Metadata language
Syn będzie Lech... : asymilacja Żydów w Polsce międzywojennej
Subtitle:“My son’s name shall be Lech”. Assimilation of the Jews in interwar Poland
Creator: Publisher:
Wydawnictwo Neriton ; Instytut Historii PAN
Place of publishing: Date issued/created: Description:475, [2] p. ; 24 cm ; Bibliography p. 444-462. Indexes ; Summary in English.
Subject and Keywords:Jews - Poland - 1900-1945 ; Jews - acculturation - Poland - 1900-1945 ; Jews - cultural assimilation - Poland - history - 20th c.
Abstract:
The problem of assimilation of the Jews in the interwar period has not been thoroughly examined so far. The present book is the first attempt to describe this group of inhabitants of interwar Poland from the perspective of their awareness, religiousness, language and place occupied within the society. It is an attempt to present an everyday life of this large and unexplored so far part of a society living on national borderline. Due to the assimilation movement of the 19th century, the assimilation in the interwar period was unnecessary. The Jews who wanted to assimilate already had their own community – they could become Poles mingling mainly with the group of assimilated Jews. At the time of partitions both the Poles and Jews were a national minorities which placed them on the same side of the dividing line. Assimilation into the Polishness, thus into the culture of a nation that did not wield power, could not be regarded as a careerism, pushing one’s way up. Whereas after the World War I adaptation to the Polish culture ceased to be a clear determinant of the Polishness. A specificity of the Jewish assimilation is also influenced by the attitude towards it of a part of the Polish people and authorities. Usually it is that the dominating group imposes the assimilation on the other, weaker group. Sometimes assimilation is made with the approval and acceptance of both parties. The opposite situation – when the weaker group or its part wants to assimilate and the dominating group rejects it – is much less frequent. Yet it was the situation in which the Jewish community found itself in the Second Polish Republic. Because the problem of rejection of nationalities trying to assimilate is comparatively rare, only a few studies noticed that the assimilation of Jews in the 20th century goes beyond the traditional model of assimilation processes. It is an unusual situation when two nations – assimilating and assimilated into – have one homeland. In the Second Polish Republic there was a tendency to assimilate the Slavic minorities and to rebuff – or at least to treat with suspicion – the Jewish assimilation efforts. The Poles had their own state, the Jews were a national minority. In the time of increasing nationalisms their lives were more and more complicated because they did not ‘wholly’ belong to the one of the worlds; they had double identity in the time when ethnicity was becoming one of the most important determinant of identity. The authoress wanted to reconstruct the sense of national identity of the assimilated Jews; to examine whether they regarded themselves as Jews, Poles or rather were on the national borderline ‘between’ the two. She also analyses the social circles in which the members of this group moved or inclined toward. Another subject of interest are family problems – mixed marriages, the role of a woman in the assimilation process, relationship between the old and young generations; religious questions – observance of Jewish laws, celebration of important rituals and holidays, and dilemmas related to it, baptisms, and fundamental question posed by both sides, whether a complete assimilation without conversion is possible. One of the basic determinant of assimilation was excellent fluency in Polish. The separate chapter sheds light on the knowledge of languages, home languages, multilingualism and sophisticated patterns of giving names. One of the more comprehensive chapters is dedicated to the issue of school – the choice of school: religious, secular, Polish, Hebrew, and a mood of child at school as well. Finally, there is a description of a patriotism of the assimilated Jews, cult of Marshall Piłsudski and their attitude toward military service. The book also attempts to answer the question whether the assimilated and trying to assimilate Jews were functioning within the Polish society in the same way as the Poles for generations or whether they formed a particular group with different customs.
IH PAN, call no. II.11719 ; IH PAN, call no. II.11718 Podr. ; click here to follow the link
Language: Language of abstract: Rights:Creative Commons Attribution BY-ND 4.0 license
Terms of use:Copyright-protected material. [CC BY-ND 4.0] May be used within the scope specified in Creative Commons Attribution BY-ND 4.0 license, full text available at: ; -
Digitizing institution:Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Original in:Library of the Institute of History PAS
Access: