Addressing various aspects of Jewish life and religion, particularly in the last two centuries, this book examines different aspects of the Hasidic tradition; present-day contacts between Bobower Hasidism in New York and Bobowa in Poland; and how a rabbi trained in the Lithuania…
The theme of this rich and highly focused volume is Polish perceptions of Jews and Jewish perceptions of Poles from the Middle Ages to the present. Essays by Leszek Kolakowski and Wladyslaw Bartoszewski set the parameters of the debate. Contributors analyse sources ranging from …
The majority of Polish Jews always lived in the villages and small towns known as shtetls. Much of what we know of life in the shtetls comes from literary accounts rather than from historical research. This volume redresses that imbalance, with leading experts investigating the …
The shtetl is one of the key concepts for our understanding of the Jewish past in Eastern Europe. Although today most Jews live in big cities, the majority of Jews in Poland historically lived in the villages and small towns known as shtetls; even as late as 1931, only 43% lived…
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 langu…