ÎÁÙÅÑÒÂÎ "ÅÂÐÅÉÑÊÎÅ ÍÀÑËÅÄÈÅ"

© Brandeis University
NEJS 168a
Author: Dr. Antony Polonsky

HISTORY AND CULTURE OF THE JEWS IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE TO 1914

Description of the Course.

This course, which is taught over two semesters, describes the establishment, flourishing and destruction of one of the most important Jewish communities in the world. Since the Babylonian exile and the beginnings of the Diaspora, Jewish life has been characterized by the emergence of major foci of creativity and dynamism. In the period of the second Temple and after, Mesopotamia with its exilarch (Resh galutha) and its great academies was an even more important area of Jewish intellectual and legal activity than Erets Yisrael. It remained a major center under Islamic rule to be supplanted in the early middle ages by the communities of Spain and the Rhineland. When these settlements lost their significance, with the persecutions which accompanied the Crusades and more particularly the Black Death in Germany and with the expulsion and forced conversion of the Jews of Spain, their place was taken by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. By the early seventeenth century this community had become the largest in the Jewish world. The Jewish population grew from between 10,000 and 30,000 at the end of the fifteenth century (out of a total population of around four million) to between 150,000 and 300,000 (out of ten million) by 1650 and 750,000 (out of 14 million) in 1764. In 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. In a penitential prayer composed in the aftermath of the massacres which occurred during the Cossack uprising of the mid-seventeenth century, Rabbi Yom-Tov Lipman Heller looked back to a golden age, recalling 'Poland, a country of royalty where we have dwelled from of old in tranquil serenity'. Yet even after the devastating effect of these upheavals, which also marked the beginning of the downfall of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Jewish community continued to increase in size and was able to recover some of its vitality.

The partition of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and again, with slightly different borders in 1815 divided Polish Jewry between the Tsarist, Habsburg and Prussian states. Four distinct communities emerged in Prussian Poland, in Austrian Galicia, in the Kingdom of Poland, which was granted restricted autonomy and linked dynastically with the Tsarist Empire and in the lands directly incorporated into that empire. These communities made up the largest part of world Jewry. It was here that the new religious movement of Hasidism emerged and gained a mass following and that those ideologies developed - Zionism, Socialism, Neo-Orthodoxy - which were to transform the Jews perception of themselves in the late nineteenth century. Jews from these lands were to exercise a great influence on the development of Jewish life in the Habsburg Monarchy and Romania. From the 1860s the swelling tide of emigration from these areas took the cultural patterns of Polish Jewry to western Europe, the New World, and the Antipodes. After 1921, Poland, which had succeeded in regaining its independence in the aftermath of World War I, was the home to the second-largest Jewish community in the world after that of the United States, while the next in numbers, which also derived from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was that in the newly established Soviet Union. These communities were decimated by the Nazi Holocaust and were further weakened by communist policies of forced assimilation. Yet sizeable communities still survive in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Hungary and smaller ones are struggling to preserve themselves in Poland, Slovakia, the Czech republic and Romania.

In the first part of this course, which will be taught in the Spring semester of 1994, we will investigate the history of the Jews on the territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth down to the First World War, which radically transformed the conditions of Jewish life in East-Central Europe. The second part, which will be taught in the Spring semester of 1995, will deal with the history of the Jews in Poland, the Soviet Union and its successor states, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and its successor states and Romania from 1914 to the present day. Each part of the course is self-contained, but students will obviously benefit from taking both. No foreign languages are required, but it cannot be too strongly emphasized that those who are able to read in the relevant languages (Hebrew, Yiddish and the languages of the area) will get more out of the course.

Course Requirements

Required Reading

All students should, if possible, purchase the following books:

  1. Antony Polonsky, Jakub Basista The Jews in Old Poland, I.B.Tauris,
  2. Andrzej Link-Lenczowski(eds.) London, 1993.
  3. Antony Polonsky (ed.) From Shtetl to Socialism. Studies from Polin, Littman Library, Oxford, 1993.
  4. Chimen Abramsky, Maciej Jachimczyk The Jews in Poland, Basil Blackwell, 1986.
  5. Antony Polonsky (eds.)
  6. Lucy Dawidowicz The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe, Schocken Books, New York, 1967.
  7. Michael Stanislawski Tsar Nicholas and the Jews: The Transformation of Jewish Society in Russia, JPS, Philadelphia, 1983.

