The Economic Life of the Jews in Poland as Reflected in Yiddish Literature (1914-1939)

In the following study an attempt has been made to reconstruct and depict the economic aspect and milieu of the Jews in Poland between the two World Wars. The aim of this survey has been to show the economic activities of the big Jewish industrialist, as well as of the peddler trudging with his pack through the villages, of the wage-earner and artisan, of the storekeeper and market woman, the white-collar worker, the professional class and the luftmensch, whose existence was most precarious. The study took cognizance of the Jewish struggle for survival in an atmosphere of anti-Jewish discrimination under the constant harassment and oppression of hostile Poles and their officials. (In one of his scholarly works Prof. Zeitlin has remarked that "It is an accepted fact of historical interpretation that political and even some religious philosophies of national life emerge out of the social and economic struggles within the nation.")