Polish Jews through the eyes of Alter Katsizne. Amazing photos! Jewish roots

Jewish organizations in Poland have said the country's controversial Holocaust law has led to a "rising tide of intolerance, xenophobia and anti-Semitism", leaving many Polish Jews don't feel safe.

Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
Photo: Depositphotos

An open letter on the website of the Union of Jewish Communities of Poland, signed by several organizations, states that threats to the Jewish community have increased after parliament passed a law prohibiting accusing Poles of complicity in crimes committed by Nazi Germany, including the Holocaust, CNN writes. .

The law also applies to Auschwitz and other camps that were located in Nazi-occupied Poland. Violation of this prohibition carries a prison sentence of up to three years.

“The current wave of anti-Semitism arose in response to an amendment to the Law on the Institute of National Remembrance. We believe that this law is poorly drafted and is detrimental to open discussion of history. If the Polish government believes that even isolated mentions of “Polish death camps” should be criminalized, then equally serious penalties should be introduced for the intolerance and anti-Semitism growing in our country. Our government has the legal tools to combat hate, but lacks the political will to do so. We call on our politicians to change course,” the open letter said.

Polish President Andrzej Duda signed the law in early February, and now the document must be considered by the country's Constitutional Tribunal.

The adoption of such a law caused condemnation from Jewish organizations in Israel, the United States and France.

Tensions escalated on February 17 when Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said at a security conference in Germany that Jews were among the perpetrators of the Holocaust, sparking outrage.

The Polish government spokesman sought clarity in the comments. At the same time, Morawiecki stressed that Poland “does not intend to deny the Holocaust or blame the Jewish victims of the Holocaust for genocide committed by Nazi Germany.”

The Polish prime minister's comments drew condemnation in Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling his Polish counterpart to express his outrage.

Morawiecki's words also upset many Jews in Poland, where about 10% of the 3.5 million Jews living in Poland are Holocaust survivors.

Many of the survivors and their families were then deported in 1968 at the height of the "anti-Zionist" campaign, in which the communist government blamed the Jewish community for economic problems. Many lost their jobs, were attacked in the press and lost their citizenship and the right to return to Poland.

Only in 1989, after the fall of communism in the country, were Polish Jews allowed to return home.

“On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the anti-Semitic events of March 1968 and 75 years after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Polish Jews do not feel safe in Poland,” reads an open letter from Polish Jewish groups.

“The current threats to the Jewish community in Poland are different from those we have experienced in the past. Unlike many European Jews today, we do not face direct physical threats. However, despite the absence of physical violence, our situation is far from normal,” the document notes.

Polish Jews have stressed that anti-Semitism is a “growing problem” in Poland, a fact the government denies.

“We perceive the inaction of the authorities as tacit consent to hatred of the Jewish community and call on the Polish leadership to punish those whose actions threaten our well-being. We call government agencies, police, means mass media, schools and members of the Polish public to fight anti-Semitism, and we are very keen to cooperate with them in this important mission,” the document says.

Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said the consequences of the new law were so severe that many members of the Jewish community questioned whether Poland wanted them as members of its society.

Schudrich said the open letter was not a political move, but a desire to show how Polish Jews feel.

Let us recall that in early February the Polish Senate introduced criminal penalties for mentioning that Nazi concentration camps were Polish. It is also prohibited to claim that Poland is responsible for Nazi crimes.

For over 500 years, the presence of Jews in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus was very noticeable .

Warsaw. Jewish Quarter, 1930

The first written mentions of Jews in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania are the charters of Prince Vitovt, issued in 1388 and 1389 to the Jews of Berestye (Brest) and Garodnya (Grodno).

By 1560, the number of Jews in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania reached 20 thousand people, by 1628 - 40 thousand, by 1788 - 157 thousand. And 110 years later, according to the All-Russian population census of 1897, 1,202,129 Jews lived in five Belarusian provinces. They made up 14.1% of the total population of the then North-Western Territory and 35.9% of urban residents.

As of January 1939, there were 375 thousand Jews in the then small Belarus. After the annexation of Western Belarus, their numbers more than doubled.

The first Jews appeared on the territory of modern Belarus in the 14th century, during the era of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Jews who lived in this medieval state and their descendants are still called “Litvaks.” According to the ethnographer M. Chlenov, the Litvaks included the Jews of Lithuania, Belarus, the western regions of modern Bryansk, Smolensk and the southern regions of the Pskov regions of Russia. They differed from other Jewish ethnographic groups by their northeastern dialect of Yiddish, special features of life and customs.

The first written source about the presence of Jews on Belarusian soil is a letter from Prince Vitovt to the Brest Jews, dated 1383.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, there was a massive migration of Jews from German cities to Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Entire communities are being resettled, transporting their capital, centuries-old habits trading activities, kahal system, German-Jewish dialect (Yiddish), religious traditions and the system of Talmudic education. By the end of the 15th century, more than 20 thousand Jews lived in Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Until 1495, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania there were five cities with a settled Jewish population: Brest-Litovsk, Vladimir-Volynsky, Grodno, Lutsk, Troki. In other settlements, Jews met during this period only temporarily: these are Drogichin, Kamenets, Krichev, Minsk, Novogrudok.

From 1503 to 1569, new Jewish settlements arose in Kobrin, Pinsk, Indura, Novy Dvor, Turets, Palace, Lyakhovichi, Ratno, Slonim, Surazh.

At the same time, the core of future Jewish settlements was created where Jews had leases and farms. These are Vitebsk, Drogichin, Kamenets-Litovsk, Meroch, Minsk, Mogilev, Bobruisk, Drissa, Zheludok, Mysh, Novogrudok, Polotsk, Glubokoye, Gorodets, Druya, Molchad, Motol, Mstislavl, Mosty, Ostrino, Pruzhany, Radoshkovichi, Shereshev.

Alexander Jagiellon (Grand Duke of Lithuania, since 1501 - King of Poland), entangled in debt and unable to get rid of Jewish creditors, publishes a decree to “knock the Jews out of the earth.” In April 1495, all Jews of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - Brest, Grodno, Trok, Lutsk, Vladimir-Volynsky and Kyiv were expelled. The Jews of the Brest and Grodno communities moved to neighboring Poland and partly to the estates of the appanage princes of Lithuania.

In April 1503, Alexander allowed the Jews to return to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, returning their alienated property.

In the person of the Grand Duke and King Zhigimont I the Old (1506-1548), Belarusian Jews found an active defender. He strengthened legal status Belarusian Jewry by legislative acts: freed them from the obligation to send a thousand horsemen to war, equalized the tax rate with the burghers, granted freedom of trade and craft, and protected the governors and elders from arbitrariness, who judged the Jews, “as they themselves want.”

Needing money for the war with Moscow, Zhigimont decided to centralize power over the Jews in fiscal interests and in 1514 appointed the Lithuanian customs tax farmer Michel Ezefovich as general foreman of all Jews in the Grand Duchy.

In the first quarter of the 16th century, the most flourishing Jewish communities were in Brest, Grodno and Pinsk.

In 1551, Belarusian Jews received the right to elect rabbis. It is interesting that the rabbi of Brest Mendel Frank was titled “royal official,” and the Jew Shloimo Izrailovich was appointed deputy for the Vilna voivodeship. The most distinguished Jews were usually titled “pans” in official documents. Like the nobles, they carried sabers with them and, if necessary, were always ready to use them.

At the same time, the Statute of 1529 prohibited Jews from owning slaves, and the Statute of 1566 defined the clothing that Jews were required to wear. In particular, they were not supposed to wear expensive dresses with gold chains. “Let them wear yellow hats or caps, and let their wives be warriors made of yellow linen, so that everyone can distinguish a Jew from a Christian.”

In the period from 1569 to 1667, new Jewish settlements arose: Pukhovichi, Malech, Mogilno, Slutsk, Smolyany, Bragin, Vysoko-Litovsk, Kopyl, Kossovo, Lida, Nesvizh, Rakov, Radun, Ruzhany, Selets, Slovatichi, Smorgon, Timkovichi, Turov, Gomel, Gorki, Kopys, Koydanovo, Logishin, Lyubech, Mozyr, Oshmyany, Rechitsa, Staro-Bykhov, Cherikov, Uzda, Chausy, Chechersk, Shilov, Zelva.

The highest body of Jewish self-government was the Vaad - congresses of rabbis and kahal representatives. The Vaad of the Crown, or Polish, Jews existed from 1580 to 1764, the Jewish communities of Belarus were united as part of the so-called. “Lithuanian Vaad”, which collaborated with the Vaad of the Four Lands that existed in Poland. In 1623, the first Vaad of the Belarusian and Lithuanian communities gathered in Brest-Litovsk, the marshal (chairman) of which until his death was the Brest rabbi Meir Val, the son of the legendary Polish “king” Shaul (Saul) Val.

