The Jews in Poland and Russia, Vol. 2: 1881-1914 - Hardcover

Polonsky, Antony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1904113834 ISBN 13: 9781904113836

Publisher: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2010

Synopsis

In his three-volume history, Antony Polonsky provides a comprehensive survey - socio-political, economic, and religious - of the Jewish communities of eastern Europe from 1350 to the present. Until the Second World War, this was the heartland of the Jewish world: nearly three and a half million Jews lived in Poland alone, while nearly three million more lived in the Soviet Union. Although the majority of the Jews of Europe and the United States, and many of the Jews of Israel, originate from these lands, their history there is not well known. Rather, it is the subject of mythologizing and stereotypes that fail both to bring out the specific features of the Jewish civilization which emerged there and to illustrate what was lost. Jewish life, though often poor materially, was marked by a high degree of spiritual and ideological intensity and creativity. Antony Polonsky recreates this lost world - brutally cut down by the Holocaust and less brutally but still seriously damaged by the Soviet attempt to destroy Jewish culture. Wherever possible, the unfolding of history is illustrated by contemporary Jewish writings to show how Jews felt and reacted to the complex and difficult situations in which they found themselves. This second volume covers the period from1881 to 1914. It considers the deterioration in the position of the Jews during that time and the new political and cultural movements that developed as a consequence: Zionism, socialism, autonomism, the emergence of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature, Jewish urbanization, and the rise of popular Jewish culture. Galicia, Prussian Poland, the Kingdom of Poland, and the tsarist empire are all treated individually, as are the main towns of these areas. *** Winner of the 2011 Kulczycki Book Prize for Polish Studies, awarded by the American Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. *** "No one interested in Jewish, Polish, or Russian history can afford to be without these volumes . . . will long remain the standard work on this crucial Jewish community . . . The most important thing one can say about Antony Polonsky's The Jews in Poland and Russia is: get it and read it!" - Theodore R. Weeks, The Polish Review ˜*** "This superb and very up-to-date book is very well written, carefully documented, balanced, and will be a standard reference in the field. It has a glossary and a wide-ranging bibliography, very useful maps, and statistical tables all of which make it a good starting point for any reading on East European Jewry." - Shaul Stampfer, Religious Studies Review, Vol. 38, No. 2, June 2012 *** "Polonsky's strength lies in his ability to illuminate intellectual and cultural developments . . . Because of the excellent bibliographies, extensive annotation, and wonderful maps included in each volume, any reader wishing to read in greater detail about Polish and Russian Jewry will have plenty of resources to enable the search." - Alexandra S. Korros, Jewish Quarterly *** "Antony Polonsky's particular scholarly achievement lies in the fact that he combines a masterful grasp of Jewish history with that of Eastern Europe. . . . these beautifully narrated volumes should not only be seen as a staple for university courses, but also as a must-read for anyone attempting to understand any aspect of modern Jewish history and religious tradition.... It all originates in Eastern Europe, Antony Polonsky reminds us, and without understanding our collective past, how can we understand our present." - European Judaism, Vol. 46, No. 2, Autumn 2013˜*** "The first serious, and most successful, effort thus far to summarize the history of the Jews of 'Eastern Europe' . . . the first book to synthesize the vast research that has emerged since the seventies . . . comprehensive and multidisciplinary . . . there is no book today that can compare to its scope and to the vast and new materials that he brings forth and analyzes with a broad imagination, an intensive approach, and a moderate style." - Moshe Rosman, Zion [Subject: Jewish Studies, Polish Studies, Russian Studies, East European Studies, History]˜˜˜

About this title

About the Author:

Antony Polonsky is Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies, an appointment held jointly at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Brandeis University. Before this he taught at the London School of Economics, and he has been a visiting professor at the University of Warsaw, the Institute for the Human Sciences, Vienna, and the University of Cape Town; a visiting fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies; and Visiting Senior Associate Member of St Antony's College, Oxford. He is the editor of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, a yearbook also published (since 1993) by the Littman Library, and the author or co-author of several books, including Politics in Independent Poland (1972), The Little Dictators: A History of Eastern Europe since 1918 (1975), The Great Powers and the Polish Question, 1941-1945 (1976), The History of Poland since 1863 (1981), and The Beginnings of Communist Rule in Poland (1981).

