wieku a

problem konwersji (Wroclaw, 1998). For a selection of source material from German evangelical mis-

sionaries’ reports in Polish translation, see id... W poszukimaniu zydowskich kryptochrzescyan: Dzienniki ewangelickich misjonarzy z ich wedrowek po Rzeczypospolitey w latach 1730~-1747 (Warsaw,

1999). In his recent doctoral dissertation, Pawel Maciejko has, among other things, challenged the hitherto dominant understanding of Frank’s conversion. Using Polish, German, and Jewish sources, he was able to present a new, more textured picture of Frankism: P. Macieyko, “The Development of

the Frankist Movement in Poland, the Czech Lands, and Germany (1755-1816) (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 2003). See also id., ‘The Literary Character and Doctrine of Jacob Frank’s ‘““The

Words of the Lord”’, Kabbalah, 9 (2003), 175-210; id., ‘Christian Elements in Early Frankist Doctrine’, Gal-ed, 20 (2006), 13-41; id., ‘Baruch Yavan and the Frankist Movement: Intercession in an Age of Upheaval’, Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts, 4 (2005), 333-54.

Introduction AI Gershon Hundert. Zaremska, a medievalist at the Polish Academy of Sciences, wrote a short study on the Jews of medieval east-central Europe.!”° In this study, she abandoned a polonocentric approach to the medieval history of the Jews of the

region, preferring instead to point out their commonalities of experience in the Czech lands, Poland, and Hungary, though she clearly limits this phenomenon

to the Middle Ages: ‘From the end of the Middle Ages . . . a shift occurs in the “centre of gravity” of the Jewish presence in Europe and the directions of its migration. From this time until the mid-nineteenth century, it went mostly eastwards, first and foremost to Poland.’!’° Basing her conclusions on a close read-

ing of both Jewish and non-Jewish sources, Zaremska also critically revisits Ringelblum’s view of Christian—Jewish relations in this period: “The information appearing in the sources about contacts in daily life, friendships, and co-operation between members of both religions [1.e. Christians and Jews] does not change the

fact that in social consciousness the Jew was associated with a threat to Christianity—[a feeling] encouraged by Church propaganda.’!”’

Gershon Hundert returns to the examination of eighteenth-century Polish Jewish history in typically unorthodox fashion in his study Jems in Poland—Lithuanta in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity."® In addition to examining the social and economic relations between Jews and Poles, he also devotes significant ~ attention to the development of the Jews’ culture and religion. In this study, the prewar concept of the eighteenth century as a period of social and economic deterioration, as well as of a serious decline in Polish—Jewish relations, is finally put to rest.

Hundert is at pains to portray all the complexities, economic and social, of Polish—Jewish interaction in the eighteenth century. On the other hand, he seems to return to an essentialist understanding of Polish Jewish culture, arguing that it was marked by a basic and unassailable feeling of superiority over the non-Jewish world: This positive sense of Jewish identity, the central ingredient of the eastern European Jewish mentalité, was tied to the theological idea of chosenness. ... My suggestion is that despite ideological, geographical, economic, political, and even linguistic and cultural change . . . the vast majority of eastern European Jews and their descendants carried this core with them.!”°

In Hundert’s formulation, this was the impenetrable barrier with the rest of the world which allowed Polish Jews to preserve a basic sense of Jewish (not Polish Jewish) identity, which would withstand the social and cultural challenges of modernity. So how do things stand at present? Research is rather dominated by an emphasis

on the importance of Polish—Jewish relations stemming from the following 175 H. Zaremska, Zydzi w sredniowieczne, Europie srodkowej;: W Czechach, Polsce i na Wegrzech

(Poznan, 2005). 176 Tbid. 124—-5. 7 Tid. 178 G. D. Hundert, Jews in Poland—Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity

(Berkeley, 2004). 179 Tbid. 234—5.

42 Introduction conception: “The Jews’ economic activity and many aspects of their social life followed a course laid down by the developing relations between Poles and Jews. Only

a few individual fields of religious and cultural life developed independently, though even they were to some extent determined by Polish—Jewish relations.’!®°°

Those words, spoken fifteen years ago, seem prescient in the face of recent research. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the stress on Polish—Jewish relations,

and the ongoing quest to understand better the porous and negotiable nature of the boundaries—social, religious, and cultural—between Jews and non-Jews has led to other questions being relatively neglected. Though the place of women in Jewish society has now begun to be examined, the social structure of that society and its internal divisions seem to have fallen off the academic agenda. As scholarship has become increasingly sensitive to the importance for Jewish history of appreciating the differences within Polish society, it seems to have become less sensitive to the need to understand the social and economic divisions within Jewish society, which cannot have been any less important in determining the course of its

history. Another important question, rather ignored in the push to understand Polish Jews on the basis of Polish archival sources, is the nature of their connection with Jewish communities elsewhere. Though we largely understand Polish Jews on the basis of documents written in Polish, describing a Polish reality, should we not ask to what extent that reality was shaped by social and cultural forces from outside Poland? Taking that one step forward, perhaps we should also ask to what extent the forms of relations which developed between Poles and Jews were in fact exclusive to Poland. Finally, an important topic which has begun to emerge since the Holocaust is the regional differences within early modern Polish Jewish society. Though the foundations for this important field of research have been laid, it stil] awaits systematic treatment. It was, therefore, three issues—Polish—Jewish relations, Jewish social struc-

tures, and the cultural boundaries of the Jewish world—which the authors of the essays in this volume, devoted to questions of social and cultural borders in the history of the Jews in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth, attempted to face. We start with a classic essay by Meir Balaban, ‘Hugo Grotius and the Blood Libel Trials in Lublin, 1636’. Balaban saw the religious border as a ‘frontier of separation’ between Jews and Christians, underlining his point by bringing in the record

of the 1636 trial of a number of Jews in Lublin on charges of ritual murder. However, in this essay he also complicates the issue by highlighting what we today

might call transnational connections of these local events. The trial in Lublin became part of broader European cultural developments when it was brought to the attention of Hugo Grotius by Count Slupecki from Poland, who had been present at the legal proceedings themselves. His letter provided Grotius with the chance to articulate his thoughts on Christian—Jewish relations and to give vent to 180 Goldberg, ‘On the Study’, ro.

Introduction 43 his ambiguous feelings towards the Jews in general and the blood libel in particular. It also allowed him to express the increasing scepticism among European thinkers

regarding the use of torture during court proceedings.'®' When news of the trial crossed Poland’s western borders, the local outburst of religious hatred of Jews suddenly became an opportunity for religious and cultural discussions in the wide world of European humanism. Before reading this essay, a warning is in order: the trial record Balaban provided is not, as it seems, a direct translation of the court proceedings; it is rather a synopsis and interpretation of the source. In writing the article, Balaban has paraphrased the investigation record, removing the scribal voice.'®* This allowed him to create both the personae in the dialogue (the ‘judge’ and the accused) and the questions asked. In the archival record, the passive voice is used and no literal questions exist. For example, Balaban had the ‘judge’ ask: ‘Did you speak with Joseph about the child and did you promise him anything?’ In the record these are separate ques-

tions ‘Asked if he had talked about the child with Joseph, answered no, never. Asked if he had promised anything to Joseph, answered, no, I had not promised him [anything].’*®° In another example, Balaban’s text records an exchange: ‘Judge: When do you have the afikoman? Baruch: On Pesach, but the matzah is made only of water and flour; not even salt is used.’ The court record states: ‘Asked when they

are given afikoman, answered, that on Pesach [literally, Easter], matzah without salt. In this matzah there is flour and water.’'** Importantly, however, Balaban does

not seem to have edited the epistolary exchange between Grotius and Slupeck1, letting them speak their own language, without paraphrase or even translation. In the original article, the letters appeared in Latin. Three other essays in this volume also underline the connections between Poland and the rest of Europe. Touching upon boundaries as ‘places of exchange’, Elisheva Carlebach’s essay “The Boundaries of Memory: A Central European 181 In Poland, similar scepticism was expressed by Bartlomiej Groicki in his legal manuals, some of which were strongly influenced by Iodocus Dammhouder’s Praxis Rerum Criminalium. On this, see B. Groicki, Porzqadek sadow i spraw miejskich prawa majdeburskiego w Koronie Polskie; (1559; Warsaw,

1953), 193; W. Maisel, ‘Torture in the Practice of the Poznan Criminal Court, 16th—18th Centuries’, in S. Waltos (ed.), Humanitarian Traditions of the Polish Criminal Procedure: On the History of the Torture Abolition and Free Expression in the Polish Criminal Procedure (Warsaw, 1983), 20. See also J. H. Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof: Europe in the Ancien Régime (Chicago, 2006), 3-27.

182 The records of the two trials are in the Lublin State Archives, vol. 140, fos. 394-413” and 418°—422’. They were published in Polish, including the verdict based on the 1636 print that Balaban mentioned, in Guldon and Wyaczka, Procesy 0 mordy rytualne, 102-22. 183° Guldon and Wijaczka, Procesy 0 mordy rytualne, 103. 184 Tbid. 104. See also the passage ‘Fudge: Why was the child murdered? Baruch: I don’t know why, and no Jew, whether big or small, knows why. We Jews do not need Christian blood and we do not kill

any Christian children.’ And compare this with the source: ‘Asked why Jews murdered the child. Answered, I don’t know, no Jew, small or big, knows anything about it, and Jews don’t kill children and

Jews don’t need Christian blood and we don’t need this blood’, ibid., 103. Apart from creating an actual dialogue, Balaban also omitted parts of the testimony.

4A Introduction Chronograph from 1665’ tells us of the importance of Poland within Ashkenazi collective memory. While not forgetting the consciousness of difference between Polish and German (Ashkenazi) Jews, the presence of the ‘memory’ of the massacres of 1648 in Poland suggests that Jews of German lands (the traditional Ashkenaz) connected culturally with Polish Jews and it was the latter who were present in the consciousness of the former. ‘This is a striking, yet subtle, revision of the common understanding of relations between Polish and German Jews, in which it is emphasized that the Polish Jews retained the memory of their connection with the Jews of Ashkenaz, while German Jews slowly dissolved the connection with their Polish past. Here the collective memory flows across the geographic border from east to west, connecting the German and the Polish Jews in an unexpected way. That cultural connection between Jews of Poland with Jews elsewhere 1s also

evident in Moshe Rosman’s essay “The Authority of the Council of Four Lands outside Poland—Lithuania’. In it, Rosman discusses the cultural importance of the Council of Four Lands (Va’ad Arba Aratsot) in the consciousness of a broad section

of early modern Jews, but at the same time notes the limitations of that cultural connection. He argues that the Va’ad had symbolic importance, but that importance did not translate into actual political influence. Outside Poland the Va’ad was known and respected, but its authority effectively stopped at the Polish borders. Adam Teller’s essay “Telling the Difference: Some Comparative Perspectives on the Jews’ Legal Status in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Holy Roman Empire’ continues to underline the tension between connectedness and separation between Polish Jews and Jews in western Europe. His essay dwells on legal categories. Teller looks at the differences in legal status between Jews in Poland and the Holy Roman Empire to explore how these legal differences affected the cultural development of Jews in both areas. Yet, he argues, despite these differences, in the contemporary legal sense Jews were integrated into the legal system in both places, suggesting that the geographical borders were not simply signs of significant difference.

Jacob Goldberg’s essay on “The Role of the Jewish Community in the SocioPolitical Structure of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth’, too, looks at the

relations between political and cultural boundaries. Goldberg does not deny the differences between Jews and non-Jews but he sees the Jewish community as integrated into the socio-economic system of Poland. He sees the development of the early modern Polish—Lithuanian kehilah as a product of local cultural and political conditions. The essay, thus, asserts that the socio-cultural distinctions between Jewish and non-Jewish society traditionally emphasized by historians seeking to present institutions of Jewish self-government as inherently Jewish

were by no means as great as has been thought. |

If the Polish context was crucial for the formation of Jewish institutions of communal governance, Jurgen Heyde’s essay, “The Jewish Economic Elite in Red

Introduction A5 Ruthenia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, tells of the influence of Jewish economic elites on state formation in the Middle Ages in Poland and Red Ruthenia. Heyde also reminds us of another set of boundaries, not only the geographical and cultural, but also the economic. Polish Jewish society had internal borders and boundaries—it was internally stratified along economic and gender lines.

Physical space was no less important, frequently overlapping cultural space. Hanna Zaremska’s essay, ‘Crossing the River: How and Why the Jews of Krakow Settled in Kazimierz at the End of the Fifteenth Century’, revisits the question of the creation of the Jewish district par excellence in Poland—Kazimierz near Krakow. Zaremska places the relocation of Jews to Kazimierz within the context of urban development and royal politics in Krakow. She argues, marshalling both contemporary chronicles and archival sources, that Jews moved not as a result of hostility which led to a royal decree of expulsion from Krakow, as had been argued earlier, but as part of a considered response to issues of broader urban development and the king’s efforts to preserve his authority over Jews. The creation of the walled Jewish town as a separate Jewish district in Kazimierz outside Krakow emerges in this study as a sign of the Jews’ integration into the play of forces shaping Polish society at the end of the Middle Ages. This quintessential Jewish quarter, however, did not leave Jews isolated, or ‘shettoized’.'®° In fact, as Adam Kazmierczyk’s essay, “The Rubinkowski Family: Converts in Kazimierz’, suggests, Jews of Kazimierz had multifaceted relations with their Christian neighbours. The story of the Rubinkowski family and their successful integration into Christian society following their conversion 1s a testimony that the cultural differences, most notably linguistic, between the Jews of Kazimierz and their Christian neighbours may not have been that stark. The remarkable social climb by Hieronim, coupled with his sons’ enrolment in the Krakow Academy, are very suggestive of the fact that even before his conversion he must have had a great deal in common with the non-Jewish burghers. ‘The essay

thus hints at an overlapping of cultures and spaces in the ‘Jewish town’ of Kazimierz. David Frick’s essay, ‘Jews in Public Places: Chapters in the Jewish—Christian

Encounter in Seventeenth-Century Vilna’, examines the overlap of urban space and culture in the context of Vilna. Frick’s essay forces us to recognize the boundaries within urban space, arguing that religious rituals could also be designed to mark urban space. He notes that though Vilna’s inhabitants were clearly defined culturally, they were also integrated into urban space—their geography overlapped. This is a classic study of the ways boundaries can both separate and connect, demarcate and be crossed. Just as religious rituals marked urban and cultural boundaries, so too did relicious law. Magda Teter’s essay, ‘ “here should be no love between us and them”: 185 Balaban and many other Polish historians have often referred to Kazimierz as the ‘ghetto’.

46 Introduction Social Life and the Bounds of Jewish and Canon Law in Early Modern Poland’, explores how religious elites on both sides sought to define and protect religious boundaries between Jews and Christians. Their efforts were aimed at creating ‘frontiers of separation’, but significantly, both sides dealt with them in the same way. Their efforts overlapped and, ironically, reinforced each other’s notions of separation, thus making the borders in paradoxical fashion a place of meeting.’°° If there is one theme common to all these essays, it is that the borders which made up the world of pre-modern Polish and Lithuanian Jews were not uniform. They could, at one and the same time, sharply divide and yet still be negotiated. They were all in some way ambiguous. The Manichaean stability previous generations of scholars portrayed in their historical writing on Polish Jews seems to have given way to a rather unstable complexity of vision. The studies in this volume suggest that by examining the complexities of the Jews’ situation as expressed in the borders and boundaries that defined it, we will come to a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the history and nature not only of Polish Jews, but also of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth and the whole early modern Jewish world as well. Beyond the immediate academic insights it provides, there seems to be something else fundamentally satisfying in this new way of looking at the Polish Jewish past. In examining the ambiguities of the past, we can also recognize the complexities of our own present, with its myriad daily ambiguities—social, cultural, and religious. 186 Tsrael Yuval has, in another context, noted that there was a mutual flow of ideas between Jews and Christians: I. J. Yuval, Shenei goyim bevitnekh: yehudim venotsrim dimuyim hadadiyim (Tel Aviv, 2000), 85; id., 7wo Nations in your Womb: Perceptions of fews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 2006), 70.

Hugo Grotius and the Blood Libel ‘Trials in Lublin, 1636 MEIR BALABAN

I ON THE occasion of the three-hundredth anniversary in 1923 of Hugo Grotius’s famous book De jure belli et pacis, the renowned cultural historian and professor at the Jagiellonian University, Stanislaw Kot, gave a lecture in Poznan on the relationship between Grotius and his Polish students and supporters. In 1926 it was expanded and published in the journal Reformacya w Polsce.* Professor Kot based his work on letters that Grotius wrote to his Polish students, including a Protestant, Jerzy (Georg) von Slupecki. In one of the letters

(Lublin, 19 September 1636), Stupecki asked his master why Jews needed Christian blood and why they slaughtered only boys, but not girls—as was always claimed. Stupecki did not believe in the accuracy of this accusation, claiming that it was more likely invented than proven, especially since no Jew—even when subjected to the most dreadful torture—had ever confessed to such a deed. Stupecki said he knew that Jews were forbidden any use of blood and, furthermore, had no idea what the purpose of such blood might be. He was fortified in his opinion by an event that had taken place recently in Lublin. When during the last blood libel trial

the executioner was about to place a bundle of burning candles on the tortured Jew, the flames suddenly went out. The astonished judges were convinced they were dealing with a sorcerer, but the accused explained that this was a sign of his innocence. The judges did not wish to believe this and had the Jew so severely tortured with glowing iron that he was close to death.? As we can see from Grotius’s answer, Stupecki had already posed a similar question to his master during the course of the trial (on 15 August). Grotius answered This essay has been translated from Majer Balaban, ‘Hugo Grotius und die Ritualmordprozesse in Lublin (1636)’, in Ismar Elbogen, Josef Meisl, and Mark Wischnitzer (eds.), Festschrift zu Simon Dubnows siebzigsten Geburtstag (Berlin, 1930), 87-112. We would like to thank Timothy Rood of Oxford University and Leofranc Holford-Strevens for helping clarify some Latin expressions. The appendices have been translated by Dominic Longo. —Eds. ' S. Kot, ‘Hugo Grotius a Polska w 300-lecia dziela 0 prawie wojny i pokoju’, originally published in

577-614. —MT] 2 See Appendix I.

Reformacya w Polsce, 4 (1926). [Repr. in H. Barycz (ed.), Polska zlotego wieku a Europa (Warsaw, 1987),

48 Meir Balaban both letters together in one letter of 12 December 1636, explaining that he did not believe in the legend of ritual murder, which was recounted more out of hatred of

the Jews than out of conviction. First, the early Christians and later the Waldensians had been charged with similar crimes. The Jews were not totally free of guilt, he believed, since the Talmud commanded them to hate Christians, ample proof of which was offered by the testimony of the elder Church Fathers, as well as more recent writers, who blamed Jews for murdering young boys. However, this could be explained by the belief that boys’ blood is a remedy for leprosy. For that reason, he emphasized, judges had to examine witnesses very carefully, to ensure that torture was not used to force them into giving false testimony, which he said had already led to countless judicial murders. ‘The judges should always keep in mind that it is ‘better to let a criminal go free than to condemn an innocent man’.?

II In order to examine the case that prompted Slupecki to write his letters to Hugo Grotius, Professor Kot had copies made of the records in the State Archives in Lublin which dealt with a blood libel case from 1636 that mentioned the extinguishing of candles during torture. From the twenty-two-page file he took only a few lines, which contained the names of the accused and tortured Jews. A blood libel case from 1636 in Lublin has long been known in the relevant literature from a contemporary publication (1636). The verdict given in it was published on sevyeral occasions by antisemitic writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Zuchowski, Radlinski, Pikulski, etc.).* Research on the trial has been undertaken by Bershadsky,? Dubnow,° and others. I sensed some inconsistencies between Kot’s publication and the materials I am familiar with, both with respect to the names of the accused (in Kot: Pieszak and Lachman; in my opinion: Marcus) and 3 See Appendix II. * Reprinted from the contemporary original in S. Zuchowski, Ogtlos processéw criminalnych na Zydach o rozne excessy, tak&e morderstwo dziect, osobliwie w Sandomierzu r 1698 przeswiadczone, w przeswietnym Trybunale Koronnym przewiedzionych, dla dobra pospolitego wydany . . . roku 1700 [the verdict is on the unnumbered fos. 83'—-86", beginning with quire F. —MT']; reprinted from there in

(I. OJ Kuzmin, Materialy k voprosu ob obvineniyakh evreev w ritual'nykh prestuplentyakh (St Petersburg, 1913), no. 3g. It is interesting that this verdict could not be found in the records of the Crown Tribunal from 1636, which are located in the Main State Archives in Warsaw (vols. 241-5) [now lost—MT)]. M. Bersohn, Dyplomatarjusz dotyczacy Zydow w dawneg Polsce na zrodtach archiwalnych osnuty, 1388-1782 (Warsaw, 1910), no. 364, gives the arenga (opening justification) of this verdict in Polish translation, quoting the Crown Register (Metryka Koronna), vol. 362, fo. 155 as the source.

My detailed examination of this and many other volumes of the Metryka Koronna failed to find it; thus the original record of the verdict has not been found to date and we must regard the contemporary printing in 1636 by Andrzejowczyk in Krakow as its primary source. This book (see L. Finkel, Bibhografia histor; polskies, 1, no. 3743) 1s a very rare specimen of its kind; it was in my library until 1919, but was lost along with several other very rare prints when I moved from Lwow to Warsaw.

> Voskhod (1894), no. 11, pp. 59-63. © Voskhod (1895), nos. 1, pp. 127-35, and 2, pp. 72-4.

Hugo Grotius and Blood Libel Trials 49 regarding the offence. Pieszak and Lachman were charged with murdering a child, and Marcus, a Jewish surgeon, with taking blood from a Carmelite brother, Paulus. Twenty-five years ago, Dubnow expressed his view that these refer not to one, but

to two separate trials; he took the names of two Jews, Bendet and Nahman (Lachman), from a Memorbuch in Poznan.’ A note by Zuchowski confirms explicitly that two trials took place in the same year and the same city.® This finding was not confirmed until I was able to examine the files used by Kot, which were kindly placed at my disposal.? These files are an excerpt from volume 199 [today vol. 140 —MT | of the Acta criminaha maleficorum, et damnatorum ac eorundem confessatorum, seu recognitionum tam libere et spontane factarum, quam etiam v1 tormentorum expressarum, conscripta. Anno Domini 1636, tempore notariatus honorati Alberti Lemickt, judicu advocatialis lublinensis notaru, folio 1-8.*° The main defendants interrogated and tortured were three Jews, two male and one female, as well as the Christian servant of one of them, Joseph Koszut. The Jews were accused of murdering a Christian boy, Mathias, son of the poor butcher woman called Grzeska. They were charged with bleeding him and having the servant Joseph drown him in the river on the night of 10 May (at the start of Pentecost).!+ These names were already mentioned by Bershadsky and Dubnow, but are unconnected with the surgeon’s trial. Nahman (Lachman), son of Joshua Jacob, leased a mill and

was also syndic of the Jewish community in Lublin. His gravestone is in the old Lublin cemetery and on it we can read that he died a martyr’s death on 16 Av (17 August) 1636.'* As regards the second defendant, the records show that he was TY. Perles, Geschichte der Juden in Posen (Breslau, 1865), 34 n. 8 S. Zuchowski, Proces criminalny 0 niewinne dziecte ferzego Krasnowskiego, juz to trzecte, roku 1710, okrutme od Zydow zamordowane, dla okrycia jawnych kryminalow zydowskich, dla przykladu sprawiedliwego potomnym wiekom ... 7. 1713 do druku podane (n.d.; it was definitely printed after 1720, since it

contains a reprint of a synodal resolution from that year), 151-3, no. 149. ” Prof. Kot informed me that he received this copy thanks to Prof. Stanislaw Ptaszycki, then director of the archive in Lublin. ‘0 For the inventory of this State Archive, see J. Riabinin, Archiwum Panstwowe w Lublinie (Warsaw, 1926); ibid. 86: [V 1. Acta maleficorum, vols. 189-201 (four volumes only). See also Riabinin, Materjaly do monografji Lublina (Lublin, 1928), sec. 16, p. 21. For brief notes on this trial, see M. Balaban, Die Judenstadt von Lublin (Berlin, 1919), 43, 105. [The volume numbers have changed since then. For a

current inventory of the Lublin State Archive, see M. Trojanowska, Inwentarz archiwum miasta Lublina, 1465-1810 (Lublin, 1996). The records of the two trials are in vol. 140, fos. 394-413. and 418’—422.. They have been published in Polish, including the verdict based on the 1636 print that Balaban mentioned, in Z. Guldon and J. Wijaczka, Procesy 0 mordy rytualne w Polsce w XVI-XVITI wieku (Kielce, 1995), 102-22. There is a note in vol. 140 (formerly vol. 199): ‘A transcription of the trial “Infidelium Pieszak et Lachman” sent to Prof. Stanislaw Kot, 12 May 1926.’ —MT] "According to Zuchowski, who had access to the trial records, the Jews were accused of cutting the child’s veins, drawing his blood, and throwing the lifeless body into a marsh near the Jewish quarter. See Proces criminalny, 151-3, no. 149.

‘2 Lachman is identical with Nahman. That is how the name is always corrupted in Polish records as well as how it is commonly pronounced. We can see that he was syndic of the Jewish community from the epitaph on the tombstone (S. B. Nissenbaum, Lekorot hayehudim belublin (Lublin, 1g00,

50 Meir Balaban actually called Bieniasz (Beinisch, Bendet, Baruch) son of Pieszak (Pesach). The same source indicates that his wife’s name was Blume and that after her husband’s arrest she fled to her son in Jaworow, where he was the community cantor. The following can be read in the Lublin community Memorbuch: Yizkor elohim et nishmat rabi mosheh barukh ben mhr’r pesah ve’ishto marat blumeh bat harav aleksander ba’avur shemasru nafsham al kedushat hashem be’ahavah, ba’avur shebinam rabi aleksander sh’ts nadav tsedakah be’ad hazkarat nishmatam May God remember the soul of Rabbi Moses Baruch, son of our teacher the master Rabbi Pesach and his wife, Blume, daughter of Rabbi Alexander, since they died as martyrs in loving Sanctification of His name and because their son, Alexander the Cantor, has given charity in remembrance of their souls.

The woman, who was questioned but not tortured, is referred to in the trial records as Figella (Feigele) and was Baruch’s sister. Both brother and sister were

poor, since they lost the wealth they had inherited from their father. Baruch received a weekly allowance from the Jewish community, and his elderly sister (who was charged with witchcraft) owned a liquor tavern, where she also sold kiwas, a tart beverage. The questioning of these three Jews, as well as other witnesses, and even the use of torture, did not yield any results, and the records were

then transferred from the assessors’ court to the Crown ‘Jribunal for further assessment. In explaining the trial proceedings, it should be mentioned here that blood libel cases were tried before the Crown Tribunal in Lublin and Piotrkow, which was the highest court and here in particular the court of first instance. Because this noble court did not have an executioner or a torture chamber, however, the accused were transferred to the Lublin assessorial court, so they could be subjected to interrogation under torture.'’ The complete protocol of the interrogation and the torture in the lay court 1s extant, but not the verdict of the Crown

Tribunal. ,

The verdict of the second trial (of 12 August 1636), which has been discussed 1n

the literature, can now be supplemented by the record of the interrogation and torture (vol. 199—I], pp. 45-52 of the Acta maleficorum |now, vol. 140, fos. repr. Jerusalem, 1968), 49—50); in the trial records he is merely listed as lessee of a mill. There is also a

lack of clarity regarding his patronym. No such name is given in the trial records, but the tombstone reads: ‘Nahman ben Yosef Ya’akov’. In the Poznan Memorbuch he is called Nahman ben Ya’akov (see Perles, Geschichte der Juden in Posen, n. 7) and in the elegy Selihah lakedoshim which was written upon

his death by Zvi (Tsevi) ben Mordecai of Podhajce (Cat. Bodl., no. 2977)—-see below, n. 41—no patronymic is listed. Cf. L. Zunz, Literaturgeschichte der synagogalen Poesie (Berlin, 1865), 431.

'S Regarding the prison, see also the anonymous account of the blood libel trial of Abraham of Mosciska (Cat. Bodl., no. 4030) entitled Kidush hashem hameyuhad shel rahi matis verabhi avraham, zekhutam ya'amod lanu bemedinat polin. For the substance, see Max Weinrich, Shturmvint (Vilna,

1927), 174, line 7. The Matis in the title is identical with Matityahu Kalahora, an apothecary in - Krakow, who was burnt in Piotrkow in December 1663. See M. Balaban, ‘Jiidische Arzte aus Italien und Spanien am Hofe der polnischen Konige’, in Festschrift “Heimkehr’ (Czernowitz, 1912), 189 ff.; see also Balaban, in Monatsschrift fiir Geschichte und Wissenschaft des fudenthums, 61 (1917), 173 ff.

Hugo Grotius and Blood Libel Trials 51 418’—422"]).14 The defendant was the surgeon Marek Markowicz (Mordecai ben

Meir) of Poznan, who had been plying his trade in Lublin for four years. According to his testimony, the lay brother of the Carmelite Order had himself requested the operation, after which it was performed on him by a Christian physician, Johann Smith. The verdict which we know follows this account both chronologically and in terms of content.’? These are the archival materials to which I have had access, and from which the general course of both trials can be learnt. The deficits and gaps, such as the missing verdict in the second trial, must be compensated for by other evidence.*®

In order better to understand the course of events, I have treated the two trials separately: the trial of Nahman and Baruch is labelled I, and the Marcus trial is II.

III Triall On Saturday, 1o June 1636," after the end of the Shavuot celebration and on the eve of Pentecost, Nahman, the community syndic and also lessee of the mull of the Lublin starosta and Sandomierz wojewoda, did the accounts of the groszy tax (czopowe)'® in the house of the Jew Leib, in the presence of Jacob, another Jew. Nahman went to bed as dawn approached, but was awakened by the shattering of window panes. A pogrom was raging in the street. Jewish homes were being plundered, but the Jews defended themselves and one of the Jewish night watchmen brought a wounded Christian student into Nahman’s house. Nahman did not want to turn him over to the castle guards; instead he gave Januszewski, the castle soldier (hajduk), who was sleeping in his home, a few groszy to bring the wounded student to the barber-surgeon, Johann. Thereupon he packed together his better clothing and his valuables and brought them to the castle, since he anticipated a second attack on the Jews. The rumour had already spread throughout the city that Jews had killed a Christian boy, taken his blood, and then thrown the body into the river. The rioting soon resumed and even the castle guard appeared in the Jewish quarter. But instead of protecting Nahman, the guards searched his home, put him

in chains, and locked him in the castle dungeon. At the same time, Baruch (Bieniasz), son of Pesach, was locked in a different cell in the same prison, along with his sister Feigele, widow of Jacob Cegielnik (brickmaker). Then the charges 44 [It has been published in Guldon and Wijaczka, Procesy 0 mordy rytualne w Polsce w XVI-XVIII wieku, 115-18. —MT.] 15 Zuchowski, Proces criminalny, ch. 1, no. 149. [And Guldon and Wijaczka, Procesy 0 mordy rytu-

alne w Polsce w XVI-XVITI mieku, 118-22. —MT_] 16 Tbid.

17 [The documents are in Archiwum Panstwowe w Lublinie, Akta m. Lublina, vol. 140, fos. 394'-413’. Also published in Guldon and Wijaczka, Procesy 0 mordy rytualne w Polsce wm XVI-XVIII

wieku, 102-15. —MT.] 18 ¢zopowe = a tax on alcoholic beverages.

52 Meir Balaban against the two Jews and the old woman were put together. In the popular imagination, Nahman, in his role as community syndic, had spent the evening thinking up

the diabolical plan. They commissioned the poor Jew Baruch, in the pay of the community, to carry out the deed. Baruch arranged that Joseph Koszut, who worked for him, steal the child of the butcher woman Leskowa; he killed it with the help of, and in the presence of, other Jews, drew the blood, and had the aforementioned Joseph throw the corpse into the river. In order to cover the traces of the crime, he gave Joseph 15 groszy and sent him away from Lublin. Early in the morning, the mother of the child made a terrible fuss and told everyone she met that her child was missing and ‘no doubt’ had been ritually murdered by Jews. Since Joseph Koszut was seen walking away from the water and since everyone knew he was a ‘lackey for the Jews’, it seemed ‘totally natural’ that he would have had a hand in the events. The news of the ‘ritual murder’ reached the large crowd, which was streaming into the churches that Pentecost. There were even some who said they had witnessed with their own eyes how the Jews had slaughtered little Mathias. ‘Then the students and journeymen led the mob into the Jewish quarter, where they began beating the Jews and looting their homes and shops. The arrests soon followed. The ‘Jew lackey’ Joseph was nowhere to be seen, so the starosta sent out mounted soldiers in all directions to catch him. He was finally arrested in Krasnystaw and brought to the castle prison in heavy chains. The case was transferred to the Crown Tribunal, which had then convened in Lublin, and it selected the panel of judges from within it to take charge of the investigation. The panel of judges made short

shrift of the accused and transferred them to the assessorial court in Lublin for further interrogation and torture.'® The investigation began on 27 May,”° after the bodies of the defendants Pieszak and Lachman (Nahman) had been completely shaved, washed with warm water, dressed in fresh underclothes, and sprinkled with holy water.?! Because Baruch (Pieszak) was to be heard first, holy salt was placed in his mouth, so the judges would be protected from his evil schemes (in remedium quorumvis maleficorum, ac incantionum), and thereupon an ‘Agnus Dei’ with various relics was hung around

his neck and they had him sing the fifty-first psalm: Quid gloriaris in militia, qui potens es in iniquitate;?* only after these prophylactic measures did the investigating judges begin the hearing in the presence of the two judges delegated by the Crown Tribunal.

First his name (Bieniasz ben Pesach) was established, and that of his wife (Blume), his occupation (broker), his permanent residence, his relationship with Joseph Koszut, etc. Then the judge asked when and from whom he had heard 19 Zuchowski claims that the first proceedings took place on 16 May, ‘feria 6 post Festum Pentecoste’. 20 ‘Feria tertia intra Octavam Corporis Christ’ (Acta maleficorum, [vol. 140, fo. 394”. —MT)). 21 ‘Primo in omnibus sui corporis partibus sunt torsi, et aqua calida loti, mutatoque vestium habitu,

novis induti indusiis, aqua benedicta asperse. . .’. Ibid. 22 Psalm 52 in the Hebrew Bible.

Hugo Grotius and Blood Libel Trials 53 about the murder of the child. Baruch answered: ‘On Pentecost, from Nastka the Ruthenian woman, who lives at the hatmaker’s. She also said that the Jews murdered the child.’ Question: Did you see the murdered child? Answer: I did not see it. I do not know where it was killed. I only heard from

Nastka that Jews had done it. ,

fudge: Who killed the child? Baruch: \ don’t know. I did not do it. Judge: Who carried the murdered child to the water? Baruch: | don’t know where it was murdered and where it was laid down. — Judge: Were you in the town after sabbath? Baruch: I was not there on Sunday, nor on Monday, nor on Tuesday, since it was Pentecost. Judge: How long have you known the labourer Joseph? Baruch: ‘Vhree and a half years. Sometimes he slept at my place, sometimes at Oleksa’s.

Judge: Was Joseph drunk on that sabbath? Baruch: \ don’t know, but he often downed a few. Judge: Did you speak with Joseph about the child and did you promise him anything? Baruch: \ did not say anything nor did I promise anything. _ Judge: Why did you forbid Joseph from talking about the matter? Baruch: \ did not forbid him anything. I only gave him one and a half guilders on that Pentecost Tuesday so he would help me with my upcoming house removal. judge: Why did Joseph leave the city? Baruch: | don’t know; I did not tell him to do so. Judge: How much did you receive as support (annual allowance) from the Jewish community? Baruch: Sometimes I received a zloty because I am so poor. Judge: Why was the child murdered? Baruch: | don’t know why, and no Jew, whether big or small, knows why. We Jews do not need Christian blood and we do not kill any Christian children. Judge: Why didn’t you have the candles lit at the end of sabbath as usual (by Joseph)? Baruch: \t was still a long day, and we are not permitted to make light on the end of that sabbath until the twenty-fourth hour.?° Judge: When do you have the afikoman?" 23. Tt was 10 May, when the day is very long.

24 The question about the afikoman appears in many blood libel trials from that period that were held before the Crown Tribunal in Lublin. In the contemporary antisemitic literature (Mojecki, Miczynski, Sleszkowsk1) there was also a great deal of nonsense about the afikoman.

54 Meir Bataban | Baruch: On Pesach, but the matzah is made only of water and flour; not even salt is used. Judge: Why did you say to Pawlowa, the hatmaker (Pawel’s wife): ‘Oh, heads will roll?’ Baruch: Because it was said that Jews killed the child. judge: Why did you say to Joseph: ‘Keep quiet, keep quiet, or else we will both end up on the rack’?

Baruch: 1 didn’t say that to him. Maybe he thought it up in order to earn 500 marks. Judge: How much did the community elders promise you for stealing the child? Baruch; They promised me nothing and they know nothing of it. Judge: Why did you say: “To the water, to the water’? Baruch: { did not say that! Judge: Did you know the father and the mother of the child? Baruch: No, I didn’t know them and had never seen them. Tandem monitus iterum et iterum, ut veritatem ipsissimam fateatur, ad hanc monttionem, creberrime iteratam, respondit. [Then, after being warned repeatedly to tell the whole truth, he answered the repeated warnings. | He knows nothing else and all that he knows he has already said.

Then Baruch was tied to the rack (a/ligatus ad palum torturarum) and Joseph Koszut was brought before him. Joseph told Baruch to his face that he had asked him not to talk about the matter or else they would both be lost. ‘I heard’—he continued—‘how you got up early on Sunday around five o’clock and were talking in

front of the house with other Jews and you kept repeating the words “to the water”. On Pentecost ‘Tuesday, when I was at Shmuel’s, the Jew who lives opposite the butcher’s stall got some liquor for a grosz and I asked him if he would pour me a little, he said, “Go to Pieszak, who deals in your blood, he’ll be sure to give you some liquor”.’ Baruch to Joseph: You have eaten my bread; why are you repaying my kindness with evil?

Joseph: | am telling the truth, even if it should concern my father and mother. You——_Jew—prompted me to leave the city, gave me 15 groszy, and promised me

new clothing; you got up on that morning when a cat miaowed in front of the house, but it was a man mimicking a cat’s miaow. Then the executioner began the torture: Tractus primo [Stretched the first time]: Baruch; | did not see the child. Tractus secundo [Stretched the second time]: 1am not

at all guilty, but other Jews are also innocent. 7ractus tertio [Stretched the third time /: [am innocent and all Jews are innocent, and everything that Joseph has said is a lie. Jews need no Christian blood.

With that, the investigation was broken off. It was resumed on 28 May when Baruch was questioned about various things, such as where his wife was, and about the lemons and the oranges that were found in his storage in the cellar of the Town

Hugo Grotius and Blood Libel Trials 55 Hall, etc. Then he was confronted by Joseph for a second time. Later the syndic Nahman (Lachman) was brought in, washed, dressed, sprinkled with holy water, and an ‘Agnus Dei’ and relics were hung around his neck. Then they put holy salt in his mouth, had him sing the psalm, and began interrogating him. Nahman told how he had spent the night from the sabbath to Pentecost Sunday at Leib the Jew’s together with Jacob the Jew, and how at the break of day on his way home he met Oczkowski, the castle soldier (hajduk), and an old woman Leskowa, how he fell asleep and was awakened by the sound of shattered glass, how the injured student was then brought to him, and how he sent the student to the barber-surgeon Johann, giving him a few groszy for the treatment, etc. Judge: Who murdered the child? Nahman: I don’t know who murdered the child nor where it happened. Judge: For what do Jews use Christian blood? Nahman: We do not use Christian blood at all; not even a bled piece of ox meat is used. Jews do not need Christian blood. Judge: Did Pieszak murder the child? Nahman: | know nothing about that. Nahman gave the same answers when he was asked a second and third time. Then he was bound to the rack although he was ill and frail. He was urged many times to admit the truth, but he always repeated that he knew nothing. Next the executioner set about his work and pulled the rope tight: Tractus primo [Stretched a first time]: | am innocent, I heard nothing, I do not know who murdered the child. Tractus secondo [Stretched a second time]: Jews do not need Christian blood. Judge: Who murdered the child? Nahman: I don’t know! Judge: Where is the cook who worked for you? Nahman: The cook who worked for me is in Lublin in Mr Schreiber’s house. Tractus tertio [Stretched a third time]: Nahman: Jews do not need Christian blood. It is a made-up story! Tractus intensius [Stretched more tightly]: Nahman: 1 don’t know anything! Upon my life, I know nothing, I know nothing. Jews are innocent. Judge: Why were many Jews going about on that evening? Nahman: That is not true, we were only three. Then Baruch (Pieszak) was brought into the torture chamber and admonished several times to admit the truth. Judge: Who is responsible for the child murder? Baruch: I don’t know. Judge: What does ‘dam’ mean? Baruch: Blood. Judge: Who carried the dead child to the water? Baruch: I don’t know, but other Jews do not know either; they are innocent. Now the candles for the torture were lit, but they went out immediately. They were relit and went out again. When Baruch was asked what had caused this he _ responded that it was evidence of his innocence.

56 Meir Bataban Alhigatus ad palum, Tractus primo [Tied to the rack, stretched a first time]: Baruch: I don’t know; Jews need no blood! Tractus secundo [Stretched a second time]: Baruch: 1 am innocent, the Jews need no Christian blood! Tractus tertio [Stretched a third time]: Judge: Who caused the child murder? Baruch: | don’t know; Jews are innocent! Ustus ferris cadentibus [Burnt with red-hot iron]. Baruch: For God’s sake, I saw nothing. I don’t know who murdered the child!?°

After a break for lunch, the interrogation resumed in the torture chamber; Nahman continued to assert his innocence. His hands and feet were bound to the rack, but this time the executioner did not tighten the ropes, since Nahman was very ill (ob debilitatem corporis). After several difficult questions pertaining to the injured student who was brought into his house during the pogrom on the morning of Pentecost, Nahman was taken to his cell for the time being, and Joseph Koszut was brought into the torture chamber. He was asked once again whom he suspected in the murder of the child. Joseph accused the Jews plain and simple, saying he told Baruch’s wife (Pieszakowa) and Jacob’s (Jakobowa) right to their face. But they asked him not to repeat the charge, and then one of them gave him 15 groszy and the other promised him a new coat. Judge: Where did you steal the child? Joseph: 1 did not do it, never ever! I did not participate in the matter, neither with advice nor with deeds, and I left the city out of fear. Judge: How do you know that Jews murdered the child? Joseph: Because Jews were trembling and so afraid. Furthermore, Pieszak gave me 15 groszy and said: ‘Go and drink away the money, but if you heard anything, keep silent!’ Alhigatus ad palum [Tied to the rack]: and having been warned to tell the truth,

he repeated the same thing that he suspected that the Jews had done it! ‘This was because Pieszak had gone outside at dawn and spoken with other Jews, saying: ‘To the water, to the water’, and someone miaowed like a cat. Judge: And so, who murdered the child? Joseph: I do not know; I just heard the words: “To the water, to the water’. Because the housekeeper of the mother of the murdered child had some kind of connection with the workers in the Jewish slaughterhouse and had gone straight there that Pentecost to pour out her sorrows, a number of Christian and Jewish labourers and the kosher butcher were interrogated. One of these labourers, Johannes Kopiski, stated that early on Pentecost, the housekeeper Szymonowa came into the slaughterhouse and said, ‘I have troubles with the child whose mother lives with me. It was murdered and two cutlers saw 25 Stupecki reported on this to Grotius with the remark, ‘quod tamen ipsis non profuit, nam postea ignitis ferris ita excruciati fuerint, ut parum abesset, quin animam exhalarent’. See Appendix I.

Hugo Grotius and Blood Libel Trials 57 how Joseph came from the water.’ She said no more than that and then Abraham the Jew, caretaker of the slaughterhouse, came to me, gave me some groszy and told me to go to Szymonowa and question her in detail, asking what she knew of the matter and what were the names of the two cutlers who saw Joseph. I went and questioned her thoroughly, but she knew nothing at all. Then Abraham brought me to Isaac (Icko), elder of the Jews, and asked me to repeat word for word what Szymonowa had said. Judge: Why did Jews give you money and why did they send you to Szymonowa? Kopiski: So I would question her thoroughly and find out everything about the child.—Kopiski repeated this many times, also when he was on the rack. Judge: So who murdered the child? Kopiski: I do not know.

On Friday, 30 May, the examination was continued and Nahman was brought into the torture chamber yet again. He was asked the same questions and he gave the same answers: that he knew nothing about the child murder and could not offer any information. And that the other Jews were also innocent. Judge: What do Jews use Christian blood for? Nahman: Vhey do not need it and you will hear nothing about this among Jews. Judge: Where do Jews get water for the afikoman? Nahman: From the pond or the well. Every Jew gets that for himself. Judge: How many children have Jews slaughtered, as far as you can remember? Nahman: Jews do not kill children. This child perhaps drowned, but Jews had nothing to do with it. Judge: Why did Pieszak’s wife flee the city? Nahman: | don’t know. I never met the people and do not know where they live. Alhigatus ad palum [Tied to the rack]: he repeated the same thing again and again: that the Jews are innocent and do not need blood. At the end he said in German that he is being badgered 1 order to pressure him into getting baptized.

The assessors did not want to torture Nahman since they saw that he was seriously ill. But on orders of the delegates of the Crown Tribunal the executioner pulled the rope once, twice, three times. Tractus primo [Stretched a first time]: Judge: Who killed the child? Nahman: I don’t know! Tractus secondo [Stretched a second time]: 1 don’t know, I don’t know!

Tractus tertio [Stretched a third time]: 1 don’t know, I heard nothing, I heard nothing, I know nothing! Ustus igne videlicet ferris cadentibus [Burned with fire, namely red-hot iron]: | don’t know, I don’t know, I am innocent. Last of all, Baruch’s sister Feigele, widow of Jacob the brickmaker, was brought into the torture chamber. She had hardly crossed the threshold when she said: ‘I go with courage and am not afraid, should you burn and roast me. I am innocent.’

58 Meir Balaban Judge: Can you perform magic? Feigele: | have never dealt with that; [am a poor widow and sell liquor and kwas. Judge: Who murdered the child? Feigele: | don’t know! Judge: Where were you on Saturday night, and who lit the candle for you? Feigele: | was at home and went to bed without any light. Judge: Why is your ceiling so sooty and filled with smoke? Feigele: Because I live there, I cook, and I heat my home. Judge: For what do Jews need Christian blood? Feigele: Jews do not need any blood of Christians, whether old or young. Judge: Do you know the mother of the child? Did she enter your home? Feigele: | don’t know her, whether or not she came into my house. I sell liquor and borscht and so anyone who wishes can enter my home. Judge: Why did you enter Pieszak’s home? Feigele: | ran there when we were being beaten and called the hajyduk who wears a blue jacket. Judge: Where did you put the blood of the child? Feigele: Jews are not permitted to use blood, not even that of an animal. Judge: Why did the Jewish elders give Pieszak money? Feigele: Because he was poor. Sometimes they gave me money too, or they loaned

- me some. , Judge: In what way did the child die? Feigele: | don’t know, Iam innocent. Judge: For what do Jews use Christian blood? Feigele: Jews do not need any Christian blood.

Judge: And you can perform magic? | Feigele: No, I cannot. Alhigata ad palum [Tied to the rack]: she repeated the same thing yet again. Territa igne crudel et ferro candente [Threatened with fierce flames and red-hot

iron]: Even when threatened to be burned with glowing iron, she did not change her testimony at all, but went on repeating: ‘I know nothing, I know nothing.’ The interrogation and the torture protocol were drawn up by the assessors and the delegates and a copy was sent to the Crown Tribunal. We are not in possession of the verdict of the Crown ‘Tribunal, but as we discover from the files of the following trial (II), the Tribunal declared the Jews and Joseph the Christian not guilty

and let the elders of the congregation swear the so-called expurgation oath (cleansing oath). The elders swore the oath and the defendants were set free.*° 26 From the verdict of the following trial ‘aliquot diebus post praestitium in priori criminatione juramentum... id unum egerunt ut superius suum atrox facinus . . . novo, nunquam audito, scelere .. . cumularent’. Zuchowski, Proces criminalny, viewed the bloody judgement in the second trial as a penalty for the perjury that the Jews committed in the first trial. He also noted that the Jews ‘had

Hugo Grotius and Blood Libel Trials 59 IV

Trialll The ink had not yet dried on the verdict and the disturbance between Jews and

Christians had not yet subsided, when a new catastrophe befell the Lublin community.’ A lay brother of the Reformist Order,”* not far from Lublin, named Paulus, a man who was ‘strong of body, but weak of mind’,”® felt very ill and when he was close to death he let his superiors into his cell and confessed the following. On Sunday, 27 July 1636, he was on his usual route through the Jewish quarter of Lublin to visit the benefactors of the order and to gather up the pious gifts, when the Jewish surgeon Marcus invited him in for a visit. He had barely entered the ~ residence when he was attacked by Marcus, thrown down onto a bed, and forced to lie down. Here two helpers, Leib (Lewek) and Moses, firmly held down his hands and feet and the Protestant physician Johann Smith, who was also present, cut open his veins near his genitals. Marcus collected two full bowls of blood, looking

at the same time out the small window to the synagogue and mumbling some prayers.°° After this operation, the doctors made the poor, weak lay brother swear an oath

that he would never utter a single word to anyone about what had happened. Subsequently they accompanied him to the carriage that was waiting for him not far from the Franciscan monastery and let him go. The story of the lay brother was written down and prepared by him in the form of a testament and, although he was regarded in the monastery as feeble-minded, they did not neglect to report the whole incident to the Crown ‘Tribunal, requesting that ‘the atrocious blood drainer’ be punished as severely as possible, especially since the Jews—despite the cleansing oath performed just a few days earlier— ‘were not content with the blood of the child,?! and dared to draw the blood of a young man whom they considered pure and innocent’. better means than the poor mother to convince the judges of the Tribunal’, since they had pecuniary evidence at their disposal. And since ‘cum in dubio, humanitas in mitiorem partem . . .’ the Jews were allowed to take the oath and were subsequently set free. “They recovered quickly and tortured the monk to death.’ 27 [The records of the trial are in Archiwum Panstwowe w Lublinie, Akta m. Lublina, Acta maleficorum, vol. 140, fos. 418’—422"; also published in Guldon and Wyaczka, Procesy 0 mordy rytualne w Polsce mw XVI-XVITI mieku, 115-18. —MT. | 28 Also called Carmelites (Paulus PP Carmelitorum Reformatorum laicus).

29 ‘Aetate quidem matures, sed vitae quidem integritate et innocentia parvulus...’. 30 Elsewhere we find that Moses the Jew was the servant of the Protestant doctor. In the file of charges the scene is described as follows: Lewek sat down on Paulus’s chest, Moses held his legs spread apart, Smith the doctor (whom Paulus had thought was a Jew) cut open his veins, and Marcus caught the blood in two bowls, mumbling at the same time a prayer that only he knew, during which he

looked through the small window at the synagogue. 31 Refers to the previous trial.

60 Meir Bataban The Crown Tribunal transferred the investigation to the same panel of judges that had presided over the first trial. Then the Protestant doctor Johann Smith, the Jewish

doctor Marcus, and the two assistants Leib (Lewek) and Moses (Moszko) were thrown into the castle dungeon and led before the examining judge one at a time.

Inexplicably, the investigation against Smith and the two assistants was dropped, and only Marcus was brought before the assessors’ court for interrogation under torture, possibly including the use of fire.*” Let us follow the interrogation and torture record from the Acta maleficorum of the city of Lublin: The events of 11 August 1636, Infidelis Marcus Markowicz, Judaeus lublinensis, antequam ex decreto judicii ordinarii generalis ‘Tribunalis Regni Lublinensis et

remissione ad judicium advocatiale infrascriptis traderetur torturis: Primo in omnibus sui corporis partibus est tonsus, novoque indusio indutus, aqua benedicta est aspersus ac tandem Psalmo Davidicio quingentesimo primo, qui sic incipit: ‘Quid gloriaris in militia, qui potens es in iniquitate’ dicto, per judicium praesens

advocatiale in praesentia magnificorum ad judicum deputatorum, quesitus ac interrogatus est modo et ordine infra sequenti: First his personal data were ascertained: His name is Marcus Markowicz (Mordecai ben Meir); he is from Poznan and has lived in Lublin for four years, where he practises his barber-surgeon’s trade, which he learned from Moses the Jew in Prague. Judge: How did you meet the lay brother and why did you cut him? Markus: The brother came to me every day. He had been at my place about forty times and he asked me to remove one of his testicles. He said he had cut out the other one himself. When I asked him how he did that, he responded that he had opened the scrotum with a knife and removed the testicle. He told his superior that he caused the cut through carelessness with a skewer. When asked who had healed him at that time, Paulus answered that he had been in treatment by the barbersurgeon Albert. Judge: How long has he been coming to your house? Markus: He has been badgering me for about six weeks already; I sent him to the German doctor Smith, but he didn’t want to go to him. On the Sunday in question he came to me again, but he missed me at my home and waited more than an hour while my neighbours tried to locate me. When I came home and found him there I advised him anew that he should go to Smith. He wanted me to go, but I explained that I would not go without any money. Then the monk drew a moneybag out of his bosom, which might have contained about 30 guilders. I took a number of red guilders, went to the doctor and showed him the money. Then the doctor packed

his instruments together and came back with me. When the monk caught sight of | the doctor, he dashed at him and asked him if he would take care of it quickly, since a carriage near the Franciscan monastery was waiting for him. Now the doctor laid 32 “Cum Joanne illo Smith et aliis inculcates et suspectis Judaeis causa interea suspense.’

Hugo Grotius and Blood Libel Trials 61 the monk on my bed. But because I did not want to dirty my linens a blanket was placed under the patient. The doctor did not let the monk lie down, but instead ordered him to sit. He sent me out for some silk thread since he did not want me to be present during the operation, or else I would learn the art. When I returned with the thread, the doctor said it was unnecessary, as the operation had already been completed. With that he lay a piece of meat the size of a pigeon egg on the bench. I threw it in the stove. Judge: Who held the monk down during the operation? Markus: No one, except my servant, who was standing near him. Judge: How much blood flowed out?

Markus: Almost no blood at all, except for about three drops that dripped onto the monk’s underclothes. But the monk took care of his clothes by himself and ordered me to pay the doctor 15 guilders. So I gave the doctor 2 ducats and 15 groszy,°° and I retained the remainder of the money—about 8 guilders in schillings, sechsers, etc—which my servant used to buy alum and other things for operations. I kept the rest. When the doctor left my house, I accompanied the monk to the carriage and he asked me if I would tell the driver that a dog had bitten him, which I did. Then he asked me if I would give him the young servant (Lewek) to accompany him, which I also did. Lewek escorted him as far as Jastkow. ‘The two of them spent the night there, and the next day the monk travelled on to Janowiec and my young servant returned to Lublin. In Janowiec the monk spent the night at a Jew’s home and then the Jew sent a peasant to me to ask if I would immediately send Lewek to the monk. Lewek drove there immediately, bringing with him the Plastrum defensivum and other salves. I have not seen Lewek again since that time. Judge: Who gave Lewek money along the way?

Markus: I didn’t give any money, since the farmer explained that the monk would pay for everything.

Judge: What did the doctor say when you showed him the money? Markus: He said he would be pleased to go and would do the job, since he had already done it many times before. Judge: Were you there when the child was stolen by Jews not too long ago? Markus: I was not there. It is libel; Jews do not need blood. Judge: Why did you have the cleric come to you in the dungeon? Markus: I did not need him, but I wanted to make my time in the dungeon less harsh.*4

Judge: Why didn’t you send the lay brother to his superior, and how did you dare to perform such an operation on him?

Markus: He pleaded with me, and threatened that he would stab himself with a knife out of desperation. And when I referred him to various Christian 33 Thus a red guilder (ducat) had 7 Polish guilders and 7.5 groszy. 34 We learn from the E/ male rahamim in Pinczow (see Dubnow) that clerics went to him in the dungeon to convert him.

62 Meir Bataban | barber-surgeons, he explained to me that he only wanted to deal with Jews and that both in Wiodzimierz and in Leczna he had let himself be treated by Jews. Judge: What did you give the monk to drink before the operation? Markus: Liquor for 1 grosz. Judge: What did the doctor put on the fresh wound? Markus: Some powder he had brought with him. Alligatus ad palum torturarum, monitus iterum et iterum ut veritatem fateatur [Tied to the rack and repeatedly warned to tell the truth], he said he had told everything and that it was all true. Tractus primo [Stretched a first time], he said the monk had visited him for a whole year, about forty times, and had asked him to. As far as other Jews are concerned, he said none of them knows anything about this. Tractus secundo [Stretched a second time], he declared that there was no blood, only a few drops that fell onto the underclothes. Tractus tertio [Stretched a third time], he reiterated that the monk had asked him so many times. Judge: Where did you put the blood that flowed out? Markus: It was only a little bit of blood and it remained on the underclothes. Judge: Who held the monk down during the operation? Markus: The doctor cut and the boy stood behind him, but I had gone to get the thread. Tractus quarto [Stretched a fourth time], he declared that no one talked him into doing it, that he did it because of the manifold requests of the monk, and that no magic was at work here. Judge: Which Jews murdered the child? Markus: No Jew did it. I myself know nothing about it. Monitus iterum atque iterum [Warned repeatedly], he explained again that he did it at the bidding of the monk. Ustus igne, videlicet candelis [Burned with fire, namely candles], he explained the same thing as he had earlier. Ustus secundo [Burned a second time], the same as previously. Ustus tertio [Burned a third time], the same. Tandem dimissus est e torturis [Then he was released from the torture ].

With that the interrogation was concluded and the record was prepared and passed on to the Crown Tribunal. The Tribunal was convinced that the Jew had lured the monk to his residence in order to draw his blood for ritual purposes and therefore had the monk swear to his earlier testimony. A delegation of the court with the usher Mathias Wilski went to the monastery and there the lay brother swore the desired oath. Subsequently the Jewish surgeon Marcus was sentenced to the following punishment: his body should be quartered by the executioner, his head placed on a pole at a crossroads outside the city of Lublin, and the individual

quarters were to be burned. The verdict was handed down on 11 August and

| Hugo Grotius and Blood Libel Trials 63 carried out on 12 August. Apparently, the Jews were not able to gather up the ashes

of the unfortunate man, since no gravestone for him was found at the Lublin cemetery, and only the prayer for the martyr, which was noted and recited in many synagogues, remained as a substitute for the gravestone.*°

The ‘Tribunal was, however, not content with the conviction of the surgeon Marcus. Even during the investigation and the torturous interrogation, the judges repeatedly brought up the murder of the boy again; but they were unable to force anything out of the accused. Nevertheless, after the conclusion of this trial they reopened the proceedings against Nahman and Baruch (Bieniasz Pieszak) and his wife Blume and sentenced all three of them to death. As already noted above, nei-

ther the second record of the interrogation and torture nor the verdict is extant. From a remark of Father Zuchowski,®® however, we conclude that the Tribunal altered its original verdict and sentenced to death the Jews found guilty of killing the child Mathias. The epitaph on Nahman’s gravestone,’’ the martyr’s grave with the name Bendet,*® and the entry in the Memorbuch of the Lublin community concerning the martyrs Baruch and his wife Blume,”*® as well as the prayers in the memorial books in many Polish congregations, including Poznan,*° offer sufficient evidence that the sentence was carried out and that the two men and the woman suffered a martyr’s death. The sources mentioned cover the victims of the two trials, Mordecai ben Meir,

for one, and Nahman and Baruch-Bendet and his wife, for the other. Steinschneider found an old print sine loco et anno [with no date or place of publication| in the Bodleian Library (Cat. Bodl. 2977)*! that contains an elegy to two martyrs from the year 1636, specifically Mordecai and Nahman, and describes in 3° El male rahamim in Dubnow, Voskhod (1895), no. 1, p. 127, and the elegy Selihah lakedoshim of Zvi (Tsevi) Hirsch ben Mordecai of Podhajce (Cat. Bodl. 2977). . 36 Dubnow, in Voskhod (1895), no. 2, p. 73; unfortunately, I was unable to locate the quotation in Zuchowsk1.

87 Text of the epitaph according to Nissenbaum, Lekorot hayehudim belublin, 49: Na’anah vene’ elam, venimtah basulam uvenisayon balam ne’eman hakahal hay salhan tsadik behen, be’inuy nivhan/ vehashaho’ hakado[sh] mukeh ume’uneh bebarzel melubanah, uveposhim nimneh/ venipets yad hakadosh nadiv vene'eman lehayet ad mezuman hehaver nahman ben hehaver yehoshuah ya’akov hakadosh bishenat shin-tsadi-vav matsu bamakom hakadosh/ be-yud- vav lemenahem rahak mimeni menahem ve’oto d’ nihem

lema‘on hakodesh. |In Hebrew in the original article, transliterated here by AT| “Tortured and silent, /

Stretched on the rack, he stood the test, / Community trustee, / The Living God of Forgiveness tested the righteous one, tested by torture. / This holy youth, / Beaten and tortured with white-hot iron like one of the criminals, / Broke the holy hand. / Generous and loyal, called to eternal life, the haver Nahman / Son of the haver Yehoshua Ya’akov the martyr. / In 396 [1636], in the synagogue, they cursed, searched, and found nothing / In the holy place. / On 16 Av, Nahman passed away and God led him to His holy abode.’

38 S. B. Nissenbaum, Yegar shahaduta (St Petersburg, 1913), pl. 3. 39 See above. 4° Perles, Geschichte der FJuden in Posen, 34.

*! The reference is to Moritz Steinschneider, Catalogus librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana (Berlin, 1852-60), col. 452. The modern shelfmark, as given by A. E. Cowley, 4 Concise Catalogue of the Hebrew Books in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Oxford, 1929), 720, is Opp. 4.° 1373 (2).

64 Meir Bataban | detail Nahman’s gruesome ordeal and death. The author of the elegy, Zvi (Tsevi) Hirsch ben Mordecai of Podhajce, residing in Lublin, did not know that Nahman was the community syndic; he knew neither the details of the trials nor the events in the city, and he ascribed to Nahman with photographic accuracy everything that in the files and the verdict applied to Mordecai. We learn that Nahman was, to no purpose, persuaded to be baptized and then he was sentenced to death; he was quartered and his head was placed on a staff. Although it cannot be ruled out that Nahman died in a similar manner to Mordecai, it is more likely that the author merged the two verdicts. ‘This confusion suggests a much later date for the com-

position of the elegy. This is indicated by the circumstance that the author combined the two trials, treated the two martyrs together, and thereby completely ignored Baruch and his wife Blume. Since the elegy was published without a date and place of publication, it is probable that it appeared many years after the event and not in Lublin. Therefore, the year of printing mentioned in Steinschneider, which was questionable in the first place, should be corrected.*” 42 ‘Thanks to the generosity of the Library Director [A. E.] Cowley, I received a photographic copy of this elegy from the Bodleian Library in Oxford. I will discuss it elsewhere.

APPENDIX I Georg von Stupecki to Hugo Grotius (Prussian State Library, MS theol. lat. qu. 211, fo. 81, printed in Kot, ‘Hugo Grotius a Polska’, p. 46, no. VII). Lublin, 19 September 163]6] To the Most Noble and Distinguished Lord and my greatly to be respected friend: It happens quite frequently here in our Poland that Jews are accused of a most atrocious crime, and one that, if it can be proved, can never in my view be expiated by any punishment. For they are said to sacrifice Christian children, or even youths (but they would never have touched a woman), and afterwards to make use of their

blood for many of their own needs. Furthermore, this accusation is pinned not merely on a few individuals, but on the whole people, as if they all consented to committing such a heinous act. As for myself, having considered this matter a great deal, it seems that this accusation 1s rather fabricated than derived from truth. For every time they are accused of this crime, they have never been made by any torture that human savagery can devise to confess to the charge brought against them. Furthermore, daily experience bears abundant enough witness to how greatly they abhor all blood, and I see no sufficient reason to believe that Christian blood 1s useful to them.

Hugo Grotius and Blood Libel Trials 65 What happened recently among us in Lublin confirms me somewhat in this opinion: when some of these Jews who had been accused of this crime were to be put to the torture by the decree of the royal tribunal, and the servant of the executioner [brought] a small bundle of lighted candles to the place where the Jew was, it is agreed for a fact that as soon as the Jew caught sight of those candles there was a stirring in the air and suddenly they were all extinguished. ‘There are those who try to ascribe these events to magic arts, but more likely I think that God had desired to show their innocence precisely by this sign. Nonetheless, this was of no benefit. For then they were so tortured by red-hot metal that they very nearly gave up the ghost.

Though this is my opinion, I am ready either to change or to defend it more ardently, depending on whether in your judgement it shall be rejected or confirmed. For this reason I strongly beseech, most noble sir, that you deign to write to me as painstakingly as possible setting forth, first, whether in your region too a

charge of this sort has been laid against Jews, and, then, whether any of those accused of the crime had ever been convicted by proof of direct evidence, and, finally, whether there is anything of this matter in the books of the Talmud. In sum, please generously lay out whatever your judgement might be. You will do me a great favour, and a most useful one at that. For owing to your exceeding erudition, you alone will best be able to explain to me what I ought to think in future on this issue.

Most beloved friend of your lordship and at your service in anything whatsoever, Georg Slupecki, (City) Captain of Pilsen

APPENDIX II Hugo Grotius to Georg von Slupecki (printed in Grotu Epistolae, 286, also in Kot, ‘Hugo Grotius a Polska’, no. VIII). To Georg von Slupecki of Konary, Captain of Pilsen Most Noble Sir, In the same hour I have received from you two letters, dated 1 August and 19 September. I have not received those in which you answered those I[ wrote you. I am very happy that your memory of me is so constant, which I am never able to forget.

I have not seen Radziwill the priest; others brought me your letters. Of the French issues about which you ask, the King has with great spirit and good fortune pushed back the enemy who had invaded the borders beyond the river Somme in Picardy and the river Saone in Burgundy. To this, the most important things, great glories are added: that excellently fortified town, Corvey, has been snatched from

66 Meir Balaban the enemy, when autumn had become unhealthy, and was to be feared more by the

besiegers than by the besieged. The town of Saint-Jean-de-Losne in Burgundy was seized at this same time from a besieging enemy. ‘There were many successful

battles. As spoils of the war, the King controls all Lorraine and large parts of Alsace: the enemies occupy no French territory, besides the new port of Guyenne [= Aquitaine], Socoa, not far from Bayonne, and two islands in the Ligurian Sea by the name of Sainte-Marguerite and Saint-Honorat. Capelle and Chatelet on the border with the Spanish Netherlands are scarcely worth mentioning. I come to the matter of the Jews. You act out of your good-heartedness not to

believe easily the accusations of those who burn against others with religious hatred. It was established piously no less than prudently by the Emperors Honorius and the younger Theodosius in the Codex Justinianus, book 1, title 9 ‘On the Jews’, law 14: ‘Let no one be disgraced as a Jew though he be innocent, and let no religion of any kind make him vulnerable to insult.’ What has not been alleged against the early Christians, nor against those almost of our age who had seceded from the Pope, and before then the Waldensians, by the impudent licence of lying that relying on powerful protection and public hatred of the accused party, hoped for impunity? Jews, ever since they became exiles from their land and served hostile masters, undoubtedly are vulnerable to insults. I would not, however, represent them as always innocent, since they hold that it is lawful and pious to curse Christians, as appears in the Talmud and other books. Neither have they been accustomed to abstaining from deeds where they were satisfied with their strength. For what the Jews of Cyrene did to Trajan see [Cassius] Dio [68. 32]; for what others did—those between Chalcedon and Antioch—see Sozomen in book 7 of his History of the Church, chapters 13 and 16, and Socrates in book 7, chapter 17. Nicephorus (Gregoras) is held by several to be unreliable; but

see what he says about Jews, Arabs, Samaritans, and Antiochenes, in book 17, chapters 6 and 24, especially book 18, chapter 44, since on the last he is corroborated by Paul the Deacon, book 18 of his Roman history, and Zonaras on Phocas; in England they were expelled because of a cruel plan that was revealed, according

to Polydore Vergil in book 16. As for murdering children and collecting their blood, for some use or other, at Munich, Zurich, Bern, Wissenscho in Thiringen, Uberlingen [in the territory] of [the ancient] Vindelici, Diessenhofen by Lake Constance, the authorities are Stumphius, Thomas of Barbary [or rather Alfonso de Spina] in Fortalitium Fidei, Michael Neander in his Questions on the Sacred [Hebrew] Language. With more certainty than these, Sabellicus affirms the same in Enneads 10, book 7, about the Jews of Trento; about the Trnavans in Hungary, Bonfinius, book 4, chapter 5 of Io. To say nothing of magic and superstitious matters, since it is established that for

those who wash themselves in it, children’s blood is a remedy for leprosy, the search for which has brought many kings an evil reputation. Jews who practise medicine could have had the readier recourse the more they hate Christians, if

Hugo Grotius and Blood Libel Trials 67 they were not deterred by the fear of punishment. So, this is manifestly either an ancient charge or myth. Which is the case, in our opinion, it is not easy to say. Neither all nor nothing should be believed—‘For beliefs and the absence of beliefs likewise destroy men’ [Hesiod, Works and Days 372].

The religion of the witnesses, their number, and whether they were eyewitnesses, or only rely on hearsay, ought to be considered dispassionately. No proof should be given less credence than a statement made under torture. He who can endure will lie, as some ancient said, just as he who cannot endure will lie. I have countless examples at hand of those unjustly killed because of this extremely weak argument. Nor am I surprised that there have been serious men who argued that Christians should abstain from these violent and dangerous examinations under torture, since it is certain that these examinations were unknown in the most wise law of Moses, and that England lives no less safely than other nations without them, and that in Rome while freedom [the Republic] stood, the bodies of citizens were immune from them. Among the Dutch, Jews have not been suspected of such atrocities—either because, treated more mildly, they become milder too, or they are recent immigrants who live carefully. Certainly it was not for frivolous reasons that they were expelled long ago from the entire Netherlands, no less than from France, to say nothing of Spain, where I do not deny they were treated unfairly. Let judges therefore be mindful that it pertains to their religious duty not to be carried away with a false religious feeling, and that, when the case is not clear-cut, the acquittal even of a guilty person is safer than the conviction of one who ts innocent. When it comes to the life of a man, no delay is long enough. These are the things which have come to mind now concerning what you asked. If there is any other matter in which I can be of service, do not hesitate to ask for my help. Know that I am bound by your perpetual affection for me to make the bond mutual or even to try to outdo you. Paris, 12 December 1636 New Style.

‘The Boundaries of Memory A Central European Chronograph from 1665 ELISHEVA CARLEBACH These filthie Almanacks, an’t were not for them, these dayes of persecution would

ne’re be knowne. BEN JONSON, Every Man in his Humour, Ul. 1 ‘SOCIAL CIRCULATION of the past’ among early modern European Jews took place in many forms. Yiddish historical /:der (similar to other vernacular ballads), narrative chronicles, and liturgical poetry provide some well-documented examples. Daniel Woolf argues that we should not conceive of one fixed set of memories about the past circulating through a given society, but rather a variety of sets of memories competing with one another or complementing each other 1n continually shifting patterns. In the early modern period, oral and mnemonic modes of commemorating the past coexisted with written and mechanical ones: ‘Notions of the past developed within any historical culture are not simply abstract ideas but part of the mental and verbal specie . . . passing among contemporaries through speech, writing and other means.’” In order to expand our understanding of the process of the shaping of Jewish

historical memory I shall turn to a source that is frequently overlooked, the chronological and chronographic elements within Jewish calendars. Calendars presented not only the tropical cycle, following the earth around the sun through the seasons, they also proclaimed a numerical year, part of a linear sequential order that reached back into the past and forward into the future. They situated the users

within a particular year and within a particular chronological system. ‘This seemingly stable, dependable, and predictable aspect of calendar, in which one numbered year invariably follows the next, served as a grid on which to plot the I thank Dr Pearl Berger, Dean of Libraries, Yeshiva University, for permission to cite from MS 1083.

The library staff at the Center for Jewish History, especially the LBI and YIVO, and Shulamith Berger of Yeshiva University Library kindly made the material accessible to me. The editors of the volume and the anonymous readers provided much constructive criticism. ' On lider, see C. Turniansky, ‘Yiddish “Historical” Songs as Sources for the History of the Jews in Pre-Partition Poland’, Polin, 4 (1989), 42-52. On the use of chronicles and liturgical material, see Y. H. Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Fewish History and fewish Memory (Seattle, 1982), 31-52. 2 D. Woolf, The Social Circulation of the Past: English Historical Culture, 1500-1730 (Oxford, 2003), 10.

A Central European Chronograph 69 entire sweep of past events. Chronology provided the tools without which the study and understanding of history would be impossible, as the scholar Anthony Grafton has argued.?

Calendars and their literature flourished in many forms in the early modern period. Jews copied by hand and studied intensively szfre: evronot (calendar treatises), from the Hebrew root sbur (intercalation). These treatises are part calendar instruction manual, part survey of mathematical functions, and part midrash. Far from falling into disuse once calendars could be printed, sifrez evronot enjoyed new

- popularity as handwritten texts from the latter half of the sixteenth century. Professional scribes prepared some painstakingly written and exquisitely illustrated exemplars for their clients, while amateur copyists produced many errorridden texts with little or no artwork. Ordinary Jews wrote out pocket calendars for their personal use, and as Hebrew printing came of age, more printers produced pocket and wall calendars.

One small component of the calendar literature, the chronik or chronograph, may contribute to our understanding of how certain events became enshrined in Jewish memory while others were filtered out. A chronograph (originally the drum on which a stylus recorded intervals of time) is a register of important dates or years. Unlike most chronicles, which contain narrative expansion for each entry, chronographs listed in brief, crisp entries, often no more than a few words each, dates and events devoid of nuance, narrative, complication, or interpretation.* They could contain various sets of data and served multiple purposes. While chronographs could stand alone, they were most often appended to sifrei evronot or to calendars. They provide an excellent example of an intermediate stage between inchoate recent memories and full-fledged chronicles. Chronographs stem from the liminal period in which a ‘slight rupture... characterizes the perception of the past, its simultaneous distance and presence. .. . ‘This moment of rupture is historical consciousness signified collectively in the various forms of historical representation.’° It is the moment when an author or scribe peruses the list of events from Creation and, overcome by the need to memorialize the unforgettable, adds his tragic, or celebratory, event at the end. The latter part of the chronographs which incorporated recent events presented a great challenge to calendar makers—as well as a superb opportunity for historians to

examine the pathways of memory formation. So many events from more recent memory competed for inclusion that a fantastic and conscious process of compression was constantly required. The inherent brevity of the form demanded that ‘Each ° A. Grafton, Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, ii: Historical Chronology (Oxford, 1993), 7.

* For a similar characterization, see the analysis of J. Shatzmiller, ‘Kronografiyah provensalit bekundreso he’avud shel shem tov shanzolo’, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, 52 (1985), 43-61.

> S. A. Crane, (Not) Writing History: Rethinking the Intersections of Personal History and Collective Memory with Hans von Aufsess’, History and Memory, 8 (1996), 5—6.

70 Elisheva Carlebach successive generation had to sift out, from all the ingredients constantly deposited by an expanding . . . culture, those portions of the past for which it had particular use.’° This is true especially for the latter part of the chronographs that incorporated local and recent events. Crises of local life such as plagues, fires, floods, and wars loomed large in the communal consciousness, and the need to memorialize victims and celebrate narrow escapes was ever present. Printed broadsheets could speed the news and would provide a remembrance for a while. Enshrining an event in the calendar was manifestly a step beyond. This portion of calendar real estate was a most valuable site for retaining a precious few events in the communal memory. Unlike sealed canonical

works, calendars could be expanded or contracted according to the sensibility of

makers and users. By situating events from relatively recent times along the diachronic continuum, calendar makers imbued them with greater dignity and validity. Those of the remote past, by the same token, took on a quotidian reality and concreteness they could never have attained in the popular imagination had they remained isolated from recent events. In addition, by including events that affected Jews alongside those that had no specific Jewish significance, chronograph authors expanded their scope beyond the traditional arenas of Jewish memory.

An example of a late sixteenth-century chronograph opens, typically, by announcing the current year in Jewish chronology: ‘5345 [= 1585 CE| years since the creation of the world.’ This is followed by the number of years since the flood . . . our ancestors’ arrival in Egypt . . . the birth of Moses our master, of blessed memory . .. the exodus from Egypt . . . entry of our ancestors into Erets Yisra’el . . . to the building of the first Temple . . . to the exile of the Ten Tribes . . . to the destruction of the first Temple .. . the building of the second Temple . . . the kingdom of the Greeks

... the era of contracts ... the end of prophecy ... the reign of Herod... the destruction of our splendiferous house [the second Temple] may it be rebuilt speedily in our days. . . to the completion of the Mishnah . . . the completion of the Jerusalem Talmud . . . the com-

pletion of the Babylonian Talmud .. . the completion of the Yad [Code of Law] of Maimonides, of blessed memory . . . to the exile from France.

Up until this point, the chronograph is similar to innumerable exemplars copied and circulated in sifrei evronot throughout Europe. This particular chronograph ends: ‘93 [years] since the exile from Spain, go since the exile from Naples, 43 since

the exile from Bohemia.’ Plagues, conflagrations, expulsions, and instances of communal salvation routinely concluded the list of momentous events from the Creation. The final portion of the chronograph presented an elastic and infinitely malleable timeline to which authors could add and omit events depending on their own sense of recent history. The chronographs within early modern calendars played a critical and distinctive role in shaping Jewish historical memory in the early modern period, determining 6 FE. Eisenstein, ‘Clio and Chronos: An Essay on the Making and Breaking of History-Book Time’, in History and Theory, Beiheft 6: History and the Concept of Time (Middletown, Conn., 1966), 53. ” Sefer evronot, Hebrew Union College, Klau Library, MS goo, fo. 3’.

A Central European Chronograph 71 what material would be ‘remembered’ and which events consigned to oblivion. While news reports provided the raw material, this age was advancing new forms of historical culture in annals, chronicles and narrative histories, historical dramas, and

ballads about the past. Calendars mediated, winnowed, and digested the mass of material for the common reader. Aside from professional scholars, most people did not read history every day, but not a day would pass on which they would not consult their calendars. On the pages of a calendar, the scholars’ difficult task of comparing sources and synchronizing chronologies disappears, and in its place comes a stark,

simple, pared-down list.° Centralizing states utilized calendars and almanacs to advance new political agendas and religious reforms, to revise and select elements of the past to harmonize with the newly created present, and to forge a sense of social solidarity based on new realities.” In the same period, Jewish calendars managed to navigate the boundary between past and present with a remarkable combination of stability and fluidity, propelling the traditional formulae into the future while adding and shedding the materials of the recent past. It is important to note that chronographs are extraneous to the primary purpose

of the calendar itself. As they propelled the commemoration of events from ancient times into the present through the cycle of annual religious observances, calendars came to include chronological and historical information that did not pertain directly to religious ritual or natural rhythms. Rather than serving the practical needs of the users to identify dates of feasts and fasts, equinoxes and solstices, chronographs confronted an existential need: the need of the user to be situated along the continuum of time. ‘Kronik min tehilat beriyat olam’ (chronograph from the beginning of the world’s creation) trumpeted many early modern Jewish calendars, indicating their authors’ or printers’ intention that they serve as vehicles of Jewish temporal consciousness.'? By directing the user to march to the cadences of the present time, Jewish calendars refracted a collective historical past and a shared destiny through their lapidary entries. Sylvie Goldberg notes that while Jewish calendars determined with great precision the dates necessary for ritual performance, the chronographs that began with the ‘Creation of the world’ were far from precise or uniform, leading to much variation." ®° Cf. E. L. Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1983), 79.

” The use of the calendar to foster change in early modern culture has been investigated particularly closely for 16th-c. England in the work of David Cressy, Ronald Hutton, and Robert Poole. On the role of the calendar in the French Revolution, see M. Shaw, ‘Reactions to the French Republican _ Calendar’, French History, 15 (2001), 4-25. Of course, the Church continued to shape its calendar by the saints and martyrs. The ‘Martyrologium Romanum’ calendar promulgated by Gregory XIII was subsequently confirmed by other popes and revised by Benedict XIV in 1749. I thank Magda Teter for alerting me to the latter source. 10 See e.g. facsimiles in M. N. Rosenfeld, ‘Fiirther Jiidischer Kalender, Teil 1: Taschenkalender’, Nachrichten fiir den jtidischen Birger Furths, \sraelitische Kultusgemeinde Furth (Sept. 1989), 27. "tS. Goldberg, La Clepsydre: Essai sur la pluralité des temps dans le judaisme (Paris, 2000), i. 25 n. I.

72 Elisheva Carlebach For many literate people in early modern Europe, Jew and non-Jew alike, ‘the technical components of chronology formed part of the fabric of common life. The study of calendars, their relation to one another and their always inexact coordination with the movements of the sun and moon belonged to the art of computus which the vast majority of intellectuals and many others knew intimately until the eighteenth century.’!* In an age when calendars and the chronology that shaped them came to be the most contested of arenas, Jewish calendar makers reinforced the impression that Jewish calendars had been calculated and presented in

this immutable form over the ages. Yet while the chronographs appear Jewish through and through, the impulse to include them in calendars, and decisions about what to include, are very much part of larger cultural trends. Serving no practical need, these supplements were meant to instil a sense of the

great scope and grandeur of Jewish history, the rise and fall of the nation over many cycles, and a message of hope for the future. Thus Jewish calendars included material that transformed them from portable conveniences marking local time to eternal witnesses to the Jewish passage through time. The trajectory of Jewish adaptation to various chronological systems testifies to

the interplay between Jewish consciousness of distinctiveness versus that of belonging to larger cultural systems. Ancient chronological schemes included the regnal years of kings: Israelite, Judaean, Persian, Hasmonean, as well as several others. The most enduring and widespread system, minyan shetarot (era of contracts) from the Seleucid era, began with the victory of Seleucus in the fourth century BCE, and its use persisted among some Jews through at least the ninth century CE, with Yemenite Jews employing the chronology of the Seleucids though the sixteenth century. But around the medieval European Jewish world, the counting that began with Creation (anno mund1) came to be most widely used. It was based on Seder olam, the earliest surviving Hebrew chronology, dating from the third century CE, whose author, as Chaim Milikowsky assures us, never imagined that his work would become the basis for such a system of chronology.'’ Beginning with an absolute point, creation of the world, the chronology consists of events from the biblical past through the late ancient period, organized in a direct, terse, and simple style, on a scale that 1s accessible even to a minimally educated user. The chronographs that employed the chronology of Seder olam as their base stratum grew in the early modern period with the addition of fragments of the

‘chain of tradition’ genre consisting primarily of notable events in medieval rabbinic literary history. The extensions were seamlessly integrated into the base to suggest continuity. In the early modern period a renewed interest in this genre ‘2 Grafton, Joseph Scaliger, ii. 7. 13 For a brief history of Jewish chronological systems, see inter alia EJ xvi. 1264-5; C. Milikowsky,

‘Seder ‘Olam and Jewish Chronography in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods’, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, 52 (1985), 122. To date, there is no thorough study of the adop-

tion of AM chronology among the Jews. See D. Sidersky, ‘L’Origine de l’ere juive de la création du monde’, Journal astatique, 227 (1935), 325-9.

A Central European Chronograph 73 produced works such as Gedaliah ibn Yahia’s Shalshelet hakabalah and Abraham Zacuto’s Sefer yuhasin. At the same time, older works of chronology were printed in the early modern period. Seder olam was among the most frequently printed ‘historical works’ in the early modern period, alongside a later supplement, Seder olam zuta. Other works with historical qualities proved to be popular, including the medieval Yosipon and Abraham ibn Daud’s Sefer hakabalah. Finally, Jewish chronicles, such as Ganz’s Tsemah david, Elyah Capsali’s History of the Ottoman Turks (although unpublished until the nineteenth century), and Joseph Hakohen’s Divrei hayamin lemalkhet tsarefat uvett otoman hatogar, recorded historical events that had no specific connections to Jewish communities.'* Thus the supplemental chronological material in Jewish calendars of the early modern period can be traced to

several major sources, with great variation in detail, emphasis, and degree of overlap from printer to printer. Many calendar chronographs likewise included events of ‘general history’, most more recent than distant. Each strand of the chronograph served a different purpose and some occupied different locations in a calendar, generally at the beginning or end. While most of these supplements are extremely terse and formulaic, others testify to the individual proclivities and world views of the authors. Since the sources they rest on are themselves constructed from diffuse and often conflicting views of Jewish chronology, their place in Jewish calendars serves more as a reminder of the process than as a precise determination of any year.'° Individual chronographs were highly idiosyncratic, tailored to a specific community, tempered by the redactor’s sense of which events merited inclusion, not to mention political expedience. Mardochee Venture’s Calendrier hébraique, directed

to the Sephardi community in eighteenth-century France and virtually devoid

of Hebrew characters, included many of the standard ancient events in his ‘Supputation pour lannée présente de la creation du monde’, including the ‘beginning of the vulgar year’ (the Christian calendar), as well as the beginning of

the ‘belief of the Turks’ (the Muslim calendar).'° His comparatively recent ‘4 R. Bonfil, ‘How Golden was the Age of the Renaissance in Jewish History?’, in History and Theory, Betheft 27: Essays in Jewish Historiography (Middletown, Conn., 1988), go—6, argues that these works resonated with current interests of readers in the Renaissance: political and military themes that for most non-Jews constituted the primary stuff of history, and a renewed interest in antiquity. These interests, needless to say, existed far beyond Italy. See e.g. M. Breuer, ‘Modernism and ‘Traditionalism in Sixteenth-Century Jewish Historiography: A Study of David Gans’ Tzemach David’, in B. D. Cooperman (ed.), Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), 67-79.

‘2 A significant but as yet inconclusive body of scholarship exists concerning the classical texts of early Jewish chronography. The Seder olam itself possibly dates from tannaitic times; it was published first in Mantua in 1514, and in many editions thereafter. See Milikowsky, ‘Seder ‘Olam and Jewish Chronography’ and, more recently, Goldberg, La Clepsydre, i, esp. 265-330.

*6 Chronographs in 16th-c. Jewish calendars that proclaimed the beginning of the Christian calendar, and in some cases the Muslim, subtly reminded Jewish users of the priority of Jewish time, and

74 Elisheva Carlebach chronology is devoid of the tragic dates of expulsion and persecution, marking only the recapture of the Holy Land by the Turks and the invention of printing.’ Venture’s modern sensibility shrank from noting events that recalled tension between Jews and non-Jews before the Age of Emancipation. As calendars became ubiquitous in printed format, their chronographs disseminated both a fixed view of the distant past shared by all the users and a living and flexible model for affixing and assimilating events of the recent past into the linear grid. Throughout western Europe, almanac compilers included historical tables and brief chronologies so that from the late sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth

century these had become ubiquitous and accessible history lessons.‘° The reworked fragments from Seder o/am that enclosed the regular calendar entries can

claim pride of place among the Jewish tools for the pedagogy of the past. The chronographs mediated not only between Jews and their own past, but between Jews and the world around them, providing insular or expansive readings according to the temperament of the compiler or the prevailing spirit of the times. What meaning could the abbreviated chronographs have conveyed to early modern calendar users as they scanned them to read the obligations of the coming day or week? They could have imparted only fleeting impressions, but they would have been renewed with each use, for a cumulative effect of considerable power. The very name of its source, Seder olam (even if it did not appear on the chronograph), implied that there is an order to time in the world, that the entire course of earthly time had been divinely shaped into perfectly symmetrical intervals, as in the ten generations from Adam to Noah and ten from Noah to Abraham, as well as

cyclical recurrence, such as the destruction of the first and second Temples, homologized to the same day of the week. ‘Fifty-two years after the destruction of the Temple, R. Jose said: “A positive merit is unfolded ona day of merit and a negative [action] on a negative day. Thus we find that when the First Temple was destroyed, it was motse1 shabat and motsei shevi'it and the watch of Yehoyariv, and the Ninth of Av. And so for the [destruction of the] Second ['Temple].”’ Readers of the calendar who were even slightly familiar with the resonant message of Seder olam would know of its insistence on the symmetry of history, a sign

that everything that happened in the world was preordained.'? It provided the framework for placing tragic events within the perspective of a divine time scale. Along with the many messages of consolation emblazoned on Jewish calendars, chronographs served to fortify Jewish spirits against the often harsh vicissitudes of that their history had begun to unfold long before these rival religions came into being—indeed, that it began with Creation and had developed according to a divine plan ever since.

17 M. Venture, Calendrier hébraique (Amsterdam, 1765), I. ‘8 Woolf, Social Circulation, 321. ‘9 See the passage at the end of Seder olam: “This is the book of the history of man [Sefer toledot adam|. To teach us that God showed Adam each generation and its leaders, each generation and its prophets, each generation and its commentators, each generation and its sages . . . the number of their names, the counting of their days, the reckoning of their hours, the total of their footsteps, as its says, “For You count my footfalls, etc.” ’

A Central European Chronograph 75 their exilic condition. Just as the verses crowning the printed wall calendars or embedded in the year’s highlighted anagram transmitted messages of solace and teleological meaning to the punishments of time, so did the chronographs.*° Worth exploring is a hitherto unknown exemplar of a unique seventeenthcentury chronograph within a Sefer evronot, Yeshiva University MS 1083.7) The scribe, Moses ben Benjamin Neimark (or Neumark), completed his Sefer evronot on Tuesday, 16 Adar [5]425 [= 1665] in the town of Wallerstein, an important city in the seventeenth century, just north of the larger imperial city of Nordlingen in

southern Germany, linked by the river Eger to the Danube.** At that time Wallerstein contained a small Jewish community, while Nordlingen had expelled its Jews in 1507, although during the Thirty Years War the city permitted some

Jews to take refuge behind its famous fortified walls in exchange for all their money. During that war, Nordlingen became the site of a horrific siege and pivotal

battle on 5-6 September 1634.7° It is unclear from the manuscript whether Neimark was a resident during those events. Neimark attributed the text of the Sefer evronot to various sources in different parts of the text: ‘All this I have copied from an ancient book that had been in the city of Nuremberg; it was copied from the notebook of Rabbi Samuel Schlettstadt, 27.4 “As I have found in the Sefer evronot of Rabbi David of Lublin.’*° ‘I have found written, in the name of Rabbi Lipmann of Prague, that the calculation circle (igul) of Rabbi Nachshon is not precise.’“° Neimark cites one additional source: his father, Rabbi Benjamin Neimark.*’ Thus, this Sefer evronot rests upon multiple textual traditions as well as on oral transmission. The chronograph in Neimark’s

Sefer evronot, most likely unique to this manuscript, was probably intended to 20 The 1496 calendar is crowned with the verse ‘And those redeemed by God will return’. Its brief chronograph ends with the destruction of the Temple, ‘may it be speedily rebuilt in our days’, followed by additional words from the holiday liturgy that are also consolatory: ‘Our Father, our King, renew a good year for us; Our Father, our King, cause our salvation to arise imminently.’ The thirtyyear calendar published in Constantinople in 1510 ends its chronograph with a wish for redemption: ‘He will gather the dispersed, gather in the dispersed of Israel, and a redeemer shall come to Zion.’ 21 The chronograph appears on fo. 1’. 22 Fo. 1°: “This I have written [copied] from a very old evronot that was written in [5]292 [= 1552 CE] here in the holy community of Wallerstein; I the insignificant, Moses, son of his father R. Benjamin, may his merit protect us, Neimark, today, Tuesday 16 Adar 425 to the small counting [= 1665 CE].’ It is customary for the copyist of a sefer evronot to insert the current year into the calendrical calculations. Neimark frequently refers to the year [5|425 [= 1665 cE]. 23 C_R. Friedrichs, Urban Society in an Age of War: Nordlingen, 1580-1720 (Princeton, 1979), 160;

W. P. Guthrie, Battles of the Thirty Years War: From White Mountain to Nordlingen, 1615-1635 (Westport, Conn., 2002). Nordlingen used the Julian calendar until 1700. Joseph Davis, Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller: Portrait of a Seventeenth-Century Rabbi (Oxford, 2004), 20—1 and sources cited there.

24 Fo. 1". R. Samuel Schlettstadt, a 14th-c. Alsatian rabbinic scholar noted for his halakhic work Kitsur mordekhat, sojourned in Babylonia under strained circumstances before returning to Europe. Israel Jacob Yuval, Hakhamin bedoram: hamanhigut haruhanit shel yehudei germaniyah beshilhet yemet

habeinayim (Jerusalem, 1988), 276, 295. 25 Fo. 98"; similarly fo. 100’. 26 Fo. 50". Presumably this refers to R. Yom Tov Lipman Heller. 27 Fos. 18'—19'.

76 Elisheva Carlebach serve as an addendum toa longer, complete timeline, such as the sixteenth-century example cited above. Neimark recorded events that registered in his perception as worthy of inclusion

on the permanent record. The text of his chronograph, along with an annotated translation, follows; I have added paragraph numbering in square brackets. YU MS 1083, fo. 1°:

pp? von niw nvyw iw amnw pNP wan pr way? NANI AIw Own [1] TIDWN PAN PIA MII Nya? OIW 747) [2]

[7a] PINYD AVINYD TTI IAT Iwy ow Pov WIA AyAW IY nwink (7weoend 2 jowows nwini Ay nwini I’3y NW NIW TIDWN PINT TPVwW NN792 "MW A? [3]

PPINP INO TD OVA Nn nw AMnw pom npsws aN? mw 4»w”? [4]

YOOX? wisp OY 2y .2Om awl onw KI Wi) TVPOYNN XPNIP P”P? TPNW TIF NIWON Nw 712N 3D/N OD [5]

ITP 702 PWR OVA NIRTI AMIN Awad PY TOM 2D DRI IW UNO Wow JP J7 TNA NII”MN Nw niDI0 AW [6]

INIA O11 IF RW NPT MWITP MIP TP NWI NIV PIII? p” pr BAN aw? ONIN AP? pwayon MPN P”p -WANT NI7INAI OWN VINO 7D 122 IN NIVDIW IW OTN? ON IVI IAW NX? PTI

PPD TID OMI IN FIT PW DVT OMIT WIT WON JVPOIIPN [7]

ONT OX TP OPI PID WIA NWT? Way 73279 NWI NII DDPN? MPDANT JO [2 OIWYID] 7”? WAX VIDA

SIPTAL IOP J I"? DANDY? TOP WADI AX WIINIAN?n nw [8]

SIV TIO 72 OTP INP [29 BV? AMIN TIO NPP VA PIADN 17992 977 NPI IITA PTINA TINA WID3”DN TWF WRI [9]

OO? /an PA Mwy AwyIR”DnN nw [10] STON O/ OVI IPYY DPW AWY? NIT PATNA ow nwiy

A Central European Chronograph 77 Translation: The year [5]425 [= 1665], to the small reckoning. [1] Fifty-one years since the expulsion of Vins-Hans Frankfurt, which took place

in [5]375 [= 1615]. [2] 43 years since bad coins [circulating] throughout all the lands of Ashkenaz until the Reichsthaler was valued at 12 gold coins against 7 peznir [?]; 3 peznir copper kreutzer copper [?| copper.*” [3] 33 years since the ‘Sweden’ war in the land of Ashkenaz, which came in [5|392 [= 1632].°°

[4] 13 years since the destruction of medinat raisen [Reissen = Red Ruthenia = Ukraine] that took place in [5]408 [= 1648] at the hands of that very debased nation, the Cossacks. “8 For a literary commemoration of the events, see Abraham Heln’s ‘Megillas Vints’, the earliest exemplar of a new genre of Yiddish historical /ider. It appeared in Johann Christoph Wagenseil, Belehrung der Juedisch-Teutschen Red- und Schreibart (Konigsberg, 1699), 119—49. For a critical edition

with English trans., see E. Helen, Turmoil, Trauma and Triumph: The Fettmilch Uprising in Frankfurt

am Main (1612-1616) according to Megillas Vintz, ed. and trans. R. Ulmer (Frankfurt am Main, 2001). See further C. Turniansky, ‘The Events in Frankfurt am Main (1612-1616) in “Megillas Vints” and in an Unknown Yiddish “Historical” Song’, in Michael Graetz (ed.), Schdpferische Momente des europaischen Fudentums in der friihen Neuzeit (Heidelberg, 2000), 121-38. For a contemporary account, see Y. H. Nordlingen, Yos:fomets (Frankfurt am Main, 1723), nos. 953-8, 1107—9. On the events sur-

rounding the Fettmilch uprising, see S. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the ews, xiv (New York, 1969), 194-7, and C. Friedrichs, ‘Politics or Pogrom? The Fettmilch Uprising in German and Jewish History’, Central European History, 19 (1986), 186-228.

29 ‘The years 1620-2 came to be known as the period of clippers and counterfeiters, ‘Kipper und Wipper’. The Habsburg emperors allowed four people, including Jacob Bassevi, a Jewish courtier, to

mint coins with debased value in Bohemia. This resulted in terrible inflation throughout the Bohemian and German lands; the value of the currency fluctuated wildly from day to day. When a new stable currency was issued in 1623, the inflated coins were devalued almost go per cent. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, xiv. 231-3 and nn. 6~7. Baron comments: “The Jewish sources of the period, in so far as they mention coins at all, are as a rule more concerned with halakhic implications than with the value of the currency as such.’ Our source appears to take a deep interest in the value of the money itself. As to the currency, coins in Nordlingen in the 16th and 17th cc. were pri-

marily gulden (the zehuvim in the source), written sometimes as fl., harking back to an old usage (florin). One gulden equalled 60 kreutzer. Many other currencies circulated through Nordlingen, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact coins Neimark refers to. See Friedrichs, Urban Society, p. xvi. 380 In the early 16th c. the Swedish military became the scourge of other European armies. Its strategy was to fight self-sustaining wars on foreign soil by extracting resources for the repayment of expenses: soldiers paid themselves by wanton looting. In 1617, Sweden went to war with Muscovy, and in 1629 with the Polish Vasas. They captured Riga and Livland, clearing the way for retaliatory incursions. At first the Swedes claimed that their fighting was defensive, to keep the Habsburgs out of the Baltic, but this quickly became a predatory and offensive campaign; see A. FE Upton, Charles XI and Swedish Absolutism (Cambridge, 1998), 7. On the decline of discipline among soldiers in all the 17th-c. conflicts, see R. G. Asch, ‘“Wo der soldat hinkombt, da ist alles sein”: Military Violence and Atrocities in the Thirty Years War Re-examined’, German History, 18 (2000), 291-309. For a critical re-evaluation of

78 Elisheva Carlebach And their military leader, called Chmel. On the holy nation he had no mercy.*!

[5] On Sunday, 24 Elul, the year [5]415 [= 1655], the king of Sweden came to the holy community of Krakow and conquered it in mid-day, on Sunday, during Selihot.*?

[6] ‘he eve of Sukkot, the year [5]416 [= 1655], the foe, the King of the Greeks, named Muscoviter, came and killed all those who were beautiful to behold in the holy communities of Lublin,*? Vilna, and the rest of the holy communities. In the state of Lithuania he killed and destroyed in his wrath youths and virgins, and members of the community of Malui [Mogilev] and Vitebsk he took as captives to his land,** and they have not yet returned, due to our sins. Woe to the ears that hear this! Woe to us, for we have sinned.*° the standard accounts, particularly the role of mercenaries, see N. Yakovenko, ‘The Events of 1648-1649: Contemporary Reports and the Problem of Verification’, Jemish History, 17 (2003), 165-78.

31 The literature on the events of 1648~9 in Poland is great and growing. Note the use of the term hurban and the interplay between Chmielnicki’s name and the Hebrew word for mercy. These indicate

that the author has already absorbed certain literary dimensions, to which these references form a shorthand. A notice in a Memorbuch bearing both these characteristics is cited by L. Lowenstein, ‘Memorbiicher’, Zeitschrift fiir die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, 2 (1887), 197. The date given here 1s simply tah = 408, the year too well known to specify the thousands ([5]408). The term ‘Reissen’ referred originally to today’s Ukraine or parts of Belarus. When it was incorporated into Poland centuries earlier, the designation remained, sometimes as a synonym for Poland. 32 Tn 1655, Carl X Gustavus, the new king of Sweden, invaded the weakened commonwealth, and

the Polish army surrendered without a struggle. The Swedish troops invaded Warsaw in September and captured Krakow in October. J. Raba, Between Remembrance and Dental: The Fate of the Jews in the

Wars of the Polish Commonwealth during the Mid-Seventeenth Century as Shown in Contemporary Writings and Historical Research (Boulder, Colo., 1995), 33—4; originally published in Hebrew, Bein ztkaron lehakhhashah (‘Tel Aviv, 1994).

83 A survivor of the Lublin siege of 1655, R. Aaron Shmuel Koidonover, wrote his memories of the events: ‘All my possessions were taken from me, money, gold and members of my household. Two of

my daughters were killed for the sanctification of the Name... . all my holy writings the accursed Greeks have taken . . . 1 was thrown into the street beaten and tortured smeared with the blood of the murdered. ... Hungry and thirsty, naked and barefoot. . . . many times the enemy took me out to meet my death and I extended my neck like cattle for slaughter.’ Cited in Raba, Between Remembrance and Demial, 63—4. Original in A. S. Koidonover, Birkat hazevah ... (Commentary on the Talmud, ‘Seder kodashim’) (Amsterdam, 1669), intro., n.p. 34 Raba, Between Remembrance and Denial, 64, notes that no Jewish accounts survived from the devastation at Mogilev.

25 Russia joined the war against Poland in Oct. 1653. This entry refers to the first joint foray by Russian and Cossack troops, resulting in great success for the ‘Muscovites’. In 1654, Vitebsk, Smolensk, and Mogilev came under Russian control. In the summer of 1655, the inhabitants of Lublin were attacked, especially the Jews, and in August of that year, Vilna, the capital of Lithuania, was captured and destroyed. Ibid. 33~4. On the long history of Russian ambitions for the Polish crown and the history of the negotiations between them, see Z. Wojcik, ‘Russian Endeavors for the Polish Crown in the Seventeenth Century’, Slavic Review, 41 (1982), 59-72.

A Central European Chronograph 79 [7] Iyar and Sivan [5]416 [= 1656] the violent ones and the mobs of King Casimir, king of Poland | Jan Kazimierz], killed thousands and tens of thousands of our people, the expulsion of Poland, and many changed their religion, in particular, in [?] Gniezno and its surrounding area.”°

[8] In [5]418 [= 1658] in the month of Av, Kaiser Leopold captured the city of Krakow from Kaiser Ferdinand and he delivered it into the hands of King Casimir, son of King Sigmund.

[9] On Rosh Hashanah [5]424 [= 1663], the Turk [Ottoman emperor] captured the great fortress Nei Heizel in Hungary.®’

[10] And in the year [5]425 [= 1664] a compromise [peace treaty] was made

between the two emperors.°®

Amen. ,

May the One who makes peace above, bring peace onto us, and to all of Israel.

This chronograph is important not for its wlumination of these events—most are known better and in greater detail from other sources—but for the light it sheds on the process of integrating recent events into Jewish historical memory. Unlike his non-Jewish contemporaries, Neimark integrated and organized the welter of events into his notion of ‘Jewish history’. ‘The European wars of the first half of the seventeenth century were intensively chronicled and their shaping into coherent memory was an ongoing process that has attracted significant historio-

graphical attention. The Thirty Years War, followed by the rebellion of the Cossacks that devastated Poland in 1648—9 and the Swedish invasions of the 1650s, resulted in a long half-century of agony for all parties caught in the conflicts. For

the west Eurcpean press, these events provided the impetus, the readership, and the context to flourish as never before. Sensationalist accounts of murder, rape, looting, torture, burning, and pillaging, often accompanied by appropriately lurid depictions, kept readers riveted to the news media of the day. Reports by missions and political legations, private and official correspondence, as well as diaries, 38 Raba, Between Remembrance and Denial, 48, notes that Shmuel Faivish ben Nathan Feitel, 7it hayeven (Venice, c.1655), emphasized and exaggerated the numbers of victims, and notes specifically cases in which Jews were taken captive by Tatars or converted to Christianity to avoid death. On the

Tatar raids which resulted in the captivity of the young Jewish men and women and the death of the old, see Raba, Between Remembrance and Denial, 66—7.

37 This entry refers to the Habsburg—Ottoman war of 1663-4, part of an Ottoman campaign of expansion in Hungary. ‘Neuhausel’ (Slovak Nové Zamky, Hungarian Ersektyvar), a city close to Pressburg/Bratislava, then the capital of Royal Hungary, fell to the Ottomans: ). On the long history of Ottoman interventions in the Black Sea region, see C. M. Kortepeter, ‘Ottoman Imperial Policy and the Economy of the Black Sea Region in the Sixteenth Century’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 86 (1966), 86-113.

38 Tn August of 1664, the Habsburgs defeated the Ottomans in battle. They concluded a peace treaty on 10 Aug. (the Treaty of Vasvar/Eisenburg).

80 Elisheva Carlebach minutes of legislative sessions, lamentations, prayers, and court records, circulated in multiple copies and complemented printed news sheets.*? Yet, as soon as geographical or chronological distance began to intervene, the

specificity and detail of first-hand reports tended to vanish. Originality in one report quickly faded into cliché as it was copied into others.*° The welter of voices and sources for events that caught the entire European world in their bloody grip

quickly became overwhelming in terms of the sheer volume of reports. Each affected group and locality ultimately selected, in a process that was not always conscious, the particular memories to be perpetuated.*! As the temporal distance from the events grew, the contours of historical memory began to emerge. Thus Polish reports from the immediate aftermath of the destruction of 1648—9 tended to include mention of Jewish victims, while summary and general overviews made some time after the events tended to omit the presence of Jews.*” Or, as an English

news editor of the seventeenth century noted: ‘I find the battell expressed diversely, as the relators stood affected.’*° Jewish sources close to the violent events also produced a wealth of chronicles,

liturgical works, and memoir literature.** This trove of sources allows us to ask important questions about the workings of Jewish memory. Did the impulse to memorialize the horrific treatment of Jews and the vast losses of human life transcend the borders of Polish Jewry? Which events were propelled into the collective memory of the Jews of Europe, and which remained local so that they survive only in the specific recollections of a particular town or region?*> Were memories of the general misery—not specific to Jews—included in Jewish chronicles? 39 FE. A. Beller, Propaganda in Germany during the Thirty Years War (Princeton, 1940); G. Rystad, Kriegsnachrichten und Propaganda wihrend des Dreissigjahrigen Krieges: Die Schlacht bei Nordlingen in

den gleichzeitigen gedruckten Kreigsberichten, trans. K. Wuhrer and G. Hornig (Skrifter Utgivna av Vetenskaps-Societeten 1, no. 54; Lund, 1960), 3-12. While Rystad focuses on one major battle, his bibliography provides documentation of the process of circulation of news and propaganda in this

period. For reproductions of contemporary broadsheets, see J. R. Paas, The German Political Broadsheet, 1600-1700, 9 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1985— ). 40 See e.g. G. Mortimer, Eyewitness Accounts of the Thirty Years War, 1618-48 (Basingstoke, 2002),

a For an example of this process, see H. Medick, ‘Historical Event and Contemporary Experience: The Capture and Destruction of Magdeburg in 1631’, History Workshop Journal (2001), 23-48.

42 J. Raba, ‘Changes in the Treatment of the Chmielnicki Massacres in Polish Sources of the Seventeenth Century’, Ga/-ed, 13 (1993), 15-42; 1d., Between Remembrance and Denial, 71-120. 43 Cited in Rystad, Kriegsnachrichten,72.

44 The texts are collected in J. H. Gurland, Lekorot hagezerot al yisra’el (Przemysl, 1887; repr. Jerusalem, 1972). For an analysis of the Jewish historiography related to the events of 1648-9, see G. Bacon, ‘“The House of Hannover”: Gezeirot Tah in Modern Jewish Historical Writing’, femish History, 17 (2003), 179-206.

*> On the literary shaping of events, see the important study of E. Fram, ‘Creating a Tale of Martyrdom in Tulczyn, 1648’, in E. Carlebach, J. Efron, and D. Myers (eds.), Zemish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (Hanover, 1998), 89-112.

A Central European Chronograph 81 The answer to some of these questions is far from clear-cut. The first question, whether memories of the events of 1648-9 remained local or became universal, has been debated with particular urgency by scholars. Gershom Scholem first believed

that the events of 1648-9 provided a direct stimulus in the early phase of the Sabbatian messianic movement, a view he later abandoned.*° Jacob Barnai revisited the question and concluded that Jewish suffering during the Cossack uprising did

play a significant role in the widespread success of the Sabbatian movement far beyond the directly affected community.*’ Chone Shmeruk addressed the ques-

tion of the place of the events in Poland in Jewish collective memory from the perspective of later literary references to gezerot tah vetat (Hebrew years 5408-9, referring to the persecutions of 1648-9). By looking at printed calendars, he charted the persistence and memory of a fast day on 20 Sivan ordained by the Council of Four Lands for the Jews of Poland. Calendars published in Grodno and Vilna continued to list the fast throughout the nineteenth century. While Shmeruk noted that the fast was not observed any place beyond the borders of Poland—Lithuania, the entries in the calendar served as a terse reminder of the events they memorialized.*® In Neimark’s chronograph, the Thirty Years War is not yet viewed as a coherent unit: its later representation as a single set of events has not been fixed.*” Neimark

integrated events that directly affected the Jewish community with events of general significance, a notion of history that differed from that of his non-Jewish contemporaries. He viewed the past half-century as a succession of calamities beginning with the expulsion from Frankfurt. His extreme compression of the

events at Frankfurt is noteworthy. He registered only the expulsion, which accorded nicely with his list of other expulsions. The fact that only this aspect of the events remained in the compressed version delineates a pathway to the historical memory of Ashkenazi Jews. He does not mention the fact that Frankfurt’s Jews returned in triumph shortly thereafter and instituted a well-known ‘Purim’. Is this how lachrymose historical memories were born?°°? Salo Baron noted that the 46 G. Scholem, ‘Hatenuah hashabeta’it befolin’, in Y. Hailperin (ed.), Beit yisra’el befolin (Jerusalem, 1948-54), repr. in his Mehkarim umekorot letoledot hashabeta’ut vegilguletha (Jerusalem, 1982), 68. This opinion does not appear in Scholem’s Sabbatat Sev1: The Mystical Messtah, 1626-1676 (Princeton, 1973). 47 J. Barnai, ‘The Outbreak of Sabbateanism—The Eastern European Factor’, Journal of Fewish Thought and Philosophy, 4 (1994), 171-83; 1d., Shabeta’ut: hebetim hevratiyim (Jerusalem, 2000), 53-4. 48 Ch. Shmeruk, Hakeriah lenavi: mehkerei historiyah vesifrut, ed. 1. Bartal (Jerusalem, 1999), 18. For the most recent discussion of the 20 Sivan fast, see Jacob J. Schachter, ‘Remembering the Temple:

Commemoration and Catastrophe in Medieval Ashkenazic Culture’, paper presented at Yeshiva University, Inaugural Conference, Center for Israel Studies, 12 May 2008. 49 For differing views on the scope and perceptions of the war, see B. F. Porshnev, Muscovy and

Sweden in the Thirty Years’ War, 1630-1635, ed. P. Dukes, trans. B. Pearce (Cambridge, 1995); S. H. Steinberg, The ‘Thirty Years War’ and the Conflict for European Hegemony, 1600-1660 (London, 1966); J. V. PoliSensky, with F. Snider, War and Society in Europe, 16185-1648 (New York, 1978).

°° For a broader interpretation, see M. R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994), 162—94.

82 Elisheva Carlebach expulsion from Frankfurt shook the premiss that imperial Jewry was safe, that goods entrusted to Jews were ‘as safe as in Heaven’.°! This may explain why the subsequent return did not matter as much as the expulsion. Those who were caught up in the depredations of 1648~—9 viewed the events as

an unprecedented khurben, a devastating destruction of life and culture. They memorialized the events of tah vetat separately and exclusively. To be sure, it remained an archetype of catastrophe in Jewish historical and literary sources for centuries.°* The contemporary scholar Joel Raba even speaks of the events of 1648-9 as the greatest devastation in Jewish historical consciousness until the Holocaust.°? Chone Shmeruk argues that a series of later violent depredations against Jews in the Ukraine in 1768, 1881, 1905, and 1918-20 kept the model of 1648 alive as a paradigm, each recurrence incising the original event further into the collective memory. The tendency to focus on one central event and view others through its lens existed in tension with the impulse to add ‘contemporary events to the flow of Jewish experiences’.°* The chronograph presented here was written at a moment when the events of 1648—9 were receding from immediate memory, condensed into a timeline with other prior and subsequent events. When the lines migrated to a printed calendar, they would contract further, leaving only a few words to mark the enormity. Chronographs like Neimark’s contribute to the scholarly debate on the question of local versus universal reverberations of events that incised a violent gash into the continuous timeline of the past. The expulsion from Spain formed such a ‘universal’ Jewish event, and, over time, was included in the timeline from Creation in chronographs by Jews who had no likely historical or genealogical relationship to Spanish Jews but considered their expulsions momentous enough to justify such an inclusion. The debate on the reach and scope of the memories of events of the midseventeenth century in the Empire and in Poland cannot be resolved here with finality, but surely chronographs ought to be weighed in the balance. °! Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, xiv. 292. °2 A. Mintz, Hurban: Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature (New York, 1984), 102—5. °3 Raba, Between Remembrance and Denial, 1. See Mortimer, Eyewitness Accounts, intro., for a similar appraisal.

°4 R. Chazan, ‘The Timebound and the Timeless: Medieval Jewish Narration of Events’, History and Memory, 6 (1994), 6.

‘The Authority of the Council of © Four Lands outside Poland—Lithuania MOSHE ROSMAN THERE IS a consensus among historians of Jewish history that it was in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries that the forms of Jewish autonomy attained their most articulated expression, crowned by the development of the Council of Four Lands (for Poland and Ukraine) and its partner-subordinate, the Council of Lithuania. As Gershon Hundert has written:

‘Indeed, Polish Jewry developed the most elaborate and ramified institutional structure in European Jewish history; from artisan guilds and voluntary societies, communal governments, and regional assemblies to a national council or parliament called the Council of Four Lands (Va’ad Arba Aratsot).’! These governing institutions affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews and sought to coordinate the policies and actions of hundreds of communities.” In the absence of Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the world, the Council of Four Lands (usually connoting also the Council of Lithuania, with which it often worked in concert) A Hebrew version of this article appeared in G. Bacon and M. Rosman (eds.), Studies in the History and Culture of Eastern European Jewry (= Bar Ilan, 24-5 (1989)), 11-30. This English version is expanded and updated. " G. D. Hundert, Jews in Poland—Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity (Berkeley, 2004), 12-13; cf. S. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland from Earliest Times until

the Present Day, trans. I. Friedlander, 1 (Philadelphia, 1916), 123; Encyclopaedia Fudaica (Jerusalem, 1972), V. 995; 5. W. Baron, The femish Community: Its History and Structure to the American Revolution, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1942), i. 323-37.

* For the history of the development and functioning of the Council, see Hundert, Jews in Poland—Lithuania, 12-14; id., ‘On the Jewish Community in Poland during the Seventeenth Century: Some Comparative Perspectives’, Revue des études juives, 142 (1983), 349-72; Baron, The Femish Community, 1. 323-37; I. Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah: mehkarim betoledotihem (Jerusalem, 1968), 39—107; J. Goldberg, ‘The Jewish Sejm: Its Origins and Functions’, in A. Polonsky,

J. Basista, and A. Link-Lenczowski (eds.), The Jems in Old Poland, rooo—1795 (London, 1993), 147-65; S. Ettinger, “The Council of the Four Lands’, ibid. 93-109; A. Leszczynski, Sejm Zydéw Korony, 1623-1764 (Warsaw, 1994); S. A. Cygielman, ‘Iskei hahakhirot shel yehudei polin vekishram lehithavut “va’ad arba aratsot”’, Tsiyon, 47 (1982), 112-44; A. Teller, ‘Rabbis without a Function? The Polish Rabbinate and the Council of Four Lands in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries’, in J. Wertheimer (ed.), Jewish Religious Leadership: Image and Reality, i (New York, 2004), 371-400, and esp. sources cited at 374 n. 12.

84 Moshe Rosman served both as a reminder of Jewish sovereignty in the past and as a harbinger of the promised messianic Jewish state of the future. In the present it proved that Jews did have political and administrative acumen. This was put succinctly by the wine merchant and memoirist Ber of Bolechow, an eighteenth-century Polish

Jew, who noted: “This [Council] was for the Children of Israel a measure of Redemption and a bit of honour.’? Communication between the Va’ad (Council) and Jewish communities outside Poland was not standard or even commonplace, so its decisions and actions became known abroad only serendipitously.* The very fact of its existence, however, was

famous and aroused feelings of admiration. Rabbi Mosheh Hagiz, a Jew from Erets Yisra’el who lived in western Europe in the early eighteenth century, described the multifaceted activities of the Va’ad, concluding: ‘How goodly is their portion and how pleasant their lot!’? The Sephardi rabbis of Amsterdam wrote to 3 The Memoirs of Ber of Bolechow (1723-1805), trans. Mark Wischnitzer (London, 1922) 144 (translation corrected according to the Heb. edn. (Berlin, 1922; Jerusalem, 1979), p. 88); cf. Hundert, Jews in Poland—Lithuama, 13.

* For example, rabbis in Ashkenaz such as Haham Zvi Ashkenazi (She’elot uteshuvot hakham tsevi (Jerusalem, 1995), nos. 65-6), and Jacob Reischer (She ’elot uteshuvot shevut ya’akov (Jerusalem, 1972),

pt. 1, no. 107; pt. 3, no. 124) read about certain decisions of the Council in rabbinic books that men-

tioned them in various contexts. R. Avraham ben Mordekhai Halevi in Egypt (Ginat veradim (Constantinople, 1716), no. 3: 9) was uncertain whether an enactment concerning collection of charity in Ashkenaz for Jews in Erets Yisra’el was indeed written by the Council. He became convinced of its authenticity only because of a chance acquaintance with a Polish Jew who had been punished for violating this by-law (see the case concerning contributions to Erets Yisra’el below). ‘The Va’ad did, however, keep ‘Books of the By-Laws of the Lands’ (Sifrez takanot aratsot; according to Ber of Bolechow, 144, these were printed, although no printed copy exists or is attested by another source); cf. Pinkas va'ad arba aratsot, ed. I. Halperin (hereafter PVAA) (Jerusalem, 1945), 134, 135, and index s.v. ‘Pinkasei Dalet Aratsot’. The content of these books was apparently not generally known outside Poland. ° Rabbi Mosheh bar Ya’akov Hagiz, Mishnat hakhamim (Wandsbeck, 1733), no. 349. R. Hagiz’s report on the Va’ad is interesting: “They told me that the essence of the Va’ad which has a set meeting once every three years at the Jaroslaw fair is so that all of the rabbis heading yeshivas will come from every corner of the country and each presents before the [other] rabbis every single thing that he has been unsure about during these years and he also presents every untoward thing that happened 1n his community and with all present they explore [the issues] seeking God’s word and also making a hedge

around [i.e. making enactments for the protection and enforcement of] all the words of Torah and enacting many regulations for the entire Exile concerning what is necessary in each sphere, both in matters of taxation and in matters of commerce and a hedge against forbidden sexual relations and also to oversee the elders, the leaders and the charity wardens that they conduct everything in accord with the law of Moses and Israel and every difficult issue they decide at the time of the fair. How goodly is their portion and how pleasant their lot!’ (cf. contemporary descriptions of the Va’ad cited in Teller, ‘Rabbis without a Function?’, 376—8). In principle, the Va’ad convened twice a year, typically in Jarostaw in August and Lublin in February, but sometimes elsewhere. Also ‘the essence’ of the Va’ad was not only the judicial and halakhic activities of the Polish rabbis but also, and even primarily, the tax apportionment, governmental liaison, and legislative and regulatory efforts of its lay leadership;

see PVAA, rev. edn., ed. I. Bartal (Jerusalem, 1991), introductions by S. Ettinger, I. Bartal, I. Halperin, 15*—42*; Teller, ‘Rabbis without a Function?’, 374-5, 381—3, 389—96. For more on the relationship between the Va’ad and the rabbis, see below.

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands 85 the Va’ad in 1671, addressing their letter to those whose ‘fortress [authority | extends over the entire community of the Exile’,° and, in 1682, to those ‘from whom radiates Torah to enlighten nations by its light . . . the yudges and sages of the Four Lands, the sceptre of whose kingdom reaches unto the provinces’.’ Rabbi Avraham ben Mordekhai Halevi, the author of Ginat veradim, who lived in Egypt in the early eighteenth century, asserted: And behold Poland is a great city of God and every pronouncement made there is spread to all the cities of Ashkenaz, near and far . . . and it is self-evident that the vast majority of the Jewish community will adopt this regulation of the Polish rabbis and are anxious to obey | their words and their edicts as if Joshua had uttered them from the mouth of the Almighty.®

It is noteworthy that all these foreign observers spoke as if the Va’ad were a rabbinic body, or at least one led or dominated by rabbis. The sources make it clear, however, that the Va’ad’s members and leaders were mostly laymen and its authority did not derive from rabbinic sanction. In fact there could be tension between rabbinic authorities and the Va’ad.° For most of its existence, even rabbis who did sit on the Va’ad did so as representatives of their communities and not by virtue of their rabbinic office or training. There was in Poland, pre-dating the Va’ad itself (apparently from the mid-sixteenth century), a grand rabbinic court that served as a court of appeals and intercommunal court for all of Polish Jewry, meeting at the time of the major fairs, just as the Va’ad, evidently established c.1580, did. It was only around 1670, however, that this rabbinic court seems to have become officially “The Great Luminaries, Rabbis and Halakhic Authorities of the Four Lands’; that is, formally the Va’ad’s ‘supreme court’. By 1730 the two bodies seem to have merged. By then the foreigners’ perception of rabbinic authority adhering to the Va’ad would have been somewhat closer to the truth, although the Va’ad never became a rabbinic body.*° In addition to foreigners’ image of the type of authority wielded by the Va’ad, observers like Rabbi Halevi thought that the Va’ad’s enactments in Poland were

° PVAA, 127. ” Thid. 186.

° Ginat veradim, 127¢, 128¢. R. Halevi’s practice was to use Ye’ushua for Yehoshua (Joshua). Also, the common expression is ‘as if Moses had uttered them’; citing Joshua rather than Moses in this context is unusual. 2 PVAA, 42-5; Shu’'t bayit hadash hahadashot (Koretz, 1785), no. 43; Teller, ‘Rabbis without a Function?’, 383. 10 PVAA, 17*—24* (rev. edn. 35*—42*); Teller, ‘Rabbis without a Function?’, esp. 380, 389-97. A possible confirmation that in the late 17th c. the Va’ad and the rabbinic court were working in tandem

is the observation cited in Hakham tsevi (see n. 4 above), no. 66 (quoting from Sefer beit ya’akov (Dyhernfurth, 1696)), that a certain halakhic decision was made ‘at the meeting of the elders [bemoshav zekenim|] and in the presence of many rabbis and great sages, as is known, at the Jaroslaw fair’. In contrast to the Va’ad in Poland, the Lithuanian Jewish Council included ex-officio rabbinic members from its inception and throughout its existence; see Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah ewropah, 48-54; S. Dubnow, Pinkas hamedinah (Berlin, 1922), nos. 172, 192, 222, 283; Teller, ‘Rabbis without a Function?’, 393.

86 Moshe Rosman both widely known and widely accepted as binding decisions, at least by most Ashkenazi communities. Similarly, some modern scholars claimed that the Va’ad exercised binding authority outside Poland, in Ashkenaz (the German states, eastern France, the Low Countries), Italy, Bohemia, and Moravia. The Va’ad’s lack of legal warrant abroad, however, was demonstrated more than a hundred years ago and it did not exercise power over other Jewish communities; it did enjoy influence beyond the borders of Poland. ‘There was no legal authority; but there was moral

authority." Both rabbis and scholars were agreed, then, that many non-Polish communities were prepared to honour the decisions of the Va’ad, if not out of obligation, then voluntarily. For many years this presumption remained untested. What was the nature and extent of the Va’ad’s moral authority outside Poland? What was its basis? When and how was it employed? Did it really have an effect? As the central governing body of the Jewish communities of Poland, the Va’ad

filled several functions: |

I. enacting administrative, economic, religious, and social legislation; 2. adjudicating questions that local rabbis did not succeed in deciding; 3. hearing appeals of local rabbinic court and communal council rulings;'?

4. apportioning of taxes; 5. supervising local communities in areas such as finance, education, and charity;

6. supervising communal leaders; 7. regulating inter-communal relations; 8. representing Polish Jewry to the agencies of the Polish government; g. allocating resources and lending aid in emergency situations, such as in the wake of the gezerot (persecutions) of 1648-9. In general, relations between the Va’ad and the Polish communities were institutionalized and routinized.'® On the other hand, the Va’ad’s relationship to other Jewish communities was neither defined nor regularized. Such ties were formed on an ad hoc basis."* In the light of this, one possible way to analyse the Va’ad’s moral authority outside Poland is to consider the features of the various cases of Va’ad intervention in the internal

affairs of non-Polish communities. This can help determine what in general led to such intervention, what form it took, and to what degree it succeeded. In the 11 Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah, 67.

12 The performance of the judicial functions referred to in points 2 and 3 varied according to the fluctuating relationship between the Va’ad and the grand rabbinic court; see above and n. ro. 18 PVAA, passim. A detailed analysis of the relationship between the Va’ad and local communities is

still a desideratum; for now, see J. Kalik, ‘Deconstructing Communities: The Administrative Structure of the Rural Jewish Population in the Polish Crown Lands in the Eighteenth Century’, Ga/-

ed, 21 (2007), 53-76. 14 Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah, 67-77.

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands 87 material relating to the Va’ad’s activities that Halperin gathered and published there are ten cases where a community, group, or individual from outside Poland requested the Va’ad to give an opinion or a decision in some matter.'” These ten cases can serve as a sample on which to base conclusions as to the extent and quality of the Va’ad’s authority outside of Poland.

CHOOSING LEADERSHIP IN FRANKFURT In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the leadership of the Jewish community of Frankfurt am Main was in the hands of a small group called Havruta Kadisha (the holy fellowship) or simply Havruta or Zehender (‘the ten’).'® This was an oligarchical body that served as the council of the community, choosing two gabayim (wardens) who administered communal affairs. Members of the Zehender were elected for life and when it was necessary to choose a successor the only electors were the other members of the Havruta. In the period 1616—28 there was a struggle between the Zehender and members of other groupings in the community who opposed their rule and sought to broaden the membership of the communal council to include representatives of other sectors of the population.* The Jews of Frankfurt had suffered a pogrom during the 1613-14 Fettmilch Rebellion and fled the city in August 1614. They returned, their safety guaranteed by the Habsburg Emperor Matthias, in February 1616.'° Soon thereafter renewed 15 Eight of these cases were mentioned in his article ‘Va’ad arba aratsot veyahasav im hu I’, appearing in Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah etropah, 67-77 (published originally in Yiddish in istorishe shriftn fun YIVO, ti (Vilna, 1937), 68-79). The case of choosing the communal council in Frankfurt appeared in ‘Mahloket al bereirat hakahal befrankfurt demayin veheideha bepolin uvebiham’, in Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah, 108-35 (originally published in 7siyon, 21 (1956), 69-91); cf. J. Goldberg, ‘Der Vierlander-Rat der polnischen Juden und seine Beziehungen zu den judischen Gemeinden und Juden in Deutschland im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, in K. E. Grézinger (ed.), Die wirtschaftlichen und kulturellen Beziehungen zwischen den jidischen Gemeinden in Polen und

Deutschland vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1992), 43-4. In discussing these cases Halperin did not treat the issue of the basis of the Va’ad’s standing and intervention nor did he analyse the outcomes.

‘6 On this section, see Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah, 108-35; J. Kracauer, ‘Beitrage zur Geschichte der Frankfurter Juden im Dreissigjahrigen Kriege’, Zeitschrift fur die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland (Braunschweig), 3 (1889), 344—57.

'™ Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah, 109, notes that there was opposition to the Zehender already before the exile of Frankfurt Jewry in 1614. ‘8 Robert Brandt et al. (eds.), Der Fettmilch-Aufstand: Biirgerunruhen und Judenfeindschaft in Frankfurt am Main, 1612-1616 (Frankfurt am Main, 1996) (a catalogue of the exhibition of this name

at the Frankurt am Main Historisches Museum); E. Helen, Turmoil, Trauma and Triumph: The Fettmilch Uprising in Frankfurt am Main (1612-1616) according to Megillas Vintz, ed. and trans.

R. Ulmer (New York, 2001); C. Turniansky, “The Events in Frankfurt am Main (1612-1616) in “Megillas Vints” and in an Unknown Yiddish “Historical” Song’, in M. Graetz (ed.), Schépferische Momente des europaischen Judentums in der friihen Neuzeit (Heidelberg, 2000), 121-37; E. Wolgast, ‘Frankfurt — das christliche Umfeld jiidischen Lebens im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, ibid. g7—111.

88 Moshe Rosman conflict over the leadership in the newly re-established community broke out when

the opposition to the Zehender appealed to Matthias to break their monopoly. (Notably, a major factor in the Fettmilch Rebellion was opposition by guild members to the high-handed rule of the patrician city council.) The emperor assigned the problem to the same commissioners who were investigating the Fettmilch Rebellion. The Havruta presented the commissioners with a letter of acquiescence,

signed by many supporters, affirming its ruling status. The imperial privilege granted to the Jewish community of Frankfurt (composed March 1616, officially confirmed January 1617) formally and finally recognized the Zehender as the community’s ruling body. The opposition to the Zehender did not, however, die down. In the next round

the parties agreed to submit the dispute to the arbitration of three prominent Ashkenazi rabbis. On 4 January 1618 these arbitrators came to a compromise solution, creating a new body, the Zayin tuvei ha’ir (lit.: the seven good men of the city, i.e. communal elders), whose members, unlike the Zehender, could not be related to each other and were limited to a two-year term, at least four of whom could not

be serving a consecutive term. The Zayin tuvei hair joined with the Zehender, thus effectively expanding the communal council from ten to seventeen, seven of whom came from outside the elite Havruta. Unfortunately, this solution did not work. The opponents of the Zehender soon complained that the oligarchs, who still constituted the majority on the council, refused to keep proper financial records, perverted justice in judicial matters, persisted in their nepotism, and failed to invite members of the Zayin tuvei ha’ir to council meetings. The Zehender offered to limit the number of close relatives who could serve together on the council, but this was seen by their opponents as a half measure. The herem (ban) that the Havruta placed on one Hirsch zur gelben Rose in 1621 was the opening volley in the next stage of the struggle. Hirsch, supported by several other householders, appealed the ban and protested against the generally despotic behaviour of the Zehender to the Emperor Ferdinand II in Vienna. The emperor ordered the Frankfurt City Council to investigate and come up with a resolution acceptable to both sides. In February 1622, after a lengthy inquiry, the City Council decided to abolish both the Zehender and the Zayin tuvei ha’ir and to establish in their place a new institution, which would include fourteen members: six from the old Havruta

and eight who would be appointed by the Frankfurt municipal authorities from among sixteen candidates to be chosen by the Jewish community.

This arrangement entailed a significant loss of Jewish autonomy rights, for everywhere in the Empire Jewish communities had the right to choose their own leadership. The effect of this forced concession was to augment the unrest in the Jewish community, and one (unidentified) faction decided to send an emissary to the Va’ad in Poland, at the time called the Council of Three Lands.'? Halperin 19 Both the name and the composition of the Va’ad were subject to change; see Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemzrah etropah, 39-47.

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands 89 published a draft of the document that defined the purposes and conditions of this mission and indicated what the petitioners expected from the Va’ad: The Three Lands, may God keep them, should declare a great herem (ban) on the elders of the Frankfurt community specifying that they not meet together or come into contact with each other . . . and that they on no account be called by the name ‘elders’ (parnasim). And {the Va’ad] should immediately intercede with our exalted ruler so that elders be chosen by the community and not by the ruler in any way. They should also intercede on behalf of the Jewish court system that disputes not come up before the Gentile courts ever. All of these [measures] are to be accompanied by a strict sanction, an edict of naha’sh,”° that if [the elders| refuse and do not obey these [measures]*' then the communities of Ashkenaz, their rabbis and elders, are obligated to ban the recalcitrant elders [of Frankfurt] and all who support them... and if the communities of Ashkenaz refuse to ban the recalcitrant elders of Frankfurt, then this document does not take effect?” until the Three Lands ban both the

communities of Ashkenaz and the elders of Frankfurt, individually, each by name .. . Furthermore I [the emissary] will advocate [that the Va’ad] ban any cantor or bailiff who summons the elders of Frankfurt to convene together. They should also ban anyone who receives from [the banned elders] any appointment, whether as bailiff or judge or [warden of] the community trust or charity warden or rabbi. They should also ban anyone who marries with them as well as the rabbi who performs the ceremony. I will also advocate that the Three Lands censure the elders of Frankfurt in all of the communities—if [these elders] refuse and do not obey their teachers.?°

The authors of this document sought a way to depose the Frankfurt community Council of Fourteen. There was no point in appealing to the authorities, as the opposition had done after Hirsch was banned in 1621, because the Council of Fourteen was itself a creation of the authorities and strengthened their control over the Jewish community. ‘The men of the Council of Fourteen would not in all likelihood agree to a rabbinic board of arbitration, as was done in 1618, and without the agreement of both sides such a board could not be formed. Therefore those protesting the legitimacy of the Council of Fourteen needed to find an institutionalized power that could intervene (and take their side) without the necessity of an invitation from both sides and who possessed authority and prestige great enough to oblige the elders of Frankfurt to depose themselves and to persuade the municipal authorities of Frankfurt to alter the method of choosing the leadership of the community. Evidently, the opponents of the Council of Fourteen believed that the Va’ad was such a power that could impose its will on the elders of Frankfurt. 20 A Hebrew acronym for niduy (banishment), herem (ban), shamtah (excommunication)—in this period, all essentially synonyms implying banning or shunning the recalcitrant. “1 The unvocalized Hebrew letters aleph-lamed-heh form a pun meaning both ‘these [measures|]’ and ‘[this] adjuration’. 22 ‘This refers, apparently, to the financial emolument promised to the emissary. He was not to get his money until he fulfilled all the tasks enumerated here. 23 Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah, 123.

go Moshe Rosman | The Va’ad accepted this assignment. At least three letters** were sent to Frankfurt demanding the abolition of the council appointed by the municipality and the institution of a method of choosing the Jewish leadership acceptable to the Jews. The Va’ad understood, however, that its standing in this matter and its right to intervene were not at all clear and admitted as much in its communication with the Frankfurt community: For until now we kept our head inside, not venturing beyond our territory and God forbid that we or our progeny lord it over you. God forbid. This is not our way. ... What will you accept from us if, God forbid, you judge us guilty and castigate our words? What would it be all about and what would we gain, [you] becoming enraged over our interfering in your dispute which is ‘not ours, O Lord, not ours’ [i.e. is none of our business; Ps.115].*°

The Va’ad took pains to explain that it did not see the leadership of the Frankfurt community as its subordinate but rather as its equal. As peers, the two bodies were entitled to reprove each other: “There has always been an eternal covenant between us and you, between our fathers and yours. ... Were your words of some exoteric reproach but esoteric love to reach us, alerting us to the truth and a perversion of justice, we would take it as praise and honour.’”°

This approach laid the foundation for the intervention of the Va’ad in the process of choosing the Frankfurt leadership. The Va’ad did not claim the right to exercise authority over Frankfurt. It did not even flaunt its prestige as entitling it, as Rabbi Halevi had asserted, to obedience on the part of other communities. The Va’ad’s claim was more modest and generic: But in any case, we will do our duty in line with [the command]: ‘Reprove [your neighbour]? [Lev. 19: 17] even [if it takes] several times [Sefer hahinukh, no. 239], because ‘it is time to act for the Lord’ [Ps. 119: 126] and where God’s name is being desecrated you don’t stand on ceremony [Midrash tanhuma, ‘Mishpatim’, 6].7'

By offering this justification, the Va’ad was basing its right to express an opinion in the Frankfurt affair on the obligation of every Jew to protest transgression whenever he witnessed it. The Va’ad had no special standing: it was intervening as a peer

group interested in defending the Torah. Therefore the Va’ad did not even relate to the dispute aspect of this affair, which it probably would have done had a Polish community been involved. Instead, it limited itself to discussion of the problematic way the communal council was appointed. Despite the request of the faction that had sent the emissary to Poland, the Va’ad did not intend to mediate between the rival factions of the Frankfurt community, nor to pacify the community that had been plagued by infighting for some ten years. While it was the Frankfurt emissary who drew the Va’ad’s attention to the conflict in Frankfurt, the Va’ad 24 Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah, 124-30, 132-5; the first letter is not extant. 25 Tbid. 124~5. Note also that the Va’ad asked Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Heller, then rabbi of Prague, to be the first to pronounce a ban against the Frankfurt Council of Fourteen; see below.

26 Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah, 124-5. 27 Thid. 125.

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands gI itself cited as the reason for its intervention the fact that the Frankfurt affair had set a dangerous precedent. It represented a deviation from the virtually universal Jewish custom of choosing their own leaders and was a blow to the foundations of Jewish existence as a minority everywhere. In the second letter the representatives of the Va’ad emphasized that the Jews’ right to their own leadership was recognized by all governmental authorities: For all emperors, and all kings, satraps, governors, popes, cardinals, bishops, and lords. . . have always drawn a thread of kindness over the Israelites and all of them held our ancestors’ hands... . doing right by us and strengthening our hands to hold the act of our holy ancestors in our hands and they do not force the Israelites to abandon their laws and rules and customs that the Israelites received from their ancestors. And if a person is involved in a lawsuit against someone, they go to the [Jewish] court. ‘And these are the laws that you shall put before them’; it is precise: [before them and not before the judges of the nations]. It is crystal clear that the appointment of judges and leaders of the generation is always in accord with the counsel of the Jewish elders, so as to choose a proper appointment acceptable to God and to the court.”®

They added that were any ruler to decide to curtail this right then all the Jews would embark on an intensive lobbying campaign to change the decree. Yet in Frankfurt, the Va’ad claimed, it was not the emperor who proposed conceding Jewish autonomy, ‘It was rather some of your own, outcasts of the people, those who incite, upset; your destroyers and despoilers come from your own ranks to establish new rules... and they established for themselves bad ones.’*° The ‘new rules’ created a situation where Jews were no longer master in their own house and even minor matters were referred to gentile courts. This was an intolerable situation that set a dangerous precedent. Therefore the Va’ad in Poland believed it was permitted and even obligated to intervene. As the framers of the emissary’s charge wanted, the Va’ad did indeed disqualify

the elders of Frankfurt, ordering the people of the community not to recognize them. The Va’ad demanded that they lobby the authorities to give them the right to choose new leaders ‘in accord with the counsel of the sages of Israel and their advisers... aS is customary among the rest of the Jews, our brethren’. In the meantime the current elders were enjoined from functioning. They were not to supervise the communal functionaries and no one was to accept an appointment from them.®°

In order to reinforce its ruling the Va’ad threatened to impose sanctions on the

elders of Frankfurt if they did not accept the Va’ad’s decision. The sanctions included a great herem; notification of the ban to the sages of Prague, Erets Yisra’el, and other communities; publication of the names of the recalcitrants throughout Poland and other places as well; punishing Frankfurt Jews who happened to be visiting Polish communities; and unspecified legal measures, ‘In 28 bid. 126. 29 Tbid. 30° Tbid. 127-8.

g2 Moshe Rosman accord with the instrumentalities that are reserved and prepared before us which are at our disposal . . . as is recorded and inscribed on the tablet of our heart, but gains no overt expression.’?+

What was the outcome of the intervention of the Va’ad in the affairs of Frankfurt? First, it seems that the Va’ad itself had doubts as to the validity of its ruling in a community that was not under its legal yurisdiction. Even as it was making its threats the Va’ad was anticipating that distance and the lack of formal ties | would prevent its word from being obeyed. Therefore it warned: ‘Let not your evil inclination seduce you to say about us: “They are far from us and we have no link to any of them. What is there between us in common?” ’”? In fact representatives of the Va’ad approached Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Heller of Prague, asking him to impose a ban on Frankfurt before the Va’ad did, since, Prague being part of the Empire, he was closer to Frankfurt geographically and politically. This lent him authority vis-a-vis Frankfurt that the Va’ad did not possess and the leaders of the Va’ad apparently preferred to be in a position of confirming his ban rather than trying to impose one on their own.°*° The Va’ad’s doubts as to the readiness of the Frankfurt community to respect its orders were well founded. The first letter sent by the Va’ad to Frankfurt was ripped up by its recipients. As the Va’ad’s men put it in their second missive, “Our

words are contemptuous and disgusting in your eyes. . . . You mocked our words.’*4

The conflict in Frankfurt was finally resolved by means of compromise between

the factions. Rabbi Hayim bar Yitshak Cohen of Prague, the grandson of the famous Rabbi Judah Loew, was appointed as Frankfurt’s rabbi in 1627 while the Va’ad’s ban against ‘anyone who receives from [the banned elders] any appoint-

ment, whether as bailiff or judge or [warden of] the community trust or charity warden or rabbi’ was ostensibly still in force.*° The compromise agreement actually included an explicit rejection of the Polish Va’ad’s intervention: ‘All the bans imposed by other lands are to be null and void.’*©

HAMBURG JEWRY’S NEW CEMETERY IN OTTENSEN In October 1663 the Ashkenazi Jewish community of Hamburg, which had attempted to separate from Altona around 1660, received permission from the Danish authorities to establish its own cemetery.?’ This was a significant milestone 31 Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah, 128-9; from the document on pp. 133-4 it

appears that some of the sanctions were actually imposed. 32 Ibid. 128. 33 Tbid. 130-1. 34 Tbid. 124. 3° Tbid. 128 and see above after n. 24. 36 Tbid. 118-22. It is noteworthy that Rabbi Heller waited about a year after receiving the Va’ad’s request before writing to Frankfurt. 37 ‘The region of Schleswig and Holstein, where Hamburg is located, was under Danish rule until 1864.

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands 93 in the Hamburg community’s campaign to effect its independence from the older Altona community, not far away. On the formal level, the Hamburg Jews complained that on occasion when they attempted to bury their dead in the Altona cemetery the leaders of the Altona community would delay the burial for several days, in contravention of the Jewish custom of burying the dead as soon as possible after death. This was the ostensible reason why Hamburg needed its own Jewish cemetery. The more germane reason, however, was the Hamburg community’s desire to concretize its independence from Altona by maintaining its own cemetery.°° For its part the Altona community tried to block use of the new cemetery, located in the adjacent town of Ottensen. Having failed to do so several times, the Altona Jews finally succeeded in persuading the Danish officials to forbid the use of the new cemetery on the grounds that Jewish law required burying the dead in the closest cemetery, which was the one controlled by the Altona community. In order to counter this claim the Hamburg community sought a halakhic determination that, under the circumstances, it was indeed allowed to pass up the closer cemetery and to bury the dead in one further off. They wrote both to the rabbinic board of Prague, whose answer, if there was one, does not survive, and to the Va’ad Arba Aratsot.°? The way they phrased the enquiry was: ‘Is it permitted to take a dead body past a cemetery and bring it to its resting place in a different cemetery or is it forbidden as mocking the dead??? As in the case of Frankfurt, here, too, the Va’ad declared at the outset that it had no official standing in this dispute: ‘It would be proper for us not to get involved in this matter because you live in a different country under a different government and different authority.’*?

Apparently the reason why the Va’ad approached Rabbi Heller in 1627 to declare the first ban on the elders of Frankfurt was the same reason that the Va’ad had no right to intervene in Altona and Hamburg: these communities belonged to

a different sovereignty. Despite this the Va’ad did permit itself to express a halakhic opinion because the Hamburg community invited it to and because it was

an issue of utmost importance. In its response the Va’ad noted that there were precedents for having two cemeteries serving one community and there was nothing inherently wrong with such a practice, especially if the second cemetery was established to prevent the desecration of the dead that a postponed burial entailed. Accordingly the Va’ad declared a temporary injunction permitting the use of the 38 The traditional telltale signs of the establishment of an officially recognized and permanent Jewish community were a synagogue building and a cemetery; cf. C. Roth, Essays and Portraits in Anglo-fFemish History (Philadelphia, 1962), 98.

39 B. Brilling, ‘Der Streit um den Friedhof zu Ottensen’, Jahrbuch fur die judischen Gemeinden Schleswig-Holsteins und der Hansestadte und der Landesgemeinde Oldenburg, 3 (5692 (1931/2)), 55-73 id., ‘Beziehungen des Vierlander-Parlaments zu Deutschland im 17. Jahrhundert’, Zeztschrift fur die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland (Berlin), 3 (1931), 274; cf. Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah

eiropah, 74—5. 40 PVAA, too. 41 Tbid.

94 Moshe Rosman new cemetery until such time as both parties (the Hamburg community and the Altona community) would send representatives to appear before its court in Lublin and make their cases at a formal hearing.**

This ruling of the Va’ad had no practical effect. The cemetery in Ottensen remained locked and the parties did not appear in Lublin. A compromise proposed

by the authorities also got nowhere.*? The problem was not solved until 1666, when the messianic expectations of the time prompted the two communities to settle their differences in time for the coming Redemption. Without any mediation, in May 1666 the parties signed two compromise agreements, one for the authorities and one for themselves, specifying that in exchange for a financial consideration the Altona community would share the use of the Ottensen cemetery with the Hamburgers.**

THE ASHKENAZI JEWS OF AMSTERDAM From 1660 there were two Ashkenazi communities in Amsterdam: the ‘Ashkenazi’,

founded in 1635,*° and the ‘Polish’, made up of refugees from the Muscovite Invasion of Poland—Lithuania in 1654—5, who followed the customs of Lithuanian

Jewry.*° The larger and better-established Ashkenazi community seems to have acquiesced in the founding of the Polish community,*’ but conflict soon developed and the Ashkenazi community apparently tried to force the Polish community to merge with it.*° In reaction, the Polish Jews evidently turned to the Va’ad for support. The Va’ad sent a letter to Amsterdam asking the Sephardis to come to ‘the aid of the Polish congregation, may God protect them’.*? Their help took the form of interceding with the authorities on behalf of the Poles. The Va’ad 42° PVAA, 100-1. 43° Brilling, ‘Der Streit um den Friedhof zu Ottensen’, 60-1. 44 Ibid. 64—8; Brilling, ‘An umbakanter dokument fun shabtai tsvis tseiten’, YJVO Bleter, 5 (1933), —6.

6 D. M. Sluys, ‘Yehudei ashkenaz be’amsterdam mishnat 1635 ad shnat 1795’, in J. Michman (ed.), Mehkarim al toledot yahadut holand, i (Jerusalem, 1975), 69-78. 46 Tbid. 79-89; Sluys, ‘Poolsch-joodsche gemeente te Amsterdam’, Bijdragen en Mededeelingen van het Genootschap voor de Joodsche Wetenschap in Nederland, 3 (1925), 137-58; Y. D. Markon, “Takanot

shel kahal yehudei polin be’amsterdam mishnat 5432’, in Tszyunim: A Collection in Memory of Y. N. Simhoni (Berlin, 1909), 159-66; I. Maarsen, ‘Hava’ad arba aratsot vehakehilot be’amsterdam behame’ah ha-17’, Hatsofeh lehokmat yisra’el, 8/4 (1924), 290-2. 47 Maarsen, ‘Hava’ad arba aratsot’, 298 (cf. PVAA, 132); according to a letter from the Amsterdam

Sephardi elders: “The Poles separated from the collective of the Ashkenazi congregation, may God protect them, by mutual agreement of the two groups.’ Perhaps the truth is that the Ashkenazis at first

agreed to allow a separate minyan (prayer group) to be conducted in the Lithuanian rite and then watched in dismay as this evolved into a full-blown separate community; cf. Sluys, ‘Ashkenazi Jews’,

82-3. 48 Sluys, ‘Ashkenazi Jews’, 79-82. 49 Maarsen, ‘Hava’ad arba aratsot’, 293 (cf. PVAA, 128); cf. Sluys, ‘Ashkenazi Jews’, 82-3.

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands 95 declared the Sephardi elders should be the arbitrators between the Poles and the Ashkenazis.°°

The involvement of the Sephardis served to sustain the separate existence of the Polish community, but it did not go as far as settling the dispute.°! The Ashkenazis continued attacking the independence of the Poles and also cast asper-

sions on the ability of the Sephardis to serve as an authority in these affairs. Around 1671 the Va’ad withdrew its endorsement of arbitration by the Sephardis and came out in favour of the amalgamation of the two communities.” The dispute ended in late 1672 or early 1673 when the Polish community protested to the Amsterdam municipal authorities against the refusal of the Ashkenazi community

to split the revenue from the Ashkenazi abattoir with them. The municipality appointed a commission of inquiry and on 26 July 1673, after the commission concluded its investigation, the municipality prohibited the Polish community from gathering separately and ‘permitted’ it to merge with the Ashkenazi community.

| And this is what was done.®? There are no records from the commission and whatever we know is based on

two letters sent to the Va’ad by representatives of the Sephardi community, protesting the Va’ad’s change of heart. The tone of these letters implies that all parties involved related to the Va’ad’s decisions with respect: the Poles who sought _ support; the Ashkenazis who tried to change the policy of the Va’ad; and the Sephardis who were angered by the change. That said, however, there still is no evidence that the Va’ad’s word decided the issue. The Sephardis were interested in supporting the Poles’ independence with or without the Va’ad’s original °0 The intercession with the authorities is mentioned in the letter of R. Yoshia Pardo to the Va’ad (Maarsen, ‘Hava’ad arba aratsot’, 294; cf. PVAA, 128): ‘As we observed that there is no peace with the

Ashkenazis to whomever comes and goes from among the Poles, because they drove them out from becoming a part of their inheritance. With God’s mercy on them and on us we supported their hand, a weak hand, with every possible effort, because, thank God, we have stature in the eyes of the great officials of the country, may they be exalted, and whatever we may request from them; they will not turn us away.’ Rabbi Pardo’s complaint (see Maarsen, ‘Hava’ad arba aratsot’, 296; PVAA, 130) that the

Va’ad later changed its position and withdrew its endorsement of the Sephardis as the arbitrator between the Poles and Ashkenazis implies that until then the Sephardis remained the arbitrator; see Sluys, ‘Ashkenazi Jews’, 82, and below.

©! An attempt at mediation by R. Aaron Samuel Kaidanover of Poland, then visiting Amsterdam, also failed; Sluys, ‘Ashkenazi Jews’, 82.

°2 Scholars are divided as to the reason for the Va’ad’s disenchantment with the Sephardis. Maarsen (‘Hava’ad arba aratsot’, 291-2) and Markon (“The By-Laws of the Community of Polish Jews’, 163) thought that the Ashkenazis had stressed the converso origin of the Sephardis and their supposedly

unreliable pedigree. Halperin (PVAA, 129 n. 2) claimed the Ashkenazis looked askance at the Sephardis’ occupation with philosophy. Sluys (‘Ashkenazi Jews’, 83) asserted that the charge was ‘that

the Sephardi rabbis could not be considered full-fledged halakhic authorities’, i.e. they were not learned enough. According to Sluys, the Va’ad’s decision was received in Amsterdam on 23 Nov. 1670.

Rabbi Pardo replied: ‘What good will come of the unification of these bodies in a single place?’

(Maarsen, ‘Hava’ad arba aratsot’, 296; PVAA, 130). 53° Sluys, ‘Ashkenazi Jews’, 86.

96 Moshe Rosman 1666 ruling.°* But the uniting of the two communities resulted from the order of the municipal authorities in the wake of the Poles’ appeal and not because of the parties’ observance of the Va’ad’s order.

