Jewish Political Life in Poland on the Eve of the Second World War

Author(s): Antony Polonsky / Language(s): English Issue: 13/2022

The increasingly critical situation of the Jewish minority and the bankruptcy of the previously dominant political orientations within the Jewish community created a new set of opportunities for a group, the General Jewish Workers’ Alliance, or Bund which had played only a marginal role in both Polish and Jewish politics between 1920 and 1935. The growing strength of the Bund was clearly evident in the municipal elections of late 1938 and early 1939 which saw it emerge as the largest Jewish party in towns such as Warsaw, Łódź, Vilna and Białystok. This article seeks to evaluate the Bund’s reaction to its heightened importance in Jewish politics in Poland.

„Nechaj vstúpiť do svojho stredu bohatstvo národov“ (cf. Iz 60,11). Dialóg antického Izraela s okolitými kultúrami

Author(s): Jean-Louis Ska / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 1/2023

The purpose of this contribution is to show that Ancient Israel continuously borrowed important religious and cultural elements from its neighbors. Without attempting to be exhaustive, we pinpoint various influences from Canaan, Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece on Ancient Israel. Canaanite religion, Egyptian Wisdom, Mesopotamian covenant diplomacy, prophetism, legislation and scribal culture, and Greek paideia help us understand better biblical literature which never developed in a ivory tower, but adopted and adapted rather than rejected the best that those cultures had to offer.

Sırbistan’da Yahudilerin Durumu (1830-1878)

Author(s): Ayşe Özkan / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 12/2022

: XIX. Serbia, which started the first half of the century with a series of rebellions, became autonomous from the Ottoman Empire in 1830. With Milos Obrenovic becoming a hereditary prince, the Obrenovic dynasty became active in Serbia. While there was strife between the rival dynasties, the Karadjordjevics and the Obrenovics, relations with Muslims and Jews living in Serbia other than Serbs were an important issue. The approach of the Serbian administration, which had problems not only with Muslims but also with Jews, differed in the periods of different princes. While the rights of the Jews were protected in both periods of Miloş Obrenovic, the rights of his son Mihail Obrenovic were blocked in both periods. The period of Aleksandar Karacorcevic was the worst period for the Jews, and they faced various obstacles. In Milan Obrenovic's period, although an apparent equality was achieved, this did not happen in practice, and the complaints of the Jews continued. The main subject of this study is how the Serbs treated the Jews during the Serbian independence process, which started with the 1804 Serbian Revolt and continued with the Serbs becoming autonomous from the Ottoman Empire in 1830. Since Serbian-Jewish relations are so extensive that they are subject to independent studies, only Serbian-Jewish relations and the situation of Jews in Serbia will be mentioned here. In this study, the situation and complaints of the Jews in Serbia will be examined in the light of the reports of the British consuls and Ottoman archive documents, and the issues that remained in the dark until the independence in 1878 will be tried to be clarified.

TÜRKİSTAN’DA YAHUDİ VARLIĞI VE ONLARIN SEYAHATNAMELERE YANSIMALARI

Author(s): Fatih Çolak / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 77/2023

Throughout history, Jews have had to migrate multiple times from their holy land, Canaan (Palestine), to other parts of the world – most of the time never being able to return. One region they settled into was Turkestan, the birthplace of Turkic-Islamic civilization. There has been a Jewish presence there for centuries. Referred to as Bukhara Jews, they never lost their identities, cultures, or beliefs despite having been influenced by other neighbouring cultures, particularly Muslim. However, they differ from Jewish diasporas in terms of their lifestyle and customs. They have lived in their own ghetto-neighbourhoods, and generally engaged in different crafts. Following the Russian invasion of Turkistan, they were given special rights and even dominated certain professions. However, with the collapse of Tsarist Russia and the birth of the Soviet Union, the Jews of Turkistan, as with other local cultures, were subjected to assimilation policies. As a result of this, and especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, those who found the opportunity immigrated to Israel, the USA, Australia and Canada. Today, Jews continue their lives in some big cities of Turkestan – especially Bukhara, Uzbekistan. In this study, we shall explore the Jewish presence in Turkestan throughout history and their reflections in travel books.

