Citation

Rosenthal D. Jew History 2015; 29(3-4): 301-330.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015)

DOI

10.1007/s10835-015-9242-5

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Amid the acrimonious debates over national identity, the proper political solution to the "Jewish Question," and linguistic primacy, the Jews of interwar Poland were also gripped by panic over rising rates of suicide. Observers claimed that there was an epidemic of selfdestruction due to financial woes and the loosening of gender roles. Yet despite persistent poverty, rates of suicide among Jews in Poland still remained low compared to those seen among their Catholic neighbors and other European populations. The phenomenon of suicide loomed large in the Jewish psyche nonetheless, as it had previously been uncommon in this population, and the new trend was perceived as a physical manifestation of the social disintegration of all forms of Jewish civilization. The press fed Jews' fears by publishing morbid details in the hopes of boosting readership. Efforts to stem self-destruction, however, lacked focus and served primarily as a platform to express concern with the increasingly diffuse and heterogeneous nature of Jewish society in Poland. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015.

Language: en

Keywords

Gender and modernity; Jewish social cohesion; Jewish suicide; Polish Jews; Urban anomie; Yiddish press