Poland and Polish Anti-Semitism, c. 1918-1939

Before "going on", would you kindly read the whole text? Because it contains a lot more than just sweeping generalisations.
Also, you say:


You are absolutely right, and the author is right as well. It is quite possible to live in cities and towns while creating closed, tightly knit, isolated communities. Warszawa, Kraków, or Prague had large, separate Jewish quarters. Without resorting to words like "ghetto", you can see identical processes taking place in modern Britain or the US, for example. Some parts of London / New York have been pretty much taken over by Poles / Greeks / Chinese / Pakistanis...

I could counter all your other arguments in a similar way, but unless you read further than page 2 of the essay, I am simply not interested.

Yes, you are completely right, saying "The Jews wanted to live as a separate nation within a nation, among their own kind, with their own language, schools and institutions, and even their own government." is more than just a sweeping generalisation: it is an anti-semitic canard designed to provoke a response from the reader. It tries to portray all Jews in Poland as being a fifth column which sought to overthrow the Polish state. It is utter bollocks. Saying "Jews guarded their communal life closely and wanted as few dealings with the outside world as possible, except for those necessary to sustain their economic livelihood." is more than just a sweeping generalisation: it is another anti-semitic canard which the author uses to try to portray Jews as people who all shunned gentile Poles. And I do so love his little 'all Jews love money' crap.


You really are getting desperate if you're trying to make us believe that the inhabitants of Muranow were living in an isolated community. Have you ever actually been to Warsaw.


The intent of the author is crystal clear: he want to maintain the myth that all Jews in Poland lived in shtetl, had massive beards and looked funny. The reality that most Jews did not live in isolated communities simply doesn't fit with the picture he is trying to paint. Why doesn't he tell the truth?


You mean a way so pathetic that you try to claim that 42% of the population in Lwow lived in an isolated community? I really had expected better from you but I guess the old 'it was all the fault of the Jews! Us Poles are all perfect!' bollocks was drummed into your head from an early age.

He never says that.


He never says that.


He never says that.You are having a problem with your own projections here, I am afraid.


He never says that, and if you actually read on, you would know want the author wants to maintain. But abandoning you preconceptions would be way too difficult.


1) Have you ever been to Leyton, London? A close-knit Pakistani community if there ever was one. Yet no visible demarcations anywhere.
2) Yes, I actually do possess a passing knowledge of Warszawa (that's irony in case you wondered).
3) Have you ever seen photos, or read accounts of, the pre-war Leszno in Warszawa? Do you know that Muranów is a post-war development built on the ruins of the ghetto?

Have a read, unless you find it antisemitic as well: zmh.um.warszawa.pl/wstep_a2.htm

"It is this area that became the promised land for the Warsaw Jews. They associate everything that was Jewish in Warsaw with it. The streets and alleyways, apartment houses and courtyards, the distinctive atmosphere, the unique local color, and the one-of-a-kind multilingual hubbub. Jewish Warsaw was a microcosm of its own. It contained an infinite variety of forms and aspects of life, it held enormous contrasts in wealth and customs, and was a singular example of a city within a city. The topography of this place was complicated and multi-layered, though subjected to its own order and hierarchy. "

No: he just throws out the implication, to poison the well. Of course, he also doesn't say what he bases his laughable assertion that "The Jews wanted [anything]" on. He just throws out the statement and expects his readers to knee-jerk react "Those Jew! They're all the same!"


No, his exact words are "Jews guarded their communal life closely and wanted as few dealings with the outside world as possible". Of course 'wanted as few dealings with the outside world as possible' is in no way even anything close to 'shunned', is it.


I spent a couple of years living where there were virtually no white people at all. At no time did I ever feel that I was living in a closed community or one that was in any way isolated.


I've forgotten more about Muranow than you will ever know about the place. For example, anybody who knows anything about Muranow knows that it is built not only on ruins of the ghetto but from the ruins of the ghetto.


You mean my preconceptions that anybody who says 'The Jews this' and 'The Jews that' and 'The Jews shunned gentiles' is rather likely to be pushing an agenda? That's sadly a preconception which is proved right 99.99999% of the time.

Those two closed, tightly knit communities and living in cities and towns are not contradictory !
Quite the contrary big towns and cities provided close and tightly knit communities with a good niche to preserve way of life they chose.


Is that your opinion or a fact ?maybe rubbish of your own ?


1918-1939 - you are off topic but while we are on it what Poles demanding the right of exclusion Jews from cities (which were at the time hubris of mercantile,trade and production) has to do with Jews who wanted to live in their communities and peruse their way of live ?


Except for the fact that Jewish leaders after 1918 expected all the privileges of the national minority in Poland including schools in their language funded by the state.

See Harry your point of view and your prejudices are just that your prejudices !