In 1654, a war began between Moscow and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which brought untold disasters to Belarusian Jews. They were again robbed, killed and expelled from the cities conquered by the Russian army. In 1648, a Cossack uprising began in Ukraine under the command of Zinovy-Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Dozens of thriving Jewish communities in Ukraine were destroyed, thousands of refugees poured into Belarusian and Lithuanian towns. However, the uprising soon spread to parts of Belarus and Lithuania. More than 2 thousand Jews of Gomel died at the hands of the Cossacks. “With fire and sword,” the Cossacks devastated the Pinsk Jewish community and the entire Pinsk district.

In the 17th century Belarusian Jews suffered from the pogroms of Bohdan Khmelnitsky and the invading Russian troops in 1655. During the uprising of Bohdan Khmelnitsky and the Russian-Polish and Polish-Swedish wars that followed, about 86 thousand Jews died.

As a result of the divisions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795. the territory of Belarus, together with the Jews living there, became part of the Russian Empire.

After the first partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, about 55 thousand Belarusian Jews became part of Russia. The Senate decree of 1775 legalized the existence of the Kagals. According to the proposal of Governor General Chernyshev, Jews in Belarus were allocated to a special tax and class unit. Since 1780, Jews received the right to enroll as merchants and participate in class-city self-government.

Soon all the Jews of Belarus found themselves in the Pale of Settlement. By special decree of Catherine II, since 1791 the Jewish population was kept within the boundaries of its settlement. In 1794, the expanded Pale of Settlement was legalized. Jews were allowed to “engage in merchant and petty bourgeois trades” in the provinces: Minsk, Izyaslav (later Volyn), Bratslav (Podolsk), Polotsk (Vitebsk), Mogilev, Kyiv, Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversk, Ekaterinoslav and Tauride regions. The Dnieper along its two banks was made the central river of “Jewish territory.”

Around this time, Hasidism spread in some parts of the country.

Although Jews at that time were not yet recruited for active military service, a considerable number of Belarusian Jews took an active part in the Patriotic War of 1812 on the side of the Russian army. They were skilled scouts and skilled suppliers.

On April 11, 1823, the highest decree was issued that in the Belarusian provinces, Jews should cease wine production and the maintenance of leases and post offices, and by 1825 they would move to cities and towns.

The first 1st category (lowest) school for children of Russian Jews was established in 1847 in Minsk.

According to the 1897 census, more than 900 thousand Jews lived in Belarus - 21.1% of the Jewish population of the Pale of Settlement Russian Empire. At the same time, they were the second most important - after the titular ethnic group - on the Belarusian lands, ahead in terms of quantitative indicators and specific gravity even the traditionally large Polish diaspora.

In 1897, 34,440 Jews lived in Vitebsk (52% of the city’s population), in Brest - 30,260 (65%), in Grodno - 22,684 (48%), in Minsk - 47,652 (52%), in Pinsk - 21 065 (74%), in Slutsk - 10,264 (77%), in Mogilev - 21,547 Jews (50%), in Gomel - 20,385 (55%).

IN late XIX century, from 25% to 38% of Jews in the towns of Belarus lived off charity, and many emigrated to the USA and other countries.

Representatives of various Jewish socialist groups gathered in Vilna in October 1897 and founded the "General Jewish Workers' Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia" (abbreviated in Yiddish as Bund).
At the end of 1901, a congress of a society called “Poalei Zion” (“Workers of Zion”) was also held in Minsk.

When a Jewish pogrom was organized in Gomel in the summer of 1903, the Jewish youth of the city, for the first time in the history of Jewish pogroms in Russia, managed to create a self-defense detachment and successfully repel the onslaught of the pogromists. The members of this self-defense unit, having moved to Palestine, laid the foundation for the second aliyah and founded the Hashomer organization.

There were large yeshivas on Belarusian soil - in Volozhin, Lubavitch, Mir, Slonim, Slutsk. Jewish youth from many countries of the world flocked here.

Synagogues occupied an important place in the life of Belarusian Jews. In 1917 there were: in Minsk - 83, in Mogilev - 50, in Bobruisk - 42, in Vitebsk - 30, in Gomel - 26.

The February Revolution of 1917 eliminated the Pale of Settlement. On March 20, 1917, the Provisional Government adopted the “Resolution on the abolition of all national and religious restrictions.” All Jewish parties came out of hiding. As a result of free elections, Bund member Aron Weinstein became the chairman of the Minsk City Duma. In the elections to the Constituent Assembly in the Minsk province, 65,400 people voted for the Zionists, 16,270 for the Bund and the Mensheviks. Zionist J. Brutskus was elected as a deputy Constituent Assembly. Several Jewish newspapers began to be published in Minsk: the weekly “Dos Yiddishe Wort” (“The Jewish Word”), the daily newspaper “Der Veker” (“Alarm Clock”), the legal Zionist newspaper “Der Id” (“The Jew”).

In 1919-1922, Belarusian Jews became victims of pogroms from all sides: Polish troops, and Bulak-Bulakhovich’s gangs, and units under the ideological leadership of Boris Savinkov, and simply gangs of robbers (“greens”), and units of the Red Army, During this period, 225 pogroms were committed on the territory of Belarus.

First World War and Civil War led to the acceleration of the process of urbanization of Belarusian Jewry and its mass outflow outside the republic. In the 1920s, as a result of the NEP, the economic structure of the Jewish town was destroyed. Tens of thousands of former artisans and traders lost not only their permanent income, but also civil rights(became “disenfranchised”).

The October Revolution divided Belarusian Jews into two camps. One part took an active part in the struggle to establish Soviet power, while the other, smaller part, was anti-Soviet.

In June 1919, the Commissariat for Jewish Affairs of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities announced a decision to dissolve Jewish communities and demanded that their property be handed over to it.

After the establishment of Soviet power (1920), the Jewish community was dissolved, Jewish parties were liquidated, the Hebrew language was banned, as was education in cheders and yeshivas, Jewish melamed teachers were persecuted, and synagogues were closed. Soviet authority created a Soviet system of education, enlightenment and culture for Jews in the Yiddish language without national traditions and national culture. Apart from the Bundist newspaper Der Wecker, all Jewish publications were banned.

In the 1920-1930s in the BSSR there were four state languages: Belarusian, Russian, Jewish (Yiddish) and Polish. If in the 1924-1925 academic year in the BSSR there were 87 elementary and 42 seven-year Jewish schools teaching in Yiddish, then in the 1926-1927 academic year the number of elementary schools increased to 147, and seven-year schools to 53. 24 thousand students studied in them. In the early 1920s, three Jewish pedagogical colleges were opened. In Belarus there were Jewish departments of workers' faculties, pedagogical faculties, the department of Jewish language of the Gorets Agricultural Academy, a Jewish section of the ethnological and linguistic faculty of the BSU, a Jewish zootechnic school, etc. But at the end of the 1930s, Jewish education in the BSSR was virtually eliminated. In July 1924, the Jewish department of the Institute of Belarusian Culture was established, then transformed into the Jewish sector of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. In 1932, the Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture was created. In 1935, the Institute of National Minorities was organized within the system of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences, which was closed already in 1936. In Minsk, a Jewish sector was opened at the Institute of Belarusian Culture, in the library named after. V.I. Lenin, at the BSU at the Faculty of Pedagogy.

In 1926, the Belarusian State Jewish Theater was created in Minsk, headed by Mikhail Rafalsky, and in 1929, a Jewish choral studio was created under the direction of composer Samuil Polonsky.

In the BSSR, the Jewish monthly literary magazine “Stern”, the biweekly magazine “Der Junger Arbeter”, the daily newspaper “October”, and the Jewish pioneer newspaper “Der Junger Leninets” were published. In 1929, 55 titles of Jewish books were published in Minsk.

The second half of the 1920s - the first half of the 1930s truly became the heyday of Jewish culture in Belarus. Jewish culture of Belarus gave the world such famous artists as Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine, Yehuda Pan, Solomon Yudovin, Meir Axelrod.
By the end of the 1930s. About 400,000 Jews lived in Belarus.

In 1939, 375 thousand Jews lived in the BSSR. In September 1939, after Germany attacked Poland, the territory of Western Belarus was annexed to the BSSR. After the annexation of Western Belarus in 1939, the Jewish population increased, according to various estimates, to 800,000 - 1,000,000 people.

