Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, Volume 14

The Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth, created in 1569, covered a wide spectrum of faiths and languages. The nobility, who were the main focus of Polishness, were predominantly Catholic, particularly from the second half of the seventeenth century; the peasantry included Catholics, Protestants, and members of the Orthodox faith, while nearly half the urban population, and some 10 per cent of the total population, was Jewish.

The partition of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and the subsequent struggle to regain Polish independence raised the question of what the boundaries of a future state should be, and who qualified as a Pole. The partitioning powers, for their part, were determined to hold on to the areas they had annexed: Prussia tried to strengthen the German element in Poland; the Habsburgs encouraged the development of a Ukrainian consciousness in Austrian Galicia to act as a counterweight to the dominant Polish nobility; and Russia, while allowing the Kingdom of Poland to enjoy substantial autonomy, treated the remaining areas it had annexed as part of the tsarist monarchy.

When Poland became independent after the First World War more than a third of its population were thus Ukrainians, Belarusians, Germans, Jews, and Lithuanians, many of whom had been influenced by nationalist movements. The core articles in the volume focus especially on the triangular relationship between Poles, Jews, and Germans in western Poland, and between the different national groups in what are today Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine.

In addition, the New Views section investigates aspects of Jewish life in pre-partition Poland and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are also the regular Review Essay and Book Review sections.

Adam Bartosz, Director, Regional Museum, Tarnów
Eleonora Bergman, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw
Abraham Brumberg, former Editor, Problems of Communism; contributing editor, New
Republic
Justin D. Cammy, Resident Tutor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations,
Quincy House, Harvard University
Verena Dohrn, Department of Religious Studies, University of Hanover
Shevach Eden, former Director, Israeli Curriculum Committee; Chairman,
Pedagogical Secretariat, Israeli Ministry of Education; Co-Chairman, German-
Israeli and Polish-Israeli Textbooks Committees
Agnieszka Friedrich, Department of Polish Literature, University of Gdansk
Jonathan Goldstein, Professor of History, State University of West Georgia, Carrollton
Anna Hannowa, specialist in the history of the theatre; programme consultant,
Teatr Polski, Wroclaw
Judith Kalik, Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies, Hebrew University of
Jerusalem
Sophia Kemlein, member, research staff, German Historical Institute, Warsaw
Jacek Kuron, Member of the Polish Parliament; former Polish Minister of Labour
Dov Levin, Associate Professor, and Director, Oral History Division, Institute of
Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Józef Lewandowski, former Professor of History, Uppsala University
Sarunas Liekas, Docent, Lithuanian University of Law, Vilnius
Krzysztof A. Makowski, Assistant Professor of History, Adam Mickiewicz
University, Poznan
Efim Melamed, historian, Zhitomir
Lidia Miliakova, Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
Jacek Piotrowski, University of Wroclaw
Antony Polonsky, Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies, Brandeis
University / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC.
Janusz Spyra, Cieszyn State Museum
Krzysztof Stefanski, Institute for the History of Art, University of Lódz; Institute of
Architecture and City Planning, Technical High School, Lódz
Jerzy Tomaszewski, Professor, Institute of Political Science, and Head, Mordechai
Anieliewicz Research Centre on the History of the Jews in Poland, University of
Warsaw
Feliks Tych, Director, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw
Robert S. Wistrich, Erich and Foga Neuberger Professor of Modern Jewish History,
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Bronislawa Witz-Margulies, historian of classical antiquity
Marcin Wodzinski, Chair, Research Centre for the Culture and Languages of Polish
Jews, University of Wroclaw
Vital Zajka, Member, Belarusian Institute of Arts and Sciences, New York

Note on People and place-Names
Note on Transliteration
The Sixtieth Anniversary of the Massacre in Jedwabne: Two Speeches Delivered in
Jedwabne, 10 July 2001

Part 1 Jews in the Polish Borderlands
Introduction ANTONY POLONSKY
The Self-Perception of Belarusian-Lithuanian Jewry in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries VITAL ZAJKA
Jewish Rights of Residence in Cieszyn Silesia, 1742–1848 JANUSZ SPYRA
The Jewish Community in the Grand Duchy of Poznan under Prussian Rule, 1815–1848 SOPHIA KEMLEIN
Between Germans and Poles: the Jews of Poznan in 1848 KRZYSZTOF A. MAKOWSKI
The Rabbinical Seminaries as Institutions of Socialization in Tsarist Russia, 1847–1873 VERENA DOHRN
The Zhitomir Rabbinical School: New Materials and Perspectives EFIM MELAMED
Three Documents on Anti-Jewish Violence in the Eastern Kresy during the Polish–Soviet Conflict SARUNAS LIEKIS, LIDIA MILIAKOVA, and ANTONY POLONSKY
The Policies of the Sanacja Regarding the Jewish Minority in Silesia, 1926-1939 JACEK PIOTROWSKI
The Policies of the Sanacja on the Jewish Minority in Silesia, 1926–1939
JACEK PIOTROWSKI
The Vilna Years of Jakub Rotbaum
ANNA HANNOWA
Tsevorfene bleter: The Emergence of Yung Vilne
JUSTIN D. CAMMY
Jewish Autonomy in Inter-War Lithuania: An Interview with Yudl Mark
DOV LEVIN
The Transfer of the Vilna District into Lithuania, 1939
SARUNAS LIEKIS
Jan Kazimierz University, 1936–1939: A Memoir
BRONISLAWA WITZ-MARGULIES
My First Encounters with Jews and Ukrainians
JACEK KURON
Lithuania Honours a Holocaust Rescuer
JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN

Part 2 New Views
Christian Servants Employed by Jews in the Polish–Lithuanian
Commonwealth in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
JUDITH KALIK
Boleslaw Prus and the Dreyfus Case
AGNIESZKA FRIEDRICH
Jewish War Cemeteries in Western Galicia
ADAM BARTOSZ
New Sources on the History of the Old Synagogue in Lódz
KRZYSZTOF STEFANSKI
A Fish Breaks through the Net: Sven Norrman and the Holocaust
JOZEF LEWANDOWSKI
The Work and Recommendations of the Polish–Israeli Textbooks Committee
SHEVACH EDEN
The Image of the Holocaust in the Polish Historical Consciousness
FELIKS TYCH

Part 3 Reviews
REVIEW ESSAYS
John Paul II on Jews and Judaism
ROBERT S. WISTRICH
Recent Developments in the Historiography of Silesian Jews
MARCIN WODZINSKI
A Review of Some Recent Issues of the Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego
ABRAHAM BRUMBERG
Gates of Heaven
ELEONORA BERGMAN
Upside-Down History
JERZY TOMASZEWSKI

REVIEWS
Notes on Contributors
Glossary
Index

'This volume is no exception to the generally high quality of the series . . . gives a truly international perspective on the field . . . well indexed and attractively printed and bound . . . . very useful for any collection that deals with east European Jewry.'
Shaul Stampfer, Religious Studies Review