Warsaw. The Jewish Metropolis: Essays in Honor of the 75th Birthday of Professor Antony Polonsky(15 IJS Studies in Judaica)

Warsaw was once home to the largest and most diverse Jewish community in the world. It was a center of rich varieties of Orthodox Judaism, Jewish Socialism, Diaspora Nationalism, Zionism, and Polonization. This volume is the first to reflect on the entire history of the Warsaw Jewish community, from its inception in the late 18th century to its emergence as a Jewish metropolis within a few generations, to its destruction during the German occupation and tentative re-emergence in the postwar period. The highly original contributions collected here investigate Warsaw Jewry’s religious and cultural life, press and publications, political life, and relations with the surrounding Polish society. This monumental volume is dedicated to Professor Antony Polonsky, chief historian of the new Warsaw Museum for the History of Polish Jews, on the occasion of his 75th birthday.

About the Author :
Glenn Dynner, Ph.D., Brandeis University, is Professor of Religion and Chair of Humanities at Sarah Lawrence College. He is author of Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society (Oxford University Press, 2006) and Yankel's Tavern: Jews, Liquor and Life in the Kingdom of Poland (Oxford University Press, 2014). François Guesnet, Ph.D., Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, is Reader in Modern Jewish History at University College, London. His publications include Polnische Juden im 19. Jahrhundert (Böhlau 1998), Der Fremde als Nachbar (Suhrkamp 2009), numerous articles, and several edited volumes.

Review :
This excellent collection of essays pays a fitting tribute to Antony Polonsky who has been instrumental to the field of Polish-Jewish history for almost four decades as a teacher, scholar, and founding editor of POLIN: Studies in Polish Jewry...This complex and dynamic history [of Warsaw] is analysed in twenty-four chapters that range from the economic history of the early modern Jewish mercantile elite to the cultural history of clothing decrees to the religious history of Warsaw’s rabbis to the intellectual history of the city’s Jewish historians during the interwar era. Students and established scholars wishing to conduct research on Warsaw’s Jewish history will turn to this volume as an indispensable first source for some of the most recent research in the field."-- Michael Meng, Clemson University, ZfO JECES 66 (2017) 2, pp. 261-263. "Warsaw. The Jewish Metropolis" is an impressive collection of twenty five scholarly essays devoted to Warsaw and its Jewish community, from the earliest (mostly illegal) Jewish settlements in the Polish capital in the sixteenth century to the destruction and reconstruction of the Jewish community in the twentieth century." -Dr. Milosz K. Cybowski, Pol-Int (2015)