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The Role of Italian Jewry

Adam Teller

in Rescue the Surviving Souls: The Great Jewish Refugee Crisis of the Seventeenth Century

This chapter studies the role of Italian Jewry in ransoming Polish Jewish captives. In truth, the most important use for the pidyon shevuyim money as far as Italian Jewry was concerned had nothing to ... More

This chapter studies the role of Italian Jewry in ransoming Polish Jewish captives. In truth, the most important use for the pidyon shevuyim money as far as Italian Jewry was concerned had nothing to do with Polish Jews and their problems. Instead, ransom money was used primarily to redeem Jewish maritime merchants and travelers who were preyed on by pirates, particularly the Knights of St. John on Malta. This desire to prioritize the needs of the captives on Malta did not mean, however, that Venice totally ignored all other causes. Moreover, the Italian communities in general, though they seem to have understood the benefits of having Venice manage the ransoming on Malta, were not willing entirely to give up their autonomy in how they used their philanthropic funds. This was good news for Polish Jews because it improved their chances of receiving financial support from Italian Jewry. Their requests for that can be divided into two main groups. The first were made by individuals, asking for help with their personal issues. The second were requests for larger groups, most often communities in Poland–Lithuania that were struggling with the costs of recovering from the war or communities outside eastern Europe that were dealing with an influx of Polish Jewish refugees.Less

Transregional Contexts

Adam Teller

in Rescue the Surviving Souls: The Great Jewish Refugee Crisis of the Seventeenth Century

This chapter examines how the transregional aspects of the captive crisis gave it great significance for the Jewish world. The appearance on the slave markets of Istanbul of thousands of Jews, ... More

This chapter examines how the transregional aspects of the captive crisis gave it great significance for the Jewish world. The appearance on the slave markets of Istanbul of thousands of Jews, destitute and desperate, as well as the news coming in of the enormous destruction in Poland–Lithuania and the stream of emissaries and refugees traveling from town to town in search of help, forced Jewish communities across Europe to make a concerted effort to step up their charitable activity on their behalf. At the heart of all the activity was a transregional fundraising network run by the Jewish communities of Venice, the major Jewish center in the eastern Mediterranean. The Polish crisis put this system under great pressure. The calls on it multiplied and came from a number of different directions. Averse to turning away these needy Jews empty-handed, it adopted the policy it used for supporting the Jewish communities in the Land of Israel. The needs of the Polish Jewish captives challenged the fundraising network in other ways. For example, the fundraising crossed the cultural border within Jewish society, since Sephardi Jews were being called on to support Ashkenazim. Even more striking, however, was the way the network positioned itself vis-à-vis the political borders of Europe and the Mediterranean world. These were, perhaps, the first steps toward the development of an institutional Jewish world.Less

Norman Davies. Heart of Europe. A Short History of Poland. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1984. Pp. xxi, 511.

L. R. Lewitter

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 1: Poles and Jews: Renewing the Dialogue

This chapter examines Norman Davies's Heart of Europe (1984). The delicate subject of Polish–Jewish relations in history, not being strictly relevant to the main theme of Heart of Europe, receives ... More

This chapter examines Norman Davies's Heart of Europe (1984). The delicate subject of Polish–Jewish relations in history, not being strictly relevant to the main theme of Heart of Europe, receives little attention. Davies writes with sympathy about the extermination of most of the Jewish community by the Germans during the last war and with restraint about the participation of Jews in the activities of the Communist Party before the war and in those of the political police in the post-war period. Those who regard the Poles as traditional anti-semites will do well to note the autonomy and the scope for economic activity and religious life enjoyed by the Jewish community in the Republic of Poland–Lithuania. In the later 19th and early 20th centuries, a conjunction of pressure and reform opened the flood gates of a reservoir of Jewish talent stored up in those areas, making a unique contribution to Polish, and very soon also to western European culture. Nevertheless, Heart of Europe can be considered as an initiation into the arcane elements of Polish history and politics.Less

Jacob Goldberg, editor. Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth. Charters of Rights Granted to Jewish Communities in Poland-Lithuania in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Critical Edition of Original Latin and Polish Documents with English Introductions and Notes. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 1985. Pp. xxvi, 477.

