Salo Wittmayer Baron

The Jews of Poland: A Social and Economic History of the Jewish Community in Poland from 1100 to 1800

The Jews of Poland tells the story of the development and growth of Polish Jewry from its beginnings, around the year 1200, when it numbered a few score people, to about six hundred years later, when it totaled a million or more people. This books records the development of this Jewish community. It attempts to capture the uniqueness of each period in the history of this community. In recounting the saga of Polish Jewry, the book endeavors to see Polish Jews as human beings acting and reacting humanly to the exigencies of life with courage and weakness, high ideals, beliefs, and sacrifices, on one hand, and human frailty, passions, and ambitions, on the other.

A Social and Religious History of the Jews

Designed to accompany the 18-volume reference work, this index contains the names, events and dates that appear in the last 9 volumes of the set. It includes a chronological table of principal events and personalities.

EMPHASES IN JEWISH HISTORY

1The substance of this article was presented in a paper read at the annual session of the National Council for Jewish Education in Washington, D. C., on May 28, 1938, and was subsequently published in Jewish Social Studies, vol. i, No. 1 (Jan. 1939), from which it is here reprinted. The author used this occasion to explain certain fundamental views and methods which are implied rather than clearly stated in his Social and Religious History of the Jews. This paper, however, is not intended as an apologia for the authors own emphasis in Jewish history but rather as an analysis of some of the basic approaches to human history which have been applied, or should be applied, to the history of the Jewish people.