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

The Jewish Dark Continent: Life and Death in the Russian Pale of Settlement, by Nathaniel Deutsch. 2011.

Jewish Exploitative Vocations: Jewish Self-Criticism. Jewish Anti-Christianity. Jews Are An Indelibly Oriental People (Confirms Endeks)

Consistent with the premise that the Jew answers every question with another question (p. 1), the bulk of this work consists of a set of 2,087 questions raised by An-sky (Shloyme Zanvil Rappaport). They touch on virtually every imaginable aspect of Jewish life, including childbirth, infancy, child rearing, marriage, education, social status, senescence, death, etc. Deutsch characterizes An-sky’s work as a kind of folkloric Talmud for the twentieth century. (p. 15). Religious issues assume only a small part of An-sky’s 2,087 questions. There is an interesting section on the afterlife. (pp. 307-313). It contains speculations about reincarnation, but also features concepts of heaven and hell that seem to parallel their Christian counterparts.

Of course, arcane details require explanation for the non-specialized reader. Accordingly, the editor comments on An-sky’s questions, for the benefit of the reader, and in considerable detail, on almost every page of An-sky’s text.

JEWISH PROFITEERING: THIS JEWISH AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGED THE EXPLOITIVENESS OF JEWISH VOCATIONS

Consider the so-called parasitic occupations. Although An-Sky was in no sense what some call a self-hating Jew (to the contrary), he repeatedly voiced support for the premise that the Jewish role in Russian society is an unmistakably exploitative one. This must energetically be corrected. (p. 4).

JEWS AND THE FAMILY

Now consider divorce. Although it was declining among Jews throughout the 19th century, the divorce rate among the Jews of tsarist Russia was higher than that of other religious communities. (p. 248).

Let us now focus on prostitution. (pp. 242-243). In the late 19th century, Jews, at 4% of the population of the entire Russian Empire (including the Russian-ruled part of Poland), accounted for 7% of registered prostitutes. Deutsch adds that, “Within the Pale of Settlement as a whole, Jewish women ran a full 70 percent of the brothels.” (p. 243).

JEWISH DRAFT DODGING (EVASION OF MILITARY SERVICE)

An-Sky elaborated on how Jews sometimes injured themselves in order to avoid military service in the tsarist Russian Army. (pp. 191-192). Interestingly, KHAPPERS (those who forcibly supplied Jewish boys to the Army) were often Jewish themselves. (p. 193). Also interestingly, the cited work of Yohanen Petrovsky-Shtern rejects the premise that Tsar Nicholas I’s policy, of drafting Jews, was motivated by converting Jews to Christianity. Rather, it stemmed from an “Enlightenment agenda”. (p. 345). If so, then Jewish resistance to the draft owed less to fears of Jews converting to Christianity and more to a desire to avoid integrating into Russian society.

MARTIN BUBER CONCURRED WITH ENDEKS: JEWS ARE AN INDELIBLY ORIENTAL PEOPLE

The title of this book derives from the attitudes of western Jews towards the OSTJUDEN–deemed a huge and backward community. (p. 29). Deutsch quotes Martin Buber as thinking of the eastern European Jew as one that, notwithstanding the passage of many centuries, “has remained an Oriental”. [Ironically, Endeks and other authors among Poles (e. g., Feliks Koneczny), have been condemned for opining that Jewish culture is essentially an Oriental one–moreover one essentially foreign to Poland’s Latin culture.]

THE LITVAK PROBLEM

Interestingly, Endeks were not the only one with less than positive attitudes towards the Litvaks (Litwaks). Deutsch points out that Polish Jews often called Lithuanian Jews derogatory terms such as LITVAK KHAZIR (“Lithuanian pig”) and LITVAK TSEYLEM KOP (“Lithuanian cross head”). (p. 151).

MISCELLANEOUS FACTS

The editor considers An-sky a NARODNIK. This Jew was thus a Russian populist who rejected the Marxist premise that societies necessarily had to go through an industrial capitalist phase before they could enter the revolutionary mode. (p. 2).

Deutsch (pp. 180-181) states that Purimshpiels were, in his words, “extremely popular” among Jews of the Pale. He cites some works that discuss them, but does not mention Christians as the “bad guy” Haman.

The editor touches on the Haskalah (Jewish enlightenment). Interestingly, he cites a work that rejects the common view that the Haskalah originated among German Jews and later spread to eastern European Jews. Instead, it appeared simultaneously at several centers of Jewish life in both central and eastern Europe. (p. 183).

JEWISH ANTI-CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS

Finally, Deutsch (p. 169) mentions, but glosses over, an important scholarly article. I elaborate on it below:
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“Torah Study on Christmas Eve”, by Marc Shapiro. 1999. THE JOURNAL OF JEWISH THOUGHT AND PHILOSOPHY 8:319-353. (This entire article, at the time of this review, is freely available online.)

The Jewish custom of refraining from Torah study, on Christmas Eve, goes back at least a few centuries, even though it was shrouded in oral tradition in order to try to hide it from the Christians. (p. 346). Many, though not all Jews, observed this custom, both Hasidim and non-Hasidim, including well-known Talmudists. (p. 331).

Shapiro rejects the common explanation, for not studying the Torah on Christmas Eve, as merely a stay-indoors policy of self-protection from possible violence from Christians on this night. After all, the prohibition also applied to studying the Torah in private at home! (p. 346).

The motive, based in part on Sanhedrin 90b, is described by Shapiro, “It is possible that one may study something which Jesus himself studied. This in turn would be of assistance to his soul, which remains in hell.” (p. 331; see also pp. 346-347). This motive refutes the contention that Jews had no concern for Christianity other than a source of persecution.

Marc Shapiro also clarifies other Jewish teachings about Jesus Christ, as he writes, “The notion that Jesus is condemned to crawl through the latrines on Christmas eve is quite significant, as will soon be seen. The closest parallel is found in TOLEDOT YESHU…presumably, a passage in GITTIN 57a is relevant in this regard and may even be the origin of the notion that Jesus must crawl through the latrines. According to this passage, it has been decreed in heaven that Jesus is punished with boiling hot excrement.” (p. 355).

Shapiro puts all this in broader context as he states that, “Of course, even without a clear halakhic prohibition, Jews were accustomed to use derogatory expressions in speaking of elements of the Christian religion.” (p. 320). He also notes that the dog was used as an image, of bad things in store for the Jews at Christmas-time, owing to the popular Kabbalistic identification of Jesus with a dog. (p. 329).

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For more on the convergence of Endek and Jewish thinking, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/like-jews-like-endeks-definitive-work-hart/