Simon Dubnow (alternatively spelled Dubnov, rus, Семён Ма́ркович Ду́бнов, Semyon Markovich Dubnov, sʲɪˈmʲɵn ˈmarkəvʲɪtɕ ˈdubnəf; yi, שמעון דובנאָװ, ''Shimen Dubnov''; 10 September 1860 – 8 December 1941) was a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
-
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
historian, writer and activist.
Life and career
In 1860,
Simon Dubnow was born Shimon Meyerovich Dubnow (Шимон Меерович Дубнов) to a large poor family in the
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
ian town of
Mstsislaw
Mstislaw or Mstislavl ( be, Мсціслаў, [], russian: Мстиславль [msʲtʲɪˈslavlʲ], pl, Mścisław, lt, Mstislavlis) is a town in the Mogilev Region, Eastern Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Mstsislaw District ...
(
Mahilyow Voblast
Mogilev Region or Mogilev Oblast or Mahiliow Voblasts ( be, link=no, Магілёўская вобласць; ''Mahiloŭskaja voblasć''; russian: link=no, Могилёвская область; ''Mogilyovskaya Oblast''), is a region (''oblast'' ...
). A native
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
speaker, he received a traditional Jewish education in a ''
heder
A ''cheder'' ( he, חדר, lit. "room"; Yiddish pronunciation ''kheyder'') is a traditional primary school teaching the basics of Judaism and the Hebrew language.
History
''Cheders'' were widely found in Europe before the end of the 18th ...
'' and a ''
yeshiva
A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are st ...
'', where
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
was regularly spoken. Later Dubnow entered into a ''kazyonnoye yevreyskoe uchilishche'' (state Jewish school) where he learned
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
. In the midst of his education, the
May Laws
Temporary regulations regarding the Jews (also known as May Laws) were proposed by the minister of internal affairs Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev and enacted on 15 May (3 May O.S.), 1882, by Tsar Alexander III of Russia. Originally, regulations of ...
eliminated these Jewish institutions, and Dubnow was unable to graduate; Dubnow persevered, independently pursuing his interests in
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
,
philosophy, and
linguistics
Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...
. He was particularly fascinated by
Heinrich Graetz
Heinrich Graetz (; 31 October 1817 – 7 September 1891) was amongst the first historians to write a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective.
Born Tzvi Hirsch Graetz to a butcher family in Xions (now Książ Wielko ...
and the
Wissenschaft des Judentums
"''Wissenschaft des Judentums''" (Literally in German the expression means "Science of Judaism"; more recently in the US it started to be rendered as "Jewish Studies" or "Judaic Studies," a wide academic field of inquiry in American Universities) ...
movement.
In 1880 Dubnow used forged documents to move to
St Petersburg, officially off-limits to Jews. Jews were generally restricted to small towns in the
Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement (russian: Черта́ осе́длости, '; yi, דער תּחום-המושבֿ, '; he, תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, ') was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 19 ...
, unless they had been discharged from the military, were employed as doctors or dentists, or could prove they were '
cantonists
Cantonists (Russian language: кантонисты; more properly: военные кантонисты, "military cantonists") were underage sons of conscripts in the Russian Empire. From 1721 on they were educated in special "canton schools" (К ...
', university graduates or merchants belonging to the 1st guild. Here he married Ida Friedlin.
Soon after moving to St. Petersburg Dubnow's publications appeared in the press, including the leading Russian–Jewish magazine ''
Voskhod''. In 1890, the Jewish population was expelled from the capital city, and Dubnow too was forced to leave. He settled in
Odesa
Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrati ...
and continued to publish studies of Jewish life and history, coming to be regarded as an authority in these areas.
Throughout his active participation in the contemporary social and political life of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
, Dubnow called for modernizing Jewish education, organizing Jewish self-defense against
pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
s, and demanding equal rights for Russian Jews, including the right to vote. Living in
Vilna
Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...
