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Assimilation
A social and cultural movement that developed
in the nineteenth century among supporters of the Haskalah in Germany.
Assimilation posited that the Jews should become fully emancipated,
Jewish culture should open itself to outside influences, that Jews
should participate in European social and cultural life, and that
Judaism should be reformed. It encouraged the study of the Bible, as
well as of ancient Israel and modern theological Judaism. Translations
and scholarly editions brought the many centuries of Jewish achievements
closer to European culture.
In Poland, assimilation began to gain support during the first half
of the nineteenth century. In the Russian partition, a group of young
assimilationists appeared on the political scene in 1858, protesting
against offensive descriptions of them in a theater review by A.
Lesznowski that was published in Gazeta Warszawska (Warsaw Gazette) in
1858. This dispute brought political repercussions, as the tsarist
authorities tried to use the situation to their advantage. Advocates of
assimilation prepared a modern curriculum for Jewish children, and
organized an elementary school in Warsaw (1817), as well as a Rabbis'
School. They were very active in agitating for equal rights for Jews,
and published a Polish-language journal titled Jutrzenka (The Morning
Star) (1861-1863), which even appeared during the January Uprising.
The assimilation movement had several currents. Moderate
assimilationists perpetuated the Haskalah tradition, emphasizing
integration, openness to modern European cultural trends, and the reform
of traditional Jewish institutions (self-government, education and
customs). It opposed religious reform, but proposed that some aspects of
religiosity be reassessed. It promoted the use of the Hebrew language,
treating it as a tool for the advancement of the movement's ideas. Its
supporters gathered around the weekly Ha-Tsfira (The Refiner) (which
became a daily in 1886), published by C. Z. Slonimski.
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Polish Jews, the largest group of
assimilationists in the Kingdom of Poland, advocated acculturization and
ethnic assimilation through a gradual abandonment of the Yiddish
language and Jewish customs and adoption of the Polish language and
culture. They proposed a gradual laicization and Polonization of the
Jewish educational system, and strove to reform the traditional method
of self-government. They succeeded in doing this in Warsaw, where they
assumed key positions on synagogue boards in 1841. This group condemned
the rejection of Judaism, and instead attempted to develop a program for
religious reform, adopting the ideas contained in German reformed
Judaism; they supported the idea of sermons in the Polish language. The
also developed a new model of religiosity. With the principle "a Jew at
home, and a person out on the street", they condemned all manner of
religious ostentation and pietism that were especially present in
Chasidism. This group was associated with the Polish-language weekly
Izraelita (Israelite) (1866-1915), published by S. C. Peltyn.
Polish Jews, in cooperation with the positivists, helped the cause
of liberalism and also played a significant political role as
representatives of the Jewish community to Polish government and
society. In the Austrian partition, Agudas Achim society, "Przymierze
Braci" ("Covenant of the Brothers"), founded by W. Feldman, who edited
the weekly Ojczyzna (Fatherland) (1881-92) in Lwow. Despite competition
from the Germanizing groups, in the late nineteenth century, circles of
Polonized Jewish intelligentsia formed in the larger cities of Galicia,
such as Krakow, Lwow, and Rzeszow. Radical assimilation, sometimes
called "amalgamation", proposed the complete rejection of Jewish culture
and customs, opting instead for immersion into the majority culture,
even to the extent of changing one's religion. Its proponents were
opposed to all reforms of Jewish institutions, in the belief it would
delay assimilation unnecessarily, whose aim was to make use of Polish
cultural institutions and bring about the disappearance of Jewish
culture. Advocates of this approach were often atheists who formed a
circle of free-thinking members of the intelligentsia. They believed
this choice to be a private matter, and thus did not form any particular
group or have their own publication.
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In the Polish lands, Jews were influenced by
three cultures: Polish, German and Russian. The process of Germanization
was dominant in Wielkopolska and in Silesia, and was accompanied by
Germanizing pressures in the administration and a decline in the Jewish
population as the result of migration to larger Prussian cities. In
Galicia, Germanization was rivaled by a strong pressure to Polonize,
which began to prevail in the twentieth century. In the Kingdom of
Poland, despite the pressures of Russification, the pro-Polish option
was the most attractive to the assimilationists. Russification succeeded
in areas that were annexed to the Russian Empire, though there, too,
Polonized groups of Jews were active in Wilno and Grodno. The
ideological capital for pro-Russian assimilationists was Odessa, but the
anti-Jewish policies of the tsarist government hampered their success.
In the twentieth century, there were isolated cased of Jews undergoing
"Ruthenization", i.e., assimilating to Ukrainian (Ruthenian) culture,
though no ideology was associated with this. Assimilation and the
formation of the intelligentsia took place simultaneously. Many
assimilated Jews bolstered the intelligentsia's ranks, making a
significant contribution to the world of Polish learning and culture.
All the most important Jewish political, cultural and national
movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had their
origins within the intelligentsia. The assimilationists' ideas were not
very influential outside the larger cities and towns. Up until the
Second World War, rural areas remained under the influence of Orthodox
Judaism and the traditional Jewish way of life, which was opposed only
later by national and leftist political groups. During the interwar
period, there were two liberal assimilationist political parties: the
Asymilatorzy (Assimilators), headed by S. Dickstein, and the
Neo-Asymilatorzy (Neo-Assimilators), led by L. Berenson and founded in
1915. The Zjednoczenie Polakow Wyznania Mojzeszowego Wszystkich Ziem
Polskich (Union of Jewish Poles from All the Polish Lands) was founded
in 1919. Although the acculturization of Jews began to take place on a
mass scale, the ideology of assimilation lost in its confrontation with
Jewish national groups. A new phenomenon arose--Jewish national culture,
which took shape using the Polish language. Linguistically assimilated
Jews often tended towards Zionism or the Polish or Jewish Left.
(A.C./CM)
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