EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2022/23
Report
“East-Central Europe at the Crossroads: Transnational Jewish Networks and Identities”
Academic Conference hosted by POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland.
June 18-20, 2023
Partner Institutions: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Columbia University, Buenos Aires University, Tel Aviv University, Dubnow Institute Leipzig, Potsdam University, Wroclaw University, University of Warsaw
Event rationale
For 1000 years, the Polish lands were one of the main centers of Jewish life and culture. Though in the last century, Poland lost most of its Jewish population to emigration and the Shoah, the Jewish civilization that formed in the region could not be completely destroyed but was rather transferred along with migrants to various diaspora spread throughout the world in such far-flung locations as the United States, Argentina, South Africa, Australia and Palestine. Identities formed in the Polish lands continued to reflect the lifestyles, opinions and worldviews of Jewish emigrants and their communities. Language, food, politics, and economic activities all continued across oceans and continents.
In the eyes of people in their adopted homelands these Jews were “Poles”; as in Palestine they were called polanim, and in Latin America, Polacos. Thus, it was their “Polishness” rather than their “Jewishness” that became a key part of their outward identities. In their new homelands and liminal places in between, migrants developed new self-identities to challenge the ones forced upon them. The development of Yiddish and Hebrew culture, and the politicization of Jewish society in the 19th and 20th centuries in Eastern Europe then directly influenced leftist movements in the US and the shape of politics in modern Israel. Similar processes played out in many other places where Polish-Jewish migrants lived.
Recent scholarship challenges the lachrymose interpretation of Jewish migrations and the myth of no-return, by highlighting how Jews mostly emigrated for economic reasons, just like their non-Jewish counterparts from the region. When they left, migrating Jews did not envision that they would be cut off from their Polish roots. The transnational nature of Polish-Jewish society meant more than simply maintaining ties between Polish Jews in various locations. It also left an imprint on the economic development of the Polish lands. With their international trade contacts, Jews became trailblazers of capitalism, helping to form Polish banking, railways and other industries. Polish Jews managed to pull these previously peripheral lands into the global market.
The conference also supports the current objectives of the POLIN Museum and can be a fine addition to the Heritage program, showing the global spread and influence of Polish-Jewish civilization. This will be an opportunity to shed light on historical actors who have yet to find their place in the historiography.
While studies of migration, transnationalism and diaspora have enjoyed new life among humanities scholars and social scientists, the recurring waves of economic migrants and refugees from war-torn countries going through Europe prove that the issues of migration and refuge are perhaps more relevant to Europeans today than ever before. The subject has been hotly debated in Poland and abroad, raising questions about who merits access into the land and its civil society. The presentations and discussions will allow us to show that Poland has been a site of mass migration for generations, as well as a sender and receiver of refugees. For this reason, the conference would surely be of interest to the wider public, as well as academics, who work on central and eastern Europe, Jews and the Jewish diaspora.
Event Summary
The Academic Conference on Transnational Jewish Studies held on June 18, 19, and 20, 2023, brought together scholars and researchers to explore various aspects of global Yiddish culture, transnational Jewish experiences, and the impact of migration on Jewish communities. The conference featured ten panels, a keynote lecture, and opportunities for networking and discussions.
The conference began on Sunday, with an opening panel on Yiddishland across the globe. The panel, chaired by Elisabeth Gallas (Simon Dubnow Institute, Leipzig), focused on the Yiddish PEN Club and its transnational network, presented by Carolin Piorun (Simon Dubnow Institute, Leipzig), and the Yiddish Little Magazine as a site of transnational culture, presented by Barbara Mann (Case Western Reserve University).
Following the panel, attendees had a coffee break before moving on to Panel 2: Soviet/Polish Diasporas – Stays and Returns. Chaired by Prof. Dariusz Stola (Polish Academy of Sciences), this panel explored topics such as transnational contacts among Polish Jews after the 1968 antisemitic campaign, presented by Marcin Starnawski (Lower Silesian University, Wroclaw), and transnational Jewish refugee politics from 1971 to 1980, presented by Amy Fedeski (University of Ottawa). Irina Nicorici (New Europe College, Bucharest) discussed “The Myth of Soviet Jewish No-Returns.”
Later in the evening, Tara Zahra delived a keynote lecture on the topic “European Jews between Globalism and Anti-Globalism.”
The conference continued on Monday, 19 June, with Panel 3: Thinking of Home After the Holocaust. Chair Rebecca Kobrin (Columbia University) led the panel discussions, which included presentations on Polish-Jewish survivor landsmanshaftn as agents of migrant self-help and transnational solidarity by Ann-Christin Klotz (Hebrew University), the transnational circulations of Jewish remembrance of the Holocaust with the case of the Lubartów Memorial Book by Claire Zalc (Institut d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, CNRS), and transnational networks and the resurrection of dead communities by Eliyana Adler (UPenn).