,
Lithuania, during the early months of
1905 Russian Revolution, he became active in organizing a Jewish political response to opportunities arising from the new civil rights which were being promised. In this effort he worked with a variety of Jewish opinion, e.g., those favouring
diaspora autonomy,
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
,
socialism
Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...
, and
assimilation.
In 1906 he was allowed back into St Petersburg, where he founded and directed the Jewish Literature and Historical-Ethnographic Society and edited the ''
Jewish Encyclopedia''. In the same year, he founded the
Folkspartei
The Folkspartei ( yi, ייִדישע פֿאָלקספּאַרטײַ, , Jewish People's Party) was founded after the 1905 pogroms in the Russian Empire by Simon Dubnow and Israel Efrojkin. The party took part in several elections in Poland and ...
(Jewish People's Party) with Israel Efrojkin, which successfully worked for the election of
MPs and municipal councilors in interwar
Lithuania and
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
. After 1917 Dubnow became a Professor of Jewish history at
Petrograd University
Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the G ...
.
He welcomed the first
February Revolution of 1917 in Russia, regarding it, according to scholar
Robert van Voren
Robert van Voren (publishing pseudonym of Johannes Baks, nl, Johannes Bax, born 25 July 1959, Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a Dutch human rights activist, sovietologist and historian.
He is a professor of Soviet and post-Soviet studies in the I ...
, as having "brought the long-anticipated
liberation
Liberation or liberate may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Liberation'' (film series), a 1970–1971 series about the Great Patriotic War
* "Liberation" (''The Flash''), a TV episode
* "Liberation" (''K-9''), an episode
Gaming
* '' Liberati ...
of the Jewish people", although he "felt uneasy about the increasing profile of
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
". Dubnow did not consider such
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
as
Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...
(Bronstein) to be Jewish, stating: "They appear under Russian pseudonyms because they are ashamed of their Jewish origins (Trotsky,
Zinoviev Zinoviev, Zinovyev, Zinovieff (russian: Зино́вьев), or Zinovieva (feminine; Зино́вьева), as a Russian surname, derives from the personal name Zinovi, from Greek '' Zenobios''.
Notable people with the surname include:
* Alexand ...
, others). But it would be better to say that their Jewish names are pseudonyms; they are not rooted in our people."
In 1922 Dubnow emigrated to
Kaunas,
Lithuania, and later to
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
. His
magnum opus
A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, ...
was the ten-volume ''World History of the Jewish people'', first published in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
translation in 1925–1929. Of its significance, historian
Koppel Pinson
Koppel Shub Pinson (1904–1961) was a historian who specialized in the origins of German nationalism.
Early life
Born in Postawy, Russian Empire (now in Belarus), on February 11, 1904, Pinson immigrated to the United States with his family in ...
writes:
With this work Dubnow took over the mantle of Jewish national historian from Graetz. Dubnow's ''Weltgeschichte'' may in truth be called the first secular and purely scholarly synthesis of the entire course of Jewish history
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, and their nation, religion, and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures. Although Judaism as a religion first appears in Greek records during the Hellenisti ...
, free from dogmatic and theological trappings, balanced in its evaluation of the various epochs and regional groupings of Jewish historical development, fully cognizant of social and economic currents and influences ...
During 1927 Dubnow initiated a search in Poland for ''pinkeysim'' (record books kept by
Kehillot and other local Jewish groups) on behalf of the ''
Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut'' (YIVO, Jewish Scientific Institute), while he was Chairman of its Historical Section. This spadework for the historian netted several hundred writings; one ''pinkes'' dated to 1601, that of the Kehillah of
Opatów
Opatów (; yi, אַפּטאַ, אַפּט) is a town in southeastern Poland, within Opatów County in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship (Holy Cross Province). Historically, it was part of a greater region called Lesser Poland. In 2012 the populati ...
.
In August 1933, after
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
came to power, Dubnow moved to
Riga,
Latvia. He chose Latvia in part for its government's support for Jewish self-reliance and the vigorous Jewish community in the small country. There existed a Jewish theater, various Jewish newspapers, and a network of Yiddish-language schools.
