anti-Jewish Violence Research Articles

Introduction

Introduction Glenn Dynner (bio) In a major scholarly intervention, "away from a definition of anti-semitism: An Essay in the Semantics of Historical Description," David Engel warns of "the hazards of imprecise and irresponsible terminology" found in many works dealing with anti-Jewish violence and derogatory representations of Jews. If everything is "antisemitism" then nothing is "antisemitism," Engel argues; the term loses both "clarity and utility."1 Engel's essay was quite a bombshell—after all, the term is invoked regularly not only in scholarship, but in the titles and mission statements of national and international institutions. Should they even use the term at all? Yet the authors of Key Concepts in the Study of Antisemitism do not appear defensive. Instead, they attempt to answer Engel's critique with precision and responsibility, each author taking up a single aspect of the concept without necessarily defining the whole. We behold a multifaceted antisemitism in which each facet possesses its own complicated history. The current book forum reflects on their approach. Some participants laud the authors' attempts to thematize, historicize, and link up single facets of antisemitism with other concepts. Others draw attention to major lacunae and begin to redress them here. All seem to agree that, thanks to the efforts of Engel and the editors of Key Concepts, new thinking has emerged about one of the most taken-for-granted concepts in the field of Jewish studies. Glenn Dynner Glenn Dynner is the Carl and Dorothy Bennett Professor of Judaic Studies and Director of the Bennett Center at Fairfield University. He is author of "Men of Silk": The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society (Oxford, 2006) and Yankel's Tavern: Jews, Liquor and Life in the Kingdom of Poland (Oxford, 2014). He has been a Fulbright scholar, a member of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, NEH Senior Scholar, and a Guggenheim Fellow. NOTES 1. Cohen, "Introduction," 7. BIBLIOGRAPHY Cohen, Jeremy. "Introduction." In Rethinking European Jewish History, edited by Jeremy Cohen and Moshe Rosman, 1–12. Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2009. https://doi.org/10.3828/liverpool/9781904113560.003.0003. Google Scholar Engel, David. "Away from a Definition of Antisemitism: An Essay in the Semantics of Historical Description." In Rethinking European Jewish History, edited by Jeremy Cohen and Moshe Rosman, 30–53. Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2009. Google Scholar Copyright © 2022 Purdue University

Odzyskanie niepodległości w świetle prowincjalnej prasy jidysz. Listopad 1918 r. na łamach dziennika „Lubliner Tugblat”

The aim of the article is to present the attitude of the provincial Yiddish press (based on the example of the Lublin daily „Lubliner Tugblat”) towards regaining independence and forming Polish statehood in November 1918. It discusses both the news content of the title newspaper (focused mainly on local events) and its opinion journalism (concerning almost exclusively national matters) separately. The daily reported on various stages of regaining independence from a strictly Jewish perspective, focusing primarily on matters related to security issues, collective anti-Jewish violence trundling through the country, as well as the role and place of the Jewish community in the reborn state. The newspaper’s attitude to the events of November 1918 went through three distinct phases: recognition, struggle and disappointment, but the constant determinant of its narration was the conviction, taken from folkist ideology, that Jews constitute a separate nation, pursuing an independent policy, expecting from the newly formed state to ensure equal rights to them and, in the longer term, grant them national and cultural autonomy.

Trade, Jews, and the Soviet Economy in Western Belorussia, 1939–1941

Abstract An analysis of Soviet economic and social policy in Western Belorussia between 1939 and 1941 illustrates the changing social status of one-time Jewish merchants—thus shedding light on how Sovietization influenced interethnic relations prior to, and during, the Holocaust. The author observes that Soviet economic transformation was self-defeating in nature, causing an artificial economic crisis that exacerbated interethnic tensions. The socio-economic situation that emerged in 1939–1941 thus contributed to the outbreak of anti-Jewish violence after the German invasion.