Cenzura – Zagłada – Marzec. Przypadek literatury i filmu

Author(s): Sławomir Buryła / Language(s): Polish Issue: 01/2023

The article reviews the censors’ interference in film, literary and journalistic works of the years 1967‒1969. They concerned the situation in the Middle East in the wake of the so-called Six-Day War of 1967 (especially during World War II) and the subject of emigration to the West. The censors’ actions were part of the anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish campaign on which the Communist authorities of Poland embarked during that time.

Procreation in the Sephardic Jewish Communities of Istanbul, Salonica, and Izmir from 1500–1850

Author(s): Leah Bornstein-Makovetsky / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

The desire to raise a family with as many children as possible was a major aspiration of Jewish families in the Ottoman Empire for centuries. Many halakhic responses and other sources address this subject and its impact on Jewish families and society. This paper reviews how Sephardic Jewish society in the Ottoman cities of Istanbul, Izmir and Salonica (Thessaloniki) grappled with the reality of barren men and women – which was quite common – from 1500-1850, and how Jewish courts resolved cases that involved men’s requests to marry a second wife in order to fulfill the commandment of procreation. It discusses how the desire to procreate was realized through the institution of marriage, the undesirability of single life, the age at marriage, yibum (levirate marriage), women’s desire for children, the impact of kabbalah on fulfillment of the commandments, contraception, fertility treatments, the effect of child mortality on parents, and how the longing for children affected the private life of prominent individuals.

Collect to destroy. The annihilation of German and Polish Jewish research libraries

Author(s): Nawojka Cieślińska-Lobkowicz / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

Jewish research libraries emerged in the wake of the Jewish Enlightenment and the Jewish studies initiated subsequently. They formed the foundation of this new field of knowledge, rapidly developing by Jewish scholars. The subject of this article is the history of three German libraries – one in Breslau and two in Berlin – and four libraries in the Second Polish Republic: one in Warsaw, two in Vilnius, and one in Lublin. After introducing these Jewish research libraries from their foundation to Hitler’s rise to power (1933) and, respectively, to the outbreak of war, the author describes their fate during the years of Nazi rule. Closed, confiscated, destroyed, looted, deported, used in perverse ways – all seven ceased to exist. The subject of the text section of the article is the postwar distribution of the volumes surviving from these Jewish libraries. The article closes with reflections on the study of the provenance of the survived books, dispersed in collections on several continents, as a means of saving the libraries from which they originated from oblivion.

I rozpięła na szpilce jak motyla… Żydówki-rewolucjonistki w polskiej prozie antysemickiej w pierwszej połowie XX wieku

Author(s): Małgorzata Domagalska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 51/2023

After the revolution of 1905, revolutionary Jewish women began to appear among the heroines typical of the antisemitic novels of the nineteenth century. This type of female protagonist can be found in the novels written by Józef Weyssenhoff (Hetmani [The Hetmans]), Rev. Jan Gnatowski (Zły czar [Bad Spell]), and then in the 1930s in the novels by Roman Dmowski (Dziedzictwo [The Heritage]) and Jędrzej Giertych (Zamach [The Coup]). In these narratives, Poland is presented as a victim of manipulation by Jews, Germans, and in the case of the Bad Spell by Jewish Bolsheviks. In these stories, female Jewish revolutionaries implement their secret policies using their strong erotic influence to seduce Polish activists. Demonism and evil, as well as the misogynistic attitude of the fin de siècle era were employed to create their portraits. In these female protagonists, one can detect echoes of features associated with such Jewish heroines as Salome, Judith, and Herodias whose portraits were typical of the art and literature of the epoch.