THE RABBI DAVID LIDA AFFAIR Conflict in Amsterdam was renewed with the appointment of Rabbi David Lida as rabbi of the Amsterdam Ashkenazi community in 1681. The rabbi quickly became the target for the anger of important members of the community, who accused him of Sabbatianism and plagiarism in his book Migdal david (Amsterdam, 1680). His opponents embarrassed and cursed him in public, reported him to the municipal

authorities, libelled him in print, and succeeded in deposing him from the rabbinate in 1684.°° Close upon the commencement of the attacks against him, Rabbi Lida tried to defend himself by appealing to the Va’ad in the summer of 1681. The Va’ad did not disappoint and its involvement is reflected in no fewer than seven documents, dated between the autumn of 1681 and the late summer of 1684. We know of five letters (the first from the autumn of 1681, 11 Tishrei 5442) that the

Va’ad sent to the communities of Amsterdam, a ban against the opponents of the rabbi promulgated throughout Poland, and an approbation of Rabbi Lida’s Be’er esek, his defence and attack on his detractors. All these reflect the Va’ad’s attempts to repel the rabbi’s nemeses and secure his position.°° The Va’ad justified its intervention on behalf of Rabbi Lida, a Polish Jew, on the basis of the principle that it is forbidden to stand idly by when the honour of a sage is injured, thereby injuring the honour of the ‘Torah as well: We have heard the sound of depravity, the sound of imprecations and curses that torture the soul of the listener. Our stomach and loins were upset, really agitated, on account of the terrible deed that was done against the honour of the great Rabbi. . . In line with our Divine obligation to defend his honour and in view of the punishment for someone who hears the humiliation of a sage [and stands by]. . . we have stood up and awoken and said: how can our soul not take vengeance on these evildoers? Would that they fall into our hands we would never be sated with their flesh. And we said: God forbid that we should sin by being deaf, showing restraint and muzzling our mouth.°’ °4 Markon, “The By-Laws of the Community of Polish Jews’, 162; Sluys, ‘Ashkenazi Jews’, 81.

°° A. Freimann, ‘R. david lida vehitstadkuto bebe’er esek’, in Nahum Sokolow Jubilee Volume (Warsaw, 1904), 456 n. 2. On R. Lida’s biography and the affair in Amsterdam in particular, see ibd. 455-88; L. Fuks, ‘De Amsterdamse Opperrabbijn David Lida en de Vierlanden-synode (1680—84)’, Studia Rosenthahana, 6 (1972), 166-79; id., ‘Hametihut beyahasei “va’ad arba aratsot” vehakehilah ha’ashkenazit be’amsterdam bishenot rabanuto shel r. david lida’, Michael, 6 (1980), 170-6; A. A. Eisner, Toledot hagaon, r. david lida (Breslau, 1938).

°6 Four of these documents are in PVAA, nos. 416—19 (pp. 195-201); two were published in Fuks, ‘De Amsterdamse Opperrabbijn David Lida’, 175-8. PVAA, no. 410 (pp. 186-93), is the reply of the Amsterdam Sephardi rabbis to the Va’ad, appearing originally in Ya’acov Sasportas’s responsa, Ohe/ ya'akov (Amsterdam, 1733), no. 76. °” Fuks, ‘De Amsterdamse Opperrabbijn David Lida’, 175, 178.

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands 97 As with the first two cases we described, here too the Va’ad was aware that the pri-

mary authority and responsibility in this matter lay with the local Amsterdam Jewish institutions and authorities. It was in fact preferable that they deal with it: ‘For now, however, we have checked our power in favour of Your Honours [the Ashkenazi community in Amsterdam] for Your Honours have the power to make a clear-cut judgement and we support Your Honours in whatever you will do in this case.’°®

Despite these words, the Va’ad in fact could not restrain itself and it decided to declare a ban on the rabbi’s attackers. The ban was to remain in force until three conditions were fulfilled. The attackers were to retract their accusations against Rabbi Lida, mollify him, and, finally, appear personally before the Va’ad to request nullification of the ban: This ban against the slanderers and inventors of lies should be declared to the madding crowd with trumpets and shofar blast, naming the names (known to Your Honours) of those not worthy of blessing. ... As the evildoers are found, you have the authority to issue yudgement against their persons and to confiscate their property. We here have no power but that of our mouth, with God’s counsel declaring the ban.°°

In other words, it was up to the Jewish leaders of Amsterdam to identify to whom precisely the ban should apply—and then to apply it.©° Later, in 1684, when a compromise was reached and Rabbi Lida briefly resumed his position, the Va’ad threatened: ‘And if, God forbid, this rabbi will endure any slight in word or deed—whether aimed at his property or, God forbid, his person—then know well that we will come out against you with sharp condemnation.’©?

Prior to this, in 1681, once Rabbi Lida had informed the Va’ad about the libellous publications of his opponents, it reacted with a message to the community of Amsterdam. In it the Va’ad ordered the Amsterdam elders to condemn these pamphlets or broadsides to burning and to declare a temporary ban against their promulgators, subject to their appearance before a judiciary panel—consisting of Rabbis Yeshayah ben Shabetai Halevi Horowitz of Frankfurt, Meshulam Zalman

Mireles Naimark of Hamburg, and Moses ben Aharon Teomim of Worms— which would determine an appropriate punishment.” What was the result of this intervention by the Va’ad? In a 1683 letter®? the rabbis of the Amsterdam Sephardi community finally responded to the Va’ad’s first letter, to the Ashkenazi community, from the autumn of 1681. The fact that the

°8 Ibid. 175. °9 Tbid. 175, 178.

6° ‘There is no information on the actions of the Amsterdam community in this connection. From the response of the Sephardis (see below), it is obvious that they were not enthusiastic about co-

operating with the Va’ad and, in the event, the Va’ad itself proclaimed the names of the banned individuals (PVAA, 195-8). 61 Fuks, ‘De Amsterdamse Opperrabbijn David Lida’, 171-2; Eisner, Toledot hagaon, r. david lida,

24; PVAA, 108. 62 PVAA, 198-201. 63 Ibid. 186-93.

98 Moshe Rosman Sephardis answered in place of the Ashkenazis probably indicates a certain deference for the Va’ad coupled with a determination not to comply with its demands that Rabbi Lida’s opponents be banned and sent to appear for judgement before the Va’ad. Unlike the Frankfurt community, which, as we have seen, ignored the

Va’ad’s demands on it, the communities of Amsterdam did feel the need to respond to the Va’ad with respect and to the point. Thus it was that the senior community and the one less beholden to what was an Ashkenazi authority, the Sephardi, who responded. The Sephardis’ letter to the Va’ad was polite.©° The compliments did not, however, hide either their refusal to comply with the Va’ad’s demands or their criticism of the Va’ad itself. ‘They noted how the Va’ad’s letter—translated and brought to the angered attention of the Amsterdam municipal authorities—had embarrassed them. The municipal council had long since prohibited banning members of the Jewish community—all the more so if done at the behest of a foreign entity that presumed ‘to make an edict and enforce it in lands with which they have no rela-

tionship and no tie’. Causing tension with the authorities was not, however, the only reason for the Sephardis’ complaint. In its zeal the Va’ad forgot ‘to respect the courts that were nearby . . . you did not trust us to judge or to discharge our duty as is fitting .. . and

what can we do after all of these events, for you have not left us any room to manoeuvre’.°’ Since the Va’ad did not respect the prerogatives of the communities of Amsterdam, it had formulated its position hastily, without clarifying the circumstances and gaining a true understanding of the situation. This misstep just made it more difficult for the local leaders to oppose the rabbi’s attackers. The Va’ad’s ban complicated the situation without contributing effectively to the rabbi’s defence.®* The Rabbi Lida affair ended in 1684 with his final removal from the Amsterdam Ashkenazi rabbinate. He remained in Amsterdam, however, until 1687, when he reached a compromise with his opponents: having received compensation in the amount of 250 florins, he left Amsterdam for good.°®? In this case, too, it is impossible to claim that the orders of the Va’ad led to the resolution of the conflict. The

rabbi’s opponents evidently regarded the Va’ad’s bans as no more than a nuisance.’° No one from Amsterdam appeared before either the Va’ad or the rabbinic 64 Cf. Avraham ben Mordekhai Halevi’s observation, above (at n. 8), that Poland was the chief of all the Ashkenazi communities.

, °° See PVAA, 186; the salutation of the letter is larded with expressions of praise, not to say flattery. 66 Tbid. 187; Fuks, ‘De Amsterdamse Opperrabbijn David Lida’, 170~1.

67 PVAA, 187, 189. 68 Ibid. 187-02. 69 Fuks, ‘De Amsterdamse Opperrabbijn David Lida’, 172, 178-0.

7° As part of the 1687 compromise R. Lida was obligated to release ‘all of the bans that were inscribed by the sages of Poland as well as to urge that they [the Poles] meet to release all of the bans that they declared’ (Fuks, ‘De Amsterdamse Opperrabbijn David Lida’, 178-9). In his article in the journal Michael (see above, n. 55), Fuks contended that the two documents he published there prove that R. Lida kept his word. However, if Fuks is correct that R. Lida’s promise was made in 1687, then

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands 99 tribunal, as it had demanded. As against the position of the Va’ad, the affair ended in the victory of the rabbi’s attackers and his exit from the city.

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR ERETS YISRA’EL In the seventeenth century a conflict developed within the Jewish community of Erets Yisra’el with regard to the distribution of charitable contributions from abroad.“' Around 1673 the Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem complained that— in contravention of hoary custom—the Sephardi charity emissaries had begun to raise money in the Ashkenazi communities of Europe. The Ashkenazis demanded

a return to the arrangement whereby Ashkenazi communities contributed to Ashkenazis and Sephardi communities to Sephardis. The Jerusalem Ashkenazis appealed to the Va’ad, which in turn answered their pleas: ‘And the Polish rabbis found out about this and they stood up and decreed that all Ashkenazis were

allowed to send and give the fruit of their vows and donations only to their Ashkenazi brothers in Jerusalem, may she be built and established.’’* Here, the Va’ad forbade Ashkenazi communities to contribute to Sephardi emissaries. This prohibition was apparently not strictly observed outside Poland. Sephardi emissaries allowed themselves to solicit Ashkenazi communities and the communities responded with contributions. Rabbi Avraham ben Mordekhai Halevi, who is our main source for this episode, noted that in the early 1690s as the Ashkenazi community of Jerusalem faced a debt crisis, its head, Mosheh Hakohen, asked the rabbis of Egypt to reconfirm the earlier prohibition and forbid the Sephardi emissaries from continuing to collect money in Ashkenazi communities.’? However, Rabbi Halevi also wrote in describing the Egyptian declaration that with regard to the Va’ad’s earlier ruling, ‘Behold, the Ashkenazi communal public did not accept

this decree and they do give to the emissaries of Safed and the emissaries of Hebron, may she be built and established, and their decree was void.’* it cannot be that these documents—published in 1684—represented a response to his intercession attempts. Likewise, the documents apologizing to the leaders of the Amsterdam community demonstrate from their contents that they were written in response to appeals of the Amsterdam community and not of R. Lida. Finally, despite the titles that the original 17th-c. printer Uri Feibish Halevi affixed to them, it is unlikely that these documents reflect the official opinion of the Va’ad. They were signed by ‘the champions, rulers, and notables—the leaders of the Poznan district’ (Document A) and by ‘the champions, notables, and rulers—the heads and leaders of the community of Poznan’ (Document B). The printer apparently wanted to magnify the importance of these documents by attributing them to the Va’ad when what they really represent is the opinion of the leaders of the community and district of Poznan only.

_'T See M. Rozen, Hakehilah hayehudit biyerushalayim bame’ah ha-17 (Tel Aviv, 1985), 103-7; Y. Barna, Yehudei erets yisra’el bame’ah ha-18: behasut ‘pekidei kushta’ (Jerusalem, 1982), 124-8;

A. Ya’ari, Sheluhei erets yisra’el (Jerusalem, 1977), 312. "2 Ginat veradim, 127). " Barnai, Yehudei erets yisra’el, 125, dates the edict of the Egyptian rabbis to 1691. Halperin, PVAA, 465, dates the original by-law of the Va’ad to approximately 1673; cf. Ya’ari, Sheluhet erets yts-

ra‘el, 312. “4 Ginat veradim, 127C¢.

100 Moshe Rosman Rabbi Halevi also cited the case of a Sephardi emissary from Hebron who suc-

cessfully solicited communities in Ashkenaz. Only ‘when he passed through Poland’ was he prosecuted by Polish rabbis, who confiscated the money he had collected.’° It appears that the Ashkenazi communities were not prepared to enforce the Va’ad’s ruling on themselves and the Va’ad itself certainly did not, and could not, coerce them.

, SABBATIANS IN JERUSALEM The immigration to Jerusalem of Rabbi Judah Hasid’s group in 1700 fomented unrest among the Ashkenazis of the city.’° The ‘hasidim’, headed by Hayim Malakh, became the dominant camp in the community. Their Sabbatian tendencies elicited strong opposition from Jerusalem’s Ashkenazi rabbis, who, in 1705, turned to the Va’ad (as well as to some important Ashkenazi rabbis elsewhere),

requesting support in their attempt to expel the Sabbatian sect from the holy city./” They wrote: Without the co-operation of the greats abroad, we do not have enough power, here in the holy city, to harass them or to condemn them to expulsion. Therefore it is incumbent upon you |1.e. the foreign rabbis and the Va’ad] to understand and be wise enough to fix what they have perverted and ruined, to proclaim and announce everywhere there is a viable Jewish community or to publicize beautiful sayings with metal pen and lead. And God forbid, God forbid, to mention the names of the signatories to this petition. ”®

The Ashkenazi rabbis of Jerusalem were in a weak and defensive position—so much so that they were afraid to publish the names of those opposed to the Sabbatians. They believed that their only chance to prevail was to receive support from important leaders in Europe. They asked the Va’ad to declare a ban on Hayim Malakh and his circle and to publicize it throughout the Diaspora. The Va’ad’s response has not survived. Once these hasidim’s Sabbatianism became known, as early as 1701 (less than a year after their arrival in Jerusalem), the European communities had stopped sending money to the Jerusalem community. In 1704, Rabbi David Oppenheim of Prague attacked the Sabbatian group in writing and by 1706 most had either converted to Islam or Christianity, or had left the city. This was apparently somewhat due to the pressure from the Ashkenazi rabbis and their foreign supporters, but resulted more from the relentlessness of the Muslim creditors of the Jerusalem community in the city itself.” Ginat veradim, 127¢. The Egyptian rabbis did in fact affirm the Va’ad’s prohibition, but the financial problems of the Jerusalem Ashkenazi community just kept getting worse; see Barnai, Yehudei erets yisra’el, 164-9.

7© M. Benayahu, ‘““The Holy Brotherhood” of Rabbi Judah Hasid and its Immigration to Erets

Yisra’el’, Sefunot, 3-4 (1959-60), 131-82. Tbid. 162-3. 7% PVAA, 261. 7 Benayahu, ‘ “The Holy Brotherhood” ’, 165 and n. 136; Barnai, Yehudei erets yisra’el, 164-5.

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands 101 RABBI MOSHEH HAGIZ VS. THE SABBATIANS In 1725, as part of his anti-Sabbatian campaign, Rabbi Mosheh Hagiz wrote a long letter to the Va’ad importuning them to issue a ban against Sabbatians, including Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz. Rabbi Hagiz pleaded: ‘only you have the power to break their spell’. The initiative was quashed by supporters of Eybeschutz on the Va’ad.°°

MOSHEH HAYIM LUZZATTO In 1735, the opponents of the Italian kabbalist Mosheh Hayim Luzzatto, taking issue with his messianic pretensions, requested that the Va’ad join with them and agree to the ban against him. We do not know if the Va’ad agreed, but it is clear that the rabbis of the Va’ad did not play a significant role in the affair.®?

THE EMDEN—EYBESCHUTZ AFFAIR In 1751 the Va’ad became involved in the famous Emden—Eybeschutz affair. A Polish student of Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz, Rabbi (Ya’akov) Hayim, the rabbi of Lublin, and his son Avraham Hayims (a well-known ‘politician’ in the Polish Jewish communities and a candidate for a position as parnas (elder) on the Va’ad) issued a ban against Rabbi Jacob Emden and his supporters.®? This elicited a storm of protest letters addressed to the Va’ad from many Ashkenazi rabbis opposed to Eybeschutz (including Emden himself). These clamoured for nullification of the ban and punishment of Rabbi Hayim of Lublin by the Va’ad. They also demanded that the Va’ad join the offensive against Eybeschutz, writer of the suspect amulet inscriptions.®* As Emden urged: Unite with us to protect the Torah! One will declare, ‘I am for God’; one will be called by

the name Jacob; one will dedicate his pen to the great and awesome God. Call to the lands both near and far: Lithuania and its. region, Ruthenia, Prussia, Wallachia, and the lands of the East; to the place where your word, the word of the King, the Lord of Hosts, reaches; that they take up arms, hitch up the chariot, and make war against the enemies of God.®* 8° E. Carlebach, The Pursuit of Heresy: Rabbi Moses Hagiz and the Sabbatian Heresies (New York, 1990), 191-3, 322 nn. 41-2; PVAA, 476-7. Despite his dramatic rhetoric, apparently intended to cajole the Va’ad’s members, Hagiz tried to draft other allies in addition to the Va’ad. As Carlebach documents, Hagiz had evidently also approached the Va’ad before, in 1714, in connection with his pursuit of Nehemiah Hayon. The Va’ad had issued general bans against Sabbatians much earlier, in 1670 and 1671.

81 PVAA, 509; S. Ginzburg, R. mosheh hayim lutsato uvenei doro (Tel Aviv, 1937), ti. 340, 421-2.

82 PVAA, 339-40. 8° [bid. 340-55. 84 Tbid. 355.

102 Moshe Rosman Emden was asking the Va’ad to join the attack against Eybeschutz. He presumed that with the controversy having spread beyond the bounds of Ashkenaz proper,

the Va’ad, who ruled in Poland and influenced certain communities outside Poland, would be a valuable ally in the battle.

For his part, Eybeschutz thought that the Va’ad could help save him from his enemies. He informed the Danish king that he intended to take his case before the Va’ad.®° In the introduction to his book Luhot edut (Altona, 1755) he wrote: ‘And I said to my persecutors here: “Behold in a few days the sages of the generation, the scholars, will meet and gather at the time of the congregating of all at the Jarostaw

meeting. Let us bring our case before them because they are the most and the greatest in wisdom and numbers.” °° Eybeschutz fully expected the Va’ad to judge in his affair and vindicate him, hoping that their verdict would force his attackers finally to leave him alone.

It seems that the men of the Va’ad were not very eager to have to choose between the Emden and Eybeschutz camps. In their responses to the urgings of both sides they tried to refrain from insulting either party and apparently hoped that the matter would conclude without the Va’ad having to render an official and unequivocal determination. In its 1751 meeting in Konstantynow the Va’ad decided not to decide. As the treasurer of the Va’ad, Yisakhar Berish Segal, wrote to one of the prominent figures in the anti-Eybeschutz camp, Rabbi Aryeh Leib of Amsterdam, It was agreed and the leader, the elder of the month of the Va’ad, was empowered to write with reason and good sense a reply to all the missives. And we will see how things develop, if the Gaon, our teacher Jonathan, will feel remorse and repair what he has ruined, so much the better. But if not, then there will certainly be a great convocation of the Va’ad this year and then we will see, God willing, about being in contact on a war footing.®’

In other words, the Va’ad decided only that the elder Avraham ben Yoska from Lissa would formulate diplomatic replies to the advocates of both camps. In the meantime it was waiting in the hope that Eybeschutz would mollify his opponents. If the tensions were to persist, then the Va’ad would have to reconsider its policy. Avraham from Lissa’s letters were in fact intended to keep good relations with both sides. Already in June 1751 (4 Tamuz 5511) he wrote to Shemuel Hilman, one of those insisting on the nullification of the ban issued by Rabbi Hayim of Lublin, that this ban was not declared by the Va’ad and thus ‘was not a ban, nor an excommunication, but only fantasy’.®° However, he also expressed the Va’ad’s hesitation at taking a clear-cut position: ‘For great turmoil is passing over all the inhabitants of the land, trampled by these rabbinic kings. Who will throw his garment between the lion and lioness when they are in heat?’°*

In September 1751 (8 Tishrei 5512), Avraham wrote to Rabbi Emden himself (who was an in-law of one of his children). He expressed his dismay at Rabbi

85 PVAA, 385. 86 Thid. 386. 87 Ibid. 36s. 88 Ibid. 357. 89 Ibid. 356.

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands 103 Hayim’s ban, but politely explained that the members of the Va’ad had always hoped that the conflict would end before they would have to take sides: ‘And we being in consultations daily, expecting to hear the voice of good tidings proclaiming, “Peace, peace”; but instead bitterness. For many send letters to us asking for ploys and stratagems. But we said let neither shield nor spear be seen in Israel; our silence is better than our speech.’’° The next day, Yom Kippur eve, Avraham wrote to Rabbi Eybeschutz. This letter is now lost, but Eybeschutz included a summary of it among the documents he submitted to the Danish authorities. Albeit written

by a partisan, it clearly indicates that Avraham tried to placate Eybeschutz and promised to protect his honour.?! The primary reason the Va’ad hesitated to stake a definitive position 1n this controversy was, apparently, that the rabbis and lay leaders were divided among themselves and could reach no consensus. Both of the warring camps had organized support in Poland, and these supporters were active, both at the Va’ad and with the Polish authorities, each side attempting to gain leverage for its hero. Eybeschutz’s faction won when Avraham from Lublin (Hayim’s son) was appointed elder of the Va’ad. At the end of the Va’ad meeting held in autumn 1753 he raised the issue and succeeded in forging a majority of nineteen vs. eleven voting to proclaim Rabbi Eybeschutz ‘innocent’ and condemning all pamphlets published against him to the fire.??

While both camps coveted a ban from the Va’ad that favoured their side, the practical value of such a ban was limited.*’ Certainly, Eybeschutz’s hope that the Va’ad’s ban would muzzle Emden and his supporters was vain. The conflict was resolved only after the intervention of the Danish king, which led to the renewed choice of Eybeschutz as rabbi of Altona and the effective end of the controversy.”*

PRINTING THE TALMUD In 1751 the Proops family, veteran printers in Amsterdam, appealed to several rabbis, as well as the Va’ad, in order to receive approbations for its editions and bans in favour of an edition of the Talmud that it had printed, preventing competing edi-

tions from being produced. The Va’ad complied with the request. A certain Meshulam Zalmen ben Aharon, a printer in Sulzbach, did not respect the ban and published a Talmud. The Va’ad reacted angrily to this breach of its ban and in 1755 declared that the Sulzbach edition was considered to be one of those ‘books

90 Tbid. 367. 91 Ibid. 368, LXIL. 92M. Balaban, Joledot hatenu’ah hafrankit (Tel Aviv, 1934), 72-8; Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut

bemizrah eiropah, 75-7.

93 There is only one case known where the ban issued by the Va’ad resulted in action being taken against an Eybeschutz opponent: see PVAA, 395. It is also noteworthy that the Va’ad’s ban in this matter took pains to say that the Va’ad was influenced by the opinions of the rabbis of Turkey, Nikolsburg, Moravia, and Prague. °4 D. Kahana, Toledot hamekubalim, hahasidim vehashabeta’im (Odessa, 1913), pt. 2, 43-64.

104 Moshe Rosman that defile the hands’ and decreed its removal and burning. Some Ashkenazi rabbis

took offence at this attempt of the Va’ad to lord it over Jews in Ashkenaz. The Sulzbach edition was not confiscated and the dispute continued until the abolition of the Va’ad in 1764.”°

CONCLUSIONS These ten cases constitute a sample that might enable a few generalizations concerning the authority of the Va’ad outside Poland. First, the ten cases can be divided into two categories. The affairs of Frankfurt (challenging the ruling institution), Hamburg (the new cemetery), Amsterdam (two cases: the separate Polish community; Rabbi David Lida), and Jerusalem (two cases: Sephardi emissaries collecting money in Ashkenazi communities; the Sabbatian hasidim) were disputes between two different communities or between two factions within the same community (Group A). The matters of Hagiz, Luzzatto, and Emden—Eybeschutz were theological, ideological, and personal conflicts and the Amsterdam—Sulzbach printers’ fight was a commercial dispute. In all four of these cases rabbis and leaders from a number of communities were involved (Group B). The examples in Group A offer a clear answer to the question posed at the beginning of this essay about the circumstances that led to the Va’ad’s intervention in the affairs of a community outside Poland: in every case a community or a faction sought to dominate another community or faction or violate its prerogatives, and the beleaguered party appealed to the Va’ad in an attempt to secure backing in its fight against the ‘violator’. In no case did both parties decide together to appoint the Va’ad as a mediator or arbitrator in their dispute. The model was that the weaker party always tried to enlist the Va’ad in its struggle against the stronger one. Thus the opponents of the new government-appointed Council of Fourteen in Frankfurt asked the Va’ad to revoke the council’s legitimacy. The Ashkenazi community in Hamburg requested a verdict that would facilitate their independence from the larger, stronger, better-established Altona community. The Polish Jews in Amsterdam wanted to preserve their separate status in the face of the larger Ashkenazi community’s desire to incorporate them. Rabbi David Lida and his supporters needed to defend themselves from the attacks of dominant leaders of the Amsterdam Ashkenazi community. The Ashkenazi rabbis of Jerusalem needed to undermine the power of the Sabbatian hasidim who had taken over the community. Likewise the Jerusalem Ashkenazis tried to prevent the Sephardis from weakening their economic base, so dependent on donations from Ashkenazi communities in Europe. It is likely that the weaker party in each of these cases understood that alone it could not successfully resist its stronger, more influential, or more politically powerful rival. Therefore it sought out an independent outside authority that the rival % Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah, 84; PVAA, 359, 403-7.

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands 105 would also have to respect. Notably, in most of these episodes—with the exception

of those in Jerusalem—at some point the non-Jewish governmental authorities became involved. In the cases of Hamburg and the Sabbatians in Jerusalem, when the weaker parties appealed to the Va’ad they also appealed to other communities or rabbis. This implies that when the institutions of the local community were not able to

resolve disputes and restore order and stability, and one of the parties to the dispute sought an outside authority to support its position, the Va’ad was not the sole or default option. It was one of the possible authorities that could be called upon. Consideration of Group B where, in addition to the Va’ad, rabbis from several other communities interceded as well, also demonstrates that the Va’ad did not interfere on its own initiative. The Va’ad was asked to act by people with a material

interest in the outcome of the dispute and the appeal to it came at an advanced stage of the controversy after other agents had already taken a position. However, the objective of the petitioners to the Va’ad in the Group B cases was not always the same as that of those in Group A. Rabbi Eybeschutz, who saw himself as persecuted, apparently hoped that the Va’ad would serve as a court that would establish and proclaim his innocence. Here there 1s similarity with the weak parties of Group A. However, the opponents of Luzzatto, Eybeschutz’s antagonists and Emden’s supporters, and the Amsterdam printer did not turn to the Va’ad as a court or arbitrator but as a prestigious institu-

tion that was an attractive addition to the list of those who had endorsed their cause. For them, the Va’ad was one ally (to be sure, an important one) among many. Its usefulness was in its presumed influence over others who might join the cause

and not in its putative power to issue a definitive ruling that would compel the opposition to give in. In the citation quoted above, Rabbi Emden said explicitly that he was requesting that the Va’ad call ‘to the place where your word, the word of the King, the Lord of hosts, reaches’, complete with a list of the lands he had in mind.”° In short, our examples indicate that the Va’ad was asked to intervene beyond the

boundaries of Poland—Lithuania either as an independent, outside coercive authority in a local dispute or as the ally of one side in a supra-local controversy. Such intervention was always by invitation of one of the parties and not at the Va’ad’s own initiative. Those who recognized the Va’ad’s right to intervene in matters outside its geographic purview based their expectations on the greatness in Torah of the rabbis associated with the Va’ad. As expressed by Rabbi Pardo of Amsterdam: ‘And the ‘Torah approach, which affirms and connects the various sectors of the people of our nation, joins the pieces of the tent into a whole. The place of their glorious honour is in the excellent Gates of Zion, in the Torah of the great ones at the Gate.’?” It was their greatness in Torah that entitled the Va’ad °6 See the quotation at n. 84 above. 9” ~PVAA, 127.

106 Moshe Rosman to ‘join the pieces of the tent into a whole’; that is, to issue binding decisions. As Rabbi Eybeschutz confirmed, the men of the Va’ad were ‘the most and the greatest in wisdom and numbers’.”®

Greatness in Torah may lend prestige or attract appeals for support; it is not necessarily a substitute for officially recognized, institutionalized authority. Several of our examples illustrate how this gap bothered the Va’ad. Even as it was mixing in, it would declare that by rights the dispute at hand should remain subject

to the local authorities. If, despite this, the Va’ad intervened, it was, above all, because it was asked. After having been asked, it justified intervention with references to the importance of the matter and/or to generic mitsvot (commands) to admonish one who is doing something wrong, to prevent the disgrace of the Torah and its proponents, etc. ‘The Va’ad did not assert any right or authority beyond what any individual rabbi might claim when interposing himself in a dispute outside of his own bailiwick. In contrast to those who appealed to it, the Va’ad did not emphasize its superior Torah standing. In fact its messages contained conventional praise for the Torah honour of Amsterdam and Frankfurt. The Va’ad certainly did not assert that its status in Torah mandated obedience to its word. Perhaps this was because the Va’ad per se was actually a lay body and issued its decrees as ‘secular’ enactments and not rabbinic opinions.*° Asa practical matter, the purpose of appealing to the Va’ad was to elicit a ruling

or a ban in the petitioner’s favour and against his rivals. In most of our cases (Frankfurt, Hamburg, all three Amsterdam episodes, the Sephardi emissaries case, and the Emden—Eybeschutz controversy) the Va’ad complied. However, with the exception of the initial 1665 directive to the Sephardis of Amsterdam to support the Polish community there (a position that advanced the Sephardis’ interests), the intervention of the Va’ad in the cases of our sample produced no demonstrable result. In Frankfurt, the Va’ad’s proposals were dismissed out of hand. In Hamburg they were apparently ignored. In Amsterdam, after the Va’ad ordered the two communities to unite, in 1671, the Polish community turned to the municipal author-

ities for support (but failed to get it). Ultimately, contrary to the Va’ad’s order, Rabbi David Lida left Amsterdam with no more than monetary compensation. His enemies were not tried before the Va’ad or any other authority. It is evident that the Ashkenazi communities in Europe observed the prohibition on giving money to

the Sephardi emissaries only in the breach. The Sabbatians in Jerusalem were humbled as a result of a combination of factors, with the intervention of the Va’ad—if it took place—not the most important of them. The Luzzatto affair ended when Rabbi Ya’akov Hakohen both forced Mosheh Luzzatto to renounce

his kabbalistic doctrines and messianism and banned his writings. ‘The Emden—Eybeschutz controversy continued well after the Va’ad issued its ban in 98 PVAA, 386. 99 Teller, ‘Rabbis without a Function?’, 375, 389-95.

The Authority of the Council of Four Lands 107 support of Rabbi Eybeschutz. The Va’ad’s ban against the Sulzbach printer elicited opposition from many Ashkenazi rabbis and did not attain its objective.

Why couldn’t the Va’ad bring about the resolution of conflicts outside Poland—Lithuania? In the matters of Emden—Eybeschutz and the Sabbatians, Luzzatto, and Amsterdam—Sulzbach (Group B), as we saw, the Va’ad was but one among many involved outsiders. The Va’ad’s opinion in these cases was never intended to decide the matter, but only to add gravitas to the plaintiff’s claims.!°°

Regarding the cases in Group A, the Va’ad’s impotence is probably best explained by the lack of efficacious sanctions. In these cases the most onerous sanctions the Va’ad could impose were harassment of the ban violators when they happened to be in Poland and publication of their names in other communities as well so that those places might also punish them. Other than these measures the Va’ad was limited to undefined threats, such as: ‘the methods [of punishment] are preserved and prepared with us and we keep watch over them’.!"?

At best these sanctions were weak. The members of the Va’ad themselves understood that anyone banned by them under such circumstances would tend to

ignore imprecations hurled from so far away and lacking local enforcement. Therefore, it seems, they tried to reinforce the Va’ad’s bans by drafting support | from authorities with more standing in each case, for example Rabbi Heller.!°* The Va’ad also demanded that both parties send representatives to appear before it so it could impose more meaningful sanctions on its own turf. The absence of strong sanctions prevented the Va’ad from fulfilling the expectations of those who appealed to it: to force a ruling on the opposing party. There is no sanction without coercive power to back it up. The Sephardi emissary who violated the prohibition on collecting donations in Ashkenaz was not punished until he crossed into the territory officially subject to the Va’ad’s rule. There it could enforce the law against him. The Sephardi community in Amsterdam respected the Va’ad; still, it was not prepared to obey its order in the matter of Rabbi Lida. At the beginning of this essay I asserted that the Va’ad enjoyed moral authority outside Poland—Lithuania. Analysis of the ten cases presented here demonstrates that this authority was anchored in the Torah reputations of the Polish sages. This is somewhat ironic given that, as already noted, the Va’ad was primarily a lay body

and its enactments were in the genre of law and not rabbinic responsa. Nonetheless the Va’ad did command a certain moral authority which lent it (and also certain great rabbis) a status comparable to that of non-Jewish governmental institutions in the eyes of weak parties in local conflicts seeking a champion who would force his will on their opponents. In practice, however, the Va’ad’s moral authority was not sufficient to be able to achieve this. Jews the world over may have 100 R. Hagiz’s enthusiastic rhetoric (above, at n. 80) might imply that he did expect that the prestige of the Va’ad could bring about a resolution to the controversy in favour of the anti-Sabbatian camp. 101 Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah eiropah, 128-9, 134; Fuks, ‘De Amsterdamse Opperrabbijn

David Lida’, 176, 178. 102 See p. 92.

108 Moshe Rosman heard of the Va’ad and admired it, and even might try to enlist it in their cause when needed. They were not, however, prepared to give up their own authority in favour of the Va’ad’s. Their willingness to respect the decisions of the Va’ad seems to have been in direct proportion to the degree to which the Va’ad supported them and their interests.

ee9

Some Comparative Perspectives on the fews Legal Status in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Holy Roman Empire ADAM TELLER HAYIM BEN BETSALEL, who served as rabbi of Friedberg in the Holy Roman Empire in the second half of the sixteenth century, compared the conditions of life under which he and his community were forced to live with those in Poland (where he was born and received his education) 1n an unfavourable light. He wrote: It is known that, thank God, in that land .. . [i.e. Poland] His people is not as despised and despoiled as in these lands [i.e. the Holy Roman Empire]. Every non-Jew coming to the Jewish street [there] must have respect for the public and is afraid to treat the Jews badly. But... in these lands .. . for our sins, every Jew is wronged, cheated, and mistreated, the day long. The non-Jews are neither afraid nor ashamed to oppress the Jews—even in their own homes.

In his eyes, then, one of the major differences between Jewish life in the Empire and in the Polish Commonwealth was the difference in status between Polish and German Jews. Whereas the former enjoyed a measure of security, the latter were exposed to a range of persecutions. He does not give an explicit reason for this state of affairs, but it seems to have been connected with the different legal status enjoyed by the Jews and the protection afforded them by law in each of the two countries.” I should lke to thank J. Friedrich Battenberg, Elisheva Carlebach, Jacob Goldberg, Andreas Gotzmann, Gershon D. Hundert, Debra Kaplan, Kenneth Stow, and Magdalena Teter for their extremely helpful comments on a previous draft of this essay.

' Hayim ben Betsalel, Vikuah mayim hayim (Amsterdam, 1712). fo. 17". On the author, see E. Zimmer, Rabi hayim ben rabi betsalel mefridberg: ahi hamaharal miprag (Jerusalem, 1987). See also B. Weinryb, The Jews of Poland: A Social and Economic History of the Jewish Community in Poland from 1100-1800 (Philadelphia, 1982), 165-8. 2 His opinion of the situation of Polish Jewry found an echo in the work of a contemporary Karaite

author, Isaac of Troki. In his polemic against Christianity, Isaac argued that those who harmed the Jews would themselves suffer, citing the examples of England, France, and Spain; having expelled the Jews, they now suffered terrible religious wars. He continued: ‘[This] is not the case in the other

110 Adam Teller The goal of the present essay is to use this insight in order to examine the interplay of law and society in the development of pre-modern Ashkenazi Jewry in its different settings.’ Following Hayim ben Betsalel, the discussion here will adopt a comparative approach, juxtaposing developments in the Holy Roman Empire with those in Poland (later the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth). It will show that the social and cultural differences between German and Polish Jews could be seen not only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but in previous periods as well. ‘This study will therefore add to the growing body of research attempting to understand the differences between the two groups.* It will do this not only by clarifying the legal structures which allowed for separate social and cultural developments, but also by adopting a fairly strict (if limited) framework of comparison. One of the benefits of this approach is that it helps point out not just the differences but also

the similarities between what were the two major groups within pre-modern Ashkenazi Jewry—the Jews of the Empire and the Jews of Poland—Lithuania.° lands where we Jews live . . . the [rulers] support the Jews with their privileges, so that they can live in their lands in peace and tranquillity. For the kings and their ministers, may God protect them, add to their peace; they love kindness and justice and so do not harm or plunder the Jews who live in their lands. For this reason God has put peace and tranquillity among them and even those who hold different faiths do not harm one another, as you can see today.’ From the reference to the spread of religious tolerance it is clear that Isaac of Troki is holding up the 16th-c. Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth as the model of a state which gives its Jews a favourable legal status in the form of special privileges and thus reaps the benefits. See Isaac of Troki, Hizuk ha’emunah (Ashdod, 1975), 155-6 (ch. 46). On the author, see M. Waysblum, ‘Isaac of Troki and the Christian Controversy in the Sixteenth Century’, Journal of fewish Studtes, 3 (1952), 62-77. 3 For recent research on the history of the Jews in Poland—Lithuania and the Holy Roman Empire dealing with legal history, see A. Gotzmann and S. Wendehorst (eds.), Juden 1m Recht: Neue Zugange zur Rechtsgeschichte der Juden im Alten Reich, Bethefte der Zeitschrift fiir historische Forschung 39

(Berlin, 2007). Of the many works by J. Friedrich Battenberg on the legal history of the Jews in the

Empire, see in particular F. Battenberg, ‘Zur Rechtsstellung der Juden am Mittelrhein in Spatmittelalter und frither Neuzeit’, Zeitschrift fiir historische Forschung, 6 (1979), 130-83, and 1d., “Des

Kaisers Kammerknechte: Gedanken zur rechtlich-sozialen Situation der Juden in Spatmittelalter und friiher Neuzeit’, Historische Zeitschrift, 245 (1987), 545-99. See also R. Po-chia Hsia and H. Lehmann (eds.), In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish—Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany

(Washington, DC, 1995). On the Jews in Poland, see J. Goldberg, Hahevrah hayehudit bemamlekhet polin-lita (Jerusalem, 1999); id., ‘Bein hofesh lenetinut: Sugei hatelut hafeudalit shel hayehudim befolin’, Divreit hakongres ha’olami hahamishi lemada’e: hayahadut, 1 (Jerusalem, 1972), 107-13; A. Kazmierczyk, Zydzi w dobrach prywatnych w Swietle sadownicze] i administracyjnej praktyki débr

magnackich w wiekach XVI-XVIII (Krakow, 2002); A. Teller, “The Legal Status of the Jews on the Magnate Estates of Poland—Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century’, Ga/-ed, 15-16 (1997), 41-63. 4 E. Carlebach, ‘Early Modern Ashkenaz in the Writings of Jacob Katz’, in J. Harris (ed.), The Pride of Jacob: Essays on the Work of facob Katz (Cambridge, Mass., 2002), 65-83; J. Davis, “The Reception

of the Shulhan Arukh and the Formation of Ashkenazi Jewish Identity’, AZS Review, 26 (2002), 251-76; A. Teller, “The Jewish Literary Responses to the Events of 1648-1649 and the Creation of a Polish-Jewish Consciousness’, in B. Nathans and G. Safran (eds.), Culture Front: Eastern European Jews and their Culture (Pennsylvania, 2008), 17-45. > For a useful methodological survey, see J. Kocka, ‘The Uses of Comparative History’, in R. Bjoerk and K. Molin (eds.), Societies Made up of History (Edsbruk, 1996), 197-209.

fFews’ Legal Status III The Jews’ legal status as defined by the non-Jewish authorities has been of fundamental importance in determining the basic structures of Jewish society (and so of Jewish culture) in all the lands where the Jews have settled.® In order to grasp the significance of this phenomenon for pre-modern Ashkenazi Jewry, I will examine developments in the Jews’ legal status in four interrelated fields: the source of

their legal status, the forms which this status took, the different jurisdictions under which Jews fell, and the influence of their legal status on the Jews’ social

organization.‘ The need to understand the continuities in the Jews’ status alongside the changes it underwent has led to a broad chronological framework being adopted, starting from about the thirteenth century and ending with the Enlightenment and partitions of Poland in the eighteenth.

THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES In the Middle Ages, the German lands were not only more highly developed than the Polish, but also had a much larger Jewish population (who had been settled there for centuries when there were virtually no Jews in the Polish lands), so it is hardly surprising that developments in the Jews’ status in the Empire were significantly different from those in Poland.® Particularly striking as far as twelfth-

and early thirteenth-century German Jewry was concerned was the perceived weakness of the privilege as a means of determining their status and defending their rights. That this last was part of the basic intent of such documents may be seen from the fact that in the privileges granted to the Jews in both Speyer (1084) and Worms (1090), physical protection was the opening issue in the first ° In pre-modern Europe, the legal basis for the life of any group or individual was determined by specific laws granted them by their king or feudal lord. These were known as privileges. The premodern legal system allowed for a complex web of overlapping privileges of different groups and even

of individuals within a single group—a phenomenon which allowed the Jews a certain degree of leeway for negotiation in difficult situations. As far as the Jews were concerned, there were three major types of privilege which formed the legal basis for their life in the early modern period: general privileges which granted rights to the Jews living in a whole country or a complete region; local privileges granted to the Jews in one particular town and its surroundings; and personal privileges granted to an individual Jew and sometimes extending to his family. See J. Goldberg, ‘Introduction’, in Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth: Charters of Rights Granted to Jewish Communities in Poland—Lithuania in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, ed. id., 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1985-2001), i. 1-2. Cf. also F. Battenberg, ‘Die Privilegierung von Juden und der Judenschaft im Bereich des Heiligen Romischen Reiches’, in B. Dolemeyer and H. Mohnhaupt (eds.), Privilegien im europdischen Vergleich, i (Frankfurt am Main, 1996), 139—90.

" For a discussion of the field of Jewish legal history in early modern central Europe, see A. Gotzmann, ‘At Home in Many Worlds: Thoughts about New Concepts in Jewish Legal History’, Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts, 2 (2003), 413-36. ® For the Empire, see G. Kisch, The Jews in Medieval Germany: A Study of their Legal and Social

Status (New York, 1970). On the situation of the Jews in medieval east-central Europe, see H. Zaremska, Zydz1 w sredniomieczne] Europie Srodkowe;: W Czechach, Polsce ina Wegrzech (Poznan, 2005).

112 Adam Teller clause.” The slaughters during and after the First Crusade demonstrated the ineffectiveness of these privileges and seem to have led to the inclusion of the Jews in the newly developing regulations known as Landfriede (The Peace of the Land), by

which rulers of different regions—and the emperor himself—imposed their authority on their lands as a whole.'° The basic definition of the Jews’ status in the codification of the influential Saxonian Landfriede, the Sachsenspiegel, runs as follows: ‘Every day and at all times, priests and religious, girls and women, and Jews shall enjoy immunity of property.’'! Here, following the unrestrained attacks on them in the wake of the Crusades, the Jews, like other vulnerable groups, received the unequivocal protection of the emperor. Any attack on them was an attack on the general peace of the land, and so on imperial authority itself, bringing the death penalty on the transgressor. Moreover, the Jews were viewed as integral part of society, parallel to other groups with similar rights. This was, however, a double-edged sword for the Jews, since a later clause reads: ‘Regarding priests .. . and Jews: when they carry arms in transgression of the law, they shall be compensated as laymen if they are attacked because those who are included in the king’s peace are not permitted to bear arms.’!” In order to receive the emperor’s protection, therefore, the Jews had to renounce the possibility of defending themselves and depend on him entirely. In the mid-thirteenth century, under the influence of both canon law and severe economic pressure, Emperor Frederick II transformed this dependence into a new legal status for the Jews. He did so by returning to the privilege as the fundamental legal form determining the Jews’ status. In 1236, partly in response to the bloody events of Fulda in the previous year, he issued such a document, based on the ear-

| lier Worms privilege, taking the Jews under his sole protection. However, in doing so, he defined the Jews as ‘servi camerae nostrae’—serfs of our treasury.'® In this

way, he not only answered the Jews’ need for protection, but in giving them a special and distinctive legal status—vus singulare—made them subordinate to his ° See R. Chazan (ed.), Church, State, and the Fews in the Middle Ages (New York, 1980), 57-63. Kenneth Stow has argued that it was these privileges which marked the exclusion of Jews from an integral place in society and their treatment as foreigners, dependent on the good graces of the ruler for their security. See K. Stow, Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 100—1. If this was the case, then the inclusion of the Jews in the Landfriede represented the reintegration of the Jews into the general categories of society, though amongst those groups who needed the emperor’s special protection under law. See below. 10 On the development of the Landfriede, see A. Harding, Medieval Law and the Foundations of the State (Oxford, 2002), 79-98. On the Jews’ place in them, see Kisch, The fews in Medieval Germany, 139-43.

‘The translation is from The Saxon Mirror: A Sachsenspiegel of the Fourteenth Century, trans.

M. Dobozy (Philadelphia, 1999), 112. 2 Tbid. 117. 13 The innovation here was not in subordinating the Jews to the royal treasury; that had been the policy of the emperor for many decades: Jews were regularly described as ‘ad cameram nostram pertinentes’. The significance of Frederick’s move was that by using the term servi, he gave the Jews a special legal status, making them dependent on him alone. See Stow, Alienated Minority, 273-80.

Fews’ Legal Status 113 jurisdiction alone. By thus enshrining the Jews’ status as royal dependants, he excluded them from the system of law common to others and so increased their potential as a source of income which he could exploit at will.’ Baron has argued that the emperor’s claim of lordship over the Jews formed part of his struggle with the Pope for temporal power in the Empire and so was not accepted unequivocally by the Church.!° In the latter part of the thirteenth century, the influence of ecclesiastical regulations on the Jews’ legal status became much more widely felt, leading to harsher restrictions of Jewish social and eco-

nomic life. In addition, the territorial rulers were unwilling to cede control of ‘their’ Jewish population (and the incomes it brought) to the emperor. It was from this power struggle that the basis for the Jews’ status developed in Poland. In 1238, Frederick IV, Duke of Austria, granted his own privilege to the Jews of Vienna, which he later (1244) extended to all the Jews of Austria. Closely based on this privilege were those granted by Béla IV to the Jews of Hungary in 1251, by Ottakar II to the Jews of Bohemia in 1254, and then by Prince Boleslaw the Pious to the Jews of Kalisz in Wielkopolska in 1264. The almost word-for-word similarity of

the privilege given to the Jews of Kalisz to those from Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary has been attributed to the fact that the Jews settling in Poland had come there from Central Europe and negotiated with the Prince similar conditions in their new home.*’ However, no less important seems to have been the developing legal status of towns and their inhabitants in east-central Europe in these years.

The wave of German colonization to the towns of Poland over the previous century had now led to the need to regularize their status. This was done through the granting of special privileges, known as /ocatio, which granted legal autonomy

to the towns and their inhabitants following the German model of the city of Magdeburg. Jews, however, were not viewed in the same category as Germans. Prince Boleslaw was not interested in changing their status, but rather in preserving direct control over them, presumably as a lucrative source of income. He may have been encouraged in this desire by the Jews themselves, who, unwilling to be subsumed under the hostile regulations of Magdeburg Law, were probably eager to continue enjoying the direct protection of the prince. The 1264 privilege should 14 G. Langmuir, “Tanquam Servi: The Change in Jewish Status in French Law about 1200’, in M. Yardeni (ed.), Les fuifs dans histoire de France (Leiden, 1980), 24-54.

19S. Baron, ‘“Plenitude of Apostolic Powers” and Medieval “Jewish Serfdom”’, in Ancient and Medieval Femwish History: Essays by Salo Wittmayer Baron, ed. L. Feldman (New Brunswick, NJ, 1972), 284-307. Cf. Kisch, The Jews in Medieval Germany, 143-53. Though Baron and Kisch argue that the use of the term servi (slaves or serfs) indicates that the emperor was making use of the theological term perpetua servitus to define the Jews’ new status, Langmuir and Stow have shown that the usage was at best metaphorical and had little to do either with the theological term or with the concrete status of the serfs (above, nn. 13, 14). 16 EF Lotter, ‘The Scope and Effectiveness of Imperial Jewry Law in the High Middle Ages’, Zewish History, 4 (1989), 31-58. 17 M. Balaban, ‘Kiedy i skad przybyli Zydzi do Polski’, Miesiecznik Zydowski, 1 (1930), I-12.

114 Adam Teller therefore be seen as establishing the Jews as a group of urban inhabitants in Kalisz of a different status from the German population—and this at the very outset of

the town’s existence as an autonomous entity with the granting of its founding (Jocatio) privilege.*®

This point becomes clear from the 1264 privilege’s provisions dealing with jurisdiction over the Jews: ‘the judge of our city shall claim no jurisdiction over them; only we alone, our palatine, or his judge shall exercise jurisdiction . . .’.1° The meaning was clear. Jews were exempted from the municipal jurisdiction of the so-called Magdeburg courts, coming instead under the jurisdiction of the prince, in courts run by his officials—the palatines—or a specially appointed legal officer, the Jews’ Judge (fudex Judaeorum), a Christian official. It was his job to try cases between Jews and non-Jews and even between two Jews, if requested by one of the sides.*! It would seem, therefore, that the privilege was meant effectively to establish separate statuses for Jewish and non-Jewish settlers in a time of constitutional _ change and urban development, emphasizing the Jews’ dependence on the prince. It also aimed to render it impossible for burghers to demand that their cases against Jews be heard in hostile municipal courts, as developed later in the Empire.”* Thus, though both in the Empire and in Poland the Jews’ legal status left them dependent on the monarch, these would seem to have been two different types of dependence. At the heart of the emperor’s sovereignty was the direct subordination of the Jews to the treasury through the creation of a distinct legal status, servi camerae, which gave the Jews a separate and distinctive status. In Poland, on the other hand, the Jews were given the status of a separate group of urban inhabitants, alongside the German settlers, with both groups forming integral parts of the economic and social life of the towns in which they lived. Clearly, the two monarchs were interested in maximizing their income from their Jewish subjects, but the differing legal statuses they granted their Jews meant that they would go about it in different ways.

‘8 H, Zaremska, ‘Statut Boleslawa Poboznego dla Zydow: Uwagi w sprawie genezy’, Roczniki Dziejow Spotecznych 1 Gospodarczych, 64 (2004), 107-34.

'9 Sudex civitatis nostrae nullam jurisdictionem sibi vindicet in eosdem, sed nos tantummodo, aut noster palatinus, vel eyus judex judicium exercebit . . .. The text of the privilege in its 1334 reconfirmation is published in J. Bandtkie, Jus Polonicum codicibus veteribus manuscriptis et editionibus quibusque collatis (Warsaw, 1831), I-21 at 7.

20 The fact that the Jews’ court was run by a Christian official enabled the integration of the Jews into the Polish legal system from the earliest period of their settlement there. 21 See B. Cohen, ‘Havoyevoda betorat shofet hayehudim bapolin hayeshanah’, Gal-ed, 1 (1973),

I-12. 22 The clause mentioned here is no. 22. Zaremska points out that this clause was not always rigorously enforced: Zaremska, ‘Statut Boleslawa Poboznego’, 119. Cf. Kazmierczyk, Zydzi w dobrach prywatnych, 27-40, who points out that in the early modern period, Jews in some private towns could be subject to municipal jurisdiction.

Jews’ Legal Status IIs THE LATE MIDDLE AGES For the Empire, the process of maximizing income from the Jews has been characterized by J. Friedrich Battenberg as one of ‘commercialization and territorialization’.*° As financial pressure on the Holy Roman Emperors grew during the later Middle Ages, they began to transfer to creditors and potential political allies the income owed them by the Jewish population in various places as a result of their status as servi camerae. This was not an unusual practice: the emperor disposed of the incomes from other such imperial rights (known as rega/e) in a similar manner. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, not only one-off payments were transferred to various territorial lords, the Judenregal as a whole was actually sold completely and in perpetuity.** Moreover, territorial lords were not the only ones to acquire the Judenregal for the Jews in their territory; a number of towns did the same.*°

This development meant that the status of the Jews had undergone a fundamental change: from being one of the groups in society in need of special protec-

tion in order to keep the general peace, as laid down for example in the Sachsenspiegel, they had become something more akin to regalia, whose value was

primarily financial. The Jews now found themselves in a complex situation: in principle, they remained imperial servi camerae, but as far as the payment of dues,

the administration of justice, and the need for protection were concerned, they had to turn to their territorial or local lord. As a result, when the intensification of religious tensions combined with increased economic development from the midfourteenth century led the German territories and towns to expel the Jewish population, the communities had no higher authority to which to turn in order to protect themselves. As organized Jewish life disintegrated, Jews, either individually or in small groups, sought protection on a personal basis by approaching the territorial lords or towns and requesting letters of protection for themselves and their families in the towns where they lived.*° Thus, the Jews’ special group status under a ius singulare began to deteriorate, replaced more and more by personal laws negotiated between individuals and the authorities. By the early sixteenth century, the Jewish population of the Empire had deteriorated to just a few thousand, mostly spread out in villages across the different ter-

ritories.2’ Of the Jewish communities, only Frankfurt, Prague, and Worms retained anything of their former greatness, though, as a mark of their exclusion from urban society, the Jews lived in closed, urban quarters.*° 23 Battenberg, ‘Des Kaisers Kammerknechte’, 569. 24 Battenberg, ‘Zur Rechtsstellung’, 136-43. 29 F Reuter, Warmaisa: 1000 Jahre Juden in Worms (Worms, 1984), 59—60. 26 Battenberg, ‘Zur Rechtsstellung’, 156—63. 27 J. Israel, European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550-1750 (Oxford, 1985), 6—16. 28 For a different perspective on the communities of Frankfurt and Worms, emphasizing the Jews’ political integration more than their physical exclusion, see C. Friedrichs, ‘Jews in the Imperial Cities: A Political Perspective’, in Po-chia Hsia and Lehmann (eds.), [n and Out of the Ghetto, 275-88.

116 Adam Teller The development of the Jews’ legal status in Poland took quite a different route. Bolestaw’s 1264 privilege was confirmed and extended to cover the Jews in the whole of Poland in 1334 by Kazimierz the Great, who confirmed it again a number of times during his reign as part of his general policy favouring Jewish immigration.” Still interested in attracting Jewish settlement as part of a general policy of

developing his lands and expanding his power, the king viewed the indirect incomes they brought in the form of economic development as much more significant than the direct income from them in taxation; thus, the commercialization of that income and its sale to third parties did not serve his economic needs. In addition, the Polish crown had never claimed the Jews as servi camerae, so that the basic precondition for their ‘sale’ did not exist. Nonetheless, this situation did not prevent a power struggle over the Jews and the incomes they brought from developing between the Polish crown and the nobility. The first round in this struggle came in 1453 with the privilege granted to the Jews of Wielkopolska by King Kazimierz Jagiellonczyk, which included one of the most significant expansions of the Jews’ rights in medieval Europe.®° Though based on the previous privileges, that issued by Jagiellonczyk was much more detailed in nature and gave the Jews significantly greater freedom and security in their economic life. In addition, it was the first in Poland formally to recognize the structures of Jewish autonomy, making specific mention of a synagogue elder, community elders, and a beadle.*' According to the privilege, the synagogue elder was responsible for imposing the ferem (excommunication) when necessary, though he could only do so with the agreement of the community elders. This might indicate that he was a rabbinic figure—if not a recognized rabbi. The synagogue elders ran a community court, which the beadle served. Of particular interest is the clause in the privilege which states that Jews who did not treat their elders with respect had to pay a fine not only to the elders but also to the palatine (wojewoda).*” This meant 29 There are confirmations from 1334, 1364, and 1367. H. Zaremska, ‘Przywileje Kazimierza Wielkiego dla Zydow i ich sredniowieczne konfirmacje’, in M. Wodzinski and A. MichatowskaMycielska (eds.), Matzenstwo z rozsadku? Zydzi w spoleczenstmie dawnej Rzeczypospolite (Wroclaw, 2007), 11-34. Cf. J. Sieradzki, ‘Bolestawa Poboznego statut kaliski z r. 1264 dla Zyd6w’, in Osiemnascie wiekow Kalisza, 1 (Poznan, 1960), 141 n. 17.

30 On the privilege and the debate as to whether the text is a forgery, see S. A. Cygielman, ‘The Basic Privileges of the Jews in Great Poland as Reflected in Polish Historiography’, Polin, 2 (1987), 117-49. The extended privilege (which, forgery or not, was ratified by the Polish monarchs from the 16th c. on) was published by Bandtkie, Jus Polonicum, 1-21. A slightly different version may be found in M. Schorr, ‘Krakovsku svod evreiskikh statutov i privilegii’, Evreiskaya starina, t (1909), 247-64; 2 (1910), 76—100, 223-45.

31 H. Zaremska, ‘Uwagi o organizacji gmin zydowskich w Sredniowiecznej Polsce’, in A. Bartoszewicz et al. (eds.), Aetas media, aetas moderna (Warsaw, 2000), 147-64 at 154. The term ‘elder’ here is used in the sense of ‘leader’, with no reference to age.

82 ‘si aliquis Judaeorum suis superioribus non esse obediens, extunc talis domino palatino luat poenam trium marcarum et superioribus etiam suis similiter poenam trium marcarum’. Bandtkie, Jus Polonicum, 7.

Jews’ Legal Status 117 that the Jewish communal institutions, and in particular their courts, received the support of the state authorities.*” In constitutional terms, the privilege seems to have been the first to use specific language indicating the Jews’ connection to the royal treasury, such as: ‘quia nos ipsos pro nostro thesauro reservamus’.** In the earlier privileges, the monarchs had referred to the Jews as ‘our Jews’ and had insisted that fines paid for harming them be paid in part to the royal treasury. They had not, however, used anything close to the terminology of chamber serfdom which had begun to appear in the Empire in the thirteenth century.°° While even Jagiellonczyk’s formulation did not use the Latin term servi (slaves), it would seem that Polish Jewry’s dependence on the king had here found its legal expression in a form not distant from that 1n use in the Empire. Moreover, it was granted in a privilege denoting favourable terms on which their life in Poland was to be based.*° However, this privilege had only a short life. The year after its granting, in 1454, the Polish nobility, gathered at Nieszawa in order to fulfil its feudal obligation to go to war against the Teutonic Order, refused to do so without first receiving significant concessions from the king. These included the right of the noble dietines (seymiki) to levy taxes and the obligation of the king to consult the nobility before going to war or passing new legislation. The Statutes of Nieszawa passed at that

time are widely recognized as the first step in the empowerment of the Polish nobility at the expense of both towns and king and as one of the basic building blocks of the so-called ‘noble democracy’ or constitutional monarchy which would

develop in Poland in the next century. This being so, it is noteworthy that the Jewish issue was also raised in these statutes. The penultimate clause annulled the 1453 privilege, which it described as contrary to both divine law and earthly statutes.°’ Though no other reason was given for this reversal of royal policy, it °3 Cygielman argues that the privilege was merely giving legal basis to accepted practice; ‘The Basic Privileges’, 119-22. °4 Bandtkie, Jus Polonicum, 7. Cf. also ‘quia ipsi Judaei pro nostro thesauro in terris nostris sunt con-

servati...’. Ibid. 16. 35 Zaremska claims to have found a reference to the concept of chamber serfdom (though not the expression itself) in the chronicle of Bishop Wincenty Kadlubek (1160-1223). Zaremska, ‘Uwagi o organizacji’, 150-1.

36 On the other hand, community privileges, though granted to the Jews in some towns in the Empire since the 11th c., were not found in Poland until relatively late. In fact, the first appearance of the Jewish community privilege in eastern Europe seems to have occurred in Lithuania. In 1388, the Grand Duke Vytautas granted a privilege ‘Judeis in Breste, civitate nostra’ (to the Jews in our city of Brest). While the text was based almost word for word on Bolestaw the Pious’s privilege, it was not a general, but a community privilege, meant for the Jews of Brest alone. In the course of time, however, other Lithuanian communities came to rely upon it for their own legal basis, thus giving it more the status of a general privilege. See J. Ochmanski, Vitoldiana: Codex Privilegiorum Vitoldi Magni Ducts Lithuantae, 1386—1430 (Warsaw, 1986), 171-4.

37 ‘7 iteras etiam quascunque super libertate ipsis Judaeis, in regno nostro degentibus, per nos post diem coronationis nostrae concessas, et yuri divino ac constitutionibus terrestribus contrarias penitus revocamus...’. Bandtkie, Jus Polonicum, 290.

118 Adam Teller would seem that the Polish nobility, like their counterparts in the Empire, were trying to break the close ties between the king and the Jews in order eventually to get their own hands on the Judenregal and the incomes it brought.°® Despite this similarity, it would seem that the later Middle Ages saw completely

different paths of development for the Jews’ legal status in the Empire and in Poland. In the former, their status deteriorated as they were increasingly viewed only as a source of income. By commercializing and selling off the Judenregal to territorial and local authorities, the emperor effectively acted to undermine the Jews’ security. Since they lived under a special law—zus singulare—often determined by the authority under whose jurisdiction they fell, their society was without a stable legal basis. Thus Jews were expelled from one place after another. In that situation, it was those able to receive personal documents of protection who enjoyed the greatest degree of security.?? This began a process of development in which the effectiveness of the group’s legal status would increasingly be replaced by that of personal privileges. In Poland, on the other hand, the sale of the direct incomes from the Jews did not serve the purposes of a Crown interested in general economic development. Instead, increasingly permissive general privileges were issued to the Jews of the kingdom in the centuries following 1264, their security increased, and their numbers grew—largely as a result of immigration from the

hostile lands of the Empire. In the mid-fifteenth century there are signs that the Polish crown might have been moving towards granting the Jews the status of servi camerae as they had in the Empire. The growing power of the Polish nobility,

interested in undermining the Crown’s strength and taking over many of the king’s economic rights, put a stop to that development. This political battle, however, does not seem significantly to have destabilized the Jews’ legal situation at the time because the Jews enjoyed a status parallel to that of the burgher estate. ‘Thus the repeal of the 1453 legislation did not have much practical effect on the Jews’

relationship with the king and did little to dampen the rapid development of Jewish communal organization in Poland.*°

THE SIXTEENTH AND EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES As the Polish Jewish communities continued to grow in number and in size during

the fifteenth century, they also began to acquire rights on a local basis. These were privileges limited to just one or two aspects of Jewish life—mostly trade or settlement: full community privileges were still a rarity.4 The crucial change came 38 S. Kutrzeba, ‘Stanowisko prawne Zydow w Polsce w XV stuleciu’, Przemodnik Naukowy i Literackt, 29 (1901), 1012. Zaremska, ‘Przywileje Kazimierza Wielkiego’, 33-4. 39 Battenberg, ‘Des Kaisers Kammerknechte’, 573.

40 See E. Reiner, ‘Aliyat “hakehilah hagedolah”: al shorshei hakehilah hayehudit ha’ironit befolin ba’et hahadashah hamukdemet’, Ga/-ed, 20 (2006), 13-37. 41 For a selection of such legislation regarding the Jewish community of Lwow, see M. Balaban, Zydzi lwowscy na przetomie XVI-go 1 XVII-go mieku (Lwow, 1906), 391-402.

Jews’ Legal Status 11g during the reign of Zygmunt I (1507-47). In this period, the struggle between the

centralizing tendencies of the Polish monarchy and the growing power of the Polish nobility came to a head, with a number of laws passed which severed royal jurisdiction over noble-owned estates—in 1519 peasants on these estates were

denied the right of appeal to royal courts. Then in 1539 the same ruling was applied to the Jews on the noble estates, and a later series of laws sought to extend this to the burghers in general.*” As far as the Jews were concerned, the passing of the 1539 law severing their right of appeal from noble estates to royal courts was something of an earthquake. By removing part of Polish Jewry from royal jurisdiction, this law in fact effectively destroyed the king’s prerogatives over the Jews as a

group. Polish Jewry seems to have understood this change as signifying that Poland’s central authority, the king, could no longer protect them against local forces—estate owners, starostas in royal cities, and even municipal councils. This was a situation not unlike that which had developed in the Empire with the commercialization and sale of the Judenregal. However, in Poland (and, following

the 1569 Union of Lublin, the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth), the Jews adopted a different political stance, understanding that it was in their best interests to develop a positive relationship with the nobility. The basis for this was to be found in the economic services that Jewish merchants, moneylenders, and leaseholders (arendarze) could offer their noble patrons.*? Its importance was that it led

the Polish nobility—tlike the Crown before it—to the conclusion that the Jews were not just a source of taxation which could be ‘cashed in’ and transferred from hand to hand, but also a means of creating new income and so worth protecting and even nurturing. Thus with the accession of a new king, Zygmunt August, in 1548—generally a time for renewing old privileges—Polish Jews acted to translate their economic potential into a new legal basis for their existence. A growing number of communities decided no longer to rely just on the general privileges granted by the king, but to seek privileges of a local, communal nature, granted by a local noble figure of authority (starosta or estate owner) and, if necessary, confirmed by the king.** Thus, following Zygmunt August’s accession, the following communities negotiated local ** ‘Qui nobiles in oppidiis aut in villis suis Judaeos habent, per nos licet, ut soli ex eis fructus omnes et emolumenta percipient; 1usque illis arbitratu suo dicant.”? Volumina legum: Przedruk Zbioru praw staraniem XX. Pyarow w Warszamie od roku 1732 do roku [1793], 1 (St Petersburg, 1859), 550. On the question of private towns, see T. Opas, ‘Miasta prywatne a Rzeczpospolita’, Kwartalnik Historyczny, 78 (1971), 28-48. *8 J. Kalik, Ha’atsulah hapolanit vehayehudim bemamlekhet polin-lita bere’i ha-tehikah bat hazeman (Jerusalem, 1997), 25-62.

44 This did not mean that Polish Jewry as a whole did not request and receive from each new monarch a reconfirmation of the general privileges for the whole of Polish Jewry. In some cases, the general privilege could also form the basis for a community privilege. See Schorr, ‘Krakovskii svod’. On the development of royal—Jewish relations in the changing conditions of 16th-c. Poland, see J. Heyde, ‘Ewolucja zwierzchnosci krélewskiej nad ludnoscia zydowska w XVI wieku’, in Wodzinski and Michalowska-Mycielska (eds.), Matzenstwo z rozsqadku?, 35—48.

120 Adam Teller privileges: Lublin, Kalisz, Komorno, Bochnia, Ratno, Wislica, Miedzyrzecz, Busk,

Kolo, Tyszowce, Lwow suburban community, Przemysl, Kowal, Poznan, and Opatow.*° In comparison, only four communities had received full privileges during

the previous three decades.*© Following 1548, other communities made formal agreements (‘pacta’) with municipal councils to ensure conditions of Jewish life in the towns. Sometimes these pacta themselves could form the basis of community privileges. It would therefore seem quite clear that 1548 marked a crucial turning point in the history of the Jews’ legal status in Poland.

The importance of the community privileges was that they defined the Jews exclusively as a group.*” Moreover, following the precedent set by the 1264 privilege, they functioned in some ways as a parallel to the foundation privilege of the

town itself (/ocatio) and established a legally recognized ‘Jewish town’ within the town.*® On the basis of the privileges, the Jewish community councils grew in size and strength, taking on a structure and a range of functions parallel to those of the city councils.*? Of particular importance was the fact that the Jews themselves were completely removed from the jurisdiction of the city councils. This meant,

for example, that the community councils could decide for themselves on the granting and (removal) of settlement rights—the so-called hezkat hayishuv— without consulting the municipal council.°° Beyond that, a common stipulation in the community privileges exempted the Jews from the municipal, Magdeburg courts, giving them the right to be tried in their own courts.°! As a result, the Jews 45 It should be noted here that not all the texts of the privileges mentioned above have been preserved and that we sometimes know of their existence only from later quotations and mentions. See Jewish Privileges, ed. Goldberg, i. 106-12, 128-34, 151-63, 252-62, 268~70, 284-89; ii. 163-6. 46 ‘These were Lwow, the Podzamcze district of Lublin, Kowel, and Miedzyboérz. Jewish Privileges, ed. Goldberg, 1. 136-40, 169-80; 11. 134-6. Iam here contrasting ‘full privileges’, which covered all (or, at least, most) aspects of the Jews’ communal life, with ‘partial privileges’, which were limited to a sin-

gle aspect of that life, most often settlement or trade. | 4” Once again, it should be stressed that individuals did sometimes receive personal privileges, guaranteeing them various rights, though such cases were rare in comparison with the community privileges. On occasion, such personal privileges could form the basis of a later community privilege. Such was the case in Stuck, for example. Jemish Privileges, ed. Goldberg, 1. 300-3. 48 Cf. A. Teller, Hayim betsavta: harova hayehudi shel poznan bamahatsit harishonah shel hame’ah ha17 (Jerusalem, 2003), 85-6.

49 Within a short time they became full-blown administrative machines—in Poznan, for example, the elected community officials numbered nearly too. See A. Michalowska, Miedzy demokracjq a oligarchiq: Wladze gmin zydowskich w Poznaniu 1 Swarzedzu (od potowy XVII do konca XVIII wieku)

(Warsaw, 2000). See also S. Gasiorowski, Chrzescijanie i Zydzi w Zotkwi w XVII i XVIII wieku (Krakow, 2001), 105-29; Teller, Hayim betsavta, 30-41. °° M. Siemiaticki, ‘Hezkat hakehilah befolin’, Hamishpat ha ivri, 5 (1936-7), 45-92.

>! Goldberg, ‘Introduction’, 22-8. The question of the jurisdiction over the Jews was a complex one. The basic paradigm seems to have been that cases between Jews were tried before the community court, headed by the local rabbi. Cases involving Jews between different communities and between individuals and communities could be heard before the courts at the regional councils. Cases involving Jews sued by Christians went before the Judex Judaeorum in the royal towns and the seigneurial court

Jews’ Legal Status 121 may be seen as beginning to form a fully fledged second urban estate—parallel to the burghers. No other so-called minority group in Polish society had legal recognition and a legal system like that of the Jews. In fact, many scholars do not term Polish Jewry a minority group, but one of Poland’s constitutive estates.°” Polish Jewry also had a national body—the so-called ‘Council of Four Lands’, whose development paralleled the course of constitutional change in sixteenthcentury Poland in a number of significant ways. A particularly important aspect of the growth in the power of the Polish nobility was the development of parliamentary institutions. By the mid-sixteenth century, the Seym consisted of two houses, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. It was to the first of these that the mass of the sz/achta sent its representatives, elected at the network of local noble gatherings, known as sejmiki, which also fulfilled a legislative role on the local level.°? In 1578, Poland’s highest court, the Trybunal Koronny, was established and it too was run by nobles elected by the seymiki.°* The Council of Four Lands seems to have been established in 1580 as a result of the reimposition of the Jewish poll-tax by King Stefan Batory, which the Jewish elders decided to farm. However, within a short time the Council was acting like an early modern parliament, issuing legisla-

tion on matters, economic and other, concerning Polish Jewry as a whole.®° Alongside the Council, though not actually a part of it, functioned a national rabbinic court, run by Poland’s leading rabbis, who met once or twice a year at the fairs of Lublin and Jarostaw.°® In constitutional terms it should be noted that in the private towns, with the right of appeal to the wojewoda or the lord of the town respectively. ‘The

reality was much more complex, however, with individual Jews opting for whichever court they felt would bring them the best results. Kazmierczyk, Zydzi w dobrach prywatnych, 21-58.

52 See J. Tazbir, ‘Das Judenbild der Polen im 16.18. Jahrhundert’, Acta Poloniae Historica, 50 (1984), 29-56. For a broader perspective, see G. Hundert, Jems in Poland—Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity (Berkeley, 2004), 1-20. It should be noted that although some modern historians have come to the conclusion that de facto the Jews formed a constitutive estate in Polish society, contemporary legal thought, particularly in the period of the Enlightenment, did not view them as such. See A. Eisenbach, The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland, 1780-1870 (Oxford, 1991), 62-112. For a full description of Poland’s constitutional and legal structure in this period, see Z. Kaczmarczyk and B. Lesnodorski, Historia panstwa i prawa polskiego, 1 (Warsaw, 1971).

53 J. Michalski (ed.), Historia sejmu polskiego, i (Warsaw, 1984); W. Kriegseisen, Sejmiki Rzeczypospolite; szlacheckiej w XVIIT1 XVIII wieku (Warsaw, 1991).

°4 O. Balzer, Geneza Trybunalu Koronnego: Studyum z dziejow sadownictwa polskiego XVI wieku (Warsaw, 1886).

°° On the Council, see M. Schorr, Organizacja Zydéw w dawne Polsce od najdawntejszych czasow az

do r. 1772 (Lwow, 1899), 59—80; J. Goldberg, ‘The Jewish Sejm: Its Origins and Functions’, in A. Polonsky et al. (eds.), The Jews in Old Poland, tooo—1795 (London, 1993), 147-65; S. Ettinger, “The Council of the Four Lands’, ibid. 93-109; A. Leszezynski, Sejm Zydow Korony, 1623-1764 (Warsaw, 1994), 101-84; I. Halperin, Yehudim veyahadut bemizrah etropa (Jerusalem, 1969), 39-107.

56 On the relationship between the Polish rabbis, the Great Rabbinical Court, and the Council of Four Lands, see A. Teller, ‘Rabbis without a Function? The Polish Rabbinate and the Council of Four Lands in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries’, in J. Wertheimer (ed.), Jewish Religious Leadership: Image and Reality, 1 (New York, 2004), 371-400.

122 Adam Teller neither the Council nor the Great Rabbinical Court was a legally recognized body—neither received a foundational privilege. ‘This meant that, despite their very high status, their legal competence was limited: not only did they lack the means to enforce their rulings, the final decision as to whether even to accept them lay with the individual communities. The rapid growth and development of the Jews in Poland—Lithuania in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was not matched in the Empire. ‘The Jewish

, population there remained small in number, mostly living in tiny groups in small towns and villages. In the last quarter of the sixteenth century, Jews began to be invited back into the territories and towns from which they had been expelled, but this was a slow and difficult process.°’ It did mean, however, that, as in Poland, the Jews’ legal status was deeply affected by the strengthening position of the nobility, in this case the territorial princes whose express invitation and protection (Schutz) of individual Jews was necessary before they could legally settle on his lands. In 1495, the Imperial Chamber Court (Reichskammergericht) was reformed to ensure that the legal interests of the nobility were properly represented within i1t—

at least half of the judges had to have knightly status, with the other half trained lawyers. This reform, with its emphasis on the professionalization of the legal system, is widely regarded as one of the major factors leading to another development which would have important consequences for the Jews—the reception of Roman law in the Empire.°® In fact, it seems to have been the rapid spread of universitytrained lawyers and scholars of jurisprudence in this period, with their ability to refer to the written letter of the (Roman) law to back up their arguments, that rendered the traditional court structures of the Empire, which relied on the largely uncodified German customary law, more than a little redundant.°” As a result, Roman law soon became widely accepted as customary in many parts of the Empire, with much effort expended on the part of jurists in writing and codifying

its principles.°° |

The work of the German jurists in this period sheds significant light on developments in the Jews’ legal status. A central issue was that of the relationship with

the emperor: in the jurists’ writings, the concept of servi camerae was either 57 Israel, European fewry, 35-45; R. Ries, ‘German Territorial Princes and the Jews’, in Po-chia Hsia and Lehmann (eds.), [nm and Out of the Ghetto, 215-45.

58 On the development of Roman law in general, see P. Stein, Roman Law in European History (Cambridge, 1999). On its reception in the Holy Roman Empire, see pp. 88—g2; P. Vinogradoff, Roman

Law in Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1929), 119-45; G. Dahm, ‘On the Reception of Roman and Italian Law in Germany’, in G. Strauss (ed.), Pre-Reformation Germany (London, 1972), 282-315. On the significance of this development for the Jews, see W. Giide, Die rechtliche Stellung der Fuden in den Schriften deutscher Furisten des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Sigmaringen, 1981).

59 W. Kunkel, ‘The Reception of Roman Law in Germany: An Interpretation’, in Strauss (ed.), Pre-Reformation Germany, 263-81. 60 In the legal parlance of the time, this meant that Roman law was accepted as the common law— tus commune. On the development of ius commune in medieval Europe, see M. Bellomo, The Common Legal Past of Europe, rooo—1&00 (Washington, DC, 1995), 217-20.

Fews’ Legal Status 123 ignored or mentioned just as a historical phenomenon. As far as scholars such as Johannes Kitzel, Johann Herman Stamm, and Philipp Andreas Oldenburger were concerned, the legal significance of this status had disappeared, leaving only the financial aspect of the Judenregal, which was simply an income and imparted no legal obligations to the individual who held it.°’ According to them, and many other jurists like them, the concept of the ius singulare for Jews was no more, and they were to enjoy the protection of Roman law, just like the Christians.®* The basis for this seems to have been the acceptance in Roman law in late antiquity that the Jews could be ‘cives Romani’—Roman citizens—just like non-Jews.°? This was the interpretation adopted by the humanist Johann Reuchlin in his 1510 opinion opposing the confiscation of Jewish books.® In face of the argument put forward by Pfefferkorn that the Jews’ books contained attacks on Christianity and so should be seized and burned, Reuchlin countered that the books in question did not harm the Christian faith and so there was no legal basis for confiscating them. He argued further that, even if some of the books were to be deemed libellous, In prosecuting the owners of such books, one may not deal any differently with them than one would with any Christian involved in the same sort of affair, since the members of both sects [Judaism and Christianity] belong to the Holy Empire as citizens of the Empire . . . Therefore, the Imperial Law is equally binding for Christians and Jews, each in his own way.°°

Clearly, this argumentation carried some weight, since, despite the bitter polemic Reuchlin’s opinion aroused, those books already confiscated from the Jews of Frankfurt were returned and no further confiscations took place.°° 6! Gude, Die rechtliche Stellung, 44-6. On the scholars mentioned here, see pp. 16-20. 62 Ibid. 47-53. 63 Tbid. 61-6. Cf. K. Stow, ‘Jewish Pre-Emancipation: Jus Commune, the Roman Communita, and

Marriage in the Early Modern Papal State’, in Jewish Life in Early Modern Rome: Challenge, Conversion, and Private Life (Aldershot, 2007), essay xviil.

64 F. Lotter, ‘Der Rechtsstatus der Juden in den Schriften Reuchlins zum Pfefferkornstreit’, in A. Herzig and J. Schoeps (eds.), Reuchlin und die Juden (Sigmaringen, 1993), 65-88. F. Battenberg,

‘luden als “Burger” des Heiligen Romischen Reichs im 16. Jahrhundert: Zu einem Paradigmenwechsel im “Judenrecht” in der Reformationszeit’, in R. Decot and M. Arnold (eds.), Christen und Fuden im Reformationszeitalter (Mainz, 2006), 175—97. For a different interpretation, see H. A. Oberman, ‘Reuchlin and the Jews: Obstacles on the Path to Emancipation’, inid., The Impact of the Reformation (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1994), 141-70. Oberman renders Reuchlin’s term for the Jews, concives (lit. fellow citizen), as ‘resident alien’, though he gives no explanation for this. However, he sums up Reuchlin’s whole case as follows: ‘by codification of human rights guaranteeing the existence of the Jews in a Christian Europe, the protection of the Jews should not be dependent on Christian charity, but on secular law’; ibid. 169. 6° ‘Darin nit anders gehandelt wird, dann wie mit ainem yeden christen in der gleichen sach gehandelt soll warden, nachdem bayd secten on mittel gleider des hailigen reichs und des kaisertums burger sind ... Hierumb so bindent kaisserliche recht christen und juden, jeglichs nach seiner gestalt.’ J. Reuchlin, Gutachten tiber das judische Schrifttum, ed. and trans. A. Leinz-v. Dessauer (Stuttgart, 1965), 35, 37. The translation is taken from J. Reuchlin, Recommendation whether to Confiscate, Destroy, and Burn All Fewtsh Books: A Classic Treatise against Anti-Semitism, ed. and trans. P. Wortsman (New York, 2000), 36-7.

66 See E. Carlebach, ‘Critical Introduction’, in Reuchlin, Recommendation, 15-26.

124 Adam Teller This integration of the Jews into the general legal system of the Empire had a range of effects on the life of the Jews there—some beneficial, others less so. Access to the rapidly developing court system of the Empire, all the way up to the Imperial Chamber Court, was ensured, and they could use it in order to respond to discrimination and physical attack on themselves or their property.°’ The other side of this was that most cases arising from Jews’ daily interactions with their non-Jewish neighbours in the towns where they lived and did business were heard by the town courts, run by the burghers and often perceived by the Jews as hostile.°° Finally, some jurists began to question whether the Jews should be allowed to organize their own lives according to Jewish law at all, though such an idea was never put into action.°” The abstract concept of Jews as ‘citizens’, though very important in principle, was not translated into equal legal status in either the towns or the villages where they lived. As mentioned above, Jewish life was regulated by the letters of protection granted them by the authorities in the regions where they settled. In some places, the principles of this protection were enunciated in general statutes—

Judenordnungen—published by territorial princes for various regions of the Empire. The emperors, too, as part of their drive to create a uniform body of law for the Empire, included the Jews in their general regulations of 1530, 1548, and 1577./° In its content, this form of legislation tended to express great hostility towards the Jews, imposing heavy and often humiliating restrictions on their social and economic activities. On the other hand, it can also be seen as a first stage in the process of regulating their status according to legal principles rather than through individually negotiated privileges. ”’ Asa result of these developments, the Jews’ legal status was still far from clearcut in these years. The emperors, starting with Charles V, continued to claim the Jews as their own property. ’? In the early sixteenth century they undertook a number of centralizing administrative initiatives whose aim seems to have been to form the Jews in the different territories of the Empire into a single body subject more 6” For a brief summary of this issue focusing on urban anti-Jewish violence in the early 17th c. and putting the Jews’ responses in the context of the legal system of the Empire, see C. Friedrichs, “The Anti-Jewish Movements in Frankfurt and Worms, 1612-1617: Local Crisis and Imperial Response’, Proceedings of the World Congress of fewish Studies, 10 (1990), B2, 199—206.

68 See M. Boes, ‘Jews in the Criminal-Justice System of Early Modern Germany’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 30 (1999), 407-35. This is not to say that these courts—or the burghers themselves—were uniformly hostile to Jews. The legal situation of the Jews in the German towns was considerably more complex. See the brief discussion in V. Behr, ‘Zur zivilrechtlichen Stellung deutscher Juden nach friihneuzeitlichen Rechtsordnungen’, Aschkenas, 16 (2006), 1-16.

69 Gide, Die rechtliche Stellung, 53-4. 7 Battenberg, ‘Zur Rechtsstellung’, 163-5. “1 See M. Raeff, The Well-Ordered Police State: Social and Institutional Change through Law 1n the Germanies and Russia, 1600-1800 (New Haven, 1983), 43-180. 72 S§. Wenderhorst, ‘Imperial Spaces as Jewish Spaces: The Holy Roman Empire, the Emperor and the Jews in the Early Modern Period. Some Preliminary Observations’, Jahrbuch des Simon-DubnowInstituts, 2 (2003), 437-74 at 444-5.

Jews’ Legal Status 125 closely to imperial jurisdiction. In 1521, Charles V reinstituted the post of Imperial Rabbi, appointing Samuel of Worms to the post. The rabbi’s responsibilities were, like those of his medieval predecessors, focused on helping with collection of taxes due to the emperor.’* About a decade later, the famous Jewish

intercessor Josel of Rosheim, a not infrequent visitor to the imperial court, received the title ‘Commander of All Jewry’ in documents from the imperial chancellery, designating him the single representative for all the Jews of the Empire. On their part, the Jewish communities seem also to have continued in their traditional reliance on the emperor as a source of protection throughout the sixteenth century. In the new conditions of these years, this developed into an increasingly

problematic stance, as became clear following 1603. In that year, a council of Jewish community leaders met in Frankfurt am Main to rule on issues of significance for the Jews of the Empire as a whole. They proposed, among other things, _ the establishment of central Jewish courts and a unified system of collecting taxes for the needs of the Jews of the Empire as a whole.’° When two prominent members of the territorial aristocracy—the electors of Mainz and Cologne—learned of this, they launched a frontal attack on the council and its legislation, putting pressure on the weak Rudolf II to send an imperial commission to examine the issue. It concluded initially that the Jews’ concept of establishing a central leadership was an attempt to establish a separate Jewish jurisdiction outside imperial control, in

the same way as the territorial princes had done in the previous century. Eventually, the Jews’ pleas that this was not their aim and that they had not acted any differently from previous generations of Jews in the Empire were accepted by all but the Archbishop Elector of Cologne. He continued to claim that the regula-

tions challenged the legal rights of the territorial princes and was eventually compensated for his losses in this regard by the Jewish community. © 73 When he encountered difficulty in persuading the communities to permit him to fulfil this task, an imperial commission issued a writ convening them to a special summit in order to sort the matter out. M. Stern, Die Wormser Reichsrabbiner Samuel und fakob, 1521~1574 (Berlin, 1937).

4 ‘Befehlshaber gemeiner Juedischeit’. See S. Stern, Josel of Rosheim: Commander of Fewry in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (Philadelphia, 1965); and E. Zimmer, Jewish Synods in Germany during the Late Middle Ages (New York, 1978), 56-72. On a successor to Josel in the 1560s, see D. Cohen, ‘“Koshman tsum rad”: tsiram shel yehudei ashkenaz bishenot hashishim shel hame’ah ha-16’, Tszyon, 35 (1970), 117-26.

7 ‘There seem to be parallels here with the functioning of the regional councils in Poland. These had all been founded in an attempt to streamline the collection of taxes from Jews. The establishment

of central courts was also part of their functioning (see the literature above, nn. 55-6): in the Lithuanian Council, for example, there were central Jewish courts in the main communities of the region similar to those proposed in Frankfurt. It seems likely that the Jews of the Empire in 1603 were attempting to copy a successful Polish model of self-organization. Unfortunately, however, they do not seem to have taken into account the different political situation in the Empire. 76 V. Press, ‘Kaiser Rudolf II. und der Zusammenschluss der deutschen Judenheit: Die sogenannte Frankfurter Rabbinerverschworung von 1603 und ihre Folgen’, in A. Haverkamp (ed.), Zur Geschichte der Juden im Deutschland des spaten Mittelalters und der frihen Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 1981), 243-93.

126 Adam Teller The 1603 affair seems finally to have to have turned the balance of power away from the central imperial regime in regard to its claims of authority over the Jews of the Empire.’” As far as the Jews were concerned, though they continued to rely on the imperial courts where it was beneficial to them, they increasingly preferred the protection of the territorial princes in whose jurisdiction they resided.’® One result of this new situation was the development after about 1620 of a new type of Jewish organization known as a Landjudentag.’? These were regional bodies whose basic function was the collection of taxes from the Jews living on the lands of the various territorial princes. Clearly modelled on the Landtage, parliamentary bodies

which represented the interests of the burgher estate in these territories, the Landjudentage also organized themselves into administrative bodies for the Jewish

population.®? In addition, they formed another conduit through which the territorial prince could impose his will on his Jewish subjects. While their regional nature has led some scholars to view these bodies as a parallel to the Polish Council of Four Lands, in truth they were in most cases the first and only body representing the Jewish population spread thinly across a whole territory, and so were closer

in function to the urban Jewish communities elsewhere in the Empire and in Poland.®?

Thus it would seem that the Jewish administrative bodies controlling Jewish society in both the Empire and Poland became more numerous and more sophisticated in this period. That this was not a specifically Jewish phenomenon may be seen from the fact that the structures of these new Jewish institutions closely paralleled similar bodies which developed in non-Jewish society: the communities and the municipal councils demonstrated close similarities as did the Landtage and the Landjudentage in the Empire as well as the regional Jewish councils and the noble Seym and seymzki in Poland. On the other hand, the legal status of the Jewish and non-Jewish bodies was not the same. Although the Jewish councils functioned as part of the general administrative apparatus in the territories where they existed, largely in the realm of collecting taxes from the Jews, they did not all enjoy de jure “As with so many legal phenomena in these years, this move in the balance of power did not mark a clear-cut end to imperial claims, which continued to be made. It was, however, the needs and demands of the territorial princes which became much more influential in practice. 78 Ries, ‘German Territorial Princes’. D. Cohen (ed.), Die Landjudenschafien in Deutschland als Organe jtidischer Selbstverwaltung von der frihen Neuzeit bis ins neunzehnte Fahrhundert: Eine Quellensammlung, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1996-2001). See also id., ‘Die Landjudenschaften in Hessen-Darmstadt bis zur Emanzipation als Organe jiidischer Selbstverwaltung’, in C. Heinemann (ed.), Neunhundert Jahre Geschichte der Juden in Hessen (Wiesbaden, 1983), 151~214.

8° D. Cohen, ‘Die Entwicklung der Landesrabbinate in den deutschen Territorien bis zur Emancipation’, in Haverkamp (ed.), Zur Geschichte der Juden im Deutschland des spaten Mittelalters und der friihen Neuzeit, 221-42. On the Landtage, see F. Carsten, Princes and Parliaments in Germany: From the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1959).

81 PD. Cohen, ‘Hava’ad hakatan shel benei medinat ansbakh’, in S. Ettinger et al. (eds.), Sefer yovel leyitshak ber: bimelot lo shivim shanah (Jerusalem, 1961), 351-73.

Jews’ Legal Status 127 legal recognition. This was particularly true for the Jewish regional bodies, which often were simply recognized de facto. Another prominent feature in the Jews’ developing legal situation was the deterioration (though not the total disappearance) in both the Commonwealth and the Empire of the role of the central authority in determining their status. ‘The decline of the category of servi camerae in the Empire was matched by the Polish legislation of 1539, both marking the rise of a high nobility interested in achieving control over the Jewish population living on their lands. In both cases, the high nobility, while recognizing the Jews’ different status through the granting of special privileges, began to integrate them as fully as possible into its body of subjects.

In jurisdictional terms, this meant that cases involving Jews were to be heard before the seigneurial or ducal courts and tried according to general legal norms.®? This would eventually put an end to the concept of the Jews having a suz generis legal status and being totally dependent on the monarch, which had developed in the Empire and was beginning to appear in Poland towards the end of the Middle Ages.

On the other hand, the ways in which the Jews’ new relationship with the nobil-

ity was translated into a legal status for them was not the same in the Commonwealth as in the Empire. In the former, the basis for the Jews’ legal status which developed in the sixteenth century was to be found in the privileges granted to their communities. This amounted to the legal recognition of the Jews as a second urban group in the Polish towns where they lived—a status which some have seen as making the Jews de facto a second urban estate.®’ In the latter, it was the invitation of Jews to settle and the grant to them of individual letters of protection by the territorial authorities, which formed the legal basis for their existence.** This individual status was also backed up by the spread of Roman law, which recognized in principle the Jews’ citizen rights as individuals. Though this did little to improve the rights they enjoyed in practice, it did lead to a significant degree of integration into the legal system. An equilibrium seems to have been reached between the legal integration of the Jews and the granting of a significant degree of autonomy to the bodies of Jewish self-government. This was reasonably natural in the Commonwealth, where the 82 See Ries, ‘German Territorial Princes’, 241; Kazmierczyk, Zydzi w dobrach prywatnych, 44-53. 83 This does not mean that other forms of privilege were not granted to individual Jews or to the Jews

of Poland as a whole in this period. They were. However, the decentralized power structures of the Empire and the removal of Jews living on noble estates from the jurisdiction of the royal courts by the law of 1539 meant that it was the privileges granted by local powers to the individual communities which had the most effect on determining the Jews’ legal status. In the royal cities, it was the starosta, the noble official appointed to the town by the king, who actually granted the privilege. The king was usually approached just to confirm the previously agreed document. See Goldberg, ‘Introduction’, 11-46. 84 Though this phenomenon is attributed here to the influence of the territorial princes, they were not the only authority issuing such orders for the Jews. In the imperial cities, for example, it was often the municipal council which was empowered to control Jewish life within its boundaries.

128 Adam Teller Jews were recognized as a group with rights similar to those of the burgher estate, which included some kind of self-government. In the Empire, there was more tension between the Jews’ legal status and their traditions of communal organization. The fundamental significance of individual legal recognition, whether in the form of a letter of protection or as citizens under Roman law, could have cut the legal ground out from under the organs of Jewish autonomy, though the small number of Jews in the Empire probably rendered such a development unprofitable. It is worth pointing out that though the often parallel developments described in this section took place in roughly the same 150-year period from about 1500 to 1650, in real time the developments were staggered: processes of legal integration and consequent strong social development took place in the Commonwealth starting from the second half of the sixteenth century, a period still marked by instability and general hostility towards the Jews in the Empire. This seems to have led to a feeling of superiority amongst Polish—Lithuanian Jewry as expressed in the opinions quoted above, as well as the famous comment of Rabbi Moses Isserles of Krakow (c.1520—72) in a letter to one of his students: ‘it is preferable [to live] in

these lands where their hatred [1i.e. of non-Jews| has not overcome us as in Germany’.®° It would take almost half a century after Isserles’s death before the same processes began to come to fruition in the Empire. Since the Thirty Years War was then causing havoc in central Europe their effects would not really be felt until after the Peace of Westphalia.

THE LATER SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES In the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth, the period of reconstruction following the mid-seventeenth-century wars, and even more so in the wake of the Great Northern War at the beginning of the eighteenth century, saw relations between the Jews and the magnate estate owners become ever closer, with the magnates inviting heavy Jewish settlement in their cities and towns.°° These closer relations were also reflected in the community privileges. Many new communities were founded on excellent terms for the Jews.°’ In addition, estate owners often granted their Jewish communities new and improved rights in this period. A good example

of this phenomenon is to be seen in the privilege of the Jewish community in Jampol in Volhynia, granted in 1711 by Prince Janusz Wisniowieck1. He explained his motivation for granting it thus: following 85 Moses Isserles, She’elot uteshuvot, ed. A. Ziv (Jerusalem, 1970), 417 (no. 95).

86 On the relationship between the estate owners and the Jews in the late 17th and 18th cc., see M. Rosman, The Lords’ Jews: Magnate—fewish Relations in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth dur-

ing the 18th Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); G. Hundert, The Jews in a Polish Private Town: The ‘Case of Opatéw in the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore, 1992); A. Teller, Kesef, koah, vehashpa’ah: hayehudim ba’ahuzot beit radzivil belita bame’ah ha-18& (Jerusalem, 2005).

87 It is worth noting that over half of the 139 community privileges to be found in the collection Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth published by Jacob Goldberg date from this period.

Jews’ Legal Status 120 the afflictions of the last thirty years—the terrible Turkish war and frequent Tatar incursions, and now the daily trial of the Swedish and Muscovite armies and other passersthrough, which have deprived this country of its pride and caused it the most unfortunate and highly lamentable loss, Jampol, my hereditary town, has also undergone such misfortune. With divine help, having raised [the town] from its ruins, I am trying to bring it back to vigour, desiring to encourage both those who are returning to their patrimony and other [settlers] by making the utmost effort to grant the citizens of this town rights to the benefit of their greater freedom and the increase of their fortunes.°®

This formulation is typical in the emphasis it put on the benefits which Jewish settlement brought to the town in the period of its reconstruction. The granting or renewal of a privilege by a town owner or starosta in the late seventeenth and eight-

eenth centuries was really a means of improving the Jews’ living conditions in order to attract further settlement. Particularly noticeable in the privileges of this period are the improvements in the Jews’ ability to settle around the market square of the towns and to break into new fields of trade and especially crafts. It is noteworthy that the privileges did not generally speak in terms of ‘protecting’ the Jews but rather of granting them various freedoms: the Polish terms used are wolnos¢ or swoboda.°°

This is not to say that, in practice, the communities were granted complete free-

dom to run their affairs. This period saw a greater tendency on the part of the Polish—Lithuanian authorities—particularly among the owners of private towns— to interfere in their administration.”° This policy, aimed at increasing cash income

from the estates, covered their administration as a whole, deeply affecting the Jewish communities. Communal legislation, particularly as it had a bearing on economic activity, could be dictated by the owner, who was also able to circumvent community elections to ensure that his favourites would serve as his direct representatives.”! By using his prerogative as feudal lord to grant a konsens rabinacki— rabbinic licence—to each communal rabbi at the beginning of each contractual term, he also controlled rabbinic appointments.” In addition, wealthy Jews who had a business relationship with him would use this connection to evade irksome 88 ‘trzydziestoletnia blisko przeszla, uprzykrzona wojna turecka i czestemi tatarskiemi inkursjami, a teraz znowu tak szwedzkich, jako 1 moskiewskich wojsk i innych przechodzacych codzienna agrawacyja, ktore nieszczesliwa 1 nigdy nieoplakana kraju tego, wyzuwszy go z ozdéb swoich, przynidsiszy strate, wiec 1 Jampol miasto moje dziedziczne tej podlegle nieszczesliwosci. Z ktorych ruin dzwigajac prz[y] boskiej pomocy 1 do wigoru przyprowadzic usiluje, ta przedsiewzial vel maksyme, aby obywatelom miasta tego, chcac jako tych, ktorzy sie wrocili do ojczyzn swoich, tak i innych zacheci¢, prawom nadat dla zaszczytu wiekszej ich wolnosci i przymnozZenia fortun.’ Femish Privileges, ed. Goldberg, ii. 66—8.

8° For example, the continuation of the Jampol privilege reads: ‘Ktére wolnosci i prawo im ode mnie nadane przywilejem niniejszym moim’ (Which freedoms and rights granted them by me in the following privilege . . .). Ibid. °° Hundert, The Jews in a Polish Private Town, 134-55; See also Kazmierczyk, Zydzi w dobrach pry-

watnych, 135-5. %t Hundert, The Jews in a Polish Private Town, 142-3. %2 Teller, ‘The Legal Status’, 56-60.

130 Adam Teller communal regulations. ‘This was done in a number of ways: through the granting of a personal privilege, through signing an arenda contract, one of whose clauses exempted the arendarz from communal jurisdiction, or by requesting administrative intervention.?° While this development clearly limited the community’s freedom of action in many ways and so has been viewed as significantly weakening Jewish autonomy, it is also a sign that the Jewish community was increasingly being used as an administrative tool by the estate owners.** Their interest was in maximizing their income by deepening their feudal control over the running of their estate in all its aspects, including the activities of the Jewish communities. By integrating them into his feudal administration in this way, the estate owner was actually buttressing their status—even as he was, to a certain extent, weakening their control over some parts of Jewish society.”?

For their part, the communities made use of their connections with their noble owners or sfarostas in order to protect themselves from the demands not only of the townspeople, but also of the state, and even of other Jewish communities.”° This decentralization of the communities’ legal situation meant that there was no body with ultimate authority over the Jews in Poland—Lithuania nor any central court to deal with broad issues arising from their interactions with non-Jewish society. Moreover, there was no uniformity in the application of legal practice, which meant that there could be extreme variations from locality to locality.?’ This was, of course, in keeping with the general structure of the Commonwealth, and left the Jews with significant room for manoeuvre in order to protect their interests in the different places where they lived.”® It was only in the period of the Enlightenment, with the strengthening of the burgher estate, that proposals began to be voiced in the Commonwealth calling for a change in the Jews’ legal status—particularly vis-a-vis the towns.°? The constitu-

°3 "Teller, “The Legal Status’, 49—56. °4 J. Goldberg, ‘Hakehilah bamishtar hahevrati-ha-medini bemamlekhet polin-lita’, in id., Hahevrah hayehudit bemamlekhet polin-hta (Jerusalem, 1999), 144-58. See also pp. 142-55 below.

°° Hundert, Jews in Poland—Lithuania, 99-118. . %6 See A. Teller, ‘Radziwill, Rabinowicz, and the Rabbi of Swierz: The Magnates’ Attitude to Jewish Regional Autonomy in the 18th Century’, in id. (ed.), Studies in the History of the fews in Old Poland in Honor of Facob Goldberg, Scripta Hierosolymitana, 38 (Jerusalem, 1998), 246-76, esp. 251-6.

°” The situation makes generalization difficult, since for every general rule there will always be a string of exceptions. This should not, however, invalidate the attempt to achieve some kind of historical synthesis, provided that the limitations of so doing are clearly understood by both author and reader.

°8 See above, n. 6. In his memoirs, the 18th-c. Jewish merchant and communal leader Dov Ber of Bolechow gives a number of examples of the Jews’ possibilities for manoeuvre between different authorities. For one such example, see The Memoirs of Ber of Bolechow (1723-1805), ed. and trans. M. Vishnitzer (London, 1922), 103—4.

99 J. Michalski, “The Jewish Question in Polish Public Opinion during the First Two Decades of Stanislaw August Poniatowski’s Reign’, in A. Teller (ed.), Studies in the History of the Fews in Old Poland, 123-46. Perhaps the most widely quoted example of the influence of Enlightenment ideology

Jews’ Legal Status 131 tion of 1768 on the Polish—Lithuanian towns ruled, among other things, that the Jews’ status in the towns should be based on agreements between the Jews and the burghers. In all cases where the Jews’ privileges could be interpreted as contradicting the town’s foundational privileges they were to be cancelled and in all towns where the Jews had not yet negotiated agreements with the burghers, they would have to do so.!°° Had this legislation been enforced, it would have meant a significant deterioration in the Jews’ status and the ability to run their own affairs (not to mention in their economic activity) since they would have fallen squarely under the jurisidiction of the city councils. Fortunately for the Jews, the confusion following the outbreak of the Confederation of Bar in 1768 meant that this law was never enforced./°! As the burghers became more powerful and self-confident, their demands on the issue of the Jews’ legal status in the towns became more strident. During the Four Year Sejm (Sejm Czteroletni, 1788-92), the burghers demanded that the Jews be refused any form of citizenship or right of residence in the Polish towns.

Among the enlightened reformers who supported the burghers’ demands, Stanislaw Staszic demanded that Jewish autonomy be abolished and the Jews be subject to municipal jurisdiction. Even as moderate a figure as the enlightened cleric Hugo Kollataj felt that the Jews’ legal status and legal system had to be replaced: Jewish autonomy and rabbinical jurisdiction was to be curtailed and legal cases, whether between Jews or between Jews and Christians, should be tried by municipal courts. The difficulties which these proposals would have placed before the Jews may be seen in the fact that neither Staszic nor Koltlataj was in favour of eranting the Jews full civic equality with the burghers.'°* Nonetheless, despite all the discussions on the Jewish question at the time of the Four Year Sejm, no significant changes were made in either the Jews’ legal status or their legal system. This was for two major reasons. First, the all-powerful magnates had a significant vested interest in the continuation of the old system, by which they earned a great

deal from Jewish settlement and Jewish economic activity—earnings they felt would be harmed with any change in the Jews’ legal status. Secondly, the second and third partitions (1793 and 1795) came hard on the heels of the Four Year Seym on the development of Jewish society in Poland—Lithuania—the abolition of the Council of Four Lands in 1764 as part of a process of tax reform—seems to have had little practical effect on the Jews’ legal status. This may have been due to two factors: the dysfunctional nature of the Council for most of the 18th c., and the fact that the basic element of Jewish self-administration, the local community, not only continued to function, but was conscripted by the 1764 Sejm itself to play a major role in the process of determining and collecting poll-tax from the Jews. Volumina legum, vu (St Petersburg, 1860), 26-09.

100 Volumina legum, vii. 352. 101 Michalski, ‘The Jewish Question’, 130. 102 Fisenbach, The Emancipation, 73-7; D. Stone, ‘Jews and the Urban Question in Late Eighteenth Century Poland’, Slavic Review, 50 (1991), 531-41. It should be noted that other reformers, such as Mateusz Butrymowicz and Tadeusz Czacki, were in favour of including the Jews in the urban estate. Eisenbach, The Emancipation, 77—82.

132 Adam Teller and effectively put an end to all its programmes of reform. It was not until the nineteenth century that the partitioning powers managed to undermine the legal basis of communal Jewish life (though they never managed to undermine the communities themselves).!°° If the calls for reform of the Jews’ legal status along the lines laid down by the ideology of the Enlightenment proved almost impossible to implement in eastern Europe, the same was not the case in the Empire. There, political developments following the Peace of Westphalia had laid the groundwork for a series of legal reforms during the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which significantly

changed the Jews’ status in society.'°* Of crucial importance was the rise of absolute rulers in the states of the Empire and the steep decline of the emperor’s direct political influence. ‘Thus the period of reconstruction after the Thirty Years War was also a period of political and administrative realignment in the newly

independent states. As in the Commonwealth, the Jews of the Empire were allocated an important role in these processes of recovering from the wars of the seventeenth century. 1°?

As a result, conditions for Jewish settlement became easier, though there were no blanket invitations or improvements of the Jews’ status as were seen in Poland. Instead, the princes continued to grant individual Schutzbriefe to Jews they felt would aid the economic development of their territories. Those individuals who made a highly significant contribution to the economic or administrative functioning of the new states received enhanced privileges as Hofjuden, Court Jews. As in the previous period, the Judenordnungen issued from time to time in a given terri-

tory were not general privileges granted to all the Jews, but summaries of the rights and duties of those Jews who enjoyed protection. ‘Thus the basis for Jewish life remained the individual’s legal status. There are signs that a tension developed in this period between the letter of the law as it was laid down by the princes and its implementation on the ground. The tenor of the Judenordnungen remained extremely hostile: many restrictions were laid on the Jews’ economic life, preventing them from undertaking most branches of trade and crafts. Taxation was also extremely harsh. Particularly onerous for the Jews was the so-called Leibzoll, body tax, which they had to pay as they moved from place to place.1°° On the other hand, the individual letter of protection could relieve the individual Jew of at least some of these burdens—all the more so in the case of the privileges granted to the Court Jews. Equally, though the Judenordnungen spoke 103 See e.g. A. Shochat, ‘Hahanhagah bekehilot rusiyah im bitul hakahal’, Tszyon, 42 (1977), 143-233.

104 Jonathan Israel traces the roots of these developments to the period of the Thirty Years War itself. See J. Israel, ‘Central European Jewry during the Thirty Years’ War’, Central European History, 16 (1983), 3-30.

105 For an overview of the development of Jewish society in the Empire in this period, see _M. Breuer, “The Early Modern Period’, in M. Meyer and M. Brenner (eds.), German Jewish History in Modern Times, i (New York, 1996), 79-208. 106 Tbid. 134-43; Raeff, The Well-Ordered Police State, 68-9.

Fews’ Legal Status 133 clearly of the need to limit the Jewish population, its size continued to grow, fuelled

largely by migration from Poland and Lithuania. In the nature of things, no explanation for this gap between prescription and practice 1s given in the sources; still, it would seem logical to assume that the princes, though compelled by traditional religious views to legislate against the Jews, saw it in their economic interest to grant them a greater degree of freedom in their economic life. In terms of jurisdiction, too, the Jews continued to enjoy considerable room for manoeuvre. The fact that the emperor never formally renounced his claim of jurisdiction over the Jews sometimes allowed them the possibility of playing off one source of authority against another. Jews in imperial cities such as Frankfurt and Hamburg could, in cases of intractable conflict with the burghers, appeal to the

emperor or take their cases to the Imperial Chamber Court. A parallel institution—the Imperial Aulic Council, a body dominated by the emperor—established commissions to sort out disputes between the prince and the estates in territorial states, which could also be brought to bear upon issues concerning the Jews. ‘Uhis provided the Jews with another means of circumventing harsh legal restrictions, not to mention social hostility.'°’ A particular problem facing the Jews who lived in the settlements newly opened up to them in this period was establishing some form of self-government. ‘The Jews in the cities with an unbroken history of Jewish settlement had a tradition of community life backed by legal privileges on which to base their autonomous institutions. °° The situation in the newly settled towns was quite different. Since the basis for Jewish life in these places was formed by individual privileges, communal institutions had no legal standing at all.1°° In order to establish them, holders of Schutzbriefe—or more frequently Court Jews—had to ask special permission to do so. This process may be illustrated by developments in the Saxon town of Halle, which was under Prussian rule in this period. The Jewish settlement in the town

was founded in the late 1680s by a number of Jews from Halberstadt. Though right of settlement was officially granted only to Jews who received a privilege from the king, numbers grew until in 1704 the wealthy Jews of the town wrote to the king asking that he prevent the further settlement of Jews unable to pay their share of the tax burden. Their letter continued: 107 §. Ehrenpreis, ‘Legal Spaces for Jews as Subjects of the Holy Roman Empire’, Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts, 2 (2003), 475-87. On the other hand, when Empress Maria Theresa herself decided to expel the Jews from Prague in 1745, the Jews’ room for manoeuvre proved extremely limited: though the Europe-wide network of Court Jews succeeded in bringing diplomatic pressure to bear on the Imperial Court, they were unable to cause the order to be rescinded. See B. Mevorah, ‘Die

Interventionsbestrebungen in Europa zur Verhinderung der Juden aus Bohmen und Mahren, 1744-1745°, Jahrbuch des Instituts fir Deutsche Geschichte, 9 (1980), 15-81.

108 See E. Zimmer, ‘Hanhagah umanhigut bakehilot germaniyah bame’ot ha-16 veha-17’, in A. Grossman and Y. Kaplan (eds.), Kehal yisra’el: hashilton ha’atsmt hayehudt ledorotav, 1 (Jerusalem, 2004), 261-86. 109 See e.g. G. Kisch, Rechts- und Sozialgeschichte der Fuden in Halle, 1686—1730 (Berlin, 1970), 82.

134 Adam Teller we should like to be considered a small community so that, like in Halberstadt, our elders might be authorized to settle among themselves disputes which arise between Jews or concern our customs and ceremonies, by which means many abuses might be prevented and Your Royal Majesty’s high interests be observed . . 17°

Finally, the signatories asked that the Magdeburg court be ordered to refrain from investigating them on possible infringements of the town’s social and economic regulations.’*? Within a week, the Prussian king had issued the Jews of Halle a general privilege, granting almost all their requests. On the question of communal administration, the text ran: When disputes arise among them [i.e. the Jews of Halle] which concern their Jewish ceremonies and rites, they can be settled by the rabbis whom they select from among themselves and by the elders, with transgressors given a fixed fine or, after a [special] ruling, put under the ban. This in such a way that from the fine which was pronounced, be it only the one Thaler which the wealthy Jews under the ban must pay every day, two-thirds are marked for us as Territorial Lord and the remaining third for the poor. . .1'

Two issues are prominent here: the first is the Jews’ demand that poorer elements be stopped from settling in the town, since their poverty meant not only that they were assessed for taxes which they could not pay but also that they engaged in unauthorized business practices.''’ This type of concern was not limited to Halle, but seems to have spread widely during the early eighteenth century, causing restrictions on Jewish settlement to be enforced more rigorously.'’* The second issue arising from the Halle case concerns the definition of Jewish autonomy. The Jewish leaders envisaged elders who would not only deal with matters of ceremony and ritual but would also have powers of arbitration for disputes between Jews. This was a broad form of autonomy along the lines of that enjoyed by the Jews of the Commonwealth. The king, however, limited the community’s authority to matters of ceremony and ritual alone. While it is not entirely clear exactly how 110 ‘auch weilen wir vor eine kleine Gemeine mit zu konsiderieren, dass unsere Aeltesten diejenige Streiten, so zwischen Juden entstehen oder unsere Gebraeuche und Zeremonien konzernieren, gleichwie in Halberstadt unter sich abzutun befugt sein sollen, wordurch viele Missbraeuche verhuetet und Eurer Koenigl. Majestaet hohes Interesse dabei beobachtet werden koenne.’ Kisch, Rechts- und

Sozialgeschichte, 148-9. 411 Tbid. 112 Tie zwischen ihren vorfallende Streitigkeiten, wenn dieselbe ihre juedische Zeremonien und Ritus konzernieren, moegen sie von den rabbinen, welche sie unter sich zu erwaehlen haben, und den

Aeltesten abtun lassen, die Uebertreter auch in gewisse Geldstrafe oder nach Befinden gar in den Bann tun, doch also und dergestalt, dass von denen fallenden Geldstrafen, wie auch von dem einem Taler, welchen die in dem Bann stehende vermoegende Juden jedes Tags erlegen muessen, zwei drittel uns als dem Landesfuersten und der uebrige dritte teil den Armen ausgereichet . . .’. Kisch, Rechtsund Sozialgeschichte, 150-1. On the discussions of the use of the ferem in this period see A. Gotzmann, ‘Die Grenzen der Autonomie: Der jiidische Bann im Heiligen Romischen Reich’, in Gotzmannn and Wendehorst (eds.), Juden im Recht, 41-80.

113 The text reads: ‘zu verbotenen Dingen greifen und lose Haendel machen’. Kisch, Rechts- und

Sozialgeschichte, 148 114 Ries, ‘German Territorial Princes’, 218.

Fews’ Legal Status 135 limiting this was (many legal issues involving money and property could well be included in these categories as a part of Jewish family and marriage law!?°), the fact that this definition of the communities’ role became general during the eighteenth century does seem to indicate that the Jews’ legal recognition in the Empire had a strong religious aspect to it.?© Legal recognition of this kind, limited as it was, was given by many rulers to new Jewish communities in the Empire and, as Andreas Gotzmann has shown, allowed them to develop significantly in places where previously there had been no

such organization.''’ The political framework in which this development took place, however, was not feudal as in the Commonwealth, but rather that of the absolutist state. In order to achieve centralized control over the population, the new states began to impose uniform legal codes over the different groups in the population. Prominent among these were the Jews, whose life was increasingly regulated through the use of the so-called Judenreglement, Jewish regulations.'"® Though these were laws specifically for Jews (and were often extremely harsh), they were drawn up by the new state bureaucracies as part of a wider strategy of legal development for society as a whole. This marked a new stage in the development of the Jews’ legal status, since its source was no longer the lord or monarch but the state itself. It was, however, the ideology of the Enlightenment which promised the most thoroughgoing changes in the Jews’ legal status. The writings of philosophers such as Locke and Rousseau posited a state made up of individuals enjoying legal rights determined by neither ancient custom nor religion, but by their status as human beings. In this view, civil status was to be determined more by natural rights than by class, background, or beliefs.‘1? For many adherents of the Enlightenment in the Empire, and prominent among them Moses Mendelssohn, these ideas provided the philosophical basis for proposing the complete integration of the Jews into nonJewish society on the basis of full legal equality with all other citizens—an idea that would later be called ‘emancipation’.!*° According to the theory, this legal equality would be matched by full social integration, rendering the bodies of Jewish 119 A, Gotzmann, ‘Strukturen jiidischer Gerichtsautonomie in den deutschen Staaten des 18. Jahrhunderts’, Historische Zeitschrift, 267 (1998), 313-56 at 319-22. 46 Battenberg, ‘Zur Rechtsstellung’, 166—7.

7 Gotzmann, ‘Strukturen’, 355-6. It is worth noting that here, as in Poland, the community was being used by the king as part of his administrative apparatus controlling the Jewish population. See S. Stern, Der Preussische Staat und die fuden, 11/1 (Tubingen, 1962), 123-49.

418 This should not be confused with a drive to abolish the communities, which was not part of absolutist policy in this period. See A. Gotzmann, Jiidisches Recht im kulturellen Prozess: Die wahrnehmung der Halacha im Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts (Tubingen, 1997), 22-48.

"9 Tt is worth repeating in this context that Locke was opposed to granting civil equality to Catholics, whom he viewed as a potential threat to society.

120 J. Katz, ‘The Term “Jewish Emancipation”: Its Origins and Historical Impact’, in Alexander Altmann (ed.), Studies in Nineteenth-Century Jewish Intellectual History (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), I-25.

136 Adam Teller self-government not only philosophically but also legally and socially without basis. 17"

Radical as these ideas undoubtedly sounded to contemporaries, they were not entirely new. As we have seen, Roman law, both in antiquity and as interpreted by the sixteenth-century jurists, embraced the concept that the Jews were citizens alongside the Christians. In fact, when the mid-eighteenth-century philosopher C. K. W. von Dohm wrote his famous tract on “The Civic Improvement of the Jews’, he included in it arguments drawn from Roman law to demonstrate that Jews were

worthy of receiving equal rights and capable of fulfilling all the duties these entailed.1“* On the issue of the Jewish communities, Dohm was more conservative, seeing the integration of the Jews as a social and political process lasting generations, which would not entail the abolition of Jewish self-government. *”° Even this stance proved too daring for most of society, and particularly for the enlightened absolute monarchs of the period. In 1750 the Prussian king, Frederick the Great, though considered an enlightened monarch, issued a revised regulation for the Jews—Revidiertes Generalprivilegium und fFudenreglement—whose harshness and economic exploitation of the Jews were noteworthy even in the context of

the eighteenth-century German states. In terms of the Jews’ legal status in Prussia, it made almost no significant changes, apart from the decision to give responsibility for Jewish issues to the general government bureaucracy.!*4 Another

famous example of an enlightened absolutist monarch who tried to reform the Jews’ status was the emperor Joseph I]. However, when he came to implement the principles of his Enlightenment philosophy for the Jews in his city of Vienna and Lower Austria in the Toleranzpatent of 1781, he came nowhere near to granting

them civil equality, leaving the system of the Schutzbrief in place. In certain regards, the 7oleranzpatent did attempt to break down the legal barriers between the Jewish and non-Jewish society in the city, but since this was not backed up by legislation encouraging the social integration of the Jews, its effect seems to have been to make the Jews more dependent on the still hostile burghers.'”° Its great importance lay in its preamble, in which the emperor laid down a clear-cut policy on the question of the Jews’ legal status: From the ascension to Our reign We have directed Our most preeminent attention to the end that all Our subjects without distinction of nationality and religion . . . shall participate in common in our public welfare . . . shall enjoy legal freedom and not find any obstacles in any 121 See A. Altman, ‘Introduction’, in M. Mendelssohn, Jerusalem: or, On Religious Power and Judaism, trans. A. Arkush (Hanover, 1983), 13-25. 122 C.K. W. von Dohm, Uber die biirgerliche Verbesserung der Fuden (repr. Hildesheim, 1973), 39-45.

123 See J. Katz, Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation, 1770-1870 (Cambridge, Mass., 1973). It should be noted that this argument, too, he backed up by reference to the Jews’ legal situation in the ancient Roman Empire. 124 The text of this regulation is published in I. Freund, Die Emanzipation der Juden in Preussen, ii

(Berlin, 1912), 22-59. "5 R. Mahler, 4 History of Modern fewry (London, 1971).

Fews’ Legal Status 137 honest ways of gaining their livelihood . . . Since, however, the laws and the so-called Jewish

Regulations pertaining to the Jewish nation . . . are not always compatible with these Our most gracious intentions, we will hereby amend them by virtue of this present edict . . .'*°

For all its shortcomings, then, this piece of legislation began a process of redefining the Jews’ legal status with the stated goal of granting them full equality. In all, it would seem that this period saw much greater development in the Jews’

legal status in the states of the Empire than in the Commonwealth. This was clearly the result of the different political climates in the two settings. While the power of the high nobility (the territorial princes in the Empire and the magnates in Poland) continued largely untrammelled, its political consequences were differ-

ent in central and eastern Europe. In Poland—Lithuania, the entrenchment of magnate power and influence led to a strengthening of feudal structures in society and general political stagnation, while in the Empire the establishment of the territorial princes as absolute monarchs led to the restructuring of society and great political dynamism in many states. The Jews’ legal status was deeply influenced by their relationship with these nobilities, so its development mirrored theirs. The difference in the basic paradigm of the Jews’ legal status did not change in this period, with community privileges still issued in Poland—Lithuania and individual Schutzbriefe granted in the Empire. Nevertheless, the fact the Jews played an important role in the period of post-war reconstruction 1n the latter part of the seventeenth century in both places did lead to some parallel developments: as part of the reconstruction effort, both the territorial princes and the magnates felt the need to intensify their control over their subject populations, including the Jews. In order to do so, they made use of the latter’s bodies of self-government, often interfering in the way they were run. ‘This had a complex effect on the communities’ functioning, limiting their effectiveness to fields laid down by the noble lord, while at the same time strengthening them with strong political backing. ‘The longterm significance of the processes undergone by the communities—integration

into the reactionary feudal system in the Commonwealth, integration into the reformist administrations of the absolute monarchies in the Empire—does not seem to have been obvious in these years. On the ground, legal restrictions on the communities—and on individual Jews—felt much looser in the east. This presumably contributed to the fact that migration from Poland in search of better 126 “Von Antretung Unserer Regierung an haben Wir es cinen Unserer vorzueglichsten Augenmerke seyn lassen, dass alle Unsere Unterthanen ohne Unterscheid der Nazion und Religion ... an dem oeffentlichen Wohlstande, den Wir durch Unsere Sorgfalt zu vergroessern wuenschen, gemeinschaftlichen Antheil nehmen, eine gesetzmaessige Freyheit geniessen und auf jedem ehrbaren Wege zu Erwerbung thres Unterhalts und Vergroesserung der allgemeinen Aemsigkeit kein Hindernis finden sollten. Da nun mit dieser Unserer gnaedigsten Absicht die gegen die juedische Nation .. .

bestehenden Gesetze und sogenannten Judenordnungen nicht durchaus zu vereinbaren sind, so wollen Wir dieselben kraft gegenwaertigen Patents insofern abaendern .. .’. A. Pribram, Urkunden und Akten zur Geschichte der FJuden in Wien, 1 (Vienna, 1918), 494. The translation is from P. MendesFlohr and J. Reinharz (eds.), The few in the Modern World (Oxford, 1995), 36.

138 Adam Teller opportunities in the faster-growing economies of the Empire remained limited: by the mid-eighteenth century there were some 750,000 Jews in Poland—Lithuania and about 80,000 in the Empire. +4"

Finally, 1t would seem that the ideology of the Enlightenment was accepted more easily in the Empire than in the Commonwealth, where even its adherents found it difficult to accept the idea of civic equality for Jews. The reasons for this may have been in part historical. ‘Two of the fundamental—and often viewed as revolutionary—ideas of Jewish emancipation were to be found in the early modern Empire: treating the Jews as individuals rather than a group and awarding them citizen rights alongside non-Jews. ‘The transformation of the Jews from a group of servi camerae into individual bearers of Schutzbriefe had given them a recognized legal status as individuals, while the jurists’ interpretation of Roman law had held that the Jews possessed a form of citizen status. In the early modern period, the highly restrictive content of the Schutzbriefe and the Judenordnungen, as well as

the failure to implement the ideas of Roman law outside the Imperial courts, meant that the Jews’ legal status was not very favourable. However, the very structure of their legal recognition may have prepared the ground for the new ideas of Enlightenment and emancipation.‘“° In Poland—Lithuania, the situation was quite

different: there the Jews continued to be recognized as a group throughout the eighteenth century. ‘The very concepts of individual rights and civic equality for non-nobles were strange to Polish—Lithuanian society, still dominated by the feu-

dal ethos.'*? As the concepts of the Enlightenment and equal rights for Jews reached the Commonwealth from central Europe, they proved too foreign to win

even the grudging acceptance and slow implementation which they did in the German states.

‘27 Tn addition, limitations on immigration on the part of the territorial princes—even if they were not always rigorously enforced—clearly played an important role in this phenomenon. 128 Stow, ‘Jewish Pre-Emancipation’, argues that the inclusion of the Jews in ius commune in the early modern Papal state led not only to a form of equality under law, but also to the intrusion of the state in ‘internal’ Jewish religious issues, such as marriage, when they deviated from the prescriptions of tus commune. By identifying legal equality and the intrusion of the state into Jewish personal status

as two of the major axes of emancipation, Stow terms the whole process he describes as ‘PreEmancipation’. The situation in the Empire as described here seems a little different. The moves to include the Jews in zus commune were more limited, touching only the judicial system. The Jews’ fundamental legal rights continued to be defined largely by personal privileges, on whose basis the state began to regulate Jewish society. Not only did the state not interfere in Jewish religious matters under the influence of ius commune (i.e. Roman law) in the early modern period, it expressly appointed the Jewish communities to deal with them. See Gotzmann, fiidisches Recht. What I am arguing here is not that there was any direct connection between the legal changes of this period and those of the emancipation, simply that they gave currency to the new legal ideas of the Jews as bearers of rights as individuals and as equal citizens, which would play a crucial role in the struggle for Jewish emancipation. 129 J. Tazbir, ‘Polish National Consciousness in the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 10 (1986), 316-35.

Fews’ Legal Status 139 CONCLUSION Having surveyed some of the major developments in the Jews’ legal status in the Empire and in Poland from the mid-thirteenth to the late eighteenth centuries, it should now be possible to come to a clearer understanding of the structural similarities and differences in the Jews’ situation in the two settings. Perhaps most fundamental is the understanding that the very outlines of the Jews’ existence in the two states were remarkably similar. This is not surprising: the use of the privilege as the basic means of granting and defining legal status, as well as the division of society into estates, were phenomena which crossed all borders in pre-modern Europe. Though Jews may have found different places in the system depending where exactly they lived, the basic similarities of coming to an accommodation

with an estate-based society remained. Throughout Europe, the Jews were a despised religious minority, whose survival in those places willing to tolerate them was largely based on their economic utility. In terms of the source of the Jews’ legal status, the Middle Ages saw them as highly dependent on the central royal authority in both the Empire and Poland, though there is little evidence that the formal status of servi camerae developed in the latter. In the early modern period, the central authority of both the emperor and the Polish king declined, with the concomitant rise of a powerful nobility (the territorial princes and the magnates). As a result, the Jews began increasingly to turn to the nobility as the source of their legal status, though royal privileges never entirely lost their prestige.'°? Polish Jewry seems to have demonstrated greater political acumen in identifying the rise of the nobility and reacting to it as early as the 1540s, while the Jews of the Empire had to suffer the crisis of 1603 before understanding the significance of the rise of noble power. In historical terms, the Jews came to Poland as part of a wave of settlement from central Europe and settled in towns established according to Magdeburg Law, which itself came from there. This meant that the Jews of Poland and the Empire shared a common cultural tradition which undoubtedly moulded their outlook and responses to their environment in similar ways. ‘The same may be said for their non-Jewish neighbours. Thus the Jews of central and eastern Europe organized their society into self-governing bodies which were similar not only to each other, but also to the parallel bodies of self-government of their non-Jewish neighbours. On the whole, their demographic weight meant that in the early modern period, Polish—Lithuanian Jewry seems to have developed a more highly sophisticated system of autonomy than the Jews of the Empire. There are signs that when the Jews in the German states, many of whom had roots in Poland—Lithuania, came to 130 This was particularly true in the imperial cities, where the Jews had a history of unbroken settlement, such as Frankfurt, Worms, and Prague. For other aspects of imperial influence on Jewish society in this period, see Wenderhorst, ‘Imperial Spaces’.

140 Adam Teller reinstitute their system of self-admuinistration, they initially adopted models drawn from the Commonwealth.'*! Within a short time, however, the legal framework of life in the new absolutist states led them to adopt more German forms, such as the Landjudentage, which were modelled after the non-Jewish Landtage. In both the Empire and the Commonwealth, the non-Jewish burghers continued to be influenced by common cultural traditions concerning the organization of urban life which had developed in the towns of central Europe during the Middle Ages. One aspect of this related to the Jews, to whom they were extremely hostile as a result of not just religious hatred but also bitter economic competition. This led the Jews in both the Empire and Poland—Lithuania to evade municipal jurisdiction and the Magdeburg courts wherever possible, preferring courts run by higher authorities. 1?”

That this aim could not always be achieved was the result of one of the most significant differences between the status of the Jews in the two states, which seems

, to have developed in the Middle Ages. The development of the concept of servi camerae, based on the understanding that the Jews were a weak group who needed the monarch’s protection, eventually led to their objectification as a source of royal income in the form of taxation. The rights to this income were then commercialized and sold to various princes and towns. The Jews were thus left without legal protection—particularly from the burghers, under whose jurisdiction they often fell. In Poland, on the other hand, the Jews were welcomed (together with nonJewish townspeople) from central Europe as a strong economic group with the goal of developing the urban economy. Moreover, the very first privilege granted them

in 1264 established them as a second urban group, parallel to the non-Jewish burghers. As a result, though the Jews were always taxed heavily by the authorities, they were viewed much more as a means of creating new wealth for the economy. They retained their independence from the burghers, and by continuing to create wealth for the nobility, achieved a much stronger position in society, which they deployed to their great benefit until the end of the eighteenth century.!°° Another crucial difference between the Jews of Poland and the Empire was the influence of Christian ideology on the Jews’ legal status. This was highly promi-

nent in the Empire from at least the later thirteenth century.'** The expulsion of the Jews from many places in the later Middle Ages and the exclusion of the few remaining urban communities in closed ghettos also reflected, among other things, traditional Christian concerns concerning intermingling with Jews. Even in the age of mercantilism and raison d’Ftat, the harsh restrictions imposed on the Jews 181 Tn this context it is difficult to speak of the direct influence of Polish Jewish models on develop-

ments in the Empire, since not only did the Jews of the Empire have some local models on which to draw, both the Polish and the German Jews were clearly influenced by traditions of urban and regional self-government common to the non-Jewish society of both the Empire and the Commonwealth.

82 In the Empire, though this was not always possible, it was certainly a desideratum. See

Ehrenpreis, ‘Legal Spaces’. 133 See above, n. 86. 134 See above, n. 16.

Jews’ Legal Status 141 in the Judenordnungen and the Judenreglemente show the continuity and strength of

religious ideology in the Empire. This was in stark contrast to the situation in Poland. There, for the most part, religious considerations had little or no influence on determining the Jews’ legal status. Starting from the first privilege granted to the Jews in 1264, it was economic issues that were most influential in shaping their legal status. The Church authorities did their best to rectify this situation, starting

with the regulations issued by the Wroclaw synod in 1267, but to no avail.'°° The initial stages of the decline of royal power in the second half of the fifteenth century seemed to herald an increasing influence of Church ideology on the Jews’ status, but this was short lived.!°® In the vast majority of the privileges granted to the Jewish communities from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, economic rather than religious considerations determined their content.'°’ The Jews would seem to have been well integrated into the legal structures of society in both the Empire and the Commonwealth, particularly in the early modern period, though the basis for their integration was not the same. Personal privileges and the spread of Roman Law in the Empire meant that the Jews there had a legal status that was basically individual in nature, while the widespread use of the community privilege meant that the Jews were legally recognized as a group in Polish—Lithuanian society. In this light, the changes in the structure of

society, including the emancipation of the Jews, proposed in the wake of the Enlightenment were much more threatening to the Jews of Poland—Lithuania than to their co-religionists in the German states. Emancipation would take away the group rights they had hitherto enjoyed and give them instead individual rights—a concept neither they nor the surrounding society understood very well. It 1s perhaps not a coincidence that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would see the Jews of Germany wholeheartedly embrace the concept of emancipation, while the Jews of eastern Europe would tend to prefer other political ideologies which would

allow them to retain their group status.'°° The varying attitudes of these two groups to questions of Jewish emancipation and nationalism are often seen as lying at the very heart of the social and cultural differences between them in the modern age. The roots of this phenomenon should therefore be sought, at least in part, in the different paths of legal development undergone by the Jews in the Empire and in Poland from as far back as the thirteenth century. 135 This synod issued a number of regulations aimed at restricting Jewish life in the spirit of the rulings made by the Third and Fourth Lateran Councils (1179, 1215). See J. Drabina, ‘Kosciol wobec Zydow na sredniowiecznymSlasku’, Sobdtka, 44 (1989), 14-18. 136 Cf. M. Balaban, Historja Zydéw w Krakowie ina Kazimierzu, 1304-1868, i (Krakow, 1931), 40-54. 187 On the Church’s largely unsuccessful struggle against this phenomenon in the 17th and 18th cc., see M. Teter, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era (Cambridge, 2006), 21-40. 138 See e.g. R. Manekin, ‘Politics, Religion, and National Identity: The Galician Jewish Vote in the

1873 Parliamentary Elections’, Polin, 12 (1999), 100-19; I. Bartal, The fews of Eastern Europe, 1772-1881 (Philadelphia, 2002), 157-68.

The Role of the Jewish Community in the Socio-Political Structure of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth JACOB GOLDBERG THE sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the consolidation in the Polish— Lithuanian Commonwealth of the extensive Jewish communities, which entered the period of their most sustained and vital activity.’ Of all the institutions of selfgovernment in the Commonwealth at that time, those of the Jewish community were the oldest, with their roots in the ancient Kingdom of Israel.* After the abolition of the central Jewish representative bodies—the Council of Four Lands and the regional Jewish councils—by the Sejm of 1764,” the communities became

the sole official representative bodies of the Jewish population. In many of the small Polish and Lithuanian towns in which most or all of the residents were Jews, the Jewish communities often formed the only bodies of self-government on the local level. Since, as is well known, the Magdeburg Laws precluded Jews from holding any positions at all in the municipal councils,* no such body could be set up in those towns. 1 Jan Rutkowski, the prominent historian of the Polish economy, has argued that the activities of village organizations in this period led to certain changes in the distribution of revenue in society. On this view, then, the activities of the municipal councils and the Jewish communities, which were considerably more developed than the village organizations, would have had a much more noticeable impact on social and economic relations. See J. Rutkowski, ‘Badania nad podzialem dochodow w czasach nowozytnych’, in id., Wokdél teorii ustroju feudalnego, ed. J. Topolski (Warsaw, 1982), and G. D. Hundert, The Jews in a Polish Private Town: The Case of Opatow in the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore, 1992), 85-115 and 147.

2 F [I.] Baer, ‘Gemeinde und Landjudenschaft: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des jtidischen Organisationwesens’, Korrespondenzblatt des Vereins zur Griindung und Erhaltung einer Akademie fur dte Wissenschaft des Judentums, 1 (1921), 18-19; id., ‘Hayesodot vehahathalot shel irgun hakehilah biyemei habeinayim’, 7szyon, 15 (1950), I-41. 3 Volumina legum: Przedruk Zbioru praw staraniem XX. Pyarow w Warszawie od roku 1732 do roku

[1793], vi(St Petersburg, 1860), 26.

4 B. Groicki, Porzadek sadéw 1 spraw miejskich prawa majdeburskiego w Koronte Polskiej, ed. K. Koranyi (Warsaw, 1953), 59. > W. Cwik, ‘Uprawnienia administracyjno-sadowe starost6w w miastach Lubelszczyzny w drugiej polowie XVIII wieku’, Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne, 15 (1963), 151.

The Jewish Community 143 The detailed information we have on the Jewish communal authorities of Poland is largely restricted to the limited results of research projects undertaken before the Holocaust. As a result of these studies, we have a picture of the organizational structure of the communities,° but their position within the social, diplomatic, and economic regime of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth has not been examined. The important and innovative works on Jewish society and culture that have appeared since the Holocaust have raised many important issues that have broadened the horizon of the historian in various ways,’ but they barely deal with the specific conditions experienced by the Jewish communities of Poland— the largest concentration of Jews in the world at the time. In fact, we are faced with a paradoxical situation, in which the general claims about the nature of the communities and their activities made in modern studies rely mainly on material from countries in which the Jewish population was much smaller than in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth and where the Jewish community functioned under quite different conditions. In those countries, therefore, the influence of the Jewish communities in social relations was more limited than in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth, as was the role they played in economic life. As a result, these studies have been unable to provide an accurate picture of the distinctive characteristics of the Polish communities, which were moulded by the socio-economic and political conditions prevailing in the Commonwealth. In discussing the role of the Jewish communities in the political structure of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth, it is worth noting that the halakhah (Jewish Law), which was binding within the communities, was the oldest legal system oper-

ating within Poland—Lithuania. In common with Magdeburg Law and the legal systems of the Armenians, the Tatars, and the Wallachians (among others), the halakhah was introduced into Poland from outside by an immigrant population. 6 M. Schorr, ‘Organizacja Zydéw w Polsce od najdawniejszych czasow az do r. 1772’, Kwartalnik FMistoryczny, 14/1 (1899); id., Rechisstellung und innere Verfassung der Ffuden in Polen: Ein geschichtlicher

Rundblick (Berlin, 1917); M. Balaban, ‘Ze studiow nad ustrojem prawnym Zydow w Polsce: Sedzia zydowski 1 jego kompetencje’, in Pamietnik ku czci Prof. Przemyslawa Dabkowskiego (Lwo6w, 1927);

J. Feilchenfeld, ‘Die innere Verfassung der jiidischen Gemeinde zu Posen im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, Zeztschrift der Historischen Gesellschaft fiir die Provinz Posen, 11 (1896); D. Teimanas, L’Autonomie des communautés juives en Pologne aux XVIe et XVIIe siécles (Paris, 1933); M. Balaban,

‘Die Krakauer Judengemeindeordnung von 1595 und ihre Nachtrage’, Jahrbuch der Fidischen Literarischen Gesellschaft, 10 (1913), 296-360; 11 (1916), 88-114; D. Weinryb, Mehkarim umekorot letoledot yisra’el be’et hahadashah (Jerusalem, 1976), 167—80.

’ J. Katz, Tradition and Crisis: Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages (New York, 1993), is the

fundamental study of this problematic subject. Other important publications in this field include C. H. Ben-Sasson, ‘Mekomah shel hakehilah betoledot yisra’el’, in Ha’ir vehakehilah (Jerusalem, 1976), 161-78, and S. Albek, ‘Yesodot mishtar hakehilot bisefarad ad haremah (1180—1244)’, Tsiyon,

25 (1967). More recent studies with different approaches to the subject include A. Leszezynsk1, ‘Sytuacja prawna Zydow ziemi bielskiej od konca XV w. do 1795 r.’, Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu EMistorycznego, 96 (1975), 13-20; id., Zydzi ziemi bielskiez (Wroclaw, 1980); id., Sejm Zydéw Korony, 1623-1764 (Warsaw, 1994), 67—100.

144 Jacob Goldberg The Jewish communities also adopted certain structural elements of Polish urban self-government. Clear evidence of this is reflected in the institution known as parnas hahodesh (the communal leader for the month), the leader of the communal council who changed on a monthly or quarterly rotational system. ‘This was a con-

cept borrowed from the system of urban self-government operating in central Europe and Poland. Jacob Katz holds that the Polish communities differed from those of Germany,

Moravia, and western Hungary in the level of authority wielded by the parnas hahodesh.® On the basis of the 1595 Krakow community ordinances as well as Balaban’s notes on them, Katz concluded that within the Polish communities, the parnas hahodesh operated as the sole leader of the community for his period of office, whereas in the three other countries referred to, the parnas hahodesh conducted communal affairs in consultation with other community leaders. In fact, the situation in Krakow—and in the other communities in the large royal cities studied by Balaban, such as Lwow and Lublin—was not representative for the vast majority of Jewish communities in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth. The situation in the Jewish community of Krakow during the sixteenth century came

about through specific local conditions: the community was ruled by the most active businessmen of Kazimierz, who used their post to achieve specific goals and

to bolster their public position.‘° The concentration of Jews in the royal city of Krakow was among the largest in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the sixteenth century saw the beginning of the trend—which increased over the next 200 years—for Jews to move from the royal cities to those owned by the sz/achta and from the large cities to the smaller towns.*! It was these last that became the typical centres of Jewish population across Poland—Lithuania. The privileges granted to this type of community and the regulations they issued did not allow for the rule of any single individual, nor for any nepotism. Where instances of this type of leadership did occur, they resulted in sharp conflict within the communities, generally resolved through the involvement of the town owners and their officials.‘ The above-mentioned studies also fail to take into account the variations in the regulations and in the position of the Jews in the towns owned by the sz/achta on the one hand and the royal cities on the other (the Jewish population of Church8 Katz, Tradition and Crisis, 101-2. 2 Ibid. See also Balaban, ‘Die Krakauer Judengemeindeordnung’. — 10 DP. Tollet, ‘Ludzie u wladzy w miastach krélewskich za Wazow: Szkic 0 gminach zydowskich w Krakowie 1 Poznaniu’, in Spotleczenstwo staropolskie, iv, ed. A. Wyczanski (Warsaw, 1986), 180-1, IgO-I. ‘1 Balaban, ‘Ze studiéw’, 249; A. Wyrobisz, ‘Materiaty do dziejéw handlu w miasteczkach polskich na poczatku XVIII w.’, Przeglad Historyczny, 65 (1974), 33.

12 Krotoszyn Community Regulations, 1 Mar. 1728, in Archiwum Panstwowe (hereafter AP), Poznan, Akta miasta Krotoszyna, 1/13; femish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth, ed. J. Goldberg,

3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1985-2001), 1. 62, 67; see Y. Klausner, Vilnah bitekufat hagaon: hamilhamah haruhamit vehahevratit bikehilat vilnah bitekufat hagra (Jerusalem, 1942), 272-4.

The fewish Community 145 owned towns was negligible, and communal institutions did not exist there). ‘This is a very significant issue, particularly since the Seym Constitution of 1539 granted the estate owners complete authority over the Jewish population on their lands.’° The use they made of this legal authority varied depending on their outlook and ideas. Even the wide-ranging rights extended to the Jews in towns owned by the szlachta, such as Dobromil" or Swarzedz,'? did not give them the social and legal status of the Jewish population in the royal cities. Two factors should encourage scholars to focus on the communities in the private towns (i.e. those owned by the

szlachta). First, that they have been far less thoroughly studied than those in the royal cities, and second, because their dependence on the authority of the town owners was far greater than the dependence of the communities in the royal cities on the starostas and their officials.

These distinctions also apply to the function fulfilled by the community organization. In this context, it is worth examining the roles played by the village authorities in Malopolska during the sixteenth century, as described by Emanuel Rostworowski,'® since these were quite similar to those played by the Jewish community organizations. One such area of communal activity was the implementation of administrative assignments, whether on behalf of the local landowner, the starosta, or the national government. Another was the provision of services to the local Jewish population and the representation of its interests.'’ Jacob Katz focuses on this second type of activity.'® Salo Baron adopts a somewhat different approach, pointing out the correlation between the non-intervention of the state and its general weakness, and the development of Jewish communal autonomy

in its full range of activities.‘? The situation in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth was clearly similar, although its development was also connected to other factors not mentioned by Baron.*° Another important comparison here is with the functions of the church congregations in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth. This comparison demonstrates that the Jewish community fulfilled a broader range of functions than the Church, but also shows that it served the Jews in a way similar to that in which the munici-

pal councils served the burghers and in which the Church served the Catholic population within its territorial boundaries. Both the Church and the Jewish 13 Volumina legum, i (St Petersburg, 1859), 282; Balaban, ‘Ze studiow’, 249.

14 Jewish Privileges, ed. Goldberg, i. 83-4. 1 Ibid. 320-9.

16 E. Rostworowski, ‘Rola urzedu wiejskiego w walce klasowej wsi malopolskiej w drugie} polowie

XVIII w.’, in C. Bobinska (ed.), Studia z dziejéw wsi matopolskie] w drugie] polomie XVIII mieku (Warsaw, 1957), 370-2. 17 See M. Zarchin, Jews in the Province of Posen: Studies in the Communal Records of the Eighteenth

and Nineteenth Centuries (Philadelphia, 1939), 11. 18 Katz, Tradition and Crisis, 161. 19S. W. Baron, The Jewish Community: Its History and Structure to the American Revolution, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1942), 1. 372.

20 See R. Rybarski, Skarb i pieniqdz za Jana Kazimierza, Michata Korybuta i Jana IIT (Warsaw, 1939), 57-63, 268-9.

146 Jacob Goldberg communities fulfilled regional administration functions, which gradually disappeared in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth at that time. Bishop Jozef Kossakowski, in his book Ksiqdz pleban (“The Priest—Head of the Parish’), published in 1786, included a proposal according to which the church congregations, in addition to their religious functions, would serve as intermediaries in all contacts between the estate owners and their subjects: they would run educational activities and hospital and social welfare activities, as well as other charitable work, thus filling the gaps in regional administration.*! These were all roles filled by the Jewish communal authorities for the Jews in their purview.*” Kossakowski’s plan was not considered during the Four Year Seym (1788-92), which decided to establish regional administration in the form of Civil—Military Committees, which were to maintain law and order at the regional and local levels. In parallel with this, the Jewish community’s role in tax collecting and administration was dispensed with, and Hugo Koltataj—a prominent figure in the Polish , political life of the day—-demanded the total abolition of Jewish self-government in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth.*? On the other hand, the estate owners supported the communities which served their interests, although many did not _ trust them fully. Anton: Lubomirsk1, starosta of Lublin and owner of Opatow,

stressed in instructions issued to the managers of his estates in 1758 that the Jewish communal leaders ‘seek profits . . . for themselves and do not worry about the lord’s income’.*4 This was reason why, during the first half of the eighteenth century, the officials of the owners of Krotoszyn collected arenda incomes from the Jews, with the Jewish community leadership merely making an announcement in the synagogue at the time that payments were due and ensuring that members of

the community paid their dues.2° Nevertheless, in those towns owned by the szlachta, the Jewish communities formed part of the administrative apparatus of the landowners, whether or not they were trusted by the landowners. The situation was quite different in the royal cities, as the starostas and their officials relied far less on the Jewish communal bodies in these matters. The feudal dependence of the Jewish communities on the owners of the private towns expressed itself not merely in their being harnessed to serve the authorities, but also by the intervention of the landowners in their internal affairs—a tendency that intensified during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Rulings of the rabbinical courts had to be endorsed by the town’s owner or his officials and even 21 (J. Kossakowski], Ksiqdz pleban, i (Warsaw, 1786), 179; cf. J. Malec, Polska mys! administracyjna XVITT mieku (Krakow, 1986), 83. 22 See Baer, ‘Hayesodot’, 26; Zarchin, Jews in the Province of Posen, 11.

23H. Kollataj, Listy Anonima, 1 Prawo polityczne narodu polskiego, ed. B. Lesnodorski and H. Wereszycka, 2 vols. (Krakow, 1954), 11. 332. 24 Instrukcje gospodarcze dla débr magnackich t szlacheckich z2 XVII-XTX mieku, i, ed. B. Baranowski,

J. Bartys, A. Keckowa, and J. Leskiewicz (Wroclaw, 1958), 525; see Hundert, The fews in a Private

Polish Town, 134-55. 25 Krotoszyn Community Regulations (as in n. 12).

The fewmish Community 147 candidates to serve as rabbi had to have their approval.2° Hence the rabbis were subordinate to the landowners and sometimes were even obliged to issue a herem

(ban) against individuals, groups, or institutions on the orders of the town’s owner.*’ The continual interference in Jewish communal affairs on the part of the landowners was one of the causes for the decline of communal authority in Jewish society. Decisions of the communal leaders were frequently announced to the community in the form of orders issued by the town’s owner, because these were the only ones Jews would listen to. Even licences for conducting prayers in private homes and the opening of new synagogues were issued by the town owners.”® The financial concerns so frequently expressed by the Jewish communal authorities were not in fact the guiding factor in decision-making. When the issue was settling population in a town and persuading a Jew to take up residence and build a house on an abandoned lot, the owner’s officials would free him not only of a few years’ rent but also of his membership dues to the Jewish community.”? Even in serious matters usually within the scope of communal authority, Jews tended much more often to appeal directly to the town’s owner. The officials on Izabella Branicka’s estates in Polesia even tried to dissuade the Jews from appealing to her to settle their disputes and help them ‘in order that she should not be bothered by their incessant petitions’.°° The role of the Jewish communities in this social regime and their increasing dependence on the landowners became particularly evident in two areas: first, the restrictions and prohibitions on Jews marrying partners from towns or villages owned by other nobles or the king; and second, the changing geographical structure of the communities and their borders caused by the influx of groups of Jews as leaseholders of taverns and distilleries. The first area is connected with a range of phenomena which show the connection between limitations on the personal freedom of the Jews in the noble towns and the harnessing of the communities to the service of the town owners and their officials. ‘The communities’ role in supervising these issues depended on the form 2° Instrukcje gospodarcze, i. 514, 525; the petition of the community of Tarnow (c.1750), in AP, Krakow, Archiwum Sanguszkow, 175; Jewish Privileges, ed. Goldberg, i. 62, 166, 193.

27 The petition of the community of Tarnow (see previous note); [nstrukcje gospodarcze, 1. 586; [ J. Calmanson], Uwagi nad niniejszym stanem Zydow polskich 1 ich wydoskonaleniem (Warsaw, 1797), 28;

I. Lewin, Klatwa zydowska w Litwie w XVII i XVIIT wieku (Lwo6w, 1932); J. Goldberg, ‘Ludnosé zydowska w Lutomiersku w drugiey polowie X VIII wieku 1 jej walka z feudalnym uciskiem’, Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 15-16 (1955), 203.

28 ‘Prayers in private homes are forbidden without permission of the community leaders, for all except for the sick and for those holding a specific exemption issued by the landowner’ (Statutes of the community of Opatow, 5-16 Mar. 1767), in Jnstrukcje gospodarcze, i. 562; Krotoszyn Community _ Regulations (above, n. 12). ° Exemption issued in 1722 to a Jew in Ostrég, Volhynia, in AP, Krakow, Archiwum Sanguszkow, 17. 8° “Ustawa kahalu orlanskiego z 27 X 1780 r.’, ed. A. Leszczynski, Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 98 (1976), 114.

148 Jacob Goldberg of restrictions which were in force where they functioned. ‘There were towns in

which Jews were absolutely forbidden to contract marriages with partners from other noble estates or from the royal cities, whereas in other places it was just the removal of the dowry from the estate in the context of a marriage of which the landowner disapproved which was restricted. In both cases, the communal author-

ities were charged with supervising the observance of these typically feudal restrictions and prohibitions.*? This kind of marriage policy was not anti-Jewish in nature; it was also applied to other residents of the noble towns, not to mention the peasants, who suffered much more severe restrictions.” As far as the Jews were concerned, these measures were adopted for purely economic reasons. Stanislaw Poniatowski, the father of King Stanistaw August, clearly states this in the privilege he granted to the Jews

in his private town of Jazlowiec in Podolia: ‘with reference to the prohibition observed in other towns, on those who marry off their children in foreign countries, [and] give them dowries, which leaves the town much impoverished; I therefore order that the Jews of Jazlowiec should attempt to settle their children close to them’.*? In certain other towns, the communities had to stand as guarantors that a couple who married would not move to another noble estate.** The geographical structure of the early modern Jewish communities of Poland, which was based on the feudal system, has not as yet been treated in the historiog-

raphy. In the same way that the estate boundaries delimited the areas in which Jews could seek marriage partners for their children, these boundaries could also delineate the jurisdiction of a local Jewish community. ‘The obligation of each Jew living on a noble estate to belong to a Jewish community on that estate was characteristic of early Polish Jewish communities. The geographical structure of self-

government in Germany was quite different. There, in addition to urban communities made up of the Jewish residents of a particular town, there were also regional communities made up of small groups of Jews scattered across a given area.*° A growth in the number of Jews in a particular centre within the region led to aspirations for independence and the eventual development of a separate urban community.®° Such regional communities did not exist in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the geographical structure of the Polish communities was also different from that of the urban communities in Germany. The Jews living in Polish and Lithuanian towns, naturally, belonged to the local Jewish community, as did the Jewish arendarze (leaseholders) who lived in the surrounding villages. 31 Krotoszyn Community Regulations (above, n. 12); J. Bursztyn, ‘Zydzi Opatowscy na przelomie XVIT i XVII w.’, in EF Kiryk (ed.), Opatom (Sandomierz, 1985), 146; Instrukcje gospodarcze, 1. 179, 565; AP, Krakow, Rekopisy depozytowe (Rzeszow) 240, pp. 85-6. 82 For a full bibliography on this subject see Goldberg, ‘Ludnos¢ zydowska’. 33° Jemish Privileges, ed. Goldberg, i. 105. 34 AP Krakow, Rekopisy depozytowe (Rzeszow) 240, p. 86.

