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.]] The history of Jews in Poland reaches back over a Millennium . It ranges from a long period of Religious Tolerance and prosperity for the country's Jew ish population to the nearly complete Genocidal destruction of the community by Nazi Germany in the twentieth century during the German Occupation Of Poland and The Holocaust . From the founding of the Kingdom Of Poland in the eleventh century through the early years of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth created in 1569, Poland was one of the most tolerant countries in Europe''Poland, at that time, was the most tolerant country in Europe'' "From Counter-Reformation to Glorious Revolution" by Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper University of Chicago Press 1992, page 51. Known as ''paradisus Judeorum'' ( Latin for Jewish paradise) it became home to one of the world's largest and most vibrant Jewish communities. With the weakening of the Commonwealth and growing religious strife (due to the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation ), Poland’s traditional tolerance''In accordance with its tradition of religious tolerance, Poland refrained from participating in the excesses of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation'' "Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends" by Lonnie R. Johnson Oxford University Press 1996 to wane from the seventeenth century onward.Although traditional narrative holds that as a consequence, the predicament of the Commonwealth’s Jewry worsened, declining to the level of other European countries by the end of the eighteenth century, recent scholarship by Gershon Hundert, Moshe Rosman, Edward Fram, and Magda Teter, suggest that the reality was much more complex. See for example, the following works, which discuss Jewish life and culture, as well as Jewish-Christian relations during that period: M. Rosman ''Lords' Jews: Magnate-Jewish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Eighteenth Century'' (Harvard University Press, new ed. 1993), G. Hundert ''The Jews in a Polish Private Town: The Case of Opatów in the Eighteenth Century'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), E.Fram ''Ideals Face Reality: Jewish Law and Life in Poland, 1550–1655'' (HUC Press, 1996), and M. Teter''Jews and Heretics in Pre-modern Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era'' (Cambridge University Press, 2006). For centuries Poland was unique shelter for prosecuted and expelled European Jewish communities. Famous Polish King Sigismund II Augustus issued privilege ''de non tolerandis christianis'' for Jewish inhabitant of Kazimierz . It was extraordinary prohibition for christians to enter to Jewish town. After the , Vol. 68, No. 2 (Jun., 1996), 351–381. Over 90% of the Jews in such as Irena Sendler , who saved about 2500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto. 6,004 Poles have received the honor of being named Righteous Among The Nations , the highest number of any other nation. Poland, along with some territories of today's Belarus and Ukraine (as part of the General Government ), was the only occupied country in Europe in which anyone caught aiding a Jew was automatically subject to the death penalty.Donald L. Niewyk, Francis R. Nicosia, ''The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust'', Columbia University Press, 2000, ISBN 0231112009, Google Print, p.114 Antony Polonsky, '''My Brother's Keeper?': Recent Polish Debates on the Holocaust'', Routledge, 1990, ISBN 0415042321, Google Print, p.149 The Nazi Occupation Of Poland resulted in the death of one-fifth of the population, some 6 million people, half of them Jewish. In the postwar period, many of the approximately 200,000 survivors chose to emigrate from the Communist People's Republic Of Poland to the nascent State Of Israel , USA and South America, their departure hastened by the destruction of most Jewish institutions, post-war Pogrom s, and the hostility of the communist party to both religion and to private enterprise. Most of the remaining Jews left Poland in the late 1960s as the result of the Soviet state-sponsored anti-Semitic Anti-Zionist Campaign . After the fall of the communist regime in Poland in 1989, the situation of Polish Jews became normalized and Jews who were Polish citizens before World War II were allowed to get new Polish citizenship. Religious institutions were revived, largely through the activities of Jewish foundations from the United States including the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation . The contemporary Polish Jewish community is generally estimated to have approximately 8,000 to 12,000 members, though the actual number of Jews, including those who are not actively connected to Judaism or Jewish culture, may be several times larger. EARLY HISTORY TO GOLDEN AGE: 966–1572 See Also: Jews in the Middle Ages Early history: 966–1385 See Also: History of Poland (966-1385) The first Jews arrived in the territory of modern Poland in the tenth century. Travelling along the trade routes leading eastwards to Kiev and Bukhara , the Jewish merchants (known as Radhanites ) also crossed the areas of Silesia . One of them, a diplomat and merchant from the Moorish town of Tortosa in