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The unexpected revitalization of Polish Jewish traditionalism—Hasidic and non-Hasidic—is particularly visible in the realm of education. During the interwar period, a combined influx of pious refugees from the Soviet Union and generous American Jewish philanthropy bolstered traditionalist Jewish elementary schools (hadarim) and yeshivot. At the same time, traditionalists reformed those hitherto sacrosanct institutions in hopes of competing with emergent secularist Jewish movements while preserving an ostensibly authentic cultural core. Polish Jewish traditionalism was subtly transformed in the process, presenting a striking contrast with its more rigid “ultra-Orthodox” counterpart in neighboring Hungary and offering a viable alternative to secularist Jewish subcultures within Poland. This article highlights the surprising durability and flexibility of Poland’s traditionalist Jewish communities during a period usually conceived as one of secularist Jewish growth and traditionalist decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the end of the eighteenth century, Jews constituted the majority of tavernkeepers in Poland-Lithuania, leasing taverns and distilleries from the nobility. According to most historians, Polish Jews were driven out of the liquor trade over the course of the next century. Yet nineteenth-century archival sources provide evidence of continued Jewish tavernkeeping, both open and surreptitious, in the Congress Kingdom of Poland. Although Jewish tavernkeeping was vigorously opposed by powerful groups in Polish society, one crucial group continued to provide them with cover: the very Christians they were accused of victimizing. The involvement of Jews in this sector of the Polish economy during the nineteenth century points to the endurance of feudal economic relations throughout much of this period of industrialization and modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a Jewish social study by Glenn Dynner entitled "Merchant Princes and Tsadikim: The Patronage of Polish Hasidim." It states that expansion of Hasidim after the death of their spiritual founder, R. Israel Ba'al Shem Tov, and his successor, R. DovBer, has strike the interest of scholars of East European Jewry. Hasidism's spread into Central Poland, a relatively economically advanced area that was divided or ruled indirectly by several regimes was particularly intriguing. It also states that Hasidism differs from typical patronclient relationship, the largest contributors may earn recognition and a greater degree of attention, yet the difference in the hierarchy prevailed in the Hasidic.