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



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



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



The section on modes of acculturation, assimilation, and identity
offers detailed analyses of the ways in which multi-ethnic and multi-national
situations demand that the ‘outsider’, consciously or unconsciously, develop
inner strategies to fashion a specific identity. Surveying such vibrant areas
as Czechoslovakia and Poland between the two world wars and the city of Lwów in
the late nineteenth century, three essays present some of the choices Jews made
in order to deal with the changing political and cultural context. Their
meditations on belonging and not-belonging―on
the constitution of identity and its fluidity, and on the formation, breakdown,
and reconfiguration of physical, mental, social, and geographical
borders―acquire a special relevance and urgency in these settings.



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



The concluding essays examine the
tensions, paradoxes, and ironies of the phenomenon of the Jewish outsider in
Czernowitz and Vilnius, two cities where, indeed, Jews were often construed to
be the true ‘insiders’.

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