May 2016 Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles



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At home they tried to implant within us elevated feelings. They emphasized morning and evening that we were different—better, more elevated than the goyim. What was theirs was non-kosher, disgusting, and despised. … And in the house meanwhile they would tell me, “Don’t play with the shiksas, the non-Jewish girls, with their colored eggs, and don’t taste their giant Easter bread, and don’t go into their homes which are absolutely non-kosher.” … However, [my mother] added, “When we go by the statue of Jesus, we need to spit three times and say, ‘It is an abhorrence,’ but make sure that the goyim don’t see you…”159
A Jew from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski recalled:
Another place I dreaded was the forbidding Catholic Church of Archangel Michael, which occupied the highest point in town, with its tall spire dominating the skyline. It was a large church, the only one in Ostrowiec, and when the bells pealed, they could be heard all over town. As there was no way of avoiding the church to get to the other side of town without taking a long detour, I would race past it as quickly as I could, as did all the Jewish boys.160
Some went even further and fantasized about the destruction of churches:
There was a widespread legend in town that the church and the fence were sinking at the rate of the size of one pea every day. Of course, we did not doubt, heaven forbid, the truth of this legend. But we, the children, still wanted visible proof of this wonder and miracle. We also wanted to see the downfall of the Gentiles, and the sinking of their “contamination.” But we couldn’t prove the sinking of the church, because we weren’t allowed to enter the grounds and, because of its height, it was impossible to discern a change in height of one pea a day. But the sinking of the fence could be determined: we measured it with respect to our own heights, and made various marks. But to our disappointment, we could not prove the point, and we were not satisfied that we had actually seen with our own eyes and felt with our own hands this great miracle, and extracted pleasure from the sinking of the “contamination.”161 [emphasis added]
The custom of spitting when a crucifix or church came into view was transported by Jews to North America, as recalled by Moshe Rozdzial:
my clearest memory of anything that relates to churches was the way my grandmother would spit three times, you know, tu! tu! tu!, like in Fiddler on the Roof, to ward off evil spirits, every time she would walk past a church steeple. … I remember walking down the street with my hand in hers, feeling that tug and knowing, almost instinctively that if I look up I’d see a cross atop a roof, as she reflexively crossed the street to avoid walking directly in front of the church. Muttering, Nevelah! Nevelah!

Do you know what that means? The impurity of the dead. Any dead thing. Any dead thing, that by Jewish law, could not be touched in any way, so as not to be defiled by spiritual purity. That’s what Bubbe thought of the crucifix and ultimately, the church ... She’d spit three times, more if she was in a dark mood, and walk out of her way to avoid the site. The dead Jew on the cross was a Nevelah to her, a presence that has always defiled her life, Jewish life. A symbol of death and human corruptness, to my people. I know it’s not politically correct to say these things to you. We Jews are always watching our tongues, when it comes to Christianity.162


As we shall see, the Jewish tradition of spitting at Christian symbols, and even at Christians, is alive and well in contemporary Israel.

Leon Weliczker Wells, adviser to the Holocaust Library in New York, who hails from Eastern Galicia, recorded:


Our small town, Stojanow [Stojanów], had about a thousand Jews and an equal number of Poles and Ukrainians. … We looked down on the small farmer, whom we called Cham, which was an old traditional way of saying Am Haaretz (people of the earth), which to us meant simpletons. …

We lived in a self-imposed ghetto without walls. The Jewish religion fostered our living together in groups which separated us from non-Jews. … All of these [religious] restrictions caused the Jews to live in ghetto-like societies so that they could maintain their Jewish way of life. … We had virtually no contact with the outside world, surely not social contact, as our interests and responsibilities were completely different from the goish’s. … We young Jewish boys did not take part in any sports as this was considered goish. … We Jews even tried to avoid passing a church, and if that was impossible, we muttered an appropriate curse as we hurried by. …

