THE MEASURE OF ISRAEL is the title of this Polish-language work (review based on 1933 edition). The author, aka Tadeusz Gluzinski, was a leading thinker in the ONR (Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny: The Polish National Radical Camp). The reader, whether agreeing with Rolicki or not, can immediately see where this author is coming from. The reader can also recognize that many of the claims of this work are based on verified facts. The author relies on scholarly sources in numerous languages, including those of leading Jewish thinkers such as Heinrich Graetz, Simon Dubnow, Meir Balaban, Ignacy Schiper (Schipper), Samuel Hirszhorn, Alfred Nossig, and Karl Kautsky.

Rolicki suggests that Jews historically had commonly been animated by their belief that an earthly messiah will come and make the Jews rule over all other peoples. (p. 400). He contends that Jews try to impose their economic and ethical ways on non-Jews, especially following the widespread application of liberalism in the 19th century enabling them to do so. (p. 339). However, the author’s reasoning is measured. For instance, he never goes as far as suggesting that Jews are malevolent or all-powerful.

The author does not suggest that Jews are a race, at least in the sense of having immutable characteristics. For instance, he recognizes that Jews that come to the USA commonly assimilate to the point of losing their Jewish identities. (p. 400). [He said that back in 1933. This trend has since greatly accelerated.]

Henryk Rolicki sees much Jewish assimilation and Jewish conversion in the past (e.g, the Marranos) as being only outward in nature. However, he appreciates the fact that this was the only way that Jews could become part of the larger society before the 18th century granting of political rights to Jews. (p. 339).

Even when Rolicki published this book, Jewish-Christian dialogue already was being reduced to a one-sided black-and-white narrative of Jews as victims. Thus, Christians were blaming Jews for the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and saddling Jews with a thousand slanders about conducting ritual murders, poisoning wells, desecrating Christian objects, etc. (p. 52). This one-sided Jews-as-victim theme is even more true today!

In reality, the history of Jewish-Christian relations was more complex. Because there is so much information presented in this work, I focus only on a few topics, with emphasis on Poland.

CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

Long before Christians persecuted Jews, Jews persecuted Christians. Here are just a few instances:

The quoted historian Graetz pointed out that Bar-Kokhba treated Christians very severely. (pp. 52-53).

The Roman Emperor Diocletian was well known for his savage persecutions of Christians. According to Graetz, Diocletian was sympathetic to Jews, at least in part because he hated Christians. (p. 47).

Later, in 614 A. D., during the Persian conquest of Jerusalem, Jews massacred tens of thousands of Christians. (p. 41, 56). For more on this, please click on Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World), and read the detailed Peczkis review.

MEDIEVAL TIMES

In the Middle Ages, Jews were the only channel of commerce between Islamic and Christian countries. According to the quoted historian Ignacy Schipper, German Jews were responsible for the slave trade that involved captives from Slavic lands. (p. 85).

For centuries, Jews segregated themselves according to the dictates of the Talmud. The first instance of a forced ghetto for Jews, in Christian lands, was not until Venice in 1516. (p. 111). As for the conduct of the Inquisition, it was no different from comparable institutions of the time. (p. 94).

THE CENTURIES BEFORE THE PARTITIONS OF POLAND

Nowadays, Poland’s Jews are usually understood as ones that performed an essential function for, and on behalf of, the nobility. In contrast, Rolicki sees them as an economic burden on Poles. He claims that, during the centuries of the pre-modern period, it took a large number of Poles to feed one Jew. (p. 308). In addition, Rolicki quotes the eminent Jewish philosopher Salomon Maimon, who stated that a large fraction of Poland’s Jews did not do productive work at all. They instead devoted their entire time to studying and contemplating the Kabbalah and the Talmud. (p. 263). [In modern Israel, much the same criticisms are directed at the haredim.]