Gershon David Hundert

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 1: Poles and Jews: Renewing the Dialogue

This chapter reviews Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth (1985), which was edited by Jacob Goldberg. Publication of this work is cause for celebration in the scholarly community because a ... More

This chapter reviews Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth (1985), which was edited by Jacob Goldberg. Publication of this work is cause for celebration in the scholarly community because a great wealth of rich and hitherto unknown primary source material is now available to students of the history of the Jews in early modern Poland–Lithuania. The original texts of sixty-three privileges granted to Jewish communities in the 16th to 18th centuries are published here on the basis of manuscript sources, most of them for the first time. Each privilege is presented in its original language, carefully edited, and introduced with a brief summary in English of its contents. Twenty-four of the privileges concern private towns and were issued by the hereditary owners, while thirty-nine privileges concern royal cities and are signed by the monarch or by royal officials. The geographical distribution of the towns represented in the collection is also quite balanced as reflected in the excellent map included in the volume.Less

Introduction

Antony Polonsky

in Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the Jewish population of Poland–Lithuania. During the years of its flourishing, it gave rise to a unique religious and secular culture in Hebrew and ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the Jewish population of Poland–Lithuania. During the years of its flourishing, it gave rise to a unique religious and secular culture in Hebrew and Yiddish and enjoyed an unprecedented degree of self-government. Even after the upheavals which marked the beginning of the downfall of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Jewish community continued to grow and even to recover some of its vitality. In the late eighteenth century these lands saw the birth and development of hasidism, an innovative revivalist movement, which was eventually to win the allegiance of a large proportion of the Jewish population and which remains very much alive in the Jewish world today. The partitions of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and again in 1815 divided Polish Jewry between the tsarist, Habsburg, and Prussian states. In all these areas, and particularly in the Pale of Settlement, the late nineteenth century saw the appearance and increasing ascendancy of ethnic and national conceptions of Jewish self-identification, in particular Zionism and Jewish autonomism.Less

Conclusion

Antony Polonsky

in Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History

This concluding chapter describes the history of the Jews since the beginning of the diaspora as that of a succession of autonomous centres. The centre that developed in Poland–Lithuania from the ... More

This concluding chapter describes the history of the Jews since the beginning of the diaspora as that of a succession of autonomous centres. The centre that developed in Poland–Lithuania from the middle of the thirteenth century was one of the most remarkable and creative. However, the history of the Jews of this area in the short twentieth century, between the outbreak of the First World War and the collapse of communism in Europe, has been tragic. The decline of Jewish communities was the result of local integral nationalism, the devastating impact of the genocidal policies of Nazi Germany, and the longer-term destructive effects of communist rule, particularly in its Stalinist incarnation. Ultimately, the complex story of the Jews of Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, and of their contribution to Jewish life and to the culture of the larger world around them, needs to be better known and better understood in the diaspora, in Israel, and in the countries of eastern Europe. The Nazi attempt to annihilate the Jews and Stalin's efforts to eradicate their culture ultimately failed. There are still Jews in eastern Europe, and the rich culture the Jews created there remains a source of admiration and inspiration to both Jews and non-Jews.Less

Some Basic Characteristics of the Jewish Experience in Poland

Gershon David Hundert

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 1: Poles and Jews: Renewing the Dialogue

This chapter investigates the basic characteristics of the Jewish experience in Poland. For much of its history, the Polish-Jewish community was the largest in the world. It is generally asserted ... More

This chapter investigates the basic characteristics of the Jewish experience in Poland. For much of its history, the Polish-Jewish community was the largest in the world. It is generally asserted that there was dramatic growth in Jewish numbers during the 16th century, but it is also known that the proportion of Jews in the towns of Poland–Lithuania increased dramatically during a 150-year period beginning in the late 17th century and continuing through the 18th century. In this case, there was relative security in numbers. More than security, there was a sense of rootedness and permanence about this community. Another basic characteristic of the historical experience of Polish Jewry is the Ashkenazic character of that community. Beginning with medieval Ashkenazic forms, the Jews of the Polish Commonwealth developed the most ramified and durable of the autonomous institutions of Ashkenazic Jewry.Less

Kurbskii and the Historians

Daniel B. Rowland

in God, Tsar, and People: The Political Culture of Early Modern Russia

This chapter focuses on Prince Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbskii, who was descended from the princes of Yaroslavl´ and was remotely connected to the family of the Tsaritsa Anastasia. It covers Kurbskii's ... More

