p.49, Translated by Beni Warshawsky
The thirty year history of Haynt can be divided into three clear periods: its founding until WWI; the years of WWI; and the period between the two World Wars, the time of Polish independence.
In its first period Haynt
laid the foundation for the modern Yiddish newspaper and established contact
with the masses. The format of the newspaper was changed and new sections were
introduced which were up until then neglected or were entirely unknown to the
Yiddish and Hebrew newspaper readers. A lot of space was allocated to news from
near and far,
During WWI, Haynt passed through a crisis due to the generally difficult political and economic situation caused by the Tsarist military regime and later by the German occupation when the newspaper could not arrive at a proper editorial position to the problems that appeared at the time.
The third period and last period in the history of Haynt was a time of ascent. During the twenty years of Polish independence, Haynt reached the stage of having become an acknowledged commentator for Polish Jewry.
Haynt began publishing
on
p.50
In 1906, the election for the
first Russian Parliament, the Duma, took place. To demonstrate the Polish national character
of Congress
The National Democratic Party (Endeks) saw that this decision was a danger to their
candidate. According to the election law
The first Duma
existed barely ten weeks. The Second Duma was also not long lived. The Third was luckier and was
active from the end of 1907 until June 1912. The Jews did not participate in
the elections of the Second and Third Duma but the
anti-Semitic propaganda in Congress
*
During the Congress of Vienna in 1815, after Napoleon’s
disastrous defeat,
p.51
the proposition.
The election of the Fourth Duma
occurred during an intensely stressful period for the Jews in Tsarist
Russia. The prevalent mood of pogrom and
terror had the additional fuel of the Beilis Trial
that the tsarist government organized like a monstrous ritual murder
tribunal. The anti-Semites in Congress
When the time came for the election campaign Jewish national
circles decided to enter their own Jewish candidate in
This very bold initiative came from a group of communal activists with the young Zionist leaders, in the forefront. This was the first time that Polish Jews decided to conduct their own independent political campaign – entirely a new event not only for Jews but also for Poles. This was a message from a new age in Jewish and in Polish – Jewish relations. Until then the Jewish Street was controlled by assimilated notables, bankers, large manufacturers, and parvenu professionals that were in partnership with the Hasidic courts. They presented themselves to the Poles as the Jewish representatives and spoke in the name of the Jewish population. They didn’t make any demands of their Polish masters nor did they achieve anything for the Jews. The Polish leaders relied on the assimilationist –hasidic partnership to supply the votes of the “Ciemno Masa” the “Ignorant Mass” as they referred to the Jews with contempt.
*
In the indirect election to the Duma
the deputies were elected through small numbers of electors in each electoral
district. They were called “vibarshtchikes.” [translator’s note: from the Polish word
- wybierac; to
elect] Haynt called them “Valmener.”
P. 52
During the electoral campaign to the Fourth Duma the Polish leadership didn’t even want to speak to the Nationalist Jews, they were so sure that they would receive the Jewish vote, for their candidate, as in the elections for the first three Dumas.
The Polish candidate to the Duma
from the city of
In this state of affairs, a significant part of Jewish
society felt that Jews needed run their own Jewish candidate. But the majority
indicated that, for political reasons and for the sake of peace, the Polish
capitol should not be without a Deputy who was a Pole. The leadership wanted to find a Pole with
positive attitudes to Jews but in the wild atmosphere of anti-Semitic electoral
agitation it was entirely not an easy task to find in
For the Haynt the election campaign to the Fourth Duma was the first opportunity to actively participate in a political campaign. The newspaper carried out its role to perfection. The “Haynt’ ” was
p.53
full of articles and local news, calling upon Jews to express their national pride and will to achieve equal rights for themselves. The newspaper encouraged the readers not to fear the terror and to oppose the program of “Polish masters and Jewish guests.” The Jewish election committee didn’t have enough money so the Haynt printed free of charge their election material and contributed funds to finance election activities.
In this poisonous atmosphere resulting from the long agitation against the Jews, the normal duty of citizenry to fulfill their obligation at the ballot box became an act of heroism. The Jewish Electors were threatened with physical attacks and economic sanctions if they dared take part in election but they did not allow themselves to be intimidated.
Despite the propaganda, Jagello was elected, in fact, due to the Jewish vote. The election was another expression of the paradoxical nature of Jewish history. Jewish merchants, manufacturers, landlords and other such public representatives constituting the electoral college gave their votes to a socialist, a worker, and a Pole who had no connection to Jewish People.