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, about 1 million Jews lived in Belarus.

The Great Patriotic War became a Catastrophe for Belarusian Jewry. In 1941-1945, 983 thousand Jews died here, including 85 thousand foreign Jews. More than 300 ghettos were created on the territory of 207 settlements. Most of the prisoners of Minsk, Polotsk and other ghettos and Jews of European countries were exterminated in the Trostenets death camp.

In the difficult conditions of the ghetto, an anti-fascist movement arose. Underground groups operated in Minsk, Slonim, Baranovichi, Bobruisk, Grodno, Brest and other ghettos. In many ghettos, on the eve of the preparation of mass executions by the Nazis, uprisings took place. Most of the prisoners who were released took an active part in the partisan movement.

On the territory of the BSSR there were more than 10 Jewish partisan detachments. About 12 thousand Jews fought in the ranks of the Belarusian partisans in 1941-1944.

23 Belarusian Jews became Heroes of the Soviet Union. Two Belarusian Jews became full holders of the Order of Glory. During the Great Patriotic War, 62 generals and 4 Jewish admirals, natives of Belarus, served in the ranks of the Red Army and Navy.

During the post-war anti-Jewish “fight against cosmopolitans” campaign, all Jewish schools and cultural organizations were closed in the republic. In 1945-1946, a wave of anti-Semitism swept through many populated areas of Belarus. In addition to the deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, G. B. Eidinov. There are no Jews left at the level of the highest party and state leadership of the republic. After the murder of the outstanding Jewish artist S. M. Mikhoels in Minsk in 1948, an anti-Semitic bacchanalia began in the BSSR, as well as throughout the country. Jews were arrested only because they studied Hebrew and Yiddish and read the books of Sholom Aleichem.

In the 1940s - 1950s. The activities of religious communities were practically stopped.

In the 1960s - 1970s. Belarus is becoming one of the centers of “anti-Zionist propaganda.” The rampant state anti-Semitism in the 1970s led to the fact that there was not even an article “Jews” in the 12-volume “Belarusian Savetskaya Entsyklapediya”. There was no place in this edition for Marc Chagall and Chaim Soutine.

The size of the Jewish population of the republic in the post-war period decreased from 150,000 in 1959 to 112,000 in 1989. In 1959, there were 150 thousand Jews in Belarus. According to the 1979 census, 135 thousand Jews lived in the BSSR, and in 1989 - 112 thousand.

The main factor in the decline in numbers was in the 1970s - 1990s. migration processes and assimilation. Until 1989, the emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union was not widespread. From 1979 to 1988, 9,955 Jews left the BSSR.

Since the 1970s, Minsk Jews began to hold a May 9 rally “on the Yam” at the monument to those killed in the ghetto, which was erected in 1947. This monument is the first in the USSR with an inscription in Yiddish: “To the Jews - victims of Nazism.” In the 1970s A movement for national dignity and the right to repatriation began in the city: underground ulpans appeared to study Hebrew, history and traditions. This activity became especially active in the mid-1980s.

The permission to travel abroad freely in 1989 marked the beginning of mass aliyah to Israel. The peak of emigration to Israel from Belarus occurred in 1989 - 1991. Over three years, 62,389 people went there.

The first Jewish organizations in Belarus appeared in the late 1980s.
In 1988, the Minsk Society of Lovers of Jewish Culture (MOLEK) was created, and in 1991, the Belarusian Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities was officially registered, which became part of the Vaad of the USSR.

In 1989 - 1994, the number of people who repatriated from Belarus to Israel amounted to 49,243 people. During this same time, Jewish emigration to the United States and other countries amounted to 227,000 people.

According to the 1999 census, the Jewish population in the republic was 27,810 people, while only one charitable organization, Hesed, serves more than 18 thousand people of retirement age. Based on this, even taking into account the age disproportions characteristic of the modern demographic situation, according to the most rough estimates, at least 50-60 thousand Jews should live in the republic.

Most Jews live in the capital of Belarus, Minsk. The remaining operating large communities are located in Brest, Vitebsk, Gomel, Mogilev, Grodno, Bobruisk, Polotsk, Mozyr, Baranovichi and Pinsk.

Diplomatic relations with Israel were established in 1992. In 2003 - 2005. The Israeli embassy in Minsk was closed as part of a campaign to save Israeli government budget funds. In response, Belarus in January 2004 de facto reduced its level of representation in the State of Israel, leaving a charge ad interim at the head of the embassy. The conflict was settled in January 2005, when the Israeli Embassy resumed its work in Minsk, and a consular section opened in June 2005. Currently, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Israel to the Republic of Belarus is Eddie Shapira. In May 2006, Belarus also appointed its ambassador to Israel, Igor Aleksandrovich Leshchenya.

In the Belarusian capital there is Jerusalem Street. In addition, by the decision of the Minsk City Council of Deputies, Mebelny Lane was renamed into a street named after one of the leaders of the underground in the Minsk ghetto, Mikhail Gebelev, with the installation of a memorial plaque. On January 15, 2008, the National Bank of Belarus introduced into circulation commemorative coins “Z. Azgur. 100th year”, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Belarusian sculptor, a Jew by nationality, Zaire Azgur. In March 2008, the National Tourism Agency of Belarus developed the excursion "Shooted Stars. The History of the Minsk Ghetto." In September 2005, a memorial plaque in honor of Israeli Prime Minister M. Begin was unveiled in Brest. Since October 2005, kosher bread has been baked at the bakery in Mogilev. The League of Interparliamentary Friendship "Belarus - Israel" is active, headed by deputy of the National Assembly of Belarus O. Velichko.

In the Republic of Belarus there is currently no Law on Restitution that would allow the return of property to legal or individuals. The only possibility exists for existing, officially registered religious communities - by decision of local authorities, they, as legal successors, can be given ownership of religious buildings that previously belonged to these denominations.

The most representative of the currently operating Jewish organizations in the country is the Union of Belarusian Jewish Public Associations and Communities (SBEOOO), headed by the Honored Architect of the Republic of Belarus, Lenin Prize laureate Leonid Levin. SBEOO is a member of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, actively cooperates with the World Jewish Congress, the European Jewish Congress and other international Jewish organizations → History of the Jewish community of Belarus.

→ Jewish neighborhoods and shtetls

→ Chronicles of the Minsk Ghetto

Physical extermination during the war, and then emigration, led to a steady decline in the Jewish population in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus after 1940:

in 1950 in post-war Belarus there were about 150 thousand Jews,
in 1970 - 148 thousand,
in 1979 - 135 thousand,
in 1989 - 112 thousand,
in 1999 - about 28 thousand,
in 2009 - 18.5 thousand (0.2% of the country's population).

Thus, Jews in Belarus virtually disappeared .

→ Warsaw Ghetto

In 1946, 23.8 million people lived in post-war Poland. There were still half a million Polish Jews who escaped the Holocaust, but the Jews were still a large national group. By comparison, France, which now has the largest Jewish community in Europe, had only 180,000 Jews after the war.

However, within several post-war years, the vast majority of Jews left Poland. At the end of the sixties, there was a new surge in immigration, and almost all the Jews remaining in the country left Poland.

According to the 2002 Polish census, there were 1,133 Jews living in the country.

In the four hundred old Jewish cemeteries that have survived today in Poland and hundreds of others that have not survived, lie the ancestors of millions of citizens of Russia, Israel, the USA, Argentina, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries.

But Poland today is a country without Jews .

The number of Jews in Lithuania is constantly decreasing .

By the beginning of the 20th century, Jews made up 40% of the population of Vilnius. According to the 1923 census, the Jewish population of independent Lithuania reached approximately 154 thousand people (7.6% of the total population), living mainly in major cities- Kaunas (25 thousand, 27%), Panevezys (6.8 thousand, 36%), Siauliai (5.3 thousand, 24.9%), Ukmerge (3.9 thousand, 37.5%) , Vilkaviskis (Volkovyshki; 3.2 thousand, 44%) - and towns.

Lithuania was occupied by German troops at the end of June 1941. At the time of the occupation, there were from 225 to 265 thousand Jews in Lithuania, including 13-15 thousand refugees from Poland. By the beginning of 1942, remnants of Jewish communities remained only in the cities of Kaunas, Vilnius, Siauliai and Švenchis. In the ghetto of Vilnius there were about 20 thousand Jews, Kaunas - 17 thousand, Siauliai - 5 thousand, Shvenchis (Sventsyan) - about 500 people.

During the Second World War, on the territory of the Lithuanian SSR, which was part of the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire and included areas densely populated by Jews, almost 94% of Lithuanian Jews were exterminated.

In Vilnius, mass executions of Jews were carried out by units of Einsatzgruppe A and parts of the local police. IN locality Paneriai (Ponary) by the beginning of September 1941, about 35 thousand Jews were shot, and another 10 thousand by the end of the year (out of 60 thousand living in the city).

Vilnius. 1941

By mid-October 1941, the total number of Jews exterminated in Lithuania, according to the latest results scientific research, amounted to 71,105 people.

The Nazis deported European Jews to Lithuania for the purpose of extermination. So, at the end of December, trains with five thousand Jews from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia arrived in Kaunas. They were immediately destroyed at the ninth fort. In 1941-43. Several thousand Jews from Belgium, the Netherlands and France were also exterminated there.

In most towns and cities of Lithuania, the entire Jewish population was exterminated by German units and detachments of Lithuanians by December 1941.

In total, by the end of January 1942, as a result of mass executions, death from cold and hunger, 180-185 thousand Jews died in Lithuania.

The tragedy of the Holocaust in Lithuania claimed the lives of 95-96% of the pre-war Jewish population (200 thousand people, according to other sources 215-220 thousand) of Lithuania. By 1944, only 600 Jews remained in Vilnius.

→ The mystery of the Vilna ghetto

According to the 1959 census, there were about 25 thousand Jews in Lithuania (less than 1% of the total population), of which over 16 thousand were in Vilnius, about 5000 in Kaunas.

According to the 1979 census (after the start of Jewish emigration from the USSR), the Jewish population of Lithuania was 15 thousand people (0.4% of the total population).

In 1989, the Jewish population of Lithuania was 12,400. In the late 1980s - early 2000s. a large number of Lithuanian Jews moved to Israel, the USA, Canada, Germany, and Australia. Total in 1989-2004. 7,362 people left Lithuania.

According to the 2001 census, there were 4,007 Jews in Lithuania, of which 2,769 were in Vilnius and 427 in Kaunas.

In all corners and metropolises

Hostage to the destinies of the world,

Jew, living in other people's stories,

I got into them all the time.

Even the terrible secrets of the Holocaust, which either happened or didn’t happen... Even the fascinating prospects of a Jewish state in the center of Europe are not as interesting, not as incomprehensible, as the mystery of the so-called Eastern Jews - that is, the Yiddish-speaking inhabitants of Poland, Western Rus', Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria. The fact is that this branch of world Jewry, numbering two-thirds of all Jews in the world, is still completely mysterious. It is unknown who they are or where they came from. An impenetrable mystery lies over the history of this people. These Jews quite definitely exist... But who are they?! Secrets, secrets, secrets...

From overseas from the forest,

Where is real hell,

Where are the evil demons?

They almost eat each other...

SIMPLICITY AND CLEARANCE

At first glance, everything is very simple and clear: “The Mongol invasion in the 13th century left Poland without an organized and recognized system of centralized power. Only in the second half of the 13th century did the situation in Poland begin to stabilize, and local princes gradually began to gain power. To strengthen the economy of the state, the Polish kings began to invite settlers from more developed countries, mainly from Germany. They were very interested in the growth of cities, the development of crafts and trade, since the population of Poland was mainly peasant. Therefore, merchants and artisans were provided with especially favorable conditions. Thousands and thousands of Germans began to move to the east, and with them many Jews, who were promised special privileges.

At first, Jews lived in large cities and in areas adjacent to the German principalities from which they came. Gradually, having settled into the country and due to the influx of new Jewish settlers, they began to move to other areas.

At the end of the 14th century, many Jews settled in Lithuania...”

“After the Germans, they were the second most important migratory element that restored the Polish cities destroyed by the Tatar hordes.”

And it turns out that “the Jewish population of Eastern Europe was basically just an offshoot of Western European Jewry.”

In general, a very logical picture. And it is not changed in any way by the fact that “the Jewish community of Poland began to form even before the expulsion of Jews from Western Europe. Already in 1264, twenty years before their expulsion from England, privileges were given to Jews throughout the western part of the country in Poland.”

After all, “German Jews, fleeing the robberies of the Crusaders, settled in Poland by 1100. Here they flourished. More and more Jews fled Germany and Austria to Poland, where they were welcomed with open arms. King Bolesław V granted the Jews the liberal privilege of self-government."

Indeed, very logical. German Jews penetrate into Poland - simply spreading across the face of the Earth, without any special intention. “It is believed that already from the time of Charlemagne, Jewish merchants from Germany came to Poland on business, and many remained there permanently.”

The assumption is logical, but only as an unproven hypothesis. Because, frankly, I have no idea which serious scientist “believes” this. I haven’t come across any books on this issue where anyone seriously argued something like that. And if Solomon Mikhailovich is able to tell me the names of these “believers,” then it would be interesting to find out what documents they rely on. Because there are no documents. Absolutely not. There is folklore, that is, legends.

And if everything is so simple and clear, then why then the most authoritative book available to me on these topics says: “There is no consensus about how and when Jews appeared in Poland - this event is shrouded in legends, myths and fiction.”

J. D. Klier is among the most reliable Jewish historians. He is less careless than others in everything that concerns the history of non-Jews, he is the least ideological. And it is he who refuses to give an unambiguous explanation for the appearance of Jews in the Kingdom of Poland, as well as to offer any definite dates once and for all.

What is the mystery?

RESETTLEMENT OF NON-RESETTED

The first part of the puzzle is that in general there is no one to move to the east. Because in all the cities of Germany, England, France, Switzerland we are talking about very small Jewish communities. And it’s not the pogroms or the fact that so many Jews died during the plague pandemic in the 14th century. There were never many of them north of the Pyrenees mountains and from the coast Mediterranean Sea.

By the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, there were many Jews in the Mediterranean regions: the countries of Italy, Spain, North Africa, and the Near East; there the climate is more familiar, and long-standing and relatively stable relations have been established with the non-Jewish population, although not always peaceful.

In Gaul, there were many Jews in the south, where the climate was Mediterranean. This southern part of Gaul was called Narbonne - after its main city, Narbonne. The Loire River divides Gaul almost exactly into two halves; there were far fewer Jews north of the Loire than to the south.

It is difficult to give specific figures for the early Middle Ages, but it is known that when the Visigoth kings ordered the Jews to be baptized or leave, there were 90 thousand who were baptized. And there were much more people who were not baptized and given into slavery to Christians or expelled.

It is difficult to say how many Jews there were in Spain in the 14th century; They name different numbers: from 600 thousand to one and a half or even two million. In Castile alone there were up to 80 communities, uniting up to a million Jews. If we remember that only 8 or 10 million people lived in Spain - Christians, Muslims and Jews - then in any case the percentage is very high. There were as many Jews in Spain as there would be in Poland a century later.

In 1391, attacks on Jews and civil unrest provoked by fanatical monks began in Spain. They were organized by a certain monk Fernando Martinez; if the authorities even stopped and punished the rioters, for some reason Martinez himself was not touched. True, he did not kill or torture with his own hands, but it was he who provided the ideological basis: all Jews must be immediately baptized so that the enemies of Christ would disappear from Spain and would not desecrate its land. Where this priest was during the battles, where Jews shed blood along with Christians, I have no information.

It began in Seville, where street fighting continued intermittently for three months. It swept throughout Castile and spread to Aragon. The fanatics who led the maddened crowd destroyed, if not all communities in Spain, then at least large communities - in Cordoba, Toledo, Valencia. The rioters burst into the “yuderia” shouting: “Here comes Martinez, he will now cross you all!” In Barcelona, ​​the Jews locked themselves in a fortress, enlisting the support of the authorities. The authorities did not extradite him, but the soldiers of the garrison ran away and themselves took part in the siege of the fortress. The fortress was set on fire, the Jews were killed or baptized: except for those who committed suicide (the majority) or managed to escape (a few).

This is where the statistics come in! It is known, albeit approximately, the number of those killed and baptized. “Only” about ten thousand were killed, and about half a million people were baptized. It is difficult to say for sure how many fled to Morocco and Portugal. At least the count was in the hundreds of thousands. It is known that in Portugal at least 20 thousand baptized Jews returned to the faith of their fathers. They were threatened with punishment for this, but the chief rabbi and physician of the king of Portugal, Moses Navarro, presented the king with authentic letters from the Pope, prohibiting the baptism of Jews by force. The king allowed Jews to return to Judaism and forbade them to be persecuted for this.

Apparently, there were still a lot of Jews in Spain even after 1391. It is known that monks broke into synagogues many times, demanding immediate baptism. Often the synagogue was immediately converted into a temple, and the Jews were baptized by the entire community.