This chapter focuses on Prince Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbskii, who was descended from the princes of Yaroslavl´ and was remotely connected to the family of the Tsaritsa Anastasia. It covers Kurbskii's successful military career, of which he served both in the sieges of Kazan´ and in the Livonian war a year before his flight to Poland-Lithuania on April 30, 1564. It also cites History of Ivan IV which documents Kurbskii's own accounts of his military career. The chapter examines the interpretations by three of the most influential Russian historians: Karamzin, Solov´ev, and Kliuchevskii in relation to Kurbskii's role in Russian history. It explores fine points of interpretation and small increments of meaning that the three Russian historians had laid over or injected into the words of the Kurbskii statements.Less

Introduction

Antony Polonsky

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 14: Focusing on Jews in the Polish Borderlands

This introductory chapter briefly explores Jewish life and Polish nationhood within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth up until the Second World War. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dual ... More

This introductory chapter briefly explores Jewish life and Polish nationhood within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth up until the Second World War. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dual state, created in 1569 by the union of the kingdom of Poland with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was extremely heterogeneous in character. The history of Poland–Lithuania throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries raised the questions of who was a Pole and what should be the boundaries of the future Polish state. For the Polish political élite, there was no question that the goal was the reconstitution of the country within its 1772 frontiers. This created a new interest in documenting the ‘Polishness’ of the borderlands (kresy) of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.Less

The Polish–Lithuanian Background

Antony Polonsky

in Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History

This chapter discusses the emergence and rapid expansion of the Jewish community of Poland–Lithuania. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the Jewish community of Poland–Lithuania was the ... More

This chapter discusses the emergence and rapid expansion of the Jewish community of Poland–Lithuania. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the Jewish community of Poland–Lithuania was the largest in the world, the result of the establishment of a new geography of the Jewish world that had started at the end of the thirteenth century. This was primarily a consequence of the worsening situation of the Jews in the countries of western and central Europe. At the same time, new opportunities opened up for Jews in the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The situation of Jews in pre-modern Poland–Lithuania had a paradoxical character. On the one hand, they were the representatives of a despised minority whose religious beliefs were regarded not only as false, but as harmful to the society around them. On the other hand, they occupied a position in Polish–Lithuanian society that was recognized by law and that gave them a certain amount of economic leverage and security.Less

Social and Religious Change, 1750–1914

Antony Polonsky

in Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History

This chapter details how the period between 1750 and 1914 saw significant urbanization in north-eastern Europe. In the towns of Warsaw, St Petersburg, Moscow, Lviv, Kraków, and Poznań, a new Jewish ... More

This chapter details how the period between 1750 and 1914 saw significant urbanization in north-eastern Europe. In the towns of Warsaw, St Petersburg, Moscow, Lviv, Kraków, and Poznań, a new Jewish way of life came into being. Jews earned their living in changed ways, Jewish communal institutions were transformed under the impact of government policies aimed at Jewish integration and the new needs created by the burgeoning of an industrial society, and, in those states where constitutional norms existed, Jews participated in municipal government. Jews also built modernized synagogues and schools and founded monthly, weekly, and eventually daily Jewish newspapers, which also provided a living for Jewish writers in Hebrew and Yiddish. Ultimately, too, it was in these new conurbations that a new pattern of interaction between Jews and non-Jews was created. The Jewish popular culture that emerged in the four decades before the First World War was an international phenomenon that accompanied the emigration of Jews in large numbers from the lands of former Poland–Lithuania to western Europe, the Americas, and even the Antipodes.Less

State Building and State

Boaz Atzili

in Good Fences, Bad Neighbors: Border Fixity and International Conflict

This chapter examines case studies of weak states in a world of flexible borders—Brandenburg-Prussia, Argentina, and Poland-Lithuania, It first examines the weakness of Brandenburg-Prussia in 1640 ... More

This chapter examines case studies of weak states in a world of flexible borders—Brandenburg-Prussia, Argentina, and Poland-Lithuania, It first examines the weakness of Brandenburg-Prussia in 1640 and the territorial pressures exerted on Brandenburg-Prussia between that year and 1740. This is followed by an examination of the effects of territorial pressures on state building in Argentina in the period of 1810 to 1880. Finally, the chapter explores state building in Poland-Lithuania from 1648 to 1795.Less

