The people who were drawn to Israelâs left-wing political parties were mostly those who reviewed their own political stances after arriving in Israel and, while continuing to lean towards the left, decided to abandon communism. Mapam strove to maintain contact with them and offered them a substitute for political involvement by establishing press publications for them. The initiative to publish a newspaper for the GomuÅka Aliyah came from Ignacy Iserles, a communist and journalist who had been a judge in postwar Poland directly connected with the government. After his arrival in Israel, Iserles became a member of Mapam and then an editor of the Polish-language newspaper Od Nowa [A Fresh Start], which was supported financially by Mapam.
5.1 Mapam and the New Olim from Poland
By the time the GomuÅka Aliyah arrived in Israel, Mapam had evolved ideologically from when it had been established in 1948.1 In the early period of its activity (1948â53), Mapam aligned with the values of Marxism and sought a political alliance with the ussr. From 1952 onwards, its political direction changed. A breakthrough moment â and the reason for a split in the party â was when Mapam member Mordechai Oren2 was accused of espionage in Prague. An
The left-wing orientation of the new olim from Poland fit well into Mapamâs profile. Some of them, not wanting to indiscriminately yield to nationalistic values, were looking for a party that would protect their communist past so they wouldnât be forced to justify it by saying they had erred or had been politically naive.5 Divesting oneself of the past or arbitrarily rejecting previous political activities seemed to some of the new immigrants to be just as objectionable as the repentance expected by Israeli communists after the anti-Semitic persecutions. On behalf of Israeli communists, Meir Vilner (née Ber
The values connecting Mapam to Poland contributed to greater empathy and increased awareness of the problems faced by Jews from Poland, and this also made the party more attractive to immigrants who had recently been members of the Polish United Workersâ Party.12 The former plenipotentiary minister and envoy of the Israeli legation in Poland, Yisraʾel Barzilai, summed up relations with communists in Warsaw as follows: âOur partyâs relationship with the leaders of the new Poland were as good as they could possibly be. [â¦] But Iâd like to return to the extraordinary vitality shown by a handful of Jews after the war in Poland, especially the ideological ones, regardless of whether they were Zionists or communists. [â¦] I would like to find here, among you, at least the same enthusiasm that I felt when I was there.â13 Mapam offered the new olim from Poland with communist pasts acceptance and understanding. Those who, until recently, had believed in communism could sing both âHa-Tikvahâ and âThe Internationaleâ in this party, although shortly after arriving in Israel, the latter seemed more familiar to them, according to a report from the conclusion of the Congress of New Olim from Poland: ââThe Internationaleâ [â¦] sounded stronger, more powerful. Why? Is it only because its lyrics are better known by those in attendance? Itâs not only that. Itâs also because this anthem accompanied them for many years â in both war and peace. Somewhere in the middle of âThe Internationaleâ a voice here and there breaks and stops singing for a moment. Itâs necessary to overcome the emotion that is constricting the throat and suppress the encroaching wave of memories and associations.â14
Immigrants who arrived in the GomuÅka Aliyah, many of whom had been communists until recently, chose Mapam because they viewed it as a synthesis of socialism and Zionism, connecting worlds that were ideologically distant but very familiar for some activists of the former Hashomer Hatzair movement. An additional factor influencing the choice of this party was the fact that Mapamâs political community, especially its administration, was comprised
And this is where the needs of the party and the new olim diverged. Mapamâs domestic policy, primarily focused on the development of the kibbutz
Another problem, of a political and ethnic nature, was the adaptation of Jews from Poland in the context of olim coming from other countries. For instance, at the same time as the GomuÅka Aliyah, an aliyah from Romania was still in progress. Mapam, especially in countries where the Hashomer Hatzair movement had previously been well developed, was able to operate very effectively, already establishing relations with the new olim when they were on their way to Israel, mostly in Vienna. It was therefore much easier to resettle the aliyah from Romania than Polish Jews. At one meeting of the Political Council, the Romanian olim were described as âhuman material â very easygoing â not pampered. They came from Romania, where they were used to hard work. There were some members of the intelligentsia among them; out of 400 doctors, almost all have jobs.â24 In contrast, it was difficult to absorb the aliyah from Poland in the manner planned by Sochnut, which left many
The objectives and instruments of propaganda changed along with the characteristics of immigrants and the benefits that Israeli political parties could derive from them. At a Mapam meeting, the following comment was made: âThe process of adaptation is changing because the aliyah is changing. We have new olim not only from European countries but also from North Africa. Mapam is not effective among these Eastern Jews because they donât feel a connection to us. This is dangerous. Maybe there will be an uprising of people who live in the maÊ¿abarot. And that is not right. The olim from Poland are being given flats, while Jews from North Africa are staying in tents.â25 After the Sinai War (1956), the aim of Mapam activists was not so much to gain the votes of individual Jews from Poland as to turn the mass aliyah of Mizrachi Jews into political capital. As was pointed out during the party meetings, the task was difficult because these Jews did not even know about the existence of Mapam, but the propaganda apparatus strove to reach them because the party counted on their possible votes in the elections.26 At that time, it was awkward for a left-wing party to favor the Polish aliyah, which was already considered privileged. At Mapam meetings, people warned that âwe cannot solely concern ourselves with the aliyah from Poland.â27 Mapamâs political orientation required that it aim its canvasing towards discriminated groups. Although Mapam strove to adhere to the ethos of combining diasporas and to overlooking racial differences, the aliyah from European countries provided greater opportunities for the countryâs rapid development.28 Mapamâs policies were stuck between the desire to support the settlement of the left-wing aliyah
Although Mapamâs electoral sector in cities had always been weak, it did not want its position in urban areas to be completely marginalized. Since the GomuÅka Aliyah was comprised of people from large cities, many of whom had cultural connections with older Mapam activists, it was viewed as an opportunity to strengthen the party in urban areas and build an electoral base there. Although the character of this aliyah did not fit into the chalutz ideology of Mapam, its urban character aligned with this part of the partyâs political agenda in the second half of the 1950s.30 The partyâs solution to the problem of how to reach out to the GomuÅka Aliyah and satisfy their expectations for social opportunities was to establish a newspaper. Earlier, unlike other parties, Mapam hadnât given much attention to propaganda; it had instead focused on the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement, which had brought sufficiently well-prepared and ethos-conscious people to the kibbutzim. In this respect, the existing propaganda apparatus had worked well and was sufficient.31 Beyond the kibbutzim, though, it was possible to see the partyâs ineffectiveness in cities â that is, where the GomuÅka Aliyah had settled. Above all, there was a shortage of party members whom it could send to the new olim. At the same time, its competitor, Mapai, had a separate hasbarah (information) department, focused not only on maintaining contact with the new olim through a vast network of clubs â which were set up in accordance with the pace, development, and type of aliyah from various countries â but also on monitoring its projects and discussing the results at administrative meetings. Mapam was unable to follow this approach for various reasons.32
Fatigue can be seen on their faces. Theyâve come from Nazareth, Sarit, Kfar Masarik, and the settlements in the regions near Haifa. Some came straight from work. Tomorrow at 4:30 a.m., a new work day begins for them â work that is not at all easy, which they havenât grown accustomed to yet, and which is sometimes beyond their strength. But the strange thing is that they talk the least about their own troubles. When someone in the room asks one of the speakers to âtalk about electricity,â the speaker just waves his hand â and says nothing about it. Itâs the more important, more general things that trouble him.34
The shared political experiences of the new olim from Poland motivated them to hold ideological meetings within their own community. Before Od Nowa started to be published, Mapam set up a community center where journalists from Poland could meet for lectures and discussions. For many of the new immigrants, maintaining intellectual vitality was an important part of the adaptation process. The atmosphere of the years 1955 and 1956 was transferred from Warsawâs Nowy Åwiat Street to Tel Avivâs cafés. People needed to blow off some ideological steam, and their still-open connections with the past created the need for a left-wing press: âWe wanted our aliyah to speak with its own voice, the voice of its own experiences. [â¦] Above all, we didnât want to entirely reject our past, or punish ourselves for our âpast mistakes,â or don, like a chameleon, a protective color. And so a struggle against a feeling of declassification and intellectual degradation was nearly inevitable in the face of an unknown language, an unknown culture, a new existence. It was a struggle to acknowledge our conscious choice of Israel and our right to have our own thoughts, judgments, and equal rights in the cocreation of our reality.â35
The creation of a left-wing newspaper that went beyond the partyâs dogmas seemed to be a politically advantageous undertaking at the time. More importantly, apart from providing information, the foreign-language press brought the journalist community together, was a focal point for public life, and became a place where an open discourse could take place. A large number of immigrants took part in this discourse, as a result of which a social and political community formed around it. These social meetings often gave rise to the
Given Mapamâs lack of constructive resources (namely, financial resources) and people to make contact with the new olim, the party entrusted the task of creating Od Nowa to Ignacy Iserles â which turned out to be the most advantageous and optimal approach.37 During the GomuÅka Aliyahâs absorption period, Ignacy Iserles spoke on behalf of the new olim from Poland at the partyâs administrative meetings, drawing attention to the acquisition of a wider group of intelligentsia and proposing to replace standard indoctrination with more sophisticated methods: âIt is necessary to talk with the intelligentsia, not harangue them. The intelligentsia should feel that the party needs them. It is on their side. Mapai works with them â it is their professional partner. We should do this, too.â38 Of course, in the first years of the GomuÅka Aliyahâs adaptation, Iserles was particularly interested in the partyâs proposal for the new olim from Poland like himself. He turned out to be the right person to attract Polish Jews to Mapam: âMeetings with Iserles, even the ideological ones, were not so difficult. He had a sense of humor, with which he connected everything and relaxed the atmosphere,â recalled Dorit Cygielman.39
According to reports from the Polish secret services, the position of editor-in-chief was prepared especially for him due to social reasons, primarily his acquaintance with Mapam leaders, but also his journalistic experience.40 He had written articles for the left-wing publication Życie [Life] in Poland before World War ii. During the war, he had edited a military bulletin in the ussr and a district newsletter in Andijan. After the war, he spent some time in Szczecin, where he wrote political reports and reviews for the provincial communist party press and also ran a political column and a news review on the radio.41 He also participated in the establishment of the legal newspaper Prawo i Życie
5.2 Ignacy Iserles and âHomeless Themisâ
Israel Isserles (Ignacy Iserles) (1912â2008) was born into a Polonized Jewish family in Ternopil. His familyâs interest in Polish language, literature, and culture grew out of their firsthand experience of both cultures. This was particularly true for Ignacyâs mother, Natalia (Nettia), née Bandler, with whom, like his two older sisters, Anna and Lola, he spoke only Polish.44 He most often spoke Yiddish with his father Leon (Lejb). In his fatherâs family tradition, one can also find rabbinical roots â Ignacy Iserles strongly emphasized these ties, reaching back as far as the sixteenth century, to Rabbi Moses Isserles (commonly called Remuh).45 As he himself used to say, he was named after this rabbiâs father â Israel Isserl. In all the documents that have survived from the time he spent in the ussr and during the war, he wrote his name with a double s (Isserles). After the war, in Poland, as an employee of the Ministry of Justice, he reluctantly yielded to the communists who, aiming to create a homogenous
It was in 1929, or perhaps 1930. In a small, cramped room of our ânestâ in the attic, we had a passionate discussion about the future of the world and the future of our nation. The discussion was heated â we put into it the fervor of our 17 years, our naive, youthful convictions, as well as our defiant, uncompromising intolerance. We shouted at one another and âlocked horns,â and around that tiny room flew big words from the thick books from which we drew our spiritual sustenance: [Theodor] Herzl, [Dov Ber] Borochov, [Aaron David] Gordon, [Peter] Kropotkin, [Karl] Marx, [Vladimir] Lenin. ⦠We were conducting an essential discussion. Some of us sought paths towards our national liberation through the social liberation of humanity, while others, not avoiding this route, saw their hopes of personal and national liberation in a distant biblical country, which at that time was hard to reach and even harder to live in.50
Ignacy Iserles chose communism during that time. During his studies, his political activity increased even further, and he belonged to the Communist Union of Polish Youth (until 1930 it was called the Union of Communist Youth in Poland), the International Organization of Revolutionary Aid (mopr),51 and the âLifeâ Union of Independent Socialist Youth (znms âÅ»ycieâ).52 Leftist politics and political activity were an integral part of his academic life: âI lived in a student dormitory. It was a hotbed of communism there; one left-wing man
In communism, Iserles sought a solution to the so-called âJewish question,â which was entangled in complex social relations, the politics of the Second Polish Republic, and poverty. He graduated from the Faculty of Law of Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów in 1937. Until the end of his studies, he held managerial positions for the left-wing magazine Å»ycie. Shortly before the war, he returned to Ternopil. After the invasion and occupation of Polish lands by the Red Army, he began to cooperate with it, acting first as the director of the House of Folk Art and then as the head of the Personnel and Training Department in the Regional Art Department of the Civic Liberation Committee. He cooperated with the Soviets until the German troops entered Ternopil, and he then fled from the Germans deep into Russia. The rest of his family remained in Poland and were killed there. In Israel, he recalled the moment of his rescue and escape as follows: âOn Sunday, 22 June, I was in Western Ukraine. I left early in the morning to visit two friends living quite far away, whom I had seen the previous Sunday. I didnât reach them. Between our places of residence there was a military camp. Usually we could walk past it without any trouble. That day, I was not allowed to pass.â56 That was the day the German troops entered.
Ignacy Iserles did not return home; he fled to Ukraine, and from there was evacuated to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan by train.57 At the end of 1941 and beginning of 1942, he served in the Red Army â in the 321st Regiment of the 72nd Cavalry Division (on the border with Afghanistan). He served in the military for nine months but mostly dealt with educational matters: âHaving no
In MiÄdzyzdroje, on the beach, I met a friend from Russia, Leszek Lernell. He told me, âColleagues are searching for you all over Poland.â I returned
to Szczecin, and there was already a telegram waiting for me: âYou must immediately report to Minister ÅwiÄ tkowski at the Ministry of Justice.â I went there. ÅwiÄ tkowski said, âComrade, you will work for the ministry as the director of the training department.â I said, âI donât have an apartment.â He said, âYouâve already got one.â My wife, a native of Warsaw, was terribly happy about it. I was immediately given âa place at the table.â67
On 26 August 1949, he was appointed vice president of the District Court in Warsaw and, at the same time, was delegated to work in the Vocational and Ideological Training Department of the Ministry of Justiceâs Human Resources Department. He was favored from the moment he began working at the Ministry of Justice: âI was ÅwiÄ
tkowskiâs favorite; he gave me advice, took me with him to meetings, and sympathized with me. [â¦] When I wanted to get a position, I went to the Central Committee. I knew whom I should go to. We were teachers of the Central Committee â the âparty nobility.ââ68 Iserles was directly involved in the introduction of the new political and legal system in Poland. He also became a lecturer at the Teodor Duracz Law School, and he also lectured on law, the theory of state, and Marxist philosophy at the Warsaw University of Technology.69 The Director of the Ministry of Justiceâs Training Department, Maria Matwinowa, appreciated his theoretical skills, political correctness, and contribution to the training of the courtâs new staff members, which in reality meant organizing a forced training in Marxism-Leninism with the intention of indoctrinating the political âbearers of the bourgeois order,â the prewar judicial corps, as well as preparing and educating the new staff.70 According to the communists, this was one of the fundamental problems in maintaining the legal order at that time in Polandâs politically and demographically decimated
As an inspector and the person responsible for the Training Department, Iserles was able to take part in the small decision-making team of the Ministry of Justice. At that time, social ties with the highest circles of government were not insignificant. Iserles was also active in the Polish United Workersâ Party.72 On the recommendation of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee, he became a lecturer and member of the Party Committee in the Ministry of Justice. During this period in Poland, in which the prewar order was contested and the new system of power was being built, Iserles, as a prewar communist and active member of the Union of Polish Patriots, unlike other applicants who had completed legal studies, seemed to be a valuable and (more importantly, at that time) confident man for the new leadership. The freedom to admit to judicial, prosecutorial, and notarial positions people who supported the new authorities, described in a decree of 22 January 1946, allowed the circumvention of formal educational requirements, which until recently had been necessary for their fulfilment.73 Ignacy Iserles benefitted from this provision: after being admitted to the ministry, he was entered on the list of legal apprentices. He was dismissed by Minister ÅwiÄ
tkowski, immediately after which he was nominated for the position of judge in the Appeals Court in Warsaw and the Regional Court in Warsaw, and he was also appointed by the Ministry of Justice to perform the duties of judge in the Supreme Court of the Criminal Chamber.74 In the latter two courts he worked in what was
They gave us this file, the party gave it to us â they did not know what to do with this âhot potato,â this case of the prior from Jasna Góra. An innocent man was in prison. He had been in prison for over two years. They accused him of monetary violations and anti-state sermons. I knew there was no basis [for his arrest â E. K.]. I adjudicated with two other judges â Stefan Kurowski and Adolf DÄ b. The party pressed us to find a way not to judge him at all â to dismiss it to the court of first instance. We acquitted him. There were problems.79
Iserlesâs statement is in accordance with what another judge from the âsecret section,â Emil Merz, testified during a hearing before the committee: that Judge DÄ
b advised President Marian Mazur and Aleksander Bachrach to dismiss the case, and everyone was in favor of repealing the sentence and referring
In the ranks of the communist authorities, racial prejudices were freely expressed, developing in the shadow of the promised modernization of society. Both the prejudicial atmosphere at the Kremlin and the repressive climate within Polish society incentivized anti-Semitic purges. In the absence of state sovereignty after the war, there was an intensification of thinking in categories of nationality. This was often overshadowed by political tensions, but at critical moments it emerged as strong social frustrations directed against minorities. Racism and anti-Semitism did not seem to be merely temporary and incidental defects of the system; rather, communists freely deployed these sentiments in internecine disputes within the party â though contrary to Marxist ideology, they were effective as an instrument for managing the social climate. After a while, this system that aimed at total control, and which Iserles himself was involved in strengthening, began to frighten Iserles. It was the kind of fear that Alexander Wat described: âYou had unlimited power over your subordinates, over the masses, and the system was unshakable, yes. But you, yourselves? And us? We were shaking every night, at the milkmanâs hour.â82 Ignacy Iserles admitted, âI was afraid that they might find some kind of prewar stain â a political deviation. In fact, everyone was scared for their career; it wasnât easy to follow Moscowâs lead.â83
Until the sentence was passed on the prior from the Jasna Góra Monastery, apart from a remark about Iserlesâs lack of organizational skills, Iserles had
There was a political thaw in 1955 and 1956. The resignation of Jakub Berman from the Political Bureau and from his role as Deputy Prime Minister in May 1956, despite having previously been in the inner circle of the partyâs leadership, was a clear and unmistakable sign of political change and a break with the âoldâ way.94 Iserles recalled this removal as follows: âBerman gave us what in political jargon is called the âpolitical mindsetâ at lecturersâ meetings. Berman was everything to us. Staring at him, we wrote down every word he said. Just before October, at one of the editorial meetings, he had been speaking for a long time, when suddenly a few people closed their notebooks and stopped taking notes. âBerman is finished.â He didnât have anything else to say then. The dawn broke on us within that grave.â95 The period of Stalinism was summed up as follows: âPoland had a kind of internal defense with all its servile Sovietization: the nation was defending itself, and the party was defending
Many of the intelligentsia of that time went through a similar process, seduced by the mirage of the communist utopia. In the Ministry of Justice there were resignations, which also affected Iserlesâs political promoter, Minister Henryk ÅwiÄ tkowski, as well as other significant figures in the ministries involved in the creation of the stateâs apparatus of violence, including the âsecret sectionâ within which Iserles served as a judge. During the thaw, he and others like him reevaluated the previous period; in a publication printed at that time titled Prawo i Å»ycie [Law and Life], Iserles said, âAt one of the meetings, Cyrankiewicz98 said that it was necessary to establish a nonpartisan publication that touched on deeper subjects. We founded Prawo i Å»ycie; it was not against the party, nor was it any longer completely in line with the party.â99 The creation of this newspaper was also an attempt by Iserles to change his political path, break away from Stalinism, and, at the same time, carefully join the thaw. Within the pages of this newspaper, Iserles gave skeptical assessments of the achievements of the judicial system, especially its personnel policy, which was in line with the general atmosphere in the ministry at the time.100
During the October Thaw, in the autumn of 1956, a commission set up by the Minister of Justice, Zofia Wasilkowska, to investigate the circumstances of the uprising six years earlier and the activities of the âsecret sectionâ of the Regional Court of Appeal in Warsaw, included, among doubtful cases to be considered for review, some in which Ignacy Iserles had ruled. Two of the cases were found to be in gross violation of the law; no justification was found by the judges adjudicating in them.101 Iserlesâs name was also mentioned in the sections of
In the course of this process, unofficial permission was given to leave the country temporarily â for example, to go to a diplomatic post. In the Ministry of Justice there was a noted tendency to send employees of the judicial system to Korea as employees of the Polish Mission in Korea or, in the case of Jews, to Israel.102 Among the reasons for Jews leaving Poland was anti-Semitism, which in the postwar period was reinforced by protests against the totalitarian system, since many of its proponents and those in high positions of the state apparatus of violence were of Jewish origin. A segment of Polish society â atomized and locked into a defensive position against the new leaders of Poland â was looking for an easy explanation for what was going on around them âin the Jewish-communist conspiracy.â The propagandists did not have to do much in order to create an atmosphere that compelled many of Polandâs remaining Jews to emigrate. The Jews, regarded as the main executors of communism in Poland, lost a sense of security outside their own group â beyond its ties of solidarity and memory. The systematic dismantling of Jewish life in
The truth about communism was painful for two reasons: the forgotten âJewish questionâ and the tragic fates of Jewish communists in the ussr. âIt was as if an abyss had opened up in front of Jewish communist intellectuals, writers, social activists, and average people. The world in which they had invested years of their lives and their talents, hopes and dreams, had collapsed.â103 Soviet communists and Stalinists were credited with crimes in two circumstances: when Jewish writers were killed, and when they were pulled into the gears of the system and turned into champions of the regime, discrediting their cultural potential, for dogmatism had a significant impact on the assessment of this cultureâs value. It was not so much the brutish, anti-Semitic riots in the streets that motivated Jews to leave Poland as the Kremlin communiqués that were issued from time to time, because, as Iserles later wrote: âIn the end, for a man pushed nearly to the sea, it does not matter what color the hand is that pushes him.â104 The foreignness of Jews, articulated directly and in the general climate, stripped the illusions away from those who had convinced themselves that there was something that could invalidate the question of national identity, and that could allow Jews to be accepted when they professed themselves as âwe Poles.â
Ignacy Iserles continued to enjoy a great deal of favor in his community: âThing were good for me in the time of GomuÅka.105 His wife106 was my friend and she liked me very much; she made a fuss about me. Whomever she acknowledged immediately belonged to them.â107 But anti-Semitic events were pushing Iserles to reconsider the question of Jewish nationality and statehood and move thus closer once again to the left-wing and Zionist ideas of Hashomer Hatzair. His reason for emigrating was not Zionist ideals, since he also considered immigrating to France; it is only known that he wanted to leave Poland, and for this all that was required were increasingly skeptical assessments of the âPolish road to communism.â For many Jewish communists
On 4 May 1957, in the Human Resources Department of the Ministry of Justice, he found it difficult to obtain permission to leave:113 âI submitted an application to terminate my employment â they rejected it. I asked the head of the department, my friend, to put the letter among other documents that needed to be signed so that Zosia [Wasilkowska] would inadvertently sign it. But she noticed it. She called me and said, âIgnaÅ wants to leave, but he doesnât want to deal with me? Let him go. Someday heâll regret it.â But I didnât regret it.â114 He left Poland with his family: his wife Gizela and son Leonard (now known as Arie).115 He recalled his departure from Poland in the following way: âBefore I left, they stopped me at the airport and took me away. I was from the establishment. I thought I would have to stay there, and I was filled with fear: I didnât have a flat, everything had been sold, I was cursed at work. But apparently the secret services made a call to Wasilkowska, and she said, âLet him go.â Colleagues advised me to travel by ship, because they could take me off a plane at the last minute. I left on a ship full of people like me â Jews, Polish emigrants. The captain came and, on an order from the Israeli ambassador in Poland, assigned a separate cabin for me and my family.â116
âCommunists are the honor and conscience of nations,â I once read in my youth. And I was proud. ⦠Honor â well, it has been lost. And conscience? Bah ⦠I know an old communist activist â 32 years in the party â who has now come to Israel. He was offered the opportunity to join the Communist Party here. âI canât, not only because I donât agree with your policy â policy can change â but above all because I no longer want to be responsible for the actions and politics of the Soviet Union. For 30 years I carried that weight on my shoulders, and it seemed light to me. Now I have thrown it away because it drips with the blood of innocent people.â120
I was against the Soviets in Israel. I didnât join the Communist Party; I resisted it. I didnât want a party that had been sold to the ussr. I wanted to be able to breathe ideologically. How many times did I want to build a new system, but I failed; everyone failed and will continue to fail. People do not want to be equal; people want to be different, they want freedom, they want to develop freely. I created a revolution in Poland â it was unsuccessful, so I decided not to start any more revolutions, because Iâm not good at it.122
I chose the first road at that time â difficult, enormous, and thrilling. I slammed the door of our ânest.â Henryk, Dawid, Marek, Szymon, Józek, and many others followed me. You, Jacob, stayed. We went our own ways â you went to a kibbutz. [â¦] We met and started up our discussion again, which had been left unfinished more than 25 years before. We sat in your little room in the kibbutz â I, a castaway with a heavy burden of experiences and disappointed hopes of youth, and you, a kibutznik â a farmer, a calm and even-tempered man with work-worn hands and a clear conscience. You wanted to learn from me the truth âfrom there,â and I wanted to learn the intricate grammar of the life here. We spoke like mature people, rich in experiences from the last quarter of a century, without dreary words or the proverbial âso, you see,â and without regret or triumph. In this discussion, neither of us wanted to take precedence over the other. [â¦] You said, âWe have to begin life anew on this difficult and restless piece of land from Metul[l] to Eilat, connect with the nation, and experience its cares, joy, and hope.â You are right: we need to start over. Without prejudices or infallible formulas. We have to dig our way to the pure content of old truths. We must find our lost hopes and dreams here in this country, among our own people, and above all find ourselves.126
It should also be noted that the assessment of Iserlesâs involvement in the communist regime did not violate the system of values of the Mapam community. Iserlesâs communist past fit well into Mapamâs identity.127
The Polish secret services explained Iserlesâs successful adaptation, above all, by noting his joining the right-wing section of the Mapam party and gaining the full trust of its leaders. One of his close friends was Marek Gefen, a journalist and the editor of Mapamâs Hebrew-language newspaper Al HaMishmar, who, like Iserles, spent the war in the ussr.128 In the press statements by
Immediately after his arrival, Ignacy Iserles took part in meetings and discussions and shared his professional and political experiences. Especially within the Mapam community, there was interest in the âPolish road to communismâ and the accompanying political changes and ideological issues. Due to his previous activity, his fixed position in the structure of power, and his polemical
5.3 Od Nowa â The Newspaper for Outsiders133
The milieu connected to Od Nowa [A Fresh Start] was mostly formed by former communists who had voluntarily left the communist regime or had been removed from it, and who in Israel had declared their attachment to left-wing values. Ran Kislev described the editor, and more broadly the entire team, as follows: âHe [Ignacy Iserles â E. K.] had been a very devout communist â in fact, we had all been very devout communists. I canât say anything else about myself. But when we left Poland, we no longer identified ourselves
The journalists of Od Nowa were united by their youth spent involved in communism and underground work in prewar Poland, followed by their disappointment in the Polish Peopleâs Republic and their close connection to Zionism. Some also shared their experience of working for left-wing Zionist organizations and their special attitude towards the ussr, which was very sympathetic not only because of their left-wing views but also because they had been saved from the Holocaust on its territory. Certainly, the key to the constitution of the Od Nowa milieu was intellectualism combined with the activity of people experienced in political and public life, with crystallized views and political maturity.
