Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800-1939

364 Pages·2020·5.777 MB·English

by  Natan M. Meir

STEPCHILDREN OF THE SHTETL
Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture
S T EP C H I LD REN
O F T H E S H T ET L
The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of
1800 1939
Jewish Eastern Europe, –
o
NATAN M. MEIR
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 2020 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
Portions of chapters 2, 3, and 7 were originally published in “Home for the
Homeless? The Hekdesh in Eastern Europe,” in Place in Modern Jewish
Culture and Society, ed. Richard I. Cohen, Studies in Contemporary Jewry 30
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 3–16. Reprinted with Permis-
sion of Oxford University Press.
The epigraph to chapter 4 is an excerpt of page 6 from Madonna in a Fur
Coat by Sabahattin Ali, translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely and
Alexander Dawe. Translation copyright © Maureen Freely and Alexander
Dawe 2016. Reprinted by permission of Other Press LLC.
Portions of chapter 7 were originally published in “Charting the Outer
Provinces of Jewry: The Study of East European Jewry’s Margins,” POLIN:
Studies in Polish Jewry 29 (2017): 89–104. Reprinted with permission of
Liverpool University Press.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written
permission of Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Meir, Natan M., author.
Title: Stepchildren of the shtetl : the destitute, disabled, and mad of Jewish
Eastern Europe, 1800–1939 / Natan M. Meir.
Other titles: Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture.
Description: Stanford : Stanford University Press, 2020. | Series: Stanford
studies in Jewish history and culture | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020004504 (print) | LCCN 2020004505 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781503611832 (cloth) | ISBN 9781503613058 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781503613065 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Jews—Europe, Eastern—Social conditions—19th
century. | Jews—Europe, Eastern—Social conditions—20th century.
| Marginality, Social—Europe, Eastern—History. | Poor—Europe,
Eastern—History. | Mentally ill—Europe, Eastern—History. | People
with disabilities—Europe, Eastern—History.
Classification: LCC DS135.E83 M345 2020 (print) | LCC DS135.E83
(ebook) | DDC 305.5/69089924047—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020004504
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020004505
Cover photo: Jewish woman beggar on the stairs of a house in Cracow,
Poland, 1920s. Ze’ev Wilhelm Aleksandrowicz (Beth Hatefutsoth Photo
Archive, Israel)
Cover design: Rob Ehle
י״נ
For Avinoam
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CONTENTS
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
Note on Transliteration and Dates xv
Introduction 1
1 Jewish Marginal People in Premodern Europe 17
2 Blind Beggars and Orphan Recruits: The Russian State,
the Kahal, and Marginal Jews in the
Early Nineteenth Century 39
3 “A Pile of Dust and Rubble”: Poorhouses, Real and Imaginary 63
4 The Cholera Wedding 89
5 A “Republic of Beggars”? Charity, Jewish Backwardness,
and the Specter of the Jewish Idler 117
6 Madness and the Mad: From Family Burden
to National Affliction 148
7 “We Singing Jews, We Jews Possessed”:
The Jewish Outcast as National Icon 176
vIII CONTENTS
Epilogue 227
Conclusion: Jewish Intersectionality
at the European Fin-de-Siècle 237
Notes 243
Selected Bibliography 299
Index 331
FIGURES
1.1. Two beggars at cemetery wall (Lwów, 1930s) 27
5.1. Orphanage children 134
5.2. Children in a Jewish orphanage 135
5.3 Annopol hekdesh 140
5.4 Shepetovka hekdesh 144
6.1. Petition to Rabbi Eliyahu Guttmacher 157
6.2. vilna shtot meshugener (town fool) 166
7.1. “Dance of the Beggars” in a 1922 production of The Dybbuk 194
7.2. Beggar woman in vilna 197
7.3. Beggar, Staszów (1930s) 207
7.4 Kalman the Fool of Staszów 209
7.5. Płock shtot meshugener (town fool) eating a bowl of noodles 210
7.6. Beggar woman in a cemetery 211
7.7. Itshele of Ostrow 212
7.8. “Gedalke the Cantor” (1931) 214
7.9. Helen Beverly and David Opatoshu as Hodel and
Fishke in The Light Ahead (1939) 223
7.10. “Two brothers who are beggars on the streets of
Warsaw” (1920) 225
e.1. The former Zofiówka Jewish Psychiatric Hospital,
Otwock (2018) 228
e.2. Jan Malik, “Jew with hunchback” figurine (1970s) 229