There his wife died, yet he continued his activities, writing his autobiography ''Book of My Life'',
[Pinson, "Simon Dubnow" at 13-69, 34-39, in Simon Dubnow, ''Nationalism and History'' (1958).] and participating in YIVO, the Institute for Jewish Research.
On the initiative of a Latvian Jewish refugee activist in Stockholm and with help from the local Jewish community in Sweden, Dubnow was granted a visa to Sweden in the summer of 1940 but for unknown reasons he never used it. Then in July 1941
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
troops occupied Riga. Dubnow was evicted, losing his entire library. With thousands of Jews, he was transferred to the
Riga ghetto. According to the few remaining survivors, Dubnow repeated to ghetto inhabitants: ''Yidn, shraybt un farshraybt'' ( yi, Jews”, write and record"). He was among thousands of Jews to be rounded up there for the
Rumbula massacre
The Rumbula massacre is a collective term for incidents on November 30 and December 8, 1941, in which about 25,000 Jews were murdered in or on the way to Rumbula forest near Riga, Latvia, during the Holocaust. Except for the Babi Yar massacre in ...
. Too sick to travel to the forest, he was murdered in the city on 8 December 1941. Several friends then buried Simon Dubnow in the old cemetery of the Riga ghetto.
Political ideals
Dubnow was ambivalent toward
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
, which he felt was an opiate for the spiritually feeble. Despite being sympathetic to the movement's ideas, he believed its ultimate goal, the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine achieved with international support and substantial Jewish immigration, to be politically, socially, and economically impossible, calling it "a beautiful messianic dream". In 1898, he projected that by the year 2000, there would only be about 500,000 Jews living in Palestine. Dubnow thought Zionism just another sort of messianism, and he thought the possibility of persuading the Jews of Europe to move to Palestine and establish a state fantastical. Beyond improbability, he worries that this impulse would drain energy away from the task of creating an autonomous Jewish center in the diaspora.
Much stronger than his skepticism towards Zionism, Dubnow rejected
assimilation.
He believed that the future survival of the Jews as a nation depended on their spiritual and cultural strength, where they resided dispersed in the
diaspora. Dubnow wrote: "Jewish history
nspiresthe conviction that Jewry at all times, even in the period of political independence, was pre-eminently a spiritual nation," and he called the push for assimilation "national suicide".
His formulated ideology became known as
Jewish Autonomism
Jewish Autonomism, not connected to the contemporary political movement autonomism, was a non-Zionist political movement and ideology that emerged in Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. One of its first and major proponents wa ...
, once widely popular in eastern Europe, being adopted in its various derivations by Jewish political parties such as the
Bund and his
Folkspartei
The Folkspartei ( yi, ייִדישע פֿאָלקספּאַרטײַ, , Jewish People's Party) was founded after the 1905 pogroms in the Russian Empire by Simon Dubnow and Israel Efrojkin. The party took part in several elections in Poland and ...
. ''Autonomism'' involved a form of self-rule in the Jewish diaspora, which Dubnow called "the Jewish world-nation". The
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
(1919) adopted a version of it in the
minority provisions of treaties signed with new east European states. Yet in early 20th-century Europe, many political currents began to trend against polities that accommodated a multiethnic pluralism, as grim monolithic nationalism or ideology emerged as centralizing principles. After the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
, and the founding of
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, for a while discussion of Autonomism seemed absent from
Jewish politics.
Regional history
Dubnow's political thought perhaps can better be understood in light of
historical Jewish communal life in Eastern Europe. It flourished during the early period of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi- confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Poland and Lithuania ru ...
(1569–1795), when it surpassed the Ottoman Empire and western Europe as a center of Judaism. Dubnow here describes the ''autonomous'' social-economic and religious organization developed by the Jewish people under the Commonwealth government:
Constituting an historical nationality, with an inner life of its own, the Jews were segregated by the Government as a separate estate, an independent social body. ... They formed an entirely independent class of citizens, and as such were in need of independent agencies of self-government and jurisdiction
Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels.
J ...