Unlike Nowiny-Kurier, for which almost anyone could write, the selection of staff for Od Nowa was determined based on political and journalistic experience as well as on solidarity with this milieu. The third feature of this group, within a system dominated by parties, was the strong need for discourse, forging new political concepts â an attempt to find within Mapam the greatest amount of freedom to conduct a debate, to reflect on the past or the ideology with which the journalists of Od Nowa had been associated in the diaspora and around which the Jewish state had been formed. A discussion of the biographies of Od Nowaâs journalists is necessary here, because their political and intellectual experience influenced the content of this Israeli weekly, determined its profile, and was an integral part of the debates held in its pages. Due to the fact that the vast majority of them did not leave behind any published memoirs, a lengthy biographical study based on their writings and other archival materials will be devoted to them below.
One can suppose that the difficult relationship with the traditional Jewish community caused the loosening of their ties with its religious and orthodox part. In the Zausznica home, such basic customs as the maintenance of kosher cuisine, for example, were not strictly followed. Felicja MaÅskaâs mother, Rachela Szkulnik, should be counted among those with liberal views. Her passion was politics. She came from a wealthy family of WÅocÅawek Jews and was deeply involved in the communist movement. The home of the Zausznica family became a meeting place for the leaders of the prewar communist movement. For example, Leon Purman136 was a close family friend. Felicja MaÅskaâs mother also took part in underground communist meetings in GdaÅsk, where her husbandâs younger brother, Zygmunt, created a place visited by such people as Julian Marchlewski.137 One of her trips in 1925 served to collect things he had left behind and transport them to his hometown of WÅocÅawek, where both
Both Felicja and Adam Zausznica, an employee of the Embassy of the Polish Peopleâs Republic in Moscow after World War ii,141 joined the underground work of the communists when they were very young. Felicjaâs brother was involved in the printing and distribution of leaflets, as well as technical and propaganda work in general, but Felicjaâs activities were more closely linked to social aid. This type of activity was also naturally present in later stages of Felicjaâs life, both in the ussr and in Israel. A role model for this type of work was her mother, who was responsible for the orphanage in WÅocÅawek and was also active in the Sickness Fund and other social organizations. The familyâs left-wing, liberal views led them to embrace universal values, which included problems of the working class and opposition to social disadvantage and discrimination, clearly exceeding the Jewish national question in Felicja MaÅskaâs later political activity.
Prewar, multicultural WÅocÅawek, with its large and divided Jewish community, created exceptionally fertile ground for the growth and development of political movements, from communism to various Zionist groups. It was there that Felicja MaÅska met the left-wing Zionist Yisraʾel Barzilai, the first Israeli envoy to Poland, with whom her brother Adam was friends. Before the war, Barzilai belonged to the Hashomer Hatzair movement. The leftist nature of the movement also gained Adam Zausznicaâs attention for a short time, but it soon turned out that his views were more radical and, above all, without any national contexts. His acquaintance with Barzilai proved to be more long-lasting. It also translated into good relations in postwar Poland, when the
After returning to Poland in March 1947, she became a member of the Polish United Workersâ Party. She began her professional career two years later (at first she did not work due to raising her children), was accepted into the administration of the Journalism Agency, and then became a journalist. She worked for Polish National Radio and then became head of the national department of the Journalism and Information Agency.146 She
And so it happened! Weâre leaving Poland â our Poland for many generations: my parents, my husband and I, and our two children, 11-year-old Basia and 3-year-old Piotr. [â¦] When we got on the train, someone slipped a flat parcel into my hands. I unwound the paper carefully and saw an album with a beautiful, hand-carved wooden cover. With trembling hands, I opened the album and read the masthead that was so familiar to me â âapi Journalism Agency, Warsaw, Bracka Street 6/8â â and then, further down: âFelicja MaÅska â a beloved person, boss, and colleague â we wish you all the best! From the entire staff.â151
The Israeli ship âArcaâ arrives at the shore, and a crowd of people pushes their way onto it. We search for our beloved familyâs faces in the crowd. âThere he is, there he is,â my father calls out to me, âlook over there, to the right, heâs waving at us â itâs my brother Zygmunt. â¦â And so, at last, we meet my legendary uncle Zygmunt, who is called Pinchas Tazini here and is a highly esteemed citizen of Tel-Aviv. [â¦] When all the passengers of the ship had disembarked, our guides informed us that for the time being we were going to stay in the nearby settlement of Kfar Ata, where temporary flats had already been prepared for us. [â¦] They were wooden, identical barracks, each equipped with a small stove and a recess with a shower. Each of us received a large bag of food. We were deeply moved by this thoughtfulness.152
Usually in the descriptions of transit camps, maÊ¿abarot, even those written years later, one can see a strong sense of alienation, lack of acceptance by other ethnic groups, and cultural shock. MaÅska described her first moments in the maÊ¿abarah with a great gentleness and tolerance for the phenomena that many Polish Jews were offended by at that time, especially in the cultural and ethnic sphere. Later, the issue of ethnic groups and social inequalities became a frequent topic of her articles in Od Nowa. At that time, for example, she dealt with the topic of discrimination against Eastern Jews, which was rarely discussed in other Polish-speaking circles.153
The next stop in the journey of Felicja MaÅskaâs family was Tel Aviv: âThe stay in Kfar-Ata felt very long to us. My father, my husband, and I found it hard to live so idly and were anxious to work. And finally the happy day came when we were told that our stay in Kfar-Ata had come to an end and the next day we would be going to Tel Aviv. [â¦] But where were we going to live? The houses intended for our aliyah were not yet ready. However, a solution was found for everything. Some of us were put in military blocks near Tel Aviv, some in private apartments as âlodgers,â and some in small, ad hoc houses erected in Tel Aviv itself, in the area where Ramat-Aviv would be in the future.â154 After moving
MaÅska was responsible for the organization of the editorial teamâs work: she accepted articles and wrote some herself; in the opinion of the editor, her own writing improved over time.157 For a short while, she also sent articles to Mapaiâs Kurier. However, her main place of work, with which she was strongly associated, remained Od Nowa. Iserles was greatly helped by her, and they formed a harmonious team. MaÅska was excellent at coordinating the work of the editorial team, for which Iserles had no skill or talent. This had even been noted in official employment reports about him in Poland.158 Thanks to MaÅska, he was able to deal freely with what he had always been interested in: politics, social and professional life, and journalism. Felicja, on the other hand, dealt primarily with social issues. Even in circles indisposed towards her, such as the Polish Peopleâs Republicâs Embassy in Tel Aviv, it was written: âCritical of the Israeli reality, sensitive to the harm done to newly arrived repatriates, she represents a type of social activist. She often intervenes in various institutions and state offices. She is very attached to Poland. MaÅska enjoys great recognition among journalists.â159
I hardly knew my grandfather on my motherâs side â only for a few years of childhood â but he was a man who had a great influence on my life. A man of small stature with a thick, red beard and brown eyes that seemed gentle because of his shortsightedness behind round glasses in silver frames; he did not stand out at all in a crowd. And yet, when something intrigued him, his gentle gaze suddenly became penetrating, even belligerent. I had the impression that he could sense everything: hypocrisy, lies, hidden intentions. During our school holidays in the summer of 1937, my mother and I took a train from Antwerp to Warsaw to visit my grandparents who lived in a small town, Lubartów, near Lublin. I have no doubt that it was the last time I saw them. Two years later: World War ii, the German occupation of Poland, the deportation of Jews to death camps. My grandfather was 62 years old when he disappeared ⦠The name Rebe, in the case of my grandfather, did not mean he was a rabbi. A rabbi was chosen by a specific Jewish community to be its spiritual leader. No one chooses a Rebe; he becomes one through his religious erudition, his wisdom and charisma, and the many disciples, called Hasidim (âfollowersâ in Hebrew), who come to him to study the Torah and Talmud. [â¦] Before we got on the train to Warsaw, my mother bought me a little round high school cap, âso as not to hurt my grandfather,â she said. The grandson of Jezekiel Baruch, respected as a Talmid Chacham [Hebrew: a religious and erudite Jew â E. K.] and a town councilor representing the Jewish community in the city council, cannot, despite everything, show up with his head uncovered! I didnât protest. I was only eleven years old, but, to be honest, I understood. The day after our arrival in Lubartów, my grandfather took me for a walk in the village. He gently asked me, âDo you wear a hat in Belgium, too?â I decided not to lie, even if it would hurt him. âNo, Grandpa, in Antwerp I walk with my head bare, except in winter.â âTake off your hat,â he said. I was silent, surprised. âTake that hat off immediately,â he said. âWe can deceive people, but not God, who must not be lied to.â And then a little gentler: âTake off your hat, my little one.â I listened to him, then asked, âWhat will people say?â âDonât worry about what theyâll say to you. Thatâs my problem. The most important thing is to live in truth. I know pious Jews whom you will never see with a bare head, but whose life is a constant lie. You can be a good Jew and not cover your head.â We walked in silence for a while. âWho is a good Jew?â I asked. He burst out laughing. I can still hear that youthful laughter, sonorous, unstoppable, which caught the attention of a few passersby on the street. He took my hand strongly in his. âWhat does it mean to be a good Jew? A good question. Above all, you have to be a good mensch [a man of integrity and honesty â E. K.]. To be a mensch is first and foremost to seek the truth, to respect others, and to constantly remember the teachings of Hillel the Elder: âDo not do unto your neighbor what would be unpleasant for you.â If you live this way, you will be on the right track to becoming a good Jew, even with a bare head.â He smiled at me. âDo you understand, my little one?â I donât think I understood everything at that time, but my grandfatherâs words have remained in my memory.165
There was a weekly market on the square just a few meters from my grandparentsâ home. This place, which was usually quite empty, became filled chaotically with wide stalls that were hastily assembled from wobbly boards, where poorly dressed peasants presented their goods: a few eggs, jugs of sour milk, cubes of butter, lean chickens, tomatoes. A few Jewish sellers offered fabrics, needles and thread, and sugar in cubes â sold not per kilogram but per cube â and tea. It was here that I discovered poverty-stricken, rural Poland, where the poor folk, both Poles and Jews, after deep reflection, would buy 20 grams of butter, five cubes of sugar. ⦠One day I saw two men, Poles, enter the small courtyard where our house was located, quickly ascend the stairs, and talk to my grandfather. They had come to warn us about a group of peasants who, having spent everything they had earned on vodka, were drunk and unpredictable. They were heading towards the Jewish part of town. âWeâve come to warn you, Mr. Goldfinger, because we respect you. Tell the others of your faith to go home and make sure their doors and shutters are tightly closed. Thereâs the risk of a scuffle here. â¦â When my grandfather told me this, his eyes shone. âAmong us it is often said, and far too easily, in my opinion, that all Poles are anti-Semites. Among them, just like among us, there are people who are honest, hardworking and even brave â like those two men who came to talk to me â but also scoundrels. Thatâs how the world is.â When I asked him why he didnât summon the police instead of hiding behind closed shutters, my grandfather smiled: âThe Polish police are not like your Belgian police. Here, a policeman wouldnât budge to protect a Jew.â166
Iâm ill. My grandmother checks my temperature. In matters of health, she takes control. She rarely speaks, but a calm authority and self-confidence emanate from her. Sheâs a slender, beautiful woman, almost a head taller than my grandfather, with huge black eyes that contrast strongly with her pale skin and reveal a serenity that she may not be feeling today. Suddenly, the house is filled with women. My four aunts come to the rescue. My temperature is only 37.2, but my grandmother decides to summon the doctor. Our family doctor is Dr. SÅowikowski, a tall man with a bald, highly domed, oblong head, about 50 years old. [He was a] Pole, which, of course, meant he was a Catholic, while there are four Jewish doctors in the town. âIâve had to deal with two of them,â says my grandmother, âand they certainly know their profession, but I trust only SÅowikowski.â She isnât alone in this. This Dr. SÅowikowski has an important clientele among the Jews. He is known for his honesty and the accuracy of his diagnoses. âAs soon as he opens the door, a person feels calmer,â says my grandmother. The doctorâs first question is: âOfen byÅ?â Two words â the first Yiddish, the second Polish. The translation: Has there been a bowel movement? They bring him a bowl of water, soap, and a clean towel, freshly taken out of the wardrobe. After a vigorous washing of hands, the doctor first examines my stitches. Under the attentive gaze of my grandmother, mother and aunts. He rises and strokes my head: âItâs nothing dangerous, a slight flu. In this house, it will be easy for him to recover.â My grandmother laughs, my mother laughs, and I laugh. âHe needs sunshine. Look for the sun, my boy, for itâs a great healer.â To an outsider, it may seem strange, even surprising, to see Dr. SÅowikowski go to this Jewish, very orthodox house. He greets everyone, knows the name of every member of the family, and asks about cousin Rosa. âSheâll soon give birth, wonât she?â he asks in a worried tone. This was representative of life in Poland, the relations between Catholics and Jews â there was not only anti-Semitism.167
The war separated Wiktor Cygielmanâs family â each of them survived in a different Catholic monastery. In Belgium, the cooperation of the communist parties with the Catholic communities helped to save many Jews.168 Wiktor
After the war, he complied with his motherâs wishes â in 1947 he began medical studies in Antwerp but switched to the Academy of Fine Arts a year later. During his studies he joined the Union of Jewish Students in Belgium (1947â48). Political activity turned out to be more important to him than education, so he soon abandoned his studies. He set up a Hashomer Hatzair Jewish
Wiktor Cygielmanâs aunt, Yaninah (Jeanne) Mailer (née Goldfinger), was largely responsible for his close relationship with communism and the formation of his views. Who was she? It is known from Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir that she was born in 1913 in Lubartów, was active in a student communist organization in Poland before the war and was expelled from her high school for her political activity. In order to escape imprisonment, she fled from Poland to Belgium in 1933. In 1937 she joined the International Brigades fighting in Spain against General Francoâs army. In 1937â39 she worked in the military hospital of the Communist Party of Belgium in Spain, where she married Emmanuel Mailer. After the defeat of the republicans, Emmanuel crossed the Spanish-French border and was interned for several months in a camp near Perpignan (France). After her release, at the express request of the Communist Party of Belgium, she became a âprofessional revolutionary,â meaning that she worked full-time, and in 1939 she became the leader of the Communist Party in the moi (Main-dâoeuvre immigrée).173 During the German occupation, they both went underground and joined the resistance movement. Jeanne was a member of the (communist) office that edited anti-Nazi pamphlets and treaties, and her husband joined the Partisans Armés [Partisan Army] in Belgium, an organization that was part of the Résistance, and from then on lived on false papers. Jeanne signed her articles as Jeanne Gold, and Loncin was the literary pseudonym of Emmanuel Mailer in Czerwony Sztandar [The Red Banner].174 Wiktor Cygielman collaborated with them; in fact, they were the ones who encouraged him to join the communist underground and resistance movement. He became a member of the Hillel Jewish youth organization, as well as
In 1948, together with other volunteers from the Communist Party and the Union of Jewish Students in Belgium, he took part in the Israeli War of Independence. The support that the ussr gave to the Jewish state in 1948 opened the door to Israeli communists, especially the left-wing community associated with Hashomer Hatzair, for combining a national ethos with internationalism. They were part of the Mahal movement,176 the Jews mobilized from outside Israel who came to fight for the independence of the Jewish state. Wiktor Cygielman became the political leader of a group of 20 people, with whom he came from Belgium and joined the ranks of Palmach.177 At the same time, he was responsible for the communist section of the regiment in which he served, and on its behalf he edited the communist newspaper La Voix du Peuple [The Voice of the People] for French-speaking volunteers. Communists recruited from Mahal added political conflicts and disputes to the turmoil of war, led vigorous discourse and ideological disputes, and organized strikes â they let off ideological steam. During the war, Wiktor Cygielman was able to directly observe the aggression of the Jewish Palmach troops, which were some of the most ruthless fighters against the Arab population. During the war, Cygielmanâs group, convinced that it was dealing with farmers and not attackers, refused to carry out an order to shoot the Arab population. This âinsubordinationâ burdened Cygielmanâs military experience and his attitude towards the Palestinian-Arab-Israeli situation, which later dominated his public activities and seems to have begun in the years 1948â49.178
Do I love Poland? Ask yourself that question about your own country. ⦠But I loved Poland so much in Paris. When my parents emigrated in 1933, I was only seven years old, so what could I remember about Poland? But my father kept reminiscing, and my mother missed Warsaw so much. ⦠âVarsovie, la ville Varsovie lâhéroïque. â¦â In Paris, I didnât miss a single exhibition or lecture on the reconstruction of Warsaw. âThe whole nation is building its capital.â Iâm returning to Poland. Itâs doubly my country, I thought at the time, for my great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, and I were born there. Itâs my homeland, and now itâs also a socialist country.179
In 1951 Poland, Hungary, Romania, and other communist countries demanded that various Western communist parties recruit intellectuals from these countries in order to âhelp build socialism.â Shortly after my wedding, my wife and I (also a communist) arrived in Warsaw in mid-December 1951. One of my best friends, Martin, left for Budapest. He didnât speak Hungarian, while I remembered only a few words in Polish. But we were both burning with revolutionary zeal. A few weeks later â I had just completed an accelerated Polish language course â I was summoned to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. I was happy
and excited. My wife Tola (Renee) had recently given birth to a wonderful little girl with long black eyelashes, Sonia (Yael), and I was about to find out what mission the party would entrust me with. A party officer received me respectfully. He spoke fluent French. âWe need members like you for the young party movement,â he said. âYou do not yet have sufficient command of the Polish language. Thatâs not a problem. Thatâs even good. Most of the Jews speak Polish with a Yiddish accent. You donât. Your light French accent doesnât bother anyone. Whatâs more, youâre not the Semitic type. But your family name â Cygielman â sounds Jewish. You have to change your name. In this way, you wonât feel anti-Semitic reactions that, in addition, would limit or harm your political influence. Letâs see â¦â I interrupted him: âA change of name is not an option. I know that anti-Semitism, the legacy of a reactionary society in semifeudal, capitalist Poland, has not disappeared. But it must be fought with an open face, not hiding behind a false identity. If you think my name will be an obstacle to proactive political activity, Iâll board a plane to Brussels tomorrow.â Although I forced myself to speak calmly, he could sense my anger, my indignation. âNo need to be upset, comrade â if you donât want to change your name, you donât need to. Weâll find a job thatâs appropriate to your abilities.â Calm down, I told myself, you came here because of your ideals and your desire to help, you wonât retreat after the first problem. This is how I found myself in the English-language radio broadcasts of Polish National Radio, far away from the folk masses and their possible anti-Semitic reactions.