OR

  1. Eli Lederhendler The Road to Modern Jewish Politics. Political Tradition and Political Reconstruction in the Jewish Community of Tsarist Russia, Oxford University Press, 1989.
  2. John Klier, Shlomo Lambroza (eds.) Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History ,Cambridge University Press, 1992.
  3. Xeroxed coursepack

Recommended Reading

  1. Bernard Weinryb A Social and Economic History of the Jewish Community in Poland from 1100- 1800, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1976.
  2. Artur Eisenbach The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland, 1780-1870, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1991.
  3. Jonathan Frankel Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism and the Russian Jews 1862- 1917, Cambridge University Press, 1981.
  4. Hans Rogger Jewish Policies and Right-wing Policies in Imperial Russia, University of California Press, 1986.

Collections of Documents

  1. Jacob Goldberg (ed.) Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth. Charters of Rights granted to Jewish Communities in Poland-Lithuania in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Jerusalem, 1985.
  2. Israel Halperin (ed.), revised by Pinkas Va'ad Arba Aratsot, Jerusalem,
  3. Israel Bartal 1991.
  4. Shmuel Arthur Cygielman Yehudei Polin velita ad shnat t''kh, Jerusalem, 1991.
  5. Maurycy Horn (ed.) Regesty dokumento;w i ekscerpty z metryki koronnej do historii Z{ydo;w w Polsce, 2 volumes, Wroc`aw, 1984.
  6. Natan Hannover Abyss of Despair, (translated by Abraham J. Mesch), New York, 1950, reprinted 1983.

General Histories of the Jews

  1. Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson (ed.) A History of the Jewish People, Cambridge, MA, 1976.
  2. Howard M. Sachar The Course of Modern Jewish History, first published New York, 1958, many editions
  3. Robert M. Seltzer Jewish People, Jewish Thought:The Jewish Experience in History, New York, 1980.

General Histories of Russia and Poland

  1. Adam Zamoyski The Polish Way, London, 1987.
  2. Norman Davies God's Playground. A History of Poland, two volumes, New York, 1982.
  3. Norman Davies Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland, Oxford, 1984.
  4. J. K. Fedorowicz A Republic of Nobles: Studies in Polish History to 1864, Cambridge, 1982.
  5. Robert Leslie (ed.) The History of Poland since 1863, Cambridge, 1980.
  6. Hugh Seton-Watson The Russian Empire 1801-1917, Oxford, 1967.
  7. Hugh Seton-Watson The Decline of Imperial Russia 1855- 1914, London, 1952.

Historical Atlases

  1. Eli Barnavi A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People. From the Time of the Patriarchs to the Present, New York, 1992
  2. Evyatar Friesel Atlas of Modern Jewish History, New York, 1990.
  3. Iwo Pogonowski The Jews in Poland. A Documentary History, New York, 1993

Bibliographical Aids

  1. Jack Wertheimer (ed.) The Modern Jewish Experience. A Reader's Guide, New York, 1993.
  2. Barry W. Holtz The Schocken Guide to Jewish Books, New York, 1992.
  3. Gershon Hundert and Gershon Bacon The Jews in Poland and Russia. Bibliographical Essays, Bloomington, 1984. Hundert has updated this bibliography in an article 'Polish Jewish History' in Modern Judaism 10(1990) pp. 259-270.
  4. Norman Davies Poland, Past and Present: A Select Bibliography of Works in English, Newtonville, MA, 1977.

