Introduction
People with disabilities are rarely seen within Polish historiography. Often relegated to the periphery of scholarly inquiry, this group has appeared predominantly either within research on special education or the activities of charitable organisations. Consequently, the exclusion experienced by people with disabilities in society finds its parallel in their continued neglect by historical narratives. This tendency is prominent when considering the various minority groups residing in the Polish lands. Despite extensive research conducted on the Jewish population, encompassing diverse historiographical perspectives, Jews with disabilities serve as a representative example of this wider trend of neglect.Footnote 1
The limited references to Jews with disabilities within the existing historiography can be categorised as a form of ‘complementary’ history, reminiscent of early efforts to incorporate women into historical studies. Many publications describing initiatives aimed at people with disabilities in the Polish lands have such a character when they simply list Jewish organisations or benefactors.Footnote 2 The pioneering work of Natan Meir stands out as the first historical analysis profoundly examining this subject matter. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, Meir’s study looks at three marginalised categories of individuals living in Eastern European shtetls: the impoverished, those with physical disabilities, and those with mental disabilities.Footnote 3 While his scholarship is insightful, due to the broadness of the overall topic, there is still room for further research. Another noteworthy study is John Sefel’s recent research on the depiction of disability in Yiddish plays.Footnote 4
Previous research conducted by one of the authors of this paper on different groups of people with disabilities in Warsaw—the capital city of the Kingdom of Poland—indicates that Jews experienced distinct marginalisation. The present study aims to examine in depth the social and cultural status of just this one group. A wider geographical scope is considered, as other cities of the Kingdom, which existed as a Polish state under Russian rule from 1815 to 1914, are also included. The paper examines the attitudes of the able-bodied majority—both Jewish and non-Jewish—towards the group in question. Due to the scarcity of primary sources from the early decades, the article focuses on the second half of the nineteenth century, which is more accessible due to the vigorous development of the Jewish press from the 1860s.
This study makes a number of arguments. The first is that, during this period, Jewish public discourse reflected the way people with disabilities were viewed in the wider European context; as a general rule, the way Jews with disabilities were described mirrored how their non-Jewish counterparts were perceived. Moreover, both Jewish and Polish communities founded similar aid institutions. This phenomenon can be seen as part of the process of Jewish emancipation. As the nineteenth century progressed, there was an increasing need for Jewish communities to create their own institutions, which served to both help those in need and assert their distinctiveness.
The second argument is that the marginalisation of Jews with disabilities was complex, occurring both within and outside the Jewish community. However, characterising it solely as a ‘double marginalisation’ would be inadequate because the grounds for exclusion varied, and further sub-categories can be identified within the broader category of ‘Jews with disabilities’.
The concept of intersectionality has been a valuable tool for analysis. Originating from gender studies, this concept allows social categories such as gender, ethnicity, nation, and class to be approached in their ‘interweavings’ or ‘intersections’, rather than in isolation from each other. To move beyond an ‘additive perspective’, intersectionality looks for ‘the simultaneous interaction of social inequalities’.Footnote 5 Additionally, analytical tools originating within disability studies have been employed, in particular the social model of disability. This model views disability as a social construct distinct from the medical model, which focuses on individual physical impairments.Footnote 6 We refer also to the concept of ‘normality’, only constructed in the mid-nineteenth century,Footnote 7 and research on the medicalisation of disability.Footnote 8 Discourse analysis plays a crucial role in our study as it allows us to examine the categorisations embedded in language itself.
This article investigates the perceptions and treatment of Jews with disabilities within and beyond the Jewish community, pursuing several key inquiries. These include how Jews with disabilities were perceived and treated, the presence of any hierarchical distinctions among various disabled groups, the specific considerations pertaining to Jewish women with disabilities, and the impact of broader trends such as medicalisation and societal expectations for their behaviour. Institutions providing assistance were important in shaping attitudes because of their mode of operation. Accordingly, this study asks: what kinds of institutions offered help, and what were their goals? Were the non-Jewish institutions inclusive or did they discriminate against Jews? What identity did charity and educational institutions convey? Also significant are the most difficult interactions to measure: what were the social interactions with other people with disabilities like? Were issues of nationality and ideology at stake?
This study focuses on people with vision, hearing, mobility, and mental impairments. The aggregate term ‘people with disabilities’—still non-existent in the nineteenth century—is used as a working category. An analysis is made of the statuses of various groups marginalised on the grounds of a physical or mental impairmentFootnote 9 attributed to them by society. The inclusion of deaf people within this study should not be seen as indicating the personal attitude of the authors, who share the cultural minority of the Deaf’s rejection of the label ‘people with disabilities’.Footnote 10 We incorporate this group only due to the aggregative nature of the social discrimination against various groups of people perceived as impaired.
As is typical for most research into marginalised groups, this study had to overcome a limited availability of comprehensive primary sources and a lack of egodocuments such as memoirs or letters.Footnote 11 Research focused on the trilingual press of the Congress Kingdom, including examples of fiction appearing in its pages. The main press titles were examined: 1) in Polish: Jutrzenka (1861–1863), Izraelita (1866–1914), Nowa Gazeta (1906–1918); 2) in Yiddish: Haynt (1908–1914), Der Moment (1910–1914); and 3) in Hebrew: HaTsefira (1862, 1874–1914) and HaTsofe (1903–1905). The analysis was supplemented with surviving administrative documents from the State Archives in Łódź, Radom, and Warsaw.
The Jewish population of the Kingdom of Poland made up its largest minority group and one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. An 1897 census gave a demographic breakdown of the Kingdom: mostly Catholic Poles (71.8%), Jews (13.5%), Germans (4.3%), Ukrainians (3.4%), Russians (mainly middle- and high-ranking state officials, 2.8%), and other minorities (Belorussians, Lithuanians, Armenians, and Tatars). The city of Warsaw had a Jewish population of approximately 337,000 individuals in 1914, constituting 38 per cent of total residents. This was the largest Jewish community in Europe, which has yielded researchers with an important primary source base, informing this paper’s considerable focus on Warsaw.