Spanish Al-Andalus , known under his Arabic name of Ibrahim Ibn Jakub , was the first chronicler to mention the Polish state under the rule of prince Mieszko I . The first actual mention of Jews in Polish chronicles occurs in the eleventh century. It appears that Jews were then living in Gniezno , at that time the Capital of the Polish Kingdom of the Piast Dynasty . The first permanent Jewish community is mentioned in 1085 by a Jewish scholar Jehuda Ha-Kohen in the city of Przemyśl (nevertheless it was Ruthenian town in this time). The first extensive Jewish emigration from Western Europe to Poland occurred at the time of the First Crusade in 1098. Under Boleslaus III (1102–1139), the Jews, encouraged by the tolerant régime of this ruler, settled throughout Poland, including over the border into Lithuania n territory as far as Kiev . At the same time Poland saw Immigration of Khazars , a Turkic tribe that had converted to Judaism . Boleslaus III on his part recognised the utility of the Jews in the development of the Commercial Interests of his country. The Jews came to form the backbone of the Polish Economy and the Coin s Mint ed by Mieszko III even bear Hebraic Markings . Jews enjoyed undisturbed peace and prosperity in the many principalities into which the country was then divided; they formed the Middle Class in a country where the general population consisted of Landlord s (developing into '' Szlachta '', the unique Polish nobility) and Peasant s, and they were instrumental in promoting the commercial interests of the land. The tolerant situation was gradually altered by the Roman Catholic Church on the one hand, and by the neighbouring German states on the other. There were, however, among the reigning princes some determined protectors of the Jewish inhabitants, who considered the presence of the latter most desirable insofar as the economic development of the country was concerned. Prominent among such rulers was Boleslaus The Pious of Kalisz , Prince of Great Poland . With the consent of the class representatives and higher officials, in 1264 he issued a General Charter Of Jewish Liberties , the Statute Of Kalisz , which granted all Jews the freedom of worship, trade and travel. During the next hundred years, the Church pushed for the persecution of the Jews while the rulers of Poland usually protected them. In 1334, Casimir III The Great (1303–1370) amplified and expanded Bolesław's old charter with the Wiślicki Statute . Casimir was especially friendly to the Jews, and his reign is regarded as an era of great prosperity for Polish Jewry, and was surnamed by his contemporaries "King of the Serf s and Jews." Nevertheless, while for the greater part of Casimir’s reign the Jews of Poland enjoyed tranquillity, toward its close they were subjected to persecution on account of the Black Death . In 1347 the first Blood Libel accusation against Jews in Poland recorded, and in 1367 the first pogrom, in , Kraków , Głogów , and other Polish cities along the German frontier, and it is estimated that 10,000 Jews were killed. Compared with the pitiless destruction of their co-religionists in Western Europe , however, the Polish Jews did not fare badly; and the Jewish masses of Germany fled to the more hospitable lands of Poland. in this 1250 French Bible illustration) were being killed by Crusaders in Germany, Bolesław III invited them to the safety of Poland.]] The early Jagiellon era: 1385–1505 See Also: History of Poland (1385-1569) As a result of the marriage of Wladislaus II to Jadwiga , daughter of Louis I Of Hungary , Lithuania was United With The Kingdom Of Poland . Although, in 1388, rights were extended to Lithuanian Jews as well, it was under the rule of Wladislaus II and those of his successors that the first extensive persecutions of the Jews in Poland commenced, and the king did not act to stop these events. There were a number of Blood Libel s and riots against the Jews, and official persecution gradually increased, especially as the clergy pushed for less tolerance. Hysteria caused by Black Death led to additional fourteenth-century outbreaks of violence against the Jews. Traders and artisans fearing Jewish rivalry supported the harassment. I confirmed and extended Jewish charters in the second half of the fifteenth century]] The decline in the status of the Jews was briefly checked by sons and successors, John I Olbracht (1492–1501) and Alexander The Jagiellonian (1501–1506), who expelled the Jews from the Grand Duchy Of Lithuania in 1495. Center of the Jewish world: 1505–72 Alexander reversed his position in 1503, just as the Jews Were Expelled From Spain in 1492, as well as from Austria , Bohemia and Germany , thus stimulating the Jewish emigration to much more tolerant Poland. Indeed, with the expulsion of the Jews From Spain , Poland became the recognized haven for exiles from western Europe; and the resulting accession to the ranks of Polish Jewry made it the cultural and spiritual center of the Jewish people. The most prosperous period for Polish Jews began following this new influx of Jews with the reign of Zygmunt I (1506–1548), who protected the Jews in his realm. His son, Zygmunt II August (1548–1572), mainly followed in the tolerant policy of his father and also granted autonomy to the Jews in