General Introduction

  1. *A.J. Heschel The Earth is the Lord's: The Inner World of the Jew in East Europe, New York, pp. 7-68.
  2. *Chimen Abramsky, Maciej Jachimczyk The Jews in Poland 'Introduction', pp.1-13
  3. Antony Polonsky (eds.) (henceforth The Jews in Poland)
  4. Bernard Weinryb A Social and Economic History of the Jewish Community in Poland from 1100- 1800 (henceforth The Jewish Community in Poland), pp. 3-13.
  5. Antony Polonsky (ed.) From Shtetl to Socialism. Studies from Polin, 'Introduction', pp. xiii- xxxiii.(Henceforth From Shtetl to Socialism.)
  6. Alexander Hertz The Jews in Polish Culture, Northwestern University Press, 1988, pp. ix-xvi, 1-32.

The Shtetl: The Characteristic Institution of East European Jewry

  1. Mark Zborowski, Elizabeth Herzog Life is with People: The Culture of the Shtetl, New York, 1962.
  2. *Israel Bartal 'Non-Jews and Gentile Society in East European Hebrew and Yiddish Literature', in From Shtetl to Socialism, pp. 134-50.
  3. *Eugenia Prokopo;wna &The Image of the Shtetlin Polish Literature', in From Shtetl to Socialism, pp. 318-331.
  4. *Abraham Ain ' Swislocz: Portrait of a shtetl', in Irving Howe, Eliezer Greenberg, Voices from the Yiddish: Essays, Memoirs, Diaries, pp. 87-108.

Jewish Settlement in the Polish Lands

  1. Shmul Ettinger 'Kievan Russia', in Cecil Roth (ed.) World History of the Jewish People: The Dark Ages, Tel Aviv, 1966, pp. 319-324.
  2. *Alexander Gieysztor 'The Beginnings of Jewish Settlement in the Polish Lands', in The Jews in Poland, pp. 15-21.
  3. Bernard Weinryb The Jewish Community in Poland, pp. 17-32.
  4. *Paul Wexler 'The Reconstruction of pre-Ashkenazic Jewish Settlements in the Slavic Lands in the Light of Linguistic Sources', in From Shtetl to Socialism, pp. 3-18, also in POLIN, volume 1, pp. 3-18.

The Basic Characteristics of the Polish-Jewish Community

  1. Bernard Weinryb The Jewish Community in Poland, pp.37- 103.
  2. *Jerzy Wyrozumski 'Jews in Medieval Poland', Antony Polonsky, Jakub Basista,Andrzej Link- Lenczowski(eds.) The Jews in Old Poland(I.B.Tauris, London, 1993), pp. 13- 22 (henceforth The Jews in Old Poland).
  3. *Jacob Goldberg ' The Privileges granted to Jewish communities of the Polish Commonwealth as a stabilizing factor in Jewish support', in The Jews in Poland, pp. 31-54.
  4. *Isaac Lewin 'The Protection of Jewish Religious Rights by Royal Edicts in pre-Partition Poland', in M. Giergieliewicz(ed.), Polish Civilzation: Essays and Studies, New York, 1979, pp. 115-134.

The Flourishing of the Community. Jewish Autonomous Institutions.

  1. Bernard Weinryb The Jewish Community in Poland, pp.107-134.
  2. Jacob Marcus 'The Council of the Four Lands and the Lithuanian Council about 1582-1764', in The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book 315-1791, pp. 205-211.
  3. *Shmul Ettinger 'The Council of the Four Lands', in The Jews in Old Poland, pp. 93-109.
  4. *Israel Bartal 'The Pinkas of the Council of the Four Lands', in The Jews in Old Poland, pp.110- 18.
  5. *Shmuel Shilo 'The Individual versus the Community in Jewish Law in pre-eighteenth century Poland', in The Jews in Old Poland, pp.219-234.

Jewish Religious and Intellectual Life

  1. *Jacbob Elbaum 'Aspects of Hebrew Ethical Literature in Sixteenth Century Poland', in Bernard Cooperman (ed.), Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge, MA, 1983, pp. 124-146.
  2. *Lawrence Kaplan 'Rabbi Mordekhai Jaffe and the Evolution of Jewish Culture in Poland', in Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 266-82.
  3. Nisson E. Shulman Authority and Community. Polish Jewry in the Sixteenth Century, New York, 1986.
  4. J. Schochet Rabbi Joel Sirkes, New York, 1971.
  5. Jacob Marcus 'The Shulhan Aruk 1564-1565', in in The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book 315-1791, pp. 200-204.
  6. Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson Hagut vehanhagah, Jerusalem, 1960.

