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

Memorial Books of Eastern European Jewry: Essays on the History and Meanings of Yizker Volumes, by Rosemary Horowitz (ed.). 2011. McFarland & Company, Inc., North Carolina and London

Jewish Memorial Books Are Folklore Rather Than History: Implications for Jewish Polonophobia

This work examines Jewish memorial books from every angle. I focus on pertinent issues.

JEWISH DISLOYALTY TO POLAND IN 1920

In elaborating on Pinkas Byten, written in interwar Poland, and evidently alluding to the 1920 Polish-Bolshevik war, Jacob Schatzy comments, “Of great importance are the recollections of David Abramovitsh, who describes the situation of Jews in the White Russian region where the Soviets were greeted as the liberators from Polish control. First the Red Army emptied all the Jewish stores. The Soviet authority then shut down all cultural institutions, people’s banks, and even charitable societies.” (pp. 59-70). Because yizkor books tend to avoid negative information [see below], the author obviously did not see disloyalty to Poland as something shameful.

Now, the canned excuse for Jews supporting the Soviets is (what else?) Polish antisemitism. But when the Soviets so obviously had wronged the Jews, there was not a peep out of them, and they turned around and commonly supported the Soviets again in 1939.

JEWS AND THE AVOIDANCE OF MILITARY SERVICE

Jacob Schatzky discusses the Braynsk [Brainsk] sefer ha-zikaron as follows, “There are also many stories about the leaders of the Jewish community and how they managed to ‘dodge being recruited into the army’.” (p. 57). Since yizkor books tend to screen out negative information [see below], the author obviously did not see draft dodging as something that was negative.

A CLUE AS TO WHY JEWS RUN DOWN “POLAND’S HEROIC NARRATIVE”: BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO HEROES OF THEIR OWN

Roni Kochavi-Nehab quotes Haim Hazaz from a 1943 Hebrew-language work. She writes, “…at the time of its publication, the short story ‘The Sermon’ by Haim Hazaz made waves by virtue of the provocative text put in the mouth of its hero Yudke: ‘…Simply put, Jewish history is boring and uninteresting. It includes no great feats or sagas, no world-conquering heroes, no rulers and men of action, lords of action; only a gathering of faded and drifting men, moaners and weepers and beggars for mercy…I would forbid the teaching of Jewish history to our children. Why the hell should we teach them the shame of their fathers?'” (p. 145).

For more on the Jewish disinclination to identify with heroes, especially military heroes, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/jews-transform-societies-samuel/

JEWISH FOLKLORE HAD A COUNTERPART TO THE BLOOD LIBEL

Rivka Parciak describes how odd (not necessarily mentally ill) people are overemphasized in Yizkor books. She comments, “While the children used to abuse the meshugeners, they also feared them. The book to the town of Dzisna describes Bendak, a man who use to walk around the town with a large bag and ‘the [children’s] parents and elder siblings would warn them that if they did not behave well, they would be handed over to Bendak who would put them into his deep bag.'” (p. 235).

Now consider the fact that Poles have their “Jew is out to get you” folktale of the Jew grabbing a Polish child and spiriting him away in his bag. Obviously, Jews have their own counterpart to the tale, but only Poles are blamed for theirs.

This can be taken further. Jews also commonly taught that Gypsies (Roma) kidnap Jewish children. See, for instance:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/ritual-murder-jews-believed-similar-mielnicki/

YIZKOR (YITZKOR) BOOKS: MORE FOLKLORE THAN HISTORY

Roni Kochavi-Nehab comments, “The most frequent criticism of yizker books and jubilee books concerns their untrustworthiness…I argue that the phenomenon of writing these books is folkloric and ritualistic. The books are destined for fortify and approve the individual’s identification with the group.” (p. 154). She adds that, “The narrative expressed in community book is subjective and carefully presented, sometimes embellished and sometimes vague.” (p. 155).

The tendentiousness of yizkor books is also discussed by Rivka Parciak, who writes, “Some scholars considered the information about the community unreliable because the accounts generally referred only to the positive aspects of the community concerned and either ignored or covered up its negative elements.” (p. 222).

As for the Shoah, Parciak writes, “The Holocaust was a severe and terrible event that created a mutual linkage between different people in society because it provides a focal point for concentrating the emotions of the group’s members. These emotions find their place is yizker books.” (p. 236).

This “Jews were victims” collective emotionalism can partly explain the Polonophobic biases of many yizkor books. This includes exaggerated or fabricated accounts of malevolent Poles turning-in fugitive Jews to the Germans.

In fact, the testimonies of Holocaust survivors are commonly unreliable. For example, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/bad-pole-holocaust-survivor-testimony-unreliable-wieviorka/