Warsaw - the History of a Jewish Metropolis

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Warsaw - the History of a Jewish Metropolis

Veranstalter
Institute of Jewish Studies, University College London
Veranstaltungsort
University College London
Ort
London
Land
United Kingdom
Vom - Bis
22.06.2010 - 25.06.2010
Website
http://warsawjewishmetropolis.wordpress.com/
Von
François Guesnet

In honour of Antony Polonsky on the occasion of his 70th birthday

Under the patronage of the President of the City of Warsaw, Dr Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz

The organizers of this academic venue hope to encourage new visions of Warsaw, which was one of the most dynamic metropoles in modern Jewish history. Although compact Jewish settlement only commenced in the late 18th century, what emerged was one of the largest and most diverse Jewish settlements in the world on the cusp of the East-West divide. Residing in a nerve center of the region’s industrial revolution, all of Warsaw’s Jewish subgroups experienced the effects of modernization.

But they reacted to modernization in very different ways. It is the assumption of the organizers of this conference that the diversity of Jewish settlement in Warsaw and the emergence of massive sub-communities of diverse outlook, visions, and language over the long 19th century determined this metropole’s specific character. The Polish capital became a space of mutual perception among diverse Jewish communities, which shifted in their own composition, relationship, substance, and led to a unique encounter in modern Jewish history.

That this diversity has not been sufficiently appreciated in historical writing can be attributed to a number of reasons. First and foremost, the destruction of Warsaw during World War II meant that together with her inhabitants, Warsaw lost substantial parts of its material tradition, its architectural substance, libraries, archives, private holdings. Furthermore, under communist rule, the interpretation of history became a highly sensitive activity. The great majority of Jewish survivors or repatriants chose to emigrate to the United States, Western Europe, and Israel. Finally, the almost total annihilation of Warsaw Jewry made the continuation of a local Jewish historiography an almost impossible task. The complexities of Jewish life in Warsaw have, in consequence, tended to be reduced to questions of Polish-Jewish relations, antisemitism, and acculturation. Crucial events and phenomena in the history of Warsaw Jewry have been sidelined or ignored.

The convenors believe that the potent combination of a highly dynamic economic sector, divergent religious communities, and a radicalized political intelligentsia, as well as a dynamic Polish patriotic movement, fomented not only political and social change but a specific form of Jewish self-awareness as well. An important manifestation of this self-awareness was a unique concentration of Jewish authors, publishers, editors, and an engaged Jewish reading public avidly following and discussing social, political, religious, and literary developments. These local publications refract a vibrant spectrum of responses to modernity.

The convenors of the conference and the Institute of Jewish Studies at University College London are proud to organize this major academic event in honour of our teacher, colleague, and friend, Professor Antony Polonsky, on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

Glenn Dynner, François Guesnet

Programm

Warsaw – the History of a Jewish Metropolis

In honour of Antony Polonsky on the occasion of his 70th birthday

Under the patronage of the President of the City of Warsaw, Dr Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz

Venue:
UCL, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

THE CONFERENCE IS FREE OF CHARGE - NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Programme

Please see www.warsawjewishmetropolis.wordpress.com for details of speakers, abstracts of papers and any programme changes.

Tuesday, 22 June 2010

Opening Evening
18.30 Welcome reception (Garden Room, Wilkins Building, UCL)
19.15 Conference opening (Lecture Theatre 1, Cruciform Building, UCL)

Greetings: Mark Geller (IJS), François Guesnet (UCL), Glenn Dynner (Sarah Lawrence College, New York)

Opening Keynote Lecture
Norman Davies: Warsaw - A Multinational Capital City

Wednesday, 23 June 2010
All sessions take place in Lecture Theatre 1, Cruciform Building, UCL
Papers will be 25 minutes each with a response and discussion at the end of each session

9.15 Session 1: The Prehistory and Emergence of a Jewish Metropolis
Session hosted and sponsored by the City of Warsaw
Welcome address and Chair: Małgorzata Naimska (Deputy Director, Department of Culture, City of Warsaw)
Speakers:
Hanna Węgrzynek (Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw): The Jews of Warsaw, 1527-1792
Zofia Borzymińska (Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw): When did the Warsaw Jews begin to represent all Jewish communities in Poland?
Cornelia Aust (University of Pennsylvania): Merchants, Army Suppliers, Bankers: Transregional Connections and the Rise of Warsaw’s Jewish Mercantile Elite (1770-1820)

Respondent: Gershon D. Hundert (McGill University, Montreal)

11.00 Coffee break

11.30 Session 2: Accommodating Cultural Diversity
Chair: Michael Berkowitz (UCL)
Speakers:

Glenn Dynner (Sarah Lawrence College, New York): The Garment of Torah: Clothing Decrees and the Warsaw career of the first Gerer Rebbe

François Guesnet (UCL): From Community to Metropolis: The Jews of Warsaw, 1850-1880

Ela Bauer (Seminar Ha-Kibbutzim College,Tel Aviv/Haifa University): The Editor, the Newspaper and the City: Hayim Zelig Slonimski and the Hatsfira

Respondent: Moshe Rosman (Bar Ilan University)

14.30 Session 3: Creation of a Public Sphere
Chair: Adam Sutcliffe (King's College London)

Speakers:
Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov (Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw): Haynt – The Jewish Voice in Your Home

Scott Ury (Hebrew University, Jerusalem): Common Grounds? The Place and Role of Jewish Coffee Houses at the Turn of the Century