. The Jewish community constituted not only a national and cultural, but also a civil, entity. It formed a Jewish city within a Christian city, with its separate forms of life, its own religious, administrative, judicial, and charitable institutions. The Government of a country with sharply divided estates could not but legalize the autonomy of the Jewish Kahal." The Jews also did not speak Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
, but rather Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
, an Hebraicized German. "The sphere of the Kahal's activity was very large." "The capstone of this Kahal organization were the so-called ''Waads'', the conferences or assemblies of rabbis and Kahal leaders. hey became
Hey or Hey! may refer to:
Music
* Hey (band), a Polish rock band
Albums
* Hey (Andreas Bourani album), ''Hey'' (Andreas Bourani album) or the title song (see below), 2014
* Hey! (Julio Iglesias album), ''Hey!'' (Julio Iglesias album) or the ti ...
the highest court of appeal." Their activity "passed, by gradual expansion, from the judicial sphere into that of administration and legislation.
Each provincial council or ''Waad'' (
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
''vaad'': committee) eventually joined with others to form a central governing body which began to meet regularly. Its name became "ultimately fixed as the Council of the Four Lands (''Waad Arba Aratzoth'')." These four lands were: ''
Wielkopolska
Greater Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska (; german: Großpolen, sv, Storpolen, la, Polonia Maior), is a historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief and largest city is Poznań followed by Kalisz, the oldest city ...
'' (
Posen), ''
Malopolska
Lesser Poland, often known by its Polish name Małopolska ( la, Polonia Minor), is a historical region situated in southern and south-eastern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Kraków. Throughout centuries, Lesser Poland developed a ...
'' (
Cracow and
Lubin
Lubin (; german: Lüben, szl, Lubin) is a city in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland. It is the administrative seat of Lubin County, and also of the rural district called Gmina Lubin, although it is not part of the territory o ...
), ''
Ruthenia'' (
Lviv
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...
(Lemberg)), and ''
Volhynia
Volhynia (also spelled Volynia) ( ; uk, Воли́нь, Volyn' pl, Wołyń, russian: Волы́нь, Volýnʹ, ), is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between south-eastern Poland, south-western Belarus, and western Ukraine. The ...
'' (
Ostroh
Ostroh ( uk, Остро́г; pl, Ostróg) is a historic city located in Rivne Oblast (province) of western Ukraine, on the Horyn River. Ostroh is the administrative center of the Ostroh Raion (district). Administratively, Ostroh is incorporated ...
and
Kremenets
Kremenets ( uk, Крем'янець, Кременець, translit. ''Kremianets'', ''Kremenets''; pl, Krzemieniec; yi, קרעמעניץ, Kremenits) is a city in Ternopil Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center o ...
); the fifth land ''
Lithuania'' (
Brest
Brest may refer to:
Places
*Brest, Belarus
**Brest Region
**Brest Airport
**Brest Fortress
* Brest, Kyustendil Province, Bulgaria
* Břest, Czech Republic
*Brest, France
** Arrondissement of Brest
**Brest Bretagne Airport
** Château de Brest
*Br ...
and
Grodno) withdrew to form its own high ''Waad''. The 'Council of the Four Lands' consisted of the six "leading rabbis of Poland" and a delegate from the principal ''Kahalem'' selected by their elders, in all about thirty members. "As a rule, the Council assembled in
Lublin in early spring, between
Purim
Purim (; , ; see Name below) is a Jewish holiday which commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, an official of the Achaemenid Empire who was planning to have all of Persia's Jewish subjects killed, as recounted in the Book ...
and
Passover
Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month of Aviv, or spring. ...
, and in
Yaroslav (
Galicia) at the end of summer, before
high holidays."
The Council or ''Wadd Arba Aratzoth'' "reminded one of the Sanhedrin
The Sanhedrin (Hebrew and Aramaic: סַנְהֶדְרִין; Greek: , ''synedrion'', 'sitting together,' hence ' assembly' or 'council') was an assembly of either 23 or 71 elders (known as "rabbis" after the destruction of the Second Temple), ...
, which in ancient days assembled... in the temple
A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...
