Heritage

Poland
1919 to 1938

Jewish life in Poland blossomed between the two wars.

Hundreds of Jewish schools and summer camps flourished; Jewish newspapers and periodicals in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Polish crowded newsstands in Jewish neighborhoods; and a lively Yiddish theater and film industry developed.

Jewish socialist, Zionist, and religious parties ran candidates in local and national elections and succeeded in attaining seats on municipal councils and in the parliament.

At the same time, Jews continued to suffer discrimination in many areas of public life. The 1930s also witnessed the rise of right-wing anti-Semitic parties, inspired in part by the growing power of the Nazis in Germany.

As Poland's economic situation deteriorated, Jews, like other Polish citizens, found it increasingly difficult to make a living. More and more Jews left the shtetlakh (market towns) for the large cities or tried to emigrate.

Pale of Settlement
1791 to 1917

The decree instituting what became the Pale of Settlement was signed by Catherine II on December 28, 1791. It limited Jewish residence to the western regions of the Russian Empire, stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Jews were later also excluded from the cities of Kiev, Nikolaev, Sevastopol, and Yalta.

Beginning in 1859, some categories of Jews deemed to be "useful" were granted permission to live beyond the Pale, but their numbers remained very small.

The Pale was not abolished until the czarist government was toppled in 1917.

Russian Empire
1881 to 1887

Anti-Jewish sentiment prevailed in many quarters of Russian society. In Russia, as in the west, some leaders aroused the masses against the Jews to serve their own purposes.

When members of the radical socialist organization, "People's Will," assassinated Czar Alexander II in 1881, right-wing forces instigated bloody riots (pogroms) against the Jews. The government stood by, doing nothing to prevent the violence. Some revolutionary groups even approved of the pogroms as a healthy expression of the anger of the oppressed masses.

Life for Russian Jews became more precarious than ever. The government instituted harsher economic and residence
restrictions on the Jews, such as the May Laws, which prohibited rural settlement for Jews and resulted in the expulsion of Jews from many country villages.

Many Jews emigrated, despairing of a future for themselves in Russia. Between 1881 and 1924, over 2 million Jews left Russia and other areas of Eastern Europe for the U.S. and other destinations.

Warsaw

1772t to 1794
Although the townsmen of Warsaw obtained the right to prohibit Jewish settlement in 1527, small numbers of Jews managed to establish residence here. By the second half of the 18th century, Warsaw was home to a substantial number of Jews.

After the first partition of Poland (1772), the Poles mounted an unsuccessful uprising against their new Russian overlords, and Warsaw's Jews took an active part in the fighting. Many volunteered for the Jewish legion formed under Berek Joselewicz. In revenge, Russian troops massacred most of the city's Jewish civilian population.

1880s to Early 1900s
Warsaw, the city with the largest Jewish population in Europe, was by the end of the 19th century an important center for Jewish culture.

In 1885, members of the Zionist organization, Hovevei Zion established the first heder metukkan, or modernized heder (Hebrew grammar school), in Warsaw. By World War I, there were several girls' schools (to which even Orthodox Jews sent their daughters), a science high school, a trade school, and a Hebrew-language kindergarten.

Warsaw was a center of Hebrew and Yiddish publishing in the Russian Empire. Despite official censorship and financial difficulties, numerous newspapers, journals, and books appeared.