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New Directions in the History of the Jews in the Polish Lands
New Directions in the History of the Jews in the Polish Lands, 2018
The conference showed how much progress has been made in the last thirty years in illuminating the multi-faceted history of the Jews in the Polish lands. It demonstrated that there is now an international community spanning Poland, Israel, Eastern and Western Europe and North America devoted to examining this important topic. This community and the development of Polish-Jewish studies provided solid historiographic basis for the creation of the narrative core exhibition of the POLIN Museum. We are confident that this volume will have the widest possible circulation and will contribute to making better known the achievements of the Jews of the Polish lands and their complex and often fruitful coexistence with their neighbors.
Polish myths and their deconstruction in the context of Polish-Jewish relations
Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, 2011
Aim. The aim of this paper is to outline the basic threads of Polish mythology that are central for understanding of the Polish-Jewish relations. It was written in the context of stormy and painful discussions held within the frame of Polish-Israeli Mental Health Association between 2002 and 2004. The Association, founded in 1999 by, among others, late professor Adam Szymusik and professor Maria Orwid, wished to deepen understanding of mutual relations by touching upon taboo issues, breaking stereotypes, being ready to initiate work on the memory and to confront unspoken events of common history. The important element of this process was the necessity to refer to the frame of the traditional Polish national identity. The text was presented at the fifth Polish-Israeli Symposium of the Association in June 2004 in Krakow. The authors recently decided to work on it and to present it, convinced that the issues surrounding and related to the Polish identity should be the subject of an ongoing wide debate and reflection. Discussion. The vivid presence of the Polish myths in the social space and their defensive functions are exemplified by, inter alia, stormy reception of Gross's book "Strach" ("Fear") published in 2008, and on the other hand, by the processes taking place in our country after the Polish President's plane crash near Smoleńsk. The paper describes the basic Polish myth and its influence on Polish-Jewish mutual relationships and understanding the past and the present. Conclusion. Work on memory is ongoing often painful process which should be done among all social groups including groups of professionals that are interested in developing Polish-Israeli Mental Health Association. Polish-Jewish relations, Polish myths When a myth becomes a daydream it is judged, found wanting and must be discarded. To cling to it when it has lost its creative function is to condemn oneself to mental illness.
A d s t r a c t . Witkowski Rafał, Jew s in m ed iera l Polami: ctilfure. rc/igion a n dlan gn agc as rejiec te d in sources, Studia 11istoricn Slavo-Gcrmanica, vol. XVIII, 2008-2010, Poznań 2011. pp. 87-139. Wydaw nictwo Poznańskie. ISDN 978-83-7177-772-1. ISSN 0301-6420. The articlc dcals willi llic bisiory o f llic Jcwisli pcoplc in tlic medicvul kingdom ofPoland. T he nutlior presents llic most important aspecls o f t lici i lilc and culturc as well as crucial facts in tlicir history from tlie early mcdicval period to (lic formation o f pcrnianeiit Jcwisli scltlcmcnts and city cjuartcrs in tlie 15th ccntury. Rafał Witkowski, dr, wicedyrektor Instytutu Historii Uniwersytetu im. Adama M ickiewicza The hislory of llic Jews in the medieval kingdom of Roland has been llie subjcct of numerous studies.1 Mowever, no modern, extensive monograph was produced * I would likc to tliank Dr. lidward l.ult. Washington. USA, for his kind assistancc in preparing tlie finał vcrsion o f lliis paper. 1 Cf. M.W. Goldstein. Zur wirtschaftlichen G cschichte d er polnisehen Judea im M itlclaltcr, "Zcitschrifl fiir Gcschichte der Juden in Deulschland" 4 (1908), pp. 168-172: S. Kutrzeba, Stanowisko prawne Żydów u-Polsce w .XI'stuleciu, "Przewodnik Naukowy i Literacki" 29 (1901). pp. 1007--1018, 1147-1156; M. Gumplowicz. Początki re/ig ii żydow skiej u-Po/sec. Warszawa 1903; R. Gródecki. Dzieje Żydów w Polsce do końca .VII' wieku, in: R. Gródecki. Polska piastow ska. Pism a pośm iertne. red. J. Wyrozumski. Warszawa 1969, pp. 595-702; A. Gieysztor, Początki osadnictw a żydow skiego na ziemiach polskich, in: Z dziejów Żydów w Polsce, red. W. Tyloch, Warszawa 1983. pp. 5-7; A. Gieysztor, The heginnings o fJ e w ish Sefflement in the Polis/i Lands, in: The Jew s iti Polarni, ed. Cli. Abramsky, M. Jachimczyk, A. Polonsky. Oxford 1986, pp. 15-21; II. Sam sonowicz, TheJewrsh Population in P olandduring the M iddle Ages. "Dialectics and Humanism. The Polisli Philosophical Quartcrly" 16/1 (1989). pp. 35-42; J. W yrozumski. Ż ydzi w Polsce średniow iecznej, in: Żydzi w daw nej R ze czypospolitej. red. A. Link-Lcnczowski. T. Polański, Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków 1991. pp. 129-135; J. Wyrozumski, D zieje Żydów Polski średniow iecznej w historiografii, "Studia Judaica" 1998, nr I, pp. 3-17; 11. Zarcmska, O rganizacja w czesnośredniow iecznych gm in żydow skich ir E uropie Srodk/iwcj: Ostrzyhom i Kraków, in: Ludzie. Kościół. Wierzenia. Studia z dziejów kultury i społeczeń stw a Europy Środkowej (średniowiecze -w czesna epoka nowożytna). Warszawa 2001, pp. 303-312; II. Zarcmska, Aspekty porów naw cze w badaniach nad historią Żydów w średniow iecznej Polsce, "Rocznik M azo wiecki" 13 (2001). pp. 177-191; II. Zarcmska. Żydzi w średniow iecznej Europie Środkow ej -w C ze chach. Polsce i na Węgrzech. Poznań 2005: cf. also ILI). Wcinryb. The Bcginning o f East-Europcan Jcwry in Legend an d Historiography, in: Studies a n d E ssays in Honor o f Abraham A. Neuman, ed. M. Rcn-Ilorin. B.D. Weinryb. S. Zcitlin, Lciden 1962, pp. 445-502: B.D. Wcinryb, The Jew s o f Poland. A S o cia l a n d Economic H istory o f the Jew ish C om nm nity o f Poland from 1100 to 1800, Pliiladelphia 1976; J. Litmnn. The econom ic role o f Jew s in m ed iera l Poland, Landlutm-Ncw York-London 1984; H. Iłaumann. H istoria Żydów w Europie Ś rodkow ej i Wschodniej. Warszawa 2000 f first published as G eschichte d er O stjuden, MUnchcn 1990): f. Abrahams. Życie codzienn e Ż ydów w średniow ieczu, przcl. B. Gadomska, Warszawa 1996 (first published as Jew ish Life in the M iddle Ages. London-New York 1896): cf. also S. Dubliny, H istory o f the Jew s in R nssia a n d Polam i from the E arliest Times to the Present D ays, Vol.
Modern Syntheses of Jewish History in Poland: A Review
Studia Judaica, 2016
became an ethnically homogeneous state. National minorities remained beyond the newly-moved eastern border, and were largely exterminated, forcefully removed, or relocated and scattered throughout the so-called Recovered Territories (Polish: Ziemie Odzys kane). The new authorities installed in Poland took care to ensure that the memory of such minorities also disappeared. The Jews were no exception. Nearly two generations of young Poles knew nothing about them, and elder Poles generally avoided the topic. But the situation changed with the disintegration of the authoritarian system of government in Poland, as the intellectual and informational void created by censorship and political pressure quickly filled up. Starting from the mid-1980s, more and more Poles became interested in the history of Jews, and the number of publications on the subject increased dramatically. Alongside the US and Israel, Poland is one of the most important places for research on Jewish history.
Given their druthers, most historians today would prefer to write history that is not a component of some metahistory. Rather than project the Big Story, which entails beliefs and assumptions about "HISTORY", they want to tell a small story, "history", that stands on empirical findings and logical reasoning. They don't desire to contribute to an overarching grand narrative that purports to give order and meaning to large chunks of history by defining a framework that is more historiosophy than historiography, more ideology than research.
Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, 2021
This article reexamines the evidence of Jewish presence in Poland from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries in connection with problems of origins, periodization, and localization of Jewish settlement in Poland. It deals inter alia with questions regarding the balance be-tween Jewish and Christian evidence, as well as with reports of Jewish presence from neighboring areas of Eastern Europe such as Kievan Rus’.