He later described this situation in Po Prostu, under the pseudonym Hanka Szwarcman.182
Yaninah Mailer, with her rich curriculum vitae and experience in the communist movement, became an employee of the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workersâ Party immediately after her arrival and also accepted a job at the âWiedza Powszechnaâ National Popular and Academic Publishing
In the winter of 1952â53 I did a report in a Polish village, about 70 km east of Warsaw. We were in the middle of an election campaign. [â¦] So I came to the village with my radio technical crew, curious about the opinions of peasants participating in the election. It was as cold as hell. In a huge square, completely white with snow, several dozen frozen peasants gathered in front of a church, stamping on the frozen ground in order to warm themselves up. A wooden platform was dominated by the secretary of the village party, the chairman of the local peasant union, and a speaker from Warsaw. A stream of words, a stream of clichés â I would say today â but at that time, they seemed very convincing to me. The peasants, with their still, stubborn faces, did not seem to understand much about this magic ceremony. âProbably the parish priest, hostile to the regime, stuffed their brains earlier,â I said to the sound technician, who gave me an astonished look. âEveryone does what they have to do: I do the recording, and the peasants are extras,â he says. âExtras?â I repeat. âPassive actors who
are extras, like in the theater?â He nods his head, with a barely visible ironic smile. He is not a member of the party, but he is a good technician, and I respect him. I ask him to record some background noise and the applause after the end of the speech (âif there is any,â he answers), and then I leave. I would like to visit the interior of a peasant cottage. I knock on the door, and they invite me to come in and help myself â Polish hospitality â to a midday meal. I forgot what time it was. Slightly embarrassed, I accepted the invitation in order not to offend them. Instead of a floor, just hard earth. There were no plates; the middle of the table was hollowed out, and in it there were a few potatoes floating in curdled milk. There were six of them, including the grandfather. They gave me a stool and a spoon. I was supposed to do as everyone else â fish for the few potatoes that this family seemed to need much more than I did. I excused myself, saying I wasnât hungry, and settled for a little bit of curdled milk. Deep in thought, I went back to our car. The meeting was over. The sound technician told me, âI have some sounds of the crowd and a bit of applause that we can amplify in the studio.â I wrote my report. The political climate was generally positive. The election campaign was present even in the smallest villages. I added a few observations: âThere are still peasants who didnât have wooden floors in their homes. You can be assured that the socialist leaders, as soon as they find out about this, will do everything necessary to remedy it as soon as possible. There arenât always enough potatoes, either. There has probably been a disruption in deliveries. The party must see to what needs to be improved.â Three days later my report, although planned in the weekly schedule, was not released. âA very good report,â the editor told me in a gloomy tone, âbut the current time obliges me to postpone its broadcast; you know, the relevance and service of journalism. A very good report,â he repeated and then marched away. Mietek, the radioâs party secretary, joined me while I was drinking coffee in a corner. An old communist from before the war with a good sense of humor, he didnât trust bombastic speeches and was known for his honest statements. We respected each other. He spoke bluntly: âYour report had all the merits except one: it lacked the communist mindset. If you thought about it in a communist way, you would understand that we canât publish a report that stresses that Polish peasants are unable to satisfy their hunger and that they have dirt floors in their homes.â âWhy not, if itâs true?â I replied, and to overcome my growing irritation, I became sarcastic: âItâs good to know that to be a good communist, you have to hide reality. Apparently, I was wrong in thinking that you have to show reality, even unpleasant reality, in order to be able to change it.â Mietek didnât smile. He wasnât angry, though. He spoke in a hushed voice, with a cautious tone: âYouâre intelligent and well-informed. You canât ignore the fact that the economy of the Polish Peopleâs Republic, burdened with its feudal and capitalist heritage, and sabotaged by those who have remained here among the reactionary elements, canât satisfy all the needs of its citizens, including the peasants, as we, the communists, would like to see. Making a case of this weakness will not strengthen the socialist economy at all, but will strengthen our enemies, both external and internal, by giving arguments for their anti-socialist propaganda. Donât forget that youâre not just a reporter; youâre also, and above all, a communist.â That shut me up. I wasnât really convinced, but in a strange way I felt calmed by his assurances, and by the serene confidence of this old communist. But that certainty was going to crumble.186
The initial enthusiasm for the way socialism was being implemented in Poland turned into deep disappointment. Wiktor Cygielman joined the editorial team of Po Prostu, which, as Dorit Cygielman recollected, was important for him. People with a similar mindset were attracted to this weekly newspaper. His articles were published under the pseudonym Hanka Szwarcman because he wanted to hide his presence in Po Prostu, which was becoming increasingly oppositional and critical of the government, and he was still employed by Polish National Radio. In 1956 during the October Thaw, he led a group that took over the radio station for a few days, demanding political change. At that time he was convinced that the October Thaw would be a great opportunity to repair socialism in Poland, but anti-Semitic slogans were revived, pushing Jews out of society, proving that national issues, regardless of the system, could be decisive, and that the Holocaust hadnât led to a revision of anti-Semitic attitudes. On the contrary, the social revolution in socialist countries and in the center of power in Moscow created a new narrative for them (identifying Zionism with conspiracy, betrayal, and spies), which ultimately put an end to Cygielmanâs hopes of staying in Poland.
Going to Israel was a way to escape from communism. Cygielman, writing under the name Hanka Szwarcman, published a moving article about Polish anti-Semitism in Po Prostu.187 He later commented on the whole
My grandfather recommended looking for truth and respect for others. Itâs not easy. ⦠I remember the years when I was a communist. Convinced that I had discovered the truth, I did not understand how others could doubt it or question it. They have eyes, but they canât see; they have ears, but they canât hear. It didnât occur to me that perhaps I didnât know everything, and that I didnât want to see or hear. Surrounded by the wall of my
truth, I didnât show the slightest curiosity or, above all, respect for the ideas or opinions of other people.191
He was not a sentimental person and was able to become settled in the new place quite quickly. He lived in Holon and accepted a job as a translator for the French-language newspaper LâInformation dâIsrael. It was a place where they came not so much to work as to speak French with one another. Wiktor Cygielman, usually very busy, would stop by there for two or three hours, but he did not want to integrate with the political communities, especially the one connected with Mapai, and there was a note hanging on the door to his room that read: âIf you donât have anything important to say, say it somewhere else.â He argued with Himelfarb about ideological issues that in no way appeared in the newspaper, and until 1965 he only earned the bare minimum to cover his living expenses from his work at LâInformation dâIsrael.192 He soon joined the intelligentsia from Al HaMishmar, where he especially appreciated the company of Abraham Shlonsky, with whom Ignacy Iserles also had a close friendship. Shortly after the idea of establishing the newspaper Od Nowa was born, Shlonsky invited Cygielman to cooperate.
A problem was his poor knowledge of the Polish language. He knew it only thanks to his mother, who had graduated from a Polish gymnasium before the war and had regularly read PÅomyczek to him in Belgium.193 He felt the language complex typical of an immigrant â on the one hand, he was multilingual, but on the other, his linguistic knowledge was insufficient to use it. He wrote about his difficulties: âI was born in Poland in 1926; my mother tongue was Yiddish. I was not yet five years old when my parents decided to immigrate to Belgium. In Anvers, on the street, I learned Flemish, but I never felt comfortable in that language. I spoke Yiddish at home and with my Jewish friends, and I learned French at school.â194 After living in Israel for more than 50 years, he knew Hebrew, but he never felt comfortable writing in that language. He spoke French quite well: âAlthough this language was never really my mother tongue, itâs the language I know best.â195 Cygielmanâs articles printed in Od Nowa were dictated to Felicja MaÅska and Ida Fink, and they were usually translated from
In Israel, Wiktor Cygielman sympathized with Mapam but remained skeptical about its agenda in regard to Arab issues. The unresolved Arab problems had a strong impact on the political agenda of Mapam â the party with which Wiktor Cygielman associated. For this reason, he shifted from sympathizing with parties to organizing and participating in campaigns and demonstrations for the benefit of Israeli-Palestinian harmony. On this level, he cooperated with Uri Avnery and his publication Ha-Olam ha-Zeh.198 He strongly opposed intolerance, xenophobia, and racism in Israel and respected the rights of non-Jews and Arabs alike.199 Independence of thought and experience in the so-called ârevolutionary movementâ also pushed him to organize his own intellectual and political community, to take action to defend the Arab population, and to contravene the interests of one of the national groups â the Jewish population.
It must be recognized that the fact that each side is demanding its own homeland on the same piece of land cannot be resolved other than by a compromise in which each partner must, partly unfairly and partly justly, create its own national legal status that will enable it to fulfil its national aspirations. All of our present and future efforts must aim to promote understanding of this most important postulate within both the Israeli and Palestinian masses, on the one hand, and what we call the Arab world and the Jewish world, on the other. Palestinian nationalism, like Israeli nationalism, must find a compromise. If Israelis have come for various historically determined reasons and not to realize their national aspirations on this land, then Palestinians must also create a national Palestinian state â not in place of Israel but alongside Israel. Relations between the two states, initially very modest, could lead to very close ties, perhaps even a confederation, when the justified mutual distrust is overcome. Perhaps one joint Israeli-Palestinian state can be implemented in the same way, where the constituent communities can continue their development without fear of one dominating the other.203
A sign of the positive reception of New Outlook was the fact that the President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, referred to articles printed in it while speaking in the Knesset during a visit to Israel (he was the first leader of an Arab state to visit Israel).204
In 1964 Cygielman left for Paris and began a new stage in his journalistic life â an intensive cooperation with the French press. The problem of Palestinian-Israeli relations shifted to the level of international discourse. Esprit devoted a special issue to this matter, and he also sent articles to Le Nouvel Observateur and Le Monde Diplomatique.205 As Dorit Cygielman recalls, he went âstraight from the streetâ into society, befriending Jean Daniel and Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber from LâExpress. He moved from Paris to Belgium, where his circle was still involved with Hashomer Hatzair. Some of them, including David
In Wiktor Cygielmanâs correspondence, you can also find letters from Isaac Deutscher â a Jew from Chorzów who was a Marxist, a history professor, and the author of a biography of Stalin.210 After the publication of New Outlook ended in 1993, Cygielmanâs last initiative was the creation of PalestineâIsrael Journal, which he founded and edited together with Ziad Ali Khalil Abu Zayyad211 until his death in 2007. In one of the memos written by the Polish secret services, Cygielmanâs reputation in Israel is summed up as follows: âBasically honest and decent, generally liked, although his views are still slightly naive.â212 He enjoyed authority in his community. He was a highly respected person. His biography corresponds with the fates of communists of Jewish origin from the
In 1956 we were revisionist communists â we were trying to change communism through communism, but nobody was able to do it. When âGomuÅka ended,â what was left for us to do next, other than go to Palestine? When I thought of Israel, the word âwonderfulâ came to mind, to the extent that on the wall of my apartment in BiaÅystok there was an old, historical map with some towns and villages marked: Jaffa and Akko, and Caesarea between them, and of course Jerusalem. I came to the conclusion that we would live in Caesarea â which was close to everywhere else. I more or less calculated that halfway to the industrial city of Haifa, near Akko, I would find a job, and that in Tel Aviv/Jaffa there would be entertainment and culture; we would find everything close by, and I would be able to get anywhere by motorcycle. But at that time, apart from the historical ruins, there was only a Moroccan maÊ¿abarah in Caesarea.216
We flew to Israel, even though no one really knew where we were going. A Sochnut employee recommended Beit Shemesh to all the passengers. He convinced a student of a music conservatory that from there he would just be âone step awayâ from Jerusalem, where he would be able to find somewhere to continue his studies. A journalist was told by the same Sochnut employee to âgo to Beit Shemesh,â since from there it wasnât far to Tel Aviv, where newspapers were being published, and he could find a job. A shoemaker was also directed to Beit Shemesh. In a word, everyone on the plane flew to Beit Shemesh. And there we found: one street, on the left side of which lived an aliyah from Morocco, on the right side an aliyah from Poland and Hungary, one tree, and at the end of the village a burnt stone.217
Thanks to his inclusion in the special patwa program for journalists from the last aliyah, he managed to leave Beit Shemesh and move to Tel Aviv. With the help of this organization, he completed a Hebrew course, got a job, and became the chairman of the section of newly arrived journalists at the Journalistsâ Association of Israel.219 After attending the language course, and then a special course for journalists organized by the Jewish Agency as part of the so-called âadaptation of the new olim,â he went straight to the Hebrew-language newspaper Haaretz. He was given the position of night reporter â a night shift role that lasted from 7 p.m. to closing that involved little work â which was created by Gershon Shoken especially to support the adaptation process for journalists from the last aliyah. Outside of this integration process, it was not easy for an oleh to become a professional journalist writing in Hebrew. âThe joke,â Kislev recalled, âwas that I couldnât write in Hebrew, and the editing of several poems, even with a dictionary, was torture for me. And although in the reportersâ room of Haaretz the Polish language was enough to allow me to exist, I had the ambition to write long, serious texts in Hebrew. Six or seven months after I joined this newspaper, I resigned. I had joined as the last of the four journalists forming the editorial team of Od Nowa.â220
This did not, however, mean exclusion from the community of Hebrew-language press writers. In 1958 Ran Kislev became a journalist for Ha-Olam ha-Zeh [This World], known for its pro-Arab, peaceful stance, promoting the concept of creating a Palestinian state, and on the other hand for its harsh, sometimes sensational articles, paired with intriguing covers â some referring to political events, others to eroticism. In this way, in the barrage of political press publications, he wanted to draw attention to his magazine, based on so-called âanthropological interests,â typical of the tabloid press, combining moral issues with serious problems. The journalists of Ha-Olam ha-Zeh protested against the dominant party at that time and were also known for their uncompromising fight against the Israeli establishment â as Uri Avnery recalled â and there was no room for poorly adapted journalists in such a publication. The editorial team, which included some sabras, had to be strongly integrated, and Weksler needed to be an integral part of it â and this meant that his surname,
Od Nowa also published articles by Boris (Dov) Eppel, a well-known journalist and deputy editor of Rzeczpospolita, Nowa Kultura, and Å»ycie Warszawy who collaborated with Adam Panasiewicz in the creation of postwar Polandâs first Journalism and Information Agency (Agencja Publicystyczno-Informacyjna).222 In Polish documents, he is recorded as Boris Eppel. At the outbreak of the war, he was stranded in Równe, and from there he was deported deep into the ussr in 1940. From the account of his son, Michael Eppel, we know that in 1939 he was arrested and tried for Jewish nationalism as a Zionist and member of the PoÊ¿alei Tziyon Party. After the signing of the agreement between Poland and the ussr in July 1941 (the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement), which included the release of Polish citizens residing in the ussr, Boris Eppel left prison. He did not manage to leave with Andersâs Army; shortly after the unilateral break of diplomatic relations between the ussr and the London government, he was arrested again, this time as a Polish nationalist, and imprisoned for two years.223 As a result, he was punished for two types of nationalism: Polish and Jewish. After the intervention of the Central Board of the Polish Patriotsâ Union, an application was sent to the Supreme Court of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic for consideration.224 He was released in
He had aligned himself with Ahdut HaAvoda because it coincided with the political agendas of the parties to which he had belonged in Poland â from 1935 to 1939, and then from 1945 to 1947, he had been a member of the PoÊ¿alei Tziyon Left, and he remained with this party after its merger with Hashomer Hatzair to form the PoÊ¿alei Tziyon United Workersâ Party. Over time, his contact with these parties became looser, and he left for Israel without a partisan affiliation, but he remained under the influence of left-wing Zionist parties, especially Ahdut HaAvoda. In Israel, he fully participated in public discourse, having no major problem with linguistic adaptation â he already spoke Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish fluently before he left Poland. He also joined the Od Nowa staff, although he was not formally a member of its editorial team, and he maintained close, social contact with its editor, whom he had met after arriving in Israel. At that time, he was also a correspondent for Å»ycie Warszawy in the Middle East, and the editorial staff relied on his reports, especially during the Eichmann trial.232
Roman Frister (born 17 January 1928 in Bielsko, died 9 February 2015 in Warsaw), a journalist for SÅowo Polskie in WrocÅaw and later for Express Wieczorny, was known for his good writing, especially in the reportage section. He also published articles in the Israeli newspapers Od Nowa and Nowiny-Kurier â though he stated in an interview that his articles in the latter were printed without his consent.233 The editor of the Haaretz weekend magazine
Od Nowa published articles by authors from outside the narrow journalistic community. For example, it published the literary debuts of writers such as Ida Fink, whose first short stories were published in this newspaper.237 In the 1950s, she made her first literary attempts, for which she was awarded prestigious international awards in later years. She was attracted to Od Nowa by her friends, including Felicja MaÅska and Wiktor Cygielman. Within Od Nowa,
In addition to Abraham ÅlÄ ski, the community connected to Od Nowa also included Anda Amir-Pinkerfeld, who, because she had belonged to Hashomer Hatzair in her youth, took part in Mapamâs social meetings in Israel. There is also a trace of Leo Lipskiâs work, which Ran Kislev recalled as follows: âHis first books were published by Kultura, but in Israel we were eager to get our hands on his work and started looking for him. We finally found him in a foul apartment under the stairs, in a very difficult situation. He was always sick. We found him and were foaming at the mouth to start printing his work. We accepted everything he wrote, but all of it together amounted to very little, and soon his book was published in Paris, and our opportunities with Lipski were over.â239
A letter came to the editorial office. Long, verbose. In such cases, manuscripts are always put aside for âpossible future use.â With reserve, which is a feature of all editorial staff, we opened the envelope. Poems. Our reserve turned into mistrust. For what editor is not afraid of graphomaniacs? And something unexpected happened. The first poem drew our attention so strongly that it was impossible to tear ourselves away, and we had to read it to the end. A strong waft of fields and forests blew into our tiny editorial room on gusts of the purest, truest poetry. [â¦] The author was 14-year-old Sewek Plocker, from Cholon.241
âWhat does your family think about this?â
âActually, they like my poems. Although my grandmother says itâs a waste of time.â
âWhat did she say when you got the letter from us?â
Sewek laughed. âShe said that she wasnât surprised â¦â
âHow do you feel in Israel?â
âHmm, itâs actually hard to answer that. In any case, I donât feel better here than in Poland. Because in Poland I studied well. I knew I was Jewish, and my friends knew it. I donât have any friends here yet, or even acquaintances. In Poland, I was always the best pupil. Here I wonât be the best anytime soon, even though I skipped a class (Sewek is in the sixth grade of junior high school) and even though this week I was praised for an essay I wrote in Hebrew. ⦠Actually, Iâve done so well in Hebrew that Iâve begun writing poems here.â
[â¦]
âDo you have any difficulties in learning?â
âNo.â Sewek laughed again. âMy grandmother said that if I understand PrzyboÅ,242 then Tanach wonât be difficult for me. It turns out that Tanach is more difficult â¦â243
Od Nowa was not only a press publication that was worth sending a good article or poem to; it was also a forum for people to spend time and socialize.244 Nearly everyone wrote for Hebrew-language newspapers and magazines and stayed abreast of the mainstream public discourse, so they were not solely confined to the Polish-speaking community and the range of topics that were typical for the foreign-language press.245
The concern for good writing limited the team of journalists to a few people. It seems, therefore, that almost all the journalists wrote more than one article for each issue, hidden behind pseudonyms, as was their custom during underground work in the communist movement. Ignacy Iserles used his prewar
5.4 Success with Readers in the Israeli Press
Our contact with Al HaMishmar dates back to the days when, as the editorial staff of Od Nowa, we stayed in the building of Hadfus Hachadash.248 Each of the ârestorersâ began a new Israeli chapter of his journalistic career at Al HaMishmar, and each of us, here in this house, collected our first fee in Israeli pounds. When we were taking our very first steps in the unknown land of Israel, while many of us were given âfriendlyâ advice to switch to another, more âsolidâ profession, since in Israel there was no need for journalists, especially journalists who were incompetent in ivrit [the Hebrew language â E. K.], at Al HaMishmar we were told: write. However you want, whatever you want, and in whichever
language you know. Weâll correct your texts, translate them, and publish them. But â write. And then, when we started to publish our newspaper, Al HaMishmar, they made available to us what is so important and necessary for each newspaper: a material archive, a photographic archive, and ⦠friendly advice. Personal friendships were born from the initial contact between the hosts and the new arrivals. And so it is already customary that starting our work day, we âhopâ up to our friends on the upper floor, simply to tell them âShalom.â249
Until the establishment of Od Nowa, the professional adaptation of the journalists from the last Polish aliyah progressed despite Mapamâs lack of Polish-language press. It seems that the creation of Od Nowa was part of a larger whole â opportunely, for the aliyot from different countries, the foreign-language press sector was strengthened before the elections, and it was decided at the same time to print materials in Yiddish, Hungarian, French, and Arabic. However, the establishment of the Polish-language press had an additional determinant â it was a response to the actions of a competitor, and until recently a political partner, Ahdut HaAvoda, which, like Mapam, wanted to attract as large a group of Polish olim as possible. They were particularly concerned about the influence that the leader of this party, YaÊ¿akov Zerubavel, had on Polish Jews.250 At that time, Ahdut HaAvoda was publishing a news bulletin for new immigrants from Poland, which was published only briefly and can be counted among the press ephemera of that period. It was visually similar to the Hebrew version of La-Merchav, but unlike the Hebrew version, it was poor in content. However, its very presence on the market increased competition in the sphere of Polish-language political press addressed to the new members of the Polish community in Israel.
The rivalry between parties also determined the periodicity of Od Nowa. The initial idea of publishing it as a biweekly magazine was abandoned in favor of a weekly edition with fewer pages (from eight to six), just so as not to leave space for rivals.251 Ahdut HaAvoda, which had supported the ussr
The political creed of Od Nowa boiled down to a rejection of sectarian hatred, a focus on short-term political goals, and a break with communism, while still retaining attractive left-wing values. This was in keeping with the expectations of Od Nowa readers, who advised people to stop thinking in black-and-white categories, to broaden their perception of political issues, and to seek a broad horizon that would nevertheless include Marxism: âOne could add that âwe are standing on the very foundation of Marxism ⦠or Marxism-Leninism, or Marxism-Leninism-Zionism. â¦â But it was a simplification of the matter, a label on the bottle, the contents of which are still not precisely defined. So far, we are sure of only one thing: that we are standing on the foundation ⦠of Israel.â254 That is how the editorial team addressed readers. Od Nowa signaled a change in the left-wing course and an attempt was made to draw conclusions from the previous mistake-filled Stalinist era, but â in contrast to the immigrants who once again opportunistically clung to the ruling party â no restrictions were placed on criticism of the country of origin, and the values of the system were assessed more broadly.255
Mapam covered the cost of the first editions of Od Nowa with a loan from Histadrut, which was enough to print at least a dozen subsequent issues.256 In addition, Mapam guaranteed logistical support and provided a printing house and paper: âMapam had its own printing house as well as branches that distributed the newspaper, and this was a huge help at the time,â recalled Ignacy Iserles. In the first few months, Od Nowa sold between 2,000 and 2,500 copies â a small number, but comparable to other initial editions of foreign-language
Therefore, even if the rudimentary statistical data does not allow us to illustrate the dynamics, size, or tendency of Jews from Poland who arrived as part of the GomuÅka Aliyah to join Israeli parties, including those declaring their attachment to Mapam, the extensive system of distribution of their foreign-language press allows us to determine, if not the exact number of members (due to the lack of clear declarations), then at least the approximate scale of its support.260 These estimates, however, are burdened with a certain error
A) The editors are very conceited. They believe that although they publish a Polish-language weekly for Jews in Israel, they should take care of its intellectual and linguistic level. B) Although they chose the name Od Nowa for the magazine, they try to keep in mind a beautiful maxim of moral aesthetics that preaches: Do not spit either behind yourself or in front of yourself, because you will end up spraying yourself. C) They take into account that not all readers are members or supporters of Mapam; that is, Od Nowa is not a magazine for the âconvinced.â D) They take into account that not all readers are former members of the Polish United Workersâ Party: Od Nowa is not a magazine for the âdisappointed.â E) Od Nowa is a Jewish magazine in Polish, not a Polish émigré magazine.262
On a personal level, the editorial team of Od Nowa formed a tight community, mainly thanks to the level of writing, valued both in the Polish- and Hebrew-speaking communities. Ignacy Iserles was particularly concerned about language. He liked to play with turns of phrase. A typesetter recalled him as follows: âI already had a column laid out, I was sure that it was ready for printing, and suddenly the editor comes in and says he wants to change âonlyâ the title and âonlyâ something else, and then as a result the whole column changed. [â¦] Nevertheless, I like working with the Od Nowa team. Thereâs something new
It was not only readers who appreciated Od Nowa â the political competition, Mapai activists, also rated the level of Od Nowa very highly, while making many critical comments about their own newspaper, Nowiny-Kurier. Od Nowa turned out to be edited so well that it was also read by Al HaMishmar journalists.265 Od Nowa quickly gained a permanent reader base266 â almost two thirds of the copies were distributed as subscriptions.267 They were mainly delivered to clubs and maÊ¿abarot where members of Mapam were active. Judging by the subscriptions, the newspaper was distributed mostly in cities, as the party wanted, with barely 8 percent of the total subscriptions going to the kibbutzim. At that time, Mapam noted a decrease of the urban electorate; recruiting new olim from Poland living in or near urban areas could weaken this tendency â the profile of a reader of Od Nowa was well in line with the partyâs policies at that time. On the other hand, the newspaperâs circulation, oscillating around 8,000, with a high rate of coreadership (3 or 4 people per paper), indicates a strong social resonance in the community of new olim from Poland. It means that almost one third of those who had come to Israel as part of the GomuÅka Aliyah were readers of the newspaper, or at least constituted a large part of the consumers of Polish-language printed material.268 In the long run, the circulation of Od Nowa allowed for the return of financial resources spent on its publication.
