New Directions in the History of the Jews in the Polish Lands Jews of Poland
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New Directions in the History of the Jews in the Polish Lands Jews of Poland Series Editor ANTONY POLONSKY (Brandeis University) New Directions in the History of the Jews in the Polish Lands Edited by Antony Polonsky, Hanna We˛. grzynek, and Andrzej Z bikowski Boston 2018 ASSOCIATION OF THE JEWISH HISTORICAL INSTITUTE OF POLAND Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Polonsky, Antony, editor. | Węgrzynek, Hanna, editor. | Ż bikowski, Andrzej, editor. Title: New directions in the history of the Jews in the Polish lands / edited by Antony Polonsky, Hanna Wegrzynek and Andrzej Zbikowski. Description: Boston, MA : Academic Studies Press ; Warsaw, Poland : POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, [2017] | Series: Jews of Poland | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017044794 (print) | LCCN 2017047212 (ebook) | ISBN 9788394914905 (e-book) | ISBN 9788394914912 (Open Access) | ISBN 9788394426293 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Jews--Poland--History--Congresses. | Poland--Ethnic relations--Congresses. | Museums--Educational aspects--Poland--Congresses. Classification: LCC DS135.P6 (ebook) | LCC DS135.P6 N475 2017 (print) | DDC 943.8/004924--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017044794 Published by Academic Studies Press and by the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2018 ISBN 978-8-394914-90-5 (electronic) ISBN 978-8-394914-91-2 (Open Access) ISBN 978-8-394426-29-3 (hardback) Book design by Kryon Publishing Services (P) Ltd. www.kryonpublishing.com Cover design by Ivan Grave On the cover: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews Photo by www.pzstudio.pl Academic Studies Press 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com Effective July 31, 2018, this book will be subject to a CC-BY-NC license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Other than as provided by these licenses, no part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or displayed by any electronic or mechanical means without permission from the publisher or as permitted by law. Contents Foreword ix Preface x Introduction xi Antony Polonsky, Hanna Węgrzynek, and Andrzej Żbikowski List of Contributors lvii PART ONE Museological Questions 01 The Voice of the Curators Something Old, Something New: Creating the Narrative for the Early Modern Galleries. 01 Adam Teller The Nineteenth-Century Gallery. 13 Sam Kassow The Interwar Gallery. 20 Sam Kassow Curatorial and Educational Challenges in Creating the Holocaust Gallery. 29 Maria Ferenc Piotrowska, Kamila Radecka-Mikulicz, and Justyna Majewska Assumptions behind the Postwar Gallery of the Core Exhibition at POLIN. 40 Stanisław Krajewski Comments on the Museum Polish-Jewish Historiography 1970–2015: Construction, Consensus, Controversy. 60 Moshe Rosman vi Contents POLIN, The Medieval and Early Modern Galleries: A Comment. 78 Kenneth Stow Modernism and Identity. Polish Jews Facing Change in the Nineteenth Century. 85 Tomasz Kizwalter Hasidism in the Museum: The Social History Perspective. 93 David Assaf What’s in, What’s out: A Critique of the Interwar Gallery. 105 Michael Steinlauf The Truth and Nothing But: The Holocaust Gallery of the Warsaw POLIN Museum in Context. 111 Omer Bartov Perspectives: A Lithuanian Visit to the POLIN Museum Holocaust Gallery. 119 Saulius Sužiedėlis Polin: A Bildungsroman. 130 Marci Shore A Historian’s Response. Comments on the Postwar Gallery. 134 Andrzej Paczkowski Museums and Education Jewish Tourism to Poland: The Opportunities for New Museum Narratives to Recontextualize Jewish Histories. 139 Jonathan Webber Jewish Museums in Moscow 150 Victoria Mochalova The Challenges of New Work in History and Education about the Holocaust in Poland. 170 Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs PART TWO Historiographic Questions 183 Premodern Poland–Lithuania Did the Polish Nobility Take Seriously the Teaching of the Catholic Church? Reflections on the Relations between the Nobility, the Church, and the Jews. 183 Adam Kaźmierczyk Contents vii Relations between Jews and Non-Jews in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth: Perceptions and Practices. 198 Jürgen Heyde Agreements between Towns and Kahals and Their Impact on the Legal Status of Polish Jews. 219 Hanna Węgrzynek The Role and Significance of Jews in the Economy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: The State of Research and Research Directions. 