We Jews felt superior to all others, as we were the “chosen people,” chosen by God Himself. We even repeated it in our prayers at least three times a day, morning, afternoon, and evening … The farmers, who, even considering their low living standards, couldn’t support an entire family, sent their daughters to town to become servants in the Jewish households. I never knew a Jewish girl to be a servant in a Polish household, but the reverse was the norm. The gentile maid was referred to in negative terms as the “shiksa” (Hebrew for “a vermin like a cockroach”). [In Polish, the term had the added etymological connotation of “urine-dripping” girl.—M.P.] There was a repertoire of jokes about these girls. For example, there was the joke about how Jewish mothers made sure that the servants were “clean,” because their sons’ first sexual experience was usually with this girl.163

We were strangers to the neighboring gentiles because of our religion, language, behavior, dress, and daily values. Poland was the only country where a nation lived within a nation. … In Poland the Jew dressed completely different from others, had beards and peyes (side curls), spoke a different language (Yiddish), went to separate religious schools, and sometimes even to different public schools … Since every meal on Sabbath and holidays started with the blessing of the wine, there was no possibility of a pious Jew sharing a festive meal with a gentile because the wine, once opened, became nonkosher if a gentile merely looked at it. The laws of kashruth prevented a Jew from eating at a gentile’s nonkosher table. Thus, there was very little social intercourse between Jews and non-Jews. We never spoke Polish at home, only Yiddish. Polish was negatively called goish. When we spoke Polish we had a Yiddish accent. The newspapers and books in our homes were in Yiddish. … We lived in a strictly self-imposed ghetto, and it suited our requirements and wishes. … Our parents not only praised that time [i.e., Austrian rule] as being better for the Jews, but spoke with pride about the superiority of German culture and its people compared to the Polish culture. This attitude was very badly received by the Polish people. … The belief that German culture was superior continued even to the time when Germany occupied Poland in 1939, and in its eastern part in 1941. I remember when the Jews spoke among themselves about the future under the Nazi regime: “Under the Germans it couldn’t be so bad as the press wants us to believe because they are the leading civilized nation.”164


Farming was an occupation that Jews in Poland generally eschewed and held in low esteem. Some Jewish historians maintain that this was because of restrictions imposed on this occupation. However, Jews were offered a farming colony in Bolechów near Stanisławów in the late 1700’s, which they refused owing to their lack of interest in farming. (Instead, the colony was given to German colonists.)165 The pro-German sentiments mentioned by Weliczker Wells should not be underestimated.166 Nor should the bonds of religious and ethnic loyalty and solidarity among Jews. Wolf Mendelsohn (Willy Melson), the son of an industrialist from Stanisławów, shares Weliczker Wells’s views:
But I wouldn’t say the Jews were completely innocent. They didn’t behave like guests, they behaved like a separate nation, with another language, another dress, another culture—completely different. And, really, they looked down on the Poles. If they admired anybody, it was the Germans. And the Poles understood this.167
Professor Yacov Talmon, who hails from the Russian partition of Poland, acknowledged:
… many important factors infused in the Jews a spirit of contempt and hatred towards the Poles. In contrast to the organizational activity and capacity of the Germans, the Jews saw the Poles as failures. The rivals most difficult to Jews, in the economic and professional fields were the Poles, and we must not underrate the closeness of Yiddish to the German language as well. I still remember that during my childhood the name “goy” sounded to me as referring to Catholic Poles and not to Germans; though I did realize that the latter were obviously not Jews, I felt that the Germans in the vicinity were not simply Gentiles.

It would be shocking to think of it to-day, but the pre-Hitlerite relations between Jews and Germans in our vicinity were friendly. … In the twenties, Jews and Germans stood together on election lists. Out of those Germans rose such who, during the German invasion, helped in the acts of repression and extermination as experts, who had the experience and knew the secrets.