5.5 Between Commercialization and Weekly Opinion
The profile of the newspaper was tailored to the character and expectations of Jews from Poland who had come to Israel between 1955 and 1960. As Ran Kislev
The Polish-speaking community connected to the GomuÅka Aliyah can be divided into three groups. The first group consisted of people who immediately after their arrival demanded active participation in Israeli public life, which corresponded to the intentions of the local parties, ready to accept them as new members. Among the representatives of the second group there was fear, the chronic dread of political parties, and apoliticism, which manifested itself in avoidance of parties and not giving support to any of them.269 Ran Kislev, under the pseudonym Henryk Wiss, wrote about such a group, organized in the âKaktusâ cabaret: âThey have not yet seen themselves in Israeli reality. So they created for themselves and for others a kind of oasis in which everything breathes the Polish atmosphere of âPiwnica pod Baranamiâ [The Cellar under the Rams],270 âKrzywe KoÅoâ [The Crooked Wheel], and the successful âYoung Intelligentsia Club.â271 [â¦] Theyâll swear they wonât let any party pass over the threshold. Moreover, they fear all forms of âpolitical natureâ like the plague. [â¦] Despite all the rebellion, âThe Cactusâ has very dull thorns. They were cut off by the above-mentioned apoliticism.â272
The members of the third group had difficulty at first in understanding Israeli political life and withdrew from it, but over time they wished to take part in it again. When the initial period of numbness ended, the following question was printed in the press: âWho said that the new olim have had enough of politics? [â¦] It went deeper into the local reality, in which politics pushes at the doors and windows,â273 and then there was the following explanation: âWe canât and donât want to be outsiders. We have already accumulated a certain amount of professional, social, and political experience here in the country, which â in addition to old, considerable experience â creates a capital worthy of commitment.â274 âWe did not come from GrajdoÅek,â another text
The challenge to find themselves turned out to be the most difficult for many new olim. The need for a newspaper in the Od Nowa format resulted from the specific characteristics of the identity and political image of the GomuÅka Aliyah. Their departure from Poland was a chance for social and political transformation. In Israel, they wanted to do some political stock-taking and have a chance to clear themselves of their recent mistakes. They wished to escape from intellectual collaboration and take a stand against something. Od Nowaâs profile was shaped through contestation. On the right-wing side of the political spectrum, it contended with Mapaiâs Kurier, which
Communist experiments in Poland, memories of the regime, and a deep conviction that the secret service was working for the ussr led to the rejection of communism by many new Polish olim in Israel.281 Certainly for the intelligentsia of the last aliyah from Poland, Od Nowa was attractive enough to gain the attention of Polish readers and reduce the distribution level of Walka282 â it reached the intelligentsia, who were still demanding the implementation of left-wing postulates and fighting against class and racial discrimination. The profile of the magazine was defined by the contestation of previous communist experiences: âwithout dreary language,â âwithout paid messages,â and without âlessons in political propaganda,â it was meant to be a place where one could argue âwithout bile or rebuke.â Attempts were made to challenge the Israeli press, especially the newspapers and magazines published by political parties, recognizing that âone solid step forward is worth more than a wagon full of worldviews.â283 The journalists working for Od Nowa, who for a period of their pasts had faith in political dogmas, greatly appreciated having the opportunity to express their doubts, and they succinctly addressed readers as follows: âThere were times when each of the present editors of Od Nowa could define their political position in just a few short sentences. In fact, the whole political platform could be formulated clearly in a matter of minutes. Those were the days when we thought we had answers to all the questions, because âMarxism is the key that opens every door.â Today we know that there are more
In Israel, they wanted to free themselves from the burden of silence, and to give up the double ethical gaze â it seemed like a luxury to be able to speak openly.285 The community connected to Od Nowa, who spoke the language of the October Thaw, was revisionist, and the Polish secret services added another term â Trotskyist. Under the auspices of Mapam, it tried to find as much space as possible for itself within this system. The Polish-language newspaper Po Prostu286 became a symbol of certain limits of freedom of speech in the implementation of socialism, especially for the Od Nowa journalists, who before their departure had been connected with this political trend, but also for a large part of the GomuÅka Aliyah more broadly. While preserving in their memories Polandâs âOctober Thaw,â the team of journalists connected to Od Nowa wanted to transfer their experiences to Israeli soil and define the limits of freedom while contemplating left-wing values. However, the first few months showed that this environment, especially the political and social landscape, was completely different.287 Journalists who had come to Israel from Poland, in most cases strongly linked ideologically with the values of their country of origin, searched for publications that conformed to Polandâs press tradition during their initial period of settlement in Israel, but after they had adapted they sought out the local press publications or those published in the West. After being exposed to the Polish attempts to liberalize the communist system, the symbol of which was the newspaper Po Prostu, the editors of Od Nowa tried instead to follow the example of the left-wing, liberal French-language newspaper LâExpress.
The choice was not accidental, nor was the fact that many pages of Od Nowa were filled with the problems of the French left-wing â with which Wiktor Cygielman maintained close ties throughout the 1960s. Od Nowa, like LâExpress, printed opinion columns and tried to leave some free space for various political views and, more broadly, intellectual personalities.288 The similarities
I am not opposed to propaganda, but I believe that if there is propaganda, it provides good, broad information and analyses of phenomena, with emotional and cognitive influence on people. [â¦] I like news that is sensational â current news that is truly sensational! Such as the latest scientific discoveries, things happening behind the political scenes
(but not repeated over and over again), Israelâs foreign affairs, and the affairs of foreigners in Israel (I think this is what Przekrój was aiming at in Poland). These elements were largely present in Polish newspapers and magazines, such as PrzeglÄ d Kulturalny, Nowa Kultura, and Przekrój, not to mention Po Prostu. Every article had an ideological and propaganda foundation, regardless of whether it was literary criticism, travel impressions, or âairing dirty laundry.â291
In Israel, a democratic state dominated by political parties, imposing a political filter on a newspaper seemed familiar. Readers believed that a newspaper should belong to someone while the information should come from someone else.292 Their behavior can be explained by habits brought from Poland and the fact that during all the challenges faced while becoming settled, they noticed a lack of ideology in Israel. The new olim from Poland expected from a newspaperâs editors a clear message, a political declaration, and a specific delineation of the newspaperâs ideological platform. According to many of these olim, a paper should be âmilitantâ; Od Nowa was ânot militant enoughâ because it was not affiliated closely enough with a political party.293 The direction of the Od Nowa editorial teamâs statements remained socialist, and here nothing changed â the world was still described using this vocabulary and according to these categories, not venturing very far from Zionist-commissioned writing. Journalists knew Mapamâs priorities, including Zionist ones, and the limits of possible criticism, but from time to time they made attempts to transgress the partyâs canon of obligatory values. It is worth at this point discussing an example that illustrates the dilemmas faced by the editorial team, proving that it was easier to change peopleâs opinions than to change a mentality contaminated by the statist-propaganda norms of the country of origin, and that the new olim parted with old habits, a priori truths, and half-truths at different times and at different speeds.294
Ran Kislevâs article titled âDom sÅoÅcaâ [House of the Sun], written under the pseudonym Henryk Wiss, about the small town of Beit Shemesh that was being built near Jerusalem, triggered by personal familiarity with this place and, above all, its conditions for assimilation, broke all the conventions of the pro-state articles that were usually printed at that time. His description of the
Iserlesâs allegations were reminiscent in style of the well-known communist rhetoric about troublemakers and subversives, and about the demolition of the proper order that had been built by historical necessity. Another participant in the debate, Boris Eppel, under the pseudonym Edmund Bora, wrote: âIt would be enough to rewrite Shalemâs [i.e., Iserlesâs] open letter and replace the word Israel with the Polish Peopleâs Republic, and Beit Shemesh with Nowa Huta,298 to get a typical sectarian article in a provincial daily newspaper in Poland, aimed at the âtroublemakersâ who dare to publicly announce that a
Itâs possible to find more comments by readers of Od Nowa who were outraged by the idea of its journalist, who was apparently unfamiliar with the
It seems that criticism of the broadly understood ethos and interest of the state was outside the acceptable realm of political discussion. The editorial staff, like journalists of other foreign-language newspapers and magazines, carried out the ongoing task of âforming the nation,â though they were beginning to shift the focus from educating the public towards stimulating thought and discourse, with articles taking the format of an open debate. Undoubtedly important for the party was the fact that the first copies of the newspaper Od Nowa were positively received by Polish Jews, which prompted the leaders of Mapam to emphasize the positive aspects of the newspaper. However, at the same time they noticed that its character was too theoretical and not connected closely enough to Israeli politics, and even less so to the party.307 âCan only the new olim be editors of this newspaper?â asked Reuven Arazi at the partyâs administrative meetings.308 The mismatch between the content and current problems and events in Israel was rightly found in the background of its journalists â they perfectly recognized the problems of the immigrant community, and during the initial stage felt the need to reckon with their pasts rather than look into an uncertain Israeli future. Iserles wrote at length about this complex that burdened them, drawing on a biblical metaphor: âWe keep turning back like Lotâs wife. We were perfectly capable of analyzing the 2,000 years between when we left this country and when we returned to it.
Although the general direction of Od Nowa was left wing and socialist, there were slight differences between the articles in their aims and usefulness, hence the friction between Mapam and the editor, who did not want to allow the newspaper to become solely a mouthpiece for the party. It seems that after having experienced Polish communism, he attached himself to Mapam while trying to maintain a critical stance towards political activities. He was able to deftly evade party demands and requirements. He agreed to publish an article on behalf of the party during the intense election period, especially since he himself was a candidate on the Mapam list. He thus demonstrated the required minimum of loyalty and commitment, all the more so because it cost him very little â he did not reject leadersâ slogans and viewpoints and sometimes partially shared them, even while making many critical comments about them in his articles.
Iserles owed his position in the party to his social proximity to its leaders: âMapam gave me the right to freedom â I could publish any kind of newspaper I wanted since I had become YaÊ¿ariâs favorite â I could do anything. Meir YaÊ¿ari was a big shot. He liked me; he favored me. He was not only an ideologist but also a prophet. He was a harsh man, but he accepted me. The general direction of Od Nowa was left wing and socialist, similar to Mapam. However, there was still a struggle between the editors and Mapam because I didnât want to make the newspaper a party mouthpiece.â312 Mapamâs financial support made Od Nowa slightly dependent on it, and the editorial teamâs decision-making possibilities were limited by this support. However, the leaders of Mapam left Iserles a lot of room for maneuvering, more than it allowed its other newspapers, published in Hebrew. It was financial support, above all, that the founders of Od Nowa sought from Mapam. Iserles explained this in his own characteristic way: âWe are a poor newspaper; we do not reach into
However, when Mapam presented examples at its administrative meetings of journalistic insubordination or a lack of discipline, Od Nowa was singled out. In matters concerning the new olim, the editorial staff did not shape the paper to conform with party dictates, as was conventional for other papers, since reality counterchecked the propaganda. During the election period and on matters of international politics, however, they imposed a filter to make the paperâs view consistent with the party. An example of the flexibility of Od Nowa can be found in what happened with Marek HÅasko,315 whose writings continued to appear in the newspaper even after he was no longer welcome to stay at Mapamâs kibbutz. After arriving in Israel from Germany on 22 January 1959, he settled in the Gan Shmuel kibbutz, accompanied by his friend Jan Rojewski. He was received in a warm and friendly manner â the partyâs secretaries offered him a room with all possible conveniences. The presence of Marek HÅasko, known in Israel as âthe leader of the young olim from Poland,â316 attracted crowds of foreign, Hebrew-language, and Polish-language journalists. For the closed-off kibbutz community, which was focused on solving pragmatic and ideological challenges, this became an unwelcome event, and certainly a disturbance to the daily order of its membersâ work. HÅasko led a carefree lifestyle among the ideologically disciplined youth of the chalutz community, but
Antoni Bida, a Polish envoy in Israel, gave a detailed account of HÅaskoâs stay in Israel to the authorities in Warsaw. During one of the interviews in the visa application process, the following memo was written: âThe Gan Shmuel
Od Nowa did not contain any articles presenting positions that were uncomfortable for the communist authorities in Warsaw. Polish affairs, although of interest to the readers of this newspaper, were not an element of active politics, and when they did end up printed in this newspaper, they came from various sources.326 A small number of the articles, especially those to which the editorial staff of Od Nowa reacted â for example, on the subject of Jews in the Soviet Union â reached Od Nowa via the Polish Peopleâs Republic legation in Tel Aviv: âWe received the weekly newspaper Åwiat very quickly. It contained a report by HorodyÅski, the editor, on Birobidzhan (incidentally, a very intense issue here that is always presented in the worst light), which had been passed on to a journalist â it was printed in nearly its entirety on the front page of Od Nowa.â327 Some of the Mapam journalists from Poland maintained close contact with the Polish Peopleâs Republicâs legation in Tel Aviv and showed loyalty to it. A report sent to Warsaw stated: âMapam people, even according to what âSasâ writes, feel the closest to us and often like to bring something to the legation and emphasize their loyalty to us, etc.â328 Apart from occasional mentions of Poland, little was written about what was happening in the Polish Peopleâs Republic during that time. First of all, narratives evaluating the communist system itself replaced remarks about the place where this system was being realized; critical assessments of the version of socialism implemented in Poland were not made. This made it possible to avoid âPolish topics,â especially as the newspaper maintained contact with people who held
Although the journalists who wrote for Od Nowa assessed Stalinism negatively, in the manner typical of the revisionists of the âPolish October,â they still felt enough sympathy for the countries of the Soviet bloc to look for opportunities to establish closer relations between Israel and the ussr at the slightest signs of warming. In 1963, with dialogue between the two countries in mind, an article in Od Nowa stated: âTo this end, all telephone lines between Jerusalem and the Kremlin, including the red âMakiâ telephone, should be activated.â341 It was a moment of milder discourse between Mapam and the Communist Party of Israel, after the split in the latter and its adoption of a more nationalistic course.342 The former sentiment towards the ussr in some of Mapamâs communities was still strong, and in the case of new olim who arrived from Poland after 1956, it was additionally strengthened by personal commitment, which â at least for a short time after their arrival â created common ground between postcommunist Mapam and the Communist Party of Israel. There was still an allure to communism and the illusory idea of reforming it â an entire page of Od Nowa was devoted to the Third Congress of the Polish United Workersâ Party.343
Od Nowa was undoubtedly meant to be a newspaper whose aims and tasks diverged from the conventional purpose of the foreign-language press â for example, to provide only information about the new country and entertainment.344 The editors of Od Nowa wanted to create a newspaper for the intelligentsia that would not be cut off from the diaspora and that would contain reflections on the past and a debate about the state. Od Nowa was an attempt to stimulate discussion about the communist involvement during the youths of the journalists writing for it when, after losing faith in communism, an entire generation found itself in an ideological void.
5.6
The issues raised by the editors of Od Nowa were simple questions about identity. Such discussions took up a great deal of space in Od Nowa. The editor himself was very interested in this subject, and, moreover, it was a problem faced by readers of the weekly, especially those who had been involved in communism and had chosen to assimilate in Poland. Many of the readers had become involved in communism out of a desire to become full Polish citizens â except for careerists and opportunists who embraced it only for personal gain â and thereby participate in the affairs of the country on an equal footing with Poles not of Jewish origin. Communism, apart from ideology, gave Jews false hope of ridding themselves of the stigma of social disadvantage.345 On the left, there was less discussion of ethnic issues. It is difficult to know to what extent involvement in communism was determined by sociopolitical convictions, and to what extent it was inspired by the desire for assimilation. At least in theory, no other system was as welcoming to minorities as communism. On the left, nationalistic themes, modernization of the world, emancipation, and revolution were intertwined, leading the leftâs heroes on different paths to achieve their aim.346 Some acquaintances of Wiktor Cygielman and Ignacy Iserles in Belgium were good examples of this. In Marxism, they saw hope for a charismatic movement that transcended the challenges of any single ethnic group, was indifferent towards race, and broke down the boundaries of closed communities in favor of liberalization and open society, allowing the integration and assimilation of all into a single culture. Communism had seduced them. The perception that this movement was on the avant-garde made it particularly attractive to left-leaning intellectuals. After arriving in Israel, they reviewed their perception of the Jewish state and compared it with the version that Jewish communists had been proposing for years, and there was general agreement that their hope in communism as a solution had been misplaced, or as Iserles put it, âOur attitude towards the State of Israel made us similar to diamond dealers. We were constantly sitting with a magnifying glass held up to our eyes, searching for traces of black coal and blemishes, while the diamond itself completely escaped our notice.â347 This confession was complemented by the statement: âWe are tired of all the solutions that led to nothing for the Jews. Weâre trying to find a synthesis of all that is positive, all that undoubtedly
I always had strange feelings in the pre-Christmas period in Poland. The holiday bustle usually began about two or three weeks before Christmas. [â¦] It was difficult to resist the festive atmosphere of the holiday and
the mood that prevailed around it. After all, why resist? Why alienate oneself from oneâs surroundings? [â¦] They got swept up by the general mood: âWe shared a Christmas wafer,â âHappy Easter,â âÅmigus-Dyngus,â353 etc. However, it was not difficult to sense a false chord in the melody of their words; they sounded less natural than when they were uttered by those who had been expressing them for many generations. You can act, you can try, but itâs hard to shake off your past like a goose shaking off water. Whoever thinks otherwise is either ridiculous or tragic. It was a holiday â you didnât work, you ate and drank copiously, you invited guests to your home and visited friends. But there was a trace of anxiety, a barely noticeable contraction of the heart, a shadow that lurked behind you and spoiled your joy. And you didnât want to feel lost in your thoughts and longing in the midst of that pure, foreign joy.354
Undoubtedly, when choosing communism, ethnic issues were minimized, since communism was thought of as âthe land for all.â Iserles later recalled, âWhen I came to Israel, I said to myself: I donât want two homelands, I donât want this dualism. Iâm in Israel, and I want to be Israeli.â355 Nevertheless, when he had to face the question of whether he was an Israeli, he answered: âAbove all, Iâm a Jew.â356
For Polish Jews, attaching themselves with Israel meant that they consented to the Hebraization of their children and accepted the traditions of Jewish holidays, which were long forgotten or had never been celebrated before. They were also expected to deny what had always been close to them â Polish culture. Reeducation and the forming of nationalist values was difficult and time-consuming.357 âThose who came here did not forget about their old lives and had not yet entered their new ones â they had no idea about the local culture and were still stuck in the previous one,â explained Iserles.358 The amount of time in which they could redefine their identity must have been short: equal to the distance between Poland and Israel. In the former country, they had felt Polish, while in the latter they were considered Jewish. Those who did not
The politics of both countries â Poland and Israel â were dominated by nationalistic elements. Both countries rejected foreignness, which was defined by ethnic origin with all the manifestations of otherness and difference that resulted from it. The dual sense of identity that minority groups experienced in countries whose political systems were based in the concept of the nation state and that embraced nationalistic values compelled people to adopt clichés and patterns of the majority culture in order to assimilate.360 In Israel, Polonized Jews were expected not only to acknowledge but also to clearly manifest their Jewish identity and, conversely, to depart from the identity to which they had previously aspired â Polish. Many readers of Od Nowa were not able to position themselves comfortably within Jewish culture, nationality, and customs. For both the editors and readers of Od Nowa, the clash between national consciousness and social expectations aroused frustration and forced them to contend with the otherness and foreignness of this country, and as a result this led to a sense of rejection, alienation, and nonconformance with the patterns of behaviors accepted in Israeli society.
In Israel, the alienation of âpeople with numb souls, bereft of nationalist feelingsâ361 â as an Od Nowa journalist called Jews after unsuccessful attempts at assimilation â stemmed from, among other things, having hidden their Jewish origin behind Polish names and, above all, the circumstances that had forced them to do so. Assimilation in Poland did not consist of âlearning to speak freely, purely, without any foreign accent, in the beautiful language of Mickiewicz â but of learning to laugh freely, with a full voice, among âour people,â at a good anti-Semitic joke,â added Cygielman.362 Certainly, in Israel it was not possible to defend the path chosen by so-called âPoles of Jewish originâ who, in the diaspora, had allowed themselves to be integrated with non-Jews
The transition from a split Jewish-Polish identity to a solely Jewish one was a long and complex process, dependent on many very personal and subjective factors, such as oneâs family traditions, childhood memories, and memories of those who had been murdered. These attachments formed a sufficient basis for building relationships with the Jewish majority in Israel. For example, Ignacy Iserles, in addition to being open to assimilation with Polish society, maintained a relationship with Jewishness, which stemmed from his strong attachment to the history of his ancestors. He openly admitted, âAlthough I have come into contact with many foreign legends, songs, gods, and matters, and although much of this has remained with me and much has gone deeply into my national âotherness,â I do not want to renounce my [Jewish] roots written by history long, long ago. After all, why should I renounce them?â364 In the search for a way back to oneâs own people, the preservation of even slight traces of Jewish culture helped. To Iserles, the world of Jewish tradition and Yiddish culture were fascinating, and especially important was the Yiddish language: âFrom home I took my knowledge of German, and from the borderlands â Ukrainian. Later, I learned Russian and Uzbek, and in Israel I revived my knowledge of Hebrew. But Yiddish is closest to my heart. Yiddish is the language of my father.â365 Outside his home, he used the language of the majority: Polish in Poland, Hebrew in Israel. Beyond its cultural meaning, Yiddish had sentimental significance for him that was deeply connected to his personal identity. For others, connections with the Zionist Hashomer Hatzair movement made it easier to find a connection with a national Jewish identity.