The Jews in Economic Life

  1. Salo Baron A Social and Religious History of the Jews, volume 16 ,New York and Philadelphia, 1978, pp. 15-34; 192-211; 214-312.
  2. *Gershon Hundert 'The Role of the Jews in Commerce in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania', Journal of European Economic History, 16 (1987), pp. 245-275.
  3. *Gershon Hundert 'The Implications of Jewish Economic Activities for Christian-Jewish Relations in the Polish Commonwealth', The Jews in Poland, pp. 55-63.
  4. *Moshe Rosman 'Polish Jews in the Gdan;sk Trade in the Late 17th and Early 18th Centuries&, in Isadore Twersky (ed.), Danzig between East and West. Aspects of Modern Jewish History, Cambridge, MA, pp. 111-120.
  5. *Jan Malecki 'Jewish Trade at the end of the Sixteenth and in the first half of the Seventeenth Century', in The Jews in Old Poland, pp. 267-81.

The Jews and the Nobility

  1. Moshe Rosman The Lord's Jews. Magnate-Jewish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the 18th Century, Cambridge, MA, 1990
  2. *Gershon Hundert The Jews in a Polish Private Town. The Case of Opatow in the Eighteenth Century, Baltimore, 1992.
  3. *Anna Z{uk 'A Mobile Class,' From Shtetl to Socialism, pp. 64-82, also in POLIN, volume 2, pp.163-178.
  4. *Krysztof Link-Lenczowski 'The Jewish Population in the Light of the Resolutions of Dietines in the Sixteenth- Eighteenth Centuries', in The Jews in Old Poland:, pp.35-43.
  5. *Janusz Tazbir 'Images of the Jew in the Polish Commonwealth, ' From Shtetl to Socialism, pp. 64-82, also in POLIN, volume 4, pp. 18-30.
  6. *Gershon Hundert 'Some Basic Characteristics of the Jewish Experience in Poland', From Shtetl to Socialism, pp. 19-25, also in POLIN, volume 1, pp. 18-35.
  7. Moshe Rosman 'Jewish Perceptions of Insecurity and Powerlessness in 16th-18th Century Poland', POLIN, volume 1, pp. 19-28.
  8. *Moshe Rosman 'A Minority views the Majority: Jewish Attitudes towards the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Interaction with Poles, From Shtetl to Socialism>, pp. 39-49, also in POLIN, volume 4, pp. 31-41.
  9. Bernard Weinryb The Jewish Community in Poland, pp. 156-205.
  10. Shmul Ettinger 'Jewish Participation in the Settlement of Ukraine in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries', in Peter Potichny, Howard Aster (eds.), Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective, Edmonton, Alberta, pp. 23-30.
  11. Frank Sysyn ' The Jewish Factor in the Khmelnytsky Uprising', in Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective, pp. 43-54.

Jewish Life in Decline: Messianic Movements

  1. Bernard Weinryb The Jewish Community in Poland, pp. 206-258.
  2. *Gershom Scholem 'Shabbetai Zevi' and 'Frank, Jacob' in Encyclopedia Judaica.
  3. Jacob Marcus The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book 315-1791, pp. 261-269, 279-283.
  4. Marc Saperstein (ed.) Essential Papers on Messianic Movements and Personalities in Jewish History, pp. 289-374. New York, 1992.
  5. Isaac Bashevis Singer Satan in Goray, various editions.

Hasidism and its Opponents

  1. Gershon Hundert (ed.) Essential Papers on Hasidism, New York, 1991, pp. 86-271 (especially pp. 86-172)
  2. Bernard Weinryb The Jewish Community in Poland, pp. 262-300.