It is not surprising, then, that in the mixed loyalties of the time Jewish unity grew stronger and deeper, and consciousness in this direction burned like a flame. … the actual motherland was not a temporal one, but a heavenly one, a vision and a dream—to the religious it was the coming of the Messiah, to the Zionists it was a Jewish country, to the Communists and their friends it was a world revolution. And the real constitution according to which they lived was the Shulhan Aruch, code of laws, and the established set of virtues, or the theories of Marx, and the rules of Zionism and the building up of a Jewish country.168
Awe for German culture persisted among many Jews, and not just the older generations, in the early period of the German occupation. Adam Adams, who was a schoolboy in Lublin in 1939, recalled:
A German officer was allocated to our house. He was dressed like a god in a beautiful uniform; he was a highly educated man from Vienna. I remember him playing our piano, always beautifully dressed in a fantastic uniform, and I would look at him and admire him.169
Ironically, German Jews generally felt contempt for Ostjuden.170

Most of the so-called Russian Jews were really Jews that had been inherited by the tsarist Russian Empire after the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. Under Russian rule, the Jews were increasingly alienated from the Polish population. Many Jews in the 1840s and 1850s saw an opportunity for social advancement in the Russian education and little room for social mobility within Polish culture.171 Nonetheless, many non-Polish speaking Jews moved westward for economic reasons, flooding the so-called Congress Kingdom. Between 1816 and 1913, the number of Jews grew by 822 percent, while the number of inhabitants increased by only 381 percent. Thus, the proportion of Jews almost doubled, from 7.8 to 14.9 percent. Denunciation of fellow Jews to the tsarist authorities has a long and unsavoury history. Historian Allan Nadler portrays the conflict between the Hasidim and the Mitnagdim as one that sometimes turned bitter. The Gaon of Wilno led the struggle of the Mitnagdim against the Hasidim.


The Mitnagdim not only polemicized against Hasidic doctrine; they waged an uncompromising war against its practitioners, placing them under the rabbinic ban of excommunication and, when possible, denouncing their zaddikim (Hasidic religious leaders; lit. righteous men) as subversives to the tsarist authorities.172
There are many substantiated accounts attesting to the widespread reliance of the Russians on Jewish informers, especially during the November 1830 and January 1863 insurrections.173 This is not surprising. Jewish attitudes toward Poland (and Russia) were governed primarily by self-interest, not state loyalties. “Many Jews in the 1840s and 1850s saw an opportunity for social advancement in the Russian educational system and little room for social mobility within Polish culture.”174 They had thus excluded themselves from Polishness, and had often done so long before the rise of Polish nationalism toward the end of the 19th century.

The role of the so-called Litvaks (Litwak in Polish), Russian-speaking Jews who flooded into the ethnically Polish part of the Russian Empire in the latter part of the 19th century, in exacerbating Polish-Jewish relations has been remarked on by many authors. Poles were concerned, in particular, about the depolonization of the country’s historic capital. Historian François Guesnet comments:


The settlement of a considerable number of Russian-Jewish businesspeople and tradesmen in the Polish capital in the 1890s enlarged a pre-existing visible sub-community of Russian Jews who had kept close ties with the Empire, and were familiar with the Russian language and administration. Culturally, they were unreceptive to the Hasidic movement, indifferent to the Polish cause, and rather unsympathetic to those local Jews who would consider Polonization a viable cultural trajectory.175
This growing antagonism is one of the thorny matters raised by Julian Unszlicht, a Pole of Jewish background, in his controversial book O pogromy ludu polskiego: Rola socjal-litwacwa w niedawnej rewolucji [On the Pogroms against the Polish People: The Role of the Social-Litvakdom in the Recent Revolution], published in Kraków in 1912. Reviewer Jan Peczkis summarizes some of Unszlicht’s arguments as follows in an Amazon review:
Litvak (Litwak) publications (for specific citations, see, for example, pp. 127–129) made very derogatory remarks about Poland. Moreover, Unszlicht cited statements from the respected assimilationist Jewish periodical Izraelita, which echo Litvak positions, in stating that Polish culture is “a stinking pond”, “a corpse”, “a bankrupt cheater’s playing card” (p. 5). … The “Polish corpse” innuendo was a common feature of Jewish publications (e.g, pp. 19, 38, 58, 121, 127–128).