89 B. Altman, ‘The Autonomous Federation of Jewish Communities in Paderborn’, Jewish Social

Studies, 3 (1941), 159-88; Katz, Tradition and Crisis, 140-1. 86 Katz, Tradition and Crisis.

The Jewish Community 149 The earliest available data on the overall numbers of Jewish arendarze are to be found in the 1764—5 census of Jews and were intended to help assess the reorganized Jewish poll-tax. According to these figures, 30 to 33 per cent of the Polish Jewish population as a whole were arendarze of taverns or breweries, while in Mazovia and Podolia the figure was above 50 per cent.?’ When the arendas on their premises came to an end, these Jews had to return to the towns with their families, sometimes being offered a lease somewhere else. While living in the village as arendarze, they maintained contacts with the town because they had to belong to its Jewish community, where they paid their Jewish poll-tax and other taxes. They also enjoyed the services provided by the community, in the form of religious ceremonies, administration, and rabbinical courts. About a third of the Jews, and in some areas over half of the Jewish population, lived outside the towns in which the communities were based. In addition to these, there were also small Jewish centres in towns that did not have their own communities and so belonged to those of neighbouring towns. Estate owners whose estates included towns with Jewish communities totally rejected the possibility of a Jewish arendarz on their estates belonging to a Jewish community in the estate of another nobleman or in a royal city. A connection with a Jewish community in another town ran counter to the established principles of the lord’s authority over the Jews on his estates and raised the fear that it would weaken the dependency of the Jews on the estate owners whose taverns and distilleries they leased. In the privilege granted to the Jews of her private village of Olesko at the end of the seventeenth century, Queen Maria Kazimiera wrote that all Jews residing there ‘should come to judge [their disputes] locally, between themselves. ‘Their community should not belong to any other of our towns, such as Brody or Zloczow, or to any other town.’®® Similarly, Michal Wandalin Mniszech specified in the privilege

he granted to the Jews of his private town, Bobrowniki, that ‘all the Jews of Bobrowniki as well as the leaseholders, tavern-keepers, and others living 1n the vil-

lages near Bobrowniki, Deblin, and Golab should settle all their disputes at the community of Bobrowniki, and not in foreign communities, and they must obey it in all matters of religious worship’.*° In the privilege issued to the Jews of his town Frydlandek in western Wielkopolska, Fryderyk Wilhelm Blankenburg expressed a similar idea: ‘these Jews represent the entire community and should not belong to any other Jews [sic] whatsoever’.?° The statutes issued to the Jews of Cimkowicz state expressly that ‘it is forbidden for the Jews to go to another [Jewish] community for judgement and they will be fined 50 thalers for infringement’.**

The noble owners of the private towns were not content to issue orders as to which community the Jews should belong; they even punished communal leaders or individual Jews who disobeyed them. In 1682, Jan Franciszek Walewski, the 87 R. Mahler, Yidn in amoltken poiln in licht fun tzifern (Warsaw, 1958), 164-9.

38 Jewish Privileges, ed. Goldberg, i. 234. 39° Tbid. 62.

40 Thid. 93. 41 Instrukcje gospodarcze, i. 421.

150 Jacob Goldberg owner of Dobra, a town in the former district of Sieradz, claimed that when Jews

from there had appealed to the Court of the Jewish Regional Council of Wielkopolska at sessions in one of the royal cities, ‘they had seriously damaged his seigneurial rights’.4? He freed the Jews of his town from the punishment imposed upon them by the Regional Court and punished the rabbi and those who had supported him in involving the Regional Council in the Dobra community elections.*° Walewski viewed this as an offence—a challenge to his feudal authority.** _ The owners of the towns considered these matters to be of great importance, even changing the borders of the Jewish communities where these did not encompass all the adjacent lands of their estate. The activities of Szymon Zaremba are of particular note in this regard. Born into the lower sz/achta in Mazovia, he became wealthy from his post as a scribe to the Royal Tribunal in Piotrkow, a position he held for some fifty years in the eighteenth century. He received a minor post as castellan (kasztelan konarski) and acquired the almost deserted town of Rozprza, which was inhabited by only a few Jewish families, as well as a few surrounding villages; in order to populate the hamlets he encouraged Jews to settle there.*? The Jews Zaremba found living in the town, as well as those he encouraged to settle there, accepted the authority of the Piotrkow community—a situation Zaremba naturally found unacceptable. He therefore set out to found, following established practice, an independent Jewish community in Rozprza, to which the tavern leaseholders and distillers brought to settle his estate would also belong. With the support of their lord, the Jews of Rozprza demanded independence from the Piotrkow community, and a bitter controversy ensued.*° Zaremba took an active role in the dispute and attempted to dissuade Jacek Matachowski, the starosta of Piotrkow, from supporting the Jews of Piotrkow in their dispute with the Jews of Rozprza. His goal was to win his support for granting independence from the Jewish community of Piotrkow to the Jews of Rozprza and the surrounding villages. In a letter to Zaremba from 1766, Matachowski suggested a compromise under which ‘the

Jews of Piotrkow should renounce their jurisdiction over the Jews of Rozprza itself, but the leaseholders from the surrounding villages should remain under the jurisdiction of their former community—Piotrkow’.*’ Finally, Zaremba’s efforts paid off; Malachowski agreed that the Jews living in all the villages acquired by this newly wealthy landowner should belong to the recently established community of Rozprza. Moreover, at Zaremba’s request, he demanded that the rabbi of Piotrkow

cancel the ban he had declared against the Jews of Rozprza.*° The boundary

fo. 151. 43° Tbid. 44 Thid. 42 Archiwum Glowne Akt Dawnych (hereafter AGAD), Warsaw, Ksiega miejska m. Dobrej, no. 6,

45 Biblioteka Kérnicka Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Kornik, MSS 1803, 2063, 2064. 46 Tbid. 47 Jacek Matachowski to Szymon Zaremba of Konskie, 2 Apr. 1766. For the original letter, see

AGAD), Komisja Rzadowa Spraw Wewnetrznych 1644.

48 ‘Instrument od rabina do krolewskiego komisarza staroscinskiego od referendarza koronnego’, 1766; ibid.

The fewish Community I51 dispute over’ the jurisdiction of the Jewish community of Rozprza was in fact principally a dispute over the extent of Zaremba’s authority. As in many other instances, the question of the Jews’ self-government was closely connected to the estate owner’s feudal privileges.

The wealthy and middling nobility, who did not own towns with established Jewish communities, could not of course benefit from the communities’ services 1n imposing their authority over the Jews living on their estates. They did, however, frequently support the arendarze on their estates in their disputes with the Jewish communities. This generally happened when arendarze in villages belonged to communities which were deeply in debt and were being forced to help pay it off and cover the mounting interest. The estate owners were interested in relieving their arendarze from financial obligations that would impoverish them and make it harder for them to make their payments on time, because this would reduce the incomes from taverns and distilleries. The situation became more complicated when Jewish arendarze in villages belonging to the upper or middling nobility sought to cut ties with a Jewish community in a royal city. This was the case in the dispute involving the Jews of Rozprza referred to above. A similar dispute involved the Jewish tavern-keepers and distillers in the noble-owned village of Trzebinia—

in the then wojewédztwo of Krakow—and the community in the royal town of Olkusz. Benedict, Canon of Krakow, who appeared as representative of the owners of the village, who were minors, declared before the Krakow Castle Court which was hearing the case that the owners whose guardian he was ‘demand that the Jews living in Trzebinia be recognized as independent from the Olkusz community’.*? The court ruled, however, that ‘it considers these Jews as members of the above-mentioned community [of Olkusz]’.°° Although Benedict did not accept this ruling and continued to press his case, the protracted legal system meant that the situation could not be changed.°* Neither this member of the middling nobility nor the Canon of Krakow who appeared as his guardian was able to sway the court and overturn the decision of the starosta, who determined matters of this nature, in the way that Zaremba could, once he had become a magnate. The sz/achta not only tried to annex the village arendarze to the communities in their private towns, they also supported the leaders of those communities when they tried to impose their authority over the Jewish arendarze in estates belonging to other noblemen or to the king. The communities in the royal towns sought to annex to themselves as many arendarze as possible in noble-owned villages, and the

communities in the private towns had the same ambitions vis-a-vis the Jewish arendarze on the king’s estates and on the royal table estates. ‘These trends become

extremely clear in the mid-eighteenth-century dispute between the community of Ulanéw in Malopolska and the arendarze in a village on the royal table estates of Sandomierz. The latter refused to be part of the Ulanow community, preferring to 49 AP Krakow, Krakowskie grodzkie rel. 219, pp. 1777-8. 50 Tbid. 1 Tbid.

152 Jacob Goldberg join that of Rozwadow.°” The Ulanow community consisted of ninety-one households at the time, of which twenty-seven (about 30 per cent) were of arendarze in the aforementioned village on the Sandomierz estate.°? The secession of such a large group threatened to diminish the standing of the community and reduce its income, and would have had a negative effect on the economy of Ulanow as a whole. The estate owner’s representative tried to prevent it and even persuaded the Rabbi of Zamos¢ to declare a ban against those arendarze on the Sandomierz estate who refused to accept the authority of his community.“ The division of community membership into two groups made no contribution

to communal unity. The one group consisted of the residents of the towns in , which the communities were based, while the other consisted of arendarze scattered among the villages and small towns that had no communal facilities of their own. The community leaders and officials belonged almost without exception to the first group. Orders given by the estate owners openly mention the division. In Wegrow during the seventeenth century, we find that different tariffs were applied in fines imposed on the Jews who lived in the villages.°? In Opatow, communal dues paid by the village arendarze were treated separately from those of the Jews living in town, and were used to pay the rabbi’s salary, which he had to collect himself.°° In Tarnow, the kropka tax?’ paid by the arendarze of taverns and breweries was treated separately. The Ulanow community did not require the arendarze in the village on the royal table estate of Sandomierz to make the same contribution to the supplementary poll-tax payments as the rest of the community, even though they fell under its jurisdiction.°® When the rabbinical court made rulings relating to this class of community members, they could only be done 1n the presence of their representatives.°? Similarly, these arendarze did not take part in the contributions made by the Ulanow community to the clergy and the churches expected of the Jewish community, even declaring openly that ‘they [the leaseholders] have their own [religious] communal leaders in the villages of the royal table estate; they are obliged to make contributions to them and their officials at festival time and as gifts, and so should not to be forced to pay double’.°° The lords and the Jewish leadership made every possible effort to prevent the break-up of the communities. The Jewish communities generally restricted themselves to threats of the ferem, and on occasion actually carried out their threats against groups or individuals who broke away from their organizational structure. The owners of the towns, on the other hand, did not merely issue orders about belonging to a particular Jewish community but also offered economic incentives °2 Documents of the Jews on the Royal Table Estate of Sandomierz [and their relations with] the community of Ulanow [presented] to the Radom Commission, AGAD, Archiwum kameralne II/206,

p. 28. °3 Ibid. 32. °4 Ibid. 29-30. 55 Jewish Privileges, ed. Goldberg, i. 352-3. °6 Instrukcje gospodarcze, 1. 542. 57 AP Krakow, Archiwum Sanguszkow, 175. °8 Documents of the Jews on the Royal Table Estate of Sandomierz [and their relations with] the community of Ulanéw [presented] to the Radom Commission, AGAD, Archiwum kameralne II/206,

p. 51. °9 Tbid. 31. 60 Tbid.

The Jewish Community 153 to promote the formation of communities. First, they attempted to dissuade Jews residing on their estates from making business partnerships with Jews from other communities. In 1728, the owner of Krotoszyn forbade the Jews of his estate to make such partnerships, on threat of a heavy fine.°' The owner of Opatow did not

go as far as that; he freed Jews who went into partnership with their local coreligionists from contributions to his court—collecting these payments only in cases of partnership with Jews from other communities.®* In many towns owned by the sz/achta, only Jews belonging to the local community were permitted to engage in business, with Jews from elsewhere allowed to trade there only during fairs.©°

The unity of the communities was also connected with their religious functions, particularly since the synagogues acted as a unifying factor. The regulations of the Council of Four Lands stipulated that Jews living in towns and villages without their own synagogues should become members of communities within two miles of where they lived.®* Similarly, Antoni Lubomirski laid down in an order issued in 1769 to the community in his town of Opatow that local village Jews who are subject to the jurisdiction of this community, [and] who attend prayers and spend festivals at the local synagogue . . . should pay their taxes with a surcharge for various expenses . . . and since they are under the jurisdiction of these communal leaders, they [i.e. the communal leaders] can always order them punished . . .°°

The existence of prayer houses in small Jewish communities often resulted in the fragmentation of communities. This happened in the village of Brudnice in Mazovia during the second half of the eighteenth century. The more than ten Jewish families who lived in the village had previously been associated with the community in the nearby private town of Kuczborek.® Since the number of Jewish men in the village was sufficient for a prayer quorum (minyan), the rabbi of

Kuczborek gave permission to open a synagogue in the village. ‘his was soon retracted, however, since the community leaders in Kuczborek were afraid that once the Jews of Brudnice had their own place to pray in, they would not want to maintain organizational ties with the community in Kuczborek, even though their village was too small to constitute an independent community.°’ 61 Krotoszyn Community Regulations (above, n. 12). 62 Instrukcje gospodarcze, 1. 527. 63 This is expressed most specifically in a privilege granted by Antoni Sutkowski to the Jews of Kobylin, dated 9 Oct. 1779: ‘No Jewish stranger may purchase [anything], except at the fairs; [they] may not engage in commerce nor sell any goods or anything at all in the town of Kobylin—which

belongs to me, without authorization and the payment of tax at a fixed rate to my Jews’ (fewish Privileges, ed. Goldberg, 1. 126).

64 Pinkas va’ad arba aratsot, ed. I. Halperin (Jerusalem, 1945; rev. and expanded edition, ed.

I. Bartal, Jerusalem, 1990), 228, 280. 6 Instrukcje gospodarcze, 1. 561. 66 AGAD, Plockie grodzkie, obl. 29, fos. 573-90, Anno Domini 1788; cf. J. Marosek, Targowiska miejskie w Koronte Polskiey w drugies potomie X VIII mieku (Bialystok, 1990), 166—83.

67 AGAD), Plockie grodzkie, obl. 29, fos. 573-90.

154 Facob Goldberg These ties played a role in consolidating local trade, and also helped integrate Jews from surrounding districts into the local community. The fact that leaseholders from local villages and other Jews would come to the established communities to sort out their affairs was very important in this regard. Despite the weakness and limited scope of the local markets in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these connections did play a role in invigorating urban trade in the larger and smaller towns. The village arendarze thronged to their local Jewish communities for Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and other festivals, increasing the turnover of local tradesmen, shopkeepers, and artisans. In a memorandum addressed to King August III, the representative of the arendarze from the village on the royal table estate of Sandomierz wrote that ‘the community of Ulanow, and His Honour the Appointed Lord [of the town], have taken note that... people stay in Ulanow over the Jewish holidays’; the point being that if the arendarze were to join another community, the landowner of the local population would lose these revenues.®

Estate administration in this period was notoriously short-sighted and illconsidered, to the detriment not only of local markets but also of Jewish communal cohesion. A clear causal relationship can be traced between the decline of local markets and the willingness of village arendarze to join particular communities. Local administrators in the service of the estate owners would often restrict freedom of trade by forcing merchants, shopkeepers, and tavern-keepers to purchase salt, herring, poultry, and other goods at above-market prices in an attempt to increase revenues from the towns. This further reduced the already limited capacity of the local markets and weakened the links between the communities and the Jewish population in the surrounding villages. ‘Taxes on kosher meat imposed by the estate owners had a similar effect. A petition by the Jewish community of Zasilaw, written in the 1740s when the town belonged to the Sanguszko family,

reads as follows: ,

In the past, the arendarze from the estates surrounding Zastaw would gather together [here] for the Jewish holidays, bringing revenue to the town. After the tax was instituted, when the holidays came, the butchers and their lads stood along the roads searching carriages, breaking open boxes, and taking possession of meat if they found any, and even beating people up. The shopkeepers and others are now suffering the consequences, as they [the arendarze]| now travel to other towns for the holidays, bringing them the revenues, which Zaslaw will not make throughout a whole year; and as a result the landowner’s coffers are depleted.°° 68 Documents of the Jews on the Royal Table Estate of Sandomierz [and their relations with] the community of Ulanow [presented] to the Radom Commission, AGAD, Archiwum kameralne II/206, p. 29.

, 69 “Petition to the Administration of the Zaslaw Principality from the Jewish community of Zastaw’, in AP, Krakow, Archiwum Sanguszkow, 21, 4; cf. J. Goldberg, ‘Hamishar hakimoni hayehudi

befolin bame’ah ha-18: takanot lehenvanim betsaslav uvebrodi veshe’elat hamekorot ha’ivriyimhapolaniyim letoledot hamishar vehahevrah hayehudiyim’, in E. Mendelsohn et al. (eds.), Kovets mehkarim al yehudet polin—Paul Ghickson Memorial Volume (Jerusalem, 1987), 18.

The Ffewish Community 155 This created a situation similar to the over-exploitation of the serfs, which not only prevented increased revenue from their farms, but also deprived the estate owners of the corvée labour they were due, since the peasant’s farm had been ruined. With the advent of the hasidic movement, which began to develop during the second half of the eighteenth century, the towns that hosted hasidic courts, to which large numbers of hasidim would throng from far and wide, became more important than the Jewish communities in energizing the local markets. Naturally,

the owners of these towns were interested in the development of the hasidic courts, as they attracted many visitors and led to an increase in their revenue.

These were the different, sometimes contradictory, trends that formed the background to the life of the Jewish communities in Poland and Lithuania. On the one hand, the estate owners and their administrations often obstructed the communities in the execution of their duties, while on the other hand they actively supported them as part of their own administration. The reasons for this were, first and foremost, that without the co-operation of the communities, the estate administration would have been unable fully to supervise Jewish life on their estates—a form and a level of supervision which was characteristic of the feudal system. The support that the Jewish communities—and the entire Jewish population—of the magnate and noble estates enjoyed was in fact also an expression of the protection

granted by the estate owners to the residents of their estates in general. Jan Korzbok Lacki declared in a privilege granted in 1718 to the Jews of Szamotuly, a town on his estate, that ‘the Jewish people are hated by everyone, and were it not

for the protection granted them, their property and even their lives would be in danger’.’° The leaders of Jewish communities on the noble estates were also of the opinion that the protection of the landowners was the only guarantee of the safety and the livelihood of the Jews in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth.’* Hence

KoHataj’s reform proposals, which circulated during the Four Year Sejm (1788-92) and were based on the dissolution of the Jewish communities and the assimilation of the Jews, could not be accepted favourably by the Jewish communal leadership. ’* The Jewish leaders had no choice but to recognize that the protection

of the estate owners was much more advantageous to them than the new reform proposals. 10 Jewish Privileges, ed. Goldberg, i. 332. 7. “Punkta do kahal6w miast dziedzicznych’, in Materialy do dziejow Seymu Czteroletniego, vi, ed. A. Eisenbach, J. Michalski, E. Rostworowski, and J. Wolinski (Warsaw, 1969), 397; cf. S. Kutrzeba, ‘Autonomia miast i wladza ustawodawcza panow miast w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej’, in Kszega

pamiqtkowa ku czci Oswalda Balzera, 2 (Lwow, 1924). 7 Kollataj, Listy Anonima, ii. 332.

The Jewish Economic Elite in Red Ruthenia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries JURGEN HEYDE IN THE late medieval Kingdom of Poland, the province of Red Ruthenia (comprising most of today’s western Ukraine) had a special status. Unlike the other provinces, it was not one of the original lands of the Piast Dynasty, which were largely incorporated into the Corona Regni Poloniae following the period of the sub-principalities in the early fourteenth century. Instead, it had been part of the Old Russian principality of Halicz—Volhynia. After the local dynasty died out in 1340, the area was divided between Poland (Halicz) and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Volhynia). In the Piast Monarchy under King Kazimierz III, this new province was the first of the added regions where the population was not largely Polish-speaking and Catholic. In addition to the transfer of political practices from what until then had been the Kingdom of Poland, the extension of the political and cultural borders to encompass the province of Red Ruthenia required a new approach in order to accommodate the societal idiosyncrasies of this region.' The transition also enabled the province’s Jewish economic elite to play a pivotal role in its development. They figured among its inter-religious elite, held important positions with the state authorities, and established close ties with the aristocracy.

While the process of extending the political borders led to a rearrangement of social divisions, as will become clear, the ambiance of late medieval Red Ruthenia allowed for functional integration without forced cultural homogenization. And, within the local elites, cultural distinctions did not lead to social exclusion. 1 See A. Janeczek, ‘Ethnicity, Religious Disparity and the Formation of the Multicultural Society of Red Ruthenia in the Late Middle Ages’, in T. Wiinsch and A. Janeczek (eds.), On the Frontier of Latin Europe: Integration and Segregation in Red Ruthenia, 1350-1600 (Warsaw, 2004), 15-45; 1d., ‘New Authority, New Property, New Nobility: The Foundation of Noble Estates in Red Ruthenia during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, Quaestiones Medi Aevit Novae, 7 (2002), 77-125; M. Wilamowski, ‘Magnate Territories in Red Ruthenia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: Origin, Development and Social Impact’, in Wiinsch and Janeczek (eds.), On the Frontier of Latin Europe, 81-118.

The Fewish Economic Elite 157 POLISH POLICY ON RED RUTHENIA In the newly annexed province, the Polish kings developed an integration policy that extended considerably beyond traditional dynastic interests. While a few documents remaining from the reign of Kazimierz III indicate that, as a Regnum

Russie, the principality formed an independent political unit alongside the Kingdom of Poland, the king soon made it clear that it was to be permanently integrated into the state. This policy of integration into the Kingdom of Poland was accompanied by efforts to exclude merchants from other countries who had done business there until then. In 1354, for example, Breslau merchants complained that they were blocked from travelling to the important commercial centre of Lwow. They reported that the king had claimed to have conquered the province with his own people, and that the trading routes were therefore open only to his own people and merchants.” Who were these ‘own’ people? The first privilege that Kazimierz III issued to

the city of Lwow shortly thereafter, in 1356, answers this question. On the one hand, Kazimierz granted the Catholic burghers a privilege that extended to them the rule of Magdeburg Law. At the same time, however, he emphasized that he intended to preserve the status and legal organization of the other population groups residing in the city—non-Catholic Christians (Orthodox Ruthenians, Armenians) and non-Christians (Jews, ‘Saracens’, Tatars).° This seems to indicate his belief that for the integration of the new province to last, both the incoming and the established elites would need to be encouraged in equal measure, albeit each through different means. After the death of King Kazimierz III in 1370, this integration policy was tem-

porarily challenged. Until 1382, when Poland and Hungary formed a personal union for a few years, the principality was under Hungarian administration. The union was short-lived, however. In 1384, Jadwiga, the daughter of the Hungarian king, was elected by the Polish nobility as the Rex Poloniae and married Grand Duke Jagiello of Lithuania (in Lithuanian, Jogaila). In 1387 Jadwiga led a military expedition to reattach Halicz (known at the time as the Province of Red Ruthenia) to Poland.

In the years that followed, the Polish authorities restored the policy of Kazimierz III. At the same time, an intensive process of settlement began, based on the principles that Daniil of Halicz had established in the thirteenth century in order to strengthen the bond between his country and its western neighbours. As 2 ‘Quod rex Polonie dixerit, se terram Russye propriis suis hominibus expugnasse, et quod illa via solum suis hominibus et mercatoribus patere debet’ (Breslauer Urkundenbuch, ed. G. Korn, pt. 1 (Breslau, 1870), no. 189: Correspondenz der Stadt Breslau mit Kaiser Karl IV. in den Jahren 1347-1355, pp. 167-72 at 170); cf. H. Samsonowicz, ‘Przemiany osi droznych w Polsce p6znego sredniowiecza’, Przeglad Historyczny, 64 (1973), 697-716, esp. 702-3. > Akta grodzkie i ziemskie z czasbw Rzeczypospolite; Polskie; z archiwum tak zwanego bernardynskiego we Lwome (henceforth AGZ), 3 (Lwow, 1872), no. 5, pp. 13—18 (see below).

158 firgen Heyde had happened in the early stages of settlement in the Polish lands, the newly settled areas were, for the most part, subject to colonization under German law. This process led to the creation of new structures alongside the existing ones—initially without the intention of replacing them. ‘The established Orthodox elite was politically integrated and retained its original legal status. It was only later on (from 1434) that the legal system was changed, once the new structures had proved their merits in practice, as they had previously done in the Polish states.* In the traditional historiography, Polish policy in Red Ruthenia has largely been addressed in the context of relations between the Catholic (Polish, immigrant) and the Orthodox (Ruthenian, resident) populations. In more recent Polish studies, the

expansion into Red Ruthenia is described as the development of a multidenominational and multi-ethnic Commonwealth. This step marked the end of the denominational unity of the Kingdom of Poland and paved the way towards Poland’s famous religious tolerance at the beginning of the modern era.? Much Ukrainian historiography, on the other hand, has traditionally highlighted the Polish settlement drive as expansionist, emphasizing the cultural subjugation of the resident Orthodox elite and the Orthodox Church.® More recent research offers yet a different impression: Natalya Yakovenko, for example, has stressed that the old elite actively entered into the struggle for mehoratio terrae (amprovement of

the land) that led to the region’s social transformation into a multi-ethnic and multi-denominational society. ’

The social heterogeneity of Red Ruthenia extended beyond the immigrant Catholic and resident Orthodox groups. The Jewish population in the province figured prominently in its thriving trade with the East.° The close ties that the local Jewish economic elite developed with the Polish authorities enabled them to wield an influence on much more than local, urban issues. ‘The historiography on

this topic has dealt mostly with their relations with the Catholic bourgeoisie, focusing on negotiations over settlement and trading rights,’ whereas their * See Wilamowski, ‘Magnate Territories’; Janeczek, ‘Ethnicity, Religious Disparity and the Formation of the Multicultural Society of Red Ruthenia’, 42; id., ‘“Exceptis schismaticis”: Uposledzenie Rusinow w_ przywilejach prawa niemieckiego Whladyslawa Jagielty’, Przeglad Fistoryczny, 75 (1984), 527-42.

> J. Strzelcezyk, ‘Auf dem Weg zur Republik vieler Volker und Konfessionen: Katholiken und Orthodoxe in Polen im spaten Mittelalter’, in A. Patschovsky and H. Zimmermann (eds.), Toleranz 1m Muttelalter (Sigmaringen, 1998), 275-95.

© See M. Hrushevsky, /storiya Ukrayiny-Rusy, 5 (1905; Kiev, 1994), 227-40; N. PolonskaVasylenko, [stortya Ukrayiny, 1: Do seredyny XVII stohttya (Munich, 1972; 3rd edn., Kiev, 1995), 313-37; O. Subtelny, Ukraine: A History (2nd edn., Toronto, 1994), 72-7. 7 N. Yakovenko, Narys istortyi Ukrayiny z naidavnishykh chastv do kintsya XVIII stolittya (Kiev, 1997), 78-90. 8 See I. Schiper, Dzieje handlu zydowskiego na ziemiach polskich (Warsaw, 1937), 17-20. 9 See H. Petersen, Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde in Polen: Lemberg, 1356-1581 (Wiesbaden,

2003); J. Krochmal, ‘Ethnic and Religious Integration and Segregation in Przemysl’, in Wunsch and Janeczek (eds.), On the Frontier of Latin Europe, 193-210; M. Kapral, ‘Legal Regulation and National

The Jewish Economic Elite 159 ~ contacts with the political elite in the province has received relatively little consideration. In his studies of Jews as servants of the Crown, Maurycy Horn has laid

particular stress on the prominence of the Jewish economic elite, in both Red Ruthenia and the Ruthenian areas of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.'° By leasing the tax collection and customs offices, the Jewish economic elite in Red Ruthenia

became pivotal in the local financial administration, while in the older Polish provinces these offices were usually held by burghers. In the period before 1500, Maurycy Horn counted over one hundred Jewish leaseholders of toll services, compared with fewer than twenty burghers.'! In his many studies of Jews in Red Ruthenia during the early modern period, Horn has emphasized the ties of the

Jewish economic elite with the king and the aristocracy.'* Other studies of the Middle Ages to touch on these issues include works published by Majer Balaban and Ignacy Schiper about a century ago.!° In this essay, I examine the foundations for these ties and assess how widespread they were by examining three cases which reflect the different stages in the development of Polish policy in Red Ruthenia. In the first section, I analyse the privileges that defined the basic legal context for the Jews in Red Ruthenia during the reign of Kazimierz III. In the second, I examine the earliest records of concrete ties between the king and the Jewish economic elite from the reign of Wladyslaw

Jagiello. These primarily concern the administration of the revenues from salt works and customs posts, though other documents describe how Jews were entrusted with a settlement mission. The third and final section shows how members of the Jewish economic elite became servants of the Crown following the introduction of Polish law and Polish institutions to Red Ruthenia in 1434; here, Castle Court documents shed new light on how the toll system was organized, as well as on the position of the Jews leasing it with respect to the non-Jewish popula-

| tion and especially the aristocracy. For example, the documents dealing with Schachno of Lwow, who intermittently leased the tolls in Lwow and Grodek in (Ethnic) Differentiation in Lviv, 1350~1600’, ibid. 211-28; M. Horn, ‘Spolecznos¢ zydowska w wielonarodowosciowym Lwowie, 1356-1696’, Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu. Historycznego, 157 (1991), 3-14; E. Nadel-Golobi¢, ‘Armenians and Jews in Medieval Lwow: Their Role in Oriental Trade, 1400-1600’, Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 20 (1979), 345-88; L. Charewiczowa, ‘Ograniczenia gospodarcze nacyj schizmatyckich 1 Zydow we Lwowie XV 1 XVI wieku’, Kwartalnik Historyczny, 39 (1925), 193-227. 10 For the late medieval period, see M. Horn, ‘Zydzi i mieszczanie na sluzbie kr6low polskich i wiel-

kich ksiazat litewskich w latach 1386-1506’, pt. 1: ‘Uwagi wstepne: Bankierzy i celnicy’, Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu. Historycznego, 135-6 (1985), 3-19, and pt. 2: Zupnicy, zarzadcy mennic, dostawcy, rzemieslnicy 1 lekarze dworscy: Udzial w podrozach dyplomatycznych’, ibid. 137-8 (1986),

3-17. 11 See Horn, ‘Zydzi i mieszczanie’, pt. 1, p. 12. 12 See e.g. M. Horn, Zydzi na Rusi Czerwonej w XVI i pierwszej polowie XVII wieku: Dziatalnos gospodarcza na tle rozwoju demograficznego (Warsaw, 1975); 1d., ‘Stan 1 potrzeby badan nad stosunkami

zydowsko-ukrainskimi w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej 1 podstawa zrodlowa do tego zagadnienia’, Bruletyn

Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 196 (2000), 461-84. 13 See below.

160 furgen Heyde the years after 1440, reveal the manifold contacts and ties between the Jewish and non-Jewish elites in the Lwow area in the mid-fifteenth century.

THE FIRST STAGE: ESTABLISHING THE LEGAL CONDITIONS Few documents remain from the first stage of Polish rule in Red Ruthenia (until 1370). hese include three privileges regulating the legal status of the Jewish population in the newly conquered province. The first did not target the Jews directly but in fact addressed the Catholic burghers of Lwow, who became subject to German law (1356).'* Unlike most such documents, this one also included a proposal for the non-Catholic population groups in the city. Non-Catholics were guaranteed legal rights that corresponded with their own traditions (suxta ritus

eorum) and could thus apply Magdeburg legal procedure within their own communities. Doing so did not make them subject to the laws of the municipality but enabled them to retain their own jurisdiction. The royal trustee (advocatus Regis, or in Polish, ot), who in turn reported to the general starosta, presided over the court hearings. This clause led to a multiple system of Magdeburg Law, leading to not one but several communities in the city living under German law, under the supervision of the royal officer of the time. ‘This supervision also applied in

cases where communities waived application of Magdeburg Law and instead retained their own group rights. In either case, the méjt was the point of recourse for all parties whenever conflicts of law arose. As a representative of the monarch, he was not part of the court under Magdeburg Law, but acted as a judge to every individual juridical group according to their own set of laws. The document, however, did not define the authority of the m0jt—1.e. whether he merely presided over the proceedings or guided them as well and was thus in a position to influence them.!° The stipulations of the Lwoéw privilege, therefore, rendered the Jews subject to a local authority, by contrast with the Polish provinces, where the general privileges placed them under the jurisdiction of the highest members of the state administration (1.e. the wojewodas). ‘The competence of the wojewodas as laid down in the general privileges high-

lighted the significance of supra-local conflict settlement for the Jewish population. This issue was dealt with for the Jews of Red Ruthenia in a different privilege,

which Kazimierz III issued in two separate versions on 25 April 1367. The first version, which is known as the general privilege for Malopolska, applied ‘to our Jews in Krakow, in Sandomierz, in Lwow, and elsewhere, wherever they be in our kingdom’,'® while the second was only ‘for our Jews who reside in Lwow and the 14 AGZ 3, no. 5, pp. 13-18. 15 See Petersen, Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde, 38-0. '6 P. Bloch, ‘Die General-Privilegien der polnischen Judenschaft’, Zeitschrift der Historischen Gesellschaft fur die Proving Posen, 6 (1891), 69-105, 139-74, 387-416 at 80: ‘Judeis nostris in Cracovia, in Sandomiria, in Lamburga et alibi, ubilibet in regno nostro consistunt . . .’.

The Fewish Economic Elite 161 entire land of [Red] Ruthenia’.’’ The existence of the two versions, which are highly similar in content, indicates that the status of the province within the Kingdom of Poland was still somewhat unclear. In the first document the Jews of Ruthenia were combined with the Jews in the wojsewodztwa of Krakow and Sandomierz and distinguished from those in Wielkopolska, who had received a general privilege in 1364. (Incidentally, the same process can be seen in the various

privileges of Kazimierz Jagiellonczyk confirmed in 1453.) The second version illustrates the claim of the Jews of Red Ruthenia to arrange their interests independently of the rights granted in the general privileges for the ‘Polish’ Jews. Fundamental to both documents was the right to answer not to the most (as a local jurisdiction) but to the highest representative of the king 1n the province. As in the first general privilege of 1264, Article 8 determined that in the case of inter-

nal conflicts ‘the municipal court [does] not have jurisdiction over them [= the Jews]’,’® and that such authority rested solely with the king or the general starosta, who until the Polish law was introduced in Red Ruthenia acted in lieu of the moje-

wodas as the king’s highest representative. Nonetheless, in one place ‘or our wojewodw (vel nostri palatint) still appears in the privilege for Red Ruthenia (copied from the earlier versions); in the edition of the privilege for Matopolska and Red Ruthenia, which Johannes Laski issued in 1506 at the initiative of King Alexander, starosta (capitaneus) has been replaced by wojewoda (palatinus) in the article about legal jurisdiction.'*

Both the privilege for Malopolska and Red Ruthenia and the one that applied exclusively to Red Ruthenia were issued on the same day in Krakow and were essentially identical in content. The discrepancies between the texts were primarily editorial—e.g. the sequence of a few paragraphs was changed—although the recipients of the Red Ruthenian privilege appear to have had some input in drafting

the text. The document for Matopolska and Red Ruthenia copied a passage from the general privilege of Duke Bolestaw Pobozny (Boleslaus the Pious) of 1264 that prohibited Jews from receiving guests.*° This derived from the rest of the regulations concerning guests, which in the earliest times determined the legal status of Jews, as well as of all other foreigners. The original intention was to ensure that 'Y Pryvileyi natsional'nykh hromad mista L'vova XIV—XVIIT st., ed. M. Kapral (Lviv, 2000), no. 108, pp. 381-8 at 381: ‘Iudeis nostris in Lamberga et tota terra Russie constitutis .. .. On the ques-

tion in which year the privilege was issued, see M. Kapral, ‘Przywileje krolewskie dla lwowskich Zydow w XIV—XVIII wieku: Przeglad zrodloznawezy’, Studia Judaica, 4/1-2 (7-8) (2001), 55-66 at 56 (with reference to earlier studies on this topic). 18 Pryvileyi natsional'nykh hromad, 381: ‘iudex civitatis nullam iurisdictionem sibi vendicet in eosdem .. .”; cf. Kapral, ‘Przywileje krolewskie’, 56; J. Bardach, Historia panstwa 1 prawa polskiego, 1: Do potowy XV wieku (Warsaw, 1964), 562-3. 19 Pryvileyi natsional'nykh hromad, 383; J. V. Bandtkie, Jus Polonicum codicibus veteribus manuscriptis et editionibus quibusque collatis (Warsaw, 1831), 15. 20 ‘Ttem nullum volumus in domo Iudei hospitari’; Kodeks dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski/ Codex diplomaticus Majoris Poloniae, i, ed. 1. Zakrzewski (Poznan, 1877), no. 605.

162 | Jurgen Heyde guests of the ruler did not act as protectors (= hosts) towards third parties. ‘The lord invoked this clause to reserve this right for himself.7! The text in the 1367 privilege for Malopolska has undergone major revisions that obscure this intent.22 In the Red Ruthenian version the stipulation was turned into the opposite: ‘We hereby order

that Jews be taken into the houses and granted hospitality.’*? This eliminated a restriction that had become pointless and replaced it with a friendly, albeit legally meaningless request. "his passage was therefore omitted from later versions of the general privilege. The new version of this article about prohibitions concerning guests also suggests that delegates from the Red Ruthenian Jews were included in the process of drafting the privilege and could state their wishes. The general privilege was thus drafted to reflect the views of the Jewish elite in Red Ruthenia, who ~ asa result brought their legal framework into line with that in Poland long before the Red Ruthenian aristocracy achieved this goal.

THE SECOND STAGE: CREATING A NETWORK FOR THE JEWISH ECONOMIC ELITE This stage occurred during the period that followed the personal union with Lithuania and the baptism of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila, who adopted the Christian name of Wladystaw, thus following the tradition of Wladyslaw Lokietek,

who had united the Polish territories. He and his wife Jadwiga extended their political vision beyond the union with Lithuania to include the integration of Red Ruthenia as a province in the Kingdom of Poland. In addition to earning the

support of the Orthodox elite,24 the royal couple promoted new structures, most prominently intensive settlement according to German law. This served to attract new settlers, without dissolving or transforming existing legal and social structures. The policy of meloratio terrae (amprovement of the land) also defined interactions with the Jewish economic elite. Early on, in connection with the incorporation of the province in 1387, King Wladyslaw Jagiello confirmed Kazimierz’s 1367 privilege to the Jews of Red Ruthenia.*? This symbolic gesture is to be regarded as

part of the incorporation of the province. ‘The privileges for Wielkopolska and 21 See J. Heyde, ‘Jiidische Siedlung und Gemeindebildung im mittelalterlichen Polen’, in C. Cluse, A. Haverkamp, and I. J. Yuval (eds.), fiidische Gemeinden und thr christhcher Kontext in kulturraumlich vergleichender Betrachtung: Von der Spatantike bis zum 18. fahrhundert (Hannover, 2003), 249—66 at 254-7, with a discussion of previous views on the problem.

pitari.’ ,

22 Bloch, ‘Die General-Privilegien’, 92, §25 (24): ‘Item secum in domo Judeos nolumus hos-

28 Pryvileyi natsional'nykh hromad, 383: ‘Item praecipimus, Iudeos in domibus hospitari et hospicia ipsis prebere.’ 24 See A. Mironowicz, Kosciét prawoslawny w panstwie Piastéw 1 Fagiellondm (Bialystok, 2003),

148-56. 29° Pryvileyi natsional'nykh hromad, no. 109, p. 388.

The fewish Economic Elite 163 Malopolska were not confirmed at the same time, since the continuity of the law was uninterrupted there, and Polish kings did not require explicit confirmation of their authority.7° The first representative of the Jewish economic elite in Red Ruthenia whose ties with the Polish king are described in detail in the sources is Wolczko of Drohobycz.*’ Beginning in 1404, he appears repeatedly in the account books of the city of Lwow as the leaseholder of the municipal accounts and as the king’s commissioner in his contacts with the city.?° In 1424 he is mentioned for the first time as the toll leaseholder : (theloneator). In the next year he appears in a document as theloneator Leopoltensi|s| and was listed by the king as his official (officiali|s| nost[er|) together with Mikolaj Tarnowski and Dzathco i1udelus| as leaseholders of the salt works in Przemysl and Drohobycz.”° Following 1423, Wolczko appears in a number of royal documents as owner, leaseholder, and mayor of various new settlements in Ruthenia, indicating that he was playing a role of some significance in the colonization of the region.

Wolczko’s activity as an entrepreneur in this enterprise is remarkable and has interested Jewish historians since the early twentieth century. Ignacy Schiper and Majer Balaban have written extensively about him. Schiper regarded Wolczko’s activity as illustrative of a broad-based Jewish settlement effort, since other Jews had to invest their revenues from credit operations in his activities too.?° It was these Jewish entrepreneurs who brought Jews to settle in Ruthenia, since they were free to select which settlers to bring.*! Later, however, Wolczko encountered obstacles imposed by the Church, which doomed his mission and forced him to abandon his efforts to settle the region.°? Majer Balaban disagreed with Schiper on the size of the Jewish settlement.” He attributed Wolczko’s ‘failure’ to conflicts with the settlers, which gradually led him to fall out of favour with the king. Furthermore, Wolczko was said to have refused to convert to Christianity as demanded. At any rate this loss of royal favour 26 On Wladyslaw Jagiello’s allegedly anti-Jewish policy, see W. W[istocki], ‘Przywilej Kazimierza Wielkiego dany Zydom miasta Lwowa i calej Rusi, potwierdzony przez Wladyslawa Jagielle we Lwowie dnia 30 wrzesnia 1387 roku’, Przewodnik naukowy 1 literacki: Dodatek do ‘Gazety Lwowskie]’,

t (1873), 717-27 (which includes the first edition of the Red Ruthenian privilege of 1367 and its confirmation in 1387); Majer Balaban, ‘Dwa przyczynki do stosunkow Jagielly z Zydami lwowskimi, 2: Czy zatwierdzit Jagiello przywileje Zydow lwowskich?’, in id., Z histori Zydow w Polsce: Szkice 1 studja (Warsaw, 1920), 11-17; Kapral, ‘Przywileje krolewskie’, 56 f.

27 See Majer Balaban, ‘Dwa przyczynki do stosunkéw Jagielly z Zydami lwowskimi, 1: Wolczko nadworny faktor Jagielly 1 celnik ruski’, in Balaban, Z historit Zydow w Polsce, 4-11 (first published in Kwartalntk Historyczny, 25 (1911), 228-34); I. Schiper, Studya nad stosunkami gospodarczymt Zydow w Polsce podczas sredniowtecza (Lwo6w, 1911), 134-5, 157-61.

28 See Balaban, ‘Wolczko nadworny faktor’, 3-6. 29° Materialty archiwalne wyjete glownie z Metryki Litewskiej od 1348 do 1607 roku, ed. A. Prochaska

°1 Tbid. 159. 32 Tbid. 161.

(Lwoéw, 1890), no. 53, p. 40. 3° Schiper, Studya nad stosunkami, 158. 83 Balaban, ‘Wolczko nadworny faktor’, 3 n. 2 and p. 8; Schiper had published his main thesis earlier in Agrarkolonisation der Juden in Polen (fiudische Fragen) (Vienna, 1908).

164 firgen Heyde affected only his colonizing activity, since Wolczko continued as leaseholder for both royal and municipal revenues. Both historians assumed that Wolczko founded several settlements (e.g. Wolczkow, Volkov, Wolczkowice), in addition to those listed in the documents concerning his activity.** They failed to take into consideration, however, that Wolczko was also a common Christian name in Ruthenia, and that place names were not necessarily associated with the founder of a village. In more recent research, this episode has received little consideration: only Maurycy Horn has touched on this theme in some of his publications, though without additional analysis.*°

Wolczko’s activity in the colonization movement put him in direct contact not only with the king and his senior officials but also with agricultural settlers. ‘The

first reference to him as the owner of a village appeared in 1423.°° Werbez (Werbiz), a village south-west of Lwow in the district of Szczyrzyc, belonged to Wolczko at the time, as he petitioned the king (ad instantes peticiones Iudet nostri Wolczko) for permission to change its legal status. Like other owners, he outranked the mayor. The text of the privilege granted by the king in response does not indicate the nature of the possessory title; presumably, though, such ownership was not hereditary, since no mention is made of Wolczko’s heirs, merely of the village’s legitimate successors (ville successoribus legittimis).

The privilege was intended to improve basic conditions for settlers in Red Ruthenia and thus to attract further settlement. It went on to state that, in the village, Polish, Ruthenian, or any other law would be replaced by ius teutonicum as had happened in Sroda in Wielkopolska (de ture Polonico, Ruthenico et quovis alo in Lus Theutunicum, quod Sredense dicitur). The stipulation was added that all regulations based on Polish law (omnia [ura Polontcaha) that conflicted with tus teutonicum

| were to be abolished, and that the king was freeing the Catholic farmers and other Catholic village residents (kmethones et omnes incolas wille predicte Katholicos) from the jurisdiction of the king’s officers. Such clauses were intended to create conditions favouring immigration without disturbing existing social and legal structures. °’ To this extent, the privilege resembles many others issued to noblemen in this period. Remarkably, though, in this document the landholder did not have jurisdiction over capital crimes, such as arson, manslaughter, and bodily harm. Instead, 34 Schiper, Studya nad stosunkami, 160-1; Balaban, ‘Wolczko nadworny faktor’, 8.

35 Horn, Zydzi na Rusi Czerwonej, 18 with n. 38, and p. 218; id., ‘Dzialalnosé gospodarcza Zydow polskich w sredniowieczu na tle rozwoju osadnictwa’, Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego,

126-7 (1983), 73-84 at 83. 36 AGZ 2 (Lwow, 1870), no. xlii, pp. 70-1. 37 Janeczek, ‘ “Exceptis schismaticis” ’, points out that similar phrases were used in the first stage of colonization in the Polish lands, before, in the second stage, whole villages with their existing popu-

lations were transferred to the new ‘German’ law. See also B. Zientara, ‘Spoleczenstwo polskie XIH—XV wieku’, in I. [hnatowicz et al., Spofeczenstwo polskie od X do XX wieku (Warsaw, 1988),

QI-1I7.

The Jewish Economic Elite 165 this authority was entrusted to the mayor, who in turn answered to Wolczko (or his legitimate successor in the village) or to the king and his High Court.*® Two years later Wolczko was granted another privilege, this time for a deserted

area (vastitas) named Werbeza in the same district.°”? Relying on Wolczko’s diligence, circumspection, and care (industria igitur circumspeccione et providencia), the king gave him a lifelong claim to all rights and revenues in this specifically cir-

cumscribed area, so that he might establish a new village there (villam novam erigere). The conditions of settlement were less concrete than in the first case: the law derived not from the zus teutonicum (German law) but from the ‘services and performances . . . of our domestic Ruthenian states’ (servicia et labores . . . Terrarum nostrarum Indigene Ruthenicalium). At any rate, the settlers were to have all the freedoms that Wolczko afforded them for as long as he held the future vil-

lage. He was authorized to recruit all the people he could, irrespective of class, gender, or place of origin (quantum posset hominibus cutuscunque status aut sexus condicionis et generis collocare). The idea appears to have been to attract Ruthenian farmers rather than immigrant settlers, since all officials and their representatives

were instructed not to prevent the future residents of the village from settling there. The revision of the lease terms does not appear to have been a fruitful exercise. In 1427, the king issued a new privilege for the village of Werbiz,*° which clearly

highlighted his proprietary claim (villa nostra Werbyarz). The village was once again granted ius teutonicum, and essential stipulations from 1423 were reiterated.

Although the rights and obligations of the settlers underwent no changes, Wolczko’s position in the village was revised in several important respects. He would no longer act as the authorized holder of the village, required to appoint a mayor, but was promised this office for both himself and his legitimate heirs;** the material equipment of his office was described in detail. Because of the perpetual danger of war, he was required to provide the king with a horse worth 3 sexagenae from his mayoral office, whenever a general summons was issued in the province.

As mayor, Wolczko now embodied both the lower and the superior forms of jurisdiction in the village. As had been the case in the first version of the privilege, village inhabitants could still appeal to the king; only the intermediate status of the village holder had been eliminated. The document thus resembled a standard lease 38 “Eximimus insuper, Absolvimus et perpetuo liberamus kmethones et omnes incolas wille predicte Katholicos dumptaxat ab omni iurisdiccione et potestate omnium regni Palatinorum . . . ut coram ipsis vel ipsorum aliquo pro causis magnis, quam parvis, puta furti, Incendy, Homicidy, et membrorum Mutilacionis seu quibusvis alys enormibus excessibus citati minime respondebunt Nec aliquas penas solvere tenebuntur, Sed Kmethones et Incole ville memorate coram Scoltheto suo, qui pro tempore fuerit, Scoltetus vero coram prenominato Wolczkone aut ville successoribus legittimis aut coram

nobis vel Iudice nostro Generali.’ AGZ 2, no. xlii, p. 70. 39 Tbid., no. xlvi, pp. 75-6. 40 Tbid, no. xlvii, pp. 76-8.

41 “Sibi Sculteciam in villa nostra Werbyarz in Terra Russie et in districtu Sczirecensi situata suisque heredibus et Successoribus legittimis . . .’, ibid. 77.

166 Jurgen Heyde document in that it clearly stipulated the holder’s material benefits in addition to his authority as mayor. In that same year, when Wolczko sold his office as mayor of the village of Karcz, also in the district of Szczyrzyc (could this be the villa nova mentioned in the privilege of 1425?), to Hanus Link of Szczyrzyc for 40 Polish marks, he included this privilege too.*” The renewed privilege for Werbiz from 1427 included a passage specifically addressing Wolczko as a Jewish holder or mayor. The king explained at length that

Wolczko, who as a leaseholder of the royal tolls had been interacting with Christians for a long time but still observed his reprehensible ritual (77 ritu suo execrabili se exercens), Should understand how to appreciate royal favour and convert to Catholicism.*° This arenga (introduction) might have been written in response to religious or

social problems. In terms of religion, the body of the privilege assumed that sus teutonicum would apply only to the Catholic farmers and villagers (kmethones et omnes incolas wille predicte Katholicos) who were to be recruited abroad or from among the immigrant population. Moreover, in the synod resolutions of 1420, the Catholic Church in Poland had again strictly separated Jews from Christians, since Christianity was still fairly new to the Poles (cum adhuc terra Polonica sit in corpore Christianitatis nova plantacio),** in addition to repeating that Jews were not allowed to lease toll stations or hold any public office.*? Religious doctrine was clearly at odds with political practice and perhaps the king, in his introduction, was trying to resolve the issue. On the other hand, the king might have been responding to issues raised by the agricultural settlers. Wolczko did indeed have problems with his peasant settlers, who refused to acknowledge his mayoral authority. In 1431 a royal arbitration committee was formed to examine the case.*° In the village of Werbiz a farmer and his

stepson had occupied fields and appropriated other goods and were trying to enforce their claim against Wolczko. Apparently they had challenged the legiti, macy of Wolczko’s status as mayor and supreme legal authority, since the arbitration committee examined the privilege presented by Wolczko and confirmed that it 42 AGZ 2, no. xlix, pp. 82-3. 43 “Et si liberalitatis nostre dexteram in domesticos fidei, quos continuus labor exagitat, libenter extendimus, decet nichilominus celsitudinem Regiam hos, quos perfide cecitatis error detinet, dono eracie sue conformare [s7c], ut liberalitatis dona Sibi impartiri congnoscentes [sc], eo facillius [szc] suis finem imponant erroribus, quo fecundius de micis, que cadunt de mensa liberalitatis Regie, refectos se

cognoscant. Noscat igitur tam instans etas, quam posteritas futurorum, qualiter Considerato et attento, quod Wolczko, Iudeus de Leopoli, Theoloneator [sic] noster, sui moras incolatus in medio cristi fidelium faciens et in ritu suo execrabili se exercens, quantum in eo suarum virium sufficiebat facultas, Ad mandata nostre Maiestatis pronum reddidit, Et ut eo procior redderetur Munificencie nostre dotibus velud [sic] quibusdam allectis a sue cecitatis errore revocari et reduci ad congnicionem [sic] sancta fidei katholice et eterni luminis claritatem valeat atque possit .. ..; 4GZ 2, no. xlvi, p. 77. 44 Statuty synodalne mielunsko-kaliskie Mikolaja Traby z r. 1420, ed. J. Fijalek and A. Vetulani

(Krakow, 1915-51), 92. 45 Tbid. 93. 46 AGZ 2, no. liti, pp. 88-9.

The Jewish Economic Elite 167 was valid. The committee decided to take from the farmers the fields and goods they had appropriated and declared that these belonged to Wolczko. The committee comprised some of the highest dignitaries of the kingdom, suggesting that the authorities were well aware of the fundamental significance of this dispute. One year later King Wladyslaw Jagieltlo purchased the village from Wolczko for 150 Polish marks and transferred it to the cathedral chapter of Lwow.*’

THE JEWISH ELITE IN RED RUTHENIA AFTER 1434: SCHACHNO OF LWOW

When Polish law was introduced in Red Ruthenia in 1434, new institutions emerged, as did new forms of documentation. The new Castle Courts heard mostly cases involving the aristocracy; they also served as courts of appeal against

rulings by the Jewish court, over which the Jewish judge (/udex Iudeorum) appointed by the mwojewodas presided. Another of their functions was that of a notary responsible for registering major transactions in the account books, even when the business partners were not aristocrats. Whereas most of the documents remaining from the earlier period are privileges and other normative sources, the Castle Court documents that are available from this point onwards shed light on legal and social practice. They demonstrate how the established standards were implemented in daily life, which conflicts resulted, and how these conflicts were resolved. However, not only conflicts are reflected in these sources, but also the

manifold contacts and ties between members of the Jewish and non-Jewish elites—business contacts, networks, and client relations, both among Jews and between Jews and non-Jews alike.

The historiography on this period contains little information about the Jewish economic elite in Red Ruthenia. In his studies, Maurycy Horn has provided a comprehensive account of the Jews in the service of the Crown, but offers few details about their position with respect to their non-Jewish or Jewish surroundings.*® Ignacy Schiper emphasized that Jews were important in trade on the Black Sea during the late Middle Ages and illustrated this with the example of the Jewish merchant Caleph from the Genoan colony of Caffa, who traded extensively with Poland around the mid-fifteenth century.*? Schachno of Lwow, who participated in a Black Sea trading company of Caleph de Caffa around 1440, figures in this context as well. At one point Schachno leased the toll of Lwow, where he succeeded Wolczko of Drohobycz (until 1444) and later

leased the toll in Grédek too (until 1445).°° Leasing the toll at the important trading centre of Lwow made him one of the most important representatives of the Jewish economic elite in his day. Most references to Jews in the Castle Court

47 Tbid., no. lv, pp. go—2. 48 Horn, ‘Zydzi i mieszczanie’, pts. 1, 2. 49 T. Schiper, Dzieje handlu zydowskiego na ziemiach polskich (Warsaw, 1937), 18-19; id., Studya nad

stosunkamt, 177. °° Horn, ‘Zydzii mieszczanie’, pt. 1, p. 11.

168 Jurgen Heyde documents of Lwow from 1440 (the earliest date from which they remain) until approximately 1454 concern this individual and will be examined in more detail below. I shall focus on two issues: first, contact networks and client relationships among Jews, and then personal ties between Jews and non-Jews. In addition to appearing before the Castle Court as plaintiffs or defendants, Jews served there as assistant judges.°' They were usually consulted when disputes involving Jews were heard and were recorded as present on the list of testimony from the date of the court hearing together with others (aristocrats as well as commoners) as credible assistant judges at the case before the court (/idedignis tudicio presenti residentibus).°* The majority of cases involving Jews were nonetheless judged without Jewish assistant judges; in three cases Jewish assistant judges are mentioned, without any Jews appearing as party to the proceedings.°* The Jewish assistant judges were primarily from Lwéw; only two were from elsewhere.**

Presumably, they were community leaders there, and at any rate except for one mention of the ‘schkolnyk’ (beadle), no community officials appear in the records.”? Schachno, who as a theloneator was certainly among the most economically significant individuals in Lwow’s Jewish community, very rarely served as an assistant judge (the first time was in 1447). This was not only because he was party to most

of the court cases himself but presumably also because being prominent in relations with the non-Jewish surroundings did not necessarily give him a special position within the community. The trial records, however, contain indications of his family and business ties, in which reciprocal guarantees were important. In 1440, for example, ‘S[ch]achno et Dona s[ach|nonis conthoralis, Iukub autem marchai, Iuda Smoel filius Slome, Iosko pravignus Iacobi, Moscho Schurza Sachnonis, Iacob gener Sachnonis, Caskel Papacz Leopolienses, Autem Premisliensis, Iosko Rubieschoniensis’ acted as guarantors for Caleph de Caffa and thus assumed the obligations resulting from the guarantee that Caleph had previously provided for

Schachno.°® The guarantors included several family members: Schachno’s (future?) wife (she is referred to in later documents as uxor) Dona, her brother

Moscho, and Schachno’s son-in-law Jacob. !

In 1446 Schachno acted as guarantor for David, a Lwow Jew who had leased the toll in Przemysl in 1445,°’ and his son to the wojewoda, Piotr Odrowaz de Sprowa.°® The previous year David had acted as guarantor for Schachno and had represented him as his representative (nuncius) at a court hearing.°” This representation before the court suggests that David was somewhat dependent on Schachno, as has been documented in another case, this time involving a Jew called Bogdan. >! AGZ 14 (Lwow, 1889), nos. 429, 1423-6, 1456, 1462, 1535, 1943, 2110, 2114, 2541, 2569, 1576,

2760, 2917, 3042, 3092, 3598. 52 Tbid., no. 2760. °3 Tbid., nos. 2569, 2576, 3042 °4 Thid., no. 1456: Hrubieszow; no. 2917: Hrubieszow and Lublin.

°° Tbid., no. 1943: Mandel schkolnyk. 56 Tbid., no. 142.

©” Tbid., no. 1456. °8 Tbid., no. 1750. °9 Tbid., nos. 1421, 1507.

The Jewish Economic Elite 169 In 1440 ‘Bogdan Iudeus’ appeared as Schachno’s envoy (nuncius ex parte Czhachnonis Iudei et Theloneatoris leopoliensis) in a case between Schachno and Caleph de Caffa. A few months later Bogdan was described in the court records as Schachno’s servant (servus ipsius Sachnonis).©° The term servus, however, did not denote personal bondage: in addition to representing his lord before the court,

Bogdan was independently defending his own interests there.®! Like David, Bogdan seems to have been a client of Schachno’s and performed services for him as well, at least for a while. In leasing tolls, Schachno relied on other individuals, and his non-Jewish surroundings acknowledged these clientele relationships. Natko of Lwow, who succeeded Schachno as the leaseholder of tolls in Lwow and Grodek, had especially extensive authority. King Kazimierz IV issued him a privilege that gave him sole jurisdiction over the persons in his service. In 1452, when Iaczko of Drohobycz (Natko’s brother®”) tried to sue Schaynko of Grédek at the Lwow Castle Court, Natko intervened, attempting to block the trial, arguing that Schaynko was his trusted servant (servitor ac familiarts). In his arenda agreement, the king determined that Natko and his familiares were above any jurisdiction (except for that of the king himself).°° Jews also had close business dealings and client relations with members of the aristocracy. Reciprocal contacts between officials in both groups were especially

important, as well as, though to a lesser degree, between other members of the aristocracy and the Jewish economic elite. In 1445 a dispute between the Jew Elias of Hrubieszow and Schachno of Lwow came before the Lwow Castle Court. In this disagreement over the amount of 30 sexagena grossorum, Elias was represented by Piotr Voda de Szczekocin, the Vice-

Chancellor of the Kingdom of Poland. On the first day of the hearing, the Vice-Chancellor presented the complaint in person. In the subsequent proceedings he delegated legal representation of Elias to a lawyer (Dobes/aus advocatus), before ultimately brokering a settlement between the two parties in the presence of Elias and Schachno.®4

Elias of Hrubieszow also had ties with Piotr OdrowaZ, the wojewoda of Lwow, as indicated by a guarantee that Odrowaz assumed for Elias that same year towards a — _Lwow burgher (Nicolao Vyeluniensi civi leopol). Should Elias be unable to repay the

amount of 7 sexagena grossorum,°? which would make the guarantee come due, Elias agreed to acknowledge Odrowaz’s tribunal as the superior court, as the

6° Tbid., no. 93, 146. 61 Tbid., nos. 429, 2289. 62 See ibid., no. 1843. 68 Tbid., no. 2704: ‘Eadem die Iaczko Tudeus de Drohobycz actor atemptabat terminum super Schaynkonem Iudeum de Grodek in secundo termino coram Georgio Iudice. Nathko Iudeus Theoloneator leopol. et Grodec. ac Zupparius Drohobycz. dixit: domine Iudex, nolite Schaynkonem iudicare, quia servitor et familiaris meus est et hic literas arende habetis, quia doms. Rex nulli dat me

nec servitores seu familiares meos iudicare.’ 64 Tbid., nos. 1409, 1417-19, 1425. 6° In 1496, the Polish Sejm established the currency 1 zloty = 30 groszy. If this division was valid at the time of Elias’s activity, the amount would equal 7 sexagena grossorum (60 groszy), thus 14 zloty [Eds.].

170 jurgen Heyde witnesses present confirmed.®°° In addition to being a business partner, the mojewoda thus wielded legal authority over Elias. Other court records indicate that wojewodas favoured members of the Jewish

elite as well, even when doing so required a hybrid or at least a very free interpretation of their legal jurisdiction. In 1445, for example, Piotr Odrowaz sued David, the Jewish toll leaseholder in Przemysl, who was accused of fencing for Jewish thieves and robbers (guia ipse serwavit Iudeos fures et latrones). In the introductory part of the record, he was already identified as belonging to the mojewoda’s clientele (ludeus eiusdem dom. Pallatini), and at the hearing David refused to give evidence. He claimed to be a servant of the mojsewoda (servus ipsius), and invoked his mercy. Piotr Odrowaz agreed to review the complaints on the basis of testimony from Jewish and Christian witnesses. Nicolaus de Stradow (the /udex

Iudeorum), however, found David guilty in the presence of one noble and five Jewish assistant judges but did not impose the demanded penalty of 5,000 silver marks.°’ In 1453 his successor Andrzej Odrowaz de Sprowa again supported Schachno of Lwow, who was summoned to the court in Luck, Volhynia, even though he held a laissez-passer that was supposed to protect him from litigation. When the Jew laczko from Luck, who had sued Schachno at the court there, came to Lwow, the wojewoda had his representative Bystram de Lopyennik—who in earlier years had often presided over the Castle Court—charge Iaczko with duplicity. Iaczko challenged the jurisdiction of the court, arguing that he would not receive a fair trial

there, since he came from Luck (and was therefore from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania). The plaintiff then had entered on the record that Iaczko had neither invoked a different court nor identified himself as a servant (servitor) of a toll lease-

holder or another patron. Bystram de Lopyennik then turned to the assistant judges and requested that they rule as the mojewoda wanted on Iaczko, who had violated the laissez-passer that he had provided to Schachno. After hearing two 66 “Si non exsolverit, extunc Elia Iudeus submisit se dom. Palto. in superius ius alias na vische prawo. Presentibus testibus superioribus’. A4GZ 14, no. 1426. °7 Tbid., no. 1456: ‘Petrus Odrowansch [/Dauid Iudeum Leopol. Theolonatorem premisl.}—1445-

o8-o8—in presencia nobil. Nicolai de Stradow Iudicis Iudeorum Leopol. nec non famosor. dom. Iacobi Antiqui Ponderatoris, Issaczconis Cameschnik, Ihuda, Moschey Leopolensium et Issaczconis et Mathataszy rubieschoniensitum Iudeorum et aliorum quamplurimorum. Mfs. doms. Petrus Odrowansch de Sprowa Pallts. et Capts. Terre Russie glis. actor proposuit contra Dauid Iudeum Leopol. ‘Theolonatorem Premisl. tamquam contra suum Iudeum, qui se recognovit esse Iudeus eiusdem dom. Pallatini, quia ipse serwavit Iudeos fures et latrones, qui super eundem Dauid furticinia exercebant et in isto ipsum Iudeum inculpavit alias obzalowal in quinque milia marcar. in dampnificacione terre Regalis. Qui Iudeus contra dom. Paltm. noluit respondere, sed se tradidit in misericordiam domini Pallti. dicens: ego nolo respondere contra dom. Palltm., quia sum serwus ipsius, sed me trado in misericordiam ipsius. Pallatinus memoriale posuit, quia paratus fuit se velle probaturum per Iudeos et Cristianos. Nos iudicio presidentes sentenciavimus ipsum esse contra dom. Pallatm. culpabilem.’

The Jewish Economic Elite 171 Christian and seven Jewish witnesses, the assistant judges ruled in favour of the wojewoda and handed Iaczko over to him.®®

Thus the highest dignitaries of the kingdom protected the Jewish economic elite, even in cases where this meant interpreting legal procedures very freely. Even the wojewoda, who was described in the first general privileges as the king’s repre-

sentative and acted as the highest judicial authority over the Jewish population, appears to have been an important partner of the Jewish elite in the first half of the fifteenth century. The Red Ruthenian mojewodas expanded their clientele to include influential Jewish merchants and toll leaseholders. Such clientage relations should not, however, be depicted as long-standing dependencies, even when the clients referred to themselves as servus. On the contrary, patron—client relationships appear to have been rather short-term arrangements. Very few documents reflecting such dependencies appear in the trial records, while the same individuals could appear entirely independently before the court on other occasions (e.g. Bogdan) or settle disputes in court, as did Schachno of Lwow in 1445, when the wojewoda sued him for breach of honour.®?

In addition to patrons representing the interests of their clients in court—or conversely the client observing a court hearing for the patron—guarantees could be another means of patronage, as that given by the wojewoda Piotr Odrowaz to Elias of Hrubieszow demonstrates. Guarantees also reflected closer business ties,

without entailing dependency, as the guarantee that the aristocrat Andreas Malechowsky provided to Schachno of Lwow in 1443 illustrates.’° Malechowsky 68 Tbid., no. 2760: ‘Quomodo mfus. doms. Andreas Odrowans de Sprowa Pallts. et Capts. terre Russie glis. per nobil. Bystram procuratorem suum alloquebatur super provid. Iaczkone Iudeum sub hac forma verborum: Domine Iudex et domini, ego propono super Iaczkonem Iudeum, quia ipse est deceptor meus alias sdraczcze, quia decepit et tradidit ludeum Schachnonem super ...... et tradendo

Iudeum in meo ...... michi salvum ... doms. Rex tenet salvum conductum cuilibet, cui [dede]rit Pallatinus, qui hoc est de dignitate Pal[latini] et ipse laczko salvum conductum infringit, tra[dendo] Iudeum Sachnonem. laczko respondit: [ego] sum Iudeus hic manens, sed hic ius non ha[beo, quia] sum Iudeus Luceoriensis. Et non excipiebat se ad al[iquod] ius, nisi dixit: sum Iudeus de Luczsca. Et Bystram procurator super eo posuit memoriale, quia non excipiebat se ad aliquod ius aliud nec ne asserebat servitorem theloneatoris nec alienis alter[ius]. Et stans Bystram requisivit dominos 1udicio sedentes dicens: domini qualliter] doms. Pallts. debet approbare super Iaczkonem, quia ipse infringit salvum conductum tamquam deceptor, quia tradidit 1udeum Sachnonem de obediencia et de salwo conductu. Et nos iudex cum dominis decrevimus mfo. Pallto. aprobare secundum consuetudinem iudeicam Christianis et [udeis. Qui doms. Pallts. coram iudicio nominavit duos Christianos Mikitham et alium Iohannem suburbanos Leopol. et Iudeus [szc] septem: primus Isaczko de cuius domo tradidit Iaczko Sachnonem, secundus Szloma, tercius Dauid, quartus alter Dauid, quintus Oszwa, sextus leremias, septimus Ioszko, qui omnes coram iudicio recognoverunt, qui scimus et secundum veritatem dei testificamus, quia Iaczko tradidit Sachnonem et satisfecerunt iuri secundum conswetudinem Iudaicam. Et nos audientes testimonium sufficiens Christianicum et Iudeicum adiucavimus dom. Pallatino pro lucro super Iaczkone et ex decreto iuris ipsum Iaczkonem de iure tradidimus ad manus tamquam iuste condemnatum iure et vinctum et super hoc Pallts. posuit memoriale, quod iudicium

recepit.’ 69 Tbid., no. 1423. 7 Tbid., no. 720.

172 furgen Heyde did business with Schachno and is mentioned as an assistant in several trial records, “' but he did not hold any local or supra-regional offices. Guarantees were in any case more of a formality that could be provided without

incurring any personal risk or a favour. These sureties were called in time and again, because the actual parties to the lawsuit were either unable to pay or did not appear in court. A trial from 1444 illustrates the procedure in such cases. Here, judgement was issued against Schachno as toll leaseholder for Grodek: he had ~ sentenced the aristocrat Stanislaus Lithwanus, a familiaris of Duke Svitrigaila (the son of the Grand Duke Vytautas), to pay a fine of go marks and had ordered that the 60-mark surety be forfeited; half this sum went to him and the other half to Svitrigaila as the feudal lord of the defendant. The starosta of Grédek

and the aristocrat Pyotraschowski had provided the surety. They asked the Lwow Castle Court to determine whether Schachno’s judgement was legally justi-

fied; the court nominated another nobleman, who went with Schachno and Stanislaus to Drohobycz to consider the facts of the case on site and ruled in Schachno’s favour. On this basis, Piotr Odrowaz, as the wojewoda personally in charge of the proceedings, confirmed the judgement and awarded Schachno both sums. ” In addition to using the non-Jewish court to settle disputes with non-Jews in the mid-fifteenth century, the Jewish economic elite in Red Ruthenia also brought cases between Jews before this court. Here they operated not as outsiders but as part of the local elite, in especially close contact with the non-Jewish dignitaries associated with their patronage networks, as well as with Jewish business and patronage circles. The Castle Court offered the Jewish economic elite a reliable basis for enforcing claims against non-Jews; noble judges also acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Jewish toll leaseholders where the interests of the nobility were concerned. The case of Iaczko of Luck illustrates that even an informal conflict settlement within the clientage context, such as in the case involving David (the toll leaseholder in Przemysl), was generally regarded as an alternative to a court of law. After all, the plaintiff had entered in the record that Iaczko had not described ‘l AGZ 14, no. 1923. 7° AGZ 14, no. 1204: ‘Schachno Iudeus Theloneator Grodec. actor astitit terminus contra nobil.

Stanislaum Lithwanum familiarem domini Ducis Swidrigalli et sentenciavit ipsum in suo lucro videlicet in nonaginta marcis sine dimida tercia marca et in dampno totidem. Item idem Schachno ipsum Stanislaum sentenciavit in sexaginia marcis vadii videlicet quaarum medietatem triginta marcas sibi Schachnoni succubit et triginta dom. Duci Switrigello triginta marcas, videlicet quando in presencia mfi. dom. Petri Odrowansch Palti. et. Capti. Leopol. et gsi. domini Herbordi Vxfri. Premisl. et aliorum nobilium dominorum [Bernhardus] Capitaneus Grodecensis et Pyotraschowski fuerunt invicem invadiati pro premissis sexaginta marcis. Et ibi domini pro tribunali presidentes ipsis unum nobilem probum testem alias poludnyka nomine Dobeslaum, qui in Drohobicz cum ipsis videlicet Schachnone et Stanislao ad videndum veritatem prestandum, cognoscendum equitavit. Et idem veniens ad dom. Palatini presenciam sibi Schachnoni iuvit. Et dum recognovit, nos pro tribunali sedentes Schachnoni pro lucro dedimus videlicet capitalis pecunie nonaginta marcas sine dimida tercia et dampni totidem et vadii sexaginta marcas. Memoriale et adiudicatum recepimus.’

The Jewish Economic Elite 173 himself as the servitor of a toll leaseholder or another patron (ne asserebat servitorem theloneatoris nec aliens alter|1us}).

Compared with the first third of the fifteenth century, contacts between the Jewish and non-Jewish elites were clearly more broadly based. The networks formed had the twofold effect of fostering contacts between officials and involving noblemen and Jewish merchants. The most important feature of this period consisted of the direct personal contacts within the functional elite (meaning that they were not contingent on being a member of a certain group). The trial records consistently reflected specific individuals and never referred anonymously to /udez. Nor does the Jewish community appear as a collective organization in the sources.

The tendency among the Jewish elite to use the new institutions to settle conflicts between Jews as well stabilized interactions between the Jewish and the non-Jewish elites. Jewish assistant judges were brought in for the proceedings as needed, although cases involving Jews might also be adjudicated with no Jewish assistant judges present, without the legitimacy of the procedure being challenged. All these aspects reinforced mutual trust in the new institution of the Castle Court and as a result stabilized the position of Jewish toll leaseholders, whose activities

continuously led to disputes.’? In addition to adapting circumstances in Red Ruthenia to Polish conditions, the transfer of Polish law and Polish institutions from 1434 onwards thus strengthened the operational capacity of the multidenominational elite of the province by offering new opportunities for conflict resolution. Translated from the German by Allison Brown

‘3 There were numerous conflicts regarding payments of the leaseholder to officials or other dignitaries, e.g. AGZ 14, nos. 1475, 1781, 1790 (against Stanislaus de Dubowyecz, familiaris of Duke Svitrigaila), 1563, 1566, 1567, 2006, 2007, 2015, 2021 (against the Archbishop of Lviv and the Bishop of Kamyanets in Podolia); sometimes quarrels that had turned violent were settled before the court: AGZ 14, no. 82.

Crossing the River How and Why the Fews of Krakow Settled in Kazimierz at the End of the Fifteenth Century HANNA ZAREMSKA AT THE turn of the fifteenth century the Jewish community of Krakow, the then capital of Poland, changed its location when its inhabitants left the centre of the city and settled in nearby Kazimierz. In the local setting this was clearly a significant event, which is often regarded as a hostile act directed against the Jewish inhabitants of the city, who had hitherto enjoyed special consideration and royal support. In addition, when viewed from the wider perspective of the monarchy’s policy towards the whole Jewish population of Poland, the removal of Jews from , Krakow, perceived by scholars as an ‘expulsion’, also marks a significant change because the Polish authorities had never before expelled their Jewish subjects. ‘This raises the question whether this event represented a local conflict, the culmination of a gradual process of deterioration in the situation of the Jews in Poland, or a reflection of broader trends in Polish society on the threshold of modern times. The Jewish relocation from Krak6w to Kazimierz did not escape the attention of Maciej Miechowita (1457-1523) and other sixteenth-century Polish chroniclers. Maciej Miechowita, historian, doctor, and long-time rector of the Krakow Academy, noted in his Cronica Polonorum under the year 1494: ‘King Olbracht moved the Jews from Krakow to Kazimierz under the wall near St Wawrzyniec (Lawrence) Church where once Kazimierz the Second, king of Poland, built colleges and lecture halls [i.e. a university], where they are living to this day.’* The editor summarized this text in the margin as follows: ‘Jews were expelled from Krakow’ (ludei Cracovia expulsi).* This is the earliest chronicle entry dealing with the change in the medieval location of the Jewish colony in Krakow and the sense is not clear. The statement that the king ‘transferred’ (transtulit) Jews of the capital ! M. Miechowita, Cronica Polonorum (Krakow, 1521), 349: ‘Rex Adalbertus iudeos de Cracovia in

Kazimiriam sub murum, iuxta ecclesiam sancti Laurentii, ubi cellae pro collegio et lectoriis per Kazimirum secundum regum Poloniae extructae fuerant, ubi in hanc die morantur, transtulit.’

2 Ibid.

Jews of Krakow in Kazimierz 175 city from Krakow to Kazimierz is not synonymous with saying that the Jews were ‘expelled’ (expuls:) from the city. In fact, this text has been interpreted in many different ways. Jan Komorowski, a contemporary of Miechowita in the Bernardine order, and

somewhat later chroniclers such as Marcin Kromer (1512-89) and Jan Bielski (1495-1575), who frequently borrowed from Muiechowita, make no mention of expulsion.? Kromer suggests that the relocation took place for the benefit of the Jews, while Bielski argues that they moved to Kazimierz of their own free will.* In a piece devoted to this event, Komorowski informed his readers that it should be regarded as yet another stage in the ‘wandering’ of the Jews in the capital; they had first lived on the site of ‘Collegium Maius and then next to St Stephen’s Church’.° Still, despite these accounts, modern historiography has been dominated by the view, forcefully propounded by Majer Balaban in his history of the Jews in Krakow and Kazimierz, that the king, wanting to remove the source of conflict and unrest in Krakow once and for all, heeded the request of the City Council and ordered the Jews expelled from the city.° A few years ago, Bozena Wyrozumska, in an article by entitled ‘Did Jan Olbracht Expel the Jews from Krakow?’, again raised the question of the circumstances surrounding the transfer of the capital’s Jewish community to nearby Kazimierz.’ However, even if a small number of Jews did remain in

the city, as she tried to demonstrate, this does not alter the fact that the Jewish quarter disappeared from Krakow for ever and that the Jewish communal authorities would be situated in Kazimierz for many centuries to come. This is the significant change which needs to be analysed and explained. The manner in which the Jews left Krakow has significance well beyond that of the event itself. If the Jews were really expelled in 1494 or 1495, this would have

been the first case of a Polish ruler adopting a practice common in the rest of Europe.® Expulsions, albeit temporary and motivated by the desire for quick 8 J. Komorowski, Memoriale Ordinis Fratrum Minorum a Fr. Joanne de Komorow comptilatum, in

X. Liske and A. Lorkiewicz (eds.), Monumenta Poloniae Historica, vi (Lwow, 1888), 285-6; M. Kromer, De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum hbri XXX. tertium ab authore diligenter recogniti (Basle, 1568), 430; J. Bielski, Kronika polska (Krakow, 1597), 482.

* See B. Weinryb, The Fews of Poland: A Social and Economic History of the Jewish Community in Poland from r1oo to 1800 (Philadelphia, 1973), 48. © Komorowski, Memoriale Ordinis Fratrum Minorum, 285-6: ‘quia Cracoviae prius, ubi modo collegium maius, tandem circa ecclesiam sancti Stephani Iudei commorati sunt’. 6 M. Balaban, Historja Zydow w Krakowie in na Kazimierzu, 1304-1868, 2 vols. (Krakow, 1931-6), i. 64.

7 Bozena Wyrozumska discusses this in her polemical article ‘Czy Jan Olbracht wygnal Zydow z Krakowa?’, Rocenitk Krakowski, 49 (1993), 5-11; for an English translation, see B. Wyrozumska, ‘Did King Jan Olbracht Banish the Jews from Krakow?’, in A. Paluch (ed.), The Fews in Poland, i (Krakow, 1992), 27-37.

® Emanuel Ringelblum thought that in 1483 the Jews were temporarily exiled from Warsaw. See Ringelblum, Zydzi w Warszawie: Od czaséw najdawniesszych do ich wygnania wr. 1526 (Warsaw, 1932),

146. This view is not justified: see the review of Ringelblum’s study by J. Karwasinska in Rocaniki Dziejow Spotecznych 1 Gospodarczych, 3 (1934). See also P. Fijatkowski, ‘Poczatki obecnosci Zyd6w na

176 Hanna Zaremska profits from the confiscation of Jewish property, were being ordered not only by western European monarchs but also by those in east-central Kurope—the Czech

and Hungarian kings and the Czech and Moravian municipal authorities.” The expulsion of the Jews from Krakow would also have meant that King Olbracht had abandoned his predecessors’ policy of strict fiscal control over his Jewish subjects. !°

As the sixteenth-century chronicler Jan Komorowski noted, the Jews’ move to Kazimierz was not their first such change of location in Krakow. In the 1460s, Krakow’s Jewish inhabitants left their quarter in and around St Anne Street and settled near St Stephen’s Church.'! This move resulted from the conflicts caused by their proximity to the university and plans to extend the university campus at the expense of Jewish-owned houses. ‘The conflict over the houses had started many years earlier, with tension between students and Jews leading to the bloody disorder in the city during 1407.'* Despite some success, the attempt to solve the problem by means of a conversion programme (first discussed by the university rector in his inaugural address of December 1401) came to nothing and the desire to clear the street of Jews prevailed.'? However, it was not until the disturbances

of 1464 following the crusader invasion that the synagogue and houses in the Mazowszu (do 1526 r.)’, Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 198 (2001), 176; id., ‘Zydzi w

miastach Mazowsza w XIII-XVIII w.’, in A. Stawarz (ed.), Mazomieckie miasteczka na przestrzent miekow: Wybrane zagadnienta rozwoju gospodarczego (Warsaw, 1999), 62; H. Wegrzynek, ‘Czy w 1483 r.

ksiaze Boleslaw V wygnal Zyd6w z Warszawy? Mozliwosci interpretacji dokumentow miejskich’, in P. Rosik and P. Wiszewski (eds.), Causa creand1: O pragmatyce Zrodta historycznego (Wroclaw, 2005), 513-17. ° ‘Temporary expulsions and confiscation of property affected Jews in the Czech territories in 1389 and in Hungary during the rule of Ludwig the Great. See F Graus, Struktur und Geschichte: Drei Volksaufstande 1m mittelalterlichen Prag (Sigmaringen, 1971), 52 nn.; A. Kubinyi, ‘A magyarorszagi zsidosag torténete a kozéepkorban’, Sopront Szemle, 49/1 (1996), 10; R. Patai, The Jews of Hungary: Fistory, Culture, Psychology (Detroit, 1996), 56-7. In 1430 the inhabitants of the colonies in Cheb were temporarily expelled, then in Brno and Olomouc. In the 1450s the Jewish quarters in Silesian cities lay deserted: cf. M. Brann, Geschichte der Juden in Schlesien, vi (Breslau, 1907); L. Oelsner, ‘Schlesiche Urkunden zur Geschichte der Juden im Mittelater’, Archiv ftir Kunde oésterreichischer Geschichtsquellen, 31 (1864), no. 39; J. Drabina, ‘Koscidt wobec Zydow na Sredniowiecznym Slasku’, Slaski Kwartalnik Historyczny, 1 (1989), 31-2. In 1501 the Jews left Pilsen, and in 1508 Budéjovice; see

A. Engel, ‘Die Ausweisung der Juden aus den koniglichen Stadten Mahrens und ihre Folgen’, Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft fur Geschichte der fuden in der Cechoslovakischen Republik (1930), 50-96.

10 JT. Lewin, ‘The Historical Background of the Status of Kalisz’, in id., The Jewish Community in Poland: Historical Essays (New York, 1985), 38-56. 11H. Zaremska, ‘Jewish Street (Platea Judeorum) in Cracow: The 14th—the First Half of the 15th Century’, Acta Poloniae Historica, 83 (2001), 27—56. 12 Ead., ‘Jan Dlugosz 0 tumulcie krakowskim w 1407 roku’, in C. Kuklo (ed.), Miedzy polityka a kultura (Warsaw, 1999), 155—67.

13 Z. Kozlowska-Budkowa, ‘Stanistawa ze Skarbimierza mowa o zlych studentach’, Biuletyn Bibhoteki Jagiellonskiey, 15/1-2 (1964), 11-21 (it also contains an edition of the text). See H. Zaremska, ‘Momarim yehudim bekrakov bame’ah hahamesh esreh’, Ga/-ed, 21 (2008), 15-27.

Jews of Krakow in Kazimierz 177 Jewish alley were destroyed, thus opening the way to relocation.'+ The effort to move Jews from one part of the city to another was made even easier because some of the Jews who lived in the alley held their houses on a two-generation lease (which meant that they could be held in one family for only up to two generations). This gave the king the opportunity to terminate their leases. Relocation to the new quarter in the vicinity of St Stephen’s Church did not happen overnight. From the beginning of the 1460s, city records contain details of

the transfer of property rights to houses in the vicus Iudaeorum by Jews to Christians and evidence of house purchases by Jews on Szpiglarska Street, where they went to live after leaving their previous quarter;'° they had already owned a synagogue there before 1469.'° For example, a certain Michal Baroch bought a house there in April 1468, concluding the transaction in the name of the whole community with a clause that, without the community’s consent, neither he nor

his descendants would ever sell the property back to the city. The insertion of clauses into purchase contracts banning the resale of properties to members of other religions was a tactic also used by the Krakow Christian authorities in order to protect their ownership rights, so it seems that the Jewish community was merely following their example. The Jews were thus ready to move even before their elders had signed an agree-

ment with Jan Dtugosz, Canon of the Krakow Cathedral Chapter, in January 1469.’ It stipulated an exchange of grounds, including two synagogues with nearby cemeteries, and communal buildings (referred to as the Jewish hospital) for

a house and plot on Szpiglarska Street near St Stephen’s Church, close to the already existing synagogue. In the agreement, the Jewish properties on St Anne Street were valued at 200 Prague groszy (worth 60 Polish groszy each), the same as the plot on Szpiglarska Street. That same year, in a transaction with Dtugosz, the university exchanged its property on Kanonicza Street—including a student hos-

tel there—for the ‘grounds behind the Artists’ College where once a synagogue stood’.'® The houses along St Anne Street had already been confiscated from the Jews and were designated for the expansion of the university. The grounds ceded by the Jews in the 1469 agreement now also became university property. Since the Jews already owned houses and a synagogue near St Stephen’s Church when they signed the agreement with Diugosz (they were even mentioned in the text), the if J. Diugosz, Roczniki, czyli Kroniki slawnego Krolestwa Polskiego, Book XII, trans. J. Mrukéwna (Warsaw, 2004), 87-8.

1S Zydzi w sredniomieczenym Krakowie: Wypisy Zrédlowe z ksiag miejskich krakowskich, ed. B. Wyrozumska (Krakow, 1995) (hereafter Wypisy), 490, 511, 509, 510. 18 Tbid. 506, 507, 512. The construction of the synagogue near Szczepanski Square was most prob-

ably connected with the destruction of the one on St Anne Street during the disturbances that occurred in Krakow in 1464 when, according to Diugosz, the crusaders attacked the Jews, destroyed both their houses and the synagogue, and plundered all their property. 1” Codex diplomaticus Studii Generalis Cracoviensis, it (Krakéw, 1879), no. CCxXiil. 18 Starodawne prawa polskiego pomniki, ii, ed. A. Z. Helcel (Krakéw, 1870), no. 3974.

178 Hanna Zaremska agreement itself should be seen as the final stage of a larger transaction, presumably concluded under pressure, to change the location of the Jewish quarter. Despite the relocation, the Jews continued to live within the city limits on the same basis as before. ‘There is no doubt that the move constituted a worsening of conditions that was in line with the general tendency to situate Jewish quarters as far as possible from city centres. In the vicinity of St Stephen’s Church, Jews lived in the area of Slawkowska Street next to the gate of the same name, on Szpiglarska Street (today’s St Thomas Street, from Slawkowska towards Szpitalna), and on St Mark’s Street, where the synagogue was located.!? It was from here that they moved to Kazimierz towards the end of the fifteenth century.

This second move affected the community in much more significant ways because, though Kazimierz formed an integral part of the Krakow conurbation, it was, constitutionally speaking, an autonomous urban centre with its own municipal authority. Thus, for the Jews coming from Krakow, the relocation created a whole new situation. While their legal status as subject to royal jurisdiction and the monarch’s direct authority did not change, their conditions of life did. The places where they lived—particularly in the economic realm—vwere from then on to be negotiated with the Kazimierz authorities. Kazimierz was by no means equal to Krakow, so the change of location of the Jewish quarter might seem to have been economically disadvantageous for Jews. On the other hand, as we shall see below, the agreement between Krakow’s City Council and the Jewish community in 1485 that forced the Jews to renounce their right to retail trading in the city did not apply in Kazimierz.”° The relocation of Jews to Kazimierz had to be approved by the monarch himself, though there is nothing to suggest that he issued any special edict in this matter.2! The decision to move Jews out of Krakéw must have been accompanied by

an order forbidding Jews to live in the municipal centre, since in 1504 King Zygmunt Stary issued a permission granting Rachel Fiszel and her descendants the right to live in Krakow.*” The issuing of a special permission of this kind sug-

gests that the Jews were now banned from living in the city of Krakow and required a special licence from the monarch in order to do so. Jewish community institutions seem to have been in place in Kazimierz by 1504.

The fallout from the events in 1500, when units of crusaders were approaching Krakow, 1s suggestive in this regard. The chronicler Jan Bielski describes these events as follows: “They attacked the Jews in Kazimierz, beat and killed many of them, destroying the clay gate to get at them. Krakow had been barred against 19 Wypisy, 873, nos. 506, 509, 512, 518, 521, 527, 538, 540, 660; 890, no. 528. 2° Kodeks dyplomatyczny miasta Krakowa, i, ed. F. Piekosifiski (Krak6éw, 1879), no. cxciii. 21 See below.

22 Rachel was a representative of a leading family in the Kraké6w Jewish community and a banker in

her own right, who lent money to the king. On this, see H. Zaremska, ‘Rachela Fiszel: Zydowska wdowa w Sredniowiecznym Krakowie’, Kwartalnik Histor Zydéw, 207 (2003), 381—-go. For her descendants, see Russko-evreiski arkhiv, 11, ed. S. A. Bershadsky (St Petersburg, 1903), no. 27.

Jews of Krakow in Kazimierz 179 them [i.e. the crusaders], so they walked along the ramparts through Stradom.’?° A report by Mikotaj Krakowita (d. 1528) tells us that ‘on the Wednesday following St Matthew, a horde of crusaders attacked the Jews and murdered at least twenty, injuring many more’.** Kazimierz burghers must also have participated in the attacks on 25 September 1500: the next year, the king imposed a bail on the councillors “because of the robbery perpetrated on the Jews by the crusaders’ (propter Tudaeorum per crucesignatos direptum).?° A tailor called Stanislaw Oblung and two city councillors, Jan Zuntag and Bartlomiej Onoczek, were also investigated before the wojewoda in a prosecution brought by Mojzesz Fiszel and Szlomo.”° The latter was almost certainly an elder of the Kazimierz community, since he appears in that role in an agreement regulating the Jewish meat trade and ritual slaughter concluded by the Jewish butchers with their Christian counterparts in the following year.*’ The 1502 agreement between Jewish and Christian butchers in Kazimierz

was based on an earlier agreement reached between the Krakow community authorities and the Krakow butchers’ guild in January 1494. However, though it contained mostly the same text, it included an important addition: Piotr Kmita, the mojewoda of Krakow, set the vadium (a security or deposit) at 30 grzywny (marks), to be paid by any party found to be in breach of the agreement. In addition to the representatives of the Christian butchers, the following persons were present at the endorsement of the new agreement: Jan Goraj, the painter who was the Jews’ Judge (Judex Iudaeorum), and two Jewish elders (Seniores Iudaeorum), Mojzesz Pudto and Salomon Szlomo, together with the Jewish butchers (cum Carnificibus Iudaeis). Mojzesz Pudio was certainly a new arrival from Krakow and Salomon appears to have been one of the elders of the Krakow Jewish community involved in the 1494 agreement between Krakow’s Jewish and Christian butch-

ers—evidence of the stability of the Jewish life in Krakow despite all the upheavals.

The signing of an agreement regulating ritual slaughter and the meat trade by the Kazimierz Jewish authorities may be regarded as the inaugural action of the new community and a symbol that the move from Krakow to Kazimierz was irrevocable. Although Kazimierz had already had a Jewish presence before Krakow’s Jews moved there, there was now a centralized community in place to regulate Jewish life. The new situation demanded new social and economic regulations, albeit based on earlier provisions, because the Jews, in this case the butchers, found themselves faced with new neighbours and new competitors. 23 Bielski, Kronika polska, 490. 24 Quoted from Balaban, Historja Zydéw w Krakowie ind Kazimterzu, 1. 99. *° |. Schiper, Studya nad stosunkami gospodarczymi Zydéw w Polsce podczas sredniowiecza (Lwo6w,

tg11), Materialy, I, 1, 2, p. 334. 26 Tbid. 27 Kodeks dyplomatyczny miasta Krakowa, i, no. cxciii. See also H. Zaremska, ‘Die Fleisch, das nicht

taug den Juden zu essen: Miasto wobec problemu zydowskiego uboju rytualnego’, in Civitas © villa: Muasto 1 wies w sredniomieczne; Europie Srodkowe] (Wroclaw and Prague, 2002), 299—308. :

180 Hanna Zaremska Our knowledge of the medieval Jewish settlement in Kazimierz is quite limited

but there is no doubt that it was small and almost certainly subordinate to the Krakow community.*® Before the sixteenth century there is no reference to it having any separate administration and no mention of any synagogues or its own cemetery. It probably was something akin to a branch community (Polish podkahatek). The presence of a Jewish population in Kazimierz as early as the end of the fourteenth century is confirmed by a reference to a Jewish Gate in that period.*? Names of five Jews living in Kazimierz appear in records from the same century.®° Sources of the fifteenth century mention Jews in Kazimierz*' and their contacts with the Jews in Krakow.” In 1420, two converts who became students at Krakow University came from Kazimierz,’ and a certain Michal, a butcher from Krakow, also came to live in Kazimierz after being baptized and marrying into a local Christian family.** It cannot be ruled out that these converts moved to Kazimierz following the 1407 riots

and that they may have felt safer in a smaller town away from their former coreligionists in Krakow. In the fifteenth century, Kazimierz became a place where some well-known Jews settled, among them a certain Izaak, a merchant with contacts in Russia and known to be in the king’s good graces,®° and Rabbi Jacob Polak.*° In 1485 and in 1488, some

years before the Jews from Krakow moved to Kazimierz, the sources already mention a Jewish bathhouse (balneum Iudaeorum) and a Jewish market (circulus Iudaeorum)—possibly a separate part of one of the other markets in Kazimierz.*’ The move from Krakow, therefore, led to the expansion of a pre-existing settlement already based in and around Szeroka Street—ironically, on the very spot where, a century and a half earlier, buildings began to be erected for King Kazimierz the 28 P. Swiszczowski, Miasto Kazimierz pod Krakowem (Krak6éw, 1981), 181-6; J. Wyrozumski, ‘Zydzi

w sredniowiecznym Krakowie’, Krzysztofory: Zeszyty Naukowe Muzeum Historycznego Muasta Krakowa, 15 (1988); B. Krasnowolski, ‘Rozw6j urbanistyczny 1 architektoniczny miasta zydowskiego na krakowskim Kazimierzu’, ibid. 8—13.

29 Considering the position of the other city gates, it must have been located somewhere near Miodowa and Szeroka streets, on the site that would subsequently become the Jewish quarter. Wyrozumsk1, ‘Zydzi w sredniowiecznym Krakowie’. 30 Tn a tax list of 1385—g0, Micze Jude and Andrzej of Solna Street appear as taxpayers who received payment in 1390 in connection with a royal trip to Vilna. See Wypisy, 91, 93, 95.

3! Tbid. 291, 395, 403. 32. Ibid. 296, 333, 334, 35533° Metryka Uniwersytetu Krakowskiego z lat 1400-1508, i, ed. A. Gasiorowski, V. Jurek, and

I. Skierska (Krakow, 2004), 103. 34 Ksiega przyjec do prawa miejskiego w Krakowie, 1392-1506, ed. K. Kaczmarczyk (Krakow, 1913), no. 1689; Wypisy, 247. 35° He might also have been a relative of the Krakow Jews Smile (Szmil) and Rabbi Jacob Polak. See Starodawne prawa polskiego pomntkt, 11, nos. 1703, 1865, 2160, 2217.

36 On Polak, see M. Balaban, ‘Jakob Polak, der Baal Challukim im Krakau und seine Zeit’, Monatsschrift fir Geschichte und Wissenschaft des fJudentums, 57 (1913), 59-73, 197-210; E. Reiner, ‘“Asher kol gdolei ha’arets hazot hen talmidav” R. Jakow Polak: rishon verosh lehokhme krakow’, in Kroke—Kazimierz—Krakow: mehkarim betoledot yehudet krakow (Tel Aviv, 2001), 43 nn. 37 Balaban, Historja Zydéw w Krakowie ina Kazimierzu, i. 72.

Fews of Krakow in Kazimierz 181 Great’s planned university, which would eventually end up in Krakow itself and lead to the displacement of the Jewish community there.?? Chance remarks in the Kazimierz city records confirm transfers of some plots to Jews in 1494. On 25 August 1494 an entry records that a certain Dorota Janowa donated to the Corpus Christi monastery her house and garden which was situated between ‘Neta’s house and the vicarage’ along the length and breadth of that which remained after ‘the settlement of the Jews’ (post locationem Iudeorum).*° Another record from the following year mentions a house on Sukiennikow Street (today Jozefa) being ‘allocated to Jews’ (que nunc Fudeis conventa est).*° Thus perhaps before August 1494 the king had

ordered some areas belonging to him to be transferred to Jews. The historian Boguslaw Krasnowolski has argued that from the very beginning the Jewish district in Kazimierz took up the entire complex of what is today Szeroka Street: its oldest

boundaries were formed by sections of the city walls to the north and east, the course of what is today Jozefa Street to the south, and the course of today’s Jakuba Street to the west.*4 The argument that the Jewish quarter was so extensive from its earliest days is further supported by a contemporary report of the chronicler Maciej Miechowita. He identified the then ‘new’ Jewish quarter with the area that King

Kazimierz the Great had designated for the university and argued that the fast growth of the quarter was because Jews ‘bought up a large part of .. . the town from the Kazimierz magistrate shortly afterwards’ .*”

Soon after the new inhabitants arrived, the first synagogue in the town was erected and plots along the Szeroka and Jozefa streets were developed with Gothic and Renaissance houses. Krasnowolski argues that the architectural layout of the new synagogue, built in the mid-sixteenth century, was a development of an earlier building, perhaps dating from the end of the fifteenth century, and was inspired by

synagogues in Worms and Prague. The Kazimierz Jewish cemetery, first mentioned in 1513, was located just beyond the city wall.*? Despite the fact that no royal decree pertaining to the move to Kazimierz has survived (and there 1s no mention that such a document ever existed in the Crown Register (Metrica Regnz),

where such documents would be expected), there is no doubt that by the early sixteenth century a sizeable Jewish quarter existed in Kazimierz, governed by

a Jewish local authority—a kahal. However, even though it was located in Kazimierz, an autonomous city, the community was frequently called ‘Krakow in later sources, probably due to the fact that Kazimierz formed part of the larger Krakow conurbation.** 38 Cf. Swiszczowski, Miasto Kazimierz pod Krakowem, 87-101; Krasnowolski, ‘Rozw6j urbanisty-

czny iarchitektoniczny’. 39° Wypisy, 889. 40 Tbid. 937. ** Krasnowolski, ‘Rozw6j urbanistyczny i architektoniczny’, 86.

42 Miechowita, Cronica Polonorum, 349. Cf. Swieszczowski, Miasto Kazimierz pod Krakowem, 87-101, 183; Krasnowolski, ‘Rozw06j urbanistyczny 1 architektoniczny’, 86. 483 Krasnowolski, ‘Rozw6j urbanistyczny i architektoniczny’, 86.

44 See e.g. the so-called “Taksa koronacyjna z 1507 roku’, in M. Horn, ‘Najstarszy rejestr osiedli zydowskich w Polsce z 1507 r.’, Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 91 (1974), 12-15.

182 Hanna Zaremska An unexpectedly large amount of information is available about the period of the relocation, from 1494 to 1500.*° Unfortunately, however, this information does not make up a cohesive whole. The chronological parameters of the Jews’ move to

Kazimierz are the signing of an agreement between the Jewish and Christian butchers of Krakow in February 1494 and the reference to the Kazimierz community elders in connection with the September 1500 court case following the invasion of the city by the crusaders. This period saw several events which are crucial to our understanding of the state of Jewish—Christian relations in Krakow—Kazimierz. These include a treasure found buried, presumably by Jews, in the university’s Collegium Matus, a fire that destroyed the Jewish quarter near

St Stephen’s Church, the arrest of leading members of Krakéw’s Jewish com-

munity, and the unrest in Kazimierz associated with the crusaders. , A contemporary report tells us that on 20 June 1494 a treasure trove consisting of money (florins), rings, and necklaces buried in three vessels was found in the wall of the Collegium Maius next to the Plato lecture hall.*° A later chronicler, Jan Bielski, describes it in the following way: This same year [1494] a treasure was found in the wall of the Collegium Maius, near the. . . lecture hall. It was assessed at 10,000 ducats. It appeared to be Jewish, as the Jews used to live there, and the reason why members of the College still celebrate St Ladislaus’s day is

: because that’s the day when they found this treasure. There were also red ducats with the inscription: ‘Mary, Queen of Hungary’. I gather she lived at the time of Emperor Sigismund. King Olbracht bought them back and Cardinal Fryderyk took the valuable rings and paid them only 50 dinars.*’

One week later, on the night of 29-30 June 1494, a fire broke out in Krakow. In their chronicles, Miechowita, Bielski, and Kromer relate it as part of the story of the Jewish move to Kazimierz. In Miechowita’s account, the fire—started by

the bakers near the New Gate—consumed the St Nicholas, Florianska, and Stawkowska gates, along with the buildings in adjacent streets, St Mark’s Church,

including its cloister and wall towers, and St Stephen’s Church. The fire also affected the Jews living nearby, who were robbed by soldiers. Miechowita claimed that the burghers of Krakow blamed the Jews for the disaster and, as a result, at

the Jews’ own request, Jan Olbracht removed them to Kazimierz. Following Miechowita, Marcin Kromer repeated the claim about the soldiers who ‘because of the raging fire, attacked and robbed the Jews’.*® Bielski, in turn, argued that ‘the damage the Jews suffered from the fire was not as great as from the robbers who 45 This is in contrast to the first ‘move’ of the Krakéw Jews from St Anne Street to Szpiglarska Street, where, as we have seen, royal documentation survives. Nevertheless, entries in contemporary chronicles do indicate royal involvement in the second move as well. See above, nn. 1, 3. 46 Notae de Universitate Studii Cracoviensis, ed. W. Ketrzynski, in Monumenta Poloniae Historica, v

(Lwow, 1888), 908. 47 Bielski, Kronika polska, 482. 48 Kromer, De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum libri.

Jews of Krakow in Kazimierz 183 plundered their homes; this is why they then moved from Krakow to Kazimierz, where they are now living’.** This fire broke out eight more times during the following week.°° The robberies

of the Jewish quarter during the time of the fires are confirmed in an entry in the Castle Court register dated to the beginning of 1495.°* It refers to a court action brought by the Jewish cantor Abraham against a certain Piotr from the village of Ulina Wieksza. Abraham accused Piotr of wounding him in the head and chest in his own house during the fire. Piotr was sentenced to pay 40 dinars for the serious injuries he caused and three more for the minor ones. Thus the grant of land in Kazimierz to the Jews must have taken place some

time between the fire on 30 June and the mention in the municipal records of 25 August 1494 of the Jews’ settlement in Kazimierz.°” No transactions involving Jews were entered in the Krakow city registers from the end of June to the middle of September. Perhaps also connected with the move to Kazimierz in some way 1s a series of entries in municipal records between 1493 and 1495 regarding some dramatic financial transactions on the part of Rachel Mojzeszowa. She failed to redeem items she had pawned with Christians to the total value of 2,500 florins and also negotiated loans secured on her house on Szpiglarska Street.°? We do not know the reasons why Rachel found herself in need of a large amount of cash precisely at that time, but, since most of her transactions took place after the fire, perhaps they _- were in some way connected with it as well as with the events which took place more or less a year later. In the summer of 1495 the Krakow captain (starosta) arrested a number of leading figures in the Krak6w Jewish community.®* These included Rabbi Jacob Polak,

who had come to Krakow from Germany or Bohemia, Mojzesz Fiszel, a certain Izrael (who was possibly married to Sara,°° and about whom we know that a year earlier he had run into troubles and spent several months in prison), Mark and his son Izrael, and Jakub Unger. Thus, among those imprisoned were presumably the elders of the Krakow community. The exact reason for their arrest 1s not known, but must have had something to do with a suspected crime against religion. It was certainly demanded by an inquisitorial court set up to deal with such issues. On 30 August 1495 the members of the court sent a letter to the king protesting the release of the Jews who were subject to their interrogations (Latin inquisitio).°© 49 Bielski, Kronika polska. Like other chroniclers, Bielski also noted the presence of some Turkish emissaries in the city who were scared away, and ‘having loaded their things onto their camels they

went away’. °° Tbid. 482. °l Starodawne prawa polskiego pomniki, i, nos. 4438, 4439. 52 Wypisy, 889.

53 Thid. 885 (4 June 1494), 891 (29 Sept. 1494), 892 (3 Oct. 1494), 893 (17 Oct. 1494), 896 (18 Oct. 1494), 897 (18 Oct. 1494), 899 (22 Oct. 1494), 906 (31 Dec. 1494), 911 (23 Jan. 1495), 932 (24 July

1495), 940 (25 Sept. 1495), 941 (20 Nov. 1495). °4 Thid. 939. °° Tbid. 856, 866. °6 J. Szujski, ‘Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce’, in Dziela Fozefa Szujskiego: Wydanie zbiorowe, ser. 2, vol. vili, Rozirzqsania 1 opowiadania, iv (Krakow, 1888), 121-2.

184 Hanna Zaremska They also informed the king of their intention to seek support from Cardinal Fryderyk Jagiellonczyk. The letter was delivered by Jan Turzon, but the king refused to receive him.°!

The inquisitorial court, whose members were Jan Baruchowski, the Krakow Cathedral Canon, and Jakub Boksica, Professor of Medicine and Theology at Krakow University, was presided over by Father Albert, the provincial Dominican father superior. Quite a lot is known about Father Albert.°® In 1468—9 he served as

the lector in the Dominican monastery of the Holy ‘Trinity in Krakow. He was educated at the Krakow Academy, where he was awarded a doctorate in theology in 1477. Following that, he served as provincial father superior of his order between

1478 and 1502. In his role as inquisitor he investigated Hussite suspects in the Kujawy region in 1480 and 1499. The range of his inquisitorial activities also included two heresy cases conducted by bishops in Wioctawek. Albert was a papal

inquisitor, whose role, once the Inquisition administration was established in Polish territories, was entrusted to Dominicans with the proper theological and legal education. The provincial father superior also had the right to nominate candidates to the post.°? Of Jakub Boksica (d. 1497), we know that he was also educated at Krakow’s university, obtaining a doctorate in arts and law, that he became

a Professor of Medicine and Theology, and from 1488 was a member of the Poznan Cathedral Chapter.©° In 1493 he was a member of a delegation ‘demanding’ that Fryderyk Jagiellonczyk become the Archbishop of Gniezno. It was probably at that time that he met ‘Kallimach’ (Filippo Buonaccorsi, ¢.1437—96), an Italian humanist, poet, politician, and royal adviser. ‘This meeting was, as we shall see, not without significance for the current discussion. On 19 September, at the king’s request, Jan Bok brought thirty Jews before the Krakow City Council.°? Among them were those who had earlier been released 57 Jan Turzon arrived in Krak6éw in 1464 from Lewocza (Lécse) in Hungary. Having studied in Padua in his youth, he was active in a mining company with Jakub Fugger after Mar. 1495. Krakow was the main city where the Turzon copper was stored, so Jan founded huge copper-smelting plants there. He was a Krakow city councillor and in 1478 became mayor. Cf. J. Ptasnik, ‘Przedsiebiorstwa kopalniane Krakowian i nawiazanie stosunkow z Fuggerami w poczatku XVI wieku’, in id., Obrazki z przesztosct Krakowa (Krakow, 1902), 67.

58 P. Kras, ‘Dominican Inquisitors in Medieval Poland’, in Praedicatores, inqusitores I: The Dominicans and Medieval Inquisition. Acts of the 1st International Seminar on the Dominicans and the Inquisition, Rome, 23-25 February 2002 (Rome, 2004), 295; id., Husyct w pietnastomiecznej Polsce (Lublin, 1998), 303-4.

| °° The wide influence that the brothers of the preaching order had at the royal court must have made it easier for them to obtain the brachium saeculare to support their activities. Dominican inquisitors fulfilled their functions as delegated papal judges and were formally independent of the bishop and local clergy in their juridical activities. Among the Polish inquisitors many were connected with the Holy Trinity cloister in Krakow. Following a request in 1432 by the general of the order, Eugenius IV permitted its provincial father superior to function as inquisitor; Kras, ‘Dominican Inquisitors in

Medieval Poland’, 265-81. 6° Polski stowntk biograficzny (Krakow, 1936), ii. 244—5. 61 J. Garbacik, Kallimach jako dyplomata i polityk (Warsaw, 1948); J. Olkiewicz, Kallimach doswiadczony (Warsaw, 1981); K. Baczkowski, Rady Kallimacha (Krakow, 1989).

Jews of Krakow in Kazimierz 185 from prison, as well as two beadles, one cantor, and two individuals from Silesia, who had probably come to Krakow after the expulsion of the Jews from Silesia in

1456 by the Czech monarch (who ruled Silesia at the time). These thirty Jews stood guarantee for each other, individually and collectively, that, under the penalty of 10,000 florins, they would not leave town and would appear before the king each time they were required to do so by a written summons or by a messenger. [he guarantee also included Rachel Mojzeszowa. The entry in the Krakow Council records on this matter ends: ‘Finally we [the council members] asked the aforementioned Jews why they had to stand the bail laid down in the royal letters, and whether someone had accused them of something; and they said that they did not know of anyone but that they had been forcibly arrested.’® It is not clear if this sentence refers to those who had been released or to all those brought in by the council. It seems the latter. Ten days later, on 29 September, Cardinal Fryderyk Jagiellonczyk joined the

fray and sent a letter to the king, his brother,°? from which it appears that the investigation, undertaken by the Inquisition court two months earlier, had been transferred by the king to a person described in Latin as ‘auditor’, in whom, according to the text, ‘the Jews found a patron’. The letter stated that due to unexpected circumstances (inopinatus casus), the auditor had not been familiarized with the case: ‘However, having received certain documents from the messenger containing the mission’s main points, he attempted to refute some of the charges and

to distort that which had been formulated and examined by them, that is, the members of the court, as if these judges were not his equals in legal knowledge and were less able and educated . . . [as if they] desired to condemn the Jews more than is acceptable in the laws of both God and man.’ Later in his letter, Cardinal Fryderyk suggested that the king had been wrongly informed about the case and that possibly the truth had been hidden from him: I am far from calling for injustice, but my heart bleeds for the harm against God, due to the insult to Christ’s name, because of the shameless audacity of the Jews. It is not enough for them to slander Christian blood and abduct Christian children, who are later regarded as saints, in order to torture them, they also commit even more heinous crimes with their dirty hands, about which I cannot write without pain, tears, or trepidation. And it has come to this, that the judges are prevented from continuing and concluding this case, even though they have already spent two months and no little effort on the investigation. Does it befit Your Royal Highness to value the voice of a foreigner [peregrinus|, his obduracy and pleading on behalf of the Jews, more than the authority and faith of so many men, or even my honour? Should we not be warned by the events that Heaven has brought upon us—the

blood-soaked Krakow fire, unprecedented floods, plagues, the capture of thousands, the devastation of the land, and the enemy at the gate? . . . Indeed I fear that Father Capistrano’s prophecy of yesteryear may be fulfilled! It befits us to send ardent prayers for order and peace to reign in Krakow.°°

64 Tbid. 122. , 6° Tbid.

62 Wypisy, 939. 63 Szujski, ‘Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce’.

186 Hanna Zaremska What is certain, then, is that the case was tried in an ecclesiastical court and that it concerned a causa fidei, though what exactly the Jews were accused of remains a mystery.°°

Although Fryderyk’s letter does not answer the question why the Jews were arrested, it does provide some important information: it gives details about the conflict between the king and Church authorities over the Jews and about the cardinal’s protest against the monarch’s intervention 1n a case being heard before an ecclesiastical court. While its content was more critical, the letter’s tone and argumentation (as well as its reference to John of Capistrano) are reminiscent of a different letter, one asserting the Church’s supremacy over the Jews and protesting the king’s ratification of Jewish privileges, sent many years earlier by Cardinal Olesnicki to King Kazimierz Jagiellonczyk.®’ The parallels with Olesnicki’s letter do not end here. An exemplum attributed to Piotr of Mitostaw, recorded in a collection of Eucharist sermons dating back to the second half of the fifteenth century, connects Capistrano’s visit to Krakow in 1454 with King Kazimierz’s thwarting of a plan to start an investigation into an accusation of Host profanation made against the Jews of the capital. Perhaps one can assume that Cardinal Fryderyk’s reference to Capistrano in his letter to the king means that the charges made against the Jews in 1495 were the same as those in 1454. If that is the case, then the cause of the mass arrest may have been a blood libel in one form or another. As a final note here, it is worth adding that the foreign ‘auditor’ mentioned in the letter, who was appointed to scrutinize the juridical competence of the court in

this case, was none other than Kallimach,°® the influential counsellor to Jan Olbracht. The policy which the Italian proposed to the king in these years was to curb the nobles, support the burghers, and deal justly with the Jews.® All three form the broader background to the events leading to the transfer of the Jews from Krakow to Kazimierz. In order to understand this, it is important to see the transfer as just one link, albeit a very important one, in a longer chain of events that concerned the largest Jewish population centre in Poland at the time.’° As we have seen, in 1485, ten 66 In medieval Europe inquisitorial courts were mainly involved in prosecuting heretics and were not really concerned directly with Jews except apostates and those who might have helped them. In the rare cases when the Inquisition did investigate Jews, the cases tended to be transferred to secular courts. See A. Foa, “The Witch and the Jew: Two Alikes that Were not the Same’, in J. Cohen (ed.), From Witness to Witchcraft: Fews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought (Wiesbaden, 1997), 361-74. ®7 See M. Dzieduszycki, Zbigniew Olesnicki, ti (Krakow, 1854), 431—5; for an analysis of this text, see

S. A. Cygielman, “The Basic Privileges of the Jews of Great Poland as Reflected in Polish Historiography’, Poli, 2 (1989), 8-48. 68 H. Zaremska, ‘Zmowa Slaskich Zydéw’, in Zrédto: Teksty o kulturze sredniowiecza ofiarowane Bronstawomt Geremkom1 (Warsaw, 2003), 135-65. 69 P. Estreicher, Rady Kalimachowe: Studia z dziejé6w kultury (Warsaw, 1949).

70 The importance of the transfer is emphasized by the fact that no similar measures were taken by the other towns of the kingdom where Jews lived.

Jews of Krakow in Kazimierz 187 years before the move to Kazimierz, an agreement was signed between the Krakow Jewish community and the city authorities according to which the Jews lost their right to conduct business in the city. This is the first known regulation affecting the Jews that was not signed by the king himself. But its introduction indicates that the document was presented to Jan Amor Tarnowski, the mojewoda—the royal

official with authority over the Jewish population. In the agreement, the Jews agreed not to conduct business and to relinquish all trading activities [in the city]. They are banned from taking any goods from merchants and from selling them to Christians. They may only sell articles pawned and not redeemed by Christians on condition that they can swear under oath that the given object has been forfeited; poor Jews, men and women, may also sell hats and collars they manufacture themselves. This they can do on weekdays in their own homes and on market and fair days in the streets and squares. ’!

Goods pawned and forfeited by Christians could be sold by Jews only in their own homes. This regulation continued in force, at least on paper, during the reign of King Zygmunt Stary (1507-47), who confirmed it on several occasions. Its purpose was to eliminate the Jews from trading and from acting as intermediaries between merchants. Ultimately, however, this agreement was not very effective because even after the Jews were moved to Kazimierz, the battle over their right to

trade in Krak6w continued—sometimes to the benefit of the Jews.’* King Zygmunt August (1548-72) pleaded with the Krakow patriciate not to obstruct Jewish efforts to rent houses and shops in the city. Stefan Batory allowed them to store their goods in the Krakow market square, and in 1597 Zygmunt [II con-

firmed their right to rent shops from Krakow burghers. It thus appears that throughout the sixteenth century, Jews were doing business in Krakow and renting storehouses and shops, while living in their quarter in neighbouring Kazimierz. The 1485 agreement (as well as that signed between Krakow’s Christian and Jewish butchers in January 1494)’° applied only to the area under the jurisdiction of the Krakow municipal council. However, regulations of a similar nature were

passed in other Polish towns during the 1480s. In 1483 the Mazovian Duke Bolestaw V promised the burghers of Old Warsaw not to impose new taxes and at the same time imposed limits on trading by foreigners (extrane1).'* The document was issued at the burghers’ request—they evidently paid 120 florins for it. It does not mention the Jews explicitly but some of its provisions certainly allude to them. Foreigners, that is those without municipal rights, were limited to selling wholesale, and could do retail business (selling cloth by the foot) only in certain places during fairs. The document mentions a privilege, revoked in 1482, that banned the " Kodeks dyplomatyczny miasta Krakowa, i, no. cxciii. 72 P. Kazusek, Zydzi w handlu Krakowa w potowie XVII wieku (Krakow, 2005), 28-9, 106-9. "3 See above, text at n. 27.

4 Przywileje krélewskiego miasta stotecznego Stare; Warszawy, 1376—1772, ed. T. Wierzbowski (Warsaw, 1913), 24, no. 21.

188 Hanna Zaremska outsiders from buying goods brought to the Warsaw market until the burghers and officials had completed their own purchases. The 1483 document also stipulated that these conditions were also to apply in the duke’s territories which were outside municipal jurisdiction,’° and so should be considered similar to a jurydyka.’°

The trend set by Warsaw and Krakéw was taken up by Lwow.” In 1484 Lwow obtained two documents from Kazimierz Jagiellonczyk, both issued on the same day during the session of the Sejm in Lublin, confirming its prawo skladu (part of the municipal monopoly on trade). In the first, the king ordered his officials to ensure that ‘all the merchants’ (omnes et singuli mercatores) store their goods in Lwéw’s bonded warehouses. The second, on the same subject, refers explicitly to ‘merchants, particularly Jews, Armenians, and others’.’® Another document, issued by the same ruler in the following year, returns to the question of Lwow’s bonded warehouses, which were to be respected by ‘nobles and plebeians’ (nobiles et plebei) residing in Rus who came to fairs in the town. ’”

In 1488, the then prince, Jan Olbracht, issued a decree in a trade dispute between Lwow’s burghers and its Jews. The matter concerned retail sales of woollen cloth. The monarch heard both sides and examined all the relevant documents and privileges. The Lwow councillors demanded that the Jews of the town

have the same limited rights as their co-religionists in other centres, such as Krakow, Poznan, and Sandomierz, where retail trade in woollen cloth was banned. But the Jews of Lwow maintained that the privileges granted them by Polish rulers should be respected. Jan Olbracht accepted the burghers’ demands and ruled that the Jews involved in retailing cloth in Lwow were to be bound by the same restric-

tions as those in Krakow and Sandomierz.®° The next year, King Kazimierz Jagiellonczyk confirmed his son’s decision in a separate document.®* The trend to 7 'T. Zarebska, ‘Wczesne etapy ksztaltowania placu przed Zamkiem Krolewskim’, in B. Wierzbicka (ed.), Historyczne place Warszawy: Urbanistyka, architektura, problemy konserwatorsktie (Warsaw, 1995),

27-32. 7 Emanuel Ringelblum mistakenly thought that this regulation was accompanied by an expulsion from the city (see above, n. 8). Pawel Fijatkowski (above, n. 8) was more careful (though somewhat

inconsistent in his argumentation), and accepted that perhaps the Jews were not quite exiled but migrated voluntarily—a phenomenon he associates with the founding of a colony in nearby Blonie. Henryk Samsonowicz connects the problems faced by the Jews of Warsaw in the 1480s with the devel-

opment of colonies in Pultusk, Czersk, and Ciechanow. See H. Samsonowicz, ‘Warszawa w handlu sredniowiecznym’, in Warszawa sredniomieczna (Warsaw, 1975), 27; H. Samsonowicz and M. Bogucka, Dzieje miast i mieszczanstwa w Polsce przedrozbiorowes (Warsaw, 1986), 158, and also above, n. 7.

™ Schiper, Studya, 195-205; 1. Charewiczowa, Handel sredniomiecznego Lwowa (Lwow, 1923), 26; P. Kutrzeba, ‘Handel polski ze Wschodem w wiekach Srednich’, Przeglad Polski, 38/148—50 (1903),

99; M. Horn, ‘Spolecznos¢ zydowska w wielonarodowosciowym Lwowie, 1356-1696’, Biuletyn Lydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 157 (1991). 7% Akta grodzkie i ziemskie z czasébw Rzeczypospolites Polskie; z archiwum tak zwanego bernardynskiego we Lwowie, 7, ed. O. Pietruski and X. Liske (Lwow, 1878), nos. Ixxii, Ixxiv.

2 Tbid., no. liv. 80 Tbid., no. lix.

81 Tbid., no. xciv. The number of similar documents extant indicates that this dispute dragged on for a very long time, with each side gaining and then losing the upper hand.

Jews of Krakow in Kazimierz 189 limit trade by ‘foreign merchants’, Jews, and, in the case of Lwow, Armenians and Ruthenians that had begun in the 1480s affected not just Warsaw and Krakow but also Sandomierz, Poznan, and Lwow itself.

When all the late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century documents limiting retail trade are taken together, they demonstrate a clear intent to include Jews in the wider category of ‘foreign merchants’, who were allowed to trade only during fairs and were excluded from the municipal monopoly on trade in the towns where they lived.®? As far as Jews themselves were concerned, this was the first time that their right to freedom of trade granted them by Boleslaw the Pious in 1264 and confirmed by subsequent monarchs began to be limited. Nonetheless, this campaign by the municipal authorities in Krakow, Lwow, Sandomierz, Poznan, and Warsaw was not aimed just against the Jews but formed part of a wider action to defend municipal business interests. The goal behind it was to exclude merchants described in the sources as ‘foreign’ (extranet) or ‘guests’ (hospites), who were subject neither to municipal jurisdiction nor to the town’s mercantile regulations. Classifying Jews as hospites or extranet was something new, which appeared

only in the second half of the fifteenth century. From this time, the royal Jews, previously referred to as [udei nostri (‘our Jews’), could also be called hospites or extranet. Vhese terms themselves were not new: in medieval Polish legal culture, they were used to refer to individuals not subject to municipal law.®? The innovation was putting Jews into those categories. ‘Thus, in 1496 and 1497, Seym proclamations included Jews for the first time in the category of extrane1.** The centres

whose authorities issued regulations restricting Jewish trade were on major regional and international trade routes. The fact that these policies appeared more or less contemporaneously suggests that they were part of a co-ordinated action by municipal authorities against competitors—an action which, in principle, enjoyed a certain degree of royal support. They also testify to the increasing perception in the towns that Jewish trade was a threat to their economic interests. This would seem to contradict the accepted view, widely found in the historical literature, that the Jews in medieval Poland were involved much more in credit activity than in trade. In addition, as mentioned above, these first wide-scale attempts by municipal authorities to interfere with the legal status of Jews in towns also acted to undermine the terms of the general privileges that had been granted by the Polish kings to Jews for centuries. They thus attest to wider struggles for power within the state. In fact, the burghers were not the only group to challenge the monarchy’s monopoly of authority over the Jews in the second half of the fifteenth century. 82 This included prohibitions on purchasing merchandise on the roads before reaching the fair. 83D. Glowka, ‘Hospites w polskich zroditach pisanych XII-XV wieku’, Kwartalnik Historu Kultury Materialne], 32 (1984), 371-87.

84 Volumina legum, i/1 (St Petersburg, 1859), 66: ‘Item de Iudeis quilibet hospes a suo capite florenum’; ibid. 1/2 (St Petersburg, 1859), 313.

190 Hanna Zaremska The first group to do so was the nobility, politically much stronger than the burghers, who in 1453 forced Kazimierz Jagiellonczyk to revoke the privileges he had previously given to the Jews.®° This was the beginning of a long process that would eventually culminate in the Sejm legislation of 1539, as a result of which Jews resident on private estates became subject only to the jurisdiction of their owners. Nearly a century earlier, in the mid-fifteenth century, Cardinal Zbigniew Olesnicki had also tried to undermine the royal monopoly over the Jews in the name of the Church.®® His efforts were not particularly successful. Royal authority over the Jews was not the only issue at stake here. In the fifteenth century, the question of trade within city limits also became part of a much more serious power struggle between the towns and the nobility.®’ The latter were engaged in a fundamental restructuring of their estates, which led to the establishment of manor farms (fo/warki1), whose production was initially intended for the internal market (this would change in the next century). This led to conflicts with towns, since the nobility were interested in securing the highest possible prices for

their agricultural produce, while paying the lowest possible prices for crafts produced in towns. In order to counter the nobility’s growing political supremacy, the towns needed better-organized production and trade, legal autonomy, albeit limited by the state’s fiscal policy, and quite extensive economic privileges. The nobility gained the upper hand in this struggle. ‘The 1423 Statute of Warta accelerated the process of bringing prices under the control of the mojewodas, thus helping neutralize the towns’ control over terms of trade for agricultural produce on the local market.°° Subsequent measures enacted by the nobility were aimed at standardizing weights and measures, preventing the ennoblement of burghers, and obtaining customs exemptions for the nobility. The end of the fifteenth century saw attempts to limit burghers’ rights to purchase landed estates.°? The process of making the towns subject to the nobility also led to the elimination of municipal autonomy in the realm of taxation: from the late fifteenth century on, the amounts of taxes paid by the towns to the state treasury were to be set by the Seym and local dietines (sejmzk1). 85 J. Heyde, ‘Szlachta polska a Zydzi u progu Rzeczpospolitej szlacheckiej, 1454-1539’, in Zydzi i

judaizm, 11 (Krakow, 2003), 13-24. . 86 See H. Zaremska, ‘Przywileje Kazimierza Wielkiego dla Zydow 1 ich sredniowieczne konfirmacje’, in M. Wodzinski and A. Michalowska-Mycielska (eds.), Matlgenstwo z rozsqadku? Zydzi w spoleczenstwie dawne Rzeczypospolite; (Wroclaw, 2007), 25-8. 8” A. Popiol-Szymanska, ‘Problematyka handlowa w polityce “miejskiey” szlachty w Polsce centralnej w XVi XVI wieku’, Roczniki Dziejow Spolecznych 1 Gospodarczych, 31 (1970), 46-57. 88 B. Ulanowski (ed.), ‘Kilka zabytkow ustawodawstwa krolewskiego 1 wojewodzinskiego w przedmiocie handlu i ustanawiania cen’, in Archiwum Komisji Prawnicze, i (Krakow, 1895), 145-68.

89 The 1493 and 1496 constitutions issued by the Sejm backed up these limits on landowning by burghers with the argument that in their case it did not entail military service. The same argument was used regarding credit obtained from Jews against real estate. In such cases, Jews who came into posses-

sion of estates through non-payment of debts were not required to participate in military action (pospolite ruszenie).

Jews of Krakow in Kazimierz 191 Unlike the numerous privileges granted to the nobility between the end of the fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth century, the statutes of Nieszawa, so important for the history of Polish Jews, and the preceding privileges of Cerekwica for Wielkopolska, and of Opoki for Malopolska, include deregulations directed against the burghers.?° Article 28 of the Cerekwica document cancelled all restrictions on trade introduced by towns, whether royal, ecclesiastical, or private, which meant that all merchandise put up for sale could be bought and sold by anyone (ad omnibus personis, cuiuscungue dominit). Vhis decision was also adopted in the Opoki regulations, and from there found its way into the statutes of Nieszawa. The text stated quite openly that towns were introducing such bans for their own benefit and to the disadvantage of others—pro utilitate sua et incommodo alorum. ‘The ‘others’ referred to here presumably meant the gentry and perhaps also merchants from private towns.

| Another article of the privilege of Cerekwica, which appeared in slightly altered form in the Nieszawa privilege for Wielkopolska, gave the mojemodas and starostas the duty of setting the taxes for all merchandise sold in towns. Both articles—the one cancelling restrictions on sales, the other giving the nobility control over taxes

and measures—were intended to lower the prices of goods in towns. In this they acted as supplements to the Statute of Warta, whose aim had been to protect the prices of agricultural produce sold by farmers in towns. It is worth noting that in practice these provisions do not appear to have been observed in these years. ‘They began to be implemented only later, when they contributed to the decline of the towns. In the fifteenth century, prices for merchandise continued to be set by the municipal authorities in consultation with the guilds and the merchants.”* The fifteenth-century developments were thus only a prelude in the history of the conflict between the towns and the nobility, which was of such fundamental importance for the future development of Poland’s agricultural economy and urban infrastructure. In consequence, the question of regulating Jewish retail trade cannot be understood without taking into consideration the tensions developing between the gentry and town at the time. Jewish trade restrictions formed part of the policies with which the towns were attempting to defend themselves in the looming conflict with the nobility. This, | would argue, is the broader context without which it is impossible to understand the issue under discussion here—the relocation of the Jewish community from Krakow to Kazimierz at the end of the fifteenth century. Whether or not the Jews were expelled from Krakow comes down to semantic

arguments about the meaning of the term ‘expulsion’. It is undoubtedly true that in 1494, as in the 1460s, the Jewish quarter of Krakow changed its location. ‘This time, however, the new location in Kazimierz was advantageous for the Jews because from their point of view they were no longer constrained by the ban on 9° P. Roman, Przywileje nieszawskie (Wroclaw, 1957), 176-8. 91 J. Prasnik, Masta i mieszczanstwo w dawnej Polsce (Krakow, 1934), 364.

192 Hanna Zaremska retail trade which the Krak6w municipality tried to force upon them. The monarch’s concession to the Krakow authorities, permitting them to remove the Jews from the city, was mitigated immediately by his agreement to allow Jews to hold stores and warehouses in the town centre and to continue their mercantile activities there. Along the way, some of the agreements aimed at reducing the threat of anti-Jewish attacks which had been reached while still the Jews were still in Krakow were strengthened as well. Allin all, the king lost nothing from the whole move.” Still, judging by the suppression of the case against the Jews before the Inquisition court, the ruler’s agreement to move them to Kazimierz appears to have been a compromise. He was defending something more than the presence of the Jews in Krakow itself. Instead, he was seeking to preserve his own authority over his Jewish subjects. The solution he opted for—banning the Jews’ permanent residence in Krakow and transferring the community to Kazimierz, an autonomous centre only a stone’s throw away— appears in hindsight to be a harbinger of strategies that were to develop in towns in the not too distant future, when new noble-owned neighbourhoods, the so-called jurydyk1, which were exempt from municipal jurisdiction, began to develop, and the towns themselves began to seek the privilege De non tolerandis Iudaets.°° Translated from the Polish by Theresa Prout *2 The amount of tax to the royal treasury imposed on the community did not change and continued to be roo florins annually; cf. Kodeks dyplomatyczny miasta Krakowa, ii, no. cccclvi (r. 1504). °3 J. Goldberg, ‘De non tolerandis Iudaeis: On the Introduction of the Anti-Jewish Laws into Polish

Cities and the Struggle against Them’, in S. Yeivin (ed.), Studies in Jewish History Presented to Professor Raphael Mahler on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Merhavia, 1974), 39—52.

The Rubinkowski Family Converts in Kazimierz ADAM KAZMIERCZYK RESEARCH INTO the history of the Polish Jews of early modern times cannot ignore the small but significant group of converts who, for a wide variety of reasons, abandoned Judaism. The problem of converts was studied in the past for reasons which went beyond scholarship. Those interested in the role of converts in the history of Poland—for example Teodor Jeske-Choinski, Ludwik Korwin, or Stanislaw Didier—were known for their anti-Jewish or antisemitic views. On the other hand, scholars of Jewish origin treated those converts as traitors to the Jewish people. Mateusz Mieses called them ‘people of weak character [or] ambitious individuals yearning for careers’; in his opinion ‘they were indolent people for whom metaphysical beliefs, faith, tradition, integrity, and self-sacrificing perseverance were of secondary importance’.” Such extreme views were not conducive to more objective scholarship that would allow us to ascertain the scale of conversions, the reasons for abandoning one’s religion—and therefore one’s milieu and lifestyle—and the subsequent fortunes of the new Christians, especially their integration in new surroundings (e.g. the question of social mobility).* The problem is compounded by the paucity of source materials from that period, since—by contrast with Germany, for ex-

ample—converts in Poland did not leave written testimonies or biographies describing their path to the new religion.* 'T. Jeske-Choinski, Neofici polscy: Materiaty historyczne (Warsaw, 1904); S. Didier, Rola neofitow w dziejach Polski (Warsaw, 1935); L. Korwin (L. Piotrowski), Sz/achta neoficka, 1-11 (Krakow, 1939). 2M. Mieses, Polacy chrzescyante pochodzenia £ydowskiego (Warsaw, 1938), p. 1X.

° There exist, however, more balanced works: J. Goldberg’s essay remains to this day the most significant contribution to the subject of conversion in the Republic, ‘Zydowscy konwertyci w spoleczenstwie staropolskim’, in Anna Izydorezyk and Andrzej Wyczanski (eds.), Spoleczenstwo staropolskie: Studia 1 szkice, 4 (Warsaw, 1986), 195-247. M. Teter has recently published an article on the same subject, ‘Jewish Conversion to Catholicism in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth of the

Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Jewish History, 17 (2003), 257-83; of lesser importance is K. Modelski’s ‘Conversion as a Problem of Rational Choice’, in A. Teller (ed.), Studies in the History of Jews in Old Poland in Honor of Facob Goldberg, Scripta Hierosolymitana 38 (Jerusalem, 1998), 147-60. 4 E. Carlebach, Divided Souls: Converts from Judaism in Germany, 1500-1750 (New Haven, 2001),

88 ff. Characteristically, one surviving autobiography published by a convert from the area of the

194 Adam Kazmierczyk The Rubinkowski family from Kazimierz near Krakow offers a unique opportunity for at least a partial reconstruction of the integration process within the Christian majority in the seventeenth century. The character of Hieronim Rubinkowski was popularized in the standard work on the Jews of Krakow by Majer Balaban, who, incidentally, did not conceal his dislike of converts. His unambiguously negative portrayal—Hieronim Rubinkowski is seen as being rejected by both communities—surely requires verification. Balaban relied on a small number of sources; others, such as church documents, were not available to him, but even so his opinions and conclusions should be approached with care as quite biased.° The founder of the family was Hieronim Rubinkowski, born as Jakub Paltiel Rubinowicz, probably around 1620 or in the early 1620s. Sources refer to him also as Paltiel Rubin, Mr Rubin, or Rubinowicz. It is possible that Rubin Pultinek, mentioned in 1652 as doing business with the well-known Krakow merchant Stanislaw Krauz, is the same person.® His parents were Rubin Samuelowicz Ziotnik and Pesla, later (after Jakub’s conversion) referred to as Ewa Rubinowa. He

also had a younger brother, Smol (Samuel) Rubin. Jakub Paltiel, later Hieronim Rubinkowski, became active in Kazimierz in the 1640s. His future son-in-law, Wojciech Zawada, said after the death of his son Jan Rubinkowski that he had known Hieronim since 1644.‘ Little information has survived from the earlier period. A few notes in the files of a lower provincial court refer to Jakub Paltiel and his father Rubin. In 1645 there is an examination (obdukcja) of Feliks Lewkowicz, who was hit by a stone while trying to resolve an argument between Mojsi Lewkowicz and Rubin Ztotnik and his son Paltiel. They argued about the rights to a stone house (kamuenica), or rather an apartment in it belonging to Lewkowicz. The case must have ended positively for the Rubinowicz family because Rubin Zlotnik released Feliks Lewkowicz from all the claims and from the court trial concerning the apartment.® In 1647 the Republic describes a Protestant from German Danzig. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the Catholic Church did not make use of converts to any large extent in its missionary activity among Jews. On the

autobiography of Philip Ludwig Zenndorf, see W poszukiwaniu zydowskich kryptochrzescyan: Dezienniki ewangelickich misjonarzy 2 ich wedrowek po Rzeczypospoltes w latach 1730-1747, ed. J. Doktor (Warsaw, 1999), 110. 5 M. Balaban, Historja Zydéw w Krakowie ina Kazimierzu, 1304-1868, 2 vols. (Krakow, 1931-6), ii.

26-8, 37-9, 516. Balaban also was not aware that the Jakub Paltiel he knew about later became Hieronim Rubinkowski; ibid. 1. 295, 316.

© In 1651 he appears together with his brother as Jakub and Smol Paltiel, Archiwum Panstwowe, Krakow (hereafter AP Kr), K-97, p. 88, or as Rubin and Smol alias Paltiel, ibid. 92; in 1652 as Paltiel Rubin, ibid. 242, 265; as Rubinkowski formerly Jakub Paltiel Ruben in AP Kr, Castrensia Cracoviensia

Relationes (CCR) 85, p. 257; AP Kr, CCR 80, p. 1066, beadle’s report of sequestration of [OU [membrany| signed by Stanislaw Krauz on behalf of Samuel Szmuklerz regarding his claim against Stanislaw Krauz concerning Rubm Pultinek and his brother, 15 Jan. 1652. 7 AP Kr, K-109 (protocol), 1691, p. 1068, W. Zawada’s testimony. 8 AP Kr, Varia 12, 17 Nov. 1645, pp. 864—5; ibid., 9 Aug. 1646, p. roro.

The Rubinkowski Family 195 Rubinowicz family took over a debt owed to the surgeon Pawel Pakosz by Samuel Jakubowicz and his wife Hejdle that was secured by their house. Having paid a further 525 zlotys, they were allowed to stay in the house until they made the full payment of 1,525 zlotys.’ In 1648 Paltiel Rubinowicz registered an extract from the Jewish records in which they, together with his father and their wives Pesla and Keyle, ceded rights to the part of the building belonging to Zelik Lewkowicz.'°

Jakub’s father probably died shortly afterwards, but in the beginning of the 1650s he himself appears in the documents together with his brother Smol (as Jakub and Smol Rubinowie alias Paltiel). As later sources confirm, they were certainly conducting business together.'! The two brothers did not follow in the footsteps of their father but engaged in propinacja (the production and sale of alcohol). In the 1640s, Jakub together with Aaron Kregiel leased an inn in Kazimierz’s

Jewish town; in a document of 1648 he is described as an ‘elder’ of the Jewish innkeepers.!” In 1655 Jakub had a lease on two mills and an orchard belonging to the Krakow starostwo (district) (it is not known for how long he had held it). He also farmed the tax on timber floated to the Jewish town on the Vistula (‘Judaei lignorum Istula Cracoviam defluitantium exdecimatorum . . . administratoris’). Jakub’s buildings and property were burned and destroyed in that year as a result of the siege of Krakow and Kazimierz by the Swedish army (5 November 1655). The four copper vats in his garden listed among the losses, which included thirteen cows, thirty hogs, timber worth over 1,000 zlotys, as well as grain, malt, and alcohol, suggest that he must have been distilling alcohol at the time.*? It is clear from these sources that Jakub was a prosperous and active man, prob-

ably one of the newly enriched group of Kazimierz Jews, because neither he nor his father is mentioned among Jewish house owners in the documents known from an earlier period. He certainly did not belong to the governing elite of the community, which in the 1640s consisted of just a small group of individuals. Jakub’s influence should not be underestimated, however, because the very fact of leasing the Krakow mills indicates his prosperity as well as his good relations with the sz/achta (nobility) and in particular with the starosta (royal governor) and his officials. His position in Jewish society could not have been negligible either: he was related to the well-known merchant family of Kozuchowski. Both his wives (who were sisters) were related to Dawid Teodor Kozuchowsk1, a community elder in 1632-3 and in 1646, and in the other years one of the bont viri (tovim).'* Dawid’s widow (he died in 1648) mediated between Rubinkowski and his Jewish wife Sara 9 Tbid., 16 Apr. 1647, pp. 1175-8; 10 Jan. 1648, p. 1379. This tenement house was situated between the tenement houses belonging to Lewek Markowicz and Lewek Pos.

° Ibid., 24 Jan. 1648, pp. 1385-6. ! AP Kr, K-97, pp. 88, 92, ot. 12 Balaban, Historja Zydém, i. 295, 316; AP Kr, Varia 12, 10 Jan. 1648, p. 1379. 13 AP Kr, CCR 85; according to the beadle’s testimony of 1658, one mill was located in the vicinity

of the Bernardine monastery in Stradom, and the other behind the Wieliczka Gate (Kazimierz town);

pp. 257-9. '4 Balaban, Historja Zydom, 545—6.

196 Adam Kazmierczyk (Serla) during the divorce. Samuel Kozuchowski and his wife Rachel’? were the parents of Kejla (Khele) and Sara. In another document, however (the so-called ‘kwitacja’ in which Serla confirmed receipt of her dowry), she signed herself as Salomon’s daughter.'® Jakub Paltiel’s conversion may be directly connected to the circumstances of the Swedish occupation of Krakow and Kazimierz. It is quite possible that there is a kernel of truth in Balaban’s biased opinion when he wrote: “The times of Swedish invasion and occupation brought to the surface various individuals who on the return of the Polish rule wanted to shield themselves from deserved punishment by accepting baptism.’'’ It is surprising that Jakub leased a brewery (which stood adjacent to his house) from a Kazimierz councillor, Szymon Winiarski, shortly after the town was conquered by Swedes, on 6 November 1655. Since Winiarski left for Silesia and the caretaker of his house was arrested by the Swedes, the ‘Jew Rubin’!® became the sole tenant of the house, the brewery, and other buildings on

the lot. As a leaseholder of the mills belonging to the starostwo in Krakow, Rubinowicz had already lived outside the Jewish town and had no intention of returning to live among his fellow Jews.'? This did not mean, however, that he gave up his property in the Jewish quarter, where he continued to run an inn. It is highly likely that permanent residence in the Christian town—as well as brewing beer, distilling vodka, and selling them—vwas possible only under Swedish protection. Such activities were in obvious violation of the city’s regulations that forbade per-

manent Jewish residence in the Christian town, let alone economic activity (according to Zygmunt August’s privileges of 1566).7° Rubinowicz’s good relations with the Swedes are confirmed by testimonies in a later court case (1657—60) against Szymon Winiarski concerning leasing claims.*? 15 AP Kr, K-41, 2 Apr. 1659, pp. 229-31, exchange of receipts between H. Rubinkowski and Mojzesz son of Jakub, a Lubowla Jew, second husband of Sara Kozuchowska; AP Kr, K-99, pp. 831-2; pp. 209—10, testimony of the councillors Marcin Golinski and Mikolaj Lutecki on the subject of ‘old’ Kozuchowska’s appeal to Rubinkowski concerning Sara’s divorce. 16 AP Kr, K-41, 23 Nov. 1657, pp. 1-2; the document in the council files is signed by ‘Serla, daugh-

ter of Rebbe Salomon of Blessed Memory, Israel Samuel son of Israel Jozef of Blessed Memory, Michal son of Rebbe Jozef of Blessed Memory, Kozuchowski, Saimer Jewish judge, Izrael son of Szymon Levit of Blessed Memory, Cantor and rabbi of Szpitalna Synagogue, Samuel Zanwel, heder

teacher, Abraam son of Rebbe Lemel Levit Cantor of Wysoka Synagogue, Salomon son of Kozuchowski Toderes, Gitla daughter of Mendel old Kozuchowskv’. 17 Balaban, Historja Zydém, ii. 26. 18 AP Kr, K-99, pp. 46-56; official record of Rubinkowski’s and Winiarski’s mutual grievances. 19 In Mar. 1657 he leased his part of the house belonging to the heirs of Lewek Markowicz to Feliks Lewkowicz; AP Kr, K-41, p. 1319.

20 Characteristically, the burghers of Kazimierz quoted this document at the inspection of royal estates in the Krakéw wojewédztwo; see Lustracja Wojewodztwa Krakowskiego, 1659-1664, pt. 2, ed. Alicja Falniowska-Gradowska and Franciszek Lesniak (Warsaw, 2005), 354—5. 21 A separate list of extracts from the Krakow council documents and those of the Governor of the

Krakow Royal Estates can be found in the archive of the Corpus Christi monastery in Kazimierz, MSS II-C-a2t1, as well as the files of the town of Kazimierz: AP Kr, K-99, pp. 46-56, 316, 322, 802—10,

The Rubinkowski Family 197 The opposition of Kazimierz innkeepers (the most important among the rather

poor section of its town people) and of the Mayor, Bartlomiej Piancy, to Rubinowicz’s activities was dismissed on explicit orders from the Swedish headquarters.*” According to the propinacja accounts, the Jew Rubin had brewed beer since December 1655 (only after the prohibition by the mayor and innkeepers’ guild was cancelled) until Kazimierz was returned to Polish rule—the last beer was drawn on 12 September 1657.*° In view of further developments it seems unlikely

that his actions during the Swedish occupation were harmful to the people of Kazimierz and we have no knowledge of his behaviour towards the Kazimierz Jews.

It is difficult to ascertain whether Jakub Rubinowicz’s conversion was a matter of conscious choice or happened under duress, for example as a result of a herem (ban) imposed by the Jewish elders. Yet, judging by the fact that for a number of years before his baptism he lived outside the Jewish quarter and conducted business mainly with Christians, and also by his later conduct and Christian devotion (see below), the first alternative seems more likely. It is significant that Rubinowicz’s decision to convert to Catholicism coincided with the return of Polish rule to Kazimierz. It must have become difficult, if not impossible, for him to continue living between the two worlds. According to later documents, Rubinowicz declared his willingness to convert to King Jan Kazimierz (who entered Krakow on 3 September and left shortly afterwards). In any case, on 21 September Winiarski and Jakub Paltiel (still a Jew) met at the arbitration court. (Winarski had returned to Kazimierz after 12 September and evicted Rubinowicz from his house.) Since Winiarski reneged on a previous agreement, Jakub summoned him to the city council court to demand his rights. On 29 October he is described by the court decree as Hieronim Rubinkowski, citizen of Kazimierz and a convert.** Therefore the baptism must have taken place some time between these two dates. Unfortunately, no baptismal records of those baptized at that time in the Corpus Christi parish have been preserved, but according to the beadle’s deposition (in a case concerning an injunction against his children) the ceremony took place on Sunday, 21 October.*° He could have been baptized in another church, but traditionally every baptism of a Jew or the so-called heretic’s reconciliation was 818-26, 833-9. One of the witnesses, a one-time servant to Rubinkowski and later to Winiarski, claimed: ‘He was giving something to the Swedish commandant, but I don’t know why, because he never told anyone, though he was always staying with the commandant, but I don’t know why he was

doing it’; K-99, p. 324. This is even clearer in the words of Winiarski: ‘seeing the great favour Mr Rubinkowski enjoyed with the Swedes, he had to leave him alone’; ibid. 46—56. 22 AP Kr, K-99, p. 47.

25 AP Kr, K-99, pp. 818-26; K-729, liquor tax collector’s register of 1657; K-819, register of con-

tributions for the Swedish army, 1656-7. 24 Corpus Christi Archive, I]-C-21, pp. 1-3, 37. 22 AP Kr, CCR 85, account of 3 July 1658, p. 58.

198 Adam Kazmuerczyk | a festive occasion and in the case of a person well known in Kazimierz it is even more likely that such a festivity took place there.*° We do not know the godparents’ names, but the name Hieronim—rather unusual

| for a convert—might suggest that the godfather was Hieronim Wierzbowski, the Brzes¢ Kujawski wojewoda and, more importantly, the Wielkorzadca Krakowski (Governor of the Krakow Royal Estates, whose jurisdiction included the town of Kazimierz). His later support, in particular for Rubinkowski’s efforts to become a Kazimierz councillor, seems to point to this possibility (Stefan Ranotowicz referred clearly to Hieronim’s godparents as coming from among the senators).*’ Jakub’s

surname clearly comes from the name Rubin under which he was known in Christian society.

Rubinkowski’s conversion meant a break with his family and social environment.*® His wife, mother, and brother remained Jewish and kept the under-age children from his first marriage. Hieronim dealt swiftly with the matter of divorce from Sara. She confirmed the return of her dowry as early as November 1657,7° even though later they had a protracted argument because Rubinkowski refused to allow her to take the clothes of his first wife. It seems that he had no intention of trying to make her follow his example or to make 1t difficult for her to enter a new marriage. At the time of their first agreement he even presented her with a valuable skirt.°° Finally, on 2 April 1659, Rubinkowski and Sara’s new husband, Mojzesz, son of Jakub Wolfowicz, a Jew from Lubowla, abandoned claims against each other and put an end to the lawsuit in the court of the ‘Jews’ Judge’ (sad podwojewodzinskt) over the effects of ‘Khele’ and a stipend promised to Sara (‘provisione pecuniaria’) for the period of one year or until she remarried.*? 26 His baptism was not registered in the preserved baptismal records in the remaining Krakow

parishes. On the subject of baptism of Krakow converts, see my article ‘Converted Jews in Krakow, 1650-1763’, Gal-ed, 21 (2007), 18-20. Rubinkowski was one of many Jewish converts in the Krakow area in the second half of the 17th c.—in addition to the twenty-nine male and nine female

converts found in parish records, it has been possible to identify forty-one people (not counting Rubinkowski and his family) in court documents; twenty-eight of them certainly came from Kazimierz. 27 Biblioteka Jagiellonska (BJ) 3742, fo. 149. Father Stefan Ranotowicz was a member of the Corpus Christi convent of Lateran canons in Kazimierz and the author of its valuable chronicle Casiminae Civitas urbt Cracoviensi confrontate origo in eaque ecclestarum erectiones et religiosorum fundationes nec non series, Vitae, res gestae praepositorum conventus canonicorum regularium Lateranensium .. .

28 On the subject of the consequences of conversion, see esp. the chapter ‘Conversion and Rupture

of the Family’, in Carlebach, Divided Souls, 138 ff. 29 AP Kr, K-41, 23 Nov. 1657, pp. 1-2. 30 According to the witnesses, Rubinkowski told them at the time of his agreement with Sara: ‘I gave her all I had bought for her and more, so that she would not complain; also a crimson red velvet skirt, with a satin crimson vest, which cost me more than 100 zlotys, but the clothes and all kerchiefs of my first deceased wife, and her sister, 1am leaving to my children which I had with my deceased wife’; AP Kr, K-99, p. 209. The opposite happened in 1760 in France when a convert’s wife was unsuccessfully trying to obtain a divorce; see Carlebach, Divided Souls, 139. She was imprisoned ‘until her mind could be cleared of the rabbinic propaganda that prevented her from joining her husband’. 31 AP Kr, K-41, pp. 229-31; K-99, p. 832; see also K-99, pp. 209—10.

The Rubinkowski Family 199 The problem of the children retained by the mother and brother was much more serious and led to a lengthy lawsuit against the family and the Kazimierz community in various courts. Balaban mistakenly concluded that Hieronim Rubinkowski had three sons and managed to get them away from his wife and the Jewish community; he also claimed that the other descendants remained Jewish. As a matter of fact, Rubinkowsk1’s first marriage produced two sons, Simon and Lewek, and two daughters, Judith and Rachel.*? Judith seems to have died, probably in the spring of 1658, as she was mentioned as still alive by the beadle Walenty Roguski on 1 April 1658. It is not clear why another beadle in his account of July 1658 mentioned only the remaining three children.*’ At the time of the baptism, in October 1657, Hieronim Wierzbowski and Hieronim Smietanka, who was a deputy starosta and a judge in the Castle Court, ordered the beadle to impound the property of Hieronim Rubinkowski and his children.** Rubinkowski’s belongings seized by his brother are listed in full in an appeal of 1658.°° In reply to Rubinkowski’s request, King Jan Kazimierz issued an order to the Jewish community demanding the return of his three children and his property. The king also ordered the return to him of a special tax of 425 zlotys imposed at the time when Krakow and Kazimierz were regained from the enemy hands (since Rubin had at the time already declared his willingness to convert) and the return of 300 zlotys as costs of travel to submit the appeal.°° On 7 July 1658 a court of the first instance decided again to arrest Simon, Lewek, and Rachel, who had been brought over from Silesia; according to the beadle’s account they were found 1n a cellar hidden by relatives.°’ Despite the ruling, the children were not handed over. Jozef Wlochowicz, a Jewish elder from Kazimierz, went to the Krakow court with a statement that the community was prepared to obey the king’s decree (he claimed that they had appointed a clerk ‘ad investigationem tam rerum quam puerorum’) and to swear that they were not holding Rubinkowski’s children or his property (nor that of another convert, Kazimierz Posowicz).°° At a considerable expense, noted in the king’s decrees, Rubinkowski secured favourable verdicts in the assessorial court (7 September 1658 and 12 February 1659), which ruled that if the children were not released, four Jewish elders would be imprisoned. To ensure compliance with his decree, King Jan Kazimierz set up a 32 Simon was born around 1646: see below. Lewek was born not later than 1651, probably around 1648 (see nn. 44 and 104); Rachel (later Anna) may have been born before 1648, assuming that a reference to her as an adult in 1660 meant she was at least 12 years old; see below, n. 44. 33 AP Kr, CCR 85, Account by the beadle Wincenty Witkowski of 3 July 1658, pp. 57-9. 34 AP Kr, CCR 84, pp. 965—7 (the beadle’s account of 1 Apr. 1658 concerning the failed attempt to reclaim the children on 24 Mar.). There are three possibilities: (1) Judith died between 1 Apr. and 27 May 1658 and therefore the beadle did not mention her; (2) in October Judith was with her father; (3) as the eldest daughter she herself would have to agree to be baptized, 1.e. she was at least 12 years

old. 35 AP Kr, CCR 85, 24 July 1658, pp. 260—5. 36 AP Kr, CCR 84, pp. 1616-18, 27 May 1658, in Boguniowo. Registered 8 June 1658.