Professor Polousky is vice-president of the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies and of the American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies. He is a member of the International Council of the State Museum in Auschwitz, of the International Advisory Board of the Mordecai Anieliewicz Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Warsaw, and of the Executive Committee of the National Polish American-Jewish American Task Force, and an Associate of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University. In 1999 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.

Review:

`The first serious, and most successful, effort thus far to summarize the history of the Jews of "Eastern Europe" . . . the first book to synthesize the vast research that has emerged since the seventies . . . comprehensive and multidisciplinary . . . there is no book today that can compare to its scope and to the vast and new materials that he brings forth and analyzes with a broad imagination, an intensive approach, and a moderate style.' - Moshe Rosman, Zion 'Exemplary and formidable . . . Polonsky, as much as anyone else, has created the field of modern Jewish history as a subject to be considered and understood rather than simply a tragic past to be mourned. He is too good a historian to confuse the history of Jewish life with the German policies that brought Jewish death . . . The barely visible commitment in these three wonderful volumes is to rescue a world from polemic, for the sake of history.' - Timothy Snyder, Wall Street Journal 'This superb and very up-to-date book is very well written, carefully documented, balanced, and will be a standard reference in the field. It has a glossary and a wide-ranging bibliography, very useful maps, and statistical tables, all of which make it a good starting point for any reading on east European Jewry.' - Shaul Stampfer, Religious Studies Review 'Polonsky's magisterial The Jews in Poland and Russia is one of those rare works that can hope to bridge the gap between specialist and "intelligent general reader", providing a strong narrative and appealing prose for the latter as well as an up-to-date distilled knowledge of both primary and secondary sources for the former. No one interested in Jewish, Polish, or Russian history can afford to be without these volumes . . . will long remain the standard work on this crucial Jewish community . . . While a survey of this sort requires a goodly bit of politics . . . Polonsky has gone out of his way to include culture, religious life, gender, Jewish mass culture, and social history . . . The books' structure is entirely appropriate for its primary purpose: to provide a basic overview of this Jewish community's history . . . strikingly high level of scholarship . . . [The publisher] is particularly to be commended on its allowing Polonsky to cite at length from the Jewish literary sources he is considering and not begrudging space for a dozen pages of useful statistics (not a small thing in a publishing world where bibliographies are often considered superfluous!) . . . This history, written by a major scholar of both Polish and Jewish history and a person profoundly attached to both communities, is exemplary in its efforts to integrate Jews into Polish history, neither white-washing sources of friction nor painting an overly rosy picture. The most important thing one can say about Antony Polonsky's The Jews in Poland and Russia is: get it and read it!' - Theodore R. Weeks, The Polish Review 'Any reader who invests the time and money to read the book . . . will find it very rewarding-and not just because of the wealth of information it contains. What Polonsky's book brings home, in a way that a narrower study could not, is the sheer complexity and vitality of Jewish life in that time and place . . . this broader picture is needed to make sense of the social changes that were accelerating by the late nineteenth century-above all, in the situation of women, the subject of one of Polonsky's best chapters . . . Polonsky's panoramic book, which packs so much vivid detail and statistical information into its 500 pages, helps to show just how rich, and how difficult, that life really was.' - Adam Kirsch, The New Republic and Tablet Magazine 'An excellent synthesis of recent research on east European Jewish culture and history. As such it fills a definite need for an accessible introduction to the current scholarship and thinking about the Jews of Poland and Russia . . . should be on the reading list of anyone interested in the history and folk cultures of eastern Europe, whether they work specifically with Jewish history and folk culture, or with other regional cultures.' - David Elton Gay, Journal of Folklore Research 'We can only commend Antony Polonsky for his massive effort to explain seven centuries of Jewish history in a mere 2,000 pages . . . Polonsky's strength lies in his ability to illuminate intellectual and cultural developments . . . Because of the excellent bibliographies, extensive annotation, and wonderful maps included in each volume, any reader wishing to read in greater detail about Polish and Russian Jewry will have plenty of resources to enable the search.' - Alexandra S. Korros, Jewish Quarterly 'For several decades now, Antony Polonsky has been at the forefront of Polish-Jewish studies . . . It is thus fitting that