Challenging antisemitism in history and today

ABSTRACT Renton reviews McGeever's analysis of the Bolshevik encounter with antisemitism in 1917. He argues that McGeever's narrative builds on insights which were already in the public domain, while acknowledging that McGeever takes the story further by showing that anti-Jewish violence was more pervasive than previously understood. He argues that the rise at the same moment of both revolutionary sentiment and racist prejudice is not a phenomenon restricted to 1917, but is a recurring feature of British and European history. He notes that the heroic figures in McGeever's narrative stood at an intermediary position between Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and internationalism (Marxism), and argues that this was a recurring position within Jewish politics, as discernible in the 1940s as it had been in 1917. He suggests that further research might well elucidate the contribution of other ethnic minorities whose most principled fighters also occupied a similar position mid-way between nationalism and internationalism.

Antisemitism, anti-capitalism, and anti-imperialism

ABSTRACT This work offers an analysis of Brendan McGeever’s provocative yet brilliant Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution. This analysis focuses on the paradoxical tensions between Bolshevik anti-capitalist politics and Soviet anti-imperialism, in relation to the phenomena of antisemitism and mass anti-Jewish violence in Civil War-torn Ukraine.

The Accusation: Blood Libel in an American Town by Edward Berenson

Reviewed by: The Accusation: Blood Libel in an American Town by Edward Berenson Joel Streicker (bio) The Accusation: Blood Libel in an American Town By Edward Berenson. W. W. Norton & Co., 2019. 271 pp. When four-year-old Barbara Griffiths disappeared in the woods outside the upstate New York town of Massena on September 22, 1928, a rumor spread that she had been kidnapped by Jews intent on ritual murder. There is something mercifully anticlimactic about the recent book on the incident by Edward Berenson, a distinguished professor of history at New York University. The case drew national attention for a bit more than a week, occasioned widespread national support for the town's Jews among their co-ethnics and non-Jews alike, and has been mostly forgotten except by the area's dwindling Jewish population and their descendants, of whom Berenson is one. Perhaps most remarkable is that the accusation was leveled at all: it is the only known case of blood libel in American history. Given the uniqueness of the case, Berenson focuses mainly on explaining the historical circumstances giving rise to the Massena accusation. This requires a deep dive. Relying heavily on the work of Israel Yuval and David Nirenberg, he ably explores the genesis and significance of the blood libel in medieval Europe in the context of the Catholic Church's new (in 1215, that is) dogma of transubstantiation, the claim that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are literally—not merely metaphorically—the body and blood of Christ. Fascination with blood in that era, and the widely held notion that Jews engaged in satanic rituals involving cannibalism, also played a role. The miracles of Mary took on new importance in this era, with Jesus widely depicted as an infant in stories, paintings, and sculpture. This contributed to the notion that Jews sacrificed Christian children as a symbolic means of killing Christ. Moreover, Jews' supposed propensity for the ritual murder of children was, in Christian eyes, given credence by reports of Jewish fathers who killed their own children to prevent them from conversion at the hands of [End Page 287] Crusaders in the eleventh century. In some of these accounts, the murders were said to have taken the form of ritual sacrifice to atone for sins. While Jewish interpreters saw these as praiseworthy acts of martyrdom (many of these men were reported to have committed suicide after killing their children), they also disposed many Christians to believe Jews capable of murdering children. From these origins, Berenson traces blood libel and the anti-Jewish violence it generated through the modernera and, in an epilogue, to our ownday. The idea of blood libel never took root in America. Berenson attributes this to the dominance of Protestantism, which lacks a belief in transubstantiation, never developed a cult of Mary and baby Jesus, and, of course, postdates the Crusades. The author takes great pains to recount the antisemitism plaguing nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American society. However, antisemitism did not, by and large, result in anti-Jewish violence. When violence did occur, such as the lynching of Leo Frank, it did not take the form of blood libel. So why Massena? And who was behind the accusation? Here Berenson's account is swift, succinct, and convincing. He provides a brief history of the town's rise as an industrial center near the Canadian border, relying on mostly Catholic immigrant labor from Europe and, especially, Quebec. There is no hard evidence as to who actually started the rumor that Barbara Griffiths had been kidnapped by Jews for ritual murder, but many townspeople credited (or later blamed) an unnamed French Canadian immigrant. Others claimed that volunteer firefighters associated with the Ku Klux Klan, which was experiencing a revival in the area (and nationally), had spread the rumor. Timing here is everything. Berenson makes a case that Quebecois workers likely were behind the accusation. Quebec had, for decades and at that very moment, an active antisemitic press with clear connections to European antisemitism, which was ascendant on the Continent. Moreover, the United States was in the midst of a divisive presidential campaign. Drawing on decades of antagonism toward Catholic and Jewish immigrants...