the matter of communal administration and laid the foundation for the power of the '' Kahal '', or autonomous Jewish community. This period led to the creation of a proverb about Poland being a "heaven for the Jews" {Link without Title} . Additionally, some Polish words may reveal that the exiled Jews coming from Spain brought with them onions (and possibly more then-exotic plants or foods), as onions are called "Cebula" in Polish ("Cebolla" in Spanish). THE POLISH-LITHUANIAN COMMONWEALTH: 1572–1795 See Also: History of Poland (1572-1795) The Warsaw Confederation See Also: Warsaw Confederation (1573) Following the childless death of Zygmunt II , the last king of the Jagiellon Dynasty , Polish and Lithuanian nobles ( Szlachta ) gathered at Warsaw in 1573 and signed a document of limited toleration in which representatives of all the major religions pledged each other mutual support and tolerance. The edict did not include the Polish Brethren, an anti-Trinitarian that would later become known as Socinians, who formed roots for the modern Unitarian church in the US. Increasing isolation: The traditional view and recent scholarly challenges The simplistic earlier narrative of Jewish life in Poland emphasized the rise of anti-Jewish sentiments (sometimes anachronistically labelled "anti-semitic") by focusing on the rise of anti-Jewish libels (host desecration and ritual murder accusations). That narrative tended to highlight persecution, and Jewish isolation and autonomy. Yet, recent scholarly works (Fram, Hundert, Rosman, Teller, and Teter) have shown that Jews were not isolated from their Christian neighbours. For example, Jews spoke local languages (although they did retain Yiddish), shared sense of fashion (for example Christian borrowed clothes from Jews to go to church, see a responsum no. 86 by Benjamin Slonik), they shared spaces too (rabbis and the clergy were increasingly worried that Jews and Christians lived together under the same roof). Contrary to the common view of total Jewish autonomy and isolation, historical evidence shows that Jews often used gentile courts against other Jews, and frequently summoned Christians both to lay and Church courts (see works by Judith Kalik, Adam Teller, and Magda Teter). The existence of the Council Of Four Lands has often been cited as a pinnacle of Jewish autonomy and self-government in Poland. Yet both the creation and the dissolution of the council are linked to the fiscal transformations of the Polish state. Similarly, while traditional scholarship has promoted an idealized view of Jewish rabbinic culture and self-government, focusing on rabbinic sources, recent works by scholars have shown that this was also a period of transformation if not outright decline of rabbinic authority (see for instance books and articles by Adam Teller). In short, scholars in recent decades have created a much more textured picture of Jewish life in premodern Poland-Lithuania that has gone far away from the view of isolation and persecution. Since late XIV century native Polish merchants became powerful enough to compete with Jewish businessmen, and in the XVI century Jews were barred from the guilds, and large Polish towns limited Jewish entrepreneurship. The Cossack uprising and the Deluge In 1648 the Commonwealth was devastated by several conflicts, in which the Commonwealth lost over a third of its populations (over 3 million people), and Jewish losses were counted in hundreds of thousands. First, the Chmielnicki Uprising when Bohdan Khmelnytsky 's Cossack s massacred tens of thousands of Jews and Poles in the eastern and southern areas he controlled (today's Ukraine ). It is recorded that Chmielnicki told the people that the Poles had sold them as Slaves "into the hands of the accursed Jews". The precise number of dead may never be known, but the decrease of the Jewish population during that period is estimated at 100,000 to 200,000, which also includes emigration, deaths from diseases and '' Jasyr '' (captivity in the Ottoman Empire ). Then the incompetent politics of the elected kings of the were attacked by the Poles, who accused them of aiding the enemy. The Polish general Stefan Czarniecki , in his flight from the Swedes, devastated the whole country through which he passed and treated the Jews without mercy. The Polish partisan detachments treated the non-Polish inhabitants with equal severity. Moreover, the horrors of the war were aggravated by Pestilence , and the Jews and townsfolk of the districts of Kalisz , Kraków, Poznań , Piotrków , and Lublin perished ''en masse'' by the sword of the besieging armies and the plague. As soon as the disturbances had ceased, the Jews began to return and to rebuild their destroyed homes; and while it is true that the Jewish population of Poland had decreased and become impoverished, it still was more numerous than that of the Jewish colonies in Western Europe ; and Poland remained as the spiritual center of Judaism , and through 1698, the Polish kings generally remained supportive of the Jews, despite a hostile clergy and nobility. It also should be noted that while Jewish losses in those events were high, estimated by some historians to be close to 500,000, the Commonwealth lost 1/3 of its population — approximately 3 million of its citizens. Decline