Exploiting Tradition: Religious Iconography in Cartoons of the Polish Yiddish Press

Summary

SINCE the thirteenth century Jews have borne the force of an antisemitic caricature that has grown in ferocity from its medieval inception to the modern period. By the early twentieth century, when vast numbers of east European Jews began the process of secularization and modernization, the progeny of such anti-Jewish caricatures were standard fare in the satirical press in both Europe and America. It was also at this time that, alongside the mainstream press, a Jewish satirical press began to flourish in the Yiddish language in both eastern Europe and America. In addition to jokes, humorous stories, poems, and many parodies, Yiddish satirical journals would come to include numerous cartoons and caricatures. Never having been seen previously in Jewish life, such visual parody was an unprecedented innovation among Yiddish-speaking Jews in Poland, partly because of its sheer novelty and partly because art without a religious connection was discouraged among Jews. Moreover, the vast majority of Jewish texts, particularly those used on a daily basis, did not contain illustrations of any kind. The cartoonists of the Yiddish press were therefore engaged not only in a radical subversion of Jewish tradition but also in a reassessment of what Jewish caricature should be, as opposed to the antisemitic caricature of the non-Jewish satirical press. In addition, Jewish cartoonists frequently applied traditional Jewish themes to critical commentary on current cultural and political events. By appropriating a popular format that had not appeared before in Jewish life and filling it with Jewish content, the cartoonists of the Yiddish press in Poland were able to furnish a wide audience with a form of visual commentary that referenced the texts and traditions of their own minority culture. It is this use of traditional material in cartoon form, ranging from biblical quotation to religious articles, obligations, and folklore, that will be explored here.

As works of graphic parody and artistic social commentary, these cartoons lay at a crossroads between art and literature, and politics and culture. What is unique about them is their distinctly Jewish orientation and their reflection of modern Jewish history and politics as their central feature during a wave of secularization and construction of national identity. Additionally, they are an important example of internal Jewish dialogue in a particularly factious, chaotic political and cultural environment.