Inter-Religious Contacts in the Shtetl: Proposals for Future Research

Summary

MANY studies of the history of the Jews in Poland and Polish–Jewish relations stress the lack of inter-religious contacts between Jews and Christians. For example, in his work Relations between Jews and Poles in S. Y. Agnon's Work, Shmuel Werses wrote: ‘The total alienation and distance between the two cultures was particularly marked in inter-religious contact. The inimical Christian world overtly expressed its presence in religious rituals. Jews were sometimes forced into encounters with Christian processions or even libelous accusations of desecration made by the priests, representatives of the Church.’ According to Mark Zborowski's definition of the shtetl in the Encyclopaedia Judaica: ‘The market was the area where the shtetl came in direct contact with the goyim, whose life patterns were alien and often hostile to the shtetl mores.’

In this chapter I would like to draw attention to new research on shtetls as a subject related to the history of Judaism and the broader history of religion in Poland and the Polish lands. Many books and articles on the history of particular towns, published both in Poland and abroad, present one-sided views, describing the history of the towns from the point of view of either the Polish Christians or the Jews. In many cases these studies appear to be presenting the histories of two completely different cities that happen to share a name. The present study is not intended to resolve this issue, but will examine examples of possible contact points between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities, with special attention to interreligious contacts. There are already some positive exceptions to the standard approach to this subject; among them are Jacek Krochmal's study of Przemyśl, Stefan Ga˛siorowski's doctoral dissertation focusing on Żółkiew (Zhovkva), and the socio-anthropological studies of Alina Cała and Annamaria Orla-Bukowska.

THE SHTETL IN THE PHYSICAL URBAN SPHERE

The definition of the shtetl is itself problematic. As Professor John Klier has noted, most popular studies present the shtetl as a ‘ “state of mind”, an idyll, an exercise in nostalgia, or an artistic construct….