Jewish love towards Poles

Jidish was language of Polish Jews, and Jews who couldnt speak Polish were form towns (mainly eastern Poland) where Jews were majority and simple didn't need to speak Polish.

I understand that, but how long had they been in Poland?

it was language of German Jews who came to Poland in 1098 (first jews in Poland)

So some Jews had been in Poland since 1098 and still didn't know how to speak in Polish?

I dont know if particulary this jews couldnt speak Polish they rather spoken both because they were in miority. This language appeared in Poland in 1098 and later in places where Jews were majority they were speaking only their language some of them couldnt speak Polish at all.

yiddish you meant...
Yiddish is one of the many jewish languages used among Polish Jews (or Ashkhenazi Jews-the term that gives us wider specification of this group).
Regarding the newest research it is said that Jews had come to the Slavic territory about two centuries before year 1098...

I didn't think any individuals lived that long.
Hang about - Methuselah managed 969 years, so it may be possible. You know what it's like when you mean to do something, but just keep putting it off and putting it off. "I'll start learning Polish soon - I've just got to finish reading this book and cook a bit of dinner first." I know the feeling.

I wouldnt be so sure, but maybe.

I didn't want to demonise this part of society, but in towns where jews were +80% of citizens it was normal that some of them spoke only yiddish (thank you for english version) Theories about that Jews were only religous group are wrong it was another nation in our Commonwealth later in second Republic of Poland.

There is saying in Polish about Polish-Jewish realtonships : "Nie żyliśmy razem ,a obok siebie" "We weren't living together but side by side"

after lets say 800 years of living together there are some noticable connections between our cultures some customs some traditions but it is history. From the other hand there is more and more religous Jews in Poland so maybe it was only 60 years break in this realtionship.

Form other distinct nations in our country we have only muslim Tatars their history is very interesting as well. All in all 600 years together.

They flocked out of Poland? Really? Were these Polish laws they were escaping? You seem very selective in your interpretation of history. When that happens you can no longer consider yourself a student of history, but a pawn of propaganda.


First of all, Jews were invited to Poland much earlier than that. You are wrong by about 200 years. Second, Jews of Spain, England or Germany would have loved to have their own ghettos. They were not allowed to. I Poland they were allowed to live wherever they wanted. They enjoyed the same, and in some cases, better personal rights than native Poles of lower social strata.

Besides, I don't really understand your attacks on the alleged attrocities against Jews if you yourself cannot refrain from displaying such blatant anti-semitism.

That is the problem of modern Western Europeans, they dont want to listen. Look on France and arab ghettos there, or in some parts of English towns where English people are in miniority and as I know there are some tensions. We were miniority in our country as well. Maybe they should listen what we want to say because it seams that they will be miniority in UK or France as well. I m absolutly not sugesting that they should get rid of them, but maybe they should listen to us and take the best of our solutions and avoid some mistakes. For example Tatars are the best example of succesful assimilation of distinct muslim society in our country ... and if Germans hadn't invided Poland we would have about lets say 5 mln Jewish society here.

as to history of WWII imagine yourself that sb invade UK or France and wants to kill all muslims there. For helping muslims is death penalty for whole family and generaly they kill natives as well. Of course majority is against but I think they would find some collaborators.

what kind of expireince do they have ? 50 years ? 60 years ? and some terrorists are young people born in UK or France who dont know any other country but feel rejected by society ...

:) Yes, you're right - a very clumsily put question!
What I meant was whether these Jewish families managed to survive for centuries without learning the Polish language. How did they managed to cut themselves off from their host society for so long and so thoroughly? It is particularly interesting because this non-acceptance of the host society could be quite upsetting for the locals, I’d imagine! It is psychologically unhealthy all round.

There is a similarity to certain Pakistani communities in England where the children born in the UK speak English with a strong foreign accent which is as strong as that of their parents who were born in Pakistan! This is a worrying sign of non-acceptance of the UK and a creation of an enclave mentality which could (already has) lead to dangerous decisions.

