Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present, by Zvi Y. Gitelman, Yivo Institute for Jewish Research. 2001

JEWISH MASS LITERACY GAVE JEWS A HUGE ADVANTAGE in Many Nations, Including Tsarist Russia. Jews in Communism. Details

If you enjoy oversized books (review based on the 1988 edition) that overflow with photographs, and which contain an introductory-level approach to topics, this book is for you. Much of the content comes from YIVO archives. Because this content covers a century of time, and brings up numerous, very diverse topics, I focus on only a few issues.

Tsarist Russia acquired a huge Jewish population after inheriting the Jews of eastern Poland after the Partitions. (p. XIV, 5). In fact, the Pale of Jewish Settlement ended at the former border of Poland and Russia. In a map, the author includes the Congress Kingdom (central Poland) as part of the Pale (p. 3), even though some other authors do not do so. By 1897, out of 5.2 million Jews in all of tsarist Russia, only 300,000 lived outside the Pale. (p. 39). Obviously, the vast majority of “Russian” Jews were the descendants of Polish Jews.

ANTISEMITISM AND ANTIGOYISM

Zvi describes the fate of Jews in tsarist Russia as ones whose fortunes waxed and waned in a cyclic manner. Some Jews sought to escape anti-Semitism by withdrawing further into Judaism, while others went the opposite direction–assimilation and conversion–or finding solace in utopian movements. Zvi believes that tradition-minded Jews were more inured to anti-Semitism because they reckoned goys as Esau–always an enemy of Jacob. (p. 17). Jews had a derogatory term for Russian gentiles–FONYE GANEV. (p. 81).

OPPORTUNISTIC JEWISH CONVERSIONS

The author notes that many Jewish converts were neither Marranos nor the products of a changed religious conviction. They disbelieved all religion. (p. 15). [This trend helps explain the later Endek suspicion of the motives of assimilated and converted Jews.]

JEWS WITHOUT A DEFINITE OCCUPATION

Although Zvi does not mention this, it turns out that poor, unemployed or underemployed Jews were inherited by post-1918 Poland (as pointed out by Dmowski). Earlier, in tsarist Russia, there were already the LUFTMENTSHN (“men living on air”) that is, Jews without a definite occupation. Many were artisans, craftsmen, shopkeepers, and petty traders that had become dislocated. (p. 19, 75).

NEAR-UNIVERSAL JEWISH LITERACY GAVE JEWS A HUGE ADVANTAGE

One major factor in Jewish success, over the centuries, had been widespread Jewish literacy pitted against widespread gentile illiteracy. In tsarist Russia, 80% of the population was illiterate as late as the eve of WWI (1914), while nearly all Jewish males and most Jewish females were literate in their own language (Yiddish). (p. 41). (This also made the Zydokomuna all the more important.)

In addition, by 1900, over 30% of Jewish men and 16% of Jewish women could also read Russian. (p. 41). [This no doubt reinforced Jewish-Russian bonds, which could only be at the expense of Polish national aspirations (e. g, the Litvaks or Litwaks), thus provoking Endek hostility to Jews, especially after about 1900.]

RECONCILING MARXIST IDEOLOGY AND THE REALITIES OF JUDAISM IN TSARIST RUSSIA

Jewish Marxists faced a paradox. The exploited proletariat was supposed to rise up against the bourgeoisie. For this to happen, capitalist society was predicated as having a large peasantry and/or proletariat, aristocracy at the top, and bourgeoisie in the middle.

Jewish society in tsarist Russia was very different–hardly any peasantry, no aristocracy, [also hardly any agricultural proletariat, and only a small factory proletariat], and a large class of petit bourgeoisie consisting of the likes of small shopkeepers and LUFTMENSHN. To overcome this paradox, the Yiddish linguist Ber Borochov engaged in “Talmudic reasoning”. He synthesized Marxism and Zionism, and thus the Poalai Zion [Poale Zion] Party was formed in 1906. Poor Jews were supposed to emigrate to Palestine, where they would eventually become oppressed by the bourgeoisie, and thus would now go through the normal course of events that culminates in the revolution taught my classic Marxist ideology. (pp. 27-28).

THE ZYDOKOMUNA: MUCH BROADER THAN FORMAL AFFILIATION WITH COMMUNISM

Among relatively large Jewish political parties, the Poale Zion was not the only one that had Communist roots. The Bund incorporated several Marxist groups, including the one with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. (p. 20).

Fast forward a few decades. In assessing Jews and Communism, Zvi points to them as both victimizers and victims. He writes, (quote) The Great Purge of 1934-1939 was not directed specifically at Jews. Indeed, a high proportion of the purgers—most of whom were eventually purged themselves–were Jews, employees of the dreaded secret police. As members of a highly urbanized, educated nationality, Jews were overrepresented in the party, government, military, academia, and police, all of which were more thoroughly purged than the general population. For every Genrikh Yagoda, the Jewish head of the secret police from 1934 until he himself was purged in 1936, there were countless former Zionists, clerics, EVSEKTSII activists, or highly assimilated Jews who were purged.” (unquote)(p. 171). It was Khazanovich [Kaganovich?], a powerful Jew in the Soviet Union, who summoned leading Polish Jews Victor Alter and Henryk Erlich to a meeting in 1941. They were executed. (p. 226).