The Kingdom’s Jews mainly lived in towns and cities, and they were segregated into distinct groups based on religious, cultural, and political criteria. As in other Eastern European countries over the studied period, the largest group followed a traditional religious way of life and were mostly found in smaller towns, called shtetls. The second group, mainly residing in larger cities, identified themselves as ‘progressive’ and strove to assimilate with the Polish majority and embrace Polish cultural norms. The third group included the followers of Hasidism, an ecstatic strain of Judaism with charismatic leaders, ostensibly opposed to modernity. The fourth group consisted of the Zionists, ardent supporters of the plan to establish an autonomous state in Palestine; their ranks grew after the First Zionist Congress held in 1897. Two other populous groups included the followers of the left-wing Bund movement and the advocates of Jewish cultural autonomy within the Polish lands.Footnote 12
This diversity of outlook was reflected in the profile of the press. Some titles aimed at integration with Polish society (Jutrzenka, Izraelita), or even assimilation (Nowa Gazeta), while others were interested in writing about Jewish issues ‘through a European lens’ (HaTsofe) or in popularising modern science (HaTsefira in its early years). There were also titles promoting Jewish cultural autonomy within the Polish lands (Der Moment) or Zionism (HaTsefira from the 1890s and, to some extent, Haynt).Footnote 13 Despite profound differences within the Jewish population, the non-Jewish public discourse tended to perceive these groups in similar ways, displaying a range of prejudices and stereotypes about the Other, including preconceived ideas of moral degeneration and physical deformity.Footnote 14
Disability as a press topic
Most articles appearing in the Jewish press and mentioning disability tended to adopt an impersonal approach, rarely highlighting particular individuals with disabilities. Articles usually addressed questions of potential interest to public opinion, such as the causes or origins of specific impairments and the effectiveness of particular treatments. In line with the prevailing discourse in Poland at the time, the main subjects were deafness, blindness, and mental illness (the latter more frequently towards the end of the century).Footnote 15 The second major topic was the lack of sufficient institutional care, regularly deplored by the Jewish press at the turn of the twentieth century.
The third general topic addressed in the Jewish press was the alleged prevalence of disabilities among Jews and likely explanations for this phenomenon. Articles eagerly relied on statistics, a prevalent tool in the nineteenth century for elucidating social and biological phenomena. The conversation surrounding this topic was not limited to Jewish titles, as the statistics cited were often reprinted from Polish or German periodicals. These analyses were based on data indicating that the proportion of Jews with disabilities was notably higher compared with non-Jews. The primary explanation put forward was the frequency of intermarriage among Jews, suggesting a correlation between consanguinity and the higher occurrence of blindness, deafness, or mental illness within the Jewish community.Footnote 16 As for other explanations, worth recalling is the one provided by the physician Max Fischberg, who put forward that the cause of various ‘disorders’ among Jewish immigrants in New York was not in familial relationships, but rather in the historical trajectory and experiences of the Diaspora since the exile from Judea:
The greater susceptibility of Jews to nervous diseases, especially neurasthenia, hysteria, and diabetes, is the result of a long series of influences that have affected them over the past two thousand years. It is the result of constant anxiety, depression, worry, and mental overwork during medieval persecution.Footnote 17
Fischberg’s opinion was not isolated. Some other observers identified the source of the higher percentage of Jews with disabilities (compared to Christians) with the oppression, persecution, and sanitary conditions prevalent in metropolitan Jewish districts.Footnote 18
In the fourth type of general press article, individuals with disabilities assumed a metaphorical role, particularly in the form of epithets attributed to those perceived as irrational or fanatical. As in many European languages, the characterisation of a person as ‘deaf,’ ‘blind,’ or ‘mad’ served as a tool to critique ideological opponents, perpetuating and reinforcing the socially constructed stigmatisation of disability.Footnote 19
Alongside these general texts, often scientific in nature, sometimes articles covering individual stories were published. These can be broadly categorised into themes related to medical, educational, professional, or poverty-related matters. Additionally, there were articles portraying individuals with disabilities as objects of curiosity. Articles focused on specific cases can be further classified based on their intention: some sought to captivate readers by highlighting extraordinary spiritual fortitude, exceptional abilities,Footnote 20 unwavering determination in the face of adversity,Footnote 21 or by emphasising the unpredictability of human existence.Footnote 22 Other texts aimed to elicit compassion and encourage donations for individuals deemed ‘exceptionally miserable’ by depicting their distressing circumstances and providing personal details such as names and addresses. This approach aimed to facilitate aid by identifying those most in need of support.Footnote 23
The very rare texts acknowledging the agency of individuals with disabilities are a separate category. Notable examples include the documented meetings of the Jewish deaf/Deaf community in Warsaw in 1911 and 1913,Footnote 24 an article highlighting the German congress of the blind in Braunschweig in 1912,Footnote 25 as well as references to extensive libraries for the blind in France and Vienna.Footnote 26 Even more scarce were advertisements specifically targeting individuals with disabilities (or their families). When such announcements did appear, they predominantly catered to the deaf or blind populations. One such advertisement was issued by a teacher from the Warsaw Institute for the Deaf-Mute and Blind, Jan Sapiejewski, who claimed to treat speech impediments and develop missing sounds in both children and adults.Footnote 27 A second advertisement promoted a Warsaw doctor who offered instruction for ‘the deaf, stutterers and people with other speech defects in clear pronunciation, writing and reading’.Footnote 28 In a third example, the Austrian doctor of Jewish origin, Emil Fröschels, claimed to treat similar conditions. Operating a clinic in Vienna, he advertised his services in the Polish Jewish press.Footnote 29 In another advertisement accommodation and sustenance were offered for two deaf children in the apartment of Izrael Lichtenstein, the director of an elementary school for Jewish children in Łódź, who later gained fame as a politician.Footnote 30 A final example worth recalling is the rhyming Yiddish advertisement, which deplored the fate of the blind and promoted the use of an optician’s services:
Public opinion and the hierarchy of attitudes
Public discourse during the studied period reflected varying attitudes towards individuals with disabilities, indicating that not all individuals were viewed in the same way. Rather than an explicitly recognised category, the term ‘Jews with disabilities’, as used in this study, is a working term employed to focus on individuals who were perceived by society as having a serious impairment. Common terms used in the period were the Polish word kaleka or the Yiddish word kalike, which typically translate to ‘cripple’ in English. By referring to the socially constructed idea of disability, this paper aims to highlight those individuals who had one trait in common: society believed they had a serious impairment. In most cases, it was also believed that they were deserving of both mercy and aid from the majority. Instead of a targeted analysis of just one group, this study compares and contrasts the social and cultural status of different categories of people with disabilities, revealing a hierarchy of contemporary social attitudes towards them.