In Israel, Polonized Jews felt alienated, and this was further intensified by the necessity of accepting the unfamiliar patterns of conduct imposed on them, which were strongly connected to the culture and religion of Israel, which had been defined, from the very beginning, as a state for Jews. While the new olim declared in the press âwe are nonreligious,â it did not prevent
There are many people here in our country who are zealous believers and zealous practitioners. This must be respected. Sincere faith inspires
respect. There is, however, a type of pseudo-freethinker who mocks religion in principle but who nevertheless practices it from time to time, just in case â âfor the sake of tradition,â as they say. The blockhead-traditionalist always has a skullcap at hand â perhaps for his neighbors, for his reputation, for his business. He always has a ready-made reason â he fasts because itâs healthy (the stomach should rest once in a while); he goes to the synagogue to honor his fatherâs memory (his father used to go in order to honor his fatherâs memory). Nothing of his own conviction, nothing sincere, just for the sake of peace and quiet, to make life more convenient, so heâs not going against the current.371
Od Nowa became a platform for defending the citizenship rights of people from mixed marriages â non-Jews. Their assimilation was made even more difficult by the emotions that accompanied the question: âWho is a Jew?â It was quite problematic for children from such unions because they could not become full-fledged citizens of Israel if their mother was not of Jewish origin. The inability to meet the requirements of religious law triggered mixed feelings; the identity of subsequent generations was naturally situated on the peripheries of Polish-Jewish origin and coexistence, which was not accepted in Israel. A double identity was an obstacle to achieving full identification with the majority in Israel, just as it had been before leaving Poland.372 Boris Eppel, under the pseudonym Edmund Bora, addressed an open letter to the Knesset and political parties on this matter. The problem of how mixed marriages were treated in Israel affected him personally, for he had a son from a relationship with a Catholic woman. He asked, âIs it not advisable to oblige Israeli consulates to officially inform mixed families in countries from which aliyot are coming that when Christian mothers arrive in Israel, they may be forced to renounce their religion and nationality if they wish to ensure that their children will belong to the Jewish nation?â373 Ignacy Iserles was Eppelâs friend and knew his family situation well. Iserles supported Eppelâs appeal in a letter to readers published on the front page of Od Nowa: âFor it is a matter of ensuring that all those who have come and are currently coming to Israel find their home here, that they do not feel discriminated against in any way, and that there is no proliferation of tragic family conflicts or increase in the number of repatriants.â374
I recently had the opportunity to read some letters from Israelis, both old and new, who had abandoned small, poor, and difficult Israel and left for the great, rich, wide world â in order to âlive a few more years,â as they said. I have also heard many direct and indirect accounts of the fate of this type of âhappiness-seeker.â Of course, Iâm not talking about the rich diamond-dealer who faked theft in Israel and eluded the court, or about those who put large sums of money aside for themselves in foreign banks. Iâm not talking at all about people with capital who are better or worse off at each latitude. I mean simple and honest people who, encouraged by their relatives, friends, or acquaintances, went to âparadiseâ to try their luck, because the earnings here are low, because âEshkol oppresses everyoneâ here, because there are no prospects here, and so on. N. went to France, to see his brother â a factory owner. On the envelopes of the letters he had received, the words âmaisonâ and âfabriqueâ were inscribed, as well as two phone numbers, etc. Upon arrival, he discovered that the âfactory ownerâ was making womenâs coats in a small room with his wife and a seasonal worker, that this year was a bad season (every time someone visits relatives, itâs always the beginning of a bad season) and that things have âbecome bad,â in general. The first disappointment, the first quarrel (wives, you know), and the man is left all alone in the great city of Paris, which, as we know, is beautiful, but not particularly welcoming.375
5.7 Ethnic Politics and National Issues
Nationalism was still a âpatriotic clichéâ for the editors of Od Nowa, and especially for Iserles. Compared to the nationalism in Poland, it was described differently, but it was still a cliché with which he didnât wish to identify. Journalists associated with the newspaper were harsh reviewers of Israel in this respect, speaking out against a growing trend in Israel that, in Iserlesâs view, treated the âArab problemâ in a manner similar to the fascist governments of Europe. âThe displacement of a nation from its homeland, whether in the form of deportation or by creating a political situation that forces it to leave its land, is an immeasurable injustice bordering on crime, a tragedy for those who are harmed and those who are causing the harm.â377 The editor of Od Nowa did not believe that national and international issues could be effectively solved through âa locomotive and a set of wagonsâ â that is, forced deportation; in fact, he was opposed to it. The politics of ghettos and refugee camps â what he called âhate reservesâ â along with the discrimination and the marginalization of Arabs, fueled an endless, bloody conflict. According to him, the separation of minorities had failed long ago and had been ruled out by life itself, which was stronger than political calculations. He saw the solution of the Jewish state in the context of the Arab problem as a case of âabsolute justice giving rise to absolute injustice.â378
Within Mapam, the Zionist objective of resettling Arab refugees after the War of Independence was in conflict with the Arab-Jewish solidarity proclaimed by its members. Realism and racial prejudices prevailed over ideology, especially in socially disadvantaged communities.379 The political slogans did
In a certain group we were talking about the situation of the Arabs in our country. One of those present spoke about discrimination against Arabs in public life, about how they were excluded from education, from working in public offices, and so on. âIâll tell you the truth,â a certain doctor of philosophy spoke up. âIf I entered one of our offices and an Arab clerk was going to take care of my business, it would feel like an unbearable insult to me.â A few years ago, this doctor of philosophy had been working in a very prestigious position, making a nation of 30 million people happy with his meager talent and knowledge. When they began to doubt his talent and usefulness, he saw it as a sign of anti-Semitism and started
to condemn barbarism, antihumanitarianism, and chauvinism. As a doctor of philosophy, he supported his resentment and grievances with quotations from the experts of humanitarianism from all epochs. A few yearsâ stay in a new climate and in a new role was enough to convert him into a pathetic representative of the Herrenvolk. In this case, we are dealing with a blockhead who has earned some diplomas. [â¦] Blockheads can have diplomas, fortunes, positions, and even talent and wit. There are blockheads who are snobs and politicians and diplomats and editors, and they may even be in the public eye â but they remain blockheads. What characterizes a blockhead? Narrow-mindedness, dullness, a hopeless, maniacal defiance, and philistine laziness in life. A blockhead says, âSocialism is a beautiful idea, but unfortunately, unrealistic,â âThe âblacksâ rape women,â âOne Jew can handle 100 Arabs,â âOur former wise men predicted everything,â etc. The blockhead has his own little world, his own concept of life and happiness, which he either inherits or creates himself â and his own cult of mediocrity.381
The community of people connected to Od Nowa, and Iserles himself, did not fit into Mapamâs nationalistic discourse â they interpreted the problems of discriminated groups according to their previously professed ideologies, including communism. Od Nowaâs readers and journalists were recruited from a generation that had experienced disappointment, unrest, years of horror, destruction, and shock.382 The experience of totalitarianism and disillusionment with political solutions in the diaspora caused the pages of Od Nowa to be filled with critical articles by rebellious readers who were fighting against all the policies and strategies that were forced on them in the name of forging one sole Jewish state. The political columnists who wrote for Od Nowa, headed by Ignacy Iserles, proposed that Zionist dreams could be realized through criticism instead of âpatriotic jingoism,â which, he cautioned, could lead to the kinds of distortions or âcrimesâ committed in countries, like communist Poland, that felt threatened by neighboring countries. In their opinion, Israel had become one of these states.383 The journalistic community of Od Nowa was caught up in the dispute between the internationalism of communism and Zionism â between identification with the values and culture of the diaspora and the need to preserve and maintain the Jewish state. In the discourse
5.8 Crisis
From 1962 onwards, the leaders of Mapam wrote about their struggles to keep Od Nowa on the market. Foreign-language press publications were usually short-lived in Israel and limited to specific groups of readers, which were dwindling in the absence of subsequent aliyot and with every assimilation success. Mapam found readers for its newspapers in the kibbutzim and, to a lesser extent, in the cities, but readers of Od Nowa came from urban areas and âforeign-languageâ spheres â both of these set boundaries within which Od Nowa could make use of the partyâs readership and develop well. Iserles was well aware of this, so he tried to delay the process in various ways â for example, by seeking the attention of young readers. The editorial team of Od Nowa organized meetings for them, mostly in Mapamâs âTzavtahâ community center. One of them, at the Hebrew University, was followed by a proposal to establish a separate edition of Od Nowa addressed exclusively to young people.385 The specific nature of the foreign-press readership made this idea impossible. It was a group of people who were too mobile in their choices to be included in a permanent foreign-language project. From the moment of their arrival in Israel, the young olim from Poland fluctuated between the culture of their country of origin, cultivated at home, and their great desire to belong to the social majority.386 At the beginning of their stay in Israel, young people had to deal with a social impairment similar to their parentsâ, but they quickly tried to rid themselves of the burdens they still carried from the diaspora, the first of which was language. The adaptation process was aimed at moving the young generation towards the Hebrew-language press, and the meetings organized for them by the foreign-language newspaper seemed to be a valid but short-term undertaking. Therefore, despite the initial linguistic difficulties, the
Another idea for how to save the newspaper from being discontinued was to send it to Poland. Memos from the Polish Peopleâs Republicâs legation in Tel Aviv show that Ignacy Iserles contacted the Polish diplomatic post in this matter. The idea was born through a Polish-Israeli cultural exchange at the end of the 1950s that was very favorable to the economic situation, with the hope of expanding this contact in the future.388 It was expected that it would be possible to buy Israeli newspapers in Poland, as well as Polish newspapers on the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa. If the proposal were accepted, it would be a âsecond lifeâ for Od Nowa and an important tool in the foreign policy of the Israeli government, and due to the specific character of the foreign-language press and the political climate of the time â a precedent in Polish-Israeli relations.389 The implementation of this endeavor seemed quite unlikely at that time, for two reasons. First, Polish-Israeli relations were overshadowed by Moscow, which was sensitive to every attempt to promote Zionism in the Soviet bloc. There was no way to distribute press publications freely â certainly not one from Israel. Second, the Polish security services assessed Od Nowa as an insufficiently left-wing, even revisionist, newspaper, which did not fit into Polandâs system of press control.390
Another idea for keeping Od Nowa on the market was to try to establish an edition of this newspaper in Hebrew. While the number of Polish-language readers was shrinking, the editors of Od Nowa were enjoying unwavering popularity, and thus they wished to move into the mainstream of journalism.391 This idea was also impossible to carry out because the new generation of Israelis
The new press publication for youths was meant to influence public opinion outside of the kibbutz, and so it was necessary to be very careful about what was written in it and to take political responsibility for its content. According to Mapamâs leaders, the newspaper had to show unity and solidarity with the party. At one of Mapamâs administrative meetings, Eliezer Granot said: âI think a newspaper that is sent beyond our community canât âstammer.â There can only be a column of letters to the editor for âstammering.â This newspaper is supposed to be political and from Mapam.â394 This mindset reveals two types of behavior among Israeli readers: on the one hand, a politicized society that is capable of debate and, on the other hand, an atomized, closed-off circulation of information within the parties.395 This task could not be fulfilled by the foreign-language press community â up until that time, the Polish version of Od Nowa had had very little in common with the chalutz-oriented and pioneering character of Zionism.
In these circumstances, the space where there had been discussions of the newspaperâs new formula was replaced by the topic of a Hebrew-language magazine for young people called Chotam. The creation of this newspaper signals changes in Mapamâs press publications, which also had a significant impact on Od Nowaâs situation. On 4 March 1964, Chotam began to be published
The discontinuation of right-wing press publications opened up a general debate about the press in other parties, as well. Under the influence of the deepening processes of democratization in Israeli society, editors voiced the need to separate the teams of journalists from political parties. This process signaled a departure from the pressâs tendency to perform the state-building functions that had been typical of the party-affiliated press in the period before the creation of the state. For young activists, the party-affiliated press seemed anachronistic, generating conflict between professional journalism, free from political obligations, and party organs, in which a party activist automatically becomes a mouthpiece for propaganda and a distributor of politically contracted articles. They demanded greater âideological breathâ and a change in the way the old leaders were managing the party, from autocratic to more liberal. In general, they demanded political renewal.397
Should the party be publishing its own newspaper at all these days? Just so that the activists of this party can feel satisfied with themselves? And so that they can see their names printed in a newspaper? Besides this, what is the value of such a newspaper? It is read by people from the party. It is aimed exclusively at them, even though a newspaper should also be an instrument of communication with other communities. This is why a party-affiliated newspaper automatically becomes provincial and has no value or meaning outside the party. It is like a letter written by activists to each other. In this way, party activists pretend to be professionals and call themselves journalists. They feel important. [â¦] This journalism is very typical of our country. It must be taken into account that it was once an integral part of the Zionist movement. Unfortunately, the Zionist movement has undergone a huge change, while party-affiliated journalism has remained at a low quality level and in the hands of amateurs. We now long for the newspapers that used to be printed during the Zionist movement, but we do not see them anywhere. The Zionist movement taught us to build a home that would be better than the one that was built at the beginning of Zionism. And a better âgardenâ than at the beginning of Zionism. But in journalism, nothing has improved.399
You write that a party-affiliated newspaper is supposedly addressed to political activists â one writes for the others. And thatâs why itâs so boring â nobody is interested in it but the activists. One criticizes Al HaMishmar, another praises La-Merchav, and Haaretz is happy and engaged in this discussion. This is not camaraderie; you are not loyal. You write, âThe journalists who write for Al HaMishmar are boring; they speak only in old Hebrew.â Chotam, on the other hand, is created by wonderfully talented people. Remember, Al HaMishmar also âfeatures articles by such activists
as Meir YaÊ¿ari, YaÊ¿akov Hazan, and other columnistsâ â they are no worse than Chotamâs columnists.400
Mapamâs leaders defended the system of party-affiliated press because it allowed the old order to be preserved and secured. The relaxation of the party-affiliated press was interpreted as a desire to break away from the party: âAlthough there is freedom of debate, it must be respected within the framework of Mapam. They shouldnât tell us weâre against freedom of speech. We do not intend to create two parties: one for people under 40 years old, and the other for people over 40.â401
Chotam was meant to unite the different factions within Mapam, but the result was that, according to the leaders, the party was only marginally represented in this newspaper.402 There was a disagreement about printing only content in the press that was in line with the partyâs political agenda. The partyâs leaders demanded coresponsibility from the newspaper: the editorial team âmust be created in such a way that there will be a balance of authority and responsibility,â said Meir YaÊ¿ari.403 At the time, authority and responsibility were reserved for the old party leaders. The generation of the partyâs creators usually became authorities or even âspiritualâ leaders for the rest of the community; they evoked strong emotions and attracted the attention of the rest of the group, while determining its conduct. Leaders were personified as commanders, and YaÊ¿ari and Hazan held such a position in Mapam. Chotam represented a new means of communication, which was difficult to accept for tight-knit, hierarchical parties with clear leaders, as Mapam was at that time.404 The attempt to free journalists from party censorship violated the former authoritarian order in the party. Young people wanted to free themselves from hierarchical systems and did not want to live in a society controlled by political parties. At the heart of this conflict, there was a generational clash between Zionist activists â indoctrinated, fighting in newspaper articles about ideology and the future shape of the state â and young people who had been born in Israel and for whom a state dominated by political parties was not enough. This change could already be felt in the 1950s, but in the following decade,
After some political arguments and controversies, Ignacy Iserles, despite having been delegated earlier to youth affairs and Chotam, stopped attending editorial meetings. The difficult challenges heâd faced when trying to get the new initiative up and running led to a new desire to maintain the community connected to Od Nowa. With the idea of publishing a Hebrew version of the newspaper having fallen through and the topic of Poland being insufficient to draw interested readers, the editorial team faced difficult prospects in continuing to publish the newspaper. A new topic was introduced at Mapam meetings: âthe discontinuation of Od Nowa.â406 The topic was partly raised due to the general crisis in the press â not only were foreign-language newspapers and magazines in decline, but at that time the same problem was also noted for the Hebrew-language newspaper Al HaMishmar, which could not be ignored given the worsening state of the partyâs finances. The partyâs clubs were closed, and thus the foreign-language press had become less needed.407 At this point it should be emphasized that the discontinuation of foreign-language newspapers and magazines was also associated, to a certain extent, with the inefficiency or weakness of parties in state institutions â for example, Histadrut, where party members usually sought ways to influence companies to advertise in the newspapers affiliated with their party.408 All foreign-language newspapers and magazines suffered a crisis eventually and were unable to sustain themselves from sales, but the stronger parties gained a relatively large number of advertisement sales to supplement the contributions from the party for their publicationsâ budgets. Mapam did not try to do this or was unable to do so. The most objective reason was its decreasing popularity among the new olim from Poland and its growing budget deficit.409
However, the main reason for the discontinuation of Od Nowa lay in the way the state was organized. Israelâs existence followed the tempo of successive aliyot, and in the mid-1960s, as Meir YaÊ¿ari stated, âthe party became interested in an aliyah from Romania.â410 From 1962 onwards, the topic of the
Iâve been wanting to write to you for a long time, but lately Iâve been feeling too upset. First of all, by the fact that Od Nowa has been discontinued. This has overwhelmed me with a feeling of emptiness. I put too much heart, energy and effort into it for eight years to be able to move on to other things. The two of us â my editor and I â were doing a really good job. I must admit that we underestimated it a little bit. It was only the readersâ protest that opened our eyes. A protest that forces us to start working again. We will probably resurrect the newspaper, maybe only in the form of a monthly magazine, but with a wider scope. Some new life
has entered me. I could have taken on another job â I was offered a position as a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health. Julek [Yisraʾel Barzilai] doesnât know much about my professional work. I was offered this function by the partyâs management, which published Od Nowa (Julekâs party, as a matter of fact). I had to refuse because I am a woman, mother, and wife, and Iâm not allowed to destroy the household. [â¦] I was offered another job â editing a magazine published by the Ministry of Health. Itâs good that I didnât get involved. Subconsciously I felt that I would continue to work on Od Nowa. Next week everything will be settled.424
Od Nowa was not resumed, however. After it was discontinued, Meir Yaʿari tried, probably at the request of Iserles, to return to the issue of resuming its publication,425 but in the absence of aliyot and with the successful adaptation of journalists who had written for Od Nowa, this Polish-language newspaper with a chalutz ethos published by Mapam had no political or market justification.
After some time, Iserlesâs interest in publishing Od Nowa also waned. His family expected that after his arrival in Israel and the official recognition of his law degree, he would accept a permanent, stable job that would not include political involvement.426 Soon he started working as an attorney at a law firm on Daniela Street in Bat Yam, offering legal assistance to Mapam as well as to the residents of the small town: he prepared wills, gave legal advice, and mediated in house sales.427 He did not do âanything exciting or intellectually demanding but dealt with safe, everyday matters,â Arie Iserles explained.428 He was financially successful. His wealth was assessed by the Polish secret services as follows: âHe has been able to afford a car for a long time, but he hasnât bought one because he doesnât know how to drive.â429
Felicja MaÅska accepted a job in Mapamâs Department of Propaganda and was primarily responsible for organizing lectures, seminars and interviews.430 The professional life of the remaining journalists of Od Nowa shifted to the
The last issue of Od Nowa â issue number 282 â was published on 28 December 1965. Od Nowa functioned under special conditions within Mapamâs foreign press system. It became synonymous with journalism that was disconnected from the partyâs instructions â it was a frequent point of reference and comparison whenever there were discussions within Mapam of political divergence or too much independence. The key to obtaining greater freedom for the editorial team of Od Nowa was a combination of political maturity and journalistic skills â political experience and recognition in the Hebrew-speaking community. Foreign-language groups were only able to feel like commentators living on the margins of society, but the aspirations of Od Nowaâs journalists went further â to take up the significant problems of the Polish-speaking community and Israeli society. A year after the publication of the first issue of this newspaper, the editor himself presented the following assessment: âThey say Od Nowa is in line with Mapam; they say itâs not in line with Mapam; they say that itâs frivolous, that it focuses too much on politics, that itâs not militant enough, that itâs lackluster, that itâs full of chutzpah. In a word â people like it.â433
Mapam (Mifleget ha-PoÊ¿alim ha-Meʾuchedet) was established in January 1948 from Hashomer Hatzair and Ahdut HaAvodaâPoÊ¿alei Tziyon (itself a merger of Ahdut HaAvoda with PoÊ¿alei Tziyon two years earlier). Mapam advocated the nationalization of the economy, rejected cooperation with foreign capital, approved of Marxism, and supported the political system of the ussr. Ahdut HaAvoda members played a leading role in the yishuv and the armed forces (Haganah, Palmach) and constituted a group that, unlike Hashomer Hatzair, had a much harsher policy towards the Arabs. Against the backdrop of nationalistic politics, there was disagreement and friction between Hashomer Hatzair and Ahdut HaAvoda communities. Eventually, in 1954, a split took place: Ahdut HaAvoda withdrew its support of the ussr (this was influenced by the events of the Slánski trial in 1952, during which a member of Mapam, Mordechai Oren, was accused in Czechoslovakia of being an American spy and Zionism was deemed a form of imperialism), and most activists left Mapam. Moshe Snehâs group left to join the Israeli communists.
Mordechai Oren (formerly Orenstein), son of Moshe and Chai (15 March 1905â27 February 1985), was born in Podhajce (Galicia). Before World War i, he was active in the chalutz and hachshara movements (he was preparing to leave for Palestine). He arrived in Israel on 2 April 1929, at the port of Jaffa (Fourth Aliyah), with his family. In 1929 he became a member of the Histadrut and Kupat Cholim [Health Fund], in 1930 he joined the Knesset Israel Association (Jews in Palestine), and in 1933 he became the secretary of the Mizra kibbutz and a member of Brit Olamit Mapam [World Mapam Movement]. He also belonged to the editorial team of Al HaMishmar and the World Zionist Movement. He was a very active envoy of the party in many countries â for example, he went to Germany in 1934 and 1936 (when an aliyah arrived in Israel from Germany), and during the war of independence he obtained arms from Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland. He was arrested in Czechoslovakia in December 1951 and sentenced to 15 years in prison, which he left in May 1956; M. Oren, Reszimot asir Prag [Records of a Political Prisoner in Prague] (Tel Aviv, 1958); P. Merhav, The Israeli Left: History, Problems, Documents (San Diego, 1980), 130â38.
On 24â25 February 1956, Nikita Khrushchev, secretary of the Communist Party of the ussr, presented a secret report titled âOn the Cult of Personality and Its Consequencesâ in which he unmasked his predecessor, Joseph Stalin.
Paz, Bein ideʾologiyah le-pragmatizm: Tfisoteiha ve-emdoteiha ha-mediniyot ve-ha-bitchoniyot shel Mapam be-shanim 1948â1954 [Between Ideology and Pragmatism: Mapamâs Approaches, Political Image and Security Defense in 1948â1954] (Jerusalem, 1993), 1, 171, 173â80; E. Cur, Mapam 1948â1954: Bein dimjon le-maasijut [Mapam 1948â1954: Between Imagination and Realism], (Tel-Aviv, 1991), 1â8, 13, 78; Merhav, Israeli Left, 92â129.
Paz, Bein ideʾologiyah le-pragmatizm, 176â95.
Meir Vilner (1918â2003) was from Vilnius. He left for Israel in 1938 and was an mp in the First through Twelfth Knessets (1951â1990). In his youth, he was a member of Hashomer Hatzair in Vilnius. He joined the Palestinian Communist Party in 1940, and served as the secretary of the Jerusalem section of this party from 1943 onward. He became a member of the Central Committee of the Israeli Communist Party and the partyâs Political Bureau in 1948. In 1965 he was one of the leaders of Rakach. See
Ignis [I. Iserles], âO cnocie przebaczeniaâ [The Virtue of Forgiveness], Od Nowa, no. 10 (1958): 2.
H. Wiss [R. Kislev], âZjazd ludzi dojrzaÅychâ [A Convention of Mature People], Od Nowa, no. 39 (1959): 1.
J. Lipski, âO âBólu sercaâ M[arka] Gefenaâ [On M[arek] Gefenâs âHeartacheâ], Walka, no. 10 (1958): 5; Paz, Bein ideʾologiyah le-pragmatizm, 185â92.
âLegitymacja/Rozmowa z Czytelnikiemâ [Testimony/An Interview with a Reader], Od Nowa, no. 17 (1959): 1.
Hashomer Hatzair Archive in Givat Haviva (hereinafter: hha), file 6/63/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 2 October 1957.
Paz, Bein ideʾologiyah le-pragmatizm, 164â69, 173â76, 185â95; hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from the partyâs administrative meeting, 8 and 10 July 1957; hha, file 6/63/90, minutes from the partyâs administrative meeting, 2 October 1957.
I. Barzilai, âKtóż, jeÅli nie Wy, poda nam dÅoÅ? Krajowy Zjazd Olim z Polskiâ [Who, If Not You, Will Extend a Hand to Us? The National Congress of Olim from Poland], Od Nowa, no. 39 (1959): 2.
F. M[aÅska], âPatrzÄ c na salÄ obradâ [Looking at the Debating Chamber], Od Nowa, no. 39 (1959): 3.
Cur, Mapam 1948â1954, 71â78, 80â89, 98; Correspondence with Arie Iserles, materials from the authorâs collection.
Cur, Mapam 1948â1954, 71â78, 90â98.
Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw (hereinafter: amfa), folder 12, file 926, bundle 38, cards 8â9, article titled âDavar.â
A. Bareli, Mapai be-reshit ha-atzmaʾut (1953â1948) [Mapai at the Beginning of Independence, 1945â1953] (Jerusalem, 2007), 70, 71, quoted from M. Lissak, âThe Demographic-Social Revolution in Israel in the 1950s: The Absorption of the Great Aliyah,â Journal of Israeli History 22, no. 2 (2003): 6.
hha, file 1/68/90, minutes from a meeting of Mapamâs management board, 31 January 1957; hha, file 5/121/90, minutes from a meeting of the political council, 11 March 1959; hha, file 7/63/90, minutes from the partyâs administrative meeting, 6 November 1957; hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from a Mapam administrative meeting, 22 September 1958; hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from the partyâs administrative meeting, 8 July 1957.
hha, file 6/63/90, minutes from a Mapam administrative meeting, 2 October 1957; hha, file 1/68/90, minutes from a meeting of Mapamâs management board, 31 January 1957; hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from a Mapam administrative meeting, 8 July 1957.
Cur, Mapam 1948â1954, 89.
â282 x Od Nowa,â Od Nowa, no. 24 (1965): 1.
hha, file 6/63/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 2 October 1957; hha, file 5/121/90, minutes from a meeting of the political council, 11 March 1959.
hha, file 5/121/90, minutes from a meeting of the political council, 11 March 1959; hha, file 7/63/90, minutes from a Mapam administrative meeting, 6 November 1957; hha, file 6/63/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 2 October 1957; B. Szaynok, Z historiÄ i MoskwÄ w tle: Polska a Izrael 1944â1968 [Against the Backdrop of History and Moscow: Poland and Israel, 1944â1968] (Warsaw, 2007), 326.
hha, file 1/68/90, minutes from a meeting of Mapamâs management board, 31 January 1957; hha, file 6/63/90, minutes from the partyâs administrative meeting, 2 x 1957.
hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 8 July 1957; hha, file 5/121/90, minutes from a meeting of the political council, 11 March 1959; hha, file 7/63/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 6 November 1957.
hha, file 6/63/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 2 October 1957; hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 8 July 1957.
hha, file 1/68/90, minutes from a meeting of Mapamâs management board, 31 January 1957; hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 8 July 1957.
hha, file 5/63/90, minutes (number iii); hha, file 1/68/90, minutes from a meeting of Mapamâs management board, 31 January 1957.
hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 8 July 1957.
hha, file 6/63/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 2 October 1957.
hha, file 5/63/90, minutes (number iii) from an administrative meeting of Mapam; hha, file 5/63/90, minutes from a meeting of Mapamâs management board, 31 January 1957.
hha, file 6/63/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 2 October 1957.
âRozmowa z czytelnikamiâ [Interviews with Readers], Od Nowa, no. 7 (1958): 3.
â282 x Od Nowa,â Od Nowa, no. 24 (1965): 1.
Interview with Dorit Cygielman, 13 July 2011, materials from the authorâs collection.
hha, file 6/63/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 2 October 1957; hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 8 July 1957.
hha, file 3/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 30 March 1960.
Interview with Dorit Cygielman, 13 July 2011, materials from the authorâs collection.
Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw (hereinafter: ainr), file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 74; hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 8 and 10 July 1957.
Archive of the Human Resources Department of the Ministry of Justice in Warsaw (hereinafter: ahrdmj), Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, personal questionnaire; interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
A legal magazine published in Warsaw.
I. Iserles, âDialog z tubylcemâ [A Dialogue with a Native], Od Nowa, no. 7 (1958): 1.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, personal questionnaire; interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Rabbi Moses Isserles was the son of Israel Isserl, who in 1553 founded one of the oldest synagogues in Krakówâs district of Kazimierz, later called the Remuh Synagogue. Moses Isserles was an outstanding Talmudist and philosopher, the author of many religious, philosophical, and legal books, and for many years (1547â1572) the chief rabbi of Krakówâs Jewish community and the rector of the yeshiva there. His most famous work, Mapa (Obrus) [The Map (Tablecloth)], which expounds upon Jewish religious law, remains to this day one of the fundamental texts that shape Jewish religious practices. His grave is located in the old Jewish cemetery in Kraków (near the Remuh Synagogue); see the entry about him in the Jewish Encyclopedia,
Notes from an interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Notes from an interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
The ruling camp in Poland between 1926 and 1939, connected with what was termed âmoral renewal.â It focused on persecuting opposition, nationalism, and the growth of anti-Semitic sentiment.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Jewish Zionist youth communities were active in Poland. Between 1911 and 1914, they organized themselves into two groups: Tzeirei Tzion [Zion Youth] and Hashomer [Watchman]. In 1916, during the unification congress in Vienna, they merged into one organization: Hashomer Hatzair [Young Watchman]. Ha-Entziklopediyah ha-ivrit [Hebrew Encyclopedia] (Masada, 1976), 31:629. The pioneers of the Hashomer Hatzair movement were primarily concerned with preparing young people for activities aimed at creating a Jewish state in Palestine â for example, through the organization of the kibbutz movement. As Jerzy Tomaszewski and Andrzej Å»bikowski wrote: âThe activists set for themselves and other members high ideological and moral requirements, imposing on themselves missions of combining the ideals of Judaism and humanism. The organization distanced itself from current political disputes, but egalitarian ideals brought it closer to socialism. Hashomer remained very ideologically diverse but was gradually influenced by Marxism.â J. Tomaszewski and A. Å»bikowski, eds., Å»ydzi w Polsce: Dzieje i kultura; Leksykon [Jews in Poland: History and Culture â Lexicon] (Warsaw, 2001), 128; see also the âZionismâ section in J. Tomaszewski and A. Å»bikowskiâs book, 452â60.
Od Nowa, no. 1 (1958): 1.
The International Revolutionary Assistance Organization was established in 1922, and its Polish section â Czerwona Pomoc [The Red Aid] â in 1924. It provided both material and legal assistance to people who had been imprisoned for their communist activities; see H. Cimek and L. KieszczyÅski, Komunistyczna Partia Polski 1918â1938 [The Communist Party of Poland, 1918â38] (Warsaw, 1984), 94.
ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 44.
Notes from an interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, personal questionnaire; interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Notes from an interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
S. Shalem [I. Iserles], âSpojrzenie wsteczâ [Looking Back], Od Nowa, no. 2 (1958): 3.
M. Altshuler, âThe Distress of Jews in the Soviet Union in the Wake of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,â Yad Vashem Studies 2, no. 36 (2008): 73â114.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, personal questionnaire, undated.
The Union of Polish Patriots was an organization of Polish communists established in 1943 in the ussr and used by Stalin to influence Polish affairs and the future of Poland during and after World War ii.
Archive of New Records in Warsaw, Union of Polish Patriots, file 742, cards 2â6; file 770, cards 1â5; file 60, cards 1â3; ahrdmj, Ignacy Isserlesâs personal file, personal questionnaire, character description issued by the chairman of the Personal Management Board of the Union of Polish Patriots in Andijan, 12 April 1946; ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 72.
Interview with Henryk Markiewicz, November 2010, materials from the authorâs collection.
In the ussr he met his wife, Gizela Iserles, née Åwieca (born on 16 October 1922 in Warsaw), daughter of Zygmunt and Feli, née Suchowczycka. During the German occupation, she stayed in the ussr and worked in the âKomunarfâ Industrial Plant in Andijan. After returning to Poland, she worked as a reporting clerk in the Voivodeship Office of Information and Propaganda in Szczecin, and then for GÅos SzczeciÅski. After moving to Warsaw, Ignacy Iserles found a job at the Ministry of Justice, and Gizela worked from 1952 to 1957 at the Ministry of Higher Education as a senior adviser in the Department of Technical Studies. ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 74; A. GÅowacki, âCzy i dokÄ d wracaÄ? Dylematy repatriacyjne Å»ydów polskich w ZSRR (1944â1946)â [Should We Go Back? If So, Where? Repatriation Dilemmas of Polish Jews in the ussr (1944â46)], in Åwiat niepożegnany: Å»ydzi na dawnych ziemiach wschodnich Rzeczypospolitej w XVIIIâXX wieku [A World Left Behind with No Farewell: Jews in the Former Eastern Lands of the Republic of Poland in the EighteenthâTwentieth Centuries], ed. K. Jasiewicz (Warsaw, 2004), 160â89.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Isesrlesâs personal file, personal questionnaire, undated.
He worked as a legal adviser for the Ministry of Public Security in Szczecin from 3 June 1946 to 15 June 1947. ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 61.
pop pzpr was the acronym for Podstawowa Organizacja Partyjna Polskiej Zjednoczonej Partii Robotniczej [Basic Party Organization of the Polish United Workersâ Party]. This was the smallest organizational unit of the Polish United Workersâ Party. Political groups of this type were often established in workplaces.
âSekcja Tajnaâ [The Secret Section], Prawo i Å»ycie, no. 28 (1991): 10â11; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, a letter from the Minister of Justice, Henryk ÅwiÄ tkowski, to Izrael Isserles (Ignacy Iserles) appointing him as Deputy Prosecutor of the District Court in Warsaw and entrusting him with the duties of Head of the Department of Human Resources and Training of the Legal Professions in the Ministry of Justice, Division iv, 26 August 1949; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, letter from Ignacy Iserles to the Minister of Justice, 6 October 1949.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 21 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 21 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
In the Official Journal of the Ministry of Justice on 14 May 1948, the Minister of Justice announced a decree about the opening of the Teodor Duracz Law School: âRozporzÄ dzenie Rady Ministrów z 1 iv 1950 r. o utworzeniu Wyższej SzkoÅy Prawniczej im. Teodora Duraczaâ [The Ordinance by the Council of Ministers on 1 April 1950 on the Establishment of the Teodor Duracz Law School]. Documented in A. RzepliÅski, âPrzystosowanie ustroju sÄ downictwa do potrzeb paÅstwa totalitarnego w Polsce w latach 1944â1956â [Adaptation of the Judicial System to the Needs of the Totalitarian State in Poland in the Years 1944â56], in PrzestÄpstwa sÄdziów i prokuratorów w Polsce lat 1944â1956 [Transgressions by Judges and Prosecutors in Poland in the Years 1944â56], ed. W. Kulesza and A. RzepliÅski (Warsaw, 2000), 29.
RzepliÅski, âPrzystosowanie ustroju sÄ downictwa,â 23; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, opinion by Maria Matwinowa, 9 June 1952.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 21 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, personal questionnaire, a letter from Ignacy Iserles to the Minister of Justice, 26 August 1949; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, from an opinion of Iserles written by the president of the Provincial Court in Warsaw, undated; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, letter sent from the Ministry of Justice to its Human Resources Department, 20 February 1951.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, request sent from Ignacy Iserles to the Minister of Justice, undated; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, letter from the Minister of Justice, Henryk ÅwiÄ tkowski, to Ignacy Iserles, 5 May 1947.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, exemption from undergoing a court application and passing the judicial examination of the Minister of Justice, Henryk ÅwiÄ tkowski, 5 May 1947. In a letter from the Minister of Justice dated 26 August 1949, Iserles was appointed to the position of Head of the Department of Human Resources and Training for the Legal Professions (until 31 January 1950). At the same time, he was appointed to perform the duties of Deputy Prosecutor of the District Court in Warsaw; then from 1 January 1950 to 30 April 1951 he was a visiting inspector of courts and public prosecutorsâ offices. In the meantime, he was appointed as judge of the Court of Appeal in Warsaw by a decree of the Minister of Justice on 14 July 1950, and by a decree issued on 1 January 1951 he was appointed as judge of the Provincial Court in Warsaw, while at the same time his delegation to the Ministry of Justice was maintained. Then, from 1 May 1951 to 30 April 1952, he was the head of the Legal Schools Section of the Training Department. By a decree issued on 24 October 1951, he was delegated â until 1 February 1953 â to perform substitute duties as a judge of the Supreme Court of the Criminal Chamber, and by a decree issued on 22 October 1953, he was transferred to the position of judge at the Provincial Court in Warsaw. The data comes from a certificate of employment issued to Ignacy Iserles at the Ministry of Justice on 27 April 1957; see also ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, Judicial Oversight Department to the Ministry of Justice on the topic of delegating Ignacy Iserles to the Supreme Court of the Criminal Chamber, undated; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, letter from the Minister of Justice delegating Ignacy Iserles as a substitute judge of the Supreme Court of the Criminal Chamber, 24 October 1951; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, letter from the Minister of Justice entrusting Ignacy Iserles with the task of inspecting the courts in the Ministry of Justiceâs Training Department, 28 April 1952; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, letter from the President of the Provincial Court to the Ministry of Justice, Human Resources and Training Department, requesting the appointment of Ignacy Iserles as Provincial Court Judge for the Warsaw Province, 29 September 1953; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, a letter from the Undersecretary of State of the Ministry of Justice informing of the transfer of Ignacy Iserles to the position of judge in the Provincial Court in Warsaw, 22 October 1953.
A. Bosiacki, âPrawo stalinowskie i jego recepcja w Polsce 1944â56: Zarys problematykiâ [Stalinist Law and Its Reception in Poland in the Years 1944â56: An Outline of Issues], in Kulesza and RzepliÅski, PrzestÄpstwa sÄdziów, 24.
According to Jacek R. Kubiak, the term âsecret sectionâ is a common, informal term for Section iii in the Provincial Court and the Tenth Supreme Court, which did not have âsecretâ in their names but were understood as such. At the beginning of November 1956, the Minister of Justice, Zofia Wasilkowska, appointed committees to examine the creation six years previously and the activities of the âsecret sectionâ of the Provincial Court in Warsaw. The procedure of cases considered in âsecret sections,â as demonstrated by a later committee, violated the principles of transparency in a hearing. It was not permitted for the accused to be defended by their lawyer of choice, and evidence presented by the accused was unjustifiably refused. Another problem was the unification of the special courts, where a number of death sentences were passed, especially as the sentences were based on false, fabricated evidence, and torture was used during the investigations. New Records Archive in Warsaw (hereinafter: nra), the Supreme Court (hereinafter: sc), file 1/179, final defense of Kazimierz Czajkowski, 30 December 1957; nra, sc, file 1/179, supplement to the motion of 23 June 1957, 1 September 1957, 1 September 1957; âZza kulis âsekcji tajnychâ: Sprawozdanie komisji dla zbadania dziaÅalnoÅci tzw. âsekcji tajnejâ SÄ du Woj. dla m.st. Warszawyâ [Behind the Scenes of âSecret Sectionsâ: A Report by the Commission to Investigate the Activities of the âSecret Sectionâ of the Provincial Court in Warsaw], Gazeta Prawnicza, no. 17 (1989): 11; J. R. Kubiak, âSekcja tajna,â Prawo i Å»ycie, nos. 28â29 (1991): 10â11.
For more information on the use of the death penalty in the Polish Peopleâs Republic, see P. KÅadoczny, âKara Åmierci jako wykÅadnik polityki karnej paÅstwa w latach 1944â1956â [The Death Penalty as an Indicator of State Penal Policy in the Years 1944â1956], in Kulesza and RzepliÅski, PrzestÄpstwa sÄdziów, 67â81.
BronisÅaw ChajÄcki (1902â1953) was an infantry reserve officer of the Polish army: second lieutenant (1929) and captain (9 May 1946). He was awarded the Order of Virtuti Militari V Class (26 September 1939) and the Cross of Valor. During the defense of Warsaw, from 11 September 1939 onwards, he served as Deputy Civil Commissioner under Stefan StarzyÅskiâs Warsaw Defense Command and Deputy Mayor of Warsaw in the Praga district (he also led the antiaircraft defense there). Active in the underground from the beginning of October 1939 onwards, he cofounded the âWarszawiankaâ organization. From 9 August 1944 onwards, he was the commander of Warsawâs National Security Corps during the Warsaw Uprising (under the alias âLeonardâ). After the surrender of the insurgent units, he was deported by the Germans, escaped from the transport by jumping from a train near Skierniewice, and fought in the battles of the Home Armyâs âKampinosâ group. From March 1945 onwards, he served voluntarily in the Peopleâs Army as a company commander. He was arrested on 11 November 1948. A. K. Kunert, ed., SÅownik biograficzny konspiracji warszawskiej 1939â1944 [Biographical Dictionary of the Warsaw Underground, 1939â1944] (Warsaw, 1987), 1:52â53. ChajÄcki was accused of collecting data about members of the left-wing movement and decoding it, as well as breaking up the movement. The Provincial Court in Warsaw sentenced BronisÅaw ChajÄcki on 30 May 1952 to death and permanent deprivation of public, civil, and honorary rights, and his property was confiscated. During the trial, his requests for the interrogation of witnesses were dismissed, since it was concluded that the gathered evidence was sufficiently incriminating and had been adequately explained. The General Prosecutorâs Office (consisting of Paulina Kern, the General Prosecutor of the Polish Peopleâs Republic, and Aleksandra Flatau-Kowalska, a district judge serving as court reporter at the revision hearing on 10 September 1952) upheld the verdict and on 20 October, after reviewing the appeal of the Provincial Court in Warsaw issued on 30 May 1952, upheld the death sentence â signed Emil Merz, Gustaw Auscaler, Ignacy Iserles. Ibidem, card 73 (the whole case is in the file nra, sc, 2/20895, cards 1â83). ChajÄckiâs case, which was handled in the âsecret section,â was an element of the campaign to destroy the emigration authority of the Polish government, as a secret political trial, but at the same time a showcase one, using all the communist rhetoric to justify the sentence. In the justification of the verdict, a large part was devoted to the London government rather than to real evidence giving reasons for sentencing a man to death. The verdict by the judicial team, which included Iserles, upheld the death penalty. ChajÄcki asserted in court that the defendants had been subjected to torture and various other forms of physical coercion while showing his crushed fingers as evidence, but this did not cause any reaction from the court, and it can be considered yet another example of the repressive justice system at that time. The sentence â the death penalty â was carried out on BronisÅaw ChajÄcki. For more information on the use of the death penalty in the Polish Peopleâs Republic, see KÅadoczny, âKara Åmierci,â 67â81; âZza kulis âsekcji tajnych,ââ 242.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Gazeta Prawnicza 165, no. 1 (1990): 6; D. Thiriet, Marks czy Maryja? KomuniÅci i Jasna Góra w apogeum stalinizmu (1950â1956) [Marx or Maria? Communists and the Jasna Góra Monastery at the Height of Stalinism (1950â1956)], translated into Polish by J. Pysiak, preface by M. Kula (Warsaw, 2002), 221â53.
On January 13, 1953, the daily newspaper Prawda reported on a conspiracy of Kremlin-connected doctors whose actions were supposedly detrimental to the Soviet Union. As a result of this accusation, persecution of Jewish communities began, with additional accusations of terrorism.
Quoted from A. Wat, Åwiat na haku i pod kluczem: Eseje [The World Hanging from a Hook and Locked Away: Essays], ed. K. Rutkowski (Warsaw, 1991), 29.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, professional and political opinion from President S. Kotowski, undated.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, opinion sent from the Human Resources Department of the Ministry of Justice, unsigned, 9 June 1952.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, opinion from H. Juchczyka, the director of the Human Resources Department of the Ministry of Justice, 22 January 1953.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, opinion from H. Juchczyka, the director of the Human Resources Department of the Ministry of Justice, 22 January 1953.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, professional and political opinion, undated; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, professional and political opinion, 29 May 1952.
A. Wat, Mój wiek: PamiÄtnik mówiony [My Century: A Spoken Diary], ed. R. Habielski (Kraków, 2011), 1:25â29.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, professional and political opinion, undated.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, professional and political opinion, undated; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, opinion from Maria Matwinowa, 9 June 1952.
K. Kersten, âSformuÅowanie zaczerpniÄteâ [A Verbatim Utterance], in MiÄdzy wyzwoleniem a zniewoleniem: Polska 1944â1956 [Between Liberation and Enslavement: Poland in the Years 1944â1956] (London, 1993), 144.
Kersten, âSformuÅowanie zaczerpniÄte,â 107.
A. Sobór-Åwiderska, Jakub Berman: Biografia komunisty [Jakub Berman: A Biography of a Communist] (Warsaw, 2009), 442, 447; M. Shore, NowoczesnoÅÄ jako źródÅo cierpieÅ [Modernity as a Source of Suffering], translated into Polish by M. Sutowski (Warsaw, 2012), 87â92.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection; T. ToraÅska, Oni [Them] (Warsaw, 2004), 414â16.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
I. Iserles, âO adwokatach nie po raz pierwszyâ [Not the First Time Weâve Discussed Lawyers], Prawo i Å»ycie, no. 2 (1956): 3.
M. Stanowska and A. Strzembosz, SÄdziowie warszawscy w czasie próby 1981â1988 (Warsaw, 2005), 27.
nra, sc, file 1/179, memo from Stefan Kurowski on the case of Kazimierz Czajkowski, a judge of the Supreme Court, undated.
I. Les [I. Iserles], âNa tropie utraconych nadzieiâ [On the Trail of Lost Hopes], Od Nowa, no. 5 (1958): 5.
I. Les [I. Iserles], ââWalceâ w odpowiedziâ [âWaltzesâ in Response], Od Nowa, no. 9 (1965): 2.
WÅadysÅaw GomuÅka, a Polish communist, was the head of the communist government in Poland from 1956 to 1970.
Zofia GomuÅka, a communist from a Jewish family, was actually named Liwa Szoken.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Themis is the goddess of law and justice in Greek mythology.
I. Les [I. Iserles], âBezdomna Temidaâ [Homeless Themis], Prawo i Å»ycie: Tygodnik SpoÅeczno-Polityczny, no. 7 (1957): 6.
In the âsecret sectionâ of the Supreme Court, on 20 October 1952, Gustaw Auscaler together with Emil Merz and Igor Andrejew upheld the death sentence in a completely fake trial against a soldier of the Polish Legions, the commander of the Polish Army and the Home Army â August Emil Fieldorf.
I. Iserles, âNa ÅmierÄ przyjacielaâ [On the Death of a Friend], Od Nowa, no. 22 (1965): 3. Gustaw Auscaler arrived in Israel on a ship named âYerushalaimâ on 19 December 1957 (travel document no: 126368). Together with his wife Hanna and his mother Rachel, he was sent to Pardes Rubin near Hadera and then settled in Holon. In 1959 he validated his diploma (he graduated from the University of Warsaw in June 1947 with a degree in law), and after passing his exams with distinction and completing a brief internship (12 months) at the Ministry of Labor, the Tel Aviv branch of the Ministry of Labour entered him on its list of lawyers. He was the deputy prosecutor of the Tel Aviv district. He died in his workplace on 10 November 1965. Central Zionist Archive in Jerusalem (Sochnut), file 5/155 (gimel/lamed), list of travelers; Archive of the Legal Council at the Ministry of Justice in Jerusalem, Szmuel Ojscalerâs personal file; ainr, Ministry of the Interior (hereinafter: mi) ii, file 10884, data on the Jewish population in the years 1946â64, card 34.
ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 74; interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, handwritten letter from Ignacy Iserles to the Ministry of Justice in Warsaw requesting that he be relieved of employment on 31 May 1957 in connection with his emigration abroad, 30 April 1957; ahrdmj, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, letter from the Minister of Justice dismissing Ignacy Iserles from his judicial service on 31 May 1957, 4 May 1957.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 74; ainr, mi ii, file 10884, data on the Jewish population in the years 1946â64, card 16.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection; Archive of the Provincial Court in Warsaw, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file, memo from S. Kotowski, president of the Provincial Court in Warsaw, 30 April 1957.
ainr, file 1585/93, Council of the Ministry of the Interior for Security Affairs â meetings in 1959: minutes, list of issues discussed, reports, draft instructions, information, card 25.
ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, cards 1, 15.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
A. Ben-Asher [W. Cygielman], âDo Pana N.â [To Mr. N.], Od Nowa, no. 2 (1958): 1.
ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 77.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
ainr, file 1585/93, Council of the Ministry of the Interior for Security Affairs â meetings in 1959: minutes, list of issues discussed, reports, draft instructions, information, card 27.
âBitwa nad rubrykÄ â [The Battle of the Rubric], Od Nowa, no. 3 (1958): 1.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Od Nowa, no. 1 (1958): 1.
Cur, Mapam 1948â1954, 71â78, 80â89, 98; Barzilai, âKtóż, jeÅli nie Wy, poda nam dÅoÅ,â 2.
