Konflikty wewnętrzne w żydowskich gminach wyznaniowych w II Rzeczypospolitej

Abstract

Contrary to popular opinions, inside more than 800 Jewish religious communi­ties operating in the interwar Poland (1918-1939) there were strong arguments and conflicts between the clerical and bureaucratic structures, political parties and groups of influence in the particular communities. At the bottom of the typology there are different reasons: social, political, cultural, economic and organizational. It should also be n o ted th at the proposed division is contractual. In the case of complex structures such as religious communities it is difficult to talk about a conflict / conflicts that would occur in a “pure” form. Mutual penetration and completion in most o f them (or even in all of the above mentioned groups of con­ flicts) was a rule. Almost always, even if an incident causing controversy was based on one premiss, there were new incidents which further complicated and intricate reality. At the source of this state there were not only complicated historical and cultural conditions inherently assigned to the functioning of the Jewish commu­ nity in the Diaspora, but also those resulting from the new geopolitical reality and the political system with which we dealt in Poland reborn after World War I. Mind­ ful of conventionality o f conflicting situations occurring within the Jewish reli­gious communities they can be divided into political, social, religious and cultural, economic and organizational ones.