The conflict between the Poles and Jews dates back to the earliest
period of Jewish life in Poland.
In its early stages it was purely religious. The Church Synod of 1542
declared that: =“Whereas the Church tolerates the Jews for the sole
purpose of reminding us of the torments of the Savior, their number
must not increase under any circumstances.”=[15]
The Synod of 1733 reiterated this gospel of hate by declaring that the
reason for the existence of the Jews is:
=“That they might remind us of the tortures of the Savior, and by their
abject and miserable condition might serve as an example of the first
chastisement of God inflicted upon the infidels.”=[16]
In its later stages the struggle was chiefly political and economic.
When Russia acquired Poland, through the several partitions in the
eighteenth century, it frankly adopted the old Roman principle of
DIVIDE ET IMPERA. It persistently fomented hostilities between the
Polish and Jewish population by crowding them together in a restricted
area where neither could make a decent livelihood, by pitting them
against each other in an economic struggle conducted on the lowest
possible plane and on the most hopeless terms, by playing off
religious and racial prejudices and by every other device possible to
a government with unlimited power and an unprincipled policy. And the
Poles, politically undeveloped, instead of combining with the other
victims of Russia against the common oppressor, turned upon their
fellows with a ferocity truly unparalleled in European history.
Several years before the war broke out this struggle came to a climax
over the election of a deputy to the Duma. The Jews of Poland felt
that they were entitled to at least one member to represent them in
the Duma, particularly in the city of Warsaw, where they constitute
nearly half of the population. It happened, however, that in the city
of Lodz they unexpectedly elected one Jewish deputy, Bomash. The Jews,
therefore, seeking to conciliate the Poles and not to wound their
national pride by insisting upon the election of a Jewish deputy from
Warsaw, the ancient Polish capital, offered to compromise, stipulating
only that the Polish candidate be not an avowed anti-Semite. The Poles,
however, insisted upon putting up a notorious anti-Semite. The Jews,
equally unable to support such a candidate in self-respect or to elect
one of their own, united on a Polish Socialist candidate, electing him
to the Duma. This led to retaliation in the form of a boycott directed
not only at Jewish tradesmen, but even at Jewish physicians, artisans
and other workingmen, which soon spread destitution throughout Poland,
affecting, as it did, Jews and Poles alike. So ugly and bitter a form
did the boycott assume that at times even the Russian government was
compelled to take the part of the Jews as against the Poles.