Wizerunek Żydów w dowcipach rysunkowych na łamach „Muchy” (1935–1939)

Author(s): Aleksandra Guja / Language(s): Polish Issue: 51/2023

The Image of Jews in Cartoons from the “Mucha” Magazine (1935–1939) The article discusses the visual images of Jews presented in cartoons from the satirical journal Mucha between 1935 and 1939. Mucha was a major satirical magazine in Poland and the only one published during the whole interwar period. The aim of the study is to analyze the visual discourse about Jews emerging from cartoons using digital tools (MAXQDA). Both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied to check which elements of the picture create a specific type of stereotype. The findings suggest that the overall image of Jews is contradictory, albeit dominated by categories related to money and trade. There are also images that do not fit into the dominant antisemitic discourse.

The Holocaust between Pop Literature and High Literature:Maxim Biller’s Inside the Head of Bruno Schulz

Author(s): Reinhard Ibler / Language(s): English Issue: 24/2023

Maxim Biller, one of the most prominent, but also most controversial Ger-man-Jewish authors, is an important figure in modern Holocaust literature. Af-ter a short introduction to his early journalistic and literary oeuvre dealing with the Holocaust, we will focus on his novella Inside the Head of Bruno Schulz from 2013. A short outline of the story will be followed by a detailed analysis of the role the Holocaust plays in this story, especially with regard to the two protag-onists, Bruno Schulz and Thomas Mann. It will be shown that the pop-literary provocations that dominate Billers’ early works, are now displaced by clear ten-dencies towards a high literary, artistic standard, which are characteristic for the developments of modern Holocaust literature in general.

Resumé

Author(s): Not Specified Author / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/1973

Summaries of Judaica Bohemiae, 1973/2.

Réponses des rabbins (she’eloth u-teshuvoth) et leur importance dans le contexte de l’histoire des juifs aux pays tchèques

Author(s): Vladimir Sadek / Language(s): French Issue: 1/1984

The contribution pays attention to the most important responsive texts (she’eloth u-teshuvoth, shu”t) concerning the religious history of Jews in Bohemia and Moravia, their culture, etc. Besides their religious and legal importance, they are also historical sources. Medieval te(xts are discussed first (Yitshak bar Moshe Or Zarua, Asher ben Yehiel, Eliezer ben Nathan, Shelomo ben Abraham Adret, Yisrael Isserlein, Yisrael ben Hayyim Brunna, and others), then the main responsive texts dating from the 16th—17th centuries are characterized (Polish responsa, Menahem Mendel Krochmal, Yona ben Eliyahu Landsofer, and others). As for the 18th and 19th centuries, responsa by Ezechiel Landau, Shemuel Landau and Eleazar Fleckeles are mentioned.

Thoramäntel aus der Textiliensammlung des Staatlichen Jüdischen Museums in Prag (1750-1800)

Author(s): Ludmila Kybalová / Language(s): German Issue: 2/1974

The article was preceded by another one published in Judaica Bohemiae, vol. IX/1973, No. 1. This time the authoress deals with Torah mantles dating from the years 1750-1800. She is interested in the makers and provenance of the mantles from the collection of the State Jewish Museum, classifies them, studies the most remarkable examples and surveys their development in the above period.

Résumé

Author(s): Not Specified Author / Language(s): English,Russian Issue: 1/1975

Summaries for Judaica Bohemiae 1975/1.

Photographs

Author(s): Not Specified Author / Language(s): English,Russian Issue: 1/1975

Resume

Author(s): Not Specified Author / Language(s): French Issue: 2/1977

Summaries for Judaica Bohemiae 1977/2

Photographs

Author(s): Not Specified Author / Language(s): English,Russian Issue: 2/1977

Notes bibliographiques

Author(s): Vladimir Sadek / Language(s): French Issue: 1/1978

Review of: Barzilay, Isaac: Joseph Shlomo Delmedigo (Yashar of Candia), his Life, Works and Times. Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1974, p. 379

Résumé

Author(s): Not Specified Author / Language(s): Russian,German Issue: 1/1978

Summaries for Judaica Bohemiae 1978/1.

Résumé

Author(s): Not Specified Author / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/1979

Summaries for Judaica Bohemiae 1979/1.