Changes in childhood and children’s roles in society, and in how children participate in determining their own lives, have long been of interest to historians. Recent years have seen the emergence of new perspectives on the study of childhood, both in historical scholarship and in literary and cultural studies. Children’s experiences are now scrutinized not only as a means of examining the lives and self-representation of young individuals and their families, but also to investigate how the early experiences of individuals can shed light on larger historical questions. This volume applies both approaches in the context of Jewish eastern Europe. Historian Gershon Hundert has argued that studying the experience of children and attitudes towards coming of age offers an important corrective to the way we think of the Jewish past. This volume proves the potential of this approach in exploring many areas of historical interest. Among the topics investigated here are changes in perceptions of childhood and family, progress in the medical treatment of children, and developments in education. The work of charitable institutions is also considered, along with studies of emotion, gender history, and Polish–Jewish relations. From the First World War until after the Holocaust and the Second World War, countless children experienced traumatizing events. A special section is dedicated to their fate.

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Studying the experiences of children can offer an important corrective to how we think of the Jewish past. This volume proves the potential of this approach in east European contexts including local history; the history of education, charitable institutions, and medicine; and studies of emotion, gender history, and Polish–Jewish relations.

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Introduction Natalia Aleksiun, François Guesnet, and Antony Polonsky

1. Childhood and Family

Children and Childhood in Hasidic Courts before 1939 Gadi Sagiv

Representations of Boyhood in Nineteenth-Century Hebrew Literature Roten Preger-Wagner

The Beautiful Manor House: Glimpses of Jewish Childhood in the Galician Countryside Yehoshua Ecker

Advocacy and Practice in CENTOS Journals Sean Martin

2. The Medical Treatment of Children

The Child in Traditional Jewish Medicine around 1900 Marek Tuszewicki

Newborn Care and Survival among Jews in Early Modern Poland Zvi Eckstein and Anat Vaturi

Who Nursed the Jewish Babies? Wet-Nursing among Jews in the Late Russian Empire Ekaterina Oleshkevich

TOZ Summer Camps: Modern Welfare for Weak and Exhausted Jewish Children in Poland, 1924–1939 Rakefet Zalashik

3. The Educational Experience

What Kind of Self Can a Pupil’s Letter Reveal? The Tarbut School in Nowy Dwór, 1934–1935 David Assaf and Yael Darr

State Schools as Polish–Jewish Contact Zones: The Case of Tarnów Agnieszka Wierzcholska

Working Children and young People as Seen by Contributors to Mały Przegląd Anna Landau-Czajka

Through Their Own Eyes: Jewish youngsters Describe Their Holidays in Interwar Poland Ula Madej-Krupitski

Autograph Books of Polish Jewish Schoolgirls as Historical Documents Natalia Aleksiun

From Relief to Emancipation: Cecylia Klaftenowa’s vision for Jewish Girls in Interwar Lwów Sarah Ellen Zarrow

4. Children and Trauma, 1914-1947

Zionist Care and Education for Galician Refugee Children in Austria during the First World War Jan Rybak

Jewish Children Seeking Help from Catholic Institutions in Kraków during the Holocaust Joanna Sliwa

It was easier with a child than without’: Creating and Caring for Polish Jewish Families in the Wartime Soviet Union, 1939–1946 Sarah A. Cramsey

Voices of Soviet Jewish Children Documenting the Second World War Anna Shternshis

Jewish Child Survivorsin the Aftermath of the Holocaust Joanna Michlic

The Rehabilitation of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors, Poland, 1944–1947 Boaz Cohen

5. Childhood in Post-1945 Poland

Beyond Post-Holocaust Trauma: Polish Jewish Childhood in Dzierżoniów, Lower Silesia, 1945–1950 Kamil Kijek

Blurred Spots of Revolution: Polish Communists of Jewish Origin and Their Early Political Socialization Łukasz Bertram

Index

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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781802070347
Publisert
2024-01-12
Utgiver
Vendor
The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
Aldersnivå
G, U, P, 01, 05, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet

Biographical note

Natalia Aleksiun is the Harry Rich Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Florida, Gainesville. She is the co-editor, with Antony Polonsky and Brian Horowitz, of 'Writing Jewish History in Eastern Europe' (2016), and has published widely on Polish Jewish issues. Among several prestigious fellowships, she has been a fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich and at the Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies in Vienna, and the Pearl Resnick Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC. Co-editor, with Jerzy Tomaszewski, of Sources on Jewish Self-Government in the Polish Lands from Its Inception to the Present (2022). He is chair of the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies and secretary of the European Association for Jewish Studies. He has held research fellowships and visiting teaching positions at University of Pennsylvania, University of Oxford, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dartmouth College, Potsdam University, Vilnius University, and the Jagiellonian University Kraków. Author of The Jews in Poland and Russia, 3 vols. (Littman Library, 2010–12), also published in an abridged version: The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History (2014). In 2012, The Jews in Poland and Russia was awarded the Pro Historia Polonorum prize of the Polish Senate for the best book on the history of Poland in a non-Polish language written in the previous five years. Holds honorary doctorates from the University of Warsaw (2010) and the Jagiellonian University (2014). In 2011 he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Polonia Restituta and the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Independent Lithuania.