While it was night time here in Israel, you've all had a very interesting discussion. I agree that there was vicious antisemitism in Western Europe before there was any in Poland. Just look at the crusades or the inquisition. That's why Jews migrated over centuries Eastward. When eastern europe was developing the kings wanted Jews to come because it gave them an instant middle class of traders business people and craftsmen. They gave Jews relatively good conditions. When Polish magnates settled ukraine they also brought in Jews to manage estates and that led to communities of Jewish craftsmen and traders to service the new settlements. But that doesn't mean that the general Polish or ukrainian populace were happy about this policy. Townsmen felt threatened by Jewish competition. The church felt threatened or scandalized by the presence of Jews. So Poland was officially good to the Jews in the early centuries, but that doesn't mean that the Poles liked the Jews. Jews and Poles lived "side by side" like two families living in the same house, speaking different languages and following different religions. As the much smaller of the two families, the Jews got kicked around. Particularly when Polish national consciousness grew and excluded the Jews of Poland. (The French, British or Germans didn't like jews any more than Poles did, but their national consciousness grew in a period when there were hardly any Jews there.)

So why did Jews stay in Poland if it was so bad there? Out of interia. People generally stay in the place they were born no matter the conditions. Poland had such a strong and lively Jewish civilization that, with all it's problems, it was till looked at as the best place for a Jew if he wanted to live as a Jew. My greatgrandfather left poland to america in 1890. But after a few years in New York they went back to poland because he said "America is no place for a Jew." The Russians helped to change his mind and they left again about 10 years later.

GG Grand fathers name was Bacon so I take umbridge at people constantly targeting jews for this and that...


Didnt you mention somewhere that you were of jewish decent or are you forgetting that or are you just a mental person!


You mean the every day person or the politicians?

I am pretty sure many have read this article, but I still post it anyway:
Adam Michnik "On what Poles and Jews don't like to remember"
polishpress.wordpress.com/category/people/adam-michnik/
I have not found an article that is truer about the relationship between Jews and Poles in Poland. Admire the backbone of the man too, resolutely be Jewish among anti-Jewish and Polish among anti-Polish!

That's something that's interesting to me. I'd like to know more about customs and traditions that Poles and Jews have in common. I know we both drink Borscht but we spell it differently. We also eat potato pirogen. How about gefilte fish - carp stuffed with chopped fish - Do Poles eat that too? Stuffed cabbage (with chopped meat and rice)? Braided bread (called challah in hebrew-yiddish)?

Maybe we can't resolve historical issues, but we can eat.

It would be nice to do both - nice and possible.

This is making me hungry. I'm going out to lunch. See you later.

If you ignore Michnik's tendency to built his own legend, then this article is not that bad. Of course he did not mention Jewish influence on communism , otherwise he would need to condemn his own family. He was a Trockist himself, so he was not anti-communist like one could think reading this article, rather anti Communist Party policy.

I don't think the word "developing" can be applied to Middle ages as it is applied today. Technology and agriculture were pretty much uniform throughoout Europe at the time. The same manual ways for centuries. People emigrate because there is a promise of money or freedom. Somehow I don't see Jews, or any other nationalities for that matter, emigratin en masse to any of the African countries which certainly are classified as developing ones. Jews moved to Poland because Poland's laws guaranteed to them condition they could have not even dream about in Western Europe.


The Church was the Church, not a country. Its politices were pretty similar in all of Europe, except that in Poland the kings overrode some of the most harmful ones and thus allowed Jews to survive for centuries. You can't use the policies of Rome (strongly dominanted by German Emperors) against Polish Church specifically.


That started when Poland lost independence and laws of the land were no longer decided by Poles. Although not commendable, this is a fairly common behavior for nations struggling with their identity being endangered by foreigners. Look at the attitude of some Brits on this forum in the light of very strong Polish presence in their country. Also, don't forget to look at your own country where a sginificant part of Israel's non-Jewish population has been expelled from its territories and at best marginalized.


And yet they left their ancestral lands when Romans told them so. They left Spain when they were asked to adopt Christianity or burn at the stake. They left Germany, France, England when they were persecuted. They streamed out of Nazi Germany when conditions went bad. I don't think you have a strong case here.

Not only did they stream out of Nazi Germany – they actually streamed from there intoPoland.