under the Saxon dynasty With the accession to the throne of the Press, 1994, p.79–80 The partitions Disorder and anarchy reigned supreme in Poland during the second half of the eighteenth century, from the accession to the throne of its last king, Stanislaus II Augustus Poniatowski (1764–1795). In 1772, in the aftermath of the Confederation Of Bar , the outlying provinces of Poland were divided among the three neighboring nations, Russia, Austria , and Prussia . Jews were most numerous in the territories that fell to the lot of Austria and Russia. The permanent council established at the instance of the Russian government (1773–1788) served as the highest administrative tribunal, and occupied itself with the elaboration of a plan that would make practicable the reorganization of Poland on a more rational basis. The progressive elements in Polish society recognized the urgency of popular education as the very first step toward reform. The famous '' Komisja Edukacji Narodowej '' ("Commission of National Education"), the first ministry of education in the world, was established in 1773 and founded numerous new schools and remodeled the old ones. One of the members of the commission, '' Kanclerz '' Andrzej Zamoyski , along with others, demanded that the inviolability of their persons and property should be guaranteed and that religious toleration should be to a certain extent granted them; but he insisted that Jews living in the cities should be separated from the Christians, that those of them having no definite occupation should be banished from the kingdom, and that even those engaged in agriculture should not be allowed to possess land. On the other hand, some ''szlachta'' and intellectuals proposed a national system of government, of the civil and political equality of the Jews. This was the only example in modern Europe before the French Revolution of tolerance and broadmindedness in dealing with the Jewish question. But all these reforms were too late: a Russian army soon invaded Poland, and soon after a Prussian one followed. A second Partition Of Poland was made on July 17 , 1793 . Jews, in a Jewish regiment led by Berek Joselewicz , took part in the Kościuszko Uprising the following year, when the Poles tried to again achieve independence, but were brutally put down. Following the revolt, the third and final partition of Poland took place in 1795. The great bulk of the Jewish population was transferred to Russia, and thus became subjects of that empire, although in the first half of the nineteenth century some semblance of a vastly smaller Polish state was preserved, especially in the form of the Congress Poland (1815–1831). THE DEVELOPMENT OF JUDAISM IN POLAND AND THE COMMONWEALTH The culture and intellectual output of the Jewish community in Poland had a profound impact on Judaism as a whole. Some Jewish historians have recounted that the word Poland is pronounced as ''Polania'' or ''Polin'' in , Poland would be at the center of Jewish religious life. Jewish learning '' Yeshivot '' were established, under the direction of the rabbis, in the more prominent communities. Such schools were officially known as Gymnasium s, and their rabbi principals as Rector s. Important ''yeshivot'' existed in Kraków, Poznań, and other cities. Jewish printing establishments came into existence in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. In 1530 a Hebrew Pentateuch ( Torah ) was printed in Kraków; and at the end of the century the Jewish printing houses of that city and Lublin issued a large number of Jewish books, mainly of a religious character. The growth of Talmudic Scholarship in Poland was coincident with the greater prosperity of the Polish Jews; and because of their communal autonomy educational development was wholly one-sided and along Talmudic lines. Exceptions are recorded, however, where Jewish youth sought secular instruction in the European universities. The learned rabbis became not merely expounders of the Law, but also spiritual advisers, teachers, judges, and legislators; and their authority compelled the communal leaders to make themselves familiar with the abstruse questions of Jewish Law . Polish Jewry found its views of life shaped by the spirit of Talmudic and rabbinical literature, whose influence was felt in the home, in school, and in the synagogue. In the first half of the sixteenth century the seeds of Talmudic learning had been transplanted to Poland from Bohemia , particularly from the school of Jacob Pollak , the creator of '' Pilpul '' ("sharp reasoning"). Shalom Shachna (ca. 1500–1558), a pupil of Pollak, is counted among the pioneers of Talmudic learning in Poland. He lived and died in Lublin , where he was the head of the ''yeshivah'' which produced the rabbinical celebrities of the following century. Shachna's son Israel became rabbi of Lublin on the death of his father, and Shachna's pupil Moses Isserles (known as the ''ReMA'') (1520–1572) achieved an international reputation among the Jews as the co-author of the '' Shulkhan Arukh '', (the "Code of Jewish Law"). His contemporary and correspondent Solomon Luria (1510–1573) of Lublin also enjoyed a wide reputation among his co-religionists; and the authority of both was recognized by the Jews throughout Europe. Heated religious