The Last Years of the Polish-Lituanian Commonwealth. The Beginnings of the Haskala

  1. Paul Mendes-Flohr, The Jew in the Modern World, New York Jehuda Reinharz pp. 3- 128.
  2. Jacob Katz Out of the Ghetto, New York, 1973, pp. 1- 79.
  3. Alexander Altman 'Moses Mendelssohn as the Archetypal German Jew', in Jehuda Reinharz, Walter Schatzberg, The Jewish Response to German Culture, Hanover, NH, 1985, pp. 17-31.
  4. *Artur Eisenbach The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland,1780-1870, Blackwells, 1991, pp. 1- 112
  5. *Jacob Goldberg ' The Changes in the Attitude of Polish Society toward the Jews in the Eighteenth Century', From Shtetl to Socialism , pp. 50- 64, also in POLIN, volume 1, pp. 35-48.

Problems of Emancipation, Acculturation and Assimilation Prussian Poland

  1. David Sorkin The Transformation of German Jewry 1780-1840, Oxford, 1985
  2. *Peter Pulzer Jews and the German State. The Political History of a Minority, 1848-1933, Oxford, 1992 pp. 1-43. 69-194. .
  3. *Artur Eisenbach The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland, passim., (use the index).

    4. Austrian Poland (Galicia)

  4. *William O. McCagg A History of Habsburg Jews, 1670-1918, Bloomington, 1983.
  5. Raphael Mahler Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment, Philadelphia, 1985.
  6. *Artur Eisenbach The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland, passim., (use the index).
  7. Ezra Mendelsohn 'Jewish Assimilation in L'viv. The Case of Wilhelm Feldman', in Andrei Markovits, FrankSysyn, Nation Building and the Politics of Nationalism:Essays on Austrian Galicia, Cambridge, MA, 1982.

    8. The Tsarist Empire

  8. Mendes-Flohr and Reinharz The Jew in the Modern World, pp. 300- 328.
  9. Lucy Dawidowicz The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe, New Jersey, 1989, pp. 5-27, 113-9, 225-32.
  10. Eli Lederhendler 'Modernity without Emancipation or Assimilation? The Case of Russian Jewry', in Jonathan Frankel and Steven Zipperstein, Assimilation and Community: The Jews in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Cambridge, 1991, pp. 324-43.
  11. Richard Pipes 'Catherine II and the Jews,' Soviet Jewish Affairs 5(1975) pp. 3-20.
  12. John Doyle Klier Russia Gathers Her Jews. The Origins of 'Jewish Question' in Russia, 1772-1825, Dekalb, Illinois, 1986.
  13. *Michael Stanislawski Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews. The Transformation of Jewish Society in Russia 1825-1855, Philadelphia, 1983.
  14. *Eli Lederhendler The Road to Modern Jewish Politics. Political Tradition and Political Reconstruction in the Jewish Community of Tsarist Russia, Oxford, 1989.
  15. Isaac Levitats The Jewish Community in Russia, 1772- 1844, New York, 1943.
  16. Steven Zipperstein The Jews of Odessa: A Cultural History, 1794-1881,Stanford, 1985.

    17. The Kingdom of Poland (The Congress Kingdom)

  17. *Artur Eisenbach The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland particularly chapters 10 and 11.
  18. *Wladys`aw Bartoszewski, The Jews in Warsaw, Blackwells, 1991,
  19. Antony Polonsky (eds.) pp. 1-26.

The Deterioration of the Position of the Jews in the Tsarist Empire, 1881-1905.

  1. *John D. Klier, Shlomo Lambroza (eds.) Pogroms Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russsian History (Cambridge, 1992, pp. 3-42
  2. *Hans Rogger 'Russian Ministers and the Jewish Question in 1881-1917', in idem , Jewish Politics in Imperial Russia, (Californa, 1986).
  3. Alina Ca`a &The Question of the Assimilation of Jews in the Polish Kingdom (1864-1897)> An Interpretive Essay&, POLIN, 1, pp. 70-87.
  4. Frank Golczewski &Anti-semitic Literature in Poland before the First World War, POLIN, 4, pp. 87-98.
  5. Magdalena Opalski &Trends in the Literary Perception of Jews in Modern Polish Fiction&, From Shtetl to Socialism, pp. 151-167, also in POLIN, volume 4, pp. 70-87.

