Unassimilability PreWWII Jews Endeks Confirmed Lewin

A History of Polish Jewery During the Revival of Poland, by Isaac Lewin. 1990

Militant Jewish Separatism and Its Opponents Among Poland’s Jews. 1918 So-Called Pogroms: Charges and Countercharges

This book is fairly shallow. It dwells on statements made by various personages but never goes any deeper. The author makes no attempts to determine the veracity or otherwise of the facts.

Author Lewin avoids even once mentioning the fantastic falsehoods, in the western presses, of over 30,000 Jews killed by Poles in the 1918-era so-called pogroms. His silence speaks volumes.

INFLUENTIAL JEWISH VOICES IN FAVOR OF PERPETUAL JEWISH OTHERNESS: AN EXAMPLE

Nowadays, Poles in general and Endeks in particular, are blamed for thinking of Poland’s Jews as the “Other”, and as unassimilable. But not a few Jews thought exactly the same way! They thought that the concept of Judaism as exclusively a religion (e. g., “Poles of the Mosaic Faith”) was an oxymoron. Lewin writes, “Professor Moses Schorr drew the attention of the conference to the amalgamation of the concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘religion’ in Judaism. The Jewish nation was religious; the Jewish religion—national. Assimilation was practically impossible. The Polish nation could not absorb all Jews and make them nationalistic Poles.” (p. 126).

JEWISH SEPARATISM OR NOT? WHO SPEAKS FOR POLAND’S JEWS?

The Yiddishist Noah Prylucki promoted expansive Jewish separatism (the effective Balkanization of Poland), which included, but by no means was limited to, government-funded Yiddish schools. This was strenuously opposed by the Polonized Jew Boleslav Eiger, who declared, “‘…the great majority of people of Jewish confession, represented by religious-conservative elements, which constitute 70% of the Jewish population in Poland—does not share this attitude. On the contrary, they wish to have an elementary school with Polish as the language of instruction…Mr. Prylucki errs by stating that Poland will be a multi-national state. Poland will always be a Polish national state…The Polish state cannot and will not tolerate any attacks upon Polish culture.’” (p. 36).

Prylucki then tried to turn this around by asserting that Eiger is the one who has no right to speak for Poland’s Jews. Around and around it went…

THE RAISING OF PRICES AND WARTIME PROFITEERING: A PROVOCATION

Prime Minister Jedrzej Moraczewski spoke out. Author Lewin writes, “Moraczewski brought up a new aspect of the problem: the population’s reaction to speculation and high food prices. While he was not exclusively accusing Jewish merchants of this crime, since Christian merchants were also speculating—the fact was that 80% of the merchants in the country were Jewish and only 20% were Christian. It was therefore understandable, he said, that speculation with food prices had created ill feelings with regards to Jews. Moraczewski appealed to the Jewish delegation to fight against speculation with food items. This would help the government to combat riots, which were not being directed exclusively against Jews anyway.” (p. 60).

POGROM-PROVOKING INCIDENTS: JEWISH EXCULPATIONS

Claims that Jews were shooting at Polish forces, as at Przemysl, were answered with the counterclaim that it was actually Ukrainians that were firing at Polish forces–from Jewish homes. (p. 64). Really? How do we know this? Lewin does not tell us.

Now consider the so-called Pinsk Pogrom. Lewin describes 19 year-old Daniel Kozak and 21 year old Mordcha Kolkier, both of whom testified about the earlier planned Jewish revolt against the Poles. Lewin lamely tries to discredit these testimonies, and to blame Major Luczynski, by variously calling them “illiterate”, “converted to Christianity”, and “confused”. (p. 147). It gets even better. Prylucki and Gruenbaum called Kozak a “provocateur”. How convenient. If Kozak and Kolkier were accusing Poles instead of exonerating them, they would have been believed without question!