231 Jacek Wijaczka A Reassessment of the Jewish Poll-Tax Assessment Lists in Eighteenth-Century Crown Poland. 255 Judith Kalik Frankism: The History of Jacob Frank or of the Frankists. 261 Jan Doktór The Nineteenth Century Modern Times Polish Style? Orthodoxy, Enlightenment, and Patriotism. 280 Israel Bartal Jew-Hatred and Anti-Jewish Violence in the Former Lands of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Long Nineteenth Century. 285 Darius Staliūnas Those Who Stayed: Women and Jewish Traditionalism in East Central Europe. 285 Glenn Dynner Pauline Wengeroff: Between Tradition and Modernity, East and West. 313 Shulamit Magnus The Interwar Years One Jewish Street? Reflections on Unity and Disunity in Interwar Polish Jewry. 324 Gershon Bacon Not Just Mały Przegląd: The Ideals and Educational Values Expressed in Jewish Polish-Language Journals for Children and Young Adults. 338 Anna Landau-Czajka viii Contents Legitimizing the Revolution: Sarah Schenirer and the Rhetoric of Torah Study for Girls. 356 Naomi Seidman Contested Jewish Polishness: Language and Health as Markers for the Position of Jews in Polish Culture and Society in the Interwar Period. 366 Katrin Steffen The Holocaust Historiography on the Holocaust in Poland: An Outsider’s View of its Place within Recent General Developments in Holocaust Historiography. 386 Dan Michman The Dispute over the Status of a Witness to the Holocaust: Some Observations on How Research into the Destruction of the Polish Jews and into Polish–Jewish Relations during the Years of Nazi Occupation Have Changed since 1989. 402 Andrzej Żbikowski Beyond National Identities: New Challenges in Writing the History of the Holocaust in Poland and Israel. 423 Daniel Blatman The Postwar Period Violence against Jews in Poland, 1944–47: The State of Research and Its Presentation. 442 Grzegorz Berendt The Jews and the “Disavowed Soldiers.” 452 August Grabski In or Out? Identities and Images of Poland among Polish Jews in the Postwar Years. 472 Audrey Kichelewski Index 486 Foreword We are very happy to introduce this collection of scholarly papers which were first delivered at the International Conference “From Ibrahim ibn Jakub to 6 Anielewicz Street”, organized to mark the opening of the core exhibition of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. The Conference was jointly organized by the POLIN Museum and the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw and it took place within the framework of the Museum’s Global Education Outreach Program. Financial support was provided by the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture, the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland. 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 span- ning 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 co-existence with their neighbors. Dariusz Stola, Director of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews Paweł Śpiewak, Director of the Jewish Historical Institute. Preface his volume is made up of essays that were first presented as papers at the Tconference held in May 2015 to introduce the scholarly community to the permanent exhibition at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Nevertheless, it does not follow the usual pattern of conference publications, as the articles have been thoroughly rewritten for publication and organized in a clear thematic pattern. In the last forty-five years, tremendous progress has been made in the study of the Polish Jewish past. One clear indication of how far understanding of the Polish Jewish past has evolved was the opening in October 2014 of the perma- nent exhibition of the POLIN Museum. In May 2015, a major international con- ference was held to mark this opening. This volume contains most of the lectures which were delivered on that occasion. It is divided into two parts. The first, deal- ing with museological questions, is divided into three part, the first provides an account of what the curators were trying to achieve, the second comments on the content of the museum and the third analyzes the role of museums in popu- larizing the study of the past. The second part contains a series of articles reflect- ing the present state of the historiography of Jews on the Polish lands. These examine the pre-modern period, the nineteenth century, the interwar years, the Holocaust, and the postwar period. Making use of the leading scholars in the field from Poland, Western Europe, North America, and Israel, the volume provides a definitive overview of the history and culture