Language:
English
Year of publication:
2012
Titel der Quelle:
Polin; Studies in Polish Jewry
Angaben zur Quelle:
24 (2012) 31-48
Keywords:
Jews History 1800-2000
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
;
Haskalah
Abstract:
The reform of the Jewish community was perceived by Polish political elites as one of the most important and urgent tasks facing Poland both during the last decades of the existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and in the first half of the 19th century in the Russian-held Kingdom of Poland (Congress Poland). Focuses on the debates pertaining to 1815-22. As in the late 18th century, the main idea then was to establish a cluster of Jewish agricultural settlements in borderlands, to grant a measure of autonomy to Jewish settlers, and even to establish a "Jewish state" somewhere in "uninhabited territories of southern Russia". Dwells on the projects put forward by three Polish writers: Franciszek Ksawery Szaniawski (1768-1830), Stanisław Staszic (1755-1826), and Gerard Witowski (1787-1837). These three projects, in an increasing degree, called for physical separation between Jews and non-Jews and for coercive methods in the resettlement of Jews from Poland. Their authors expressed disappointment with the failure of previous "reforms", all of them not implemented, and frustration with the loss of Polish political independence, which made Jews political enemies of Poland in their eyes. The debates of 1815-22 manifested the ambivalence of the late Enlightenment period: they combined declared goals to "civilize" the Jews and integrate them with other Poles with anti-Jewish prejudices and phobias and the more or less covert idea of full separation from the Jews.
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