37 AP Kr, CCR 85, 16 July 1658, pp. 203-7. 38 Tbid., 8 Nov. 1658, pp. 843—5.

200 Adam Kazmuierczyk special committee consisting of Hieronim Wierzbowski, Bishop Mikotajy Oborsk1, and Hieronim Smietanka.® Finally, on 20 March 1659 the two younger children,

i.e. Lewek Paltiel and Rachel, were handed over by their grandmother and the Jewish elders. Awaiting a final decision, the children were placed in Kazimierz monasteries: Lewek in the charge of Jacek Liberiusz, the provost of Corpus Christi, and Rachel in the convent of St Monica.*° Simon was not handed over for baptism and Rubinkowski registered a protest. According to later documents, the boy was dissuaded by his relatives, and practically bribed by the elders, who offered him promissory notes in exchange for a pledge to remain Jewish. Moreover, as Simon was about 13 years old at the time, his refusal of baptism was valid according

to canon law. The Kazimierz community did not give up on its claims on the younger children and even managed to secure a royal order that they be transferred into the care of a Jew.*! The animosity between Rubinkowski and his former coreligionists was so strong at that time that he was beaten and wounded by Salomon Landa (Landau), Gitla Kozuchowska’s son-in-law. Rubinkowski accused him not only of injury but also of public insult to the Christian religion.* It is not certain how the matter ended, but it might have worked to Hieronim’s advantage: a short time later he managed to secure another royal decree revoking the previous decision favourable to the Jews.*°

The final decision in the case of the younger children went according to the wishes of Hieronim Rubinkowski and culminated in their ceremonial baptism on 20 July 1660 in St John’s Church in Warsaw (presumably immediately after the final court decision). Both were described as ‘iam adultos’, which probably meant that they were over 12 years old and according to canon law could consensually receive baptism. The importance of the ceremony was emphasized by the choice of godparents. Lewek—who received the names of Kazimierz Mikolaj—had as his godparents Mikolaj Prazmowski, bishop of Luck and Crown Chancellor, and Princess Radziwill

(probably Cecylia Maria, daughter of Aleksander Ludwik, Great Marshal of Lithuania). Rachel was given the name of Anna and her godparents were a member of the magnate Denhoff family and the wife of Hieronim Wierzbowski. The bap-

tism was performed by Stefan Wierzbowski, abbot of Paradyz (later bishop of Poznan) and closely connected to the royal court.** Probably at the same time

39 AP Kr, K-99, 20 Mar. 1659, pp. 777-9. 40 Tbid.; see also Rubinkowski’s earlier protest of 11 Mar. concerning non-compliance with the commissar’s decree, AP Kr, CCR 86, pp. 536 (12)—538.

41 AP Kr, CCR 86, Warsaw, 6 Apr. 1659, pp. 880-2. It suspended for four months the assessor’s order to imprison four of the elders. See also pp. 969-70. 42 AP Kr, CCR 86, pp. 914-1 6. Other acts of aggression against Rubinkowski had taken place earlier; see Zydzi polscy, 1648-1772: Zrodta, ed. A. Kazmierczyk (Krakow, 2001), 115-16. 43 AP Kr, CCR 86, Warsaw, 27 June 1659, pp. 1615-19. Registered 24 July 16509. 44 Birth registry of St John’s parish in Warsaw, 1659-68, p. 28.

The Rubinkowski Family 201 Rubinkowski was given a small pension of 100 zlotys by the king, paid by the Krak6éw administration (another proof of support for converts).*° Hieronim’s three-year-long struggle to recover his children ended with partial success, although—as became clear later—he had no intention of conceding any defeat at all. Characteristically, the battle to win his children was fought within the law of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth. There is no doubt that the courts and the king himself favoured Rubinkowski and his cause, though the Krakow community and his Jewish relatives were able to fight a nearly three-year-long battle making use of the legal means at their disposal. There is a striking difference between the situation in Krakow and in the Papal States or even the neighbouring German lands, especially since the Jewish community was fighting against handing the children over to the only parent still alive.4° There was no question of ‘placing’ stubborn spouses in special catechumen homes or of offering the children to the Church—a procedure that was, after all, common in Italy as late as the nineteenth century.

Apart from fighting to regain his children, Rubinkowski started to build the foundations of his new life in Kazimierz. He had secured a moratorium on his debts on 22 September 1657 before his baptism, and on 13 March 1658 King Jan Kazimierz took him under his protection and exempted him from all taxes and duties owed to the state for the period of two years. A separate document probably made him one of the king’s servants, that is immune from jurisdiction other than that of the king’s or marshal’s courts.*! Asa Christian, Rubinkowski continued in his old business, collecting the income

from propinacja. He was accepted into the Kazimierz tavern-keepers guild on 5 February 1658 and soon became one of the guild elders—in 1661, and again in 1663, 1666, 1667, and 1668; he also co-leased the right to collect tax on liquor.*® He married a Christian, Anna Boliczanka, the daughter of Wojciech Bolicki, twice wid-

owed (by the Kazimierz merchants Jan Piechocki and Stanistaw Orzechowicz).*? He also engaged in money-lending, to Christians as well as to Jews.°° 45 Archiwum Gléwne Akt Dawnych, Warsaw, ASK dept. XL VI 47, p. 271. According to the inspection of the Wielkorzady Krakowskie in 1665, however, the pension was not paid for five years. Note that this undertaking was not mentioned in the published audits of royal estates in the Krakow mojewodztwo. 46 See Carlebach, Divided Souls, 146; D. I. Kertzer, Papieze a Zydzi (Warsaw, 2005), 48 ff. 47 AP Kr, CCR 84, pp. 890-2. Registered 26 Mar. 1658. 48 AP Kr, K-895, Register of income and expenses of the innkeepers’ guild, p. 3; paid in roo zlotys

as registration fee, exempt from payment for musket and powder because of costs incurred while securing a new guild charter from the king in Warsaw, later rermbursed an additional 50 zlotys, p. 20; ibid. 67, 107, 191, 208, 226; in the years 1666-7 leased liquor tax for the town of Kazimierz and surrounding towns for the sum of 9,000 zlotys, together with the councillors Jan Koziarowski and Marcin Golinski; see AP Kr, K-41, pp. 1140-5; K-43, pp. 121-2.

49 Anna appears as his wife already in May 1658; see AP Kr, K-g9, pp. 4-9; Archiwum Metropolitalne w Krakowie (AMK), Acta Officialia 145 (1668-7), pp. 1624-5. °° A preserved decree of the Krakow sad kapturowy refers to a lawsuit between Rubinkowski and his Jewish debtors Hanenka from Lelow and Wiktor from Kazimierz. It is possible that he also lent money to the Krakow community; see n. 59.

202 Adam Kazmierczyk In May 1659 the town council sold to the Rubinkowskis a house called Wolninska (Wolnowska, earlier Zemty), much damaged in the course of the Polish—Swedish war. It was located in the market square (today the corner of Augustianska and Piekarska Street) and cost 1,200 zlotys, inclusive of rents due in perpetuity to Kazimierz churches. At the same time the couple bought an empty

plot, Wedziliszki (with only a damaged brick cellar), at the back of the house. According to a survey, the property was completely devastated (the walls and ceil-

ings had fallen into the cellars and were covered by grass and mould).?' Rubinkowski decided to restore and refurbish the house, as well as to build a brewery in the adjacent lot with the money recovered from the Kazimierz Jews (in his own estimation several thousand zlotys). After recovering two of his children, he stipulated that only they were to have the rights to the house.°” At the same time he

bought another house from a well-known chronicler and Kazimierz councillor, Marcin Golinski, giving him the use of the house for life, and a few years later he bought more property.” Hieronim Rubinkowski also cared for his image as a good Christian. Not only did he sue the burgher Jan Zakrzewski, a surgeon who questioned the sincerity of his faith, but he was also active in the religious confraternities existing in the town.’ It is difficult to know how sincere he was, but there is no doubt that it helped his chances in the lawsuits to regain his children and property. By 1660 he was a member of the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament and the Five Wounds of Christ at the Corpus Christi Church. Although his name is not among those registered with the Confraternity of Our Lady of Compassion at the St Catherine Church, his children, Kazimierz and Anna,°° put their names down there in 1662. Undoubtedly his involvement in the Confraternity of Guardian Angels at the Pauline Church of St Michael is most significant. It seems that his intention in Sl AP Kr, K-419, records of the assessor’s court, 26 May 1659, pp. 215-19, 220~-3; 28 May 1659, pp. 224-8. °2 AP Kr, K-41, pp. 466—7. As early as the autumn of 1659 Rubinkowski was buying utensils for his brewery; K-99, pp. 1218-19. 53 AP Kr, K-397, pp. 223-7; K-419, records of the assessor’s court, 14 July 1661, pp. 517-21, 522-3; 14 July 1661, pp. 523, 530-2. Although Rubinkowski officially purchased Golinsk1’s house for the con-

siderable sum of 5,500 zlotys, in fact he spent only 1,800 zlotys. He probably could not wait for Golinski’s death and sold the house back to him in 1670 (alternatively, Golinski may have opposed Hieronim’s political ambitions) in order to buy a different house for his son Jan. In 1666 he bought another house in Wielicka Street (together with a brewery and a malt-house) called Wiczencikowska, though he sold it in the very same year to a nobleman, Kazimierz Turowski, for the sum of 4,000 zlotys; see AP Kr, K-41, pp. 1024-36, 1188-95. o4 AP Kr, K-gg, 4 Nov. 1658, pp. 534-5; 14 Nov. 1658, p. 551; 28 Nov. 1658, p. 559. Zakrzewski could have been a convert himself, because a convert of this name appears in the consistorial court in 1667, AMK AE 2, k. 76.

°° Archiwum kosciola Bozego Ciata (Archive of the Church of Corpus Christi), ‘Ksiega Bractwa Pieciu Ran Chrystusa’ (Register of the Brotherhood of the Five Wounds of Christ), k. 37; AP Kr, Aug. 447, pp. 336, 487.

The Rubinkowski Family 203 joining it was to further his ultimate ambition of securing the office of town councillor in Kazimierz. The Confraternity of Guardian Angels, formed in 1626, suf-

fered greatly as a result of the Swedish occupation. Its fortunes were restored, however, and the confraternity flourished in the years 1660-3, when Hieronim was

its administrator.°° Not only did it have new brothers and sisters, but also new sponsors—and we may assume that Rubinkowski played a key role in finding them. In recognition of his services to the confraternity Rubinkowski was buried in St Michael’s Church. It is worth noting that both he and his family were officials

in the confraternity until they died.°’ The fact that Hieronim Rubinkowski was chosen as leader of a religious confraternity in a church that played an important role in the whole of Krakow indicates that the incident with Zakrzewski was probably exceptional and that his conversion was generally accepted as sincere. It is

worth adding that less than two years after his baptism Rubinkowski himself became a godfather.® After regaining his two children and some of his dues from the Kazimierz Jews, Rubinkowski began to angle for the post of town councillor.® It is possible that his

decision to settle in Kazimierz was partly dictated by his expectations of social advancement. ‘The Kazimierz town council had fewer members, and was poor in comparison with the neighbouring Krakow; most important was the fact that the manager of the Krakow Royal Estates had most influence there and nominated councillors from among the aldermen.®? Rubinkowski could count on the current one, Hieronim Wierzbowski—as we have already seen. Moreover the Kazimierz councillors—as a result of privileges granted by Zygmunt III and Wladyslaw [V— enjoyed the same benefits and concessions as the Krakow councillors.°* The only obstacle for Hieronim was the privilege granted by Zygmunt August on 14 March 1567, in which the king barred heretics and converts from holding any town office. °” °6 Later the confraternity leader was called the abbot. °7 Archiwum oo Paulinéw, Krakow na Skatce, MS 128, pp. 35, 38-9, 45-7, 60, 62, 73. In the years 1663-6 Hieronim was the counsellor of the brotherhood, and again in 1670 and 1672, while in 1674 he became an assessor; his wife was an elder in 1663 and 1670-2, in 1673 a subprioress, in 1675 again a counsellor until 1682, when she became the prioress and retained this position at least until 1686 (later records have not been preserved). In 1706 her stepdaughter and Hieronim’s daughter Anna became the prioress. On his burial in the Church of St Paul, see BJ 3742, k. 149. On the subject of this brotherhood, see E. Krynicki, ‘Bractwo Aniolow Strozow na Skalce’, Studia Claromontana, 17 (1997), 417-42.

°8 AP Kr, Mikr. 5-174 (Birth Registry of the Holy Virgin Church in Krakow, 372), p. 327. | °9 Exact accounts between Rubinkowski and the Kazimierz community have not been preserved, but as late as the 1670s Michal Czerny, a Parnawa starosta, sued that community for the repayment of two promissory notes ceded by Hieronim, for the total sum of 6,000 zlotys. Materialy Zrodlowe do dziejow Lydow w ksiegach grodzkich dawnego wojewedztwa krakowskiego z lat 1674-1696: Lata

1674-1683, ed. A. Kazmierczyk (Krakow, 1995), 39. It could have been the money later lent by Rubinkowski to the Jewish community, as the IOUs were dated Apr. 1674. 60 J. Bieniarzowna, Mieszczanstwo krakowskie w XVII w.: Z badan nad strukturg spotecznqa miasta (Krakow, 1969), 21. 6! In 1672 both these privileges were registered by H. Rubinkowski in the town books, AP Kr, CCR

99, pp. 827-31. 62 AP Kr, parchment document 641.

204 Adam Kazmierczyk | Rubinkowski was not willing to accept this obstacle and took the city to the assessors’ court. The city coffers were depleted and so on 23 March 1662 the municipal council imposed a special tax towards the cost of the lawsuit: 2 zlotys per stone house, 1 zloty per household, 15 groszy per artisan, with the rest paying according to their wealth. An additional 150 zlotys on tax on the sale of liquor was collected for this purpose and a Kazimierz alderman, Marcin Misiecki, was nominated to represent the city.°* The first hearing of the assessors’ court took place on 19 May 1662. Since the case concerned the interpretation of a royal privilege, it was transferred to the Royal High Court of Appeal, made up of the king together with the assessors’ court, which appointed a special committee to investigate the case.°4

Meanwhile, however, the events of 1663 must have influenced the courts’ deci-

sions, in particular that of the Royal High Court of Appeal under King Jan Kazimierz. In the autumn of 1663 Matatiasz Kalahora was accused of blasphemy, with Rubinkowski playing a key part in the affair. The fact that it coincided with his efforts to secure public office might lead to the suspicion that Rubinkowsk1 himself orchestrated the whole thing in the hope of demonstrating his devotion to his new religion and at the same time taking revenge on his former co-religionists. As it is not possible to find confirmation of this scenario in the court documents which have survived, it is equally possible that he was implicated in the affair by accident. The fact that Hieronim’s name does not appear at all in the preserved decrees of the Castle Court®? might confirm the incidental character of his involvement in the affair, but this does not preclude his later conscious use of it for his own pur-

poses. According to the documents, the whole affair started with a German preacher at a Krakow convent, a Dominican priest Serwacy Hebelli,°° who was passing through the market when Kalahora struck up a conversation with him. The discussion apparently centred on the question of the coming of the messiah

and continued in the convent, where Hebelli invited Kalahora in the hope of winning the argument. It was not resolved, but Kalahora promised to write down his objections and pass them on to the Dominican. Hebelli waited in vain, but on 8 August in the Dominican Church of the Holy Trinity they found a document in German containing blasphemies against the Christian religion. We do not know what it said exactly—presumably it was a polemic with Christianity based on

Toledot yeshu. Hebelli translated it into Latin and forwarded it to the Castle 63 AP Kr, K-322, 23 Mar. 1662, pp. 88-9; 7 July 1662, pp. 96—-7. A further 330 zlotys for the trial costs was designated in 1664, ibid., K-41, 22 Sept. 1664, pp. 817-18. 64 AP Kr, Teut. 73, p. 84. 65 AP Kr, CCR go, 15 Nov. 1663, pp. 2413-19; ibid., 20 Nov. 1663, pp. 2502-8.

66 Probably the same person as Serwacy Eubelius, who on 23 July 1650 was allowed to take the lector’s examination in Krakow; see R.Swietochowski and A. Chruszczewski, ‘Polonia Dominicana apud Extraneos’, in J. Ktoczowski (ed.), Studia nad historia dominikanéw w Polsce, 1222-1972, 11 (Warsaw, 1975); 493.

The Rubinkowski Family 205 Chancellery, suspecting that Kalahora was its author. The latter became apprehensive and left Krakow under the pretext of going to the Jarostaw fair. He was, however, apprehended, and at the trial which took place in November he was sentenced to death by burning at the stake. An appeal was lodged at the crown tribunal.®’ Rubinkowski’s name appears for the first time in the trial records only at the stage of the summons ordering the deputy mojewoda and the Jews’ Judge ( Fudex Judaeorum) in Krakow, Mikotaj Sulinski, to deliver to the crown tribunal the following Jews: Abraham Kampsor, Rubinkowski(!), and the Krakow rabbi, for the purpose of confrontation with the accused.®* This might indicate that Kalahora was trying to compromise Rubinkowski (by questioning the sincerity of his faith). On 12 December 1663 the Piotrkow Tribunal endorsed the verdict of the Castle

Court (with some modifications).°? The verdict does not say much about Rubinkowski’s role in the sentencing of Kalahora. According to that document, Rubinkowski testified as required and was released.’° The chronicler Wespazjan Kochowski throws some light on the matter: Rubinkowski allegedly claimed that Matatiasz had been trying to encourage him to return to Judaism.’' However, the

chronicler of the Corpus Christi Convent, Fr Stefan Ranotowicz, presents Rubinkowski as instrumental in the outcome of the case. ”” Whatever his role was in the condemnation of the alleged blasphemer, the case

was an opportunity to demonstrate the sincerity of his conversion. There were cases of Christian converts in Krakow returning to Judaism and they were viewed by the Church as apostates. Rubinkowski himself at a later date testified as a witness at a trial in the consistorial court against the Kazimierz elders, accused of attempts to persuade converts to return to Judaism.” Incidentally, the defendants

asked for Hieronim to be excluded as a witness (one of the elders, Jakub Kozuchowsk1, was probably related to him). 67 All the details are known from the decree. See above, n. 65. °8 AP Kr, CCR go, summons of 28 Noy. 1663, relation of beadle on 3 Dec. 1663, pp. 2606-8. 6° See the description and full list of sources given in Balaban, Historja Zydém, ii. 24-31. According to the verdict, some documents considered to be blasphemous were found on Kalahora. Balaban mistakenly dates the tribunal’s decision to 13 Dec.

7 ‘Quantum vero attinet Famatum Rubinkowski ex Judaismo ad fidem Romanam Catholicam ab annis sex conversum et constantissime in eadem fide perseverantem, causa prachibendo tantummodo testimonu ad Judicium praesens citatum, quoniam testimonium praehibuit, ideo ipsum hocce praesens ‘Tribunalium Regni Petricoviensis Judicium liberum facit et praenunciat’; AP Kr, CCR 91, p. 309. A copy of the verdict can also be found in the Ossolineum in Wroclaw, MS 55, pp. 481-6. “LW. Kochowski, Historya panowania Jana Kazimierza przez nieznajomego autora wydana z rekopisu przez Edwarda Raczynskiego, 11 (Poznan, 1840), 248: ‘the monks deduced this from the character, and a certain man, a recently baptized Jew, conversed with them [1.e. the Jews] and was encouraged to do this

blasphemy by [Kalahora], who showed him the text and persuaded him with arguments from the Talmud’.

% BJ 3742, k. 57: ‘Idem praefatus Rubinkowski quendam Judaeum Christum Dominum ac Beatissimam etus Matrem blasphemantem, et scripto proscidentem, tradidit iudicio.. .’. 7 AMK AE 62, fo. 69’; fo. 76 (together with his son).

206 Adam Kazmierczyk The Kalahora affair brought Rubinkowski an additional advantage: the conversion of Simon, his eldest son. Simon found himself in an unenviable position: on the one hand he lived in fear of the Jewish community in Kazimierz, resulting from the Kalahora affair. As Kochowski wrote: ‘For two weeks students were taking revenge on the Jews, robbing them funditus [completely | and prohibiting trade with the city.’"“* And, on the other hand, his father’s activities had turned the Kazimierz Jews against him. In the end, as shown by the appeal against the Jewish

elders lodged by Hieronim on 14 January 1664, Simon joined his father on 24 December 1663. It is difficult to know whether the choice of Christmas Eve was

accidental. Hieronim Rubinkowski demanded from the Kazimierz community the return of property left behind by his son, such as promissory notes (one for the sum of 560 zlotys, another without a specified figure) issued by the Krakow elders ‘co fine [to this end| he had refused to become a Catholic’, as well as the effects of

Judith,” the daughter who did not convert. Simon, who at the time was about 17 or 18 years old, soon followed in his father’s footsteps and was baptized, receiving the name Jan Mateusz.

Let us now consider the degree to which this particular family of Polish Jews assimilated into Polish Christian society. ‘The ease with which Hieronim integrated within the Christian environment was not accidental and the case of Jan Mateusz is even more telling: on 29 January 1665 (1.e. only thirteen months after Simon fled from the Jewish town) Hieronim, on behalf of his son Jan Mateusz— referred to as a student at the Krakow Academy who was two years short of attaining majority (twenty-one years)—confirmed the receipt of 200 zlotys, which the elders had promised him years earlier in exchange for remaining Jewish. ”° It would

be difficult to imagine a student of that time without a good command of Latin and Polish.’’ He must therefore have been familiar with the Latin alphabet, the 74 Balaban, Historja Zydéw, 27-30. See a visit to the scene of the crime in the Jewish town on 7 Dec. 1663, AP Kr, CCR go, pp. 2735-40. Incidentally, Rubinkowski’s property was not on the list of those destroyed; Kochowski, Historya panowania Jana Kazimierza, 248. 7 AP Kr, CCR 91, pp. 126-30. 76 AP Kr, K-41, pp. 867-8: ‘quia ipse nomine quo supra, summam florenorum ducentorum polonicalium eidem Suprascripto filio suo, pro tunc in Judaismo, ante susceptam fidem Catholicam existenti, per Infidos Seniores Judaeos in universo Regno Poloniae existentes, ob spem in Judaismo perseveran-

tiae, nomine omnium, tam Seniorum, quam totius plebis Judaicae in Regno Poloniae existentium, repromissam, de manibus Infidorum Seniorum Judaeorum Casimieriensem ad Cracoviam, ex vi fide1 commisi omnium suprascriptorum Seniorum et totius Synagogae Judaeorum Regni Poloniae, in rem suprascripti filii sui in prompta, parataque et numerata pecunia realiter levavit et in effectu numeravit. De cuius suprascriptae ducentorum florenorum Polonicalium summae realiter levatione et effectuali numeratione, idem Suprascriptus Recognoscens eosdem Suprascriptos Infidos totius Regni Poloniae Seniores, Incolas, totamque et Universam eiusdem Regni Plebem Judaicam ipsorumque succesores et succedaneos suo et ut supra praefatis filio nomine perpetuis et aeviternis quietavit, quietatque temporibus sibi suisque et praedicti fili1 sui successoribus, hoc in passu perpetuum imponendo silentium alias in forma quietationis plenissima et perfectissima.’ “As we shall see later, his younger brother also received a university education.

The Rubinkowski Family 207 Polish language, and probably the Latin language at the time when he was in his father’s care (before 1657). Moreover, if we accept Kochowski’s allegation that

Kalahora had shown Rubinkowski a blasphemous message, it would mean that Hieronim was also familiar with German and Gothic script.

Having recovered his son, Hieronim could devote himself with redoubled energy to the pursuit of public office. As the city had no intention of relenting, the matter reverted to the state of 1662. Finally, the king, together with his sad relacyjny

(the Royal High Court of Appeal), decreed on 4 November 1666 that Hieronim Rubinkowski and his progeny—despite the privilege of Zygmunt August mentioned earlier—were permitted to hold public office.’”®

After the abdication of his old protector, the new king was also well disposed towards Rubinkowski and his family. Presumably when Jan Mateusz came of age

(he had been married to Dorota Zawadzionka at least since 1670) Hieronim secured a royal privilege extending the king’s protection of him and his children (and Jan in particular) and granting them exemption from all taxes and contributions for a period of four years. At that stage Hieronim had already taken the first step towards the office of councillor and the king mentioned him as one of the twelve privileged men, from whom the magistrates were traditionally chosen.” Earlier, in 1667, he had become one of the Joners and in 1669 a wiertelnik.®°

The new king’s favour soon became extremely important. That very same year the council tried to make use of the new ordinance in order not to comply with the

royal decree of 1666 and renege on the promise given to Rubinkowski.®" According to the royal mandate of 16 February 1671, the Kazimierz townsmen _ had pledged to appoint Hieronim at the earliest opportunity (back in 1665). The opposition within the council must have been considerable, since Rubinkowski had to engage in costly efforts to secure a royal writ ordering the councillors to appoint him as soon as there was a vacancy among the magistrates.°? He himself chose the time for a final confrontation with his adversaries. He was probably instrumental in the resignation of the magistrate Adam Wachlikowicz, thereby making his own appointment possible. At the end of February 1671, when his relative Wojciech Zawada was mayor, Hieronim submitted the royal orders and senators’ letters recommending him to the town council (they were written by Primate Mikolaj Prazmowski; the Gniezno 78 AP Kr, Teut. 73, pp. 83-9. Rubinkowski registered it in the files of the wie/korzqdca (governor) on 28 June 1667.

AP Kr, Teut. 73, pp. 313-14, Warsaw, 7 Oct. 1670. This document mistakenly states that Hieronim retrieved three sons—this is probably the source of Balaban’s assumption. 8° AP Kr, Teut. 103, record of city archive, 14 Mar. 1667, pp. 29-30; K-43, p. 85. The /oner and the wiertelnik were officials chosen by the council; the former was responsible for town income and the lat-

ter for buildings, arbitrating in disputes about boundaries, damaged walls, distribution of houses among inheritors, and their valuations. 81 AP Kr, Teut. 73, Sept. 1670, pp. 288-96, the townspeople’s appeal against magistrates (among

them Hieronim and Jan Rubinkowski). 82 AP Kr, Teut. 73, pp. 338-9.

208 Adam Kagmuierczyk archbishop, Andrzej Olszowski; the Crown vice-chancellor and the bishop of Chetmno, Jan Sobieski; the Crown hetman and marshal, Stanistaw Skarszewski; and the castellan of Wojnicz and mielkorzqdca (administrator) of Krakow). On 2 March,

after a few days’ delay, the council nominated Rubinkowski as a magistrate. Stanislaw Borski was particularly active in opposing this nomination and endeavoured to stop Hieronim from taking the oath. Borski removed the crucifix which was normally standing on the table—writes Balaban. The harsh words that were spoken on that occasion were not, however, directed at Rubinkowski, but at the wojt, Wojciech Zawada: Borski accused him of betraying the town’s interests.°? Although Rubinkowski took the oath, his opponents did not give up and lodged an appeal to the assessor’s court against the m0jt Wojciech Zawada and the Kazimierz councillor

Augustyn Klimerowski concerning the unlawful appointment of Hieronim Rubinkowski to the office of magistrate (claiming that the town’s laws and privileges were infringed and the election did not follow the correct procedure).**

On 16 March 1671, King Michal Korybut Wisniowiecki ordered the town of Kazimierz to retain Hieronim as a magistrate. The king emphasized that was to serve as an example of promoting Christianity among the Jews: it is our distinct will that you should without any difficulty or delay accept, or rather retain in council the noble Rubinkowski, who has converted from Judaism to Catholicism upon our encouragement, and since the laws of the Kingdom and the Duchy of Lithuania pro-

tect such people, he is deserving of particular respect, so that others be encouraged to embrace our religion.

The king mentioned the support given to Rubinkowski by the clergy and the senators and his son in the Benedictine order. It would seem that Rubinkowski was very determined in the struggle against his enemies in the council and town, since the king added: ‘the populace should not be afraid of any aggravation on the part of

this Rubinkowski, whom we admonish that he comport himself modestly and peacefully and strive for the benevolence of the magistrate and the people’.®° 83 AP Kr, Teut. 73, pp. 342—6. In fact Balaban created his own quotation, according to his perception of Rubinkowski, consisting of two sentences spoken by Borski, both to Zawada; see M. Balaban, Historja Zydéw, ti. 38.

84 AP Kr, CCR 98 A, 21 Mar. 1671, pp. 768-72. The summons mentions the councillors Marcin Golinski, Marcin Lemiesz, Kazimierz ‘Treter, Jan Zycinski, Benedykt Stojankowicz, the magistrates

Andrzej Suszycki, Marcin Lemiesz, Jnr., Piotr Wojcikowicz, Franciszek Sochacki, and other Kazimierz townsmen. 85 AP Kr, Teut. 73, pp. 349~-50: ‘wola nasza wyrazna jest abyscie bez zadnej trudnosci i odwtoki przyjeli abo raczej zachowali zm scabinatu Slachetnego Rubinkowskiego ex Judasimo ad fidem Catholicam conversum motiva nasze, iz takowym ludziom iura Regni et Ksiestwa Litewskiego favent 1 godzien jest

osobliwego respektu, aby sie drudzy ad amplectendum Religionem zachecali. . . . Nie trzeba sie tez obawiac pospolstwu agrawacyjej zadnej tego Rubinkowskiego, ktorego my napominamy, aby sie pacate et modeste gerat 1 Magistratus et Populi benevolentiam sobie sposobial.’ Rubinkowski registered this mandate together with another in which the king recognized him as a legitimately selected Kazimierz magistrate; ibid. 350-1.

The Rubinkowski Family 209 Rubinkowski sued mayor Marcin Lemiesz and councillors Stanislaw Borski and Jan Zycinski in the Royal High Court for obstruction of his oath-taking prior to

assuming the magistrate’s office (summons delivered on 2 April).°© Contrary to Balaban’s version, the matter of nomination for other public offices had already been resolved.®’ In view of the firm support he had received from the senators, especially the manager of the Krakow Royal Estates, his promotion to the office of councillor was only a matter of time. Rubinkowski was probably nominated as soon as there was a vacancy, since he was already addressed as councillor on 6 June.

He is also mentioned with this title in an act issued by the town council in 2 January 1672.°° He certainly served on the council in that year. In 1672-3 Rubinkowski was again the town Joner.®? Rubinkowski’s further career most likely ended owing to illness. He was absent from the 1675 council and died 1n pain towards the end of 1676, sometime between

12 November and 29 December. As Ranotowicz recorded in his chronicle, some Jewish involvement was suspected. He was certainly bedridden in the last months

of his life and his wife Anna acted as his representative. One of his last legal acts, on 17 August 1676, was to give her power of attorney over his property. Rubinkowski was buried on Skalka in a Gothic Pauline church (it was demolished in the eighteenth century to make room for the present church). ‘The Ranotowicz chronicle shows that—despite Balaban’s negative portrayal of Rubinkowski—the Christian community held him in high regard.°° Hieronim’s children from his first marriage were able to enjoy the family’s position which he had so painstakingly built up—he had no children from his marriage to Anna. ‘The widow remained in her husband’s house and continued to run the

brewery until 1689, when she became paralysed. Anna, her stepdaughter and namesake, Hieronim’s daughter, took care of her until her death in 1693.7? The oldest son, Jan Mateusz, like his brother Kazimierz Mikolaj, received a university education.*” Unlike his father, he was not active in the religious confraternities of Kazimierz, although in 1668 he became a scribe to the Confraternity of Our Lady the Compassionate. At the age of 21 he came of age (in 1669) and bought a house. He was married to Dorota, daughter of the Kazimierz mojt Maciej Zawada,”° 86 AP Kr, Teut. 73, pp. 354-5. 8” Balaban confused the nomination with a later case of Jan Rubinkowski, Hieronim’s son. 88 AP Kr, K-44, p. 233; K-43, p. 4109. 88 AP Kr, K-43, pp. 504-5. On the office of loner, sce above, n. 80.

90 AP Kr, K-397, pp. 443-6. BJ 3742, k. 57, 149. ‘Having become a councillor, he beautifully displayed the signs of his Catholic faith; as shown on fo. 52, the Jews (as was suspected) cast a spell on him, until after a long illness he died, true to his Catholic faith, and was buried in a church on Skatka.’ 91 AP Kr, K-422, p. 50. See inventory of her effects, ibid. 119. *2 Despite his erudition, he did not own many books; the inventory drawn up after his death mentions Theatrum politicum polskie, Porzqadek prawa, Speculum Saxonum, Zywot Chrystusa Pana, and Latin prayer books: Archiwum Nauki PAN i PAU, Krakow, 429, k. 162-4. %3 AP Kr, K-45, pp. 502-3, 622—7, 640-8, 667-8, 669-75; ibid., Aug. 447, p. 371.

210 Adam Kazmuerczyk since at least 22 June 1670, if not earlier. This marriage strengthened even further the ties between the Rubinkowskis and an influential Kazimierz family. About the same time Anna Rubinkowska became the second wife of Wojciech Zawada, Jr., son of Wojciech, a Kazimierz councillor and brother of Maciej. Jan’s appointment as a Kazimierz magistrate (while Hieronim was still alive) provoked some protests, which led Balaban to the mistake mentioned earlier. Jakub Groszkiewicz protested against the appointment, citing—as previously in the case of Hieronim—the royal privilege which prohibited converts from holding public office (he also claimed, without justification, that the earlier privilege which gave Hieronim and his son access to public office in town applied only to Kazimierz, Jan’s younger brother).** At first glance Groszkiewicz’s behaviour might seem to confirm Christian hostility towards ambitious converts. A closer look at the sources, however, seems to indicate that it was a case of a private vendetta caused

by a family quarrel and that Groszkiewicz bore a grudge against Jan. Jakub Groszkiewicz was a councillor, and earlier a town clerk in Kazimierz, who married Jadwiga Zawadzionka, a younger sister of Dorota, which made him Jan’s brotherin-law. ‘Throughout 1676 Groszkiewicz was pursuing a lawsuit against Jan in the city and district council courts, accusing him of libel and attempts to slander him in the eyes of nobility (sz/achta) and in particular of Stanislaw Rozanka, the notary of the Krakow Castle Court (while Rubinkowski accused Groszkiewicz of insult and assault).?° Jan Rubinkowski certainly enjoyed the support of district and town officials. His lawsuit against Groszkiewicz did not stop them from nominating him to the

office of councillor on 29 December 1676, to take the place of his deceased father.°° Later years corroborate his influence; he was in fact an acting councillor

until his sudden death on 5 March 1691.?’ Like his father, he was exposed to insulting accusations questioning the sincerity of his faith. In 1677, at the time of a

dispute over the dismantling of a house wall, a Kazimierz townsman Szymon Klimuntowski was accused of having referred to Jan in an insulting manner (‘obrzezaniec’—the circumcised, ‘psia jucha’—scoundrel). The court ordered Klimuntowski to apologize to Rubinkowski in public and pay the court a penalty of 94 AP Kr, K-375, pp. 153-8. Groszkiewicz even took the magistrate to the assessors’ court, maintaining that he had been sent with a special mission to the Krakow dietine (sezmik) in Proszowice to secure Jan’s unopposed election. See also his appeal, AP Kr, CCR 102, pp. 2245-9. 9° AP Kr, K-45, pp. 25-8, 51-2, 83-9; K-104, pp. 2, 4-6, 370-1. See also Maciej Zawada’s will of 1676, K-397, pp. 454-6. °6 AP Kr, K-104, pp. 150-1. Note that Rubinkowski’s election was unopposed and he was sworn in without any controversy, unlike his colleague Jan Dumicz, who later was in conflict with the town for many years (Dumicz was nominated because of his doctoral degree, even though he was not a magistrate). 97 AP Kr, K-109, p. 893. In Kazimierz, as in Krak6éw, the title of councillor was held for life. Every year, ‘acting councillors’ were nominated from the group of councillors; each in turn became mayor of

the town for a certain period.

The Rubinkowski Family 211 14 grzywny. In the event Jan released Klimuntowski from the required apology in front of the whole magistrature (which at the time was perceived as humiliating).?° Like his father, he was involved an incident in which a Jew was accused of antiChristian blasphemy. We know, however, that in this case Rubinkowski himself instigated the case, which ended in favour of the accused, Lewek Berle. In 1686, as acting mayor, Jan Rubinkowski accused Berle of blasphemy during a conversation (‘“‘“How are you going to swear? On this wooden God”—these are blasphemous words and lJaese Maiestatis Divinae, therefore the accuser demands the punishment prescribed for such crimes of blasphemy’). Jan’s servant was the only witness, but since the conversation took place in Yiddish, he was unable to confirm the charges. Although Rubinkowski maintained that his oath as mayor should be sufficient to charge the alleged blasphemer, in the end the court decided to clear the Jew.”” Unlike his father, Jan did not engage in propinacja, even though he held a lease on excise tax on liquor. He was primarily a spice merchant and also traded in saffian leather.1°° According to the town records, he initially lived in the Jews’ Street (ul. Zydowska), but also owned a tenement house in the town square and later, in

1682, bought the Jordan house on Krakowska Street, where he lived until his death.'°! He was married twice; after the death of the childless Dorota (she was still alive in 1683), he married Anna Wosinska, daughter of the deceased Krakow goldsmith Walenty Wosinski (as Jan’s wife in 1686, Anna joined the Confraternity of the Corpus Christi Church).'°* This marriage cemented Jan Rubinkowski’s position, for Anna’s brother was Stanislaw, a doctor of medicine, professor at the Krak6w Academy, a Krakéw councillor in 1674-94, and the king’s secretary.'°° This marriage brought him children. °8 AP Kr, K-104, pp. 378—9, 390-1, 394, 396, 397, 425-6; ibid. 388, e.g. Jan Zaraza’s testimony: ‘I was standing with my wife on the doorstep of my house, and Klimuntowski came and said to me: “Is Mr Rubinkowski, that Jew, taking the bricks?” So I said: “Why shouldn’t he take it when he paid for it and arranged it with you, Sirs?”, and he said (begging your pardon) that “this Jew, you can tell a Jew bastard, was elected a councilman, he is not worthy to be one, he can’t open his mouth, son of a bitch”. I was telling him “calm down, he is a councilman, others will defend him” and he said: “I am not afraid of councilmen; His Royal Highness will know of it, that he wants to pull down people’s houses and build his own, to ruin the city.” Mr Rubinkowski was not there at the time.’ Jan Rubinkowski sued on at least two more occasions over insults, but their character is unknown; K-109, pp. 50, 608.

99 AP Kr, K-269, pp. 171-6. The only witness testified: ‘You were saying something to him in Jewish, but I don’t know what because I don’t understand [ Yiddish].’ 100 AP Kr, K-45, pp. 502-3, J.R. as administrator of excise tax on liquor in 1680-1; K-109, 126-7, J.R. on the subject of saffian leather of inadequate quality delivered from Silesia. 101 AP Kr, K-805, p. 13 (registry of 1677). At the beginning of 1675 the tenement house Sordyl in Rubinkowski’s square burned down and he was accused in court of endangering the city by causing fire; he sold the tenement house (called Dzikowska) in 1682 and bought the Jordanowska tenement house; see K-43, pp. 484-5; K-45, pp. 622-7, 640-8, 669-73. 102 Archiwum oo Paulin6w 128, p. 165; Corpus Christi Archive (Ks. Bracka). 103 Tt is additionally corroborated by the size of dowry that Jan gave to Anna (6,000 zlotys) compared with Dorota’s dowry—3,o00 zlotys; AP Kr, K-45, pp. 667-8.

212 Adam Kazmierczyk Kazimierz Mikolaj had a more interesting career. After his studies at the Krakow Academy he became a monk at the Tyniec Abbey and on 25 July 1667 was

invested under the name of Maur. He must have been older than 16 at the time, according to the resolutions of the Council of Trent.1°* It is difficult to judge to what extent this decision was influenced by his father’s ambition, for there 1s no doubt that having a Benedictine monk as a son increased Hieronim’s chances of securing public office. Having taken monastic vows, he appears to have become

chaplain to the Benedictine nuns in Staniatki, for in 1675 he joined the Confraternity of the Five Wounds of Christ at the Corpus Christi Church with them. Later he travelled abroad for religious study. On 29 October 1674, already a member of the Benedictine order, he enrolled at Salzburg University. He was presumably awarded a doctorate in theology, since in 1682 he is referred to with this title. It is not certain when he returned to Tyniec. In the 1690s he held a number of religious positions: master of novitiates, dean, provost of the ‘infirmorum’ (the sick). Kazimierz Mikolaj Rubinkowski opposed the establishment of the St Cross congregation by the Benedictine order and in 1710 was elected the monastery’s prior (in fact, its superior, since the Tyniec abbot was nominated by the king and was not even necessarily ordained). Although Rubinkowski’s nomination was annulled by the nunciature, Maur still enjoyed the monks’ confidence. As the Prior

of Tyniec, Kazimierz Mikolaj became the Protector of the Guardian Angels’ Confraternity in 1711 and in subsequent years acted as dean. He died on 7 March 1718 after a long illness that confined him to his cell so that his chapter meetings were moved to his room.'”° Another of Hieronim Rubinkowski’s children, Anna, lived the longest, dying on 15 December 1721. She married Wojciech Zawada, Jr., who—like his father before him—was a member of the Kazimierz town council. Not much is known about her, but the chronicler Ranotowicz described her as a pious woman (‘femina modesti[ssi]ma ac devota’). She took the place of her stepmother as leader of the Guardian Angels’ Confraternity. We know nothing about her children; there are many members of that family in the town records, but it is impossible to ascertain whether they were Anna’s descendants. °°

Among the children of Anna’s brother, Jan, a little more is known about Elizabeth, who was ordained in 1715 at the age of 27 as a Carmelite nun under the name of Beata Julianna a Iesu Maria. Earlier, in 1703, she had joined the Pauline 104 According to H. Gapski the canon was observed in 17th-c. Poland; see his Rekrutacja do zakonow meskich w Polsce w koncu XVI 1 w pierwsze] potomie XVII wieku na przyktadzie krakowskiego

osrodka zakonnego (Lublin 1987), 157. ) 105 BJ 5281, k. 55, 82; microfilm 508/2, k. 5, 15, 33, 44, 60, 68, 70; Die Matrikel der Universitat Salzburg, 1639-1810, ed. Virgil Redlich, 1: Text der Matrtkel (Salzburg, 1933), 120. lam grateful to Prof. M. Chachaj for this information. See also M. Kanior, Polska kongregacja benedyktynska Swietego

Krzyza, 1709-1864 (Krakow, 2000), 49; Paulinian Brotherhood Archive 130, p. 76; Corpus Christi Archive (Ks. Bracka), k. 58. 106 AP Kr, microfilm 5-78, Registry of deaths of the Corpus Christi Parish, p. 13; BJ 3742, k. 57.

The Rubinkowski Family 213 Confraternity of Guardian Angels and Our Lady of Compassion at St Catherine’s

Church. In the years 1739-41 she was Prioress of the Discalced Carmelites Convent in Poznan; she died in 1753, a few months after her nomination to the office of prioress (or deputy prioress).1° Jan’s son Pawel died in childhood in 1696 after falling out of a window. Nothing is known about the lives of Jan’s other children.*°® In 1706 the excise tax on liquor was managed by a certain Jan Franciszek Rubinkowski, in 1724 a certain Piotr Rubinkowski joined the Confraternity at St Catherine’s Church, and in 1731 Andrzej Rubinkowski became an elder of the Confraternity, as later did Katarzyna Rubinkowska; nevertheless their connection to Jan Mateusz cannot be verified.’ It is likely that the devastation of Kazimierz caused by the Great Northern War led members of the Rubinkowski family to leave town. The preserved tax records do not mention any Rubinkowski as living in the houses belonging to the family. Both houses became dilapidated due to neglect

in the 1690s and the beginning of eighteenth century (partly due to neglect and poor management of the children’s assets by Jan’s widow, Anna, who in 1693 married Wojciech Gostkowski and died in 1700).+?° It should be noted that during Hieronim’s lifetime other Rubinkowskis appear in the sources and that is why Majer Balaban believed that Hieronim was the father

of Jan Kazimierz Rubinkowski, the Torun postmaster and author of Jan III Sobieski’s biography.!’! There was a Jan Rubinkowski in the early 1650s in Kazimierz (he even had a quarrel with Jews).'!* In 1659 a certain Stanislaw Rubinkowski of Krakow appeared in the Kazimierz court of council as guardian of an orphan who inherited a house located in Kazimierz.*?° At that time in Malopolska (Little Poland) there was a Rubinkowski family of noble descent with such members as Mikolaj (died in 1665 at the age of 68 in the Jaroslaw College), a Jesuit and army chaplain who had served in Moscow and in Turkey and for a few years resided also in Krak6ow,'** at a time when the Jesuits did not accept converts as its members. ‘There were also other converts with the same name. In the middle of the 107 M. Borkowska, OSB, Leksykon zakonnic polskich epoki przedrozbiorowe), i: Polska zachodnia i potnocna (Warsaw, 2004), 127; C. Gil, Stownik polskich Karmelitanek Bosych, 1612-1914 (Krakow, 1999), 198; Paulinian Brotherhood Archive 129, p. 85; AP Kr, Aug. 447, p. 604.

108 AP Kr, CC 443, p. 36. 109 AP Kr, Aug. 447, p. 95, 687; AP Kr, CC 443, p. 166. 119 AP Kr, microfilm 4-73, Corpus Christi Parish, p. 8; see the decree of the guardians of his children with Anna, K-109, pp. 1157-9, 1122 (1691). The town council sent delegates to the Krakow council and to Anna’s brother, Stanislaw, concerning the waste of the children’s property: K-110, p. 822. See also e.g. the examination of the Jordanowska tenement house in 1703, AP Kr, K-114,

pp. 304-5. 111 Balaban, Historja Zydom, ii. 39. 112 AP Kr, CCR 79, p. 1382; CC 1102, pp. 220-1, testimony concerning the beating of the Jews

Jozef and Lewek Bedzinski by Jan Rubinkowski, 1650. 113 AP Kr, K-99, p. 1403. ‘14 The Jesuits’ Library in Krakow, Pol. 68 Nekrologi (Obits), p. 491. In the 17th c. two more Rubinkowskis became Jesuits: Wojciech and Marian; see L. Grzebien, Sfownik jezuitéw polskich, ix (Krakow, 1993); Rubinkowski’s descendants who became peasants have been described by K. and T. Baran and L. Wyrostek, Z przesztosci miasta Nowego Targu (Nowy Targ, 1948), 199. In 1671 a Carmelite Andrzej Rubinkowski appears in the files, CCR 98B, p. 20109.

214 Adam Kazmierczyk 1670s another convert and Kazimierz resident, Andrzej Rubinkowski,'!° returned to Judaism. He may have been distantly related to Hieronim, but he certainly was not his son. On the other hand, it is hardly conceivable that a Jew unrelated to Hieronim would be able to take up the name of a famous councillor. The story of the Rubinkowski family offers an insight into the largely successful process of integration within the Christian majority. As there are no other comparative studies, it is difficult to ascertain whether it was an unusual case, although even in Krakow there are other examples of successful converts (Jozef Bogucicki, Kazimierz Wolinski). Hieronim Rubinkowski was undoubtedly an ambitious man

who pursued his goals with determination. His aspirations were encouraged mainly for religious reasons by the political elites of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth and its kings, Jan Kazimierz and Michal Korybut. Premature death did not allow him to enjoy the fruits of his endeavours of many years. His son did not seem to possess the energy or the drive that motivated his father to such great efforts. Moreover, his premature death made it impossible for him to secure the position of his family and its further social advancement. The ease with

which members of this family integrated within Christian society somewhat undermines the accepted opinion that Polish Jews were isolated from the Christian majority. Not only did they achieve high positions, but Hieronim’s children married into the Kazimierz and Krakow social elites. Looking closer at their scramble for public office, it is difficult to know whether the resistance of the Kazimierz

townsmen was due to prejudice against converts or rather personal animosity towards this family (in the case of Groszkiewicz the latter was certainly of paramount importance). Furthermore, the support of the nobility and priesthood enjoyed by the Rubinkowski family must have displeased some people, who probably saw it as unwarranted interference in the town affairs. Nonetheless it cannot be

denied that while the upper social classes supported the converts, the common people were generally hostile towards them. This widespread phenomenon is reflected in a number of derogatory Polish proverbs such as ‘Zyda chrzczonego tylko utopic’—literally, ‘a converted Jew deserves to drown’.'!© 115 Tn 1695 his wife Regina released the Jewish community from all the claims and stopped all lawsuits concerning (alleged) attempts twenty years earlier to persuade her husband to return to Judaism; AP Kr, CC 443, pp. 3-4. 116 For more such proverbs, see Nowa ksiega przystow i wyrazen przystowiowych polskich: W oparciu o dzteto Samuela Adalberga, ed. J. Krzyzanowski (Warsaw, 1972), ii. 699, 989.

Jews in Public Places Further Chapters in the fewish—Chnistian Encounter in Seventeenth-Century Vilna

, DAVID FRICK IN EARLY modern Vilna the daily interactions of individuals and groups called for a constant drawing of boundaries, a probing for places where accommodation was possible and where it was not. Among other things, it involved the testing of each other’s honour. The rules of group and individual encounter were under continu-

ing negotiation. ‘he fundamental relationship of self and other that informed the early modern Christian—Jewish encounter was complicated in Vilna—and perhaps thereby sometimes attenuated—by the fact that since the end of the sixteenth century the city had been home to five Christian confessions: the ‘Romans’ (Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists) and the ‘Greeks’ (Greek Orthodox and Uniates), in addition to Jews and Muslim Tatars.* Asa corporation, but also as individuals, Jews were also caught up in this testing of boundaries, along with members of the five Christian confessions and the Tatars. All were ready to perceive, interpret, and exploit the confessional, social, and cultural differences within the highly diverse landscape of Christian and nonChristian others that shaped life in the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the early modern period. Jews and Christians met each other in a variety of contexts ranging from the most public to the most private. Elsewhere I have looked at encounters in neighbourhoods, houses, chambers, and marriage beds.* Here | would like to focus further attention on a few episodes from three of the most I would like to thank two anonymous readers and Professor Magda Teter, whose criticisms and suggestions were most helpful to me in revisions of this essay.

For a brief introduction to the confessional landscape of early modern Vilna, see D. Frick, “The Bells of Vilnius: Keeping Time in a City of Many Calendars’, in L. Cormack, N. Pylypiuk, G. Berger, and J. Hart (eds.), Making Contact: Maps, Identity, and Travel (Edmonton, Alberta, 2003), 23—9 and the literature cited there. H. Petersen, Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde in Polen: Lemberg, 1356-1581, Forschungen zur osteuropaischen Geschichte 61 (Wiesbaden, 2003), 70-1, came to similar conclusions about the nature of the Jewish—Christian encounter in Lviv, another highly mixed early modern Polish—Lithuanian city.

2D. Frick, ‘Jews and Others in Seventeenth-Century Wilno: Life in the Neighborhood’, Zemish Studies Quarterly, 12 (2005), 8-42.

216 David Frick public of contexts: the market, the Christian courts, and street processions. It is often possible to find parallels between Jewish—Christian negotiations and those the confessions were conducting among themselves. I will follow a few of these cases where a comparison helps to shed light on the interactions of the peoples in this highly mixed city.?

IN THE MARKET The city of Vilna sought to exert control over the movements of residents and visitors. Gates directed traffic into and out of the city. ‘Guests’—1.e. merchants from outside Vilna arriving with goods for sale—entered through one particular gate, the Rudniki Gate, and resided and conducted their commerce in the goscinny dom,

the ‘Guests’ House’, located behind the town hall on the market square.* The Rudniki Gate was also the port of entry for the king, the bishop, and lesser dignitaries, and the royal way in Vilna led from it to the market square and up Castle Street (ul. Zamkowa) to the cathedral and the castles. The watch announced evening curfew and the closing of the gates by ‘beating the capa [or capstrzyk, from German Zapfenstreich, ‘curfew’ | on the drums in order to remind [the citizenry] of their obligations’.° By that time, the Tatars, who were not citizens in Vilna and had no right of residence within the walls, were to return to their seat in the Lukiszki

suburb just beyond the Tatar Gate, which they shared with Christians of various

confessions. The concentration of Jewish settlement in the heart of the city (Jewish Street (ul. Zydowska), Meat Shop Street (ul. Jatkowa), and a few houses on German Street (ul. Niemiecka)) was not gated, and Jews also lived in scattered chambers in Christian houses elsewhere within the city walls and in at least one of 3 The best guide to early modern Jewish Vilna remains S. A. Bershadsky, ‘Istoriya vilenskoi evreiskoi obshchiny, 1593-1649 gg., na osnovanii neizdannykh istochnikov’, Voskhod, 6 (1886), no. 10,

pp. 125-38; no. 11, pp. 145-54; 7 (1887), no. 3, pp. 81-98; no. 4, pp. 65-78; no. 5, pp. 16-32; no. 6, pp. 58-73; no. 8, pp. 97-110. See also I. Klausner, Toledot hakehitlah ha’tvrit bevilnah (Vilna, 1935) and

I. Cohen, Vilna (Philadelphia, 1943). None of these works takes into account the relations of Vilna Jews with the diverse spectrum of Christian and non-Christian neighbours (and both of the latter two rely on Bershadsky for the 16th and 17 cc.). For a comparison with some other Jewish urban communities in early modern Poland—Lithuania, see M. Balaban, Historja Zydow w Krakowie ina Kazimierzu, 1304-1566, 2 vols. (Krakow, 1931-6); id., Zydzi lwowscy na przelomie X VI-go 1 X VII-go wieku (Lwow,

1906); id., Die Judenstadt von Lublin (Berlin, 1919); Petersen, Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde; A. Teller, Hayim betsavta: harova hayehudt shel poznan bamahazit harishonah shel hame’ah hasheva esreh

(Jerusalem, 2003); id., ‘Warunki zycia 1 obyczajowos¢ w zydowskiej dzielnicy Poznania w pierwszej polowie XVII wieku’, in J. Topolski and K. Modelski (eds.), Zydzi wm Wielkopolsce na przestrzent dziejow, Wielkopolska 8 (Poznan, 1999), 57-70. * Yu. Krachkovsky, ‘Predislovie’ to Akty, izdavaemye Vilenskoi arkheograficheskot komissieyu (hereafter AVAK), 39 vols. (Vilna, 1865-1915), 20, p. xci. Or at least they were supposed to do business there, and wholesale only. The patchwork of jurisdictions in Vilna gave foreign merchants an opportunity to conduct some of their business on a retail basis, and outside the control of the magistracy. See M. Lowmianska, Wilno przed najazdem moskiewskim 1655 roku, Bibljoteczka wilenska 3 (Vilna, 1929),

118-19, 126. ° AVAK 20, 383.

Fews in Public Places 217 the suburbs—Snipiszki across the ‘Bricked Bridge’ on the other side of the river Wilia to the north of town, where they had their cemetery.® Citizenship was one of the most important controls on residence, movement, and commerce. Vilna received its first privilege for self-governance according to

Magdeburg Law in 1387 at the time of the establishment of the personal union between the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.’ The privileges then granted to citizens—and eventually Christians of all confessions could obtain citizenship—for a monopoly over the conduct of commerce were fundamental in the attempt to limit the Jewish presence in the city. Jews were not citizens, and the burghers’ privileges did not pertain to them, except—in the burghers’ own interpretation of them—1in an exclusionary manner. In fact, the burghers of Vilna had managed for a remarkably long time to deny right of settlkement to Jews, much

longer than in many other Lithuanian cities.? The beginnings of a /egal Jewish presence within the walls can be traced to a royal decree of 1555 that exempted the

houses of the Grand Duke’s council from the rule of the magistracy.? With the Union of Lublin in 1569 that set the Polish and Lithuanian gentry equal as members of the sz/achta there came an increased presence of the nobles in Lithuanian cities and an increase in the number of houses exempted from the magistracy and placed under the jurisdiction of the Castle Court—and thus an increase in possibilities for Jews to reside and work inside the walls of Vilna.

From that point forward, Jews began to live and work in the houses of the nobles, which were subject to the Castle Court of Vilna and thus exempt from the restrictions and exclusions imposed by the magistracy.'? On 7 May 1592, Vilna Jews appeared before the Lithuanian Tribunal with a complaint against the local © On Jewish settlement patterns in 17th-c. Vilna, see Frick, ‘Jews and Others’, 11-19. ? Printed in P. Dubinski, Zbidr Praw i Przywilejéw Miastu Stolecznemu W.X.L. Wilnowi nadanych, na Zqadaniu wielu Miast Koronnych, jako tez Wielktego Ksiestwa Litewskiego utozony 1 wydany (Vilna,

1788), I-2. 8 'To the extent that when, as late as 1623, the Lithuanian Jewish communities separated from the Va’ad Arba Aratsot, or Council of Four Lands (of Poland—Lithuania), to form their own Council of the Chief Lithuanian Communities (Va’ad Medinat Lita), those communities were only three: Brest, Grodno, and Pinsk. Although under the jurisdiction of the Lithuanian Va’ad from that moment, the Jews of Vilna did not receive separate mention (and representation) until 1652. Slutsk was added in 1691. See S. M. Dubnov, ‘Oblastnoi pinkos Vaada glavnykh evreiskikh obshchin Litvy’, Evreiskaya starina, 1/1 (1909), 4. On the Jewish councils, see J. Goldberg, ‘Zydowski Seym Czterech Ziem w spolecznym 1 politycznym ustroju dawnej Rzeczypospolitey’, in A. Link-Lenczowski and T. Polanski (eds.), Zydzt w dawne] Rzeczypospolite; (Wroclaw, 1991), 44-8, and the English version in J. Goldberg, ‘The Jewish Sejm: Its Origins and Functions’, in A. Polonsky, J. Basista, and A. Link-Lenczowski (eds.), The fews in Old Poland, tooo—1795 (London, 1993), 147-65. Goldberg sees the origins of the Jewish councils not in their function as internal lawgivers, but in their relationship to the Christian world through their role as administrators for Christian authorities of the collective Jewish tax. ° Bershadsky, ‘Istoriya vilenskoi evreiskoi obshchiny’, 6 (1886), no. 10, p. 132. 10 For guides to the court systems of early modern Poland—Lithuania and their jurisdictions, see J. Bardach, Historia panstwa1 prawa Polski,1: Do potowy XV wieku (Warsaw, 1964) and Z. Kaczmarczyk and B. Lesnodorski, Historia panstwa 1 prawa Polski, 11: Od polowy XV mieku do r. 1795 (Warsaw, 1966).

218 David Frick burghers on the destruction of the main synagogue and of Jewish houses. The eventual response to this litigation was a privilege—apparently the first for the Jews of Vilna—from King Zygmunt III Vasa dated 1 June 1593. It allowed the Jews in Our capital city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in Vilna, to occupy, acquire, and buy the houses of the sz/achta, especially because We already found [ Jews] living [in Vilna] at the time of Our happy arrival in the domains of the Polish Crown and the Grand

Duchy of Lithuania."

The king also specifically granted the right to build a synagogue, to establish a cemetery, and to erect a bath and meat shops.

These foundational privileges put the Jews of Vilna under the jurisdiction of their own autonomous self-governance (the kaha/) for matters within the Jewish community, and under the Castle Court (as were the nobles) for matters reaching beyond the community. It removed them from the jurisdiction of the magistracy, although Jews did go to that court on occasion to make claims against burghers.

But the Jewish privileges at least partially contradicted the burghers’ interpretation of their own foundational privileges as granting them exclusive right to residence and commerce, which resulted in a state of continuing conflict over these two issues. Through successive reconfirmations of Jewish privileges and through litigation between the magistracy and the Jews, a series of clarifications and compromises emerged, among which was a 1633 royal privilege from newly elected King Wladyslaw IV directing the Jews of Vilna to live in certain specified streets and allowing them to engage freely in trades not then covered by the burghers’ guild structures (and the king named them: furriers, haberdashers, glaziers).'” Although Vilna burghers and guild elders may have tried sporadically to make exclusive claims, they never really received a privilege de non tolerandis Fudaeis. I know of only one attempt to obtain such a privilege: that was during the Muscovite

occupation of the city in 1655-61, and there are some indications that the burghers’ petition to Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich met with a certain success.'*? And 11 Metryka Litewska (Lithuanian ‘Metrica’), 78 (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov

(Russian State Archive of Early Acts, Moscow; hereafter RGADA), 389.78), fos. 250°—251'; Bershadsky, ‘Istoriya vilenskoi evreiskoi obshchiny’, 7 (1887), no. 3, p. 82. 12 Bershadsky, ‘Istoriya vilenskoi evreiskoi obshchiny’, 7 (1887), no. 3, pp. 94—6, and no. 4, p. 70. See the 1669 reconfirmation of this privilege by King Michat Korybut Wisniowiecki in A VAK 29, 28-9.

13 The topic deserves further study. For an investigation of the practical effects of such an exclusionary privilege, see J. Goldberg, ‘De non tolerandis Iudaeis: On the Introduction of the Anti-Jewish Laws into Polish Towns and the Struggle against Them’, in S. Yeivin (ed.), Studies in Jewish History Presented to Professor Raphael Mahler on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Merhavia, 1974), 39-52. For the

petitions to the tsar and the decree that Jews should be relegated to the suburbs, see A. Rachuba, ‘Wilno pod okupacja moskiewska w latach 1655-1661’, Lithuania, 2-3 (1994), 63-72 at 68-9; E.. Meilus, *Przynaleznosé etniczna Wilnian 1 ich lojalnosé wzgledem wladzy w czasie wojen z Moskwa w polowie X VII w.: Rozwazania nad tematem’, in J. Wyrozumski (ed.), Kultura Litwy i Polski w dztejach: Tozsamos¢ 1 wspolstniene (Krakow, 2000), 91-103 at 101—2; J. 1. Kraszewski, Wilno od poczatkiw jego do roku 1750, 11 (Vilna, 1841), 125. The earliest evidence I have been able to find attesting to the return of the Jews to occupied Vilna is a protestation from 23 July 1660 in which Lewek Majerowicz

Fews in Public Places 219 although their privileges gave the Jews of Vilna freedom of residence and commerce within the city walls, it did not make them citizens. '* Stalls in the market square, even spots on the ground for selling various goods, were regulated by the city. The annual records of municipal income and expenditures offer, among other things, lists of names of all individuals who had a right to conduct business in the city’s market stalls, open spaces, and taverns (and thus also an obligation to pay a fee).1° Names were grouped by categories of merchandise, ranging from the ‘Salt Shops, in which salt, herring, and butter are sold’ (5 zt per

annum per shop), through the ‘Cobblers’ Stands, in which various types of footwear are sold’ (2 zl, 15 gr) and the ‘Fish Stands, in which fishwives sell fresh and smoked fish’ (1 zl, 7 gr, 4 p), to the ‘Women who sell candles’ (15 gr) and the ‘Christians and Tatars who planted grain on municipal land’ (various amounts).'° The same annual records regularly listed a lump fee, a tax (pensja), paid by the

elders of the Jewish community in the name of the entire ‘school’. In 1680, for example, the Jewish elders Heliasz Markowicz and Lazarz Dawidowicz paid 600 zt, and this communal payment was recorded next to all the payments of individually

named Christians (and a few Tatars).'’ This arrangement derived from a decree of 20 July 1633 by King Wladyslaw IV, which reaffirmed and clarified Jewish privileges and obligations, setting the Jewish tax at 300 zl in peacetime and 500 zl during war. The tax was raised in 1635 to 600 zi annually, during both peace and war.1®

complained (as did many of the returning Christian Vilnans) that the things he had buried in the basement when he fled the city were no longer there. See RGADA 1603.12.14, 518-109.

14 For a discussion of the ‘direct causal nexus between the growing role of local privileges and the decentralization of the socio-political structure of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth’, see the introduction to J. Goldberg, Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth: Charters of Rights Granted to Jewish Communities in Poland—Lithuania in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. Critical Edition of the Original Latin and Polish Documents with English Introductions and Notes (Jerusalem, 1985), 11-12. See

especially pp. 26-8 on the ‘exclusion of Jews from municipal citizenship’. For some objections to the blanket applicability of the term ‘exclusion’, see G. D. Hundert, ‘Kahal1 samorzad miejski w miastach prywatnych w XVIIi XVIII w.’, in Link-Lenczowski and Polanski Zydzi wm dawnej; Rzeczypospolites,

66-75 (English version: G. D. Hundert, “The Ke/i/la and the Municipality in Private Towns at the End of the Early Modern Period’, in Polonsky, Basista, and Link-Lenczowski (eds.), The Jews in Old Poland, 174-85). I will return to this matter in the concluding section. 1° The extant records are more or less complete beginning after the Muscovite occupation (1655-61). See Lietuvos valstybés istorijos archyvas (Lithuanian State Historical Archive, Vilnius; hereafter LVIA), 458.1.17-458.1.55, for the 17th-c. records beginning with 1663. 16 See e.g. LVIA 458.1.26 for the records of 1670. Zt = zloty; gr = grosz; p = pieniadz; 1 zi = 30 gr, and 1 gr = 8 p. These records were kept in Polish currency, rather than in the Lithuanian currency, where 1 k (kopa, or ‘shock’) = 60 Lithuanian gr. To give a rough sense of values: a quarter barrel of salt was valued at 3 zl in 1665 (LVIA SA 5103, fos. 116"—-125"); the folio edition Calvinist Bible printed at Brest in 1563 was put at 3 ztin 1663 (LVIA SA 5102, fos. 276-278"); a brick town house (kamuienica) on Glass Street was purchased in 1667 for 5,000 zi (LVIA SA 5116, fo. 48”). 17 LVIA 458.1.37, fo. 26°. 18 Bershadsky, ‘Istoriya vilenskoi evreiskoi obshchiny’, 7 (1887), no. 4, p. 68, and no. 5, p. 27.

220 David Frick Jewish self-government sought to maintain separation between Jews and Christians and to control the Jewish presence, behaviour, and appearance in public places like the market, at least partially in an attempt to avoid conflicts with the

burghers that could bring harm to the community. The record book (pinkas) of the Vilna community is not extant. To be sure, patterns of Jewish settlement differed significantly in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth: Vilna’s Jews had gathered in the heart of the city, but lived also in other houses within and without the walls, which was not the case in most other royal cities; moreover, the ethnoconfessional landscape in which Vilna’s Jews found themselves differed as well: not all cities, not even all private cities, were as confessionally and ethnically mixed as

Vilna. Still, a look at the discussions conducted in other communities on these topics may help to suggest possible contexts for the Vilna data remaining at our disposal. The Krakow (Kazimierz) kahal, for example, had decreed in 1637 that every teacher shall take care that his students not run around in the streets, for this genera-

tion is lawless, because of our many sins. .. . If they [the father and the teacher| fail to rebuke the boys accordingly . . . it is our ruling that the boys should be beaten and expelled from the market and the streets. 19

Clearly an important goal of this regulation was the maintenance of Jewish order and learning. But part may also have been an attempt to avoid conflict with the Christian world in ‘the market and the streets’. Other documents make this desire clearer. The 1620 Regulations of the Zotkiew kahal commanded that ‘women sitting in the marketplace shall not quarrel with any non-Jew, otherwise she shall be barred from the marketplace for thirty days and fined a pound of wax for char-

ity’.2° In 1623, the Council of the Chief Communities of Lithuania (Va’ad Medinat Lita) decreed that a Jew ‘shall beware of deriding a “stranger”, to say nothing of entering into a quarrel with a non-Jew, whoever he might be’.”?

Jacob Katz has noted that in the early modern period ‘the meaning of /ilul hashem [strictures against the ‘Desecration of the Holy Name’ came to be that a Jew should not wrong a Christian because of the consequent danger to the Fewish com-

munity .. ..22 This attitude may help to explain why internal Jewish regulations frequently—and silently, on the whole—echoed Christian decrees.*° 19S. A. A. Cygielman, Jewish Autonomy in Poland and Lithuania until 1648 (5408): Selected Documents on the Autonomy of the Jewish Community in Poland and Lithuania. Scope, Communal and Extra-Communal Institutions and their Modes of Operation with a Historical Prologue and Epilogue, Annotated Sources and Indexes, Map, and Photographs of the Relevant Jewish Sites (Jerusalem, 1997),

229. The translation has been slightly amended to retain the sense of the original Yiddish. 20 Cygielman, Jewish Autonomy, 137. 21 Dubnoy, ‘Oblastnoi pinkos’, 1/2 (1909), 38. 22 J. Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Studies in Jewish—Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times, Scripta Judaica 3 (Oxford, 1961), 159-60; emphasis added.

23H. Petersen, ‘Jiidisches Selbstverstandnis im stadtischen Kontext: Die Gemeindeordnung der Krakauer Juden aus dem Jahr 1595’, in M. Dmitrieva and K. Lambrecht (eds.), Krakau, Prag und Wien: Funktionen von Metropolen im frihmodernen Staat (Stuttgart, 2000), 131-41 at 139, notes on the basis of the Krakow case: ‘Externally imposed restrictions become internalized, in that they are newly

Fews in Public Places 221 Similar kinds of concerns for non-Jewish sensibilities about the behaviour and public appearance of Jews extended to Jewish sumptuary laws, especially those having to do with dress. Although the Second Lithuanian Statute of 1566 required all Jews to wear yellow hats, there is no evidence that the requirement was ever enforced. Some have argued that this was because there was little need: most Jews were easily recognizable in Poland—Lithuania without yellow hats.** Others have noted evidence that suggests blurring of the line—the fact that Christian women were eager to borrow the dresses of their Jewish neighbours, that rabbinic and lay leaders were eager to enforce distinction in Jewish dress.*° In any event, Jewish regulations forbidding the wearing of non-Jewish clothing sought to maintain this distinction (even if they are also testimony to the fact that some were attempting to blur it). The meeting of the Council of Four Lands (Va’ad Arba Aratsot), which still included Lithuania at that time, at the Lublin fair in 1607 decreed that ‘men and wonien shall not wear any gentile apparel or immodest clothing, as 1s widespread these days for our many sins; rather the children of Israel should stand out in their [distinctive] clothing’ .*° In similar fashion, the Lithuanian Council that met in 1637 banned ‘absolutely every type of clothing made according to the pattern of the dress in which non-Jews clothe themselves’. These restrictions included prohibitions on specific fabrics and styles, such as the ban on adopting the nobleman’s ‘satin or damask zupan’, except for those who paid 4,000 zt or more (a huge sum!) to the Jewish district tax per annum.?/ These sumptuary laws, along with those regulating expense for banquets, were clearly both a means of keeping order among Jews of various ‘estates’ and between formulated by the community leadership as the self-established norm.’ For other instances where Jewish community decrees echo Christian ordinances, without citing them, see J. Goldberg, ‘Poles and Jews in the 17th and 18th Centuries: Rejection or Acceptance’, Jahrbiicher fiir Geschichte Osteuropas, 22 (1974),

248-82 at 252; J. Kalik, ‘Jews in Catholic Ecclesiastic Legislation in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth’, Kwartalnik Aistoru Lydow/fewish History Quarterly, 209 (2004), 26-39 at 36; ead., ‘Christian Servants Employed by Jews in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Seventeenth and

Eighteenth Centuries’, Polin, 14 (2001), 259-70 at 270. For an example from responsa, see D. Fettke, Juden und Nichtjuden im 16. und 17. fahrhundert in Polen: Soziale und dkonomische Beziehungen in Responsen polnischer Rabbinen, Judentum und Umwelt 17 (Frankfurt am Main, 1986), 26.

24 See S. W. Baron, 4 Social and Religious History of the Jews, xvi: Late Middle Ages and Era of European Expansion: Poland—Lithuania, 1500-1650 (New York, 1976), 132-3; D. Tollet, ‘Zycie pry-

watne Zydow w Polsce epoki Wazow’, in Link-Lenczowski and Polanski (eds.), Zydzi w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej, 274 (English version: D. Tollet, “The Private Life of Polish Jews in the Vasa Period’, in Polonsky, Basista, and Link-Lenczowski (eds.), The Jews in Old Poland, 45-62 at 49); Kalik, ‘Jews in Catholic Ecclesiastic Legislation’, 33. 25 See E. Fram, [deals Face Reality: Jewish Law and Life in Poland, 1550-1655 (Cincinnati, 1997), 30, and esp. n. 70; M. Teter, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the PostReformation Era (Cambridge, 2006), 71-6.

°° Cygielman, femish Autonomy, 277. For comparison, on Krakéw sumptuary laws, see E. Fram, ‘Hagvalat motarot bakehilah hayehudit bekrakuv beshilhei hameah ha-16 uvereshit hame’ah ha-17’,

Gal-ed, 18 (2002), Hebrew section, 11-23. For examples from responsa, see Fettke, Juden und

Nichtjuden, 23-6. 27 Dubnoy, ‘Oblastnoi pinkos’, 2/2 (1910), 179—80.

222 David Frick Jews and Christians in the public sphere.7° They were a set of laws that paralleled _ those of the Christian community and reflected the concerns of societies based on distinctions of both estate and religion.

Similar debates on sartorial distinction also arose among Vilna Christians. Tensions had escalated between Roman Catholics and Calvinists in the autumn of 1639, leading to a series of violent altercations. In the years after 1640, when the Calvinist church had been removed by royal decree from within the walls to its

new place just outside them, rules were negotiated for the Calvinist presence within the city. Most important in this instance, Calvinist ministers were forbidden to dress like Catholic priests, lest, during their walk through the square on their way to visit parishioners within the walls, visually challenged Vilna sheep mistake them for true shepherds and follow them to their perdition.*°

Privileges given to specific Protestant and Jewish communities frequently , extended this concern for distinctive appearance in the public arena to sacred architecture: Protestant churches and Jewish synagogues were not to tower over other structures, especially Catholic churches; they were often to be entered from side streets; and—above all—they were not to resemble Catholic places of worship. In 1633 King Wladyslaw IV gave a privilege to the Jews of Vilna allowing them to build a bricked synagogue on Jewish Street, on the spot where the wooden one had stood, for the sake of safety and protection against fire, with the condition that its peak not reach above the town houses (kamienice), and that it not bear any similarity in its appearance to [Roman Catholic] churches and [Orthodox/Uniate] churches.°° 28 But note that a wealthy Jew, one who supported the community in a fashion in keeping with his wealth, was allowed to blur the line and dress like a sz/achcic. For further sumptuary regulations, see

also Dubnov, ‘Oblastnoi pinkos’, 2/2 (1910), 181-3; 3/2 (1911), 262-3, 265, 266; and 4/2 (1912), 29-30. For instance, the Va’ad allowed Jews to wear two gold rings on weekdays, three on the sabbath,

and five on holy days (Dubnov, ‘Oblastnoi pinkos’, 2/2 (1909), 181; Cygielman, femish Autonomy, 331). Here, too, Jewish authorities may have sought, in part, to reaffirm Christian regulations, and at times their takanot sound like echoes of constitutions or paragraphs from the Lithuanian Statute. The Third Lithuanian Statute of 1588 (ch. 12, art. 8) declared that Jews were not to ‘walk about wearing chains and gold jewellery, nor are they to wear silver on their belts, sashes, swords’. They were allowed, however, one signet and one ring; Jewish women might wear rings, sashes, and adornments ‘according to their resources’. See Statut Vyalikaha Knyastva Litowskaha 1558: Teksty, davednik, kamentaryt, ed. I. P. Shamyakin (Minsk, 1989), 315.

| 29 Lietuvos nacionaliné Martyno Mazvydo biblioteka (Martynas Mazvydas Lithuanian National Library, Vilnius; hereafter LNMB), F93-1713, fo. 1°. On the unrest of 1639—-40, see B. Zwolski, Sprawa Zboru ewangelicko-reformowanego w Wilnie w latach 1639-41, Bibljoteczka wilenska 7 (Vilna, 1936); H. Wisner, “Likwidacja zboru ewangelickiego w Wilnie (1639-1646):

Z dziejow walki z inaczej wierzacymi’, Odrodzenie 1 Reformacja w Polsce, 37 (1993), 89-102; B. Kosmanowa, ‘Sprawa wilenskiego kosciola Sw. Michala (wizja J. I. Kraszewskiego a rzeczywistos¢ historyczna)’, ibid. 40 (1996), 53-68. The concern remained in the 18th c.: a Catholic synod in Vilna in 1744 demanded that Calvinist clergy wear distinctive dress lest they be ‘like wolves in sheep’s clothing’. See Teter, Jews and Heretics, 135, 141.

30 ‘aby zadnego w apparentiey swey do kosciol6w y cerkwi podobieristwa w sobie nie miala’; see AVAK 29, 25.

Fews in Public Places 223 The privilege was reconfirmed by both Jan Kazimierz (1648) and Michal Korybut Wisniowiecki (1669). And yet—to return now more specifically to the physical market—there were exceptions to the rule of Christian—Jewish separation and to the principle that, at least in theory, Jews were to deal with the Christian world as, or at least through,

the corporation. Jews were unique in Vilna in this regard: I find no indication in the city’s financial records that other groups of ‘others’ were treated as corporations, as they were elsewhere (e.g. Tatars, Scots, Armenians). And yet, occasional entries in the city’s financial records list unexplained payments from individual Jews without an explanation for the exception to standard practice: for instance, the lonely presence of the ‘Jew Heliasz’ and of the ‘Jewess, wife of Izrael’, two among 104 individuals, all the rest Christians, who were charged 1 zl, 7 gr, and 4 p for the right to distil spirits in 1670.°' Equally interesting is the deed of sale that the ‘infidel®? Zelman Izakowicz, Jew of Vilna’ entered before the Vilna magistracy ‘voluntarily, out loud, manifestly, and with express words’ to the effect that he had sold to a Christian named Teodor Belmacewicz the shop (kram) he had inherited ‘naturaliter [naturally| and /egitime [legitimately] from his uncle, the ‘infidel Jakub Jozefowicz, Jew of Vilna’, in 1642. Izakowicz presented the 1642 intromisja (the court-registered document attesting to the legality of his inheritance: presumably it had been issued by the magistracy and not by the Jewish court), which noted that

the shop in question was between those of Hrehor Omelianowicz and Szymon Nowomiejski, a member of the Vilna Bench. Omelianowicz was in all likelihood a ‘Greek’ (i.e. a Ruthenian, either Uniate or Orthodox); Nowomiejski was certainly a Roman Catholic.*? In any case, this shop, which had been in Jewish hands for at

least two generations, was located in the main market square, between two Christian shops.** This, too, suggests that the public separation sought by both Jewish and Christian authorities was not achieved in practice. There were no doubt more such cases of Jews conducting commerce as individuals in “semi-normal’ relations with the Christian authorities (i.e. in relative peace, in 31 LVIA 458.1.26, fos. 23" and 24".

82 Niemierny: ‘unbelieving’, ‘unfaithful’, ‘infidel’. This was the standard title with which both Jews and ‘Tatars were regularly indentified in the courts of Vilna. By contrast, a Christian appearing before the court might be identified as ‘His Grace, Lord (Pan) Stefan Izak Dziahilewicz, councillor of Vilna’ (but never by confession). Petersen, Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde, 71, notes that in the courts of Krakow and Poznan Jews were regularly titled perfidus—a similar but somewhat stronger term than Vilna’s more neutral i/fidelis; and that in Lviv, by contrast, Jews were sometimes granted the status of ‘citizens’—coincolae, concives, cives, civiles.

°° In the case of Omelianowicz, I am judging by his name (which can only be Ruthenian) and by the company he kept: he was appointed guardian of the orphans of the Orthodox Hieronim Ozarzewicz, together with the Uniate city councillor Samuel Filipowicz (LVIA SA 5333, fos. 248'-249"; LVIA SA

5334, fos. 58'-62"). Nowomiejski, in turn, was one of the elders of the congregation of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Jesuits’ St Kazimierz (Lietuvos mokslu akademijos biblioteka (Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Vilnius; hereafter LMAB), F138-1712,

361). 34 TVIA SA 5107, fo. 50°”.

224 David Frick exchange for the payment of individual municipal taxes). Still, the Jews continued to pay their tax as a corporation; and in exchange for this payment, Jews hoped to be left alone, to be allowed to govern themselves semi-autonomously, and to engage in the kinds of commerce granted them in a series of royal privileges. The problem, again, was that the municipality also had a series of privileges granting citizens freedoms— including, so the burghers thought, the exclusive right to trade in the city; and Jews and ‘Tatars could not obtain the rights of citizens in Vilna. ‘Thus the Christian guilds were engaged in constant legal and extra-legal battles with that same Jewish corporation over where, when, and how Jews might work and conduct business.®° A look at one such litigation. In 1667-8 the Christian butchers of Vilna fought a

legal battle with their Jewish counterparts. Part of the complaint here had to do with the conduct of commerce and the use of public space and with the time and manner in which this was done. Not only—so the Christian complaint had it—had the ranks of Jewish butchers ‘multiplied beyond count’ (when they had been limited to four by a royal privilege and six by a later guild charter), but on Fridays, and especially during Lent, having established the seat of their slaughterhouse near Roman monasteries and churches, killing cattle in the city publice [publicly], and throwing the faeces [remains] out near their synagogue, where people of the Roman

Catholic faith are wont to go to gather for church services at the Reverend Father Franciscans, having laid out cows, calves, sheep, and goats consu/to |on purpose], without any annual corporal oath [of allegiance to the city], distrahunt [they sell retail] . . .°°

The appeal in this legal argument was to Catholic religious sensibilities: the incompatibility of Jewish meat and Christian fasting. It was also an appeal to (Christian) public order and propriety: Jewish dirt and disorder near Catholic holy places. But the motivations were probably also those of commercial rivalry. The Christian butchers of Vilna were forced to accept the right of Jewish butchers to have their own guild, but they complained when they saw that the Jewish guild was

such a successful institution that Christian journeymen found it an attractive and lucrative place to learn their trade.?’ The goal here was to restrict Jewish 35 Christian guilds often attempted to lump together Jews, Tatars, Scots, and other ‘non-guild’ artisans in lists of partacze (‘bunglers’, ‘artisans working outside guild structures’) who were among the most intensely fought competitors in the marketplace. On this, see Goldberg, ‘Poles and Jews’, 272;

Goldberg, Jewish Privileges, 18-20; P. Kramerowna, ‘Zydowskie cechy rzemieslInicze w dawnej Polsce’, Miesteczntk zydowsk1, 2 (1932), 259-98.

36 AVAK 28, 407-8. For privileges to Christian butchers and limitations on Jewish trades, see Akta cechéw wilenskich, ed. H. Lowmianski and M. Lowmianska, 1 (Vilnius, 1939), 196, 394. For a discus-

sion of conflicts between Christian and Jewish butchers in Lviv, including a similar complaint that Jewish butchers not only sold retail to Christians, but did so on Sundays, see Fettke, Juden und Nichtjuden, 100-2. 37 AVAK 28, 408: ‘They [the Jewish butchers of Vilna] entice to themselves Christian apprentices (czeladz), who, having caused not inconsiderable harm to their masters, and having incurred debt with

them, depart from them; and they [the Jewish butchers] receive them and maintain them.’ On this issue in general, see Kramerowna, ‘Zydowskie cechy’, 265, 293.

Jews in Public Places 225 commerce (‘they sell retail’). ‘The protestation about place, time, and manner may have been ancillary to that end. But the problem of negotiating public space and time was not new, nor was it limited to Jewish—Christian relations. Multi-confessional Vilna had been the scene of similar complaints on numerous occasions in the past, often among Christians. With the Gregorian reform of the calendar in 1582, Christian Vilna began to function according to two systems—the new, Gregorian calendar for all the ‘Romans’ (which included here the Lutherans and Calvinists) and the old, Julian calendar for all the ‘Greeks’ (both Uniate and Orthodox, who were present at all levels of society). Jews and Tatars also used their own calendars for matters within their communities.°°

Thus the complaint brought by the Christian butchers against their Jewish counterparts would not have sounded new to Vilnans; indeed, royal decrees and solutions in the matter of the various conflicting Christian and Jewish calendars echo each other. On 29 July 1586 (not quite four years after the calendar reform was introduced in Poland), King Stefan Batory issued a decree instructing Ruthenian merchants and artisans to observe Catholic holidays, or at least not to work on them.*? Vilnans at large were not under any obligation to take similar note of Ruthenian holy days. Nonetheless, the king did impose a certain compromise.

In a decree of 8 September 1586 he forbade the Vilna magistracy to summon Ruthenians to court on Ruthenian holidays: We command .. . that you not cause any problems in this matter in this city of Vilna for people of the Greek rite, and that you not make any obstacles in the celebration of holy days according to their rite, and especially the Birth of the Lord, His Baptism, Circumcision, Resurrection, the Lord’s Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the ‘Trinity, all the holy days of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, and of the other Apostolic Holidays, according to their ancient custom and rite, and that, on these above-mentioned holy days, the people of the Greek rite not be summoned to the Town Hall and submitted to judgement by the courts ...and that oaths not be rendered by them on these holy days.*°

Batory further demanded of the Vilna magistracy, ‘in the name of Christian love’, that it make sure that ‘one side not cause any scandal for the other’, so that ‘the peace might be maintained in this city of ours in all respects’.** It was a more sensitive issue if a Jew opened shop on Roman Catholic Good

Friday or Corpus Christi than if a Ruthenian did so. The argument with the Ruthenian, after all, was over timing, not over the body of Christ. Protestant behaviour during Corpus Christi, however—given the debates on transubstantiation—was no less thorny an issue, and Roman Catholics were likely to put the heterodox and the Jews in one category: those who scoff at the notion of the real 38 | have written in greater detail about the conflict of calendars in 17th-c. Vilna elsewhere. See Frick, “The Bells of Vilnius’. 39 Zbibr dawnych dyplomatéw i aktéw miast: Wilna, Kowna, Trok, prawoslawnych monasterém, cerkwt 1 w rosnych sprawach, pt. 1 (Vilna, 1843), 138.

40 Ibid. 139—40. See also Dubinski, Zbi6r Praw, 149-51. 41 Zhidr dawnych dyplomatém, 140.

226 David Frick presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Host, and who ought therefore not to appear in public, or even to open their windows, on that day.** The structures of the Catholic_Jewish, Catholic—Protestant, and Catholic-Ruthenian conflicts were similar; thus the complaints would have sounded familiar to Vilnans, as did the official responses. Already in 1542 the Roman Catholic synod of Piotrkow had protested: We are tired of tolerating the growing audacity of the Jews. Not satisfied with engaging in occupations interfering with the livelihood of Christians, they raise their heads as enemies of the Christian religion. They ridicule all sacred things, they walk and talk on our holidays in all public streets in our city. ‘They also refer to many simple folk and peasants in derogatory terms. They shave them and cut their hair, serve them drinks, keep shops and stores open for them, and perform a variety of tasks desecrating and interfering with our holidays. For this reason, we decree that on holidays no Jew should dare to walk in public places, trade with, serve drinks to, shave, cut hair, let blood, or perform other medical ministrations [for Christians].*°

But in 1592 Zygmunt III extended, perhaps somewhat grudgingly, the same sorts of protections to Jews that Batory had granted to Vilna Ruthenians concerning their own calendar of holy days: ‘Jews, in accordance with the prohibition of their superstitious law, shall be neither summoned nor judged on the days of their Sabbath or other festivals.’ And other decrees spelled out what days those were: ‘their fast days | Bosiny; literally, days of bare feet], the nine days of mourning [Ab 1-9] and those of the renowned fairs at Jarostaw and on Gromnice [the fairs held in Lublin]’.** Presumably the Jews of Vilna did not arouse the ire of the ‘Romans’ by working on specifically ‘Greek’ holy days, and we might suspect that they were indeed less cau-

tious about their activities on those days, since the dominant calendar was the Roman one. After all, what merchant could afford to observe three sets of holy days (Jewish, Roman, and Greek)? But—if this was the case—perhaps this was an added source of conflict between the Jews and the Ruthenians in Vilna.*° *2 Corpus Christi processions often gave rise to Catholic—Protestant unrest in the cities. For a discussion of one of the best-known cases—one which occurred in Vilna in 1611—see J. Tazbir, ‘Meczennik za wiare—Franco de Franco’, in his Reformacja w Polsce: Szkice 0 ludziach 1 doktrynie (Warsaw, 1993), 90-105. For restrictions placed on Jews during Corpus Christi processions in Lublin, see A. Teller, ‘Przedmowa’, in H. Gmiterek (ed.), Materialy érédlowe do dziejéw Zydéw w ksiegach grodzkich lubelskich z doby panowania Augusta IT Sasa, 1697-1733 (Lublin, 2001), 19—34 at 22. 43 Cited according to Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Fews, 91.

44 Cited according to Baron, ibid. 92. The bracketed glosses are Baron’s. The Fast of 9 Av (Tisha be’av) (Baron wrote Ab)—the day usually falls in August—commemorates the tragedies that had befallen the Jewish people, above all the destruction of the First and Second Temples. It is preceded by three weeks of increasing mourning and marks the culmination of a nine-day period of restrictions

on food, drink, and dress. Such protections go back to guarantees provided in canon law based on Roman imperial legislation. See A. Linder (ed.), The fews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit and Jerusalem, 1987), 262-7.

*° On the ‘high degree of violence—violence that both sides originated, which [characterized Orthodox—Jewish relations, but] was not typical of relations between the Jews and the Catholic and

Fews in Public Places 227 Objections similar to those in the Christian butchers’ complaint about proximities and the normal paths connecting church and market had also been raised in the course of recurrent conflicts between Catholics and Calvinists. In one instance, Catholic protestations likewise claimed that modest Catholics—in this case, Bernardine monks and nuns—could not make their way from their convent and monastery at St Michael’s and SS Francis and Bernard to the market square without passing by the neighbouring Calvinist complex and encountering derisive comments and gestures, and general threats to health, honour, and sensibility.*° The royal decree of 25 June 1640 removing the Calvinists from their seat within

the walls tells us that the founder and patron of the Bernardine convent and Church of St Michael, the Palatine of Vilna Lew Sapieha (d. 1633), had been forced to remove ‘the dormitories that were on that side of the street facing the Calvinist church’ and to wall up the windows, because, ‘when the nuns, following common Catholic custom in dedicatione ecclesiae suae {in the dedication of their church], hung out banners, then [the Calvinist students from the other side of the

street] 1 contemptum religionis [in contempt of religion] hung out from the Calvinist church facing the nuns’ church what neither honourable lips [can speak],

nor the dignified ears of the senate can hear sine horrore [without horror]’.*’ Whether the Calvinist boys were facing the horrified nuns or had turned their backs to them (more likely the latter offensive gesture), the alleged behaviour clearly had to do with an obscene baring of body parts. Here again the appeal was to offended sensibilities, and it was based on incompatible juxtapositions: Catholic virgins in Christ vis-a-vis Calvinist profanities. In both instances—the Bernardine—Calvinist and the Christian—Jewish conflicts—it would have been quite easy to find a minimal detour that would have brought sensitive souls to their goals, from convent to market, and from just about anywhere in town to the Franciscans’ church and monastery at the city wall near the Troki Gate, without any need to pass by the offending sites. The Christian butchers’ complaint is particularly interesting in this regard. It is hard to imagine

how anyone not living on Jewish Street would feel compelled to go to the Franciscans by way of that street, where all the offending carcasses were lying about. This confirms the impression that Christians were a regular presence on Uniate Churches’, see J. Kalik, ‘The Orthodox Church and the Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’, femish History, 17 (2003), 229-37 at 229, 231, 232. As I have noted elsewhere (Frick, ‘Jews and Others’, 17), in addition to the streets allotted to Jewish settlement, individual Jewish fami-

lies lived in rented chambers in Christian houses scattered throughout the city—except for the Ruthenian neighbourhoods, where I have not found any Jews. It is difficult to say whether this ‘fact’ is a coincidence, a mirage created by gaps in the sources, or evidence for heightened Ruthenian—Jewish animosity, or at least separation. See also Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance, 32-3, on Jewish balancing

of economic necessity with Christian religious calendars. On Jewish and Protestant conflicts with Catholic calendars, see Teter, Jews and Heretics, 61-2, 124, 177. For responsa discussing whether nonJews may work for Jews on Jewish holidays, see Fettke, fuden und Nichtjuden, 104-5.

46 LNMB Fo93-1608, fo. 1’; LNMB F93-1697, fo. 1”. 47 AVAK 20, 330.

228 David Frick Jewish Street; but it also suggests that the Christian butchers were searching hard for something to complain about, since it is unlikely that Roman Catholic Vilnans walked that way to Mass at the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary ‘on the Sands’.

The representative for the Jewish butchers replied to the allegations of the Christian lawyers concerning sacred time in this manner: that Jewish butchers do indeed ‘sell meat on Fridays and during Lent, but then distrahunt [they sell retail | not publice [publicly] but privatim [privately], and only to their own Jews at that’. This may not have been strictly true: there are some indications that Jewish shops, including those of the butchers, served Christians as a kind of neighbourhood convenience shop when Christian shops had to be closed. Here, too, the question of competition in the marketplace may have been lurking behind arguments about the profanation of the holy. The lawyer for the Jewish side then addressed the

question of place: ‘the fact that Jews slaughter cattle in the city—this 1s usus antiquus, a majoribus of them introductus [ancient usage, introduced by (their) ancestors] .. . as also the Christian butchers of Vilna do not have their separate house, rather they slaughter cattle partly in their own houses, partly in their meat shops’. And as far as the oath is concerned, the Jewish butchers were ready to swear on an annual basis that they ‘do not sell sick meats or infected cattle’. ‘The Tribunal ruled that henceforth both Jewish and Christian butchers were to do their slaughtering in the suburb beyond the Troki Gate.*®

What these few episodes reveal is the tension between regulations, both Christian and Jewish, that aimed at maintaining the separation and distinction of members of the two religions, on the one hand, and, on the other, the negotiations that necessarily followed—on the part of both individuals and law-giving bodies— when ‘ideals faced reality’.*? Questions of proximity, public behaviour, dress, archi-

tecture, and times and place of commerce were not limited to Jewish—Christian discussions. Although Roman Catholicism was becoming the dominant religion of the sz/achta, and to an extent of the state, its position was weaker in places like Vilna. Jews negotiated some of these issues on occasion with all five Christian confessions; at the same time, the Christians of Vilna were engaged in similar debates with each other.

48 AVAK 28, 410 and 412. Surveys conducted in 1636 and 1639 tell us that there was a wotownia (cowshed, perhaps also slaughterhouse), Jewish-owned and operated, on the lower west (left-hand) side of Meat Shop Street, near the intersection with German Street. See Biblioteka Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego, Berlin manuscripts (MSS of the former Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, now in the Library of the Jagiellonian University, Krakow; hereafter BUJ), B Slav., F. 17, fo. 48"; BUJ, B Slav., F. 15, fo. 27”.

49 The phrase is taken from the title of Fram’s 1997 investigation of the compromises and negotiations he found in his reading of rabbinic responsa between halakhah and the needs of everyday life in early modern Poland—Lithuania. But the general mode of approach to the problems lends itself well to a study of daily interactions between members of all the confessions and religions of 17th-c. Vilna.

Jews in Public Places 229 IN COURT Members of all the confessions and religions of Vilna had occasion to come before all the Christian courts, not only the burghers’ magistracy and the nobles’ Castle Court, but also those of the autonomous legal jurisdictions ruled by institutions like the Roman Catholic Chapter, where canons served as secular judges. ‘These smaller jurydyki were islands within the larger Magdeburg jurisdiction of cities and their suburbs. Anyone who went to law could be asked to read a prepared oath or rota, swearing that something was or was not the case. In Polish—Lithuanian courts, the oath served as an independent proof. A judge would declare one of the litigants ‘closer to the proof’ (blzszy do dowodu)—that 1s to say that, in the yudge’s opinion, one of the parties was in a better position to know the truth and to be able to substantiate the claim. That party would then be ordered to appear before the court, often in three days’ time, in the company of two co-jurors (samotrzec) and to read a prepared, usually quite detailed oath, ending with a phrase like ‘so help me God and the Holy Cross’.®° Here is one example, sworn before the Vilna magistracy on 12 January 1680: I, Anastazja Klezina, swear by the Lord God almighty and all the Saints that, when I was serving Her Grace, Lady Zofia Ohurcewiczowna Szperkowiczowa, I did not wring the neck of her doggy, and I did not throw it at the feet of that same Lady of mine, nor did I bewitch that same Lady in that manner or in any other. .. . May the Lord God and His Holy Passion help me, and if I have not sworn truly, may the Lord God kill me.??

Quite often the very imposition of the oath and the fear of giving false testimony were enough to bring feuding parties to some kind of agreement before the allotted three days had expired. I have found no reference to confession in such litigation in Vilna: all Christians were considered equally capable of swearing upon the same Lord and God. In giving oaths before Christian courts, individual Jews were again forced to

negotiate two sets of constraints. Jewish authorities sought to place limits on appearances of individual Jews before Christian courts (and to ban entirely recourse to those fora in litigation between Jews).°” In a regulation of 1623, the Council of the Chief Lithuanian Communities ruled that Jews must appear before the local kahal before proceeding—as plaintiff or accused—to the Christian courts in litigations with non-Jews. If the Christian court should call a Jew to give his oath, the shamash | Jewish bailiff] must not bring him to give his oath before he turns to the elders

for permission. If they are convinced there is no desecration of the name of God in this °° On oaths in the Polish—Lithuanian legal system, see Bardach, Historia panstwa i prawa Polski, 348-51; S. Borowski, Przysiega dowodowa w procesie polskim pézniesszego sredniowiecza, Prace

ol LVIA SA 5337, fo. 417". |

Seminarium dawnego polskiego prawa sadowego Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego 1 (Warsaw, 1926). °2 The ban was frequently ignored. See Teter, Jems and Heretics, 36; Teller, ‘Przedmowa’, 23.

230 David Frick matter, then they will permit him to take the oath. But if not, then they do not allow him to give his oath; rather they attempt to settle the matter as they see fit, by way of some sort of compromise.°?

Once they came to give their oaths, the Jews of Poland—Lithuania were not usually

subjected to the sorts of humiliations sometimes encountered in the courts of western Europe: they were not forced to stand on a shaky three-legged stool, or on

a swine’s skin—as the term rodale from royal privileges was sometimes translated—in attempts to make the witness stumble over his words and thus weaken his credibility. King Zygmunt II August had made it clear that the rodale upon which Jews were to give their oath referred only to the Torah scroll.°* And, as we

| have seen, Zygmunt III had extended to Jews the same sorts of freedoms from court appearances on Jewish holy days that Batory had accorded to the Ruthenians of Vilna for Greek holy days. Still, the simple formula ‘So help me God, who illumines and observes, as well as the Books of Moses’—a Jewish equivalent of the Christian ‘So help me God and the Holy Cross’—was often elaborated into a lengthy series of curses against the swearer in case of false testimony. Christian oaths, too, were becoming more and more ‘baroque’, as we see from Klezina’s simple testimony, but the Jews—whether by will or by necessity—were the leaders in that competition. I have found two Jewish oaths in the Vilnius archives. The more elaborate one

was registered in October 1683, at the end of a lengthy trial before the Vilna Roman Catholic consistory in which two Jews had been charged by a Catholic priest with the theft of the czborium—the chalice-shaped vessel with a lid that con-

tains the sacramental bread of the Eucharist—from a village church in nearby Gieguzyn. The oath was offered before two officials of the Vilna consistory (the imstigator or “prosecutor’, and the notarius or ‘clerk’), in the synagogue, apparently the main synagogue in Vilna, and upon the Torah scroll (supra rodale suum).°° °3 Dubnoy, ‘Oblastnoi pinkos’, 1/2 (1909), 35. The Hebrew text used the term shamash, or bailiff, and the Hebrew word was left in the Russian translation in Dubnov’s edition. But it may have been the case that the Christian wozny (‘bailiff’) or generat (i.e. wozny generalny, or ‘chief bailiff’) collaborated with his Jewish counterpart in such cases. On Jews and non-Jewish courts, see also Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance, 51-5. About the reverse side of the coin—Jewish attitudes towards Christian oaths— see ibid. 34-5; J. Katz, Tradition and Crisis: Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages, trans. and with an afterword by B. D. Cooperman (New York, 1993), 18-19. °4 Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 149. On Jewish oaths before Christian courts in Poland—Lithuania, see Bardach, Historia panstwa 1 prawa Polski, 351-2. On practices in German lands, see D, Z. Frankel, Die Eidesletstung der Fuden in theologischer und historischer Beziehung (Dresden and Leipzig, 1840); see pp. 72~—3 for the swine’s skin.

°° The foundational Jewish privilege for Poland, granted at Kalisz in 1264, called for Jews to be judged, and to give their oaths, in their synagogue. See Petersen, Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde, 26-7. Teller (“Przedmowa’, 25) notes on the basis of documents from the Lublin Castle Court that the

Christian bailiff would accompany Jews to the synagogue, where he would witness their taking of the imposed oath before the Torah scroll. Teller sees here ‘a sign of the trust which Jews bestowed upon this [legal] system’.

Jews in Public Places 231 The oath is worth citing in its entirety for its rhetoric—the narrative parts of the consistorial books were kept primarily in Latin, although this sort of firstperson testimony was cited in Polish; but also for the picture it offers us of Jews swearing on all that is holy before Christian authorities (although in Jewish space). The fact that this testimony was recorded in Polish in a lengthy Latin document suggests that these two Jews spoke Polish, at least well enough to read or repeat the words of a prepared oath: I, Aleksander Moizeszowicz, and I, Lejbo Moizeszowicz, do swear upon the One Lord God, God and Lord, who created heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible, that we were wrongfully accused by His Grace, Father Pawel Toloczko, deacon of Kowno [Kaunas], vicar of Gieguzyn, of theft of sacred property, which we never did; that we never urged Marcin Sztawanski to give us the keys to the church, nor did we bribe him, nor did we give him drink in order to take those keys away, nor did we cast any spells on Marcin Szlawanski, as His Grace the Father deacon alleges, nor did we seek any means to bewitch Marcin Szlawanski; and we never opened the church in Gieguzyn, nor were we there, nor did we take any ciborium from it, nor did we dare, nor have we seen it. And that we have sworn truthfully, let the Lord God help us. But if we have sworn falsely in any single point, may we be oppressed and destroyed by the Lord God, who, in the ark during the time of the Flood, saved eight people; who burned the five cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, with infernal flame; who conversed with Moses from the burning bush; and who wrote the Law given

unto Moses with his own finger on tablets of stone; let God destroy us, who destroyed Pharaoh in the Red Sea and led the Jews freely to the land flowing with milk and honey, who

fed the Jews with manna for forty years in the desert; let God cast us into hell, soul and body; let the earth swallow us alive, which swallowed Dathan and Abiron; may the leprosy fall upon us that, having left Naaman, fell upon Gehazi; let us be removed from the Law that the Lord God gave to Moses on Mt Sinai through the Ten Commandments; let there come upon us the punishment for perjurers that is described in the Five Books of Moses; let us be turned into stone, as Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt; let the bloody sickness never leave us. And if we swear falsely in any point at all, let us never come to the bosom of Abraham and let God shame and condemn us for eternity, may the Lord God help us.°°

The first, affirmative, part of the testimony was always detailed and specific to the case at hand. The second part—beginning here with ‘But if we have sworn falsely ...—that described what would happen to them if they gave false evidence was a variation on the oath more judaico spelled out in the legal handbooks of the time.’ A footnote: the oath appears to have been accepted and the case dismissed. The second oath I have found was offered on 8 June 1676 by two elders of the

community, Salomon Jakubowicz and Moizesz Dawidowicz, and two bailiffs (the Polish word for the Jewish shamash was szkolnik), Moizesz Jakubowicz and 66 Vilniaus universiteto biblioteka (Vilnius University Library, Vilnius), F57-B54-3, fos. 125'"-126".

°¢ Cf. the similar formulae for Jewish oaths in Bartlomiej Groicki’s 1559 Polish handbook for Magdeburg Law: B. Groicki, Porzadek sadéw 1 spraw miejskich prawa majdeburskiego w Koronte Polskie] (Warsaw, 1953), 60-1, 150-1.

232 David Frick Lewek Izraelewicz, this time quite clearly not in the synagogue, but before the Vilna Castle Court (‘Na vrade hospodarskom grodskom vilenskom . . .’). ‘The testimony to which they were giving their oath was a census ‘of all the Jewish heads of both sexes, both male and female, children, servants . . . except for those not yet 10 years of age and beggars too infirm to work’ who were living in the jurisdictions of

the nobles’ Castle Court and that of the bishop of Vilna—in other words, all those who were not living in houses once subject to the burghers’ magistracy, where most of Vilna’s Jews lived. ‘The Jewish census-takers reported 922 ‘heads’ in

the houses subject to the Castle Court, and eighty-four in those subject to the bishop. The Jewish authorities had been directed to conduct the census, the Jewish cap-

itation (poglowne sydomskie), by the twelfth constitution relating to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that had been promulgated at the Sejm of 1676.°° Their oath was a much more straightforward affair than that of the brothers Moizeszowicz. They began by swearing ‘to the Lord God almighty who created heaven and earth’ that they were presenting truthful evidence. And they concluded just as simply: ‘That we truthfully swear to this, may the Lord God aid us. And if untruthfully, let God kill us in soul and body.’?? The Jewish authorities tried to mediate between individual Jews and Christian courts in order to avoid ‘the desecration of the name of God’, imposing penalties of exclusion from the community (/erem) upon those who did not obey the community decrees (takanot) that all private litigation be conducted through the intermediary of the Jewish bailiff.°° Or at least that was the goal. Practice in Vilna, as elsewhere, was frequently different.°’ Christian judicial records of all jurisdictions were careful to ‘set the stage’—to state, almost always as a sort of preamble and in a piece of ‘boilerplate’ text (which could be in Latin, Polish, or Ruthenian), who had come before the court, when, in what matter, whether he had come personally or accompanied by a legal representative, and in whose name the legal ‘actor’ was speaking. In theory (there were some exceptions, especially in the lesser jurydyki), single women, minors, and clergy could not be independent legal actors; they regularly appeared in court represented by ‘curators’ (kuratorzy, curatores) and ‘guardians’ (opiekunomie, tutores); often it was a relative or kinsman who played that role, as for example in the protes-

tation from 29 November 1663 of a wife against her husband: ‘I, Anastazja Aleksandrowiczowna, wife of Teodor Orzeszyc, with the presence of my brother, Lord Samuel Aleksandrowicz, protest against Lord Teodor Orzeszyc, that . . .’.® 58 See Volumina legum: Przedruk Zbioru praw staraniem XX. Pyaréw w Warszawie od roku 1732 do

roku [1793], v (St Petersburg, 1859), 209. °° LVIA SA 46091, fo. 476". 69 See also Petersen, Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde, 33.

61 Contemporary Christian observers—not averse themselves to recourse to the courts—remarked on the eagerness with which Jews took each other to court in the Christian fora. For an example from

Lublin, see Teller, ‘Przedmowa’, 25. 62 LVIA SA 5333, fo. 378".

Jews in Public Places 233 The parties here were all Ruthenian Orthodox. Another example, this time from Lutheran circles, comes in the protestation of g May 1679 of a daughter against her mother in which the son-in-law was the legal actor: ‘I, Benedykt Biatonowicz, captain of His Royal Majesty, in my own name and that of my spouse as her conjugalis tutor [guardian by right of marriage] .. .’.°? Both cases were heard before the court of the magistracy. In spite of the attempts of Jewish authorities to limit the appearance of 1ndividual Jews in Christian courts, some Vilna Jews had direct recourse to the law, apparently unaided and unaccompanied by a community official, and they adhered to the same rules as the Christians—including the rhetorical rules of the forensic genres. [he evidence suggests several things: a willingness to ignore the takanot on

occasion; some knowledge of the Lithuanian Statute and Magdeburg Law; some ability to use Polish for legal purposes; a desire to press private Jewish concerns before legal fora, some of which (such as the burghers’ magistracy) are often thought to have been unsympathetic to Jewish claims; and a high measure

of faith in the various jurisdictions that made up the Commonwealth’s legal systems.

The case cited above in which Zelman Izakowicz sold the family shop to the Christian merchant Teodor Belmacewicz began with the expected boilerplate text, this time in Polish, indicating the presence of a legal actor speaking in his own behalf: ‘Appearing in person (osobiscie stanqwszy) before the noble office of the Vilna burgomasters and councillors, the infidel (mzemierny) Zelman Izakowicz, Jew of Vilna, voluntarily, out loud, manifestly, and in express words testified that . . .’.°4

In another case, we find a similar Latin introduction to a Polish narration: ‘Appearing in person (personaliter veniens) before the court and the acta of the Vilna Bench, the infidel (za/fidelis) Lazarz Michalowicz, Jew of Vilna, together with Foltyn, likewise Jew of Vilna [presented their complaint that. . .].’ The two Jews

had come to the court with a written protestation against their landlord, the Lutheran ironsmith Hans Pecelt the Younger, over damage to property and health.®° Here is another similar case with a Latin prelude and Polish testimony: ‘Appearing in person (personaliter veniens) before the acta of the noble Vilna Court of the Bench, the infidel Mejer Jakubowicz, Jew of Vilna... presented his protestation in prepared written form (i parato scripto) . . .°° The fact that in these last two cases the Jewish plaintiffs offered written testimony suggests that they, like many Christian litigants, had sought legal advice before coming to court. And probably that lawyer or notary had been a Christian, since these Jews appeared in court alone, without a Jewish intercessor such as the bailiff or the shtadlan (mediator). This certainly does not mean they could not speak Polish: Christians, too,

63 LVIA SA 5112, fo. 384". 64 LVIA SA 5107, fo. 50". 65 LVIA SA 5333, fo. 482". For this case, see Frick, ‘Jews and Others’, 19-20. 66 LVIA SA 5337, fo. 407". For this case, see Frick, ‘Jews and Others’, 11-12.

234 David Frick , even those who held office in the magistracy, sometimes presented their cases i parato scripto.©"

These three cases happen to have come from the courts of the magistracy. Similar cases can be cited from the Castle Court and the Court of the Roman Catholic Chapter. A glance at one case from the acta of the Roman Catholic Chapter will give a hint of the slightly different rhetorical flavour of those books: On 23 March 1629, Szmula Moizeszowicz, Jew of Vilna, complained against and related

about Mr (Pan) Jachim Kondratowicz, that, at the instigation and command of that Jachim, students of the [ Jesuit] Academy of Vilna, having come to my dwelling, a half-blue

fur cap lined with sable, demanding to retrieve some two shocks or so of Lithuanian eroschen, then he snatched and took the aforementioned fur cap, which cost 40 Polish zlotys.°®

The syntactic hiccups are typical of the books of this lower instantiation of the Chapter Court and may reflect miscues between the agitated oral presentation of the complainant and an overly taxed court notary. In their dealings with their Christian neighbours and clients, Jews, like Christians, went to the court that had jurisdiction over the individuals involved in accordance with the principle acior sequitur forum rei (‘the plaintiff goes to the court of the accused’).®? Here, too, the entry indicates that an individual, unaccompanied Jew was pressing his case before a Christian court, in this case, the Roman Catholic Chapter Court. This jurisdic-

, tion behaved like a secular court and ruled according to the Lithuanian Statute in the cases it heard, which involved anyone living in houses subject to the Chapter, regardless of the religion or confession of the litigants. The protracted case of one Jew and his heirs bolsters the argument that individ-

ual Jews functioned as independent legal actors in the courts of Vilna. On 17 March 1675, ‘the infidel (perfidus) Fisiel Fajbisiewicz, Jew of Vilna’, appearing personally (veniens personaliter) before the court of the Vilna Bench, presented

in writing (in parato scripto) his protestation against a burgher of Vilna. ‘Uhe document he offered for entry into the acts was a perfect example of this forensic genre in Polish. His complaint was against ‘illustrious Lord Stefan Radkiewicz, 67 See the case of the Uniate Vilna councillor Samuel Filipowicz, discussed in D. Frick, ‘The Councilor and the Baker’s Wife: Ruthenians and their Language in Seventeenth-Century Vilnius’, in V. V. Ivanov and J. Verkholantsev (eds.), Speculum Slaviae Onientalis: Ruthenia, Muscovy and Lithuania in the Late Middle Ages, UCLA Slavic Studies, Ns 4 (Moscow, 2005), 45-9. On the knowledge among Jews of the languages of their east European dwelling places, see M. Altbauer, Achievements and Tasks in the Field of fewish-Slavic Language Contact Studies (Los Angeles, 1972); Fram, Ideals Face Reality,

29-30. Jews learned languages not only in the marketplace. Kalik, ‘Christian Servants’, 265, notes the importance here of the ubiquitous Christian servant sharing the one heated room with Jewish masters, which facilitated the learning of Polish and Ruthenian in Jewish families. 68 LMAB F 17-280, fo. 71°.

69 For other cases brought by Jews before the Chapter, see LMAB F17-280, fos. 27’, 33°, 94°95", 126"; LMAB F 43-590, fos. 36”, 37’, 38" ’. For one case from the highly fragmentary extant acta of the Vilna Castle Court, see LVIA SA 4668, fo. 254".

Fews in Public Places 235 merchant and burgher of Vilna’, who, like most objects of a protestation, had, in the current year, on a certain day and month, ‘forgotten the fear of God and the severity of the common law that applies to all’. ’° The details in the case were these. When Fajbisiewicz came to Radkiewicz’s house to demand repayment of a debt of 30 zl, the merchant grabbed the Jew’s cane with which he, as ‘a man of advanced years’, was propping himself up and beat him ‘mercilessly with that cane’, such that he lost a cloth and two strings of pearls worth 120 zl. Radkiewicz then imprisoned Fajbisiewicz in his basement.

The conspectio appended to the protestation (this was the report from an i situ inspection of physical wounds and property damages regularly conducted by

delegates from the court in question) confirmed the presence of wounds on Fajbisiewicz’s body consistent with those he claimed to have received from Radkiewicz. The case dragged on through April with repeated summonses to Radkiewicz and his lawyer to appear before the Bench and with a declaration of contumacia (‘obstinate refusal to appear 1n court’) against both of them for failure to comply.

By 21 June Fajbisiewicz had died—we are not told whether he died of his wounds—and the case was now pursued by his widow. On that day, ‘the infidel Sara Kopylewicz, the surviving widow of the deceased Fisiel Fajbisiewicz, Jew of Vilna’, appeared before the Bench ‘with her curator (cum curatore suo), the infidel Natan Jozefowicz ... and with Bernat Kopylewicz, Jew of Vilna, as the guardian (tanquam tutoris) of the son... .’. Apparently Fajbisiewicz had appointed a curator and guardian on his deathbed, as was also the standard practice in Christian society. In any case, this was the usage expected in the Christian courts: a curator for the widow, and a guardian for the orphan. These individuals were not identified as bailiffs or any other sort of office holders in the Jewish community. Jozefowicz was probably a friend or relative of the deceased, and Kopylewicz apparently a brotherin-law. The widow and orphan, no doubt a minor, could not represent themselves in court; this was the job of the appointed curator and guardian. ‘The four Jews involved were behaving in accordance with the custom and practice of the law in Poland—Lithuanta. This is exactly what would have taken place had the plaintiffs been Christian. But note that, while Fajbisiewicz’s widow and orphan could have chosen Christians to represent them, the litigation was conducted by two Jews who

formed part of their own network of ‘friends’ and kin, and that they appeared without the direct mediation of the Jewish elders or bailiffs. These were private individuals, part of a family network, pressing a claim to a debt owed to the estate

they had inherited.” On the rhetoric of the protestation, see D. Frick, ‘Slowa uszczyplime, slowa nieuczciwe: The Language of Litigation and the Ruthenian Polemic’, in P. Schreiner and O. Strakhov (eds.), Khrusai Pulai, Zlataya Vrata: Essays presented to [Thor Sevcenko on his Eightieth Birthday by his Colleagues and

Students = Palaeoslavica, 10/1 (2002), 122-38. “The case is recorded at LVIA SA 5337, fos. 19'—26".

236 David Frick Jews, it seems, were in fact sometimes tempted to seek guardians and legal representatives among Christians. ‘The Holy Community of Krakow (Kazimierz), for example, had decreed that, ‘if a person desires to appoint gentile guardians/ apotropsim, he must be opposed and all possible punishments applied . . .’.’* I have found one curious Vilna case in which a Jew employed Christian legal representa-

tion. This document from 1650 bore the general title ‘Dominus Jonas cum Polenikowicz’, which is itself worth noting, since the Jew Jonas received the honorific usually reserved for Christians—domuinus, the Latin equivalent of the Polish panor ‘lord’, ‘sir’, ‘Mr’; indeed, the title was often reserved for nobles, especially in its Latin form. Perhaps Jonas belonged to the Jewish elite, which often felt a certain paradoxical kinship with and reliance upon the Christian elite. ’* In any event, on 8 January of that year ‘the infidel [he may have been a dominus, but he was still nemierny| Jew of Vilna Jonas Moizeszowicz, appearing himself personaliter [in

person| and through his legal representative (plenipotent), the noble Simon Piotrowicz’,’* complained to the magistracy that he had not received payment from ‘Marcin Steckiewicz, alias Polenikowicz, merchant and burgher of Vilna’, for seven barrels of herring and a debt of 20 zt in cash, which together constituted a considerable debt. ‘The magistracy found for the plaintiff and allowed him to take possession of Steckiewicz’s goods, ‘especially his house [lying] in certain limits on Smilinski Street behind [the Church of] St Kazimierz’.”° Early modern Poland—Lithuania was a litigious place, and—although all who could afford going to court could, and probably most did, seek the legal advice of notaries or lawyers—some knowledge of the law and of the rhetorical expectations of various forensic genres seems to have been widespread.’° People went to court to defend honour as often as health and property. ‘The nobles may have felt otherwise, but the broad recourse to the courts by burghers of all social strata, as well as by Jews and ‘Tatars, suggests that nearly everyone in seventeenth-century Vilna felt 7 Cygielman, Jewish Autonomy, 69.

™ See Robert Bonfil, ‘Aliens Within: The Jews and Antijudaism’, in T. A. Brady, Jr. H. A. Oberman, and J. D. Tracy (eds.), Handbook of European History, 1400-1600: Late Middle Ages, Renatssance, and Reformation, 1: Structures and Assertions (Leiden, 1994), 282: ‘This phenomenon,

well-known to sociologists of minorities, is one more aspect of the paradoxical and contradictory nature of the Jewish condition. ‘To obtain true social recognition within one’s group, one had first to obtain a measure of protective recognition from powerful individuals in the very society from which one felt, and was, excluded. In other words, the kind of mediation needed to attain social recognition in a society whose very raison d’étre lay in separating out “the Other”, tended to annul that same separatist tendency.’ ™ This may have been the Szymon Piotrowicz who, by the 1660s, had become a Vilna city council-

lor. See e.g. LVIA SA 5097, fo. 288". LNVIA SA 5096, fos. 456"—457'. 7° Not all could afford it. Oswald Balzer, Studia nad prawem polskiem (Poznan, 1889), 331—2, notes that in 1726 the fee for filing a complaint in court in Lithuania was 1 zt per sheet of paper, plus other associated fees. My reading of the Vilna court cases suggests that access was easier and cheaper in some of the smaller jurisdictions such as those of the Roman Catholic Chapter.

Jews in Public Places 237 he had honour to defend or lose.’’ In this regard, Jews and Tatars, although clearly

identified as such, were just as much Vilnans as were the Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Orthodox, and Uniates when they pressed their claims, side by side, in front of the Vilna courts.

IN THE STREETS The Lutheran memoirist and doctor to King Wladystaw IV, Maciej VorbekLettow, then resident in Vilna, noted his surprise in 1654, as the war with Muscovy

was building, at seeing ‘that the Jews, too (about which we had never heard before)—under their own banner (it was red, edges of the borders white on both sides, with a Hebrew inscription)—mustered with good kit about 130 of the Jews who were eager to bear arms’.’® But perhaps the doctor need not have been so surprised. In fact, every corporation within the city had its own banner and colours, and all were required to muster once a year outside the city ‘in the field beyond St Stephen’.’’ The exercise served a paramilitary function, since one of the obligations of these guild and other corporation troops was to defend the city in time of attack. Corporations were also required to present their colours to greet the arrival of important functionaries. These reviews sometimes provided opportunities for acts of violence against the Jews on the part of the burghers. When Christian and Jewish tinsmiths came to a mutual agreement in 1673

accepting four Jewish tinsmiths (‘but no more’) as adjunct members of the Christians’ guild, they were accorded certain rights (to work and to sell their wares) and obligations (to pay a fee to the guild altar at the Roman Holy Trinity Church). They also received one important liberty: ‘except for the annual fee, they are to remain free [from the obligation to appear] at all guards and reviews, also at the Corpus Christi procession, and at the arrival [in Vilna] of His Royal Majesty, as well as for the coming of His Grace the Bishop and of His Grace the Lord Palatine of Vilna’.®° ™ For a discussion of the place of litigation over honour in early modern Muscovite society, with extensive literature on Muscovy and western Europe, see N. S. Kollmann, By Honor Bound: State and Society in Early Modern Russia (Ithaca, NY, 1999).

*® M. Vorbek-Lettow, Skarbnica pamieci: Pamietnik lekarza kréla Wladystawa IV, ed. Ewa Galos and Franciszek Mincer (Wroclaw, 1968), 184. It is worth noting that when he was in Vilna, VorbekLettow resided in the German Street house (26.03) he had inherited from his father, right next door to the old Kiszka house (26.04) that was one of the two original Jewish houses in the city. The map addresses are ones I have assigned, based on 1636 and 1639 surveys of the Vilna properties and their

42. LVIA SA 5111, 267. owners (BUJ, B Slav. F 17 and F. 15). See Frick, ‘Jews and Others’, 12—13 and the maps on pp. 40 and

8° AVAK 29, 37-8. Protestants and Ruthenians could also buy out of certain guild duties, such as participation in Corpus Christi processions. For instance, in 1627 the goldsmiths (a largely Lutheran guild) made the normal provisions to support a Catholic altar, but also allowed members to pay into the altar box for the right to absent themselves from certain Catholic religious ceremonies. See Akta cechow wilenskich, ed. Lowmianski and Lowmianska, 171-3.

238 David Frick In a series of letters to the Vilna magistracy beginning in January 1682, King

Jan II Sobieski admonished city leaders to show some understanding in this matter, since almost every year .. . as also now during the recent review of the entire city, fearing attacks, violence at this review, the Jews asked Your Graces that they might be freed of [the obligation] that at least, not going out into the field, they might be reviewed right here in town, namely in the palace of His Grace the Palatine of Vilna.®?

But the magistracy had refused to listen to this Jewish request, and the feared violence did occur. In response to the Jewish petitions, Sobieski made ‘the aforementioned Jews from now on absolute [absolutely] free from review’, taking ‘all of them, that is, the entire Vilna synagogue and each individual Jew into Our royal protection’.®* But in 1687 Sobieski again had to remind the magistracy of its obligations to protect Jews, and in particular that it was not to make them appear in public as a corporation at the annual municipal review.®° In his letter of 1682, the king had placed a considerable monetary penalty (zareka) on the persons of the magistracy for infractions against the Jewish protections. The magistracy pointed out that—given the patchwork quilt of jurisdictions in Vilna—it was hardly in a position to guarantee protection to Jewish life and property.°* Still, one protestation reflects at least a partial attempt to do so. In 1681, Stefan Izaak Dziahilewicz, a councillor of Vilna (and thus a member of the magistracy), brought before the magistracy a complaint against the elders of the ‘Tailors’

Guild and against their entire corporation for the tumult they had caused at 81 AVAK 29, 123. In Jan. 1682 the palatine of Vilna was the Roman Catholic Michal Kazimierz Pac, who was also then the grand hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He died on 3 Apr. of that year. See Urzednicy Wielkiego Ksiestwa Litewskiego: Spisy, 1: Wojewodztwo wilenskie, XIV-X VIII wiek, ed.

A. Rachuba (Warsaw, 2004), 112, 196, 704.

82 AVAK 29, 123-4. In other words, Sobieski was attempting here to reassert the medieval notion that Jews were ‘servi camerae nostrae’ in a time when magistracies were often attempting to negotiate directly with the local Jewish communities. See Petersen, Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde, 21-7, 72-5.

83° AVAK 29, 174-7. An interesting detail: Sobieski identified students and pseudo-students of the Jesuit Academy at St John as one of the circles from which violence against Jews frequently arose, and he ordered the institution of a student registration programme. Owners of houses in Vilna were not to rent a room to a ‘student’ until the prospective renter presented a sort of identification card, approved and registered by the magistracy and the academy (which were to keep a register of all bona fide stu-

dents): ‘since it has come to Our attention that under the name of the student Academy are to be found various licentious people, and having found such a one who is not properly a student, but rather is engaged in nighttime, or daytime, prowling about (grasancyja), such a one is to be brought to the attention of the magistracy, and We order that he be incarcerated or made to work on the walls, ramparts, and needs of the city’. 84 ‘There is not one municipal jurisdiction’, a spokesmen for the Vilna magistracy alleged to the king in 1644; ‘rather there are as many jurisdictions as there are monasteries, which is the number of havens for crafty people.’ See Akita cechow wilenskich, ed. Lowmianski and Lowmianska, 233. For a nice evocation of the appeal of the jurydyk: in early modern cities for those seeking to avoid the reach of the law and the guilds, see C. R. Friedrichs, The Early Modern City, 1450-1750 (London, 1995), 30-2.

Fews in Public Places 239 that year’s review. Dziahilewicz had noticed at the end of the review that two Jewish ‘companies’ (choragmte: ‘units gathered under one banner’) were standing next to merchants’ and shopkeepers’ companies. As the guild companies began to approach, the ‘Tailors’ Guild used the presence of the Jews as a pretext for starting a tumult. When Dziahilewicz sent his servants to the tailors, admonishing them to

maintain order, they attacked the councillor’s entourage. Thus the protestation was in the end about general sartorial unruliness, and specifically about attacks on a member of the magistracy (and not on the Jews). On the one hand, it would seem that the magistracy had indeed required Jews to participate in the review in 1681 (one year before Sobieski’s first extant intervention); on the other hand, a member of that body located the potential threat to the Jews in the guilds (and not in the merchants or shopkeepers, to say nothing of the magistracy), and he claimed he had sought—at risk to himself—to maintain civic order.®° The Jewish (and Protestant) presence in the streets during Roman Catholic religious processions, whether large or small, formal or semi-formal, was a constant

potential source of friction. In 1621 a doctor to King Zygmunt III Vasa by the name of Sebastian Sleszkowski published an anti-Jewish pamphlet entitled A Discovery of fewish Treacheries, Malicious Ceremonies, Secret Councils, Practices Harmful to the Republic and Horrible Designs. (The title is more dramatic in the original, because Polish syntax allows adjectives to follow nouns, so the author was able to place the word ‘Jewish’ in the final position, thereby increasing its shock value.) It was a compilation of stereotypes and rumours about Jewish character and behaviour, with ‘cases’, including those of blood libel, from throughout the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth. It reads, in some ways, like a traveller’s guide to the Commonwealth, although, to be sure, it offers only one type of information

about local conditions. Sleszkowski began his work with emblematic poems devoted to the coats of arms of a series of Polish—Lithuanian cities, including Vilna, urging the various magistracies to vigilance against the Jewish threat. And in the course of the subsequent narrative he offered several pieces of ‘evidence’

about Jewish perfidy in Vilna, including the following passage relating to the Jewish presence in the streets during Catholic processions: Whenever anywhere, especially in Krakow, in Vilna, in Lublin, a priest goes to a sick person with the Most Holy Sacrament, no Jew conceals himself; rather they stand in a great bunch in the market square, and in the streets. And others, as if for greater insult to Christ and to 8° LVIA SA 5111, 266-9. The tailors had frequently complained of unfair competition from non-

guild tradesmen, especially ‘bunglers’ (partacze) and Jews. See Akta cechow wilenskich, ed. Lowmianski and Lowmianska, 180-1. Dziahilewicz seems to have been a Roman Catholic, but he was probably born Orthodox; 1n any event, he came from a family that maintained ties to Orthodoxy. He was the son of the merchant Stefan Dziahilewicz and Anastazja Kuszelanka, both Orthodox. And he had a stepbrother who was an Orthodox monk in the Vilna Holy Spirit monastery. But he would marry a Roman Catholic burgomaster’s daughter, Konstancja Bylinska. And the extant fragment of his will seems to suggest that he died a Roman Catholic. See LVIA SA 5107, fo. 73%; LVIA SA 5110, fos. 612-613"; LVIA SA 53309, fos. 53'-54’.

240 David Frick us, come out of the shops that Jew-Christians have rented to them, and gaze with their executioner’s eyes upon our Saviour.®°

The passage stems from a rhetorical genre entirely different from the mostly legal documents I have been using to this point in the discussion. Sleszkowski’s antiJewish diatribes, particularly their lack of specificity, might suggest theoretical rather than practical knowledge. Still, such documents should not be ignored as a collateral source of information about Jewish—Christian relations.®’ Although it is certainly possible to discern constants in the patterns of Jewish settlement and of Jewish interaction with the surrounding Christian context in the cities of early modern Poland—Lithuania, it is crucial to be alert to differences peculiar to specific regions and cities. The Jewish settlement in Vilna was quite unlike that of Warsaw, which had a privilege de non tolerandis Judaeis and had long kept Jews away; unlike that of Krakow, which had established in Kazimierz a separate Jewish (and Christian) suburb not far from its own walls, allowing Jews to come into the city during the day for business; and unlike that of Lublin, where Jews settled in the suburb beneath the Castle, outside the jurisdiction of the local magistracy.®® The term ghetto, or even quarter, applied by some historians to the Jewish settlement in Vilna misses the mark.®? The area of Jewish settlement was not entirely Jewish until rather late. In the seventeenth century it had no gates—indeed could not be effectively gated. Moreover, many Jews lived among Christians outside its loose confines, and Christians lived in the Jewish neighbourhood.*° Jews were much more a part of the landscape in the daily life of Vilna than in other royal cities. 86 S. Sleszkowski, Odkrycie zdrad, xtoshmych ceremonu, tajyemnych rad, praktyk szkodlimych Reeczypospolite 1 straszliwych zamyslow Zydowskich (Braniewo, 1621), sig. Aa 4’.

87 On antisemitism in Polish literature of the time, see the dated but still useful book by K. Bartoszewicz, Antysemityzm w hteraturze polskie X V-X VII w. (Krakow, 1914). Although Jews and

Tatars often made appearances on the same lists of ‘others’ (together with heretics, Scotsmen, and ‘bunglers’ (partacze)), Polish pamphlets and pasquinades usually specialized in one of them at a time. For a survey of anti-Tatar literature, see J. Nosowski, Polska literatura polemiczno-antyislamistyczna XVI, XVITi XVIII w. (Warsaw, 1974). For an anthology and discussion of Jesuit literature parodying the Lutherans and Germans of Vilna, see Z. Nowak, Kontrreformacyjna satyra obyczajowa w Polsce XVIT wieku, Gdanskie Towarzystwo Naukowe, Wydzial I Nauk Spotecznych i Humanistycznych, Seria Zrodel 9 (Gdansk, 1968), esp. 87-106, 307-30. In the Jesuit pamphlets we occasionally do find a lumping together of Jews and other non-Catholic ‘others’.

88 For a brief sketch of the varieties of patterns of Jewish residence in early modern Poland—Lithuania, see G. D. Hundert, ‘Jewish Urban Residence in the Polish Commonwealth in the

Early Modern Period’, femish Fournal of Sociology, 26 (1984), 25-34. See also Fram, Ideals Face Reality, 22-3. The excursuses in Petersen, Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde, 60—2, 68-72, and 75-8 comparing the situation in Lviv with that of other Crown cities are especially good on this issue. For examples from responsa concerning where Jews should and should not settle, see Fettke, Juden und Nichtjuden, 84-01. 89 Tollet, ‘Zycie prywatne Zyd6w’, 272 (English version: Tollet, ‘The Private Life of Polish Jews’, 45—62 at 46).

9° See Frick, ‘Jews and Others’, 11-24. As Hundert has suggested (‘Jewish Urban Residence’, 31), it is entirely possible that individual Jewish families felt safer living among Christians than in the area

Jews in Public Places 241 Sleszkowski came from the Crown Polish city of Wielun. He may have been among those Poles who looked uneasily on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in general, long known for a certain laxity in various matters treated more strictly by the Crown, including those of religion and confession.®! Sleszkowski had indeed risen to the status of royal doctor (although it 1s important to bear in mind that Polish kings had many doctors), but he came from decidedly non-elite burgher stock and reflected the interests and fears of that milieu in his anti-Jewish pamphlets. In fact, one of the main targets of his pamphlets was his professional competitor, the Jewish doctor. When Sleszkowski wrote of ‘Jew-Christians’, he revealed something about the realities of his time. The phrase sounds something like contemporary Jesuit com-

plaints about ‘politic Christians—Roman Catholics who believed in something like a separation between Church and State and had no problems interacting with Protestants and Orthodox in the public realm. Sleszkowski’s complaint was about Christian burgher traitors who rented their shops to Jews. Thus the passage leads in two directions: Sleszkowski was no doubt speaking for a certain portion of Polish—Lithuanian, perhaps also Vilna, burgher society in his objections to the Jewish presence in the market square and in the street; but his complaint also suggests that many elements of Christian society found reasons to interact peacefully, perhaps even amicably, with their Jewish neighbours. Stull, Sleszkowski’s snapshot of Jews gazing upon the Host as priests processed with it through town was not without some basis in local realities. A pastoral letter from the Bishop of Vilna, Mikotaj Stefan Pac, written on 28 September 1682 will serve as a more specific supplement to the royal doctor’s generic harangue: To the parish priests of the city of Vilna. When, here in the city, you carry the viaticum [Holy Communion given to those who are dying as a part of the last rites] to the sick going along Jewish Street, a most unsuitable custom has already come into use—that of attacks carried out by the persons and Church servants assisting the priest, who are called sacramentalists. They inflict insult upon the Divine Mystery, when, with great licence and unheard-of violence, they attack the Jews they encounter: by beating the Jews with whips and other instruments, by overturning the tables they have put out with items for sale, by snatching those things away; and by various buffoonish derisions of Jews and Jewesses, they incite the rabble to laughter and pillage, and they scandalize the pious. Quite often, in order to have a cause for similar licence, they purposely give the sign with the bell as quietly as possible, or they even cease entirely to ring the bell, so that the Jews not be given warning and that they be unable to avoid the encounter with them. Therefore, in order to curb such continuing grave abuses, the scandalizing [of the pious], and the insult to the Most Holy

Sacrament, and for the protection of innocent Jews from damages and harm, We most of concentrated Jewish settlement. It was there, after all, that the recorded tumults against the Jews of Vilna took place. A survey of Krasnik done in 1631 found the wealthiest Jews living not in ‘Jewish Street’ but as isolated families among the town’s Christians.

°! On differences in attitudes towards Jews of Christians in the old Crown lands and in the east, see Goldberg, ‘Poles and Jews’, 258.

242 David Frick insistently enjoin, and We command without fail, that you never carry the Most Holy Sacrament along Jewish Street, rather that you carry the viaticum to the sick through other streets; moreover, the servants assisting the priest are required to ring the bell loudly as a warning for the Jews, so that they might take refuge the more quickly. Those who disobey this command will be severely punished. Given in Vilna, in Our residence in Antokol.®”

The bishop was interested here in establishing the rules of the game in the Christian—Jewish encounter in a way that would preserve the dignity of the Sacrament, the consciences of the pious, and the health and property of Jews and Jewesses. The rules, in his version, permitted the ‘sacramentalists’ to beat up and rob Jews who did not seek private quarters when the Host passed by in the streets: they remained fair game. But his rules also sought to limit such occasions to the point that they would become practically non-existent. And they foresaw severe penalties for Christians who did not abide by them. Above all, they were based on sensitivities to time and place in Vilna topography: Roman Catholics must cease conducting holy processions, no matter how informal, through Jewish Street, for the preservation of the sacred, but also for the protection of Jewish health, property, and honour.

CONCLUSION Jewish authorities were concerned to control the public behaviour of individuals so that the actions of one or a few should not bring ruin upon the community. This is one reason why Jewish takanot so often seem to echo Christian decrees, and why

Jewish institutions—including councils, courts, systems of poor relief, pro| grammes for providing dowries to impoverished brides, etc.—seem to mirror the Christian ones.*’ Separation for the good of the community: this was the goal of authorities on both sides, and structural parity in the two societies helped both to maintain that separation and to police necessary breaches of it.

There was, of course, a paradox here, the paradox of the member of an excluded minority, who, in order to maintain that separation, had to cross the boundary and interact with the majority on a regular basis. Robert Bonfil urges the via media here: “The reader should . . . exercise extreme caution in evaluating the various elements of this story, in order not to be led into thinking of Jewish communities as either absolutely averse to, or as entirely adapted to, different local settings.’”° In similar terms, following the lead of Jakub Goldberg, who has looked “2 The text is taken from J. Kurczewski, Koscidt zamkowy, czyli Katedra wilenska w jej dziejowym, liturgicznym, architektonicznym 1 ekonomicznym rozwoju, Pt. 1 (Vilna, 1910), 161-2. 93 See e.g. Krameréwna’s essay in which the parallelisms between Christian and Jewish guild structures (including provisions for poor relief) come up repeatedly (“Zydowskie cechy’, 262, 278, 279, 282, 284).

°4 See Petersen (Judengemeinde und Stadtgemeinde, 79) for a nice appreciation of this sort of ‘functional integration’ of two ‘political-legal corporations that, while not equally endowed with rights,

were nonetheless of equal shape and functioned equally’. %° Bonfil, ‘Aliens Within’, 279.

Jews in Public Places 243 for elements of both ‘rejection and acceptance’ in the Polish—Jewish encounter throughout his work, Adam Teller has urged a renewed focus on the dualistic nature of that relationship. He sees here neither the weakness nor the strength of the Jewish position, but rather the integration of Jews in a range of aspects of the life of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth.%° In my concluding remarks, I would like to consider briefly the dualism of the Jewish situation in seventeenthcentury Vilna. I focus here on three aspects of public life: citizenship and group membership, distinction, and neighbours and neighbourhoods.

Citizenship and Group Membership Jews were not citizens. This set them apart from Christians of all confessions. Although this status was one they shared with Vilna Tatars, there were certain differences that should be kept in mind. First, from the later sixteenth century, the Jews of Vilna had the right to reside within the city walls; the ‘Tatars did

not. Second, Jews did not expect to be given the status of citizen in any Polish—Lithuanian city; they were first members of the ‘school’ (szkola), the syna-

gogue (bognica, synagoga), all of which Polish terms meant the entire Jewish community, through which they negotiated their legal relationship to the various cities in various ways. In spite of the fact that Jews occasionally received the title of

‘citizen’, and that, as Gershon Hundert has noted, the Jewish community sometimes had a certain say in city matters, individual Jews had no expectation of holding municipal office.°’ The Tatars, by contrast, might have had other expectations. They were, in fact, citizens in the normal sense of the word in some private towns and jurisdictions. They could even hold office: in 1592 a ‘Tatar named Chale] Olejyewicz held the highest office, that of the mot, in the Radziwill jurydyka in Minsk, an institution of municipal self-government that included both Christians and Tatars.°° Still, if Jews had no expectation of exercising the rights of citizenship, there were certain expectations about some of the obligations thereof, such as public %8 See Teller, ‘Przedmowa’, 19-21, 33—4. Teller suggests, perhaps a bit unfairly, that the leading

scholars of the ‘new school’, Gershon David Hundert and Moshe Rosman, in their much-needed revisionism of old views of Jews as defenceless victims (Dubnov and Balaban) and in their focus on Jewish strength through their integration into the Christian economy, are unmindful of the dualistic nature of the Jewish situation. The two central works of that revisionist trend to which Teller refers are G. D. Hundert, The Jews in a Polish Private Town: The Case of Opatow in the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore, 1992) and M. Rosman, The Lords’ fews: Magnate—fewish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1990). °7 See Petersen, fudengemeinde und Stadgemeinde, 71; Hundert, ‘Kahat i samorzad miejski’; id. “The Kehilla and the Municipality’.

%8 On Tatar citizens of Radziwill towns and jurydyki, see P. Borawski, ‘Tatarzy w miastach i jurydykach Radziwillow’, Przeglad Historyczny, 83 (1992), 65-81, esp. 67, 71, 80, 81. On Olejewicz, see p. 73. On Tatars in the towns of Lithuania and Poland, see J. Tyszkiewicz, Tatarzy na Litwie 1 w Polsce: Studia z dztejow XITI-X VIIT m. (Warsaw, 1989), 201-79.

244 David Frick work (e.g. repair of the walls) and defence in time of war. The unit of 130 Jews outfitted for battle that Maciej Vorbek-Lettow noted in the streets of Vilna in 1654 may have been there out of obligation, out of a desire to protect Jewish life and property, out of a sense of civic duty—or perhaps some mix of all three.?° Further, Jewish and ‘Tatar participation in the litigious life of the city reflected another kind of integration. The way in which Jews were identified before all jurisdictions—the ‘infidel Zelman Izakowicz, Jew of Vilna’ (niewierny Zelman Izakowicz, Zyd wilenski)—sugegests both ‘acceptance’ and ‘rejection’. They were

not accorded titles, as were the Christians, indicating their membership in a particular estate; nor were they identified by profession, as non-noble Christians were. But they were identified, as were the burghers, as being ‘of Vilna’.'°° Thus Jews and ‘Tatars, next to their Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Orthodox, and Uniate neighbours, were engaged in what has been called ‘continuous litigation’, a process that, so Edward Muir has argued, helped build civil society in early modern northern Italy. Perhaps it was one of the mechanisms of integration that allowed a place as diverse as Vilna to function in relative peace.'°! In 1616, King Zygmunt III confirmed the statute of the Coopers’ Guild of Lublin, which stipulated that a member must be ‘neither a heretic, nor a schismatic, nor a Ruthenian, nor a Jew, nor of another faith different from the true Catholic faith’.1°? This list of ‘others’"—although it may have been in the repertory

of some of the local Roman Catholic clergy—would have seemed foreign in the civic life of Vilna, where, unlike many other Polish—Lithuanian cities, the guilds were a place that brought together Christians of all confessions.!°? This implied a shorter list of excluded ‘others’ for the Christian guilds of Vilna: Jews, Tatars, Scotsmen, and other partacze; and it may have taken away one potential cause for a kind of solidarity between Jewish artisans and the Protestants and Ruthenians who practised the same trades. ”° For a discussion of Jewish participation in Polish—Lithuanian armies, including in those mounted by cities, see Fettke, Juden und Nichtjuden, 153-65.

109 This is the way a Christian non-noble would typically be introduced before the court: ‘Lord Matys Jodeszko, burgher and maltster of Vilna’ (Pan Matys Jodeszko, mieszczanin t stodowntk wilenski). See LVIA SA 5099, fo. 184".

101 On the importance of notarial culture and the habit of continuous litigation for creating social cohesion, see E. Muir, ‘The Sources of Civil Society in Italy’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 29 (1999), 379-406, esp. 392—400. Teller argues (‘Przedmowa’, 28-31) that not just the peaceful path of litigation, but also participation in the culture of violence of early modern Poland—Lithuania (‘thefts and murders’) was an indication of Jewish integration. Others have also noted that Jews sometimes initiated violence against Christians. See Teter, Jems and Heretics, 33; Kalik, “The Orthodox Church

and the Jews’, 231-2. 102 See Kramerowna, ‘Zydowskie cechy’, 260.

103 On the guilds of Vilna, see especially Akta cechém wilenskich, ed. Lowmianski and Lowmianska, and J. Morzy, “Geneza 1 rozw06j cechow wilenskich do konca XVII w.’, Zeszyty naukowe Uniwersytetu im. A. Mickiewicza, Seria Historia (Poznan, 1959), 3-93.

Jews in Public Places 245 Distinction Church authorities of all confessions and religions were nervous about a lack of separation between the members of the various congregations. ‘The general synods of Lithuanian Calvinists complained of ‘ministers who marry their daughters to people of another rite’ (1638) and of ‘parents who send their children to schools of another religion’ (1647).'°* Jesuit sermonizers complained of ‘our Catholics’ who ‘marry people of another faith: Jews, pagans, heretics . . .’ and ‘who, in matters that pertain to the faith, dare to associate with (obcowacé z) heretics, taking part in their baptisms, weddings, funerals’.‘°° And the priests, ministers, probably also rabbis and mullahs, had good reason to be nervous in their calls to maintain religious and confessional distinction: many of the faithful were ignoring them.'°° The admonitions by authorities from all sides to maintain distinction in appearance suggests some blurring of boundaries in the public sphere. Vilnans regularly crossed confessional boundaries in many ways that were condemned by the various religious authorities: in the choice of marriage partners, neighbourhood, godparents, and other extended human networks, in participation in the religious and civic festivals of the other.‘°’ We should not exaggerate Jewish integration here: in spite of Wujek’s complaint, it is hard to imagine that Catholics were marrying ‘Jews and pagans’ without the spouse’s conversion; and marriage of converts was encouraged by the Church.'°° Still, it is important to be attuned to all hints of Jewish—Christian contacts in other contexts, such as wedding parties, for example, where we could easily see (and hear) Jewish musicians playing for the celebrating Christians.

104 LMAB F 40-1136, 2—3 and 113-14. 105 See J. Wujek, Postilla mniejsza, 2 vols. (Poznan, 1579-80), i. 118—19, ii. 55. 106 Magda Teter, Jews and Heretics, has seen in Roman Catholic defensiveness, which bordered on a

siege mentality even in the later 17th and 18th cc., an indication that the Counter-Reformation was not ‘victorious’ in Poland—Lithuania, at least not in the ways we have come to think about it. I agree with her on this: confessionalization in the Commonwealth, to the extent that the term is still useful there, was so late, and so incomplete, as to raise serious questions about the paradigm. I would note, however, that by the 17th c. all religious authorities in Poland—Lithuania lived with a siege mentality, and that lists of ‘others’ (e.g. Jews and heretics) were quite fluid and were manipulated in an ad hoc manner, depending on the needs of the situation. 107 For one example, here the use of non-Catholics as godparents for Roman Catholic babies, see D. Frick, ‘Buchner at the Font: Godparenting and Network Building in Seventeenth-Century Wilno’, in C. Ocker, M. Printy, P. Starenko, and P. Wallace (eds.), Politics and Reformations: Communities, Polities, Nations, and Empires. Essays in Honor of Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Stadies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions 128 (Leiden, 2007), 205-27. 108 On Jewish converts in Polish—Lithuanian society, see J. Goldberg, ‘Zydowscy konwertyci w spoleczenstwie staropolskim’, in A. Izydorczyk and A. Wyczanski (eds.), Spoleczenstwo staropolskte: Studia 1 szkice, iv (Warsaw, 1986), 195-248; J. Goldberg, ‘Die getauften Juden in Polen-Litauen im

16-18. Jahrhundert: Taufe, soziale Umschichtung und Integration’, Jahrbiucher fir Geschichte Osteuropas, 30 (1982), 54-99.

246 David Frick Neighbours and Neighbourhoods Jakub Goldberg notes, quite correctly in the case of Vilna, that inventories and censuses indicate that Jews lived in Christian houses, but he goes on to caution that ‘a neighborhood community in the sociological meaning of the word, embracing both burghers and Jews, could not emerge; still, the fact of residing on the same street, and even more so in the same house, was conducive to establishing links’.1°°

Once again, he is certainly right to insist on the duality of the Jewish situation. I would like to focus a bit more attention, however, on the second half of the assertion, on a few moments of possible ‘neighbourhood-building’ between the Christians and Jews of Vilna. Most Jews in seventeenth-century Vilna lived in close proximity to a concentra-

tion of middling Lutherans, artisans and merchants, who had gathered in and around Glass Street (ul. Szklanna). When he made his surveys of the city in 1636 and 1639, the royal quartermaster (stanowniczy) saw this Jewish—Lutheran concentration as a single neighbourhood: he ordered the king’s ‘music’—Wladystaw IV was a fan of Italian opera and never travelled without a considerable number of musicians—to be housed in all, and only, the houses of the Jews and Lutherans of Jewish Street, Meat Shop Street, and Glass Street.*'° Wills and posthumous inventories indicate that Vilna Jews and Lutherans had unusually high levels of economic relations, reflected in the great number of debts, pawns, and membrany (‘bills payable to bearers’) held on both sides of the relationship.*'! That this economic activity was facilitated by a sense of neighbourhood, or

at least proximity, is suggested by the case of Grzegorz Sienczylo, the lone Orthodox house owner in the neighbourhood. The Sienczylos were (and remained) an extended Orthodox family with the family seat (‘the Sienczylo house that has been handed down from the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers’!?”)

in the Ruthenian neighbourhood of Subocz Street, where we find no Jewish renters. Grzegorz and his wife, Anastazja Sokolowska, who was also from an Orthodox family, took the unusual step of buying a house in the Lutheran neighbourhood on Glass Street in 1667 and of taking up residence there; Anastazja, by then a widow, was still living there in 1690.11? The posthumous inventory of 09 Goldberg, ‘Poles and Jews’, 270. On Jews and Christians in one house in Vilna, see Frick, ‘Jews

and Others’, 19-24. 110 On this, see Frick, ‘Jews and Others’, 22—3. "11 See e.g. the inventory of the Lutheran swordsmith Melchior Ilis of 15 Sept. 1663 (LVIA SA 5102, fos. 223'—226") with its long and detailed lists of things held in pawn (zastawa) from Vilna Jews,

including ‘bills payable to bearers’. The use of membrany, so widespread in the 17th-c. Polish—Lithuanian economy, was highly problematic from the point of view of rabbinic law. Still, Jews

used them as often as Christians, and ‘the permissibility of their use was taken for granted by everyone, including the rabbis themselves’; see Fram, [deals Face Reality, 129-43. M2 LVIA SA 5111, 873-90.

48 TVIA SA 5104, fos. 460°-463'; Metryka Litewska: Rejestry podymnego Wielkiego Ksiestwa Litewskiego. Wojewodztwo wilenskie, r6go r., ed. A. Rachuba (Warsaw, 1989), 42.

Jews in Public Places 247 Grzegorz’s property conducted in 1686 offers a picture of a prosperous Orthodox merchant, with interests in Subocz Street properties and a desire to be buried in the old neighbourhood, at the Orthodox Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit. But it also—this is something unique for the Ruthenians of Vilna—shows the web of economic interests with the local Jews and Lutherans that was typical for the

merchants and artisans of the neighbourhood in which he had taken up residence.!!4 There is a tendency to discount economic relations between Jews and Christians as being ‘impersonal’. I would argue that the case of Grzegorz Sienczylo suggests that they reflect, or at least were facilitated by, a sense of proximity that might have contained elements of something similar to neighbourhood. Sienczylo and his Lutheran neighbour Jan Buchner had both briefly sought asy-

lum in Konigsberg when Muscovite armies occupied Vilna in August of 1655.

