What do you think?
Rate this book
Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland
From the Middle Ages until World War II, Poland was host to Europe's largest and most vibrant Jewish population. By 1970, the combination of Nazi genocide, postwar pogroms, mass emigration, and communist repression had virtually destroyed Poland's Jewish community. Although the Poles themselves were subjected to enormous cruelties in the twentieth century, questions about the extent of their antisemitism and its role in the fate of Polish Jewry are today hotly disputed.
Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland serves as an effective guide to some of the most complex and controversial issues of Poland's troubled past. Fourteen original essays by a team of distinguished Polish and American scholars explore the different meanings, forms of expression, content, and social range of antisemitism in modern Poland from the late nineteenth century to the present. The contributors focus on both the variations in antisemitic sentiment and those Poles who opposed such prejudices.
Central themes of this significant, balanced, and timely contribution to a contentious and often emotional debate include the deterioration of Polish-Jewish relations in the era of national awakening for both the Poles and the Jews, the meaning of the various forms of violence against the Jews, intellectual movements in opposition to antisemitism, the role of the Catholic Church in promoting antisemitism, and the prospects for the Church to atone for this shameful chapter in its recent history.
Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland serves as an effective guide to some of the most complex and controversial issues of Poland's troubled past. Fourteen original essays by a team of distinguished Polish and American scholars explore the different meanings, forms of expression, content, and social range of antisemitism in modern Poland from the late nineteenth century to the present. The contributors focus on both the variations in antisemitic sentiment and those Poles who opposed such prejudices.
Central themes of this significant, balanced, and timely contribution to a contentious and often emotional debate include the deterioration of Polish-Jewish relations in the era of national awakening for both the Poles and the Jews, the meaning of the various forms of violence against the Jews, intellectual movements in opposition to antisemitism, the role of the Catholic Church in promoting antisemitism, and the prospects for the Church to atone for this shameful chapter in its recent history.
368 pages, Paperback
First published September 8, 2005
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
February 20, 2012
An excellent overview of the antisemitism faced by Polish Jews in the years before the Nazi invasion. In particular, there are important and frightening insights into the reasons for Catholic hatred of Jews, which in turn led to widespread indifference among clergy and lay Catholics to the murder of Jews by the Nazis.
... the Catholic Church's hatred of Jews (and reluctance to help save Jews) has cultural as well as religious roots … conservative Catholics hated the cosmopolitan, irreverant, sophisticated, city life style that threatened not only their sense of what was right in human behavior but their unique role in controlling human behavior
... freedom of thought and thus behavior was anathema to Catholic priests and the hierarchy who wanted to control all thought and all behavior ... free-thinking Jews, who influenced cultural and economic norms, threatened Catholic rigidity
... The Catholic Church in Poland believed its own position was under threat from modernity and thus under threat from Jews who represented that modernity ... Catholic leaders believed that Jewish insistence on a secular Poland with equal rights for minorities would erode the ideological and cultural importance of the clergy and therefore its economic and social standing
... The church believed it was confronting a danger from the Jews that threatened its very existence ... Jews had always represented a religious threat to the Church (if Jews are right about Christ, Church must be wrong) … now they were also perceived as an economic threat, taking jobs away from Catholics and reducing parishioner contributions to the Church ... freethinking Jews might give ideas to Catholics and reduce the Church's stranglehold on their thinking
... Cardinal Hlond ... the primate of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland … pastoral letter in 1936 … it is a fact that the Jews are struggling against the Catholic Church … they are penetrated by freethinking … they are the avant-garde of godlessness, of the Bolshevik movement, and of subversive activities ... It is a fact that Jewish influences on morality are pernicious ... It is a fact that Jewish Publishing Enterprises propagate pornography ... In schools the influence of Jewish use on Catholic youth is harmful ... The Jewish problem exists and will continue to it just so long as Jews remain Jews
... Jews are an entirely distinct society … they believe they possess the absolute truth … the path to the conquest of the earth for the Jews is the steady destruction of Christianity … there's not a single method for undermining Christianity which the Jews have missed
... This is a struggle which will be a matter of life or death
... the Catholic Church's hatred of Jews (and reluctance to help save Jews) has cultural as well as religious roots … conservative Catholics hated the cosmopolitan, irreverant, sophisticated, city life style that threatened not only their sense of what was right in human behavior but their unique role in controlling human behavior
... freedom of thought and thus behavior was anathema to Catholic priests and the hierarchy who wanted to control all thought and all behavior ... free-thinking Jews, who influenced cultural and economic norms, threatened Catholic rigidity
... The Catholic Church in Poland believed its own position was under threat from modernity and thus under threat from Jews who represented that modernity ... Catholic leaders believed that Jewish insistence on a secular Poland with equal rights for minorities would erode the ideological and cultural importance of the clergy and therefore its economic and social standing
... The church believed it was confronting a danger from the Jews that threatened its very existence ... Jews had always represented a religious threat to the Church (if Jews are right about Christ, Church must be wrong) … now they were also perceived as an economic threat, taking jobs away from Catholics and reducing parishioner contributions to the Church ... freethinking Jews might give ideas to Catholics and reduce the Church's stranglehold on their thinking
... Cardinal Hlond ... the primate of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland … pastoral letter in 1936 … it is a fact that the Jews are struggling against the Catholic Church … they are penetrated by freethinking … they are the avant-garde of godlessness, of the Bolshevik movement, and of subversive activities ... It is a fact that Jewish influences on morality are pernicious ... It is a fact that Jewish Publishing Enterprises propagate pornography ... In schools the influence of Jewish use on Catholic youth is harmful ... The Jewish problem exists and will continue to it just so long as Jews remain Jews
... Jews are an entirely distinct society … they believe they possess the absolute truth … the path to the conquest of the earth for the Jews is the steady destruction of Christianity … there's not a single method for undermining Christianity which the Jews have missed
... This is a struggle which will be a matter of life or death
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review