Full Description
This volume highlights new research on Jewish spiritual and religious life in Poland before modern political ideas began to transform the Jewish world. It covers a range of topics. Three articles deal with rabbinic scholarship in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and a fourth presents accounts of Purim festivities at that time. The eighteenth-century studies focus on Jewish spirituality. Four articles deal with the Frankist movement, the main topics being Frankist propaganda; non-Christian Frankists; Jonathan Eibeschuetz and the Frankists; and the influence of Frankism on Polish culture. There are four articles on hasidism-on the tsadik and the ba'al shem; the childhood of tsadikim in hasidic legends; the fall of the Seer of Lublin; and the hasidism of Gur-and one about Nahman Krochmal. Of the contributors to the core section on Jewish spiritual and religious life, four are Polish. Three contributors are working in Germany, where Jewish studies is likewise re-establishing itself. Other contributors are scholars from Canada, Israel, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Some are themselves religious, others are secular; taken together, their contributions further the study of Jewish religious traditions in Poland, a topic central to an understanding of Jewish society and history in Poland but one which has long been considered marginal by the academic world. As in earlier volumes of Polin, substantial space is given to new research in other areas of Polish-Jewish studies. There is an extensive survey of the papal Holocaust papers, as well as contributions relating to education for girls, to Auschwitz as a site of memories, and to aspects of Jewish literature, politics, society, and economics. A young Polish scholar from Jedwabne has contributed a moving article on local reactions to news of the massacre of the Jews of that town. The review section include two separate essays with contrasting opinions on Yaffa Eliach's monumental study of Eishyshok.
Contents
A Note on Place Names Note on Transliteration Part 1 Jewish Religious Life, 1500-1900 Introduction ANTONY POLONSKY Printing the Talmud in Poland in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries KRZYSZTOF PILARCZYK Isaac of Troki's Studies of Rabbinic Literature STEFAN SCHREINER Polish Attitudes towards Jewish Spirituality in the Eighteenth Century JUDITH KALIK Sixteenth-Century Accounts of Purim Festivities HANNA WEGRZYNEK Jewish Popular Spirituality in the Eighteenth Century GERSHON DAVID HUNDERT The Struggle over Images in the Propaganda of the Frankist Movement HARRIS LENOWITZ The Non-Christian Frankists JAN DOKTA"R Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz's Attitude towards the Frankists SID Z. LEIMAN The Influence of Frankism on Polish Culture. MICHAL GALAS Tsadik and Ba'al Shem in East European Hasidism KARL E. GRA-TZINGER Holy Men in their Infancy: The Childhood of Tsadikim in Hasidic Legends SUSANNE GALLEY One Event, Two Interpretations: The Fall of the Seer of Lublin in Hasidic Memory and Maskilic Satire DAVID ASSAF How Far was Krochmal Influenced by the Gaon Sherira ben Hanina in his Description of the Development of Oral Torah? MARGARETE SHLA TER The Messiah Son of Joseph according to Rabbi Zaddok Hacohen ROLAND GOETSCHEL Primordial Chaos and Creation in Gur Hasidism: The Sabbath that Preceded Creation YORAM JACOBSON Part 2 New Views 'Ahavat yehonatan', A Poem by Judah Leo Landau VERONICA BELLING Jakub Becal, King Jan III Sobieski's Jewish Factor ADAM KAZMIERCZYK The Shtadlan of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Noble Advocate or Unbridled Opportunist? SCOTT URY Educational Options for Jewish Girls in Nineteenth-Century Europe ELIYANA R. ADLER The Society for the Advancement of Trade, Industry, and Crafts SZYMON RUDNICKI Strangers in their Own Land: Polish Jews from Lublin to Kielce DANIEL BLATMAN Jewish Writers in Polish Literature EUGENIA PROKOP-JANIEC Auschwitz: Site of Memories SLAWOMIR KAPRALSKI My Jebwabne MARTA KURKOWSKA-BUDZAN Part 3 Reviews REVIEW ESSAYS Report of the Vatican Documents on the Second World War The Vatican Documents and the Holocaust: A Personal Report ROBERT S. WISTRICH Yaffa Eliach's Eishyshok: Two Views i 'The new Jew Hitler has fashioned into being' SARUNAS LEIKIS ii Ejszyszki Revisited, 1939-1945 JOHN RADZILOWSKI Holocaust Survivors in Jadwiga Maurer's Short Stories JOANNA ROSTROPOWICZ CLARK Polish Translations of Yiddish Literature published in Wroclaw JERZY TOMASZEWSKI BOOK REVIEWS Part 4 Appreciations and Obituaries Chone Shmeruk: The Man and his Work ISRAEL BARTAL The Scholarly Activities of Chone Shmeruk in Poland JA"ZEF A. GIEROWSKI Jan Karski (1914-2000) STANISLAUS A. BLEJWAS Moshe Mishkinsky (1917-1998) JOSHUA D. ZIMMERMAN Notes on Contributors and Translators Glossary Index