Perhaps it was the period of exile in the Lutheran capital of Ducal Prussia, together with Vilnans of all confessions, that gave Sienczylo the idea of moving into the Glass Street neighbourhood. It was, I have argued, a sense of neighbourhood that brought the Buchners and the Sienczylos on numerous occasions to stand side by side at the baptismal font as godparents for Catholic babies.'!° Jan Buchner was also still living in the neighbourhood in 1690. ‘The hearth tax census conducted that year tells us that he himself lived in a large town house there, sharing it with one Christian ‘neighbour’ and six Jewish ‘neighbours’. He

rented the smaller house next door to four Christian and two Jewish ‘neighbours’.1'© The term ‘neighbour’ (sqsiad) as used in this context was a technical term. It meant one family and entourage renting lodging within one larger house, the central space of which unit was a heated room (izba). The term certainly indicates proximity: it was impossible to come and go from such buildings without seeing one’s ‘neighbours’, sometimes without passing through their ‘private’ space. But it may also suggest something akin to neighbourhood. Jan Buchner and his Jewish ‘neighbours’ must have had a pretty good notion of each other’s weekly and annual rhythms set by both religion and by work and leisure. ‘They would have

known when each was feasting or fasting, dancing or praying, and their sense of smell would have told them what was for dinner on a given night.'’’ Both would have been able to speak Polish, but perhaps they found reasons to converse in a

German—Yiddish inter-language. ,

Jan Buchner served at least twenty times as a godparent for Catholic babies, many of them with demonstrable ties to the neighbourhood. In 1668, Buchner sponsored a Jewish girl or woman who received the name Anna when she was baptized in the Catholic Church. Such occasions were times of celebration in

114 LVIA SA 5116, fos. 41749’. 119 See Frick, ‘Buchner at the Font’. 116 See Metryka Litewska, ed. Rachuba, 42. 117 See Teller, ‘Warunki zycia’, for an appreciation of living spaces and the significance of the lack of privacy for the Jews of Poznan. I suspect many of his comments applied to Christians living in early modern cities like Vilna as well.

248 David Frick the Catholic Church, and the godparents often belonged to the elite. That same year a Jewish male converted and received the baptismal name Kazimierz (that of the Jagiellonian patron saint of Lithuania). The Bishop of Vilna Aleksander Sapieha—and not the usual parish priest—-performed the baptism. The godparents were the Palatine of Vilna, Jerzy Hlebowicz, and ‘Magnifica D[omin|na Leonora Gorska Wojnina’, all of them Catholics.‘‘® Wojnina was the wife of Aleksander Michat Wojna Jasieniecki, vice-palatine of Vilna.

Jan Buchner’s Jewish goddaughter also received significant sponsors, if not

quite of that rank: in addition to Buchner, we find the Vilna burgomaster ‘Dominus Franciszek Burba’, ‘Domina Cecylia Kukowiczowa’, and Konstancja Burbianka Antonowiczowa.'!? All but Buchner were related and Roman Catholic.

The Burbas belonged to the municipal ruling elite. Again, I would argue that neighbourhood played some role as it did when Buchner received other Catholic babies from the baptismal font. The priest who kept the baptismal record never identified the many non-Catholic godparents by their confession: they, like their Catholic co-godparents, were identified by name only, and occasionally, for the elite, with honorific titles. Not just anyone was asked to stand as godparent to a Jewish convert. Buchner was a moderately successful merchant, but no more than that. Perhaps the newly baptized Anna was one of his ‘neighbours’, either in the sense of a renter of rooms

in his houses or in the more usual sense of the expression. Perhaps Jews and Lutherans (and one Orthodox family!) shared a sense of belonging to their common place of settlement in the heart of seventeenth-century Vilna. Perhaps that proximity brought them together in certain social settings and called for the presence of a German Lutheran at the Roman Catholic baptism of a Jewish neighbour. 118 TVIA 604.19.95, fo. 214". 119 Tbid., fo. 212”.

“There no love love between b ere should SNnoubeeno us and them ) Social Life and the Bounds of Ffewish and

Canon Law in Early Modern Poland MAGDA TETER IN ONE of his sermons, an anonymous eighteenth-century Polish Catholic preacher asked a series of questions: Is it permissible to kill a pagan or a Jew because he was not baptized and take all his belongings? How about a heretic, who is not united with the Church? Can one steal, cheat someone because he is a Lutheran? Or a Calvinist? How about an adversary who wishes us bad things; is it permissible to thrust oneself on him, beat him up, wish him vengeance from God, or to be content from his misfortunes?!

In raising the question whether it was permissible to be hostile to someone not of his own faith, the preacher was not alone. Similar questions were considered, and answered, in sentencing a Christian man accused of killing and robbing a Jew in 1687: “The court, having considered the case, noted that the above-mentioned Lukasz disregarded a divine commandment and the severity and harshness of the law’ when he killed the Jew, because ‘Lord God prohibited killing and Lord God ordered to protect [dat nareczyc] both a Jew and a Catholic’.? A seventeenth-century Polish rabbi, David ben Samuel Halevi, also pondered parallel questions while commenting on a passage in the sixteenth-century code of Jewish law, the Shulhan arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 158, which deals with the question of whether one should rescue non-Jews or apostates from danger to prevent their death. Halevi discussed extensively various opinions of rabbis on questions such I wish to thank my colleagues and friends for their generous help and advice: Elisheva Carlebach, Edward Fram, Moshe Rosman, Adam Teller, and Kenneth Stow. I also wish to thank Jonathan Boyarin for inviting me to present this research at the Hall Center at the University of Kansas, where I met James Brundage, whose comments proved invaluable.

! Archiwum Prowincji Polskie; O.O. Dominikanéw w Krakowie, OO. D. 153, ‘Kazania na rozne okolicznosci (X VIII wiek)’, p. 271.

2 Archiwum Panhstwowe w Krakowie, Oddzial na Siennej, JT 2059, ‘Acta nigra maleficorum Wisniciae’, 10-13.

250 Magda Teter as: should one pull a non-Jew out of a pit into which he fell to save his life? Or leave

him there to die? Was it prohibited to throw a non-Jew into a pit and leave him there to die? Or was it permitted to cause the death of a gentile, even indirectly, for instance by removing a ladder that might let him out of the pit?? In conclusion, the priest, the court, and the rabbi agreed that active participatory killing was not allowed, even if an emotional distance from the professor of another religion, they all urged, was to be maintained.* Although historians have frequently focused on Christian efforts to marginalize

Jews within a broader society, recently the focus has shifted to questions of how

these boundaries between Jewish and Christian communities were mutually constructed. Jacob Katz began this path of investigation in his ground-breaking study Exclusiveness and Tolerance, published in 1961.” In his study Katz sought to ‘complement’ the existing studies on Christian attitudes towards Jews by discussing the ‘ideology of separateness’ in Judaism.® Other studies followed.”

Jewish and Christian religious elites shared a commitment to keeping their communities separate. Both sought to reinforce mutually established boundaries, while at the same time reluctantly negotiating between legal and theological ideals and realities. Some of these attitudes can be traced to the common roots in the Bible, especially the Pentateuch,® and to texts from late antiquity, when both religions began to formulate their own identities. Still, some of these parallels were also a result of interaction between the two communities who lived in proximity, sometimes in coexistence and sometimes in conflict, sometimes experiencing both

at the same time. That proximity appeared threatening to religious leaders on both sides, who would have preferred to build ‘fences’, literal and legal, to keep ° The original statement occurs in BT AZ 13a, 26a—b, and San. 57a. Rashi on BT San. 57a states that one does not pull a gentile from a pit in order to save him from his death and one does not push a gentile into a pit to cause his death with one’s own hands. See also Sefer halakhot gedolot, 55 and Otsar midrashim, Hupat eliyahu 174, in the Responsa Project, Bar [lan University, Project 13+. * ‘The Catholic priest’s answer was: ‘Without any exception whether he is a good or a bad man, a Jew or a pagan, faithful or an infidel, Catholic or heretic, servant, lord, or a serf, relative or kinsman, rich or poor, he is our neighbour and therefore he must be loved, a/beit not equally [my emphasis, choé nie tednakowo|.’ he rabbinic opinion stressed that active killing was not permissible, even if walking away without helping was. ° J. Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Studies in Jewish—Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern

Times (Oxford, 1961), subsequently republished by Schocken and Berhman House. © Ibid. 7. ’ The most notable examples are I. J. Yuval, Shenei goyim bevitnekh: yehudim venotsrim dimuyim hadadiyim (Tel Aviv, 2000); I. G. Marcus, Rituals of Childhood: Fewish Culture and Acculturation in the Middle Ages (New Haven, 1996); id. ‘A Jewish—Christian Symbiosis: The Culture of Early Ashkenaz’, in D. Biale (ed.), Cultures of the Jews: A New History (New York, 2002).

® For instance Pope Innocent II and the Third Lateran Council issued a badge for the Jews, arguing for implementation of biblical laws of separation. Marquardus de Susannis argued that Christians were not to socialize with Jews for the same reasons that Jews were prohibited from socializing with pagans in ancient times: de Susannis, Tractatus de Judaeis et alus Infidelibus (Venice, 1558), 1. 4. 14. On this, see K. R. Stow, Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy, 1555-1593 (New York, 1977), 94, esp. n. 76.

Social Life and Jewish and Canon Law 251 their communities segregated in order to avoid what they saw as the potential for corruption, danger, and conversions.” Over centuries, both Jewish and Christian religious leaders made a conscious effort to define and protect the internal and external space, in both a physical and non-physical, metaphorical sense, by prohibiting their co-religionists from tres-

passing onto the territory of the much disliked other, or by seeking to restrict the presence of that other within their communities. And notably, both sides expressed their fears in conspicuously similar terms. Both wished to enforce distinct clothing, and both were concerned with women who came in contact with males of the other religion as domestic servants, midwives, wet nurses, or on busi-

ness. Both distrusted each other’s foods and handling of foodstuffs, and both feared pollution of wine touched by the other. Both, too, sought to punish transgressors, reserving the most severe punishments for those who left or sought to leave their religious communities altogether—the apostates. And finally, leaders

on both sides displayed a strong discomfort with the presence of members of the other side among them, and vice versa. This discomfort would characterize the

narratives of the interaction between the two communities throughout history and result in mutual efforts to delineate and enforce boundaries through laws of separation in the pre-modern period. Although these efforts were not necessarily successful they left a permanent imprint on historiography, both in the common

perception of Jewish—Christian relations as marked by constant enmity and violence,!° and in the reinforcement, through historical narratives, of national consciousness and a sense of distinctness that developed in the modern period.

THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD AND THE CASE OF POLAND—LITHUANIA In the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth during the early modern period, the social, religious, and cultural context of Christian society remained ‘medieval’ in many ways—politically, the state was fragmented and subject to individual lords, who managed to prevent centralization of the state successfully in a number of western European countries at the time; culturally, a low level of religious education and medieval concepts and ideas dominated the Christian understanding of Jews and Judaism.'! Simultaneously, Poland at that time was also affected by a number of characteristically early modern phenomena, for example printing and the bureaucratization of the state structures, such as the development of court systems and communal institutions, including town or community councils, all of which have left us records rare in the medieval period, suggesting that local 9 Perhaps the first explicit mention of creating legal ‘fences’ in Jewish law is in Mishnah Avot 1. 10 The most recent example of that is D. P. Bell, Jems in the Early Modern World (Lanham, Md., 2008).

‘1 For a fuller discussion on this, see M. Teter, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era (Cambridge, 2006).

252 Magda Teter customs and practices were frequently incongruent with the requirements and ideals of both the canon law and the halakhah.” Across Europe, both Jewish and Christian religious authorities quickly took advantage of the new technology of the printing press. Soon after its introduction in the mid-fifteenth century, but even before the year 1500, over thirty-five editions of various parts of canon law appeared in print, with the constitutions of Pope Clement V appearing as early as 1460.'° Many more followed, with printers’

choices leaving a permanent mark on the content of the laws. For example, Marquardus de Susannis’ Tractatus de fudaeis et aliis Infidelibus, published in 1558,

predominantly contained those laws concerning Jews that had been included in volumes of the canon law already available in printed versions.'* Lay legal codes were also widely published and disseminated, sometimes in vernacular translations, and used in courts. Poland was no different. Church synodal legislation, royal decrees, the Seym legislation, and legal manuals were quickly published, contributing to a better awareness of existing laws among various officials, even if formal legal training among them was still wanting.'° So too among Jews legal codes became more widely accessible through print. Jacob ben Asher’s code, Arba’a turim, known as the Tur, published in 1475, was one of the earliest Hebrew books ever printed.'° There were almost twenty 2 See more on this in E. Fram, Jdeals Face Reality: Fewish Law and Life in Poland, 1550-1655 (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1997).

'S Constitutiones, ed. Pope Clement V and Giovanni d’Andrea (Mainz, 1460). Sets of classical works in canon law that included the Decretum, Liber Extra, Sext, Constitutiones Clementinae, and Extravagantes Joann X XII became widely available; see J. A. Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary

Survey (Milwaukee, 1962), 56. Legal works became very popular. In Poland, for example, the Jagiellonian Library holds over 122 editions of canon law published in Europe between 1460 and the mid-18th c., a number that might perhaps only be compared with the numerous editions of the Bible.

MW. Pakter, Medieval Canon Law and the Jews, Abhandlungen zur Rechtswissenschaftlichen Grundlagenforschung 68 (Ebelsbach, 1988), 35. For a study of de Susannis’ work, see Stow, Catholic Thought and Papal fewry Policy.

19 See e.g. M. Jaskier, Juris Municipalis Maideburgensis Liber Vulgo Weichbild Nuncupatus, Iuris Provincials, quod Speculum Saxonum Vulgo Nuncupatur; Promptuarium Turis Provincialis Saxonict, quod

Speculum Saxonum Vocatur et Municipalis Maideburgensi Summa Diligentia Recollectum (Krakow, 1535); Statuta Regni Poloniae (Krakow, 1532). On the background to publication, see K. Estreicher, Bibhiografia polska, pt. 3, vol. xvii (Krakow, 1933), 253-4. For legal manuals, see B. Groicki, Ten postepek wybran test 2 praw cesarskich ktory Karolus V. Cesarz kazal wydaé po wszystkich swoich panstwiech ktorym sye nauka date iako w tych sqdziech a sprawach okoto karania na gardle albo na zdrowiu sedziomte y ko&dy urzad ma sye zachowaé y postepowac wedle boiagni bozey sprawiedhmie poboznie rostrop-

nie y nie skwaplimie (Krakow, 1559); id., Porzadek sqadow 1 spraw miejskich prawa majdeburskiego w Koronie Polskiej, Biblioteka Dawnych Polskich Pisarzy-Prawnikow 1 (Warsaw, 1953); id., Tytuty prawa

majdeburskiego, Biblioteka Dawnych Polskich Pisarzy-Prawnikéw 3 (Warsaw, 1954); id., Artykuty prawa majdeburskiego; Postepek sadow okoto karania na gardle; Ustawa place u sqadéw, Biblioteka Dawnych Polskich Pisarzy-Prawnikow 2 (Warsaw, 1954); id. and J. de Damhoudere, Obrona sierot i wdow, Biblioteka Dawnych Polskich Pisarzy-Prawnikow 4 (Warsaw, 1958). All of Groicki’s books were republished numerous times before 1772. 16 Y. Vinograd, Otsar hasefer ha ’ivri, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1993), entry on Piove di Sacco.

Social Life and Ffewish and Canon Law 253 editions of the Tur or its parts before 1500, at least five editions of Maimonides’ Maishneh torah, and many editions of other halakhic works, including separate tractates of the Talmud, which began to appear as early as 1480. By the late sixteenth century a new popular halakhic code, the Shulhan arukh, became available, and was soon widely used, if not without initial resistance.'’ At times the printing of the laws aroused the fear that, by the very fact of being made widely available, they would become rigidified.’® Both the rise of Jewish printing in Poland and increasing access to books through the international book trade made these codes and other halakhic literature available to Polish rabbis too, encouraging them to publish their own works as well.'° Access to these legal books raised the level of anxiety and provided an impetus for social discipline. All this contributed to the development of more sophisticated tools

of enforcement of existing rules through courts and the creation of new rules and communal mechanisms seeking to prevent transgressions that included communal ordinances and sanctions, which were increasingly used during this period.?° At the same time, both Jewish and Christian sources from this period suggest a constant tension between a desire for stricter enforcement of existing laws and a need for compromise when these rules clashed with common practice and social needs.

THERE SHOULD BE NO LOVE BETWEEN US AND THEM David ben Samuel Halevi offered a succinct if blunt explanation for the segregation between Jews and non-Jews. Commenting on a passage in the Shulhan arukh prohibiting Jews from eating with non-Jews even when they ate their own food,”

he stated that the reason for the prohibition was that ‘there should be no love between us and them’ (mishum shelo ythyeh lanu ahavah imahem) and he continued by harking back to earlier rabbinic opinions saying that the foods of non-Jews were

prohibited so that ‘we should not become close to them on the account of their '” On the popularity of Shulhan arukh, see e.g. J. Davis, ‘The Reception of the Shulhan ‘Arukh and the Formation of Ashkenazic Jewish Identity’, AZS Review, 26/2 (2002), 251-76; E. Reiner, ‘The Ashkenazi Elite at the Beginning of the Modern Era: Manuscript Versus Printed Book’, Polin, 10 (1997). For examples of references to printed sources in the halakhic sources, see e.g. Siftei kohen by Shabatai Meir Hakohen in Shulhan arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 112: 2 (7), 129: 9 (21); Turei zahav by David ben Samuel Halevi, ‘Orah hayim’, 99: 3, B. Slonik, Masa ’at binyamin (Krakow, 1632), nos. g9—100.

*8 On this claim regarding halakhah in the age of printing, see Reiner, Kroke—Kazimierz— Krakow, 87-01.

19 See e.g. Reiner, ‘The Ashkenazi Elite’; E. Fram and M. Teter, ‘Matai nosad hadefus ha’ivri bekrakuv’, Ga/-ed, 20 (2005); E. Fram and M. Teter, ‘Apostasy, Fraud, and the Beginning of Hebrew Printing in Cracow’, AZS Review, 30/1 (2006). 2° On this, see M. Raeff, The Well-Ordered Police State: Social and Institutional Change through Law in the Germanies and Russia, 1600-1800 (New Haven, 1983). See also A. Musson, ‘Law and Text: Legal Authority and Judicial Accessibility in Late Middle Ages’, in J. C. Crick and A. Walsham (eds.), The Uses of Script and Print, 1300-1700 (Cambridge, 2004). 21 Shulhan arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 152: 1.

254 Magda Teter daughters’ (shelo yihyeh lanu kiruv imahem mishum benotethem).?* But Halevi also

admitted that in his times in many places one was allowed to enjoy the drinks of non-Jews but only in Jewish space.??

Prohibition of sharing food between Jews and non-Jews on account of ‘the daughters’ of idolaters who, the rabbis feared, would then lead Jews (or, earlier, the biblical Israelites) towards idolatry was grounded 1n ancient rabbinic tradition, which often referred back to the Bible (Exod. 34: 14—16).** And some rabbinic authorities did in fact compare sexual relations with a non-Jewish woman to an act of idolatry.2° But even though the rabbinic prohibition against sexual relations with non-Jewish women extended to casual sex, 1t was not the casual sex that was of main concern to the rabbis; ‘marriage’ was what worried them most.”° To prevent such relationships from forming, the rabbis explicitly targeted food and sharing space. The question of eating and drinking in non-Jewish homes was not a theoretical matter in early modern Poland: Jews travelling on business often stayed in the homes of non-Jews. Solomon Luria (the Maharshal) mentioned a ‘shameful’ practice of some Jews who stayed in the inns of non-Jews and drank the forbidden wine and ate fish cooked in their non-kosher pots.*’ Some decades later, Rabbi Benjamin Slonik received a question whether it was possible to use utensils of non-Jews to soak meat for salting in cases when ‘a Jew lodges in a house of non-Jew and he does not have kosher utensils’.*° Slonik allowed the practice. Polish court records, too, provide

examples of Jews and Christians eating or living together. In 1668 a Christian woman and a Jewish man were accused of adultery, a capital offence under the exist-

ing law, after they had apparently been caught socializing—eating a herring and drinking mead. Both adamantly denied any sexual encounter or even touching. After

routine interrogation under torture, they were both dismissed.*? And in 1674 a Jewish thief tried in Lublin noted that his wife lived with a priest in the village of Powsin, ‘two miles away from Warsaw’.°? Other examples can be multiplied. 22 See also Turei zahav on Shulhan arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 114: 1 (2). 23 Tbid. (3). See there also his comment on the role of a local custom. On drinking non-Jewish wine and the halakhic problems it created in early modern Poland, see Fram, Ideals Face Reality, g6—101. 24 ‘For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God, lest

you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they play the harlot after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and one invites you, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods and make your sons play the harlot after their gods.’ See also BT AZ 36b and BT Shab. 176. The same point is emphasized in today’s halakhic writings, e.g. I. Poleyeff, ‘Stam Yeinom’, Journal of Halakha and Contemporary Society, 14

(1987), 70-1, 72. 29 See BT San. 82a.

26 BT AZ 355. See also Tur, Shulhan arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 112: 1, 114: 1. The Babylonian Talmud specifically differentiated between casual sex and marriage, but prohibited both nonetheless: ‘What is

prohibited in the Torah is intercourse through marriage, but they [rabbis] also came and decreed against sexual intercourse outside marriage |[derekh zinut|’, BY AZ 360. 2” See S. Luria, She’elot uteshuvot, no. 72, Bar Ilan Responsa Project, Version 14+. See also Fram,

Ideals Face Reality, 30. 28 Slonik, Masa’at binyamin, no. 30. 29 Archiwum Panstwowe w Lublinie, MS Akta m. Lublina 140, fos. 280’—282. 30 Tbid., fo. 351.

Social Life and Jewish and Canon Law 255 In such circumstances, rabbis wrestled with a number of practices that appeared incompatible with some Jewish rituals. Moses Isserles of Krakow, the sixteenth-century rabbinic authority and the author of a crucial commentary on the Shulhan arukh, mentioned a custom of not saying the grace after meal, birkat hamazon, in the houses of non-Jews. His statement reveals an ambiguous attitude towards non-Jews coupled with unease about Jews staying in Christian homes. Isserles noted that some may not want to bless the owner of the house and may be tempted to change the formula of the blessing, a change that was prohibited.”? Still, while uneasy about the practice, rabbis seemed to have acquiesced. ‘They knew that this was the reality.°? The Church leaders, too, prohibited any type of socializing for fear of religious and sexual ‘corruption’. Prohibitions against Christians eating with Jews date back to early Christianity. In an early ruling that did not enter the corpus of canon law,

an early Church council at Elvira in the fourth century ruled that ‘if indeed any cleric or faithful shall take food with the Jews, he is to abstain from communion’.*? Subsequently, popes and general councils further prohibited any socializing.** Not

surprisingly, Polish Church leaders followed suit. One of the earliest extant synodal statutes of Kalisz, of 1420, ordered ‘all Christians in this province under the penalty of excommunication not to dare to receive Jewish men or women to live and feast with them [ad convivandum|, or to eat and drink with them, and also not to [dare to] dance at their weddings or New Moons. Neither should they eat meat and other foods sold by Jews.’?? The Kalisz synod’s prohibition against Christians’ 31 Shulhan arukh, ‘Orah hayim’, 193: 3. See also a responsum by Shlomo Luria on whether one is allowed to eat without a head covering. He noted Jews who drink wine and eat food (fish) cooked by gentiles in gentile inns. Luria, She 'elot uteshuvot, no. 72, on Bar Ilan Responsa Project, Version 14+. Reference to these and other sources in Fram, /deals Face Reality, 31 0.74.

32 Edward Fram studied in detail the struggle to maintain balance between ‘ideals and reality’. Fram, [deals Face Reality, esp. 15-37. 33 For the Latin and an alternative English translation, see A. Linder, The Jems in the Legal Sources of the Early Middle Ages (Detroit, 1997), 483. 34 See e.g. Pope Honorius IV’s letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Latin text in S. Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews: Documents, 492-1555, 8 vols. (Toronto, 1988—g0), i. 262-3. For a summary of the text in English, see also S. Grayzel and K. R. Stow, The Church and the Jews in the XITIth Century, 1: 1254-1314 (New York, 1989), 157-8. In 1267 the Council of Vienna, like many other medieval councils, prohibited Jews and Christians from eating and drinking together; ibid. 247—8, par. xvii. 35 B. Ulanowski, Synod prowincyonalny w Kamieniu (Krakow, 1915), 91-2; J. Wezyk, Constitutiones Synodorum Metropolitae Ecclestae Gnesnensis Provinciahum Authoritate Synod: Provincialis Gembicianae per Deputator Recognitae Fussu Vero et Opera Illustrissimi et Reverendissimt Domini D. Foannis Weéyk Det

et Apostolicae Sedis Gratia Archiepiscopt Gnesnensis L. N. R. P. P. Editae (Krakow, 1630; repr. 1761), 266; Synodus Diaecesana Chelmensis ab Illustrissimo et Reverendissimo Domino D. Christophoro Loanne in

Slupow Szembek, Dei et S. Sedis Apostolicae Gratia Episcopo Chelmensi, Nominato Premislensi ete, Crasnostaviae in Ecclesia Cathedrah Praesente Universo Dioecesis Clero Celebrata Die Decima Mensts Juli et ahiis Duobus Sequentibus Diebus, Anno Domini M.D.CC_X VII (Zamosé, 1717), ch. 21, page preceding R2. See also Constitutiones Synodales Luceoriensis et Brestensis ab Ill. Excellent. et Reverendiss. D.D. Stephano Boguslao a Rupniew in FJanuszowice Rupniewski (Warsaw, 1726), and J. M. Karp, Epistola

256 Magda Teter hosting Jews, and the statutes following it, in effect unintentionally reinforced existing rabbinic prohibitions. The Kalisz ruling was repeated by other synods and bishops, but with time there occurred a shift in the treatment of space. One eighteenth-century Polish bishop wrote: ‘We inform everyone that it is not suitable for Christians to sully themselves by close relations with the Jews, to attend their weddings and circumcisions, to visit them at home or in their synagogue, to eat their unleavened bread and their Easter

[sic] matzah, to call for their doctors or barbers.’°® This ruling homed in on Christian presence in Jewish space. Jewish presence in Christian homes was either more acceptable or, perhaps, Jews stopped coming to Christian homes, and instead invited them into their spaces—although there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Either way, socializing with Jews was prohibited.**

FOOD AND DRINK: PURITY, IMPURITY, AND FURTHER SEPARATION As the rabbis had themselves acknowledged, the elaborate dietary laws of kashrut served to prevent Jewish—gentile socializing. But foods also highlighted other issues—the concepts of purity and impurity in the two communities, and their mutual distrust.®° Issues related to the handling of wine are a prime example. Ancient rabbis prohibited the wine of gentiles because such wine was used as libaPastoralis ad Clerum Diocesis Samogitiensis ex Mandato Illustrissim Excellentissimt Domini D. Fosaphati Michaelis Karp Episcopi Samogitiensis Edita et Impressa (Vilna, 1737).

36 Zatuski, ‘Edictum contra Judaeos’, in Archiwum Kurii Metropolitalne) w Krakowie: Edicta et Mandata Diocesis Cracoviensis 1737-1772, doc. 26. Passover was commonly referred to in these documents as Easter (Wielkanoc). On non-Jewish doctors and barbers used by Jews, see Shulhan arukh, “Yoreh de’ah’, 155 and 156, and discussion below. For other Church rulings against Jewish—Christian socializing, see also Karp, Epistola Pastoralis (1737); Constitutiones S:ynodi Dioecesana Vilnensis Ab Illustrissimo, Excellentissimo Ac Reverendissimo Domino D. Michaele Joanne Zienkowicz Det et Apostolicae

Sedis Gratia Episcopo Vilnensi (Vilna, 1744); Constitutiones Synodales Luceoriensis (1726); Synodus Diaecesana Chelmensis (1717).

37 ‘The restrictions on socializing and protecting social boundaries were not limited to religious con-

texts. The 1576 constitution included a section ‘On the Murder of a Nobleman in a Tavern’ that explicitly stated that ‘noblemen must not frequent taverns because it is not fitting for them to socialize, sit together, and drink beer with peasants’. Volumina legum: Przedruk Zhioru praw staraniem XX. Pijaréw w Warszawie od roku 1732 do roku 1782 wydanego, 2nd edn., 10 vols. (St Petersburg, 1858—60; repr. Warsaw, 1980), 11. 174. [945].

38 Though unrelated to wine or food, some documents from the Crusades illustrate the juxtaposition of purity and impurity of both religious communities. For such examples from Jewish sources, see the Hebrew chronicles of the Crusades, R. Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley, 1987); Sefer gezerot ashkenaz vetsarfat: divrei zikhronot mibenet hadorot shebitekufat maset hatselav umivhar piyuteihem, ed. A. M. Habermann (Jerusalem, 1945). See also Marcus, Rituals of Childhood, 70, 76-8. For an example of Christian perception of Jews as polluters, see e.g. Gregory I’s letter to the Praetor of Sicily in 593 in Linder, The Jews in the Legal Sources of the Early Middle Ages, 425. For an example of Christian self-perception as a pure people, see the account of Pope Urban II’s call for a crusade at the Council of Claremont in 109s in Brundage, The Crusades, 17-20.

Social Life and fewish and Canon Law 257 tion wine for idolatry. With time, rabbis elaborated rules concerning wine fit for Jewish consumption, eliminating not only the wine of gentiles but also that which had come in physical contact with them. The Babylonian Talmud discusses situations in which wine becomes unfit for Jews if touched by gentiles. And while at some point the original fear of libation weakened, even the unintentional gentile touching of wine continued to render it unfit for drinking by Jews.°” Such decisions raised questions of gentile impurity and its possible transmission to Jews and their wine, further highlighting the desire for separation.

In the Talmud, a gentile was compared to a zav, a male rendered impure because of a bodily (seminal) discharge. This comparison led to a rule that ‘All that is rendered impure by a touch of a zav also makes wine nesekh [lit.: ibation; unfit to be drunk and benefited from by Jews] by a touch of a gentile’.*° By the early

modern period, rabbis made concessions stating that in their times ‘non-Jews [ovder kokhavim| are not used to pouring libations’ and compared non-Jews to infants who don’t yet know the names of idols, in effect allowing Jews to enjoy income from the sale of such wine.*' Still, as Edward Fram has shown, such restrictions did not ensure that Jews were in fact following the law. Responsa by early modern east European rabbis suggest that some Jews were not only trading in non-kosher wine, but also drinking it.*” Jewish restrictions on non-Jews’ handling of wine created a sense of discomfort among clergy, especially when some wine produced, or distributed, by Jews was

sold to Christians after it had been rendered unfit for Jewish consumption. It was even more problematic when such wine was used by priests during Mass. By

the thirteenth century this issue found its way into papal bulls. In 1208 Pope Innocent III wrote to the Count of Nevers: There is also another thing, no less detestable to the Christians, that they [Jews] presume to do.

At the time of the wine harvest the Jew, shod in linen boots, treads the wine, and having extracted the purer wine in accordance with the Jewish rite, they retain some for their own pleasure, and the rest, the part which is abominable to them, they leave to the faithful Christians, and with this, now and again, the sacrament of the blood of Christ is performed.*? 39 See e.g. BT AZ 57a and 586, 59b—60a, and others. Wine touched by gentiles was sometimes allowed to be sold to gentiles. See also the lengthy discussion in Tosafot to BT AZ 57a, which allows wine touched by non-Jews to be sold but not to be drunk. 40 Sefer halakhot gedolot, no. 55, which follows BT AZ 60d. Also Sefer or zarua, ‘Piskei avodah zarah’, 236.

41 See commentaries by D. ben Samuel Halevi, Turei zahav, and S. Hakohen, Siftei kohen, on Shulhan arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 123: 1 (2).

42 See the above discussion (n. 31) of Solomon Luria’s responsum, no. 72, and Fram, [deals Face Reality, 99-105. 43 ‘Aliud quoque presumunt non minus istis detestabilis Christianis, quod vindemiarum tempore uvas calcat Judaeus lineis caligis calceatus, et puriori mero juxta ritum Judeorum extracto, pro beneplacito suo retinent ex eodem, residuum, quasi foedatum ab ipsis, reliquentes fidelibus Christianis: ex quo sanguinis Christi conficitur sacramentum.’ S. Grayzel, The Church and the fews in the XI1[th Century: A Study of their Relations during the Years 119g8—1254 (Philadelphia, 1933), Latin: 128, English: 129.

258 Magda Teter But the idea of impurity imparted by Jews is most explicitly stated in the synodal rules of Odo de Sully. ‘On each Sunday’, Odo ruled, ‘especially during the wine harvest, the clergy shall publicly, under the threat of excommunication, prohibit any Christian from having in his possession the residue of the grape that the Jews had pressed in any way, because of the horrible impurity [zmmunditiam] they commit ...in contempt of the sacramental altar.’** Jews were widely involved in wine making and the wine trade, largely because of the halakhic requirements, but their role, and especially their sale to Christians of wine or ‘grape residue’ that they

refused to use, and, most strikingly, to priests who then used the wine during Mass, was clearly insulting to some Church leaders, who perceived Jews as impure.*°? In Poland, too, some clergy tried to limit Jewish trade in wine. In 1643

the diocesan synod of Plock forbade Jews to produce wine and other alcoholic drinks. But both Jewish and Christian sources attest that Jews continued to produce and sell alcohol, including wine. In 1726, the Catholic synod of the Luck diocese expressed discomfort that ‘the wine of this abominable people’ was sold to Christians, including priests who in turn used it during Mass.*° Jewish laws concerning kosher meat also led to tensions grounded in the mutual concepts of purity, impurity, and social order. Laws of kashrut technically prohibit Jews from eating meat slaughtered by non-Jews, even when the non-Jew is super-

vised by expert Jews. Such meat was considered nevelah, similar to an animal carcass, forbidden for consumption.*’ Moreover, some parts of kosher animals were always considered unfit for Jewish consumption, as was meat of permitted animals found defective after inspection.*® Discarding such meat would cause great financial loss to Jewish butchers, so Jews often sold meat they found unsuitable for their own consumption to non-Jews. This practice caused ire among Christian authorities, including the popes: Another scandal of no mean consequence is created by them in the Church of Christ, in that, while they themselves shrink from eating, as unclean, the meat of animals killed by Christians, yet they obtain it as a privilege from the favor of the princes to give the slaugh44 For the Latin text and an alternative English translation, see ibid. 300—1. 4° See, for instance, a letter of 1225 of Pope Honorius III, which states that contact with Jews is polluting; Grayzel, The Church and the fews in the XITIth Century, 172-3. 46 Decretales Summorum Pontificum pro Regno Poloniae et Constitutiones Synodorum Provincialium et Dioecesanarum Regni eusdem ad Summam Collectae cum Annotationibus, Declarationibus, Admonitionibus

et Additionibus ex Historia, Fure Ecclestastico Universali et Jure Civili Regni Curantibus Plerisque Sacerdotibus Posnanensibus Editae, ed. Z. Chodynski and E. Likowski, 3 vols. (Poznan, 1869), ii. roo. On Jewish involvement in the wine trade, including sale to Catholic clergy, see Ber Birkental of Bolechow,

The Memoirs of Ber of Bolechow (1723-1805), trans. M. Vishnitzer (London, 1922). For the earlier period, see also the relevant sections in Fram, [deals Face Reality.

47 ‘Tur, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 2: 1, and the explicit summary of the halakhic background by Joel Sirkes there, Bah, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 2: 1 (1). See also e.g. BT Hul. 13a; Mishneh torah, ‘Hilkhot shehitah’, 4: 12;

Shulh arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 2: 1. 48 See e.g. Shulhan arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 28—60, 65-8.

Social Life and Jewish and Canon Law 250 tering of the animal over to such who cut the animals according to the Jewish rite, and then take of them as much as they desire, and offer the leavings to the Christians.*°

Selling such rejects was insulting, the more so when it was done during Lent, a

period when Catholics were not allowed to consume meat.°? Polish Church authorities twice, in 1542 and in 1630, issued laws prohibiting Christians from acquiring meat and other foodstuffs from Jews; but it appears that the Church in Poland was more concerned with socializing than with the sale of meat by Jews.°?

The case of meat and, to some extent, wine illustrates a level of dialogue between Jewish and Christian sets of law, in which Jewish law left a footprint on the canon law and provincial Church legislation by forcing the Church authorities to respond to Jewish practices of handling meat and wine. So too did the real-life necessities force rabbis to adjust their own halakhic ideals to daily life by looking for ways to accommodate Christian limitations.°* And Jews often secured special privileges to sell meat to Christians, or arranged for the participation of Christian butchers in the process of the ritual slaughter of animals to ensure that Christians would buy such meat.®°

MAY THEY BE DISTINGUISHED BY THEIR CLOTHES Total separation was clearly not possible, and so religious leaders on both sides wanted to ensure at least that in the inevitable interaction it was clear who was who.

Distinction in clothing became such a solution. As Jacob Katz has argued, Jews

possessed ‘a deep-rooted conviction of the truth of their religion’, and they actively ‘sought to maintain their separate identity’.°* Already in the biblical text

Israelites were commanded ‘not to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations’.°° In later periods too Jewish leaders continued to emphasize the need for distinction from non-Jews through appearance and clothing. ‘The medieval rab-

binic authority Moses Maimonides, along with other rabbis, ruled that Jews should be ‘distinguished from [non-Jews] [hayisra’el muvdal mehem] and known by 49 Pope Innocent III to the Count of Nevers, in Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, 126-7. °° See e.g. Statuta Ecclesiae Rutheniensis, in Grayzel and Stow, The Church and the fews in the XIIIth Century, 1. 271. ol Wezyk, Constitutiones Synodorum Metropolitae Ecclesiae Gnesnensis, 266, 270. °2 On this in Poland, see Fram, [deals Face Reality. °3 For examples of privileges, see Pope Innocent III’s complaint in his letter to the Count of Nevers in 1208, in Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, 126-7. In early modern Poland, see

the privileges to Leszno (1628), Jazlowiec (1753), Sambor (1732, 1741, 1758, 1763), and Zamosé (1726), in femish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth: Charters of Rights Granted to Jewish Communities in Poland—Lithuamia in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, ed. J. Goldberg, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1985), 1. 103-5, 290-5, 381—2; 11. 102—4. For an example of a rabbinic responsum dealing with the question of Jewish—Christian partnership, see Or zaru’a, ‘Hilkhot shehitah’, no. 367.

°4 Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance, 39—40. °° Deut. 18: 9.

260 Magda Teter their clothes’.°®° The heads of medieval Jewish communities in the Rhine valley too prohibited their co-religionists from wearing clothes in the manner of gentiles, and from wearing hair in the style common among gentiles.°’ The one exception was if someone was close to the royal court and needed to wear gentile clothing.*®

This sentiment continued in the early modern period as well, but not without added complexity. The Sephardi rabbi Joseph Karo, when commenting on the prohibition on wearing non-Jewish clothing, argued that it concerned only clothing specifically associated with non-Jews, and did not apply to regular clothing.°? In Poland, Moses Isserles, in his commentary on the Tur, noted that one of the reasons for the prohibition on wearing non-Jewish clothing was the issue of modesty.°° He repeated this opinion in the same section of the Shulhan arukh, and added that this prohibition did not apply to occupations that had specific clothing signifying the wearer’s position, for example, as a physician. He also stated that in the light of potential danger, travellers were allowed to wear non-Jewish clothes.°! But the seventeenth-century Polish halakhist Joel Sirkes, in his Bayit hadash, a commentary on the Tur, reiterated the prohibition to follow the customs of nonJews, and David ben Samuel Halevi displayed discomfort even about the concession to wear gentile clothing because one is ‘close to a royal court’. Lay leaders of the Jewish community in Poland—Lithuania seconded the long-standing rabbinic opinions. In 1607 the Council of Four Lands issued an ordinance declaring that ‘neither men nor women should wear the clothes of gentiles’ so they may be ‘distinguished by their clothing’.®? Thirty years later, the Council of Lithuania issued a ‘total prohibition’ (zsur gamur) against Jews wearing °6 Mishneh torah, ‘Hilkhot ovdei kohkavim’, 11: 1: ‘We should not follow the customs of the gentiles, nor imitate them in dress or in their way of trimming the hair, as it is said, “And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation which I have cast out before you” (Lev. 20: 23); “Neither shall you walk in their statutes” (Lev. 18: 3); “Take heed to yourself that you be not ensnared to follow them” (Deut. 12: 30). These texts all refer to one theme and warn against imitating them. The Israelite shall, on the contrary, be distinguished from them by the way he dresses and in his other activities, just as he is distinguished from them by his knowledge and his principles. And thus it is said, “And I have set you apart from the people” (Lev. 20: 26). He shall not put on a garment like that specially worn by them nor cut the hair of the head at the sides, leaving the hair in the center untouched as they do—this is called “growing forelock”. Nor shall he cut the hair in front of the ear, leaving the hair at the back to grow, as they do. He shall not build edifices resembling idolatrous temples for the gathering of multitudes, as they do. Whoever does any of these or similar things is punished with stripes.’ Translation in A Maimonides Reader, ed. 1. Twersky (West Orange, NJ, 1972), 74-5. It is succinctly cited in Tur, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 178: 1. See also Beit yosef there, and Sefer kol bo, no. 97, din aher.

°” L. Finkelstein, Zemish Self-Government in the Middle Ages (New York, 1924), Hebrew: 225,

English: 233-5. °8 Tur, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 178: 2, also Sefer kol bo, no. 97, din aher. °° Beit Yosef; Tur, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 178: 1; see also Bayit hadash there.

6° ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 178: 1. 61 TIsserles on Shulhan arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 157: 2. 62 See also the sources cited in Fram, Ideals Face Reality, 30 n. 70. 63 Pinkas va’ad arba aratsot, ed. 1. Halperin and I. Bartal (1945; Jerusalem, 1989), takanah 50.

Social Life and fewish and Canon Law 261 non-Jewish clothes.°* And in 1650 the same council singled out women by forbidding them to wear ‘clothes made like the clothes of gentiles’.°°? Indeed, some Jews clearly wore clothing that was desirable by non-Jews, as Benjamin Slonik discov-

ered when he was asked whether it was permissible for Jews to lend clothes to Christians on Christian holidays.°° Shabatai Hakohen of Lithuania, in Siftei kohen, his commentary on the Shulhan arukh, also acknowledged that ‘the majority of Jewish merchants and travellers wear gentile clothes, even in places where gentiles have prohibited Jews from wearing them’.®’ But some Jews, at least in the western parts of Poland—Lithuania, must have complied with rabbinic injunctions. Edward

Fram noted that a seventeenth-century Polish rabbi, Jacob Gombiner, acknowledged that ‘the clothing of Jews is recognizable and all that see them recognize that they belong to a Jew’.®

That Jews and Christians wore similar clothing, at least for the most part, can also be inferred from a number of court cases. In one instance a lowly nobleman tried for robbing a church and stealing the silver from it casually mentioned a man who was in the company, a Jewish man to whom the nobleman was trying to sell some of the loot, saying ‘I don’t know if he was a Jew or a Christian’.©? A number of robbery cases suggest that when Christians stole clothing from Jews they were

happy to wear them. In Lublin, for instance, one Christian robber, captured after robbing Jews, appeared in court wearing a hat and a coat stolen from Jews. ”° A few cases of Christian converts to Judaism also raise questions about clothing,

though definitive answers are not provided. One such case is that of Paraska Danitowa and her partner, Abram Michelevich, a Jew from Mogilev, who were both tried and executed in the city of Mogilev in 1748.” In this long and complicated case, the court record actually noted the points of distinction. For Abram, 64 S. Dubnow, Pinkas hamedinah: opinkas va’ad hakehilot harashiyot bimedinat lta, kovets takanot ufesakim mishenat 383 ad shenat 521 (Berlin, 1925), takanah 321, in 1637.

85 [bid., takanah 468. 66 Slonik, Masa’at binyamin, no. 86.

7 Siftei kohen on Shulhan arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 157: 2. 68 Fram, Ideals Face Reality, 30 n. 70. °° Archiwum Panstwowe w Lublinie, MS Acta Criminalia 141, fo. 267’. ‘0 The phrase in question is ‘a Jew’s hat made of fox fur’ (czapka zydowska lisem podszyta). Possessive ‘Jew’s’ or, in Polish more often the adjective ‘Jewish’, was frequently used as a descriptor signifying ownership rather than ‘Jewish traits’, in a similar way that a hat or any item is described by an adjectival form stemming from a proper name; for instance, ‘Pawlowska’ would mean that it had been owned by a certain Pawel, rather than having Pawel’s traits. That particular case does not provide enough context to give a satisfying explanation (Archiwum Panstwowe w Lublinie, MS Acta

Criminalia 141, fo. 50), but another case might indicate that Jewish hats were distinct: MS Acta Criminalia 141, fo. 67’. There is also the discussion about a coat on fo. 72, and somewhat ambiguous phrasing on fo. 273”.

1 Istoriko-yuridicheskie materialy, izvlechennye iz aktov knig gubernu Vitebskoi 1 Mogilevskor, khranyashchikhsya v Tsentral'nom arkhive v Vitebske, 32 vols. (Vitebsk, 1871-1908), xv, ed. E. Sozonov, 229-38. See also a brief discussion of this case in Teter, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland, ch. 4. For

a longer discussion of Christian converts to Judaism in early modern Poland, see also M. Teter, ‘The Legend of Ger Zedek of Wilno as Polemic and Reassurance’, AZS Review, 29/2 (2005).

262 Magda Teter Paraska’s acceptance of Judaism meant avoiding ‘mentioning your god’s name’ and

‘crossing’ herself.’“ For her, the distinction lay in hair length and observance of certain tenets of Judaism: ‘Abram himself cut my hair and since then I observed their holidays, and I ate [meat] on Wednesdays and Fridays.’’? She also noted that she had been taught how to bless candles. Clothing was never mentioned in the trial, either in their testimonies or as a comment by the court officials. ‘The admittedly superficial look at evidence from non-prescriptive sources suggests that the visual distinctions between Jews and Christians were not exactly obvious, though there were some situations or aspects of clothing that may have made such distinctions more evident. Rabbinic and lay injunctions about clothing aside, there was also an element of Jewish religious observance that potentially distinguished Jews visibly from nonJews. In the book of Numbers, Israelites were commanded to ‘make fringes on the

corners of their garments throughout their generations’, so that they may ‘remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them and not follow the lust

of your own heart and your own eyes’.’° Although that commandment had a mnemonic function, ’° it also contributed to the physical separation of Jews from non-Jews, and perhaps served as a reminder, to use Katz’s words, of ‘the truth of their religion’, and reiterated the sense that they were the chosen people charged with fulfilling God’s commandments. In their efforts to attain physical separation, rabbis again found unintended support from the Catholic Church, which also sought to distinguish the Jews from the rest by issuing the regulations much emphasized in modern historiography that required Jews to wear a badge or a hat. The first such law in Christian lands was promulgated at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215: Whereas in certain provinces of the Church the difference in their clothes sets the Jews and Saracens apart from the Christians, in certain other lands there has arisen such confusion that no differences are noticeable. ‘Thus it sometimes happens that by mistake Christians have intercourse with Jewish or Saracen women, and Jews or Saracens with Christian women. Therefore, lest these people, under the cover of an error, find an excuse for the grave sin of such intercourse, we decree that these people (Jews and Saracens) of either sex, and in all the lands and at all times, shall easily be distinguishable from the rest of the population by the quality of their clothes; especially since such legislation is imposed upon them also by Moses. “”

To justify their desire of preventing the sexual intermingling between Christians and non-Christians that was behind the new restriction, Church leaders cleverly framed it around the demands of the Jewish laws itself, acknowledging in effect

"2 Istoriko-yuridicheskie materialy, xv. 232. 3 Tbid. 74 Num. 15: 38. ™® Num. 15: 39. 76 T thank Edward Fram for this point.

™ Canon 68 in Constitutiones Concilit Quarti Lateranensis una cum Commentariis Glossatorum, i, ed.

Antonius Garcia y Garcia, Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series A: Corpus Glossatorum (Vatican City, 1981), 107; Grayzel, The Church and the fews in the XTIIth Century, 308-9, canon 68.

Social Life and Fewish and Canon Law 263 that both sides shared the desire to keep their people apart. Subsequent commentators on the Council’s canons tried to normalize this by stating that dress distinctions were, in fact, already in place, so requiring special dress from ‘Jews and

Saracens’ was not unusual. Johannes Teutonicus, in his glosses on canon 68, stated: ‘just as a free person is distinguished from a servant by a hat .. . and a harlot from a matron [matrona] by an attire [vestes] . . . and a male from a female by a

hairdo and an attire [crines et vestes|.‘® And another glossator, Damaso, commented that ‘just as Jews are distinguished from Christians even by rite’, so they should be distinguished by clothes.’? Clothing was a signifier of status and Jews had a designated status in Christianity, a status that could not be higher than that of the Christians. It is for this reason that Pope Innocent IV found similarities between the clothing of Jews and Catholic clerics disturbing. In his letter of 1248 to the Bishop of Maguellone, Innocent IV complained: ‘Certain Jews in your diocese and of the

surrounding places presume, not without injury to the Clerical Orders, to wear round and wide capes after the manner of clerics and of members of the holy orders. As a result it often happens that sacerdotal honor and undeserved reverence is paid them by travelers and strangers.’°? Clothing was an indicator of status, and the Church sought to preserve it as such, Pope Innocent IV continued: ‘Since we do not want them to presume to do anything of this sort, we order that the said Jews, having discarded any such capes, shall wear a habit befitting them, one by which they may be distinguished not only from clergy, but even from laity.’®* An

undeserved respect and the potential of religious transgression, should Jews be confused with the clergy, were at the core of the canon. Indeed, if ‘a free person 1s distinguished from a servant by a hat’, so should Jews, regarded as ‘children of Hagar the slave woman’, be distinguished from all Christians, ‘sons of Sarah’, and

even more so from the clergy.®? The Church sought to establish proper social order, and, to be sure, clerics were also to wear distinguishable clothing.®® The distinct clothing of ‘Jews and Saracens’ was to prevent inappropriate sexual 78 Yoannis Teutonicus Apparatus’, in Constitutiones Concilii Quarti Lateranensis, ed. Garcia y

Garcia, 267-8. See also glosses by Laurentius Hispanus, ibid. 378-9. 7 Thid. 457.

8° Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, 280-1. 81 [bid. 82 The allegory of Hagar and Sarah as symbols of Judaism and Christianity first appears in Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, Gal. 4: 21-7. After him, Augustine of Hippo reiterated the idea in City of God, 15. 2. See also the medieval canonist Guillaume Durand, Speculum Iudictale, 4. 4, ‘De Tudaeis et Saracenis’, 6; in the 1574 Basle edition (repr. 1975), il. 488. See also Giovanni d’Andrea, /n Quintum Decretalium Librum Novella Commentaria (Venice, 1581), ‘De Iudaeis et Saracenis et Seruis Eorum’, 1. 40. See also the use of this metaphor by Zacharias Ferreri, papal nuncio to Poland, in Zacharias Ferrert (1519-1521) et Nuntit Minores (1522-1553), ed. H. D. Wojtyska, Acta Nuntiaturae Polonae 2 (Rome, 1992), go.

83 Canon 16 of the Fourth Lateran Council, Constitutiones Concilii Quarti Lateranensis, ed. Garcia y Garcia, 64—5. English translation in H. J. Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils: Text, Translation, and Commentary (St Louis, Mo., 1937), 256-7, 568-9.

264 Magda Teter behaviour between them and Christians. So, too, the distinct clothing of the clergy sought to prevent behaviour unbefitting the clergy, such as frequenting taverns or engaging in shady and dishonest business. And in Poland, too, from its earliest presence in the thirteenth century through to the eighteenth century, the Church and the State made a few, if indeed rather half-hearted and relatively rare, attempts to pass similar laws concerning distinct Jewish clothing. The Council of Breslau (Wroclaw) in 1267 called for Jews to wear

a pointed hat.** But there is little evidence that this legislation was in any way applied in Poland until the issue was raised a few centuries later by the lay leaders. In 1538 at the Sejm of Piotrkow, King Zygmunt I ruled ‘for perpetuity’ that Jews should be clearly distinguished from Christians. ‘They were ordered to wear ‘a sign that is a bireta or hats, or other head covering, in yellow colour’.®° Violators were to be arrested and fined, but exceptions were made for travellers. Four years later, the

provincial Catholic Synod also ruled that Jews should wear ‘distinct clothing’ (habitum a Christianis distinctum).®© And the seventeenth-century compilation of synodal legislation in Poland put together by Archbishop Jan Wezyk, in a chapter ‘De Judaeis’ (Concerning the Jews), spoke of a red patch to be put on the Jews’ outer clothing.®” But after this, no other synod appears to have sought to impose the rule until the eighteenth century. In 1726 the Synod of Luck repeated a short demand that Jews should wear distinct clothes, without much elaboration. But in 1752 the Synod of Samogitia, in a rare move, for this diocese, to address the topic of Jews, returned to Pope Innocent [V’s concern that Jews may be confused with Catholic clergy. The diocesan Church leaders added to the typical succinct prohibition on clothing a clause forbidding Jews under a penalty to wear ‘hats identical to those worn by clergy’, which revealed anxieties over the lack of clear definition of religious boundaries.*® This chronology of Church statutes in Poland raises questions as to why after the sixteenth century the Catholic Church and lay leaders, with a brief return in 1630, lost interest in legislating on the Jewish dress code. One possibility could be that Jews indeed obeyed the existing laws and were distinguishable, but this would be in contradiction to Jewish leaders’ repeated calls for a distinct garb. Jewish leaders’ calls may have had to do with their desire to control the Jewish population, especially when Jews arrived in towns in which they did not live. The chronology of the Christian legislation regarding Jewish clothing might, on the other hand, be related to the dynamic and sense of security within the Church itself: with the calls in the sixteenth century coinciding with the Church’s sense of threat and religious 84 Grayzel and Stow, The Church and the Fews in the XITIth Century, i. 245, par. 13. 85 Volumina legum, i. $25. 86 Decretales Summorum Pontificum Pro Regno Poloniae, ed. Chodyhski and Likowski, 111. 108-9. 87 Wezyk, Constitutiones Synodorum Metropolitae Ecclesiae Gnesnensis, 267. 88 Decretales Summorum Pontificum Pro Regno Poloniae, ed. Chodynski and Likowski, 111.109.

Social Life and fewish and Canon Law 265 danger coming from the Reformation, and the perception, not unsupported by facts, that contacts with Jews might lead to heresy.®? By the eighteenth century, the Jewish population grew and spread, making Jews an inseparable part of the Polish—Lithuanian landscape, giving perhaps more reason for intimacy between Jews and Christians. Church laws mandating distinct clothing for Jews correspond to other efforts by Polish clergy to firm up social and religious boundaries, by disseminating synodal legislation, seeking to educate their flock in Catholic dogmas, or spreading anti-Jewish sentiments by creating an image of the Jew as a dangerous other.

THE HOUSES OF THE UNCIRCUMCISED ARE ENTIRELY FORBIDDEN Like food and clothing, controlling space and access to it was a way to create, define, and protect boundaries between the communities. As seen above, Jews resided in non-Jewish homes, and Jews and Christians socialized together, apparently entering each other’s homes. For religious leaders in Poland, and elsewhere, physical space became a contested ground, a marker of security or insecurity, and of distrust that was shared by both Jews and Christians. Rabbinic law prohibited Jews, especially women, from finding themselves alone with gentiles, and prohib-

ited all Jews from entering non-Jewish homes, from living with them in their homes, or living in a predominantly non-Jewish environment. In 1627, fearing sexual offences, Jewish leaders in Lithuania prohibited Jewish women from entering | houses of non-Jews without chaperones even when the visit was related to business and not socializing. ‘That same year they also prohibited Jews from settling in areas where few Jews lived, fearing that women would commit sexual transgressions if they were left alone when their husbands were away.’° And in 1632 the Council of Lithuania (Va’ad Medinat Lita), concerned with the potential of promiscuity and sexual interaction between Jewish women and non-Jews, required that there be at

least another Jewish male, preferably married, living in the vicinity, so that no Jewish man ‘may dwell alone with his wife in a place where there were no Jews’, lest his wife be left alone when he left on a business trip.2' But some Jews evidently did

violate these rules of separation. In 1679 the Jewish leaders at the Council of Lithuania expressed outrage that despite the ‘total prohibition of idolatry’ some Jews ‘broke the wall of ordinances and violated the bans of the sages’ by ‘settling and establishing households in the houses of the uncircumcised’. They expressed

concern at ‘what might burst out of this’. The Lithuanian Jewish leaders thus 89 On this, see Teter, Jems and Heretics in Catholic Poland.

%° Dubnow, Pinkas hamedinah, takanah 132, Va’ad 1628. °l Tbid., takanah 259.

266 Magda Teter decided to reissue a total ban stating that ‘under heavy penalties the houses of the uncircumcised are entirely forbidden to live in, in any way’.”? Church leaders, for their part, also worried about Christians living with Jews, especially if they were servants.°® From the earliest synodal legislation to the late eighteenth century Church leaders in Poland prohibited Jews and Christians from living in ‘one house’, or ‘promiscuously’ under ‘one roof’,?4 sometimes, as in 1738 and 1744, singling out young girls and women in prohibiting them from serving inside Jewish homes. This issue of entering the Jewish space became most pronounced in the treatment of wet nurses. In a legal manual for Christian lawyers to guide them in the complexities of canon law concerning Jews, Marquardus de Susannis allowed Jews to employ Christian nurses but, he stipulated, only outside Jewish homes, and only in cases when the child’s health was in danger.®? This concession suggests that he too was uncomfortable with Christian women entering Jewish space. His opinion

had a precedent. One medieval canon lawyer, Huguccio, explicitly allowed Christians to serve Jews outside Jewish homes, but not inside.*° In passing legisla%2 Dubnow, Pinkas hamedinah, 193-4, takanah 773. See also responsa Havot ya’ir, nos. 66 and 73, presented at the Early Modern Workshop in Aug. 2006 and available online: D. Kaplan, ‘Jewish Women

and Economic Encounters with Christians’, , accessed 26 Jan. 2007. Also an ordinance by the Jewish community of the town of

Mir in 1751, ‘The Meeting of The Holy Council [of the Lithuanian Land] at Mir, November—December 1751’, trans. A. Teller, University of Haifa, , accessed 26 Jan. 2007. °3 On Christian servants in Jewish homes, see J. Kalik, ‘Christian Servants Employed by Jews in the

Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Polin, 14 (2001);

A. Kazmierczyk, “The Problem of Christian Servants as Reflected in the Legal Codes of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century and in the Saxon Period’, Gal-ed, 15-16 (1997); J. Katz, Goy shel shabat (Jerusalem, 1983), and in English, J. Katz, The ‘Shabbes Goy’: A Study in Halakhic Flexibility (Philadelphia, 1992). %4 See e.g. the Synod of Poznan in 1642, which referred back to the bull by Pope Paul IV Cum nimis absurdum: ‘Statuimus ut omnes utriusque sexus homines qui de facto Judaeis pro familia domestica et continuo famulantus, ab illis discedant, nec in posterum sub uno tecto cum ipsis habitare et pernoctare praesumant’; Decretales Summorum Pontificum Pro Regno Poloniae, ed. Chodynski and Likowski, 111. 98-9, 102. Also Constitutiones Synodi Dioecesana. See also other examples there and J. E. Szembek, List pasterski wyragne w sobie naywyészey stolicy apostolskiey uwagi y napomnienta dostateczne zamteratacy, dla zabiezenia y z gruntu wyniszczenia niegodziwych wystepkow, przez memierne Zydowstwo z oczywistym uszczerbkiem wiary swietey y prawa duchownego y oyczystego, zageszczonych w dyecezyt Chetmskiey w

roku 1752 ogloszony y do nalezytego zachowania pzrez |sic| podane nizey wszelkim stanom sposoby, dla usmierzenia do tad szerzqcey sie w wyuzdanym zydowstmie zuchwatosc, przetlozony (Zamosc, 1752); Karp, Epistola Pastoralis,; Constitutiones Synodales Luceortensis et Brestensis; Synodus Diaecesana Chelmensts (1717).

°° De Susannis, 7ractatus de Fudaeis et aliis Infidelibus, 1. 4, summarized in Stow, Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy, 83. In his Edictum contra Iudaeos of 1751 Bishop Andrzej Stanislaw Zatuski allowed Christian women to nurse Jewish children if their lives were in danger. He also made a concession on the assistance of Christian midwives to Jewish women; ‘Teter, Jews and Heretics in Catholic

Poland, 68-9. %6 Pakter, Medieval Canon Law and the Jews, 133.

Social Life and femish and Canon Law 267 tion prohibiting Christians from living and working with Jews, the Church leaders in Poland expressed fear of sexual misconduct, but were most fearful of religious

corruption.’ In 1685, for example, the Church leaders of the diocese of Vilna noted that Christian wet nurses in Jewish homes can easily become Jewish ( facile possint Judaisare), because, according to the participants in the synod, they neglected to attend Mass in church and take sacraments, and they even lived like atheists.?° Still, they were willing to allow Christians to work for Jews for a limited period of time, usually no longer than one year, a limit which also found its way into halakhah.’° Church pronouncements against Christian midwives and nurses of Jewish children entering Jewish space appear to mirror the rulings found in the Jewish law. Not only did Jewish law more generally prohibit women from entering non-Jewish space, it also prohibited Jewish women from nursing non-Jewish children. The earliest formulation on this subject comes from the Mishnah codified at the turn of the third century CE,!°° setting up a framework of interaction between the two 97 Also Synodus Diaecesana Chelmensis (1717). Transcribed in S. Congregatione Relationes ad Limina 217 Chelmensis in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano. The synodal legislation begins on fo. 118, the chapter on the Jews (ch. 21) is on fos. 143-5. On this, see also Teter, fems and Heretics in Catholic Poland, ch. 4. %8 Acta, Constitutiones & Decreta Synodi Diaecesis Vilnensis, Praesidente Illustrissimo ac Reverendissimo Domino Domino Alexandro Michaele Kotowicz (Vilna, 1685), 34: ‘De Judaeis Familia Christiana

Abutentibus’. Both rabbis and Christian leaders knew that servants were often subjects of sexual advances by their masters. See Tosefta, Hor. 2: 11, on the distinction between a female proselyte and an emancipated female slave: the former is described as mishtameret, ‘preserving herself’, and the latter is called mufkeret, ‘licentious’. Similarly, Maimonides acknowledged that slave women had had sexual intercourse; Mishneh torah, ‘Hilkhot ishut’, 11: 2, in the Bar Ilan Responsa Project, Version 14. See also a brief discussion of this in E. E. Urbach, The Laws Regarding Slavery (New York, 1979), 49.

Popes also recognized that female servants engaged with or were used sexually by their employers. See e.g. Pope Innocent III’s letter of 1205 to the king of France, or Pope Gregory [X’s letter to the archbishop of Gran in 1231, in Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XI1Ith Century, 106-7, 184-5. On the sexual use of servants, see G. Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice (New York, 1985), e.g. 15, 40. On Christian servants in Jewish homes in Poland, see Teter, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland, 63-9; Kazmierczyk, “The Problem of Christian Servants’; Kalik, ‘Christian Servants Employed by Jews’. 99 See Sifiei kohen to Shulhan arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 113: 4, comment 7. See also S. Dubnow, Pinkas

hamedinah, takanah 145 of the Council of Lithuania, which warned that non-Jews use the pretext of non-Jewish servants in Jewish homes to cause trouble for Jews. The Council issued restrictions on non-Jewish female servants: one per household hired for no more than a year, unless a given Jew held an arenda, a lease on land or business, and needed help. The period of twelve months also corresponds to the Christian legal limits for Christian servants serving in Jewish homes, and to a Talmudic opinion

that a Jew might hold a non-Jewish slave for up to a year without circumcising him. This might be another example of the indirect dialogue between the two systems of religious law, and another example of Christian concessions as well. 100 “An Israelite woman [bat yisra’elit| should not serve as a midwife to a gentile woman, because she serves to bring forth a child for the service of idolatry. But a gentile woman may serve as a midwife to

an Israelite woman. An Israelite woman should not nurse the child of a gentile woman. But a gentile woman may nurse the child of an Israelite woman.’ Mishnah AZ 2: 1. These rules, further developed

268 Magda Teter women and defining space. The sixteenth-century code of Jewish law, the Shulhan

arukh, summarized and elaborated on this halakhic position: ‘A non-Jewish woman shall not assist a Jewish woman in childbirth when they are alone, even if she is considered an expert, and so she shall not nurse a Jewish child in her own home even if others stand behind her back, but in the house of the Jewish woman, she may both assist in childbirth and nurse a Jewish child if others are standing nearby, or if they come and go.’!°! Like bishops and popes prohibiting the mutual assistance of Jewish and Christian women, rabbis were most concerned about their own women’s assistance to the gentiles, especially if it meant that these Jewish - women or children were to find themselves alone in the homes of non-Jews. Only reluctantly did the rabbis allow assistance of gentile women in Jewish homes. If these halakhot were observed, the hiring of a non-Jewish woman by Jews would have required her coming to a Jewish house.'®* This is exactly what the Church prohibited. Like laws concerning dealing in non-kosher meat, this too might be an example of a halakhic influence on Church Jewry laws. Halakhah concerning non-Jewish wet nurses may be contrasted with rulings by Jewish leaders on Jewish nurses and servants employed by Jews. Perhaps avoiding the question of out-of-wedlock births, seventeenth-century Polish Jewish leaders seem to have assumed that Jewish wet nurses would have been married women.'°” Seeking to prevent marital separation, in the seventeenth century the Lithuanian Jewish leaders ruled that Jews were permitted to hire such a woman only if the child she was hired to nurse was to be sent for nursing to her own home, a situation explicitly prohibited in case of non-Jewish wet nurses; if her employer wished that the child be nursed in his house, he was obliged to take in the wet nurse with her husband and support them both in his house.'°* These stipulations were a potential economic burden to the Jewish employer, and, despite the repeated rabbinic warnings about the perceived danger gentile nurses and servants posed, may have made a non-Jewish woman a preferred choice. Clearly, law and life were not always compatible. Because of their power or sense of entitlement to such power and authority, some Christian leaders may have had over the following centuries, qualified the initially unqualified permission for the assistance of a non-Jewish woman. The initial law as articulated in the Mishnah did not specify any conditions for a gentile women’s assistance in childbirth or nursing of Jewish children; the subsequent legal codes

, from the Talmud onwards prohibited such assistance if the women were left alone. BT AZ 26a; Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishnah; Tur, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 154: 1. 101 Shulhan arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 154: 1.

102 See e.g. the recollection of the son of Isaac ben Meir of Dura, in which he recalls his father’s matter-of-fact comment on the presence of a non-Jewish nurse in a Jewish home, translated in E. Kanarfogel, ‘Halakhah and Metziut (Realia) in Medieval Ashkenaz: Surveying the Parameters and Defining the Limits’, Jewish Law Annual, 14 (2003), 223.

103 For an example of Jewish wet nurses in German lands, see excerpts from Pinkas shamash

altona, Jewish Theological Seminary MS 10772, prepared by E. Carlebach, available at , accessed 5 Feb. 2007. 104 Dubnow, Pinkas hamedinah, takanah 236, year 1627.

Social Life and Ffewish and Canon Law 269 hopes for attaining total separation of Jews and Christians; others clearly understood the need for concessions. Neither were Jewish leaders, despite holding halakhic ideals, deaf to practical concerns. ‘Though they may have, at least in theory, seconded the clergy’s wishes for total separation between the two communi, ties, they also recognized that they lived ‘in exile’ among non-Jews, and thus a total segregation was unattainable. Jewish communal leaders and rabbinic authorities also acknowledged that Jews often needed non-Jewish assistance.!°° Christian servants were necessary to accommodate not only needs linked to specific jobs, but also those that arose as a result of Jewish observance, for instance providing heat on the sabbath in the cold of north European winters, or light when moving from one space to another after dark, or milking animals on the sabbath, even cooking under certain circumstances.'°° In fact, gentile help was needed so much that Jewish communal leaders in early modern Poland—Lithuania were concerned that the Church, uneasy about the presence of Christian servants in Jewish homes, would succeed in forcing the lay leaders to enact laws prohibiting Jews from holding such servants. In 1637 the Council of Lithuania wanted to increase funds that might be necessary for lobbying on behalf of the Jewish community not only in cases of libels against Jews but to prevent any legislation that would end service of non-Jewish servants in Jewish homes.!°/ In their legal decisions, both Jewish and Christian leaders in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth drew on centuries-old existing legal traditions. The legislation that was passed by Church synods in Poland was frequently nothing but a repetition of

canons and laws that had been in place for centuries; at the same time the rabbis relied on halakhic tradition, drawing, sometimes indirectly, on sources dating as far back as the Mishnah. In the late medieval and early modern period, both sides emphasized and pushed for recognition of religious boundaries through publishing and use of ancient and medieval legal texts now available in print, through judicial prosecution, and through the introduction of new mechanisms for community enforcement.!° As a result, even though often the laws had been in place for centuries, it was only during the early modern period that religious leaders took measures to enforce these laws more strictly, or at least, in difficult cases, had to 05 On this, see Jacob Katz’s study The ‘Shabbes Goy’. See also Fram, Ideals Face Reality, 22-3. 106 The use of gentile service was accepted not without tension and resistance; Katz, The ‘Shabbes Goy’, e.g. 56-61, 63, 65, 69-70. See also Shulhan arukh, ‘Yoreh de’ah’, 113, and corresponding com-

mentaries by Isserles, Hakohen, and Halevi. 107 Dubnow, Pinkas hamedinah, takanah 307. 108 DP. L. Smail, The Consumption of Justice: Emotions, Publicity, and Legal Culture in Marseille, 1264-142}, Conjunctions of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past (Ithaca, NY, 2003). Smail argues that in Marseille there was no reliable court of justice until the second half of the 14th c.; see p. 33. See also I. L. Stern, The Criminal Law System of Medieval and Renaissance Florence (Baltimore, Md., 1994). Some of these legal handbooks published for Christian judges were specifically intended for judging cases between Christians and Jews, such as Marquardus de Susannis’ De [udaeis et aliis Infidelibus; see Stow, Catholic Thought and Papal Jewry Policy, 80.

270 Magda Teter rationalize why existing legal rules could not be enforced any more and concessions, legitimizing a given practice within an existing legal structure, had to be made.!°°

The existence of such prescriptive literature, of course, does not in any way mean that boundaries between Jews and non-Jews were in fact settled, or even respected, even in the early modern period. This literature only suggests the existence of textually constructed boundaries that were to serve as frameworks to define the outside, in the physical and the non-physical conceptual sense, and to punish the transgressors on the inside.‘!° Rabbinic responsa and Christian court records suggest that people, most of whom were probably unfamiliar with the intricate rules of engagement established by their religious elites, were living their lives if not outside the mutually outlined boundaries, at least in the vast areas of grey, often intermingling with each other. That intermingling in part explains the parallel concerns and language within the prescriptive literature on both sides of the religious divide.''’ But even the prescriptive literature suggests that both rabbis and the clergy were aware of the impossibility of enforcing total separation and, where practical, they allowed for compromises. As the rhetoric of these legal texts suggests, in the early modern period religion still played an important role in the existing legal systems and social values, which continued to emphasize the need for separation of Jews and Christians. That was to change in the modern period, when states were transformed into political entities with citizens, theoretically, equal before the law, regardless of their religious beliefs. In modern times religious beliefs and boundaries were to be relegated to the private sphere, making enforcement of religious boundaries an act of illegal discrimination, in total opposition to the protection of religious boundaries in premodern laws. But it was the modern historical narratives that sought to define national and ethnic identity that perpetuated these divides and ignored areas where the boundaries and identities in the pre-modern period were blurred or even non-existent. 109 In Italy, for example, the centuries-old Jewry laws were enforced for the first time, resulting in the creation of the ghettos. In Poland the application of these laws became much less successful, not to say impossible. See e.g. Stow, Catholic Thought and Papal fewry Policy, 190-1. 110 For a recent work on the construction of such boundaries in antiquity, see D. Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christanity (Philadelphia, 2004). The introduction to the book raises the question of the mutual efforts to construct bounds on the part of Jews and the followers of Jesus. But see also the classic M. Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London, 2002), e.g. 172. 111 Similar questions were discussed by Keith P. Luria in his book on Catholic—Protestant boundaries in early modern France, Sacred Boundaries: Religious Coexistence and Conflict in Early-Modern France (Washington, DC, 2005).

PART II

New Views

BLANK PAGE

Blood and the Hasidim On the History of Ritual Murder Accusations in Nineteenth-Century Poland MARCIN WODZINSKI BLOOD LIBEL, or accusations of the ritual murder of Christian children by Jews, is one of the most common themes in Jewish historiography. This is easy to understand, since the myth of ritual murder is at once the most spectacular and the most

irrational of anti-Jewish superstitions and clearly reveals the callousness and absurdity inherent in such prejudices. Academic investigations of this topic have appeared for more than a century and during the past two decades interest in this subject has been revived.’ Several innovative and important studies have been published on this topic in Poland in recent years, including monographs by Hanna Wegrzynek and by Zenon Guldon and Jacek Wijaczka.* Yet our picture of this

problem is far from complete. The studies of Wegrzynek and Guldon and Wyaczka, like the many articles which have been devoted to this topic, have dealt with the early modern period and have not examined the period after the partitions. (Indeed, Wegrzynek’s study does not go beyond the mid-seventeenth century.) This chronological limitation has two principal weaknesses. In the first place, because the evidence for ritual murder in the early modern period is dependent above all on the records of the trials of those accused of this crime, inevitably our understanding of the way these accusations were generated is incomplete. Court records also fail to reveal how this myth was perpetuated and the character of its ‘daily life’. Even more important, the belief in ritual murder did not cease with the partitions but persisted in the Polish lands during the nineteenth and twentieth This article is an expanded and updated version of the text that appeared in Polish in Irena KaminskaSzmaj (ed.), Od starozytnosci do wspotczesnosci: Jezyk, literatura, kultura. Ksiega poswiecona pamieci Profesora ferzego Woronczaka (Wroclaw, 2004), 199-212.

' A useful bibliographical list of classic articles devoted to accusations of ritual murder can be found in ‘A Selected Bibliography: Suggestions for Further Reading on the Blood Libel Legend’, in A. Dundes (ed.), The Blood Libel Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore (Madison, Wis., 1991), 379-81.

2H. Weegrzynek, ‘Czarna legenda’ Zydéw: Procesy 0 rzekome mordy rytualne w dawnej Polsce (Warsaw, 1995); Z. Guldon and J. Wijaczka, Procesy 0 mordy rytualne w Polsce w XVI-XVIII wieku (Kielce, 1995) and “The Accusation of Ritual Murder in Poland, 1500-1800’, Polin, 10 (1997), 99-140.

274 Marcin Wodzinski centuries.’ The allegations of ritual murder in the nineteenth century are of particular interest, as this period saw a significant evolution in the myth. A fundamentally irrational belief was adapted to new conditions, in a new political environment and a changing social system. In effect, the myth was made more ‘rational’ in the new political context, in which religious belief itself was coming under attack by the process of secularization. The accusation of ritual murder has a history of over a millennium and during this period it was often adapted to local conditions, changing as the mentality of the Christian population altered. As early as the sixteenth century, attempts were made to abandon the most unbelievable aspects of the myth in order to add credibility to accusations. Clearly, among those who levelled these accusations some were motivated by bad faith and sought to use a widely accepted superstition for their own purposes. In this essay, I will not attempt to determine to what extent the myth was genuinely believed and how much it was exploited for other purposes, but rather to examine the form it took in Europe (particularly in the eastern part of the continent) in the nineteenth century. Ritual murder was now claimed to be a practice of a ‘fanatical sect’ within Judaism, rather than of the religion as a whole. What I wish to do in this article is to examine how this development worked in practice and what new defence mechanisms it elicited from the Jewish community. This new understanding of ritual murder surely lay at the root of the revival of such accusations in the last decade of the nineteenth and first decade of the twentieth centuries in central and eastern Europe. It illustrates the adaptive character of a fundamentally irrational accusation and the way it was able to acquire a new dynamic force in a century which seemed be characterized by its belief 1n reason, progress, and a scientific view of the world. It also shows how such accusations were linked both with new political forces and, more generally, with the evolution of society in this period.

PREHISTORY: ACCUSATIONS AGAINST A ‘FANATICAL SECT’ Attempts to give a rational explanation for accusations of ritual murder were not new in the nineteenth century. From the moment such accusations were levelled against the Jews, there were those who realized that it was not credible to claim that all Jews committed ritual murder annually and succeeded in concealing their victims. ‘Thus some claimed that the amount of blood required for Jewish rituals was very small or that every year specific communities performed this ceremony on behalf of the entire Jewish community or that not all Jews observe this ritual but 3 Some of the small number of articles devoted to this issue in 19th-c. Poland include the following: K. Lewalski, Koscioly chrzescyanskie w Krolestwie Polskim wobec Zydéw w latach 1855-1915 (Wroclaw,

2002), 140-53; J. Zyndul and M. Ciesla, ‘Sprawa Ritterow: Aktualizacja legendy mordu rytualnego w Galicji konca XIX wieku’, in G. Borkowska and M. Rudkowska (eds.), Kwestia zydowska w XIX m.: Spory o tozsamosé Polakow (Warsaw, 2004).

Blood and Hasidim 275 only a group of particularly fanatical individuals who remained true to an ancient cannibalistic Jewish custom which had fallen into disuse among the majority of Jews. This theory of a ‘fanatical sect’ was first advanced in 1540 by the German antisemite Johann Eck in a polemic with Andreas Osiander, who pointed out the impossibility of concealing the large number of murders which were supposedly committed by Jews annually.* Eck alleged that this group of fanatics was made up of the religious leaders of Judaism, rabbis and Talmud scholars who practised ancient murderous rituals without their people’s knowledge. What is characteristic of Eck’s arguments is that they were not intended to remove responsibility from Judaism as such. On the contrary, according to Eck, the ritual murders were not a

manifestation of the distortion of the principles of Judaism by individuals or groups within Judaism, but rather the result of a particularly conscientious observance of its criminal teachings. Thus, according to this interpretation, the essence

of Judaism was bloodthirsty and criminal and the greater part of its adherents were innocent of the crime of ritual murder only because they had abandoned its ancient laws out of ignorance. This early version of the claim that a ‘fanatical sect’ was responsible for ritual murders already embodied a feature characteristic of all

its later incarnations. It did not combine the explanation with any attempt to absolve Judaism as a whole of responsibility but, on the contrary, sought to prove its innate immorality and criminal character. Until the end of the eighteenth century, rational explanation of this sort did not constitute a significant element in the belief in ritual murder. This myth was part of the popular world view and, since it was deeply rooted in the beliefs of the Christian population throughout Europe, it had no need of rationalization. As a result it is not by chance that the appearance of modernized and rationalized versions of the myth coincided with the revolution in thinking which came with the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment belief in the power of reason, its attempt to rationalize its view of the world, was not, however, the only factor. The European Enlightenment also had a more sinister side, one aspect of which was its interest in ‘secret Jewish sects’. hough these were not yet held responsible for ritual murder,

from the second half of the eighteenth century secret organizations and sects, including clandestine Jewish movements, were accused of anti-social convictions and practices and even of planning to conquer the world. The French Revolution and its impact across Europe provided an impetus for these accusations. Salomon Maimon, one of the first maskilic critics of hasidism, wrote forthrightly about the alleged similarity of the hasidim to the Bavarian [lluminati, a sect which emerged at this time, commenting: ‘in our times, when so much is said both pro and contra secret societies, I believe that the history of a particular secret society . . . should 4 J. Frankel, The Damascus Affair: ‘Ritual Murder’, Politics, and the Jews in 1840 (Cambridge, 1997), 265. On the antisemitic writings of Eck and his polemics with Andreas Osiander, including the accusation that a ‘fanatical sect’ practised ritual murder, see R. P. Hsia, The Myth of Ritual Murder: Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany (New Haven, 1988), 124-31.

276 Marcin Wodzinski not be passed over in silence’.° Of course, neither Maimon nor the vast majority of Enlightenment critics of Judaism accused its adherents of committing ritual murder and they viewed the very accusation as a dangerous prejudice. Nonetheless it is significant that antisemitic speculations about the existence of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world had their source in the ideology of the Enlightenment.® A century later, when allegations of ritual murders were revived in central Europe, they occurred under the rule and with the approval of liberal Hungarian, Czech,

or Prussian politicians and were linked with the myth of a Jewish conspiracy headed by a secret society, 1.e. in the same intellectual milieu. The Polish Enlightenment shared these suspicions of Jewish conspiracies. A good example is a pamphlet devoted to Jewish social reform written by Gerard Witowski,

an official on the Governmental Jewish Committee (Komitet Starozakonnych, officially responsible for Jewish reform in the Kingdom of Poland). According to him: ‘Dependent on unknown leaders, organized into efficient associations, holding secret meetings, guided by an invisible hand and sacrificing everything for the sake of Jewish interests . . . Jews have always presented a threat.’’ Witowski also insisted that the expulsion of all Jews from the Kingdom of Poland was essential. One of the rea| sons he gave was the existence of dangerous and secret Jewish associations, although,

like most Enlightenment critics of Judaism, he did not associate them with ritual murder. It should be noted here that although at times radical, Witkowski’s views were not particularly original, since he took his assertions about the existence of dangerous Jewish sects almost verbatim from a pamphlet by General Wincenty Krasinski, one of the most influential politicians in the Congress Kingdom and the author of an earlier pamphlet on the subject of Jewish reform in Poland.® Witowski’s

opinions were, thus, quite representative of wider circles of the late Polish Enlightenment. The link between the claim of the existence of ‘fanatical Jewish sects’ and belief in Jewish ritual murder surfaced as early as the end of the eighteenth century. ‘The first claim that ritual crimes were committed by a fanatical Jewish sect seems to have appeared in the tsarist empire in 1787. This also appears to have been the first accusation of ritual murder in the history of Russia. It was made in the same year 5 S.Maimon, The Autobiography of Solomon Maimon, trans. J. Clark Murray (London, 1954), 168. ® See A. Hertzberg, The French Enlightenment and the Jews: The Origins of Modern Anti-Semitism

(New York, 1968). . * [G. Witowski], Sposéb na Zydém, czyli Srodki niezawodne zrobienia z nich ludzi uczciwych 1 dobrych obywateli: Dztetko dedykowane postom 1 deputowanym na Sejm 1818 r. (Warsaw, 1818), 45.

8 W. Krasinski, Apergu sur les juifs de Pologne par un officier général polonais (Warsaw, 1818). Incidentally, the connection between the conspiracy theories of Wincenty Krasinski’s son Zygmunt, one of the most famous Polish Romantic poets, and his father’s concepts appears obvious. Admittedly, in his ‘Un-Divine Comedy’ Zygmunt does not accuse converts of using Christian blood for religious practices, but he makes them directly responsible for the worldwide conspiracy which led to revolution and the decline of Christianity. Thus their activities are also secret, conspiratorial, cruel, religious in nature, and aimed directly at Christianity. Hence converts bleed Christianity rather than Christians.

Blood and Hasidim 277 that a Russian reworking of the Frankist treatise Bledy talmudowe (Errors of the Talmud), which accused rabbinical Jews, among other things, of ritual murder, appeared.’ But the version published in Russia ‘adapted’ the charge: instead of directing it against all Orthodox Jews, it addressed it specifically to the Frankists, who were seen as a secret Jewish sect. Shortly afterwards the claim that Jewish fanatics murder Christian children was repeated by the Russian politician and poet Gavriil Derzhavin.'° A pamphlet written under the pseudonym Neophytos (The

Convert), published in 1803 and frequently reissued, also seems to have contributed to the rapid proliferation of legends about murderous ‘fanatical sects’ in Russia as well as in central and eastern Europe. The author, a Romanian Orthodox

monk who had converted from Judaism, maintained that Jewish fanatics use Christian blood in their rituals. This pamphlet, which circulated in various copies and reprints in east European Orthodox monasteries, was an important endorsement of the notion of ritual murder taking shape in Russia at that time, with the ‘fanatical sect’ theme as an important element."? It is also important to point out that belief in the allegation was already relatively common at the beginning of the nineteenth century and was not necessarily connected with Judaeophobic views. Tadeusz Czacki, a contemporary politician and social activist generally held to be sympathetic towards the Jews, while disput-

ing the ritual murder legend in his monumental treatise Traktat 0 Zydach i karaitach (Treatise on Jews and Karaites), was able to write at the same time: ‘Even

though we are quite certain that Jewish religious doctrine does not advocate spilling the blood of a fellow human being, we would not go as far as to say that fanatics would be incapable of committing such a deed.’'* Unlike Eck, Czacki does not claim that possible ritual murders are proof of the criminal nature of Judaism as a whole. Yet the author does not exclude the possibility of such crimes being committed by fanatic individuals. One cannot help observing that it was just this

type of rationalization that opened the way for the use of this myth by modern antisemitism and prolonged its lifespan. - Claims that ‘fanatical Jewish sects’ were committing ritual murders proliferate

in publications from the early nineteenth century and also surface in archival records, which have, unfortunately, been insufficiently researched. The character

of such accusations is well illustrated by a ritual murder charge in Konin in 1816. When the child of a certain Magdalena Groblewska disappeared, suspicion naturally focused on the local Jewish community. Deputy Judge Kaczynski, the investigator in charge of this case, who was far removed from any anti-Jewish 9 Bledy talmudowe od samychze Zydéw uznane i przez nowa sekte Sapwscieciuchéw czyli contraTalmudystow wyjawione (Lwow, 1758; repr. Mikolow, 1867).

10 J. D. Klier, ‘The Origins of the “Blood Libel” in Russia’, Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia: Newsletter, 14 (1986), 18-19. 11 An extensive discussion of the impact of the Neophytos text may be found in L. Katsis, Krovavyi navet 1 russkaya mysl’: Istoriko-teologicheskoe issledovanie dela Beilisa (Moscow and Jerusalem, 2006),

passim. 2 T Czacki, Rozprawa o Zydach (Vilna, 1807), 116.

278 Marcin Wodzinski sentiments, did not think that the Jewish community was capable of committing such a crime and looked for other explanations for the child’s disappearance. Despite this he found it necessary to summon the local rabbi and question him ‘whether or not a superstition requiring Christian blood to celebrate the Day of Atonement existed among uneducated Jews’.'’ Kaczynski believed the rabbi, who assured him of the groundlessness of such a claim, and ordered the mother of the lost child to be arrested, both in order to protect her from any Jewish revenge but ~ also because he suspected her of having killed the illegitimate child. Soon the lost child was found alive under the stairs of a Christian house, where he had been abandoned. The allegation that ritual murder was practised by anonymous ‘fanatical Jewish sects’ was made in 1830 by the Italian priest and Warsaw University professor Luigi Chiarini, a censor of Hebrew books, a member of the Government Jewish Committee, and the most infamous Judaeophobe in the Kingdom of Poland in the first half of the nineteenth century. His anti-Jewish views, codified in the treatise Théorie du judaisme, were a major inspiration for intellectual antisemitism during subsequent decades, mainly in France but also in the Polish territories.’* In this book Chiarini recounted the rumour (according to him, a true story) about the confinement in Warsaw in 1827 of a Christian boy in a chest by Jews, with the aim of later killing him and taking his blood. This was supposed to provide proof that there were fanatics among the Jews who, influenced by dangerous talmudic prejudices, continue to perpetrate such crimes.’? In fact, the event took place not in 1827 but in 1829, and the boy, who had been playing in the courtyard, was locked in a chest by his playmates. Chiarini’s publication evoked a lively reaction through-

out Europe, and the renewed implication of Jews in ritual murder (albeit only fanatic individuals) gave rise to particularly bitter polemics.‘© Equally significant was the fact that Chiarini specifically pointed to the ‘Talmud as the source of this

criminal ritual. This accusation had long since been an integral part of anti13° Archiwum Gléwne Akt Dawnych, Warsaw (hereafter AGAD), Komisja Rzadowa Spraw Wewnetrznych 6582, passim. An accusation of ritual crime was commonly linked to Passover and not to the Day of Atonement, i.e. Yom Kippur. 14 See L. Chiarini, Théorie du judaisme, appliquée a la réforme des Israélites de tous les pays de l’Europe,

2 vols. (Paris, 1830). On Chiarini’s influence, see A. Ages, ‘Luigi Chiarini: A Case Study in Intellectual Anti-Semitism’, Judaica: Beitraige zum Verstaindnis des jiidischen Schicksals in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, 37/2 (1981), 76-89; for more about Chiarint’s activities in Warsaw, see D. Raskin, ‘Ks. pro-

fesor Alojzy Ludwik Chiarini w Warszawie (ze szczegolnym uwzglednieniem jego stosunku do

Zydéw)’, MA thesis supervised by Prof. Majer Balaban, Archiwum Zydowskiego Instytutu

Historycznego, Warsaw, 117/47. 15 Chiarini, Théorie du judaisme, i. 355-7. 16 See L. Zunz, Beleuchtung der Théorie du judaisme des Abbé Chiarini (Berlin, 1830); I. M. Jost, Was hat Herr Chiarini in Angelegenheiten der europdischen Juden geleistet? Eine freimtithige und unpartheusche

Beleuchtung des Werkes: Théorie du judaisme (Berlin, 1830); J. Tugendhold, Obrona Izraelitow, czyh Odpowiedé dana przez Rabbi Manasse ben Izrael uczonemu 1 dostojnemu Anghikowi na kilka jego zapytan wzgledem niektorych zarzutow Izraehtom czynionych (Warsaw, 1831).

Blood and Hasidim 279 talmudic attacks by exponents of the European Enlightenment,‘’ and thus nicely fitted into the general rhetoric of the Judaeophobic Enlightenment; by claiming that the canonical Judaic text required the shedding and consumption of blood, they made the whole religion responsible for this crime. I will come back to the reaction to Chiarini’s pamphlet. In sum, at the end of the eighteenth and in the early nineteenth century, accusations were directed against some, not clearly defined, ‘fanatical Jewish sects’ and thus, while threatening the entire Jewish community, were not particularly dangerous for any of its groups. Sometimes, as was the case with the Russian adaptation of Bledy talmudowe, it was the Frankists who were accused of crimes, but because the group had few adherents and mainly because of their collective conversion to Catholicism, this allegation could not really threaten the Jewish community. ‘The real danger of such allegations came when they became associated with a specific, existing Jewish religious movement. One such movement was hasidism.

HASIDIM: A “FANATICAL SECT’ EXPOSED The link between accusations directed against the unidentified ‘fanatical sects’ and the burgeoning hasidic movement could not be avoided. From the late eighteenth

century, hasidism, which was spreading in many regions of the former Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth, encountered fierce criticism both from the traditional rabbinical elites and from Jewish supporters of modernization. One important theme in anti-hasidic polemics was opposition to the innovations intro-

duced by supporters of the new movement in the practice of shehitah (ritual slaughter).1® As Jacob Goldberg has pointed out, the numerous anti-hasidic polemics against hasidic ‘revolutionary practices’ in ritual slaughter may have revived beliefs in ritual murder by Jews, all the more so when these ascribed antisocial and even criminal practices to the hasidim.'? Another factor of far-reaching 'Y About Claude Fleury’s anti-talmudism and its influence on the ‘Jewish question’ in France, see Hertzberg, The French Enlightenment, 41-3, 253-8, 279. Along with Chiarini, exponents of strong antitalmudic opinions in Poland included luminaries of the Polish Enlightenment such as Stanislaw Staszic and Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz. For more details, see my essay ‘ “Cywilni chrzescijanie”: Spory 0 reforme Zydow w Polsce, 1789-1830’, in Borkowska and Rudkowska (eds.), Kwestia gydowska w XIX w., 9-42.

18 Controversy surrounding hasidic methods of shehitah achieved wide interest. To date, the best work on this subject, which presents a convincing explanation of this conflict, is S. Stampfer’s ‘Lekorot mahloket hasakinim hamelutashot’, in I. Etkes, D. Assaf, and J. Dan (eds.), Mehkarei hasidut

(Jerusalem, 1999), 197-210. On the social aspect of hasidic ritual slaughter, see Ch. Shmeruk, ‘Mashma’utah hahevratit shel hashehitah hahasidit’, 7Tszyon, 20 (1955), 47-72. On anti-hasidic polemics about the meaning of ritual slaughter, see M. Wilensky, ‘Hassidic Mitnaggedic Polemics in

the Jewish Communities of Eastern Europe: The Hostile Phase’, in G. D. Hundert (ed.), Essential Papers on Hasidism: Origins to Present (New York, 1991), 253-7. See also A. Wertheim, Law and Custom in Hasidism, trans. S. Himelstein (Hoboken, NJ, 1992), 302-15. 19 See J. Goldberg, ‘Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz wobec polskich Zyd6ow: Krytyka, chasydyzm, zblizenia’, in J. Woyjcicki (ed.), Julian Ursyn Niemcemicz: Pisarz, historyk, swiadek epoki (Warsaw, 2002), 151.

280 Marcin Wodzinski significance was the fact that from the beginning of the nineteenth century there was a marked increase of interest in the hasidic movement among non-Jewish observers. Along with Maimon, the most important texts shaping the image of hasidism in central and east Europe by Christian writers were the works of Jacques Calmanson, Israel Lobel, and later David Friedlander.”° In the early 1820s the first critical accounts of the movement in Polish appeared, including Lejbe and Stora, the first Polish novel with a Jewish subject and also the first ‘hasidic’ novel.?' None

of these accused Jews of ritual murder. Nevertheless, hasidism at this time, described as the most fanatic, dangerous, and blinded faction of Judaism, had already taken on a demonic role in Polish writing, embodying what were seen as the

worst attributes of Judaism. This led to fantastic allegations, which were exacerbated by the fact that, like Maimon, these Polish writers believed the hasidim were pursuing secret political ends of their own.

Publications also linked the rise of hasidism with the Frankist heresy. The Frankist movement had long been seen as a threat by sections of the Polish elite. The danger stemmed not so much from the ‘fanaticism’ of Jacob Frank’s cryptofollowers, but above all from the belief that they constituted a Jewish ‘fifth column’

in the ranks of the Catholic Church. Frankist pseudo-converts were seen as a threat to Polish society throughout the nineteenth century, linking the beginnings

of hasidism with Frankism and turning the hasidic movement into a natural enemy. In addition, by linking Frankists with ritual murder these suspicions made it possible to accuse the hasidim of this crime as well.?? General Krasinski openly linked the rise of both sects, demonstrating his ignorance of both: When newly christened Jews from everywhere were congregating around Frank, Israel Hirszowicz, the Miedzyboz Rebbe [Israel ben Eliezer, also known as the Ba’al Shem Tov, or

the Besht] founded a new sect in Poland based on the teachings of Moses Maimonides, an Alexandrian Jew in Egypt. Fearing the influence of this new sect, Frank created a new society, appointing himself hereditary head.?° 20 J. Calmanson, Umagi nad niniejszym stanem Zydéw polskich i ich wydoskonaleniem, trans. J. C[zechowicz]| (Warsaw, 1797); I. Lobel, ‘Glaubwiirdige Nachricht von der in Polen und Lithauen

befindlichen Sekte: Chasidim genannt’, Sul/amith, 1 (1807), Band 2, Heft 5, pp. 308-33; D. Friedlander, Uber die Verbesserung der Israehiten im Konigreich Pohlen: Ein von der Regierung daselbst im Jahr 1816 abgefordertes Gutachten (Berlin, 1819).

21 J. U. Niemcewicz, Lejbe i Sidra, czyli Listy dwoch kochankéw: Romans, 2 vols. (Warsaw, 1821). Apart from Niemcewicz’s novel the subject of hasidism was also raised in J. A. Radominski’s very important work Co wstrzymuje reforme Zydéw w kraju naszym 1 co ja przyspieszy€ powinno? (Warsaw, 1820).

22 For typical anti-Frankist opinions see ‘O Zydach w Polszcze’, Rozmaitosci [addendum to Gazeta Korespondenta Krajowego 1 Zagranicznego| (1818), no. 20, pp. 89-91; [L.] J[anowski], O Zydach 1 judarzme, czylt Wykrycie zasad moralnych tudzies rozumowania Izraeltow (Siedlce, 1820). 23 ‘Q) Zydach w Polsce: Thumaczenie nowo wydanego w Warszawie w francuskim jezyku dzielka przez pewnego jenerala polskiego, posta na Sejm’, Rozmaitosci (1818), no. 8, p. 31. For a critical view of the problem of hasidic—Frankist relations, see J. Doktor, ‘Chasydyzm wobec erupcyi frankistowskiey’, in K. Pilarczyk (ed.), Zydzi 1 judaizm we wspotczesnych badaniach polskich, ui (Krakow, 2003), 53-63.

Blood and Hasidim 281 This was only one step away from linking the hasidim to the accusations put forward against the Frankists, including the use of Christian blood for their secret rituals.

The first case of such an accusation directed against hasidim in the tsarist empire and Polish Kingdom can be found in the 1820s. In 1824, when Stanislaw Staszic (1755-1826), an extremely influential ideologue, author, and politician of the late Polish Enlightenment, held an investigation into the matter of hasidism, he called several hasidic leaders for interrogation and asked them: ‘Does your denomination posses any secrets unknown to others?’** The suspicion expressed in the question was most certainly connected to the then modernized version of the charge of ritual murder. Soon, the suspicion re-emerged in Russia in a charac-

teristically stronger formulation. In 1828 Tsar Nicholas I ordered searches of hasidic homes in the Kiev province for books advocating ritual murder by the hasidim.*° We do not know what provoked these suspicions. One possible explanation is that they were connected with the introduction of conscription for Jews ini-

tiated a year earlier and the hasidic opposition to recruitment of Jews into the Russian army. A link between this action and the wide-ranging investigation of hasidic publishers was initiated by some Jews of Krzemieniec, mainly by a teacher of the Volhynian Lyceum, A. I. Sawicki, and two printers, Leib Michel and Jacob Borenstein.*°

Even though this investigation did not produce the expected results, ‘Tsar Nicholas did not abandon his belief in Jewish perversity and, in 1835, in a commentary following the acquittal in the case of a ritual murder allegation in Velizh, he wrote: Numerous examples of similar murders prove that it is likely that fanatics or sectarians exist among the Jews who require Christian blood for their rituals . . . In a word, I do not believe that this custom is widespread among all Jews, but I cannot exclude the possibility that fanatics as horrifying as those among Christians exist amongst them.*’

Similar accusations were made in the Kingdom of Poland in 1831, but the context

clearly indicates that they refer to an allegation made during the pre-uprising 24 AGAD, Centralne Wladze Wyznaniowe 1871, 168; see also M. Wodzinski, ‘“Sprawa chasydymow”: Z materialow do dziejow chasydyzmu w Krolestwie Polskim’, in Krystyn Matwijowski (ed.), Z histori ludnosci zydowskiej w Polsce 1 na Slasku (Wroclaw, 1994), 235. R. Meir of Apta (Opatow) responded to the query: ‘None, except for the Kabbala, which not everyone can understand.’ 25 V. Khiterer, “Tsenzory i tsenzura evreiskikh religioznykh knig v Rossii’, Erusalimskii bibliofil’sku al'manakh, 1 (1999), Io. 26 On denunciations and investigations in Russia, see E. Lederhendler, The Road to Modern Jewish Politics: Political Tradition and Political Reconstruction in the Jewish Community of Tsarist Russia (New

York, 1989), 95-6. There are extensive reports of an investigation in the Congress Kingdom in AGAD, Centralne Wladze Wyznaniowe 1871, 230-79. 27 See S. Dubnow, History of the Fews in Russia and Poland from the Earliest Times until the Present Day, 11: From the Death of Alexander I until the Death of Alexander IIT (1825-1894) (Philadelphia, 1918), 83.

282 Marcin Wodzinski period. It was now that Jakub ‘Tugendhold (1794-1871), a well-known advocate of the Jewish Enlightenment, active member of the November uprising, and censor,

undertook to defend the hasidim from accusations of ritual murder. During the first half of 1831 he published a Polish translation of Manasseh ben Israel’s pamphlet Vindiciae Jfudaeorum (In Defence of the Israelites). ‘This work, written

in the mid-seventeenth century (1656), included a defence of Jews against accusations of using the blood of Christian children in religious rituals. The very extensive introduction provided by ‘Tugendhold to his translation takes issue with the views on this subject which were voiced after the appearance of Manasseh’s work, thus making it impossible for the author of [n Defence of the Israelites to reply to them. One such variant of the accusation was that blood was not used by all Jews but only by certain Jewish sects. According to ‘Tugendhold, modern ‘enlightened’

Judaeophobes, such as Father Luigi Chiarini, ‘now maintain that the alleged requirement for blood for matzot is only known to a certain number and a certain sect of Jews’. Tugendhold refuted this allegation by asserting that sects form no part of contemporary Judaism. After enumerating a series of historical sects such

as the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Karaites, Sabbatians, and Frankists, he added that all these had long ceased to exist (which was not the case with the Karaites and Crypto-Sabbatians) and that the majority of Frankists had converted to Christianity: Present-day hasidim cannot be called a sect if one takes this expression in its fundamental meaning related to the essence of religion. For these hasidim do not in any way renounce the essential rules and regulations of either the Old Testament or the Talmud or other later works that dignify the religion of the Jewish people. On the contrary, every hasid considers it to be his duty to observe all such rules and regulations far more scrupulously than they are intended to be read.?°

Tugendhold also points out that the name ‘hasid’ comes from the Hebrew word hasid, i.e. ‘devout’, and ‘hasidim is the plural’, and he also adds that it would be absurd to think that hasidim, who strive to achieve particular piety and advocate the ‘fervent observance of religious commandments’, could use blood for any rituals since they observe more scrupulously than others the religious laws which forbid Jews ‘to murder and use even the tiniest amount of blood or any leavening substances during Passover’. Tugendhold’s defence of hasidism is important for several reasons. ‘This was one

of the first attempts to defend hasidism undertaken by a supporter of the Jewish Enlightenment. But for us, even more striking is that Tugendhold found it necessary to attempt such a defence, which indicates that accusations of ritual murder directed at the hasidim must have been common already in the early 1830s and that they constituted a clear threat to the Jewish community. The aggressive polemic 28 ‘Tugendhold, Obrona Izraelitém, pp. xxiii—xxiv. Compare the German translation, Der alte Wahn vom Blutgebrauch der Israeliten am Osterfeste (Berlin, 1856), 14.

Blood and Hasidim 283 directed against Father Chiarini also shows that the allegations made in his 7héorie du judaisme were read as explicitly directed against the hasidic community.

THE DAMASCUS AFFAIR It was in the early 1840s that the explosion of anti-hasidic accusations reached its peak. The notion of ‘Jewish fanatics’ committing ritual murder now became especially popular in connection with the trial for ritual crimes allegedly committed by Jews in Damascus in 1840. The dominant opinion prevailing in the European press

at that time was that ritual murder could not have been committed by any European (read: west European) Jews, but that one could not exclude the possibility that dark and fanatical oriental Jews were capable of it. ‘Thus the London 7imes published a translation of the work of Neophytos discussed above, who claimed

that there are fanatical sects among the Jews who use Christian blood for their rituals.*? This opinion rapidly gained support and even though the accusation was once again directed towards an anonymous ‘fanatical sect’, it soon began directly to affect the hasidim as well. Influenced by the Damascus affair, Tsar Nicholas

charged his adviser Vladimir Dal to draw up a report on the subject of ritual murders allegedly perpetrated on Christian children by Jews in Russia. As we already know from his earlier pronouncements, Nicholas was convinced that these

allegations were justified. In 1844 Dal published a report, citing Derzhavin’s earlier opinion, in which he declared that murder was not being practised by all Jews but only by the hasidic sect.2° This publication was of great significance for the subsequent escalation of antisemitic ideology in Russia. An identical opinion was voiced by Stanislaw Wodzick1, an influential politician

and President of the Senate of the Free City of Krakow. In his memoirs he described an accusation of ritual murder in Olkusz in 1787, which led King Stanislaw August to chastise him: ‘I did not expect that you, who have received a higher education, should still believe in medieval fairy tales.’ ‘This did not deter Wodzicki: ‘I am deeply convinced that even though animal blood is prohibited to Jews by the law of Moses, a fact corroborated by the removal of blood vessels from kosher meat, there is one Jewish sect, namely hasidism, which, in spite of this law, requires the blood of Christian children for its rituals.’°? In the scholarly literature Wodzicki’s writings have been interpreted as the first

Polish reaction to hasidism and his views about ritual murder perpetrated by hasidim are dated to the period of the Olkusz accusation.*” In fact Wodzicki wrote 29 See Frankel, The Damascus Affair, 208-11, 264—70, with more details about the Damascus affair. 30 L. Poliakov, The History of Anti-Semitism, iv: Suicidal Europe, 1870-1933 (London, 1985), 84. 31 Stanislaw Wodzicki, Wspomnienia x przesztosci od roku 1768 do roku 1840 (Krakow, 1873), 1. 203-4.

x G. Dynner, ‘“Men of Silk”: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewry, 1754-1830’ (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 2002), 93; Goldberg, ‘Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz’, 151.

284 Marcin Wodzinskt his memoirs only in 1840; assigning the opinions expressed in the memoir to the earlier period is unjustified, especially as Wodzicki does not claim that he held such views at the time of the Olkusz trial. Besides, it is unlikely that at that time he was even aware of the existence of hasidism. It seems more likely that Wodzicki came to the view he expressed in his memoirs under the influence of the Damascus affair and the emerging belief that it was ‘Jewish fanatics’ who committed ritual murders. This is all the more likely since reports from Damascus were carefully monitored all over Europe and in the Polish territories, while anti-hasidic opinions had already become common in Polish publications. Similar views were appearing concurrently in German writings as well. In 1847 a known German anti-Christian columnist, Georg Friedrich Daumer (1800-75), published a pamphlet in which he argued that the ancient Hebrews offered human blood sacrifices. Daumer’s source was the oldest known anti-Jewish allegation, by the first-century AD Greek author Apion, who claimed that after having conquered Jerusalem, Antiochus IV Epiphanes found a Greek in the ‘Holy of Hollies’ tied to a bed being prepared by the priests for a blood sacrifice. According to Daumer, the Jewish cult was purified, but Mosaic sects that did not give up cannibalistic practices continued to exist. The most powerful of these sects became Christianity.°°

In his search for evidence of cannibalism in the Judaic tradition (and thus in Christianity), Daumer wrote, in a letter to his friend Ludwig Feuerbach, that among the Jewish sects, only the Karaites do not carry out ritual murder. However, ‘the Rabbanites, Talmudists and the Sabbateans who are nearer to Christianity and the hasidic sects so common in the Slavic countries indulge in these blood myster-

ies . . . This also applies to Christianity, a kind of ancient Sabbateanism and Hasidism, which continued to practice human sacrifice for a long time.’°** By ‘the

Sabbateans who are nearer to Christianity’, Daumer was probably referring to Frankist converts, and therefore his opinions are surprisingly reminiscent of similar accusations in the Russian adaptation of Bledy talmudowe that also accused Frankists of ritual murder. Thus one can assume that the juxtaposition of such Christian ‘Sabbateans’ and the hasidim is not accidental and recalls the opinion about the similarity of hasidism and Frankism expressed in the Polish lands by Wincenty Krasinski.

HASIDIM, BLOOD, AND MODERN ANTISEMITISM The claim that ritual murder was committed by the hasidim gained popularity during the following decades; it became particularly widespread at the end of the nineteenth century, among other things, because of the influential writings of the leading Russian antisemite, the renegade Catholic priest Father Hupolit Lutostanski (1835-1915). The accusation of a ‘fanatical sect’, and of the hasidim 33 L. Poliakov, The History of Anti-Semitism, iti: From Voltaire to Wagner (London, 1975), 410-11. 34° Tbid. 413.

Blood and Hasidim 285 in particular, was at the heart of Lutostanski’s argument in his influential, voluminous, and often imitated book The Question of the Use by fFewish Sectarians of

Christian Blood for Religious Purposes.°? In the lengthy dispute following Lutostanski’s publication there was little doubt in the Russian press that the accusation against the hasidim was legitimate.°° The anti-hasidic version had by then become the dominant form of the blood libel. It should be noted, however, that the popularization of the anti-hasidic accusation went hand in hand with the continuing popularity of the accusation directed against an anonymous ‘fanatical sect’. A well-known Polish ethnographer, Oskar Kolberg (1814-90), when giving an ethnographic account of a story of an alleged ritual murder in Ostrog in Volhynia, added his own explanation: ‘One should not accuse the Jewish religion of this crime . . . but it is certain that there exists among them a fanatical sect that craves such wild sacrifices.’?’ The accusation in this form surfaced in several trials during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as that in Tiszaeszlar in Hungary (1882-4), where it was the main form of rationalization. The opinion that ‘whatever the court sentence turns out to be in this case, the use of Christian blood for ritual purposes cannot be ascribed to Jews in general, but only to fanatical exceptions among them’ was expressed in numerous accounts of the trial in the Polish press.*° The debate and accusations directed at ‘fanatical sects’ were revived in the Catholic press in the Polish Kingdom during the Beilis trial in 191 1-13.°° This was perfectly in line with the general direction of the accusations made both by the witnesses and the prosecutors themselves in the

Beilis trial. So, for example, during the interrogations, the witness Vladimir Golubev clearly stated that he was ‘absolutely convinced that hasids and tzadiks used Christian blood’, and he believed Beilis was a tsadik.4° This was also the line

of the prosecutors, who endeavoured to prove that Beilis was a hasid, or more specifically a follower of the most dangerous tsadik from Lubavich, and thus belonged to the sect using Christian blood for their rituals.41 What is also important here, when asked about the source of such knowledge, the witness cited an extensive corpus of antisemitic literature supporting the claims, especially the works of Lutostanski and Neophytos mentioned earlier, but he also explained that it was common knowledge. The literature pointing to the hasidim as perpetrators °° I. Lyutostansky, Vopros ob upotreblenti evreyami-sektatorami khristianskoi krovi dlya religioznykh tselet v svyazi s voprosami ob otnosheniyakh evreistva k khristianstvu voobshche (Moscow, 1876; 2nd edn.,

2 vols., St Petersburg, 1880).

°° See the summary of the debate in J. D. Klier, Imperial Russia’s Fewish Question, 1855-1881 (Cambridge, 1995), 426—7, 430-1. 37 Cited after J. Tokarska-Bakir, Rzeczy mgliste: Eseje i studia (Sejny, 2004), 59.

88 “Z powodu sprawy tisza-eszlarskiej’, Przeglad Katolicki (1883), no. 5. Quoted in Lewalski,

Koscioty chrzesciyjanskie, 144. 39 Quoted ibid., 145-9. “0 E. Leikin, The Beilis Transcripts: The Anti-Semitic Trial that Shook the World (Northvale, NJ, and London, 1993), 54. 41 bid. 77-9, 81-2, 211. A wider discussion is in Katsis, Krovavy navet i russkaya mysl', passim.

286 Marcin Wodzinski of the ritual murder was, indeed, common currency at that time, with reprints of many of the old books, such as Neophytos, and the appearance of numerous new texts. Another direct result of the Beilis trial and wave of antisemitic literature accompanying it was the fact that in Russia it was especially the Schneersohn family and their followers that were placed at the head of the accusation, often linking

them with other, Christian, sects under suspicion in Russian society of the period.** The anti-hasidic accusation thus gained an even more specific version linked directly with contemporary Russian-Christian controversies. Rather less important than the Beilis trial or the Tiszaeszlar affair, but interesting from the point of view of the hasidic theme, was the court case between the Jewish deputy to the Viennese parliament Rabbi Joseph S. Bloch (1850-1923) and the notorious antisemite Josef Deckert and his assistant Paulus Meyer. The affair started in 1892 with Deckert’s assertion, based on testimony by the convert Paulus Meyer, that the hasidim of Ostrow Mazowiecki, and by implication all hasidim, practised ritual murder.*? Meyer, who came from Ostrow, declared that as a pupil of the local tsadik Joshua ben Salomon Leib of Leczna, he had been allowed to attend the murder and bleeding of a Christian child in 1875. The publication in which these claims were made evoked an immediate response from Bloch, who had

for a long time been actively engaged in countering anti-Jewish allegations. He started gathering materials that would prove the untruthfulness of the accusation and make it possible to prosecute Deckert and Meyer for defamation. Needless to say, the main trail in this case led to Ostrow in the Kingdom of Poland. Meyer’s

declaration, accompanied by his photograph, was sent to the Warsaw daily Hatsefirah, where its editors Chaim Zelig Stonimski and Nachum Sokolow saw to it that relevant information was collected.** Soon afterwards the newspaper published a facsimile of the tsadik’s gravestone showing that he had died in 1873, two years before the alleged murder, as well as an appeal for any information that might

prove useful in revealing Meyer in his true colours. Subsequent reports in Hatsefirah established the identity of the persons Meyer had accused of participating in the murder and made it possible for them to travel to Vienna, where their depositions led to an action for libel against Deckert and Meyer.*? In a trial that

proved embarrassing for the antisemitic activists, Bloch managed not only to undermine Meyer’s credibility but also to prove convincingly that he had been 42 On this see esp. Katsis, Krovavyi navet i russkaya mys’, 34-5, 219, 295.

43 The details of this cause can be found in J. S. Bloch, Evinnerungen aus meinem Leben, ii: Schwurgerichstprozess kontra Pfarrer Dr. Joseph Deckert und Paulus Meyer (Vienna, 1922). See also I. Lewin, ‘Na marginesie pamietnikow Jozefa Samuela Blocha, posta zydowskiego do parlamentu austriackiego’, inid., Przez pryzmat histori (Warsaw, 1994), 75—8. 44 See Bloch, Erinnerungen, ii. 80. 45 See e.g. ‘Alilah nora’ah: mikhtav hamumar polus me’ir’, Hatsefirah, 20 (1893), no. 103, pp. 421-3; ‘Alilat polus me’ir’, ibid., no. 104, pp. 425—6; no. 105, pp. 433-4; no. 109, pp. 445-6; no. I10, p. 450;

‘Bein dam ledam’, ibid., no. 130, p. 531; ‘Mishpat polus me’ir’, ibid., no. 178, p. 726; no. 199, pp. 809-10.

Blood and Hasidim 287 lying. Meyer withdrew his accusation and stated that he had had nothing to do

with the declaration printed in the press in his name and that his signature had been forged. His promoter Deckert stuck to his testimony, saying that he had received the declaration from Meyer himself and that it had been given voluntarily. Nevertheless, the libel trial that Bloch instigated in the name of the tsadzk’s alleged assistants ended in a spectacular victory for the Jewish side.*° In no sense was this case exceptional. At the turn of the nineteenth century, a wave of antisemitism swept over Europe and accusations of the use of children’s blood directed at the Jewish population experienced a significant revival. The most famous ritual murder trials at that time, apart from the one in Tiszaeszlar, took place in Xanten in the Rhineland (1891-2), in Polna in Bohemia (1899-1900), and

in Chojnice, Pomerania (1900-1); their apogee was the Beilis trial in Kiev in 1911—13.*’ These are just a few of the most notorious of hundreds of such inci-

dents which occurred frequently at the turn of the nineteenth century. As one would expect, not all involved the hasidim, as there were no hasidim in Xanten or Polna. But explanations making use of the hasidic theme or referring to an anonymous ‘fanatical sect’ were an important element that made it possible for this type

of allegation to proliferate even where there were no hasidim. The assumed verisimilitude of the modernized version of the legend implied the verisimilitude of the accusation itself in almost any version. If the existence of a hasidic sect among the Jews who sacrificed Christian children could be proved, then the existence of other fanatical conspiracies and associations and the likelihood of such a sect emerging from the ranks of Judaism would be proof of the corruption of the whole religion. Luigi Chiarini used just such an argument about hasidic fanaticism and ritual murder (by linking them directly) as proof of the destructive character of the Jewish religion. In addition, for Christian writers otherwise well disposed towards the Jewish community and for whom accusations of ritual murder were ridiculous, such as Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz or Jan Alojzy Radominski, the existence of hasidism did provide proof of the corruption of the Jewish community and pointed the need for moral reform of the Jewish people. Thus the hasidic version of the ritual murder accusation facilitated the revival of this allegation after more than a hundred years of hibernation, during which it had hardly appeared in European history, and, crucially, made it politically useful. It did indeed prove very valuable in the new politicized world. According to the Catholic theologian father Jozef Szpanerski: ‘It may be that there is some dark fanatical sect among them, for many such sects exist. This sect slakes its savage desire for revenge with Christian 46 “Mishpat alilat hadam bevin (polus me’ir vehaverav lifnei hashofetim), Hatsefirah, 20 (1893), no. 200, p. 814; nos. 201-2, p. 820; no. 203, p. 823; no. 204, pp. 830-1; no. 205, p. 835; no. 206, p. 838; no. 207, pp. 842-3; no. 208, p. 846; no. 209, pp. 850-1; no. 210, pp. 854-5.

47 A good comparative study on the subject of the aforementioned trials is H. J. Kieval, ‘The Importance of Place: Comparative Aspects of the Ritual Murder Trial in Modern Central Europe’, in T. M. Endelman (ed.), Comparing Jewish Societies (Ann Arbor, 1997), 135—65.

288 Marcin Wodzinski blood and thus puts into practice its fanatical prejudices.’*° For such thinkers, regardless of whether Jewish religious beliefs were the source of ritual murder, this crime stemmed from the Jewish hatred of Christianity, an argument which could be used to justify defensive measures undertaken by the Christian community. In this way, the old legend turned out to be a useful justification for the new political antisemitism.

CONCLUSIONS It is not by accident that the anti-hasidic version of the ritual murder charge developed among supporters of the ideology of the Enlightenment. The ambivalences of the rational ideology of the French Enlightenment in relation to the Jews led to attempts to find ‘enlightened’ arguments to support anti-Jewish phobias, the outstanding exponent of which was Voltaire himself. ‘Jewish fanaticism’ turned out to be an excellent argument, which justified even the most violent and hostile antiJewish attacks. It was also not by chance that the sudden upsurge in the ‘hasidic ritual murder’ myth coincided with a revival of anti-Jewish feelings and the birth of modern antisemitism in the second half of the nineteenth century. In reality, both

modern antisemitism and the accusation of the murder of children by hasidim constituted a typical ‘urban myth’ created for the déclassé bourgeoisie and new intelligentsia, circles that were very receptive to the ideology of modern ‘academic’

antisemitism. The need to rationalize this myth shows that it had now moved a long way from its folk prototype, in which any kind of authentication was superfluous. Moreover, from the point of view of Polish peasants, the choice of the hasidim

as potential perpetrators of murder carried little persuasive power, because the hasidim were considered to be exceptionally devout and honest and were regarded as the only group within the Jewish community which one could fully trust. This

can be illustrated not only by stories about devout hasidim that we know from ethnographic writing of the early twentieth century or from Stanislaw Vincenz’s work, but also from field interviews carried out by Alina Cala as late as the 1970s and 1980s in southern and eastern Poland.*? Despite the generally critical opinion of the Jewish community, hasidim (‘Hussites’)°° were always presented as honest, 48 See Lewalski, Koscioty chrzescyanskte, 143. *9 See A. Cala, Wizerunek Zyda w polskie; kulturze ludowej, 2nd edn. (Warsaw, 1988), 22, 25, 68~72.

°° The term ‘Hussite’ was used in Polish folk culture without actual reference to the religious movement of Jan Hus (1369-1415) and his followers. In central and southern Poland the sound of kamats gadol was pronounced both in Yiddish and Hebrew as u, while consonants in final sounds became voiceless, hence khusit or khusyt instead of hasid in contemporary standard Hebrew or khosid in YIVO standard Yiddish. Since the Polish language lost the phonemic opposition between the voiced kA and

the voiceless 4, and eventually lost the voiced kh altogether, for a Polish-speaking interlocutor the Yiddish (or Hebrew) word khusit/khusyt was identical with Polish husyt (Hussite). This form was frequently recorded in Polish literature in the rgth c. and up to today this is the most common name for Hasidim in Polish folk culture; see Maria Brzezina, Polszczyzna Zydéw (Warsaw, 1986), 72, 336 and

Blood and Hasidim 289 religious ‘good Jews’. It is thus clear that the new version of the myth was not based on traditional folk beliefs. Rather, the myth of hasidic ritual murder was a myth perpetrated by the intelligentsia and can be seen as a product of modernity. For the ideologues of the intelligentsia, the hasidim were simply ideally suited targets for accusations, if only because, with their anti-modernism, separatism, and deep religiosity, they represented everything that was strange and inimical. This tradition in Poland was promoted especially vigorously by representatives of ‘progressive antisemitism’, a group which, basing itself originally on leftist liberal and

anticlerical positions, arrived at militant antisemitism by the beginning of the twentieth century. The best-known representative of this group is Andrzej Niemojewski, editor of Mys/ Niepodlegta (Independent Thought) and author of Dusza zydowska w zmierciadle Talmudu (The Jewish Soul in the Mirror of the Talmud (1914)), the bible of inter-war antisemitism in Poland: Niemojewski argued that the Jewish community was corrupted to the core by its talmudic religion (representing the deepest emanation of their soul), and they were blinded by hate towards Christians to the extent that they went so far as to create sects as fanatical as the hasidim, which even perpetrated ritual murder. Consequently, Niemojewski reserved his most severe criticism for the hasidim, even though he did not have the foggiest idea who they were.”! The new version of the legend turned out to be exceptionally influential, mainly because it proved to be infinitely adaptable. Professed antisemites on the model of Chiarini or Deckert were able to use this version of the myth directly to revive the allegation. Numerous others who did not accept the legitimacy of this charge but

were seeking a justification for its universality were able to find a convenient rationalization in it. In Wroclaw in 2003 I personally heard an opinion that accusing Jews of committing ritual murder is wrong because not all Jews commit it, but only ‘Jewish Satanists’. As John D. Klier correctly observed: ‘Singling out the Hasidim . . . did not restrict the charge but universalized it.’°? Finally, a few words about the consequences of the renewed accusations for the Jews themselves and their reactions to such allegations. The danger associated with the new version of ritual murder was clearly perceived by representatives of all Jewish groups. Among those defending hasidim against the accusation of committing ritual murder one can find representatives of the Jewish Enlightenment who had either an ambivalent attitude towards the hasidic movement, as was the case with Tugendhold, or even an openly hostile one, as was the case with Slonimski and Cala, Wizerunek Zyda w polskie; kulturze ludowe], 18, 25, 36, 45, 56-7, 59, 68-72. An English translation of the book has lost this linguistic feature; see Cala, The Image of the few in Polish Folk Culture (Jerusalem, 1995).

51 For the most complete account of Niemojewski’s antisemitic attitudes, see D. Trzesniowski, ‘Biografia ideowa polskiego inteligenta: Od filo- do antysemityzmu. Andrzej Niemojewski’, in Borkowska and Rudkowska (eds.), Kwestia zydowska w XIX m., 319-29. 52 Klier, Imperial Russia’s Jewish Question, 426.

290 Marcin Wodzinsk1 Sokolow. What is curious 1s the fact that, relatively speaking, the hasidim themselves

were the least engaged in polemics against such accusations. The opinions of the

outside Christian world were not particularly important for the leaders of this movement, who interpreted the anti-hasidic version of ritual murder allegations as merely another embodiment of the eternal suffering of the chosen nation. In the case of Bloch v. Mayer, representatives of the hasidim accused of ritual murder filed a libel action only under the pressure of Stonimski and Sokolow. Thus, paradoxically, the anti-hasidic version of the charge largely became a preoccupation of their Jewish arch-opponents, and not the hasidim themselves. ‘The consequences of the revival of the ‘black legend’ adversely affected mainly those groups that were intent

, on social integration with the non-Jewish society around them and not the hasidim, who were indifferent to programmatic integration. The increased hostility and worsening atmosphere in Polish—Jewish relations during the last decades of the nineteenth century were probably responsible for spurring the revival of the old legend, but this revival resulted in the growing crisis affecting Jewish integration in Poland to no less a degree. In this respect the renewed and transformed myth of ritual murder proved extremely effective when deployed by the ideologues of the new antisemitism of the late nineteenth century. Translated from the Polish by Theresa Prout

Integration and its Discontents Mikhail Morgulis and the Ideology of Fewish Integration in Russia BRIAN HOROWITZ MIKHAIL MORGULIS (1837-1911), a Jewish civic leader, journalist, and lawyer in Odessa, came of age in the 1860s but lived until 1912, into the period dominated by Jewish nationalism. Holding firm to a faith in Jewish integration, in the last two

decades of his life Morgulis shared the fate of many 1860s Jewish intellectuals, such as Emmanuel Levin, Avram Harkavy, and Mikhail Kulisher, who as progressives in an earlier era now found themselves treated as backward conservatives in a new environment. Because his evolution took him from the ideological limelight to the periphery, Morgulis’s life and works can tell us a great deal about changes in the composition of the Russian Jewish intelligentsia, its social conditions, and its intellectual trends. Morgulis’s orientation towards integration coincides with his generation’s striving for a synthesis of Jewish and Russian culture. Nevertheless, as opposed to radical Russifiers, who either predicted the end of Judaism or limited its role to that of a religion, Morgulis believed Russia’s Jews had a right to independent political,

cultural, and religious institutions. Because of his commitment to the selfdetermination of Russia’s Jews, Morgulis can actually be seen as a kind of protonationalist. Despite the fact that in 1902 he was condemned by such nationalist militants as Simon Dubnov and Ahad Ha’am, there is an undeniable genetic connection between civic activism as Morgulis practised it and the grass-roots struggle of self-help as later nationalists understood it.' I would like to thank Antony Polonsky, Marc Raeff, and Michael Beizer for their suggestions. Responsibility for any errors of fact or judgement is my own. 1 ‘There has not been much research on this very impressive civic activist. See principally P. Shaw,

‘The Odessa Jewish Community, 1855-1900: An Institutional History’ (Ph.D. thesis, Hebrew University, 1988); M. Polishchuk, Evre: Odessy 1 Novorossu: Sotsial'no-politicheskaya istortya evreev Odessy 1 drugikh gorodov Novorossii, 1881-1904 (Jerusalem, 2002); and E. Lederhendler, The Road to

Modern Jewish Politics: Political Tradition and Political Reconstruction in the Jewish Community of Tsarist Russia (New York, 1989). In these books, Morgulis figures as a social activist and leader who helped create modern philanthropic and educational institutions and as an innovative organizer of Jewish politics in the decades before 1905.

292 Brian Horowitz Morgulis’s name is inextricably linked to Odessa and in many ways he reflects that city’s vibrant personality. Odessa was ahead of other cities in offering the Russian Jewish intelligentsia a leading role in providing creative solutions to social problems. By the late 1860s, intellectuals rather than notables were running the Odessa branch of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia (OPE).? At the same time these intellectuals served as advisers to the government on issues related to Jews. The power of the intelligentsia was demonstrated by the dominance of this group in Odessa’s Jewish parliament of sorts, known as “The Hundred Representatives’, which was established in Odessa to regulate Jewish life in the city in the early 1860s.° The goals of democratic-leaning intellectuals, such as Morgulis, reflect populist inclinations and trust in social modernization and secularization. For example, intellectuals in Odessa, such as Leon Pinsker, Emmanuel Soloveichik, Ilya Orshansky, and Morgulis, sought to replace traditional heders by creating modern schools for Jews, to transform traditional evrot into democratically run institutions of social welfare, and to create modern rabbis to serve as community leaders. Because Morgulis discounted radical solutions and devoted himself to gradual amelioration, there was some controversy about his legacy at the end of his life.

Certainly Jewish liberals gave him a huge tribute. In 1912, the chair of the St Petersburg Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment, Jacob Galpern, listed Morgulis’s achievements: As a Civic activist, Mikhail Grigorev [Morgulis] harmonized his deeds with his word. Without a moment’s rest, he struggled to organize the public at large, train artisans, while spreading enlightenment and developing Jewish knowledge. In Odessa, the site of his constant activity, there was almost no Jewish institution which did not owe him a debt either for its birth or energetic support. Many of those institutions [which were] created in Odessa had a large influence by serving as examples for other Jewish communities.*

Zionist leaders, however, viewed him with disdain. They saw in him a symbol of failed diaspora politics, a whipping boy of the shtadlanut system (intercession on 2 For information about the Odessa branch of the OPE, see I. Cherikover, Istorizya Obshchestva dlya rasprostraneniya prosveshcheniya mezhdu evreyami v Rossu (St Petersburg, 1913); see also S. Zipperstein, ‘Transforming the Heder: Maskilic Politics in Imperial Russia’, in A. Rapoport-Albert and S. J. Zipperstein (eds.), Jewish History: Essays in Honor of Chimen Abramsky (London, 1988), 87-110. 3° Mikhail Polishchuk writes: ‘In the early 1860s the Mayor got permission from the Minister of Finance for the election of a broader representative structure, “The Hundreds”, which functioned under the control of the city’s Duma. In 1863 this structure was expanded to 120 members. It had jurisdiction only over elections of representatives to the Duma or the Magistrate, the state rabbi, the head of the Jewish hospital, talmud torah, burial society, and other community institutions, but in reality it strove to take up all the community’s problems.’ Polishchuk, Evre: Odessy 1 Novorossit, 30.

4 Manuscript of the speech by Jacob Galpern, 29 Apr. 1912, in the file ‘Protokol soveshchanu 1 perepiski s chlenami obshchestva po organizatsii chestvovaniya 75-letiya so dnya rozhdeniya M. G. Morgulisa’, located in the Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheski arkhiv (Russian State Historical Archive), St Petersburg, 1532-1-1237.

Mikhail Morgulis 203 behalf of the Jewish community before the state and local authorities, lobbying; from shtadlan: intercessor), and a politician who settled for half measures.” Peter Shaw explains the unlucky aspect of Morgulis’s image: Despite the undeniable contributions he rendered to Odessan Jewry, Morgulis has been all

but forgotten in the historical literature. To a certain degree, Morgulis himself bears responsibility for this state of affairs by having failed to go with the tide of history, 1.e. by having refused to align himself with the eventual ‘winners’ in the struggle for Russian Jewry—the Zionists.°

Since there is still not a single published article, much less a book, devoted to Morgulis, one is justified in saying that he deserves additional critical examination, especially now in the post-communist and post-Zionist political environment. In Russia such figures are receiving a great deal of popular attention because they seem to embody ideals of democratic liberalism, which some Russians would like to rescue for use in today’s political wars.’ At the same time, for the historian, Morgulis’s life and works offer a chance to explore the emotional and spiritual sources of the Russian Jewish intelligentsia, since he wrote extensive memoirs. These memoirs offer a bird’s-eye view onto an inimitable emotional and intellectual evolution and give a portrait of the mindset of his generation.

° Hovevei Tsiyon, not wanting to participate in the fiftieth anniversary of Morgulis’s literary career,

claimed that ‘Sisyphian labours’ were no cause for rejoicing. See Shaw, “The Odessa Jewish Community’, 58; also Novy: Voskhod, 18 (1912), 18-19.

© Shaw, ‘The Odessa Jewish Community’, 58. Incidentally, Simon Dubnov felt some personal animus towards Morgulis for slights during his early years in Odessa. In his memoirs Dubnov writes: ‘A popular lawyer in Odessa, a member or chair of various societies and committees, an essential orator at meetings, Morgulis did not rise above average in all these areas. His originality was perhaps diminished by his involvement in too many things; he wanted to be a player everywhere, although he was not capable of penetrating all these affairs. . . . In general he acted in a proper manner, but being an

opportunist himself, he could not stand people with definite convictions and consistent methods.’ S. Dubnoy, Kniga zhizni: Vospommantya 1 razmyshlentya. Materialy dlya istoru moego vremeni, 2nd edn. (St Petersburg, 1998), 56-7 (1st edn., 3 vols., Vilna, 1933-7). ’ J. Veidlinger, for example, has written that ‘Indeed, the shtetl, the metonym of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, no longer fascinates scholars as it once did. ‘The desire to “imagine Russian Jewry”, to use Steven Zipperstein’s phrase, as a foundation myth of Ashkenazic culture has declined. The shtetl

has lost much of its mystique as the former Pale of Settlement has become more accessible to both American “tour groups” and Russian “historical-archeological expeditions”, both of which have found that the venerated shtetls of their grandparents’ stories are now little more than concrete-laden suburbs. Rather than return to a mythologized past of klezmer music, joyous weddings, and the simple values of faith and family as reflected in the writings of Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Leyb Peretz, and other classic Yiddish writers, a new generation of scholars have instead championed the more mundane and practical values of acculturated Jewry in the capitals and their struggles to be accepted on equal terms within Russian society as a whole.’ ‘From Shtetl to Society: Jews in rgth-Century Russia’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, NS 2/4 (Fall 2001), 324-5.

204 Brian Horowitz BEGINNINGS Born in 1837 in Berdichev during the reign of Nicholas I, Morgulis attended a traditional heder in his childhood. When he was to his family moved to Odessa. Describing Odessa’s Jews in the 1840s, Morgulis recounts how young men eager to

learn Russian congregated together. Such individuals were known as ‘Let the Virgils’, since the best-loved and first story from their Russian textbook began with

‘Let the Virgils praise the rulers’. According to Morgulis, this epithet was inevitably used ironically, since many students never got past the first few pages. Moreover, the appellation may also have evoked laughter since Jews who were eager to acquaint themselves with Russian culture were still rare and perhaps seemed strange. We can get an impression of the scepticism regarding Russian—Jewish interaction of the 1840s from the surprise Morgulis expresses at the conventionally polite reception that he, a Jew, received from the Christian director of the Zhitomir Rabbinical Seminary. Morgulis expected the principal to treat him contemptuously, and was bewildered at a Christian’s kindness to a Jew.? The gentle school principal is contrasted with the local police chief, who chased after Jews in his carriage in order ‘to force them to put out a cigarette that might somehow lead to a fire’. ‘The police chief also overturned baskets of fruit and crushed them in order ‘to maintain the city’s hygiene level’, or arrested Jews for wearing skullcaps or cut their payes, even going as far as whipping them in front of the police station.!° However, Morgulis took pride in the fact that at least once Odessa’s Jews took revenge. During a celebration for Tsar Nicholas I, who was expected to pass through the city, the police chief tried to make his usual mischief. Instead of allowing him, a group of Jews ‘lifted him up with a cry of “hurrah” ’. ‘When as usual he brought his fists into play,’ Morgulis writes, ‘K-v was met by fists in a quantity that he had never seen nor could see.’ “The affair ended with the police chief retreating from the field of battle and leaving his responsibilities to the city’s administrator Ts-v.’!? Like other progressives, Morgulis was inspired by the government’s attempts to

change Jewish life in the late 1850s. These efforts led to feelings of patriotism for Russia, which, according to Morgulis, Russian Jews had previously not experienced: Young people rejoiced. They found a basis for their self-consciousness. Downtrodden and oppressed more by people within their own milieu than outside it, they threw themselves into the open arms of those outside Judaism. Young people felt a ground under their feet, they all started to consider themselves citizens of a homeland, they received a new fatherland. Each young man was full of optimistic hopes and prepared himself selflessly to serve the homeland, which had extended its hands so maternally to her stepchildren. All threw themselves into the study of the Russian language and literature; everyone thought only about how he could quickly emulate and entirely integrate with the surrounding milieu.

10° Tbid. 29. , 4 Thid. 8 M. Morgulis, ‘Iz moikh vospominanii’, Voskhod (1895), no. 4, p. 21. 2 bid. 31.

12M. Morgulis, ‘Iz moikh vospominanii’, Voskhod (1895), no. 2, p. 108.

Mikhail Morgulis 295 The government’s good intentions were not just an abstraction without a human face. For the educated Jews of Russia’s south-west the importance of the image of Nikolay Pirogov cannot be overestimated. As the head of the Odessa educational district from 1857 to 1858, Pirogov encouraged the modernization of the Jews by supporting the activities of secular intellectuals. Morgulis explains how Jews of the time saw this humane official: Pirogov was the first who saw in the Jew not just a person but also a useful citizen. He was the first to point out the high virtues of Jewish behaviour, the first to put under his protection the Jewish youth, towards whom he felt ardent love and backed in the struggle with - obscurantism. He was the first to extend not a passive but an active hand to the education of the Jews, spreading among them a unified force in the name of enlightenment.*”

The sense of gratefulness towards Pirogov was so great that a cult of his image took hold among educated Jews. The writer Lev Levanda, for example, advised his friends to purchase Pirogov’s photograph, since ‘in each Jewish house a portrait of this exemplary Christian should be found’.'* In his early teens, Morgulis enrolled in the Zhitomir Rabbinical Seminary, one of the two sponsored by the government. There, in addition to Judaica, he studied foreign languages, including German and Russian. Instead of taking a position as a government rabbi after graduation, as he was obligated to do according to the stipulations of his scholarship, Morgulis received special permission to study

law at the University of St Vladimir in Kiev. He indicated his proclivity for Jewish matters by choosing as his thesis the question of inheritance under Mosaic Law.'° Morgulis’s description of his experience in the Zhitomir Rabbinical Seminary is valuable not only for a reconstruction of the formation of his world view, but also as a way to understand what went on in this seminary. Zhitomir, one of two rabbinical seminaries (the other was in Vilna), was equivalent to a Russian gymnasium in many respects; there boys from ages as young as 8 or 9g started a pro-

gramme of study that was complete after eight or nine years. The level of education, however low it may seem to critics, was high in comparison with what other non-nobles received at the time. In the 1850s, state serfs and privately owned peasants received little or no education at all.'® Certainly, the seminaries did not provide the same education that children of nobles or wealthy merchants received 13M. Morgulis, ‘Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov i ego otnoshenie k evreiskomu voprosu (po povodu ego pyatidesyatiletnego yubileya)’, Voskhod (1881), no. 8, in Voprosy evreiskot zhizni: Sobranie statei (St Petersburg, 1899), 521.

14 L. Levanda to S. Zalkind, 12 May 1861, ‘Iz perepiski L. Levandy’, Evreiskaya biblioteka, 9 (1891), 21.

15 His thesis was published as O davnosti vladeniya nedvizhimost'yu po talmudskomu pravu (St Petersburg, 1893). ‘6 B. Eklof, Russtan Peasant Schools: Officialdom, Village Culture and Popular Pedagogy, 1861-1914 (Berkeley, 1986), 27.

296 Brian Horowitz in pensions or the famous Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo, but they can be compared with a gymnasium because of the number of serious courses in classical languages and history, and not with the Russian Orthodox seminary, in which the children of so-called ‘white’ clergy were trained.

Although the students apparently desired to spend most of their time on general subjects, such as literature, history, and foreign languages, formally the Jewish seminaries had narrow vocational aims. Two programmes were offered: one which prepared teachers for government Jewish schools and the other which prepared future ‘state’ rabbis. The faculty was made up of both non-Jews, who taught secular courses, and Jewish scholars, who taught the courses on rabbinics. The directors of the schools themselves were usually Russian and often had a military background. Nevertheless, violence linked the Jewish and Russian Orthodox seminaries and Morgulis’s experience can be compared to that described in Nikolay Pomyalovsky’s brutal description of a provincial Russian Orthodox seminary for boys, Seminary Sketches (Ocherki bursa).*" Morgulis writes that it was not by chance that the rabbinical seminary was located across from the city penitentiary, since 1n the seminary one felt as though one were in prison. Family visits were extremely rare, and pupils

| were prohibited from leaving the premises save on holidays and as rare exceptions. Furthermore, violence in the seminary was pervasive. Not only did teachers beat the students, older students viciously whipped younger ones in hazing or bullying rites. Moreover, students learned little in classes. If they were called upon to answer a question, they would use an ingenious method of long-distance reading that gave the impression that they had memorized their homework.*® What is surprising is the extent to which the students’ minds were concentrated on subjects with little relation to the profession of rabbi. Morgulis describes how seminarians preferred dance to study. In Zhitomir, one of the non-Jewish teachers was a dance instructor and with his help the seminarians were given proper lessons that allowed them gracefully to adorn any ball. Morgulis writes that ‘even the most serious young students began to shift their feet, forgetting about their position in

the future and propriety in the present. Having learned to dance, the students began to set off to masquerade balls in the Zhitomir theatre.’'? Alluding to the decadence and secular orientation of the seminarians, he queries: ‘Who would have thought that the first meeting of a rabbinical student with Jews of the gentler sex would occur not through the office of preacher, but on the ballet teacher’s

wooden floor?’”° |

Besides frivolity, student life in the seminary had a serious side, although it too

was independent of the classes. The students set up their own organizations, which reflected their love of learning. For example, the most respected students 17 N. Pomyalovsky, Ocherki bursa (St Petersburg, 1860). 18 M. Morgulis, ‘Iz moikh vospominanii’, Voskhod (1896), nos. 5—6, p. 172.

19 Td., ‘Iz moikh vospominanii’, Voskhod (1895), nos. 11-12, p. go. 20 Tbid. 92.

Mikhail Morgulis 207 were those who read intensely. In a garret apartment of one of the students, known as the ‘common apartment’, many seminarians read for hours at a time, sharing forbidden books and holding discussions. Morgulis describes how there developed a system of mentoring on the part of the older students. Similar to the Greek ideal,

transfer of knowledge was accompanied by erotic attraction: ‘Love among the pupils of the common apartment was extremely developed. A great many dreamed about their lover, and usually in the twilight evenings when there was nothing to do, longing, intimate conversations were carried on about love.’ Usually feelings

were expressed in physical ways: ‘the sensual partner [Morgulis calls him an ‘erotic’ | squeezed the hand of his lover strongly, pressed it to his face, and from time to time kissed the face on which intense pleasure was reflected’.*! Although we cannot entirely judge the nature of these apparently homoerotic exchanges, the relationships were associated with a quest for knowledge. ‘The

students in the seminary were eager to acquire secular knowledge, to gain an understanding of science and humanistic scholarship. Proudly pointing to the experience of the seminary as enriching for Russian Jews, Morgulis ecstatically describes his own encounter: [I met] the names of the Russian poets, [Alexander] Pushkin, [Vasily] Zhukovsky, and stories about their works; new disciplines—geography, history, and others; new Jewish names covered with the laurels of particular veneration, such as [Jacob] Eichenbaum [1796-1861 |, [Mordechai] Suchostaver [1790-1880], Segal [Israel ben Moses of Zamosé, 1710-72|, and the rabbi of Rovno. This was all so alluring that I wanted to join in the new movement and be carried away by the stormy flow of the new life that was being born.?2

The experience in Zhitomir had an unambiguous positive effect on the minds, although perhaps not the bodies, of the students, since there was never enough food. ‘They were exposed to the classics of Western culture, especially German Romanticism, which gave them high and lofty goals. The secluded environment, combined with the ceaseless message that the seminarians were going to play a central role in transforming Russia’s Jews, gave them at once dreams of a better world and the drive to achieve it. Morgulis describes the self-perception of the students as follows: Each rabbinical student was imbued with the very best ideals connected with the good of the Jewish people. Each one of us looked upon himself as a future reformer, a Mendelssohn in his own way, and therefore in the quiet of solitude one would often conceive of a plan of action which one carefully hid from one’s comrades. Rabbinical students were sincerely convinced that they would succeed in effecting a full revolution in the consciousness of the people and impatiently waited for the moment when they would act.”° 21 Tbid. ro1—2. 22 Morgulis, ‘Iz moikh vospominanii’, Voskhod (1895), no. 4, p. 30. 23 Thid.

298 Brian Horowitz Let out into the world at large, many of these students did not melt into Russian society, but struggled to achieve the goals that had inspired them as students.**

EARLY WORKS Morgulis’s early writings from the 1860s reflect the ardour of a young man committed to the Haskalah. According to the logic of Haskalah, the Jews were basically good and capable of reform. ‘They were burdened, however, by bad traditions and ingrained habits that prevented the success of enlightenment. If these nefarious traditions and habits could be eliminated, the Jews would doubtlessly be integrated into Western society. Progressive Jews felt a common cause with the government and were ready to help sweep away those elements of Judaism that were impeding modernization. Like many others, Morgulis was carried away by the optimism of the time. He, too, was convinced that Alexander II’s reforms marked the beginning of a new era for Jews in which everyone would soon receive equal rights. Doing his part, he crit-

icized immutable superstitions and dogmatic traditions, but he nevertheless defended certain rituals from blanket condemnations. An example of a bad institution was hasidic Jewry and, in particular, dynastic rabbinical leaders, the tsadikim.”° Tsadikim, Morgulis claimed, lived extravagantly by exploiting the people. ‘They held on to power by forming coalitions with the richest members of the community, and this unity was unholy because ‘the tsadzkim transferred the people’s money over into the rich men’s pockets, while of course receiving protection against government officials’.*° As if presaging arguments anti-Jewish writers were soon enough to use against all Jews, Morgulis accused the tsadzkim of forming a ‘state within a state’. It angered him that if you ‘ask any hasid where the centre of the southern region lies, he will point to an insignificant town, the residence of the head tsadik, instead of Kiev’. ‘Such is the omnipotence of the tsadikim.’*!

A believer in the government’s power to do good, Morgulis turned to the authorities for a solution. ‘The way to fight the tsadikim, he claimed, was to put hasidic leaders under house arrest and send them to Lithuania, where Jews do not respect hasidism and where tsad:kim will be incapable of spreading their 24 Without complete lists of students, it is impossible to determine what the vast majority did after finishing the schools, but a partial reconstruction of the student body shows that the first generation of

graduates included the following famous and influential Russian Jews: H. Barats, B. Bertenson, Y. Gershtein, A. Goldfaden, E. Kagan, S. Kaplan, S. Kovner, A. Landau, L. Levanda, A. Liberman,

Z. Minor, M. Morgulis, N. I. Nakst, A. Paperna, L. Pinsker, I. Soloveichik, and M. Veisbrod. Together with the teachers listed above, these men constituted the literary, intellectual, and political elite of Russian Jewry from the 1840s to the 1870s and the creators of the new Russian Jewish culture. Michael Stanislawski, Tsar Nicholas I and the Ffews: The Transformation of Fewish Life in Russia, 1825-1855 (Philadelphia, 1983), 107.

29 M. Morgulis, ‘Byt’ ili ne byt’ tsaddikizmu v Yugo-Zapadnom krae’, in Sobranie sochineni

(Chernigov, 1869), 41. 26 Ibid. 37-8. 27 Thid. 43.

Mikhail Morguls 209 influence.?° Not surprisingly, his plan was rejected by the government, which by the 1850s had decided to take a neutral role in intra-Jewish conflicts.*° At the same time, Morgulis also defended Russia’s Jews against unfair accusa-

tions. In response to allegations that the Jews gave false testimony in court in exchange for payment, Morgulis demonstrated that Russians also sold their testimony, serving as character witnesses for people they did not know. Lying under oath, he explained, was a job in Russia, and a lucrative one at that, providing perjurers with the extra income they needed for basic necessities. The problem lay not with faithless Jews or Russians, but with a judicial system that encouraged disrespect for law. At the same time Morgulis expressed strong pride in the Jewish tradition, prais-

ing its humane legal code. In ‘A Sketch of the Court of the Jews according to Talmudic Law’, Morgulis pointed to the role of biblical courts as a reflection of Jewry’s high humanitarian values.°° As opposed to the barbaric practices of other tribes in the ancient world, in ancient Israel an accused person was given every chance to prove his innocence. In fact, no person could be condemned on the basis

of assertion alone: courts had to provide hard evidence. Similarly, judges were selected for their high probity and incorruptibility. According to Morgulis, in ancient Israel there was no profession more highly esteemed than the judge. “The best reward for a judge was the respect of the people, which served as the most accurate measure of his competency. The people viewed with indifference and contempt those judges who were appointed not according to merit; such a judge was looked at as though he were a mule in a man’s clothes.’*! Just like such proRussian reformers of the 1860s as Osip Rabinovich or Lev Levanda, Morgulis understood Haskalah as a balance between self-criticism and defensive pride, permitting himself the expression of deep love for the achievements of Jewish civilization.

DEFENDING THE JEWS Morgulis’s attitudes changed in the 1870s. When it became clear that the promised civil equality of the Jews was not going to happen, many intellectuals began to

reverse their previous boundless appreciation for the tsarist government. The indifference of the government to the pogrom of 1871 in Odessa also led people to wonder if the government might even come to be an enemy. 28 bid. 44—5.

, 29 For a discussion of the influential power of the hasidim in the 1850s, see A. Zeltser and I. Lurie, ‘Moses Berlin and the Lubavich Hasidim: A Landmark in the Conflict between Haskalah and Hasidim’, Shvut: Studies in Russian and East European Jewish History and Culture, 5/21 (1997), 32-54.

1866). 31 Tbid. 85.

30M. Morgulis, ‘Ocherk ugolovnogo suda evreev po talmudskomu pravu’, in Sobranie sochinenii. The article first appeared in the volume Ocherki 1z istoricheskogo i yuridicheskogo byta evreev (Kiev,

300 Brian Horowitz A believer in knowledge as a weapon for changing attitudes, in 1869 Morgulis, together with Ilya Orshansky, eagerly took control of the Odessa newspaper Den’.

In Den' Morgulis devoted himself to an extensive defence of Jewish interests, countering claims that Jews avoided the military draft, were sympathetic to Polish interests, or used Christian blood for ritual purposes. If Den’ was less self-critical than Osip Rabinovich’s earlier newspaper Rassvet (1860-1), it was because the situation had changed. Jews needed defenders against a hostile press, a repressive government, and an unkind public.*” In particular, Morgulis confronted the libels of Jacob Brafman, published in Book of the Kahal (Kniga kagala), a book that was extremely well received among Russia’s leading statesmen.°° Brafman argued that the Jews were bent on world dominance and secretly planned the takeover of Russia and enslavement of the Russian people. Although, unfortunately, few paid attention to Morgulis’s objec-

tions, in a series of articles published in Den’ in 1871, Morgulis conclusively refuted Brafman’s claims.°’* Pointing out the staggering number of mistaken interpretations and grammatical errors in Brafman’s book, Morgulis explained the true significance of the kahal.

Reconstructing the overall historical context, Morgulis pointed out that the kahal appeared first in the fifteenth century and played an important function in early modern Europe, in which the ‘Jews were not considered subjects of the state and had to keep up a real struggle with multifarious groups in society’, such as ‘the local merchants and the guilds’.°? They also had to endure the arbitrary actions of the government. In this context the kahal actually served the government, taking account of its financial interests and overseeing the relationship between the Jews and society as a whole. According to Morgulis, Brafman entirely misunderstood the significance of the kahal. Instead of viewing it as an ‘institution of the highest power and subordinate to it’, he sees it as an ‘organ itself of power, subordinating to itself the commands of justice and judgement’.*© Disputing Brafman’s claim that the Jews formed a state within a state, Morgulis expressed regret for the loss of the kahal. Many problems that the kahal had managed to resolve were festering from lack of attention. Aspects of the kahal should 32 See J. Klier, ‘The Jewish Den’ and the Literary Mice, 1869-71’, Russian History, 1 (1983), 31-49. 33 Jacob Brafman’s Book of the Kahal was published in four separate editions within a fifteen-year period, in 1868, 1869, 1875, and once again in 1882. That infamous book came to enjoy a tremendous

popularity, especially among important tsarist bureaucrats, and its author was given a state sinecure

as a ‘Jewish expert’. For more on Brafman, see Morgulis’s article on him, ‘Brafman, Yakov Aleksandrovich’, Evreiskaya entsiklopediya, 16 vols. (St Petersburg, 1906—13), iv. g20—I.

34 M. Morgulis, ‘Kagal, ego istoricheskoe proiskhozhdenie i uchrezhdeniya Magdeburgskogo prava: Po povodu “Knigi kagala”’, Den' (1871), nos. 4, 5, 6, 11, 13, 14, 19, and 21. 35 Morgulis, ‘Kagal, ego istoricheskoe proiskhozhdenie 1 uchrezhdeniya Magdeburgskogo prava’, in Voprosy evreiskot zhizni, 360.

36 Ibid. 387. A decade later Morgulis published another series of articles entitled ‘O kagale (istoricheskii etyud)’, in Russkit evrei (1882), nos. 46-52.

Mikhail Morgults 301 be reinstated, Morgulis claimed, since the government was unable and unwilling to deal with the problems of internal Jewish life. In an 1879 article, “Can and

Should the Jews be Given the Right to Self-Governance in their Communal Affairs?’, Morgulis petitioned for the establishment of an independent Jewish communal administration. He asked why it was that, although the Jews were treated as an independent estate (sos/ovie) according to tsarist law, they did not have their own institutions of self-rule.*’ Recalling that since the abolition of the kahals in 1844, the task of governing the Jews had fallen on local administrations, which were indifferent, incompetent, or malicious, he insisted that it was necessary to reestablish the kahals, ‘bring them into the open’, and ‘make the Jews responsible for their affairs and actions’.°®

While these ideas made sense from the Jews’ point of view, they were highly unrealistic. At this time the Book of the Kahal enjoyed huge popularity and many Russians were absolutely convinced that the Jews indeed composed a ‘state within a state’. In addition, the call for self-government, however laudable in itself, was starkly at odds with attitudes among tsarist officials, who, having legislated tumultuous reforms in social and economic life, such as liberating the serfs and establishing the zemstvo,*” became cautious about expanding rights for Jews beyond certain categories, such as merchants of the first guild, scholars, select artisans, and veterans of the army.*°

Despite Morgulis’s nostalgia for internal Jewish governance, Simon Dubnov recalled the evils of the kahal in his 1890 review of the volume of Morgulis’s essays: The kahal really existed for the government, which only worried about the regular deposits of taxes from the Jews; it was like a useful institution, a kind of internal Jewish police, which provided social peace and security. But how huge was the cost for the Jews themselves to have this police, which behaved with a kind of cruelty that the normal police would never have done. No, it is not for us to remember fondly the old kahal! It was as burdensome for Judaism as any uncontrolled corporate power would be; it served as a stick in the hands of those people who had awarded it power and those under its power had to experience the charms of this cudgel of the fatherland for a long time. Let present-day Judaeophobes accuse us of kahal-type cohesion. We will tell them that there were never two more horrible scourges than the kahal in the past and Judaeophobia in the present!*!

37 M. Morgulis, ‘Vozmozhno-li i sleduet-li predostavit’ evreyam pravo samoupravleniya obsh-

chestvennymi delami?’, in Voprosy evreiskot zhizni, 464. 38 Tbid. 479. 39 Instituted under Alexander II, the zemstva were institutions of local self-administration which provided schools, hospitals, and other services. 40 For more on ‘limited emancipation’, see B. Nathans, Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia (Berkeley, 2002), 45-82. 41S. Dubnovy, ‘Prezhde i teper”, Voskhod, 1 Jan. 1890, p. 33.

302 Brian Horowitz A POGROM AND A DIAGNOSIS OF ANTISEMITISM The pogrom of 1871 in Odessa, which Morgulis witnessed first-hand, had a huge effect on his understanding of the Jewish problem. He wrote extensive memoirs, giving an almost minute-by-minute depiction of the development of mass violence over the course of three days. A sharp observer, he drew the conclusion that the perpetrators tended to be weak and feckless, growing in force only when they were sure the police would not resist. In the case of Odessa, the inactivity of the police

was perceived as a green light: |

It is curious, above all, to note that early Monday morning opened with an attack on the house of Kaplanogol and the breaking of his windows. This house was situated on Police Square across from the main building of the Odessa Police Department, which, however, did not prevent the brawlers from carrying out their mission. It was obvious that, before

setting off to burn houses, the crowd checked the pulse of the police, and, realizing their acquiescence, felt courage for the whole day. Apparently the crowd was not mistaken

in its calculation. The was borne out in the fearlessness of the crowd at the homes of A. Rabinovich on Jewish Street and the banker Rafalovich on Italy Street.*?

In Morgulis’s view, ‘the first pogrom, the first stage in the so-called “people’s anger against the Jews’’, was instructive’. Primarily it revealed the fragmentation of a state divided into antagonistic elements. According to Morgulis, a pogrom poses a danger first of all to the state, but if the state does not see the danger, the ‘native’ population should perceive it and do everything in its power to stop it.*? For both Morgulis and Ilya Orshansky, the pogrom of 1871 signalled a huge

turning point, although each drew his own lessons. While Orshansky put the blame on the discriminatory laws that left Jews unprotected by the state, Morgulis saw an internal Jewish problem. But there was one area in which they agreed: both saw the need to study the history of Russian institutions in order to gain awareness of the origins of the government’s maltreatment of Jews. While Orshansky studied the Russian legal code, Morgulis devoted his energies to an in-depth investigation of the government’s attempts to educate Jews, especially the construction of its school programme in the 1840s.4* He came to the conclusion that, in putting all their weight behind the construction of schools that

the people did not want, the government wasted energies that could have been used more effectively. Moreover, Morgulis pointed out that while the government did build schools, it actually made no effort to change Jewish society, so that graduates of these schools and rabbinical seminaries could not find jobs.*? And the government was not alone to blame. Jewish maskilim also contributed to the failure 42M. Morgulis, ‘Bezporyadki 1871 goda v Odesse (po dokumentam i lichnym vospominaniyam)’,

Evreisku mir, 2-3 (1910), 2, 40. 43° Thid. 44. 44M. Morgulis, ‘K istorii obrazovaniya russkikh evreev’, in Voprosy evreiskoi zhizni, 1-196; first

published in Evreiskaya biblioteka, 1-3 (1872-3). 49 [bid. 75.

Mikhail Morgults 303 of the school initiative. Morgulis points to the ambiguous contributions of Max

Lilienthal and Leon Mandelstamm, arguing in particular that Mandelstamm became wealthy by creating textbooks, anthologies of Hebrew texts in German translation. Although these claims that Mandelstamm enriched himself via textbooks were disproven by Shaul Gintsburg in subsequent studies, Morgulis looked askance at the maskilim who promoted the school programme for their apparently selfish interests.*° From this work, Morgulis drew the lesson that the contemporary Jewish intelligentsia should refrain from forcing its programme on the masses, but try instead to

win their trust and create an alliance with them. The intelligentsia had to lead, but it had to adapt positions according to the real needs of the masses. For example, to win the people’s support, the intelligentsia had to modify the schools, making

them a place where both Jewish subjects and secular courses could be taught together.*’

Nevertheless, not everyone agreed with Morgulis’s conclusions. In the same issue of Evreiskaya biblioteka in which the last instalment of Morgulis’s study appeared, Lev Levanda disputed the view that the masses had been overly hostile to secular education.*® Admitting that some Orthodox Jews boycotted the schools, Levanda claimed that many Jews in the 1840s understood the necessity for secular education and felt an enormous attraction to it. Levanda mentions as his example the achievements of David Lure, a schoolmaster and teacher in Minsk, whose success in combining Jewish and secular subjects in a single school broke down the resistance of wealthy Jews, who were ‘angered to see the children of their poorer neighbours get a better education than their own kids’.*? Levanda also claimed that Morgulis’s hostile criticism of the maskilim was simply unfair. The mythic image of the maskil, sacrificing himself for the sake of the community, was still valid for Levanda. In formulating his solution to the Jewish problem, Morgulis wanted to heal the divisions among Jews and between Jews and Russians. As opposed to his colleague

Ilya Orshansky, who put great hopes on natural assimilation, looking to the expanding capitalist economy to generate rights for Jews that were withheld artifi-

cially by the reactionary regime, Morgulis was anti-capitalist.°° Attempting to bridge the rifts in classes caused by capitalism, he argued for a change in Jewish 46 Tbid. 124. Shaul Gintsburg disputed this claim in an article on Leon Mandelshtamm. See S. Gintsburg, ‘Iz zapisok pervogo evreya-studenta v Rossi’, in Perezhitoe: Sbornik posvyashchennyt obshchestvennot i kul'turnot istorii evreev v Rossii, 1 (St Petersburg, 1909), 4—5.

47 M. Morgulis, ‘O sovremennykh obshchestvennykh shkolakh evreev’, in Voprosy evreiskot zhiznt, 203; originally published in Rassvet, 5-8 (1880). Previously Jewish state schools were dominated by instruction in secular subjects, while there was little or no secular study in the traditional heder.

48 L. Levanda, ‘Po povodu stat'i M. G. Morgulisa (pis’mo k izdatelyu Evreiskoi bibliotekt)

Evreiskaya biblioteka, 3 (1873), 365—76. 49 [bid. 368-9. °° M. Morgulis, J/'ya Grigor'evich Orshanskiit i ego literaturnaya deyatel'nost' (St Petersburg, IQOI), 10.

304 Brian Horowitz economic life, advocating so-called productive occupations.°®! By this, he understood farming and crafts, which would take Jews away from exploitative professions into less lucrative but morally superior activities. In addition, he believed that

discriminatory laws had to cease. ‘The masses ‘have to be given the chance to engage in productive work, the chance to move from those places where their hands are inactive to those where there is a pressing need for them’.°” Morgulis’s ideas were anchored in the view that the conflict of the Jews with their neighbours was not based on any inherent antipathy, but was solely due to economic tensions: ‘Religion and nationality only mask the true simple causes of antipathy. These causes can be found in the conditions of life, which create dissension and disagreement even among peoples (narodnost1) confessing the same religion.’’? According to Morgulis, internal Jewish infighting and antisemitism from outside could be eliminated only if one removed those conditions that contributed to economic and spiritual competition. Like the Russian populists, Morgulis was strongly hostile to capitalism. He was unaware of the fact that capitalism was capable of breaking down corporate identities and bringing about gradual integration. At the same time, Morgulis was not blind to the national aspect of his economic programme. Russia’s Jews should no longer react to directives from without, but as a people should set their own goals. He explained his purpose in language that presaged the vocabulary of Jewish nationalism: We need only to come to the realization that it is necessary to get started energetically and to recall the proverb: ‘If Iam not for myself, then who is?’—a proverb born on Jewish soil, obviously, since Jews in every epoch have had to think for themselves, and even in those cases where others think for them, they nevertheless have to think for themselves in order to realize those alien ideas in practice. .. . Let us think for ourselves, and not only think, but act too!°*

Morgulis realized some of his ideas in ‘Trud, the trade school in Odessa, whose director he became in 1871. Under his leadership it became the largest school of its kind in Russia. For Morgulis, ‘Trud presented an opportunity to transform Jews into productive labourers and also to show that Jews were capable of organizing their own schools. In his article of 1896, ‘On Professional Education of Jews in Odessa’, Morgulis stated that in 1891 the school received 15,000 roubles annually from the city’s korobka taxes? and gave 212 students their diplomas in the previous year. Organized as a workshop, the school also brought in 20,081 roubles from work orders.°° >! M. Morgulis, ‘Chto nam delat’ s russkimi evreyami?’, in Voprosy evreiskot zhizni, 294—342; origi-

nally published in Rassvet, 3-6 (1879). °2 Ibid. 294. °3 Ibid. 304. °4 Thid. 324. °° The korobka (meat and candle tax) was a special tax levied by the government to pay for projects to benefit Jews, above all enlightenment schools and welfare. Often the government kept the money without providing any or only minimal services. °6 M. Morgulis, ‘O professional’nom obrazovanii evreev v Odesse’, in Sbornik v pol'zu nachal'nykh evreiskikh shkol (St Petersburg, 1896), 389-90.

Mikhail Morgulis 305 Similarly, in the 1880s, Morgulis counselled the expansion of modern talmud torah schools organized under the aegis of the Odessa branch of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia, where he was a leader.’ Despite his efforts to bring education to greater numbers of Jews, Morgulis did not repudiate philanthropy. He organized help for poor students in Odessa in the form of clothing, books, and food.°® Eli Lederhendler therefore was only partly right when he wrote: The answer Morgulis offered was not auto-emancipation in the Zionist sense of the term which [Leon] Pinsker was to use four years later. But his solution was something closely akin to auto-emancipation, which he identified as a restoration of co-ordinated leadership on a national level, a rebuilding of political community. Only this—not temporary local philanthropy nor even civic equality—had any hope of actually changing the circumstances of Russian-Jewish life.°?

Although Lederhendler was wrong about Morgulis’s rejection of philanthropy, he was correct in saying that Morgulis was leaning towards a modern Jewish politics. Despite the fact that his activities tactically followed the lead of Russian populists and their programme of ‘small deeds’, by demanding Jewish autonomy and selfgovernance, Morgulis was ahead of his time.

POLEMICS WITH SIMON DUBNOV AND THE ISSUE OF JEWISH PRIDE Politically the 1880s were tumultuous years for Russia’s Jewish intellectuals. Following the pogroms of 1881-2, the Jewish intelligentsia split into rival groups. Some saw a solution in emigration to America or Europe, others advocated colonization in Palestine, while still others were convinced that political revolution in Russia itself held the answer. In addition, the pogroms appeared to have galvanized the resolve of the younger generation, who began to speak out in favour of radical solutions.°° In 1883 Morgulis entered into a polemic with one of these angry young intellectuals, Simon Dubnov, who in the article ‘What Kind of Self-Emancipation do the Jews

Need?’ fulminated against traditional rabbis, blaming them for the stagnation of Jewish communities, which had left Jews outside Russian society and prepared ripe conditions for pogroms. Calling for immediate and radical change, Dubnov urged religious reform, full integration with the non-Jewish world, and equal rights.°? °? V. D-v., ‘Yubilei “prosveshcheniya”: O dvadtsatipyatiletnei deyatel'nosti Odesskogo otdeleniya Obshchestva prosveshcheniya mezhdu evreyami v Rossii (1867-1892 g.)’, Voskhod (1893), no. 8, pp. 20-1. °8 ‘Mikhail Grigor’evich Morgulis’, in Otchet Odesskogo otdeleniya OPE za 1911 (Odessa, 1912), 4. °9 E. Lederhendler, The Road to Modern Jewish Politics (Oxford, 1989), 153.

°° See J. Frankel, Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian fews, 1862-1917 (Cambridge, 1981), 49-132. 61S. Dubnoy, ‘Kakaya samoemansipatsiya nuzhna evreyam?’, Voskhod, 5 May 1883, p. 245.

306 Brian Horowitz Claiming perhaps hyperbolically that even Christianity was more progressive in embracing change, Dubnov was convinced that half measures would not do: the Jewish community had to modernize—and quickly. Although Morgulis must have found in Dubnov’s despair much that he agreed with, he pounced on the young upstart for his weak sense of Jewish pride. Calling Dubnov’s position ‘self-flagellation’, Morgulis claimed that it was wrong to see the Jews’ legal situation as some kind of punishment for their level of progress. It was

time, he vigorously announced, for Jews to view their past with pride, since the contributions of Judaism to world culture justified such confidence: It seems time to stop playing with those who are interested in the Jews only in so far as they repudiate their past and are capable of being swallowed up by the external world. It is time to think about oneself, one’s national individuality, which has a long past with historical

value in the eyes of humanity. It is time to begin serious national work, strengthening within the people those universal principles which were present in the spirit of Judaism earlier, despite humanity’s cruel treatment.®”

Adamantly opposed to radical solutions, Morgulis showed his political conservatism in 1888 when he jumped at the chance to serve as a Jewish representative to the Higher Commission for the Examination of Existing Laws Regarding Jews in the Empire, known as the Pahlen Commission.®® Clearly he felt at home with Baron Horace Gunzburg and the other members of the St Petersburg elite, such as the bankers Abraham Zak and Samuel Polyakov. No shtadlan himself, Morgulis had seen the benefits of pragmatic co-operation with the government in his educational work in Odessa and, a realist at heart, he was willing to adopt the shtadlan approach of urging legal, as opposed to political, rights for Russia’s Jews.

Certainly no one can doubt the sincerity of these efforts. In his memoirs, Morgulis says: the meetings of the Higher Commission took place almost every day during three and a half weeks and often continued until two o’clock in the morning, and sometimes longer. All this time the [Jewish] experts were obsessed by one common thought: how to help our people, to bring to bear the whole arsenal of historical and logical arguments to affect the convictions of the majority.®* 62 M. Morgulis, ‘Samoosvobozhdenie i samootrechenie’, in Voprosy evreiskoi zhizni, 569; first pub-

lished in Evreiskoe obozrente, 5 (1884). Incidentally, this article contains a polemic against Leon Pinsker’s essay ‘Autoemancipation: An Appeal to his People by a Russian Jew’ (1882). An example of Morgulis’s criticism is the following: ‘But among the honest, genuine voices 1n which a relation of the echo of the voice of the people is heard, other voices also emerge. These voices, being also a result of sympathy for the people’s interests, come out with a lousy hidden falseness’ (p. 536).

63 ‘In the summer of 1888, by surprise, friends from my days at the Rabbinical Seminary came to

me and brought word from St Petersburg that Jewish experts will be invited to the Higher Commission on the Jewish Question, under the stewardship of Count Pahlen. Among these experts, I was named as the representative of New Russia.’ M. G. Morgulis, ‘Iz moikh vospominanii (vysshaya komissiya grafa Palena po evreiskomu voprosu)’, Evreiskit mir, 6 (1909), 22. It is important to recall

that the Pahlen Commission had been meeting from as early as 1883. 4 Tbid. 38.

Mikhail Morgulis 307 Apparently Morgulis played a key role, since he put forth the suggestion that the Jewish representatives hold separate meetings to develop an effective common political strategy. Morgulis attributes to himself the winning plan of dividing the Russian officials into moderates and reactionaries and attempting to isolate the latter.°° This strategy was crowned with success when the majority of Russians voted to recommend the abolition of the Pale of Settlement. Nevertheless, the recommendation was not enacted into law, since Alexander III ignored the commission’s findings. Morgulis, who had placed enormous hopes on success, was stricken by this blow that crushed his hopes for the immediate liberation of the Jews:

Prince Kantakuzen-Speransky decided to overturn the decisions of the Pahlen Commission, using the means which bureaucracies often turn to in their struggle with public opinion . . . Total disappointment resulted. All our worries, written work, hopes for the liberation of the [Jewish] people from different forms of enslavement turned out to be futile. The Russian legal code remained in the same chaotic condition as it was before. The legal situation of the Jews even worsened.©

In his research on the Pahlen Commission, Michael Aronson speaks about the paradox that a hostile government would create an advisory body with the goal

of improving the legal status of Jews.®’ After all, the Pahlen Commission was established in 1883, just one year after the enactment of the discriminatory laws of 3 May 1882. Nevertheless, Jewish experts were given the chance to collect and present information before a group of Russian officials in order to influence government policy. Whether the tsar ever had any intention of following the commis-

sion’s advice or merely established the deliberative body as a smokescreen to deflect attention away from its repressive policies is anyone’s guess. In any case, the outcome of the commission showed once again that the Russian shtadlanim were

unable to force demands, but had to acquiesce in whatever the government decided. Owing in large part to the forced stagnation in Jewish political life, in the 18gos Morgulis wrote less, but his articles reflected new theoretical ideas about the ultimate purpose of Jewry. In “The Essence of Jewry’ (1893), for example, Morgulis underscored the personal, religious, and moral aspects in defining what is a Jew, as

opposed to Jewish politics, economic structures, or communal membership. He wrote: the commonality and breadth of the principle discovered by Judaism inheres exactly in the following: since people have discovered an image that is characterized by ideals which are out of their reach, they must strive for perfection, ceaselessly strive in order to come closer to this ideal. Further, this ideal consists of all that is hopeful: kindness, reason,

6 Tbid. 24. 66 Tbid. 41-2.

67 M. I. Aronson, “The Attitudes of Russian Officials in the 1880s toward Jewish Assimilation and Emigration’, Slavic Review, 34/1 (1975), 1-18.

308 Brian Horomitz beauty, justice, love, and so on. People, it turned out, are obliged to strive for the development within themselves of all these hopeful aspects of the unattainable ideal.®*

At the same time that he was edging towards a definition of Judaism based on universal values of passivity and meditation, Morgulis also examined Jewish history to find models corresponding to his vision of the future. Not surprisingly, he rejected

the ideals of the proto-Zionists and socialists, ignoring military heroes and farmer/workers from the Bible. The heroes of Morgulis’s narrative were rabbis, Hillel and Akiva, who succeeded in creating institutions that fortified Jewish resolve in unfortunate circumstances. In contrast to those who fought for a physical nation, Hillel and Akiva built centres of Jewish knowledge, creating works of scholarship that inspired followers. Moreover, Morgulis admired above all in these figures their conception of universal religion. Instead of driving the Jews into isolation, these two rabbis led the Jewish people to greater understanding and openness to the outside world. Of Hillel, Morgulis wrote that ‘his entire work was directed towards a practi-

cal application of the great principles of reason, justice and morality. He always approached the old law from this angle.’©?

Although Morgulis probably misjudged Rabbi Akiva’s commitment to meditation, as opposed to military prowess—after all Rabbi Akiva did support the Bar Kokhba revolt and was flayed alive by the Romans—Morgulis’s interpretation of Hillel and Rabbi Akiva reflected his own needs. Frightened by Jewish nationalists, he was worried that national demands would deflect Jews from their genuine interests in integration and modernization. Moreover, he was concerned that national

demands would bring on the wrath of the Russian government and people. Therefore, he advised Jews to seek what he called the ‘universal in the particular’:

they should develop within themselves those humanistic ideals that also made them better Jews. In concrete terms, Morgulis called for the creation of centres of Jewish learning that would highlight the rare achievements of Jewish civilization. Just as had been the case in Germany, Morgulis was convinced that only that kind of scholarship on Jews that showed the high value that Jews place on moral and spiritual accomplishment would be effective in changing attitudes. ’° Meanwhile, hoping for emancipation in the long run, Morgulis counselled internal discipline and intellectual achievement in the present. Nevertheless, Dubnov again wondered aloud whether Morgulis’s proposal for internal self-perfection offered the best alternative for Russia’s Jews. He asked: ‘Should the Jews strive for their internal-spiritual and quotidian self-perfection,

despite their difficult external condition, or should they wait for everything from 68 M. Morgulis, ‘Sushchnost’ iudaizma’, Voskhod (1893), no. 1, pp. 75-7. Interestingly, many Russian intellectuals of the time were inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s ideas of non-resistance to evil and lauded a personal politics of passivity, while eschewing politics in the public sphere. 69 M. Morgulis, /storicheskie etyudy (Gilel', Akiba) (Odessa, 1898), 14.

70 Morgulis, ‘O sovremennykh obshchestvennykh shkolakh evreev’, in Voprosy evreiskoi zhizni, 216-20.

Mikhail Morgults 309 an improvement in the external conditions and right now not get started on their internal metamorphosis? That is a question of critical importance which serious Jewish social thought should answer.’’t Dubnov answered his own question negatively. Arguing against Morgulis, he wrote: ‘It is already high time to put an end to this ruinous disagreement and with all our might take up the task which is our sacred duty, the question of our whole life. And there are many tasks, but the common name for them is self-help in the broadest sense, in the spiritual and socialeconomic sense.” Admittedly, Morgulis’s ideals reflected pessimistic resignation. ‘The dreams of the 1860s had not come to fruition but had led to increased repression. For his part Morgulis restricted himself to pragmatic and temporary solutions. He attended meetings of Hovevei Tsiyon (Zionist movement), and when the organization received legal status 1890 as the Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Palestine, Morgulis became a leader. Despite a commitment first and foremost to the health of the Jewish community in Russia, Morgulis was not hostile to colonization in Palestine. In fact he considered that ‘the re-settlement of poor Jews in Palestine served a two-fold purpose by giving the settlers themselves a source of income and by reducing the level of competition in the Pale’.’° Shaw tells us that in the early 1890s Morgulis’ Zionist career reached its apogee. In 1890 Morgulis was accorded the honour of being elected chairman of the Odessa Committee at the first meeting held after achieving legal status. Two years later he contributed an article to Ravnitsky’s newly established journal Hapardes, taking his place alongside Mendele, Bialik, Ahad Ha’am and other important figures in Jewish letters. “

Nevertheless, Dubnov considered it strange that one of Odessa’s leading representatives of ‘assimilation’ was also an esteemed figure among proto-Zionists. ’°

Indeed, when Zionism became a political movement under Theodor Herzl’s leadership and sought to establish a homeland for Jews, Morgulis switched from friend to enemy. Unconvinced of the idea that antisemitism was an immutable component of Western civilization, he believed instead that it was the result of the ‘machinations of unscrupulous politicians and the ignorance of the dark masses both of which could be combated through the spread of education’.’°

THE CONFLICT OVER THE OPE SCHOOLS In 1901-2 Morgulis’s political orientation led him into open conflict with the nationalists over the curriculum of OPE schools, the secular schools for Jews 7! Dubnoy, ‘Prezhde i teper’”, Voskhod, 2 Feb. 1890, p. 20. 7 Thid. 25. 73 Shaw, “The Odessa Jewish Community’, 208. 4 Tbid. 209. See M. Morgulis, ‘Lishenei batei yisra’el’, Hapardes, 1 (1892), 261-6.

> Dubnov, Kniga zhizni, 251. 76 Shaw, ‘The Odessa Jewish Community’, 210.

310 Brian Horowitz financed with OPE money.’’ This debate typifies Morgulis’s pragmatism and commitment to integration. Simon Dubnov, together with the Zionists Ben-Ami and Ahad Ha’am, advocated a ‘nationalist’ programme, holding that only those schools deserved funding

in which at least half the classes were devoted to Jewish subjects and in which Hebrew language received sufficient instruction.’® Morgulis, speaking on behalf of the OPE’s governing committee, rejected these arguments, claiming that an increase in Jewish subjects would be detrimental.’? Since it was impossible to unite in one school both the nationalists’ demands for increased time for Jewish subjects and the same number of practical courses, it was the responsibility of the Society

to decide. The OPE leadership argued that first and foremost children had to receive proper vocational skills and knowledge of Western subjects in order to be prepared to earn a living in Russia.®° Jewish subjects, Morgulis counselled, could be made up later in higher grades after students had acquired a basic knowledge, especially knowledge of Russian.

Morgulis and the other members of the steering committee of the Odessa branch of the OPE were sharply criticized in the Jewish press. Various writers, including Boris Brutskus and Saul Gruzenberg, the editor of Budushchnost', took the Steering Committee to task, calling them a ‘home for assimilators’.®' In one editorial Gruzenberg described the committee as men who with amazing candour repudiated everything that is dear to a Jewish heart. Hebrew was declared a dead philological subject that had outlived its years, not only unnecessary for Jewish children, but extremely burdensome, even harmful owing to its complexity. Jewish history is also not needed in school, since one should acquaint the child with the reality that awaits him and not with what occurred 2,000 years ago. Only one thing is not explained, why Jewish children should remain Jews. Judaism is only a burden and it is not hard to prove with footnotes from American pedagogues that one should walk in tandem with one’s epoch, be free from all prejudice, and not restrain one’s career with various ‘Old Testament’

ideas. °” , The clash in 1902 led to a polemic between Dubnov and Morgulis. While

Dubnov had shared some of Morgulis’s confidence in integration in the early 1880s,

by the end of the r8gos he had become inspired by ideas of national autonomy. 77 ‘There were also conflicts in spring 1902 between the steering committee of OPE’s Odessa branch and Jewish nationalists over the lack of nationalists on the steering committee.

78 ‘OQ natsional’nom vospitanii: Zapiska, predstavlennaya v Komitet Odesskogo otdeleniya Obshchestva rasprostraneniya prosveshcheniya mezhdu evreyam1’, Voskhod, 6 Jan. 1902, p. 12.

72 M. Morgulis, ‘Mnenie komiteta Odesskogo otdeleniya Obshchestva rasprostraneniya prosveshcheniya 0 evreiskoi narodnoi shkole’, Voskhod, 19 Apr. 1902, pp. 4-9. 80M. Morgulis, ‘Preobrazovanie evreiskikh nachal’nykh shkol’, Budushchnost', 12 Apr. 1902, p. 389. 81 See B. Brutskus, ‘Pis’mo v redaktsiyu’, Voskhod, 13 June 1902, pp. 11-13 and issues 2, 3, 5, 13, 14, 16, and 25 of Budushchnost', 1902.

82 “Po povodu odesskogo sobraniya obshchestva prosveshcheniya’, Budushchnost', 21 June 1902, p. 488.

Mikhail Morguhs 311 Polemicizing against Morgulis’s position that the best expression of Judaism was its adoption of universal virtues, Dubnov openly condemned Morgulis as a hopeless assimilator. An intellectual ‘at his wits’ end’ was how Dubnov characterized him, writing that such people ‘are suffering from a dualism in their world view, in which national and assimilationist elements are mixed together’.®’ This confused attitude,

Dubnov wrote, can be seen in Morgulis’s negative position towards a national school, a national political party, and Jewish cultural autonomy. According to Dubnoy, since assimilation was a natural process for minorities, if one did not pursue a national programme, one inevitably supported assimilation, since assimilation is ‘the direct practical result of the rejection of the national idea’.°4 In his response, Morgulis criticized Dubnov’s historical model of Jewish devel-

opment. Dubnov, we recall, posited a triad: thesis meant traditional Judaism, antithesis assimilation, and synthesis Jewish nationalism. Morgulis claimed that Dubnov had it wrong, that thesis and antithesis should be reversed. Instead of an inexorable development towards Jewish nationalism, Morgulis considered Dubnov’s period of assimilation as a time of profound enrichment for the Jews.®° Acquaintance with European culture deepened Jewish life by creating a Jew characterized by a synthesis of universal and Jewish traits.°°

Stressing the need to stop using assimilation as a kind of pejorative epithet, Morgulis claimed that the nationalists should differentiate between positive and negative assimilation.°’ Whereas negative assimilation consisted of a total negation of one’s identity, positive assimilation was a laudable goal. Assimilation represented ‘integration only in external forms with the dominant environment, but in spirit, in its strivings towards the creation of its own culture, [integration] meant love for the past and its historical monuments, sympathy for the people, and the illumination of various spheres of Jewish knowledge’.®° Confident that assimilation had positive consequences, Morgulis retained his belief that the future of Russian Jewry lay in a synthesis of Jewish and Russian qualities and the integration of the Jews into Russian culture. Although the nationalists made many good points, the established Odessa leadership won the vote on OPE schools, albeit by a narrow margin. Despite attempts

by the nationalists to consolidate their position, even sending supporters a pamphlet about how they should behave at the key election meeting—they were told to retain party discipline and not to make catcalls—the nationalists still lost. Although Odessa was presumably a centre of Jewish nationalism, an integrationist orientation still dominated many areas of community life in the city.

83S. Dubnoy, ‘O rasteryavsheisya intelligentsii’, Voskhod (1902), no. 12, p. 87. 84 Tbid. 74. 85 M. Morgulis, ‘Natsionalizatsiya i assimilyatsiya’, Voskhod (1902), no. 5, p. 103.

86 Tbid. 113. 8” Tbid. 111. 88 Ibid. 110-11.

312 Brian Horowitz RESIGNATION AND TAKING STOCK OF HIS ACHIEVEMENTS After the debates on schools, Morgulis retreated to the background. Although he continued his activity as a member of various committees in Odessa, he was not active on the political scene. He did not play an important role during the 1905 revolution and did not speak out about the Jewish politics of the Duma, which, one presumes, gave him hope that Jewish interests would be at least partially defended in Russia’s new political order. However, he did use the political freedoms follow-

ing the 1905 revolution to place the entire blame for the animosity between Russians and Jews on the government. He claimed that patriotic Russians and Jews had the same interests: fighting for their own liberation. He wrote about 1905: The people who acted in places so far from one another were not identical, but an identical spirit, an identical principle incited people against the imaginary enemies of the fatherland. The best people in Russia understood that the events of Kishinev, Gomel, and Zhitomir grew up from the same soil as Kursk, Saratov, and Balashov.®? Russia has become closer to the Jews, and the Jews have come closer to Russia. The same spirit of patriotism unites them, a patriotism that strives for the same thing, the liberation from the shackles of that partition which stands between the people and real truth.”°

In Morgulis’s view, 1905 showed that Jewish and Russian interests were the same, the struggle for freedom against the tsarist regime a common struggle. In 1910, two years before his death, Morgulis took a new turn in his analysis of Jewish politics, praising Jewish political autonomy anew. Perhaps after seeing the failure of pro-Jewish legislation to gain support in the Duma, he had to admit that only political autonomy could assure respect for Jewish legal and political interests. Affirming nearly all of Dubnov’s ideas about national autonomy in the Diaspora, Morgulis stated: there is no disagreement that one should consider the ideal of an organization its full autonomy, i.e. complete free activity that embraces all aspects of communal life without exception and pushes [its jurisdiction] to the boundaries, the point where one begins trespassing on others’ interests or government law begins. But however desirable such free communal activity might be, in view of contemporary conditions one must only strive towards such autonomy, to the achievement of what is [at present] possible . . .?'

According to Morgulis, such autonomy could be achieved by establishing local Jewish legislatures. Leaders would be elected by secret ballot with universal suffrage.°* Morgulis claimed that in these community legislatures ‘the interests of a single group, whether interests of faith, knowledge, class, nationhood, or any other 89 Kishinev, Gomel, and Zhitomir are clearly sites of anti-Jewish violence, while Kursk, Saratov, and Balashov are places where battles occurred between revolutionaries and police forces during the revolution of 1905. 90 M. Morgulis, Vopros, imenuemyi evreiskim (St Petersburg, 1906), 142-3. °l M. Morgulis, ‘Ob organizatsii evreiskoi obshchiny’, E'vreiskaya nedelya, 9 (1910), 4. 92 Tbid. 6.

Mikhail Morgulis 313 that is connected with living ideals of a group, must give way to general interests’.2?> Community leaders would get their resources from the meat and candle tax, the korobka, which Morgulis recalled was still collected by the government every year.

Certainly these ideas about national self-rule paralleled those put forth by Jewish liberals at the Kovno conference of 1909.°* At that meeting Jewish leaders

such as Genrikh Sliozberg and Maxim Vinaver attempted to modernize the relations between Jews and the Russian state and revitalize communal institutions for that purpose. Although the representatives held no political power, they did offer as their most important suggestions the democratization of Jewish communal governance and the transformation of the korobka into an income tax.?? It is surprising that at a time when Russian Jews were being treated more and more as individuals by the state and were given the right, albeit abridged, to vote

for representatives to a national Duma, Morgulis was suggesting a return to treating the Jews as a collective. It is difficult to distinguish if this position was for-

ward-thinking—it was certainly nationalist—or backward-thinking, related to traditional forms of Jewish communal organizations. It was probably both. Morgulis had always been unhappy with the meat tax as it had been implemented in Russia. He did not approve of the way collective burdens were unequally distributed and he protested the forced payment of taxes without the establishment of Jewish political organizations to help decide how the money should be spent. At the same time, he lauded the rare experiments of Jewish political autonomy in Odessa, extolling the Hundred Representatives and the United Committee of Communal Institutions, which existed for a short time after the disappearance of the Hundred Representatives.°° Morgulis’s proposal for an autonomous Jewish legislature reflects the porous aspect of Jewish nationalism. Despite the criticism he received from the nationalists IN 1902, it is clear that at the end of his life he actually stood close to them. His desire for an independent Jewish politics, his conception of the Jew as a member of a Jewish community, and his social activism in Odessa, despite its old-fashioned

aspect, reflected shared premisses that Jews should have their own institutions devoted exclusively to Jewish interests.

At the same time, Morgulis refused to surrender his belief that integration enriched the Jew. Although he wavered between two poles, he probably did not believe that the Jews should be considered a ‘nation’ in their own right. They were already a people, a narod, and that was apparently enough for him. If Jews could retain their identity and simultaneously integrate into Russian society, 1f they were given full civic rights and permitted freely to occupy themselves with the Jewish

85-92. °5 Tbid. go. 93° Thid. 4.

94 See C. Gassenschmidt, femish Liberal Politics in Tsarist Russia, rg00-1914 (New York, 1995), 96 M. Morgulis, ‘Ob organizatsii evreiskoi obshchiny’, Evreiskaya nedelya, 8 (1910), 5.

314 Brian Horomitz religion and cultural affairs, then everything would be all right and there would be no need to fight on. The political interference by the Russian state that made integration impossible forced Morgulis to promote autonomous Jewish institutions. Morgulis’s experience of acculturation first-hand as a young boy, as a student in | Zhitomuir, and as an activist in Odessa shaped for him a core of essential ideas. He was convinced of the validity of integration and he believed it could be combined with an unwavering respect for Jewish identity. Certainly his synthesis of Russian and Jewish traits was inspired by the experience of Europe, where Jews in theory at least were

full citizens of their country, while being members of a religious association. Morgulis must have felt vindicated by the large number of Russian Jews who broke out of traditional communities, entered Russian schools and universities, and sought work in Russia proper. Integration was doubtlessly motivated by practical goals, but its practitioners, Jewish men and women, often wanted to satisfy more than mere economic needs, desiring to enrich themselves with European civilization. In terms of the politics of his day, Morgulis aligned himself with the liberal elite

composed of bankers, lawyers, journalists, and other educated professionals. It makes sense that he did not belong to any political party; he was sympathetic to shtadlanut, remaining faithful to the idea that the wealthy and powerful were more effective in an autocracy than dangerous radicals or powerless liberals. Despite his co-operation with wealthy notables, he was attracted to Russian populism and its anti-capitalist attitudes, which inspired in him the belief that making one’s living from the land was morally superior to all other occupations. He apparently never abandoned the view that Jews should surrender those jobs considered ‘exploitative’ and become farmers.

Towards the Zionists, Morgulis’s negative attitude remained fixed. Since he disagreed with the central premiss of political Zionism that the Jews were foreigners in Europe and needed a state of their own, he refused to debate Zionism’s ideo-

logical merits. In a final article published in the year of his death, Morgulis concentrated on the practical failures of Zionism. He curtly noted that the vast majority of emigrants set sail for America, while 1, 2, or 3 per cent went to Palestine.?’ The Jewish masses, he argued, were voting with their feet. Since he was deeply committed to the well-being of the Jews as a people, when he died in 1912 Morgulis was mourned by a variety of Jewish figures on various sides of the political fence. While the Zionists alone boycotted the seventy-fifth birthday

celebrations that occurred just before his death, many nationalists did acknowledge his contributions. Among them was Simon Dubnov himself, who was ultimately able to admit the good that Morgulis had done. In his memoirs from the 1930s, Dubnov wrote: During a lonely walk in the heart of the forest, I thought about my former friend and later

rival, with whom the Odessa period of my life was connected. A few weeks before 97 M. Morgulis, ‘Budushchnost’ evreistva po Zombartu’, Novyi Voskhod, 16 (1912), 12.

Mikhail Morgulis 315 Morgulis’s death, during the celebration of his 75th birthday, I nominated him as an honorary member at a meeting of the [ Jewish] Historical Society. I wonder if this gesture of reconciliation reached my ideological rival??®

Even if Morgulis was not aware of Dubnov’s gesture, surely we understand it. Dubnov acknowledged that over the long run Morgulis’s ideas and actions came close to, if did not entirely coincide with, the goals of diaspora nationalists. Just as other integrationists from the 1860s and 1870s, Morgulis could and did make temporary alliances with the nationalists on various issues, but he could not swallow the whole national programme. Despite his co-operation with wealthy notables, he apparently never yielded to the view that Jews should surrender those jobs considered ‘exploitative’ and become farmers. In conclusion, perhaps we might consider Morgulis’s most important contribution to be his help in creating the image and identification of a modern Russian Jewish intellectual. The term itself, ‘Russian Jewish intellectual’, was attached first of all to members of his generation. Moreover, Morgulis acted in the best spirit of this group, as a bridge between Russian and Jewish culture. He was also one of the early civic activists who struggled in the secular realm for the benefit of their coreligionists and helped modernize purely Jewish institutions, such as community hevrot, to deal with purely modern political problems. Of course, Morgulis was a practical civic leader, not a philosopher, but in many of these contexts there was no established script, no preordained means of acting, and no ready-made solutions. The generation of maskilim before him had looked to the government for direction and leadership. Morgulis reflected a shift in approach, ceasing to look to the government as an authority and reaching out to the masses with philanthropic and educational aid. At the same time, he resembled his maskil fathers in counselling

integration, productivization, knowledge of the state language, and a degree of religious reform. It was his ability to package these ideas in a modern way that permitted him to lead Russian Jewry in the difficult years from the Great Reforms until the rise of Jewish nationalism. °8 _Dubnov, Kniga zhizni, 323.

Bolestaw Prus and the Assimilation of Polish Jews

| AGNIESZKA FRIEDRICH FoR BOLESLAW PRus, as for all the Warsaw ‘positivist’ intellectuals, the assimilation of Polish Jews was a central issue in the solution of the ‘Jewish question’ in Polish society. It was understood as a radical attempt to solve the problem of the alien Jewish presence within that society by giving the Jews equal opportunities in return for their becoming a part of it and contributing their skills and abilities to it. For the ‘positivists’, assimilation was understood as Polonization, as Germanization

would only increase Jewish alienation, while Russification would be tantamount to treason. According to Alina Cala, the author of a study of the problem of assimilation in the Congress Kingdom of Poland, assimilation was thus seen as ‘alliance against the invaders, realized through the unity of goals, aspirations, and values’.' Assimilation could operate on different levels, both national and religious. Its moderate form was called ‘acculturation’: the adoption of the cultural patterns or norms of another nation, without leading to a change of religion. A more radical form of assimilation was ‘amalgamation’, and this entailed a change of religion. Not only Poles, but also some Jews called for assimilation, especially those living in Warsaw. The idea was far less popular in smaller towns. The advocates of assimilation—who called themselves ‘Poles of Mosaic persuasion’ and promoted acculturation and integration within Polish society—did not reject their Jewish identity, which was to be preserved by means of changes in the practice of Judaism.” They

were close to the Warsaw positivists and often shared their ideas on legalism, organic work, and their belief in the evolution of civilization.® Cala notes, however, that the modus operandi of the Warsaw assimilationists, with its strong patriarchal component, was closer to the Enlightenment tradition than the positivist model. It 1 A. Cala, Asymilacja Zydéw w Krélestwie Polskim (1864-1897): Postawy, konflikty, stereotypy (Warsaw, 1989), 218.

2 According to Cala, they formed a fairly homogeneous group, though with a number of various subgroups. See A. Cala, ‘Kompleks zydowski Polakéw: Asymilacja Zydow w Krolestwie Polskim a zmiany narodowej Swiadomosci w drugiej polowie XIX wieku’, in J. Maciejowski (ed.), Przemiany formuty polskosct w drugies polomie XLX wieku (Warsaw, 1999), 272. 3 Cala, Asymilacja Zydéw w Krélestwie Polskim, 49-86.

Bolestaw Prus and Assimilation 317 should also be noted that Polish, and especially Warsaw, positivists were not free of paternalistic tendencies in their approach to society and to the Jews. It was among these Warsaw Jewish assimilationists that the Polish-language publication /zraelita was created.* This weekly—published in Warsaw in the years 1866—1912—-was the main platform for assimilation and approached it as not just

an internal Jewish problem. It postulated the rapprochement of the Polish and Jewish communities and advocated the need to know each other better;” it therefore published Polish writers who could express their views on Jewish affairs in its columns.° Although Prus never wrote for /zraelita himself, he followed it closely,

as is evident from his polemics with it in his chronicles.’ /zraelita in turn often contested Prus’s pronouncements on Jewish problems.°® The problem of assimilation appears frequently in Prus’s writings. Although he decided to devote a whole chronicle to this problem only in 1910, towards the end of his life, his comments on assimilation are numerous and show an evolution in

his thinking on the subject. Initially he was optimistic about the prospects for a speedy solution to this seemingly simple problem. With the passage of years, however, he began to stress the complexity of the issue, and in particular its emotional aspect, often ignored in the name of positivist rationalism. A fundamental revaluation of his ideas took place towards the end of the 1880s. ‘The debate on the proposal by Baron Hirsch in Galicia to set up vocational schools for local Jews led to Prus’s doubts about the idea of assimilation and ultimately to his rejection of its 4 This publication had distinguished precedessors, e.g. Dostrzegacz Nadmislanskt (1823-4), [zraelita Polski (1830-1), and Jutrzenka (1861-3). All these publications promoted Jewish Polonization. See M. Fuks, Prasa zydowska w Warszamie, 1523-1939 (Warsaw, 1979).

° This was especially evident in the early days of publication, when Samuel Peltyn was its editor. He made the paper a true platform for discussions of assimilation. After his death in 1896, when Nachum Sokol6w became the editor, the paper became pro-Zionist. See M. Fuks, Prasa zydowska w Warszawie, 85-102. & M. Konopnicka, ‘Szpital zydowski w Warszawie’, /zraelita, 1887, no. 14, and E. Orzeszkowa, ‘Daj kwiatek’, [zraelita, 1887, nos. 23-8. Orzeszkowa also published a fragment of her work O Zydach i kwestiu &ydowskiej in the paper under the title ‘Z Perpetuum Mobile’, 1882, nos. 48—50.

” See e.g. Kurier Warszawski, no. 61, 18 Mar. 1879, in Kronikt, iv. 43-6 (I quote from Prus’s chronicles as follows: title (when given by the author); publication title; first date of publication; place in Kroniki, ed. Z. Szweykowski, 20 vols. (Warsaw, 1953-70)); Kurier Warszawski, no. 142a, 10 June 1883,

in Kroniki, viii. 137-8; Kurier Warszawski, no. 183, 5 July 1885, in Krontki, viii. 164-5; Kurier Codzienny, no. 358, 29 Dec. 1889, in Krontki, xit. 111-15; Kurier Codzienny, no. 141, 22 May 1892, in Krontki, xii. 215—16, etc. 8 This occurred particularly after 1889, when Prus criticized Hirsch’s Galician plan. The following articles are typical: S. Peltyn, ‘Humor antysemicki’, /zraelita, 1889, no. 41; Elkan, ‘Z zycia’, [zraelita, 1889, no. 42; N. Sokolow, ‘Za tydzien’, /zraelita, 1890, no. 46; Elkan, ‘Za tydzien’, [zraelita, 1890, nos. 4, 21, and 22; Sokolow, ‘Za tydzien’, Izraelita, 1892, no. 27; Correspondence, ‘Prus i Zydzi’, [zraelita,

1897, nos. 15-19 (double). After his death [zraelita devoted a separate issue to Prus, with contributions by J. Wasercug, ‘Boleslaw Prus’; A. Wolman, ‘Bolestaw Prus’; R. Centnerszwerowa and M. Sterling, ‘Pamieci wielkiego serca’; anon., ‘Bolestaw Prus o antysemityzmie’, [zraelita, 1912, no. 21. The last article quoted only excerpts from the chronicles.

318 Agnieszka Friedrich feasibility on a large scale. He did not abandon the issue, however, but continued to examine it in his chronicles. In this ‘labourer’s work’, as he called it, the full drama of the evolution of his thought on this problem is clearly visible. Prus never mentions the Jewish Enlightenment, the Haskalah, which is widely understood to mark the beginning of all movements for Jewish integration, including assimilation. He ignores its European dimension and discusses the Polish context— above all the Polish National Uprising of 1863. In his view 1863 is a key date in the common history of Poles and Jews. In his 1910 chronicle, devoted to the history of Warsaw, Prus recalls with nostalgia the pre-Uprising era: ‘Christian—Jewish relations were particularly cordial—there were common demonstrations, visits to churches and synagogues, donations by Christians to Jewish causes and by Jews to Christian causes. All who remember that time can say: “There was a spring in my life!” ” Later in the chronicle Prus recalls the names of two Jews who were universally

respected at the time: the banker Leopold Kronenberg!? and Rabbi Dov Ber | Meisels.'' This mention is of particular significance, as the era of the Uprising and the years preceding it was quite exceptional in the history of Jewish—Polish relations.

The year 1861 saw a wave of Jewish demonstrations in the Kingdom of Poland in support of Polish demands. It was a time of solidarity between the two communities: the ban on Jewish craftsmen joining trade guilds was lifted, Polish and Jewish traders were listed together in the Traders’ Association, and members of both communities participated together in street demonstrations.'* This exceptional situation was reflected in the ‘ennobling’ term coined at the time: ‘a Pole of Mosaic persuasion’. The Jews themselves started to use it in order to emphasize that they were fellow citizens.!° Prus also applied this term frequently to his circle of Jewish acquaintances. » B. Prus, ‘Miasto zahipnotyzowane’, Tygodnik Ilustrowany, no. 50, 10 Dec. 1910, in Kronikt, xx. 299.

10 Leopold Kronenberg (1812—79), who after the so-called Jewish War in the Warsaw press purchased Gazeta Codzienna, which he then renamed Gazeta Polska—a bourgeois liberal paper. He advocated Jewish assimilation and he himself converted in 1845. Although a supporter of the struggle for independence, he believed that the moment for the Uprising had not arrived. When in Feb. 1861 the Russians killed five Poles, Kronenberg was a member of the delegation to the Russian authorities to secure permission for a solemn funeral. Confidential meetings took place in his apartment. He supported the ‘Whites’ during the Uprising. Sentenced to banishment, he returned to Poland in 1864. He was widely respected by Poles and became a symbol of the socially and politically committed industrialist. See M. Mieses, Z narodu zydowskiego: Zastuzone rodziny polskie krwi megdys Zydowskiej (Warsaw, 1991), 135-9; M. Fuks, Zydzi w Warszawie: Zycie codzienne, wydarzenia, ludzie (Poznan, 1992), 123-7.

11 The Chief Rabbi of Warsaw, Dov Ber Meisels, who engaged in patriotic struggles in the years 1846, 1848, and 1863—4. Meisels was convinced that a liberated Poland would also liberate its Jews and

therefore they should not remain indifferent to the Polish struggle for national independence. See F. Kupfer, Ber Meisels i ego udzial w walkach wyzwolenczych narodu polskiego (1546, 1845, 1563-64) (Warsaw, 1953).

* A. Eisenbach, Emancypacja Zydéw na ziemiach polskich, 1785-1870 (Warsaw, 1988), 469. 13 On this, see A. Zyga, ‘Wymienne nazwy Zydow w pismiennictwie polskim w latach 1794—1863 na tle gl6wnych orientacji spoteczno-politycznych 1 wyznaniowych zydostwa polskiego: Rekonesans’, in E. Loch (ed.), Literackie portrety Zydow: Materialy z miedzynarodowe; konferency: naukowe;, LublinNateczom, listopad 1993 (Lublin, 1996), 317-63.

Bolestaw Prus and Assimilation 319 This was a decisive period for determining Prus’s position on the Jewish ques-

tion. He concluded that Jews had deservedly earned the Emancipation Edict through their participation in the Uprising, even though in practice their rights existed only on paper.'* For him, the Jewish patriotism of the 1860s was proof of their increasing assimilation. For Prus this patriotism was more than merely the reflection of the shared fate of the two nations—a myth embodied in the ideals of Polish Romanticism. With his sharp ‘positivist’ eye he perceived a Polish—Jewish social ‘organic whole’. Prus mentions this unity for the first time in 1876 in a way which shows the influence of Herbert Spencer’s ideas.‘° In one of his longest chronicles on Jewish matters Prus writes: ‘It is a given... that Jews and Christians form a whole and belong to one and the same organism... They cannot do without us and we cannot do without them.’'® Prus remained faithful to this idea until the end of his life, even though his position on assimilation changed.

Prus’s writings of the 1890s reflect his disappointment at the failure of the Jewish masses to participate in the process of assimilation. He tried to find a place for them in society and argued against Jan Jelenski’s pamphlet entitled Narada z Kuba jakby sobie radzi¢ bez Zydéw (Warsaw, 1880), which excluded Jewish masses from Polish life and society. Prus objected to Jelenski’s tendency to inflame mutual

relations, which—in his opinion—should be nurtured for the sake of a better future. He was also afraid that hostile opinions such as his might alienate those Jews who had already been Polonized.*’ Therefore he consistently supported joint

initiatives, such as co-operation between Jewish and Christian doctors,'® and _ deplored all divisions, such as in the Salesmen’s Association,'? or banning Jews from trade guilds.*° He noted with pride in his chronicles the fact of Jewish participation in the funeral service for Jan Lam.?! In his 1897 chronicle, confiscated by the censors, he made a Jew (Moszek Samowar) the messenger who brings the news

of the easing of restrictions on Poles by the tsar—as if he wanted to confirm 14 Prus comments on (Jewish) emancipation: ‘In short, they [the Jews] received here what western Europe had already given them at the end of the previous century and what was rightly their due, 1.e. civil rights.’ See Ateneum, 4/11 (Nov. 1876), in Krontki, 11. 561.

'® Not waiting for Polish translations, Prus read Spencer in French. In ‘Nowiny’ he quotes from the Principles of Sociology based on the French edition of 1875. ‘© Ateneum, 4/11 (Nov. 1876), in Kroniki, ii. 569-70. Prus repeated this idea a year later: ‘I know that both have good and bad qualities, but because they are part of one and the same society, I give them equal rights in my heart. Tough, but it is in my spiritual make-up to care more about the whole than classes and individuals’; Kurier Warszawsk1, no. 72, 31 Mar. 1877, in Kroniki, 111. 81. ‘7 Kurier Warszawski, no. 128, 12 June 1880, in Krontki, iv. 355-7, and Kurier Warszawsk1, no. 140, 26 June 1880, in Kronzk1, iv. 369. 18 Kurier Warszawski, no. 46, 26 Feb. 1881, in Kroniki, v. 49-51. 'S Kurier Warszawski, no. 39, 8 Feb. 1885, in Kroniki, viii. 46. 20 Kurier Warszawskt, no. 332, 30 Nov. 1884, in Kroniki, vii. 261.

°*1 See Kurier Warszawski, no. 238, 29 Aug. 1886, in Krontki, ix. 190. Jan Lam (1838-86) was an influential Polish writer known mainly for his satirical novels. He was also famous for his journalism, written with the special kind of humour admired by Prus.

320 Agnieszka Friedrich Jewish participation in Polish affairs.” In 1906, still faithful to the idea of emancipation, Prus called for a proportional vote for Poles and Jews in elections.?° Prus dismantles the border between ‘us—Poles’ and ‘you—Jews’: what counts is the merit of the individual citizen irrespective of his nationality. In 1880 he strongly attacked an article in Niwa condemning people with foreign-sounding names (Jews, of course) for alleged interference in the country’s affairs. With bitter irony Prus states that Jews do not necessarily have ‘Jewish’ names and are often accused of ‘hiding’ under Polish ones.24 The same year, with similar irony, he speculates about possible Polish reactions to the successes of the Viennese tenor Peschier, depending on the ethnicity or religion ascribed to him.*° Before becoming a champion of assimilation, Prus must have posed the question of the meaning of Jewish identity—who the Jews really are and what sort of community they represent in Poland in the second half of the nineteenth century. This was of key importance for the positivists and they were unanimous in their view on this question. Like the other positivists, Prus believed that Jews were not a separate nation but rather a social caste. He formulated his position quite clearly in

1877, contesting the definition put forward by the conservative Wiek, which claimed that ‘Jew’ referred not to a religion but to a nationality. Prus argues: ‘First of all I solemnly protest against calling Jews a nation—they, or rather their uneducated masses, are no nation but rather a caste or raw material for this or that society.’*° What is striking in this quotation is Prus’s conviction that Jews as uneducated masses cannot be treated as a nation, which is represented by enlightened citizens. A caste is something reactionary or downright backward. Prus repeats his opinion expressed the previous year: ‘Jews lost their national character centuries ago. All that remains for them today 1s to accept this or that modern civilization, as in fact they are doing.’*’ Influenced by Spencer’s organic theory of society and H. ‘IT’ Buckle’s social determinism, the positivists could not conceive of a nation without territory. ‘That

is why Prus and others, among them primarily Aleksander Swietochowski and Eliza Orzeszkowa, accepted without reservation the idea of assimilation, even | 22 See Kurier Codzienny, [21 Mar.] 1897, in Kroniki, xv. 68-74. This particular chronicle was suspended and confiscated by the Warsaw censors. See Boleslaw Prus, 1847-1912: Kalendarz zyciat tworczosc1, prepared by K. Tokarzowna and S. Fita, ed. Z. Szweykowski (Warsaw, 1969), 497. 23 Tygodnik [lustrowany, no. 17, 28 Apr. 1906, in Kroniki, xviii. 298-304. 24 Kurier Warszawski, no. 18, 24 Jan. 1880, in Krontki, iv. 238—40.

2° Peschier was a tenor from Lwow, who was successful in Vienna. Prus attempts ironically to resolve the question of the tenor’s self-identification. There are three options: a Slav of Mosaic persuasion, a German, and an atheist Israelite. The writer considers the implications of each of those choices for the tenor’s appraisal by a fictitious committee of fans of national art: if the tenor sees himself as a German—poor grade; if a Slav, even if of Mosaic persuasion—enthusiastic reception (‘our own and famous’, ‘our contemporary’); if an Israelite—the committee should opine that ‘although we support integration of both races, nevertheless the price, etc., etc.’; Kurier Warszawski, no. 97, 1 May 1880, in Krontk1, iv. 322.

26 Kurier Warszawski, nos. 65 and 66, 23 and 24 Mar. 1877, in Kroniki, iii. 70. 27 Tbid.

Bolestaw Prus and Assimilation 321 though Prus did not remain faithful to it until the end of his life. Similar views were held by the Jewish intelligentsia, which had such enthusiastic champions of assimilation as Wilhelm Feldman, Henryk Nusbaum, and the editor of /zraelta, Samuel Hirsh Peltyn.2® They all claimed that the ‘Jewish question’ was an integral part of the ‘Polish question’ and that purely Jewish questions did not exist. ‘They

condemned Jewish national aspirations and in the 1890s became enemies of Zionism. Samuel Peltyn wrote in 1878: Jews are not a nation! They were a nation once but ceased to be one! . . . Whoever ascribes nationality to Jews lives in the past and negates the living present . . . Jews were a nation as long as they had their own land which fed them. . . . We still have . . . memories of a common past, [but] it is buried under the grave-mound of centuries.””

Prus was one of the most ardent supporters of Jewish national assimilation and constantly emphasized the common fate of Poles and Jews. He defined assimilation as follows: ‘[It] is a natural process and so necessary that a healthy human soul cannot oppose it; moreover, a sustained opposition would be somehow artificial and unnatural.’’° Using Spencerian categories, Prus applied processes of assimilation found in the organic world to the social sphere. Such a naturalistic way of understanding reality is evident in the following opinion: When a living creature accepts nourishment, digests it, and transforms it into its own blood and organic cells, then we talk of the process of assimilation. Similar processes take place in the life of societies. A foreign family settles in a country; the first generation, still alien in the local society, is getting used to the climate; but the sons and daughters are learning the new language and slowly adapt local customs; the grandchildren begin to share local sympathies and aspirations, and the great-grandchildren, at the latest, become local patriots. They see the new nation as their own, its history as their history, its sufferings and joys become theirs; in a word, they love the new land as their own and members of its society as their own brothers.*!

This is a multifaceted account: the typically positivist, naturalistic way of thinking contains a considerable emotional charge—a vision of emerging patriotism in the slowly assimilating generations. This vision becomes a specific model of assimuilation: from the initial simple adaptation processes through the phase of accultura-

tion until the stage of total identification known as amalgamation. Prus did not elaborate on this model but it is certain that he did not conceive of assimilation only in terms of individual ideological transformation—for him it was something more: an important social phenomenon. He defined assimilation in such terms in 28 See W. Feldman, Asymilatorzy, syjonisci 1 Polacy: Z powodu przetomu w stosunkach zydowskich w Galicjt (Krakow, 1893), and H. Nusbaum, Juz wielki czas! ... (Glos w kwestji &ydowskiej) (Warsaw, 1906).

29S. H. Peltyn, ‘Saz-li Zydzi narodem?’, in Dzieje Zydéw w Polsce: Wybor tekstéw Zrédtowych, XIX wiek (Warsaw, 1994), 100-3. This article was published in 1878 by [zraelita.

30 Tygodnik Ilustrowany, no. 12, 19 Mar. 1910, in Krontki, xx. 245. 31 Tbid. 244~5.

322 Agnieszka Friedrich his pamphlet of 1883: ‘[ Assimilation] is a process of adaptation by certain classes

and the whole nation to things they did not have previously but which were brought to them from outside. .. . In order to speed up the process of assimilation, , people and things have to mix and be in contact with each other.’ Among the obstacles on the way to assimilation he listed ‘antipathy and tribal and cliquish prejudices’ and insisted that ‘every man should be respected and welcomed, irrespective of his clothes, religion, nationality, and social habits’.°” When Prus talks about Jewish identity, he is at the same time clearly asking about the Jew’s place in Polish society. It 1s assimilation that defines the line:

an assimilated Jew was equal to a Polish member of the intelligentsia; a nonassimilated Jew had—according to Prus—to adapt to Polish requirements. He did not accept the over-representation of Jews in Polish trade and advocated their eradual transformation into artisans, businessmen,”*’ and above all farmers.** It shows long-term thinking, sometimes aiming so far ahead as to be unrealistic. It is worthwhile, however, taking a closer look at the changes this programme underwent with the passing years. In the 1870s Prus believed that ‘Jews have been, are, and will be whatever their environment makes them’,®? a somewhat paternalistic position which makes Jews a passive object of external manipulation. Such an approach to the problem forced Prus—as a representative of that environment—to put forward a whole number of specific reforms. He suggested a marriage reform (in the conviction that Jews marry too early, which leads them to poverty and in turn to desperate attempts to make money, even illegally) and a reform of schooling, principally of the heders. It was characteristic of the positivist way of thinking to point out the shortcomings of Jewish social life and at the same time ways of overcoming them. The desire to bring enlightenment to humanity was characteristic of Polish positivists and Prus was among them. They were also convinced of the need to unite Polish society, and Jewish assimilation brought with it the possibility of the desired unifi- | cation. Convinced that assimilation equals social progress, the positivists saw in assimilation the only solution to the Jewish question.°° Interestingly, those Jews 32 A. Glowacki [B. Prus], Szkic programu w warunkach obecnego rozwoju spoteczenstwa (Warsaw,

1883), 59-60. 33 This problem appears, for example, ibid. 57. 34 Prus supports the idea of the Alliance Israélite Universelle in encouraging the Jews of Galicia to engage in farming. See Kurier Warszawski, no. 134, 16 May 1886, in Krontk1, 1x. 142-3. 35 Ateneum, 4/11 (Nov. 1876), in Krontki, 11. 567.

86 Another point of view was presented by, among others, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, who saw Jews as fellow citizens and was against their assimilation. See Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, W ‘kwesti zydowskie,’: Odczyt wygloszony w Warszawie 7 lutego 1913 (Warsaw, 1913), 70-5. Although it appeared

only a year after Prus’s death, he was very likely to have been familiar with such views earlier: they knew each other and had met in 1898. See K. Tokarzowna and S. Fita, ‘Aneks do “Kalendarza zycia 1 tworczosci Boleslawa Prusa, 1847—1912”’, in Boleslaw Prus: Materiaty, ed. Edward Piescikowsk1 (Wroclaw, 1974), 266—7. Eliza Orzeszkowa had corresponded earlier with Jan Baudouin de Courtenay.

See Eliza Orzeszkowa to Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, in E. Orzeszkowa, Listy zebrane, vii, ed. E. Jankowski (Wroclaw, 1976), 59-71.

Bolestaw Prus and Assimilation 323 who were intent on assimilation saw in it ‘an entry ticket’ into Polish society. ‘They were, however, on the margins of the Jewish community, which on the whole had

no wish to assimilate. Moreover, Prus himself thought that assimilation of the Jewish masses, though possible, would take a long time. ‘The delay was, in his opinion, only due to lack of education and mutual prejudices—he was at this time an

unshakeable optimist, firmly convinced of the ultimate success of assimilation. Those who did not share this conviction might just as well ‘put a noose round their necks, because the world they see through their pessimistic spectacles is not worth living and working in’.°’ Further thoughts on the subject of assimilation appeared in 1883, with the publication of Szkic programu w warunkach obecnego rozwoju spoteczenstwa. Here Prus concentrates on the economic aspect of the problem. In the centre 1s his vision of

economic expansion in which foreign capital does not contribute to the muchdesired equilibrium but, on the contrary, exacerbates the negative processes inherent in industrialization. Prus forcefully condemns ‘foreign industrialists who treat the local worker as a machine, which, when broken, is not even worth fixing’.°® The ‘foreign’ category does not, of course, apply exclusively, and not even primarily, to Jews, since Prus was still hoping that they would contribute in a significant way to the improvement of a pathological situation. This is evident from the sentence which immediately follows the condemnation of foreign industrialists: ‘an

increase in the number of our industrialists is to be desired, whether Polish Christians or Jews or assimilated Germans who (provided they assimilate) are an excellent social material for us’.°? In relation to Jews Prus proposed the following: since Jews lack many means of production, the ‘caste of Jewish traders’*° should

disintegrate, thereby forcing them to undertake other economic activities and adopt new social roles. Then ‘the Jewish caterpillar will give birth to worthy social

material’.4’ Such proposals were the result of his fear of ‘Jewish domination’, zasydzente (Prus’s own phrase) in industry and trade. Let us add that the ‘problem of Jewish domination’ had appeared earlier in the chronicles. In 1879 Prus sup-

ported a Polish ‘outlet’ of starch manufacture, thereby breaking the Jewish monopoly in this area.** In 1881 he complained about the lack of Polish traders in

‘Jewish-dominated’ Lubartow,*? and in 1883 he was alarmed when Petronela Baumanowa set up a polytechnic school exclusively for Jews.*4

A few years after the publication of the Szkic programu Prus criticized the Towarzystwo Popierania Przemystu (Society for the Advancement of Industry) for doing nothing to popularize crafts among Polish youth; he quoted as a model yet another polytechnic school for Jewish boys established in the Nowogrodek area.*° 37 Kurier Warszawsk1, no. 72, 31 Mar. 1887, in Kronzki, iii. 81. 88 Szkic programu, 43.

39 Tbid. 43-4. 40 Ibid. 57. 41 Tbid. 64.

“2 Kurier Warszawski, no. 274, 6 Dec. 1879, in Krontki, iv. 190-3. 43 Kurier Warszawski, no. 90, 23 Apr. 1881, in Krontki, v. 100-2. 44 Kurier Warszawski, no. 1424, 10 June 1883, in Kroniki, vi. 137. 45 Kurier Codzienny, no. 307, 6 Nov. 1887, in Krontki, x. 224-5.

324 Agnieszka Friedrich Prus found it particularly painful for obvious reasons: Poles squander opportunities to acquire qualifications equal to those of Germans or Jews. He was afraid of Jewish economic expansion, which would transform Poles into cheap labour.*® Another reason was purely emotional—trich Jews knew how to safeguard the interests of their own community while rich Poles did not. Prus objected to this imbalance but blamed inefficient Poles rather than the Jews for the development of the Jewish monopoly—a rather unusual point of view at the time. Prus’s views on assimilation changed under the impact of Moritz Hirsch’s proposals to aid the Jews of Galicia, which he saw as encouraging Jewish separatism and which disturbed him greatly. Prus first mentions this place towards the end of 1888 when writing about the Hirsch donation for polytechnic schools for Jewish boys in Galicia.4” He writes more on the subject in 1889.*° A series of articles illustrates how objectionable he found the Hirsch proposal, and he began to reformu-

late his views on the whole Jewish question. He returned to the problem of assimilation, asking: ‘What do we mean . . . by assimilation? It means that Jews should give up their different characteristics and become like other Europeans. How many of these different traits are there? According to Christians only a few: clothing, food, language, religion and its rituals, education, and finally solidarity with the Jewish masses.’ On the Jewish side, he claims, there are 613 such traits or commandments—‘even negating 612 of them and keeping only one would still give a Jew the right to this title’.*°

More important than this not very well-informed discussion about commandments and prohibitions (mitsvot) is the quite clear abandonment, or rather curtailment, of the assimilation programme. Prus maintains that ‘the Christian world would do best not to impose, and not even encourage, Jewish “assimilation” ’.°° National assimilation or even a change of religion may take place in individual cases, but this should not be made into a wholesale programme; it is better to accept that Jews may remain Jews as long as they fulfil what Prus calls their civic duties. This far-reaching declaration may have prepared the ground for his acceptance of Jewish nationalism. Incidentally, the writer’s crisis of faith in assimilation was reflected in the often discussed changes in the Jewish heroes of Lalka (The Doll). Both Dr Szuman and young Szlangbaum abandon the path of assimilation in the final chapters of the novel, written at the time of Hirsch’s donation. 46 Kurier Warszawsk1, no. 142a, to June 1883, in Krontki, vi. 137-8.

47 Kurier Codzienny, no. 334, 2 Dec. 1888, in Kroniki, xi. 253-4. For more on Prus’s attitude to Hirsch’s donation see A. Friedrich, ‘Boleslaw Prus and Hirsch’s Gift’, in W. Moskovich and I. Fijatkowska-Janiak (eds.), Jews and Slavs (Jersusalem, 2008), 112—22; on his ideas on the ‘Jewish question’ see A. Friedrich, Bolestaw Prus wobec kwestii zydowskiej (Gdansk, 2008) (Eng. trans., pp. 289-301). 48 Kurier Codzienny, no. 297, 27 Oct. 1889, in Kronikt, xii. 73-5; Kurier Codzienny, no. 297, 27 Oct. 1889, in Kronikt, xii. 78-9, and the series B. Prus, ‘Z powodu 12,000,000’, Kurier Codzienny, nos. 307 (pt. I), 309 (pt. ID), 315 (pt. IID), 319 (pt. IV), 321 (pt. V), 328 (pt. VD, 331 (pt. VIL), 6-30 Nov. 1889.

49 “Z powodu 12,000,000’, pt. VI. °° Tbid.

Bolestaw Prus and Assimilation 325 There is no doubt that Prus’s thinking on assimilation changed as a result of the Hirsch project in Galicia. In 1898 he commented on the questionnaire on the Jewish situation in Galicia organized by the Alliance Israelite Universelle: ‘at least ten years ago I stopped believing in the possibility of “assimilation” of the Jewish masses... Nevertheless it is a fact... that every year a certain number of Jews “assimilate” into European societies and that there are among them excellent social assets.’?! Prus was also impressed by a new proposal put forward by Hirsch, who advocated Jewish settlements in Argentina. The writer’s support for this proto-Zionist initiative distracted him from the problem of assimilation, which by then he prob-

ably thought was a lost cause. His backing for the idea of Jewish emigration prompted an attack by the paper /zraelita, which immediately noticed the change in Prus’s position and called him ‘an antisemite in gloves’—a description which Prus found very hurtful.°” These are not the only factors that led to the writer’s disillusionment with the idea of assimilation. It was a complex process affected by various considerations. In 1892 Prus wrote: ‘my ideas about the Jews have changed considerably: I used to believe that Jews could assimilate and that they want to assimilate into European societies. This is no longer my belief. I was mistaken to look at individuals without seeing the million-strong whole.’°? Five years later he was even more pessimistic: For over twenty years since 1862 . . . I also believed in the possibility of ‘assimilating’ the Jews until I finally understood that the word ‘assimilation’ is as illusory as for example ‘phlogiston’, the elixir of eternal youth, etc. True, every year there are Jewish families which melt into the European society, just as every year you can find Christians (in Vienna, for example) converting to Judaism. These phenomena are probably caused by some distant heredity . . .>“

These quotations demonstrate Prus’s bitterness when he began to perceive that assimilation was occurring only in individual cases and not on a mass scale. He was troubled because he could not see any satisfactory explanation for this state of affairs. > Kurier Codzienny, no. 321, 20 Nov. 1808, in Krontki, xv. 435. The questionnaire was prepared by the Alliance Israelite Universelle and concerned the economic, psychological, and political situation of

the Galician Jews. Prus supported the project and was criticized by the Krakow Gios narodu (see Boleslaw Prus, 1847-1912: Kalendarz, 531) as well as the Warsaw Niwa Polska; Stolnik, ‘W sprawie “Ankiety zydowskiej”: Odpowiedz p. Bolestawowi Prusowi’, Niwa Polska, 1898, no. 48.

°2 Prus endeavoured to explain to the [zraelita the change in his views: ‘The Jews today, just as before [a reference to his previous opinion that Jews are a caste, not a nation], do not have the conditions for national existence . . . but it does not follow that they could not become a nation, provided they receive land and proper organization, such as Hirsch and Goldschmidt would like to see. I call

them a nation already now, because they . . . think of themselves as a nation. Mr S-w [Nachum Sokolow, who wrote for /zraelita and later edited the paper in the years 1896—1902] insists on seeing me as “an antisemite in gloves”. Honestly, Mr S-w is mistaken. I cannot be an antisemite because I am not allowed to hate my fellow men, and I do not need to be an antisemite, because I do not need to “drown” my ancestors, even in an antisemitic bath’; Kurier Warszawski, no. 141, 22 May 1892, in

Kronikt, xiii. 215-16. °3 Kurier Codzienny, no. 141, 22 May 1892, in Kronzkt, xiii. 215. °4 Kurier Codzienny, no. 309, 8 Nov. 1897, in Kronikt, xv. 203.

326 Agnieszka Friedrich Towards the end of his life he began to stress the importance of religion in the preservation of Jewish separatism. Yet in his view religion could not explain the

whole complexity of the problem. In 1909 he claimed that ‘stony nationalistic egoism’®? was the ‘principal Jewish fault? which made assimilation impossible. Interestingly, in the context of Zionism he saw this same separatism as a virtue. What

is clear is that he distanced himself from the cause of assimilation. His increasing frustration at the growing gap between his ideas and reality led him to claim that assimilation on any significant scale was impossible. Although he continued to emphasize the deep connection between Poles and assimilated Jews—‘I do not accept any barriers between “them” and “us” °?°—he now devoted his energies to supporting Zionism rather than defending what he now saw as the lost cause of assimilation. By 1910 Prus had come to the position that Jews do not form a monolithic soci-

ety but comprise many ‘various human types’. These differences, in his view, account for their predisposition or aversion to assimilation: One [type], not very numerous, 1s able to accept European civilization; even more: it desires

it and is beneficial for its development. Another type, by far more numerous, despises European civilization and is confined within its own civilization, which was once adequate but today is very backward. The first type supplies the assimilating ‘Jews’ who were never real Jews; the second type defends its separateness, hates the assimilators, fears freedom of conscience, and considers the Talmud ‘the proper Jewish spirit’.°’

His argument of the deep divisions within Jewish society is similar to the position Orzeszkowa had come to adopt thirty years earlier.°°? He now stressed the strength of Jewish separatism: it 1s difficult to talk about the assimilation of a nation or religion for which separatism is an article of faith, the highest desire, the well-considered goal. Individuals who instinctively or consciously long for civilization will leave the Jewish mass even without any assimilation programmes, whereas the Jews at large, and particularly our Jews, do not want any assimilation; they curse and fight it. If for two thousand years Jews have been declared separatists, then the chances that they will remain so are two thousand times greater than the likelihood of their assimilation within a certain time.°®

These words were dictated by the deepest disappointment. Prus now accepted the futility of any hope for assimilation. In the face of a natural human striving for civilization, assimilation appeared to be an artificial construct. It is worth noting that thirteen years earlier he wrote about assimilation in a similar vein, although he was not referring to Jewish assimilation but to the enforced assimilation which the tsarist authorities had been trying to impose on Polish society.®° In that ‘political’ context °© Tygodnik Ilustrowany, no. 45, 6 Nov. 1909, in Krontki, xx. 145. °° Tbid. 148. °? Tygodnik [lustrowany, no. 12, 19 Mar. 1910, in Kroniki, xx. 247.

°8 As in the novel Meir Ezofowicz, which described the ideological clash between Jews willing to assimilate (the Ezofowicz family) and the Orthodox (the Todros family). °3- Tygodnik [lustrowany, no. 12, 19 Mar. 1910, in Krontki, xx. 250.

60 Prus quotes an opinion from the letters section of Kurier Warszawski on the change of views on Poles by the editors of Peterburgskie vedomosti. The paper claimed that although Poles have their own

Bolestaw Prus and Assimilation 327 assimilation was synonymous with coercion of ‘the weaker’, a ‘brutal force which causes, for example, the wild rat to exterminate the domestic rat’.°! Prus demon-

strates here the mechanism of assimilation fuelled by hostility to every kind of separateness. The writer says: ‘we would all like to “assimilate” our environment, so that it would dress, eat, get up, think, believe, love, and act in the same way we do’.°

Thus while Prus was able to see the problems of assimilation in the context of Polish society in the tsarist empire fairly clearly, he was unable to see how this applied to the question of assimilating Jews. True, their assimilation was voluntary; nevertheless it often led to personal crises, resulting from an inevitable alienation—initially from Jewish culture but later also from the Polish culture to which the assimilators aspired.®’ Prus is aware of the difference between imposed and voluntary assimilation: ‘one is “hitting over the head with a stick” shouting:

you have to be like me! The other operates through “love and tolerance” ’, and adds: ‘should I ever be the object of any assimilating, I would always prefer to fall

into the hands of those who operate through “love and tolerance” rather than those who “hit you over the head with a stick” ’.°* Nevertheless, he seemed unable to understand that even someone subjected to assimilation through love and tolerance undergoes a dramatic process. Not everybody was as welcoming as the positivists towards the assimilators—a convert encountered rejection and suspicion both in the Orthodox Jewish circles®? and among antisemites,°° which led to the double alienation already mentioned here. Prus was also able to see the negative characteristics of those he called assimilators. He claimed that ‘every “assimilator” . . . is an egoist, moreover an inex-

perienced egoist. He only values his tastes and is convinced that he can easily impose them on others. Sometimes, however, among a million egoists . . . you can find one changeling who says: The beauty of the world consists in the variety of its ethnicity, language, and religion, they should remain within the Russian state. Prus perceived this as

61 [bid. 197. 6 Thid.

an attack on Polish identity. See Kurier Codzienny, no. 301, 31 Oct. 1897, in Kroniki, xv. 194-8.

°8 A. Cala points out the double alienation of the assimilating Jews: on the one hand alienation from the Polish society and on the other from the Jewish community. She writes: ‘The young paid a high price for their rebellion against tradition—often the first incentive towards breaking away from their own group—by losing their family support and sense of security. It was a desperate situation for those who found it difficult to enter the assimilated circles while the door to the Polish society was closed to them.’ Cala, ‘Kompleks zydowski Polakow’, 276. 64 Kurier Codzienny, no. 301, 31 Oct. 1897, in Kroniki, xv. 198. © Cala, Asymilacja Zydéw w Krélestwie Polskim, 23-32.

66 As was the case with the two leading conservatives with an openly antisemitic programme: Jan Jelenski and Teodor Jeske-Choinski, who were against assimilation and regarded converts as traitors. In 1883 Jeske-Choinski wrote in Ro/a: ‘If you are a Jew, be one! We prefer an ignorant Orthodox Jew to a civilized nonentity, because the former believes in something, is something, while the latter gives no guarantee’; quoted after Z. Borzyminska, Dzieje Zydéw w Polsce: Wybor tekstéw £rédlowych XIX wieku (Warsaw, 1994), 95.

328 Agnieszka Friedrich creatures.’©’ It seems that Prus put his finger on an important problem but was not willing to apply his general conclusions to the specific case of Polish Jews, whose assimilation he considered entirely voluntary and reciprocal. Prus’s disillusionment with assimilation led to his lack of sympathy for assimilated west European Jews: ‘chasing the ideal of equality, over-confident in their abilities and in the power of schools and universities, they have made a serious

mistake. Not only have they not hesitated to occupy very sensitive positions in Christian societies, but—-even worse—they have actively entered into various social conflicts.’°? Prus voiced this opinion in 1889 and returned to it the following year. In an imaginary sketch he described the efforts of ‘one of the Rothschild gentlemen’ to answer the question: ‘why are the Jews disliked?’ He presented the rich and influential assimilated Jews 1n a highly negative light and in contrast to a traditional Jew of modest means, Jankiel Gelbhosen. Asked by a Rothschild how to gain popularity, Jankiel replies: The first [remedy] is that I do not think . .. Iam the wisest, best and most beautiful among men because Iam a Jew... . The second .. . that I always tell the truth or stay silent when I cannot say what I think is the truth. .. . ‘The third remedy, that I never earn more or seem bigger than what I deserve.®?

Prus criticizes the Europeanized Jews in an imaginary dialogue between Jankiel and Ferdinand Lassalle. ‘The latter asks: ‘I haven’t got millions, I defend the poor, so why don’t they like me?’ and Jankiel answers: ‘You, sir, are no Ferdinand but

Fajbush and they dislike you for lying. They also dislike because you seem to defend the poor but run after countesses and you sell French and German ideas as your own goods. If you cared more about rabbis than you do about countesses, then perhaps they would not call you a fraud.’” Such an indiscriminate attack provoked a fierce reaction from /zraelita, which called this chronicle ‘an anti-Jewish foray’ and ‘journalistic hash’ as well as ‘a mishmash spiced with malice’.’' The author (Elkan) concluded that ‘this nonsense’ did not deserve serious analysis and that Prus had caught the ‘anti-Jewish virus’ and became an antisemite. In his reply to /zraelita Prus claimed that he had never felt any aversion to Jews as long as were socially useful, adding: ‘let us only fight with those among you who exploit us morally or materially, engage in politics and try to reform us according

to their views, lying to us and promoting themselves’. He immediately adds: ‘If we condemn our exploiters, careerists, and braggarts, why the hell should we humble ourselves before yours?’’” This addition was intended to prove the writer’s °” Kurier Codzienny, no. 301, 31 Oct. 1897, in Kronzki, xv. 198. 68 Prus, ‘Z powodu 12,000,000’, pt. IV.

°° Kurier Codzienny, no. 143, 25 May 1890, in Kronikt, xii. 223-4. 0 Tbid. 226. ‘1 Elkan, ‘Za tydzien’, [zraelita, 1890, no. 21. "2 Kurter Codzienny, no. 149, t June 1890, in Kronikz, xii. 229.

Bolestaw Prus and Assimilation 329 objectivity, but in the light of his earlier pronouncements voiced by Jankiel Gelbhosen it would be hard to see them as expressions of good faith. And indeed they did not convince Prus’s opponent, who took them as a typical antisemitic argument about the alleged excessive Jewish sensitivity to criticism and added: ‘his bitter criticism directed at “fellow Poles” stems from quite different sources than

his mockery of “honourable Messieurs Rothschild, Fajbush Lassalles, etc.” directed at “fellow countrymen of the Mosaic persuasion” ’.’°

The antisemitic argument about the alleged excessive Jewish sensitivity to criticism appeared often at the time’* and Prus himself also used it on several occa-

sions.’° Yet if—according to the /zraelita journalist—volleys of abuse from declared antisemites were easy to ignore, the unjust accusations coming from ‘an enlightened writer’ were painful. It is worth quoting the conclusion of the article by Elkan: it clearly shows the distinction made by the assimilators of the /zraelita paper between Prus—despite his pronouncements of that time which were indeed anti-Jewish—and antisemitic circles. Elkan 1s full of bitterness: ‘Fistfuls of mud thrown from the gutter only spatter your clothes—a pebble thrown from on high makes a hole in your head.’’° At the time of writing of these texts Prus showed his antisemitic leanings probably more strongly than at any other time. It is symptomatic, however, that even then he restricted his attacks to west European Jews and did not directly attack assimilated Polish Jews.’’ Despite his loss of faith in general assimilation, Prus’s

sympathy for them never ceased. ,

In rt905 in the chronicle entitled ‘Kwestia zydowska u nas’ (The Jewish Question in Our Land), Prus discussed three pamphlets on Jewish subjects: the first, by R. Eiger-Liliental, entitled Juz mielki czas... (It’s high time . . .), the second, by Henryk Nusbaum, with a similar title but different content, and the third, anonymous, entitled Kwestia zydowska w szczerym oswietleniu (The Jewish Question in a Frank Light). The three works represent three different positions ® Elkan, ‘Za tydzien’, [zraelita, 1890, no. 22. 74 See Cala, Asymilacja Zydéw w Krolestwie Polskim, 254. From an antisemitic perspective (based on A. Niemojewski’s pronouncements) this phenomenon is discussed by J. Unszlicht, O pogromy ludu polskiego (Krakow, 1912), 15-16.

© ‘Everything may be criticized—even mathematical certainties; everything may be mocked, only the Jewish question has to be touched sensitively, with a gentle hand, in a fine velvet glove . . . Let’s admit that we should finish once and for all with Jewish sensitivity to jokes or to “biting sarcasm”. You are not hysterical women who go into convulsions so that your interests and our necks cannot be dis-

cussed. It’s unbelievable that someone hitting another should be annoyed that the screams of the beaten are getting on his nerves!’ Prus, ‘Z powodu 12,000,000’, pt. I. Tellingly, this was eagerly quoted by the antisemitic G/os in a short article entitled ‘Drazliwosé Zydow’, Gios, 18809, no. 45. 7 Elkan, ‘Za tydzien’, [zraelita, 1890, no. 22. “ ‘This was probably a conscious strategy, as Prus wrote: ‘{I wished] to show how dangerous those educated Jews are who, having rejected their own nation, wish to hold sway over Europe. I preferred to show them on French and German ground’; Kurier Codzienny, no. 358, 29 Dec. 1889, in Krontki, xii.

II7.

330 Agnieszka Friedrich in relation to the Jewish question: the first promotes separatism, the second assimilation, while the third remains neutral. In a succinct comment to the three pamphlets Prus says: ‘I repeat, Dr Nusbaum’s work should be widely distributed in the country, not because the author is an “assimilator” but because it contains many beautiful and wise thoughts. It seems that this man loves the Jewish people better and more wisely than many a staunch Zionist and nationalist.’’° The last sentence 1s surprising in view of the writer’s often expressed support for Zionists, whom he calls after all ‘the Jewish patriots’.’? For Prus, however, it is this committed assimilator, completely unattached to traditional Judaism, whose love for the Jewish people is ‘wiser’.®° Incidentally, the writer also supports Nusbaum’s criticism of the use of Yiddish, which echoes his arguments for assimilation.

Prus’s disillusionment with assimilation was not total and he sometimes returned to his earlier views. ‘Thus the 1909 chronicle entitled “Two Voices’ reflects his continuing sympathy for the process. He creates a fictional dialogue between a Mr A and Mr B, claiming to be neutral himself. Mr A argues: So-called assimilation, that is the merging of Jews with Polish society, has failed miserably. The only Polish-language Jewish paper failed while the jargon [i.e. Yiddish] dailies and weeklies multiply like yeast bacteria. Those few Orthodox Jews who about ten years ago

were trying to speak Polish with their families today revert to the jargon; those who accounted for a sizeable portion of audiences in the Polish theatre today go to the so-called Jewish but in reality German theatres. The only Polish synagogue has lost a great Polish preacher; the sixties generation is dying out and its place is taken by the so-called Litvaks— not just separatists but outright enemies of our nation.®!

Mr B responds by defending assimilation and explaining the various complications of the Jewish question. As to the accusation that Jews are not Poles and, moreover, they are enemies of the Polish nation, the writer answers—through Mr B—that it is not possible to exchange twenty hundred years of existence of the Jewish nation for fifty years of civilization. Jewish antipathy towards Poles is, in his opinion,

caused by Polish antipathy towards Jews—and even if that prejudice is real its roots are not religious: on the contrary, it is contrary to the spirit of Judaism. This reasoning, he claims, is not consistent. If Jews are incapable of assimilation, then why do they assimilate? ‘Mutual antipathy’ is a tautology which in fact does not explain the sources of the antagonism. The reasons given for the return to Yiddish are quite naive. Prus does not perceive it as a defeat of assimilation; more importantly, he is not aware of the growing Yiddishism, but believes it is the fault of the Polish press, which does not deal adequately with Jewish problems. ‘To % Tygodnik Ilustrowany, no. 42, 21 Oct. 1905, in Kronzki, xix. 184. Kurier Warszawski, no. 273, 3 Oct. 1897, in Krontki, xv. 183-5.

80 Tt is worth remembering how upset Prus was by Henryk Nusbaum—an assimilated scholar— who in the prospectus for the paper G/os referred to himself as a Jew. Prus reproached him with ‘appropriating a title which did not belong to him’; Kurier Warszawski, no. 280, 10 Oct. 1886, in

Krontkt, 1X. 219-21. 8! Tygodnik Ilustrowany, no. 5, 30 Jan. 1909, in Krontki, xx. 13.

Bolestaw Prus and Assimilation 331 recapitulate: Mr B’s arguments—despite declarations of objectivity, the writer’s porte-parole—may result from Prus’s attachment to the didactic function of literature. He loses the sharp focus in order to give the reader—or the citizen—a model of behaviour towards the Jewish question. ‘The most important element of the dialogue is didacticism; it blunted Prus’s perception of reality but, on the other hand, protected him, albeit temporarily, from the painful disappointment with assimilation present in his later works.®” Indeed, in his contradictory views on both the desirability and the possibility of the integration of Jews into Polish society Prus reflected the similar contradictions within a significant sector of the Polish intelligentsia both before the First World War and after. Translated from the Polish by Theresa Prout ®2 Characteristically, this balanced opinion provoked a vicious antisemitic polemic in the Jesuit Przeglad Powszechny, which accused Prus of acceptance of Judaism, which—according to the polemi-

cist—represents ‘selfishness of the social spirit taken to extremes and based on the principle of rejection of everybody and everything that is not Jewish’; W. Czerkawski, ‘Z powodu pogladu Prusa na kwestie zydowska’, Przeglad Powszechny, 1909, no. 2.

Dialogue or Monologue? The Relationship between fewish and Polish Journalists in Warsaw at the End of the Nineteenth Century | ELA BAUER By THE final decades of the nineteenth century, Warsaw had developed into the most important centre of Jewish life and literature in eastern Europe. ‘The growth in the number of Hebrew-readers and the rise of literary professionals (such as writers, journalists, and publishers) were among the factors that led to this development.' Most of the activities of this literary centre were conducted through the

Jewish periodicals. It is difficult—in fact, nearly impossible—to describe the social, political, and cultural Jewish life of Warsaw and other places in eastern Europe without taking into consideration the contribution of Jewish periodicals, since a significant part of the political, social, cultural, and intellectual activities of Jewish society took place through these channels. Most, if not all, of those who were engaged on the various editorials boards of the leading Jewish periodicals in the second half of the nineteenth century believed that the first task of Jewish and Hebrew periodicals was not to report, but rather to establish an arena in which the central ideological and intellectual debates could take place.* This attitude was not unique to Jewish periodicals; a similar one can also be found in the Polish press of the late nineteenth century. This is the period in which the Polish press expanded

into mass communication.? Leading Polish intellectuals believed that the ‘Polish national press should play a valuable role in the formation of the modern This article is based on a chapter of my Ph.D. dissertation, ‘Nahum Sokolow and the Problematics of the Polish Jewish Intelligentsia’ (New York University, 2000), which has now been published as Between Poles and fews: The Development of Nahum Sokolowm’s Political Thought (Jerusalem, 2005).

I should like to express my gratitude to Professor David Engel and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies for their help and support. ' On these reasons and others, see D. Miron, Bodedim bemo’adam (Tel-Aviv, 1987). 2 See e.g. Y. Slutsky, Ha itonut hayehudit-rusit bame’ah hatesha-esreh (Jerusalem, 1970), 240-83. 3 In 1862 there were 109 Polish newspapers in the world; by 1870 there were 137, and by 1890 there were 225 Polish periodicals. These figures are taken from S. Blejwas, Realism in Polish Politics: Warsaw Positivism and National Survival in Nineteenth Century Poland (New Haven, 1984), 252.

Fewish and Polish fournalists in Warsaw 333 Polish identity. More than a few of the ideological and political Polish camps used this press in order to publicize their goals, including the most important ideological camp of that time, the Polish Positivism movement.*

This ideological group rose after the failed 1863 Uprising. The failure convinced a group of young people that in order to achieve political independence, Polish society would have to change. They understood that military revolts waged in the name of old Polish values and symbols would not help to create the modern socio-economic infrastructure that Polish society lacked. In order to guarantee this change, the group proposed a slow and steady process of building a self-sufficient Polish economy. Members of this group advocated in particular the development of new capitalist enterprises, industrialization, and civic emancipation for all social groups, including Jews. This philosophical doctrine was influenced by Western ideas such as liberalism and Darwinism, as well as the work of the French philosopher Auguste Comte, who was the one who coined the term Positivism. However, these Western ideas were integrated with Polish concepts such as praca organiczna (organic work). The term appeared for the first time in an article by the economist Jozef Supinski, in advance of the Positivism movement. However, after 1863 it began to be used to indicate an alternative to armed insurrection and to the old national, romantic philosophy.

The majority of the supporters of Polish Positivist ideas were young people who, while members of the middle class, for the most part were barely able to earn their own living. Several of them worked as poorly paid editors of various periodicals and on other literary projects. Their attraction to this field might have been connected to the literary nature of the Positivist movement. Since journalism was to play a central part in spreading the Positivist message, many of the young people who were inspired by Positivism viewed press work as an opportunity to take part in the task of re-creating the Polish nation, even if only in a limited way. Hence these young supporters of Positivism can be found on many of the leading editorial boards of the time, such as Kurier Warszawsk1, Pramda, Przeglad Tygodniowy, and Rola; working on these editorial boards was not only an economic necessity but

also an opportunity to take an active part in Polish public life. The fact that the press was run under the strict attention of the Russian censors influenced the structure of the newspapers. Most of the pages were dedicated to publicist writing, and the informative section was limited. Despite all the limitations under which the Polish press found itself, however, it could boast some very significant achievements. The Warsaw press became an important aspect of Polish cultural and political life: it succeeded in educating readers, introducing them to west European thought, and raising their awareness of public affairs.° * For more about the Polish press in Warsaw during the late roth c. and the involvement of Polish Positivism, see among others S. Corrsin, Warsaw before the First World War: Poles and Jews in the Third City of the Russian Empire, 380-1914 (New York, 1989) and Blejwas, Realism in Polish Politics. ° Corrsin, Warsaw before the First World War, 69.

334 Ela Bauer Around the same time, moreover, the composition of Polish readers began to change. In the earlier decades, the readership of the Polish press was limited to a small group of the elite. By the end the nineteenth century, however, the circle of those who read the Polish press had expanded to include the working classes, peasants, and women.® Furthermore, there was a change in the definition of the journalists’ task. During the 1870s Polish society began viewing journalists as members of the intelligentsia, who could—by means of their pens and notebooks—influence social and political situations. The trends and changes that took place in Polish society can also be recognized in Jewish society of the time. Indeed, the concept of the journalist as a leader, an individual who stood at centre stage and could influence his environment, drew inspiration not only from Polish sources. ‘The increasing importance of the Jewish secular writer can already be seen during the eighteenth century in the communities of central Europe. These writers wanted to create an alternative to the traditional Jewish leadership. ‘They were the first to understand the power of the press and to use it to promote modern views.’ However, the local interpretation of Polish social thoughts by different sectors of Jewish society also had an influence; this was the case in Warsaw.

Not only did the Jewish press of the late nineteenth century act in similar ways to the equivalent Polish press, but the two conducted direct and indirect dialogues. An attempt to trace the origin of these dialogues leads us to two remarkable jour-

nalists—Jewish and Polish—of the late nineteenth century: Nahum Sokolow (1859-1936) and Aleksander Gltowacki, who was known by his literary name, Bolestaw Prus (1847-1912). Nahum Sokolow was perhaps the best-known Jewish journalist of his era and is widely regarded today as the founder of the modern Hebrew press. His decision to become a journalist in order to influence the society in which he lived was made at a very young age. As early as 1876 he wrote in his diary: ‘I decided to write another article for Hatsefirah. In this article I will examine the morals of our co-religionists.

This kind of article will also deal with the state of religious belief among high school students on the one hand and fundamental observances on the other.’®

During the late 1870s, when Sokolow was a young man in the small town of Ptock, he—like many other young Jewish men at that time—‘published’ youth magazines.” After these magazines, Sokolow began writing primarily in Hebrew

periodicals published in eastern Europe and in some Jewish (non-Hebrew) 6 Corrsin, Warsaw before the First World War, 70.

’ S. Feiner, “Toledot shel ha’itonut ha’ivrit’, Mada’ei hayahadut, 33 (Jerusalem, 1993), 101-5. 8 Sokolow, diary entry of 1876, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem (hereafter CZA), A18, Box 75 (uncatalogued). The entry is written in Polish. ° The youth magazines which were published in 1873 or perhaps even earlier were Divrei shalom ve emet and Hashoshanah. Copies of these ‘newspapers’ can be found in CZA, A18/770, 739 and Box

24 (uncatalogued). Some of this literary material was published in S. Rawidowicz, Sefer sokolov (Jerusalem, 1943), 3-21.

Fewish and Polish Fournalists in Warsaw 335 European periodicals. His earliest articles were published in Ha‘tvur1, Hakarmel, Hamelits, Hamabit, and Hatsefirah, the latter being the periodical in which he would hold a central position from 1880. His position at Hatsefirah was the first step in a long journey. In 1884, Sokolow

founded the hugely successful literary annual Ha’asif, and in 1886, under his direction, Hatsefirah was turned into a successful daily newspaper, to which Sokolow was appointed co-editor together with the founder and publisher, Hayim Zelig Slonimski.!° Thus in the mid-1880s Sokolow played an important role via these two periodicals in the process of turning Warsaw into a centre of Jewish pub-

lic life and literature in eastern Europe. In so doing, he become an important shaper of Jewish cultural attitudes and public opinion. However, Sokolow was not satisfied with writing for a Hebrew-reading audience alone. At the beginning of the 1880s he had already begun to develop a channel of communication with those Jews who did not read Hebrew—the circle of integrationists. For them, he wrote in Polish. Sokolow’s aim in writing in the foremost periodicals of the time was to influence several components of the multinational mosaic that Polish society had become at the end of the nineteenth century, in order to create an environment in which Jews could continue to develop their own evolving historical culture. ‘This was part of his ‘work at the foundations’ ideological programme, which was heavily influenced by the ideas of the Polish Positivists. Sokolow believed that ‘work at the foundations’ meant bringing all parts of Jewish society together in pursuit of

common national goals throughout this whole period. Further, he believed that Jews could and should have a national existence in the Diaspora. To accomplish this goal, the Jewish community would have to reform the rabbinate, synagogue, schools, and family structure, and to develop a modern Jewish national literature in Hebrew." Sokolow decided to write in Polish not only as an attempt to reach out to the Jewish integrationist circle, but also to look for ways to involve Polish society. In a

letter of 1886 written to Samuel Peltyn, editor of the Polish-language Jewish weekly /zraelita published in Warsaw, Sokolow explained the importance of writing in Polish about Jewish matters: Comments in Polish journals show that Polish publicists know nothing about Hebrew literature or the Hebrew press. When they hear about Hebrew literature every now and then, they think that the Talmud and the Shulhan arukh are being discussed. The Polish journalists never dreamed of the creation of a new Hebrew literature aimed at facilitating the enlightenment of the Jewish public and bringing it closer to its own culture. If these 10 More information about this development can be found in E. Bauer, ‘Hamerots aharei ha’iton ha ivri hayomi: keitsad hafakh “Hatsefirah” leyomon’, Kesher (Nov. 2002), 87—96.

1. The first time that Sokolow presented this programme was in his article ‘Vayehi or’, published in the first volume of Ha’asif'in 1884. In 1890 he introduced a similar programme in Polish, first in Izraehta and then as a book: N. Sokolow, Zadania inteligencyi zydowskiey: Szkic programu (Warsaw, 1890).

336 Ela Bauer journalists were aware that Hebrew periodicals discuss literature and benefit the country as a whole, they might be able to evaluate them differently. Did it occur to them that aside from literature, Hebrew periodicals address science and economics as well? A lack of conceptual clarity exists regarding this subject... An outstanding Polish novelist and journalist who wanted to get to know the Jews from all aspects has gone and learned Yiddish .. . What strange anomalies arise from not knowing how things are! While we Jews look upon Yiddish as foreign to us in spirit and know almost nothing about the existence of a Yiddish literature, a Polish publicist praises the creativity of the Yiddish muse... . In the light of this anomaly, I ask you to please explain in Polish, in your own publication, the difference between Yiddish ‘jargon’ and the Hebrew language, between books of fables in Yiddish and Hebrew literature. It would be a good idea to point out also that the Hebrew press, in so far as 1t works to safeguard the ideals of humanity and civilization as a whole, not only causes no harm but also actually serves us in the same manner as the general press. These journals educate their readers, and all enlightenment provides some benefit regardless of the language in which it is achieved. Please extricate the Polish reader from the mistaken understanding that Hebrew literature leads to separatism. On the contrary, progressive writers are the ones who are dealing with the new Hebrew literature, which condemns the negative aspects of Judaism. !”

As he wrote in his letter, Sokolow believed that it was his obligation to provide

accurate and useful information about Jewish society to those Poles who were interested in the Jewish question (sprawa zydowska or kwestia Zydowska). However,

in addition, he believed that writing in Polish about Jewish matters had another important purpose: not merely to provide accurate information to Poles about Jewish matters, but also to respond to new developments in Polish society regarding the Jewish question. He wanted to respond to the challenges that Polish society posed to the Jewish question and to comment on them. In order to spread his ideology and to promote dialogue with Polish society, in 1889 he began to write in Izraelita on a regular basis, whereas previously he had done so only occasionally. During the 18gos his position on the /zrae/ita editorial board became stronger. After the death of the founder and publisher in 1895, Sokolow became the editor of /zraelita. He continued writing for the periodical until the beginning of the twentieth century. As mentioned earlier, /zraelita was one of the limited sources in which most Poles could learn about Jewish society. One of these readers was the leading Polish writer and journalist of the day, Aleksander Gltowacki, who was widely known by his pen name—Bolestaw Prus. Prus, like many other leading intellectuals of

his generation, was a graduate of the Warsaw Main School (Szkola Glowna Warszawska). As a young man, he participated in the Uprising of 1863, where he was injured by a shell and badly burned. In 1874 he began working as a journalist at Kurier Warszawski, where he wrote his column ‘Kroniki tygodniowe’ (Weekly Chronicles). After ten years of writing in Kurier Warszamski Prus turned to Kurier 12 Sokolow to Samuel H. Peltyn, 1886, CZA, A18, Box 1 (uncatalogued). The letter is written in Polish.

Jewish and Polish Journalists in Warsaw 337 Codzienny. There he continued to write the column that made him so famous. Prus, however, is known not only for his journalism. He is also considered one of the greatest novelists of the late nineteenth century, as well as the most distinguished and representative writer of the epoch of Polish Positivism. It is well known that his fiction, in addition to his journalism, provides a true panorama of nineteenth-century Poland and an understanding of its social setting.'* In his various writings, Prus was primarily concerned with social and cultural progress. For Sokolow, Prus served as a role model. Many of the goals that Prus promoted were mentioned in Sokolow’s articles. For example, in 1890, when Prus began to write about the issues of public hygiene, civil behaviour, and the manners of Polish society, Sokolow followed suit, calling frequent attention to these matters in his columns: the Hebrew column entitled ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el’ (The Observer of the House of Israel), which was published nearly every day in Hatsefirah, and the Polish column ‘Za tydzien’ (In a Week), which was published weekly. '* Not only did Sokolow follow Prus in his writing and choice of topics, it appears that these two journalists even worked in similar ways. In his diary, Sokolow wrote that in addition to being careful of the censor, he had to remember to take a note-

book with him wherever he went and to write in it everything that was worth remembering. Furthermore, he wrote: ‘I have to remember to write everything I see. To read newspapers every day, and whenever I have some time, I have to try to learn French, Italian, English, Greek, mathematics, Bible, and Talmud.’?? Just like Sokolow, Prus too believed that as a journalist he must constantly be aware of and respond to reality—he must see and take note of everything: ‘buildings, squares, streets lacking sidewalks, dykes, bridges . . . to observe all: meat markets, museums, theatres . .. He must read the entirety of all journalistic reports and write about all the issues he saw in his weekly column.’'® In fact, it might even be that the inspiration for the ‘instructions’ that Sokolow wrote in his diary came from Prus himself, who had already mentioned these ‘instructions’ in his weekly column in 1875.'" Although Sokolow did not hide his admiration for Prus’s style of writing, when

Prus, like others in the circle of Positivism, changed his opinions regarding the Jewish question in the late 1880s, Sokolow—like other Jewish journalists—did not ‘3 For more details about Prus and his literary work (in English), see, among others, O. SchererVirski, The Modern Polish Short Story (The Hague, 1955) and M. Kridl, A Survey of Polish Literature and Culture (New York, 1956).

4 See e.g. Hatsefirah, 17/29 Jan. 1890 (Sokolow, ‘Teshuvah lasofer’); 1/14 Apr. 1890 (id., ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el’); 4/16-7/19 May 1890 (id., ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el’); g/21 May 1890 (id., ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el’); 22 Aug./3 Sept. 1890 (id., ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el’) ; 23 Aug./4 Sept. 1890 (id., ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el’); 5/17 Sept. 1890 (id., ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el). In /zraelita, see 27 July/8 Aug. 1890 (Sokolow, ‘Na rozdrozu’). 2 Sokolow diary, undated, CZA, A18, Box 75 (uncatalogued). 8 B. Prus, Kroniki: Wybér, 1: 1875-1900, ed. S. Fita (Warsaw, 1987), 9. '” According to Stanislaus Blejwas, Realism in Polish Politics, 252, Prus wrote ‘these instructions’ in Niwa as early as 1875.

338 Ela Bauer ignore the change. It seems that the turning point regarding Prus’s attitude came in 1887-8, when his revised attitude can clearly be identified in a series of articles that he published against Baron Moritz de Hirsch’s financial contributions to the Jews of Galicia. In 1888, in honour of the fortieth anniversary of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef, a foundation with 12 million kronen in capital was established for the promotion of productive labour among the Jews of Galicia by Baron Moritz de Hirsch, a prominent Jewish banker, railway magnate, and philanthropist, following the recommendation of the chief rabbi of Vienna, Adolf Jelinek.1® Hirsch’s plan drew the attention of both Jewish and Polish journalists. Sokolow was openly supportive of Hirsch’s activity.1? In his articles about Hirsch, Sokolow distinguished favourably between the magnate’s philanthropic activity on the one hand and the activity of other Jewish philanthropists on the other.2° He even tried to encourage Hirsch to act on behalf of the Jews of Warsaw. We know that Sokolow wrote to Aaron Kaminka, a colleague in Paris, asking him to use his connections with Hirsch to find out if the Baron would be interested in helping the Jews of Warsaw, in addition to his help for the Jews of Galicia. In his reply to Sokolow, Kaminka wrote that Hirsch did not understand the urgency of activity on behalf of the Hebrew language and literature, or for other activities that were connected with the spiritual heritage of the Jewish people. Hirsch, wrote Kaminka, was interested in activity on behalf of the Jews in order to improve them as human beings. It was for this reason that he wanted his money to be used for elementary schools and occupational training, so as to help Jews escape from the illiteracy and ignorance from which they supposedly suffered. Hirsch was interested in giving impoverished Jews the tools necessary for them to make a living on their own.** Prus, however, did not share Sokolow’s opinion with regard to Hirsch and his

foundation. This was surprising, because in 1887, in the first article in which he referred to the condition of the Jews of Galicia, Prus wrote: To the urgent problems [in Galicia] belongs the Jewish problem. . . . ‘The Jew 1s a stranger in his country because he does not have roots in the ground. In Galicia they tried to solve this 18 §. Adler Rudel, ‘Baron Moritz de Hirsch’, Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 8 (1963), 40. 19 See Hatsefirah, 13/25 Jan. 1888 (Sokolow, ‘Habaron de hirsh’); Hatsefirah, 27 Feb./11 Mar. 1889 (id., ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el’); Hatsefirah, 10/22 Nov. 1889 (id., ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el’). 20 The activity of Hirsch in Galicia fitted Sokolow’s conception of public activity on behalf of the Jewish people and should be measured by the value it had for the majority of the Jewish nation. By supporting Hirsch’s project in Galicia, Sokolow, in an indirect way, expressed his stance against the activity of Baron Edmond de Rothschild in Palestine, which he thought would benefit only a small number of Jews. See D. Gutwein, ‘Hertsel vehama’avak’, 7szyon, 61 (1997), 47—74. It 1s interesting to note that in his article Gutwein points out the similarity between Hirsch’s scheme and Herzl’s later

Zionist programme, because in one of his articles in /zraelita Sokolow also claimed that Herzl’s attempt to summon a congress of Jews from throughout the world borrowed elements of Hirsch’s ideas. [zraelita, 13/25 June 1897 (Sokolow, ‘Za wiele halasu o nic’). 21 See A. Kaminka (Paris) to Sokolow, n.d. [1888], CZA, A18/620.

Fewish and Polish fournalists in Warsaw 339 problem not in the parliament or in any local organization. A Jewish organization in Paris decided to educate Jews for agricultural life. ... After they finish their training, the Jews will get land and an allowance, and will start to work on their farms. This Jewish organization allocated a nice sum of money... This way [of thinking] can create an important movement among the Jewish population in Galicia. Any new farmer, if he would succeed, would attract several others from his people in Galicia. It will reduce the distress and would increase the gap between the Jews and other populations in Galicia. We should examine this example and follow it... . Many generations will pass until certain Polish organizations will provide land and money to their brothers who are spread all over the world.”

Despite this position, however, when Prus responded to news of the establishment of Hirsch’s foundation, he raised strong objections to the possibility that the Jews of Galicia might become farmers and manual labourers. It is true that he did not hide his appreciation of Hirsch, since he regarded him as an example of what wealthy individuals could do on behalf of their people. But Prus rejected the idea of only helping the Jews while ignoring the Poles and the Ukrainians (Ruthenians). He wrote that the Jews already dominated the fields of commerce and finance, and pondered why they would want to expand into other fields as well.”

Prus was not the only non-Jewish journalist who reacted to the initiative of Hirsch in Galicia. Sfowo, a newspaper known for its hostility towards Jews, also discussed Hirsch’s donation. Reacting to an article that was published in a German newspaper, S/owo accused the Alliance Israélite Universelle of publishing a manifesto that called upon the Jews of Galicia to take over the whole country. ‘The

German newspaper eventually denied the news, but Sfowo did not retract its report. Prus read the story in S/owo about the forged manifesto and even referred

to it in his column. He knew that the whole story about the Alliance Israelite Universelle manifesto was false. Nevertheless, he used this affair in order to warn his readers about other societal ills, rather than addressing the issue of Stowo’s perpetuation of the falsehood. Prus went even further in his article. He found fault with /zraelita and criticized its editor for the way [zraelita reacted to Slowo: Izraelita itself is responsible for the questionable behaviour of Stfowo; their evidence is quite weak. If I were in their place, I would act differently .. . There is nothing new in the manifesto of Alliance Israélite Universelle. It is only an unsuccessful attempt to define what happened in reality. Even before Alliance Israélite Universelle was established, the Jews tried to take control of commerce in Galicia. They tried to control the capital and to raise it with significant interest. They tried to buy farms and agricultural properties. What else could this manifesto offer to the Jews? Nothing . . . the members of Alliance Israélite Universelle do not have to give any instruction to their brothers ... why do they need a manifesto? They already talk for themselves.”4 22 Kurier Warszawski, 16 May 1887, in B. Prus, Kroniki, ed. Z. Szweykowski, 20 vols. (Warsaw, 1953-70), iX. 137-40. 23° Kurier Codzienny, 5 Apr. 1888, in Prus, Kroniki, ed. Szweykowski, xi. 103-10; 15 July 1888, ibid. 191-200; 2 Dec. 1888, ibid. 247-54; 18 Dec. 1888, ibid. 259—64. 24 Kurier Codzienny, 21 Oct. 1889, in Prus, Kroniki, ed. Szweykowski, xii. 69-75.

340 Ela Bauer In later articles on the same subject, Prus continued to state his belief that the relative position of the Jews in Galicia’s economy would change as a result of the financial contributions of Hirsch, which in turn would impact on the whole social balance of the region. Prus did not object to the activity of this Jewish philanthropist as such, but he rejected any activities whose results would be achieved at the expense of other ethnic groups within the Galician population. ‘The whole affair reminded him of guests who came for a visit, and then threatened to take their hosts’ beds. Still, despite all these accusations, Prus did not define himself as antisemitic, since, as he wrote, all he wanted to do was to warn the majority in Galicia about the implications of the proposed Hirsch foundation.”° Sokolow could not hide his great disappointment at the new position taken by Prus. It is true that when Prus first announced his objection to Hirsch’s proposal, Sokolow wrote an article suggesting that perhaps the Jews of Galicia should examine the accusations against them.*° But he did not hold this position for very long. He soon came to the conclusion that Prus’s arguments were proof that despite the Polish writer’s tolerant positions of previous years, he no longer viewed the Jews of Galicia or of Poland as an integral part of general society. Sokolow expressed his disagreement with Prus very sharply: “The package has come undone’ (meaning that the historic partnership between Poles and Jews was being dismantled).*’ In another article, he used a traditional Jewish expression to describe Prus’s turnaround: ‘the starling joined the crow’.2® The meaning of this traditional expression was understood by most of Hatsefirah’s readers: Prus had joined the Polish antisemites, and in so doing had exposed his true face. By using that particular expression, Sokolow implied that Prus was no different from all the other Poles who took antisemitic positions. At least that was the way Sokolow expressed his opinion in Hebrew. In /zraelita, his views about Prus were expressed in a more moderate fashion. In a detailed article, he wrote that Prus misunderstood Hirsch’s intention. He argued that he was wrong when measuring the implication of the Hirsch foundation on the whole population of Galicia. Sokolow believed that it was important to encourage the

activity of Hirsch’s foundation without taking into consideration the relative weight of the Jews in the general Galician population. The project was a positive initiative because it would make more Jewish people more productive, and therefore it should continue. On the other hand, Prus’s fear that there would soon be too many Jewish peasants and labourers in Galicia was misplaced. Sokolow then went on to consider the more general change in Prus’s attitude towards the Jewish question. He did not accept Prus’s distinction between the Jewish problem and other 25 Kurier Codzienny, 27 Oct. 1889, ibid. 75-81. 26 Hatsefirah, 27 Oct./8 Nov. 1889 (Sokolow, ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el’). 2” Hatsefirah, 30 Oct./10 Nov. 1889 (Sokolow, ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el’). 28 Hatsefirah, 10/22 Nov. 1889 (Sokolow, ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el’). The expression—found in the Babylonian Talmud (Bava kama)—is similar to the English ‘birds of a feather flock together’.

Jewish and Polish Journalists in Warsaw 341 social problems. Sokolow continued to believe that the Jewish problem should be treated through the same approach used to treat other social problems. Likewise, he felt that the criticism that was heard against the Jews should not be expressed differently from any other social criticism.*° Undoubtedly, the difference in Sokolow’s tone between his replies to Prus in Hebrew and in Polish was due partly to the fact that he knew Prus read /zraelita. In addition, Sokolow himself acknowledged the need to write differently in Polish to how he wrote in Hebrew. In Polish, he argued with Prus particularly about the essence of Hirsch’s contribution to the Jews in Galicia. When writing about Prus in Hebrew, Sokolow first had to inform his readers—most of whom did not read Prus—about the public debates that took place in Polish society. After a while, however, Sokolow’s writing in Polish began to change. It ceased to

focus narrowly on the issue of the Hirsch foundation in Galicia. His writing started to reflect his more general tendency to try to engage the Polish Positivist intelligentsia in a dialogue without alienating it. It seems that 1t was important to Sokolow to clarify that his own views about the Jewish question in Poland had

not changed despite the noticeable alteration in the views of Prus and other Polish journalists. Despite the change on the Polish side, Sokolow continued to believe that the Jewish people could become an equal part of Polish society, but that their membership in Polish society should not damage their national selfdefinition.°° Hence, as a result of the disagreement between Sokolow and Prus about the

Hirsch foundation, a new direction in Sokolow’s thought developed. Prus’s attitude to the Hirsch foundation became a stimulus that motivated Sokolow to formulate his thoughts about the role of the modern Jewish intelligentsia in Jewish national life more clearly. As part of the discussion about the Hirsch foundation in the framework of the Jewish question, Prus had raised the general issue of the relationship between the intelligentsia and society as a whole.*! Using general terms, Sokolow gave a standard Positivist answer: he suggested supporting industry and workshops in a way that would lead to the productiviza-

tion of the masses. But in the light of Prus’s reaction to the Hirsch project, Sokolow could not let it be assumed that he, Sokolow, thought that the Jewish readers did not understand him in this way. According to an interpretation put for-

ward in /zraelita, Prus thought it necessary to draw a distinction between the Jewish intelligentsia and the Polish intelligentsia. He demanded that the Jewish intelligentsia not take part in the activities of Polish society, but rather limit itself only to activities aimed at raising the social level of the Jewish masses.®” The writer of the [zraelta article indicated that this argument required an extensive response.

At the end of the article he wrote: “The duty of the intelligentsia as a class 1s to

29 [zraelita, 1/13 Dec. 1889 (Sokolow, ‘Po wyroku’). 30 Tbid. 31 Kurier Codzienny, 2 Dec. 1889, in Prus, Kroniki, ed. Szweykowski, xi. 247-54. 32 Tzraelita, 8/20 Dec. 1889 (anon., ‘Prus i inteligencja zydowska’).

342 Ela Bauer illuminate the darkness of the Jewish masses. This is not the place to discuss this question, but the question is in search of a solution.’*°

The article in /zraelita was not signed, so there is no way to be sure that Sokolow wrote it. But during the next months he responded to the challenge that /zraelita had found in Prus’s arguments by means of a major series of articles collectively entitled ‘Zadania inteligencji zydowskiej’ (The ‘Tasks of the Jewish Intelligentsia). This series of articles, which first appeared three months after the publication of the /zraelita article about Prus and the Jewish intelligentsia, formed the basis of Sokolow’s book of the same name, which appeared later in 1890.4 In these articles and his book, Sokolow again took his lead from the attitude of the Polish Positivists towards the intelligentsia as a class. In Poland, social and political conditions imposed significant social duties on the east European intelligentsia, which were based upon the fundamental belief that the intelligentsia was responsible for national cultural leadership.*° There were at least two societies in eastern Europe where the intelligentsia had such a function: Russia and Poland. In both Russian and Polish societies, the intelligentsia reached high levels of importance and achieved a great deal for their respective societies. However, the intelligentsia in different east European societies did not necessarily act in the same manner. The Polish intelligentsia (like the Jewish intelligentsia in Warsaw and other parts of the Russian Empire) represented subject minorities in a state not their own. Theirs was a status that cut across class lines. The attitudes of members of their respective intelligentsia towards what constituted ‘working on society’s behalf’ was thus likely to be different from that of the intelligentsia which functioned exclusively in the Russian language. Most members of the Polish intelligentsia defined their mission as bringing about the liberation of the Polish people, in all of its social strata, from what they regarded as an oppressive Russian regime; their orientation was more nationalistic in nature and

less directed towards any particular social class. :

Sokolow, who was aware of the Polish concept of the intelligentsia, tried to develop his own model for a specifically Polish Jewish intelligentsia. His model rejected the view that a focus on Jewish nationalism necessarily constituted an expression of Jewish hostility towards the Polish nation. Sokolow imposed important tasks on the Jewish intelligentsia in Warsaw, as a living exemplar of his idea, through various articles he wrote, in accordance with ideas he had adopted from contemporary Polish intellectual currents.°° However, in the series of articles 33 Tzraelita, 8/20 Dec. 1889 (anon., ‘Prus i inteligencja zydowska’). 34 Sokolow, Zadania inteligencyt &ydowsktie).

35 PS. Wandycz, The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 1795-1918 (Seattle, 1974), 261. 36 See e.g. Hatsefirah, 6/18 Aug. 1885 (Sokolow, ‘Hatsofeh leveit yisra’el’); Ha’asif, 3 (1886), 448-60

(id., ‘Hamitspeh’); Hatsefirah, 14/26 Juiy 1887 (id., ‘Hisaron lehimanut’); [zraelita, 10/22-17/29 Oct. 1880 (id., ‘Gospodarstwo rabinéw: Szkice z prowincji’); [zraelita, 29 July/1o Aug. 1888 (id., ‘Chedery’).

Jewish and Polish fournalists in Warsaw 343 collectively entitled ‘Zadania inteligencji zydowskiej’, he was inspired not only by the ideas of Polish Positivism but also by the changes that had occurred in its orien-

tation at the end of the 1880s: after almost three decades of activity, Polish Positivism had failed to produce any concrete political results. The political descendants of the Positivists thus began to give their ideas a more populist bent, seeking to appeal to the masses and to form a mass national political movement.®’ Sokolow related the change in Positivism, and in Prus in particular, to changes in attitudes to the Jewish question. Although not mentioning Prus specifically by name, Sokolow began his articles by referring to the change that he had recently perceived among Polish Positivist intellectuals regarding the Jewish question. ‘In the latest period,’ he wrote, ‘after several years of extensive and noble work whose purpose was to... erase the remnants of the Middle Ages, all of a sudden our nation has turned into a problem again.’°° This observation indicates that Sokolow saw Polish society’s negative attitude towards Polish Jewry as something of recent origin. He must still have held out hope that the attitude of the Polish intelligentsia could be changed for the better. It may even be that this was another reason that he published his manifesto in the form of a book addressed to the integrationist Jewish intelligentsia in Polish, so that it might be widely read in Polish circles as well.

In Zadania Sokolow focused on five areas in which the Jewish intelligentsia should increase their involvement: the role of rabbis in Jewish life, the intelligentsia as communal leaders, education, the issue of heders, and popular Jewish literature.°? Hence, in Zadania Sokolow not only followed the lead of the Polish Positivists with regard to the intelligentsia as a class, he also used this series to propose a clear definition of the obligation of the progressive circle’s Jewish intelligentsia towards the Jewish people as a whole. For a long time following the publication of Zadania, Sokolow ceased to write about the obligation of the Jewish intelligentsia to their people. In fact, he returned to the subject only after the first Zionist Congress in August 1897.*° However,

Prus and his new attitude towards the Jewish question did continue to occupy Sokolow. In an article of 1891 in Hatsefirah, Sokolow indicated that in the years 1889-90 Prus had changed from a friend into an enemy.*! Nevertheless, it seems that he continued to look upon Prus as a literary role model even after Prus’s attitude towards the Jewish question changed. He continued to follow Prus’s literary style. In both Hatsefirah and [zraelita, the periodicals which Sokolow was involved in editing, Prus was highly respected for his contributions as a journalist.*” 37 Wandycz, The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 275-7. 38 Sokolow, Zadania inteligencji zydowskie), 1. 39 For more about this essay, see Bauer, Between Poles and Jews, 80-109. 40 See e.g. [zraelita, 22 Aug./3 Sept. 1897 (Sokolow, ‘Korzysci moralne’, IT). 41 Hatsefirah, 29 Feb./12 Mar. 1891 (Sokolow, ‘Inyanei deyoma’).

42 See Hatsefirah, 7/19 Jan., 8/ 20 Jan. 1897 (Rakowski, ‘Bolestaw Prus’); [zraelita, 28 Mar./g Apr., 2/14 May 1897 (anon., ‘Prus i Zydzi’).

344 Ela Bauer Ironically, though, it does not seem that Prus’s change of attitude caused Sokolow to rethink Prus’s basic ideological stance. This fact is highly significant, because during the 1890s Prus was moving towards the belief that Jewish nationalism was a better solution to the Jewish question than assimilation. ‘This does not mean, however, that he thought the Jews could exist in Poland as a Jewish nation. In 1892 he clarified his position regarding the Jewish question and touched on this point. Prus admitted that the concept of assimilation was no longer practical, but he also suggested that the Jewish people could exist as a nation only if they were to have certain conditions

that did not exist in Poland.*’ After the Jewish journalist from Vienna, Theodor Herzl, wrote his pamphlet Der Judenstaat in 1896, which suggested that Jews should leave Europe for an overseas territory in which they could create a state of their own, Prus and other Polish journalists at first rejected the idea. However, in 1897, when the first Zionist Congress convened in Basle, some of these journalists—including Prus—changed their minds.** In an article that presented the reasons for his decision to support the Zionist movement, Prus made two primary arguments. ‘The first was that after the Jews left Poland, trade and commerce would pass exclusively into the hands of Christians. The second argument defended the Jews’ right to fulfil their national ambitions and to return to their historic homeland.*° Prus’s support of the national rights of the Jews demonstrated the radical change that he had undergone with regard to his views on the Jewish question. From a devotee of the idea of the full integration of Jews into Polish society during the 1880s, by the end of the 1890s Prus had come to reject this idea entirely. Sokolow, on the other hand, remained a believer in integration, even though he

did not see any contradiction between this position and defining the Jews as a nation. He continued to hold this position even after Der Judenstaat appeared, calling Herzl’s pamphlet ‘harmless utopia’.*° But despite his objections to Herzl’s

book, he did not look kindly upon its rejection by various Polish journalists, including Prus at first. In fact, he attacked Prus especially severely, saying that his position only showed how ignorant he was of Jewish affairs.*’ However, when Prus

announced his support for the national rights of the Jews, Sokolow remained unhappy. He felt that Prus and the other Polish journalists who were now support-

ing the Zionist movement were not motivated by the right reasons, and that what they wanted was simply to drive the Jews out of Poland. For his part, Sokolow wanted to believe that even if Jews accepted Zionism, they could continue to consider themselves an integral part of Polish society.*® 43° Kurier Codzienny, no. 141, 22 May 1897 in Prus, Kroniki, ed. Szweykowski, xiii. 215-16.

44 For a description of the attitudes towards Zionism and the Zionist Congress expressed in Polish periodicals, see Hatsefirah, 31 Oct./12 Nov. and 18/30 Nov. 1897 (anon., ‘Divrei soferim’). 4° Kurier Codzienny, no. 309, Oct. 1987, quoted in Hatsefirah, 31 Oct./12 Nov. 1897. 46 Hatsefirah, 8/20 Oct. 1896 (Sokolow, ‘Halo mesahek ani’). 47 Tzraelita, 25 Oct./16 Nov. 1896 (Sokolow, ‘Nasze stanowisko’). 48 Hatsefirah, 26 Oct./7 Nov. 1897 (Sokolow, ‘Regesh le’umi’); [zraelita, 21 Nov./3 Dec. 1897 (id., ‘Podstawy obywatelstwa’).

Jewish and Polish Journalists in Warsaw 345 However, by the beginning of twentieth century, it was quite clear that the idea

of Jewish integration into Polish society was not receiving the same approval among Polish intellectual circles as it had in earlier decades. This situation placed Sokolow in a dilemma. He was aware of the decline in relations between Jews and Poles, but he could not agree with the accusations of those who blamed the Jews for attempting to detach Poland from its Polish character. ‘Therefore, he asked the Jews in Poland to continue to demonstrate their sense of obligation to the place where they lived. He did not cease to believe that the Jews as a nation would be able to find a way to contribute to Polish culture. He hoped that the Jews and other ethnic groups in Poland would be able to create a culture that would express the various outlooks and traditions of all the minorities that lived on Polish lands.*” At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, this was a position that was becoming harder and harder to maintain. Sokolow had to rethink his position. Part of this rethinking involved moderating his attitude towards Prus. In 1902 Sokolow wrote that the debate between him and Prus had been an attempt by both of them to offer simple solutions to a complicated problem. He even admitted that Prus was not antisemitic.° However, despite Sokolow’s attempt to conclude the long and complicated connection between him and Prus with a simple remark, it appears that the debate between these two distinguished journalists was not simple at all. It was a dialogue with many layers. We do not know if this dialogue limited itself only to the pages of the press or whether it overflowed into other channels. However, even if this dialogue was limited only to paper exchanges, its influence spread beyond the published sheets of paper. The messages written by these journalists were passed to their readers, and influenced the public’s views and the central political and social positions of Jews and Poles in Warsaw and beyond. 49 He continued to hold these feelings even in the 1930s, when Polish—Jewish relations had deterior-

ated far beyond their level at the turn of the century. His diaries from 1931 and 1932 mention that even though he had not lived in Poland for years, he continued to participate in the Polish national celebration of 3 May. CZA, A18/560, 561. °° Hatsefirah, 28 Jan./12 Feb. 1902 (Sokolow, ‘Mah ho’ilu hakhamim betakanatam’).

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy The Women of the Mizraht Movement in Poland, 1916-1939 ASAF KANIEL THE MIZRAHI in Poland, as an Orthodox Zionist movement, experienced constant tension between the trends of modernization and acculturation on the one hand, and conservative trends on the other.t One of the main areas in which this tension was expressed was the question of the place and status of women in the ranks of the movement. This issue also preoccupied other nationalist movements that had to deal with the role of women and with formulating a policy on the extent of their involvement in political and public life. ‘These questions, which are arousing great interest in the study of feminism and of nationalism, have received almost no attention in the study of the history of Zionism in eastern Europe.” In this essay I will examine the ideological approach of the Mizrahi on these subjects, and the way in which its policy was implemented.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MIZRAHI WOMEN’S ORGANIZATION When the Mizrahi was first organized in Poland (1916), its leadership called for

the establishment of associations for Orthodox women who identified with This article 1s a revised and condensed version of material that appears in my Toledot tenuat hamizraht befolin, 1919-1939 (forthcoming from Bar Ilan University Press). 1 On the Mizrahi, see e.g. A. Kaniel, ‘Hamizrahi befolin bein shetei milhamot ha’olam’ (Ph.D. thesis, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 2003); Y. Elihayi, 7enuat hamizrahi befolin hakongresayit, 1919-1926 (Tel Aviv, 1993); Y. Elihayi, Hamizrahi utenuat torah va’avodah befolin, 1925-1939 (Jerusalem, 2001).

2 On gender and nationalism, see, among others, G. L. Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality (New York, 1985); J. Nagel, ‘Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21 (1998), 242-69; N. Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation (London, 1997). On women in the Zionist movement in Poland, see N. Zayidin, ‘Hahaverah bitenuot hano’ar

hatsiyoniyot befolin bein shete1 milhamot ha’olam’ (Ph.D. thesis, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, 2000). |

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy 347 Zionism. In order to bring them into the movement, it was decided to conduct a special public relations campaign among them and to publish party literature for them in Yiddish.* Although at this stage no real steps seem to have been taken to promote this goal, a number of women’s associations, called Benot Tstyon and Ozrot Ha’arets, were identified with the Mizrahi.* At the second convention of the movement—in which women participated—the leaders decided to allow the establishment of a women’s association that would belong to the Mizrahi and would operate according to the instructions of its leadership, in co-ordination with the men’s associations. In addition, they decided that with the expansion of this activity, they would appoint district committees composed of women, who would be responsible for running their associations. The implementation of the decisions was supposed to lead to the establishment of two parallel systems, one for men and one for women, which would operate under one party umbrella.” It was clear to both the men and the women that their activity would be conducted under separate establishments, since “The tent of the daughter of Zion should be hedged with roses, and should adopt the characteristic of the tents of Shem: men and women should be separate.’©

After this convention, a number of women’s associations were organized, the most prominent among them in Warsaw and in Czestochowa.’ At the same time, the movement decided to establish a ‘women’s office’, which would encourage party activity among the women.® The activity of the women’s associations included organizing evening classes in Hebrew, Judaism, and English, holding Zionist information evenings, collecting money for the Jewish National Fund, and organizing parties for the holidays.° In addition, the women were involved in social work, such as helping poor children and caring for Jewish soldiers, and they also tried to organize courses in professional training for young women, in preparation for their emigration to Palestine.‘° But according to members of the Mizrahi, the number of women’s organizations was not large, and the success of their activity was limited, as we learn from the sparse attendance at the first convention of the Mizrahi Women’s Organization in 1921, which was attended by representatives from only nine cities.** ° Hatsefirah, 9 May 1918, p. 15; Der ruf fun mizrahi tsum yidishen folk (Warsaw, 1918), 8-9. 4 Hamizrahi, 13 Feb. 1919, p. 9; 5 May 1919, pp. 10-11; 25 Apr. 1919, pp. 8-11. ° Hamizrahi, 25 May 1919, p. 11. & Ma hu hamizrahi (Warsaw, 1916), 5; Vos vel der mizrahi (Warsaw, 1916), 6-7. The joint activity of women and men at the Zionist meetings was mentioned by the founders of the Mizrahi (1902) as one

of the factors responsible for the fact that the Jews did not enthusiastically embrace Zionism; see E. Luz, Parallels Meet (Philadelphia, 1988), 232-3. " Hamizrahi, 24 June 1920, pp. 10-11; 19 Jan. 1922, p. 9. 8 Hamizrahi, 24 Mar. 1921, pp. 1-4. 2 Haynt, 21 Mar. 1920, p. 6; Hamizrahi, 10 June 1920, p. 10, and 19 Jan. 1922, p. 9. 10 Hamizrahi, 5 Aug. 1920, p. 11; 4 Aug. 1921, Yidishe baylage, p. 4; 7 July 1921, pp. 1-2. 11 Y. Nissenbaum, Hamizrahi, 12 Jan. 1922, p. 2; 16 June 1921, p. 7.

348 Asaf Kaniel THE DEBATE ON THE ACTIVITY AND RIGHTS OF WOMEN The establishment of the women’s organization and its associations deviated from

the accepted behavioural norms in traditional society in eastern Europe, which frowned on the public organization of women and discouraged them from getting involved in political activity.'* However, the truth seems to be that the leaders of the Mizrahi did not consider the associations to be clearly political, and their main purpose was to exploit the traditional role of women as mothers and educators in order to promote the ideals of the movement. They claimed that the activity in the women’s associations would lead to strengthening the women’s identification with religion and with Zionist ideology: ‘In order to raise our children to Torah and to good deeds and to implant in their young hearts the love of Zion and the hope of returning there.’!° The image and the role of the Orthodox Zionist woman as portrayed in this vision are not far from the image of the Jewish woman in traditional society. They are also similar to the image of the woman in the European nationalist movements, which wanted to preserve her traditional roles and to strengthen her image as a mother and as the educator of her children.'* It was in this spirit that Rabbi Yehuda Leib Zlotnik determined that a woman has an influence on shaping the spirit of the nation, but he limited this influence to her role within her family, while the ‘revival of the Jewish spirit’ and the redemption of the land had to be carried out by men. It seems that his request to allow women to participate in collecting money for the national funds was likewise not an attempt to include them in practical political activity, but suited the accepted patterns of women’s participation in charitable and welfare activity.'° The propaganda addressed to women also focused on the use of

traditional motifs, asking the women to practise the same righteousness that enabled the Jews to be liberated from Egypt, and appealing to them: ‘Don’t make Mother Rachel and Mother Zion ashamed of you, their daughters!’*° 2 On the attitude of traditional Jewish society in eastern and central Europe to political activity by women, see D. S. Bernstein, ‘Introduction’, in ead. (ed.), Pioneers and Homekeepers (New York, 1992), 2-3; P. Hyman, Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History (Seattle, 1995), 77-02. 13 Vos vel der mizrahi, 7. See also Y. M. Zlotnik, Kikar vasefer mekorakhim (Warsaw, 1917), 14-15; Y. L. Groybart, Vi azoy broyikh organizirt veren unzer shulvezen (Warsaw, 1920), 9-10. 14 On the place and the image of the woman in the nationalist movements in Europe, see above, n. 2. On the complex image of the woman in the vision and activity of the Polish nationalist movement, see the references in B. A. Nowak, ‘Women in Poland: Society, Education, Politics and Culture’, Journal of Women’s History, 13 (2001), 196-208; A. Graham and J. Regulska, ‘Expanding Political Space for Women in Poland’, Communist and Post Communist Studies, 30/1 (1997), 65. 15 Y. L. Zlotnik (1887-1962), the rabbi of Gumbin. Y. L. Zlotnik, Far verter tsu di yidishe froyen un yidishe tekhter (Warsaw, 1918), 4-6. On voluntary welfare activity as an outlet that was also accepted by Polish women’s political organizations, see G. Chimiak, ‘Bulgarian and Polish Women in the Public Sphere’, [nternational Feminist Journal of Politics, 5/1 (2003), 4—5.

*6 Ziotnik, Far verter, 8-12. During that year a Zionist women’s movement began that dealt with social issues and aimed for equal rights, so that these questions were not entirely foreign to the public

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy 349 However, in the light of the similarity of the activity in the women’s associations and those of the men—which were also involved in organizing lessons and propaganda meetings, welfare activity, and fundraising—we should not underestimate the social significance of establishing women’s associations, which created equality in the way men and women participated in Mizrahi activity. ‘’

At a time when women’s membership in the movement did not arouse any significant opposition, their right to choose representatives to its institutions and to be elected to them was a matter of sharp controversy.'® This issue, which was

discussed in the Mizrahi newspapers and at its convention during the years Ig19Q—21, was related to the question of the women’s right to vote for the Jewish communities, and, for the most part, similar arguments were used in both cases. In the background there was also the controversy regarding the right of women to

vote for the national institutions in Palestine, which divided the Yishuv and also crossed the lines of the Mizrahi.!° The right of women to vote for the institutions of the movement was generally not in question, and those who favoured it relied also on the instructions of the Polish hasidic leaders, who allowed women to participate in elections to the Sejm. The tactical claim that giving equal rights to women in the ranks of the Mizrahi was liable to distance the Orthodox camp that opposed the idea was rejected by

Rabbi Yitshak Nissenbaum, who said that they could not ignore ethical and national considerations because of party interests.2° Arguments to the effect that women should be denied the vote because of their lack of emotional stability, expressed in their changing moods during pregnancy and nursing and in the frequency of cases of hysteria among them, were not very successful.*? atmosphere at the time; Hyman, Gender and Assimilation, 83-92. Therefore, using only traditional motifs—which apparently was meant to attract the women—can also indicate a lack of motivation to promote substantial changes in the involvement of women in public life.

17 Hamizrahi, 14 July 1921, Yidishe baylage, p. 4. On the activity of the Mizrahi and Tse’irei Mizrahi associations, see Kaniel, ‘Hamizrahi’, 26-8, 64-9. This situation deviates from the usual pattern, in which women tend to belong to local organizations that are involved with community issues, while men are active in large frameworks that deal with general issues. See L. Rosenberg, ‘Nashim .

umigdar batsiyonut hadatit: irgun, hityashvut ubitahon, 1918-1948’ (Ph.D. thesis, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 2002), 41. ‘8 The right to vote in elections to the Sejm was granted to women in Poland in 1918, after a struggle waged by women’s organizations. See M. Fuszara, ‘Women’s Movements in Poland’, in J. W. Scott, C. Kaplan, and D. Keates (eds.), Transitions, Environments, Translations (London, 1997), 128-9.

‘9 For an additional discussion of this issue, see Z. Buzits-Hertsig, ‘Hapulmus al zekhut behirah lanashim lemosdot hayishuv bereshit tekufat hamandat’ (MA thesis, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan,

1990), 17—22. For the debate about the right of women to vote in the communities, see Kaniel, ‘Hamizrahr’, 236.

2° Rabbi Nissenbaum (1864-1942), a member of the Hovevei Tsiyon movement, president of the Mizrahi in Poland; see Y. Nissenbaum, Hamizrahi, 14 May 1919, pp. 31-3. 21 This claim was raised in connection with voting for the national institutions, and continued to be raised for a long time afterwards; see A. Likhtefeld, Yidishe leben, 9 July 1925. For the reply see Yidishe leben, 6 Aug. 1925, p. 4.

350 Asaf Kaniel There were other voices opposed to the granting of a passive right to vote (the

right to be elected), but apparently they did not win the support of most of the participants in the party conventions. Rabbi Yitshak Y. ‘Trunk claimed that the

election of women to the institutions of the community and the party breached the walls of modesty, which prevent the joint activity of men and women. Rabbi Shemuel H. Brodt, who believed that it could be allowed in the communities, felt that in the institutions of the Mizrahi it should be forbidden for this reason.** On the other hand, Rabbi Moshe A. Amiel said that women were entitled to absolute equality of rights in the institutions of the party, but claimed that they should be denied the right of a passive vote in the community, since it fulfilled the functions of a rabbinical court, which according to Jewish law could be carried out only by men.?° Another halakhic explanation, according to which women cannot serve in government positions, brought Rabbi Yona Zlotnik to a similar conclusion, which was

also supported by his determination that they are too soft-hearted and cannot carry out such tasks successfully.7* In addition, he based himself on the division of gender roles, claiming that electing women to public institutions would prevent

them from fulfilling their duties as educators of children and as housewives. Zlotnik conceded that women without families might have been allowed to be involved in public affairs, but that this should be prevented because ‘A love of imitation is very predominant among the daughters of Eve... Soon the day will come when a few elected women will arouse a desire in each of our wives to be like her friend who holds a public position.’*° He also said there was a fear that the candi-

. dacy of women would endanger the judgement of young male voters, who would be captivated by the charms of the female candidates and would therefore ignore the other candidates. The close relationships that would develop between the young supporters and the female candidates during the course of the election campaign were liable, in his opinion, to create such closeness even after their victory in the elections, and to undermine the stability of the family lives of both parties.”° These reasons, which were in fact based on a viewpoint that tried to limit the activity of women in the public sphere, attempted to provide an ostensibly rational basis for the opposition to women’s suffrage. In Mizrahi circles there were also

specific remarks made that testify to fundamental reservations about granting women equal rights, and to the fact that they were regarded as being of lower 22 Trunk (1880-1939) was the rabbi of Kutno, and Brodt (1885—1963) was the president of the Mizrahi in Poland and the rabbi of Lipno and Tomaszow Lubelski; see Hamizrahi, 11 Apr. 1919, pp. 7-10.

23° Amiel (1882—1945) was the rabbi of Grajewo and afterwards in Antwerp and Tel Aviv. See Y. Nissenbaum, Hamizrahi, 14 May 1919, pp. 31-2; Buzits-Hertsig, ‘Hapulmus’, 19.

24 Zlotnik (1869-1922) was the rabbi of Plock. See Y. M. Zlotnik, Hamizrahi, 28 Aug. 1919,

pp. 5-6. 25 Tbid., 21 Aug. 1919, p. 3. 26 Tbid., 10 Sept. 1919, pp. 3-4 . On the fear of undermining sexual morality as a central motif in the opposition of the ‘Old Yishuw’ in Palestine to granting suffrage to women, see M. Friedman,

Hevrah vadat (Jerusalem, 1978), 147. ;

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy 351 status; these may be the underlying reasons for the opposition. For example, one of the Mizrahi rabbis said the following in his commentary on the Bible: ‘With all her [Sarah’s] importance, she could be for him [Avraham] no more than ornament. This apparently expresses the opposition to equal rights for women.’ In another article, the writer comes out against men’s ‘slavery’ to women, who care only about putting on make-up, and says: ‘We know that the reign of women has been a sign of decline throughout history.’*’ On the other hand, most of the members of the Mizrahi supported granting a

passive vote to women. Some offered practical explanations, and claimed that denying the vote would arouse the opposition of women to the movement, and would also keep them away from it.2° Rabbi Nissenbaum claimed that morality required that women who suffered the hardships of exile should not be shortchanged and should be allowed to take part in the process of redemption as well, and Rabbi Y. L. Zlotnik, who claimed that granting equal rights to all is a moral duty, said in this context: ‘I cannot imagine a Jewish state that has laws that limit anyone’s rights, and that restricts anyone. The words “equality and progress” must be engraved on the banner of the Mizrahi as well.’*°

These rabbis rejected the claim regarding the lack of modesty involved in having women serve in a joint forum, and Zlotnik even proposed that those who did not want to sit together with women should relinquish their position in the institutions where they served. In addition, they rejected the halakhic claims that were raised against women serving in the community or in any other government position.°? Many speakers also relied on biblical precedents of women who held positions of leadership and said that this indicated that nothing was wrong with it.’ Alongside these claims, which favoured complete equality for women, but did not focus on the

need to eliminate the gender division that prevented women from fulfilling a central role in national and political activity, the words of Esther Rubinshtein, the wife of Rabbi Yitshak Rubinshtein of Vilna, stand out. She said the following: It is impossible, really impossible, for a Jewish woman to make do nowadays with preparing ‘the needs of sabbath’ and to work to that end all week, with all her abilities, and afterwards 27 ‘The first citation is from H. M. Bronrot, Sefer omer udevarim (Warsaw, 1936), 30. The second ts from Di yidishe leben, 18 Oct. 1928, pp. 10-12. For words opposing democracy that favours equal treat-

ment for men and women, see H. M. Bronrot, Hamizrahi, 6 Feb. 1919, pp. 3-4. Rabbi Bronrot (1881—1950) was the rabbi of Ciechanow and a member of the acting committee of the Mizrahi. 28 Hamizrahi, 11 Apr. 1919, pp. 7-10; ibid., 25 Apr. 1919, pp. 8—11.

29 Citation from Y. L. Zlotnik, ibid., 19 Mar. 1919, pp. 4—5, also in A. Sagi, “Tsiyonut datit bein

petihut lasegirut’, in id. et al. (eds.), Yahadut panim vahuts (Jerusalem, 2000), 129. See also Y. Nissenbaum, Hamizrah, 14 May 1919, pp. 31-3. 30 Nissenbaum, Hamizrahi, 14 May 1919, pp. 31-3; id., Hamizrahi, 21 May 1919, pp. 1-3; and see Buzits-Hertsig, ‘Hapulmus’, 20. 31 FE. Rubinshtein, Hamizrahi, 18 Nov. 1919, pp. 4-5; H. Tchernovich, ibid., 18 Mar. 1920, p. 6; Y. Nissenbaum, ibid., 14 May 1919, pp. 31-3.

352 Asaf Kantel to wipe her perspiration with her apron, clean her hands, which are dirty with the soot of the stove, and wait for her husband to return from the beit midrash (study hall) and sing ‘eshet hayil’ [‘A Woman of Valour’—a chapter from Proverbs in praise of women, which 1s recited on sabbath by husbands in honour of their wives].

Rubinshtein, who did not hesitate to differ from the learned interpretation of Rabbi Yona Zlotnik, said that women have to demonstrate real involvement in national activity, and at the same time to receive complete equality, both in their education and in their social status. In her opinion, this change had to be an inseparable part of the national reawakening, since discrimination against women was

only a result of life in exile.*?

Similar claims were made by members of the Mizrahi in regard to the question of the right to vote for the national institutions in Palestine. Just as he had insisted regarding the status of women in Poland, Rabbi Nissenbaum said that the women in Palestine should be granted full and equal rights, and added that this was of utmost importance, since it would reinforce the solidarity and the strength of the Yishuv in the face of Arab opposition.®* On the other hand, a few years later the voices of opponents of women’s suffrage were heard, claiming that the attempt to shape public life in Palestine according to the rules of modesty should not be abandoned, and this required restricting women’s activity to the private sphere.*4 In the final analysis, the district committees that met prior to the Mizrahi convention (1919) decided to support granting equal rights to women in the institutions of the movement and in the communities, sometimes making this conditional

on receiving the approval of the rabbis.°° However, during the course of the convention no decision was made on this issue, and a compromise solution was accepted, according to which the status of women in the Mizrahi would be determined by the central committee of the movement and by its rabbinical committee. The question of the extent of suffrage in the communities was not mentioned at all in the decisions, but in the Mizrahi council that met later, Yehoshua Heschel Farbstein said that the movement would only grant women an active right to vote.*° The decision of the committee was not implemented and women were given an active and passive right to vote, without any organized decision being taken on the 32 FE. Rubinshtein, Hamizrahi, 26 Nov. 1919, pp. 7-8. Nevertheless, Rubinshtein did not disagree

with the view of the woman as responsible for her children’s education as well; see ibid. and E. Rubinstein, ibid., 29 Oct. 1919, p. 4. For a detailed analysis of her approach, see Rosenberg, ‘Nashim’, 20-33. 33° Hamizrahi, 15 Jan. 1920, pp. 2—3; ibid., 15 Apr. 1920, pp. I-2. On the controversy about the issue of the right to vote for national institutions, and on the debate in the ranks of the Mizrahi in Palestine, see Buzits-Hertsig, ‘Hapulmus’, 86—95, and Friedman, Hevrah vadat, 146-82. 34 A. Likhtenfeld, Di yidishe leben, 9 July 1925. 35 Hamizrahi, 11 Apr. 1919, pp. 7-10; ibid., 25 Apr. 1919, pp. 8-11. 36 On Farbstein (1870—1948), the head of the Warsaw community, a delegate to the Sejm, and the president of the Mizrahi, see ibid., 14 May 1919, p. 40. For Farbstein’s words, see ibid., 24 Mar. 1921, pp. 1-4. Apparently, at a later stage the Mizrahi was also opposed to granting an active vote to the communities; see Der moment, 28 Apr. 1931, p. 5.

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy 353 issue in the movement’s institutions. Three women—among them the wives of Rabbi Nissenbaum and Farbstein—presented their candidacy as Mizrahi delegates to the Zionist Congress, and were present at its world conference as well, and

two of them served on its acting committee in Poland.*’ According to Nissenbaum, this representation—which comprised 13 per cent of the members of the acting committee—was the result of a policy of affirmative action, since in the light

of the percentage of women in the Mizrahi, it should have been smaller, like the representation of women in the acting committee of the Zionist Movement in Poland, where there was not a single woman.°° With the convening of the third Mizrahi conference (1922), at which 7 per cent of the participants were women, a discussion about their status arose once again. Again there were voices calling for denying their right of active and passive suffrage, for various reasons, and there was also opposition to the over-representation of women in the movement’s institutions.*? For the first time, reservations were heard about the fact that women were even invited to the conference—they were described as being elegantly dressed and not wearing wigs—with the explanation that it was not proper for them to sit in the same hall as the Mizrahi rabbis.*° On

the other hand, it was claimed that if Rabbi Israel Meir Hakohen of Radin (the Hafets Hayim) and Rabbi Hayim Ozer Grodzensky agreed to work together with women in the conference of Russian Jews, there was no reason why it should not be done in the ranks of the Mizrahi. Farbstein joined these sentiments when he said

that women had a right to representation because of their contribution to the movement.*! After a decision was made not to allow women to be chosen for the presidency of the conference, the women joined the Tse’1re1 Mizrahi (Mizrahi Youth) and became oppositionists.*” By contrast to the second conference, this time it was determined that the basic decision regarding the rights of women in the movement would be transferred to the exclusive decision of a rabbis’ committee, without the leadership of the move-

ment being directly involved.*? And for the first time there were deliberations

about the justification for having a women’s branch in the Mizrahi. Rabbi Nissenbaum claimed that the Mizrahi Women’s Organization was not fulfilling expectations, and therefore it would be preferable for the movement to eliminate 37 Hamizrah, 28 July 1921, p. 7; ibid., 8 Sept. 1921, p. 4; Y.N., ibid., 12 Jan. 1922, p. 2. 38 Hamizrahi, 28 July 1921, p. 7; Y.N., ibid., 12 Jan. 1922, p.2. 39° Hamizrahi, 26 Jan. 1922, pp. 1-2; Haynt, 18 Nov. 1922, p. 5.

40 So claimed Rabbi Rappoport; see Haynt, 10 June 1920, p. 2; ibid., 19 Jan. 1922, p. 3. For a description of the women, see ibid., 17 Jan. 1922, p. 3. The female members of the association in Warsaw were described as ‘among the most important women in the city’s ultra-Orthodox families, even the wives of rabbis and hasidic leaders or their daughters and daughters-in-law’; see Hamizrahu, 6 Jan. 1920, p. IT.

*! Hamizrahi, 26 Jan. 1922, p. 2; Haynt, 19 Jan. 1922, p. 3; Der moment, 22 Jan. 1922, p. 4. But Farbstein was opposed to giving women major roles; see E. Mendelsohn, Zionism in Poland (New

Haven, 1981), 340. 42 Haynt, 18 Jan. 1922, p. 5. 43 Hamizrahi, 26 Jan. 1922, p. 4.

