Liberalizm, nacjonalizm i „kwestia żydowska” w Imperium Rosyjskim (koniec XIX – początek XX wieku)

Author(s): Semion Goldin / Language(s): Polish Issue: 02/2016

In the years 1910-13, Aleksander Świętochowski gained notoriety by publishing texts about the Semitic menace and heading a group of “progressive anti-Semites”. Świętochowski argued that he did not betray the ideals of his youth and declared that he was faithful to the principles of “national humanism” all life long. This article looks the attitude toward the “Jewish question” displayed by Świętochowski and his contemporaries who were the leaders of Russian liberal nationalism: Pyotr Struve and Vasily Maklakov. The author seeks to determine how the change of the Polish and Russian liberals to the “Jewish question” was connected with the turn-of-the-century emergence of Jewish nationalism. The vision of a nation based on the dominant role of a homogeneous national culture and equality before the law followed from the fundamental tenets of 19th century liberal ideology. The liberals were ready to admit the Jews to the national community provided they agreed to renounce their “distinctness”. However, that condition could not be met by the broad Jewish masses, which just happened to be undergoing a process of national radicalization. The clash with the reality, which meant the fierce rivalry between competing nationalist movements (including the Jewish one) exposed the inner weakness and inconsistency of the liberal project.

Myśli nowoczesnych Żydów. Wybory do IV Dumy, bojkot ekonomiczny i stosunki polsko-żydowskie (1912-1914) w świetle warszawskiego „Hajntu”

Author(s): Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov / Language(s): Polish Issue: 02/2016

The period 1912-1914 is considered the peak of the Polish-Jewish conflict in Congress Poland before the First World War. It started with elections to the Fourth Russian Duma in which Jewish voters in Warsaw had numerical advantage over Poles. As a result, the Polish candidate Jan Kucharzewski failed to be elected and the Polish press initiated an economic boycott of the Jews which lasted until the First World War. These events are presented on the basis of a Yiddish daily newspaper “Haynt” (1908-1939), one of the leading Warsaw Jewish dailies who played an important role in the awakening of a national identity among its Jewish mass readership.

„Rola“ wobec syjonizmu

Author(s): Agnieszka Friedrich / Language(s): Polish Issue: 02/2016

The article looks at the attitude of the anti-Semitic Warsaw weekly “Rola” to the Zionist movement. “Rola”, which rejected the ideas of assimilation, was initially sympathetic toward the plan to establish a Jewish state in Argentina or in Palestine, formulated by Baron Hirsch. Over time, however, it decided that the concept was not realistic, the main reason being that, in its opinion, European Jews got so accustomed to engage in various sorts of intermediation that they would not be prepared to take up productive employment. For “Rola” this constituted a confirmation of the conviction that the Jews were organically unable to engage in productive activity. Herzl’s plan met with a similar reception: “Rola” supported his idea, albeit in the predictable sarcastic form, while at the same time airing doubts as to the practicality of this new concept. That attitude also prevailed when successive Zionist initiatives were reported: on the one hand, the plan to establish a Jewish state in Palestine was dismissed as a “figment of the imagination of sick brains of the Jewish ideologues, but on the other its writers wished it success because that would mean mass emigration of the Jews from Poland, which “Rola” would be delighted to see. In the end it was accepted, however, that the idea of a Jewish state is but a “huge new Jewish scam,” whose real objective was to “divert attention and subvert the alertness of Christian folks and states”. The Zionist movement was likened to the prior activities of Alliance Israélite, which “Rola” was consistently denouncing as a “centre of Israel’s rule” and a “Jewish-internationalist monster.” With this approach, Zionism became just another convenient excuse for anti-Semitism.

„Sztuka żydowska”. O jednym z pojęć nacjonalistycznej krytyki artystycznej w Polsce międzywojennej

Author(s): Dariusz Konstantynów / Language(s): Polish Issue: 02/2016

The topic of this article is the meaning of the notion of “Jewish art”, which was one of the key topics of the anti-Semitic discourse going on among nationalist art critics. An analysis of views aired by critics in the years 1919-1939 in periodicals with right-wing and nationalistic leanings leads to the conclusion that the features attributed to “Jewish art” fully corresponded to the features attributed in the anti-Semitic Jewish discourse to Jews at large. The works created by Jews and by other artists influenced by them were spreading contagion in the world of art, causing it to become “gangrenous” and “disintegrated”, inviting chaos, degeneration and distortion, were “dirty”, “disorderly”, “misshapen”, “lame”, but also “noisy”, “arrogant”, “false” or “cynical”, or, finally, they were an emanation of a “foreign”, “hostile” or “internationalist” spirit. Just as the Jews in social and economic life, so the objects of “Jewish art” in the field of arts caused damage to such aesthetic values as beauty, harmony or perfection, causing art to disintegrate. In this manner “Jewish art” was supposed to serve the pursuit of the supreme objective of the degeneration and destruction of the Polish people and the spiritual values cherished by it. In order to prevent just that, it was necessary to learn as much as possible about the “Jewish art”, describe any features of it that could be described, and then eliminate them or at least successful isolate it.