For Marek Gefenâs biography, see footnote 158 in chapter 1. Gefen belonged to the left-wing branch of Mapam. According to the correspondence of the Polish secret service and employees of the Polish Peopleâs Republicâs embassy in Tel Aviv from the years 1954â55, Gefen declared that personal and material reasons stopped him from leaving Mapam with Moshe Snehâs group: âHe belongs to the officially nonexistent left-wing section of Mapam, which, however, must sit quietly for the time being.â In later years, a change in his views was noted. For example, a memo from 1959 states: âJust as before, he currently has a favorable attitude towards Poland, but as for ideology â his change against it has gone far. In the past, he was critical, but now it is easy for him to have an ironic approach to these issues. I believe that he has a hostile attitude towards the politics and actions of the ussr. Moreover, it seems that nowadays he is also more of a Zionist than beforeâ; ainr, file 01649/175/J microfilm, Gefen Maurycy, card 84; see also other personal data on Gefen in cards 11, 15, 42, 77.
YaÊ¿akov Hazan (1899â92) was born in Brest on the Bug River (formerly Brest-Litowsk, Brisk in Yiddish) into a religious family (misnagdim). The family moved to Warsaw, where he became a Hashomer Hatzair activist. He served in the Polish Army, and in 1923 he left for Israel. There he cooperated with Meir YaÊ¿ari, organizing the kibbutz movement.
âNoworoczne życzenia âNowin â Kurieraâ dla âOd Nowaââ [New Yearâs Greetings from Nowiny-Kurier to Od Nowa], Od Nowa, no. 37 (1959): 12; A. Ben-Asher [W. Cygielman], âZbuntowani rewizjoniÅci czy skostniali konformiÅci?â [Rebellious Revisionists or Stiff Conformists?], Od Nowa, no. 38 (1959): 1.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Archive of the Israel Bar Association in Jerusalem, Ignacy Iserlesâs file; Kersten, âSformuÅowanie zaczerpniÄte,â 107; interview with Ignacy Iserles, 21 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
ââOd Nowaâ â na bezdrożach anty-komunizmuâ [Od Nowa â In the Wilderness of Anti-Communism], Walka, no. 6 (1960): 2; ââOd Nowaâ â organ outsiderówâ [Od Nowa â An Organ of Outsiders], Walka, no. 4 (1962): 2.
Interview with Ran Kislev, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection; ainr, file 01237/190/J microfilm, Weksler Herman, cards 5, 10, 18, 27, 35.
âLegitymacja/Rozmowa z Czytelnikiemâ [Testimony/An Interview with a Reader], Od Nowa, no. 17 (1959): 1; E. J. Hobsbawm, Jak zmieniÄ Åwiat: Marks i marksizm 1840â2011 [How to Change the World: Marx and Marxism, 1840â2011], translated into Polish by S. SzymaÅski (Warsaw, 2013), 252â57.
One of the leaders of the Communist Party of Poland.
A Polish communist, activist of the international communist movement, and cofounder of the Comintern.
Interview with Adam Zausznica, 7 March 2011, materials from the authorâs collection.
StanisÅaw Brzozowskiâs novel about the history of Polish and Russian revolutionaries and the ideologies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is considered a cult novel in left-wing circles.
Interview with Adam Zausznica, 7 March 2011, materials from the authorâs collection. After World War ii, Adam Zausznica first worked in the Polish diplomatic mission in Moscow (where he dealt with economic affairs and trade) and then on the staff of Zygmunt Modzelewski, Polandâs first ambassador to the ussr; M. Golon, âMoskwa, Kijów, MiÅsk, Leningrad, Wilno: Problem utworzenia i dziaÅalnoÅci polskich placówek konsularnych w ZSRR w latach 1944â1972â [Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, Leningrad, and Vilnius: The Problem of Creating and Operating Polish Consular Posts in the ussr in the Years 1944â1972], in Polska polityka wschodnia w XX wieku [Polish Eastern Policy in the Twentieth Century], ed. M. Wojciechowski and Z. Karpus (WÅocÅawek, 2004), 205.
Interview with Adam Zausznica, 7 March 2011, materials from the authorâs collection.
Numerus clausus is an informal legal policy limiting access to education for a certain group of people, in this case applied to Jews in interwar Poland.
ainr, file 01237/52/J microfilm, MaÅska Felicja, card 15.
ainr, file 01237/52/J microfilm, MaÅska Felicja, card 15.
ainr, file 01237/52/J microfilm, MaÅska Felicja, card 15.
ainr, file 01237/52/J microfilm, MaÅska Felicja, card 15, card 13; for more information about the agency, see R. Piasecka, âAgencja Publicystyczno-Informacyjna (API) w latach 1944â1967: âGazeta dla gazetââ [The Press and Information Agency in the Years 1944â1967: âA Newspaper for Newspapersâ], Studia Bibliologiczne Akademii ÅwiÄtokrzyskiej 7 (2003): 97â107.
From a manuscript sent to the editors of Kontury [Contours], received by Ryszard Löw in April 2006, page 2, materials from the authorâs collection. I would like to thank Barbara Weinstein for making this correspondence available to me.
From a manuscript sent to the editors of Kontury [Contours], received by Ryszard Löw in April 2006, page 2, materials from the authorâs collection.
ainr, file 01237/52/J microfilm, MaÅska Felicja, card 18.
On 19 December 1956, she and her husband and two children applied for passports to immigrate permanently to Israel; they received permission on 29 January 1957; see ainr, file 01237/52/J microfilm, MaÅska Felicja, cards 3, 7.
F. MaÅska, âA wiÄc staÅo siÄ!â [And So It Happened!], Kontury, no. 16 (2006): 106.
Memoir of Felicja MaÅska, materials from the authorâs collection.
ainr, file 01237/52/J microfilm, MaÅska Felicja, card 14; F. MaÅska, âGdy Hatikwa nie znaczy nadziejaâ [When Ha-Tikvah Doesnât Mean Hope], Od Nowa, no. 3 (1958): 1; MaÅska, âO dyskryminacji mniej spokojnieâ [A Less Peaceful Discussion of Discrimination], Od Nowa, no. 8 (1958): 3; MaÅska, âSamotnoÅÄâ [Loneliness], Od Nowa, no. 24 (1959): 3.
Memoir of Felicja MaÅska, materials from the authorâs collection.
Memoir of Felicja MaÅska, materials from the authorâs collection.
MaÅska, âA wiÄc staÅo siÄ!,â 107.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
ainr, file 01237/52/J microfilm, MaÅska Felicja, card 18; interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
ainr, file 01237/52/J microfilm, MaÅska Felicja, card 14, see also cards 18, 22.
He died on 11 May 2007 in Tel Aviv.
Memoir of Wiktor Cygielman, materials from the authorâs collection (translated into Polish from French by Grażyna Waluga); letter sent from Belgium by Jo Szyster to Wiktor Cygielman, 26 September 2006, materials from the authorâs collection. For more on the subject of Polish economic emigration in the interwar period, see H. Janowska, âPolska emigracja zarobkowa w Francji 1919â1939â [Polish Economic Emigration to France in the Years 1919â39] (Warsaw, 1965), 37â52; D. J. Saposs, The Labor Movement in Post-War France (New York, 1931), 121â34.
The organization was founded and led by the communist party during the occupation.
ainr, file 01237/241/J microfilm, Cygielman Wiktor, cards 32, 34.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection; S. Vromen, Hidden Children of the Holocaust: Belgian Nuns and Their Daring Rescue of Young Jews from the Nazis (Oxford, 2008), 2â7.
Saposs, Labor Movement, 102â10, 143â50.
A memoir of Wiktor Cygielman, materials from the authorâs collection. On the subject of the Belgian resistance movement and the involvement of Polish immigrants in it, see T. Panecki, âPolonia w belgijskim ruchu oporu (1940â44)â [Poles in the Belgian Resistance Movement (1940â44)] (PoznaÅ, 1986); Ku wolnej Polsce: O udziale Polaków w belgijskim ruchu oporu [Towards a Liberated Poland: On the Participation of Poles in the Belgian Resistance Movement], ed. W. BiegaÅski (Warsaw, 1978), 10â24.
A memoir of Wiktor Cygielman, materials from the authorâs collection; ainr, file 01237/241/J microfilm, Cygielman Wiktor, card 14.
A memoir of Wiktor Cygielman, materials from the authorâs collection; Panecki, âPolonia w belgijskim ruchu oporu,â 21.
G. Lichtheim, Marxism in Modern France (New York, 1966), 38â51; N. Nugent and D. Lowe, The Left in France (London, 1982), 33â40, 103.
Archive of the University of Warsaw (hereinafter: auw), file K 5183, collection of employment records for Yaninah Mailer, character description of Yaninah Mailer, signed by MieczysÅaw Holzer, head of the personal affairs department, 6 August 1966.
A memoir of Wiktor Cygielman, materials from the authorâs collection.
A memoir of Wiktor Cygielman, materials from the authorâs collection; ainr, file 01237/241/J microfilm, Cygielman Wiktor, cards 14â15.
D. Hacohen, Immigrants in Turmoil: Mass Immigration to Israel and Its Repercussions in the 1950s and After, trans. G. Brand (Syracuse, 2003), 17â19.
A biography of Wiktor Cygielman prepared for Karen Akoka, materials from the authorâs collection.
A memoir of Wiktor Cygielman, materials from the authorâs collection.
A memoir of Wiktor Cygielman, materials from the authorâs collection.
A memoir of Wiktor Cygielman, materials from the authorâs collection.
ainr, file 01237/241/J microfilm, Cygielman Wiktor, cards 34, 35.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection. This scene is described in an article titled âKartka z pamiÄtnikaâ [A Page from a Diary] printed in Po Prostu under a pseudonym, with the speakerâs gender changed from male to female: âSeven months ago I left Paris. How time flies quickly. Today I have learned one more Polish phrase: I have an âatypical appearanceâ â i.e., I donât look Jewish. At least thatâs what my uncle said. He started arguing with me again to change my surname, Szwarcman, to Czarnecka. I donât hold it against him that he did this himself, but I donât want to. I canât. After all, my parents died precisely because their name was âSzwarcman,â and Iâm supposed to change my name now?â Po Prostu, no. 21 (1956): 3.
auw, file K 5183, Yaninah Mailerâs employment records, personal questionnaire, undated.
ainr, file 01237/241/J microfilm, Cygielman Wiktor, card 20.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection.
H. Szwarcman [W. Cygielman], âSzwarcman czy Czarnecka? (Z polskiego tygodnika mÅodej inteligencji âPo Prostuâ)â [Szwarcman or Czarnecka? (From Po Prostu, a Polish Weekly Newspaper of the Young Intelligentsia)], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 80 (1956), page number illegible.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection.
In 1954 she was accepted for a third year of studies in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw, and in 1956 she became an assistant professor there. In November 1963, she obtained her doctoral degree. She worked in the Department of Ethics of the University of Warsaw, led by Prof. Marek Fritzhand. On 30 April 1968, during a wave of anti-Semitic events, she was dismissed from her job at the University of Warsaw. J. Mailer is the author of Doctryna etnyczna Karol Fouriera [The Ethnic Doctrine of Charles Fourier], Biblioteka Studiów nad Marksizmem [Library of Studies on Marxism] (Warsaw, 1965). See also auw, file K 5183, Yaninah Mailerâs employment records, a letter from Prof. Marek Fritzhanda to the rector of uw, 16 January 1967; auw, file K 5183, general letter, 30 April 1968.
M. Kula, Paryż, Londyn i Waszyngton patrzÄ na Październik 1956 r. w Polsce [Paris, London and Washington Observe the Events of October 1956 in Poland] (Warsaw, 1992), 313â30.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs biography prepared for Karen Akoka, materials from the authorâs collection.
A description by Dorit (Thei) Cygielman, materials from the authorâs collection. PÅomyczek was a popular Polish magazine for children, published between 1917 and 2013.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection.
Felicja MaÅskaâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection, page 11.
W. Cygielman, âOjczyzny siÄ nie wybieraâ [You Donât Choose Your Country], Od Nowa, no. 5 (1958): 1; A. KuryÅek, ââPamiÄÄ uspokajana znaczy martwaâ â Ida Fink [âA Calm Memory Means a Dead Memoryâ â Ida Fink], in Pisarze polsko-żydowscy XX wieku: Przybliżenia [PolishâJewish Writers of the Twentieth Century: Approximations], ed. M. DÄ browski and A. Molisak (Warsaw, 2006), 219â38.
Uri Avnery (born 1923) was an Israeli writer, the founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement, and the owner of Ha-Olam ha-Zeh, an informative magazine published from 1950 to 1993.
H. Szwarcman [W. Cygielman], âMyÅli oderwaneâ [Disconnected Thoughts], Od Nowa, no. 16 (1958): 6; H. Szwarcman [W. Cygielman], âNiewygodny socjalizmâ [Inconvenient Socialism], Od Nowa, no. 5 (1958): 5.
See, for example, S. Flapen, âIzrael a zjednoczenie arabskieâ [Israel and the Arab Union], Od Nowa, no. 8 (1958): 1. A letter from Paul Thibaud, the editor of Esprit, to Wiktor Cygielman, containing information about the publication of an issue devoted to Israel, 7 July 1966, materials from the authorâs collection.
New Outlook was established in 1957, and from 1991 to 1993 it was published bimonthly. In the initial period, title pages were added in Hebrew and Arabic.
Interview with Dorit Cygielman, 13 July 2011, materials from the authorâs collection.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs memoir, materials from the authorâs collection.
Anwar Sadat came after being invited by Menachem Begin in 1977. A positive outcome of this visit was the signing of a peace treaty at Camp David.
A letter from Paul Thibaud to Wiktor Cygielman, 7 July 1966; materials from the authorâs collection.
David Susskind was born in Antwerp in 1925, into a family of orthodox Jews. He survived World War ii in Switzerland, and in the last years of the war he fought in the resistance movement in France. After the war, he lived and worked in Belgium. He was a left-wing activist, involved in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. He died in November 2011.
A biography of Wiktor Cygielman prepared for Karen Akoka, materials from the authorâs collection.
A letter from Jean Daniel to Wiktor Cygielman, 8 August 1970, materials from the authorâs collection; a letter from François Honti to Wiktor Cygielman, 8 December 1969, materials from the authorâs collection.
A letter of recommendation for Wiktor Cygielman written by Nachum Goldmann to Philip Klutznick, 8 July 1977, materials from the authorâs collection. Philip Klutznickâs parents (Morris and Minnie) came from Poland. In 1957 he served as a UN delegate for three months. He was an ambassador of the United States at the United Nations and in the Economic and Social Council in 1960. In 1977 he became president of the World Congress of Jews. He considered himself a Zionist and spokesman for Israel, but he also encouraged dialogue with Arab groups and leaders.
A letter from Isaac Deutscher to Wiktor Cygielman sent from London, 13 June 1966, materials from the authorâs collection.
Wiktor Cygielmanâs biography prepared for Karen Akoka, materials from the authorâs collection.
ainr, file 01237/241/J microfilm, Cygielman Wiktor, card 16.
Interview with Ran Kislev, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Interview with Ran Kislev, materials from the authorâs collection.
Interview with Ran Kislev, materials from the authorâs collection; ainr, file 01237/190/J microfilm, Weksler Herman, cards 5, 10, 18, 27, 35; ainr, mi ii, file 10884, data concerning the Jewish population in the years 1946â64, card 15; interview with Ran Kislev, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
He also mentioned it in this article: H. Weksler, âNasza Kartaginaâ [Our Carthage], Od Nowa, no. 7 (1958): 4.
Interview with Ran Kislev, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
H. Wiss [R. Kislev], âDom sÅoÅcaâ [House of the Sun], Od Nowa, no. 4 (1958): 2.
Omer â an edition of Davar with diacritical marks and, like this newspaper, published by Histadrut.
Interview with Ran Kislev, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Interview with Ran Kislev, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection; interview with Uri Avnery, 5 January 2013, materials from the authorâs collection.
Boris Eppel (in some documents also appearing as Ber Epel), pseudonym Edmund Bora, was born on 25 October 1917 in the town of Korzec in the Volhynia region, the son of MichaÅ and Zofia, née Guzband. In 1929 he moved with his parents and brother Pesach to Równe. His father was a forestry inspector. In 1935 Boris Eppel finished secondary school. From 1936 to 1939 he studied history, English and Oriental Studies. ainr, file 1368/2273, a foreignerâs personal records: Eppel â Epel Boris Ber, cards 18, 21, 35; ainr, file 1368/2273, provisional certificate of passing exams for a Masterâs Degree in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Warsaw, 10 November 1949; Archive of the University of Warsaw, file WHum 49.374/2.462, kem 7637/9548 (Epel Ber Mordechaj); ainr, mi ii, file 10884, data concerning the Jewish population in the years 1946â64, card 15.
Notification of the annulment of the sentence, 10 February 1944, copy in the authorâs collection.
Letter from the Polish Patriotsâ Union written in February 1944, copy in the authorâs collection; Notification of the annulment of the sentence, 10 February 1944, copy in the authorâs collection.
Notification of the annulment of the sentence, 10 February 1944, copy in the authorâs collection.
Certificate of employment from 10 February to 10 August 1944 at the Institute of Foreign Languages, copy in the authorâs collection.
Letter from the âCzytelnikâ Publishing Cooperative to the editor, Boris Eppel, 13 December 1948 and 19 January 1949, copy in the authorâs collection; nomination from the âCzytelnikâ Publishing Cooperative of Boris Eppel for the position of chief editor of Rzeczpospolita and Dziennik Gospodarczy, 13 December 1948, copy in the authorâs collection.
Piasecka, âAgencja Publicystyczno-Informacyjna,â 98; E. Krasucki, MiÄdzynarodowy komunista: Jerzy Borejsza, biografi a polityczna [An International Communist: Jerzy Borejsza, a Political Biography] (Warsaw, 2009), 184.
nra, Association of Polish Journalists, file 2/1, transcript from the Second General Meeting of Delegates of the Association of Polish Journalists, 15â16 May 1954, card 341.
ainr, file 1368/2273, a foreignerâs personal record: Eppel â Epel Boris Ber, card 18, see also cards 21â35.
A provisional certificate of the rector of the University of Warsaw, 10 November 1949, copy in the authorâs collection; certificate from the qualification committee of the Faculty of Philology (signed by Prof. Leon Kurowski) of the appointment as senior assistant in Department of Turkology, 16 November 1953, copy in the authorâs collection; certificate of the rector of the University of Warsaw for the title of assistant professor, 15 November 1954, copy in the authorâs collection.
Certified statement by the editor of Å»ycie Warszawy, StanisÅaw BieÅkowski, 14 June 1957, copy in the authorâs collection; certificate as a foreign correspondent for the Middle East issued to Boris Eppel by Å»ycie Warszawy, 14 June 1957, copy in the authorâs collection.
He maintained contact with the Radio Free Europe community. See also a document by Roman Frister on the topic of surveillance of Radio Free Europe (ainr, file 01940/46/J microfilm, Frister Roman, cards 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40â46), as well as surveillance of the Paris-based literary magazine Kultura (Archive of the Literary Institute in Maisons-Laffitte [hereinafter: ali], letters from Roman Frister to Jerzy Giedroyc, 21 December 1965 and 21 February 1966); see a report by the secret services (ainr, file 01940/46, cards 50â52, 55, 57, 58). Neither in the case of Radio Free Europe nor of Kultura did it bring about the results expected by the Polish Peopleâs Republicâs legation in Tel Aviv, from which instructions to establish cooperation usually came (for example, see ainr, file 01940/46, excerpt from the instructions, 25 May 1966, cards 1, 3). He was also the director of the Higher School of Journalism in Tel Aviv. He was a foreign correspondent for Polityka. Personal data comes from my interview with Roman Frister, a travel card, materials from the Polish intelligence services, employees of the Polish Peopleâs Republicâs legation in Tel Aviv stored at the ainr, file 01911/24 and 01940/46, and the ali.
Interview with Roman Frister, 24 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
R. Frister, âMiasto ludzi o czystych kartotekachâ [A City of People with Clean Records], Od Nowa, no. 23 (1959): 3. Roman Frister is the author of the autobiography: Autoportret z bliznÄ [Self-Portrait with a Scar], translated into Polish by E. and R. Frister (Warsaw, 1996).
Frister, âMiasto ludzi o czystych kartotekach,â 3.
See I. Fink, âPowrótâ [A Return], Od Nowa, no. 4 (1958): 6. Ida Fink was born in 1921 in Zbaraż. She was in the ghetto there from 1941 to 1942, and she later hid on the Aryan side. In 1948 she married Bronek Fink, who was in four camps during the war. In 1957 she left Poland for Israel with him and his daughter Miri. Her first collection of short stories, Skrawek czasu [A Scrap of Time], was published in Polish in 1983 and then translated into English in 1987. Her novel The Journey, also translated from Polish into English, was adapted for German television in 2002. Her other novels are Aneks [The Annex] (1990), Ålady [Traces] (1996), OdpÅywajÄ
cy ogród [The Flowing Garden] (2003), and Wiosna [Spring] (1941, Polish version published in 2009). Ida Finkâs works have been published in many languages: Hebrew, Polish, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Norwegian, Danish, and French. She was awarded Hollandâs Anne Frank Literary Prize (1985), Israelâs Yad Vashem Prize (1995), Italyâs Alberto Moravia Prize (1996), the Polish pen Club Prize (2003), and the Israeli Literary Prize (2008), and she has also received the title of honorary doctor from Ben Gurion University in Negev (2004);
A description by Dorit (Thei) Cygielman, materials from the authorâs collection.
Interview with Ran Kislev, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Od Nowa, no. 14 (1958): 6.
Od Nowa, no. 14 (1958): 6.
The Polish poet Julian PrzyboÅ.
Od Nowa, no. 14 (1958): 6.
From a manuscript sent to Ryszard Löw at the editorial office of Kontury [Contours], April 2006, page 13, materials from the authorâs collection. I would like to thank Barbara Weinstein for making this correspondence available.
hha, file 3/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 30 March 1960.
In prewar press publications and political activity he still used the pseudonym âJantaâ and âErwinâ; ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 73.
MaÅska, âA wiÄc staÅo siÄ!,â 107.
âThe New Printshop.â
F. MaÅska, â20 lat â âAl Hamiszmar.â Rozmowa o gazecieâ [Twenty Years of Al HaMishmar: A Conversation about the Newspaper], Od Nowa, no. 15 (1963): 2.
hha, file 6/63/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 2 October 1957; hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of the party, 22 September 1958; hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 8 and 10 July 1957.
âDo Czytelnikówâ [To the Readers], Od Nowa, no. 9 (1958): 1; hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 22 September 1958.
hha, file 6/63/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 2 October 1957; see also hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 8 July 1957.
hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 8 July 1957.
âLegitymacja/Rozmowa z Czytelnikiemâ [Testimony/An Interview with a Reader], Od Nowa, no. 17 (1959): 1; N. Sztrochman, âTÄcza ma siedem barwâ [A Rainbow Has Seven Colors], Od Nowa, no. 4 (1958): 7.
I. Iserles, âDmuchaÅ jak zwykle wiatrami październik â¦â [The Winds of October Were Blowing, As Usual â¦], Od Nowa, no. 12 (1958): 1.
hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 22 September 1958.
âDo Czytelnikówâ [To the Readers], Od Nowa, no. 9 (1958): 1.
Interview with Ran Kislev, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
âLegitymacja/Rozmowa z Czytelnikiemâ [Testimony/An Interview with a Reader], Od Nowa, no. 17 (1959): 1.
Studies of Mapam focus mainly on the period between 1948 and 1953, from the founding of the party, through its merger with Ahdut HaAvoda, to its disintegration. In the work of Eli Cura (Mapam, 1948â1954), there appears rudimentary information about the ethnic characteristics of the members of this party, particularly in the section covering Hashomer Hatzair, but it refers only to the first two years of the stateâs existence. With such large migratory waves, it can only serve as a juxtaposition and comparison with the period that interests us (1956â59), and which has not yet been thoroughly researched.
hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 22 September 1958.