354 Asaf Kaniel women’s membership in its ranks entirely, and words in a similar spirit were spoken by other rabbis.** As opposed to the latter, who claimed that this was required by the traditional restrictions of modesty, Nissenbaum implied that his proposal stemmed from tactical motives. Reversing his previous position, which had placed moral and national considerations above the good of the party, he now supported turning the Mizrahi into a men’s movement, in order to make it easier to introduce it to the Orthodox public. His words were accompanied by a proposal to establish a Mizrahi women’s party, which would function as an independent party and would not be connected to the Mizrahi. It seems that the reservations of these rabbis to women’s activity in the movement were not necessarily motivated by a wish to keep them away from the public sphere, since the alternative they suggested would have led to greater involvement of women in political life.*°

THE DEMISE OF WOMEN’S ACTIVITY The proposals to sever the Mizrahi’s connections with the women’s associations were not accepted, and even the rabbinical committee that was appointed to decide on the matter of the rights of women in the movement reached no decision, but

their activity declined steadily of its own accord. With the exception of the Warsaw association, which held evening classes and sewing lessons and was involved in selling the Zionist shekel, the women’s associations seem to have ceased functioning. In fact, in 1925 not a single woman attended the fourth Mizrahi convention.*© We can assume that the cool reception of women in the third conven-

tion, as well as the reservations about their membership in the Mizrahi, caused them to stay away. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Kovalsky said that the Mizrahi was to blame for rejecting the women.*’ Another factor was the poor organizational treatment of

the women’s associations, which received only 0.9 per cent of the 1922 budget, and that their requests to have visiting lecturers fell on deaf ears.4® The weakness of the Mizrahi women was probably a result of the reservations of traditional, 44 Nissenbaum said that the most effective organizational solution was to let women enter the ranks of the Mizrahi, but that he himself was unable to operate in joint frameworks; see Hamizrahi, 12 Jan. 1922, p. 2; ibid., 26 Jan. 1922, pp. 1-4. See also Buzits-Hertsig, ‘Hapulmus’, 21. 45 Y.N., Hamizrahi, 12 Jan. 1922, p. 2. On the difficulties caused by the women’s membership, see A. Shmari (ed.), Sefer kalushin (Tel Aviv, 1961), 214-15.

*6 Di yidishe leben, 8 Apr. 1925, p. 7; ibid., 30 Apr. 1925, p. 7; ibid., 2 July 1925, p. 8; Y.N., Hamizral, to Jan. 1924, pp. 1-3; Tse’irei Mizrahi in Czestochowa to Tse’irei Mizrahi in Warsaw, 6 Feb. 1923, Religious Zionism Archives, Bar [lan University (hereafter RZABI), personal archives, Laslau 6.

47 Rabbi Kovalsky (1863-1925) was the rabbi of Wloclawek and a member of the Sejm. He preached equal rights for women in the movement; see Y. Gur Arye, Harav yehudah leib kovalski

(Jerusalem, 1926), 23-4. ,

48 The publication of the Yiddish supplement to the newspaper Hamizrahi, which was meant to

disseminate news of the movement among the women, also came to an end. Hamizrahi, 19 Jan. 1922, pp. 10-11; ibid., 26 Jan. 1922, p. 8.

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy 355 bourgeois society regarding women’s involvement in political activity too, a factor that seems to have undermined the participation of women in the activity of the Zionist Federation in Poland as well.*? The women who joined the Mizrahi were, it seems, also influenced by this atmosphere, and therefore stayed away from practical political activity, making do with conducting public relations and organizing classes, which, according to Rabbi Nissenbaum, led to their failure.°° The success

of the women who began to operate in eastern Galicia in the establishment of Benot Mizrahi was no greater: they were ignored and received no assistance from the Mizrahi centre in Lviv.°! ‘Towards the end of the 1920s, complaints were heard from members of the movement that even Agudat Yisra’el had begun to establish women’s organizations, while the Mizrahi was stagnating, but this seems to have had no effect.°? In the 1930s, when the Mizrahi became weaker, there was no significant women’s activity, except at the local level, and women were generally absent from Mizrahi delegations to Zionist and political conventions.°’? The decision taken in 1935 regarding the establishment of ‘circles for women with families’ was only partially implemented by the members of Torah Va’avodah, which established five groups, whose main purpose was to enlist the daughters of the participants in the ranks of the young women’s movement, Beruriyah.®* Nothing was done even after the deci-

sion of the seventh Mizrahi convention (1937) to re-establish the Mizrahi Women’s Organization, and apparently its members ‘accepted the situation that the Jewish woman in Poland doesn’t participate in the work of the Mizrahi in any way’.°?

*2 Mendelsohn, Zionism in Poland, 339-40, claims that the small number of women in the ranks of the Zionist movement also stemmed from the attitude of the Mizrahi, which was reluctant to place them in positions of leadership. We can be sceptical about the influence of the Mizrahi’s attitude on the decisions of Zionist women who were not among its followers; moreover, as described here, the Mizrahi position on the subject was more complex. The large number of Jewish women in radical leftist movements can be attributed to the fact that pioneers who deviated from the accepted social norms naturally wanted to be active in revolutionary movements that aspired to grant them complete equality. See also Hyman, Gender and Assimilation, 77-80; Bernstein, ‘Introduction’, 3—4.

90 Y. Nissenbaum, Hamizrahi, 10 Jan. 1924, pp. 1-3. °l D1 yidishe leben, 8 Apr. 1925, p. 7. °2 Der moment, 27 Dec. 1927, p. 6. It should be noted that according to press reports, the activity of WIZO was very successful during those years; see e.g. Haynt, 5 Nov. 1929, p. 11; ibid., 3 Nov. 1929, p. 9. °8 Di yidishe shtime, 30 July 1931, p. 4; ibid., 28 Apr. 1929, pp. 11-12, 14; Der moment, 3 Jan. 1934,

p. 2. The voting protocol, 30 July 1935, RZABI, copy in Haberit ha’olamit (hereafter BO) II, 181. On the weakening of the Mizrahi in the 1930s, see Kaniel, ‘Hamizrahi’, 12-21. °4 Torah Va’avodah: the umbrella organization of the young people’s Mizrahi movements. See Di yidishe shtime, 4 Apr. 1935, p. 7; Din veheshbon mipulot hahanhalhah harashit litenuat torah va’avodah befolania, 1933-1936 (Warsaw, 1935), 32-5; Din veheshbon mipulot hava’ad hamerkazi lehistadrut hamizraht befolin, 1934-1937 (Warsaw, 1937), 50.

>> Cited from Din veheshbon mipulot hahanhalhah harashit litenuat torah va’avodah befolania, 1936-1939 (Warsaw, 1939), 55. See also T: Englister, Di yidishe shtime, 21 May 1937, p. 7.

356 Asaf Kaniel THE HALUTSIM (PIONEERS) The Percentage of Women on the Pioneering Hakhsharot Like other Zionist parties and Agudat Yisra’el, the Mizrahi also established pioneering hakhsharot (agricultural training farms), for young men and women who wanted to emigrate to Palestine. The hakhsharot—which were run by a subsidiary of the Mizrahi, Hahaluts Hamizrahi—were meant to give the pioneers professional

training in agriculture, construction, and other trades that were needed for the Palestinian economy. In addition, the stay on a hakhsharah was supposed to promote their chances of getting a ‘certificate —an immigration permit for Palestine.

The percentage of women on the hakhsharot of Hahaluts Hamizrahi was smaller than in the general Jewish population, which in the 15-49 age group was 53.5 per cent, and usually was also lower than their numbers on the hakhsharot of Hahaluts, the other Zionist socialist pioneering body, as indicated in Table 1.°° In Lithuania there was a higher percentage of women; they constituted 54 per cent of movement members, and 40 per cent of the Aalutsim in 1934. In western Galicia their percentage was lower, so that in 1930 they were 11.5 per cent of the Aalutsim, but in 1933 this percentage rose to 23.3 per cent.’ Among the members of Hahaluts Hamizrahi, there were some who considered that women’s preference for the secular pioneering organizations was a sign of the weakening of their connection to religion.°® Although there is a grain of truth to this claim, which was based on the prevailing image of the long-standing neglect of

Table 1. Percentage of women on the hakhsharot

1926 1928 1930 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938

Hahaluts Hamizrahi 20 20 228¢ 296 37 28,2 Eastern Galicia 20.7 = 37.5 39.7 = 35 38

Hahaluts 35.4 44.7% 43 45 “ October figure. ’ In all of Poland 43 per cent. « July figure, random sample. 4 Random sample.

°6 J have no statistics on the ratio of men to women of the relevant age, but it is known that during the 1930s there were 115 women for every 100 Jewish men between the ages of 15 and 49; see Y. Otikker, Tenuat hahaluts befolin bashanim, 1932-1935 (Kibuts Lohamei Hagetaot, 1972), 55. For the

sources, see Kaniel, ‘Hamizrahi’, 168. Women constituted 8.4 per cent of the Aalutsim of Agudat Yisra’el in 1934; see Report, 10 Sept. 1934, copy in Archives of the Pioneer movement, Lohamei

Hagetaot, 28/1 299. °7 Kaniel, ‘Hamizrahi’, 168. °8 Der moment, 19 Apr. 1926, p. 4.

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy 357 religious education for girls,°’ it would seem that we need to attribute greater importance to additional factors. We can reasonably assume that the opposition of some of the families of the Aa/utsim to having their sons join the hakhsharah— which stemmed mainly from a fear that they would be subject to ‘bad influences’ and that it was a deviation from the accepted social and religious norms—assumes added validity in respect to their daughters. The girls encountered not only moral reservations about the active participation of women in political activity, but opposition to additional deviations from the social consensus, such as living away from home, participation in joint establishments for men and women, and emigration to Palestine without family.°° This approach, which was common in the ranks of Hapo’el Hamizrahi in Palestine as well, apparently shaped the social outlook of the young Orthodox women, and also influenced many halutsim who had reservations about accepting women on the hakhsharah.®! Occasionally the presence of the women on the hakhsharah was accepted as natural, and was mentioned as a positive factor that would provide a workforce for household duties on the hakhsharah. There were even instances of a demand from Palestine to increase the number of women, in order to serve as reinforcements for the few young women who worked in the kitchens and the agricultural groups there.°* However, the prevailing situation was apparently different; one member of the movement said that many women asked to be accepted on the hakhsharah and were ignored. Even in 1934, when many falutsot were participating on the hakhsharah, the leadership of the movement had to beg the men to agree to accept

women to the hakhsharot, after the men had turned away hundreds of candidates.°° It is also possible that reports of a ‘minimal’ ability to absorb these Aalutsot in Palestine discouraged women from coming to the hakhsharot, and the same is

true of the words describing the situation of the women on the settlements in Palestine: ‘The heart trembles to see some of the female members in the situation °° For a clear presentation of the prevailing image, see T. Sharpstein, Toledot hahinukh beyisra’el badorot ha’aharonim, 11 (Jerusalem, 1960), 141. For a more complex description, see S. Stampfer,

‘Gender Differentiation and Education of the Jewish Women in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Europe’, Polin, 7 (1992), 63-85.

6° The protocols of Tse’irei Mizrahi in Czestochowa, 11 May 1924, RZABI, personal archives, Laslau 14; the journal of the female workers in Brodno, 1 June 1934, RZABI, Hityashvut, 61; N. Gutkind-Golan, Miryam eliyash: derekh emunah baharti (Tel Aviv, 1991), 38. For evidence of opposition among the families of the female members of Hahaluts, see Zayidin, ‘Hahaverah’, 212. St L. Rosenberg, ‘Hapo’alot hadatiyot be’erets yisra’el: binyan, irgun umishkei po’alot 1920-1930’ (MA thesis, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 1998), 96-102. 62 The Mizrahi to Tse’irei Mizrahi, 7 May 1924, Religous Zionism Archives, Harav Kook Institute

(hereafter RZARK), Merkaz Olami (hereafter MO), 1924—5, iv. Sometimes the opponent agreed to allow women on the hakhsharot, after it was realized that they were necessary in order for them to run properly; see M. Yaari-Wald (ed.), Kehilat reisha sefer zikaron (Tel Aviv, 1968), 163.

63H. A. Getsler, Netivah, 10 Mar. 1930, pp. 186-7; Tse’irei Mizrahi in eastern Galicia to the hakhsharot, 1934(?), RZABI, BO II, 176.

358 Asaf Kaniel of slaves, and even if not in the usual sense of the word, in situations of exploitation that disgust an honest man.’°* We can reasonably assume that the potential female candidates for joining the hakhsharah also refrained from doing so because of their relatively poor chances of getting a certificate for Palestine; moreover, they may have been deterred because of the unsympathetic attitude sometimes shown the /a/utsot and the fact that they might be sent to work at household chores.®° The small number of women on the hakhsharot can also be attributed to the patterns of occupation of Jewish women. In 1931 they constituted 28.3 per cent of Jewish salaried workers; higher percentages supported their families, but for the most part they worked at home or helped out in the family business. Therefore, it is possible that joining the hakhsharah,

which involved living and working outside the family unit, and sometimes included physical work as well, deterred many of the women who were interested in emigration, and aroused the objections of their families.°° The difference in the percentages of /a/utsot in the various centres of Hahaluts Hamizrahi sometimes stemmed from local patterns of pioneering activity. For

example, the testimony of the movement secretary in Lithuania, to the effect that the members usually did not live on hakhsharot but remained in their places of residence and continued with their previous occupations, can explain the high percentage of Aalutsot there in 1934. On the other hand, the difference between the percentages of /a/utsot in eastern Galicia and in Congress Poland, which narrowed over time, can be attributed to more substantial reasons. One may be the more conservative nature of Jewish society in Congress Poland, another the higher percentage of alumni of yeshivas among the /a/utsim in Congress Poland, which increased the opposition to allowing women to join the Aakhsharot there.©’

The Halutsah as a Housekeeper Even after they joined the hakhsharah, which constituted an entry into the public sphere and deviated from the accepted gender division, the halutsot had to deal

with gender stereotypes as they tried to find their place in the life of the 64 Citation from Netivah, 18 May 1926, p. 2. On difficulties in absorbing the Aalutsot in Palestine, see Haberit Ha’olamit to M. Skoratovsky, 14 Jan. 1930, RZABI, BO II, 87. On unemployment among women and their low wage level in Palestine, see, among others, D. Bernstein, [shah be’erets yisra’el (Tel Aviv, 1987), 45-7.

65 On the attitude towards the Aalutsah and her chances of receiving a certificate, see Bernstein, Ishah be’erets yisra’el, 13-15.

66 B. Garncarska-Kadari, ‘Shikhvot ha’ovdim hayehudiyim befolin bein shetei milhamot ha’olam’, Gal-ed, 3 (1936), 150-3, 182; Hyman, Gender and Assimilation, 66—72; A. Parush, Nashim kor’ot (Jerusalem, 2001), 44-7. 67 YY. Drori to Y. Gants, interview, 24 Apr. 1975, RZABI, OD, 17. The phenomenon can also be attributed to the relative openness of the Jewish public in Lithuania to the various aspects of modernization; see E. Mendelsohn, Hatenuah hatsiyonit befolin (Jerusalem, 1986), 33-4. On the socialcultural difference between Galicia and Congress Poland, see ibid. 31-3. On the percentage of yeshiva students in the hakhsharot, see Kaniel, ‘Hamizrahi’, 125-6.

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy 359 hakhsharah, which in its daily routine was run as a private sphere. Many of the men assumed that the women would be engaged in cleaning and cooking, in accordance with their traditional role in the family. For example, at a meeting of the central committee of Hahaluts Hamizrahi it was said that because of the lack of cleanliness in the agricultural yeshiva—where there were no women—‘We have to see to it that a girl from another kibbutz comes to them daily in order to improve the sanitation there.’ In another case, the ha/utsim complained about their difficulties for lack of a halutsah, who was apparently supposed to run the household affairs.°® In accordance with this approach, a typical description of life on the hakhsharah read as follows: In other corner stand the boxes and the suitcases of the members, and on them are arranged the few books we have here, and 15-16 sets of tefillin [phylacteries] are placed on one of the suitcases, the Aaverah [female member] did not have time to put them in order, because the halutsim rush to work, and they don’t have time to put everything back into place. The haverah herself takes care of that.®

Such jobs were given to the Aa/utsot on many of the hakhsharot of the movement—as well as in the hakhsharot of Hahaluts—and when there were no halutsot on the hakhsharah, the work was done by female members of Hahaluts Hamizrahi

and of Beruriyah who lived nearby.’° This policy was backed by Haberit Ha’olamit, which recommended that the /Aalutsot be trained to cook, since in other areas it would be difficult for them to find work after emigration.’' We can learn

how common this was from the fact that one or two halutsot were sent to each mixed hakhsharah, which apparently was meant to ensure that there would be a cook and a cleaning woman on each hakhsharah, and prevent ‘superfluous’ women

from coming.’* However, the members of Hahaluts Hamizrahi claimed that having the falutsot do household chores was also a result of their inability to find work outside the hakhsharah. It is in fact possible that the accepted employment 68 The Jewish Agency doctor was the one who suggested that they work in cleaning. See the minutes of the board of directors of Hahaluts Hamizrahi, 23 Nov. 1936, RZABI, BO II, 113; Kibbutz Sokolow to N. Gardi, 25 July 1933, RZABI, personal archives, Gardi 7; Protokol hitya’atsut kibutsei

ha’aliyah (Warsaw, 1938), 25-6. 69 M. Skoratovsky to the BO, undated, RZABI, BO II, 197. A. Estersin (ed.), Sefer devort (Tel Aviv, 1974), 163-4; Di yidishe leben, 16 July 1925, p. 6; H. Tiktinner, Di yidishe shtime, 12 Feb. 1937, p. 7. On a similar phenomenon on the hakhsharot of Hahaluts and Agudat Yisra’el and in Palestine, see ibid., 21 Feb. 1938, p. 2; Zaidin, ‘Hahaverah bitenuat “hahaluts” befolin (1929-1936) (MA thesis, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, 1985), 75-6; H. Nir, ‘Ha’ishah bahityashvut ha’ovedet bitekufat hayishuv’, in M. Shilo et al. (eds.), Hawwriyot hahadashot (Jerusalem, 2002), 166-8; Rosenberg, ‘Nashim’, 174-80.

" Haberit Ha’olamit: the organization of the youth movements of the Mizrahi and Hapo’el Hamizrahi. See Hamizrahi, 21 Oct. 1920, p. 5; Haberit Ha’olamit to M. Skoratovsky, 14 Jan. 1930, RZABI, BO II, 87.

” For example, in 1930 the halutsot were 20 per cent of all hakhsharah members, but the ratio between them and the /alutsim in the mixed hakhsharot was 21:2, 8:1, 20:2, 15:1, and 16:1. See M. Skoratovsky to the immigration Department, World Zionist Organization, undated, RZABI, BO I, 87. On a similar phenomenon in eastern Galicia, see the Budget, 1928-30, RZABI, BO I, 16s.

360 Asaf Kaniel patterns, which dictated that women usually did not do work involving physical effort, made it difficult for the Aalutsot to find work. But this factor should not be exaggerated, since on the hakhsharot designed for women only, the Aa/utsot found employment in the textile industry and in practical nursing. That could have been done on the mixed hakhsharot as well, and apparently they were denied the opportunity primarily because their male colleagues preferred to have them do the housekeeping chores.‘’ Therefore, considering the fact that a large percentage of Jewish women worked and helped to support their families, when the /a/utsot arrived at the hakhsharah, their areas of economic activity were reduced. ‘This pattern was not unique to the hakhsharot of Hahaluts Hamizrahi in Poland; it also existed in the hakhsharot of other pioneering movements, and in the rural communities in Palestine. This situation suited the image of women in the European

national movements, and stood in contrast to the usual image of the Zionist woman, who was described as engaging in ‘masculine’ work. “

The Attitude towards the Halutsah Sending the halutsot to work at household tasks was accompanied by declarations

about the equal rights that were granted to them and about their importance.” Some of the Aalutsot seem to have identified with this message, feeling that recognition of the necessity of their work contributed to strengthening their status. In their words: ‘One can be more active in household work than in a factory... A kibbutz of women can exist—which 1s not true of a kibbutz of men. It’s clear that on such a kibbutz the cleanliness and aesthetic aspect are on a very low level.’ In addition, there were /alutsot who on their own volition organized themselves into groups that engaged in treating the sick and in sanitation, which indicates that this was not considered beneath their dignity.’” However, in the light of the great importance attributed to agricultural and physical work, we can reasonably assume that household chores were considered inferior, a fact that had a negative influence on the attitude towards the Aalutsot and their role on the hakhsharah. And in fact, evidence of an instrumental attitude towards the 4a/utsot emerges from the words of male hakhsharah members in Sokolow, who complained to the administration of

the movement: ‘Let them send us /alutsim and a few pots and a halutsah .. . because we are living here without a Aalutsah and living on the “bread of affliction” 73 Din veheshbon mipulot hahanhalhah harashit htenuat torah va’avodah befolania, 1933-1936, 18; H. Poteshman’s report, 15 Jan. 1938, RZABI, BO II, 87. On a similar phenomenon on the hakhsharot of Hahaluts, see Otikker, Tenu ‘at hahaluts befolin, 108-9, 153.

“4 Zaidin, ‘Hahaverah’; A. Ofaz, ‘She’elat ha’ishah vekolan shel nashim bahevrah hahalutsit’, Katedrah, 95 (2000), to1 n. 3; M. Berkowitz, “Transcending “T'zimmes and Sweetness”: Recovering the History of Zionist Women in Central and Western Europe, 1897-1933’, in M. Sacks (ed.), Active Voices: Women in Jewish Culture (Urbana, Ill., 1995), 44.

Circular 18 of Tse’irei Mizrahi, 8 Nov. 1926, RZABI, BO II, 91; the protocols of Tse’irei Mizrahi in Czestochowa, 11 May 1924, 3 June 1924, RZABI, personal archives, Laslau 14.

"8 Protokol hitya’atsut kibutsei ha’aliyah, 26. ™ Di yidishe shtime, 7 Mar. 1935, p. 7.

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy 361 alone, for lack of pots.’ In this spirit, one of the Aalutsot told of expressions of disdain that she encountered when the /alutsim thought that she couldn’t cook in a satisfactory manner. ’° Leah Sappir describes the unequal treatment and the lack of social solidarity; she says that because of the crowded conditions on the kibbutz in Otwock at the New Year meal, the women served the food to their colleagues, and afterwards sat and ate the holiday meal alone in the kitchen. Tsippora Englister reported in the same vein about the inappropriate treatment encountered by the girls in the joint hakhsharot.”® In addition, the halutsot apparently did not participate in the administration of the hakhsharot, since their male colleagues—and perhaps they themselves—believed that the Jewish tradition imposed special tasks on them that prevented them from engaging in public activity.®° The falutsot were short-changed when it came to the possibility of emigrating to Palestine: according to the policy of the Mandatory authorities, most of the certificates for pioneers were given to men, both single and married.*! However, they had the possibility of using fictitious marriages, designed to bring about a maximum exploitation of the immigration visas, which could create equality between themselves and the halutsim. The Jewish Agency was opposed to this channel of

immigration, which undermined its ability to control the identity of the female immigrants, and Haberit Ha’olamit also objected to it because of cases in which the ‘husbands’ refused to grant a divorce to their ‘wives’.°? But this did not prevent

the institutions of the movement in Poland and its Aalutsim from using these means.®°

In many instances, however, the recipients of the certificates preferred to ‘marry’ girls who did not live on the hakhsharah; the ‘marriage’ was sometimes carried out in exchange for payment, which went into the pocket of the Aaluts. ‘The 78 Kibbutz Sokolov to N. Gardi, 25 July 1933, RZABI, personal archives, Gardi 7; Shragai, the protocols of ‘Tse’irei Mizrahi in Czestochowa, 11 May 1924, 3 June 1924, RZABI, personal archives, Laslau 14; Protokol hitya’atsut kibutset ha’aliyah, 25-6.

" Sappir: a member of Hapo’el Hamizrahi who was sent to Poland. Englister: the founder of the Beruriyah movement for young women. The citation is from Sappir, diary, 12 Sept. 1934, RZABI, BO II, 102. For Englister’s words, see Di yidishe shtime, 18 Mar. 1936, p. 3. See also T. Fuks, ibid., g May 1935, p. 6; M. H. Seemony, ‘Lishe’elat hahaverah’, in M. Kron (ed.), Orhot (Warsaw, 1938), 121-3. 8° Protokol hitya‘atsut kibutset ha’aliyah, 25-6.

81 Although about half of the immigrants were women, they apparently did not enjoy equality among the /alutsim and the workers, judging by the partial statistics in Din veheshbon mipulot hahanhalhah harashit litenuat torah va’avodah befolania, 1933-1936, 25-6; A. Halamish, ‘Mediniyut ha’aliyah vehakelitah shel hahistadrut hatsiyonit 1931-1937’ (Ph.D. thesis, Tel Aviv University, 1995), 248, 406-10. 82 Correspondence between Torah Va’avodah in western Galicia and the MO, 24 Jan. 1934, 7 Feb. — 1934, RZABI, BO II, 190; correspondence between the Mizrahi in Rzeszow and Torah Va’avodah, 1g Jan. 1932, 15 Feb. 1932, RZABI, BO I, 179; Halamish, ‘Mediniyut ha’aliyah’, 252. 83 For example, all nineteen 4a/utsot who wanted to emigrate in 1932 from western Galicia were fictitious wives; see Hamizrahi in western Galicia to BO, 30 Sept. 1931, RZABI, BO II, 179; Benei Akiva to BO, 27 Feb. 1933, 3 Mar. 1933, RZABI, BO II, 167.

362 Asaf Kantel preference for these girls, who were sometimes even members of rival parties, harmed the /a/utsot, who were forced to wait longer until receiving a certificate.** In 1934, the administration of Hahaluts Hamizrahi in eastern Galicia decided that it would be responsible for choosing the female partners, and Haberit Ha’olamit said the same, but in effect the /a/utsot continued to suffer from the situation. For

example, they constituted only 16.6 per cent of the immigrants from the Benei Akiva hakhsharot in the years 1934-6, while they made up about 40 per cent of the members of these hakhsharot. They also claimed that they did not receive any support from the movement when they had difficulty paying for their emigration to Palestine, as opposed to the treatment of the falutsim.®? The ambivalent status of the halutsot, who were recognized as having equal rights and as fulfilling an essential role in the functioning of the hakhsharot, but were sent to do household chores and sometimes suffered from disrespect and discrimination, created an ambiguous situation that caused some of the halutsim to wonder: How long will the question of the woman and her status in the movement remain an unclear and puzzling affair which is not even discussed, despite the fact that she has a certain part in the building of the movement, and she has the elementary right as a member to have her specific questions solved in a complete and comprehensive manner?®°

The Separate Hakhsharot In his description of the return of the Aa/utsim from Friday night prayers, one of them said that ‘our female members are radiant; they set the table for the Shabbat meal’, but it seems that many /a/utsot were not particularly pleased with their role as housekeepers. ‘These jobs, which were done as a matter of course within the family unit, were considered an inferior occupation when they involved working in the homes of strangers, and we can assume that this affected the Aalutsot’s attitude

towards them.®’ Moreover, there were halutsot who asked to take part in the pioneering work and to prepare themselves for emigration, but found themselves busy with cooking and cleaning, something which was far from their expectations.

In the words of the administration of the Torah Va’avodah movement: ‘The ®4 L. Sappir, diary, RZABI, BO II, 103; correspondence between Sappir and Haberit Ha’olamit, 26 July 1934, RZABI, BO I, 102. 85 Tbid.; Gutkind-Golan, Miryam eliyash, 36-8; Rosenberg, ‘Hapo’alot’, 30~1; Din veheshbon mipulot hahanhalhah harashit: sekirah kelahit al matsav hakeneset (Lviv, 1936), 8. For a similar report on the hakhsharot of Hahaluts, see Zaidin, ‘Hahaverah’, 168-9. In the early 1930s the percentage of female emigrants from Torah Va’avodah was 20 per cent, while their percentage on the hakhsharot in that same period was 37 per cent. See Alim, 6 (Nov.—Dec. 1931), 14. 86 H. Rahmillevitch, Hayeinu, 2 (Apr—May 1934), 9-10. On the ambivalence about the halutsot, see Protokol hitya’atsut kibutset ha’aliyah, 25-6.

87 On the negative attitude to working in the households of strangers, see S. A. Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl (Ithaca, NY, 1990), 16-17. In Polish society, too, those engaged in this work were considered

to be of particularly low status; see A. Zarnowska, ‘Changes in the Occupation and Social Status of Women in Poland since the Industrial Revolution till 1939’, Acta Poloniae Historica, 71 (1995), 126.

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy 363 woman doesn’t find permanent work, and she has to limit herself to housekeeping

and kitchen work. She remains in a state of spiritual dissatisfaction and suffers from it.’®°

Sometimes the /a/utsot did not protest against being engaged in such jobs, and did not even rebel against the negative attitude they encountered. According to L. Sappir, this was because of their ‘low personal level’. In other cases they did protest this treatment, but in vain. Some of the /a/utsot believed that the solution to their problems would come with the creation of separate establishments for

women, similar to the pattern of activity that was customary in some of the hakhsharot of Hahaluts Hamizrahi in the late 1920s.°? The administration of the movement—which in the first place preferred to organize the pioneering activity in mixed establishments, in order to get the Aa/utsim accustomed to the ordinary lifestyle in rural communities in Palestine—accepted the suggestion of the halutsot, and supported the establishment of separate hakhsharot in order to improve their situation.”° As part of this policy, beginning in 1933 a number of Aakhsharot for women were established, but apparently the relative number of /alutsot who lived in them was not large.’ The establishment of these hakhsharot met the additional needs of the halutsot. It gave them the opportunity to live in a supportive environment and provided a solution for those halutsot who objected, or whose families objected, to participation in a mixed hakhsharah.*? In addition, this policy made it easier for the

hasidic halutsim and the yeshiva graduates, who preferred living on separate hakhsharot, and had agreed to participate in mixed groups only because of the housekeeping needs of these farming communities, and under pressure from the movement’s institutions.?° 88 Citation from Din veheshbon mipulot hahanhalhah harashit litenuat torah va’avodah befolania, 1933-1936, 18. See also L. Sappir, diary, 7 Oct. 1934, RZABI, BO II, 103; the members of Meshek Hapo’alot to Y. Ben Avner, interview, RZABI, OD, 35; Rosenberg, ‘Hapo’alot’, 21~3. For a case where the halutsot did not mind doing household chores, see Protokol hitya’atsut kibutsei ha’aliyah, 25-6.

89 Report of L. Sappir, 7 Oct. 1934, RZABI, BO II, 103; Unzer veg, 1 (Nov—Dec. 1937), 14-15; T. Fuks, Di yidishe shtime, 9 May 1935, p. 6; ibid., 15 Apr. 1927, p. 222. °° Din veheshbon mipulot hahanhalhah harashit litenuat torah va’avodah befolania, 1933-1936, 18; Di yidishe shtime, 23 Sept. 1935, p. 6; Wahrhaftig, interview dating from 6 Dec. 2000. °l Di yidishe shtime, 10 Nov. 1932, p. 4; Budget proposal 1935—6, Hahaluts Hamizrahi, RZABI, BO II, 155. Circular 125 of Berurtyah, 17 Mar. 1935, copy in RZABI, BO II, 160, indicates that there were only two separate hakhsharot in Congress Poland, while the overall number of Aalutsot at the time was

close to 400. See also Y. Avneri, ‘Kshehafantaziyah mitgashemet: perek betoledot hehalutsah hadatit befolin bein shetei milhamot olam’, in E. D. Yehiya (ed.), Bein masoret lehidush (Ramat Gan, 2005), 147-75.

92 A. Tamarsohn, Di yidishe shtime, 12 Dec. 1935, p. 6; Y. Zilberkerk to Y. Ben Avner, interview, RZABI, OD, 35; Rosenberg, ‘Hapo’alot’, 22.

“3 The protocols of Tse’irei Mizrahi in Czestochowa, 3 June 1924, RZABI, personal archives, Laslau 14; A. Ben Mosheh et al. (eds.), Sefer tschenstohov, 211-15; Questionnaire of Hahaluts Hamizrahi in eastern Galicia, 1932(?), RZABI, BO II, 177.

364 Asaf Kantel The Professional and Spiritual Traming of the Halutsah The housekeeping tasks that occupied many of the ha/utsot who worked on the hakhsharah were also the main occupation of other halutsot, who did similar jobs in hospitals, orphanages, and educational institutions connected to the Mizrahi.”* In addition, many /a/utsot worked in the clothing industry, which employed three of the four women’s hakhsharot in Congress Poland. The activity of these hakhsharot

was usually conducted in home workshops, as was customary among Jewish women in Poland. Although this was the main industry in the Jewish economy, and

, should not be considered a completely feminine profession, it is clear that the work in it did not deviate from gender patterns.°? Some of the /Aa/utsot considered this work suitable training for the special needs of the Aalutsah, who usually had difficulty doing work requiring physical strength, and did not want to do housekeeping tasks.°°

However, there were fa/utsot who turned to other fields, with the support of some of the members of Hahaluts Hamizrahi. Already at the first convention of the movement calls were heard to train the Aa/utsot in agricultural work, with a rec-

ommendation to employ them in branches that did not require great physical effort, such as growing flowers and raising poultry.?’ These requests did not receive much of a response, but there were cases in which falutsot were engaged in agriculture—and even in hard physical labour. Outstanding among these was the activity of the women’s hakhsharah in Brodno (Warsaw). Some of the girls apparently chose to work in agriculture for pure ‘pioneering’ reasons, and were not consciously trying to bring about a change in the status of women on the Aakhsharah. Their words indicate that the most important social aspect of their behaviour was

their desire to prove that they were not inferior to Polish farming women.”® Nevertheless, alongside them were /a/utsot who considered agricultural labour a °4 A group of cooks in Vilna to Tse’irei Mizrahi, undated, RZABI, BO II, 149; Budget 1928-30, Hahaluts Hamizrahi in eastern Galicia, RZABI, BO IH, 165; Y. Karni(?) to BO, 20 Jan. 1930, RZ ABI,

BO II, 172. I have found no evidence of such jobs being done in households, only in public institutions. It is possible that the objection to working 1n families was stronger because of the particularly low image of this work.

% See n. 89; Der moment, 6 Nov. 1933, p. 6; Circular 13/33, 4 May 1933, RZABI, BO I, 155; Dz yidishe shttime, 26 Apr. 1934, p. 6. Work in home factories was common among Jewish women, who were able to do the household work at the same time, a consideration that probably guided the halutsot. However, work in the textile industry was equally common among men and women; occasionally one

of the sexes was concentrated in a certain area. See Otikker, Tenu’at hahaluts befolin, 187-8; Garncarska-Kadar1, ‘Shikhvot ha’ovdim hayehudiyim befolin’, 152. °6 'T. Englister, Di yidishe shtime, 29 Sept. 1936, p. 4; A. Yanover, Ohalenu, 4 (June—July 1934), 6-7. *” Di yidishe leben, 16 July 1925, pp. 5—4; Y. Zakkai, ibid., 7 May 1925, pp. 5-6; L. Sappir, Unzer veg, 1 (Nov.—Dec. 1936), 6.

%8 Tse’irei Mizrahi in Czestochowa to K. Frenkel, 20 June 1924, RZARK, MO, 1923-4, iv; Di ytdishe leben, 9 July 1925, p. 6; Report of Hahaluts Hamizrahi in western Galicia, 19 Jan. 1933, copy in RZABI, BO II, 186. On the motives of the Aalutsot at Brodno, see the members of Meshek Hapo’alot to Y. Ben Avner, interview, RZABI, OD, 35.

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy 365 means of changing the status of women in the ranks of the party and of society in general. According to them: “The woman has to take an active part in the work of the movement: she has to be the religious /a/utsah in the full sense of the word, to prepare a field for the development of the woman in all aspects of life, and in any case she will be able to serve the movement.’”? In addition to those who engaged in agriculture, a number of alutsot carried

out professional tasks that required a great deal of physical strength, such as carpentry, chopping trees, and grinding flour. However, from reports about the occupations of the /alutsot, and in the light of the high percentage of those engaged in housework, it seems that in spite of the existence of innovative trends, the professional activity of the Aa/utsot did not involve a revolution in the usual patterns of women’s work.'©° There were also innovative trends, although of a relatively limited nature, in the area of ‘spiritual training’. There were halutsot who engaged in Jewish studies; some even received certificates testifying that they had learned the Jewish dietary laws from a man with a teaching permit.*°? These phenomena, with all their novelty, were not significantly different from the trend that began with the establishment of the Beit Ya’akov schools under the

sponsorship of Agudat Yisra’el, where the girls also were engaged in Jewish studies, including religious laws relating to a woman’s everyday life.‘°* However, occasionally the halutsot deviated from the accepted norms and studied Talmud, which was not usually studied by women. In addition, there were instances in which a woman taught the men lessons in the weekly Bible reading and in the Mishnah, although this may have been considered acceptable only because she was an emissary from Palestine.'°? Apparently, for some of the Aalutsot the study of Torah constituted an act of defiance that illustrated the crossing of the traditional boundaries of activity, as the Aa/utsot of Brodno wrote in their journal: We studied Ethics of the Fathers ... We must admit that the study went well; each of the women expressed her ideas, and we can really say that each one expressed new ideas. A man ” The journal of the women’s farm in Brodno, 17 Aug. 1934, RZABI, Hityashvut, 61. 100 A. Tamarsohn, Di yidishe shtime, 12 Dec. 1935, p. 6; Hahaluts Hamizrahi in Vilna to Haberit Ha’olamit, 29 Mar. 1929, RZABI, BO II, 149; Hayeinu, 2 (Apr—May 1934), 12-14. Engaging in phys-

ical labour was not common among women, as indicated by the statistics in Garncarska-Kadari, ‘Shikhvot ha’ovdim hayehudiyim befolin’, 150-3, 182. The /alutsot of the workers’ movements in Palestine also engaged mainly in ‘feminine’ occupations, in spite of their feminist ethos; see O. Almog, ‘Shinuyim bidemut ha’ishah hayisra’elit’, Brkoret ufarshanut, 34 (2000), 21-3. 191 Netivah, 15 Mar. 1924, p. 222; Hahaluts Hamizrahi in Vilna to Haberit Ha’olamit, 25 June 1928, RZABI, BO I, 149; Der moment, 256 (6 Nov. 1933), 6.

102 Sharpstein, Toledot hahinukh, 146-7; N. G. Cohen, ‘Women and the Study of Talmud’, in J. B. Wolowelsky (ed.), Women and the Study of Torah (Hoboken, NJ, 2001), 12.

05 The members of Meshek Hapo’alot to Y. Ben Avner, interview, RZABI, OD, 35; Sappir, diary, 23 June, 3—5 July, and 13~22 July 1934, RZABI, BO II, roz2. On the traditional literature studied by the women, see Stampfer, ‘Gender Differentiation and Education’; M. Rosman, ‘Lihiyot ishah yehudiyah

befolin-lita bereshit ha’et hahadashah’, in I. Bartal and I. Gutman (eds.), Kiyum vashever, i (Jerusalem, 2001), 418-24.

366 Asaf Kaniel sitting on the sidelines and watching this would have said that now the woman is also taking part in life, in study, and in building.'°*

The trend towards egalitarianism can also be seen in the codex of the hakhsharah in Kosow, which states that the /a/utsot are also required to pray three times a day, which differed from the accepted halakhic norm. In addition, occasionally the

halutsot participated in public prayer, both at the Friday night service and at the morning service—behaviour that apparently was not very common—and there were even instances where women themselves conducted a public Friday night service.‘°? The extent of such phenomena is not clear, but they do indicate the existence of attempts to expand the involvement of the Aalutsah in religious spiritual and social life, breaking the gender patterns of activity, even if this was not always accompanied by a clear social vision.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The place of women in the Mizrahi movement reflects the tension among the vari-

ous social and ideological trends that determined the status of the Orthodox Jewish woman in Poland. She was torn between trends that restricted her participation in public life—in the spirit of the traditional world view of Orthodox society, and in the spirit of the European national movements—and revolutionary Zionist voices and new social trends that endeavoured to change this situation. This duality was evident both in the views of the leadership of the movement and in the women’s activity. The leaders wanted to encourage women to join the movement, and called on them to take an active part in public activity; at the same time they tried to channel them into ‘feminine’ pursuits and began to doubt the wisdom of having women join the movement, when their activity was not as successful as

, they had hoped. On the other hand, only a small number of women answered the calls to join the movement, and many of those who chose to do so, and fought for their status within it, voluntarily refrained from blatantly political activity. We can assume that the lack of clarity in the social message addressed to the women contributed to the failure of their activity, which ended completely in the mid-1920s. The constant conflict between the various trends in the movement was in evidence in the Mizrahi pioneers’ movement as well. On the one hand, women were 104 The journal of the female workers in Brodno, 13 July 1934, RZABI, Hityashvut, 61. 105 Tbid.; Codex of Kevutsat Avraham, RZABI, BO II, 206; Protokol pegishat halutsei benei akiva

zlotsov 1936 (Lviv, 1937), 13-15. On the custom of the non-participation of unmarried women in prayer services in the synagogue, see Zaidin, ‘Hahaverah’, 268-9. On the custom of conducting women’s prayer in a private framework, see Parush, Nashim kor’ot, 63-4. However, it is clear that even

if women’s prayer in the synagogue was not common, it was not a blatantly revolutionary act; see Rosman, ‘Lihiyot ishah yehudiyah befolin-lita’, 424-6. On the demand by the Beit Ya’akov to have its

students participate in the afternoon and evening services, see D. Weissman, ‘Bais Ya’akov as an Innovation in Jewish Women’s Education: A Contribution to the Study of Education and Social Change’, Studies in fewish Education, 7 (1995), 290.

Gender, Zionism, and Orthodoxy 367 called upon to take part in the pioneering activity, and were criticized for the small number of Orthodox /a/utsot and for their minimal involvement in the leadership of the pioneering hakhsharot. On the other hand, in many cases the doors of the hakhsharot were closed to them, and those who did manage to join were usually sent to do household chores and faced unequal treatment. There were in fact women who had no trouble accepting these tasks, and even felt that this was the correct policy, but there were also other tendencies, with some women trying to abolish gender restrictions by means of their pioneering activity. In this spirit, the women on some of the hakhsharot were involved in cultural and religious activity that was usually reserved for men, and some also chose to work in

‘masculine’ jobs. However, the extent of such phenomena, which usually took place on the separate hakhsharot that were established on the initiative of the women, was limited. On the whole, the place of the women in the hakhsharah was determined in accordance with traditional social patterns. This was also true of the rural communities in Palestine, and for the most part caused a decline in the social status of the Aalutsot, who had long enjoyed a higher status in their own homes.

Patriotism and Antisemitism ~The Crisis of Polish fewish Identity between the Wars DAVID ABERBACH To the memory of my beloved father MOSHE ABERBACH

1924-2007

POLISH JEWISH patriotism was a complex phenomenon, changing as times and circumstances changed in Poland itself, and deeply affected not just by Jewish patriotism and the rise of nationalism as Europe-wide phenomena between the

French Revolution and the Holocaust but also by ancient precedents deeply ingrained in Judaism. The meaning of Jewish patriotism varied from country to country in different times and had equally varied historical, sociological, and psychological causes and consequences.' The enthusiastic patriotism of Hungarian Jews in 1848-9 and of This article derives from a book which I wrote with my late father, Professor Moshe Aberbach, on European Jewish patriotism, 1789—1939. I thank Antony Polonsky for his expert, unstinting help and encouragement.

1 Patriotism is often distinguished from nationalism: ‘for the patriots, the primary value is the republic and the free way of life that the republic permits; for the nationalists, the primary values are _ the spiritual and cultural unity of the people’. M. Viroli, For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism (Oxford, 1995), 2. There is some debate on the degree to which patriotism is limited to the nation or state or, whether alternatively or concurrently, it is a reflection of cosmopolitan values. See e.g. L. W. Doob, Patriotism and Nationalism: Their Psychological Foundations (New Haven, 1964); J. Habermas, ‘Citizenship and National Identity: Some Reflections on the Future of Europe’, Praxis

International, 12 (1992), 1-18; and J. Cohen (ed.), For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism (Boston, 1996). Among European Jews, including those in Poland, the words ‘nationalism’ or ‘nationalist’ are also apt, as Jews often maintained a deep identification with the culture and ‘spirit’ of the nation, an identification which led to much resentment on the part of the Christian population, whose ethno-nationalism was often exclusive of Jews. See W. Connor, Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding (Princeton, 1994), and A. Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism (Cambridge, 1997). However, Jewish assimilation and patriotism encouraged the aim of acceptance but did not invariably stir up antisemitism. Patriotism was traditionally regarded as a

positive value, a natural response to emancipation as a progressive achievement in a benevolent,

Patriotism and Antisemitism 369 Polish Jews in 1863 was not the same as the desperate patriotism of Polish and Hungarian Jews as their world collapsed in the 1930s and early 1940s. The patriotism of emancipated Jews in western Europe—in France and England, for example—reflected gratitude for what had been granted, whereas the patriotism of Russian Jews under tsarist rule came more out of the hope for change, through liberalism or revolution. Jewish patriotism changed, too, as European nationalism in the nineteenth century moved from the Left to the Right on the political spectrum. The patriotism of assimilated Jews, too, was not the same as the patriotism of Orthodox Jews. The patriotism of Jews in independent democratic states differed from that of Jews in totalitarian countries or under an oppressor’s heel. The patriotism of French Jews was inspired by love of the ‘true’ France, the France of revolutionary ideals, of liberté, égalité, fraternité. The patriotism of German Jews in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was driven by recognition that they were not fully accepted as citizens and members of the nation, while the patriotism of Italian Jews generally expressed the conviction that they were welcomed as an

integral part of Italian society. Jewish patriotism was not incompatible with Zionism: in fact, most Zionists in the inter-war period felt strong patriotic attachment to their countries of citizenship. Patriotism could reflect admirable loyalty and justifiable hope of acceptance or be symptomatic of mind-boggling blindness, of perverse attachment to countries that were no motherland but, in the end, a killing ground and a grave. Jewish patriotism in Poland, as elsewhere in Europe, appeared in multiple, often contradictory guises and took on complex shades of meaning: for example, as a denial of the reality of antisemitism, or as a recognition of the danger and a frantic scramble for camouflage in the skirts of the nation; a rebuttal to the frequent antisemitic charge of Jewish disloyalty and lack of patriotism; in some cases an expression of Jewish self-hate or the rejection of Judaism, with an identification instead with the aggressor; hope that antisemitism was temporary; fear of Christian susp1cion and of provoking further hatred; a defence against anxiety felt by acculturated Jews that they would never be fully accepted by Poles; the need for a substitute for Judaism that for increasing numbers of Polish Jews by the inter-war years had enlightened society which deserved patriotic loyalty. That Polish and other European Jews, who were ultimately victims, were misled by these highly regarded ideals does not imply blame on their part. On German Jewish patriotism, see e.g. D. Vital, A People Apart: The Jews of Europe, 1789-1939 (Oxford, 1999), 803; on French Jewish patriotism: P. Hyman, From Dreyfus to Vichy: The Remaking of French Jewry, 1906-1939 (New York, 1979), 9, 202; on Austrian Jewish patriotism: D. Rechter, The fews of Vienna and the First World War (London, 2001), 24-5; on Hungarian and Romanian Jewish patriotism: E. Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars (Bloomington, Ind., 1983),

126-7, 190; on Czech Jewish patriotism: H. J. Kieval, “The Social Vision of Bohemian Jews: Intellectuals and Community in the 1840s’, in J. Frankel and S. J. Zipperstein (eds.), Assimilation and Community: The Fews in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge, 1992), 256, 268; on Russian and Italian Jewish patriotism: S. Dubnow, History of the Jews, trans. M. Spiegel (New York, 1973), v. 371, 538 f.

370 David Aberbach ceased to have meaning; a gauge of their chronic insecurity in a country where they were hated; the vulnerability they felt as they lacked a territorial homeland; and their longing to be accepted where they were. European Jews prayed to the end for the welfare of countries that were about to annihilate them. Jewish patriotism has the added complication of being an integral element in

Jewish survival. Ancient precedents determined Jewish adaptation in exile and influenced the outlook and behaviour of Jews up to and including the modern period. Jewish patriotism can be traced to Jeremiah’s teaching that the Judaean exiles in sixth-century BCE Babylonia should seek the welfare of the city (or land) in which they lived (Jer. 29: 7). This message was continued several centuries later

in the rabbinic culture that evolved after the disastrous Jewish revolts against Rome: ‘pray for the welfare of the [Roman] government’ (Mishnah Avot 3: 2). These teachings were frequently quoted by modern rabbis—for example,

Jews. ,

Abraham Zvi Perlmutter of Warsaw?—\to justify patriotism, even towards states which, like ancient Babylon and Rome, could be counted at times as enemies of the

In Poland, the nature of Jewish patriotism was twisted further by a number of factors, the combination of which was unique: the long history of the Jews in Poland, where they had been comparatively well treated; Poland’s conquest by Russia in the late eighteenth century and the hope of independence, which many Jews enthusiastically shared; the relatively large Jewish population in Poland, which by 1939 reached 3.35 million (about 10 per cent of the total population), with much larger percentages in big cities such as Warsaw and £.6dz; Jewish assimilation into Polish society, which was already pronounced before the First World War (though far less than in western Europe) and gathered speed in the inter-war period; the rise after the failed Polish revolt against Russia in 1863 of an exclusivist ethnic nationalism which became dominant after Poland achieved independence in 1918; the weakness of the democratic Polish governments in the immediate postwar years; the persistent hope of Jewish minority rights and acculturation within

Poland, especially after Pilsudski’s military coup in May 1926; the steep growth of Poland’s population and the poverty of the newborn state; and the increase of Polish antisemitism, which reached a peak in the years after Pilsudski’s death on

12 May 1935. ,

Yet however complex the nuances of Jewish patriotism in Poland, as in different

countries and times, one meaning remained constant: loyalty to the state. This patriotism was often accompanied by deep identification of Jews with the national culture. The ‘Jewish question’ was to be solved through dozkeyt, Yiddish for ‘hereness’, meaning acculturation ‘here’ rather than emigration ‘there’, to some other country. A crucial result of this identification, in Poland as in other countries such as Germany, was to see emigration as unpatriotic—even when it was state policy to encourage Jewish emigration. 2 1. Lewin, A History of Polish fewry during the Revival of Poland (New York, 1990), 120-1.

Patriotism and Antisemitism 371 In line with Christian stereotypes of the traitor Judas, the Jews in Poland—like

other European Jews from the start of emancipation at the time of the French Revolution until the Holocaust—were often assumed to be unpatriotic and disloyal.* In fact, Jew-hatred often meant that Jews could not risk being unpatriotic. Handicapped as deicides and deniers of the ‘true faith’ in a devoutly Catholic country, Jews often felt compelled to be more uncompromising in their patriotic

loyalty than others not similarly distrusted. Consequently, many Jews were superpatriots.* As was the case elsewhere, Polish appreciation of Jewish patriotism was rare and tended to focus on exceptional individuals: the Jews as a people were generally seen not as patriots but as parasites, a destructive force, disloyal, dangerous to Poland.°® Also as elsewhere, patriotic Polish Jews tended to excuse antisemitism as the evil work of individual ‘scum’. The Jewish population of Poland, they claimed, suffered no more pressure or discrimination than others: only one political party in Poland, the National Democrats, was openly hostile to ‘the native

strangers in our midst’, and it was equally hostile to other groups, including Germans, Ukrainians, socialists, and gypsies.° The ‘true’ Poland (like the ‘true’ France or the ‘true’ Germany) was tolerant, just, and protective of its minorities. ’ Patriotism was a factor in the reluctance of Polish Jewish communal organizations to plan orderly emigration, even in the 1930s, when conditions were becoming desperate. Polish Jewish patriotism culminated in September 1939, when an estimated 180,000 Jews served in the Polish army, with over 30,000 casualties.® “The tribute of Jewish blood to [the] Polish cause expresses the attitude of Jews to their Polish Motherland. What a pity it is that the attitude of a considerable part of Polish society to their Jewish neighbors was as that of a “stepmother”.” Why did many Polish Jews keep up patriotic loyalty and attachment, and willingness for self-sacrifice, to an impoverished country which elected antisemitic governments, engaged in antisemitic policies and acts, and even declared as an aim the reduction or elimination of its Jewish population? ‘Though this essay 1s on Polish Jewish patriotism in the inter-war period, it has broader relevance in helping to understand other Jewish communities which remained loyal to antisemitic countries, and also the general position of minority groups faced with hatred, prejudice, and discrimination. Which factors, social, historical, and psychological, 3 See e.g. D. L. Niewyk, The Fews in Weimar Germany (Baton Rouge, La., 1980) 47, and L. Poliakoy, The History of Anti-Semitism, trans. R. Howard et al. (New York, 1985), iv. 26, 148.

4M. Aberbach, ‘The Failure of Jewish Emancipation in Europe’, in J. Fruchtman, Jr. (ed.), 4 Life in Fewish Education: Essays in Honor of Lous L. Kaplan (Bethesda, Md., 1997), 99-137.

° A. Landau-Czajka, ‘The Image of the Jew in the Catholic Press during the Second Republic’, Polin, 8 (1994), 146-75. © See N. Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1981), it. 261-2.

’ J. Lichten, ‘Notes on the Assimilation and Acculturation of Jews in Poland, 1863-1943’, in C. Abramsky et al. (eds.), The Fems in Poland (Oxford, 1986), 111. ° B. Meirtchak, fews-Officers in the Polish Armed Forces, 1939-1945 (Tel Aviv, 2001), pp. Vv, 15. 9 Thid. 316.

372 David Aberbach account for the patriotism of Polish Jews, and what does this patriotism reveal about them and European Jewry generally?

POLISH JEWISH PATRIOTISM FROM THE

PARTITIONS TO 1918 In considering Jewish patriotism in the inter-war period, it 1s important to bear in mind that from the time of the partitions of Poland in the late eighteenth century, the Polish Jews, including the most conservative among them, tended to identify with Polish national aspirations. Jews shed blood with patriotic zeal in the major Polish revolts against Russian rule, in 1794, 1830-1, and 1863. They did so in the hope that Polish independence would put an end to Polish anti-Jewish hatred

and discrimination. Patriotic Polish Jews compared Poland to biblical Zion.'° The Polish Jewish patriot Jankiel the tavern-keeper is a key figure in Adam Mickiewicz’s epic poem Pan Tadeusz (1834). Jankiel ‘loves his country as a very Pole’. He exhorts Napoleon’s troops—including Polish battalions under General Dabrowski, long awaited ‘as we Jews / Have looked for the Messiah’—to victory

over Russia. ‘Poland’s not yet dead; / March, march, Dabrowski, to our land, before us!’ (XII. 1017—44).1* To most Poles, however, Mickiewicz was ‘a voice crying in the wilderness’.!°

In the 1863 uprising, Berush Meisels, the chief rabbi of Warsaw, called on Polish Jews to join him in the fight for Polish freedom. He quoted the sixteenthcentury Jewish religious authority Moses Isserles’s declaration of attachment to the Polish ‘land of refuge’ and insisted that ‘we should love the Polish nation more 10 Lichten, ‘Notes on the Assimilation’, 109.

11 See M. Opalski and I. Bartal, Poles and Jews: A Failed Brotherhood (Hanover, NH, 1992). Mickiewicz’s empathy with Jews might be linked to the fact that his mother was evidently born to a follower of Jacob Frank (1726-91), who claimed to be a reincarnation of the false Messiah, Sabbata1 Zevi (1626-76), and converted along with his followers to Christianity; and Mickiewicz’s wife seems also to have come from a Frankist background (Encyclopedia Hebraica, xxiii. 373). A fictional illustra-

tion of 1roth-c. Polish Jewish patriotism is that of the character of Herman Lubliner in Michal Bursztyn’s Yiddish novel Goyr/ (Fate, 1935). Sholem Asch’s novel Three Cities, trans. W. and E. Muir (New York, 1933) includes a portrayal of patriotic Jews in Warsaw in the period immediately prior to the outbreak of war in 1914. Solomon Hurwitz, a lapsed rabbi and Talmud prodigy, is now devoted to Poland’s rebirth: ‘As a Polish patriot he naturally detested the Russian language’ (p. 280). Despite evidence of Polish antisemitism, he remains devoted to ‘the cause of Poland’, is fiercely anti-Zionist, and

is writing a book on Polish names among Jews. Over the sabbath meal, he recites Mickiewicz’s ‘Lament for the Dead’ (‘. . . O God, all Poland in the fresh bloom of its youth / Lies groaning under the heavy hand of Herod’) (p. 351). He explains to his guests ‘the whole tragedy of the Polish nation, the struggle for freedom in 1863, the fate of the rebels, their banishment to Siberia, and the meaning of Mickiewicz’s poem’: “The fatherland is my spirit’s flesh and blood, / And should it die my body will die too. / I and the fatherland are one’ (pp. 352, 353). 12 A. Mickiewicz, Pan Tadeusz, trans. W. Kirkconnell (Toronto, 1962), 366-7. 13 FE. Mendelsohn, ‘Poland’, in Encyclopaedia Fudaica, xiii (1971), 737.

Patriotism and Antisemitism 373 than any other, because the Poles have been our brothers for centuries’.‘* As in other periods of crisis in which the Jews were needed—notably the start of the First World War—Polish Jew-hatred died down during the revolt but revived after its failure. Yet even in times of heightened Judaeophobia, for example during the pogroms of 1881-2, Jewish assimilationists continued to believe that their future lay in Poland: ‘Let volcanoes erupt here and there out of the womb of this earth, let the scum of this nation in moments of madness act with hostility against us— we have no right to abandon our position, we have no right in such moments to be disloyal to this land, to this nation and to ourselves!’!®

ANTISEMITISM AND POLISH JEWISH PATRIOTISM AND

| ASSIMILATION, I9I18—1939

After Poland regained independence in 1918, Jewish patriotism was driven by assimilation of Jews into Poland and by their recognition that they were not accepted as fellow Poles. Polish independence, for which many increasingly Polonized Jews had yearned, exacerbated nationalist hatred of them as the ‘Other’. As the Russian civil war raged, the Polish army led by Pilsudski invaded Ukraine and destroyed

Jewish communities, inflicting many casualties, stopping only when the Allies threatened to intervene. The Polish republic instigated a series of pogroms, the worst of which was in Lwow (Lviv, Lemberg), where about seventy Jews were murdered and 300 wounded.'®

The atrocities perpetrated by Poles during and after the Holocaust—most notoriously, the massacre of the Jews in Jedwabne!’—-were foreshadowed not just during the First World War but also in the two decades of Polish independence, 14 Lichten, ‘Notes on the Assimilation’, 109. The Lwow doctor and progressive Moritz Rappaport was moved by the uprising of 1863 to write in glowing terms of Jews and Poles: ‘A love of fantasy from the Orient, and passion from the Slavs set my soul ablaze . . . How nostalgia filled my heart at the soft moans of the Sarmatians [Poles], how the spirit rose heavenward at father’s wondrous utterances . . . To be both a Pole and a Jew is a double crown of melancholy.’ J. Holzer, ‘Enlightenment, Assimilation, and Modern Identity: The Jewish Elite in Galicia’, Polin, 12 (1999), 82. 15 Lichten, ‘Notes on the Assimilation’, 111.

16 On the Lwéw pogrom, see W. W. Hagen, ‘The Moral Economy of Popular Violence: The Pogrom in Lwow, November 1918’, in R. Blobaum (ed.), Anti-Semitism and its Opponents in Modern Poland (Ithaca, NY, 2005) 124~47. This pogrom was a major factor in turning the Yiddish poet Uri Zvi Greenberg to Zionism and Hebrew literature; even so, as his poetry indicates, he had a deep love

for the Polish landscape. See below and D. Aberbach, ‘Fanatic Heart: The Poetry of Uri Zvi Greenberg’, Central Conference of American Rabbis fournal (Spring 2003), 16-32. Davies (God’s Playground, ii. 262) suggests that the pogroms were not as bad as they were depicted; in Lwow, for example, there was a ‘military massacre’ in which the Christian dead outnumbered the Jewish dead by three to one. On Polish antisemitism and anti-Jewish violence in inter-war Poland, see J. B. Michlic, Poland’s Threatening Other: The Image of the Few from 1&8o to the Present (Lincoln, Nebr., 2006), 69-130. 17 J. T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne (Princeton, 2001).

374 David Aberbach which were filled with pogroms, anti-Jewish laws, and discrimination and the impoverishment of large numbers of Polish Jews. Jews had lived in Poland for cen-

turies but were still regarded as aliens, a potential Fifth Column of Bolsheviks ready Judas-like to betray the country. The historian Louis Namier, himself of Polish Jewish origin, noted in 1919 that the Poles were torn between the desire for separation from Jews to avoid their allegedly pernicious influence and reluctance to grant the Jews educational autonomy because ‘to acknowledge us as a national minority would be to some extent equivalent to acknowledging our presence in Poland as fully legitimate’.'® The conditions in which Jewish patriotism developed in inter-war Poland were unpromising. Both National Democracy, the core ethno-

nationalistic party in inter-war Poland, and the Polish Roman Catholic Church were obsessed with the purity of the Polish-Catholic ‘soul’—which the Jews allegedly confused, threatened, and polluted by their mere presence—and aimed to bring about a uniform, traditional, ethnic Polish way of life and collective destiny through the ‘dejudaization’ of Polish culture and society. The growing politicization of Polish Jews in the inter-war years—their involvement in the socialist and Zionist movements and their agitation for minority rights—was interpreted by antisemites as a rejection of Poland.

‘How did we come to this? How did we lose ourselves / In this vast world, strange and hostile to us’, asked the poet Julian Tuwim (1894-1953) in the poem ‘Zydek’ (Jewboy) in 1926!°—in comparison with the 1930s, an optimistic time. By 1936, in Bal w operze (A Ball at the Opera), Tuwim was predicting an apocalypse which, despite the absence of explicit Jewish motifs in the poem, referred unmistakably to the rise of Polish fascism and antisemitism. Most Poles wanted to reduce or remove the Jewish population. Between 1923 and 1925, the Polish government pursued a ‘cold pogrom’ policy designed to eliminate the Jews from the economy, denying them support in education and welfare. Only ‘pure Poles’ deserved gov-

ernment support, not parasitical Jews. Jewish businesses were taken over and Jewish employees were fired. The government refused to hire Jews. In a country already economically mismanaged, corrupt, and impoverished, the Polish Jews were reduced to extreme poverty: some were driven to Palestine, in the so-called Grabski aliyah of 1924-6. At the same time, Polish Jewry was dynamic, and produced many of Poland’s public figures, thinkers, writers and artists, athletes, and business people in the inter-war period. Poland’s first woman deputy in parliament, Roza Pomerantz-Meltzer, was Jewish (and a Zionist).?°

Polish Jewish poverty reached catastrophic dimensions in the Depression. Large numbers of bankrupt Jews lived on charity (especially from American Jews): in Warsaw in 1935, 60 per cent of the Jews applied for relief; an estimated 300,000 Jewish children under the age of 15 (about one-third of the total of Polish Jewish 18 Vital, A People Apart, 750.

19 J. Tuwim, My, Zydzi Polscy ... We, Polish Jews ed. Ch. Shmeruk (Jerusalem, 1984), 25. 20 Davies, God’s Playground, ii. 408.

Patriotism and Antisemitism 375 children) suffered from hunger; in Vilna, about 80 per cent of Jewish children were tubercular or anaemic.*! Inspired by Nazism, Polish fascists ran riot against Jews. In 1935-6 alone, anti-Jewish violence erupted in fifty Polish towns and villages, in which between ten and fifteen Jews died.** There was a numerus clausus against Jewish students in the universities, which, by the mid-1930s, had virtually no Jewish teachers left.2? The Polish Church and government were openly anti-

semitic. The Polish Nobel laureate for literature, Czeslaw Mutosz, recalled the atmosphere of Jew-hatred in inter-war Poland: ‘Christians, when they said that someone was a Jew, lowered their voices as if a shameful disease were being mentioned, or added, “He’s a Jew, but he’s decent”.’ Worse still, the same scale of values was more or less adopted by ‘assimilated’ Jews who were diligently erasing their traces. In such conditions every personal contact evaded the laws of friendship and brotherhood, only to fall captive to a situation. ‘One: “He thinks that Iam a Jew.” The other: “He thinks that I think he is a Jew.” Or the pyramid grows. One: “He thinks that I suspect him of thinking that Iam a Jew.” The other: “He thinks that I think that he suspects me of thinking that he is a Jew.” ’** Polish Jewish politics were dominated by ideological and religious views which were undermined by the reality that many Poles, both before and after independence in 1918, did not want Jews. ‘The demand for minority rights, as required by the Treaty of Versailles (1919), was anathema to Poles, including liberals, who wanted national minorities (which comprised about one-third of the total population) to become Polonized, not retain their alien status.*° The policy of national minority rights was in any case hard to enforce even for Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Germans, and in the case of the despised and hated Jews, doomed from the

start. When in 1934 Poland renounced the Minorities Treaty, the League of Nations did nothing. 21 A. G. Duker, ‘The Situation of the Jews in Poland’, Conference on Jewish Relations (Apr. 1936), 5. To Vital, the outstanding symptoms of Polish Jewish poverty in the 1930s were: (1) their overcrowding—among Jewish working-class families in 1.6dz, for instance, about 70 per cent lived in one room; and (2) their dependence on charity at Passover: an estimated 25.8 per cent of the entire Polish Jewish population in 1934. 4 People Apart, 776. 22 Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe, 74; J. Zyndul, Zajscia antyzydowskie w Polsce w latach 1935-1937 (Warsaw, 1994).

23 For a first-hand picture of Polish antisemitism during this period, see L. Dawidowicz, From that Place and Time: A Memotr, 1935—1947 ( New York, 1989).

24 C. Milosz, Native Realm: A Search for Self-Definition, trans. C. S. Leach (Garden City, NY, 1968), 99. Similarly, the Warsaw writer Efraim Kaganowski describes the painful awkwardness of assimilated Polish Jews between the wars. Tending to congregate together, “They are not yet sure of their Polishness and suddenly notice that they are surrounded only by other Jews . . . These men want to be crushed in the crowd so they can stop feeling how lonely they are.’ Quoted by Z. Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence (Ithaca, NY, 1991), 117 n. This social isolation of assimilated Jews was common in much of Europe in the inter-war period. 25 See A. Carlebach, ‘A German Rabbi Goes East’, Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 6 (1961), 60-121, and P. R. Mendes-Flohr and J. Reinharz (eds.), The few in the Modern World: A Documentary History, 2nd edn. (New York, 1995), 437-9.

376 David Aberbach Yet the Jewish lack of territory, highlighted when Poland became independent, was, as elsewhere (for example, in Risorgimento Italy or post-1918 Austria), an

incentive to patriotism. The Polish thinker Zygmunt Dreszer observed in the 1920s: ‘While Germans, Ukrainians and Belarusians do not want to believe in Poland as a state with fixed, secure frontiers, the Jews do not at all share this view and are even inclined toward recognition of the state and profession of patriotism toward it.’2° Also, as the Polish Jews were recognized by the state as a nationality, many of

them hoped for national autonomy and for the creation of their own statesupported schools and communal administration. The patriotic attachment to Poland expressed by ‘Tuwim in his poetry, though deeply personal and not lacking

in irony, was not only consistent with the past history of the Polish Jews but also reflected a broad consensus in the inter-war years, cutting across political divisions: Semitic blood flows in me Hot blood, passionate blood, Oh, Aryans, I love you so much, Oh Poland—the sun. You are my country.”"

Diverse Jewish groups—the hasidic rabbis of the Agudat Yisra’el party, the atheistic Bund socialists, upper middle-class Polish Jews with capital, skilled workers, and even Zionists—hoped that by showing patriotic loyalty to Poland, they

would justify their acceptance as Poles. The first resolution of the Congress of Poles of the Jewish Confession in May 1919 reads as follows: ‘The Poles of the Jewish faith, penetrated with a sincere feeling of love for Poland, will in spite of the difficult conditions of their existence, serve their country as devoted sons, and will always be ready to sacrifice their lives and fortunes for its benefit and glory.’”° Jewish representatives in the Polish Sejm, however different their political views, were united in their Polish patriotism. Moses Elias Halpern of Lodz declared that the Jewish people ‘has inhabited Poland for several hundred years and . . . considered it as its motherland in the past, and continues to do so now, loving it equally with all other citizens’.*? His colleague, Abraham Zvi Perlmutter of Warsaw, expressed similar feelings, hoping for future co-operation between Jews and Poles for a ‘free and united Poland’.*° Another representative, Samuel Hirszhorn, not to 26 Quoted by L. Weinbaum, 4 Marriage of Convenience: The New Zionist Organization and the Polish Government, 1936-1939 (Boulder, Colo., 1993), 5. The exceptional patriotism of the Jews as a Polish minority was clear as Poland prepared in 1928 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its independence, and ‘All the representatives of the national minorities, with the exception of the Jews, announced that they would not participate in the celebrations’. A. Polonsky, Politics in Independent Poland, 1921-1939

(Oxford, 1972), 263. .

27 Quoted by J. Dunin, ‘Tuwim jako Zyd, Polak, czlowiek’, Prace Polonistyczne, 51 (1996), 88.

, 28 Davies, God’s Playground, ii. 259. 29 Lewin, A History of Polish Jewry, 116. 3° Tbid. 121.

Patriotism and Antisemitism 377 be outdone in Polish patriotism, insisted that Jews would ‘defend the fatherland up to the last drop of blood’: I believe that the brotherhood of blood which Poles and Jews have created for their common fatherland will bring them together even more, to promote the one cause which is so dear to all of us: the independence of Poland and the freedom of all of its inhabitants without difference as to creed or nationality.*+

Yitzhak Gruenbaum, an important leader of Polish Jewry in the inter-war years and a Zionist representative in the Sejm, believed similarly in dozkeyt (though in 1933 he emigrated to Palestine). At the time of the creation of the Minorities Bloc in 1922, he declared—despite or because of Polish antisemitism—his faith in minorities’ rights. In a speech in an election rally in Warsaw he described the virtual hopelessness of resistance to antisemitism, yet affirmed: ‘In order that the position of the Jews as citizens be truly equal to that of the Poles, it is necessary to

recognize the existence of a Jewish nation.’* | In the inter-war years, the speed and extent of assimilation among Polish Jews were unprecedented. An increasing minority were becoming ‘Poles of the Mosaic persuasion’, regarded Polish as their mother tongue, and identified with Polish nationalism: “The new Jewish generation was at least to some extent becoming culturally polonized . . . Polish Jews had much more in common with non-Jewish Poles by the end of the interwar period than they had at its beginning.’ By 1938, Adolf Rudnicki could write: “The Jewish masses for the most part speak Polish, this is their everyday language, this is the language they use to express their emotions.’** Even as anti-Jewish violence and economic persecution spread in the 19308, Nomy Dziennik, the Krakow Polish-language Jewish daily, maintained a patriotic stance, exhorting its readers to defend the Polish nation. In these circumstances, ‘Jewish allegiance to the Polish state stands out as singularly idealistic, if not foolhardy.’°°

To assimilated Jews alienated from Judaism and other Jews, Polish identity— despite antisemitism—held the promise of freedom from hatred, not just by nonJews but also by Western Jews, as Ostjuden, described by Zygmunt Bauman as ‘a large refuse bin of human characteristics into which all that nagged the conscience 3! Tbid. 122. 32 Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz (eds.), The Jew in the Modern World, 443. 33 Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe, 31, 67, 82. In the 1931 census, 372,000 of the 3,114,000 Poles of ‘Mosaic persuasion’ (11.9 per cent) gave Polish as their mother tongue. The overwhelming majority still spoke Yiddish and were extremely devout. See Polonsky, Politics in Independent Poland, 40, 41. Although there were more Polish righteous gentiles who helped and saved

, Jews during the Holocaust than from any other country, the number of Polish collaborators in the genocide was greater too (see Gross, Neighbors). Many assimilated Polish Jews might have escaped had

fellow Poles not identified them to the Germans, who often could not tell Polish Jews from Polish gentiles.

34 Quoted by A. Polonsky, ‘Why Did They Hate Tuwim and Boy So Much? Jews and “Artificial Jews” in the Literary Polemics of the Second Polish Republic’, in Blobaum (ed.), Anti-Semitism and its

Opponents, 194. 35S. Martin, femish Life in Cracow, 1918-1939 (London, 2004), 77.

378 David Aberbach of the Western Jew and filled him with shame was dumped’.*° As elsewhere in , Europe, patriotism among Polish Jews was stimulated by the phenomenal growth of secular education. By the 1920s around 80 per cent of Jewish children went to Polish public schools, where Polish valour, nobility, greatness, and beauty were celebrated: The lessons in Polish history projected figures of shining Polish heroes. Children were taught to see the Polish land as exceptionally beautiful through the images of the Romantic Polish poets. They were continuously fed the idea that the Polish language was the quintessence of beauty. Is it surprising that Jewish children were stirred, in varying degrees, by this patriotic fantasy??"

Isaac Deutscher, who came to fear Jewish patriotism as a dangerous source of illusion,*® was among many Jewish children in the inter-war years who were indoctrinated in Polish patriotism: ‘I was a Polish child, brought up in a Polish school.

For us the Germans, like the Russians, were oppressors who robbed us of our independence for a century and a half, and against whom we had struggled in numerous insurrections [sic].’°?

Increased knowledge of Polish led to a growing Jewish press in Polish, and increasing numbers of Jews, the best-known of whom were Julian Tuwim and Bruno Schulz (1894-1944), began to gain recognition in the inter-war years as significant Polish writers.*° Like Jewish writers in Germany, France, and elsewhere, they became targets for antisemites, who resented their success and denied their authenticity. Some writers, such as Roman Brandstaetter (1906-87), set out to use Polish to express specifically Jewish concerns and longings, ‘the soul of the Polish

Jew’. Tuwim, however, was a major Polish and European poet, an innovator devoted to Polish literature and hostile to Jewish bourgeois ‘materialism’ and ‘philistinism’ as well as Zionism. Yet he also expressed deep identification with Jews and felt free to attack antisemitism. In 1924 he wrote: ‘With me the Jewish question lies in my blood, it is a fundamental element in my psyche. It is like a powerful wedge cutting into my view of the world, affecting my deepest personal experiences ... For me the “Jewish problem” is a tragedy, in which I myself am one of the anonymous actors.”*! The constant and ferocious antisemitic attacks on ‘Tuwim for ‘debasing’ the Polish language (he offended in part by writing for cabaret) and his blasphemous exaltation of sexuality, among other things, were symptomatic of the fragility of 36 Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, 132. 37 C.S. Heller, On the Edge of Destruction: fews of Poland between the Two World Wars (New York, 1977); 224.

38 Deutscher confessed: ‘If, instead of arguing against Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s, I had urged European Jews to go to Palestine, I might have helped to save some of the lives that were later extinguished in Hitler’s gas chambers.’ The Non-Jewish few and Other Essays, ed. T. Deutscher (New York,

1968), 112. 39° Tbid. 21.

40 See A. Hertz, The Jews in Polish Culture, trans. R. Lourie (Evanston, IIl., 1988), and E. ProkopJaniec, Polish-fewish Literature in the Interwar Years (1992), trans. A. Shenitzer (Syracuse, NY, 2003). 41 Quoted by Polonsky, ‘Why Did They Hate Tuwim and Boy So Much?’, 197.

Patriotism and Antisemitism 379 Polish Jewish acculturation in the inter-war period. ‘Tuwim found himself caught

between two visions of Poland, one forward-looking, civic, pluralistic, and European, the other narrow and turned inwards, specifically Catholic, obsessed by Poland’s tragic history, and hostile to foreign influences. As the latter predominated, Tuwim felt like an adopted child. Still, he maintained a mistaken belief that antisemites could be defeated by ridiculing them. Here, as in other respects, Polish Jews followed in the path of assimilated German Jews such as Heine; they, too, found that their spirited attacks on their detractors increased Polish Judaeophobia. Tuwim’s many critics were incensed by his superior gifts and by his moral superi-

ority in response to their antisemitism. In the poem “Tragedia’, for example, Tuwim wrote: ‘I am ashamed that my blood fraternizes with the nation of slaves.47 In A Ball at the Opera, Tuwim launched a bitter allegorical attack on a corrupt, wicked, antisemitic Poland, with a pointed allusion to Revelation (19: 2): ‘for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand’. Jewish assimilation, however successful, was generally seen by Poles as a contemptible intrusion. A Polish Foreign Ministry study in the 1930s concluded that

Jewish assimilation made antisemitism worse: “The penetration of externally assimilated Jews rather sharpens the antisemitic tendency . . . Polish society .. . does not agree to the mass absorption of the “children of the desert”.’*? This ‘antisemitic tendency’ in turn drove large numbers of Polish Jews to support the socialist Bund, which opposed emigration of Jews as Poland was their homeland. It issued a declaration during the 1936 kehilah elections: Here were we born, here we work and struggle, here we live with our anguish and joy, here is our homeland. No persecutions by reactionaries can abolish the fact and awareness that we are citizens with roots here, who bear their duties [along] with others and who demand their rights equally with others.**

The Bund’s 1937 Congress Manifesto declared: ‘today, as always our slogan 1s still

true: right here [in Poland] and not elsewhere—in a relentless fight for freedom, arm in arm with the working masses of Poland—lies our salvation’.*° 42 Quoted by Dunin, ‘Tuwim jako Zyd, Polak, czlowiek’, 89. 43 Weinbaum, A Marriage of Convenience, 19.

44 R. M. Shapiro, ‘The Polish Kehillah Elections of 1936: A Revolution Re-examined’, Polin, 8 (1994), 212.

45 Heller, On the Edge of Destruction, 282. In her memoir of her visit to Poland in 1938—9, Lucy Dawidowicz recalled a patriotic exhibit for Jewish schools organized by the Bund in Warsaw in early

1939, giving a detailed picture of Polish Jewish history and culture, including a room devoted to Jewish participation in the struggle for Polish independence. The Polish authorities closed the exhibit before it opened: ‘At just that time, the government and the anti-Semitic parties at its helm were clam-

oring to drive the Jews out of Poland, charging that they were alien to the country. This CYSHO [Central Yiddish School Organization] exhibition graphically documented just the opposite. It showed the deep roots that Jews had struck in Poland and how abundantly they had contributed to Poland’s industrial development and cultural endeavors. It was a message that Poland did not wish to have delivered.’ From that Place and Time, 163.

380 David Aberbach In his novel Satan in Goray, set in seventeenth-century Poland, Isaac Bashevis Singer (who left for America in 1935) obliquely alludes to the ominous mood in Poland in 1933, the year the novel was written. The betrayal of Jewish religious law in hysterical messianic hopes is described as provoking the murderous rage of Polish peasants: ‘In silence each day they sharpened their scythes . . . in silence they filed the blades of their axes.’*° Poland in the 1930s is clearly alluded to as the Jews of Goray foresee the gathering of Christians to ‘exterminate’ them.*’ Yet Singer could understand in retrospect why even prominent and persuasive Jewish leaders such as Chaim Weizmann failed to inspire large-scale emigration: If you take a people that lived in a country for 800 years and they lived one way or another and they continued to live, and you suddenly tell them: leave your country—lekh-lekha me artzekha, umi-moladetekha u-mi-beit avikha (‘Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house . . .’ [Gen. 12: 1])—-and go to live somewhere else, you cannot expect that masses of people will do so. It is a wonder that even small numbers of people heard this message and they did it. You cannot expect this from people . . . we all have connections, we have wives, apartments, children, relatives—no human being is ready suddenly to leave all this because a Professor Weizmann or some other leader has told him to do so.*®

REMINISCENCES OF INTER-WAR AMBIGUITIES The inter-war period is the subject of much post-war literature, both autobiography and fiction, which explores the complexities of Polish Jewish life and often relates later developments, under communist rule and after, to Poland between the wars. ‘The increasingly Polish identity of inter-war Polish Jewry was recalled by the film director Roman Polanski, whose childhood memories of Poland—he was 6 when the war broke out—had little Jewish content.*? He remembered especially the summer festival of Wianki: Wianki, which went back to pre-Christian times, commemorated the legend of Princess Wanda, who had jumped to her death from Krakow Castle rather than marry a German king. At dusk, down the river so close to where we lived, floated hundreds of wreaths adorned with lighted candles; the princess’s death was re-enacted by a white-clad girl who leaped into the Vistula from a make-believe castle mounted on a barge. It was a fairy-tale occasion, culminating in a huge display of pyrotechnics that took my breath away.°°

This childhood memory is striking in its Polish patriotic feeling in the face of the German threat in the late 1930s.

46 Trans. J. Sloan (New York, 1955), 171. 47 Tbid. 202. 48 In Y. Lossin, Pillar of Fire: The Rebirth of Israel—A Visual History, trans. Z. Ofer, ed. C. S. Halberstadt (Jerusalem, 1983), 107. 49 However, Polanski’s classic film Knife in the Water (1962) can be seen, on one level, as an allegory of the violent failure of Jewish assimilation in Polish society after the initial hope of acceptance and

seeming acceptance. °° R. Polanski, Roman (New York, 1984), 14.

Patriotism and Antisemitism 381 The assimilation and patriotic attachment of Polish Jews to Poland prior to the war, despite Polish antisemitism, is touched on also by Louis Begley in his semibiographical novel Wartime Lies (1992). The story is told by a Jewish boy, Maciek, who has survived the war by pretending to be a Pole and now lives in New York under a different name. After the Anschluss of Austria in 1938, Maciek’s aunt, Tania, has tried to persuade his father, a doctor, to leave Poland: ‘She told him it was precisely the time to leave Poland, while it was still possible ... My father said ... his place, his duty, were in Poland. Tania said he was a fool.’°! By the end of the war, Maciek is so thoroughly Polonized that the habitual antisemitism of Polish

Catholics becomes second nature, a badge of his ‘authenticity’ as a Pole. He even sees the horrific Kielce pogrom of 1946 through Polish eyes: ‘As for extermination, the Germans could no more get that job done than win the war. They had to leave it to us Poles to clean out the country, as though we had not suffered enough.’°”

The ambiguity of Polish Jewish identity in the inter-war period has been a significant subject among post-war Polish writers of Jewish origin, including Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, Antoni Marionowicz, Arnold Mostowicz, and Henryk Grynberg.°® Olczak-Ronikier, in W ogrodzie pamieci (2003), traces her family history and its movement from Jewish Orthodoxy to Polonization from the late nineteenth century until after the Holocaust. She describes Polish education in private

schools and higher education as the key enabling her family to enter the Polish intelligentsia and antisemitism as a limiting factor in Jewish integration, leading to an identity crisis by the inter-war period, when her mother married a non-Jew

(in 1933). .

Marionowicz, in his memoir Zycie surowo wzbronione (1995, published in

English in 2004 as Life Strictly Forbidden), describes Polish Jewish life in Warsaw before and during the Holocaust and confesses the ambiguities of his identity as a Jew and a Pole. He recalls how Polish antisemitism poisoned the atmosphere in the inter-war period: The fact that ’'ma Pole .. . isn’t one of choice, and I don’t necessarily like it. I’m a Pole because I am. This land is my land, this language my language. My relationship with Poland 1s like the relationship one has with one’s family. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I can hardly stand it, but I don’t think that anyone, regardless of position or title, has the right to teach me patriotism.°*

Mostowicz, a doctor and writer who survived the ghetto of Lodz and remained in Poland after the war, and active in the revival of Jewish life there, said before his death in 2002: ‘What am I today? More a Jew or more a Pole? I don’t know. I feel

>! LL. Begley, Wartime Lies (London, 1992), 27. °2 Tbid. 176. °3 KK. Auerbach and A. Polonsky, ‘Insiders-Outsiders: Poles and Jews in Recent Polish-Jewish Fiction and Autobiography’, to appear in the Festschrift for Ezra Mendelsohn. I am grateful to Antony Polonsky for drawing my attention to this literature. °4 A. Marionowicz, Life Strictly Forbidden, trans. A. Nitecki (London, 2004), 4-5.

382 David Aberbach myself a patriot and, as George Bernard Shaw used to say, a true patriot is one who is dissatisfied with his homeland.’°° Grynberg’s autobiographical novel Memorbuch (2000) was written after the author, an assimilated Polish Jewish communist, left Poland in 1967. He explores his Jewish roots in the context of the history of Jews in Poland, culminating in the 1930s and during the Holocaust. The book includes a chapter on rising Polish anti-

semitism in the 1930s and links the failure of Jewish integration in communist Poland to Polish antisemitism of the inter-war years. An exchange between a Jew and a security police interrogator at the time of the anti-Zionist persecution of 1968 has sinister echoes of Poland in the 1930s: ‘Are you a Pole or a Jew?’ asked the specialist, putting his pistol on the table. ‘Both a Pole and a Jew,’ responded Leon. ‘Either one is a Pole, or [one is] a Jew!’ ‘Tam an example that it 1s possible to be both one and the other.’ ‘And you are connected with Polish culture?’ ‘Yes.’

“Then recite something from Pan Tadeusz.’ ‘Jankiel through the whole winter stayed one knew not where, / Now suddenly with the main staff of the military he made his appearance . . .”°°

THE PATRIOTISM OF POLISH ZIONISTS In common with Zionists elsewhere in Europe, Polish Zionists between the wars tended to be patriots deeply ambivalent about Jewish nationalism and hoping for acceptance by Poles. They did not generally see a/zyah as the ultimate aim of the

Zionist movement and believed that Polish Jews had a future as a minority in | Poland. Though poverty and discrimination drove some Polish Jews to Palestine, as in the mid-1920s, the main goal of Polish Zionists throughout the 1920s and even after 1933 was minority rights, not emigration to Palestine or elsewhere: ‘In 1933 it would have been difficult to dispute the fact that the economic and political

situation of Polish Jews was far less secure than that of Jews in Germany. Nevertheless, significant numbers of Jews [in Poland] were not seeking Palestine immigration certificates.”? Polish Jews—in common with assimilated Jews elsewhere in Europe—often saw Zionism not as their salvation but as a threat. ‘This view was typically expressed as follows:

We were Poles, we loved Poland, and it was hard for us because of the increasing antisemitism. We were violently anti-Zionist. Poland was our country and we did not see why °° Quoted in A. Polonsky, foreword to A. Mostowicz, With a Yellow Star and a Red Cross, trans. H. and N. Reinhartz (London, 2005), p. xv. °6 H. Grynberg, Memorbuch (Warsaw, 2000), 311. °” A. Z. Gottlieb, Men of Vision: Anglo-Jewry’s Aid to Victims of the Nazi Regime, 1933-1945 (London, 1998), 38.

Patriotism and Antisemitism 383 we should pick ourselves up and go far away. At that time Zionism seemed a preposterous idea to us.°®

Out of about 3.25 million Polish Jews, 139,756, or less than 5 per cent, went to Palestine in the period 1919—42.°° This relatively small number was due partly to British immigration restrictions; also, at moments during the inter-war period, in 1921, 1929, and 1936-8, anti-Jewish violence was perhaps greater in Palestine than in Poland: ‘many Polish Jews, while hoping to live in Palestine at some future date, and while learning modern Hebrew in school in Poland, hesitated to take what they saw as the undue risk of moving to a land in turmoil’.°° Some Polish Zionists saw parallels between Jewish and Polish nationalism, which Jacob ‘Talmon described as ‘Judaic’, ‘that of a conquered, humiliated and oppressed nation dreaming of resurrection’.°! The Zionist leader Yitzhak Gruenbaum related in his memoirs how the Polish literary classics ‘awakened my love for the Poles, who fought for their rights’,°? though Polish patriotism and love of Poland as taught in schools could, in turn, stimulate Zionism.°? Polish Zionists expressed admiration for Maurycy Gottlieb (1856—79), who attempted in his paintings to synthesize Polish and Jewish identities:

The fact is that for all their integral Jewish nationalism, many Polish Zionists still harbored strong feelings of Polish patriotism and love of Polish culture, and therefore preserved in their hearts a soft spot for Gottlieb’s fervent ‘Polishness’ and, it must be added, a craving for recognition by the Polish world.®

One Polish Jew who turned to Zionism in despair at antisemitism was the prominent lawyer Henryk Strasman. Strasman was totally assimilated into Polish society—or so he thought—until he was accused in the Polish press of helping a communist prisoner to escape during an investigation because he was a Jew: ‘his whole concept of life as a very patriotic Pole collapsed. ““The assimilation of Jews will never be an answer.” ©? °8 Weinbaum, 4A Marriage of Convenience, 52-3. 59 Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe, 79.

60 M. Gilbert, From the Ends of the Earth: The Jews in the 20th Century (London, 2001), 169. It is unlikely that the number of pogrom victims in Palestine in the inter-war period (e.g. in Jaffa in 1921 and Hebron in 1929) exceeded that in Poland. For most of the time between 1g21 and 1929 and again between 1931 and 1936, things were quiet in Palestine. Whereas in Poland there was little Jewish selfdefence, in Palestine Jews could and did defend themselves, despite British interference with Haganah activities. Thousands of German and Austrian children came to Palestine during the Arab Revolt of 1936-9, and virtually no harm befell them prior to the Arab invasion in 1948-9.

Sl J. L. Talmon, Romanticism and Revolt: Europe 1815-1848 (London, 1967), 96. See also M. Opalski, ‘Polish—Jewish Relations and the January Uprising: The Polish Perspective’, Polin, 1 (1986), 70-1. ‘The comparison is imperfect as the Jews did not, for the most part, live in their own country, while the Poles did, giving them—despite their loss of independence—a tremendous advantage over the homeless Jews. 62 E. Mendelsohn, Zionism in Poland: The Formative Years, 1915-1926 (New Haven, 1981), 345. 63 A. Cala, ‘The Social Consciousness of Young Jews in Interwar Poland’, Polin, 8 (1994), 51. 64 FE. Mendelsohn, Painting a People: Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art (Hanover, NH, 2002), 185. 65 Weinbaum, 4 Marriage of Convenience, 54.

384 David Aberbach The Polish-born Hebrew poet Uri Zvi Greenberg reached a similar conclusion. In his 1924 poem Yerushalayim shel matah (Earthly Jerusalem), written shortly after he arrived in Palestine, he describes the love for Poland common among Polish Jews, even Zionists such as himself, before violent antisemitism forced him leave Poland:®° We were forced to hate what we loved: We loved forest and brook, well and mill, falling leaves, fish, well-bucket, challah secretly we even loved the sound of their church-bells, even the bleach-haired little shkotzim. We loved the harmonica and flute, Ukrainian songs, village girls dancing in colourful rings,

thatched cottages painted white with red rafters, winter’s end dripping from their roofs. We longed for the tiny eagle-eye windows, the little door on the wicker fence, the bellow of bulls, pink-dusted apples, purple of plums, we longed for the touch of roses. Longing made us cry fire-tears, strong as liquor, forced into the pain of longing, we dared not come near our neighbours’ fence to say dzien dobry,

for they would set their cruel dogs at us— , We were forced to leave great cities where we loved to smoke in cafes. Opera, evening dress, perfumed hair, dance halls. Opium. Ballet, boulevards, whorehouses.

Hot neon lights, news off the press, the rumble of the city! Girls calling you for sex. Museums of antiquities, royal libraries! Wrenched from the shtet/s, we saw our houses in fire-filled tears, knowing

they would burn in the end. Before we left we did not kiss the precious threshold, we did not kiss the walls, we did not stroke in pain the vessels we had so loved, we did not lie like dogs hugging the floor we’d once played on—

66 Another Hebrew writer, the novelist and Holocaust survivor Aharon Appelfeld, describes in the novella Badenheim 1939 a central European spa town on the verge of war. The Jewish characters, such

as Trude, wife of Martin the pharmacist, remain attached to their countries, blind to their impending fate: ‘When she spoke about Poland her eyes lit up, and the sorrow was erased from her brow. A new, young skin seemed to be growing over her face. She laughed. Martin asked many questions. “Are the rivers in Poland beautiful?” And Trude spared no details. There was no country as beautiful as Poland, no air as pure as Polish air.’ Trans. D. Bilu (Boston, 1981), 118.

Patriotism and Antisemitism 385 For the past was already burnt out of our skulls together with holiday clothes and neatly-made four-poster beds. The years lay at our feet and wept like faithful dogs in the land of the goyim.®"

When Greenberg’s colleague in the Revisionist movement, Vladimir Jabotinsky, visited Poland in 1937, he found a community whose leaders refused to admit that their situation was desperate.°® Jabotinsky proposed a plan for the ‘evacuation’ of

1.5 million Jews from eastern Europe over ten years, including 750,000 from Poland: the Polish government was delighted but the Bund, in common with most other Jewish organizations, was bitterly opposed.®® The plan, formulated too late, came to nothing. Like Jews in other European countries in the years immediately prior to the Holocaust, Polish Jews did not for the most part want to leave the land where their ancestors had lived for centuries. They were far more responsive to patriotic appeals such as that of Ezekiel Lewin, rabbi of the progressive synagogue in Lwow, on 11 November 1936, the eighteenth anniversary of Polish independ-

ence. The Jewish ‘sons of Poland’, he said, should ‘love Poland, their country, which nourishes them . . . because they desire it to be their country and that of their future generations’.’° Polish Zionists remained patriots to the end. In the last issue of the Yiddish daily Haynt (23 August 1939), Apolinary Hartglas, President of the Zionist Organization of central and eastern Poland, rejected forcefully Jabotinsky’s plan to evacuate large numbers of Polish Jews: “To other than ideologically motivated emigration to Palestine, we say no, never.’"!

In the context of Zionist patriotism for Poland, the fatal reluctance of the famous Jewish educator and children’s writer Janusz Korczak to move his Warsaw orphanage to the Land of Israel in the 1930s becomes clearer. Korczak remained

with the children to the end, when he and the children were deported from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka in August 1942. Yet on his visits to Palestine in 1934 and 1936 he had found that children were welcome there; funds for transfer of Polish Jewish orphans were available; people with his experience were needed; and he himself was, in fact, well known and highly esteemed, in contrast with the constant vilification he suffered as a Jew in Poland. Despite his Zionist sympathies,

Korczak, in common with many other Polish Zionists, was ‘determined to live as both a Pole and a Jew’; he believed in ‘faith in the shared history that bound 67 U. Z. Greenberg, Kol ketavav, ed. D. Miron et al. (Jerusalem, 1990), i. 66; my translation. Challah: bread eaten on the sabbath and festivals; shkotzim (Yiddish): lit. ‘abominations’, a reference to gentile boys, who often tormented Jews; dzien dobry (Polish): good day; shtet/ (Yiddish): a large village or small township. 68 S. Katz, Lone Wolf: A Biography of Vladimir (Ze’ev) Fabotinsky (New York, 1996), 1581. 62 Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe, 80. ” Quoted in J. J. Bussgang, ‘The Progressive Synagogue in Lwéw’, Polin, 11 (1998), 151. “! Quoted in J. Marcus, Social and Political History of the fews in Poland, 1919-1939 (Berlin, 1983), AIO.

386 David Aberbach [Jews and Poles] together’.’* Like Tuwim, Korczak felt that the Polish language was ‘the very air one inhales’.”? As for moving to the Jewish homeland, Korczak ‘was not looking for a new homeland. He already had one.’ ‘To leave Poland was

desertion.“ :

The incoherent views of Polish Zionists who professed love for the Land of

Israel while trying to assimilate into Polish society which hated them was attacked

by assimilated upper-class Jews such as Wiktor Chajes, from 1929 to 1939 President of the Lwow Jewish community. Chajes wrote that while he could support aliyah of idealistic halutsim (pioneers), he had nothing but contempt for ‘our young Maccabees who dream of a wealthy marriage, a career in law or banking, but only here in Poland, while their (Jewish) “homeland” waited for them in vain’.”° Chajes himself illustrates the Polish patriotism to which even Zionists were prone. Downplaying the evidence of Polish antisemitism, he insisted upon Jewish patriotic love, to the point that when the Second World War broke out, he was against setting up an independent Jewish aid committee as, in his view, the Jews were part of Poland.“° The last words Chajes wrote in his diary, on the day Lwow surrendered to the Red Army (22 September 1939), were ‘Long live Poland!’’" To the end he was more concerned with the fate of Poland than with that of the Jews.

Another Zionist patriotic Pole was the Revisionist leader Yohanan Bader, renowned as a lawyer and culturally assimilated. In his autobiography Bader recalls

the general patriotism among the Polish Jews: “The Jews, including the “Orthodox” rabbis, were enthusiastic Polish patriots . . . They were proud of the Jews who had participated in Poland’s wars of liberation .. . The [educated] Jews spoke pure Polish . . . They were Polish patriots, they desired the rebirth of a free united Poland.’’® Even the Yiddish-speaking hasidic Jews in Krakow were attached to Poland as ‘Poles of the Mosaic persuasion’.’’ Bader left his beloved Krakow only when forced, after the German invasion in 1939.

” B. J. Lifton, The King of Children (London, 1989), 7, 75. 73 Tbid. 221. 4 Tbid. 197, 220. ? V. Chajes, Gam yehudi gam polani: yomano shel viktor hayot, trans. P. Maizlish (Ramat Gan, 1998), 146-7.

‘6 ibid. 26. Chajes goes so far in his patriotism as to defend the Polish army, which took part in the pogrom in Lwow in 1918: ‘Most Jews were sympathetic to the Ukrainians’ (p. 158); and despite the pogrom, ‘My Polishness was not broken’ (p. 161). ™ Tbid. 270. Ernest Lubitsch’s delightful, wildly improbable anti-Nazi comedy, To Be or Not to Be (1942), set in wartime Warsaw, depicts a troupe of Polish Jewish actors who are motivated by Polish

patriotism to resist the German occupation. In one scene, the actor Josef Tura (played with impeccable, hilarious timing by Jack Benny) thinks he is about to be executed by a Nazi spy. His ‘last words’ are ‘Long live Poland!’ ‘® Y. Bader, Darki letsiyon, rg01—1948: otobiografiyah (Jerusalem, 1999), 50. "9 Thid. 51.

Patriotism and Antisemitism 387 CONCLUSION Even as the destruction of the Polish Jews began, becoming what Jan Karski with brutal honesty described in 1940 as ‘a narrow bridge upon which the Germans and a large portion of Polish society are finding agreement’,®° some Polish Jews still clung to their Polish patriotism, though their chameleon-like efforts to blend in as Poles were futile. The work of Julian Tuwim is notable for its love for Poland even during the Holocaust. Forced into exile to Brazil and the United States during the war, Tuwim wrote along poem, Kwiaty polskie (Polish Flowers), in which his sense of Polishness survives the savagery of Polish antisemitism:®’ When showing toughness they beat the Jews, When the rampant braggarts so molested them That I felt more shame for my fatherland Than pity for my beaten brethren.®?

Even in exile, Tuwim insisted, antisemitic Poland was still his fatherland, ‘unbearable’, he wrote in 1940 in a letter from Brazil to his sister in New York, “but, above all, most beloved Poland’.®° My country is my home. Fatherland Is my home. My lot was to receive A Polish home. This—is fatherland, And other countries are hotels.°*

Ilya Ehrenburg put it well: ‘Poland did not always love Tuwim, but ‘Tuwim always loved Poland.’®° 80 C. Abramsky et al. (eds.), The Jews in Poland (Oxford, 1986), to.

81 The Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, in his memoir The Pianist, trans. A. Bell (London, 2003), first published in Polish in 1946, explains why he and his family remained in Warsaw when the war broke out in 1939: ‘The simple fact is that we decided to stay because of our fondness for Warsaw’ (p. 47). At the end of the war, Warsaw was a total ruin, where ‘the centuries-old culture of my people’ lay buried (p. 167); ‘my people’ presumably refers to the Polish people. Szpilman, despite the recrudescence of antisemitism under communist rule, remained in Poland. He became director of music at Polish Radio in Warsaw, and he lived in Warsaw until his death in 2000. Another instance of Jewish attachment to Poland surviving the Holocaust is that of Alice Parizeau-Poznansky (1927-91), born in Poland to an assimilated Jewish family. After surviving the war, she married the future leader of the Parti Québécois, Jacques Parizeau, according to whom her love for Poland, Polish culture, and Polish independence inspired his own political commitment to a sovereign Quebec. 82 J. Tuwim, The Dancing Socrates and Other Poems, trans. A. Gillon (New York, 1968), 12. 83 Quoted by Polonsky, ‘Why Did They Hate Tuwim and Boy So Much?’, 208. In 1944, Tuwim wrote a prose poem, My, Zydzi polscy (We, Polish Jews), declaring: ‘I am a Pole because it was in Poland that I was born and bred, that I grew up and learned; because it was in Poland that I was happy and unhappy; because from exile it is to Poland that I want to return, even though I were promised the joys of paradise elsewhere . . . Above all a Pole—because I want to be... .’. Antony Polonsky, “The Failure of Jewish Assimilation in Polish Lands and its Consequences’, The Third Goldman Lecture, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (2000), 25.

84 Tuwim, The Dancing Socrates, 50. 85 Tbid. 11.

388 David Aberbach At the same time, in 1943, the American Federation for Polish Jews published a

chronicle of the annihilation of Polish Jewry, stating the centuries-long links ‘which bind the Jews to Polish soil with iron bonds; the common earth which nourished both Poles and Jews has been saturated with the sighs and tears of both

peoples’.°° When Arthur Zygielbaum, a leader of the Polish-Jewish Bund in London, heard of the massacres of the Warsaw Jews in the uprising of April 1943,

he committed suicide in protest, leaving a note indicating his love for Poland: ‘T wish that this remaining handful of the original several millions of Polish Jews could live to see the liberation of a new world of freedom. . . I believe that such a Poland will arise and that such a world will come.’°’ One of the last surviving Jewish periodicals in Poland, published underground in the Warsaw ghetto in 1942, contains this declaration: Despite all of Hitler’s special laws and persecutions, despite the walls and fences the Germans hope will cut the Jews off from the rest of the Polish people, the Jews have been, are, and will continue to be members of the Great Polish Community, they are citizens of the Polish Fatherland and nation, they are Poles.®® 86 Quoted in B. L. Sherwin, Sparks amidst the Ashes: The Spiritual Legacy of Polish Jewry (New

York, 1997), 138. 87 Tbid. 88 Lichten, ‘Notes on the Assimilation’, 126.

The Nazi Murder of the Jews in Polish Eyes Views in the Underground Press, 1942-1945 KLAUS-PETER FRIEDRICH INTRODUCTION ADAM STARKOPF, who succeeded in fleeing the Warsaw ghetto and escaping to the ‘Aryan side’, recalls that on 1 August 1942 he managed to get hold of an issue of the underground paper Rzeczpospolita. Reading it, his eyes were opened to the reality of the situation for the first time: “This paper, I later found out, was the first

to tell the truth about Treblinka. .. . contrary to what the Germans had tried to make the Jews believe, Treblinka was not a labor camp but a death camp. Now I saw my fears confirmed by a detailed account in the Polish underground bulletin.”* In one of the first descriptions of the battle of the Warsaw ghetto of April-May

1943, Samuel Mendelsohn relied partly on reports in the Polish underground ' press. Commenting on the reliability of such accounts, he observed that not all Polish underground papers are equally reliable. ‘There are among them some that have remained faithful to Polish pre-war reactionary antisemitism. Even when faced with the unprecedented revolt in the Ghetto, neither writers nor editors were able to free themselves of their Jew-hatred. The Labour, Peasant and Democratic underground press, on the other hand, described the heroic battles with much warmth and admiration.” 1 A. Starkopf, Will to Live: One Family’s Story of Surviving the Holocaust (Albany, NY, 1995), 120.

An analysis of the newspaper Rzeczpospolita Polska reveals that at the end of Aug. 1942, the Nazi extermination centres Belzec and Sobibor were mentioned as the destination for deportations, while Treblinka was not mentioned until mid-October; in Biuletyn Informacyjny and other papers, there likewise appears to have been no mention of Treblinka before Oct. 1942. However, Treblinka does figure in an article published in the socialist underground newspaper WRN (no. 16) on 31 Aug. 1942, pp. 5-6, under the title “Tragedia Zydow’, one of the first reports which revealed the outright killing of Jewish Varsovians by poison gas: ‘In Treblinka and Sobibor, places for the mass execution of Jews

have been established on the model of Belzec. Consignments are brought to Treblinka from the Warsaw ghetto; execution takes place in a gas chamber . . .’ (“(W Treblince 1 Sobiborze urzadzone zostaly wzorowane na Belzcu miejsca masowego tracenia Zydow. Do Treblinki zwozi sie transporty z

ghetta warszawskiego; tracenie odbywa sie w komorze gazowe} . . .’). , 2 S. Mendelsohn, The Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto (New York, 1944), 6. Among other things, the

390 Klaus-Peter Friedrich By contrast, looking back after almost sixty years, Jerzy Jedlicki, who in particu-

lar scrutinized right-wing nationalist papers, has argued that the underground press clearly reflected the attitudes and reactions of Poles to the mass murder of Jews; he claimed that these writings highlighted views which people expressed among themselves, and which were legitimized by a substan-

tial proportion of the underground press, in numerous publications—where the main concern of the editors was how after the end of the war people could get rid of the rest of the Jews who might perhaps succeed in surviving the annihilation.”

My intention 1n this essay is to investigate news reporting and the spectrum of opinion in the Polish press with regard to the Nazis’ mass killings of Jews. Using relevant substantive source materials as a base,* the point of departure is the period of large-scale operations against the Warsaw ghetto: its brutal evacuation and the deportation of its inmates to National Socialist extermination centres beginning in July 1942. It was at that juncture that the genocidal dimension of the National Socialist persecution of Jews became impossible for the Polish population to overlook, or at least its intellectual leadership residing in Warsaw. From that point on, the murder of the Jewish population constituted a part of the daily reality of the

environment for Poles living in the Generalgouvernement (GG). The ending point of the period under investigation is 1945, when, with the end of the Nazi occupation of Poland, the abiding mortal threat to the remaining Jews likewise ceased. By the end of 1942, owing to the murder campaign called ‘Operation Reinhard’,

the extermination of Polish Jews had largely been completed in the GG.? After author described the Polish reactions on the basis of reports appearing in Biuletyn Informacyjny, Robotnik, WRN, Przez walke do zwyciestwa, and Nowe Drogi (pp. 20 ff.).

° J. Jedlicki, ‘Wie damit fertig werden? Die Polen und die Judenvernichtung’, in Aktuelle Ostinformationen, 3/4 (2001), 59-66 at 64. Trans. of ‘Jak sie z tym poradzic? Polacy wobec zaglady Zydow’, in Polityka, 10 Feb. 2001.

* This essay is a summary of the partial findings of my doctoral dissertation, ‘Der nationalsozialistische Judenmord in polnischen Augen: Einstellungen in der polnischen Presse 1942—1946/ 47’ (University of Cologne, 2003); part of it has been revised and published as Der nationalsozialistische Judenmord und das polnisch-jiidische Verhaltnis im Diskurs der polnischen Untergrundpresse (1942-1944)

(Marburg, 2006). On the topic, see also A. Polonsky, ‘Beyond Condemnation, Apologetics and Apologies: On the Complexity of Polish Behavior toward the Jews during the Second World War’, in J. Frankel (ed.), The Fate of the European Jews (New York, 1997), 190-224, with reference to attitudes in the underground press, pp. 211-15.

° For reasons of expedience, the term ‘Jew’ in this study is understood in accordance with the definition in the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which among other things served as the basis for the anti-

Jewish discrimination and persecution of National Socialist policy on the Jews in the occupied countries of Europe. The decisive criterion is thus neither the national, linguistic-cultural, or religious sense of those persecuted, nor that of the Polish non-Jewish population, who distinguished the assimilated and acculturated—and in the strict sense ‘Polish’—as ‘belonging to us’ (swoz) from the greater mass of less assimilated or non-assimilated ‘strangers’ (obcy). Rather, the salient criterion is the special threat to the population group defined by the Nazi German occupiers as Jews that resulted

Nazi Murder of the fews in Polish Eyes 391 that, only tens of thousands of Jews were able to survive in occupied Poland, used as conscript labourers in ghettos and camps; by early 1944, however, almost all the

remaining ghettos and camps had been disbanded. Some Jews assumed a new identity on the ‘Aryan’ side, living in constant fear of informers or blackmailers. They disappeared incognito into the non-Jewish surroundings, or went into hiding assisted by non-Jews. In the meantime, with the national Polish Warsaw uprising, most underground papers and bulletins ceased publication. Only a few editorial teams were able to regroup and continue their work elsewhere. Owing to limitations of time and space, it is impossible here to include a total

documentation of the Polish underground press for the period under investigation. Rather, a selection of materials has been chosen as a basis for empirical investigation. What I have tried to do is to examine the most important papers of the central Polish press in terms of their political significance, print runs, and length and frequency of publication and use them as documentation for the position of various political camps; these have been supplemented by several smaller papers and bulletins. In addition, the findings of this study are compared and evaluated in the light of literature on this topic.°® The Generalgouvernement differed from the other occupied territories in that it did not permit a legal press to be published by the occupied population under their own aegis, apart from the official ‘reptile’ press. The number of copies of papers in relation to the size of the population declined drastically in this sparse media land-

scape.’ The gagging of Polish journalism occurred in a situation marked by a mounting hunger for information: people were keen to obtain news about the measures and plans of the occupying authorities and the further possible course of the war. At the same time, political parties and socially engaged groups, compelled to continue their work conspiratorially, sought a means to communicate their political conceptions and standpoints on the events of the day to their supporters and interested fellow Poles—especially regarding the murder of the country’s Jewish population. In keeping with these two aims, more than 1,000 periodical publications

were published clandestinely under the Nazi occupation; of these, some 700 from the intensified state of persecution, extending to their planned and organized mass physical annihilation.

® On the state of research, see Friedrich, ‘Der nationalsozialistische Judenmord in polnischen Augen’, 69-105.

7 See K.-P. Friedrich, ‘Die deutsche polnischsprachige Presse im Generalgouvernement (1939-1945): NS-Propaganda fiir die polnische Bevolkerung’, Publizistik, 46 (2001), 162-88; 1d., _ ‘Publizistische Kollaboration im sog. Generalgouvernement: Personengeschichtliche Aspekte der deutschen Okkupationsherrschaft in Polen (1939-1945), Zeztschrift fur Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, 48 (1999), 50-89; T. Glowinski, O nowy porzaqdek europejski: Ewolucja hitlerowskiej propagandy polityczne

wobec Polakéw w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie, 1939-1945 (Wroclaw, 2000); and, as fundamental

literature, the detailed and well-grounded comparison of the press propaganda in the Krakauer Zeitung and the Polish-language occupiers’ paper Goniec Krakowski by L. Jockheck, Propaganda im Generalgouvernement: Die NS-Besatzungspresse fir Deutsche und Polen, 1939-1945 (Osnabrick, 2006).

392 Klaus-Peter Friedrich appeared in Warsaw alone, the hub of the Polish underground press.° The number of different papers continued to grow until the year 1943,? and the overwhelming proportion were weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.'° Print runs generally ranged between 200 and 1,000 copies for mimeographed papers and bulletins, and several thousand in the case of printed central papers.'! The largest print run was for the AK bulletin Biuletyn Informacyjny, which reached 43,000 in 1944.” The underground papers can be divided into seven categories,’? aligned roughly with the political and ideological boundaries between camps from the pre-war period. In this connection, the largest coalition of the Polish resistance movement did not emerge as a democratic alternative to the authoritarian Sanacja until after the defeat of September 1939.'* For that reason, the initial focus here is on reports that appeared in the most important papers of the Biuro Informacji i Propagandy

AK (Office for News and Propaganda of the Armia Krajowa)—Biuletyn Informacyjny and Wiadomosci Polskie—and organs of the Departament Informacji 1 Propagandy Delegatury Rzadu RP na Kraj (Department for News and Propa-

ganda of the Government Representation in Poland—the Government Home Delegature):'° Rzeczpospolita Polska and Kray: Agencja Informacyjna. Beginning in

1943, the two institutions co-ordinated in assessing the political situation.'® Differences tended to arise principally from the fact that the organs and representatives of the Government Home Delegature, oriented to the party coalition of which it was made up, were more politically defined in their views, while the AK saw itself 8 S. Lewandowska, Polska konspiracyjna prasa informacyjno-polityczna, 1939-1945 (Warsaw, 1982), 265; ead., Prasa okupowane; Warszawy, 1939-1945 (Warsaw, 1992), 73, 135 f. 9 It rose from 147 in 1940 to 210 in 1941, mounting to 278 in 1942 and 343 in 1943; in 1944, 332 papers were published in Warsaw. Lewandowska, Prasa okupowanej] Warszawy, 135. 10 See Lewandowska, Polska konspiracyjna prasa, 266—7.; ead., Prasa okupowane; Warszawy, 136. '! Lewandowska, Polska konspiracyjna prasa, 268.

'* The formal terms for the Armia Krajowa (AK) were in chronological order Stuzba Zwyciestwu Polski (Polish Victory Service; SZP) and Zwiazek Walki Zbrojnej (Alliance for Armed Struggle; ZWZ). The designation Armia Krajowa was introduced on 14 Feb. 1942. 13 Among a total number of 1,095 underground papers counted by Lewandowska, the main publishers were ZWZ or AK (244), Delegatura Rzadu RP na Kraj (Government Home Delegature) (72), Ruch Ludowy (Peasants’ Movement) (183), Wolnosé~Rownosc—Niepodlegtosé (i.e. the underground Polish Socialist Party, PPS-WRN) (38), Stronnictwo Narodowe (National Party; SN) (51), Szaniec (51), Stronnictwo Pracy (the Party of Labour associated with the Roman Catholic Church) (26), Sanacja (45), Polska Partia Robotnicza (Polish Workers’ Party; PPR) and communist-guided groups (160), left socialists (i.e. Robotnicza Polska Partia Socjalistyczna; RPPS and those closely associated) (40). Lewandowska, Polska konspiracyjna prasa, 267.

' After Jozef Pilsudski’s coup in May 1926 ‘Sanacja’ (sanitation/recovery) was the slogan under which an authoritarian regime was established which replaced the unstable party-based democracy and claimed to be ‘sanitizing’ the state towards recovery. See . 1° The Government Home Delegature was the clandestine delegated representation of the Polish

government-in-exile in occupied Poland, located in Warsaw; see G. Ostasz, ‘Delegature’, . '® See G. Mazur, Biuro Informacji i Propagandy SZP-ZWZ-AK, 1939-1945 (Warsaw, 1987), 87.

Nazi Murder of the fews in Polish Eyes 393 as above the fray of partisan politics. In the name of a national unity front it sought to gain the support of the entire society, without regard to political lines. ‘’

Reporting by the left on the murder of Jews is dominated by the organs of the largest left-wing party of the Polish political spectrum, the underground Polska Partia Socjalistyczna (which also used the name Wolnosc—Rownosc— Niepodlegiosc, abbreviated WRN): WRN and Robotnik w walce. In addition, papers of smaller, left-socialist groups (Robotnik, Barykada Wolnosct) are examined here, and two left-wing groups with papers published in Krakow (Dzienntk Polski, Tygodnk Polskt), as well as the trade union paper Czyn. ‘The spectrum on

the right extends from papers that represented the major current of National Democracy (Narodowa Demokracja, Endecja)!® to the organs of extreme rightwing and fascist groups (Walka, Wielka Polska, Nowa Polska, Szantec, Barykada). Since in Polish post-war historiography little attention has been paid to the rightwing nationalist press,'? its views on the Nazi killings of Jews constitute a particular thematic focus in the present study. In addition, I look at underground papers that saw themselves principally as Roman Catholic (Narod, Kadra P.N., Prawda, Kultura JFutra), or that represented the conspiratorial Peasants’ Movement (Ruch Ludowy) and its most important party, Stronnictwo Ludowe (Przez walke do zwyciestwa, Agencja informacyjna ‘Wies’, Polska Ludowa); papers which sympathized with the pre-war governments GS. [Strzelec], Nurt, Panstwo Polskie); and those that were communist (7rybuna Wolnosci, Gwardzista, Armia Ludowa, Rada Narodowa).

Finally, I shall examine the subsequent impact of the different traditions of the

underground press of the occupation period on the press of the early Polish People’s Republic, which came into being in 1944.

THE HOME ARMY AND THE GOVERNMENT HOME DELEGATURE The papers of the AK and the Government Home Delegature had an extensive news network at their disposal and thus were best informed about what was happening in the occupied territory. They reported relatively frequently about the murder of the Jews in the months when the killings reached their high point in the GG. Since to a certain extent the papers were semi-official organs of the government-in-exile and its

‘underground state’, they saw themselves to a far greater measure than the other underground papers as the defenders of Polish raison d’état and society. In keeping with their information policy, which took its lead from the London government, their reportage was generally objective, balanced, and most likely ‘filtered’ by the

17 See ibid. 294. 18 See . 19 But see W. J. Muszynski, W walce o Wielka Polske: Propaganda zaplecza politycznego Narodowych

Si Zbrojnych (1939-1945) (Biala Podlaska, Warsaw, 2000), bearing in mind its pervasive apologetic tendency.

394 Klaus-Peter Friedrich sense of responsibility which they bore. In any case, their attitude towards the genocide is less spontaneous and emotional than in some other papers of smaller democratic or left-wing groups.

The most sensitive reaction to the murder of the Jews was in the Biuletyn Informacyjny. That was probably due to an appreciable extent to the personal involvement of a portion of its editorial staff who were Polonized Jews. Of all the underground papers, the greatest number of news reports about the mass murder of Jews in Poland appear in the Biuletyn Informacyjny.*° Long before the beginning of the direct mass extermination, that bulletin carried information about the deteriorating situation in the Warsaw ghetto, which had been closed off from the outside world in mid-November 1940.7! However, for the most part the Jewish victims referred to remained anonymous, and at times the paper referred with little empathy to their ‘liquidation’ (kwidacja).** This choice of terms clearly differed from a more sensitive approach to the reporting on crimes against Poles. Although clear in its choice of words, the weekly WiadomoSci Polskie, influential in the underground press, dealt far less often with the Nazi murders of Jews. By contrast, Rzeczpospolita Polska treated the persecution of Jews more frequently. At times it resorted to anti-Jewish clichés, a tendency that was even more pronounced

in Kraj, the press service of the Government Home Delegature. With some affinity with the right-wing underground press, Kraj combined anti-Soviet, anti-German, and anti-Jewish feelings of resentment, fusing them into the image of the excessively influential Jew who supposedly sought special privileges. The battles in the Warsaw ghetto provided the papers with ample opportunity to praise the unexpected bravery of the remaining Polish Jews from the vantage point of those more experienced (as Poles) in the rigours of valour, and to appreciate its value paternalistically. As Kraj aptly observed, the Second World War was not perceived so much as a war between states and their armies but, rather, as a struggle between peoples.?°® The papers of the AK and Government Home Delegature dissociated themselves from attacks on Jews for their lack of solidarity and sympathy for communism 20 See Friedrich, ‘Der nationalsozialistische Judenmord in polnischen Augen’, 698 (appendix with diagrams).

21 On views in the underground press before the summer of 1942, see Polacy—Zydzi. Polen— juden. Poles—Fews. 1939-1945. Wybor &rédet, selection of documents, comp. A. K. Kunert (Warsaw, 2001), 181-206; A. Friszke, ‘Publicystyka Polski Podziemnej wobec zaglady Zyd6w, 1939-1944’, in E. Grzeskowiak-Luczyk (ed.), Polska—Polacy-mmiejszosci narodowe (Wroclaw, 1992), 193-213, esp.

193—201; A. Michalowska, ‘Postawy wobec Holocaustu Zydow w polskiej prasie konspiracyjnej: Analiza wybranych czasopism’, Kultura 1 spoteczenstwo, 34/2 (1990), 53-64, esp. 53-60. 22 ‘Nie damy sie zastraszyC’, Biuletyn Informacyjny, no. 33 (137), 20 Aug. 1942; “Likwidacja Zydow’, no. 38 (142), 1 Oct. 1942; “Likwidacja Zydow na ziemiach wschodnich’, no. 50 (154), 24 Dec. 1942;

‘Zydzi stawiaja opor’, no. 8 (163), 25 Feb. 1943; “Zgladzenie Kriigera’, no. 18 (173), 6 May 1943; ‘Zaglada Zydow trwa’, no. 45 (200), 11 Nov. 1943. 23° “Polska walczy i wierzy!’ (Wojna obecna jest walka narod6w, a nie tylko ich armii), Kraj, no. 12, 13 Oct. 1943.

Nazi Murder of the Fews in Polish Eyes 395 (zydokomuna), stereotypes they claimed to be ‘alien’ and un-Polish. In contrast with the right-wing nationalist press, the notion of ‘Jewish communism’—the view that Jews felt especially drawn to Bolshevism and were among its staunchest defenders and advocates, which had been circulating in Poland since the October Revolution—was in general not broached as a topic. In addition, the underground papers frequently contained news items about the involvement of national minorities living in the Second Polish Republic in the

murder of Jews: the ethnic groups dwelling as close neighbours of Poles in the north and east were accused of direct complicity in the Nazi killings. In particular, Lithuanians were charged indiscriminately with having played a leading role

in initiating the slaughter. By contrast, the hostility towards Jews rampant in sections of Polish society was played down, made light of, or ignored. Moreover, the consequences of the National Socialist population policy, bound up with the disappearance of the Jews, were at times noted with a certain sense of satisfaction.

The papers also accused Jewish representatives in Great Britain and North America of stubborn unwillingness to believe newspaper reports of the genocide of the Jews in occupied Poland. Rzeczpospolita Polska suspected that behind this attitude lay a Jewish conspiracy which sought to undermine the value of Polish

suffering, although at times it was conceded that other peoples in Europe, for example in the neutral countries, were likewise incredulous, unable to believe the actual scope of the crimes. Because of what was seen as their inaction, Jews in the West were even accused of a measure of complicity in the murder of their fellow Jews.**

The genocide was interpreted as a warning of the monstrous fate which might await the Polish people itself at the hands of the occupiers unless people stood together in solidarity and strengthened their collective determination to resist. The papers of the AK and Government Home Delegature constantly emphasized their uncompromising anti-German stance, strengthened after the Katyn affair of April 1943, in order to counter German anti-Soviet propaganda among their countrymen. One aim was to remove any concrete basis for the accusations of Soviet propaganda that the Polish government was indirectly working hand in hand with

the Germans. In the final years of the war, there was repeated talk about a Polish—Jewish comradeship in arms. But as the end of the war loomed, with an outcome unfavourable for Polish national aspirations and strivings for independence, attention was increasingly focused on the exclusive status of the Poles as victims.”° From the end of 1943, it had to be assumed that a Soviet military victory 24 ‘Wobec zbrodni niemieckiej dokonanej na Zydach’, Rzeczpospolita Polska, no. 18 (48), 14 Oct. 1942.

25 On laying claim to an exceptional Polish status as victim, likewise in communist propaganda, see

K.-P. Friedrich, ‘Die Legitimierung ‘“Volkspolens” durch den polnischen Opferstatus: Zur kommunistischen Machtiibernahme in Polen am Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs’, Zeztschrift fur Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, 52 (2003), I-51, esp. 4-5, 9, 14, 49-50.

396 Klaus-Peter Friedrich was probable, and there were fears about the Red Army occupying Poland. From

that time, the principal threat to the future restoration of a political sovereign Polish state was seen to lie in Soviet policy on Poland.

THE LEFT For the papers of the Polish left, reportage on the Nazi killings of Jews was frequently linked with the political struggle between the left and the indigenous ‘reactionaries’ —the National Democrats and right-wing Sanacja groups.*° In

accordance with their internationalist outlook, the socialists stressed supranational class solidarity with Jewish workers, and blamed the Nazi crimes less on the Germans as a whole. Rather, they accused their far-right political opponents, against whom they had been struggling for years under the guise of ‘fascism’. At the same time, they felt deeply committed to the national traditions of struggle for freedom and independence. Socialists regarded the erosion of solidarity as a result of National Socialist policy and the social dislocations in the Jewish community as a basic prerequisite for the lack of Jewish will to resist the Nazi programme of murder. They feared that social deformations as a consequence of the genocide could spread to Polish society and, through reports on sanctions carried by the underground organs, as in Biuletyn Informacyjny, warned Polish persecutors of the Jews and henchmen of the Gestapo to desist from their activities. The left regarded Polish Jews as members of the Polish nation and believed that the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto was an integral part of the total Polish struggle against the occupiers. The Polish government was accused of standing idly by in the face of the slaughter of the Jews. For those with a radical (left) democratic, or socialist outlook, stress on the murder of the Jews and the demand to assist them was an expression of civic or proletarian solidarity. Like the papers of the AK and the Government Home Delegature, the left repeatedly called for assistance for the persecuted: under no circumstances could Poles allow themselves to be drawn by the Germans into complicity with the criminal enterprise of annihilation. The assessment of the behaviour of the Polish police differed. While many smaller left-wing papers stressed the police’s direct or indirect involvement in the genocide, the police were largely ignored in the PPS underground papers and in Czyn.*' Struggling to counter the attempt by the German occupiers to construct a 26 See ‘Reakcja polska zrzuca maske’, WRN, no. 8, 16 Apr. 1943. After the occupiers in Myslenice had named a street after Adam Doboszynski, WRN stressed that this was the only instance where the

Germans had renamed a street after a Pole: ‘Before the war, Doboszynski was one of the leading figures propounding an intransigent nationalism and antisemitism in Poland’; ‘W Myslenicach’, WRN, no. 8, 16 Apr. 1943.

27 WRN pointed out in the spring of 1942 that the Polish police were ‘becoming more and more a tool of German subjugation’ and that they were taking part in ‘punishment expeditions’: ‘Z kraju.. . . Granatowa policja’, WRN, no. 9, 22 May 1942.

Naza Murder of the Jews in Polish Eyes 397 platform of understanding with the Poles utilizing the propaganda surrounding

Katyn, the left-wing press fought against efforts to win over Poles to antiBolshevik declarations.*®

A statistical overview of references to the Nazi murder of Jews in the news material of WRN shows that they appear relatively more frequently in comparison with other underground organs, with the exception of the Roman Catholic paper Prawda. In addition, the reports are especially frequent in the decisive period from

mid-1942 to mid-1943.*% Beginning in the summer of 1942, news about the National Socialist killings of the Jews made the second page of WRN, and in October of that year the subject was featured several times on the front page. From the start, the paper was enraged over the murderous enterprise of the occupation

authorities, and expressed sympathy for the victims. Towards the end of 1942, when WRN began to note that the destruction of Polish Jewry was nearing completion, worries mounted that the capacities for destruction that had now been unleashed could be turned next against the Polish population, especially since the procedures for mass murder had been put to the test and proven effective.

From early 1943 onwards WRN reported frequently and in detail about this threat, calling on Poles to stand in solidarity, ready to struggle and defend the nation, and if necessary, to respond to terror with counter-terror. WRN, and even more so the left-socialist Robotnik, called for intensifying active resistance. At the same time, WRN and most of the socialist papers remained faithful throughout 1943—4 to their anti-Soviet line.*° In September 1943, the trade union paper Czyn made that clear in a polemical article against the organ of the communist Polska Partia Robotnicza, Glos Warszawy. It stated that ‘in war each people thinks primarily of itself. In this war we must remain mindful of our cause: the sovereignty of the Polish state and the freedom of man, liberated from the chains of brown or red totalitarianism.’*+ WRN

28 “Polowanie na cialo i duszy Polakow’, Robotnik w walce, no. 5 (13), 19 Mar. 1944. See also the posi-

tion articulated in Dziennik Polski, no. 511, 27 Apr. 1943, after the priest Jozef Kruszynski, formerly rector of the Catholic University of Lublin and administrator of the Lublin diocese, had published an

article in the occupiers’ paper Nowy Glos Lubelski on the ‘Standpoint of the Clergy towards Communism’ (‘Stanowisko duchowienstwa wobec komunizmu’). Even if the contents could not be faulted, this was, Dziennik Polski stated, an ‘unpardonable compliance’ (‘niewybaczalna ulegiosc’) vis-a-vis the Germans. “9 See Friedrich, ‘Der nationalsozialistische Judenmord in polnischen Augen’, 698 (appendix with diagrams). 9 See the column in WRN introduced in early 1944, ‘Pod okupacja sowiecka’ (no. 4, 25 Feb. 1944). In a supplement in Feb. 1944, ‘Rosyjskie apetyty na Polske’ (‘Russian Appetites Set on Poland’) was

dealt with on four pages, and in April, on the basis of eyewitness reports, the paper noted that the second Russian occupation ‘is not much different from the first’: ‘Druga okupacja rosyjska’, no. 8, 28 Apr. 1944. On the front page, in 1943 Robotnik w walce bitterly recalled the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of 17 Sept. 1939 on the basis of the German—Soviet agreement: ‘Rocznica najazdu’,

no. 3, 17 Sept. 1943. 31 Czyn, no. 7, Sept. 1943. Emphasis in the original.

398 Klaus-Peter Friedrich reports on the activities of the partisans pointed to the fact that they were being infiltrated by communist elements,*” but Jews were not mentioned in this connection.

In Deztenntk Polski and Tygodmk Polski, papers of the Stronnictwo Demokratyczne, which from 1943 onwards called itself Stronnictwo Polskie] Demokracji, the dominant tendency was to associate the places of mass annihilation with the Polish history of suffering. In this connection, the murder of the Jewish people served as a vivid illustration of an acute threat to the Polish population. Anti-Jewish stereotypes here had an economic and anti-capitalist background. Articles dealing with the broader context of the war did not deal with the mass killing of Jews,®’ nor did reports complaining about the decline of the population of Lublin, ‘afflicted by extermination’ (‘dotknieta eksterminacja’),** or the economic situation in the Generalgouvernement.®° Nor was the first anniversary of the large-scale murder operation against Warsaw Jews given any mention.”° The summary assessment of the war’s first three years presented on the front page of the paper laid claim to the killing sites Mauthausen, Tarnow, Auschwitz, and Gross-Rosen (then officially GroB Rosen) for an exclusively Polish history of suffering, in a mixture replete with mythic and religious allusions: they were ‘rosary beads that generations would pass through their fingers, in order to draw from this prayer love for the soil of the homeland and its freedom, in order to derive vigour and strength for the defensive struggle, whenever that is necessary’.°’ Towards the end of the period of occupation, reportage that tended to ignore Jews or take an unfriendly attitude towards them began to change. Positions on the National Socialist mass murder of the Jews made use of widespread stereotypes in Poland about Germans. People were convinced, as Dziennik

Polski stated in commenting on the connection between the ‘push to the East’ (Drang nach Osten) and the murder of the Jews, that everything was being planned in Germany, its organization carefully thought through and then documented: A superb example of this planned action was evident in the liquidation of the Jews. First the Jews were robbed of their possessions, their belongings were confiscated. ‘Then came the prohibition on changing their place of residence, then the construction of the ghetto, finally the mass executions or the mass poisoning in the gas chambers.*®

Despite their empathy for the plight of persecuted Jews, ultimately the socialist and left-democratic press was not able to arrive at a realistic assessment of the National Socialist policy of annihilation. Usually, as a result of the blinkered percep32 See ‘Forpoczta N.K.W.D.’, WRN, no. to (92), 8 June 1942, on Soviet partisans in the Lublin area and in and around Kielce. 33 See ‘Niemieckie cele wojenne i chwila dzisiejsza’, Dziennik Polski, no. 489, 6 Mar. 1943, where

mass murder of the Jews is not mentioned. 34 “*7 kraju’, Dziennik Polski, no. 509, 22 Apr. 1943. 35 ‘Sytuacja gospodarcza i stan rzemiosla w G.G.’, Dzienntk Polski, no. 568, 9 Sept. 1943 36 Dziennik Polski, no. 548, 22 July 1943. 37 “W trzecia rocznice wojny — ktora trwa’, Dziennik Polski, no. 409, 1 Sept. 1942. 38 “Mustergau’, Dziennik Polski, no. 633, 8 Feb. 1944.

Nazi Murder of the fews in Polish Eyes 399 tion of events from an ethnic perspective, stress was placed on the status of Poles as victims, and the handwriting on the wall darkly augured a biological extermination of the Poles. This in turn was reason to warn about ‘Jewish’ passivity during the genocide, and to admonish Poles to engage in active Polish resistance.

THE RIGHT The perception of Polish—Jewish relations in the right-wing nationalist press drew its sustenance from traditional notions about the incompatibility of Polishness and Jewishness. It assumed that the presence of the Jewish population was incompatible with Polish national interests and the interests of the Polish state. Frequently Jews en masse were accused of working together with Poland’s two great neighbours to harm the country. Thus, Szaniec stated: There are nations which are degenerate and sick, who must be kept under a tight hold so as not to cause disaster to civilization. These include, first and foremost, Jews, Germans and Muscovites. ... There is no need to dwell at length on the Jews, we know them only too

well. There is not much hope of their joining the nations of goodwill until they have cleansed in themselves ‘the eternal revolutionary few’ by fire, and have fertilized the hitherto sterile and fallow realms of the Jewish soul with the ashes.*°

Usually the fews were accused of not being loyal to the Poles and the Polish state. Here two images of the enemy were fused: the representations constructed Jews as allies of the two worst external enemies of the Poles, the Germans to the West and the Russians or Soviets to the East. Thus, moving from the Polish myth of supreme victimhood, the right looked to history for evidence of an anti-Polish

alliance between Germans and Jews over the centuries; since the October Revolution in Russia, they also believed that Jews had forged a solid alliance with the communists. The slogan of the gydokomuna grew stronger and more popular as the behaviour of the Jewish population under the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland was viewed as treachery, a betrayal of the Polish cause. But Wielka Polska also clarified the older traditions behind this stereotype: The destructive influence of the Jews on Polish national life had a purposeful and methodical character. .. . The activity of Jewry and its influence in politics were expressed in a series of actions which collided with an elementary loyalty to the Polish state. . . . in activity on behalf of a propaganda hostile to Poland, by remaining in the service of foreign agencies and showing animosity towards the Polish raison d’état. The mass participation of the Jews

in Poland in communist and communist-friendly organizations, the dragging of Polish internal matters onto the international stage . .. were notorious, and were also denounced several times by persons who had nothing in common with antisemitism.*° °° Szaniec, no. 8 (82), Apr. 1942. Aside from a change in the last sentence, I follow here the English translation found in Polonsky, ‘Beyond Condemnation’, 215. 40 “Fagodnos¢é karygodna’, Wielka Polska, no. 7, 11 May 1944.

400 Klaus-Peter Friedrich The German occupiers had accommodated such sentiments within German society; during the Holocaust years, the Generalgouvernement continued to link anti-

semitism and anti-Bolshevism ever closer in the Polish-language propaganda organs. *!

The right espoused the idea of a ‘national organism’ (organizm narodowy)** that would aim to overcome the things that divided people socially, economically, and politically in Polish society. This process went hand in hand with a more sharply

pronounced dissociation from ‘others’, the basic wellspring for the extended debate that ensued in the right-wing press about removing Jews from Polish society. There were to be further consequences at the war’s end or shortly thereafter, when the remaining Jewish population was to be expelled from Poland. In the belief that it was acting in agreement with the anti-Jewish mood in the occupied Polish territories, the right pursued the aim of completing the ousting of Jews from Polish society that had begun under Nazi occupation. This was the source of the polemics that flared up against attempts by the left to understand the struggle of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto as a contribution to the Polish liberation struggle and a positive element in Polish—Jewish relations. Such a viewpoint would have meant granting Polish Jews the full right of co-determination in shaping the country’s post-war order. Instead, Wielka Polska suspected that behind the ghetto revolt there lay a communist conspiracy: for a lengthy period of time, it was within the ghetto that communist printing presses operated, that there were weapons caches and communist headquarters operating, and it was from there that Soviet officers directed diversionary tactics. It is in this light that one must consider the opposition by Jews as a positive fact, in that it caused the preliminary discharge of one of the arsenals of the communists, causing the Germans a serious amount of trouble, losses, and discredit.*°

In addition, Barykada spoke out against falling prey to a change in mood which had arisen among Poles as a result of the anti-Jewish mass murders: Influenced by the mood of the moment, we seem to be prepared to share our rights of proprietorship over the Polish territories and the Polish state with the Jews. We seem to be ready to allow their return into Poland’s political and economic life. But this we must not do. We can condemn the Germans for their bestial methods, but we must not forget that Jewry has been and always will be a destructive element in the organism of our state.*4

The plight of those confined in the ghettos was always played down. In August 1942, Nowa Polska commented that, by comparison, the situation experienced by “1 See Jockheck, Propaganda im Generalgouvernement. 42 See ‘Droga w przyszlos¢c’, Barykada, no. 6, July 1944. 43 ‘Opor ghetta we wlasciwym Swietle’, Polska Informacja Prasowa, no. 18, 7 May 1943. This, from the press service associated with the group Szaniec, was reprinted inter alia in Wielka Polska, no. 20, 18 May 1943. Quoted according to the English translation in Polacy—Zydz1, 264. 44 ‘Sprawa bardzo wazna’, Barykada, no. 3, Mar. 1943.

Nazi Murder of the fews in Polish Eyes 401 the Jewish population under duress in the first two and a half years of the occupation had been more bearable than that endured by the Polish population: In these [ Jewish] residential areas, there was indeed for a long period . . . a terrible plight, but the personal standard of security was relatively satisfactory. In any case, it was greater than in the Polish population. In the Jewish quarters, there were no police manhunts in search of able-bodied workers, the Jews did not die in large numbers in Palmiry [a killing site outside Warsaw], and did not populate the concentration camps.*°

References to the totally Roman Catholic character of National Democracy and the Christian ethics deemed binding on all Poles often served in this discourse as an ostensible argument with which to point up the antagonism to both National Socialism and Jews. Despite some verbal distancing from methods used by the

occupiers to eradicate the Jewish population, several papers of the right commented with evident gratification on the demographic, economic, social, and cultural ‘advantages’ for the Poles springing from the Nazis’ policy towards Jews.

Some expressed gratitude that this policy fulfilled one of their core demands, namely the ‘de-Judification’ (odzydzenie) of Polish society. In September 1942, Wielka Polska stated ‘without false shame’ that ‘a German crime now for the second time realizes the Polish raison d’état. A year ago we began with the forces of

Germany to conquer Russia. For some months now, pounded by Germany, the Jewish danger that threatens us has been disappearing.’*© Subsequent to a report on the murders of the Jews in Warsaw, Nowa Polska stated: By means of the German crime, a problem will be almost completely eliminated whose solution had presented huge difficulties. Poland will be de-Judified. We shall get rid of an element that is in every respect harmful, an element which in political life has always been of a hostile disposition towards Poland, an element that transformed our cultural life into a swamp, and whose role in socio-economic life likewise brought enormous harm . . . The liquidation of the Jews in Poland will have huge, almost revolutionary consequences, not only from a Polish perspective, but internationally as well.*’

However, this sense of satisfaction was usually tempered by fears that the positions gained by ethnic Poles in the economy and society since 1939 thanks to the exclusion of Jews were under threat: they could be lost once more as the result of mistaken policies pursued by internal Polish political opponents. For that reason, the tack taken by the government-in-exile repeatedly caused consternation. The

exile government was accused of neglecting the interests of the ethnic Polish population and of giving in too much to foreign and Jewish influence.

After the Polish prime minister Wladyslaw Sikorski had assured the Jewish population that in the future state Jews would enjoy full civil equality, Szaniec severely criticized his statement: 4) “Likwidacja zydostwa’, Nowa Polska, no. 14, 12 Aug. 1942. 46 W.B., ‘Tron wrogéw peka’, Wielka Polska, no. 11, 27 Sept. 1942. 47 “J ikwidacja zydostwa’, Nowa Polska, no. 14, 12 Aug. 1942.

402 Klaus-Peter Friedrich As far as the rights and entitlements of the Jews in Poland and revenge and recompense for their injustice suffered is concerned, in the first place, it is not at all because they are Polish citizens that they are suffering today. Moreover, it should be determined what particular Jews are under discussion: those the Germans murdered in their area of occupation, or the Jews who murdered Poles in the Soviet area of occupation. After all, both one and the other were Polish citizens.*®

It should not surprise us that given the anti-Jewish attitude on the right, they declared their opposition to government-financed assistance for persecuted Jews. As Szaniec criticized: The payments of aid granted . . . are devouring tens and hundreds of thousands [of zloty]. However, they are not being taken by the suffering Jewish poor, that rabble in its sidelocks. But rather by paunchy well-fed big shots, wheelers and dealers from the pre-war years versed in political intrigue.*?

The genocide that was part of the daily scene was no reason to attenuate antiJewish positions, even if most papers, in crude, unemotional descriptions, coldly informed readers about the ongoing carnage. With a sense of triumph in the summer of 1943, Walka summed up the situation: In January 1943, the remainder of the Jewish population still alive in the Polish areas was

estimated to number some o.5 million. Down to today, that figure has certainly been reduced by more than half. Biologically speaking, Jewry in Poland has been heavily cropped. It will never recover from this blow. The huge reserve of non-assimulated, Orthodox, and non-cosmopolitan-minded Jews in Poland has been totally destroyed.°°

However, apparently the ideologically biased editors of the right-wing papers did not fully realize that the Nazi murder of the Jews would in itself spell the end of autonomous Jewish life in Poland. The news items were often reported in a distorted form, through the prism of traditional anti-Jewish stereotypes. ‘The articles usually contained tendentious and even malicious commentary, apparently confirming the anti-Jewish cliches. Looking forward to a time after the war’s end, Walka pointed almost presciently to a series of anti-Jewish violent acts that would come to pass one to two years later under altered political conditions in broad areas across Poland: If we start shooting at the Jews, then probably it will be on the barricades, in the hail of bullets of a red revolution forced upon us. Because we ourselves do not wish to become the

object of bestial outrages perpetrated by hook-nosed Chekists ... The conditions . . . for the peace we offer the future emigrants may seem hard, but they are dictated by the harsh necessity which has been appealing to us from the pages of history for three hundred years, now more forcefully with every passing day.°! 48 “Ostrozniej z obietnicami’, Szaniec, no. 15 (go), 26 Nov. 1942. Quoted in K. Iranek-Osmecki, Kto ratuje jedno zycie... Polacy1 Zydzi, 1939-1945 (London, 1968), 248—9. There is also an English translation, He Who Saves One Life (New York, 1971). 49 ‘Bron dla zydow’, Szaniec, no. 9 (115), 7 July 1944.

50 “Niebezpieczenstwo pozornego rozwiazania’, Walka, no. 28, 28 July 1943. 1 Thid.

Nazi Murder of the Jews in Polish Eyes 403 It was difficult not to see that given the genocide perpetrated by the Nazi regime, at the latest from 1942 on there could be no talk of a shared community of interests between Germans and Jews. Yet the victimhood of the Jewish population was nonetheless denied, with an emphasis on two aspects. First, in the eyes of the Polish right, the Jews themselves had contributed to their sad fate through their passivity, and it was felt that some even co-operated in the Nazi German murder operations. Second, to some extent the mass carnage came to pass in the shadow of what they considered the greater persecution of the Poles. The Polish population was perceived as a victim surrounded and hounded on all sides by enemies. It had

to defend itself bravely against the onslaught of Germans, Russians/Soviets, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Jews. In 1942, Wielka Polska proclaimed the following in a kind of confession of faith: ‘Enemies. In the awareness of our camp, the irreconcilable enemies of the Polish people are the Germans and the Jews, together with their derivatives, Freemasonry and Marxism. The greatest external enemy are the Germans, the greatest internal enemy, the Jews.’°” Regarding the attitude towards the ‘Jewish question’, the papers and bulletins of the radical and extreme right differed from those of Stronnictwo Narodowe in the more strident tone of their pronouncements. In their statements, the same, at times contradictory, basic convictions of the Polish right were repeatedly enunciated: (1) the Jews as a whole had forged a pact with Poland’s enemies, and like them pursued the goal of destroying the Poles and their state; (2) Jews were communists or promoted communist ends; (3) on the basis of their unalterable mentally and culturally alien character, Jews had to be separated from the ethnic Polish population; and (4) Jews were in fact not the rea/ target of the National Socialist policy of

annihilation. The propagation of these notions was accompanied by a ghostly discourse about the proper procedures to be pursued in respect to the ‘Jewish question’ during the period to follow after the war.

THE CATHOLIC PRESS

Depending on the intensity of their nationalism and affinity to National Democracy, the views about Jews and Polish—Jewish relations expressed by the Roman Catholic underground papers were more or less closely connected to positions articulated in the papers of the right. Like the latter, they often reproduced the stereotype of Jews having a generally hostile attitude towards Poles and the Polish state. Narod, the organ of the group Unia, did not show any trace of moral indignation or rage in the face of the genocide, and cultivated the anti-Jewish motif of a supposed ingratitude on the part of Jews; and in Kadra P_N. likewise, the murder of the Jews apparently had no great bearing. Kultura Jutra had a few thoughts about the role of Jews in Polish cultural life as well as a few striking lines in a poem °2 “*Przeglad prasy’, Wielka Polska, no. 14, 25 Oct. 1942.

404 Klaus-Peter Friedrich by Jerzy Zagorski on the destruction of Jewish Warsaw. But for this Catholic cultural periodical, the mass killing of Jews as such was not a topic of interest.

The paper of the Front Odrodzenia Polski, Pramda, pierced this silence. It stands out among the periodicals analysed in expressing a growing sense of alarm

about the direct involvement of Poles in the genocide. Triggered by reactions observed within Polish society and by disturbing reports about the participation by some segments of the Polish population in the carnage, the articles in Pramda were meant to admonish readers. They encouraged people to strengthen collective control over the behaviour of the individual by means of social pressure. Sympathy was expressed for individual Jews, and readers were called upon to assist them. Nonetheless, Pramda still perpetuated time-worn anti-Jewish stereotypes, articulating as a whole a clear antipathy towards the Jewish community.”?

Even though the Catholic papers mustered considerable empathy for their non-Jewish countrymen who were being persecuted, reports about the Nazi killings of Jews never appeared on page 1 or 2 in Narod, Kadra P.N.,, Kultura JFutra,

or Prawda. In the spring of 1943, Kadra PN, like the papers of the AK and Government Home Delegature, tried to counter popular indignation over the murders by the Soviets in Katyn; the paper did so by highlighting substantial figures on the number of victims murdered by the German occupiers. Nonetheless, the actions by the occupation authorities per se were not perceived by the Catholic press analysed here as a threat to the Polish population in its entirety. Pramda even conceded that Polish Jews were indeed suffering under a far more oppressive yoke. That may possibly have been attributed to a sharpened awareness that Jews were in fact also the victims of malevolence, persecution, and hatred at the hands of the

Poles. At the same time, however, the paper suspected that lurking behind the hushing up of the Nazi mass murder ‘in the West’ there lay a conspiracy of silence which resulted from a German—Jewish conspiracy.

The Roman Catholic papers dealt relatively rarely with the involvement of other nationalities in the murder of Jews. The papers analysed here likewise say nothing about measures of punishment meted out by the resistance against Poles who had informed on Jews to the police or who had handed them over to the occupiers.

THE PEASANTS’ MOVEMENT The central Polish underground press gave relatively few reports on the killing of Jews outside the larger cities, and in any event these articles were quite brief. The number of news items about the murder of Jews in the countryside is likewise remarkably small in the press of the peasants’ movement, published in Warsaw. Such news was most pronounced in the bulletin Wies. Przez walke do zwyciestwa reported on events in drastic language, accompanied by emphatic expressions of °8 On the group Front Odrodzenia Polski, see also Polonsky, ‘Beyond Condemnation’, 211 ff.

Nazi Murder of the fews in Polish Eyes 405 helplessness in the face of the sheer single-mindedness of the Nazi programme of slaughter. After the large-scale annihilation operation against the Jews of Warsaw, the SL organ stood aghast in response, and noted the following in reference to German collective guilt: The victims of German terror are of an unbelievable number. I am convinced the civilized world cannot believe and will not believe what is taking place in Poland. We ourselves who watch it, who see and know, can scarcely believe it . . . Principal responsibility for this planned barbarity is borne by the German government and the National Socialist system, secondarily by German society, which by its silence gives its assent to everything, profiting from the benefits that have their origin in robbery and crime.

In the main, the papers of the peasants’ movement contained only news reports, with virtually no thoughtful reflection on the Nazi slaughter of Jews. The viewpoint was that of eyewitnesses to crimes who could muster little sympathy for the situation of the harrowed victims, engaged in a desperate struggle for survival in a hostile environment. It was not the Jews who appeared as the main victims suffering under the Nazi policy of occupation and destruction, but rather the Poles, and especially the rural Polish population.®? From the perspective of Wies, that population was threatened with destruction, ground down between the millstones of German police formations on the one side and Jewish-communist ‘gangs’ on the other.°® This perspective became especially clear in the annual reports dedicated to the memory of the dead on the occasion of All Saints’ Day. In 1942, it was stated on this occasion: ‘the losses suffered by the Polish people are gigantic. It 1s impossible to enumerate the victims.’°’ One year later, Przez walke do zwyciestwa claimed the German extermination camps as part of the Polish history of suffering.°®° In

this sense, Polska Ludowa also wrote: ‘We remember and shall never forget Auschwitz, Pawiak, Majdanek, Treblinka, and Palmiry—the eternal monuments to the Germanic [s7c| bestialities in our territories.’°? There were repeated warnings about a ‘new wave of terror’ by the occupiers against the ethnic Polish rural

population. The stereotype of the éydokomuna was not propagated in equal measure by all the papers of the peasants’ movement. While Przez walke do zwyciestwa and Polska °4 “Cel i sens niemieckiego terroru’, Przez walke do zwyciestwa, no. 22 (60), 20 Sept. 1942. 55 The paper of the peasants’ battalions, Zywia i bronia, considered the Polish people ‘the most tor-

mented and persecuted’ (‘najbardziej udreczony 1 tepiony’), and the National Socialist plans for its destruction were supposedly aiming at ‘eradicating [the Polish peasantry] root and branch’ (‘wykarczowac go z korzeniami 1 zniszczyc’) (no. 17, Jan./Feb. 1943). °° The Jewish partisan bands hiding in the larger forested areas acquired food mainly by taking it by force from Polish farmers. °? ‘Na dzien zmartych 1 pomordowanych’, Przez walke do zwyciestwa, no. 26, 30 Nov. 1942. 8 “Znow nadszedt dzien Zaduszny’, Przez walke do zwyciestwa, no. 24 (93), 30 Oct. 1943. °° “Kultura jutra w Polsce’, Polska Ludowa, no. 5, Aug. 1943.

| 60 ‘Szal teroru w krajach okupowanych’, Przez walke do zwyciestwa, no. 25 (63), 20 Oct. 1942; no. 21 (g0), 30 Sept. 1943; no. 23 (g2), 20 Oct. 1943.

406 Klaus-Peter Friedrich Ludowa only rarely emphasized the purported affinity of the Jews as such to communism, that allusion was more frequently cited in Wires.

THE SANACJA The attitude of the underground papers of the Sanacja regime’s sympathizers was characterized by an intermediate stance in which positions of the Polish left commingled with those of the AK and the Government Home Delegature’s press. It thus continued traditions from the pre-war years, when the Sanacja regime tolerated the vociferous antisemitic agitation of National Democrats, in part adopting their demands as its own, while on the other resisting calls for reducing Jewish civil

rights in line with racist criteria. Patterns of thought incorporating biological imagery, as espoused by the nationalist right, echoed in the expression ‘Polish state organism’.°! When Panstwo Polskie, criticizing Polish policy on minorities in the

inter-war period, accused Jews of having ‘garnered a special position’ (‘Zydzi zdobyli sobie specjalne stanowisko’)™ while exploiting the weakness of Poland to their advantage, this was also an expression of self-criticism. It suggests that the government under Pilsudski, by fundamentally defending civil equality, did not represent the specific interests of the ethnic Polish population decisively enough in its responsibility as the governing power. And when the paper, in the light of the Nazi murder of the Jews, called on fellow Poles to retain their ‘neutrality’ and exercise ‘realism’, Panstwo Polskie stood in staunch opposition to the policy of the Polish government-in-exile in its concern for generating a Polish—Jewish modus vivendi. In the paper |S. [Strzelec], the murder of the Jews was only a marginal topic, never treated on the first or second page, and after mid-1943 it virtually dis-

appeared from its columns, though the paper stressed the attachment of Polish Jews to Poland.

The Sanacja papers rejected the dogmatic antisemitism of the National Socialist occupiers. In contrast to the right, S. perceived and condemned the fact

that the occupiers were using antisemitism as a propaganda tool vis-a-vis the Polish population. S. attempted to unmask the topos of the Jewish—Bolshevik menace in Nazi propaganda as its instrument for domination. ‘The paper expressed the conviction that German propaganda had consciously raised the Katyn affair into prominence at a point in time where it served to provide a useful pretext to liquidate the Warsaw ghetto. The idea that Polish society was equally distant from the ideologies of both its great neighbours in the West and the East was articulated in repeated variations in the Sanacja press. Thus, in the autumn of 1943, Nurt stated: “The anti-Bolshevik publications of German propaganda provide us only with a confirmation of the 61 See Wojna zydowsko-niemiecka: Polska prasa konspiracyjna 1943-1944 0 powstaniu w getcie Warszawy, ed. P. Szapiro (London, 1992), no. go, p. 103, and no. 132, p. 143. 62 ‘Walka o pozycje’, Panstwo Polskie, no. 3, 15 Feb. 1944.