I'm no expert, but my impression is that society in Eastern europe in the end of the middle ages was more feudal than western europe, so the middle class was less developed. The Jews filled a need, which was good for both poland and the jews. The conditions were better than in the west, as you say. But that doesn't mean that the common people welcomed the Jews. Most people don't like foreigners moving in in large numbers, and neither did Polish people. So to say that Poland was nice to the Jews is true of the kings and some of the nobility, but not necessarily true of the common people. I'm not complaining, only explaining.


But the teachings of the Polish catholic church demonized Jews in the popular imagination and also contributed to anti-Jewish feeling. It doesn't matter whether they were carrying out the policies of Rome. The effect on people's minds was the same.


Yes. And they also streamed out of Poland and Russia from the 1880s onward. I said that people generally stay where they are out of inertia till a more powerful force moves themn away. Russian policy in Poland and, after WWI, polish policy toward Jews drove hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews to the west. But of course, most stayed till the Germans came.

The continuity of Jewish civilization in poland for so many centuries is not due to the love of Poland for all things Jewish. It was because, for a lot of political and economic reasons, Poland became the largest concentration fo Jews in the world, and the critical mass made it the most natural place for Jews who wanted to be live among their own people.

No particular expertise is needed here. We're talking grade 6 history classes, or perhaps Grade 10 if you want a little more detail. Jews were not invited to Poland at the end of middle ages but in the first part of the 13th century, although they have lived there a century or two before that. Every part of Europe was as feudal at the time as any other.


You are correct. That was true of all countries where Jews lived. Well, maybe some exceptions applied. When in the early parts of the 20th century, till 1939 Jews enjoyed equality and were at the forefront of Polish intelligentsia and the academic world, they were not welcomed in the likes of Harvard of Yale. Those noble schools had quota limiting how many Jews could study there. As a matter of fact, those anti-Jewish quota existed till late 1960's in some American universities. Jews, Blacks and Poles were in the same basket in the great US of A until Martin Luther King (not ADL or Polish American Congress) decided to do something about it.


The Catholic Church demonized Jews. Polish Catholic Church was a part of it. Did you ever come close to reading about the Spanish Catholic Church? German? French? Same difference, only far more lethal for Jews than in Poland.


There was no Poland and Russia. There was Russia and Poland was occupied by Russia. The laws under which Poles lived then were set by the Russians, not Poles. Were there antisemitic sentiments? Sure. It's so easy to find a culprit in a Jew for pretty much all maladies of a country. The entire Western Europe did it. Russians found a way of doing it in Poland too.


Now you've revealed your ignorance on the subject of your own people. There were no hundreds of thousands of Jews in Poland after WW2. If you want to study the history of your nation please do it honestly. Use historic material, not some kibbutz gossip.


So what? What kind of argument is that?
No love for Jews in Poland and yet Jews survived there for over 800 years. The West loved Jews and yet Jews left for Poland. Go figure. With the friends like the West who needs enemies, eh?

Oh, and a question to you: did Jews come to Poland for the love of the country or its people?

Excuse me. I wrote WWI (one) not WWII (two). What's with the "kibbutz Gossip"? I'm not using any sarcasm so why are you?

My bad. I posted before my first cup of coffee. I must have gotten carried away.
Apologies.

Have your coffee. I've already had mine.

Most Polish Jews are descendents of the Khazars, a Turkic tribe from central Asia that migrated to the area betwen the Black & Caspian Sea simetime during the first fews centuries AD...they became converted to Judaism, and are the forerunners of what are called 'Eastern Jews' or Polish/Russian/Ukranian Jews...you can read more about them in

the book the 'Thirteenth Tribe' by Jewish author Arthur Koestler, and there isan interesting web-site by a Mr.Kevin Brook on this subject...the Khazars or 'Red Kagans'

were originially a pagan group, who practiced sun/phallic worship, but they were a fierce
nomadic & trading people, and strong warriors...their conversion was probably a political expedient, used as a counter-balance to the 'Christian' Byzantine Empire & the Islamic

Caliphate based in what is present day Iraq...the Khazar Eempire was broken up by the invasion of the Rus from the north which took place in the 10th century...the Khazar Jews, who earlier has migrated to present-day Hungary, then migrated WESTWARD &

NORTH into what is present day Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia & Poland...there are ancient
Jewish settlements in the area around Kiev from this period, and other archealogical evidence of this...this is the basis for the centuries long conflict between the Russians

and the 'Jews'...also, the so-called 'vicious anti-semitism' was partly a result of Jewish
tribal & religious practice/leadership, which held that the so-called Jews were a 'seperate
nation' to be set apart from 'gentiles' or 'goyim'...because of their rejection of Jesus Christ and His teachings, the Jews were always going 'against the tide' in a Christian

Easter Europe & Russia...the Talmud proscribed strict segregation from other nations.