From this?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Warsaw_Ghetto_destroyed_by_German_forces,_1945.jpg

No, I don't really think that such ruins could be used in further construction. Should I treat all your statements as lies from now on?

Yes, the district of Muranow is truly an isolated place, miles from anywhere.


Claiming that Jews shunned the outside world is clealy utter bollocks.


Can anybody really be so retarded that they cannot understand that if Jews wanted to live in their own closed communities, there would be no need for gentiles to have Jews banned from living in gentile communities as all the Jews would live in closed Jewish communities?!


a) You not giving a source usually means you're lying.
b) So what if some Jewish leaders wanted special privilege, if they did want that. That in no way at all supports the claim that all Jews wanted to live as a separate nation within a nation, among their own kind, with their own language, schools and institutions, and even their own government.

Such a pity that you are blinded by your hatred of Jews.

None of us here nor the essey says that ALL Jews wanted to live as a separate nation within a nation, among their own kind, with their own language, schools and institutions, and even their own government.We are talking about VAST MAJORITY of Jews.

Treat my statements any way you want: I'll be happy to point out your stupidity when you do.

As for your comments on Muranow, you really are showing your ignorance there: Lachert deliberately used the rubble, ground down and mixed with concrete, as the building blocks for the development. Rubble was used so extensively so as to reflect the idea of rebirth of the city, Warsaw returning to life like a phoenix from the ashes.

stacjamuranow.art.pl/en/about_the_district/southern_muranow
stacjamuranow.pl/?p=10&lang=en

But hey, you stick to what you think you can see from photos on wikipedia.


"The Jews" means 'all of them'.

"The vast majority of Jews" means 'almost all of them'.

The article says "The Jews wanted to live as a separate nation within a nation, among their own kind, with their own language, schools and institutions, and even their own government."

A person, thing, or group that has been isolated, as by geographic, ecologic, or social barriers.


That depend on one point of view. Some did and some didn't !


Jews could live surrendered by gentile communities but still isolated, is that hard to understand ?
They wanted to live in cities to take advantage of cities role at the time - ie trade and mercantile centers - not to integrate !


Which is which then ?


So what ? So what that not all Jews wanted that ? Some wanted that some wanted something else but majority of them didn't assimilate, only minority !

Funny that you are such particular when it come to Jews whereas you blame all Poles for acts of few criminals. Inconsistency or as you would put it - bigoted much ?


Such a pity that you are blinded by your hatred of Poles !

Do you expect this essey to list all these Jews by their first and last names?

Not having read the entire thread (and not having the intention to do it, anyway), I wish to tell you of my having once browsed a book in the university bookshop in Warsaw (Księgarnia im. Bolesława Prusa, opposite the main entrance) which was the diary of a young Jew living in Warsaw, and which covered the years 1936-39 or so. I was completely shocked by reading in that diary his statement that Jews in Warsaw were deliberately choosing to live as a separate community, and choosing to have few contacts with the Poles and even trying to avoid them in some way. I had been so shocked that I left the bookshop without buying this book, such big was my astonishment towards this statement, and so much this Jewish testimony was against my perception of the relations between the two communities in pre-1939 Poland.

When I came back to the bookshop a few weeks later to browse the book again and eventually buy it, I found it wasn't there any more! I did not remember its title, nor the name of its author (I think the co-author was the researcher who prepared the diary into print) which is a very great pity as the book gave an excellent insight into the life of the Jewish community in Warsaw, and the city itself, before the outbreak of the WW II. I very muh regret not buying that book to this day!

My astonishment can at least be partly attributed to the many stories told by my grand-father who all his life lived in a village (once a small town) 60 km south of Warsaw. He was telling us as a lot about life in that village with a particular emphasis on his encounters with members of the Jewish community of that village. There was not a single trace of antisemitism in his stories even when he quoted the popular saying of the Jewish people "ulice wasze, kamienice nasze" in pre-war Poland (my grandpa learned his trade in Warsaw in the 1930s, where he also used to meet the Jews of Warsaw). A very talented man in learning foreign languages (he could read Russian newspapers having only completed the first four years in a primary school), he was apparently on very good terms with Jews since his Jewish friends offered to teach him Yiddish which he already knew to some extent, but wanted to learn further. At that very moment, however, appeared the local rabbi of the village who had forbidden them to teach Yiddish to a Pole. This may indicate at least some restrain on the part of the Jews towards the Poles. A restrain which somehow may still be seen in today's Poland! Last year, I told this story to a woman (presumably a Jewish woman) in a bookshop in one of the historical synagogues in Cracow; the lady got very interested indeed when I was telling her that my grandpa knew quite a bit of Yiddish. But when I reached the point at when the teaching of Yiddish to my grand-father was forbidden by the rabbi, this woman suddenly lost all her interest, became quite chilly and had politely disengaged herself from a very friendly conversation with my wife and me. I have no idea why such a strange withdrawal occured to her; beside my interesting stories, my wife was displaying her usual interest for Jewish culture and, in particular, Jewish music when talking to that lady.