ЄВРЕЙСЬКІ ПОГРОМИ КІНЦЯ ХІХ – ПОЧАТКУ ХХ СТ. У СУЧАСНІЙ УКРАЇНСЬКІЙ ІСТОРІОГРАФІЇ

The article analyzes modern tendencies in Ukrainian historiography of XIX – and early XX century Jewish pogroms. General works on the history of Ukraine, special works devoted to anti-Jewish violence, and the study of the similar problems, that has been published in the last two decades, are considered. The general context of works, their sources, previous researches influence, conclusions of which the authors came, etc. are analyzed. Reading the intelligence on the pogroms, we can see, that the pogroms were largely the result of modernization, internal migration, the relocation to Ukraine of workers from the Russian provinces of the Romanov Empire and so on. Pogroms are also viewed in the context of social and revolutionary movements. That is, the violence, according to researchers, led to the emergence of Zionism. Also, Jews were actively involved to the left movement, while falling victim to extreme Russian nationalists and chauvinists - the Black Hundreds. We have special works dedicated to the pogroms of the first and second waves, which, however, are not so many. Their authors find out the causes and consequences of the pogroms, the significance of violence for the Jewish community and Ukrainian-Jewish relations, the attitude of the authorities and society to these acts of violence, and so on. Some Ukrainian historians research the problem of pogroms on various issues. Among them are works on the history of Jews from different regions of Ukraine, communities of individual cities, Ukraine as a whole; the history of the Ukrainian peasantry, the monarchical and Black Hundred movement in Ukraine, the revolutionary events of 1905-1907, migration processes in Ukrainian lands, the formation of modern nations, the life and work of prominent figures and more. The authors conduct full-fledged research using a wide source base, including archival materials, which, however, are often factual in nature. This is a disadvantage, because historians are "captured" by the sources on which they rely. We also have conceptual research that refers to a broad historiography of the problem, including foreign. These works often draw the reader's attention to a broader - the imperial, modernization or migration context. It is important, that researchers see actors of Ukrainian history in the Jewish population. Because of this, they are much less interested in the future of the Jews who left the Ukrainian lands than in the researchers of Jewish history.

Shevirat Ha-Kelim: Jewish Mysticism and the Catalan Matrix for Dialogue and Conflict

AbstractLate Medieval anti-Jewish violence is a well-known phenomenon, but its origins and institutionalization are still blurred and enigmatic. In thirteenth and fourteenth century Catalonia, the denouement of the increasing popular hostility against the Jewry was particularly dramatic. The seeds of violence were the result of a long and complex process of social, theological and political interactions. In this contribution, we will discuss the intellectual matrix of medieval anti-Semitism in Catalonia and its relationship with the rising of scholastics and with the theoretical foundations of Catalan politics. We will also approach its counterpart: the Jewish response to collective suffering.

When the Fires Were Lit: Anti-Jewish Violence in Eastern Europe, 1917–45

When the Fires Were Lit: Anti-Jewish Violence in Eastern Europe, 1917–45

Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1914–1920 William Hagen

Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1914–1920 William Hagen

Recent Public Discourses on Anti-Jewish Violence in Moldovan History, 1991–2019

Abstract Efforts to commemorate the victims of the 1903 Chişinǎu (Kishinev) pogrom and the Holocaust in Bessarabia and Transnistria have achieved varying degrees of success in the Republic of Moldova. Gaining public recognition for these experiences has proven a convoluted process. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the local Community has led an enduring memorialization campaign, which has steadily evolved with the shifting political climate. Though Community representatives have at times had a fraught relationship with Moldovan officials, they have continuously sought official acknowledgment of their efforts. This article analyzes how both the government and the Jewish Community have handled memory in public spaces and the local media of Chişinǎu.

William W. Hagen. Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1914–1920.

William W. Hagen. Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1914–1920.