Among the categories of individuals with disabilities, children with hearing and vision impairments seemed to evoke the most positive attitudes. They elicited strong compassion and, in many cases, instilled hope for future progress. Press coverage often featured deaf or blind children in the context of special institutions for their education, further emphasising the hopeful outlook associated with their potential development. Such institutions were still at a developmental stage and remained a novelty in nineteenth-century Europe,Footnote 32 inducing a mixture of curiosity and satisfaction. The source of the latter was the chance of bringing ‘these miserable creatures’ into the world of the hearing and seeing public. Importantly, ever since the Enlightenment, a focus on children had been a major educational preoccupation—explaining the general interest in ‘improving’ those who could still be shaped freely (the tabula rasa concept). Consequently, it can be inferred that the positive attitude towards these children stemmed from the expectation that they would eventually shed their otherness. Similarly, adults with hearing or vision impairments were mainly depicted in a relatively favourable, or more accurately, a non-negative manner. References to these individuals frequently invoked an emotive approach, characterised by the abundant use of compassionate and pity-inducing language.Footnote 33 People belonging to both these categories seem to be more socially accepted, although within the imposed category of ‘disability’. The deaf and the blind were still the Other, and the absence of clear negative emotions did not mean acceptance of non-standard ways of communicating, learning, or behaving.
As for people with all other physical impairments, the generic term ‘cripple’ (Yid. kalike, Hebr. baal mum, Pol. kaleka) was often used.Footnote 34 These terms had an overly broad meaning, sometimes, as mentioned, referring both to the deaf and the blind. Due to the vagueness of the term, Jewish discourse surrounding ‘cripples’ lacked coherence, as the presence or absence of compassion depended on the specific context in which the term was employed. Typically, mentions of these individuals occurred within realistic or stylised narratives, or when discussing financial assistance to deserving individuals. Distinct perceptions related to people with a short stature, who were often presented as curiosities, at times eliciting stronger emotional responses. An example highlighting this sentiment was the graphic language used in a circus advertisement, which featured a ‘monstrous dwarf with the body of a six-year-old child and the head of an elderly man sporting an extravagant moustache’, dressed in children’s clothing.Footnote 35 Presumably, this sight challenged conventional norms and standards of appearance, provoking the author of the article. It recalls the observations of Elizabeth Grosz and Natan Meir that a strong corporeal otherness, embodying deviance, both fascinated and horrified.Footnote 36
People with mental disabilities belonged to a separate category. Traditionally, a person with mental illness or a person with intellectual disability was a familiar character within a small town or village, bearing names such as ‘village idiot’ or ‘town fool’ (Yid. shtot-meshugener). Some of these individuals, as described by Meir, were both sources of entertainment and objects of sympathy, integrated into the daily life of the shtetl. Footnote 37 However, migration to larger towns or cities disrupted this model. Devoid of social security, stability, and established relationships, mentally ill individuals in urban settings were no longer the familiar ‘village idiots’ but instead regarded with suspicion as unwelcome neighbours. Accounts on this issue from the first half of the century are scarce. However, we can cautiously make some inferences based on the Polish titles, which often served as a point of reference for the Jewish press. The picture emerging from these articles suggests that the public discourse in major cities largely ignored the existence of the mentally ill in the first half of the century. In contrast to the deaf, blind, or physically impaired, people with mental illnesses were noticeably absent from the lists of charitable aid recipients even during the 1860s and 1870s, both in the Jewish and Polish press. This omission may be attributed to the complex emotions evoked by the inexplicable and unpredictable behaviour associated with mental illnesses, which challenged societal control over such people. Furthermore, ideas of being possessed by malevolent spirits, or dybbuks, may have contributed to the perception of this group.