Far from being marginal, the Litvaks and their avant-garde, the Socialist-Litvaks (in contradistinction with Polish socialists), were the representatives of Polish Jewry under tsarist Russian rule (pp. 6, 370). Jewish nationalists, whether of the Zionist or Bundist variety (notably the latter: p. 361), actually harmed Jews by keeping them in medieval-like isolation, and in aggressive separatism from, if not enmity against, Polishness. The foregoing was the conclusion of not only the Endeks, but also of Polish socialists, as shown in their publication (which equally condemned the Litvaks and the Endeks: pp. 183–184). 

The most dangerously anti-Polish organizations, controlled by the Litvaks or Jewish nationalists, also included the Marxist so-called Social Democrats (SDKPiL; hereafter SD) (pp. 8, 13), often acting in unison (p. 295). What’s more, SD positions often enjoyed the support of larger Jewish parties, such as the Bund (pp. 58, 361, 284, 368).

The cancer ran deeper. Sometimes, apparent advocates of Polish independence, such as the monthly Krytyka run by the Jew W. Feldman in Kraków, turned out to be allies of the SD and enemies of Polish independence (pp. 27–28).

The Litvaks were agents of Russification, of turning the remaining Jews against Poles, and of trying to turn Poles against their national interests by defamation (pp. 12–13). Thus, the Polish Eagle was vilified as a symbol of the unchecked power and oppressiveness of the Polish nobility (p. 127). Polish heroism at the Battle of Grunwald was merely an escapade of one set of kings, nobles, and clergy fighting against another set, with the Pope switching sides to be on the side of the victor (p. 130). The National Democrats (Endeks) were bourgeoisie reactionaries stifling class-consciousness by turning Polish workers against German and Russian workers, and trying to bring back the pre-Partition Poland of privileged and non-privileged (pp. 130–131).
As for the Wilno-area Litvaks, they were not only hostile to Poland, but remained so long after the reborn Poland had become a reality in 1918. Kalman Weiser writes:
Much of Vilna’s [Wilno’s] Jewish intelligentsia came to embrace a demonstratively pro-Yiddish stance during World War I and continued to do so throughout the interwar period, even if, as elsewhere in the former tsarist empire, its members continued to speak Russian in private. This strategy was conditioned by a combination of factors: their lack of identification with Polish culture and the Polish nationalist cause (despite Vilna’s eventual re-incorporation into independent Poland), their distinctive Jewish nationalist aspirations, and their desire to maintain a relatively neutral positioning the conflict between Poles, Lithuanians, Belarusians, and Russians over control of the city and its environs.176
In fact, they mostly supported the Lithuanian cause, despite the fact that the 1916 German census made it clear that both the city of Wilno and the surrounding area had a Polish majority, and Lithuanians formed only a few percent of the city’s population. Jews who fled to Poland from Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution mirrored the arrival of the Litvaks in the 19th century. Paradoxically, like their predecessors, they were overtly pro-Russian culturally and manifested a negative attitude toward Polish statehood.177 Polish Jews often called derogatory terms such as Litvak Khazir (“Lithuanian pig”) and Litvak Tseylem Kop (“Lithuanian cross head”).178

Thus inter-ethnic antagonism and conflict had firm roots in tradition and reality, and cannot simply be attributed to Polish chauvinism and xenophobia. Theodore S. Hamerow, who grew up in Warsaw and Otwock, states that


Many Jews regarded the Poles with the same resentment which many Poles displayed toward the Jews. This resentment was partly rooted in religious exclusiveness or intolerance. Pious believers in each community regarded members of the other as infidels, as enemies of the true faith who deserved scorn and reprobation. The refusal of those stubborn believers to recognize divine truth had led to their spiritual decline and moral corruption. Devout Poles often regarded the Jews as devious, cunning, and unprincipled, while devout Jews reciprocated by characterizing the Poles as ignorant, coarse, and dissolute. Hateful stereotypes on each side poisoned relations between them. Forced to live side by side, often dependent on each other economically, they managed as a rule to maintain at least minimal civility in dealing with one another. But inwardly they often shared a profound mutual hostility.

