Polish-Jewish Relations in the Folk Culture of Podlasie. Part I - Customs

500 lat osadnictwa żydowskiego na Podlasiu. Materiały z konferencji międzynarodowej, Białystok, 14 - 17 września 1987 r.500 Years of the Jewish Settlement in Podlasie. Popers From the International Conference, Białystok, September 14 - 17, 1987.It is considered that the term „shtetl" (town) functioning in scholarly considerations, understood as compact Jewish community of any size, living its own internal life and hermetically isolated from non-Jewish communities, is not precise enough as a model construticon. It seems that the extension of research methods to the problem of cultural style will contribute to an increase in thoroughness in the study of the traditional Jewish culture in Eastern Europe. Jews in Podlasie lived mostly in towns; only individual families lived in villages. Rural Jews maintained close cultural and organizational links with Jewish communities in small towns. The relations between Jewish and non-Jewish urban communities were usually limited to occasional meetings and professional contacts. Neighbourly ties tended to develop inside the groups of both communities. In villages these relations were more frequent, closer and direct. Neighbourly bonds occurred here between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbours. Partial or full knowledge of both languages was more common. One of the examples may be mutual participation in wedding ceremonies. Invitations extended to Jewish neighbours had the form applied to strangers in the village. Non-Jewish participants of wedding ceremonies in Jewish families usually took part in the proceedings outside the house; usually they did not participate in the wedding feast. A frequent eustom was stopping by the Jewish inn after church ceremonies of baptism or marriage. Jewish inn-keepers wife welcomed the young with honey and ritual sweet bread (korowaj), sometimes giving a gift to onsure happy, „sweet" life together. Jewish baker sometimes prepared wedding „korowaj" and she brought it to the wedding feast. Such situations, as well as being paid in kind, prove that she was not considered a stranger. In folk rituals connected with Christmas celebrations, in the group of so called herods, dressed-up performers wandering through villages there used to be a figure of Biblical King Hernd, a rabbi or Jewish peddler. This figure usually serves as an intermezzo in the religious mystery. During Orthodox Easter ritual celebrated near Siemiatycze the effigy of the Jew Zelman takes part: a key to the church should be taken away from him in order to celebrate the service. On the other hand, during the Jewish holiday of Purim, an important figure of Haman, symbol of evil forces, an alien and non-Jew was performed by a non-Jewish actor. In some parts of the Białystok region Haman pranced on a wooden horse, contrary to the legend, thus referring to a local, non-Jewish tradition. Mutual knowledge was extended by contacts of craftsmen with their customers. It was caused at least by the necessity to adjust some produtcs to Jewish religious observances. Hence there existed the plane of mutual relations between the two cultures. On this plane both essentials of life and symbols were trasmitted. Also the stereotypes were shaped. The stereotypes did not always contribute to the extension of the factual knowledge concerning the neighbours; always, however, they strengthened the awareness of their existence.148-158214815