These outrages were organized by Bishop Paul of Burgos, the tutor of the Castilian prince and a personal friend of the Pope. IN past life it was the Talmudist Solomon Halevi... Such baptized Jews, who often did not fundamentally change their social circle and way of life, were called by the Jews “anusim” - that is, “slaves”, and by the Spaniards - “marranos”, that is, “outcasts”. Each nation expressed itself in its own spirit, and indeed the difference is in favor of the Jews.

The total number of Marranos and “people of mixed blood” in Spain is determined approximately from six hundred thousand to one and a half million (out of 8 or at most 10 million of the total population). This was a unique group of people - neither Jews nor Spaniards. Many of the Marranos did merge with the Spaniards, but most tried to secretly adhere to Judaism. They settled separately, tried to maintain acquaintances mainly among “their own”... Even a special Marrano pogrom is known, when in 1473 the mob went on a rampage for three days in Cordoba, in the Marrano quarter. Then a rumor spread that during procession a certain Marrancan girl poured a chamber pot out of the window - directly onto the statue of the Mother of God. Whether it’s true or not can no longer be established, but there was a pogrom; more than a thousand people were killed, including infants - the main, presumably, enemies of the Mother of God. Was there any point in killing so many people because of one fool (who, again, would not be killed, but would be flogged, and that’s all) - this is also a question that is too late to ask.

Apparently, there were more Marranos in Spain than Jews, because the number of those expelled in 1492 is said to be about three hundred thousand. Already from a united Spain: the marriage of Ferdinand of Castile and Isabella of Aragon united the two largest kingdoms and created one large country. In 1492, the most Christian crown-bearers Ferdinand and Isabella decided that Gentiles should no longer desecrate Spain. A gloomily famous figure helped a lot in making this decision: the creator of the Spanish Inquisition, the confessor of kings, the monk Tomas Torquemada. There is a legend that the Jews offered Ferdinand and Isabella so much money for the right to stay that the king and queen hesitated. Unfortunately, Thomas Torquemada was eavesdropping and at the decisive moment burst into the room and put him to shame: how can they receive bribes from the enemies of Christ! Although it is true: having expelled the Jews, Ferdinand and Isabella appropriated their property. Why take part if you can “Aryanize” everything?

Before leaving their homeland forever, the Jews spent three days painfully saying goodbye to their family graves and weeping in their cemeteries. As always, as during any regular exile, they did not want to leave.

“And three hundred thousand walked, exhausted, on foot, among them was I, and all the people - youths and elders, women and children; in one day, from all regions of the kingdom... Where the wind of exile drove them... and behold - trouble, darkness and gloom... and many disasters befell them: robberies and misfortunes, famine and pestilence... they sold them into slavery in different countries, men and women, and many drowned in the sea... They sank like lead. Fire and water fell on others, for the ships were burning... And their history horrified all the kingdoms of the earth... and only a few of their many remained (alive).

This is how Don Isaac Abravanel, one of the outstanding leaders of Spanish Jewry, described this monstrous “campaign”. But, fortunately, Isaac Abravanel still exaggerated the scale mass death. Most of these people did not die, and we know very well where they ended up: Turkey accepted about 100,000 exiles, and the same number settled in North Africa.

In an act of grim justice, these Jews willingly became pirates, plundering the coasts of France and Spain. They turned out to be quite good sailors and warriors, and besides, they knew well the psychology and behavior of Christians. They introduced an element of completely irrational hatred and malice into the merciless war between Muslims and Christians. On the island of Djerba, at the beginning of the 19th century, a pyramid of Christian skulls stood until it was removed in 1830 at the request of the French consul.

In Italy there were already incomparably fewer Jews than in Spain: according to various estimates, in the 14th–15th centuries - from 30 to 80 thousand. Fortunately, no one expelled them anywhere, and even Spanish exiles were added to them.

The number of people expelled from England varies, but all estimates range between 12 and 16 thousand people. This is a lot from the point of view of organizing such a procession, especially since it was not young armed men or even childless youth who were moving, moving to new lands. People were walking, and this number - 12 or 16 thousand people - included infants, very old people, and women late stages pregnancy, and nursing mothers. But this is very little compared even to the Italian colony, not to mention the Spanish Jews and the Jews of the Muslim world.

Slightly more Jews were expelled from France - the numbers range from 80 to 100 thousand people. However, where the Jews from France went is also known - they went either to Italy or to the southern principalities - Languedoc and Burgundy, which were vassal principalities of France, but to which the decrees on the expulsion of Jews did not apply. Only a very few French Jews headed to distant, too cold Germany for them.

SOMETHING IMPORTANT ABOUT THE JEWS OF GERMANY

What is characteristic is that the arrival of these Jews in Germany did not pass without a trace, and to be sure, the city archives in this country were always kept in order (which makes life very easy for historians). We know very well which Jews, in what numbers, arrived in which German cities, how many of them were there and where they moved. It is known that the community in Frankfurt am Main was founded by Rabbi Eliazar ben Nathan, who came to this city with his family from Mainz in 1150, and the same accuracy reigns in all other cases.

Sometimes Jews were counted not by heads, but by families: the chronicles noted how many families arrived in such and such a city or moved from Mainz to Frankfurt or from Zwickau to Berlin. There is not the slightest disdain for the Jews in this - the number of Christians was very often estimated in exactly the same way. For both chroniclers and royal officials, adult men were important, the heads of families - those who would pay taxes, work, and be responsible for maintaining order. They were simply not interested in women and children, and the chroniclers did not seem to notice them.

So: the numbers are absolutely insignificant. There were very few Jews in Germany even before the Crusades and the Black Death. After all, Germany for the Jews, even more than Britain, was only the extreme northern periphery of their habitat: a cold and wild country where they settled not because of a good life. Let me emphasize once again: the further you are from the Mediterranean coast, the fewer Jews there are. It is characteristic that the majority of fugitives from France settled not even in the Rhine regions, but in Alsace and Lorraine, that is, in the territory disputed between Germany and France.

In this sparse population, pogroms of the 11th–13th centuries produced a huge release, and during the plague pandemic, Jews not only died like everyone else, but they were also exterminated by Christians. Of course, those expelled from France and England somehow increased the total number of German Jews, but by how much? At most, by 20-30 thousand people, and this figure is taken from the air. A very approximate figure.

In Frankfurt, the recognized capital of German Jews, in 1241 there were only 1811 of them. In 1499 there were even fewer - only 1543. I will only emphasize that these figures include all Jews, including newborn babies. However, even in later times there were few Jews in Frankfurt. In 1709 - only 3019 people with a total urban population of 17–18 thousand. In 1811 - about 2–3 thousand, with a total number of citizens of 40,500 people.

We have to admit that very few Jews lived in Germany in the 14th and 15th centuries.

In modern times, Jews were allowed to return to England and the Netherlands, and this process is also well documented.

In the Netherlands, after liberation from Spanish rule in 1593, Protestants established widespread religious tolerance. In fact, it all started with the fact that the Marranos were given full opportunity return to the faith of our fathers, and more often - even to the faith of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers. Communities arose... a year passed, then another... and no one was pursuing! Rumors about this also penetrated into Spain itself... Naturally, from there the Marrano ran after the Marrano, and soon “on the streets of the Jewish quarter in Amsterdam in the 17th century one could meet a man who had been a Catholic confessor at the Spanish royal court, and had now become a Jewish scientist or merchant, or a former Spanish minister or military leader who became the head of the Jewish community and a member of a shipping company sending its ships to New World» .

There are also immigrants from Germany to the Netherlands - there are several hundred of them; There are also immigrants from Poland and Rus'. But the Jewish community in the Netherlands is largely Sephardic.

In England, back in 1649, a group of revolutionary officers decided on broad religious tolerance, “not excluding Turks, and papists, and Jews.” On November 12, 1655, Oliver Cromwell raised before the National Assembly the question of admitting Jews to England, without any restrictions on their rights. Those who are furiously resisting are the English merchants, but the matter is clearly moving towards a positive solution.

As often happens, a complete accident intervened: regular hostilities began between England and Spain. The British government arrested Spanish merchants and their goods, and the “Spaniards” declared that they were not Catholics at all, but forcibly baptized Jews, and they were not enemies at all, but just the very best friends of England... By the way, Edward’s decree I on the expulsion of the Jews and prohibiting them from living in England was never canceled, and has not been canceled to this day. But Jews gain the actual right to live in Britain when the government willingly grants political asylum to “Spanish merchants”; and after the war a never-ending stream of Sephardic Marranos flows into England. In England they convert back to Jewry and freely settle in the country. There are tens of thousands of them. To these are added German Jews, mainly from Hanover: several hundred people.