disputations were common, and Jewish scholars participated in them. At the same time, the '' Kabbalah '' had become entrenched under the protection of Rabbinism ; and such scholars as Mordecai Jaffe and Yoel Sirkis devoted themselves to its study. This period of great Rabbinical scholarship was interrupted by the Chmielnicki Uprising and The Deluge . , founder of Hasidism .]] The rise of Hasidism See Also: Hasidim The decade from the Cossacks' Uprising until after the Swedish War (1648–1658) left a deep and lasting impression not only on the social life of the Polish-Lithuanian Jews, but on their spiritual life as well. The intellectual output of the Jews of Poland was reduced. The Talmudic learning which up to that period had been the common possession of the majority of the people became accessible to a limited number of students only. What religious study there was became overly formalized, some rabbis busied themselves with quibbles concerning religious laws; others wrote commentaries on different parts of the Talmud in which hair-splitting arguments were raised and discussed; and at times these arguments dealt with matters which were of no practical importance. At the same time, many miracle workers made their appearance among the Jews of Poland, culminating in a series of false "Messianic" movements, most famously as Sabbatianism was succeeded by Frankism . In this time of JEWS OF POLAND WITHIN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE (1795–1918) See Also: History of Poland (1795-1918) Official Russian policy would eventually prove to be substantially harsher to the Jews than that under independent Polish rule. The lands that had once been Poland were to remain the home of many Jews, as, in 1772, Catherine II , the ''tzarina'' of Russia, instituted the Pale Of Settlement , restricting Jews to the western parts of the empire, which would eventually include much of Poland, although it excluded some areas in which Jews had previously lived. By the late 1800s, over four million Jews would live in the Pale. Initially, Russian policy towards the Jews of Poland was confused, alternating between harsh rules and somewhat more enlightened policies. In 1802, the Tsar established the Committee On The Improvement Of The Jews in an attempt to develop a coherent approach to the Empire's new Jewish population. The Committee in 1804 suggested a number of steps that were designed to encourage Jews to assimilate, though it did not force them to do so. It proposed that Jews be allowed to attend school and even to own land, but it restricted them from entering Russia, banned them from the Brewing Industry , and included a number of other prohibitions. The more enlightened parts of this policy were never fully implemented, and the conditions of the Jews in The Pale gradually worsened. In the 1820s, the Cantonist Laws passed by Tsar Nicolas kept the traditional double taxation on Jews in lieu of army service, while actually requiring all Jewish communities to produce boys to serve in the military, where they were often forced to convert. Though the Jews were accorded slightly more rights with the Emancipation Reform Of 1861 , they were still restricted to the Pale Of Settlement and subject to restrictions on ownership and profession. The Status Quo was however shattered with the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, an act falsely blamed upon the Jews. Pogroms The assassination prompted a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish riots, called '' Pogroms '', throughout 1881–1884. In the 1881 outbreak, pogroms were primarily limited to Russia, although in a riot in Warsaw twelve Jews were Killed , many others were wounded, women were Raped and over two million Rubles worth of property was destroyed. The new czar, Alexander III , blamed the Jews for the riots and issued a series of harsh restrictions on Jewish movements. Pogroms continued in large numbers until 1884, with at least tacit government approval. They proved a turning point in the history of the Jews in Poland and throughout the world. The pogroms prompted a great flood of Jewish immigration to the United States , with almost two million Jews leaving The Pale by the late 1920s, and the pogroms set the stage for Zionism . An even bloodier wave of pogroms broke out from 1903 to 1906, and at least some of the pogroms are believed to have been organized or supported by the Tsarist Russian secret police, the Okhranka . Some of the worst of these occurred on Polish territory, where the majority of Russian Jews lived then, and included the Białystok Pogrom of 1906, in which up to a hundred Jews were killed and many more wounded. Haskalah and Halakha See Also: Haskalah The Jewish Enlightenment, '' Haskalah '', began to take hold in Poland during the 1800s, stressing secular ideas and values. Champions of ''Haskalah'', the '' Maskilim '', pushed for assimilation and integration into Russian culture. At the same time, there was another school of Jewish thought that emphasized traditional study and a Jewish response to the ethical problems of anti-Semitism and persecution, one form of which was the '' Mussar '' movement. Polish Jews generally were less influenced by ''Haskalah'', rather focusing on a strong continuation of their religious lives