Jewish Heritage Society: 1st Students Conference on Jewish Studies

АССОЦИАЦИЯ СТУДЕНТОВ ИУДАИКИ
Первая молодежная конференции СНГ по иудаике. Сборник материалов.

Sean Martin
POLISH-YIDDISH-HEBREW: JEWISH CULTURAL IDENTITY IN INTERWAR KRAKOW

To understand how different cultures influenced the individual and community in Poland, more studies focusing on specific Polish cities are needed. Most of the secondary literature regarding local communities of Jews in Poland focuses on Warsaw and Lodz, Poland's two largest cities in the early twentieth century. But other Polish cit2ies during the interwar period, most notably Krakow and Lwow, are equally deserving of attention. I would like to contribute to the historiography of multiethnicity, independent Poland by focusing on the Jewish community of Krakow, long a cultural, if not the political, capital of Poland. A unique community, the Jews of Krakow were both assimilated toward Polish culture yet traditionally Jewish. Like in other Polish cities, Jews made up around twenty-five to thirty per cent of the population (in the case of Krakow, approximately 60,000 out of 200,000 in the 1920s and 1930s).

An examination of the Jewish community in Krakow could prove most interesting given that city's position both as a center of Polish Jewry and as a center of Polish culture. Krakow's position as the first royal city of Poland, its status as an independent republic from 1815 to 1846 and its experience under the more liberal regime of the Austrians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ensures that the city is often referred to as, culturally, the most Polish of Polish cities. The unique history of Krakow and Kazimierz, the city's Jewish district makes Krakow a particularly intriguing place to study. The rabbinical tradition of Krakow, exemplified by the spiritual leadership of Rabbi Moses Isserles in the sixteenth century, assures that Krakow will remain an important city for religious Jews in spite of the absence of a large Jewish community. Krakow was an important city for progressive Jews as well. The building of a progressive synagogue in Krakow in the mid nineteenth century fostered progressive religious and political traditions among the Jews of the city. In addition, the Jews of Krakow were emancipated in 1867 and Jewish nationalist movements became increasingly influential within Krakow. At the same time, the Poles were granted home rule by the Habsburgs, and those Jews in Krakow wishing to assimilate were drawn to Polish culture.

In an important article in a recent anthology dedicated to Jewish life in Poland between the wars, Chone Shmeruk describes Jewish culture in Poland as a trilingual polysystem of Polish, Yiddish, and Hebrew cultures. The importance of each of these cultures for the Polish Jews is undeniable, but they have been examined more often separately than together, often obscuring the complex nature of Jewish life in Poland. Jews attended schools where instruction was in either Polish, Yiddish, or Hebrew; they participated in organizations that held activities in different languages; and they attended theater performances and read newspapers in each of these languages. A study of Jewish culture in Poland that considers only one of these three cultures add to our knowledge of Jewish life in Poland before 1939 but may unintentionally deny the complex reality of the lives of interwar Polish Jews, who may have spoken Yiddish with their family, Polish with their friends, and learned Hebrew at school. \Because many Jews from Poland describe such linguistic experiences as well as feelings of loyalty toward Polish culture and toward their Jewish identity, I have decided to examine Jewish culture in Poland, specifically Krakow, from a perspective that recognizes the importance of these three cultures for Polish Jews while admitting that they played different roles within the community.

My study of the Jews in Krakow will require research into the history of Jewish education, cultural organizations, and the theater. I have not narrowed my definition of cultural life because research into at least more than one area is necessary to reach valid conclusions about the extent to which these three cultures were present in the lives of Krakow's Jews. For example, an important article on the Jewish press in Krakow makes clear that Polish-language periodicals dominated the Jewish press of the city. At the same time, the influence of Hebrew culture in the educational system cannot be denied. Similarly, Mordechai Gebirtig's status as a Yiddish poet and composer is widely recognized. Only by considering different areas of cultural activity will I be able to make conclusions that come closer to an accurate portrayal of Jewish culture than studies that focus on cultural activity in only one language.

By examining both private and public schools attended by Jewish children, I will be able to measure the influence of both traditional and more innovative forms of Jewish education on the community. School registers and attendance records will help me to determine how many Jews attended Polish schools where the primary language of instruction was Polish. They will also show, for example, where the Jews who sent their children to private schools lived and may reveal important neighborhood patterns. I will be able to evaluate the curriculum offered by the schools to Jewish students from the publications of the schools themselves, the records of the Jewish community, and the Jewish press.

While an examination of the schools will indicate the direction of Jewish education in the interwar period, a study of the cultural organizations to which the Jews belonged will show the contemporary reality of Jewish cultural life. Reports on political organizations, reading rooms, and youth organizations of all kinds were kept by the police and reveal the activities of the organizations and their political orientation, if any. In some cases, the reports of the organizations themselves are available, especially important in the case of the reading rooms, which detail the books held in the libraries and the readings and lectures sponsored by the organizations. In addition, the Jewish press often reported on the activities of the organizations, announcing meetings and publishing reports of the groups' activities.

One of the most important cultural organizations in the Jewish community was the Yiddish theater society. the society's greatest champion was the literary critic of the Polish-language Jewish daily Nowy Dziennik, Moses Kanfer. In several articles in this newspaper, Kanfer laments the lack of an audience for his Yiddish theater, while going forward with plans for Yiddish performances in Krakow. The relative failure of the Yiddish theater in Krakow does not mean that there were not enough Yiddish speakers in Krakow to support such an enterprise. It does mean, though, that there were not enough Yiddish speakers with sufficient interest in the theater to support a permanent, professional, Yiddish theater troupe in the city. While the Yiddish theater has been the subject of recent interest among Polish scholars, few of them have used Yiddish sources in their research. In addition to the need to examine the plays performed for Yiddish audiences in Krakow, it is also important to examine the response of the Yiddish press to the appearance of the Yiddish theater as well.

The interwar Jewish press of Krakow is perhaps the best available source material for a history of the Jews of Krakow. Nowy Dziennik, the Polish-language Jewish daily in Krakow, was read by Jews all over Poland. An important Zionist newspaper, Nowy Dziennik was perhaps more important an international Jewish newspaper in the interwar period than as a local Jewish daily. While its pages include some of the best information about Jewish life in the city and articles written by the city's most prominent Jewish leaders, international and national news often took the lead over stories of local interest. In contrast, the Yiddish weekly (which appeared irregularly from 1926 to 1932), Dos yidishe vort, published long reports of the meetings of the Jewish community and addressed local concerns much more often than Nowy Dziennik. Significantly, the community was not able to sustain a Hebrew periodical of any kind. Other important Jewish periodicals from interwar Krakow include Walka, an academic Bundist journal in Polish, and different publications of Jewish trade organizations. In addition, many Jewish periodicals addressing political, social, and cultural issues never lasted for more than one issue.

This study of the Jewish culture of Krakow can contribute to both Polish and Jewish historiography by demonstrating the unique importance of Krakow as a multicultural city. Determining the extent of Polish, Yiddish, and Hebrew cultural activity among the Jewish population in interwar Krakow will demonstrate just how varied Jewish life in Poland was between the wars and could have important implications for the study of Jewish acculturation and assimilation toward Polish culture. It will also show a Krakow very different from the city that emerged after the tragedy of World War II. By focusing on one of the city's minority populations, I will demonstrate the multiethnic nature of the city within a multiethnic state.