The medicalisation of public discourse in the latter nineteenth century brought about a shift in how individuals with mental illnesses were perceived. As in Western European states, the Kingdom witnessed an increased medical interest from the public in mental ‘disorders’, along with the wider dissemination of medical concepts. The Jewish press also began to take notice of the ’mad’, often adopting a medical standpoint, although, at times, also displaying compassion and labelling them, for example, as ‘unfortunate patients, who are unaware of their condition, for whom medical science and human mercy are trying to brighten up the gradually darkening world of thought and make it possible to communicate with their fellows again’.Footnote 38 The medicalisation of discourse also manifested itself within the Hebrew press, particularly in articles disclosing the latest medical discoveries (e.g., the notion of inherited mental illnesses) or covering medical events (e.g., the medical exhibition held in Rome).Footnote 39 Although some articles on mental illnesses appeared in the 1870s, their publication only became more common in the 1880s, with a fairly frequent occurrence by the 1890s and in the early twentieth century. Nevertheless, despite the emergence of medical literature on mental ‘disorders’, the strong emotions associated with this particular group persisted. From the 1890s onwards, the press fanned an atmosphere of menace, proclaiming a constant increase in the number of ‘mad’ individuals. Explanations for this trend were social and industrial changes, whereby ‘hectic, restless life brings a large group of people to a mental breakdown every year’.Footnote 40
Despite frequent press coverage bemoaning the lack of institutions dedicated to the care of the mentally ill, personal engagement for the betterment of this group seems to have remained limited. For example, the Society for the Care of Poor, Mentally and Emotionally Afflicted Jews (Towarzystwo Opieki nad Ubogimi, Nerwowo i Umysłowo Chorymi Żydami) was an organisation that founded the ‘Zofiówka’ hospital for the mentally ill on the outskirts of Warsaw, in Otwock. As lamented in a 1912 press report:
…the Jewish population takes little interest in the society, as can be seen by the attendance at the recent general meeting held last Thursday. Of the society’s 1,216 members, only 13 showed up at the meeting. It is really sad that such a large institution enjoys so little interest among Varsovians.Footnote 41
This might suggest that public concern for people with mental illness lacked constancy and depth, as even those who professed commitment shied away from active participation in society’s endeavours. However, this is only a cautious hypothesis, and more evidence would be needed to confirm it.
In contrast to the mentally ill, the ‘mentally retarded’ and other neuro-atypical individuals were almost completely ignored in public discourse in the Kingdom of Poland. This differentiated the state from most of the West.Footnote 42 Throughout the nineteenth century, in many European countries people with intellectual disabilities gradually began to be distinguished from the ‘insane’ and were noticed in the public discourse. A considerable change came in the 1840s when ‘mental retardation’ began to be seen both as ‘curable’ and as a separate social problem requiring intervention. Hence, the first schools were established in France, England, and Germany. As Ido Weijers summarises,
Mental retardation became a special field of educational interest and in several countries special care for “idiots” and “imbecile” children emerged…. In the following decades social reformers, educators, and physicians developed new ideas and practical interventions towards the feebleminded. The “idiot” child was central to this new social concern…through education, the economically useless and expensive idiot could be reshaped into a useful, productive citizen who was no longer a burden to the community.Footnote 43
Indicative of the interest in the subject were the scientific analyses published since the 1840s,Footnote 44 the legislation affecting this group (e.g., the 1886 Idiots Act and 1913 Mental Deficiency Act in England)Footnote 45, and the German network of institutions educating the ‘feeble-minded’ or supporting the special education system, such as the Society for the Promotion of the Education and Care of the Feeble-Minded and Idiots (Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Erziehung und Versorgung der Schwachsinnigen und Idioten)Footnote 46.
In the Kingdom of Poland, the first medical publications focusing on the intellectually disabled appeared only at the turn of the twentieth century, Footnote 47 and only then did this group begin to receive some public attention. One of the reasons for the reluctance to mention it may have been the considerable social stigma associated with this group. As a Jewish author asserted in 1908, Jewish parents feared allowing their ‘mentally retarded’ children to venture outside due both to shame and the ‘fear of betraying the secret’. Instead, they confined them at home to avoid drawing attention to the child’s condition from neighbours and friends. Another reason why a child might have been kept at home was the lack of special educational institutions in the Kingdom. The first one was founded in 1904 by the Protestant (Evangelical-Augsburg) minority in Warsaw, followed in 1908 by the initiative of two Jewish women, Eugenia Lublinerowa and Dorota Zylberowa—educators, social activists, and pioneers of special education in Poland.Footnote 48 Their school, the Warsaw Institute for the Mentally Retarded (Warszawski Zakład dla Dzieci Małozdolnych), accepted children aged 6–14 of all genders and faiths, although this openness had its limits: those with severe mental retardation (‘idiots’) were excluded, as were epileptics. The establishment of the school garnered attention from both the Jewish-Polish and Polish press.Footnote 49
An alternative approach to addressing the issue of hierarchies of attitudes involves examining the experiences of Jewish women with disabilities. These women faced discrimination on multiple fronts due to their Jewishness, their female gender, and their disability (whether perceived as ‘deaf’, ‘blind’ ‘crippled,’ or ‘mad’). Consequently, they did not fit within one set of expectations and stereotypes. Marriage prospects for individuals with disabilities were commonly regarded as limited, and Jewish women seem to have been disproportionately affected. This conviction is poignantly expressed in the well-known book by Yekhezkel Kotik. In his memoirs, he vividly recounts his grandfather Aharon-Leyzer’s arrangements for his father’s marriage. Aharon-Leyzer insisted that the local rabbi should serve as a proxy in this endeavour:
The rabbi took the letter and showed it to Aharon-Leyzer, who was overjoyed upon reading it. “Now, my dear Rabbi, I’ll add a ruble a week to your salary,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I intend to travel to Grodno to take a look at the girl, to make sure she’s not, God forbid, a cripple or ungainly. I love Moshe very much, so I want him to have a pretty wife, not just a girl from a good family.”
To Grodno he went, together with the rabbi. He liked the girl, and the marriage contract was drawn up…Footnote 50
The Jewish press carried a similar attitude. In one typical story, two men, one blind and one deaf, married women whom nobody else wished to marry, as one was ugly and the other had a malicious nature.Footnote 51 Another story concerns the plan of a Jewish man to marry off his son and echoes Kotik’s narrative:
The only thing he [my son] has to do is get married, but he has no luck… Three girls have already been proposed to me for him, and I have checked each one. And what has come out of it? One has red eyes, another has a crooked and hunched nose, another is lame. As if it were some kind of divine punishment for this poor boy…‥If he’s going to marry, he shouldn’t marry a cripple.Footnote 52
These viewpoints reflect the marginalisation experienced by Jewish women with disabilities, regarded as ‘unfit for marriage’. For women adhering to the traditional values rooted in Judaism, with its emphasis on establishing a family and bearing children (‘a tremendous pressure to marry’),Footnote 53 this attitude may have been particularly burdensome.