Their antagonism was reflected in language even more clearly than in behavior. The Polish word “zyd” [żyd], meaning a Jew, did not simply define a religious identity or affiliation. It also carried connotations of cringing sycophancy and sly dishonesty. Ethnic prejudice could be found just as easily in Yiddish, the everyday language of the Jewish masses. The word “goy,” for example, meant more than a gentile. It carried overtones of ignorance, dissipation, and mindless pugnacity. To describe a Pole who did not conform to this stereotype, some modifying adjective would generally be added. That is, so-and-so was a “decent goy” or an “educated goy” or a “tolerant goy” or sometimes simply a “Christian,” a term which had no serious pejorative overtones.

Similarly, “shikse” had implications extending beyond its literal meaning of a young woman who was not Jewish. It carried a suggestion of immodesty or coarseness, even promiscuity. Thus the term was often applied to Jewish girls who failed to display sufficient diffidence or reserve, who seemed too bold or assertive or mischievous. By the same token, “shegetz” meant more than simply a boy who happened to be gentile. It also had connotations of rudeness, belligerence, and dissipation, so that a young Jew who was insufficiently pious or modest could be described as a “shegetz” as well. Polish-Jewish hostility was thus as common in daily speech as in popular conduct. [In fact, the Hebrew word shegetz or sheketz which was commonly used to refer to a Christian boy means “abomination.”—M.P.]

It could even be found in popular humor, in the jokes and stories which circulated among the Jewish as well as the Polish masses. Those directed against the Jews generally made fun of their greed, servility, and cunning. Those making fun of the Poles focused on their obtuseness or dissoluteness or combativeness. Sometimes the humor was relatively harmless, but more often it revealed a deep underlying antipathy. I remember some of the pupils in my school singing a bitter parody of the opening lines of the Polish national anthem: instead of “Poland is not yet lost,/As long as we live,” a derisive “Poland is not yet lost,/But it soon will be.” …

And besides, isolation and ghettoization were more than symptoms of oppression; they were also a source of faith, a reinforcement of religious identity. Jews and Poles were so different, so far apart, that the only contacts between them should remain impersonal, confined to economic transactions and governmental affairs. Segregation was not only unavoidable but desirable.179
The author goes on to add, “This was the view of only a minority, however, a large and influential minority, but a minority nevertheless.” In fact, the reality was that this was the cultural norm, though in direct dealings with Poles these attitudes were not displayed openly and were often tempered. Nonetheless, rabbinical writings are peppered liberally with these derogatory terms.180

Ben-Zion Gold, a yeshiva student from Radom, writes:


Relations between Poles and religious Jews were burdened by prejudices on both sides. Just as our self-image was shaped by our religious tradition, so was our view of Poles. We were the descendants of Jacob, who, according to tradition, studied Torah and lived by its commandments. Poles, on the other hand, were the descendants of Esau, with all of the vile characteristics that our tradition ascribed to him: a depraved being, a murderer, a rapist, and an inveterate enemy of Jacob. This image of Esau, which developed two thousand years ago in reaction to the oppressive domination of the Romans, was transferred onto Christians …

Traditional Jews responded with contempt for both the people and their religion. We viewed Catholicism as idolatry. Poles were stereotyped as lechers and drunkards, given to brawling and wife-beating. I remember a popular Yiddish folk song about Jacob, the Jews, who rises in the morning and goes to the Beit HaMidrash to study and pray, and Esau, a Pole, who goes to the tavern. The refrain exclaims: “Oy! Shiker is a goy, a goy is drunk! And he must drink because he is a goy.” …

Religious Jews looked on assimilationists with a mixture of pity and contempt. We felt that they lost their self-respect as Jews and were still treated by Poles with contempt. We used to say, “Pol Zydem I pol Polakiem jest calym lajdakiem” [Pół Żydem i pół Polakiem jest całym łajdakiem] (“Half a Jew and half a Pole is a whole scoundrel”).181
Both Poles and Jews recognized the fact that Poles frequently had problems with alcoholism. For Poles, this was a clearly verbalized matter of consternation and shame.182 For Jews, on the other hand, it often became a matter of Jewish elitism. Historian Glenn Dynner repeats the following oft-quoted Yiddish ditty, Shiker iz der Goy (The gentile [goy] is drunk):


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