Crossing the Line: Violence against Jewish Women and the New Model of Antisemitism in Poland in the 1930s

This article examines anti-Jewish violence in the Second Polish Republic through the lens of gender. By focusing on verbal and physical attacks against female Jewish students at Polish universities in the 1930s, it highlights the radicalization of the antisemitic movement among Poland’s future elite. Jewish women experienced discrimination and increasingly also violence at Polish universities as Jews and as women. The assaults suggest the need to examine both gender and Jewish differences. Although all Jewish students were targets of violent antisemitic attacks, women were especially vulnerable when they dared transgress gender boundaries by acting in “unfeminine ways” and signifying their intellectual empowerment—talking back, resisting, or defending Jewish men under attack. Indeed, Jewish women who stood up to their attackers transgressed the norms of both gender and Jewishness, and were thus doubly exposed to aggression and violence. Using the contemporary Jewish press, university archives, memoirs and testimonies, the female Jewish experience and the response of male Jewish students and community activists are reconstructed. Understanding these assaults as a window into gender politics in Jewish student associations, the Jewish press and Jewish communal institutions, the author examines their place in the public discourse of the Second Polish Republic.

The Pandemic, Antisemitism, and the Lachrymose Conception of Jewish History

The Pandemic, Antisemitism, and the Lachrymose Conception of Jewish History Magda Teter (bio) On April 18, 2020 a protest against lockdowns enacted to stop the spread of COVID-19 took place at the Ohio Statehouse. 1 The protestors waved Trump banners and yellow Tea Party "Don't Tread on Me" flags, and they held signs reading "Open Ohio" or "Open My County." Among protesters were some with antisemitic signs. Some spotted signs depicting a blue rat with a star of David and a caption "The Real Plague." Soon, conspiracies around George Soros, the Hungarian-born Jewish American philanthropist and a Holocaust survivor, began to circulate in far-right circles. 2 This has come on the heels of the upsurge of antisemitic attacks that have intensified in the US since 2016, leading to responses in op-eds, blog posts, and reports that almost invariably make sweeping statements about Jewish history and antisemitism. "COVID-19, like any crisis in history since the inception of the Jewish people, will ignite a wave of antisemitism," wrote Michael Laitman on the online platform JewishBoston.com. 3 NPR reported: "American Jews are finding themselves in a historically familiar position: Scapegoated for a plague." 4 "All of this can feel medieval," wrote Aviya Kushner in The Forward. 5 Many of the articles refer to the premodern era, with the Black Death, which peaked in western Europe in 1348–49, and the persecution of Jews that followed repeatedly becoming a focal point of their examples. Aviya Kushner homed in on the word "burning." Brian [End Page 20] Schrauger, in The Jerusalem Post, discussed Jews being "slaughtered," "murdered," "bludgeoned to death, herded into houses to be burned alive en masse, stripped naked and marched to a collective massacre," before asking "Could COVID-19 ignite an outbreak of antisemitism?" 6 Dan Freedman, in Moment Magazine, sought to explain "why Jews were blamed for the Black Death"; doing so, he too repeated the language of persecution by highlighting "episodes of violence," "slaughter," "burning," "torture," and more. 7 Although Freedman did not answer the question asked, the answer seems implicit in the vocabulary he employed. Even before the COVID-19 crisis, recent acts of antisemitic violence, including shootings and stabbings, have prompted widespread responses. In their discussions of the issue, members of the news media and Jewish community leaders alike commonly cite the string of anti-Jewish attacks that have occurred in recent years in the United States—in Pittsburgh, Poway, and Brooklyn. Commentators analyzing the December 2019 Hanukkah attack in Monsey, New York commonly referred back to these and other recent cases of anti-Jewish violence to emphasize the rise of antisemitic violence. 8 A headline to Deborah Lipstadt's piece published in The Atlantic following the Monsey attack declared: "Jews Are Going Underground." 9 The intention of these media articles has been to combat antisemitism by pleading that we learn lessons from the past. Yet, the act of recounting horrifying violence underscores the dangerously narrow context of news about Jews and the limited common vocabulary deployed in such reports about past and contemporary events alike—a vocabulary that has been marked, not without good reasons, by the language of persecution. But the relentless repetition of the language of violence does nothing to explain the cause of such anti-Jewish violence. It only suggests to the public that Jews have always been hated by others, with no alternative offered. Showing that kind of persistent hatred does not answer the "why" and thus does not provide readers with tools to combat this hatred. In fact, it may do the opposite; it may encourage hatred and violence as evidenced by the fact that some of the perpetrators of anti-Jewish attacks today have been known to have Googled questions like, for example, "Why Did Hitler Hate Jews?" 10 The current popular writing about American Jews in the era of the pandemic (and Trump) feels eerily like Leidensgeschichte (the history of suffering), but without the Gelehrtengeschichte (the history of learning) that was equally a hallmark of much nineteenth-century Jewish historiography. [End Page 21] The narrow vocabulary used in public media is not just descriptive. It has a longer and darker history that is...