. They dispensed justice to all the Jews of the Polish realm, issued preventive measures and obligatory enactments (''takkanoth''), and imposed penalties as they saw fit. All difficult cases were brought before their court. To facilitate matters he delegates appointed'provincial judges' (''dayyane medinoth'') to settle disputes concerning property, while they themselves n plenary sessionexamined criminal cases, matters pertaining to ''hazaka'' (priority of possession) and other difficult matters of law." "The Council of the Four Lands was the guardian of Jewish civil interests in Poland. It sent its ''shtadlan
A ''shtadlan'' ( he, שַׁדְלָן, ; yi, שתּדלן, ) was an intercessor for a local European Jewish community. They represented the interests of the community, especially those of a town's ghetto, and worked as a "lobbyist" negotiating w ...
s'' to the residential city of Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
and other meeting-places of the Polish Diets for the purpose of securing from the king
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
and his dignitaries the ratification of the ancient Jewish privileges. ... But the main energy of the ''Waad'' was directed toward the regulation of the inner life of the Jews. The statute of 1607, framed ythe Rabbi of Lublin, is typical of this solicitude. ts rules wereprescribed for the purpose of fostering piety and commercial integrity among the Jewish people.
This firmly-knit organization of communal self-government could not but foster among the Jews of Poland a spirit of discipline and obedience to the law. It had an educational effect on the Jewish populace, which was left by the Government to itself, and had no share in the common life of the country. It provided the stateless nation with a substitute for national and political self-expression, keeping public spirit and civic virtue alive in it, and upholding and unfolding its genuine culture.
Yet then the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth suffered grave problems of institutional imbalance. Eventually, the Commonwealth was removed from the map of Europe by successive
partitions
Partition may refer to:
Computing Hardware
* Disk partitioning, the division of a hard disk drive
* Memory partition, a subdivision of a computer's memory, usually for use by a single job
Software
* Partition (database), the division of a ...
perpetrated by her three neighboring states, each an autocracy, the third and extinguishing partition coming in 1795. Following the
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...
(1815) the Russian Empire uneasily governed most of these Polish and Lithuanian lands, including the large Jewish populations long dwelling there. The
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
first restricted Jewish residence to their pre-existing
Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement (russian: Черта́ осе́длости, '; yi, דער תּחום-המושבֿ, '; he, תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, ') was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 19 ...
, and later began to further confine Jewish liberties and curtail their self-government. Not only were their rights attacked, but several of the Tzars allowed the imperial government to propagate and to instigate a series of murderous
pogroms against the Jewish people of the realm.
In the cruel atmosphere of this ongoing political crisis in the region, Simon Dubnow wrote his celebrated histories and played an active rôle in Jewish affairs. He supported the broad movements for change in the Russian Empire; yet in the main he sought to restore and to continue the Jewish
autonomy, described above at its zenith under the old Commonwealth, into the 20th century.
During his life various large and tragic events were to impact the region, which can be considered as the most horrific of places during the first half of the 20th century. Among these events, ranging from a few positive to news headlines to crimes against humanity, were: the
pogroms, the co-opted
1905 Russian Revolution, the founding of the
Folkspartei
The Folkspartei ( yi, ייִדישע פֿאָלקספּאַרטײַ, , Jewish People's Party) was founded after the 1905 pogroms in the Russian Empire by Simon Dubnow and Israel Efrojkin. The party took part in several elections in Poland and ...
, the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the
February Revolution followed by the
October Bolshevik, the
Balfour Declaration, the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (also known as the Treaty of Brest in Russia) was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), that ended Russia's ...
, the
Versailles Treaty
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 19 ...
, the
Polish–Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War (Polish–Bolshevik War, Polish–Soviet War, Polish–Russian War 1919–1921)
* russian: Советско-польская война (''Sovetsko-polskaya voyna'', Soviet-Polish War), Польский фронт (' ...
, the
Weimar inflation, the U.S.A.
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Eastern ...
, exile of
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
by
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
, the Soviet
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
, the
Great Depression,