Daniel Grinberg

The Radical Jews of Poland: challenges and responses

The Jewish radicalism of libertarian creed is typically regarded in two opposite perspectives. For the first of them, taking as point of reference traditional and orthodox Jewish masses, the characteristic question is: how was it possible at all. For the other perspective guided by strong Jewish presence in many leftists movements the question is rather: why was it so weak in comparison. Most of the publications on this subject answer rather the first question. However, at least for the anarchists born on Polish territories, more important seems finding answers for the second problem of disproportional activities of Jewish anarchists not only in comparison with Jewish marxists but even when compared with more russified Jewish anarchists from territories to the East of Poland.

Although in contemporary Poland Jewish subjects are again “hot” and this not so long ago almost “forbidden territory” is now of great interest for the readers, very little was written about Jewish followers of Bakunin and Kropotkin.