In France since 1648, after the annexation of Alsace by the Peace of Westphalia upon completion Thirty Years' War, it turns out that they are local, German Jews. There are about 20 or 30 thousand of them, and very soon after this the government, again without repealing the medieval decree, allows Italian and Spanish Jews to enter the country. By 1700, as many of them entered as there were “trophy” Jews from Alsace received by happy France in 1648. There are good reasons to believe that these are descendants of fugitives from 14th-century France.

The moral of this story is simple: Jews in Mediterranean countries a lot of; There are very few Jews in Germany. Moving to the same country, German Jews are literally drowning in the mass of Sephardim.

German scientists, however, have no doubt at all that it was from the territory of Germany that the Jewish settlement of Poland came. But here’s an interesting detail: all the authors I’ve ever read very confidently report: “Jews settled in Poland and Holland in the 16th–18th centuries.” But the resettlement to Holland is documented with German scrupulousness, almost every settler is listed, and if necessary, it is possible to look up archives and even establish the names of many settlers. But the resettlement to Poland is not documented in any way. There is no specific information about which families, which Jews and when they moved to this or that Polish city.

Maybe this has something to do with the tense relations between Germany and Poland? But Germany as a single state emerged only in the 19th century. Before this, each principality pursued its own policy, and this policy was not always hostile to the Kingdom of Poland. In addition, many cities had self-government rights (the famous Magdeburg Law), and these cities kept their own archives. The town hall of such cities would never allow city citizens or even residents who did not have the rights of citizens to disappear from the city and their departure would not be taken into account. And there was no reason not to note that, say, “twenty families of Jews moved from Magdeburg to Krakow in 1240.” However, there are no such documents, and we have to conclude that for several centuries some incomprehensible “factor X” was at work, which prevented the emigration of Jews from all the principalities and cities of Germany to Poland from being taken into account. I have no idea what this mysterious “factor X” is, which acted for several centuries in all German cities and states, under any political system and regardless of the turns of international politics.

A typical map of the settlement of Jews in Germany from the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt. It shows with German precision: who moved, when and where. Small neat arrows show the movement of people between small red dots - resettlement points. But a huge red arrow leads towards Poland, and it rests on a huge red spot across the entire territory of Poland. No specifics. Not a single definite fact.

And we have to conclude: either there was no emigration of Jews from Germany to Poland at all (which is completely incredible), or the notorious “X factor” still exists.

And most importantly, the number of Jews in indigenous Poland itself, without Rus', already by 1400 amounted to at least 100 thousand people. By the beginning of the 16th century there were hundreds of thousands of them, that is, the number of Polish-Lithuanian-Russian Jews was approaching the number of Spanish Sephardim and exceeded the number of Italian Jews. How could tiny German communities bring this huge community into existence? The number of Polish Jews (settlers) is significantly greater than in the country from which the resettlement is taking place! In full accordance with the saying about the hen who gave birth to a bull.

In general, John Doyle Klier is deeply right - there are too many legends, myths and fictions here.

WHO ARE ASHKENAZI?

Actually, Ashkenaz is Germany in Hebrew. Ashkenazim are German Jews. If we consider all the Jews who have ever lived in Germany as such, then one of the authors of Lechaim will be right: “The history of the Ashkenazis... is no less than one and a half millennia.”

True, V. Fomenko clearly does not mean all German Jews, but Jews who speak Yiddish, and this puts his words into very great doubt. After all, it is quite certain that Eliazar ben Nathan, who came to Frankfurt from Mainz, did not speak Yiddish (at that time the German language did not yet exist), but explained himself in Latin and Hebrew.

But the fact of the matter is that a completely authoritative book on the history of Jews understands the word “Ashkenazi” even more broadly! In the chapter “Community self-government and spiritual creativity of Ashkenazi Jews in the 10th–15th centuries,” the following is literally written: “When Palestine again fell under Muslim rule in 1211, about 300 rabbis from France and England moved there, led by one of the most prominent Tosafists, Shimshon from Sans. Even before that, there were many teachers of the law in Acre, immigrants from France... The attraction of Ashkenazi Jews to Palestine never stopped.”

They are not the only ones who think so. In the textbook, which I have already quoted many times, there is a strange map on page 156. It clearly shows with arrows of different configurations: Sephardim come from Spain to North Africa, France and England. In Africa they remain Sephardim, but Ashkenazis are moving from France and England to Germany...

That is, the authors of the textbook seriously assume that the Sephardim, moving to England in the 11th–12th centuries, somehow mysteriously became Ashkenazi and in 1290 left this country in a new capacity. For any historian or ethnographer this is somehow not very reliable.

If we use the most reliable sign of a people - language, it turns out that at least until the 17th century there were Sephardim - the Jewish people that emerged in Spain in the 7th-8th centuries. They populate the Christian countries of Europe and change quite a lot in them. The connection with Spain and Portugal, even in the 17th century, among the Jews of the Netherlands is very strong, but in the Netherlands there is a very important circumstance... Jews from Spain and other Mediterranean countries, Jews from Germany and Jews “from the east” are entering this country from different directions. After the pogrom in Ukraine, many Jews flock west to Holland, and this is what comes of it:

“Where possible, the Sephardim preserved the originality of their customs and way of life. They remained faithful to their traditions as Spanish communities and were proud of the virtues of their former centers. In some places, distinct Sephardic communities existed for a long time alongside local communities that had been present in those countries for many centuries before the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. This led to fundamental changes in the life of Jewish communities. Until now, a community, such as that of Worms, Krakow or Zaragoza, united all the Jews of a given city. After the expulsion, the coexistence of several communities in the same city became common. A separate synagogue, special prayer rituals, and the common origin of the members of a particular community were more important than cohabitation in a given place. This led, on the one hand, to the enrichment of Jewish culture in the Middle East and, in Italy, and, on the other, to some tension between different groups of the Jewish population. The friction continued for quite a long time: until the Sephardic community achieved dominance and united the entire local population around itself, or until the Sephardim dissolved in the local community, or until the whole society came to terms with the fact of the coexistence of different synagogues, communities and rituals in the same city.

After the persecutions of 1648, refugees from Poland and Lithuania helped to intensify this process. Numerous Jewish captives ended up in Turkey and were ransomed. Some of them settled there permanently, and some headed to Western Europe. The newly arrived Ashkenazi Jews now insisted, like the Sephardim in their time, on their right to found their own synagogues, introduce their own prayer rituals and appoint their own rabbis.”

So it turns out: Sephardim are not at all identical to Ashkenazim. Moreover, they are not identical to the Jews of Germany! Jews who settled in Germany from ancient times or fled there from England and France turned, if not into another people, then into another ethnographic group. From the 11th–12th centuries they separated from other Sephardim, and from the 13th–14th centuries they lived in Germany. They spoke German and behaved, dressed, and even prayed differently from the Sephardim.

And Ashkenazi is the self-name of Polish-Lithuanian Jews, which German Jews never used. Ashkenazis spoke Yiddish, not German - although they are related, they are completely different languages. And they not only spoke, but also behaved, dressed and prayed differently from German Jews and Sephardim.

Modern Jewish scientists do not even deny the existence of different Jewish ethnic groups - they simply do not notice them, as they say, without going into polemics. For them, Jews are a single people, and not a super-ethnic group. It is convenient for Jewish scholars to use the word "Ashkenazi" to refer to all Jews who lived in Christian countries of Europe.

But this use of the term creates incredible confusion: very serious differences between different Jewish peoples disappear. Are Ashkenazi German Jews? All European Jews? But the Italians are completely different... So, Ashkenazis are all Europeans, except the Italians? Or are Ashkenazis all European Jews, German Jews and Polish-Lithuanian Jews? Is this all one group? No way! Several very different groups clearly stand out.

After all, Sephardim are not identical to other ethnic groups of Jews. And Ashkenazim are not all European Jews.

In the most general form, one can construct approximately the following scheme: ancient Jews, subjects of the Roman Empire, settled in Gaul and Britain back in the 2nd–3rd centuries AD. The new wave of settlement was a wave of Sephardim - immigrants from Muslim countries who spoke the Spaniol language (that is, direct descendants of ancient Jews).

This wave only in Italy encountered a large Jewish population, which either already had its own Ladino language, or it was Spagnol that changed in Italy under the influence and among local Jews.