Jewish Reactions: Zionism, Socialism, Autonomism.

Traditional Jewish Responses: Later Hasidism, the Musar Movement

  1. *Paul Mendes-Flohr, The Jew in the Modern World, New York Jehuda Reinharz pp. 316-9.
  2. *Harry M. Rabinowicz The World of Hasidism, London, 1970.
  3. Wolf Zeev Rabinowitsch Lithuanian Hasidism, New York, 1971.
  4. Abraham Joshua Heschel A Passion for Truth, New York, 1973.
  5. Arthur Green Tormented Master: A Life of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, Alabama, 1979.
  6. Joseph I. Schneersohn The 'Tzemach Tzedek' and the Haskala Movement, Brooklyn, 1962.
  7. *Louis Ginzberg 'Israel Salanter' in Students, Scholars, and Saints, Philadelphia, 1928.
  8. Menahem Glenn Israel Salanter: Religious-Ethical Thinker, New York, 1953.
  9. *Yosef Salmon 'The Yeshiva of Lida: A Unique Institution of Higher Learning', YIVO Annual, 15, (1974), pp. 106-25.
  10. Chaim Grade The Yeshiva, Indianapolis, 1976-7.

The Emergence of Modern Hebrew Literature

  1. *Lucy Dawidowicz The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe, pp. 281-86.
  2. *Michael Stanislawski 'For Whom Do I Toil?' Judah Leib Gordon and the Crisis of Russian Jewry, New York, 1988,
  3. Isidore Cohen Viln a, Philadelphia, 1943, reprinted 1992 pp. 305-332.
  4. David Patterson Abraham Mapu, the Creator of the Modern Hebrew Novel, London, 1964.
  5. David Patterson The Hebrew Novel in Czarist Russia, Edinburgh, 1964.
  6. David Patterson A Pheonix in Fetter, Totowa, NJ, 1988.
  7. Eisig Silberschlag Saul Tschernichowsky, Ithaca, 1968.
  8. *Stanley Burnshaw, T. Carmi, The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself,
  9. Ezra Spicehandler (eds.) Cambridge, MA, 1965, pp. 1-53.
  10. *T. Carmi (ed.) The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, poems by Bialik and Tschernichowsky.
  11. David Roskies (ed.) The Literature of Destruction,:Jewish Responses to Catastrophe, Philadelphia, 1989, poems by Bialik.

The Emergence of Modern Yiddish Literature

  1. *Dan Miron A Traveller Disguised: A Study in Modern Yiddish Fiction in the Nineteenth Century, New York, 1973.
  2. Max Weinreich 'Internal Bilingualism in Ashkenaz', in Howe and Greenberg, Voices from the Yiddish, pp. 279-288.
  3. Chone Shmeruk 'Aspects of the History of Warsaw as a Yiddish Literary Center', From Shtetl to Socialism, pp. 120-33, also in POLIN, volume 3, pp. 140-55.
  4. Lucy Dawidowicz The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe, pp. 273-80, 286-304.
  5. *Sholem Aleichem Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories (translated by Hillel Halkin), New York, 1987.
  6. *Ruth Wisse (ed.) The I.L Peretz Reader, especially 'Monish',
  7. 'The Pious Cat', 'The Golem', 'Bontsche
  8. Shvayg', 'If Not Higher', 'Between Two Mountains', 'The Magician', 'Three Gifts', ' My Memoirs'.
  9. Yitshak Leib Peretz 'Advice to the Estranged', 'Hope and Fear', 'What Our Literature Needs', in Howe and Greenberg, Voices from the Yiddish, pp. 19-31.
  10. Irving Howe, Ruth Wisse, The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Khone Shmeruk (eds.) Verse, New York, 1987.
  11. Joseph C Landis (ed.) Three Great Jewish Plays, New York, 1966.
  12. Joachim Neugroschel (ed.) The Shtetl. A Creative Anthology of Jewish Life in Eastern Europe, New York, 1988.