Despite the aforementioned hierarchies, a shared characteristic in the examined sources was the inferior social status assigned to all Jews with disabilities. Moreover, public opinion among so-called ‘progressive’ Jews held that individuals with disabilities possessed a further common trait: they failed to conform to the standard of utility. The general notion of utility, characteristic of nineteenth-century Europe, also permeated the Polish-Jewish press.Footnote 54
Finally, another layer of analysis of the place of people with disabilities in the public imaginary is worth recalling. As Natan Meir has argued, the disabled—along with other Jewish marginal people—became ‘a symbol for East European Jewry as a whole’. This concerned both the external anti-Semitic narrative and the internal Jewish discourse of modernisation, progress, and integration. The latter ‘required the creation of a despised Other to serve as a kind of doppelgänger to be cast out or transformed utterly’. Thus, the disabled, as ‘all of Jewish society’s undesirable people served as scapegoats. Since in some sense they represented all of Jewish society, that society could, by sacrificing them, by placing the blame for Jewish suffering on them, redeem itself from its abject, suffering state’.Footnote 55
Where should Jews with disabilities go? Praise for new institutions
The tendency for social definition, categorisation, and division, increasingly seen throughout Europe during the latter half of the nineteenth century, is likewise observable within Jewish discourse. This trend is apparent when comparing emergent institutions with the traditional Jewish hekdesh of the early modern era. Hekdeshim had long served as a combination of both shelter and hospital, for locals as well as newcomers, accommodating diverse individuals including the sick, elderly, and impoverished.Footnote 56 However, by the early nineteenth century hekdeshim had come to be regarded as dirty, outdated, and in disarray. Two types of institutions emerged gradually to replace them: modern hospitals designed for medical treatment and separate shelters. The latter primarily accommodated two groups: the elderly, as well as individuals with various disabilities,Footnote 57 occasionally providing refuge for a third group—orphans.Footnote 58 The rationale behind this collective classification was rooted in the notion that these individuals—being weak, helpless, dependent on others, vulnerable—were most deserving of public assistance.Footnote 59
An examination of the financial records of both the Jewish and Christian shelters shows that their provision was limited to accommodation, food, and clothing. Notably, the absence of any mention of other activities undertaken within these institutions is indicative in itself, given that the press was usually eager to discuss charitable issues, even when of minor significance. We may cautiously infer that shelter residents were expected to obediently follow established rules, without exhibiting any personal interest or need. The one area where they were encouraged to display individual engagement seems to be in religious ritual.
Religion seems to have been a crucial guiding principle. Many charitable organisations and hospitals were organised according to religious affiliation, and even those of a public character were not universally egalitarian. Taking this into account, the religious identity of beneficiaries—as regarded by the institutions housing them—was especially important. For example, Jews were discriminated against at least by some Christian institutions, such as public hospitals in Warsaw that denied them assistance. This phenomenon is evidenced by the press: in 1913 the famous Jewish journalist Noah Pryłucki observed that ‘a systematic boycott of Jewish patients is now being carried out in Varsovian municipal hospitals’.Footnote 60 Additionally, as further elaborated, Jews faced limited access to the only public school for deaf and blind children in the capital, as well as to the Society for the Deaf-Mute (Towarzystwo Głuchoniemych).
The deficiencies within institutions providing assistance to individuals with disabilities were rarely acknowledged during the studied period. Criticisms primarily revolved around the cramped facilities, exemplified by the Jewish hospital for the mentally ill, which accommodated 150 individuals despite only having 100 available spaces.Footnote 61 Countless articles praised the idea of institutionalisation and emphasised the value of closed institutions under Jewish community leadership, such as the Main Shelter Home (Główny Dom Schronienia), for the well-being of ‘cripples’ and other dependent individuals:
Here the elderly and cripples of both sexes spend their lives free from worries and troubles, having nutritious food, warm clothing, comfortable lodging, services, medical assistance, a house of prayer, in fact everything that makes life more bearable and even pleasant.Footnote 62
This idyllic portrayal rested on the widespread belief that institutional assistance held inherent value and that it was necessary to shield the able-bodied public from the unpleasant sight of disability, as it was unpalatable to modern aesthetics, among other factors.Footnote 63
This trend particularly impacted individuals with mental illnesses. Once they garnered broader public attention, they became a frequently invoked group, primarily within the context of the need for new institutions. Starting from the 1890s, as modern psychiatry advanced, articles discussing the plight of the mentally ill became frequent. Common sentiment—as in the West—deemed such individuals as particularly suited for confinement within institutions.Footnote 64 Importantly, the press asserted that the numbers of such people were increasing, fostering a sense of apprehension and perceiving them as a flood of unfortunates:
A significant group of the insane remain at large and is obviously bothering the people around. The question of what to do with all these unfortunates is becoming more and more serious, and until the conflict between the [Jewish] community and the municipality is resolved, Jewish streets will be flooded by a wave of insane homeless people.Footnote 65
The idea of danger went so far that connotations between insanity and crime were often formulated:
Due to the small number of social institutions for the insane, the number of such people wandering around unsupervised is increasing. Insane people often go on a rampage and commit damage of all sorts. Trials conducted in these cases do not yield results, as the Napoleonic Code in force in Poland does not provide for such claims.Footnote 66
The press often reported on arrested individuals being confined within hospitals for the mentally ill or held in police custody, further linking crime with insanity.Footnote 67 Detention appeared to be the norm, as summarised in 1911: ‘all the lunatics that the police arrest on the streets are first taken to police custody, whence they are sent only to a hospital for the insane or to their homes.’Footnote 68
The general view at the time deemed the mere act of confining a ‘mad’ individual within a closed facility as commendable. Confinement was seen as advantageous for both society as a whole and the individual. This brief acknowledgment in the press is emblematic of the prevailing mindset: ‘I feel it is my duty to thank the Honourable Mrs [wife of] Natan Morgenstern for the activities she developed in an effort to alleviate the misery of my insane employee by placing her in an institution for the insane [emphasis added]. I express my humble thanks for this. S. Nuremberg.’Footnote 69 Press mentions of these institutions repeatedly employed language pointing at the need for segregation.Footnote 70 Theories on hospital organisation reflected this approach, advocating for the grouping of all wards, except those for patients with infectious diseases and the ‘insane’.Footnote 71
One prominent issue of concern for the reading public was the deservingness of public aid and the direction of institutional development. According to a Yiddish article from 1912, ‘cripples’ do not deserve the aid of public hospitals. The author lamented that ‘cripples’, along with the elderly and other incurable individuals, constituted one-fifth of all patients in Varsovian hospitals, thus ‘taking the place of other’ ill individuals.Footnote 72
A different face of the issue of ‘undeservingness’ was the segregation of people perceived as disabled on the basis of religion or nationality, which affected deaf/Deaf Jews in Warsaw at the turn of the twentieth century.