In all other countries of Christian Europe, Sephardim, without breaking with their historical homeland, began to lose their identity as Sephardim and Ladino of the Mediterranean. They had been exploring Germany for a long time, and after they were expelled from France and England, this country finally became a kind of container for all the Jews of Christian Europe. In Germany, Jews spoke German, continuing to use Hebrew as a cult, sacred language.

In modern times, a “return to the West” began, to England and the Netherlands. And this is where it turns out that there is no unity among Jews. At least three clashes in the Netherlands different groups, and most likely - three different Jewish peoples.

All this, of course, is just a rough outline, but no matter how it is refined or improved, this is all the history of the descendants of those who came from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, through Italy or Spain. We know nothing about Jewish immigrants to Europe from the Byzantine Empire or from Persia.

And in the same way we are forced to say: Jews from Germany could not create a Jewish community in Poland. Some completely different Jews obviously lived there. Moreover, in Poland, long before the Crusades, there was already a Jewish population...

THE ANCIENT JEWISH POPULATION OF POLAND

There is an old legend that the Polish prince Popel died around 842. At the assembly in Kruszewitz, the Poles argued for a long time about who to elect as the new prince, and agreed to resolve the matter in a kind of divine court: let the prince be the one who first comes to the city in the morning. This first one, quite by chance, turned out to be the old Jew Abram Porokhuvnik. He, however, did not agree to become a prince and gave his lot to the village charioteer Piast: they say, Piast is also an intelligent man, and he is more worthy. Such an act did not contradict the morality of the pagans and was quite understandable to them. The Judaist Porokhuvnik acted in full accordance with the laws and morals of pagan society, it makes sense to note this.

I want to draw the reader’s attention to another very important circumstance: this Abram is a Jew with a Slavic nickname or even with a family name Porokhuvnik, that is, Porokhovnik. Apparently, if he is an alien, then he is an old one, familiar, with an established and clearly good reputation. Or maybe a descendant of immigrants in several generations.

Judging by the attitude of the Poles, he is not at all an impudent alien. Consequently, Porohuvnik personally, and, most likely, Jews in general, are among those who are familiar and do not cause irritation. That is, both Jews and Poles behave the same way as representatives of two indigenous tribes who have studied each other for a long time behave.

There is another legend that at the end of the 9th century, around 894, Jews came from Germany to the Polish prince Leszek and asked to be allowed into Poland. Leszek asked them about the Jewish religion and gave his consent. Then, they say, many Jews moved to Poland.

Retelling these frankly legendary stories, S. M. Dubnov suddenly switches to a tone that is appropriate for telling about real historical events, which are well documented: “The movement of Jews into Poland intensified from the end of the 10th century, when the Polish people adopted Christianity and thereby associated themselves with the Western Catholic Church and Western peoples, among whom Jews lived in significant numbers."

Everything in these confident words is surprising, especially two provisions: firstly, there is no reason to assert anything like that. There is no more information about the resettlement of Jews to Poland in the 10th or 11th centuries than about the biography and deeds of Abram Porokhuvnik.

There is a legend that confirms even more ancient appearance Jews in Eastern Europe. It is connected with the construction of Prague.

Of course, there is nothing strange in the fact that already in the early Middle Ages Jews could find themselves in Eastern Europe. Were they still there? But this is still not China; after all, a land inhabited by some kind of Caucasians.

The fact that there was this ancient Jewish population in Poland does not even contradict the later wolf settlement from Germany. Well, there was some very ancient settlement, most likely from Byzantium. They lived among semi-wild Slavic tribes, bringing them the light of civilization, as far as they could and as far as the locals perceived it. And then the Crusades began, and the Jews fled to Poland. A wave of expulsions from England and France in the 12th and 14th centuries - and a new wave of resettlement in Poland.

Everything is very logical, but I just can’t accept this scheme - at least four important circumstances interfere:

1. Judging by all the ancient legends, Jews in Eastern Europe were treated somehow strangely... Not as unwanted aliens, but rather as another local, indigenous people. Maybe, of course, this is due to the fact that the Slavs are still pagans? That they have not yet been enlightened about who crucified Christ and drank all the blood from Christian babies? Maybe, but, in any case, there is some strangeness in these legends.

2. And much more late time, throughout their documented history (that is, from the 12th to 14th centuries), the Jews of Eastern Europe behave differently from Western Jews. They live in rural areas and are engaged in a kind of urban occupation in rural areas: crafts, trade, and especially trade and intermediary activities. That is, simply put, they become a kind of layer between the peasantry and the wholesale merchants and industrialists of the city.

3. The Jews of Eastern Europe have their own special language, the origin of which is also very mysterious. Nowhere in the West did they speak Yiddish.

4. The Jews of Western Europe are much smaller in number than those of the East. It is difficult to imagine a demographic explosion that, in a matter of decades, would transform immigrants from Germany, these thousands of families, into a huge people, into tens and hundreds of thousands of Jews of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

However, it’s time to consider oddities that we have not touched on yet: the Yiddish language and the behavior of Eastern Jews.

MYSTERIOUS YIDDISH

The language spoken by Polish Jews is very close to German. Just as Spagnol came from Spanish, and Ladino from Latin or Italian, so Yiddish came from German. The authoritative reference book believes that Yiddish “began to take shape in the 12th–13th centuries. in Germany, where there were large settlements of Jews who used German speech in everyday life using Hebrew words and phrases to denote religious, cult, judicial, moral and other concepts.

With the resettlement of masses of Jews to Poland and other Slavic countries (XV-XVI centuries), Slavic words and morphemes began to penetrate into Yiddish.

Spoken Yiddish is divided into three dialects: Polish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian-Belarusian (these names are arbitrary, since they do not coincide with the boundaries of these territories).

It would probably be a good idea to study the earliest Yiddish texts, written in Germany, before the onset of Slavic influence: much would immediately become clear. But such texts do not exist, that’s the point. It is surprising that no one has seen texts written in Yiddish in Germany without later Slavic admixtures. So to speak, the early versions, born in Germany in the 12th–13th centuries, when it “began to take shape,” or at least in the 14th century.

All Yiddish texts are known only from the territory of Poland, all of them are much later, not earlier than the 16th century. All known early texts already reflect borrowings from Slavic languages, primarily from Polish. And thus the origin of Yiddish does not indicate in any way the migration of Jews from Germany.

Moreover, Yiddish is widespread throughout the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - both in native Poland and in Western Rus', but it could only arise in Poland, and only in a very limited period - from the 14th to the beginning of the 16th century. The fact is that Polish cities, including Krakow, were formed as German ones, which, however, has already been mentioned. Only during this period did the townspeople in Poland speak German or a mixture of German and Polish; later the city assimilated and became almost completely Polish, except for the Jewish quarters, of course. Moreover, the cities of the north of present-day Poland, Pomerania, spoke only German - this was the territory of the Livonian Order. There was no mixing of German with Polish; there was no assimilation of Germans by Poles. The Poles could call Danzig Gdansk as much as they wanted, but it remained a purely German city in language, management style, population, connections, and political orientation.

In Western Rus', the city spoke Polish and Yiddish. The German Quarter existed only in Vilna, and it did not determine the face of the city. It is unknown what language the Jews of Western Rus' spoke before the formation of Yiddish.

Yiddish quite definitely originated in southern Poland and from there spread to Western Rus'. Does this talk about the movement of Jews from Poland to Western Rus'? Or the language was borrowed, but the population remained unchanged?

A very mysterious language.

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES?

There are differences between Western and Eastern Jews even in appearance. No, no, let's not shake Goebbels' unclean bones again! But in Western and Central Europe Jews are much less different from the local population than in the East. This is already a characteristic feature that is thought-provoking.

There are even more differences in the economy.

“In the 15th century in Southern Germany, Moravia, and Bohemia, Jews began to engage in the wine trade in rural areas. That is, some of them began to settle in small towns and villages. There they were engaged in mediation, in wholesale trade… Jews bought flax, wool and other raw materials and resold them to city wholesalers.

Thus began a new stage in the economic activity of Jews in Germany, the forms of which subsequently became most characteristic of the economies of Poland and Lithuania, where German Jews flocked from the 15th century.”

That is, only a small part of Western Jews conducted the same type of economy that Eastern Jews conducted throughout their history.

Finally, as already mentioned, there are significant differences in both local versions of Judaism and customs.

These are differences at the ethnic level!

So, we have to admit that Polish-Lithuanian Jews constitute some kind of special group, a community separate from others. This community could not have arisen as a result of resettlement from Western Europe or Germany.

Perhaps the Jews of Southwestern Rus' took part in the formation of Polish Jews? After all, Jews lived in the southwest of Rus' long before the Poles began to mention them.

