Playing defense loses games. We must go on offense when we Poles are called anti-Semites:
Here is a short bulletin that I made up, complete with links. It can be copied and posted in comments under Amazon reviews, or may be placed on the Internet (Make sure that the links go through).
POLISH ANTI-SEMITISM: THE UNTOLD STORY
Was there a dialectic consisting of the Polish villain and the Jewish victim? Hardly. As a start, click on the links below and read my detailed reviews.
I. After the Partitions of Poland, which erased Poland off Europe's map (1795-1918), most local Jews sided with Poland's foreign rulers during Polish battles for independence:
History of the Jews in Russia and Poland: From the Earliest Times Until the Present Day
II. Jews generally opposed any resurrection of the Polish state because it would disrupt the geographical continuity of the Jewish "nation-within-nation" in tsarist Russia, and because it would hinder the movements of Jewish commerce:
The Tragedy of a Generation: The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism in Eastern Europe
III. The centuries-old Jewish religious-based separatism, and self-imposed apartheid, were increasingly being replaced by a more aggressive and politicized version--based on the Yiddishist movement and on Zionism:
The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture (Pitt Russian East European)
IV. Centuries of economic privileges had essentially made Jews an economic overclass over Poles. Both the nobility and peasantry had been effectively under their thumb. In time, all this led to Polish efforts to "take Poland back" from the Jews. Even then, the AVERAGE Jew remained better off than the average Pole:
From Serfdom to Self-Government: Memoirs of a Polish Village Mayor, 1842-1927
Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland 1919-1939 (New Babylon: Studies in the Social Sciences)
V. As Polish independence was finally being realized (1918), local Jews generally sided with Germany over the contested territories of western Poland:
The White Eagle of Poland
On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War
VI. As Poland was being resurrected, the local Jews, with the open support of international Jewry, attempted to detach the eastern city of Bialystok from Poland, and make it part of Lithuania or Russia, or even a mini Jewish state:
Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora (The Modern Jewish Experience)
VII. The so-called Minorities Treaty, being forced on the new Polish state by international Jewish pressure, was not about the Jewish rights of a religious and cultural minority--something that Poland's Jews already had. It was about creating expansive separate-nation rights of Jews on Polish soil:
The Jews and minority rights (1898-1919) (Studies in history, economics, and public law, no. 384)
VIII. Finally, the old religious-based antagonisms did not derive solely from Poland's Catholicism. The indisputable racism that is part of the Jewish religion was also a cause:
Jewish Identity in Early Rabbinic Writings (Arbeiten Zur Geschichte Des Antiken Judentums Und Des Urchristentums, Vol 23)
Was there a dialectic consisting of the Polish villain and the Jewish victim? Hardly. As a start, click on the links below and read my detailed reviews.
I. After the Partitions of Poland, which erased Poland off Europe's map (1795-1918), most local Jews sided with Poland's foreign rulers during Polish battles for independence:
History of the Jews in Russia and Poland: From the Earliest Times Until the Present Day
II. Jews generally opposed any resurrection of the Polish state because it would disrupt the geographical continuity of the Jewish "nation-within-nation" in tsarist Russia, and because it would hinder the movements of Jewish commerce:
The Tragedy of a Generation: The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism in Eastern Europe
III. The centuries-old Jewish religious-based separatism, and self-imposed apartheid, were increasingly being replaced by a more aggressive and politicized version--based on the Yiddishist movement and on Zionism:
The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture (Pitt Russian East European)
IV. Centuries of economic privileges had essentially made Jews an economic overclass over Poles. Both the nobility and peasantry had been effectively under their thumb. In time, all this led to Polish efforts to "take Poland back" from the Jews. Even then, the AVERAGE Jew remained better off than the average Pole:
From Serfdom to Self-Government: Memoirs of a Polish Village Mayor, 1842-1927
Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland 1919-1939 (New Babylon: Studies in the Social Sciences)
V. As Polish independence was finally being realized (1918), local Jews generally sided with Germany over the contested territories of western Poland:
The White Eagle of Poland
On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War
VI. As Poland was being resurrected, the local Jews, with the open support of international Jewry, attempted to detach the eastern city of Bialystok from Poland, and make it part of Lithuania or Russia, or even a mini Jewish state:
Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora (The Modern Jewish Experience)
VII. The so-called Minorities Treaty, being forced on the new Polish state by international Jewish pressure, was not about the Jewish rights of a religious and cultural minority--something that Poland's Jews already had. It was about creating expansive separate-nation rights of Jews on Polish soil:
The Jews and minority rights (1898-1919) (Studies in history, economics, and public law, no. 384)
VIII. Finally, the old religious-based antagonisms did not derive solely from Poland's Catholicism. The indisputable racism that is part of the Jewish religion was also a cause:
Jewish Identity in Early Rabbinic Writings (Arbeiten Zur Geschichte Des Antiken Judentums Und Des Urchristentums, Vol 23)