The election of the fourth Duma
caused a fissure in the history of Polish Jewry. We will see further on in our narrative that
these first Jewish independent political acts formed the basis for later Jewish
politics in independent
The Haynt’s influence on Jewish public opinion, early on in
its history, was demonstrated in the
p.54
certainly not in political life. The Jewish communal activity which had
already arisen in
The Kielce Deputy to the third Duma was the previously mentioned Victor Jaranskiwho, as a provincial lawyer, did not find the money he made from his Jewish clients repugnant, but as a Polish Deputy in the Duma, he acquired a reputation for his anti-Semitic politics and speeches. When his candidacy was again proposed to the fourth Duma, no one in the Polish camp imagined that the Jewish population would actively oppose this time and be an opposition not so easily defeated. One of the organizers of the Jewish opposition to Jaranski’s candidacy was a young Zionist community activist, Shimon Dov Yerushalimski. An article in Haynt’s Jubilee Book tells how the newspaper helped Kielce Jewry against the anti-Semitic Polish deputy.
The Jewish communal satisfaction resulting from the
electoral victory was unfortunately disturbed when the Endeks
attacked the Jews as an act of revenge for their defeat. All of a sudden the world saw that the Endek king was without clothes and that the Endeks were not the rulers of the Polish capitol. The Endeks felt
politically threatened and with very few exceptions. Barring of a group of ethical liberals, the
attack against the Jews came from all directions. The Endek party
press called for a boycott against the Jews, driving the Jews out of trade,
taking away the source of their income, throwing Jewish children out of school
and marginal
p.55
people. Jews were
guilty of all evil, Jews were the enemy, and boycotting the Jews was the
solution to the problems of the Polish people.
With exceptional hatred, the campaign against the Litvaks
[translator’s note: Jews from Lithuanian territories] was conducted, the Jews
who settled in Congress
The agitation against the Haynt was a component of the
general anti-Jewish campaign. Haynt was portrayed as a nest of Litvaks, the enemies of the Polish people, the very center
of all dark machinations against the Polish cause. There wasn’t a day that the Polish newspapers
didn’t agitate against the Haynt with shrill articles and notices. Printing translations which were disjointed
and inconsistent with the Haynt’s original. The commentaries were fabrications,
everything was interpreted as if the Haynt’s one and only intent was to
annihilate Poles and destroy their country.
The great malicious irony was that a great portion of this “bit of work”
was due to the meshumad*, Gershon
Arenshteyn. He
wrote under the name Jerzy Arenshteyn-Arenski,
who at that time, and for many years in independent
Haynt of the period was full of material about the
boycott. Each day articles and reports
were printed about boycott propaganda and regarding damages suffered by Jewish
merchants and artisans in
When the war broke out in the summer of 1914, the boycott became weaker but not for long and absolutely not for philo-Semitic reasons. Under wartime conditions when there was a scarcity of products of all kinds, Poles were happy to buy from Jews where goods were
*
Jewish renegade convert to Christianity
p.56
cheaper and everything was available. But in the press the Jew-baiting agitation continued to be conducted with savage hostility and hatred.
From its inception, Haynt fought assimilation and the
assimilationist rule of the Jewish street.
Assimilation in Congress
For decades, until the establishment of the Polish state after the First World War, the Black assimilationists ruled and took upon themselves the right to speak in the name of the entire Jewish collective body in Congress Poland despite the fact the no one ever gave them that right. The independent action of the Jewish nationalist elements during the election to the fourth Duma was entirely unexpected.
The Black assimilationists for the most part belonged to
liberal progressive Polish groups but there was no lack of those who belonged
to reactionary or conservative organizations.
They all denied that the Jews were a people and fought against every
cultural and national Jewish initiative.
They referred to themselves as Poles of the Mosaic Belief. Linguistic assimilation was not sufficient
for them. They wanted Jews to
spiritually attach themselves to the Polish people and in fact be drowned in
Polish culture. Their own Judaism was
reduced to distributing charity for certain Jewish needs (for various Polish
purposes they gave comparatively more).
Yom Kippur eve they would remind themselves of their Mosaic belief and
would come to Kol Nidre
prayers in the synagogue at
p.57
to the fourth Duma they supported
the Endek candidate.
Some took the final step and converted to Catholicism. Especially prominent among the Black
assimilationists among others the Nathanson family Ludvik (1821-1896)
Stanislaw (1857-1929), Kasimierz, and several
other members; Michael Bergson (1831-1919), Professor
Samuel Dicksteyn (1885-1954), Dr. Henrik
Nussbaum (born 1849.) Their spokesman
was Stanislaw Kempner (born 1857), the editor of the newspaper Nowa Gazeta, which with not
uncommon hatred, bitterly fought the slightest expression of national and
cultural thought among Polish Jewry. Their stronghold was the Gmina
(Jewish communal administration] in
Haynt fought the assimilationist ideologically and in
particular their bullying in the Gmina and its
institutions. The revelations regarding
the corruption which they tolerated forced the Dazares
(members of the community management committee) to defend themselves but
practically nothing changed. When
The battle against the “Red” left assimiliationists
was different. They were concentrated in
the Komi-farayn in
p.58
Polish tradition and culture and the “Red” assimilationists wanted the Jews to merge with the Polish proletariat and called the Zionists “counter-revolutionaries” who purposely misdirected the Jewish proletariat from the revolutionary battle against the capitalists. Both the “Red” and “Black” sharply fought Zionism and the Zionist ideal that continually won more and more adherents among Polish Jewry.