Gennady Estraikh (New York University): The Kultur-Lige in Warsaw: A Stopover between Kiev and Paris

Respondent: Jordan Finkin (University of Oxford)

Thursday, 24 June 2010

All sessions take place in Lecture Theatre 1, Cruciform Building, UCL

9.15 Session 4: Negotiating Ethnic Identity
Session sponsored by the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, New York

Chair: Jan Tomasz Gross (Princeton University)

Speakers:

Robert Blobaum (West Virginia University): A Warsaw Story: Polish-Jewish Relations during the First World War

Kenneth B. Moss (Johns Hopkins University): Negotiating the Nation in Interwar Warsaw

Joanna Beata Michlic (Brandeis University): Telling Intricate Rescue Activities: Letters of Jewish Survivors about Their Rescuers, 1944-1949

Respondent: Szymon Rudnicki (Warsaw University)

11.00 Coffee break

11.30 Session 5: Religious Orthodoxy in Modern Warsaw

Chair: Abigail Green (University of Oxford)

Speakers:

Shaul Stampfer (Hebrew University, Jerusalem): Happy communities are all alike, every unhappy community is unhappy in its own way

Gershon Bacon (Bar Ilan University): Enduring prestige, eroded authority: the Warsaw rabbinate in the interwar period

Havi Dreifuss (Tel Aviv University): “My Handiwork are Drowning in the Sea and You Utter a Song before Me!?" Orthodox Leadership in Warsaw during the Holocaust

Respondent: Israel Bartal (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)

14.30 Session 6: Litvaks and Poles, Warsaw and Vilnius
Chair: Helen Beer (UCL)

Speakers:

Israel Bartal (Hebrew University, Jerusalem): Historiography, Nationalism and Shtadlanut: Shefer and the Revival of East European Jewish Identity (1874-1907)

Motti Zalkin (Ben-Gurion University): What is there, in the Litvak’s Head?

Kalman Weiser (York University, Toronto): The Capital of Yiddishland?

Respondent: Jonathan Karp (Binghamton University, SUNY)

18.30-20.00 Evening event: The Museum of the History of Polish Jews and Its Impact

Chair: François Guesnet (UCL)

Speakers:

Karen Auerbach (University of Southampton): Continuity and Rupture in the Jewish Spaces of Reconstructed, Postwar Warsaw

Kathy Jones (Head of Interpretation, Event Communications, London): The Museum of the History of Polish Jews: communicating 900 years of Polish Jewish presence to local and international audiences

Marcin Wodziński (University of Wrocław): Why historical museums need historians? Warsaw lens

Friday, 25 June 2010

9.15 Session 7: Secular Jewish Culture in Warsaw

Chair: Ada Rapoport-Albert (UCL)

Speakers:

Agnieszka Jagodzińska (University of Wrocław): Image and Identity: Warsaw Jews as Others and Non-Others

Michael Steinlauf (Gratz College): “Paths Which Divert From Yiddishkayt": Y. L. Peretz vs. Hillel Zeitlin in Warsaw, 1911

Natalia Aleksiun (Touro College, New York and IHPAN): From Galicia to Warsaw: Interwar Historians of Polish Jewry

Respondent: Andrea Schatz (King’s College London)

NB This response will include comments on the paper of Natan Cohen (Bar Ilan University): Distributing Knowledge: Warsaw as a Center of Jewish Publishing 1850-1914, who is unable to be present

11.30 Session 8: Destruction

Chair: David Engel (New York University)

Speakers:

Timothy Snyder (Yale University): Armed Resistance in the Wartime Metropolis

Joshua Zimmerman (Yeshiva University, New York): The Polish underground press in Warsaw and the Jews: the Holocaust in the pages of the Home Army’s Biuletyn Informacyjny

14.00 Session 8 (cont’d)

Speakers:

Jürgen Hensel (Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw): Meyer Balaban's death: known documents and new insights

Samuel Kassow (Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut): Rachel Auerbach on the destruction of Warsaw Jewry: wartime and postwar perspectives
Respondent: Jan Tomasz Gross (Princeton University)

15.45 Session 9: Aftermath

Chair: Jonathan Webber (University of Birmingham)

Gabriel Finder (University of Virginia): The Politics of Retribution in Postwar Warsaw: In the Honour Court of the Central Committee of Polish Jews

David Engel (New York University): Warsaw as a Jewish Metropolis? Aborted Reconstruction in the Aftermath of the Holocaust

Marci Shore (Yale University): The Generation of March 1968: Searching for Meaning after Marxism

Respondent: Jan Tomasz Gross (Princeton University)

Closing comments: Antony Polonsky (Brandeis University)

Exhibition (Lecture Theatre 1, Cruciform Building, UCL)

Places of Worship in a Jewish Metropolis: Synagogues in Warsaw
Author: Dr Eleonora Bergman (Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw)

The Conference is organised as part of Polska! Year
Sponsors and Partners:
Embassy of The Republic of Poland
Dr. Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, President of the City of Warsaw
The Wingate Foundation, London
Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Warsaw
Department of Culture, City of Warsaw
Polish Cultural Institute, London
The Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, New York
Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden

Cooperating institutions and sponsors:
Institute for Polish Jewish Studies, London
Institute for Polish Jewish Studies, Boston
Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw
Museum of the History of Polish Jews
The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization

Kontakt

François Guesnet

Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies
University College London, WC1E 6BT, London
+44 (0) 207 678 37171

s.benisaac@ucl.ac.uk

http://warsawjewishmetropolis.wordpress.com/