After the Black Death: Plague and Commemoration among Iberian Jews by Susan L. Einbinder

Reviewed by: After the Black Death: Plague and Commemoration among Iberian Jews by Susan L. Einbinder François Soyer Einbinder, Susan L., After the Black Death: Plague and Commemoration among Iberian Jews (Middle Ages Series), Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018; hardback; pp. 240; 4 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US$69.95, £54.00; ISBN 9780812250312. The great pandemic that swept across Europe in the fourteenth century and killed millions, earning itself the grim name of ‘the Black Death’, has been the object of many studies in recent decades. Those historians who have examined the effects of the plague on the Jewish communities scattered across Western Europe have tended to focus on the antisemitic accusation that Jews caused the plague by poisoning wells, and the massacres and trials that it provoked. The actual impact of the epidemic on Jewish communities has been neglected, and it is this significant oversight that Susan Einbinder endeavours to address in this book by using a variety of sources of information: documentary, literary, medical, and archaeological. The first chapter (pp. 14–31) provides historical context that will be useful to readers unfamiliar with the history of medieval Jews in the fourteenth century prior to the outbreak of the plague in 1348, especially attacks on Jews in the 1320s. The [End Page 205] following four chapters all focus on a different type of primary evidence and seek to highlight what it can reveal about the impact of the plague on various Iberian Jewish communities. The second chapter (pp. 32–56) analyses the commemorative liturgical lament (qinah) of Emanuel ben Joseph, comparing it with other extant laments and noting the absence of calls for revenge and its emphasis on faith and penitence. Moving on, the third chapter (pp. 57–87) focuses on writings of a very different nature: a medical tractate on the plague authored around 1349 by Abraham Caslari. Beyond its medical nature, Einbinder argues that aspects of the work offer important evidence on religious and social reactions to the epidemic. Contrasting the work with similar Christian ones, Einbinder notes the absence of expressions of communal trauma in the work. The fourth chapter (pp. 88–116), appropriately entitled ‘Stone of Memory’, examines surviving tombstone epitaphs related to plague mortality in Toledo (Castile, central Spain). It notes the absence of evidence in these texts of anti-Jewish violence in Toledo itself and argues that ‘the range of imagery and narrative formats’ in them ‘maintain an individuality and elegance even as they grapple with multiple deaths among families and friends’. Once again, we are left not so much with a sense of a collective trauma but ‘a range of religious and cultural outlooks’. Finally, the fifth chapter (pp. 117–47) analyses the grisly evidence of an attack on the Jewish community of the town of Cervera (Catalonia) in 1348 found in a mass grave and self-perception in the ‘survivors’ literature’ that was produced in the aftermath of the outbreak of anti-Jewish violence. The book ends not with a conclusion but with a useful appendix, containing translations from Hebrew into English of the epitaphs carved in the tombstones of Jewish plague victims in Toledo. In this volume, Einbinder has sought to argue that the great plague of the late 1340s was not as cataclysmic for the cohesion of Iberian Jewish communities as it might have been thought. Anti-Jewish violence was not a general phenomenon (it occurred in Aragon but not in Castile) and it did not cause a ‘crisis of faith’ amongst Iberian Jews. The variety of sources studied constitutes not only one of the major strengths of this book but also its principal weakness, since the quantity of evidence remains limited and this correspondingly limits the scope of Einbinder’s conclusions. The absence of a concluding chapter underscores the fact that this volume reads more like a collection of independent articles than an integrated work or monograph. Overall, the argument seems to remain tentative and more research will be needed to buttress it. Nevertheless, this book offers a valuable scholarly contribution to our existing knowledge of the impact of the Black Death on Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula. As the coronavirus pandemic...