Those Jews massacred during the Chmielnicki (Khmelnytsky) revolt are commonly portrayed, especially in Ukrainian-Jewish dialogue, as innocent, collateral victims of the oppressive practices of the Polish nobility (szlachta). According to this thinking, the Jews were merely executors of the heavy-handed dictates of the Polish nobility, and Jews were then the objects of displaced peasant anger against the nobility. In contrast, Rolicki quotes the Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz, who saw the Jews as largely conducting oppressive policies on their own, and with the nobility playing a secondary role. (pp. 175-176).

THE JANUARY 1863 INSURRECTION

Rolicki presents a mixed picture of Jews relative to the Poles’ ill-fated 1863 Uprising. He quotes from the Jewish historian Samuel Hirszhorn. Hirszhorn writes that the tepid support of Lithuanian Jews for the 1863 Insurrection spared them from the cruelties of Muraviev’s reprisals. However, according to Hirszhorn, not even the Jews of Congress Poland suffered significant repercussions from the tsarist Russian authorities. (p. 330).

JEWS AND THE RESURRECTION OF POLAND (1918)

Karl Kautsky, a leading Jewish Marxist theoretician, was quoted by Rolicki as stating that any independent Polish state would impose intolerable limitations on Jewish economic activity. Moreover, an independent Poland would be “too Junker” and “too Catholic”. (p. 333).

The Litvak (Litwak) newspaper, JEWREPSKAJA ZYZN, in a 1915 article, warned that a Polish economy would be disastrous for Jews. Only a continued pluralism of nationalities on Polish soil, and continued foreign rule over Poland, would guarantee the safety [actually, economic self-interest] of Jews. (p. 334).

One common explanation (or exculpation) for Jews refusing to support the emergence of a new Polish state was the premise that such a state would not guarantee Jewish rights. The real issue was more a matter of Jewish separatism and Jewish elitism, along with a healthy dose of borderline racism and anti-Polonism. A quoted article from the June 1918 Yiddishist LECTJE NAJER, published in Vilna (Wilno, Vilnius), expressed surprise that Poles would even ask Jews for support. This was in view of the fact that Poles will not accept Jews as a full-fledged separate nationality. After all, Jewish culture is older and more advanced than Polish culture. Moreover, the Jews of the “Jerusalem of Lithuania” do not have the slightest desire to become “Polish Jews”, as the moral development of Poles is on the same level as that of the Hottentots. (p. 336).

The attitude of American Jews was no different. In a quoted 1916 work, Binjamin Segel, a Galician Jew, pointed out that groups of American Jews commonly meet, and declare their lack of sympathy towards a resurrected Polish state. (p. 335).

JEWS AND REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS

The author quotes a number of scholars who consider socialism and Communism as not as much systems that abolish capitalism in general, but as ones that eliminate the small-business capitalist. This causes the concentration of capital in a few hands. (p. 361, 403).

Henryk Rolicki (p. 386) lists the following Jewish banking houses that helped finance the Russian Revolution: Jacob Schiff; Kuhn, Loeb; Feliks Warburg; Otto Kahn; Mortimer Schiff; Serome H. Hanauer; Guggenheim, and Maks Breitung. He elaborates on how some of these bankers publicly took credit for the success of the Russian Revolution. (pp. 386-387).

The author then quotes Alfred Nossig, the Zionist. Nossig pointed out that, while Communism is not Jewish, the large-scale Jewish participation in Soviet Communism is undeniable, and that it provokes antagonism towards Jews in general, such as the massive pogroms at the time of the Russian Revolution. (p. 389). He also warned that the eventual end of Soviet rule would unleash a catastrophic vengeance, from the oppressed masses, against Soviet Jews, most of whom had nothing to do with Bolshevism. (pp. 389-390). [Unfortunately, this proved prophetic. The Nazi German invasion of its erstwhile Soviet ally, in 1941, temporarily ended Communist rule, and significant numbers of Baltics and Ukrainians collaborated with the Nazis in the implementation of the Holocaust.]