Świętokradztwo, bojkot, tradycyjny i nowoczesny antysemityzm. Przemoc antyżydowska w Truskolasach, Kłobucku i Krzepicach 27 stycznia 1936 roku- - wybór źródeł.

Author(s): Kamil Kijek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 02/2016

This text is a selection of source materials concerning the course and immediate genesis of anti-Jewish incidents in three localities in Częstochowa district (powiat) on 27 January 1936. The presentation of the materials is preceded by a brief introduction, in which the author of the selection presents the context of little-known anti-Jewish incidents at Truskolasy, Kłobuck and Krzepice, looking at their causes, the links between these incidents and the conflicts inside the national movement, whose members were the direct instigators of the violence, as well as the influence of the so-called Young milieu in the nationalist movement and the strategy of its political struggle against the Sanacja authorities on the rising tide of anti-Jewish incidents. The author of the selection also points to the links between the events described in the source materials and the better known incidents in Odrzywół and Przytyk.

Podróże do Niemiec i do Polski. Emocje Żydów odwiedzających poholocaustową Europę

Author(s): Michael Meng / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2014

This essay explores from a new perspective the intricate ways in which Jews have encountered and engaged with Germany and Poland after the Holocaust. It looks at the emotions expressed by Jews who travelled to both countries from roughly the late 1940s to the present moment in an attempt to build a textual montage of the juxtaposing feelings that Jews have had towards the region. In so doing, it attempts to show that Germany and Poland have represented for Jews not only a “ruined landscape” of death, but an emotionally complex space in which a wide range of emotional reactions have intersected.

Kadysz za zgładzone miasto

Author(s): Piotr Krupiński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2014

Although the starting point for the author of the essay is a specific book – Pinkes Szczekocin. Księga pamięci Szczekocin [Pinkes Szczekocin. Memorial Book of Szczekociny], it actually becomes an impetus to far more extensive consideration. Analyzing the narrative phenomenon of memorial books, that is works commemorating the Jewish communities of particular cities and towns exterminated in the Holocaust, the author ponders over how the specificity of such writing’s reception has changed. Memorial books, directed mainly to the descendants of the extermination survivors, become today an important source of knowledge about Jewish history and culture for Poles living in cities where Jewish life flourished before the war.

Pious Anti-Semitism. (In the Centuries of Darkness and Light)

Author(s): Géza Komoróczy / Language(s): English Issue: 03/1997

The subject lies buried in libraries. I stumbled on it by chance, when I was looking for material for the book entitled A zsidó Budapest (Jewish Budapest, 1995). Literary, ethnographical, and religious data from long ago, from the non-Jewish environment surrounding the relatively closed Jewish Hungarian communities of Buda, Pest, and Óbuda. I accidentally discovered a book I had never heard of, although perhaps I should have.

Wydmuszka. Lektura krytyczna Miast śmierci Mirosława Tryczyka

Author(s): Krzysztof Persak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2016

The author deconstructs Mirosław Tryczyk’s monograph entitled Miasta śmierci. Sąsiedzkie pogromy Żydów [Towns of death. Pogroms of Jews organized by their neighbors]. This book on the anti-Jewish violence inflicted by Poles in the Białystok region in 1941 was received as revealing and innovative. It gained prominence in the media and a favorable reception in the intellectual milieus, and eminent scholars opined it as excellent. Eventually, however, it proved a cognitively reproductive work lacking professional research methodology and formulating theses unable to withstand scholarly criticism. Using the case of Tryczyk’s book’s popularity, Persak inquires about the condition of scholarly criticism and the quality of the public debate in Poland.

Les Juifs vus par un prêtre français en exil: l'antijuadïsme dans les Mémoires de l'abbé Pochard (1796-1830)

Author(s): Jérémie Fischer / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2016

The article is an attempt to show the leading elements of the attitude towards Jews, the attitude of Father Claude-ntoine Pochard (1766-1833), tutor in the family of a Gniezno governor Joseph Skórzewski. Numerous trips across Polish territories and neighboring countries enabled him to come into direct contact with Jewish issues in Central and Eastern Europe, and his up till now unpublished memoirs shed light on some interesting aspects of the history of European Jews.