Yddish was language of German jews ... so your theory is false again but I know about some racist theories inside Jewsih society.


There can be some questions about tolerancy between our nations, but the fact is that you had all political rights in Poland (1918-39) what about Jewish political fractions and their programs, some wanted to create Jewish country inside Poland some wanted to move to Palestine and some were commies and some were simillar to Polish parties. I think it will help to see whole picture.


dance in circle has jewish origin the same as some dishes. there is Jewish Karp (Karp po Żydowsku)

and I agree there were Poles who were telling "Jews to Palestine" but durring WWII majority of members of this political fractions promoted help for Jews. It is the same as with noimmigration who dont like Poles but I m not so sure he would murder them or rather he would help them ...

there is another issue of what some "western countries" think, they have idealistic vison that if they will be ok there will be full asimilation ... no way ! they have to accept that for next centuries they will have whole nations in their countries I'm not tallking about Poles who assimilate rather good but show some facts that they can dream on about Brish society where everybody without looking on origin thinks he is English or French ... It will not happen. I rather propose to accept reallity find some peacefull solutions or ways of peaceful coexistation, because they can have the end like Serbs in Kosovo ...

or maybe Germans will do sth in this case Bratwurst noriced some processes in German society ...

Yes, Yiddish was a variant of the German language...the use of Yiddish in the East can be partially explained by the spread of German language & culture into Poland and other Eastern European nations...there are some traces of the ancient Khazar dialect & names being incorporated into the Yiddish language...however, there is no historical evidence of WIDESPREAD migration of the Ashkenazim eastward, as the population of these German Ashkenazim was never more than 1-200000...this leaves no account of the large Ashkenazim populations in Russia, Ukraine, Poland or Lithuania...this is not a 'racist' notion, merely a more logical explanation of the large numbers of Jews in the East...the more 'racist' idea is the notion that Jews from Russia or Eastern Europe, whose ancestors never set foot in Palestine, have a 'right to the land'...the 'Star of David' was originally a 'sun symbol' used as a mark of heraldry (a flag) by the Red Kagans...in the Middle Ages this symbol first appeared in Easter Europe in Czechoslovakia...it was used, historically by the Khazars/Kagans, and there are ancient

coins discovered in Hungary and Lithuania/Poland from around 1000 AD which bear this marking, along with Hebrew letters...this is another indication of migration from the East:

the 'Star of David' is not a traditional Israelite symbol, but rather was associated with 'sun worship' in Babylon/Chaldea and Egypt...it is also used by Hindus, in a slightly varied form, called the 'Sri Yantra'...another ancient Jewish people from Russia are the Karaites, primarily from the Crimea...their origins are lost in the mist of time, but they are

not associated with rabbinical Judaism (Talmudists), as they reject this teaching, and stick strictly to the Torah, or first 5 books of the Bible...note also: the Russian Chassidim,

who are pushing this "Noachide' business (which is also a Freemasonic tenet) are descendents of the Khazars, who considered themselves 'sons of Japeth', who, in the

Bible, was one of Noah's sons.

And from Poland they steamed into sky.

Now youve just lost it mate. I come on here and comment because of a bunch of bigoted Poles,Polish Americans and this is the best you can come up with,Im an anti semite,dont make me pee my pants with laughter....


lol,you,the native christain Poles were a minority to the Polish jews....have you been smokin the same stuff as Darius?


No,russian laws,happily carried out by Poles,egged on by men in skirts.


Hardly,all Jews liviGermany of Polish desent were forcibly deported to that ,now better not call it a concentration camp,but that camp just over the pre war Polish border.