Among the deaf and blind in Warsaw: equality, exclusion, empowerment
The Warsaw Institute for the Deaf-Mute and Blind occupied a prominent position in the Jewish public sphere, particularly among those seeking greater integration with the ethnic Poles. This establishment has left a substantial collection of primary sources allowing a closer examination of a specific group of Jews perceived as impaired. Despite being established by a Catholic priest and predominantly managed by clergymen, the Institute accepted boys and girls of all faiths for several decades.Footnote 73 Jewish pupils typically constituted a small percentage of the overall student body.Footnote 74 Since its founding in 1817, the institution garnered praise from both Polish and, subsequently, Polish-Jewish public opinion, viewed as a wholly beneficial endeavour and a testament to new medical and educational advancements. By focusing exclusively on children, the Institute aligned with the Enlightenment’s emphasis on educating the young, who were seen as malleable and holding future promise. The financial contributions made by Warsaw’s elites to sustain the Institute gained popularity, with donors eagerly offering their support and, importantly, sharing information about their philanthropy with the press. The so-called progressive members of the Jewish community, seeking social and cultural integration with the Polish elite, were also eager to contribute public donations to the Institute. This charitable activity not only provided an opportunity to assist deaf and blind children but also served as a means for benefactors to gain publicity for their generosity in supporting non-Jewish philanthropic institutions.Footnote 75 For instance, in 1873, when plans to construct the second floor of the Institute’s building were announced, the Jewish press promptly informed its readers: ‘Our wealthier co-religionists generously contribute to create the funds needed for this enterprise.’ A few months later, the same press hailed Lesser Lewi, ‘the banker, the Jewish community board member, and the commercial counsellor’ for having ‘donated the entire missing amount to complete the construction’.Footnote 76 At that time, some members of the Jewish community considered this matter more pressing than the construction of a synagogue.Footnote 77 In this manner, benefactors advanced the agenda of the ‘civilised’ or ‘Enlightened’ Jewry, seeking integration. A similar trend could be observed in other European countries, as wealthy Jews made contributions to Christian institutions or mixed institutions to demonstrate their openness.Footnote 78 Interestingly, the story of an 1818 bequest allegedly designated by Berek Sonnenberg, the wealthiest Jew in the Kingdom of Poland, also served this purpose. As Marcin Wodziński has found, pressure from state authorities prompted Berek’s heirs to ‘clarify’ his will and donate a substantial sum to the Institute.Footnote 79 Throughout the century, the story of Berek’s contribution remained well-known, presumably inspiring other wealthy Jewish donors to follow suit.Footnote 80
Until at least the mid-1880s, there existed a relatively balanced relationship between the financial contributions made by Jewish individuals and the Institute’s openness toward Jewish children. Any mention of the Institute in the Jewish press was consistently positive, with Jan Papłoński, the director from 1867 to 1885, being particularly admired. Papłoński exhibited an open attitude toward Jewish pupils. For instance, in 1873, he announced the creation of two additional scholarships from the Institute’s funds, alongside an existing scholarship for a Jewish child, allowing three children of the Jewish faith to study at the Institute free of charge.Footnote 81 Under Papłoński’s leadership, outstanding Jewish students of the Institute were eligible for annual prizes awarded for ‘distinguished diligence, progress in studies and exemplary performance’.Footnote 82 This not only recognised the behaviour and achievements of these pupils, but also the attitude of school authorities who held up these pupils as role-models for other children. Notably, Papłoński repeatedly called for a ‘teacher of religion’ for the Jewish students, emphasising equality in education.Footnote 83 Equality was further manifested in the founding documents of the Association of the Deaf and the Association of the Blind, both established in 1883 on Papłoński’s initiative.Footnote 84 Similarly, the Tavern at Piwna Street in Warsaw welcomed all deaf and blind individuals, irrespective of their religious or social backgrounds.Footnote 85
The experience of Jewish students at the institute was not only conditioned by the director’s approach, but also by the everyday interactions between students and teachers. Due to the absence of personal accounts, our understanding relies on external observations. There were several mentions in Izraelita praising the camaraderie among pupils in the 1870s and early 1880s, including this excerpt:
What seized the heart was the handing out of awards for camaraderie, which were awarded by a majority of votes by the students themselves. Unspeakable joy beamed from the eyes of the chosen, and tears of happiness muffled their voices. We were all the more moved by the fact that among those chosen and awarded for camaraderie were three Jewish pupils. This proves, among other things, the spirit of tolerance and feelings of brotherhood, which the venerable head of the institution and his esteemed colleagues are trying to instil in the pupils.Footnote 86