Teologiczny obraz twierdzy jerozolimskiej w 1 Mch 1,33-38 i jej oblężenie prezez wojska Judy w 4,41 oraz 6,18-20

Author(s): Janusz Nawrot / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2016

The purpose of this article is to present certain episodes of the acts of war of insurgent army under the leadership of Judah Maccabee, which occurred both before the death of ntiochus IV Epiphanes, the biggest enemy of Jews in Seleucia empire, and shortly after it. The undertaken efforts clearly show that even after the death of the hated ruler the situation in the province of Judah has not changed radically. The insurgents still attempted to free themselves from Seleucia rulers, whose castle in the capital was probably the most important sign of domination. To understand the meaning of the activities of insurgents better one cannot ignore the role that acre played in oppressing the chosen people. The first part of the article mentions that. n important final query, however, is an attempt to answer the question of the author of the book – why did Judah fail to take the fortress, despite undoubtedly favorable circu mstances surrounding it. The article deals with the First Book of Maccabees, which is still rarely commented, as well as all deuterocanonical books, more often overlooked in exegetical discussions than books of the Hebrew Bible.

Opscenost razumijevanja: večer sa Claudeom Lanzmannom

Author(s): Claude Lanzmann,Cathy Caruth,Shoshana Felman / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 01+02/2000

Tekst koji slijedi predstavlja književnu zabilješku jednog događaja, provokativnog i kontraverznog nastupa Claudea Lanzmanna na sastanku Western N ew England Institute for Psychoanalysis (W NEIPA) u aprilu 1990. godine. Specifične okolnosti Lanzmannovog nastupa, kao i diskusija koja je nakon njega uslijedila, postavljaju na jedan vrlo oštar način pitanje izuzetno kompleksnih dilema u vezi sa prirodom razumijevanja i komunikacijom tema iz holokausta. Govor gospodina Lanzmanna i razmjena mišljenja koju je on izazvao demonstriraju kroz jedan jedini susret između režisera filma Shoah i njegove psihoanalitičke publike - kontradiktorne uloge koje može imati razumijevanje u pokušaju da se pristup i traumatskim iskustvima.

Autor Księgi Mądrości i czas jej powstania (2)

Author(s): Bogdan PONIŻY / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2011

This article is the second and last part of the longer essay, which was published in the present periodical. The situation of the Jews in Alexandria was specific. The Alexandrian Diaspora was the biggest in the ancient world in that time (it numbered more Jews than the whole number of them in Jerusalem). It had many privileges, while the Ptolemaic dynasty ruled in Egypt. Its situation changed radically after the Romans had started to reign in Egypt, which was visible in the first persecution of the Jews (38 A.C.) in Alexandria.

Metaphorizing the Holocaust: The Ethics of Comparison

Author(s): Mark Webber / Language(s): English Issue: 15-16/2011

This paper focuses on the ethics of metaphor and other forms of comparison that invoke National Socialism and the Holocaust. It seeks to answer the question: Are there criteria on the basis of which we can judge whether metaphors and associated tropes “use” the Holocaust appropriately? In analyzing the thrust and workings of such comparisons, the paper also seeks to identify and clarify the terminology and concepts that allow productive discussion. In line with its conception of metaphor that is also rhetorical praxis, the paper focuses on specific controversies involving the metaphorization of the Holocaust, primarily in Germany and Austria. The paper develops its argument through the following process. First, it examines the rhetorical/political contexts in which claims of the Holocaust’s comparability (or incomparability) have been raised. Second, it presents a review (and view) of the nature of metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche. It applies this framework to (a) comparisons of Saddam Hussein with Hitler in Germany in 1991; (b) the controversies surrounding the 2004 poster exhibition “The Holocaust on Your Plate” in Germany and Austria, with particular emphasis on the arguments and decisions in cases before the courts in those countries; and (c) the invocation of “Auschwitz” as metonym and synecdoche. These examples provide the basis for a discussion of the ethics of comparison. In its third and final section the paper argues that metaphor is by nature duplicitous, but that ethical practice involving Holocaust comparisons is possible if one is self-aware and sensitive to the necessity of seeing the “other” as oneself. The ethical framework proposed by the paper provides the basis for evaluating the specific cases adduced.

