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

Selected Essays by Ahad Ha ‘Am, by Ahad Ha’am, Leon Simon (Translator). 1912, 2005

How Jews Transform Societies. Jewish Germanophilia

This work includes a selection of items written by Ahad Ha-Am (Asher Ginzberg), a native of tsarist Russia, in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The issues brought up include Diaspora nationalism, Zionism, assimilation, the Yiddishist movement, etc. Because he discusses many issues, I elaborate on a few of them below.

The translator provides a glossary of Hebrew-language terms. For instance, he describes the Hasidim as a revolt against the formalism and over-intellectualism of Rabbinic Judaism. (p. 343). The MITNAGGEDIM were Orthodox opponents of the Hasidim.

HOW JEWS TRANSFORM SOCIETIES: GINZBERG ON “COMPETITIVE IMITATION” OF HOST CULTURES

Ha-Am described the implications of Hellenization in antiquity. He writes, (quote) Long before the Hellenizing Jews in Palestine tried to substitute Greek culture for Judaism, the Jews in Egypt had come into close contact with the Greek way of life and thought; yet we do not find any movement towards complete assimilation on their part. On the contrary, they used the knowledge of Greek life and thought for the purpose of revealing the distinctive spirit of Judaism, of showing the whole world its beauty, and of vindicating its superiority to the proud philosophy of Greece. (unquote). (p. 72).

Let us move beyond the content of this book and imagine how Jews would adopt the foregoing line of reasoning to the process of assimilation in Poland. By exercising “competitive imitation”, they would adopt Polish ways, not so much to “become Poles”, but rather to express their Judaism in a Polish way, and even to compete with Polish culture by means of their Polish-Jewish synthesis.

Now consider the implications. Some of the Endeks (Polish patriots) had contended that, were Poland’s massive Jewish population to assimilate and to convert to Catholicism on a large scale, this would cause a zazydzenie (Judaization) of Poland and of Polish Catholicism. Polish-ness and Polish Catholicism could become transformed beyond recognition, with dilution or even loss of their essences. Ahad Ha-Am (Asher Hirsch Ginzberg) and his thinking provides a Jewish mirror-image to these much-condemned Endek concerns.

WHY POLAND’S JEWS WERE LONG PRO-GERMAN

Poles had complained that Poland’s Jews were enchanted with Germanophilia. Ahad Ha-Am makes it clear why this was so. He comments, (quote) The East-European Jews, for example, first learnt western culture from the Jews of Germany; the modernizing influence was not that of their own non-Jewish surroundings, but that which was at work among the German Jews. They imitated the German Jews absolutely, regardless of the difference of conditions in their own countries, as though they had been wholly German themselves. (unquote). (p. 74). Only later did Poland’s Jews develop a more German-independent line of thinking.