After a coffee break, attendees gathered for Panel 4: Moving Spirituality, chaired by Marcin Wodziński (Wroclaw University). The panel featured presentations on the long-distance relationship between the Chabad Rebbe and his Hasidim in the interwar period by Ekaterina Oleshkevich (Bar-Ilan University), the life and work of Meir Poppers between Krakow and Jerusalem by Avinoam Stillman (Freie Universitat, Berlin), and the intersection of modern psychotherapy and Hasidic spiritual praxis in Vienna post-World War I by Daniel Reiser (Hebrew University).
Following a lunch break, Panel 5: Jewish Popular Culture & Performance on the Move commenced under the chairmanship of Marcos Silber (University of Haifa). Presentations in this panel included a study on Jewish pioneers of the Polish film industry and the trajectories of their films in 1910s Warsaw by Karina Pryt (Goethe University), the transnational networks of Yiddish actors in the South American Jewish Theatre from 1930 to 1960 by Paula Ansaldo (Buenos Aires University), and a discussion on Yiddish and Hebrew stage performances across land and language borders in the first half of the 20th century by Raffaele Esposito (University of Naples).
After another coffee break, attendees joined Panel 6: Yiddish Journalism and Colonialism, chaired by Barbara Mann. Nancy Sinkoff (Rutgers University) presented on a Polish Jewish Yiddish journalist’s travels through colonial Africa on the eve of World War II, William Pimlott (Birkbeck) discussed conceptualizing colonialism in a comparative perspective using the East Central European Yiddish press in conversation with Argentina and South Africa from 1890 to 1920, and Magdalena Kozłowska (University of Warsaw) explored the role of Groshn-biblyotek, cheap publications, in spreading news about the 1934 Constantine riots.
After the panel discussions, a reception was held for panelists and invited guests, providing an opportunity for networking and further discussions.
The third day of the conference, Tuesday, 20 June, began with Panel 7: Transplanting Practices: Jewish Transnational Way of Crime, Security, and Production. Chaired by Katrin Steffen (University of Sussex), the panel featured presentations on Jewish self-defense in Eastern Europe and the Land of Israel from 1917 to 1921 by Netta Ehrlich (New York University), Jewish criminal cooperation in turn-of-the-century Chicago by Margarita Lerman (Hebrew University), and Jewish mercantile networks across Imperial Russia from 1891 to 1917, focusing on textiles, by James Nadel (Columbia University).
Following a coffee break, Panel 8: Cultural Transfer commenced, chaired by Kamil Kijek (Wroclaw University). Eli Lederhendler (Hebrew University) discussed cultural transfers and transplanters, specifically the East/East-Central European Jewish heritage in American Jewish life. Anya Zhuravel Segal (Tel Aviv University) presented on Russian Jews as cultural brokers in Berlin from 1919 to 1939, and Marcos Silber (University of Haifa) explored Jewish, Polish, and Jewish-Polish popular culture in transit and its local transformations.
After a lunch break, Panel 9: Transplanting Aesthetics took place under the chairmanship of Renata Piątkowska (POLIN Museum). The panel featured presentations on transnational synagogues and their architectural features, behavioral modes, and imagined communities by Vladimir Levin (Hebrew University). Michael Lukin (Hebrew University) discussed the premodern Yiddish folk song as an expression of transnational experience, Anna Berezin (Hebrew University) explored Jewish ceremonial textiles in East Central Europe and their journeys, and Adriana Katzew (Massachusetts College of Art and Design) uncovered family stories of transnational Jewish migration through art.
Following a coffee break, the conference concluded with Panel 10: Relief, chaired by Jaclyn Granick (Cardiff University). Glenn Dynner (Fairfield University) discussed the American Joint Distribution Committee’s activities in interwar Poland, Piotr Długołęcki (Institute of National Memory, Poland) examined the aid activities of international Jewish organizations and Polish diplomatic and consular posts during the Second World War, and Elena Hoffenberg (University of Chicago) explored mobility and Jewish technical education within and beyond Interwar Poland through ORT.
The Academic Conference on Transnational Jewish Studies provided a platform for scholars to delve into various aspects of transnational Jewish experiences, including culture, migration, spirituality, journalism, aesthetics, and relief efforts. It fostered an exchange of ideas, enriched understanding, and contributed to the scholarly discourse in the field of Jewish studies.
Conclusions
The goals of the conference were to create a space for the free exchange of knowledge, the betterment of all our collective academic pursuits, and to uncover new pathways for research and the dissemination of that research. We can happily declare that all these goals have been achieved.
Despite the diversity of presentations and presenters, there were multiple common threads among them. In the future, we will be pulling on those threads to make a clearer contribution to Jewish studies.
In attendance were 34 consistent audience members, 45 engaged academics (speakers, chairs, committee members), for a total of 79 people. A much wider audience can be reached, since all panels were recorded.
Outcomes
As a result of this successful conference, we will be publishing a collection of some of the most innovative works presented in a collected volume. The book will be published with De Gruyter and available open access, thanks to financial support from our granting institutions. At this stage, authors have been contacted and their contributions should be submitted to us by mid-November.
The recordings of the presentations will be uploaded with subtitles (in English and Polish) onto the website of the POLIN Museum and YouTube so that they are available to the larger public.