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The focus is on how the Jews were affected by Polish independence in 1918. Other topics covered include Jan Blonski's article ‘The Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto'; Polish historiography on the privileges granted to the Jews; the decline of the kahal in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the social perception of Jews in the eighteenth century; representations of Jews in nineteenth-century literature; nineteenth-century synagogues; the Jewish Polish-language press in the interwar period; and antisemitic slogans in Endecja political campaigns. CONTRIBUTOR: Wladyslaw T. Bartoszewski, Research Fellow, St Antony's College, Oxford. Eugene C. Black, Ottilie Springer Professor of History, Brandeis University. Andrzej Bryk, Lecturer, Institute for Constitutional History, Jagiellonian. University, Kraków. Jan Blonski, Professor of the History of Polish Literature, Jagiellonian University, Kraków. Sh. Cygielman, Senior History in Jewish History, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-heva. David Engel, Tel Aviv University. Mieczyslaw Inglot, Professor of Polish Literature, University of Wroclaw. Paul Latawski, Assistant Professor of International Relations, New England College, Arundel. Eli Lederhendler, Lecturer in Jewish History, Tel Aviv University. George J. Lerski, Emeritus Professor of Modern European History, University of Chicago. Józef Lewandowski, Professor of History, Uppsala University. Maria and Kazimierz Pietchotka, architects and architectural historians. Edward Rogerson. Szymon Rudnicki, Docent and Deputy Director, Historical Institute, University of Warsaw. Michael G. Steinlauf, Brandeis University. Daniel Stone, Professor of History, University of Winnipeg. Bernadeta Tendyra, London School of Economics. Anna Zuk, Lecturer, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Marie Curie-Sklodkowska University, Lublin.

‘The less antisemitism exists among Christians, the easier it will be to unite the social forces... and the sooner workers'solidarity will emerge: solidarity of all who are exploited and wronged... Jew, Pole, Lithuanian.'Józef Pilsudski, 1903 The Socialist ideals of brotherhood, equality, and justice have exercised a strong attraction for many Jews. On the Polish lands, Jews were drawn to Socialism when the liberal promise of integration into the emergent national entities of east and central Europe as Poles or Lithuanians or Russians of the Hebrew faith seemed to be failing. For those Jews seeking emancipation from discrimination and the constraints of a religious community, Socialism offered a tantalizing new route to integration in the wider society. Some Jews saw in Socialism a secularized version of the age-old Jewish messianic longing, while others were driven to the Socialist movement by poverty and the hope that it would supply their material needs. But in Poland as elsewhere in Europe, Socialism failed to transcend national divisions. The articles in this volume of Polin investigate the failure of this ideal and its consequences for Jews on the Polish lands, examining Socialist attitudes to the ‘Jewish question', the issue of antisemitism, how the growth of Socialism affected relationships between Poles and Jews, and the character of Jewish Socialist groups in Poland. The result is a significant contribution to the history of Jews in Poland. It also sheds light on the history of Socialism in east-central Europe and the complexity of national problems there. Editors and contributors: Israel Bartal, Daniel Blatman, Alina Cala, Stephen D. Corrsin, David Engel, Sylvia Barack Fishman, Gershon Hundert, Ross Kessel, Shmuel Krakowski, Dov Levin, Pawel Machcewicz, Stanislaw Meducki, Erica Nadelhaft, Magdalena Opalska, Richard Pipes, Antony Polonsky, Dina Porat, Teresa Prekerowa, Michal Sliwa, Janusz Sujecki, Jerzy Tomaszewski, Barbara Wachowska.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, created in 1569, covered a wide spectrum of faiths and languages. The nobility, who were the main focus of Polishness, were predominantly Catholic, particularly from the later seventeenth century; the peasantry included Catholics, Protestants, and members of the Orthodox faith, while nearly half the urban population, and some 10 per cent of the total population, was Jewish. The partition of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and the subsequent struggle to regain Polish independence raised the question of what the boundaries of a future state should be, and who qualified as a Pole. The partitioning powers, for their part, were determined to hold on to the areas they had annexed: Prussia tried to strengthen the German element in Poland; the Habsburgs encouraged the development of a Ukrainian consciousness in Austrian Galicia to act as a counterweight to the dominant Polish nobility; and Russia, while allowing the Kingdom of Poland to enjoy substantial autonomy, treated the remaining areas it had annexed as part of the tsarist monarchy. When Poland became independent after the First World War more than a third of its population were thus Ukrainians, Belarusians, Germans, Jews, and Lithuanians, many of whom had been influenced by nationalist movements. The core articles in the volume focus especially on the triangular relationship between Poles, Jews, and Germans in western Poland, and between the different national groups in what are today Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. In addition, the New Views section investigates aspects of Jewish life in pre-partition Poland and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are also the regular Review Essay and Book Review sections.

The assessment of the Nazi genocide in Poland, an issue which has deeply divided Poles and Jews, lies at the core of this volume. Also included are discussions of Polish attitudes to the nearly 300,000 Jews who tried to resettle in post-war Poland; the little-known testimony of Belzec survivor Rudolf Reder; a discussion of Holocaust victims as martyrs; and a presentation of how the Auschwitz Museum sees its future.

Jewish society in Poland-Lithuania in the second half of the eighteenth century was by no means insular: Jews numbered about 750,000, and comprised about half the urban population of the country. The contact between Jews and the wider Polish society found expression in the languages Jews knew, in their marriage patterns, even in their synagogue architecture and decoration, but also in Polish accusations of Jewish ritual murder. All these aspects are here systematically reviewed. Internal factors influencing developments within Jewish society are discussed: treatments of the medieval rabbinic ban on polygamy, as well as various influences of the growing interest in kabbalah-its impact on synagogue structure, on prayer, and on the spiritual world of women. The growth of hasidism is considered through critical analysis of the legends about its founder, Israel Ba'al Shem Tov. This wealth of topics helps to fill the gaps in our understanding of Jewish life in this important period. The New Views section of the volume incorporates valuable studies on other topics. Articles include a revisionist view of the beginnings of Polish Jewry, based on analysis of medieval manuscripts; a thought-provoking review of the depiction of Polish-Jewish relations in recent Polish cinema; a study of the NKVD's treatment of Henryk Erlich and Wiktor Alter; and an erudite study of mayufes as a window on Polish-Jewish relations. The Book Reviews section includes a debate between Tomasz Gasowski and Artur Eisenbach on the latter's book on Jewish emancipation in Poland; review essays of books on Auschwitz and on I. B. Singer; and twenty-seven individual book reviews, followed by a bibliography of Polish-Jewish studies for 1994. The contemporary state of Polish-Jewish relations is covered, along with additional aspects of Jewish life in today's Poland, in an article by Poland's Ambassador to the Jewish Diaspora, Krzysztof Sliwinski. CONTRIBUTORS: Paul Coates, Artur Eisenbach, Tomasz Gasowski, Jacob Goldberg, Zenon Guldon, Thomas C. Hubka, Gertrud Pickhan, Elchanan Reiner, Moshe Rosman, Chone Shmeruk, Krzysztof Sliwinski, Daniel Stone, Israel M. Ta-Shma, Nechama Tec, Chava Weissler, Elimelech Westreich, Jacek Wijacka.