Jewish Urbanization: Warsaw, Lodz, Odessa.

  1. *Bartoszewski, Polonsky (eds.) The Jews in Warsaw, pp. 1-31, 55-74, 212- 231, 246-277. POLIN, 6, (devoted to Lodz), pp. 3-19, 37- 104.
  2. Steven Zipperstein The Jews of Odessa: A Cultural History, 1794-1881,Stanford, 1985.
  3. Patricia Herlihy Odessa: A History, Cambridge, MA, 1986.
  4. Steven Zipperstein Elusivie Prophet. Ahad Ha'am and the Origins of Zionism, Berkeley, L.A., 1993.

Women in Jewish Eastern Europe

  1. *David Biale Eros and the Jews, New York, 1992, chapters, 6,7.
  2. David Biale 'Eros and Enlightenment: Love against Marriage in East European Jewish Enlightenment', From Shtetl to Socialism , pp. 168-86, also in POLIN, volume 1, pp. 49-67.
  3. Chava Weissler 'The Traditional Piety of Ashmenazic Women,' in Arthur Green (ed.) Jewish Spirituality, New York, 1987, volume 2, pp. 245-75.
  4. Chava Weissler '"For Women and for Men Who Are Like Women": The Construction of Gender in Yiddish Devotional Literature,'Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5, number 2 (Fall 1989), pp. 7-24.
  5. Ada Rapoport-Albert 'On Women in Hasidism: S.A. Horodecky and The Maid of Ludmir Tradition,' in Ada Rapoport-Albert and Steven J. Zipperstein, Jewish History. Essays in Honour of Chimen Abramsky, pp. 495-525.
  6. Jacob Katz 'Family, Kinship and Marriage among Ashkenazim in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,' Jewish Journal of Sociology I(1959), pp. 4-22.
  7. *Shaul Stampfer 'Gender Differentiation and Education of the Jewish Woman in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Europe,' From Shtetl to Socialism , pp. 168-86, also in POLIN, volume 7, pp. 63-87.
  8. Sylvia Barack Fishman (ed.) Follow My Footprints. Changint Images of Women in American Jewish Fiction, Brandeis, 1992, pp. 1-160.
  9. Yitshak Leib Peretz 'The Outcast', in Stories and Pictures, Philadelphia, 1906), pp. 307-10.
  10. Ruth Adler Women of the Shtetl through the eyes of Y. L. Peretz, New York, 1980, pp. 7-119.

The Rise of Jewish Mass Culture: Music, Theater, Press

  1. *Nahma Sandrow Vagabond Stars: A World History of the Yiddish Theater, New York, 1975 chapters 1 and 3.
  2. Lucy Dawidowicz The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe, pp. 321-26, (Goldfaden), pp. 305-13 (Ansky).
  3. Michael Steinlauf 'The Polish-Jewish Daily Press', From Shtetl to Socialism, pp. 332-6, also in POLIN, volume 2, pp 219-223.
  4. Michael Steinlauf 'Mr Geldhab and Sambo in peyes. Images of the Jew on the Polish Stage 1863-1905', POLIN, volume 4, pp 98-128.
  5. Mark Kiel 'The Centrality of Peretz in Jewish Folkloristics', POLIN, volume 7, pp. 88- 121.

The Last Years: Jews in the Tsarist Empire, 1905-1914

  1. Lucy Dawidowicz The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe, pp. 49-75.
  2. Stephen Corrsin Warsaw Before the First World War, New York, 1989, pp. 78-106.
  3. *Bartoszewski, Polonsky The Jews in Warsaw, pp. 25-31.
  4. *Shlomo Lambroza 'Jewish Responses to Pogroms in late Imperial Russia', in Jehuda Reinharz (ed.), Living with Anti-semitism: Modern Jewish Responses, London, 1987, pp. 253- 74.
  5. John Klier, Shlomo Lambroza Pogroms, pp. 314-72.
  6. Sholom Aleichem The Bloody Hoax, Indiana, 1991.

Note: Essential reading is marked with an asterisk (*).