The end of War, the end of persecution? Post-World War II collective anti-Jewish violence in Slovakia

Contrary to the previous political regime of the Slovak state (1939–1945), official policy had significantly changed in the renewed Czechoslovakia after the end of World War II, but anti-Jewish sentiments and even their brachial demonstrations somewhat framed the everyday reality of Jewish survivors who were returning to their homes from liberated concentration camps or hiding places. Their attempts to reintegrate into the society where they had used to live regularly came across intolerance, hatred and social exclusion, further strengthened by classical anti-Semitic stereotypes and prejudices. Desired capitulation of Nazi Germany and its satellites resulted also in the end of systematic Jewish extermination, but it did not automatically lead to a peaceful everyday life. This paper focuses on the social dynamics between Slovak majority society and the decimated Jewish minority in the first post-World War II years and analyses some crucial factors, particular motivations and circumstances of the selected acts of collective anti-Jewish violence in Slovakia. Moreover, the typological diversity of the specific collective atrocities will be discussed.

ПЕРЕЖИТИ ГОЛОКОСТ У СХІДНІЙ ГАЛИЧИНІ: АКЦІЇ ПОРЯТУНКУ ГРЕКО-КАТОЛИЦЬКОЇ ЦЕРКВИ У СВІДЧЕННЯХ РАБИНА ДАВИДА КАГАНЕ ТА КУРТА ЛЕВІНА

Східна Галичина, що входила до складу Другої Речі Посполитої в міжвоєнний період, була приєднана до Радянського Союзу у вересні 1939 р. Розпад Польської держави та подальша німецька окупація Галичини (1941–1944 рр.) спричинили напругу у відносинах між основними етнічними групами регіону – українцями, поляками та євреями.
 Більшість українців у Східній Галичині належали до Української греко-католицької церкви (УГКЦ), очолюваної митрополитом Андреєм Шептицьким. Намагаючись відвернути антиєврейське насильство, глава УГКЦ звертався до уряду недовговічної Української держави, нацистської влади, греко-католицького духовенства та пастви. Пастирські листи Шептицького «Про милосердя» (червень 1942 р.) та «Не вбий» (листопад 1942 р.) містять непрямі висловлювання проти Голокосту. До того ж щонайменше 200 єврейських чоловіків, жінок і дітей пережили Другу світову війну завдяки ініціативам порятунку митрополита Андрея Шептицького, його брата Климентія Шептицького – настоятеля Унівської лаври, та їхнього оточення. Серед врятованих були представники двох рабинських родин у Львові, а саме доктора Езекіїля Левіна – рабина прогресивної синагоги Львова, та рабина Давида Кагане. Якщо рабин Левін, його дружина та молодший син загинули під час Голокосту, то його два старших сини, Курт і Натан, а також рабин Давид Кагане разом із дружиною та дочкою були врятовані митрополитом Шептицьким та греко-католицькими монахами Студійського уставу.
 У цій статті розглянуто ініціативи порятунку євреїв з боку представників греко-католицької ієрархії та монахів-студитів крізь призму розповідей врятованих. Дослідження ґрунтується насамперед на «Щоденнику львівського гетто» Давида Кагане, а також на спогадах Курта Левіна, документах із колекції Відділу Праведників народів світу в Яд Вашем у Єрусалимі та інтерв’ю Левіна з Архіву візуальної історії Фонду Шоа Університету Південної Каліфорнії.
 Метою статті є дослідити ініціативи порятунку братів Шептицьких та монахів-студитів під час німецької окупації Галичини (1941–1944 рр.) через спогади і розповіді в его-документах тих, хто пережив Голокост.
 Ключові слова: Греко-Католицька Церква, Голокост, порятунок євреїв, митрополит Шептицький, студити, Східна Галичина.

