Aspects of Population Change and of Acculturation in Jewish Warsaw at the end of the Nineteenth Century: the Censuses of 1882 and 1897

Summary

A significant Jewish presence in Warsaw has been traced back to the fifteenth century. Until the nineteenth century, however, Jewish settlement was sharply limited; it was only in the period of Russian rule which followed the Napoleonic wars that Warsaw developed into the largest Jewish centre in Europe. An official estimate stated that, in January 1914, there were 885,000 people in the city, of whom 337,000- almost two in five - were Jews. The greatest period of growth came in the half-century between the mid-1860s and World War I, when the city's total grew fourfold. In these same decades, the Jewish community increased almost five times; this was made possible by the emancipation of the Polish Jews in 1862, which removed restrictions on Jewish residence in Warsaw.

Such figures, while impressive, tell only a part of the story. The character of the city, and of the Jewish community, was transformed in the last decades of Russian rule. This was a period of far-reaching and intensive change, in the Polish lands as well as in the rest of East Central Europe and the Russian Empire.

This essay examines selected aspects of the social development of Jewish Warsaw in the light of the two censuses that were taken in the city, in 1882 and 1897. The particular points of focus are: first, the essential data on population, including comparisons between the demographic structures of the Catholic and Jewish communities; and second, the information that can be gleaned from the censumses concerning acculturation in Jewish Warsaw. There are many other important topics that the censuses cover, for example, patterns of residence and employment and levels of educational attainment, but we will not discuss them at this time.

The development of the population of Jewish Warsaw in this period has been studied only to a limited degree. Jacob Shatzky's comprehensive Geshikhte fun yidn in Varshe goes up to 1896 and presents an enormous amount of material, but does not use the censuses, nor does it deal systematically with such issues as population growth, demographic change or acculturation and assimilation. Polish historians of Warsaw have analysed the census results in depth, but have not paid sufficient attention to the particularities of the Jewish population.