For centuries, Jews lived among Poles, but lived in isolation, preserving their culture and their history. Over the centuries, relations between Poles and Jews have developed differently.

From the history of Jews in Poland

Jewish traders first began to move from Western Europe (mainly Spain and Germany) to Poland around the 10th century, seeking refuge from Crusader persecution. According to the Kalisz Statute of 1264 (Privileges of Bolesław V the Pious (Kalisz) to the Jews of Greater Poland), Jews were directly under the jurisdiction of the prince (and not the city courts), which allowed them to freely practice religious rites. They were also allowed to freely engage in trade and provide loans secured by real estate. Those in power had certain benefits from this very tolerant attitude towards the Jews, and thanks to this the Jews for a long time avoided exile in the ghetto, an exile that the Catholic Church raised again and again.

This generally favorable situation for the Jews was regulated by decrees renewed from time to time and continued from about the 14th century. until the first partition of Poland at the end of the 18th century, which attracted Jews from other communities to Poland, most often those that were persecuted. This explained the significant increase in the Jewish population in Poland, especially in the 16th-17th centuries. The Jewish population increased, on the one hand, thanks to the influx of Jews from all over Europe, and on the other, thanks to the natural increase in the Jewish population in Poland. As for rights, Jews were not in an equal position everywhere in Poland.

Over time, the structure of Jewish occupations also changed. If at first Jews were primarily engaged in trade between countries, then over time they became more involved in trade within the country and crafts. In addition, Jews were employed in finance (loan operations) and in renting. Jews acquired from the small gentry the right to lease salt mines, mills, taverns, as well as the right to related activities, in particular, the production and sale of alcoholic beverages. The delicacy of the position of intermediaries between, as a rule, clients without funds and the wealthy gentry, as well as the fear of the small gentry before Jewish competition, from time to time led to protests against the Jews and their Christian patrons - the magnates. As a result of such protests, in many regions Jews were prohibited from being tenants.

Simultaneously with the growth of Jewish settlements and the intensification of Jewish economic activity, the Jewish community organization developed. The community administration (kahal or kehilla] - a council of elders elected from local wealthy Jews, took care of the interests of the community, and, above all, the collection of the poll tax. Like other townspeople, Jews were attracted to participate in financing the defense, and for some time they even had to perform military service.

During the wars of the 17th century. Jewish communities were severely persecuted. This led to their impoverishment and to a change in the nature of economic relations: now they borrowed money from the Polish gentry. High interest, for which they borrowed money, were distributed to all members of the community, which entailed even greater impoverishment of large sections of the Jewish population and led to internal tension. There were unrest and pogroms against the Jewish population (for example, during the peasant uprising of 1648 led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky in Ukraine). This served as a reason to reconsider both the peasant and Jewish issues: on the one hand, demands were made to limit the economic activities of Jews and to subjugate or even expel them; on the other hand, under the influence of the enlightened gentry - to limit the oligarchy of the Kagals, to change the character professional activity Jews (instead of trade, employment in manufactures and agriculture), assimilate and integrate them into the bourgeois class. But, in fact, none of these requirements could be met throughout the entire territory of Jewish settlement. Thus, Jews who took empty land for cultivation were given benefits when paying taxes, but they were not allowed to join the bourgeois class.

Compared to what would happen later, Jews in the period before the partitions of Poland, despite the fact that they were persecuted by the clergy and simple bandits and were in constant confrontation with the craft guilds, experienced fewer restrictions. “The unlimited arbitrariness of the magnates and the dangers that political anarchy concealed were in a certain sense less harmful for the Jews than the harsh administrative measures taken by the absolutist regimes. The partition of Poland dealt them a heavy blow, since from that moment they fell under the yoke of centralized states ".

With the divisions of Poland at the end of the 18th century. The situation for the Jews was further complicated by the fact that the three enslaving powers issued different decrees. From the lands ceded to Prussia and Austria, poor Jews were expelled - the right to permanent place residence was recognized only by the most prosperous. Numerous, constantly changing decrees significantly limited the economic activities of Jews and the autonomy of Jewish communities.

On the territory of the Russian Empire, where the majority of Jews now lived, precisely designated regions were allocated for them to settle (the so-called Jewish Pale of Settlement). Jews were forcibly removed from numerous villages and resettled in cities. The goal of Emperor Alexander I was the integration of Jews into Russian society by converting them to Christianity. Nicholas I further tightened measures to “improve” the Jews. According to the decree on cantonists he issued, Jews had to serve 25 years of conscription in kind - this measure was aimed at instilling Christianity among Jews. “Most of the young recruits could not bear the hardships of the journey, and the scattered Jewish graves are like markers of their suffering on the country roads of Russia and the vast expanses of Siberia. Of the survivors, few withstood the torture of military drill - they surrendered and testified in favor of the eternal glory of the almighty Orthodox Church " .

In 1840, a “Committee was created to determine measures for the radical transformation of the Jews of Russia.” The Committee proposed changing the Jewish education system so as to counteract the harmful influence of the Talmud; the kahals were to be abolished, and Jewish communities were directly subordinate to the general administration. Jews were forbidden to wear traditional clothing And only for the so-called “useful” Jews (merchants, guild artisans, farmers) the authorities tried to influence the system of Jewish education. On the initiative and with the help of Jewish educators (maskilim), they established comprehensive Jewish schools. to counteract the spirit of Orthodox Judaism. Some Jewish educators [these were baptized Jews, professors at St. Petersburg University and the Theological Academy - Ed.] were invited to participate in a special state commission to consider the Jewish. religious literature[on the subject of their content of insults to the Christian faith and, in particular, the bleeding of Christian children by Jews for ritual purposes - approx. Ed.].

The policy of Alexander P. was somewhat more liberal in relation to the Jews. In 1856, the Coronation Manifesto abolished the institution of cantonists, which meant equal rights for Jews with the rest of the population regarding military service. And in other areas (the right of permanent residence, the right to acquire real estate, the right to public service) some concessions were made to the Jews. There was hope that equality was close.

However, with the assassination of Alexander II in 1881, these hopes were dashed. Already after the Polish uprising of 1863 and the first attempt on the life of the emperor in 1866, attitudes towards Jews worsened. Anti-Semitic statements began to appear more and more often in the press. In 1871, in Odessa, things came to a terrible pogrom. The assassination of Alexander II caused open persecution of Jews (pogrom in Warsaw in 1881). Persecution and discrimination against Jews continued under Nicholas II (from 1894). Liberal and revolutionary parties advocated equal rights for Jews, but this had no effect on the anti-Semitic propaganda that the tsar condoned and encouraged. Blatant outrages were committed against Jews everywhere. During the First World War, Jews were scapegoated and persecuted; in 1915 they were forced to leave Galicia, where they had lived for centuries.

Jewish organizations in Poland published an open letter last Monday expressing outrage at the surge of intolerance, xenophobia and anti-Semitism that has gripped their country since the adoption of the “Holocaust law,” which caused an international scandal.

The website of The Jerusalem Post newspaper wrote about this on Tuesday, February 20.

The message, posted on the website of the Union of Jewish Communities of Poland and signed by dozens of Polish Jews, states that hate propaganda has gone beyond the Internet and into the public sphere.

“We are no longer surprised when members of local councils, parliaments and government officials introduce anti-Semitism into public discourse. The number of threats and insults against the Jewish community in Poland is growing.",” the publication cites excerpts from this letter.

The authors of the message express their gratitude to President Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the leader of the Law and Justice party Jaroslaw Kaczynski for condemning anti-Semitism, however, emphasizing that these words fall into thin air and will not have any impact without decisive action.

“On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the anti-Semitic campaign of 1968 and 75 years after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Polish Jews once again feel unprotected in this country.”, the letter says.

Let us recall that on February 6, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed the scandalous “Holocaust law”, introducing criminal liability for promoting the ideology of Ukrainian nationalists, denying the Volyn massacre and allegations of Polish complicity with the Nazis during World War II.

We are talking about amendments to the law on the Institute of National Remembrance, approved by the Polish Senate on February 1, according to which, in particular, a person who publicly accuses Poland of crimes committed during the Holocaust, complicity with Nazi Germany, war crimes or crimes against humanity may be sentenced to three years' imprisonment.

The law prohibits the use of the phrase “Polish death camp” when describing concentration camps that existed in the territory of occupied Poland. Those who try to “consciously downplay the responsibility of the true perpetrators of these crimes” will also be punished.

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This law has caused mixed reactions in Israel. In the days leading up to the Polish Senate's approval of the law, its contents drew angry reactions from many Israeli politicians, including the country's prime minister and president.