Insiders and Outsiders

Insiders and Outsiders: Dilemmas of East European Jewry examines problems ofJewish cultural and political orientations, associations, andself-identification within a broad framework. The contributors approach thepredicament of east European Jews in various settings: some focus primarily onthe Jews' inner development and outlook, while others discuss how elements ofthe majority society viewed their presence. Scholars of history, art history,and literature display originality and insight in illuminating the nuances andintricacies of the Jewish ‘outsider’.

Following an overview by the distinguished intellectual historianof German Jewry Steven Aschheim, who offers some comprehensive thoughts on theinsider/outsider dilemma in modern times and its relevance to eastern Europe,the discussion evolves around three major themes: the cultural conundrum; modesof acculturation, assimilation, and identity; and the minority’s inclusion inor exclusion from the political agendas of certain east European societies. Itconcludes with a focus on two remarkable cities―Czernowitz and Vilnius―wherethe Jewish minority has often been conceived as being no less ‘inside’ thanother groups.

Contributors to the ‘cultural conundrum’ section deal with artistsand writers from Romania and Poland who have gained wide public and criticalattention over the years, including Reuven Rubin, Itzik Manger, Avot Yeshurun,and Mihail Sebastian. Other essays discuss the work of a group of writers fromPoland, including Henryk Grynberg, Wilhelm Dichter, Joanna Olczak-Ronikier,Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz, and Michal Glowinski, who reflected intensively ontheir experiences as Jews in the Second World War and tried to integrate theseexperiences into their often fractured identities. The complex personalevolution of these figures shows the multi-layered influences on theircreativity and imagination, while underscoring the dilemmas they faced to findpoints of meeting between their Jewish background and their national identity.

The section on modes of acculturation, assimilation, and identityoffers detailed analyses of the ways in which multi-ethnic and multi-nationalsituations demand that the ‘outsider’, consciously or unconsciously, developinner strategies to fashion a specific identity. Surveying such vibrant areasas Czechoslovakia and Poland between the two world wars and the city of Lwów inthe late nineteenth century, three essays present some of the choices Jews madein order to deal with the changing political and cultural context. Theirmeditations on belonging and not-belonging―onthe constitution of identity and its fluidity, and on the formation, breakdown,and reconfiguration of physical, mental, social, and geographicalborders―acquire a special relevance and urgency in these settings.

How did Jews as ‘outsiders’ configure their political allegiance ineastern Europe? How prominent were they in the radical elements of thecommunist movement in Russia? What tactics did they employ to safeguard theirfuture in such societies and what means did they employ to galvanize the‘Jewish street’? These are some of the questions raised in the section onsociety and politics, which delves into such problematic terrain as ‘Jewishinformers’, the ‘non-Jewish Jew’, and ‘Jewish politics’.

The concluding essays examine thetensions, paradoxes, and ironies of the phenomenon of the Jewish outsider inCzernowitz and Vilnius, two cities where, indeed, Jews were often construed tobe the true ‘insiders’.

CONTRIBUTORS: Steven E. Aschheim, Karen Auerbach, RichardI. Cohen, Jonathan Frankel, Stefani Hoffman, Zvi Jagendorf, Hillel J. Kieval,Rachel Manekin, Amitai Mendelsohn, Joanna B. Michlic, Antony Polonsky, DavidRechter, Scott Ury, Leon Volovici, Ruth R. Wisse, Mordechai Zalkin