Poland? But which? Jewish Political Attitudes toward the Polish State in Formation during World War I

What kind of country are we talking about when we speak of Poland from the perspective of the organized Jewish political leadership in Poland? What should the scope and characteristics of the new Polish state in their view be? What kind of relations should Poland have with neighbouring states, as well as within, among its various populations and societies? The paper explores the changing answers given by different political Jewish leadership in a period of liminality – the interval between two stages and two distinct situations: the imperial order (Austrian and Russian) and the Polish national state. It examines Galicia and the Congress Poland from 1914 to 1918 when the territory was disputed among different empires and nations and its fate was far from clear. The article claims that the different visions of Poland presented by the Jewish leadership were grounded in two assumptions. The first was that the Jews as an integral part of society were legitimately entitled to express their own vision of the future state, the second – that the Jews, as an integral part of society, were entitled to equality on all levels of social life. That is the reason, the article claims, behind the demands for a fair distribution of the state’s resources regardless the mother tongue, religion, or ethno-national identification. The efforts the leaders of the Polish Jewry made to include the Jews as a minority group equal to others in the Polish state took place in the framework of the ethno-national ethos as the constitutive principle of state-building. The changing political circumstances and the growing hegemonic discourse based on the nation and nationality brought, claims the article, to the raising of a new Jewish national leadership during World War I. This leadership became convinced that, in the light of the discriminatory policies and growing anti-Jewish violence, only a mechanism of minority rights could guarantee Jewish existence in Poland.

Survivor Testimonies and the Coming to Terms with the Holocaust in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia: The Case of the Ukrainian Nationalists

The question, if and to what extent the Ukrainian nationalists murdered Jews in Volhynia and eastern Galicia during the Holocaust, has haunted Jewish and Ukrainian communities in various countries of the Western world during the entire Cold War. It also puzzled German historians of Eastern Europe and Nazi Germany. Historians, although in theory responsible for investigating and clarifying such difficult aspects of the past, have for various reasons not investigated them or they investigated only other aspects of the Holocaust in Ukraine. This article briefly explains how factions of the Ukrainian diaspora invented a narrative that portrayed Ukrainian nationalists as anti-German and anti-Soviet freedom fighters who did not kill or harm any Jews during the German occupation of Ukraine. In the next step, it shows how testimonies and other sorts of documents left by survivors from Volhynia and eastern Galicia can help historians understand the role that ordinary Ukrainians and the OUN and UPA played in the Shoah in western Ukraine. Finally, it asks why it took Ukrainian, German, Polish, Russian, and other historians so many years to investigate and comprehend the anti-Jewish violence of the Ukrainian nationalists, if relevant documents were collected and made accessible as early as in the middle 1940s.

‘Universal Freedom’ and the Balfour declaration: watershed moments for radical Jewish politics

ABSTRACTThe end of the First World War brought both a nationalist transformation of political space and discourse in East-Central Europe, as well as a revolutionary wave, originating in Russia, that radically challenged the existing order. The article analysis how Jewish-national activists saw these developments as opportunities and challenges and aimed to become part in the shaping of a new world. Concentrating primarily on the discussions and political practices of the socialist-Zionist Poale Zion movement, it intends to expand the discussion over the supposed triumph of nationalism in the context of the ‘Wilsonian moment’ at the end of the First World War, asking in what form the communist promise of universal freedom represented a viable alternative. As the British Balfour Declaration lead to a supposed awakening of Palestine-oriented feelings of national belonging, the revolution represented a counter-proposal for emancipation in Central and Eastern Europe in the experience of many activists. The article follows a number of Jewish revolutionary activists looking at how their framework of political practices determined how they perceived the dual promises of national and social liberation and what consequences they drew from this. Where circumstances allowed a close cooperation between them and the wider labour movement – both in respect to revolutionary policies and defence against anti-Jewish violence – activists tended to progressively reject concepts of national unity and perceived the fate of the Jewish working class to be bound to that of the communist movement; a number of them subsequently began rejecting concepts of national belonging and national politics. The article analyzes at how this process was understood and discussed by both the radicals and their opponents, who often interpreted this revolutionary activism as a rejection of the nation as such.