Michael C. Steinlauf - Böcker

Scholarshipon the civilization of Polish Jews has tended to focus on elite culture andcanonical literature; even modern Yiddish culture has generally beenapproached from the perspective of ‘great works’. This volume of Polin focuses on the less exploredbut historically vital theme of Jewish popular culture and shows how,confronted by the challenges and opportunities of modernity in the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it blossomed into a complexexpression of Jewish life. In addition to a range of articles on the periodbefore the Second World War there are studies of the traces of this culturein the contemporary world. The volume as a whole aims to develop a freshunderstanding of Polish Jewish civilization in all its richness andvariety. Subjects discussed in depth include klezmorim and Jewish recorded music; the development of Jewish theatrein Poland, theatrical parody, and the popular poet and performer MordechaiGebirtig; Jewish postcards in Poland and Germany; the early Yiddish popularpress in Galicia and cartoons in the Yiddish press; working-class librariesin inter-war Poland; the impact of the photographs of Roman Vishniac;contemporary Polish wooden figures of Jews; and the Kraków Jewish culturefestival. In addition, a Polish Jewish popular song is traced to Sachsenhausen,the badkhn (wedding jester) is rediscovered in present-day Jerusalem, andYiddish cabaret turns up in blues, rock ‘n’ roll, and reggae garb. There are also translations from the work of two writers previouslyunavailable in English: excerpts from the ethnographer A. Litvin’s pioneeringfive-volume work Yidishe neshomes (Jewish Souls) and several chapters from the autobiography,notorious in inter-war Poland, of the writer and thief Urke Nachalnik. As in earlier volumes of Polin substantial space is also given to new research into a varietyof topics in Polish Jewish studies. These include the origins of antisemitismin Poland; what is known about the presence of German forces in the vicinityof Jedwabne in the summer of 1941; and the vexed question of Jews in thecommunist security apparatus in Poland after 1944. The review section includes an important discussion of what should be doneabout the paintings in Sandomierz cathedral which represent an alleged ritualmurder in the seventeenth century, and an examination of the ‘anti-Zionist’campaign of 1968.