Nazi Murder of the Jews in Polish Eyes 407 conviction that we arrived at long ago: namely that National Socialism is nothing but Bolshevism dressed in black.’®? National Socialism and Bolshevism, it was argued, differed solely by supplanting the concept of race with class.°* S. espoused the view that ‘the Bolsheviks and the Germans are equally great enemies for us’,°° and it called on the Poles to ‘conserve’ their energies ‘in equal measure for the struggle against our two enemies’.©° The persecution of Jews was brought up frequently

only in one context: as one episode among many in the struggle of the Nazi German occupier against the Polish people.

Nurt was the paper with most empathy for the persecuted. Yet that stance contradicted the distanced ‘objectivity’ with which the cultural periodical discussed at length the economic and social consequences of the murder of Jews a half-year after the Warsaw ghetto uprising. In keeping with the view of the Sanacja governments, the Jews who had assimilated into Polish culture were viewed by both Nurt and 5S. as veritable wards of the Polish underground organs of governance.

THE COMMUNISTS In its support for Soviet needs, the communist Polska Partia Robotnicza (PPR) advocated maximum intensification of civil resistance and partisan struggle in the face of the decisive battle for dominance in Europe between National Socialism and Soviet communism.°’ For that reason, a major goal of Polish communist propaganda was to crack open the consensus within the resistance organizations. That consensus was centred on the need for a national uprising for liberation, to wait for an opportune moment, and in the meantime to avoid civilian casualties wherever possible. ‘The principled polemic against the strategy of ‘authoritative circles’ in the Polish resistance of waging a limited armed struggle against the German occu-

piers until further notice ran like a red thread through almost every issue of the communist press organs. Discussion of the Nazi murder of the Jews constituted an important element in the communists’ efforts to influence the mood in the country

and to exert pressure on the Polish government and its representative organs in occupied Poland to bring about a change in military strategy. The communist press

made frequent reference to the fate of murdered Jews from the Jewish forced residential area in Warsaw in order to present the Polish population with a harrowing example—and to make clear what the consequences might be of a culpable lack of resistance by the Poles. That lack of resistance was an evident fact with regard to the Jewish population. 63 [no title], Nurt, no. 5, Sept./Oct. 1943. 64 “Okrucienstwo’, Nurt, no. 6, Nov./Dec. 1943. 6 “Z naszego frontu wewnetrznego. Smolensk—Oswiecim’, S., no. 17, 25 Apr. 1943. 68 Wojna zydowsko-niemiecka, no. 90, pp. 102—5. Emphasis in original.

67 See also Klaus-Peter Friedrich, ‘Nazistowski mord na Zydach w prasie polskich komunistéw (1942-1944), Zaglada Zydéw: Studia i materiaty, 2 (2006), 54-75.

408 Klaus-Peter Friedrich The espousal of an agreed, unconditional joint Polish and Jewish armed resistance proved to be in vain. In the meantime, the demagogic confrontation with the forces of ‘reaction’ was constantly augmented. The communist press accused ‘reaction’ forces of shared responsibility for the Nazi murder of the Jews, while the government was charged with failure. However, only as a consequence of rev-

elations from Katyn did the propaganda image of the enemy projected by the communists gain broader acceptance: it was an image of the Polish governmentin-exile in London and its representatives in occupied Poland as an ensemble allied with the ‘reactionaries’, indifferent to the genocide of the Jews and acting in the interests of the policies of Nazi Germany. From 1944 on, the communists attacked real and purported antisemitism ever

more vehemently in order to discredit their Polish opponents. In view of their political isolation, the communists viewed their opponents as a monolithic force composed of groups from right-wing radicals to the WRN and to the parties represented in the parliament in the underground, the Rada Jednosci Narodowej. Nor did they confine themselves to mere reportage: ‘lessons’ were also drawn from the carnage, namely that it was better to fight against the occupation organs at every step and turn; that the military strategy of the Polish government was leading the Polish people to ruin; that this ‘reactionary’ government which had entered into a pact with the National Socialists and, like Nazis, was persecuting the Jews could claim no legitimate authority or loyalty. In this way, propaganda paved the way for the political and moral justification of the communist takeover of power.

SUMMARY The positions of the underground press reflected the highly differentiated array of

political groups in the underground and the broad spectrum of opinion on the ‘Jewish question’. It is striking here that the interpretation and discussion of events, or their denial, took place in the framework of traditional political convic-

tions and the ideological limitations of the respective groups and individuals expressing their views. To that extent, the findings of this study confirm what Jerzy Jedlicki has observed about the character of reports in the Polish conspiratorial press during the Second World War: The general patterns of epistemic and ethical categorization are distinguished both in personal .. . and in social life by a substantial degree of rigidity and constancy. Nonetheless, the reader of the underground press from the years of occupation perceives with some sense of surprise that even such a massive experience left only meagre traces of ongoing ideological re-evaluations.®®

Rather, the ‘previously formed and conventionalized systems’ maintained their salience: nationalists remained nationalists, liberals remained liberals, Catholics 68 J. Jedlicki, Z/e urodzeni, czyli o doswiadczeniu historycznym: Scripta i postscripta (London, 1993), 16.

Nazi Murder of the Jews in Polish Eyes 409 remained Catholics, communists stayed communists. Before the actual event, none

of these ‘structures of world view’ considered genocide as a historical possibility, ‘but when it occurred, each of them proved sufficiently receptive to interpret and absorb “Auschwitz” and “Warsaw” without any fundamental changes’.®? Jedlicki describes the mechanism operative here as ‘adaptation of the world’ (‘wpasowywanie swiata’), an ‘intellectual taming of the uncanny’ (‘intelektualnego oswajania niesamowitoSci’), and points out that the experiences in the concentration camps also followed this individual mechanism of processing: ‘It was not that the experience of the camps influenced the evolution of this world view, but the opposite—reality was fitted tightly into the framework of an a priori outlook from the confines of which it could not extricate itself.’”°

In this connection, the reaction to the actual disappearance of the Jewish population was for Polish society a part and function of the understanding of the relations between Poles and Jews as a whole. In the case of most papers, the predominant consciousness was that the Holocaust concerned ‘our people’ (soz), the ethnic Polish population, only indirectly. For that reason, they reported more infrequently and at a greater emotional remove on the murder of the Jews, and were grounded in an attitude that had committed itself to ‘neutrality’ in the face of the war of the occupiers on the ‘alien’ (obcy) Polish Jews. Moving from this understanding of ‘us’ and ‘the Others’ vis-a-vis the Jews, the Poles constructed a percep-

tual frame for the National Socialist crime of Judaeocide. The spectrum of reactions extended over a continuum, at one end of which the horror of the carnage was described and lamented; yet at the same time it was conceded that the Poles could undertake nothing against it. At the other end of that spectrum were the expressions of malicious joy, a Schadenfreude over the fact that one group of enemies of the Poles was destroying the other. In discourse about the ‘Jewish question’ that appeared in the Polish press, a repeated topic was the unsolved problem of who was deemed to belong to the Polish nation. Part of the programme of the Prawica was to exclude the ‘alien’ Jews

from Polish society, as individuals perceived not to belong to the Polish folk (national) community. According to the plans and designs of the right, repeatedly discussed after 1939, there was not to be any place in post-war Polish society for Jews. Somewhat less radical were the plans of the Catholic papers and those of the peasants’ movement and a segment of the Sanacja groups, which proposed to curtail the (economic) rights of the Jews. But by the end of 1943, it was already

abundantly evident that post-war Poland would no longer have a substantial and powerful Jewish minority. It apparently was difficult for publicists of the underground press, whose thinking had been shaped by the pre-war debate on the ‘Jewish question’, to come to a clear view about the profound and lasting 69 Tbid.

7 Quoted in A. Werner, Zwyczajna apokalypsa: Tadeusz Borowski i jego wizja Swiata obozdw (Warsaw, 1971), 15-16.

410 Klaus-Peter Friedrich consequences of the Nazi occupation of Poland. ‘The genocide often only awakened interest if it could be related to a purported existential threat to ethnic Poles,

or when the act of benefiting from discrimination against Jews or even the participation by Poles in the persecution and murder of Jews endangered the social consensus not to make common cause with any of the ‘three enemies of the Poles’.

An important aspect of the messages conveyed by the underground press was namely their aspiration to educate the common people. For that reason, with a finger raised in admonishment, the press often seized on such reports that might help prevent widespread antisemitism in Polish society from being transformed into open and active co-operation with the German occupiers. An important finding of the present investigation is that antisemitism in Polish society not only continued to exist during the Nazi occupation, but found a new rationale. Under the occupation, it was to begin with primarily an economically motivated hostility towards Jews that retained its salience: the notion of the Jew as exploiter, as usurer, profiteer, and competitor. In the phase of direct mass murder, the conception of the Jew as the victim of a monstrous crime and relentless plan of extermination, driven by ideology and organized by the state, spread in the democratic and socialist papers. In the meanwhile, in the right-wing press the cliché of the cowardly Jew, devoid of solidarity, was shifted front and centre, presenting a Jew whose passive stance towards his horrible fate was ostensibly incomprehen-

sible to the mind of a Pole. The right-wing press endorsed an attitude of noninterference in the conflict, viewing the issue as a matter solely between Germans and Jews. In order to justify inaction, these papers attributed to the Jews as a whole certain communist sympathies and proclivities. And 1n retrospect, they accused Jews of having behaved with hostility towards Poles in the Soviet-occupied territories of eastern Poland between 1939 and 1941. In the political middle and among the reformed left there was at least partially a certain readiness to perceive the murder of the Jews as a mass, state-organized crime. The claim on the right to an exclusively Polish victimhood, however, was fused with an often vehement anti-Jewish animus, and the tendency was to ignore the catastrophe of Polish Jewry, or to perceive it through a distorting lens. In this sense, the antisemitism of the Prawica drew its sustenance from a false position of

victimization. The Polish sense of superiority, strengthened even further by this, was not to be shaken by the struggle of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. And for that reason, retrospective references to the mass killings in the right-wing anticommunist press are almost non-existent from 1944 on. After all, they might have acted to blunt and deflect the sharpness of perception of the injustice inflicted on the Poles. To this extent, the communists had a special position, since they never felt obli-

gated to the national consensus. The greater majority of the population and the politically active forces in 1943-4 anticipated the restoration of the Polish state without territorial losses in the East and with annexations in the West, and the

Nazi Murder of the fews in Polish Eyes 411 establishment of the new Poland as a factor for power and stability in east-central

Europe, supported by Western Europe and the United States. By contrast, the communists and their fellow-travellers endorsed the recognition of Soviet annexations, and thus of a shifting westwards of the territory of Poland, along with social

and economic changes in the direction of a political paradigm oriented to the Soviet model of state and society.

AFTERMATH Events in the years of occupation had a substantial impact on Polish—Jewish relations in the first few months and early years after the war’s end. In May 1945, the world war came to an end, but the effects of press propaganda did not. A large proportion of Poles were antisemitic in the immediate aftermath of the war, and the image of the alien, hostile Jew, unable to assimilate, was maintained. At the same time, the mass murder of the Jews, which people had frequently witnessed with their own eyes, receded in collective consciousness and was buried under other layers of memory. Jews continued to be regarded as agents of the Sovietizing of the country, and thus were regarded as ‘perpetrators’. The Polish—Jewish antagonism was intensified by the revival of religiously anchored anti-Jewish myths of ritual murder. The perception of the murder of the Jews by Polish publicists generally prevalent in the press can be attributed to the widespread conviction among the Poles

that the Poles themselves had a monopoly on the status of victim. In the consciousness of the preponderant majority of the Poles, on/y the Poles had at the end of the day been victims.”' For that reason, the handwriting on the walls of the Nazi

extermination centres was often read as that portending the ‘destruction of the Poles’. And that is also why news about the killings in many cases was only reported if it could be interpreted as a threat to Poles. The exile government and other representatives of the legal Polish state organs always understood the persecution and murder of the Jews in the framework of Hitler’s policy of destruction directed against the Poles. Especially towards the end of the war, when after the Warsaw uprising hopes for a rapid restoration

of political independence had largely been dashed, the underground press indulged—as a source of consolation—in an idealization of the supposedly unshakeable stance of resistance in Polish society under the Nazi regime of occupation. That idealization, integrated piece by piece into the national-communist

pattern of interpretation and national narrative in the People’s Republic of Poland, would over the years prove to be exceptionally stable and long-lived.

As in the earlier underground press, one can note a certain fluctuation in the Polish post-war press with regard to statements about which groups of victims were principally murdered in the Nazi extermination centres. At times it was 71 See also K. Kersten, Miedzy wyzwoleniem a zniewoleniem: Polska, 1944-1956 (London, 1993), 44.

AI2 Klaus-Peter Friedrich correctly stressed that Jews were the preponderant majority of the victims. But more frequently the victims were classified in terms of their countries of origin— that is, their citizenship was emphasized, in this way masking their religious or ethnic backgrounds. Hence Jews were often not mentioned in reports on Nazi crimes in Poland, and the fact that the greater majority of those murdered were Jews was neglected. In addition, the killing of the Jews was relativized as a mere prelude to something far more monstrous and sinister: the destruction of the Polish people.

The distorted portrayal in the communist post-war press of the burgeoning problem of antisemitism in Polish society was marked by evident contradictions. This was expressed in the paper Polska Zbrojna (from January 1945 the daily of the

Polish Armed Forces), in recourse to the crude and once popular pictorial language borrowed from the animal world: The National Socialist beast . . . has left us droppings which still keep trying to foul our atmosphere. ‘These are the thugs of the AK and the [right-wing radical] NSZ, which are trying to exterminate the remainder of the Jewish population. . . . The fascist lackeys have of course nothing in common with the Polish people. ‘That people sees in the Jews not only Polish citizens with equal rights, but martyrs worthy of their sympathy and respect.”

Disunited over Poland’s position between West and East, a situation that was initially left unclear, a substantial proportion of the left or left-socialist intellectual-cultural elite was prepared to recognize the claim to leadership of the Soviet Union as part of sober realpolitik. A large number of people who personally felt particularly affected by the murder of the Jews allowed themselves, in the excessive zeal of their ‘anti-antisemitism’, to be politically co-opted by the new regime.

Symptomatic of the contradictory situation of those regarded by the great majority as the henchmen and stooges of a regime of usurpation was the behaviour

of the chief editors and journalists linked with the communists after the largescale anti-Jewish disturbances in Kielce. Almost all endorsed an interpretation that was expressed in terms of ideology and the politics of the day, and was dictated from above, although the real circumstances of the eruption of violence were crystal-clear and indisputable: thousands of ordinary Poles participated in the pogrom in Kielce, along with members of the militia and the army, and the state security service remained silent. The actual circumstances of the Kielce violence, which the official press blamed on anti-communist opposition, remained veiled in SECTeCY.

Paradoxically, after the pogrom in Kielce, the problem of Polish antisemitism receded into the background. Attention instead revolved around the question of who had supposedly instigated the unrest and what the attitude was of the leaders © ‘Czesé bojownikom ghetta!’, Polska Zbrojna, no. 71, 19 Apr. 1945, b. There is a play in the Polish between different meanings of pomiot, which is not only ‘brood’ or ‘litter’ but also ‘dung, droppings’.

Nazi Murder of the fews in Polish Eyes 413 of the Catholic Church in Poland. The non-communist press, harassed by the communist security apparatus, was keen to counter the accusation that its newspapers were keeping silent and thus condoning the anti-Jewish violence. The Catholic Church leadership and the press subordinate to the Church saw the presence of Jews in positions of power as a political threat, and consequently viewed antisemitism as a political problem. At the same time, it created the myth of the general and mass Polish or ‘Catholic’ assistance accorded the Jews under the Nazi

occupation. That myth would later strike root in the People’s Republic and undergo further embroidering. At the same time, censors prevented the legal non-communist press from providing a stage for unorthodox views, while the press of the communists and their allies confronted the situation with a general charge of antisemitism, which had long been a proven tool of propaganda for the communists. Far beyond the end of the Second World War, the debate on the function of antisemitism in Polish—Jewish relations under the Nazi occupation developed its own political dynamism. Gradually the communists brought all opponents under the umbrella label of the ‘reaction’, pressing the cliched charge that all groups opposed to the communists were supporters of fascism and proponents of a bloodthirsty persecution of the Jews. The representatives of the new regime assumed

a stance of moral superiority that they had little right to claim as apologists for Stalinism. Their promoting of such a demagogically blinkered ideological perspective manifests the Polish variant of a Stalinization of the memory of the extermination of the Jews, which over decades constituted a heavy burden for Polish—Jewish relations.

By contrast, shifting responsibility for the internal Sovietization of Poland to the Jews was possibly one of the factors which acted to prevent the internal Polish conflict over the future of the country from expanding into a civil war. In its perception of Poland as an object of international politics, the Polish side was once again able to feel resignedly confirmed in the belief that the fate of the country was being determined and controlled by ‘alien’ forces. Translated from the German by Bill Templer

The Spring that Passed The Pikador Poets’ Return to fewishness MARCI SHORE IT WAS 1943, and nearly winter. On his estate just outside Nazi-occupied Warsaw, the poet Jarostaw Iwaszkiewicz wrote in his diary: “Today twenty-five years have passed since the opening of Pikador! Tuwim, Wierzynski, Lechon are in America,

Stonimski in London, I am alone in this pitiable castle . . . ?m curious whether they, there, this evening, remember this anniversary?”' Once Pikador had been at the centre of a glittering literary scene in the elegant capital city of Warsaw. Now it was no more. The Nazis had come and the poets had scattered. Poland had been independent only for days when on 29 November 1918, at nine in the evening, Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, Jan Lechon, Antoni Stonimski, and Julian Tuwim held their debut poetry reading at the Warsaw cafe Pod Pikadorem. ‘The event had been advertised: ‘Countrymen! Workers, soldiers, children, old people, people, women, intellectuals and dramatic writers! .. . The conscience of young artistic Warsaw! The Great Headquarters of the Army of the Salvation of Poland from all of the homeland’s contemporary literature.” That night was a dazzling success. Everyone who was anyone was there.® A somewhat eclectic group of young poets very suddenly became the darlings of the

Polish public. ‘A pleiad of talent one encounters once in a hundred years’, Aleksander Wat wrote, ‘an almost instantaneous mastery of poetic technique’.*

Government ministers and military officers befriended them. Marshal Jozef Pilsudski invited them to the Belvedere Palace.” The burden of carrying a stateless

I should like to thank Timothy Snyder for comments on an earlier draft of this essay. ! J. Iwaszkiewicz, Notatki, 1939-1945, ed. A. Zawada (Wroclaw, 1991), 101-2. 2 Reprinted in W. Jedlicka and M. Toporowski (eds.), Wspommnienia 0 Julianie Tumimie (Warsaw, 1963).

Pod Pikadorem is spelt alternatively with a ‘c’ or a ‘k’. On this early period of the Skamander poets, see W. Nowakowska, ‘Lechon 1 Tuwim — dzieje przyjazni’, Prace Polonistyczne, 51 (1996), 237-47. 3 A. Stonimski, ‘Historja “Pikadora”’, Wiadomosci Literackie, 26 Dec. 1926, p. 2. 4 A. Wat, Dziennik bez samogtosek (London, 1986), 180. ° A. Stonimski, ‘Kronika tygodniowa’, Wiadomosci Literackie, 9 June 1935, p. 12.

The Pikador Poets’ Return to Jewishness 415 nation had been lifted; now the world was theirs. ‘That year Jan Lechon wrote: ‘And in the spring, let me see spring—not Poland.’® They began to publish a journal named Skamander. In the first issue they articulated their poetic philosophy: We want to be poets of the present and this is our faith and our whole ‘program’. We are not tempted by sermonizing, we do not want to convert anybody, but we want to conquer, to enrapture, to influence the hearts of men, we want to be their laughing and their weeping. ... We believe unshakeably in the sanctity of a good rhyme, in the divine origin of rhythm, in revelation through images born in ecstasy and through shapes chiselled by work.‘

Skamander, the more radically avant-garde poet Adam Wazyk later conceded, was

‘the only formation in Europe of that time which, amidst the confusion of the post-war years, lit the lantern of the heart’.®

The Skamander poets were only five: Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, Jan Lechon, Antoni Slonimski, Julian Tuwim, and Kazimierz Wierzynski—with the addition of their editor, Mieczyslaw Grydzewski, whose two small dachshunds would accompany him to Café Ziemianska, where the poets gathered. Antoni Stonimski, Julian Tuwim, and Mieczystaw Grydzewski were ‘of Jewish origin’. And they were at the very centre of Polish culture. Their table was Ziemianska’s place of honour. Of the Skamander poets, Slonimski and Tuwim were in a sense the most differ-

ent. Together they made a curious pair: Slonimski so sardonic, Tuwim so naive, each in his way quite satirical. Tuwim was a /ufimensch of the other kind, the best kind: he lived at the Skamandrites’ mezzanine table at Cafe Ziemianska as if on a throne afloat in the sky. His was a magical world in which life was Art, and nothing

mattered more than poetry. He had an uncanny ear for sounds; he conjured up rhymes like a sorcerer. The Polish language was a collection of sensual objects, whose raison d’étre was his delight. ‘I feed my famished body’, he wrote, ‘with words like fruits.”®

For Tuwim only poetry was sacred. For Slonimski nothing was. Acerbic and irreverent, he was ‘incomparable in his sharp wit’.'° He was not only a luminary poet, but also the favourite columnist of the Warsaw intelligentsia. In his weekly feuilletons for Grydzewski’s Wiadomosc Literackie, Stonimski spared neither

right nor left. To all camps he offered his sarcasm. ‘In the opinion of Kurier Warszawskt’, he told his readers 1n 1928, I am, I was, and I will be a Bolshevik irrespective of what should occur in heaven or on

earth. In the opinion of Dégwignia I’m to be a reactionary. In the opinion of Gazeta © A. Slonimski, Alfabet wspomnien (Warsaw, 1975), 120.

” Quoted in C. Mitosz, The History of Polish Literature (London, 1969), 385-6. 8 A. Wazyk, Dziwna historia awangardy (Warsaw, 1976), 38.

% Znamor [R. Zrebowicz|, ‘U Juliana Tuwima’, in J. Tuwim, Rozmowy z Tumimem, ed. T. Januszewski (Warsaw, 1994), 16-21, esp. 17-18. The interview was originally published in Wiadomosei Literackie, 31 Jan. 1926. 10 O. Watowa, Wszystko co najwaézniejsze (Warsaw, 1990), 13.

416 Marc Shore Warszawska 1 am and will be a Jewish nationalist. In the opinion of Jewish nationalist papers I’m an antisemite, as has been pointed out to me more than once."!

Stonimski disliked classifications, including the form of address ‘you Skamander poets’. He insisted that he felt part of no collectivity: I do not want to be spoken to as: ‘You, bald men’; or ‘You with pince-nez’; or ‘You writers of comedies’; or ‘You poets’; or ‘You feuilletonists’. I do not even want to be spoken to as: ‘You Stonimskis’, because one of my brothers is a biologist, and the other is an engineer.

He aligned himself consistently with no one. In the late 1930s an article appeared in

a Vilna newspaper about the pro-government party, the Camp of National Unity (Ob6z Zjednoczenia Narodowego). Jews were not permitted to join, and the Vilna author noted that Slonimski, one of the most courageous publicists of their generation, must thereby be excluded. This was, in the author’s view, ‘a ‘cruelty’, yet a ‘necessary cruelty’. With respect to this alleged cruelty Stonimski responded: “Let us not exaggerate, whether or not I could belong to one political party or another, I’ve never belonged to any nor do I have any intention of belonging to any.’"”

Stonimski was a cosmopolitan as well as an individualist. At a moment of fervent nationalism, his 1934 poem “Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej’ (He is from my Homeland) was a call for transcendence of national identities in favour of univeralist compassion: Ten, ktory wszystkim serce swe otwiera, Francuzem jest, gdy Francja cierpi, Grekiem — Gdy narod grecki z giodu obumiera, ten jest z ojczyzny mojej. Jest czlowiekiem. '*

He who opens his heart to all , Is a Frenchman when France suffers, a Greek— When the Greek nation languishes from hunger, He is from my homeland. He is a human being.

The son of a Polish Jewish father and a Polish Catholic mother, he admired most his father’s father, an autodidact and renaissance man, a maskil who all on his own had liberated himself from the Jewish ghetto. ‘I don’t know if my grandfather was a good Jew or a bad Jew’, Slonimski wrote in 1928, ‘but he was a magnificent person.’!? Slonimski, who disliked all classifications, himself classified Jews. In a rather unpleasant 1924 column devoted to the ‘oversensitivity of Jews’, he laid bare an accusation: One of the cardinal and most characteristic traits of Jews is their disregard for the most sacred conquests of the human spirit. Jews show a lack of regard for everything: they muti41 A. Stonimski, Kroniki tygodniowe, 1927-1939, ed. W. Kopalinski (Warsaw, 1956), 76-7.

12 Tbid. 138-0. | 13 A. Stonimski, ‘Kronika tygodniowa’, Wiadomosci Literackie, 9 May 1937, p. 6. 14 A. Stonimski, Poezje zebrane (Warsaw, 1964), 457. 15 A. Stonimski, ‘Wspomnienie’, Wiadomosci Literackie, 2 Sept. 1928, p. 4.

The Pikador Poets’ Return to Jewishness AI7 late the language they speak, they disregard the purity of speech, body, and heart, yet at the same time they inexplicably overvalue the significance of money.'®

A full decade later Stonimski continued to see the insular world of Orthodox Jewry as barbaric. ‘Precisely now’, he wrote in 1934, ‘is an excellent time for Jews to seek out some of the causes of antisemitism, in order to modify somewhat their relationship to the world.’ Why, Slonimski asked, did the Jewish intelligentsia not fight

against the obscurantism of hasidism? He advised Jews to ‘initiate their own, proper antisemitic action’: But in this respect—as [ve already mentioned—tthere is the argument that now is not the time. When then, will that time finally come?—thanks to the Jewish God it’s lasted already a couple of thousand years. The English, the French, other nations have attentively taken control of their nation’s mistakes, some nations have had revolutions, others have had great satirists and iconoclasts. But the Jews could not, it was not time for the reason that at a given moment the Assyrians didn’t like them, the Egyptians or the Spanish were angry at them ... and so still greater courage in self-criticism is necessary, it’s necessary that the Jewish intelligentsia fight to raise young Jews as residents of Europe and that the Zionists in their new homeland wean themselves from the /eder, from the Talmud and the rabbis, which 1s an older and more dangerous enemy to them than Hitler.*”

Slonimski would come to regret those words. Both he and Tuwim were, in their

way, self-hating Jews. They shared a love for Poland and things Polish, and a deeply felt disgust towards the traditional Jewish world. It was more than condescension. Theirs was the revulsion that assimilated Jews had for hasidim and the Orthodox, that cosmopolitan intellectuals from the capital had for provincial merchants from the shtet/. For Tuwim it was the absence of Jewish traditions in his parents’ home that had made his childhood free.*® While still in school he brought into his parents’ home the family’s very first Christmas tree, beautifully decorated, with money he had earned himself. His sister was enchanted—and confirmed in her belief that her brother was a cure for all ills.*? Those Jews in their native city of Lodz whose homes were not so ‘tolerant and progressive’ Tuwim did not remember fondly. For Tuwim the Orthodox lurked behind the curtains of 6dz as an ominous spectre: Czarni, chytrzy, brodaci Z oblakanymi oczyma, W ktorych jest wieczny lek.?° Dark, clever, bearded, With deranged eyes, In which there is eternal dread. 16 A. Stonimski, ‘O drazliwosci Zydow’, Wiadomosci Literackie, 31 Aug. 1924, p. 3. 17 A. Stonimski, ‘Kronika tygodniowa’, Wiadomosci Literackie, 10 June 1934, p. 10. 18 Tuwim, Rozmowy z Tuwimem, 61—2. Originally published in Czas, 14 May 1935.

‘8 Jedlicka and Toporowski (eds.), Wspomnienia 0 Julianie Tumimie, 12-13. 20 J. Tuwim, ‘Zydzi’, in Wiersze 1, ed. A. Kowalczykowa (Warsaw, 1986), 247—8.

418 Marci Shore In 1934 he wrote of his childhood: And terribly many black Jewish ‘uniforms’. Those who wore them used a hideous, rattling speech, again half-German. While I am of course far from antisemitism, I was, I am, and I will be an opponent of uniformed men in beards and their Hebraic-German garble as likewise their traditional mutilation of Polish speech. It is high time, gentlemen, to cut off those long overcoats and side curls, but also to learn respect for the language of the nation among which you live. The black hasidic rabble (Aa¢astra) has remained in my memory of the Lodz of times past like a nightmare.?!

The following year the Zionist-leaning newspaper Nasz Przeglqad published an interview with ‘Tuwim. Why, the interviewer asked, in such a difficult time for Jews was Tuwim criticizing them? Tuwim answered as Slonimski had: in so far as

there had never been a time in human history when the Jews had not been persecuted, there would never be a time when criticism was permissible.*? C'est /a vie.

As for the Polish antisemites, both poets believed they deserved nothing but mockery. In 1936 Slonimski devoted a column to the right-wing publicist Stanislaw Piasecki: Mr Piasecki claims that Jews invented communism. If one considers the fact that Jews invented capitalism as well, it could seem that in relation to us their accounts are all squared. We could likewise add that Jews also invented Christianity, but let’s not complicate Mr Piasecki’s ideological situation, which is already so complicated as it is.27?

Yet Slonimski was hardly an apologist—either for Hitler or the Polish right. His

stance was to reject apprehension in favour of superciliousness. In 1938 he responded to another column in a Vilna paper; the author had thought of an ingenious way to distinguish a Jew from a non-Jew: one need only ask the person whose identity was in question his opinion of Hitler—for Jews were filled with hatred

towards Hitler. While an Aryan might also not like Hitler, the Vilna author acknowledged, the Aryan possessed a certain objectivity on the subject; he was able to acknowledge Hitler’s intellectual merits. ‘A very good method’, Stonimski commented, ‘and perhaps that same method could be applied in case there is any doubt as to whether one is speaking with an idiot or not.’24

Tuwim was more fragile. Yet he, too, addressed antisemitism with a kind of playful irony. His 1933 letter to [waszkiewicz, then in Copenhagen with the Polish delegation, began: Oh you Goy, you good, handsome youth! But is he really a ‘goy’? Without any, even if far removed, admixture of that Jewish blood which has poisoned our old Aryan, Nordic world for us? 21 J. Tuwim, ‘Wspomnienia 0 Lodzi’, Wiadomosci Literackie, 12 Aug. 1934, p. 11. 22 Tuwim, Rozmowy z Tuwimem, 53-5. Originally published in Nasz Przeglad, 15 Feb. 1935. 23 Stanislaw Piasecki (1g00—41) was a publicist and Endek activist involved in the Ob6z NarodowoRadykalny. A. Slonimski, ‘Kronika tygodniowa’, Wiadomosct Literackie, 9 Aug. 1936, p. 5. “4 A. Stonimski, ‘Kronika tygodniowa’, WiadomoEci Literackie, 30 Oct. 1938, p. 6.

The Pikador Poets’ Return to Jewishness AIQ Forgive the fact that I’m beginning this letter with such a doubt, but you have no idea how sensitive ’ve become on this point. On dit, que le Pape méme... Horreur! Enfin. . . si son Maitre et Chef... Mais laissons °

Tuwim declined to engage right-wing attempts to contest his Polishness. When pressed, he responded: “The matter of my Polishness and the fact that Pm a Polish poet is my private affair, deeply and fundamentally resolved in my conscience.

What the Endek Mr Rembielinski on one side or Mr Neuman on the other side thinks about that concerns me as much as last year’s snowfall.’° If by the mid-1930s the Jewish question was in the air, impossible to escape, so too was the Soviet question. Both Tuwim and Stonimski had grown up in the tsarist empire, with the Russian language, with Russian literature. What was Russian was foreign to neither of them. Slonimski translated Mayakovsky. ‘Tuwim translated Pushkin, his model of a pure poet, and one of the greatest of his loves.*’ Towards the Soviet Union Stonimski was sceptical, and Tuwim distant. When Stonimski travelled to Moscow in 1932, he was neither enchanted nor horrified. Or rather, he allowed his enchantment to engage with his horror. He was self-aware, and circumspect. In the book he wrote upon his return, he invented two phantasmal travelling companions: the Enthusiast and the Sceptic. ‘In the imbalance of today’s world— the Enthusiast says—the existence of the Soviet Union is the only hope for all the injured and exploited . . . That’s valid—answers the Sceptic—but 1s there not being born in the world a new fear of impassioned class fanaticism? Bolshevism has provoked hatred.” Long before the Second World War, he was quick to perceive the similarities between Nazism and Stalinism. At a moment when the world seemed divided into two camps, fascist and communist, Slonimski saw a world divided between totalitarianism of both varieties on one side, and democracy on the other.” In the late 1930s, his was among the very last sober minds in Europe. As for Tuwim, when asked about the communist experiment, he had no opin-

ion. ‘In order to know about it’, he wrote, ‘I would have to spend five years in Russia: the first as a child; the second as a peasant; the third as a worker; the fourth

asa “bourgeois intelligent”; and the fifth—as a Russian.’”° His attitude towards Zionism was not entirely dissimilar: 25 Ellipses in original. The first line is a paraphrased citation from an ancient Russian folk song ‘Tl'ya Muromets i Solovei-Razboinik’ (Alexander Zeyliger researched this reference). ‘Goy’ in the folk song had nothing to do with ‘gentile’; the line more likely meant something like ‘hail’ or ‘good health

to you, good handsome youth’, but Tuwim is playing here with the different associations of the word. Tuwim to Iwaszkiewicz, 14 June 1933, Warsaw, in J. Tuwim, Listy do przyjaciot-pisarzy, ed. T. Januszewski (Warsaw, 1979), 29. 26 Tuwim, Rozmowy z Tuwimem, 53-5. Originally published in Nasz Przeglad, 15 Feb. 1935. 27 Tuwim, Rozmowy z Tuwimem, 65. Originally published in Nasz Przeglad, 7 Feb. 1937. 28 A. Stonimski, Moja podréz do Rosji (Warsaw, 1997), 132-3. 29 A. Stonimski, ‘Kronika tygodniowa’, Wiadomosci Literackie, 14 Mar. 1937, 6.

30 Julian Tuwim, response to the questionnaire ‘Pisarze polscy a Rosja sowiecka’, Wiadomosci Literackie, 8 Oct. 1933, 3.

420 Marci Shore — How do you relate to the national Jewish movement?

— With fullsympathy ... — Would you be so kind as to expand on that? — No, I simply have nothing more to say on that topic. Let’s rather speak about poetry.*!

In Poland’s polarized political-ideological spectrum of the 1930s, Slonimski and Tuwim were among the very last liberals—perhaps by default. ‘To the end they remained individualists; to the end they remained unengaged. As ‘Poles of Jewish origin’, they had no place on the Polish right, and no place in Jewish politics. Slonimski’s was a tragically rare perspicacity. He reyected communism because he saw totalitarianism for what it was. Tuwim rejected communism because he believed only in poetry. In other words, Slonimski lived too much—and Tuwim too little—in the real world to be deluded by it. In August 1939 Iwaszkiewicz and ‘Tuwim met on vacation in Zakopane. When several days later Iwaszkiewicz returned home, he wrote of his time with ‘Tuwim in

the Tatra mountains: ‘[this is someone| for whom there exists only one issue: poetry’.°”

This was the very last moment when only poetry mattered to Julian Tuwim. Just weeks later came the blitzkrieg. Tuwim and Slonimski, together with their wives and Mieczystaw Grydzewski, fled Warsaw.?? Within a few days they were separated—if only temporarily. On Tuwim’s forty-fifth birthday he and his wife crossed the Polish—Romanian border. Once on the other side, they were collected by two Polish officers and dispatched to the care of the Polish ambassador. Despite

the right-wing Camp of National Unity government, despite the rise of antisemitism, the Polish state continued to see in ‘Tuwim a national treasure. No one knew what the war would bring. Tuwim and Slonimski, together with Grydzewski and Lechon, found themselves in Paris. In June 1940 France fell to the Germans; Slonimski and Grydzewski moved on to London. Tuwim headed west,

reaching Brazil via Lisbon. There on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro Lechon indulged in enormous quantities of ice cream and Tuwim began to write his epic poem ‘Kwiaty polskie’ (Polish Flowers). He realized then just how much he was the ‘antithesis of cosmopolitanism’.** In paradise, Tuwim longed only for Poland.

Kazimierz Wierzynski made his way to the United States, and with his help, Tuwim and Lechon joined him in New York just around the time that the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union. Tuwim was not enamoured with America. “Do you know what New York is?’ he said later to Stanislaw Wygodzki, ‘Lodz, but ill with elephantiasis.’°°

1927. 82 Twaszkiewicz, Notatkz, 9. 31 Tuwim, Rozmowy z Tuwimem, 25-6. Originally published in Dziennik Warszawski, 6 and 7 Feb.

33 A. Stonimski, Wspomnienia warszawskie (Warsaw, 1957), 98.

34 Meleniewski, ‘Odyseja Tuwima’ [interview with Tuwim], Rio de Janeiro, 27 Aug. 1940. Tuwim, Rozmowy z Tuwimem, 74. 39S. Wygodzki, ‘Bedzin!’, in Jedlicka and Toporowski (eds.), Wspomnienia o FJulianie Tuwimie, 170-1.

The Pikador Poets’ Return to Fewtshness 421 It was in that grotesquely overgrown version of Lodz that news reached Tuwim of the Holocaust. And it was there in New York that he decided the antithesis of Nazism was the Soviet Union. Lechon and Wierzynski believed otherwise. Now

Bolestaw Gebert and Oskar Lange replaced them as ‘Tuwim’s companions for nocne rodakow rozmowy, night-time conversations among countrymen that evolved

into strategic planning sessions.°° Tuwim became political. On 29 May 1942 Lechon sent him a letter, severing all relations because of ‘Tuwim’s ‘blind love for the Bolsheviks’.°’ Likewise in England: Stonimski declared his loyalty to Moscow, and his relationship with Grydzewski did not survive. It was July 1942. Nazi Germany had been at war with the Soviet Union for just over a year. Deportations commenced from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka. From New York Tuwim posted a letter to Stonimsk1:

Thank you, my dearest ‘Toleczek—more beloved than at any other time in life—and in a certain sense the only one! Other friendships have utterly boiled to death in the kettle of war, while my feelings for you, attachment to our shared past, a similar—so I think—view of the future, attitude in the present—have grown and (forgive this little word) ‘fortified’ themselves. Believe me, that I, on American soil, am equally alone as you are in London (as far as old friendships are concerned) . .. But do not judge that this solitude is painful to me. On the contrary: it gladdens me and rather solidifies the fact that finally, finally a distinct ‘line of partition’ has emerged. In the past you didn’t want to believe that ‘the barricade has only two sides’. Do you believe it now??®

In early 1943 the news reached Tuwim that the Bundist leaders Henryk Erlich

and Wiktor Alter had been put to death in Soviet Russia.*” In March Tuwim received a telegram from London: ‘I await your article or poem concerning Alter and Erlich.’*° Grydzewski waited in vain. Tuwim refused. The Soviet Union, he believed, was Poland’s only hope.*' Julian Stryjkowski was not alone in insisting that a Jew who becomes a communist ceases to be a Jew. For Antoni Stonimski and Julian ‘Tuwim it was precisely the reverse: they came to Jewishness and to communism—in fact, to Stalinism— together. Each was an integral part of their response to the war, a compensation for their pre-war blindness. The moral shock of the Holocaust challenged all of their sensibilities; it broke the selves that had been theirs. 36 B. Gebert, “Tuwim w Nowym Jorku’, in Jedlicka and Toporowski (eds.), Wspomnienia o Julianie Tuwimie, 223-7. ‘Nocne rodakow rozmowy’ is a phrase taken from the poet Adam Mickiewicz and the 1gth-c. Polish emigration. 37 Lechon to Tuwim, New York, 29 May 1942, in Tuwim, Listy do przyjaciét-pisarzy, 43 n. 38 Tuwim to Slonimski, New York, July 1942, ibid. 213-14.

39 Erlich committed suicide in a Soviet prison. See G. Pickhan, ‘That Incredible History of the Polish Bund Written in a Soviet Prison’, Polin, 10 (1997), 247-72.

40 Grydzewski to Tuwim (in English), London, 22 Mar. 1943. M. Grydzewski, Listy do Tuwima i Lechonia (1940-1943), ed. J. Stradecki (Warsaw, 1986), 71. 41 Julian Tuwim to Irena Tuwimowa, New York, 14 Apr. 1943, ibid. 72.

422 Marc Shore In his youth Tuwim had written in a poem titled ‘Tragedia’: Najwieksza ma tragedia — to, ze Zydem jestem, A ukochatem Arjow dusze chrystusowa! My greatest tragedy—that I am a Jew, And have come to love the Aryans’ Christ-like soul! #

In a second poem from that time, he wrote: Semicka we mnie plynie krew, Goraca krew, namietna krew.

There flows in me semitic blood Hot blood, passionate blood

The following stanza expresses the narrator’s love for Poland: O Arje! jakze kocham Was! O Polsko-stonce! Kraju moj! Zaniost mnie wieczny mocarz, czas,

Z pustyni, gdzie lubiezny znoj Tygrysic gibkich pali krew Do Ciebie, Polsko... I w twoj mit — Wplotlem stowianski, cudny Spiew: Aj, Lado-lado-luli-did! Choc sponad Nilu wiode rod, Pieni sie we mnie Stowian chmiel, A przez to spiewam Piastow Lud:

Aj, ado-tado-luli-lel! Oh Aria! how I love you!

Oh sun-Poland! My land! The eternal strong man, time, has brought me From the desert, where the lascivious toil Of supple tigresses heats the blood To You, Poland... And into your mythology Did I weave wondrous, Slavic song: Aj, wado-wado-luli-did! Although I draw my heritage from beyond the Nile The hop of Slavs froths in me And through it I sing the People of the Piasts Aj, wado-wado-luli-lel!*°

After his premiere at Café Pod Pikadorem in 1918, Tuwim lived in Warsaw. He neglected his ageing parents, who ‘used to sit on the balcony and look out for their son, who from time to time would stop by Lodz... for a couple of hours. For the 42 Quoted in J. Dunin, ‘Tuwim jako Zyd, Polak, czlowiek’, Prace Polonistyczne, 51 (1996), 89. 43 My translation from the Polish. ‘Pod bodzcem wiekéw’, quoted ibid. 88.

The Pikador Poets’ Return to Fewishness 423 son was very “famous” and very busy in the capital, so he could never stay for long.’** Now in New York, Tuwim came to understand that the elderly Jewish mother he had left behind in Lodz must have been killed by the Nazis. In 1944 he wrote the open letter ‘My, Zydzi polscy’ (We, Polish Jews) to ‘my Mother in Poland or her most beloved shadow’. Yes, he was a Pole, Tuwim insisted in that letter: I am a Pole, because it so pleases me. This 1s strictly my private affair, of which I have no intention of rendering to anyone an account, or explicating, explaining, or justifying. I do not divide Poles into ‘indigenous’ and ‘non-indigenous’, leaving that to indigenous and non-indigenous racists, to native and non-native Nazis.*°

Yet he had now become a Jew as well, a Jew by blood. This blood that now made him a Jew was not the blood that ran in his veins: it was the spilt blood of millions of Polish Jews. The murder of Polish Jewry had made Tuwim a Jew. ‘So with pride’, he wrote to his mother, no longer living, ‘with mournful pride we will bear that rank, eclipsing all others—the rank of the Polish Jew—we, who miraculously and arbitrarily have remained alive. With pride? Let us say rather: with contrite and biting shame. Because it fell to us for your suffering, for your glory.’*° The Holocaust had made the great Polish poet Julian Tuwim love the same ‘black hasidic rabble’ who had once repulsed him. It had made him love Stalin as well. After the war, both Tuwim and Slonimski returned to Poland and lent their support to the new communist regime.*’ Tuwim published a poem in Odrodzenie (Rebirth) about ‘the Polish grave of my mother / of my Jewish mother’ (Grob polski mojej matki, / Mojej matki zydowskiej).*° He published a second poem to the Soviet nation, speaking of the Revolution as an eternal beauty, and of Stalin as an immortal hero.*? There appeared, too, excerpts from his American notebooks: ‘Political disengagement has become for me a concept equivalent to unmusicality: I—a poet!—cannot understand it.’°° And a belated embrace of a Leninist slogan: ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.’°! In 1950 he sent a letter to the poet Mieczyslaw Jastrun, saying that they needed to talk about ‘the unimportance of lyricism in the project of the socialization of minds and in general about the exceedingly limited influence of poetry on transformations of historical significance in humanity’s history’.°” Poetry had ceased to matter nearly so much. Now Tuwim wrote little of it. Like ‘Tuwim’s ethereality, Slonimski’s impiety gave way to a simultaneous sentimentality and dogmatism. In 1947, still in London, Stonimski published an elegy in ** Julian Tuwim to Maria Zarebinska-Broniewska, New York, 16 Nov. 1945, in Tuwim, Listy do

preyjactot-pisarzy, 115-16. 4 J. Tuwim, My, Zydzi polscy (Tel Aviv, 1944), 3. 46 Tbid. 6. *” Tuwim returned to Poland in June 1946. Stonimski was formally repatriated in 1946, but returned to Poland permanently only in 1951. 48° J. Tuwim, ‘Matka’, Odrodzenie, 11 Dec. 1949, p. I. 49 J. Tuwim, ‘Do narodu radzieckiego’, Wiersze 2, ed. A. Kowalczykowa (Warsaw, 1986), 344.

| °0 J. Tuwim, ‘Z notesu’, Odrodzenie, 27 Nov. 1949, Pp. 4. | 1 J. Tuwim, ‘Z notesu amerykanskiego’, Odrodzenie, 30 Mar. 1947, p. 4. °2 Julian Tuwim to Mieczyslaw Jastrun, 30 Mar. 1950, in Tuwim, Listy do przyjaciél-pisarzy, 421-2.

424 Marct Shore verse to the Jewish shtet/ that was no more. He mourned the disappearance of the windows full of lit candles and the wooden synagogues full of song, of the shtet/s where the shoemaker was a poet, the watchmaker a philosopher, the barber a troubadour. He mourned for the shtet/ of Chagall’s two golden moons, ‘where in gardens old Jews under the shadow of cherries / Wept for Jerusalem’s holy walls’ (Gdzie starzy Zydzi w sadach pod cieniem czeresni / Oplakiwali $Swiete mury Jeruzalem).>?

This moment of Slonimski’s greatest tenderness was also the moment of his greatest fanaticism. In 1932 he had returned from Stalinist Russia with no illusions—which had cost him more than one friendship. He had shrugged, then, in the mid-1930s, at having become a pariah: ‘Since the time of “My Trip to Russia”,

Pve been on the black list of Soviet officials. Every so often they invite all the literati and feed them on caviar and as punishment I have to stay at home.’°4 Stonimski returned to Poland permanently only in 1951—the same year that Czestaw Mitosz, who had been serving as Polish cultural attaché in Paris, defected to the West. Slonimski, a latecomer to Stalinism, displayed his mastery of its language in an open letter to Milosz: You agitate against the planned work encompassing the ever broader Polish masses, you strike a blow against the building of factories, universities, and hospitals, you are an enemy of workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia, who for the first time in the history of our country have stood in battle to cast off the harm and exploitation of the capitalist system. ... Each Polish success, each stage victoriously overcome, each new factory, new collective, each good book by a Polish writer evokes your hatred. You feel joy at every adversity that the ravaged country encounters on the path to socialism.*°

Mitosz, for his part, responded as a gentlemen. ‘I will answer you’, he wrote in an open letter to Slonimsk1, ‘in a way deserving of the old poet from Pikador, and not the author of feuilletons in the Polish version of Pravda.’°® From across the ocean, Jan Lechon and Kazimierz Wierzynski watched a postwar Warsaw in which Skamander was missed. A satirical cartoon in Odrodzente

pictured a woman ascending the stairs to Ziemianska’s mezzanine where the Skamander poets sat. The caption read: | In its time a greater attraction than doughnuts with gold coins was our then young Parnassus ‘upstairs’ at Ziemianska. Perverse Iwaszkiewicz, passionate Wiuierzynski, unkempt, daydreaming Lechon, elegant Tuwim with his birthmark, oh, how the figures of these rising stars of our literature impressed ladies young and old! We women feel a violent need to revive such a new ‘upper level’ in Warsaw.?’ °3- A. Stonimski, ‘Elegia miasteczek zydowskich’, in Poezje zebrane (Warsaw, 1964), 495. °4 Stonimski, Moja podréz do Rossi, 140.

°° A. Stonimski, ‘Odprawa’, Krytyka, 13/14 (1983), 242-3; from Trybuna Ludu, 4 Nov. 1951. °6 C. Milosz, ‘Do Antoniego Stonimskiego’, Krytyka, 13/14 (1983), 244-52; from Kultura, 12 (1951). °7 M. Berezowska, ‘Na “g6rce” w Ziemianskiej’, Odrodzenie, 18 May 1947, p. 8. One of the owners of the inter-war Café Ziemianska once began an advertising campaign announcing that one in every so many doughnuts (pqaczkz) would contain a gold coin. Parnassus is the sacred mountain of the Greek god Apollo and his Muses; it refers to a pinnacle of music or poetry.

The Pikador Poets’ Return to Fewishness 425 On 29 November 1953, the thirty-fifth anniversary of Skamander’s debut at the Cafe Pod Pikadorem, Lechon wrote in his diary: The first evening the hall was full, which after all wasn’t difficult—it was a small room, just for such performances, and immediately it was a true triumph, the feeling that something _ successful, almost a necessity, had happened. How much separated me from ‘Tuwim and Stonimski was revealed only a few years ago.°®

Tuwim died the following month. He was 59. The next day on the other side of the Atlantic, Jan Lechon wrote in his diary: Tuwim has died... And now I cannot forget about these past seven years—but I remember still twenty more years—the gallivanting about, the silences, the jokes, but above all his poems... Everyone who came after him and many of his contemporaries should say now: ‘We are all from him.’°?

Five years later, Iwaszkiewicz wrote to Grydzewski on the fortieth anniversary of Pikador. He recalled it with tears.©°

In the end, of the Skamander poets, Stonimski and Tuwim were the most alike. They loved Pilsudski in their youth. They resisted the political polarization of the 1930s, but saw the war collapse their resistance. ‘hey disdained the traditional Jewish world, and rejected it violently. And they later mourned the loss of that same Jewish world whose existence they had once lamented. ‘Their identities were fluid, their identifications responsive. Neither Stonimski, who was so sharp, nor Tuwim, who was so delicate, was able to overcome the guilt of having been absent when Polish Jewry perished, when Warsaw was burnt to ashes. And so, in their way, the prodigal sons returned to the fold. Was their belated

identification with their Jewish roots a happy ending? This was an embrace brought on not by joy and pride, but by death and guilt. It was an impulse motivated by despair, realized at a Stalinist moment. The war had broken them. Slonimski survived ‘Tuwim by twenty-three years—long enough to reclaim, in some part, his former self, his sobriety and irreverence. In his old age he grew close

to Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, who used the title ‘He is from my Homeland’ for a book about Poles who saved Jews during the war. He grew close as well to a young man named Adam Michnik. In the 1970s, Stonimski became the grand old man of the democratic opposition. Tuwim’s last words were written on a napkin in a restaurant just before he collapsed there: ‘For the sake of economy, please turn out the eternal light: I may

need it some day to shine for me. . .°! For Tuwim there was no reclaiming of the , °§ P. Kadziela and A. Miedzyrzecki (eds.), Wspomnienia 0 Antonim Stonimskim (Warsaw, 1996),

110-11. 9 Tuwim, Listy do przyjaciot-pisarzy, 62. 60 Twaszkiewicz to Grydzewski, Rome, 29 Nov. 1958, in M. Grydzewski and J. Iwaszkiewicz, Listy, 1922-1967, ed. M. Bojanowska (Warsaw, 1979), 127.

61 S. Baranezak, ‘Skamander after Skamander: The Postwar Path of the Prewar Polish Pleiade’, Cross Currents, 9 (1990), 340.

426 Marc Shore person he had once been. In his post-war life he ceased even to believe in poetry: the only God he had ever worshipped had been revealed in His tragic impotence. Life was not Art. And for this other Life, this Life that was not Art, Tuwim was tragically ill suited.

,,;

Resisting a Phantom Book A Critical Assessment of the Initial Polish Discussion of fan Gross’s Fear MONIKA RICE

INTRODUCTION EVEN WHILE Jan Tomasz Gross’s latest work, Fear,' was yet to appear in Polish (it was finally published in January 2008), a very emotional debate about it was already taking place in the Polish press immediately after the book’s publication in English (June 2006). Some Polish participants in this incipient debate based their

opinions on somewhat sensational reviews from abroad;* others addressed the book itself, but, rejecting either its premiss or Gross’s general interpretation of post-war Polish violence against the Jews, quoted it selectively to suggest that Gross was either incompetent or guilty of an overly emotional approach. Bozena Szaynok has called the reactive intellectual climate that has resulted from this situation one of ‘fear of fear’:’ the emotions thus evoked may serve to solidify one Polish response—that of a vociferous denial—to the ‘revelation’ of Polish complicity in the annihilation of Jews. I have, therefore, characterized the growing Polish debate about Fear preceding the appearance of its Polish version as a debate about a non-existent or phantom book; much of the Polish literature does not address the text itself, and even when it does, Polish readers are often ill equipped, for linguistic, technical, or financial reasons, to verify the selective and arbitrary claims that are made about it. In order to outline the Polish debate about Fear before its Polish publication, we must first present the book as such. In some ways, it is easier to say what Fear is not

* J. T. Gross, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz (New York, 2006).

* e.g. Stefan Bratkowski (‘Uraz’, Rzeczpospolita, 1-2 July 2006) reacts specifically to the strongly emotional review by Elie Wiesel (“The Killing after the Killing’, Washington Post, 25 June 2006), which oversimplified Gross’s more cautiously formulated theses. Maciej Rybinski (‘Strach przed Grossem’, Dztennitk, 1-2 July 2006), responding to the presentation of Gross’s theses in his American reviews, speculates whether Shylock, overloaded with negative stereotypes, might be changing his nationality into Polish, and he proposes that Gross undertake his own psychoanalysis. 3 B. Szaynok, ‘Strach przed strachem’, Wprost, no. 1230 (9 July 2006).

428 Monika Rice than what it is. In that respect, it is similar to Gross’s earlier, equally controversial work, Neighbors.* Here, Gross continues the novel approach that has provoked discussion ever since about his historical method.

Gross’s use of historical sources, his reliance on personal—frequently emotional—testimonies of the Kielce massacres from both the victims’ and the perpetrators’ perspectives, his selective emphasis on the victims’ perspective, and even his personal declaration that he would edit the Polish version so as to present the cruelty of the killing even more explicitly,’ all seem to testify to his intention not only to challenge the current version of the events for historians, but also to stir a wider, moral debate. Gross’s novel presentation of historical sources (he does not refer to personal accounts only in the notes, as if ‘ashamed’ of their lack of ‘objectivity’, but quotes them extensively in the body of the text) allows him to convey the ultimate temperature of ‘limit events’, and serves to evoke empathy from the reader. By such

means, Gross reconstitutes something that often escapes notice in an objective presentation, just as it was once disregarded under the gaze of the perpetrators: the victims’ dignity. A particular emphasis, or even a downplaying of certain themes, serves to fill in a missing chapter of post-war Polish history, a chapter marked by the continuation, and even the exacerbation, of hostility towards the Jews. In assessing the Polish debate about Gross’s book, I intend to judge its reception based on the understanding of this intent. Of course, that novel methodology lies precisely at the heart of the ‘problem’ for Polish historians: is Gross indeed, as Andrzej Paczkowski is alleged to have charged, ‘a publicist playing on emotions, not an honest historian?’° Does Gross claim to

produce a work of history while he ‘merely’ resorts to ‘playing on emotions’? Such seems to be the strongest accusation from the Polish professional historians, including those who do not deny the scale of Polish violence against the Jews. Should Gross be ‘out of the historians’ club’, as Joanna Tokarska-Bakir put it in an essay in which she challenged the objectifying methods of positivistic historical

analysis, which, in effect, may assume a character of numbing bias towards the

perspective of the perpetrators?’ Is the approach that historians traditionally favour—one of a detached objectivity—desirable for coming to terms with one’s own history? Have Polish historians done all that they could to research the Kielce pogrom? And has all that they have done affected in any way the taboo of public discussion about the extent of Polish violence against the Jews after the war?

: Following Wojciech Stanistawski, who, at the beginning of the Jedwabne debate, assessed the general state of Polish—Jewish dialogue concerning both nations’ past * J. T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the fewish Community in fedwabne, Poland (Princeton,

_ 2001). > J. T. Gross, discussion (with Antony Polonsky) of Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz, Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York, 15 Nov. 2006. ® Quoted in M. Fabjanski, ‘Bedzie wstyd i wrzask’, Przekré], 26 (2006), 18-22 at 19. ” J. Tokarska-Bakir, ‘Jedwabne — historia jako fetysz’, Gazeta Wyborcza, 16 Feb. 2003 (republished in Rzeczy mgliste (Sejny, 2004)).

Polish Discussion of Jan Gross’s Fear 420 relations,> we must admit that, this time, too, the discussion seems deadlocked. Reflecting on the beginning of the dialogue in the 1980s, Jan Blonski’s now famous essay ‘Biedni Polacy patrza na getto’ (Tygodnik Powszechny, 1987) evoked a rather meagre response. Fifteen years after Blonski’s attempt to stir the Polish conscience, and already after what Stanislawski characterizes as the overly optimistic expecta-

tions expressed in the last chapter of Michael Steinlauf’s Bondage to the Dead (‘Memory Regained? 1989-96’), several books were published that could have inspired a public debate about the need to face a historiography challenging the

conventional Polish ethos of innocence, but these were duly ‘overlooked’. Stanislawski specifically mentions Pawel Szapiro’s anthology Wojna zydowskoniemiecka: Polska prasa konspiracyjna 1943-1944 0 powstaniu w getcie Warszawy (London, 1992); Joanna Zyndul’s monograph, Zajscia antyzydowskie w Polsce w latach 1935-1937 (Warsaw, 1994); and Bozena Szaynok’s Pogrom Zydéw w Kielcach, 4 lipca 1946 (Warsaw, 1992). Books like these—as well as cinematic productions that

documented the latest research on twentieth-century Polish—Jewish relations— never made it out of the narrow milieu of scholarly circles and into the public consciousness. Only the provocative Neighbors managed to rouse the average Pole from a comfortable, dogmatic slumber. I will argue that Gross’s ‘Essay in Historical Interpretation’ aspires to provide a missing link of interpretative history for Poland. The double ‘scandal’ of his two recent books is that he not only proposes a new historical approach, but that he also ‘reveals’ to the general audience of Poles those hidden, shameful pages of history

that the public memory and discourse have managed to suppress, and even to repress. I will further contend that, for certain scholars or journalists, the methodological questioning of Gross’s workshop—legitimate in itself—is employed as a red herring to distract their audiences from following Gross’s overall intention. Fear, therefore, is not a thorough historical presentation of the phenomenon of post-war Polish violence against the Jews. It does not represent a major contribution to current knowledge about the Kielce pogrom (according to the prominent historian Andrzej Zbikowski, of the Warsaw-based Jewish Historical Institute (Zydowski Instytut Historyczny; ZIH), Fear contains little that was not already known in the field).? Nor is it an analysis of the causes and motifs of the pogrom, even though such would seem to be Gross’s overt purpose in writing the book; his subtitle, ‘An Essay in Historical Interpretation’, reads rather like a disclaimer intended to disarm pedantic historians who would otherwise reduce the issue to an irrelevant hashing and rehashing of numbers and names. On the contrary, Fear 1s the passionate, painful, even brutal cry of a Pole provoked to insomnia by the easy, unbecoming slumber of his once murderous compatriots. ‘Dry’ historical accounts have not been able to initiate a public discourse about the level of Polish responsibility for post-war violence. As in the Jedwabne debate, 8 W. Stanistawski, ‘Pamiec wciaz nieodzyskana’, Tygodnik Powszechny, 14 Mar. 2001. 9 M. Fabjanski, ‘Polska wina i Strach’, Przekréj, 28 (2006), 28—32 at 28.

430 Monika Rice many who are not professional historians (including literary critics, anthropologists, psychologists, and others) admit that it is necessary to reconsider the character of the Polish national ethos. Although the Kielce pogrom has been quite well documented in Polish historiography, its interpretation both in the public consciousness and in educational curricula has centred only on the motive of provocation.‘° More disturbing facts indicating widespread anti-Jewish violence in Kielce, on trains, and in other towns have been discussed exclusively by a narrow network of professional historians. That is why, in my opinion, Gross attempts to apply a kind of shock therapy to Polish thinking about the Holocaust and its aftermath. While Nezghbors, before it, also gave rise to energetic denials of Polish responsibility, Fear assesses the extent of Polish participation in violent acts against Jews even more bitterly. The sense of pain is always evident beneath the excruciating accusations: How could you people do this to your fellow neighbours? How could you have done this to these emaciated, tortured, and terrorized survivors of ruthless manhunts, these sole survivors among entire generations of your compatriots, left alone to carry the name of what were once widely extended families? How can you still—faced with the shocking truth of your wartime collaboration as so many massacres of Jews finally come under scrutiny—claim that these are just ‘Gross’s lies’?! Who is blind here? Who is the liar? How can we lose this truth in the pursuit of the ‘precise numbers’? Czeslaw Milosz, on the occasion of a polemic concerning his famous poem Campo di Fiori, remarked that a legal argument would have a reasonable validity in discussing the reality of Polish behaviour towards the extermination of the Jews. Responding to a journalist who claimed that during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising he had indeed seen the merry-go-round, but that it was not working, Mitosz highlights such a focus on a more acceptable probability when the truth cannot be absolutely determined: I am not surprised that there are readers who take the view that I merely imagined this, because the situation is indeed incredible. More believable is the version of Matuszewsk1, which relates to weekdays. No doubt he did see the merry-go-round immobile or some children riding on it. Yet my fate as an observer meant that I was there on Easter Sunday and so my version has lasted. From a statistical point of view, all those who were in Krasinski 10 Even the Polish President Lech Kaczynski, in his letter to participants in the commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the ‘Kielce events’ (sic), mentions, as a possible motive, on/y the theory of provocation, and immediately admits that ‘I think there is still much to investigate and describe in one of the most complicated matters in Polish history’. Lech Kaczynski, ‘Wolna 1 demokratyczna Polska

nie boi sie dyskusji o przeszlosci’, 4 July 2006 (online at ; cf. ‘Nie unikajmy rachunku sumienia: List Prezydenta RP’, Gazeta Wyborcza, 5 July 2006.

11 Cf. Jerzy Robert Nowak’s cycle of numbered articles contra Gross entitled ‘Nowe falsze Grossa’ in Nasz Dzienntk (a daily connected with the Catholic-nationalist radio station Radio Maryja) (2006); id., 100 ktamstw 7. T. Grossa 0 &ydowskich sasiadach 1 fedwabnem (Warsaw, 2001); id., Nowe klamstwa Grossa (Warsaw, 2006).

Polish Discussion of fan Gross’s Fear 431 square on a weekday would confirm what Matuszewski, undoubtedly an honest observer, has written. And 1s this not important for lawyers, who try to distinguish between probability and an individual event? Does it not lead to historical reflections about the complicated relationship between the individual and the typical?*?

Some of the reactions that I will present here assume, precisely, a legal or statistical criterion of describing historical events. This approach would seem, however, to be thoroughly a-historical, in so far as linear history is uniquely preoccupied

with particular events. In that respect, historians defending a probable chain of events might seem closer to describing cyclical, or mythical, reality. Indeed, some voices that deny any value whatsoever to the book may arguably serve, even explicitly, the myth-creating agenda of an exclusivist national patriotism. Gross’s book, however, asks and tackles the final questions—questions of moral responsibility — and both the validity of these questions, as well as the danger of their avoidance by the historian, clearly have been raised by the very events of the Holocaust. I intend, then, to present an outline of the Polish reactions to Fear preceding its Polish edition. As the literature on the topic continues to burgeon, my aim is more

to signal certain tendencies that appear in the debate rather than to catalogue it exhaustively. Although I divide these reactions into three groups, according to their principal points of emphasis, the arguments associated with them are not always unique. I will focus, then, on those arguments that set each group apart from the others. While I initially intended to limit my evaluation of ‘Polish’ reactions to those published in the Polish literature and press, I have found it necessary to expand my focus to include some publications more properly associated with Polonia—the

(American and European) Polish diaspora—for their potential influence on, or

reflection of, opinions in Poland itself. , CRITICAL APPRECIATION Bronislaw Swiderski

Let us first turn to scholars and writers who appreciate and understand correctly Gross’s project. Probably the most affirmative reception thus far came from

Bronislaw Swiderski, who published his short article as a polemic against a highly critical essay by the historian Marek Jan Chodakiewicz,'* whom I will discuss later. Swiderski, a writer, publicist, and sociologist who discovered his halfJewish origins during the anti-Jewish purge of 1968 and consequently emigrated

to Denmark, correctly intuited that ‘Gross’s books should not be read as a vengeance on Poland,!° but rather as an expression of the will to shake the 12 ¢, Milosz, ‘Karuzela’, Tygodnik Powszechny, 5 Oct. 2003. 18 B. Swiderski, ‘Laknienie braterstwa’, Rzeczpospolita, 25 Nov. 2006. 14M. J. Chodakiewicz, ‘Historia jako wycinanka’, Rzeczpospolita, 18 Nov. 2006. 15 As some defensive reactions (Chodakiewicz’s among them) suggest.

432 Monika Rice Poles, make it clear to them what they had done’. Gross’s output prior to the publication of Neighbors and Fear clearly testifies to the reformatory intention behind

his preoccupation with the lack of solidarity between Polish and Jewish neighbours. In the article ‘ “Ten jest z ojczyzny mojey”. . ., ale go nie lubie’, published in

1986,'°© Gross points out the contradiction between the Poles’ romantic selfperception as compassionate towards other victims of history and the attitudes they generally assumed towards Jews during the Second World War. Swiderski suggests that, in writing his ‘accusatory’ books, Gross intends to encourage (if not to force) the Polish people to make a self-purifying confession of the guilt of their

lack of solidarity with their persecuted neighbours, and to awaken the belated ‘neighbourly brotherhood’. Swiderski argues that this reformatory intention is the strongest proof that Gross’s writings embrace the best Polish romantic and idealistic traditions.

Swiderski focuses on the theme of ‘home’ as a central category for Polish, national, exclusive self-definition. Anti-Jewish attacks were relatively rare in those areas regained by Poland after Yalta in which Jews and Poles alike were new inhabitants (not returning to their previous dwellings). Following Gross’s statement, the author of the article indicates the need for a re-evaluation of the antagonistic and

exclusivist character of the notion of ‘home’, which can be identified, even in | Polish historiography, with a need to defend against attacks on the ‘Polish home’. Swiderski put his finger on the defensive-aggressive reactions to historical works that contradict a romantic, heroic Polish ethos when he stated that such works are simply being rejected as ‘anti-Polish’ (implicitly, such a characterization should disqualify any claims of a given author without further explanation or need of solid historical analysis). Swiderski devotes the final words of his polemic to the need to redefine the concept of the ‘Polish home’ in order to reject the ‘romantic dichotomy of “home against the world” ’ and include within it the whole of Europe, and even the entire globe.

Swiderski seems to be the only voice who completely abstains from attempting to assess the historical value of Fear. His attention is concentrated on the crucial moral aspect that the book addresses: the question of Polish violence against the

Jews after the war. Gross’s own public statements—and the way he evidently adjusts them to fit his audience—indicate that this would seem to be the proper way to receive his book (my own limited correspondence with Gross seems also to bear this out). For example, after his lecture commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the Kielce pogrom in the Tempel Synagogue in the Kazimierz district of Krakow, Gross refused even to discuss his new book, requesting instead that all say Kaddish for the dead. On the other hand, Gross was quite open to a free exchange

with the audience as part of his recent appearance to discuss Fear with Antony 16 J. T: Gross, ‘““Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej” . . ., ale go nie lubie’, Aneks (a Polish émigré quarterly),

41—2 (1986), 13-36 (repr. in Upiorna dekada). ,

Polish Discussion of fan Gross’s Fear 433 Polonsky in New York. Gross seems to grasp that what Poland needs after the Kielce pogrom is more an act of mourning and praying, of the spiritual “coming to terms’ with this past horror, than the mere exposition—however well expressed— of his historical research.

Piotr Wrobel Piotr Wrébel, Professor of Polish History at the University of Toronto, has written a similarly laudatory but more historically oriented review.'’ Wrobel’s assessment is that the novelty of Gross’s approach lies not in discovering facts but in performing a fresh analysis of events. Wrobel says that Gross has shown that ‘the local state and party authorities did not want to stand on the side of the Jews and against the “people” who were attacking them; that they were doing everything in order not to give the appearance of being “Jewish defenders”, and they even took part in the pogrom’. According to Wrobel, Gross presents an analysis of sources that support the view that certain circles in Polish society accepted the killing of Jews as morally justifiable. Wrobel accurately presents both the theses of Fear, and Gross’s style in

formulating them, a style that is rather suggestive than definitive; that in itself, in the face of the numerous manipulations and misunderstandings of the text in the Polish press, deserves praise. Wrobel reports, approvingly, that Fear is a better-documented work of history than Neighbors; in Fear, the body of text is complemented by ‘dialogical’ information in the footnotes and extensive bibliographical endnotes. Allowing that Gross’s intention was to show ‘the big picture’, and that, therefore, ‘denting his shield over details—especially in a short review—makes no sense’, Wrobel makes it clear that he considers Fear an important book that should be required reading for anyone

interested in modern Polish history. |

At the same time, Wrobel raises a few minor objections. He reassesses the possible source for the myth of ‘Judaeo-communism’ (sydokomuna) in the light of the many left-leaning (if not always explicitly radically left) Jewish parties in pre-war Poland. Gross seems to limit the extent of the popularity of communism among Polish Jews to the several thousand members of the KPP (Komunistyczna Partia Polski; Communist Party of Poland). Wrobel’s opinion seems more convincing: the Bund (the most powerful Jewish party in Poland) and Po’alei Tsiyon Left, although anti-Stalinist, were nevertheless Marxist in their programmes and style

of practising politics. Likewise, the attempts of the PPR (Polska Partia Robotnicza; Polish Workers’ Party) to dissociate themselves from ‘the Jewish stigma’, when even Gross admits that the Jews were present there only marginally, does not convince Wrobel that Gross adequately appreciated the strength and perseverance of the stereotype of ‘Judaeo-communism’. (Here, Wrobel seems to fall prey to his own misunderstanding: Gross instead illustrates the paranoic character

of the myth that was pervading the society and the new authorities). Finally, 17 P. Wrobel, ‘Strach ofiar, strach mordercow’, Gazeta Wyborcza, 29 July 2006. |

434 Montka Rice Wrobel points out that Gross’s thesis that Stalin was led by a growing antisemitism in his treatment of Jewish communists does not lessen the significance of the fact that Stalin was consciously using the Jews against the Poles. One interesting issue that Wrobel raises, as a question, not a criticism, is a concern about the historian’s role 1n elucidating a nation’s past: should he adjust the way he presents his arguments in order to ‘accommodate’ them to his audience?

How should history be written without antagonizing readers, ‘to convince them | that, in spite of different opinions, professional historians are not their enemies or traitors of the nation’? It seems that here we enter the realm of differing temperaments: Gross is passionate about ‘waking up’ the general Polish audience to recognize its past relations with the Jews—however difficult that may be for it to accept. He seems to believe that nothing less antagonizing than a ‘scandal’ can evoke the reaction he desires; the role of a gentle, patient educator or mediator does not seem to suit him. His style of writing can be called into question, but there is no denying

his effectiveness in igniting the debates that he seems to consider essential for defining a national identity.

Discussions in Tygodnik Powszechny The Catholic, liberal, highbrow weekly Tygodnik Powszechny has always rested on a humanist, self-critical approach to Polish history, and it was the first medium where

serious debate on Polish—Jewish relations began. In the issue of its magazine ‘Historia w Tygodnikw’ devoted to the sixtieth anniversary of the Kielce pogrom, the first piece was Gross’s article about the events (abridged from a lecture given during the sixteenth Festival of Jewish Culture in Krakéw, 4 July 2006),*® and the second was a shortened version of a conversation between psychologists, sociologists, and a historian, published originally in the journal of psychology Charak-

tery.‘° Gross’s article is identical—in content and effect—to his book; the conversation, for its part, brings many valuable insights to the discussion about Polish antisemitism, although the participants do not refer directly to Gross’s book. The conversation weaves around the issue of moral responsibility as the interlocutors attempt to penetrate the psychological mechanisms of an unexpected eruption of anti-Jewish violence after the war. They mention the pre-war features of Polish nationalism, which embraced the dehumanization of the ‘other’ as part of an exclusivist definition of Polish nationality. Slawomir Kapralski shares his reflections about the shock he himself experienced when researching the image of

the Jew among the villagers of eastern Poland in the late 1980s. Statements like: ‘when the Jews returned after the war, they would be pushed off, or beaten, sometimes killed . . .’, as well as the explicitly, unashamedly confessed spontaneous ‘executions’ of Jewish survivors, testify to the huge wave of hatred, but also to a certain dissociated perception of Jewish destruction—‘watching but not seeing’-— 18 J. T. Gross, ‘Wyjasniam, ze krew na moim ubraniu .. .’, Tygodnik Powszechny, 4 July 2006. 19 B. Weig] et al., ‘A jak bratem, a jak katem. . . dyskusja naukowa’, Charaktery (July 2006).

Polish Discussion of Jan Gross’s Fear 435 as if the events of the Holocaust were registered, but there was no language capable of discussing it. Michal Bilewicz indicates a mechanism of cognitive disso-

nance between the accepted moral code of ‘do not steal’ and its contradiction in the universal takeover of Jewish property. A ‘solution’ to this insoluble dissonance was then found in the hatred of the rightful owners of the appropriated goods. Here, Bilewicz indirectly confirms from a psychological standpoint Gross’s thesis that one’s guilt—for not standing up for one’s neighbours in need, as well for robbing them—might have resulted in the projection of one’s own self-aversion on the victims, making them even more ‘detestable’. Likewise, the mechanism of finding a scapegoat in a political situation of relative disorder and unpredictability following the war helps to supply at least some background motivation to explain the unparalleled violence. Zbikowski is the only historian in the debate; his positive opinion of the effect of Gross’s book is noted below. In this debate, he comes across as ‘terrified by the excess of theories based on a very clear weakness of sources’. He points out the

unreliability not only of the perpetrators’ accounts, but also of the victims’ accounts, which are faulty because the victims allegedly ‘do not understand the heart of the matter by concentrating on the attitudes of neighbours, i.e. those whom normally one could count on’. (Here, I must confess that I am somewhat puzzled by this elaborate attempt to disqualify the victims’ accounts; the fact of attacking one’s neighbour is precisely the moral issue that one wrestles with when reflecting on group violence.) Zbikowski perceives that the final blow that helped to remove the last moral

inhibitions to ceasing to consider the Jews as neighbours—thus, ‘not to be killed’—-was the destruction performed by the Nazis on Polish soil. The Germans’ unparalleled brutality in dealing with the Jews showed the Poles who witnessed it

that ‘everything was possible’. The economic advantages brought about by the removal of the Jews provided an additional ‘carrot’, then, to encourage one’s moral reservations to go numb. In discussing Poland’s inability to face the darker pages of its past, Miroslaw Kofta suggests the notion of a ‘collective public identity’, which can be sensitive—

in the Polish case hypersensitive—to the opinions of foreigners. Indeed, the (morally irrelevant) question: ‘what will the world think about Poland?’ recurs like a sad refrain in many negative reactions to Fear. Bilewicz, for his part, recalls sociological data testifying to Poland’s low self-evaluation as a nation. He concludes

that the defensive stance adopted by Poles in the Jedwabne and Kielce debates is a symptom of their overcompensating for a negative self-image, so that the legend of Poland’s mythically heroic past is defended at all costs—even at the cost of

truth. Zbikowski and Kapralski are both sceptical about the effective reconsideration of that long-standing myth. Church and school both fail to form Poles who not only recognize the multinational character of Poland’s past but also respect the

436 Montka Rice non-Catholic citizens in their midst. The politicization of the issues too seems to impede any discussion of the Polish—Jewish past. The participants in this debate hope for a more thorough programme of education about a multinational Poland, and for the creation of public institutions that would support a more inclusive notion of one’s compatriots. Although this conversation between six intellectuals does not refer directly to Fear, it does present a positive example of deep soul-searching by certain repre-

sentatives of the Polish academic elite in the subject area that Gross pursues. Tygodnik Powszechny itself implies the relevance of this conversation to Fear by their juxtaposition. I recall them here to exemplify the sort of response that may be anticipated on the part of scholarly circles. Tygodnk Powszechny has also published a review by Agnieszka Sabor of the collection of research essays on the Kielce pogrom entitled Wokol pogromu kieleckiego,

published by the IPN (Instytut Pamieci Narodowej; Institute of National Remembrance).*° The reviewer, giving Gross such credit for breaking the first taboo concerning inter-war relations that she suggests he be awarded a state medal, hopes also that the new book will facilitate a Polish re-examination of these relations after the war. She regrets that Fear was not published simultaneously in Polish. Evaluating the book, Sabor critically assesses an article in it by Jan Zaryn concerning the Church’s responses to the pogrom. Zaryn’s totally defensive stance on the Church’s attitude stands in sharp contrast to Gross’s analysis of that attitude in Fear.

Forum: Two Articles by Waldemar Piasecki Forum: Jews—Poles—Christians, an internet magazine published by the Christian Culture Foundation Znak, has placed on its website two very positive articles on Fear by Waldemar Piasecki. Expecting a storm of reaction to the book in Poland, Piasecki calls for the present generation of Poles to take responsibility for their own history. If truth is indeed to liberate, he reminds us, it cannot be spoken only

when it serves immediate needs, but must be embraced in general. Otherwise, truth has the unpleasant tendency to resurrect in the present.7! In the second article, Piasecki remarks, with bitter sarcasm, that the stilldominant Polish interpretation of the Kielce pogrom as a provocation by the NKVD could lead to the conclusion that Bishop Teodor Kubina (the only bishop who justly and clearly condemned the massacre) was in effect a Soviet agent.** The defensive Polish tradition of accepting only the glorious, tolerant aspects of its past, multinational statehood may well deny Gross any ‘right’ to express a Jewish fear of 20 A. Sabor, ‘Na progu nowej debaty: IPN-owska monografia pogromu kieleckiego’, Tygodnik Powszechny, 16 July 2006.

21 W. Piasecki, ‘Strach przed burza’, Forum: Jews—Poles—Christians, 26 June 2006, , accessed 2 Jan. 2007.

22 W. Piasecki, ‘Kto sie boi Strachu??, Forum: Jews—Poles—Christians, 3 July 2006, .

Polish Discussion of fan Gross’s Fear 437 returning to post-war Poland. After the ‘adventure with Jedwabne’, Piasecki asks rhetorically, would Gross indeed want ‘to become a Polish Salman Rushdie’? Piasecki, who elevates the book from a merely historical level to the moral level

that better suits it, cites the example of Witnesses, a documentary, by Marcel fozinski, that revisited the Kielce inhabitants in 1988. In front of the camera, the witnesses of the massacre reveal the primal categorization ‘we—they’, which allowed for the exclusion of their ‘enemies’ and of those who dared to defend them. The director Lozinski was not interested in the possibility of political provocation behind the pogrom; from the moral standpoint, no ‘encouragement’ can justify a crime. Gross takes a similar route in his attempt to analyse the very human—and not merely historical—why of the pogrom.

To support his characterization of Fear’s moral focus, Piasecki quotes a sad anecdote about Jan Karski’s visit to Kielce on the fiftieth anniversary of the pogrom. After the official commemoration, Karski got involved in a spontaneous | conversation with the local inhabitants. Their—tragically honest—attempt to convince him that the rumour about Polish children being killed for Jewish matzot

had, indeed, some basis in fact and was ‘known’ by Polish people, left Karski responding that, in such a case, it was a matter of ‘faith’, not of ‘knowledge’. ‘Oh, no’, his disputant retorted: ‘It was a matter of the NK VD.’ Piasecki illustrates the paradoxical approach to Poland’s ‘unacceptable’ past by contrasting the above-described encounter between Karski and Kielce inhabitants with what he terms the ‘exorcisms by Karski’, 1.e. the erection of the copy of the monument (original in Washington, DC) of Karski playing chess next to Planty Street, where the pogrom took place. The attempt to ‘respond’ to the accusations against the pogrom in the very place it happened, ‘a “fine” move to “disable” possible protests, and to show to the arriving Jewish tourists the right proportions’, is, understandably, a distasteful chutzpah that Piasecki, as probably Karski as well, would never tolerate.

Other Scholars There are signals that several other scholars preoccupied with Polish—Jewish relations received the content of the book approvingly, and understood the reasons behind writing it. We may expect that they will contribute to the debate in future publications. Marcin Fabjanski recalls the opinion of Alina Cala (a historian in the ZIH) that Gross writes from the perspective of the victims, and that it is high time to assume such an optic, which allows the full extent of the harm done to Jews by Poles to be made clear.?? Another ZIH historian, Andrzej Zbikowski, mentioned earlier, while relying on excerpts from Fear published in 7Tygodnik Powszechny, highly values its convincing description of the post-war situation of the Jews in Poland. He also partly defends some of Gross’s controversial statements, for example, that about one-fourth of the 23 Fabjanski, ‘Polska winai Strach’.

438 Montka Rice inhabitants of Kielce took part in the pogrom there (according to Zbikowski, that was

at least the extent of the knowledge about the pogrom taking place). Zbikowski assumes, therefore, the most ‘charitable’ interpretation of the author’s intentions, allowing him to speak beyond the matter of pure facts. He also acknowledges Gross’s ability to provoke a public discussion about the shameful topic of Polish violence.** Likewise, Barbara Engelking-Bon1, Director of the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research in Warsaw, appreciates Gross’s role as a “destroyer of self-satisfied peace’.

To a journalist’s question as to whether the book might strengthen anti-Polish stereotypes in the USA, she responds that we cannot help anyone else’s stereotypes, we can only try to face our own.”°

In a similar tone, Marcin Dzierzanowski expressed his appreciation for the book: although he finds it necessary to question Gross’s methods, overgeneralizing

theses, and overemotional historical judgements, he also finds that the value of learning the painful truth about one’s own past overcomes any technical flaws that the book may have.”®

SELECTIVE, TECHNICAL CRITICISMS A second set of reactions to Fear is made up of those who judge the book primarily

on its historical workmanship and accuracy while simultaneously ignoring or marginalizing the moral aspect of the events. Such a myopic approach could be characterized by a preoccupation with ‘how the book is written’, in contrast to ‘what it is about’.

Adam Szostkiewicz Adam Szostkiewicz, a prominent journalist for the weekly Polityka, begins his conversation with Gross precisely by questioning Gross’s reliance on personal

accounts, which may ‘deform reality in a way unfavourable to Poland’.?’ Szostkiewicz points out that ‘decent’ people do not step forward to announce their honesty. People who were compassionate towards Jewish suffering did not necessarily leave traces of their goodwill and deeds, and so relying solely on negative

accounts may paint a non-representative picture of Polish attitudes towards the Jews. Gross’s perspective comes from precisely the same viewpoint; his conclusions, however, are the opposite: he was horrified by the accounts of the survivors and of those who helped them, in which it was common to encounter pleas not to disclose the names of the helpers for fear of their neighbours. Szostkiewicz also confronts Gross with one of the most typical accusations to come from the exclusivist-patriotic and antisemitic camp, namely, that the topic of 24 Quoted in Fabjanski, ‘Polska wina i Strach’, 29. 25 B. Engelking-Boni, quoted in Fabjanski, ‘Bedzie wstyd i wrzask’, 21. 26M. Dzierzanowski, ‘Ferment Jana Grossa’, Zycie Warszawy, 27 June 2006. 27 A. Szostkiewicz, ‘Strach polski, strach zydowski’, Polityka, 28 (2006).

Polish Discussion of fan Gross’s Fear 439 Polish antisemitism 1s a guarantor of success, particularly in the USA. It is possible that the journalist asked such an unprofessional question in order to disarm those for whom this very question bears some significance. Indeed, in the course of the interview, probably for the sake of objectivity, Szostkiewicz emphasized that Gross could not be blamed for choosing an anti-Polish topic, as he had devoted one of his books to the persecutions of the Poles by the Soviets. The interviewer also admitted that whoever reads Fear without prejudice will find that there is no evidence of any hatred towards Poles on the part of its author. Szostkiewicz seems nevertheless to doubt Gross’s psychological explanation of the post-war Polish violence against

the Jews. He likewise asserts that Stefan Bratkowski, a prominent journalist and writer who cannot be associated with the defensive tradition of Polish patriotism, also leans towards an interpretation of the Kielce pogrom as a provocation. It is not clear what Szostkiewicz can himself offer as a counter-argument to Gross’s interpretation (beyond quoting other authorities); his own overall attitude during the interview seems to be somewhat ‘tired’ and disinterested.

Bozena Szaynok Bozena Szaynok, a historian from Wroclaw University and author of an important monograph on the Kielce pogrom, has published several reviews and a short article on Fear. I will synthesize the points of her criticism here.?® Szaynok, whose own book on the pogrom is written in a detached, matter-offact manner, with great care to avoid any ‘moral rhetoric’,?* does not find Gross’s narration or explanation of the phenomenon of anti-Jewish violence in Poland sat-

isfactory. To be sure, she acknowledges that Gross took on board the complex question of post-war Polish—Jewish relations. Nevertheless, in her opinion, ‘for Gross the Jewish plight after the war is reduced exclusively to antisemitism. Yet antisemitism is only a fragment of Polish—Jewish relationships after the war, and does not exhaust all that was happening in Poland after the year 1944.’°°

Indeed, Gross never aspired to give an exhaustive picture of post-war Polish—Jewish relations; he simply explored that aspect of the Jewish experience that was ignored or marginalized in Polish historiography, and explicitly denied in public discourse. Fear is about that particular, horrifying experience of Jews who returned to Poland to encounter the passive or active hostility of their pre-war neighbours. This experience was too frequently mentioned to be dismissed as exceptional. If such a cruel reception awaited more than half the Jewish survivors, one must call it a social phenomenon that requires an explanation. Szaynok suggests that this explanation should be more complex than the one Gross supplies. In the first place Szaynok mentions the effect of demoralization caused by the war experiences. ‘This argument, admittedly valuable for framing the context of 28 Szaynok, ‘Strach przed strachem’. 29 B. Szaynok, Pogrom Zydéw w Kielcach, 4 Lipca 1946 (Warsaw, 1992).

30 Szaynok, ‘Strach przed strachem’.

440 Montka Rice the social situation, does not explain the brutal treatment targeted at one specific national group, in particular the one that was also the first target of persecutions by the common enemy—the Nazis. When Szaynok quotes statistics showing that the percentage of anti-Jewish attacks defined as ‘a result of Hitler’s propaganda’ was slightly higher than the ones motivated by robbery, she seems rather helpless to explain this fact. It seems that historiography must strive for more encompassing, penetrating, and incisive methods than the traditional presentation of archival research. Gross’s attempts to answer the why of the events, and not merely to remain on the how, result from his dealing with the final existential and moral dimensions reflected 1n the pogrom events.

Another important factor that Szaynok finds overlooked in Fear is the extent of post-war terror with which the new system was being forced on Poland.?! The continuing post-war persecution of many underground opposition members coupled with a general perception that the Jewish community was left undisturbed, or even protected by the new regime, led to a further isolation and closing off of the two groups. The Jewish minority, as ‘the eternal scapegoat’, was targeted by a frustrated Polish population that was disappointed with the results of the war. Unknowingly, and therefore ironically at this point, Szaynok seems to confirm Gross’s diagnosis rather than offer a more compelling explanation of Polish violence towards the Jews. ‘That 1s, the projection of negative sentiments on the most defenceless group was possible precisely because this group was still unprotected by a more positive, inclusive attitude on the part of the majority. Antisemitism, therefore, was ultimately responsible for people’s intent to ‘do away with the Jews’.

A valuable point Szaynok raises is the political instrumentalization of antisemitism by the new communist regime in order to disqualify the Polish government-in-exile in London. The communists’ emphasis on the heroism of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters while simultaneously condemning and persecuting former

AK members (AK: the underground state army during the war) resulted in strengthening the stereotype of ‘Judaeo-communism’ and reinforcing a hostile portrayal of Jewish survivors.” It seems plausible that Gross downplays the effects

of the coincidence of anti-pogrom statements with the anti-AK declarations required by the communist authorities on official pronouncements. Such tactics by the new political power certainly contributed to the further mutual estrangement of the members of these national groups. Still, however, Szaynok’s point provides us with no clue to solve the question of the ‘dispassionate killing’, by the ordinary inhabitants of towns and villages, of Jewish neighbours. Another potentially relevant criticism that Szaynok raises against Gross 1s that he ‘neglects the question of the authorities of that time’.®° In the opinion of the 3! B. Szaynok, ‘Ktopoty ze wspdlngq historia’, Przeglad Polski, 25 Aug. 2006. 82 Szaynok, ‘Strach przed strachem’.

33 B, Szaynok, ‘Jak to widzi Gross: Rozmowa z Bozena Szaynok. Rozmawiala Agnieszka Kolodynska’, Gazeta Wyborcza, 8—9 July 2006.

Polish Discussion of Jan Gross’s Fear 4AI Wroclaw historian, the passivity of the members of the secret service, milicja, and military before and during the pogrom might have been orchestrated to provoke a certain reaction. Although that aspect of the pogrom is, indeed, still not definitely

clear for historians (and Gross might have researched it better), Gross’s social analysis of Polish ‘antisemitism after Auschwitz’ is not affected by it.

In essence, therefore, Szaynok distinguishes more complex political and psychological factors affecting Polish behaviour towards Jews after the war. Drawing her assessment of the book to its logical conclusion, it seems that Gross’s analysis ignores the political context of the Polish society immediately after the war almost completely. She also charges Fear with presenting a monocausal explanation that oversimplifies the very intricate dynamics of Polish—Jewish relations.

On the issue of methodology, Szaynok criticizes Gross for a selective use of documents in order to create an ‘impression that antisemitism 1s the most fundamental feature of Polish—Jewish relations’.** Indeed, from the perspective of those killed in Kielce and in other massacres, antisemitism is the most fundamental feature of Polish—Jewish relations. It should not be doubted that repercussions of these crimes affected perceptions of the Jewish communities towards Poles in general. There is, however, another important point, which Szaynok, in my opinion, has overlooked: it is not only from the perspective of the victims, but also from the very fact of the murders of Jews that took place on a massive scale that we may conclude that there must have been some sort of social consensus regarding the elimination of Jews in post-war Poland. Any other explanation simply does not make it clear why the aggression was uniformly directed against the men, women, and children, young and old, of Jewish origin. Gross judges the post-war Jewish

situation from precisely this perspective, the perspective according to which people are targeted as an ‘easy’ prey on which to take out one’s frustrations and aggression, as well as an ‘easy obstacle’ to be overcome in order to acquire their possessions. Any past mistreatment or simply indifference in the face of the other’s misfortune made him only more detestable to face. ‘That, im nuce, is Gross’s theory, which he offers to explain the post-war hostility towards the Jews, and not the varied attitudes towards them, which, taking into account the whole population of Poland, certainly existed. Gross was not asking, what was the extent of the antiJewish hostility, but why did the documented cases of hostility, present in many countries at the time, take such a terrible form in Poland right after the unparalleled attempt to liquidate the Jewish community. Therefore, Szynok’s assertion that ‘antisemitism was present in the post-war Polish reality, but referred only toa part of Polish society, and its reasons are manifold’®° is, simply, irrelevant to the investigation Gross has performed, which focused on the extreme examples of hostility that brought mortal fruits. In my opinion, by presenting material documenting defensive reactions that dominated and still dominate public discourse about these pogroms, Gross has successfully shown that antisemitism mwas the most 34 Szaynok, ‘Klopoty ze wspdlnq historia’. 35 Szaynok, ‘Jak to widzi Gross’.

442 Monika Rice prominent factor in the Polish attitude towards the Jews after the war, and the one most responsible for the insecurity of Jews in Poland, which determined their major exodus from communist Poland. Szaynok’s singular example of a Jewish person leaving Poland for another reason®® cannot, obviously, invalidate Gross’s generalization. Similarly, Szaynok’s objection to Gross’s exposition of Polish collaboration with the Germans*’ seems to be based on a misunderstanding. According to the

historian from Wroclaw, collaboration was only a marginal phenomenon in Polish—Jewish relations. Gross, however, seems specifically to be emphasizing this

particular collusion of anti-Jewish hostility between Germans and Poles that allowed the Poles, first, to feel dissociated from the sufferings of their Jewish fellow citizens, and, later, to perpetuate, and even strengthen, the projected image of Jews

as ‘threatening others’.°* The universality of the hostility that Jews experienced after the war is partly confirmed by reactions to the most extreme cases of that hostility—violence and murders. Szaynok’s assertion, therefore, that indifference was the dominant attitude towards Jews also after the war is simply of no help to us in our attempts to understand the anti-Jewish outbursts.

Piotr Oseka Piotr Oseka’s criticism of Gross’s monocausal explanation of the anti-Jewish vio-

lence is similar to Szaynok’s; Oseka, a young historian at the PAN (Polska Akademia Nauk; Polish Academy of Sciences), expresses appreciation for the style and certain penetrating insights of Fear, while he presents complex reasons—consistent with Szaynok’s—to explain this aggression.*? Apart from contextualizing

the dominant atmosphere of brutality in the post-war society, he also recalls Maciej Zaremba’s indication of the mass demobilization of the army as a contributing factor in the rise in national hostilities.4? Oseka suggests that Gross’s allembracing explanation is insufficient for those cases that do not fulfil the condition of his argument (e.g. cases of persons who persecuted and killed Jews but did not profit from it). It seems, however, that this Polish historian has misapprehended Gross’s argument, which addressed general social tendencies but did not claim to formulate any law that would be valid for each and every particular case. Apart from which, the fact that one did not actually gain from another’s murder does not, in itself, mean that one did not hope to do so. Oseka’s review is valuable, however, for his extensive quotations of the accounts

of anti-Jewish violence and discrimination. Readers who would not otherwise

36 Szaynok, ‘Jak to widzi Gross’. 37 Tbid. 38 J. B. Michlic, Poland’s Threatening Other: The Image of the few from 1881 to the Present (Lincoln, Nebr., 2006). °° A. Zdolinska, Historycy polscy dyskutujq z tezami przedstawionymi w ksiqa&zce Grossa, PAP— Nauka

w Polsce, 17 July 2006, , accessed 2 Jan. 2007. | 40 P. Oseka, ‘Zwykli Polacy i Holokaust’, Newsweek Polska, 16 July 2006.

Polish Discussion of Jan Gross’s Fear 443 expose themselves to the knowledge of such gruesome facts are thus confronted with descriptions of Polish behaviour that may disturb their defensive claims to national innocence. The historian emphasizes that ‘Gross does not deform source accounts, does not disfigure the picture contained in the accounts’. And, further, ‘historians have at their disposal plenty of documents and memoirs—often more drastic than these quoted in Fear—that confirm the existence of post-war antisemitism. Using them, one could, without any difficulty, write a multi-volume work.”*"

Other Historians Short, general opinions were also voiced by two young historians during a television debate on the Jedwabne massacre when the discussion, which included Gross, inevitably turned to his new book. Marek Wierzbicki, of the PAN, accused Gross of presenting—‘again’ (allegedly, following Neighbors)—a spectacular, over-

coloured thesis, unsupported by detailed research. Pawet Machcewicz, from the IPN, and a co-editor of Wokot Fedwabnego, added that the primary reason for the Jewish exodus from Poland after the war was the unwillingness of Jews to live in a place in which their loved ones had been killed, while this motive constituted, for Gross, merely an additional motive.** One can reasonably expect that in-depth analyses of Fear by these and other historians will appear in the near future.

UNCRITICAL REJECTION The third set of responses to Fear is characterized by significant misinterpretations of the author’s intention: in various degrees of intensity, these responses marginalize or completely ignore the main subject of the book—the problem of post-war violence towards Jews in Poland. In contrast to the voices of the previous sroup, however, these focus on imagining the motives that Gross might have had in writing the book. Essentially, therefore, they reyect Gross’s contribution to elucidating the history of the post-war Polish Jews, and, instead, debate the possible effects the book might have on the image of Poland in the world. Gross tends to ignore this set of responses completely as, indeed, irrelevant to the matter of his research. Antony Polonsky and Joanna Michlic also omit those responses—in their collection The Neighbors Respond—that fall, in the words of Marci Shore, ‘beyond the pale of civilized discourse’,*® i.e. those that imply some secretive, conspiratorial purpose behind the writing of the book, or those that do not respect the conven-

tions of a civil discussion in expressing their authors’ criticisms. Although, as 41 Tbid. 42M. Jedrysik, ‘Jedwabne i Strach’, Gazeta Wyborcza, 7 July 2006. 43 M. Shore, ‘Conversing with Ghosts: Jedwabne, Zydokomuna, and Totalitarianism’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 6 (2005), 360; cf. A. Polonsky and J. B. Michlic (eds.), The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the fedwabne Massacre in Poland (Princeton, 2004).

4AA Monika Rice indicated above, such reactions do not usually address the subject of Fear directly, they nevertheless evoke responses that shape the public debate about the Polish— Jewish past, and they consequently affect the creation of certain Polish attitudes.

These attitudes could be characterized as defence mechanisms against an encroachment on the accepted ‘paradigm of the Polish ethos’ as the nation composed simultaneously of the victims and the heroes of history. I consider them, therefore,

important contributory factors in the formation of a certain uncritical approach to Polish ‘mythic’ history. The reasoning behind this set of responses 1s logically flawed. ‘Thus I will group them here not according to a presentation of the authors as such, but according to

a categorization of the logical fallacies that they display. The reactions in this group run the gamut from a more or less diplomatically expressed astonishment and disappointment at Gross’s ‘generalizations’ to hostile accusations by ethnoexclusivist, nationalist writers and activists that Gross 1s a liar.

Red Herrings The most common fallacy found in these responses is that of the introduction of extraneous material calculated to throw the reader off the scent of relevancy. Here, I will present a few classic examples of such ‘red herrings’. The most popular theme followed by writers rejecting Gross’s thesis 1s to accuse him of an impure intention—from causing scandal, in a ‘milder’ version, to evoking ‘compassion, which will be later used by a proper lobby in the USA to maximize its pressure in order to force Poland to pay the greatest possible compensations to the Jews’, in a version more strongly inclined to see Gross as part of a

wider conspiracy.** The journalist Marcin Fabjanski, of the popular weekly Przekroj, warns Polish readers, for example, in his early announcement of the book, of the looming danger of a ‘shame and roar’ which, in his conviction, 1s to accompany the publication of Fear in Poland. He cites objections to the book by a historian (Andrzej Paczkowski), who, at the time, had not yet read it, and recounts the story of his New York encounter with the allegedly Jewish expression ‘Polish concentration camps’. From this anecdote, he then speculates on the possible resonance of Fear in the United States, where ‘books like There Once Was a World by

Yaffa Eliach about how the AK partisans were murdering Jewish children are | becoming a classic, from which the knowledge about history of Poland is drawn’.*° Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, a Polish historian living and working in the USA whose works on twentieth-century Polish—Jewish relations constitute a constant reference of the defensive, exclusivist-nationalist writers, likewise predicts that ‘Fear will contribute to strengthening in the West the stereotype of “Polish extermination camps” and will serve as another example of the exterminationist character of “Polish antisemitism” ’.*° 44 Nowak, ‘Nowe falsze Grossa’ (1), 29 July 2006. 45 Fabjanski, ‘Bedzie wstyd i wrzask’. 46 Chodakiewicz, ‘Historia jako wycinanka’.

Polish Discussion of Jan Gross’s Fear 4A5 Jerzy Robert Nowak is, undisputedly, the most prolific writer of the exclusivistnationalist ‘camp’ whose platform consists in Radio Maryja and Nasz Dztenntk. His incessant efforts to shift the blame of antisemitism off the Polish nation leads him to write long articles and tomes devoted, basically, to “helping the reader to perceive the whole range of tolerance to even the most clinical anti-Polonism present in very influential media’.*’ In contrast to Chodakiewicz, who does extensive research in primary sources (even if they serve him to illustrate theses that he has established rather a priori), Nowak comes across as an ideologue tout court, drawing eclectically on secondary sources and formulating, for his popular audience, a simplified, propagandized vision of history. In his cycle (now a book) of twenty articles devoted to refuting Fear’s thesis,*® Nowak ‘hunts’ for a Jewish presence

among Russian and Hungarian pre-war communists,*? in the Polish secret service,°? in other communist countries, and among Polish journalists, editors-inchief, writers, scholars, intellectuals, magistrates, ministries, military officers,

economists, and others.°? ,

Nowak explicitly claims that behind all the writings about the Holocaust stand

media and other organizations interested in extorting compensation from the Polish government. Frequently referring to Norman G. Finkelstein’s Holocaust | Industry (2000), this Polish historian strengthens the ‘mentality of a besieged tower’ that is characteristic of the listeners of Radio Maryja. The public embrace of antisemitic ideology by the station and its newspaper has escalated, thus, to the

point that it has already brought some evil political fruit. In the case of Fear, Nowak has appealed to put Gross on trial.°* Repercussions of this appeal are tak-

ing place: on 20 August 2006, at the sixteenth sitting of the Senate, Senator Czeslaw Ryszka (acting on his own, as well as on behalf of Senators Ryszard Bender, Jan Szafraniec, and Adam Biela) requested the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ) and the Ministry of Justice to ‘investigate this libellous, anti-Polish book and its author’.°? Ryszka’s announcement reads like a clever summary of Nowak’s twenty articles from Nasz Dziennik; and, indeed, some of its phrases seem identical to Nowak’s. Although Ryszka’s announcement has not, at the time of the research for this essay, evoked any response in the Senate, the possibility menaces that Gross and others who, like him, take a critical approach to Polish history will indeed be put on trial. A newly passed amendment bill of the IPN (Penal Codex art. 132A,

signed by the Polish Senate in November 2006) states that ‘whoever publicly accuses the Polish Nation of participation, organizing, or responsibility for 47 Nowak, ‘Nowe falsze Grossa (5): Jak ktamie Gross’, 9 Aug. 2006. 48 Nowak, Nowe klamstwa Grossa. 49 Nowak, ‘Nowe falsze Grossa (8): Spor o “zydokomune”’, 12 Aug. 2006.

50 Nowak, ‘Nowe falsze Grossa (9): Zydzi w UB’, 16 Aug. 2006; id., ‘Nowe falsze Grossa (10): Zbrodnie bezpieki 1 sadownictwa’, 18 Aug. 2006. ©! Nowak, ‘Nowe falsze Grossa’ (12, 14, 15, 16, 18), 23 Aug. 2006; 2—3, 6, g—10, 23 Sept. 2006. 52 Nowak, ‘Nowe falsze Grossa (2): Przeciw Polsce i Kosciolowi’, 29 July 2006. 53 Diariusz Senatu Rzeczypospolite; Polskiej, no. 20 (20 Aug. 2006).

446 Montka Rice communist or Nazi crimes is liable to be jailed for up to three years’.°* This new law could be used against any reflective, self-critical debate about the Polish past, and is, therefore, a very dangerous turn in the course of Polish—Jewish relations. In the event, the Krakow prosecutor decided not to bring charges against Gross. Another common defensive red herring often raised in the past by Poles is the notorious game appropriately termed ‘competitive martyrology’,°®® according to which the Polish side emphasizes the suffering of the Polish nation, explicitly excluding from that nation any Jewish citizens of Poland. In the debate about Fear,

Chodakiewicz draws attention to the extent of communist persecutions of the members of the underground opposition, which he calls ‘a little Apocalypse’”® (in contrast to the ‘great’ one during the war, when Poland lost about six million people). Between July 1944 and August 1948, claims Chodakiewicz, the commun-

ist occupiers killed anywhere from twenty to fifty thousand ‘Christians’.°’ Not questioning the fact that the communists did murder and terrorize actual or merely suspected Polish anti-communists after the war, and also admitting that Gross seems to de-emphasize the extent of post-war terror in Poland, it is yet legitimate to ask, to what extent do these facts alter the fundamental character of the violence turned against Jewish Poles? Can an undisputed demoralization of a society destroyed by war justify any act of aggression turned against one national group? Not in any moral way. It might be helpful to understand the context of the times, but the context is not, in itself, sufficient to explain everything. The acts of aggression and murder directed against casually encountered Jewish individuals, irrespective of their gender, age, or political affiliation, indicate that this violence was a result of a prejudicial labelling of the whole Jewish population.

Another frequently utilized strategy is the juxtaposing of heroic examples of Polish assistance to Jews during the war with Gross’s descriptions of post-war anti-Jewish outbursts. Maciej Kozlowski, a former ambassador to Israel, objects, for instance, to Gross’s scant evocation of Polish efforts to save Jews, such as Zegota, mentioned only in a footnote; he also reminds the readers that ‘one-third of the trees planted in Yad Vashem are named after the 6,000 Poles who saved Jews, risking their own and their families’ lives’.°® Here I must note the inappropriateness of such remarks from an ethical, as well as from a political, point of view. In the Christian ethics that ostensibly govern the 54 Ustawa o IPN, rozdz. 7, art. 55a.

°° V. Tismaneanu, ‘Communism and the Human Condition: Reflections on the Black Book of Communism’, Human Rights Review, 2/2 (2001), 125-34 at 132. Tismaneanu employed his term in the context of a comparison between Communist and Nazi totalitarianisms. °6 J. M. Chodakiewicz, ‘Gross contra prawda’, Najwyészy Czas Online, ,

, accessed 5 Nov. 2006. >? To designate all members of the persecuted anti-communist opposition as ‘Christian’ seems ideological, to say the least, for its implication that non-Christian citizens of Poland must have collaborated with the communist power. °8 M. Kozlowski, ‘Habent sua fata libelli’, Nomy Dziennik (New York), 29—30 July 2006.

Polish Discussion of fan Gross’s Fear 447 lives of those who make them, such quantitative haggling over sins (or “numerological’ arguments) is seen as repulsive to God: “Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye’ (Matt. 7: 5). And again: The publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: O God, be merciful to me a sinner. I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted. (Luke 18: 13-14)

One does not, at least from the Christian perspective, attain the moral high ground by affirming one’s own goodness as such at the expense of the reputation of one’s neighbour. From a diplomatic, political perspective, maintaining silence in the face of such accusations, which, while possibly exaggerated, may also contain a kernel of truth, is a much better strategy than arguing about details of the circumstances.”

To claim to contradict Gross’s focus on negative Polish attitudes towards Jews by mentioning equally negative, or even persecutory, instances of behaviour of some Jews towards Poles or other nationalities is also a frequently used method in antisemitic literature for ‘absolving’ Poles of crimes committed against Jews. In the case of the book, Ryszard Tyndorf, a lawyer from Canada, wrote a review of Fear for the Biuletyn IPN in which he suggested that if Gross’s theses were acceptable, then so should be the notion of a ‘Jewish Holocaust of the Palestinians’ (Tyndorf mentioned as an example the ‘massacred village of Deir Jassin’ from 1948). It is astounding that an article using such an argument found its way to publication to begin with, and even more astounding that it should have found its way 59 Other examples of ‘numerological’ arguments include those of Kozlowski and Tyndorf. Kozlowski minimizes the scale of the war and the post-war anti-Jewish violence, as if the act of limiting its geographic range ‘merely’ to ‘a hundred square kilometres’ might, somehow, make its presence

less evil or less factual (M. Kozlowski, ‘Fakty 1 uprzedzenia, czyli stracona szansa na dialog’, Rzeczpospolita, 15 July 2006). Tyndorf, for his part, is the author of a particular (black) ‘pearl’ in this game: ‘It does not influence Gross’s reflection that a huge majority of the ¢.300,000 Jews who settled, even briefly, in Poland after the war, including among them the victims of the “Kielce pogrom” [sic], were never direct victims of the Hitlerian regime (since they spent their war years in the depths of the Soviet Union); nor is he affected by the fact that the Jewish community issued from among themselves several thousand people who willingly took part in “permeating the people’s power” and repressing anti-Communist Poles. . .. The majority of these Jews later emigrated to the West and were put up by a local Jewish community as alleged victims of Communism and Polish antisemitism. Not one of them showed any repentance for the evil they committed, for their victims were hated as “antisemites”’. Nobody has condemned the Jewish, UB-affiliated emigrants.’ R. Tyndorf, ‘Przyczynek do recepcyi pewnej ksiazki’, Biuletyn IPN, July 2006, 102—6. Even apart from the apparent, peculiar equation of ‘a huge majority of ¢.300,000’ to ‘several thousand people’ (the ‘UB-affiliated emigrants’) who “committed evil’ by ‘repressing anticommunist Poles’, one thing is absolutely certain for Tyndorf: ‘Not one of them showed any repentance for the evil they committed . . ... Such a per se false statement (a necessary conclusion reached about contingent material) could only be verifiable case by case, but that would be impracticable, ergo, Tyndorf’s argument is unverifiable.

448 Montka Rice into the official publication established for the purpose of presenting the fruits of research into the Polish past.°°

Straw Men The ‘straw man’ fallacy (falsely characterizing an opponent’s argument in a way that makes it easier to refute) is employed frequently in this debate as various critics exaggerate the extremity of Gross’s positions to the point of ridicule, while simultaneously ignoring the factual evidence.

Chodakiewicz, for instance, in assessing Gross’s analysis of the Catholic Church’s responses to the Kielce pogrom, extensively cites three out of four negative opinions that Gross’s books contains. He does not take into account the dozens of pages of documentary evidence on the Catholic clergy’s reactions to the violence, which would place the other opinions within a broader perspective. Other authors appear wilfully to ignore the conclusions contained in Gross’s book on their way to setting up several imaginative straw men. John Radzilowsk1,

for instance, claims that Gross contradicts himself by stating: ‘In the Polish Catholic imagination, Jews are God-killers, they use the blood of Christian children for matzo’ (Fear, p. xiii). Gross, to be sure, does give this example of prejudice on a par with Yitzhak Shamir’s well-known saying that ‘Poles suck antiJewish hatred with their mothers’ milk’, as Gross attempts to display the sort of stereotyping that he intends to overturn with Fear. Radzilowski, however, missing the point (that the saying was an example of prejudice, not a diagnosis by Gross), offers the irrelevant claim that Gross ‘does not offer any arguments in support of that statement’.®! It is hard not to see an intentional blindness at work here, for in all three major post-war anti-Jewish disturbances and pogroms (Krakow, Kielce, and Rzeszow) a retelling of the myth of ritual murder was a proximate incitement for the people’s gathering to attack the Jews. Similarly, Radzilowski displays a rather grave degree of insensitivity when he

questions the purpose of the photographs that Gross includes (‘about half have not much to do with the declared subject of the book’®*); here, it seems, an underdeveloped capacity for synthetic thinking may lie behind his failure to acknowledge the pertinence of the rare, moving pictures of everyday scenes from post-war Jewish orphanages, self-defence groups, and work co-operatives as a vivid illustra-

tions of, inter alia, the acute sense of separation from the Polish nation that continued for the Jews after the war. The same author claims also that the role of the communist authorities in the Kielce pogrom was mostly avoided in the book, but this claim is simply unfounded, for Gross devoted forty-two pages to describing the chaotic interplay of disorgani-

zation, personal ambitions, and antisemitic sentiments patent in the exchanges between communist authorities at various levels in connection with the pogrom. 6° Tyndorf, ‘Przyczynek’, 105.

61 J. Radzilowski, ‘Sasiadéw ciag dalszy’, Biuletyn IPN, July 2006, 98-102. 62 Tbid. gg.

Polish Discussion of Jan Gross’s Fear 449 There are other examples in which the reviewers exaggerate their claims in order

to place the book in the worst possible light. Nowak’s stubbornly repeated complaint that Fear counts ‘over 300 pages’ fails to inform his readers that a significant portion of Gross’s work consists in careful documentation—the book is 303 pages long, of which the body of text is 261 pages, and the rest notes and bibliography—a proportion that should rather enhance its scholarly value. Radzilowski claims that Gross does not mention any mass deportations of the Poles by the Soviets between 1939 and 1941, ignoring Gross’s explicit statements in the first chapter (pp. 4, 7).

Kozlowski imputes to Gross the claim that ‘the post-war pogroms were due solely to the reasons he postulates’;°* Gross, however, analyses other existing the-

ories to explain this phenomenon, and comes to the conclusion that they are simply insufficient. In such a case, to propose a new explanation based on the available documentation is the scholar’s first right—even his duty!—whenever he finds other theories faulty or unsatisfactory. That is precisely what Gross has done. Should he be shy about his own theory of explanation, supported and documented with verifiable sources? Should he deny that he believes zt is the right one according to his analysis? What value would his critical research possess otherwise? Nor does Kozlowski follow his (pointless, I dare say) argument to any conclusion. What is more, Gross does formulate his thesis in the cautious, hypothetical language of a probable generalization (‘usually’, ‘I believe’, etc.), taking responsibility only for his own conclusions based on the material that he presents. Nowak writes that Gross shrouded the subject of Polish martyrology during the war in nearly complete silence (claiming that he devoted only two sentences to it); in fact, Gross’s entire first chapter (‘Poland Abandoned’) describes that suffering. Nowak also accuses Gross of comparing Poles to chimpanzees, but Gross merely cites Jane Goodall’s aetiological research in pseudospeciation as a way to understand the issue of exclusion and hostility within groups of primates.®* In short, the straw-man strategy has proven to be an effective tool for preparing a climate of hostility to the content of the book and to its author a full year before its Polish publication. This strategy also has a prophylactic effect, preventing Poles from wanting to read it, and, potentially, being affected by its powerful narration, out of a fear of being exposed to its allegedly anti-Polish content.

Proofs by Lack of Evidence Rather surprisingly, some scholars, in accumulating negative argumentation about the book, resort to the illogical ‘proof by lack of evidence’. Chodakiewicz accuses Gross of the lack of proper research in claiming that Fear

creates the impression that only communist intellectuals condemned the Kielce massacre in official publications. He truthfully points out that ‘practically no one apart from those belonging to leftist options could speak openly about anything’.©° 63 Kozlowski, ‘Habent sua fata libelli’. 64 Nowak, ‘Nowe falsze Grossa’ (1), 29 July 2006. 65 Chodakiewicz, ‘Gross contra prawda’.

450 Montka Rice However, when he attempts to contradict Gross’s alleged analysis, he states that ‘in

no underground newspaper of that period have I found any article praising the murder in Kielce or other murders of the defenceless Jewish population’.®° Thus he presents a perceived lack of expressed enthusiasm for the spontaneous killing of

about eighty people as evidence that the underground circles were indeed condemning it. Likewise, Nowak ignores the underground government official’s notes about

Polish antisemitism during the war quoted by Gross, and he simply dismisses those accounts of antisemitism that were identified with the post-war PSL (Polskie

Stronnictwo Ludowe; Polish People’s Party) (e.g. the account of Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, who headed the only legal anti-communist opposition) as untrue, because, he supposes, the communist authorities would have had to make propagandistic use of them.°’ The lack of such propaganda, he claims, proves that such accounts were never written by the anti-communist underground members.

Methodological Complaints Many ‘critical’ voices from this third group also attack Gross on the premiss of a faulty methodology, according to which he is accused of selectively citing only those sources that support his thesis. This is perhaps one of the most problematic issues in the reception of Gross’s book. Chodakiewicz accuses Gross of ‘dressing old arguments [about anti-Jewish Polish violence and the takeover of Jewish property] in postmodern intellectual garments’.°® He characterizes Gross’s methodology as belonging to a ‘no-dogma’ model of historical research, standing in outright contradiction to the traditional, — ‘logocentric’ model. In Chodakiewicz’s assessment, Gross’s ‘paradigm’ is based on ‘postmodern swerving from the subject; on selective affirmation of accounts that suit him, usually from second or third opinions’.® Kozlowski attempts, at least, to pose a more scholarly question: to what extent may a narration of sociological phenomena rely on conclusions from the most extreme cases? Is an author allowed to leave out everything that would contradict

his thesis? According to Kozlowski, the examples of Poles who watched the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto with delight should be counterbalanced by the examples of ‘other Poles [who] were laying down their lives to come to the aid

of beleaguered Jews’.’° ,

At first glance, it does seem that, indeed, Gross should have registered examples from the entire spectrum of Polish attitudes. On closer examination, however, the subject of his book is, after all, the issue of the murder of about eighty Jewish inhabitants of the Kielce region, and of many hundreds more throughout Poland 66 Chodakiewicz, ‘Gross contra prawda’. 67 Nowak, ‘Nowe falsze Grossa’ (1), 29 July 2006. 68 Chodakiewicz, ‘Historia jako wycinanka’.

69 Chodakiewicz, ‘Gross contra prawda’. Here, ‘postmodern’ serves not only as a characterization but as a ‘word of abuse’, which, to an uneducated mind, may be associated with the moral permissive-

ness of ‘nothing matters, anything goes’. 7 Kozlowski, ‘Habent sua fata libelli’.

Polish Discussion of Jan Gross’s Fear 451 immediately after the war. Gross documented the presence of anti-Jewish hostility

in Polish society dating already from the Jews’ most vulnerable moment, their genocide by the Nazis. The universality of that hostility after the war could be verified even anecdotally, as Gross related ‘conversations between strangers’, in which ordinary people, accidentally meeting, agreed to ‘kill some Jews’.’’ According to

this perspective, Gross 1s not required to include examples of positive actions towards the Jews, for they do not explain the violence, but only prove that certain people were still heroic enough to care for their fellow men, who happened to be Jews.

Fear presents and analyses those examples of behaviour that were socially acceptable (loud jokes approving the burning of the ghetto) versus silent, camouflaged ways of helping the Jews (unwillingness to admit it even after the war). Methodologically, mentioning the attitudes contradicting Gross’s thesis would not contribute to an understanding of the problem. Such a mention would be necessary, on the other hand, if Gross were attempting, for instance, a general history of post-war Polish Jews. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find a Polish historian who would claim that any book about the Polish rescue of Jews during the war should have to contain an extensive analysis of the opposite phenomenon, that is, of Polish betrayal and collaboration in the killing of Jews. It would, nevertheless, be welcome if Gross were to mention the more positive examples of Polish behaviour in order to present a more comprehensive range of Polish attitudes to readers— Americans, for example—who might otherwise not be aware of them. A focus on this very aspect of the book, however, coupled with the simultaneous avoidance of the ‘moral history’ that it tells, distinguishes the authors of this third group from those of the first two, placing them beyond the possibility of participation in a soul-searching analysis of the Polish nation and its complex past. In other words, it defies for them the redemptive value of history.

CONCLUSION In general, the range of receptions to Fear outlined above seems to testify to a growing polarization with respect to the reconsideration of Polish—Jewish relations in Polish society. On the one hand, a growing awareness of the Polish antisemitic attitudes and violence that have tainted any possible rapprochement of gentile Poles with the Jewish citizens of Poland is placed in evidence by the first set of responses. This awareness, consequently, is a stimulus to a critical reassessment of various aspects of the ‘inherited’ canon of ‘what it means to be a Pole’ (which, by the way, constitutes part of a universal movement towards redefining national identities in a more inclusive manner). In Poland it is the liberal circles associated with the milieu of Gazeta Wyborcza, or with that of 7ygodnik Powszechny, that are leading the way to a change in the 1 Gross, Fear, 108.

452 Montka Rice general perception of Polish—Jewish relations. As far as strict historical research is

concerned, groups of young historians in Warsaw—from the ZIH, the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research, and the Mordechai Anielewicz Centre at Warsaw University—carry on extensive scholarly projects, publish widely, and pursue educational activities in the area of Polish—Jewish relations during and after the

war. For example, Andrzej Zbikowski and Dariusz Libionka have performed groundbreaking research on Polish anti-Jewish violence in the eastern regions of Poland during the Second World War. Also worth mentioning is the flourishing state of research and publications referring to questions of Jewish identity in postwar Poland. In that area, scholars of the human sciences including sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists have undertaken pioneering studies. Here, Matgorzata Melchior and Barbara Engelking-Boni (the spiritus movens of the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research and its various scholarly projects) are worth mentioning for their important contribution in this field. The influence of the burgeoning ‘new Polish historiography’ on Polish—Jewish relations is, of course, difficult to assess, but there are many indications that seem to testify to a growing public ability to acknowledge Polish responsibility for injustices done to Jewish neighbours. ‘To begin with, there are more and more scholarly institutions centred on Jewish studies, such as the Anielewicz Centre itself, and new departments or sections opening at various universities. One must also note the increasing popularity of baccalaureate and masters’ theses devoted to ‘Jewish’ topics, as well as the rising number of popular cultural events commemorating the past Jewish inhabitants of Polish cities (for example, the ‘Jewish Days’ of cities such as Lublin, Poznan, and others). There are also instances of public protests, and even cases in which legal charges have been filed alleging antisemitic actions or expressions. For example, one could cite the ‘Letter of nine intellectuals’, which was followed by a lawsuit opposing the virulently antisemitic statements and publications of the politician Leszek Bubel, or the protests against Roman Giertych, the current Minister of Education, who comes from an Endecja-rooted family, and whose father, Macie; Marian Giertych (MEP), has just published an antisemitic booklet. On the other hand, the defensive, national-Catholic ‘camp’ of deniers of any Polish answerability for the destruction of Jewish neighbours appears to be gaining in power and audacity to flaunt its antisemitic prejudices in public. The aforementioned politicians act as the representatives of a certain sector of society that shares their beliefs. The prolific output of Jerzy Robert Nowak flourishes because of an unquestionable demand by his readers. ‘The embrace by the influential Radio Maryja, then, of historians (such as Chodakiewicz, Piotr Gontarczyk, Jan Zaryn, or Nowak himself) who refute the self-critical approach of Gross and other scholars, solidifies the ‘reactionary’ tendencies in Polish society. Finally, among some of the historians who would concede, for the most part, Gross’s facts, but who would contest his conclusions, there seems now to be a

Polish Discussion of fan Gross’s Fear 453 reaction of satiety to the notion of guilt that Gross ascribes to the Poles in their attitudes towards the Jews. Judging from the responses of Szaynok, Paczkowski, or Machcewicz, who, in the past, showed themselves more willing to overlook the methodological flaws of Neighbors in order to break with the taboo on any discussion of Polish anti-Jewish violence, these three express, in the current debate, a stronger dissatisfaction with Gross’s workmanship that prevails for them, now, over any redemptive value that Fear may have. Indeed, the defensive, or even, sporadically, offensive language that appears in their reactions to Fear is, perhaps, an involuntary symptom of their reluctance to face the possible consequences of their bearing any blame as part of a communal responsibility.” That development in the Polish public discussion of post-war antisemitism is probably the most disappointing phenomenon, for it concerns historians, who are, nolens volens, charged with the task of shaping the public memory and the national

identity. It may seem, therefore, that, in contrast to the historians’ reactions to Neighbors (the majority did not question Gross’s findings), the tone of the new book may ‘numb’ and ‘desensitize’ them to its message. It would, indeed, be

instructive to investigate whether, in Polish society, the provocative style of Gross’s two books has brought about a deeper understanding of the Jewish plight and the Polish role in it during and after the Holocaust. It would seem, likewise, profitable to assess whether the continuous polarization of the ‘denying’ and ‘affirmative’ responses will be progressing, and what sectors of society—representing what portion of it—will be affected by each of them. It remains to be seen, finally, whether the tendencies noted in these reactions to Gross’s latest book will continue once the book is published in Poland. ” JT have here in mind a broadly understood awareness of a given group’s virtues and crimes as part of the identity shared by its members.

Imagined Diaspora The Shtetl in Allen Hoffman’s Small Worlds and fonathan Safran Foer’s

Everything Is [luminated JEREMY SHERE IN OCTOBER 2003 the Center for Jewish History in New York planned a panel discussion entitled “The Jewish Writer in the 21st Century: What’s Left to Say?’ In so far as it pertained to Jewish American writers, the question clearly arose from a sense of exhaustion and acknowledgement of a mostly eroded sentiment of shared

destiny and collective memory assumed to be necessary for the production of strong Jewish fiction in the American diaspora.! The literary critic Mark Shechner has put the case bluntly. Deprived of the absorbing social dramas of the pre- and immediate post-war decades, contemporary Jewish American novelists are, for

| Shechner, ‘writers at the end of history’.2 Like many Jews, such writers find themselves so at peace in America, so fully and successfully acculturated into the

mainstream, that they simply have little to say about Jewish existence in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century America. Had the Center for Jewish History conference occurred (it was cancelled at the last moment), it would have been fascinating to hear what the panellists—all writers invested in writing about Jewish life in the United States—had to say about the future of Jewish American literary creativity. What does it mean, exactly, for Jewish American writers to be post-historical, as Shechner argues? Does a post-historical condition indicate the triumph of assimilation and complete loss of Jewish distinctiveness and literary

potential in America? Or have Jewish American writers entered a postassimilationist, post-acculturation phase of greater openness to cultural and historical Jewish subject matter largely ignored by writers of the 1950s and 1960s? I would like to thank Victoria Khiterer, Athena Leoussi, Maxim Shrayer, Jeffrey Veidlinger, Theodore R. Weeks, and Steven Zipperstein for giving me their permission to cite them.

1 The panellists were to be the playwright Tony Kushner, the journalist and educator Samuel

Freedman, and the writer Helen Epstein. , 2M. Shechner, ‘Is This Picasso, or Is It the Jews? A Family Portrait at the End of History’, Tikkun, 12/6 (1997), 39-41.

Imagined Diaspora: The Shtetl 455 This essay embraces the latter scenario and investigates the ways in which some contemporary Jewish American novelists have gone about creating Jewish fiction

in a post-historical moment. As critics have already noted, some contemporary Jewish American writers have written about the Holocaust and about life in modern Israel, while others, including Cynthia Ozick, Pearl Abraham, and Rebecca

Goldstein, have turned to Orthodox life as a subject for their fiction. More recently, the emergence of young immigrant writers, including David Bezmozgis,

Laura Vapnyar, and Gary Shteyngart, has revitalized the tradition of Jewish American immigrant writing. Where history is concerned, however, the most interesting recent trend in Jewish American writing is the emergence of the shtet/ as a subject and setting for contemporary Jewish American fiction. As the critic and Yiddish literary historian David Roskies has noted, in recent years a sizeable number of Jewish American writers have returned to the east European towns and hamlets abandoned, literally and figuratively, by their literary forebears.? For the most part, Roskies complains, Jewish American treatments of the shtet/ landscape have been forced, clichéd affairs lacking the substance of Yiddish fictionalizations. Only the novelist Allen Hoffman, Roskies claims, has managed to write about the shtetl without trivializing or awkwardly bending it to suit contemporary politics and sensibilities. It is my purpose to examine how and to what end Hoffman, in his novel Small Worlds (1996), and another talented novelist, Jonathan Safran Foer, in the much-celebrated novel Everything Is [Illuminated (2003), represent the shtetl and what their works tell us about the possibilities for Jewish American fiction in a post-historical, post-assimilationist era. What I wish to suggest at the outset is that these novels are more than just nostalgic attempts to recapture a lost tradition. They are not simply evidence of imaginative exhaustion but, conversely, represent the potential for creative rebirth in a so-called post-historical period for Jewish American writers. At first glance, the novels in question could not seem more dissimilar. Everything Is Illuminated is a sprawling, magic-realist epic that juggles two intertwined narratives: the story of a young American Jew named Jonathan Safran Foer and his journey to Ukraine in search of his grandfather’s shtet/, and a fanciful history of the shtetl in the form of a novel being written by Jonathan. (For the sake of clarity, Pl refer to the real-life author of the book as Safran Foer and to his fictional avatar as Jonathan.) Adding another layer of complexity, several chapters in the form of letters written to Jonathan by his Ukrainian translator, Alex, comment on the novel in progress and the meaning and purpose of writing fiction. In contrast, Small Worlds unfolds on a smaller scale, taking place on a single day in Krimsk, a Russian shtetl. Hoffman borrows liberally from Yiddish literature, peopling his novel with rabbis, yeshiva bokhers, Marxist revolutionaries, and simple, working-class Jews. The story ° These novels include Melvin Bukiet’s Stories of an Imaginary Childhood, Rebecca Goldstein’s Mazel, Steve Stern’s Lazar Malkin Goes to Heaven and A Plague of Dreamers, and the Canadian writer Nancy Richler’s Your Mouth Is Lovely.

456 Jeremy Shere is told in a traditional, straightforward manner and ends on the well-worn note of a pogrom and subsequent Jewish flight from the shtet/. Yet, despite their stylistic differences, both novels confront a similar challenge: namely, to imagine a place and society that their authors do not know first-hand.

Lacking the sort of personal experience with s/tet/ life that allowed the Yiddish masters to craft their insider/outsider fiction, Safran Foer and Hoffman must represent the shtet/ historically, as a past landscape rooted in a specific time and place, but also make the shtet/ their own, so to speak, by reimagining it in a way that - moves beyond the limited historical specifics. In order to portray shtet/s that are not simply derivative, Safran Foer and Hoffman seek a balance between establishing the shtet/ historically and evoking the myth-making powers of artfully conceived fiction. As I hope to show, these novels engage history but are not simply or necessarily ‘historical novels’. They use history as fodder for fiction and are also about the complexities of Jewish history and about what it means to write fiction in a

historical mode.

In the most obvious sense, [//uminated and Small Worlds depict the shtet/ in historical terms by the use of dates. The chapters of Jonathan’s novel-within-thenovel in ///uminated are dated, the first—entitled “The Lottery’—beginning in 1791. Subsequent chapters carry Jonathan’s novel through to 1941, when, in the final instalment, the Nazis destroy the shtet/ and its inhabitants. Furthermore, the letters written from Alex to Jonathan are labelled by day, month, and year, tracking the progress of their correspondence from 20 July 1997 to 22 January 1998. The overall effect is to create a narrative moving forward in historical time. Both the shtet/’s imagined past and Alex’s commentary on Jonathan’s fictionalization of that past are given a historical facade oriented by the specific dating of various chapters. Furthermore, the inclusion of its author, Jonathan Safran Foer, as a relatively minor character endows ///uminated with something approaching (without quite adopting) a documentary feel. (In fact, the novel was based loosely on Safran Foer’s unsuccessful four-day trip to Ukraine to locate his grandfather’s shtetl.)

To a lesser extent but with similar results, Sma//l Worlds also incorporates dates to contextualize the narrative historically. We are told in a preface that the story takes place in a shtet/ called Krimsk, in Russia, in 1903. Thus at the outset Hoffman orients the story historically in time and space. ‘The designation of year is not arbitrary: Small Worlds takes place during a year of government-instigated pogroms and near enough in time to the revolution of 1905 to set it against the backdrop of

historical forces about to transform the region. Finally, setting the novel in 1903 aligns it historically with the waves of emigration that swept millions of Jews from

east to west near the turn of the century—a historical reality that Hoffman acknowledges by sending his shtet/ Jews to America at the novel’s end. Yet despite the ways in which both novels are historically grounded, they are not exactly ‘historical fictions’. ‘The historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi has argued that

Imagined Diaspora: The Shtet! 457 in an age that has seen the collapse of traditional rabbinic models of Jewish collective memory and the subsequent ascendancy of Jewish historiography, Jews wary of ‘historical’ representations of the Jewish past ‘seem to await a new, metahistorical myth for which the novel provides at least a temporary modern surrogate’.*

According to the theorist Hayden White, ‘metahistory’ signifies the essentially constructed, subjective nature of all historical narrative. Despite its pretensions to objectivity, history is akin to fiction—like novelists, historians use poetic strategies to craft coherent, meaningful stories about how and why things happened as they purportedly did.° While Yerushalmi might agree with White that history and fiction share certain narrative traits, his use of the term ‘metahistorical myth’ points to a divide between history and fiction. The central thrust of his famous monograph Zakhor is that modern, nineteenth-century Jewish historiography arose as an intellectual movement in response to the ‘crisis of emancipation’. While not

diametrically opposed to the ahistorical form of rabbinic thought, then, Jewish historiography represented (and continues to represent) ‘a sharp break in the continuity of Jewish living and hence also an ever-growing decay of Jewish group memory’.° In short, Yerushalmi understands historiography as an intellectual mode veering sharply away from the mythic, timeless world of rabbinic discourse. On the contrary, the historian seeks to strip away myth and uncover the reality of past human activity.

The novel, on the other hand, while not necessarily ahistorical or somehow completely severed from history, is for Yerushalmi not equivalent to history or necessarily tethered to it in any systematic fashion. Thus, for Yerushalmi, the historian examines the past in allegedly objective terms to replace myth with ‘fact’,

while the novelist creates a world that may be loosely based on the historian’s version of reality but is by no means beholden to it.’ The novel, in Yerushalmi’s formulation, creates meaning by imagining and transforming reality in ways similar to how collective memory functioned in traditional Jewish conceptualizations of the past—modes of myth-making that did not rely on or make use of history in

the modern sense. The strength of this claim depends on the novel in question, but it seems particularly well suited to describe classical Yiddish representations of the shtet/. Although critics seized upon the works of the Yiddish masters as faithful preservations of shtet/ life, upon close scrutiny the stories and novels themselves, * Y.H. Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle, 1996), 98.

° H. White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore,

1975), 5- 6 Yerushalmi, Zakhor, 86.

* While White might agree that there is nothing distinctly or inherently historical about the novel as a literary form, he does argue that historiography cannot be properly understood without taking into account the extent to which it depends on what he calls ‘narrativity’ to lend it ‘proper’ historical form. ‘The very distinction between real and imaginary events that is basic to modern discussions of both history and fiction’, White claims, ‘presupposes a notion of reality where “the true” is identified with “the real” only insofar as it can be shown to possess the character of narrativity.” See H. White, The Content of Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore, 1990), 5.

458 Jeremy Shere as the critic Dan Miron has demonstrated, cannot simply be reduced to documentary, realistic, or any other type of overtly mimetic fiction. Rather, literary recreations of the shtet/ were only loosely based on the real thing. The shztet/ found in the works of Sholem Aleichem, Mendele Mokher Seforim, Y. L. Perets (Peretz), and others is in many ways a mythic landscape used as a means to satirize, critique, and wax nostalgic over the dilemmas and absurdities of east European Jewish existence.° In David Roskies’s formulation, Yiddish shtetl stories depicted a Jewish landscape ‘outside of time and geopolitical space . . . independent, self-regulating,

and oblivious of the contemporary world’.? In short, the fact-finding, mythshattering enterprise we call historical inquiry played little to no role in the creation of Yiddish shtet/ fiction. What the Yiddish masters knew about the shtet/ they recalled from memory—not the sacralized collective memory of Yerushalmi’s account but personal memory of the towns and villages in which they had been raised and from which they fled to become modern writers. Unlike the Yiddish masters and many of their readers, whose personal intimacy with shtetl life obviated the need to establish the historicity of the shtet/ in their fiction, Safran Foer and Hoffman must to a certain extent, as demonstrated above, represent the shtet/ as a real place fixed within specific historical moments and geographical locations. Put differently, neither novelist is fully at liberty to write about the shtet/ as a place that is already known from the perspective of a native insider. Rather, the novels in question cannot entirely avoid the anthropological and histor-

ical inquiry necessary to render their narratives authoritative and believable. Yet both Safran Foer and Hoffman also explore processes by which the stories they tell are also, or can easily become, mythic in nature. In ///uminated, Jonathan’s shtet/l novel-within-the-novel begins with what appears to be an explicitly historical episode. “It was March 18, 1791’, the story begins, ‘when Trachim B’s double-axle wagon either did or did not pin him against the bottom of the Brod River.’ Almost immediately, the historically specific description of the wagon accident is undermined by the equivocal ‘did or did not’, throwing the accuracy of the narration into doubt. Although there are eyewitnesses to the accident, the language of their testimony at once transforms the incident from fact to legend. ‘I have seen everything that happened’, reports a character called Sofiowka N, I witnessed it all. The wagon was moving too fast for this dirt road .. . and suddenly flipped

itself, and if that’s not exactly the truth, then the wagon didn’t flip itself, but was itself flipped by a wind from Kiev or Odessa or wherever, and if that doesn’t seem quite correct, then what happened was—and I would swear my lily-white name to this—an angel with gravestone-feathered wings descended from heaven to take Trachim back with him, for Trachim was too good for this world.'° S D. Miron, ‘The Literary Image of the Shtetl’, in id., The Image of the Shtetl and Other Studies of , the Modern Jewish Literary Imagination (Syracuse, NY, 2000), 1-48. 2 D. Roskies, The Jewish Search for a Useable Past (Bloomington, Ind., 1999), 44. 10 J. S. Foer, Everything Is Illuminated (Boston, 2002), 9.

Imagined Diaspora: The Shtetl 459 The ‘truth’ of what caused the wagon to flip becomes secondary to the story’s importance as a mythical tale of origins. Amid the debris floating to the river’s surface after the accident a newborn girl miraculously appears and is taken in by the shtetl’s inhabitants, a colourful cast of rabbis and assorted schlemiels who name the girl Brod after the river from which she was rescued. The formerly anonymous shtetl also acquires a name—Trachimbrod—chosen in memory of the unfortunate driver of the wagon and his newly named infant daughter. The transformation of fact into legend becomes finalized when, we are told, the events of the ‘fateful day’ are re-enacted every year on “Trachimday’, a shtet/ festival complete with floats, contests, and ritualized retellings of the wagon accident and the ‘birth’ of Brod. The novel-within-the-novel proceeds from this point to move forward, narrating the ‘history’ of the shtet/ by focusing on the fortunes of Brod and her descendants, including Jonathan’s grandfather, Safran. Yet the narrative also rounds back to its foundational story, recounting the tale of the wagon accident at odd intervals, thereby reinforcing the story’s initial tone of legend and myth. In a later chapter,

set years after the original accident, in 1934, Brod’s great-great-great-great grandson and Jonathan’s grandfather, Safran, attends a play depicting the wagon accident, during which an audience member is heard to remark: ‘This is so unbelievable. Not at all like it was’ (p. 174). The shtet/ story’s multiple retellings of its initial incident create a layering effect that renders the dating of its chapters ironic

in the light of the cyclical and fantastic nature of the narrative. The shtet/ is anchored in time and place yet also unmoored from the ‘reality’ of historical fact. Put another way, the shtet/ exists in [//uminated as a fiction—that is, something imagined—not in lieu of a proper history of the shtet/ but as a direct result of the absence of such history. Jonathan’s search for his grandfather’s shtet/ results literally in nothing, an empty field marked only by a small stone monument, stating:

“This monument stands in memory of the 1,204 Trachimbroders killed at the hands of German Fascism on March 18, 1942. Dedicated March 18, 1992. Yitzhak Shamir, Prime Minister of the State of Israel’ (p. 189). Here again, the use of dates and references to historical events and persons simultaneously creates a historical veneer and blurs the difference between history and fiction. The monument’s purpose is historical, to ‘stand in memory’ of the former inhabitants of the destroyed shtetl and thereby literally to take their place as the last remnant of a disappeared people. Yet the monument’s function is also ironic, of course, since it, like the shtet/ depicted in [//uminated, is itself a fiction. It is through fiction, finally, that the shtet/ most fully comes to life and thus it is the act of imaginative writing, in place of and even in opposition to history, that makes possible the characters’ (and the reader’s) fullest engagement with the shtet/. The absence of an available shtet/ past, in other words, both paves the way for and necessitates a fictional, mythic surrogate. Where Safran Foer complicates the relationship between history and fiction, in Small Worlds Allen Hoffman, following Yerushalmi, pits history against Jewish memory. The juxtaposition begins in a prefatory chapter (titled ‘Recollections’)

460 Feremy Shere that establishes the ‘facts’ of the shtet/’s history and then immediately undermines | them. “The Russians called it Krimsk; the Poles called it Kromsk, but it was mainly

the Jews who lived there. They called it whatever their hosts preferred.’!! So begins the story, characterizing the shfet/ as a location at the mercy of historical trends, its very name dependent on shifting borders. Furthermore, the shéet/ is linked historically to the Napoleonic wars; Napoleon himself, we are told, crossed

the River Nedd into Russia at Krimsk. Yet no one is certain in which direction Napoleon crossed the river. Whether the great warrior had been advancing towards assumed victory or retreating in shameful defeat has been lost to memory, and so, the novel tells us, ‘there was something slightly senile about the town’s historical recollection’ (p. 8). The shtet/’s inhabitants, in other words, have only a loose connection to their recent past. Like Yerushalm1’s rabbinic promulgators of collective memory, the Jews of Krimsk exist in the midst of history yet are mostly not participants in it or particularly aware of history as a working concept. The single day on which the bulk of the story takes place is Tishah Be’av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, according to Jewish tradition the day on which both the first and second ‘Temple in Jerusalem were destroyed. The rituals of fasting and reading the book of Lamentations associated with Tishah Be’av are meant to refresh collective memory of the ancient catastrophe without delving into the ‘facts’ of what actually happened. Although Jews who observe ‘Tishah Be’av in

a traditional manner fix on a particular date, the central purpose is not historical inquiry but rather physically and mentally embracing past suffering as though it were occurring in the present.’* Hoffman most fully embodies this blending of history and collective memory, past and present, in Yaakov Moshe Finebaum, the revered and reclusive Krimsker Rebbe whose perspective comes to dominate by the novel’s end. It is under the rebbe’s influence that on Tishah Be’av ‘in the synagogues the Jews discomfited themselves by sending their own small world into exile’ (p. 50). The shtet/’s inhabitants are guided by the rebbe’s perception that ‘in great Jerusalem the Temple burned . . . the Jew flung into exile’, paralleling modern-day Krimsk, where ‘the Jew flung his benches, shoes, light, food, drink into exile’ (p. 50). The rebbe’s world view, blending the past into the present, is reinforced through-

out the novel. The narrative is in fact bookended by allusions to the destruction of the Temple. An untitled page between the preface and first chapter features excerpts from tractate Sotah, a Talmudic discussion brooding on the ongoing repercussions of the Temple’s annihilation. The section of the Mishnah from which the ‘Talmud quotes describes a post-Temple state of decline in which food has lost its taste and Jews their faith. In the novel’s final chapters the sacralized past commemorated on Tishah Be’av is re-enacted when Polish peasants burn the shtet/’s opulent but ‘1 A. Hoffman, Small Worlds (New York, 1996), 7.

12 See Yerushalmi, Zakhor, 43. Also see D. Roskies, The Literature of Destruction (Philadelphia, 1988), 5.

Imagined Diaspora: The Shtetl 461 abandoned synagogue. Through the rebbe’s eyes this contemporary version of the destruction of the Temple is perceived in reference to the biblical past. When a wandering Marxist revolutionary who had been sleeping in the synagogue bursts from the burning building with a Torah scroll in his arms, the rebbe understands him to be ‘the Jew who stood on Mt. Sinai and saved the Torah’ (p. 274). The novel’s climactic moment is thus rendered from the rebbe’s perspective as the giving of the Torah at Sinai and symbolically as the burning of the Temple in Jerusalem—the initial and final moments in the narrative of ancient Jewish sovereignty that gave way to exile and the birth of a thriving diasporic culture. Illuminated and Small Worlds signify a new trend in Jewish American writing—

a reversal of the canon’s basic geographic trajectory. Beginning with Mary Antin

and Abraham Cahan in the early decades of the twentieth century, Jewish American writers typically depicted eastern Europe and its shtetlekh as embodying exile in the darkest sense. Antin’s memoir The Promised Land (1912) provides a telling example. In its opening pages Antin frames her story as one of rebirth. ‘I was born, I have lived, and I have been made over’, she writes in the ‘Introduction’. ‘Tam just as much out of the way as if I were dead, for I am absolutely other than the person whose story I have to tell.’'’ Regarding her former life in the Russian Pale of Settlement, Antin is passionate in her desire to entomb the past. ‘I want to forget—sometimes I long to forget’, she writes. ‘I think I have thoroughly assim1lated my past—I have done its bidding—I want now to be of to-day.’** In assimi-

lating her past Antin has rewritten it as a tale of progress from Jewish tradition steeped in superstition to modern American enlightenment, and from east to west,

with no desire to return to that dark past. By the end of her memoir Antin announces that ‘the past was only my cradle, and now it cannot hold me, because | am grown too big; just as the little house in Polotzk | Antin’s Russian birthplace] . . . has now become a toy of memory’. Having rendered her past a plaything to be handled, examined, and finally shelved, Antin can boldly declare: ‘No! it is not I that belong to the past, but the past that belongs to me.’?° Ironically, roughly half of Antin’s memoir recounts her former life in detail, historicizing with considerable skill and nuance the life of an immigrant that 1s meant to speak for the untold stories of masses of Jewish immigrants. Yet even if Antin’s memoir is in that sense historical, its central message, as noted above, is

decidedly anti-historical. A similar relation to history has characterized Jewish American writing until very recently. One is hard pressed to detect a willingness to

examine let alone revel in the Jewish past, recent or ancient, in the work of Abraham Cahan, Nathaniel West, Edna Ferber, Saul Bellow (with the lone exception of Mr. Sammler’s Planet), Leslie Fiedler, and the early fiction of Philip Roth. In the final pages of Abraham Cahan’s The Rise of David Levinsky (1917) the protagonist mourns the loss of his former shtet/ existence, but the message 1s nevertheless clear: there is no going back. When Cahan’s characters do revisit the 13° Mary Antin, The Promised Land (New York, 1997), 1. 4 Tbid. 3. ‘5 Tbid. 286.

462 Jeremy Shere shtetl, as in the short story “Che Imported Bridegroom’, the return is only temporary. Journeying to the shtet/ of his youth to flaunt his wealth and secure a groom for his Americanized daughter, Asriel Stroon is at first overcome by the old country’s bucolic charm but soon comes to see the village as ‘a heap of beggarly squalor’ and is racked by ‘homesickness for America’.1® Philip Roth’s critique of post-war suburban Jewish values in the short story ‘Eli, the Fanatic’ comes to a similar conclusion. Roth clearly deplores his characters’ refusal to welcome or at least tolerate a group of Holocaust refugees who attempt to establish a yeshiva in the neighbourhood. But Roth also acknowledges Antin’s insight that Americanization 1s akin toa rebirth that entails shedding one’s former self. There is simply no place for the old world in the suburban Jewish promised land of Roth’s story.*”

Even when the shtet/ is given centre stage, as in J. B. Singer’s ‘The Little Shoemakers’ and the musical and film versions of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, it inevitably gives way to the more promising, less tenuous American diaspora. It 1s difficult to overestimate the influence of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ on the place of the shtet/ in post-war Jewish American consciousness. Panned by the Jewish American intelligentsia but adored by the masses, ‘Fiddler’ became one of the most inter-

nationally acclaimed and performed musicals of all time. According to the historian Steven Zipperstein, the musical’s appeal owed largely to American Jewry’s concern with rebuilding communal life in the suburbs. “Tevye’s foremost concerns’, Zipperstein notes, referring to maintaining community and tradition in an increasingly fractured modern world, ‘also figure among the chief concerns of postwar, suburban Jewry’.’® Consequently, ‘Fiddler’ provided American Jewish audiences with a reassuring sense of continuity between the Old World and the New. While in the original story Sholem Aleichem sent the widowed ‘Tevye to Palestine, ‘Fiddler’ sends Tevye and his remaining family off to America to begin life anew. ‘Jewish audiences in particular needed to believe in the compatibility of

their citizenship with their ethnicity’, notes the historian Stephen Whitfield. ‘They would be drawn only to a work that assured them that loyalty to their past generated no friction with the texture of their lives as Americans.’*” Thus, echoing Antin, the general trajectory of Jewish American literature has gone from east to west, from Jewish life in the shtet/ to American Jewish life in New

York, New Jersey, Chicago, and other North American urban centres. Jewish American fiction has for the most part moved forward, bearing traces of the past

but preoccupied with the present. It is therefore worth noting that in both Illuminated and Small Worlds America 1s virtually absent, thereby working against

a literary tradition wherein Jews have moved in only one direction: from east to 16 A. Cahan, The Rise of David Levinsky (New York, 1960); id., Yekel and the Imported Bridegroom (New York, 1970), 111. 17 P. Roth, ‘Eli, the Fanatic’, in id., Goodbye, Columbus (New York, 1987). 18S. Zipperstein, /magining Russian Jewry (Seattle, 1999), 36. 19S. Whitfield, ‘Fiddling with Sholem Aleichem’, in Key Texts in American fewish Culture, ed. Jack Kugelmass (Newark, NJ, 2003), 120.

Imagined Diaspora: The Shtetl 463 west. In contrast, Safran Foer and Hoffman journey imaginatively from west to east by crafting fully realized versions of the shtet/s that had been typically rendered by previous writers as the embodiment of darkness and exile. When mentioned in ///uminated, the United States is seen as little more than a fantasy land of sports cars and pop stars. ‘The novelized shtet/, by contrast, is presented as

a magical but nonetheless real home to which Jonathan feels deeply attached. Hoffman sends his shtet/ Jews packing for America in the novel’s final chapter, but does so in terms that directly challenge the typical representation of the journey as an Exodus forward in time from European exile towards the American Promised Land. When the Krimsker Rebbe and his followers leave Krimsk it 1s rendered as a metaphorical descent, backwards in time and deeper into exile. History and collective memory of the biblical past merge once again, concluding the novel on a note alluding both to the historical fact of Jewish emigration and the playing out of that history as an echo of the sacred past. As he leads his followers away from the shtetl, the Krimsker Rebbe ‘understood that Israel’s post-Temple exile had not gone far enough’ and desires to emulate the Shekhinah by burying himself further in ‘the

demonic Other Side’ that America represents (p. 277). Compared to America, Krimsk is sacred space, a Yerushalayim shel matah, or exiled Jerusalem in miniature. In short, the shtet/1s home. Small Worlds ends, in America, on an ominous note: The rebbe leaned forward and kissed the holy scroll’s blue velvet cover, which was the color of real life-giving water and not the bloody life~depleting crimson that drained a continent through the empty void beneath. With tears in his eyes, he turned to the sexton and said, ‘In American there is no Sabbath, only magic’, but Reb Zelig could not hear him because the bridge echoed and reechoed the metallic clatter of the wheels, mocking any attempt at speech. (p. 279)

The juxtaposition of life-giving Torah and lifeless neo-Egyptian American landscape marks a clear departure from the notion prominent in twentieth-century Jewish American literature that, for better or worse, America is home. The Torah scroll represents not only the living law that the rebbe hopes will enable him to transplant the holy shtet/ to America but also the sacred texts that Hoffman draws upon in attempting to reinvent Jewish American fiction at the end of history. By engaging both the rabbinic and modern Yiddish literary traditions, Small Worlds successfully overcomes depletion of the Jewish American available past by imagining the shtet/ as an alternative Jewish past that is at once historical and unchained from history in its symbolic association with the timeless biblical landscapes of collective memory.

| While contemporary Jewish writers at the ‘end of history’ may be left with little to say about the here and now of life in the American diaspora, history’s end has made available new imaginative possibilities for Jewish American writers. Like Jonathan’s imaginative recreation of the shtet/ in fiction made necessary and possible by the unavailability of its history in ///uminated, Jewish American writers

464 Jeremy Shere - are no longer obliged to record the American Jewish experience in the largely realistic, sociological modes of their predecessors and are now free to reimagine alternative and more distant pasts. Such freedom, to my mind, represents not the dwindling of resources and prospects for Jewish writing in the American diaspora but instead the unexpected flowering of new possibilities. If Jewish American history has in fact come to an end point, its termination has, on my reading of contemporary Jewish American fiction, made available to Safran Foer, Hoffman, and many others the rich narrative possibilities of Jewish history in the most expansive sense.

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