Sabbatical Research 2009-2010

Monograph:

Epitaphs in the Jewish Cemetery at Bagnowka, Poland

Brief description:

Early Polish Historians of the 1930s described Jewish tombstone epitaphs as ‘exaggerated clichés’ or consigned them to the ornamental; contemporary scholarship is slowly acknowledging that they do hold greater potential. This project seeks to document, translate and provide a literary analysis of the epitaphs in the Jewish cemetery of Bagnowka, located in Białystok, Poland. This cemetery is the largest extant Jewish cemetery in NE Poland, containing c. 5000 tombstones, with c. 250 preserving epitaphs that bear more than basic genealogical information. At present, no complete record exists of these inscriptions. Moreover, the ravages of time, nature, and vandalism may soon eradicate this literary heritage rich in socio-cultural and religious implications for Jewish culture in the less-documented region of Northeastern Poland.

Book Revision:

Jewish Bialystok and Surroundings in Eastern Poland with author Tomasz Wisniewski (Ipswich Press, 1998).

Manuscript in Progress:

And the Children Played at Sobibor & Other Essays on Post Holocaust Responsibility

Table of Contents

Field Report:

Site Survey of Jewish Cemeteries in the Grodno Gubernya Poland

In conjunction with the NEH Grant Proposal described below and the Monograph described above, I conducted a survey of 26 Jewish cemeteries in the Grodno Gubernya of Poland (an administrative region in NE Poland whose largest city is Bialystok). The goal of this survey was to gather up-to-date data regarding the size, number of matzevoth (tombstones), conditions and threats to each of the still extant cemeteries. This survey was partially funded by the Department of Philosophy and a grant from the International Studies and Programs Advisory Committee.

Articles and Conference Papers:

And in Death They Were Not Divided: The Aesthetics of Jewish Tombstones

The International Journal of the Humanities Volume 5: 2007

Abstract: “Artworks detach themselves from the empirical world and bring forth another world, one opposed to the empirical world as if this other world too were an autonomous entity,” writes Theodor Adorno in his Aesthetic Theory. That pre-World War II Jewish tombstones, from Eastern Europe to the Netherlands, are deemed ‘art’ is debatable; that the tombstones contain components of ‘art’ cannot be denied. That these components are capable of offering unusual responses to the viewer, which transcend the empirical, is how the viewer engages, if willing, in an aesthetic experience within the realm of art. The present paper first examines the ‘empirical’ components of tombstones (shape, facades, symbols, epigraphic detail, material composition; inscriptions; in situ placement, juxtaposition to other tombstones, and placement of cemetery). These empirical components of tombstones then offer a ‘path to aesthetic experience’ (John M. Anderson, The Realm of Art). It is within this aesthetic experience that the tombstone can ‘bring forth another world’, a world revealing not only pre-World War II historiography, which documents the story of familial relationships and community life, but also the pre- and post-Shoah world of emotions – love, hate, joy, sadness, achievement, defeat. It is this path of aesthetic inquiry beginning with the empirical components of tombstones that can transport the viewer into the realm of art, which in this case embodies the spirit of European Jewry.

He Walked Upon a Wooden Leg: Epitaphs and Acrostic Poems on Jewish Tombstones

Legacy of the Holocaust Conference 2007 Conference Proceeding.

Jagiellionian University. Krakow, Poland (May 24-26, 2007) [Forthcoming Spring 2009]

Abstract: Early Polish Historians of the 1930’s described Jewish tombstone epitaphs as ‘exaggerated clichés that have nothing to do with the dead person’ ‘a Baroque ornament composed from a wreath of words and phrases’, ‘pompous’, and ‘overloaded thus hard to understand’. Their reflections may be subjectively harsh, for although these epitaphs may reflect the hoped for attributes of the deceased, they do reflect the “the system of values accepted by the Jewish community” in Pre-War Poland (Monika Krajewska, Tribe of Stones, 38). Equally significant, however, is the recognition that, in many cases, these tombstones with their flowery epitaphs are the only remaining Post-Shoah record of this once vibrant community. The present paper seeks (1) to present a preliminary discussion of the literary significance of the lengthier epitaphs as found on representative tombstones in Jewish cemeteries in Northeastern Poland; (2) to demonstrate that the value of these epitaphs is more than a source for genealogical studies; and (3) to consider that these epitaphs are a fading legacy that needs to be documented before the ravages of time, nature, and vandalism forever eradicate not just the potential of this literary corpus, but their role as witnesses to Jewish existence in particular in the less-documented Northeastern Poland.

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