Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland 1919-1939

588 Pages·1983·15.07 MB·English

by  Joseph Marcus

Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919-1939
Studies in the Social Sciences
MOUTON PUBLISHERS · BERLIN · NEW YORK · AMSTERDAM
Social and Political History
of the Jews
in Poland, 1919-1939
Joseph Marcus
MOUTON PUBLISHERS · BERLIN · NEW YORK · AMSTERDAM
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Marcus, Joseph, 1923-
Social and political history of the Jews in
Poland, 1919-1939.
(New Babylon, studies in the social sciences; 37)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Jews-Poland-History-20th century. 2. Poland
-Ethnic relations. I. Title. II. Series.
DS135.P6M316 1983 943.8Ό04924 82-22420
ISBN 90-279-3239-5
© Copyright 1983 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. All rights reserved, including
those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form - by photoprint, microfilm, or any other means - nor transmitted nor
translated into a machine language without written permission from the publisher.
Typesetting: Asian Research Service, Hong Kong. - Printing: Druckerei Hildebrand,
Berlin. - Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. - Cover design: K. Lothar Hildebrand, Berlin.
Coverphoto: Ullstein, Berlin. Printed in Germany.
To the blessed memory
of my parents, sisters and brothers

Preface
Little more than 200 years ago, about three quarters of Europe's Jews lived
in the territory of the late Kingdom of Poland. Almost every Jew of Euro-
pean (Ashkenasi) descent, wherever he lives now, can trace his ancestry to
eighteenth-century Poland. Between the two world wars, the Jewish com-
munity in Poland was the largest in Europe, and the main cultural and re-
ligious centre of the Jewish dispersion. The obliteration of this important
Jewish community (only about 10,000 Jews still live in Poland) makes the
study of it into a study of a 'lost civilisation'. Moreover, the years covered
by this book include much of the gestation period of the state of Israel,
during which most of the effort came from Polish Jews. Indeed, the birth of
the Jewish state and the holocaust that preceded it were so close in time and
so closely related as cause and effect that they can indeed be seen as a single
monumental event in the history of the Jewish people.
Yet these are not the main reasons that make the history of the Polish-
Jewish community in the last two decades of its peaceful existence so im-
portant and uniquely interesting. For this community, although it had for
centuries shared the land with other, larger groups of people, lived in the
main a separate national life, having had for many years a firmly established
national identity and its own social organization. Towards the end, it was
fighting not merely for its civil rights, but also for its right to exist as a
national minority. For, in the wake of the national awakening, Poland had
been chosen by the Jewish leaders of the time as the testing ground for
nationalist ideas. In Poland all the main currents of nationalism were re-
presented; and, through countless parties, groups and institutions, diverse
Jewish ideologies competed for the minds and hearts of the Jewish people
and for the right to determine their future.
In Poland, although integrated into the larger whole, the Jews formed to
a large extent a separate economic entity. They even pursued, in many
respects, an economic policy of their own. And it was because of this distinct
economic and social organization (and the stimulus provided by the national-
ist movements) that the first detailed, contemporary descriptions and analysis
of Jewish economic and social activities were made in Poland.
Jewish secular historiography, which is a relatively modern creation, has
viii
been, in general, concerned exclusively with political and cultural aspects of
Jewish life. Economic and social matters have been little studied and even
less explained. The 'sociological method', which Simon Dubnov claimed to
have applied in his study of Jewish history, merely referred to the proposition
that the Jews had a social as well as a spiritual history, and that both were an
expression of Jewish nationalism. But social and, especially, economic phe-
nomena he scarcely described. Even Georg Caro, who was probably the first
to publish a synthetic economic history of the Jews in the Middle Ages,
believed that the economic history of a nation presupposes a territory and a
state of its own, and that the main task of studying Jewish economic history
is to explore the ground on which the spiritual life of the Jewish people has
taken place.1
Such views were alien to the men, who, from the beginning of the present
century, began to study economic and social aspects of the Jewish past in
Poland; to describe the present, and to debate the problems that were thereby
raised. However, the works of these men are hardly adequate. Most of them
combined their writing with political leadership; many were journalists; few
were true scholars, and even they often found their way to objective analysis
barred by the political and social pre-conceptions (mostly of the socialist
persuasion) that they shared with other commentators. Consciously or un-
consciously, almost everything they wrote or said had a political purpose,
whether it was the defence of what they individually considered to be the
Jewish national interest, or their own party's programme. They were mostly
passionate men, who greatly disliked the Jewish reality and wrote in the hope
of changing it; but their works show insufficient knowledge of contemporary
facts, due partly to inadequate sources and research. Because of the common
features they shared and for want of a better term, I propose to refer to these
leaders and writers collectively as 'social reformers' — a term which I will use
also for similar writers on Polish-Jewish affairs who lived abroad, and to those
who still today perpetuate similar views.
In fact, these leaders and writers were not true reformers. For, although
they nearly all believed that improvement of the Jewish condition can be
accomplished by reform, especially by altering the Jews' occupations, the
most influential of them sought to remodel the whole of Jewish society, by
setting up, out of harmony with existing trends, unrealistic ideals, in the light
of which they condemned both past and present Jewish standards.
As champions of the Jewish cause, at a time of great economic and political
difficulties, they mostly wrote both aggressively and plaintively, hoping to