For many years, Haynt battled the “Red” assimilationists and
their stronghold the Komi-farayn. Haynt became the target of attacks from the radicals and the newspaper
didn’t remain silent. As an example of
the polemic we bring here an excerpt from the article in which A. Aynhorn responded to the Bundist
writer David Zaslawski (1880 – 1965). Zaslawski started
out as a Bundist afterward went over to the
Bolsheviks, became a Bundist again, and later
returned to the Bolsheviks, went to
In the article titled, “Meyerke from the Little Bund”* A. Aynhorn, among others, states “From time immemorial, heroism and boldness in the Jewish world was the monopoly of the Bund. Not a single proclamation, nor a single page was distributed, wherein this monopoly was not paraded. We, the heroes of the Jewish street, we the unstoppable fighters, we the martyrs for freedom. Principally, we and just we, everyone else, especially the Zionists are slimy, servile people encompassing every possible evil. The Bundists apparently were at ease with their song of praise to themselves. It became second nature and whether they needed to or didn’t need to they would sing it in every key. One would think that, to a degree, the war and the Russian Revolution would have allowed the Bundists to slightly moderate their weakness for boasting. Heroism today is not a rare commodity but that is the power of inertia; particularly, at the Bund. Despite all its revolutionary idealism never stopped being deeply conservative regarding the evolution of the party’s principles. . . ‘dos lidl vos zingt zikh aleyn’… (translator’s note: The little song that sings itself [it’s that same old song]).
*
The “Little Bund” was composed of children’s groups which
were organized around the Bund.
p.59
Among Russian Jews, during this last period, voices have
been heard warning that the Bolshevik epic in which Jews are substantially
represented can result in a catastrophic event which will fall heavily on the
backs of the Jews. . . The history of
the Russian Revolution has already given us examples which, to this today,
stand as evil specters in front of our eyes.
We clearly know from bitter experience that no sooner than the bright
sun appears, the smallest cloud of reaction brings with it entire waves of
Jewish blood and Jewish tears . . . It’s no surprise if, at this moment, there
awakens in a Jewish heart anxiety and trepidation on account of the Jewish
participation in the Bolshevik movement.
And how does the left respond? Of
course, they sing the same old refrain:
You are cowards, slimy and servile . . . we however are fighters…we are
rock solid…we are the salt of the earth, the pestle to the mortar . . . we…we…
that is the leitmotif of D. Zaslawski’s article which
was reprinted in the local edition of the “Lebensfragen.”* Understandably, one doesn’t forget to let
loose the accusation against the bourgeoise, the
Zionists, which is now fashionable in
The accusation that is so light heartedly uttered, “You are
a coward” . . . at a time when many, many lives are at stake; specifically,
this accusation is quite typical of a party which can’t liberate itself from
the tradition that Meyerke of the “Little Bund”
established. It is also typical for a
talented and clever journalist who as he starts defending Meyerke’s
tradition, also starts making foolish comparisons pairing Bolsheviks and speculators; that is to say,
Jewish speculators can also be the cause misfortune for the Jewish people. The chapter that is the Russian revolution is
far from over and more than one cruel shock still stands before us. And when the Bund, at this point in time,
allows itself to come to us lulling and confusing our minds with childish
slogans; that is a societal crime.” The
article was printed in the Haynt on
The polemics between the Haynt and the extreme left Jewish parties continued without interruption between the two wars. In the years (until 1924) when the Bund was lead by the left pro-Soviet faction
*
An organ of the Bund in that period.
p.60, Translated by Yale J. Reisner,
under the leadership of Yosef Lestschinsky (J. Chmurner,
1884-1935, a brother of Jacob Lestschinsky,
1876-1966) and Meir Waser (Khaver Khayim, 1890-1935), the
propaganda against Zionism and the attacks against Haynt were conducted under the presumption that Zionism would not
resolve the Jewish question, that the Zionist idea was harmful to the Jewish proletariat
and, in general, that the Jewish question would only be resolved in a world of
socialist justice, which - as they assured their readers - had already come in
Bolshevik Russia and would soon spread throughout the
entire world. When the Bund, at the time of the bloody
riots in