Purposes of Early 19th-century Russian Imperial Cartography

in Mapping Europe's Borderlands: Russian Cartography in the Age of Empire

This chapter examines the European imperial agendas of Russian geospatial practices. It looks at how cartographers in European Russia territorialized former Poland–Lithuania within an expanded ... More

This chapter examines the European imperial agendas of Russian geospatial practices. It looks at how cartographers in European Russia territorialized former Poland–Lithuania within an expanded empire, from the last partition in 1795 to the establishment of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society in 1845. The lands of Poland–Lithuania and Ukraine became grounds for rossiiskii (imperial and state) as well as russkii (historical, national, and ethnolinguistic) claims, often at the expense of Sweden, Poland–Lithuania, the Cossack Hetmanate, and the Ottoman Porte. Triautocratic partitioning powers treated lands they acquired as a laboratory for empire in which their civilization could be extended and administrative loyalties had to be secured. Orthodox aristocratic elites in Little Russia (Ukraine) and the eastern ramparts of the Grand Duchy were co-opted in their sympathies toward Russia. Populations in newly designated provinces were marked by confession and language, despite having mixed origins. Unrepresented rural peoples speaking languages or “dialects” had few means of resisting state-sponsored grids and acts of taxonomic sorting carried out in censuses and expressed through statistical compilations. Military cartographers, bureaucrats, and academic geographers aimed to modernize and retain the rossiiskii state's geopolitical legitimacy from the Baltic to the Black and Caspian Seas.Less

Between Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Warsaw: 1826–1832

Iryna Vushko

in The Politics of Cultural Retreat: Imperial Bureaucracy in Austrian Galicia, 1772-1867

This chapter examines the key decisions made by Galician governor August von Lobkowitz within the contexts of Vienna's domestic stability, its political relations with the Russian Empire, and the ... More

This chapter examines the key decisions made by Galician governor August von Lobkowitz within the contexts of Vienna's domestic stability, its political relations with the Russian Empire, and the forthcoming Polish revolution in Warsaw. As governor, Lobkowitz became popular among the Galician Poles due to his pro-Polish administrative decisions and gestures. For the Austrians and Russians, his provocative actions seemed disadvantageous for the Habsburg monarchy, and more importantly for other Galician locals. For Galician Poles, he remained in their defense against various forms of oppression that resulted from the partition of Poland-Lithuania, their homeland.Less

Introduction

Iryna Vushko

in The Politics of Cultural Retreat: Imperial Bureaucracy in Austrian Galicia, 1772-1867

This introductory chapter briefly traces the development of state-building, nationalism, and bureaucracy under the Habsburg monarchy in years 1772–1867, focusing on the province of Galicia. During ... More

This introductory chapter briefly traces the development of state-building, nationalism, and bureaucracy under the Habsburg monarchy in years 1772–1867, focusing on the province of Galicia. During this period, the Austrian Enlightenment-minded rulers of the Habsburg monarchy planned on reforming the prevailing Jewish tradition in the province through the use of Germanophone culture, administration, and education. Their plan, however, failed due to the incompetence of most of the outsourced bureaucrat officials from neighboring countries, as well as the increasing reciprocal assimilation between Austrian and Polish bureaucrats. By examining the story of Galicia's failed reform, the chapter serves as an entry point into the discussion of how political notions of Enlightenment—supranational uniformity and human perfectibility—may backfire in the long term, leading to results that will contradict with pre-existent intentions.Less

Introduction

Benedict Wagner-Rundell

in Common Wealth, Common Good: The Politics of Virtue in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania

The Introduction summarizes the key arguments of the book and reviews existing historiography. The concept of virtue was central to Polish-Lithuanian commentators’ and politicians’ understanding of ... More

The Introduction summarizes the key arguments of the book and reviews existing historiography. The concept of virtue was central to Polish-Lithuanian commentators’ and politicians’ understanding of their political system, and to republicanism and political thought in early modern Poland-Lithuania. Virtue was an essential element of the szlachta ideal of the Commonwealth and essential to the preservation of noble (szlachta) liberty. Yet by the early eighteenth century, many szlachta commentators argued virtue (and the Commonwealth) were under threat from corruption. Modern scholarship has recognized the prominence of virtue in Polish-Lithuanian political discourse. But historians have not acknowledged how a concern to restore virtue animated serious efforts for reform of the Commonwealth’s government: on the contrary, some historians have argued that moral arguments were a substitute for thinking about reform.Less