But this wonderful essay does not say that some did and some did not. It says that 'Jews [as a group] shunned gentiles'.


This wonderful essay claims that all of them wanted it, i.e. the author is lying.


Do I really? Can you quote me saying that? Or are you simply lying yet again? I will say what I always say: some Poles murdered Jews, some Poles saved Jews, some Poles handed Jews over to the Nazis, some Poles hid Jews from the Nazis, and most Poles did none of those things.


Always good to see you throwing around insults, shows how pathetic your argument is and how much you must distract from it.


Some Jews were racists, some Jews were idiots, and some Jews were racist idiots, is that really a surprise?

Because as "a group" they did.SOME individuals did not.it's that simple dude.


Of course,but as "a group" they did none of things listed.Again,simple.

It did in a way. Since Jews were victimized by the czarist system more than most and since they were not welcome in the polish nationalist movement , they looked for other solutions. Some were attracted to zionism, which meant having their own nationalism; many others were attracted to emigration to America; and some were attracted to communism as a way to overthrow the system and create a society where jews were legally the same as everyone else. (It goes without saying that this didn't end well for them or for everyone else). But by joining the communists they were also rebelling against their own heritage and eventually they helped to destroy their own communities. So it's true that many jews became bolsheviks, just like it's true that many jews became converts to catholicism.

Interesting Yehudi

Define Anti-Semitism.

Any malice (whether unintentional and misguided, or deliberate malice) against the Jews as an ethnic people, religious group, etc.

Oh well that covers all the bases then, doesn't it? By that definition anyone who disagrees with a Jewish person about anything is automatically an anti Semite!

Ex-act-ly. BINGO ;-)

Oh Nicole...

Something that is unintentional cannot be malicious!

If I'm ridiculing someone for having a big nose and he turns out to be Jewish, it's not anti-Jewish, it's anti big-nose.

Which people are of Semitic origin?

"Anti Semitic" refers specifically to being maliciously against the Jews, a Semitic people, as an ethnic and/or religious group.

Is Judaism the religion of the Hebrew Bible?

More Ipse dixit from Harry...


According to an earlier version of The Language and Travel Guide to Ukraine, by Linda Hodges and George Chum which I read, before the war Lwow was roughly 40% Polish, 30% Ukrainian, and 30% Jewish. See the book for more specific numbers:

Maybe this is another book that Harry needs to read!

The difference between the two sources may be that historically Ukrainians needed to be Orthodox, so those speaking a dialect of the Ukrainian language but attending a Catholic Church were placed in another category, i.e., Ruthenian or Polish. While not advertised in modern Ukraine where the Cossack rebellion is praised, the Cossacks rebelled against the Poles and refused to accept seats in the Sejm because the Polish king refused to abolish the Catholic churches in Ukraine. Religious tolerance was the law in the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Of course, no one would know that Ukies were a minority there before the war if they had visited the History of Lwow Museum, which has very little actual history of Lwow, and is filled with Ukrainian Nationalist Propaganda. No one would understand this from visiting the Lwow Opera House, which was designed by the Polish architect Zygmunt Gorgolewsk and built 1897-1900 during the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph. The "restored" Opera House is filled with statues of Ukrainian cultural figures and Cyrillic lettering which was clearly not original. Nor is there a statute, bust or portrait of the Emperor, which surely must have been present in the original building. The "Ukrainian architecture" of the Opera House and other famous buildings remains a point of controversy for Polish tourists visiting a city which had been Polish for 600 years.

Yes and no. Karaite Judaism is; P'rushi Judaism is not.

I found this on Wikipedia Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, and I checked out the book in the library.

He stressed the Rabbinic sages and the Talmud as the source of Judaism. "This is not an uncommon impression and one finds it sometimes among Jews as well as Christians - that Judaism is the religion of the Hebrew Bible. It is, of course, a fallacious impression. . . Judaism is not the religion of the Bible" (Judaism and the Christian Predicament, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967, p. 59).

And this is from a jewish rabbi. This is not the only rabbi to say Judaism, and the Bible are different.

He is P'rushi clergyman. As I said, P'rushi Judaism is not of the Bible. Karaite Judaism is.

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, who was the chief Rabbi of the United States, The return from Babylon and the introduction of the Babylonian Talmud mark the end of Hebrewism and the beginning of Judaism.

Neither Bokser nor Wise make any distinction between the different forms of Judaism.

They don't consider Karaite Judaism to be Jewish/Hebrew, so they don't mention it.

I didn't say that Karaism is Messianic; but in terms of Non-Messianic or Pre-Jesus Judaism, it is the Judaism of the Bible.