This book examines the intersection of urban society and modern politics among Jews in turn of the century Warsaw, Europe's largest Jewish center at the time. By focusing on the tumultuous events surrounding the Revolution of 1905, Barricades and Banners argues that the metropolitanization of Jewish life led to a need for new forms of community and belonging, and that the ensuing search for collective and individual order gave birth to the new institutions, organizations, and practices that would define modern Jewish society and politics for the remainder of the twentieth century.
This book examines the intersection of urban society and modern politics among Jews in turn of the century Warsaw, Europe's largest Jewish center at the time. By focusing on the tumultuous events surrounding the Revolution of 1905, Barricades and Banners argues that the metropolitanization of Jewish life led to a need for new forms of community and belonging, and that the ensuing search for collective and individual order gave birth to the new institutions, organizations, and practices that would define modern Jewish society and politics for the remainder of the twentieth century.
Scott Ury is Senior Lecturer in Tel Aviv University's Department of Jewish History, where he also serves as head of the Stephen Roth Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism.
"[A] splendidly researched monograph about the transformation of Warsaw Jewry during the revolutionary years of 1905-1907 ... [I]mpressive linguistic skill in utilizing sources in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Polish and thorough grounding in the respective Polish and Jewish historiographies. While his book is above all a study of the creation of a single ethnolinguistic community in a particular city, it speaks broadly to matters of urban history, Polish history, Jewish history, and the history of modernity." - Nathaniel D. Wood, American Historical Review "This major study is a valuable account of the emergence of mass politics in the Polish lands and how this greatly complicated the problem of finding an appropriate place for Poland's large, unassimilated Jewish minority." - Anthony Polonsky, Russian Review "Sometimes, historians are able to place their hands on particular historical moments that reflect social, political and intellectual processes that end up shaping an entire era. This is exactly what the historian Scott Ury does in his book Barricades and Banners ... The author doesn't just tell the story of Jews and Poles in Russian-occupied Warsaw, but through this account he also gives a brief history of the twentieth century in Eastern and Central Europe." - Dr. Dimitry Shumsky, Haaretz "Ury contends that modern Jewish political identity was forged in Warsaw after the Russian Revolution of 1905 ... The author uses a wealth of primary sources to describe how Jews adapted to life in the big city ... A well-researched study of the urban roots of modern Jewish national politics and identity. Highly recommended." - R. M. Shapiro, CHOICE "Scott Ury is one of the brightest and most gifted of the younger historians of Jewish Eastern Europe. His new book on Jewish Warsaw is full of fresh perspectives that show the important impact of urbanization on the development of Polish Jewry." - Samuel Kassow, Trinity College
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