based on Halakha ("rabbis's law") following primarily Orthodox Judaism , Hasidic Judaism , and also adapting to the new Religious Zionism of the Mizrachi movement later in the 1800s. Politics in Polish Territory By the late 1800s, ''Haskalah'' and the debates it caused created a growing number of political movements within the Jewish community itself, covering a wide range of views and vying for votes in local and regional elections. Zionism became very popular with the advent of the '' Poale Zion '' socialist party as well as the religious Polish Mizrahi , and the increasingly popular General Zionists . Jews also took up Socialism , forming the Bund Labor Union which supported assimilation and the Rights Of Labor . The Folkspartei (People’s Party) advocated for its part cultural autonomy and resistance to assimilation. In 1912, '' Agudat Israel '', a religious party, came into existence. Unsurprisingly, given the conditions under Imperial Russia, the Jews participated in a number of Polish insurrections against the Russians, including the Kościuszko Insurrection (above), and the January Insurrection (1863) as well as the Revolutionary Movement Of 1905 . INTERWAR PERIOD 1918–39 See Also: History of Poland (1918-1939) Independence and Polish Jews Jews also played a role in the fight for independence in 1918, some joining Józef Piłsudski , while many other communities decided to remain neutral in the fight for a Polish state. In the wake of World War I and the ensuing conflicts that engulfed Eastern Europe — the Russian Civil War , Polish-Ukrainian War , and Polish-Soviet War — many pogroms were launched against the Jews by all sides. As a substantial number of Jews were perceived to have supported the Bolshevik s in Russia, they came under frequent attack by those opposed to the Bolshevik regime. Just after the end of World War I, the West became alarmed by reports about alleged massive pogroms in Poland against Jews. Pressure for government action reached the point where President protecting the rights of minorities in Poland. In 1921, Poland's March Constitution gave the Jews the same legal rights as other citizens and guaranteed them religious tolerance. schoolchildren in Łódź , circa 1910s.]] Jewish and Polish culture See Also: Jewish culture Polish culture The newly independent or Hebrew as the instructional language. Jewish political parties, both the Socialist General Jewish Labor Union (The Bund), as well as parties of the Zionist right and left wing and religious conservative movements, were represented in the '' Sejm '' (the Polish Parliament) as well as in the regional councils. as Leah'le in '' The Dybbuk ''.]] The Jewish cultural scene was particularly vibrant. There were many Jewish publications and over 116 periodicals. Yiddish authors, most notably Isaac Bashevis Singer , went on to achieve international acclaim as classic Jewish writers, and in Singer's case, win the 1978 Nobel Prize . Other Jewish authors of the period, like Bruno Schulz , Julian Tuwim , Jan Brzechwa and Bolesław Leśmian were less well-known internationally, but made important contributions to Polish literature. Yiddish Theatre also flourished; Poland had fifteen Yiddish theatres and theatrical groups. Warsaw was home to the most important Yiddish theater troupe of the time, the Vilna Troupe , which staged the first performance of '' The Dybbuk '' in 1920 at the Elyseum Theatre . Growing anti-Semitism See Also: Anti-Semitism Persecution of Jews in Poland was most visible during the early and latter years of the Second Republic. Jews were often not identified as true Poles; a problem caused by both Polish nationalism, supported by the 2006 . However a combination of various reasons, including the Great Depression , meant that the situation of Jewish Poles was never too satisfactory, and it deteriorated again after Piłsudski's death in May 1935, which many Jews regarded as a tragedy. {Link without Title} With Endecja party influence growing, antisemitism gathered new momentum in Poland and was most felt in smaller towns and spheres in which Jews came into direct contact with Poles, such as in Polish schools or on the sports field. Verbal abuse of Jewish children in Polish schools was commonplace. Polish high-school students, influenced by the Endeks, forced their Jewish comrades to stand during lessons; the teachers, even those who were not antisemites, were usually afraid to intervene. Jewish children often fell victim to antisemitic incidents on their way to or from school. On the way to the soccer stadium, Jews were set upon and beaten, and a victory by the Jewish side was sufficient reason for renewed attacks. Further academic harassment, anti-Jewish riots, and semi-official or unofficial quotas ('', combined with the effects of the Great Depression that had been very severe on agricultural countries like Poland, reduced the Standard Of Living of Polish Jews until it was among the worst among major Jewish communities in the world. The result was that at the eve of the Second World War , the Jewish community in Poland was large and vibrant internally, yet (with the exception of a few professionals) also substantially poorer and less integrated than the Jews in most of Western Europe. |
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