Poland

[Dan Lusthaus]

This is certainly not the forum to give a full airing to this issue.

Poland acquired a large Jewish population at the end of the middle ages
because at that time Jews (who were personae non grata in most of Europe)
were encouraged and invited to settle in Poland for a variety of reasons:
They brought science (acquired in the Moorish environs), they brought
capital and capital expertise, and so on. And Poland was at that time one
of the few places in Europe that Jews were allowed to own any land (which
is why there were so many shtetl 'Fiddler on the roof' type farmers by the
end of the 19th c.).  But by the 19th c., things had turned, and Jews were
hardly safe. Many Polish Jews fled to Germany early in the 20th century, or
to the states. Pogroms became the norm, and, as I mentioned, even after the
war, the Communist Poles continued to purge Jews into the 1960s.

If Allen Thrasher would like to continue this discussion, I suggest moving
it from Indology (where even Afghanistan is something of a stretch), to a
list designed to address it: H-Antisemitism (History of Antisemitism). If
he (or anyone else) wants to subscribe to that list, contact me and I'll
send you instructions.

I suggest we close this thread here.


Dan Lusthaus
Florida State University