Following Jan Papłoński’s death in 1885, this emphasis on equality began to wane. The first catalyst for change was the policy of Russification implemented in the Institute from 1886 until the outbreak of the First World War. As part of this policy, only Russians were appointed as directors of the Institute, reflecting the Russian Empire’s desire to exert control over educational institutions and influence the minds of the young. Accordingly, in 1886 a separate Russian curriculum was introduced at the Institute. A few years later, fifty-nine Orthodox children were enrolled in this course, in addition to eleven Protestants and fourteen Jews.Footnote 87 A similar trend occurred in the education of the blind, where Russian became the language of instruction for all students, despite only a small number of Orthodox Christians being present. Only additional education in Polish was allowed.Footnote 88 We may assume that this policy signified a shift away from the interests of some Jewish parents, for whom Polish acculturation held greater appeal than the Russian language and culture. Integration for the Kingdom’s Jewish population was synonymous with Polish acculturation, as evidenced by historical research. The Russian language and culture held less appeal in this context.Footnote 89 The second unfavourable development was the implementation of limits on the admission of Jewish children.Footnote 90 From at least 1904, a departure from previous practices took place, allowing only Christians to attend the school as beneficiaries of public funding. Jewish pupils were treated similarly to foreigners and could only be accepted as ‘private students’,Footnote 91 thereby impeding access for poorer Jewish children. Additionally, percentage quotas further restricted the enrolment of Jews. Unsurprisingly, the idea of establishing a separate school gained traction among deaf Jews in Warsaw.Footnote 92
In addition to the organisational changes discussed above, there may have been another factor undermining Jewish interest in the Institute. A press account from 1913 sheds light on the relationship between Jewish and non-Jewish deaf individuals, revealing a far from neutral dynamic. A hearing journalist who attended a gathering of Jewish deaf/Deaf in Warsaw, provided the following summary of the situation:
The deaf all over the world, as we know, have their own schools where they learn to read and write, their own associations that provide them with material and spiritual support, and also in Warsaw, where more than 1,000 deaf people live, there is a society with some capital and a special school where these unfortunates learn the “language” and have the opportunity to organise themselves through this. It would seem that there is a real unity among these unfortunates, that misfortune will make of them one organised group….However, also among the deaf, anti-Semitism has broken in, also here the language issue has arisen, also in this group there are fierce nationalists, chauvinists, boycotters, etc., just like among the hearing.Footnote 93
This disagreement between the two groups indicates their susceptibility to external influences and ideologies, with anti-Semitism being a growing issue.Footnote 94 An exclusionary policy of the time further hindered the access of poorer Jews to the sole institution that facilitated social interactions and empowered the Warsaw deaf/Deaf community:
The charter of the Warsaw Association of the Deaf clearly states that any deaf person, regardless of nationality, can belong to the association, but this paragraph only functions on paper, and in reality, a “percentage quota” for Jews began to be introduced, and among the Jewish deaf, only a few, those more affluent and more educated, were accepted.Footnote 95
This 1913 gathering, aimed at establishing a Jewish association for the deaf/Deaf, was not the first indication of a desire for separation within this group. In 1911, a similar meeting had taken place, gathering 200 Jewish men and women with the objective of establishing an institution ‘whose task would be to bring together the social life of deaf Jews’.Footnote 96 This initiative was realised in 1916.Footnote 97
Indirect evidence of segregation between Jewish and Christian deaf individuals was also to be found outside Warsaw. An 1898 administrative poll conducted in the industrial city of Łódź suggests that some deaf residents from the same building may have formed into groups. Based on age distribution, it may cautiously be inferred that these clusters did not consist of family members but rather of individuals who voluntarily gathered in friendship groups.Footnote 98 Notably, there were no cases of Jewish and Christian deaf individuals living at the same address. In a few cases, such ‘enclaves’ comprised Christian alumni of the Warsaw Institute for the Deaf-Mute and Blind, with a total of sixteen recorded alumni in Łódź. It is noteworthy that, no Jewish alumni from the Institute resided in Łódź during that time.Footnote 99 The absence of mixed communities may suggest this was a moment when nationality played an important role among the deaf. Moreover, Jewish and Christian deaf individuals outside Warsaw, where a joint school for the deaf existed, may simply have lacked a common language of communication. It is likely that most Jews who relied on oral language and lip-reading would have known only Yiddish, while those who used sign language would have used home signs developed separately within each family.
The increasing prominence of national identity among the deaf/Deaf community might have paved the way for the establishment of two separate schools for Jewish children. The first Jewish school for deaf children was founded by Litman Himelsztajn in the small eastern town of Międzyrzec Podlaski in 1901, followed by the Jewish School for Deaf Children established by the Jewish Society for Deaf Assistance, Esras Ilmim, in Łódź in 1910, directed by the aforementioned Izrael Lichtenstein.Footnote 100 Compared to neighbouring regions, this phenomenon emerged relatively late.Footnote 101 These endeavours were part of a trend of establishing separate institutions for Christians and Jews throughout the Kingdom of Poland. While members of both groups had formerly participated in shared philanthropic associations throughout most of the nineteenth century, its latter decades witnessed a visible increase in the number of independent Jewish institutions in numerous cities within the KingdomFootnote 102.