E. Bora [B. Eppel], âZarozumialcyâ [Bigheads], Od Nowa, no. 33 (1960): 8.
S. Zelcer, âCoÅ nowegoâ [Something New], Od Nowa, no. 33 (1960): 8.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
hha, file 3/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 30 March 1960.
hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 22 September 1958.
hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 22 September 1958.
hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from administrative meetings of Mapam in the years 1958â1959; hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 22 September 1958.
H. Wiss [R. Kislev], âKaktus â Årednio kolÄ cyâ [A Cactus â Partially Prickly], Od Nowa, no. 3 (1958): 8; see A. Czerski, ââKaktusâ na Kikar Dizengoffâ [Kikar Dizengoffâs âCactusâ], Kurier Niezależny, no. 124 (1958): 3.
A popular meeting place in Kraków for students, where short plays and songs were performed (founded in 1956).
The Free Thinking Club for open intellectual discussion, established in Warsaw in the years 1955â62.
H. Wiss [R. Kislev], âKaktus â Årednio kolÄ cy.â
âRozmowy z czytelnikamiâ [Interviews with Readers], Od Nowa, no. 7 (1958): 3.
âRozmowy z czytelnikami,â 3.
Iserles, âDialog z tubylcem,â 1.
âRozmowy z czytelnikami,â 3.
âDo Czytelnikówâ [To the Readers], Od Nowa, no. 9 (1958): 1.
L. Góral, âNareszcie bez ksiÄżniczki MaÅgorzatyâ [Finally without Princess Margaret], Od Nowa, no. 7 (1958): 10.
Od Nowa, no. 1 (1958): 1.
ââPozostaliÅmy wierni wielkim ideom komunizmuâ: Spotkanie nowych olim z Polski, sympatyków KPI w okrÄgu Tel Awiw-Jaffaâ [We Have Remained Faithful to the Great Ideas of Communism: A Meeting between the New Polish Olim and the Communist Party of Israelâs Supporters in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa District], Walka, no. 4 (1958): 4.
A. Ben-Asher [W. Cygielman], âDo Pana N.,â 1.
ââOd Nowaâ â na bezdrożach anty-komunizmuâ [Od Nowa â In the Wilderness of Anti-Communism], Walka, no. 6 (1960): 2; âOd nowa â organ outsiderówâ [Od Nowa â An Organ of Outsiders], Walka, no. 4 (1962): 2.
I. S. [I. Iserles], âPartie: SiedemdziesiÄ t tysiÄcyâ [Parties: Seventy Thousand], Od Nowa, no. 22 (1962): 1; âRozmowy z czytelnikamiâ [Interviews with Readers], Od Nowa, no. 7 (1958): 3.
âLegitymacja/Rozmowa z Czytelnikiemâ [Testimony/An Interview with a Reader], Od Nowa, no. 17 (1959): 1.
H. Wiss [R. Kislev], âO patriotyzmie, humanizmie i âcadykizmieââ [Patriotism, Humanism, and âTzadikismâ], Od Nowa, no. 5 (1958): 7.
A Polish magazine published in Warsaw between 1947 and 1957.
E. Bora [B. Eppel], âO miÅoÅci do Izraela i miÅoÅci do Srulaâ [On Love for Israel and Love for Srul], Od Nowa, no. 6 (1958): 7.
LâExpress was first published in Paris on 16 May 1953, as a supplement to the economic newspaper Les Echos. After a while, it became a separate newspaper that gained readers quickly enough for its publisher Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber to decide to change the frequency of publication: it went from being a weekly to a daily newspaper (the first issue was published on 15 October 1955; then, on 9 May 1956, after this unsuccessful attempt, it became a magazine). In the meantime, in May 1954, after being accused of revealing military secrets, the magazine was dissolved. LâExpress also featured, in addition to Pierre Mendès-France, politicians and prominent journalists such as Albert Camus and François Mitterrand, as well as Claude Imbert, Olivier Chevrillon, and Jean-François Revel. As B. Golka wrote, âLâExpress had a rather turbulent past and undoubtedly a bit of luck.â Liberal LâExpress won readers over with its openness to many authors and criticism of the French establishment â for example, when it opposed Franceâs involvement in Indochina. One of its creators, Mendès-France, was able to take up the office of prime minister and sign a peace agreement. From 1958 onwards, General Charles de Gaulleâs political views were clearly challenged, moving in the direction of support for Jean Lecanuet and then Gaston Defferre, after which it âturnedâ towards the right, sharply opposing communism.
A. Ben-Asher [W. Cygielman], âQuo vadis âOd Nowaâ?â [Quo Vadis Od Nowa?], Od Nowa, no. 11 (1959): 7.
The phrase âpowszechne niedomówienieâ [ubiquitous insinuations] is taken from Wat, Åwiat na haku i pod kluczem, 41.
Góral, âNareszcie bez ksiÄżniczki MaÅgorzaty,â 10.
Ben-Asher [Cygielman], âQuo vadis âOd Nowaâ?â 7.
âPo rokuâ [A Year Later], Od Nowa, no. 23 (1959): 1.
B. Piotrowska, [F. MaÅska], âSÅowa, sÅowa, sÅowa â¦â [Words, Words, Words â¦], Od Nowa, no. 11 (1959): 2.
H. Wiss [R. Kislev], âDom sÅoÅcaâ [House of the Sun], Od Nowa, no. 4 (1958): 2.
S. Shalem [I. Iserles], âO cadyku z Berdyczewa i publicystach z Tel â Awiwuâ [The Tzaddik of Berdyczew and the Columnists of Tel Aviv], Od Nowa, no. 5 (1958): 7.
Shalem [Iserles], âO cadyku z Berdyczewa i publicystach z Tel â Awiwu.â
A district of Kraków. It was designed as a separate city in 1949 and became a symbol of communist progress and development.
Bora [Eppel], âO miÅoÅci do Izraela,â 7.
Wiss [Kislev], âO patriotyzmie, humanizmie i âcadykizmie,ââ 7.
Bora [Eppel], âO miÅoÅci do Izraela,â 7.
Bora [Eppel], âO miÅoÅci do Izraela,â 7.
H. Wiss [R. Kislev], âNa dnieâ [At the Bottom], Od Nowa, no. 6 (1958): 3.
âWhoâs Who?,â Od Nowa, no. 16 (1958): 7.
âWhoâs Who?,â 7; Ben-Asher [Cygielman], âQuo vadis âOd Nowaâ?â 7.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 5 March 1964.
hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 22 September 1958.
hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 22 September 1958.
I. Les [I. Iserles], âDialog gÅuchyâ [A Silent Dialogue], Od Nowa, no. 39 (1962): 3.
hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 22 September 1958.
hha, file 1/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 22 September 1958.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
âDo Czytelnikówâ [To the Readers], Od Nowa, no. 46 (1962): 1.
Interview with Ran Kislev, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection; interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 February and 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
A Polish writer and cult figure for the Polish generation of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1958 he left for Paris, and from that time onwards, he could not return to Poland for political reasons. In 1959 he visited Israel.
E. Bora [B. Eppel], âTrzy postacie Marka HÅaskiâ [The Three Characters of Marek HÅasko], Od Nowa, no. 38 (1960): 3; S. Stabro, Legenda i twórczoÅÄ Marka HÅaski [The Legend and Literary Works of Marek HÅasko] (WrocÅaw, 1985), 15.
A. Czyżewski, PiÄkny dwudziestoletni: Biografia Marka HÅaski [A Beautiful Twentysomething: A Biography of Marek HÅasko] (Warsaw, 2012), 294; M. HÅasko, PamiÄtnik (1945â1946) [Diary (1945â1946)], edited and with an introduction by A. Czyżewski (Warsaw, 2002); see also T. Lach, Ostatni tacy przyjaciele: Komeda, HÅasko, NiziÅski; OpowieÅÄ na podstawie wspomnieÅ Ewy Krzyżanowskiej, Marka NiziÅskiego i Zosi Komedowej [The Last Friends Like This: Komeda, HÅasko, NiziÅski â A Story Based on the Memoirs of Ewa Krzyżanowska, Marek NiziÅski, and Zosia Komedowa] (Warsaw, 2013); M. HÅasko, Beautiful Twentysomethings, translated into English by R. Ufberg, with an introduction by J. Anders (DeKalb, 2013).
M. Żeromska, Wspomnienia i podróże [Memories and Travel] (Warsaw, 1995), 119.
M. Chalamisz, âOd burzenia oÅtarzy do nihilizmuâ [From Tearing Down Altars to Nihilism], Od Nowa, no. 7 (1958): 9.
amfa, folder 12, file 926, bundle 38, dispatches, 28 January 1959, card 16; ainr, file 1585/7768, memo on the citizenship of Marek HÅasko, 25 May 1970; âPolska â Eldorado dla pisarza: Sensacyjne wypowiedzi Marka HÅasko w Paryżuâ [Poland â Eldorado for a Writer: Marek HÅaskoâs Sensational Statements in Paris], Kurier Powszechny, no. 73 (1958): 2; âOdpowiedź Markowi HÅasceâ [An Answer to Marek HÅasko], Kurier Niezależny, no. 76 (1958): 6.
amfa, folder 12, file 926, bundle 38, excerpt of correspondence from Tel Aviv 1096, 28 January 1959, card 15.
amfa, folder 12, file 926, bundle 38, âArtykuÅ z âHa-Bokerâ Przypochlebianie i usprawiedliwianie siÄâ [The Ha-Boker Article: Praising and Justifying Oneself], card 12.
âNazim Hikmet o nowelach HÅaskiâ [Nazim Hikmet on HÅaskoâs Novels], Walka, no. 6 (1958): 6.
Bora [Eppel], âTrzy postacie Marka HÅaski,â 3; T. Soldenhoff, âMarka HÅaski niesienie krzyżaâ [Carrying the Cross of Marek HÅasko], in Proza polska w krÄgu religijnych inspiracji [Polish Prose and Religious Inspiration], ed. M. JasiÅska-Wojtkowska and K. Dybciak (Lublin, 1993), 371â82.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
âDebit âKulturyâ w Izraeluâ [The Right of Circulation for Kultura in Israel], Od Nowa, no. 32 (1960): 4; M. HÅasko, ââKulturaâ i ⦠rewizjonizmâ [Kultura and ⦠Revisionism], Kurier Niezależny, no. 64 (1958): 2; âOdpowiedź Markowi HÅasce,â 6.
amfa, folder 21, file 711, bundle 50, report for the period from 1 July to 31 December 1958 sent from the Polish Peopleâs Republicâs legation in Tel Aviv to the Press and Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw, 19 December 1958, card 12; R. Weinberg, Stalinâs Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland; An Illustrated History, 1928â1996, ed. B. Berman, with an introduction by Z. Gitelman (Berkeley, 1998).
ainr, file 01911/24, Roman Fristerâs file, card 12; ainr, file 01940/46/J, microfilm, Frister Roman, cards 13, 24, 25, 35; amfa, folder 21, file 712, bundle 50, report for the period from 1 January to 31 July 1959 sent from the Polish Peopleâs Republicâs legation in Tel Aviv to the Press and Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 21 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection; ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 105.
A literary critic and essayist.
A film director working in Poland and the United States.
A lawyer and politician, the husband of Zofia Wasilkowska, and the Minister of Justice in the years 1956â57.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 21 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
The editors were well aware of the âsensitivityâ of the Polish Peopleâs Republicâs legation in Tel Aviv when it came to providing information about tourists from Poland visiting Israel, and indicating their presence in Od Nowa could have negative effects. The following accusation was aimed at Israeli communists: âItâs true that the people of Walka can indulge tourists from socialist Poland, that they can send denunciations after them and kill people there for having sympathy for Israel. Itâs true that the people of Walka can exert moral terror on Polish writers and journalists visiting Israel, that they usurp the right to act as a âreportingâ agent in the law-abiding sphere of certain diplomatic missions.â ââWalceâ â do wiadomoÅciâ [Walka â In the News], Od Nowa, no. 27 (1961): 1; interview with Ignacy Iserles, 21 February 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
J. Szerman, âLipcowe refleksjeâ [July Reflections], Od Nowa, no. 4 (1958): 1.
Szerman, âLipcowe refleksje,â 1; see also F. MaÅska, âPolski Lipiecâ [A Polish July], Od Nowa, no. 28 (1961): 1.
Clashes erupted between the Polish and Jewish populations in the town of Przytyk on 9 March, 1936.
The Falanga National Radical Camp was a political group in Poland during the interwar period, with a nationalistic, anti-Semitic and anti-communist agenda.
There were separate sections in university lecture halls for students of Jewish origin. It was one of the forms of discrimination against them during the interwar period in Poland.
Szerman, âLipcowe refleksje,â 1.
âZaproszenie do Moskwyâ [An Invitation to Moscow], Od Nowa, no. 16 (1963): 2.
âO jednolity front miÄdzy KPI a Mapamâ [A United Front between the Communist Party of Israel and Mapam], Walka, no. 12 (1965): 2.
âI Zjazd PZPRâ [The First Congress of the Polish United Workersâ Party], Od Nowa, no. 12 (1959): 4.
Od Nowa, no. 7 (1958): 1.
Shore, NowoczesnoÅÄ jako źródÅo cierpieÅ, 35â40; I. Les [I. Iserles], âSprawa nasza i waszaâ [This Matter Concerns Both You and Us], Od Nowa, no. 16 (1964): 3.
Chalamisz, âOd burzenia oÅtarzy do nihilizmu,â 8.
Les [Iserles], âNa tropie utraconych nadziei,â 5.
Les [Iserles], âNa tropie utraconych nadziei,â 5; see also âCzy Claude Roy wróci do partii komunistycznej?â [Will Claude Roy Return to the Communist Party?], Od Nowa, no. 3 (1958): 4.
M. Kula, Uparta sprawa â żydowska?, polska?, ludzka? [A Tough Case â Jewish? Polish? Human?] (Kraków, 2004), 151.
Les [Iserles], âSprawa nasza i wasza,â 3; S. A. Pearson Jr., Arthur Koestler (Boston, 1978), 149â53; D. Cesarani, Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind (London, 1999), 236â30.
For more on nationalism and communism, see M. Zaremba, Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm: Nacjonalistyczna legitymizacja wÅadzy komunistycznej w Polsce [Communism, Legitimacy, Nationalism: The Legitimization of Nationalism by the Communist Government in Poland] (Warsaw, 2001); for details of the various aspects of assimilation, see A. Landau-Czajka, Syn bÄdzie Lech ⦠Asymilacja Å»ydów w Polsce miÄdzywojennej [Our Sonâs Name Will Be Lech ⦠The Assimilation of Jews in Interwar Poland] (Warsaw, 2006).
A. Polonsky, âTradycje polskich Å»ydów i wpÅyw Holokaustu na ich zmianÄâ [The Traditions of Polish Jews and How the Holocaust Has Changed Them], in SpoÅecznoÅÄ Å¼ydowska w PRL przed kampaniÄ antysemickÄ lat 1967â1968 i po niez [The Jewish Community in the Polish Peopleâs Republic before and after the Anti-Semitic Campaign of 1967â68], ed. G. Berendt (Warsaw, 2009), 41.
Åmigus-Dyngus, also known as âWet Monday,â is celebrated on Easter Monday in Poland, and involves various traditions such as boys throwing buckets of water on girls.
I. Iserles, âMa Nisztana â¦?â [What Has Changed â¦?], Od Nowa, no. 16 (1959): 1, 3.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
J. Nalewajko-Kulikov, âObywatel Jidyszlandu: Rzecz o żydowskich komunistach w Polsceâ [A Citizen of Yiddishland: Jewish Communists in Poland] (Warsaw, 2009); interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
E. Pel, âSpór o Tanachâ [An Argument Over Tanach], Od Nowa, no. 10 (1959): 3.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
Szwarcman [Cygielman], âMyÅli oderwane,â 3.
Zaremba, Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm.
Szwarcman [Cygielman], âMyÅli oderwane,â 3.
Szwarcman [Cygielman], âMyÅli oderwane,â 3.
Szwarcman [Cygielman], âMyÅli oderwane,â 3.
I. Iserles, âMa Nisztana,â 3.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
âJesteÅmy bezwyznaniowiâ [Weâre Nonreligious] (in the column: âListy â odgÅosy â polemikiâ [Letters â Reports â Polemics]), Od Nowa, no. 5 (1958): 7.
B. Piotrowska [F. MaÅska], âWiÄcej odwagi w drażliwej sprawieâ [More Courage in a Sensitive Matter], Od Nowa, no. 6 (1958): 7.
Ignis [I. Iserles], âÅ»mije sÄ wszÄdzieâ [Vipers Are Everywhere], Od Nowa, no. 8 (1958): 2; H. Jurewicz, âÅ»mije gryzÄ z bliskaâ [Vipers Bite from Close Up], Od Nowa, no. 9 (1958): 7.
E. Bora [B. Eppel], âKoÅtun â koÅtunowi równyâ [A Philistine Is Equal to a Philistine], Od Nowa, no. 23 (1960): 3.
It seems that this was different from the contemporary situation, in which the values of the terms âJewâ and âIsraeliâ have been reversed. The latter term lost its luster after the long military conflict and in the face of unresolved problems with the Arabs, and the former term thus came to be viewed more favorably. E. Pel, ââÅ»ydkiâ i Izraelczycyâ [âLittle Jewsâ and Israelis], Od Nowa, no. 9 (1959): 1.
Ignis [I. Iserles], âO koÅtuÅstwieâ [Philistinism], Od Nowa, no. 9 (1958): 3.
R. Frister, âUlica Danielaâ [Daniela Street], Od Nowa, no. 10 (1958): 3.
Od Nowa, no. 16 (1958): 1.
Od Nowa, no. 16 (1958): 1.
I. Iserles, âRajskie refleksje i ziemskie pretensjeâ [Heavenly Reflections and Earthly Resentments], Od Nowa, no. 15 (1958): 1. A similar article about the yordim was written by Wiktor Cygielman: âJordim jordim nie równiâ [Yordim Are Not All Equal], Od Nowa, no. 14 (1958): 3.
Cygielman, âJordim jordim nie równi,â 3.
I. Iserles, âRezerwaty nienawiÅciâ [Sanctuaries of Hate], Od Nowa, no. 3 (1958): 3.
Iserles, âRezerwaty nienawiÅci,â 3.
Chalamisz, âOd burzenia oÅtarzy do nihilizmu,â 15.
Chalamisz, âOd burzenia oÅtarzy do nihilizmu,â 15.
Ignis [Iserles], âO koÅtuÅstwie,â 3.
Chalamisz, âOd burzenia oÅtarzy do nihilizmu,â 8.
Wiss [Kislev], âO patriotyzmie, humanizmie i âcadykizmie,ââ 7; Ben-Asher [Cygielman], âDo Pana N.,â 1.
Ben Asher [Cygielman], âDo Pana N.,â 1.
hha, file 3/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 30 March 1960; âGÅos studentówâ [The Voice of the Students], Od Nowa, no. 7 (1958): 10.
hha, file 3/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 30 March 1960.
Polish people.
amfa, folder 21, file 717, bundle 50, announcements, news reports, articles, and bulletins for the foreign press (articles from the Israeli press [Polish affairs], 1958â1960); âPolepszajÄ siÄ stosunki polsko-izraelskieâ [Polish-Israeli Relations Are Improving], Davar, 3 August 1960.
amfa, folder 21, file 715, bundle 50, journalists, the legation of the Polish Peopleâs Republic in Tel Aviv â memos from interviews of Israeli journalists on current international and Israeli political developments, 1960; interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection.
ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 77; amfa, folder 21, file 715, bundle 50, journalists, the legation of the Polish Peopleâs Republic in Tel Aviv â memos from interviews of Israeli journalists on current international and Israeli political developments, 1960; interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection; amfa, folder 21, file 717, bundle 5.
H. Rosenblum, âZmierzch prasy partyjnejâ [The Decline of the Party-Affiliated Press], Nowiny Izraelskie, no. 41 (1958): 2.
hha, file 1/2/27/1964, Chotam sketch, undated.; hha, file 11/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 7 April 1966.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 7 February 1964.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 5 March 1964.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 5 March 1964; see also the discussion at an administrative meeting of Mapan concerning Chotam, 4 June 1964.
From the very beginning, Avigdor Ben-Asher [Wiktor Cygielman], a journalist from Od Nowa, wrote for Chotam. For example, see Chotam, no. 29 (1965): 5; no. 40 (1965): 6; no. 24 (1966): 8. Later issues featured articles written by journalists who had debuted in Od Nowa â for example, Sever Plocker; see Chotam, no. 24 (1967): 14;; âList otwarty do setnego numeru Od Nowaâ[An Open Letter for the 100th Issue of Od Nowa], Od Nowa, no. 33 (1960): 8.
hha, file 3/20/7/95, letter from Bezalel Loew to Meir YaÊ¿ari in defense of Moshe Karmelâs article in Chotam 22 (47), 3 February 1966; hha, file 3/20/7/95, letter from Meir YaÊ¿ari to Bezalel Loew, 28 February 1966.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 7 February 1964.
âM. Karmel, Iton we mifl aga â davar we hipuho?â [Newspaper and Party â Opposite Things?], Chotam, no. 22 (47) (1966): 4.
hha, file 3/20/7/95, a letter from Meir Yaʿari to Bezalel Loew, 28 January 1966.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from a administrative meeting of Mapam, 4 June 1964; hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 17 May 1965.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 4 June 1964.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 7 February 1964.
Further meetings concerning Chotam took place in 1965; see, for example, hha, file 10/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 17 May and 8 December 1965.
Z. Zahar, âBezdroża mÅodej inteligencjiâ [The Unbeaten Track of the Young Intelligentsia], Od Nowa, no. 5 (1958): 3.
Od Nowa, no. 46 (1962): 1; âDo Czytelnikówâ [To the Readers], Od Nowa, no. 7 (1964): 1.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 26 February 1964.
hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 8 July 1957; hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 26 February 1964.
hha, file 7/62/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 22 February 1964; hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 26 February 1964.
hha, file 10/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 1 December 1965.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 26 February 1964; âDo Czytelnikówâ [To the Readers], Od Nowa, no. 5 (1964): 1; hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 26 February 1964.
hha, file 10/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 1 December 1965.
hha, file 10/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 1 December 1965.
hha, file 10/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 1 December 1965.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 26 February 1964.
hha, file 10/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 1 December 1965; hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 26 February 1964.
hha, file 10/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 1 December 1965.
hha, file 10/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 1 December 1965; hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 26 February 1964.
hha, file 11/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 7 April 1966; hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 30 March 1964; hha, file 10/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 1 December 1965.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 30 March 1964.
hha, file 10/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 6 April 1966; hha, file 11/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 7 April 1966.
hha, file 11/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 7 April 1966.
hha, file 11/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 7 April 1966.
A letter from Felicja MaÅska to Adam Zausznica, 24 April 1966, materials from the authorâs collection. Thanks to Adam Zausznica for making these materials available.
hha, file 11/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 7 April 1966; hha, file 10/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 1 January 1965.
Correspondence with Prof. Arie Iserles, materials from the authorâs collection.
hha, file 3/471/90, Ignacy Iserlesâs file (1094/1089).
Correspondence with Prof. Arie Iserles, materials from the authorâs collection.
Archive of the Legal Council at the Ministry of Justice in Jerusalem, Ignacy Iserlesâs personal file; see also ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 104.
hha, file 3/150/90; see also hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 26 February 1964.
hha, file 8/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 26 February 1964.
Interview with Ignacy Iserles, 22 July 2007, materials from the authorâs collection; see also hha, file 10/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 1 December 1965; hha, file 11/65/90, minutes from an administrative meeting of Mapam, 7 April 1966; see also ainr, file 01262/254/J microfilm, Iserles Izrael, card 104.
âPo rokuâ [A Year Later], Od Nowa, no. 23 (1959): 1; see also â200,â Od Nowa, no. 37 (1962): 1.