Polosnky, who has nurtured young scholars, especially in Poland itself and North America, should bring together old and new work in this remarkable multi-volume synthesis of Jewish history and culture . . . These volumes will provide the first port of call for any student of east European Jewry.' - Tony Kushner, Jewish Chronicle 'The first two volumes of Antony Polonsky's magisterial The Jews in Poland and Russia trilogy provide a much-needed addition to the landscape of Jewish historical studies . . . [a] significant achievement in presenting the most modern findings in a clear, readable, comprehensive survey . . . his narrative is grand and his analysis tight . . . an excellent synthesis of this community's history, incorporating much of the groundbreaking scholarship of the last few decades. Repeatedly, the volumes remind us of the many lost opportunities for real reform in the region. They help correct the nostalgic and romanticized portraits of what is sometimes considered a lost civilization, while simultaneously demonstrating the vibrancy and diversity of Jewish life in the region . . . essential reading for those seeking a thorough and balanced understanding of Jewish life in pre-twentieth century Eastern Europe.' - Jeffrey Veidlinger, H-Judaic 'Combines a masterful grasp of Jewish history with that of eastern Europe. While underlining the unique features and achievements of the Jewish communal experience he authoritatively integrates them into the history of the countries in which Jews lived . . . Incorporating current, ground-breaking scholarship from North America, Israel, and Europe these beautifully narrated volumes should not only be seen as a staple of university courses, but also as a must-read for anyone attempting to understand any aspect of modern Jewish history and religious tradition, wherever it may be playing out . . . With this extremely important book, Antony Polonsky not only writes history but, following the example of his illustrious predecessors, makes it.' - Katarzyna Person, European Judaism 'Succeeds admirably. Simply put, these volumes are required reading for anyone with a serious interest in East European history or for anyone looking for a scholarly assessment of a particular feature of Polish or Russian Jewish history. Handsomely produced, with extensive maps and tables, and a glossary . . . will remain a standard work in the field for some time . . . a body of work that, in summarizing the current state of our knowledge, effectively sets the agenda for future scholars. Polonsky is perhaps the scholar most responsible for the growth of Polish Jewish studies in the late twentieth century . . Very few historians could write a series of volumes like this . . . [he] has armed scholars with a formidable tool that will help them dispel stereotypes . . . Just as these volumes are destined to become the starting point for the work of many students, they will be the touchstone for scholars working in the field at all levels.' - Sean Martin, European History Quarterly 'This second volume of Polonsky's well-reseached, eloquently written study provides a finely distinct portrait of Jewish life in eastern Europe in the years leading up to the Great War . . . Highly recommended.' - R. K. Byczkiewicz, Choice 'A truly landmark study of east European Jewish history for the mid-fourteenth century to the outbreak of World War I. This work is an invaluable synthetic exposition of Jewish civilization in Poland and Russia that pays close attention to the larger historical context in which Jewish history unfolded in these areas. While exhaustive in presenting historical detail and utilizing available sources and data of all types, Polonsky is also masterful in conveying the texture of Jewish life in different regions during each period. His study weaves together numerous aspects of that life-among others, the relationship of Jewish communities to the states in the region and their governance mechanisms; Jewish religious and political movements; the evolving role of the synagogue in communities; the wide variety of Jewish organizations over time and space; cultural changes, including the development of the mass press, modern literature, and theatre; the experiences of Jewish women; and descriptions of the towns and cities in which Jewish history played out. The contribution of Polonsky's study, however, is not only an impressive synthesis of a vast topic and vast amount of information. In integrating all of this material, the author also deftly crafts his own interpretations of trends in the area and the timing of shifts in them. His marshalling of evidence and his own insights add up to a compelling set of arguments about the course of Jewish history. Polonsky addresses Jewish, Polish, and Russian historical developments all with great nuance, and that depth of understanding allows him to present the complexities of these intertwined histories with a subtlety rarely achieved in projects of such ambitious temporal and spatial scope. This study will become a "go to" reference for scholars of east European Jewish history for a long time to come.' From the citation for the 2011 Kulczycki Book Prize for Polish Studies, awarded to Volumes I and II

About this edition

• Publisher: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1904113834
• ISBN 13: 9781904113836
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 492