The challenges of Holocaust instruction and remembrance - Particular and universal aspects in formal and informal interdisciplinary curricula in Israel and abroad

Author(s): Nitza Davidovich,Dan Soen,Anat Hezkelovich / Language(s): English Issue: 15-16/2011

The present article examines Holocaust instruction in Israel and in France, addressing formal and informal aspects of teaching practices. Specifically, the article examines whether Holocaust instruction constitutes a unifying factor that stresses what is common to human beings, among adolescents at schools in Israel and abroad, or whether it is a continuation of the methodic axis of the general model of the school and its credo. The study was conducted as part of a large-scale project evaluating 20 years of journeys to Poland by Israeli youth. It is based on a qualitative research apporoach that included analysis of interviews with policymakers, representatives of Holocaust institutes and foundations, teachers, students and guides. It also made use of field observations and official documents. The qualitative analysis revealed that that the dominant didactic models in Israel and France differ from one another in the importance that they attribute to universal versus the particular elements. Each of the models was built based on a didactic foundation of educational and teaching activity at the school in general, and Holocaust instruction in particular. The study findings indicate that in general, the Holocaust instruction in Israel continues to emphasize the particular. It serves as a tool for strengthening the unique values of the event, and stresses Israeliness, Zionism, and Jewishness. The climax of the modal is an eight-day journey to Poland, centering on a visit to Auschwitz. In contrast, Holocaust instruction in France emphasizes the universal. The curriculum positions the journey as the climax of the scholastic experience but, unlike the Israeli curriculum, it emphasizes the historical and universal aspects of the Holocaust and represses the singularity of the event in the context of the Jewish people. A comparison of the two countries underlines the substantive differences separating the two different educational systems, which have adopted different sets of values.

Blanka Soukupová: Židé v českých zemích po šoa

Author(s): Pavla Damohorská / Language(s): Czech Issue: 67/2017

Rola przemocy wobec ludności żydowskiej w Europie środkowo-wschodniej w procesie decyzyjnym Zagłady

Author(s): Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 04/2016

Individual and collective violence was an inseparable element of the exercise of power by the Third Reich in the occupied lands in East-Central Europe, both in relation to the Jewish population and other ethnic groups. Despite the that the Reich’s leadership took a lot of effort to create an illusion about the occupation order having the characteristics of the rule of law, the widespread violence applied to the subjugated populations and the Jews in particular meant that any civilizational and cultural norms were broken all the time and the brutalization of daily life proceeded unabated. Violence became an integral part of the system of exercising power, directing and driving the German occupier’s policy toward the Jewish population at all decision-making levels. With its help the German national socialists were building a new system of moral references, justifying the treatment of the hated minority in a manner far exceeding the rules of live in a society upheld so far. From the point of view of the perpetrators themselves this system made it possible to find ever further reaching rationale of their own active involvement in the implementation of that policy, and it convinced them about its indispensability for the success of the Nazi utopia. The use of massive violence ultimately became a sine qua non of the implementation of the utopian final solution of the “Jewish question” through genocide. This was a factor shaping a new system of moral values, cementing the sense of co-dependence of the perpetrators in a peculiarly defined “community of crime,” a vessel making it possible to transform utopian goals of the state into very tangible personal profits. Without the daily use of violence that overcame the still existing psychological barriers and suppressed any internal resistance the Holocaust just could not occur in the first place.

Poles and Jews in Vilnius Region 1939–1941

Author(s): Andrzej Żbikowski / Language(s): English Issue: 67/2017

The historical events in the Vilnius region in the years 1939–1941 unfolded a bit differently than the rest of the North-East Polish Borderlands. Polish population here was much larger, and the Lithuanians’ claims to these lands were merely historical. Soviet troops entered the city on September 19 and remained there until 27 October 1939. Jews constituted about one third of the Vilnius population reaching nearly 200,000, the rest of which consisted of Poles and only a few thousands of Lithuanians. During the occupation of Lithuania, Polish-Jewish relations ran relatively smoothly with the exception of the tragic incidents in Vilnius between 28 and 31 October 1939. Under Lithuanian rule, the position of Poles became even worse than under the Soviets, since the Lithuanians, like their predecessors, favoured the Jewish population.

Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-CEE Chided for Erratic Progress on Jewish Restitution

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English Issue: 05/02/2017

Poland, Bosnia have done almost nothing to abide by pledges to speed up restitution, European Shoah Legacy Institute study finds.

T. S. ELIOT I ANTISEMITIZAM

Author(s): Andrija Matić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 446/2007

Epoha modernizma bila je obeležena naglašenom političkom angažovanošću umetnika. To, naravno, ne treba da čudi ako se ima u vidu da je u ovom periodu Evropa preživela najstrašniji rat u dotadašnjoj istoriji. Nakon Prvog svetskog rata postalo je očigledno koliko je krhka bila evropska vrednosna struktura. Sve ono što se nekada činilo nespornim, stabilnim ili estetski vrednim došlo je u pitanje. Potreba za preispitivanjem vrednosnog konteksta nametala se, prirodno, i u samoj umetnosti, te su mnogi umetnici, pored težnje za uništenjem nekadašnjih umetničkih postulata, žudeli za snažnom promenom i na političkom planu. Otuda i sklonost jednog broja značajnih modernista ka propagiranju dve najekstremnije ideologije tog (a i svih drugih) vremena – fašizma i komunizma.