arouse compassion for and bring help to their suffering fellow Jews. (In the
case of reports of Jewish relief organizations abroad, the style of writing was
also self-congratulatory and promotional in purpose.) Polemic and protest
took precedence over fair selection of facts. For example, while all the Re-
formers understandably emphasized the discrimination against Jews in em-
ix
ployment, one can hardly find a single mention of the fact that hundreds of
thousands of non-Jews were employed by Jews. Frequent references were
made to the inferior political status of the Jews (which was, in any case,
partly due to their leaders' internal policies) but none were made to the
superior economic status of the Jews. Likewise, the fact that, in general, the
economic and social impact the relatively small Jewish minority had on the
majority population was far greater than vice versa received no mention at all.
The focus was on the wrongs committed against the Jews and on their
sufferings, which, connected with martyrdom — the main theme of earlier
Jewish historiography — may be one of the main reasons why many young
Jews today are trying to forget the past. Yet all this is part of the Jews'
national history; and the twenty years covered by the present study,
demonstrate, apart from notable failure of the Jewish leadership and endless
tangles of party political strife, many outstanding qualities and achievements
of the Jews, particularly when comparisons are made with the remainder of
the population and when the conditions in the country they were living in
are taken into account.
This is why this book, especially in its second part, differs in approach from
that of other works on this subject, which mostly treat Jewish society and its
performance in isolation. The study of a minority population should contain
not only an account of itself, but also of the country of which it forms a part.
Otherwise, observations are incomplete and the outlook is limited. Realising
this, I have tried first to see the Jews within the context of Poland as a whole,
and to explain the conditions in which they lived and the main problems
which they faced within this context. When necessary, I have referred to
earlier periods, to establish the relevant facts, and only then have I tried to
interpret them.
To obtain reliable information on the extent of Jewish participation in the
economy, I have referred to the available statistics and to independent esti-
mates. Ample use of such information, even at the risk of deterring some
readers, was absolutely necessary if I was to expose errors, combat received
ideas, destroy legends, and suggest a possible course of studying some other
Jewish communities. The statistics cannot show the qualitative and dynamic
effects of the Jewish contribution to the economy; but I have tried, though
perhaps insufficiently, to evaluate these effects. The priority I have given, in
general, to economics is not because it is my own profession, but because I
wished to give more weight to an aspect of Jewish history that is usually
neglected. Moreover, economic developments during the critical period this
book deals with largely determined the political situation of the Jews and
their relations with the Poles. This relationship, too, is dealt with, although it
receives less attention than internal aspects of Jewish politics and society.
While the social part of this book is largely based on original research (my
χ
attempt to estimate the national income of a territorially scattered minority
group is, perhaps, the first of its kind), the political part of the book relies
mainly on a large number of specialist books, articles and reports, including
many published at the time in newspapers and periodicals. For the latter, I
have relied largely on summaries which appeared at the time in the periodical
Sprawy Narodowosciowe (Minority Questions).2 I am well aware that
reliance on such sources poses problems with regard to the selection of facts
and the way of presenting them in such summaries, and I am also aware of
my boldness in undertaking, without specific historical training, to write on
these questions. But the social issues are so often closely related to the
political ones, and the subject is of such importance, that my decision is, I
hope, justified. To rely on the press as an historical source is not without
precedent, and in the present case there are no original documents available
(there may be some in archives in Poland, but these are not accessible to out-
siders). Also, because so few Jews remain in Poland and the number outside
Poland who speak Polish is rapidly declining, the number of people able and
willing to write an historical account on the present theme is certain to
become fewer and fewer.
What I have mainly tried to do is to present the material truthfully and, as
far as it is consciously possible, impartially, presenting both sides to each
argument, and concentrating on the major Jewish issues and events. If on
some issues, I have added interpretation and comment, I trust I have provided
ample and varied references to enable the reader to follow up the subject, and
confirm or correct my conclusions.
In any case, this book makes no claim to be more than an outline history,
if only because it leaves out religion and culture — i.e., the very special world
of Polish Jews, which, to do justice to the subject, would require a book to
itself. The thoughtful reader will, doubtless, notice other omissions.
The frequent mention of other people's works prompts me to express my
debt to these authors (referred to in notes and in the bibliography at the
end of the book), and I especially wish to pay tribute to the pioneering effort
of the Jewish Reformers. Although, on many questions, I join issue with the
views they held and imposed on the public, I readily acknowledge the extent
to which their research and writing has added to my knowledge. I am no
less indebted to the staffs of the various libraries through which I obtained all
this material, most particularly the staff of the British Library, without whose
courteous help this book could not have been completed.
My acknowledgements and thanks are also due to Mrs. Hanka Epstein, of
Tel-Aviv, who generously allowed me to read the interesting, but as yet un-
published, memoirs of her late father.3 Dr. Charles Feinstein, Professor at
the University of York, kindly read the key Chapter 4 and the appendix
attached to it, and made some valuable comments. But the sole responsibility