Spiritual approach: disability and folklore
Medicalisation was not the sole factor impacting the status of individuals with disabilities within the Jewish community. Both the spiritual heritage of Judaism as well as folk beliefs played a further role. The latest research indicates that Judaism did not exhibit a consistent attitude towards disability due to its foundation on discussion and the allowance of diverging opinions. Despite this, Judaism could serve as a basis for the marginalisation of people with disabilities, as it included beliefs that associated disability with sin and saw suffering as an act of atonement.Footnote 103
Folk beliefs, which have received less scholarly attention, played a meaningful role, particularly the ‘Hasidic superstitions surrounding the “evil” inherent in people with disability’. Themes related to spirituality were also present in the stories of Hasidic leaders (tzaddikim), performing miracles of healing.Footnote 104 Although the Polish-Jewish press, especially Izraelita, vehemently opposed Hasidism and all sorts of pre-modern concepts, occasional articles on Jewish folklore and folk medicine were published.Footnote 105 These writings included advice and recommendations on medical prevention and treatment, some of which aimed to protect Jews from physical and mental impairments. Many of the superstitions related to disability were associated with the mother’s behaviour during pregnancy. For instance: ‘When the mother looks at ugly things, cripples, or animals, the child is born a monster.’Footnote 106 Folk belief attributed mental illness to practices such as inadequate hand washing or passing through an area where nail clippings were discarded, as nails were believed to possess an ‘impure force’ capable of causing madness.Footnote 107 Folk belief also emphasised the ‘correct’ behaviour towards people with disabilities: ‘One should also not imitate lunatics, for the result is that one can easily go crazy. One should never mock and mimic cripples, for it is easy to become crippled by this.’Footnote 108 Various rituals existed, including those purported to cure epileptic patients, some involving the use of animals such as tearing a live black hen over the sick person’s head or applying mole ointment. Another practice involved decapitating a rooster and burying its head beneath a barn.Footnote 109 These customs were not exclusive to Jewish folklore and had similarities with Polish traditions.Footnote 110
Additionally, cholera weddings, also known as black weddings or Shvartze khasene in Yiddish, were held during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Footnote 111 Natan Meir describes this ritual as one of the most distinct practices within ‘the rich spiritual matrix of East European Jewry’.Footnote 112 During cholera epidemics, the Jewish community organised cemetery weddings for poor orphans, including those with disabilities.Footnote 113 This ritual aimed to safeguard the town’s community from contracting cholera, as the organisers believed that the intercession of deceased ancestors would invoke God’s mercy and protect people from illness and death. As aptly noted by Meir, it was a ‘corrective ritual intended both to normalize marginal people through marriage in order to achieve a kind of cosmic reconciliation that would banish the epidemic, and to remove the calamity from the mainstream of the Jewish community to the community’s chosen scapegoats: its marginals’.Footnote 114
Reports of cholera weddings in the Kingdom of Poland appeared intermittently in both the Polish and Jewish press, as for example this event organised in 1894 in the town of Skierniewice:
A thousand Jews on foot, on horseback or on carts, proceeded in one direction, with music at the forefront. The pedestrians participating in this strange procession, with their body movements resembled some kind of wild choreography, and the entire procession was preceded by Jews dressed in red pantaloons with yellow side stripes, with bizarre hats on their heads.Footnote 115
The assimilated Jews of Warsaw held an ambiguous attitude towards the peculiar custom of cholera weddings. On the one hand, these events were viewed as superstitions unrelated to Judaism, while on the other hand, they were seen as innocent beliefs that brought relief and solace to peopleFootnote 116 and which writers in Izraelita did not wish to condemn. This press title also reprinted an article from a local Polish daily, Gazeta Lubelska, on a wedding held in a Lublin cemetery featuring a couple of ‘deaf-mute paupers’.Footnote 117 The editors of the Polish publication considered the superstition harmless. In the context of weddings involving individuals with disabilities, the Yiddish Warsaw daily Der Moment reported on the marriage of a Jewish couple from Warsaw:
Yesterday, on Pokorna Street, a wedding took place between a well-known local idiot and a poor, homeless orphan, who is also not very sane. The groom’s parents are known throughout Warsaw by the names ‘Hershele’ and ‘Sorele’ and wander the streets constantly. This unusual wedding attracted hundreds of onlookers who were willing to pay just to be invited to the wedding.Footnote 118
These customs coexisted with the nineteenth-century processes of rationalisation and modernisation, influencing attitudes towards disability. Occasionally, they faced criticism from a medical standpoint, suggesting that the union of two mentally ill individuals would transmit these diseases to future generations: ‘The reader of Der Moment certainly read about this kind of wedding in one of our issues a few days ago. In this case, both the bride and groom and the parents were insane. It goes without saying how dangerous such a ceremony is. This is how the next generation of idiots and insane grows.’Footnote 119
These superstitions fostered the belief that the aetiology of disability possessed a spiritual nature, leading to the perception that individuals with disabilities required supernatural treatments rather than medical ones. Importantly, these ideas reinforced the perception of otherness within the analysed group.
Disability in fiction
Disability also found its place in nineteenth-century Jewish literature, such as Mendele Moycher Sforim’s novel Fishke der krumer (Fishke the Lame, 1869)Footnote 120 and Meir Weissenberg’s short story Di meshugene in dorf (The Village Madwoman, 1905).Footnote 121 Although literary works were occasionally published in the Jewish press, those featuring characters with disabilities were relatively few in number. Lennard Davis, who has examined the portrayal of people with disabilities in European novels, observes that ‘if disability appears in a novel, it is rarely centrally represented. It is unusual for a main character to be a person with disabilities.’Footnote 122 The so-called ‘village idiot’, an integral part of the shtetl landscape mentioned above, was a stock character in Jewish fiction. Typically depicted in a supporting role, they were always described in relation to their interactions with the local community.Footnote 123 Despite some inhabitants expressing sympathy, their presence was primarily marked by disregard. Mentally ill characters were often treated as objects of amusement and subjected to jokes and challenges, particularly from children:
Leaning against the fence stands poor Trajna, unconscious; tears are pouring from her dull eyes.…
A bunch of urchins have arrived, tearing her clothes and shawl.
- Be off from here, naughty children! Be off from here!
- Trajna madwoman! Trajna madwoman!
And she cries…then laughs again!Footnote 124
Henryk Lichtenbaum, editor of Izraelita, expressed his sentiments similarly. While visiting the industrial town of Zgierz, he encountered a mentally ill man who evoked childhood fears of a similar ‘village idiot’, leaving Lichtenbaum profoundly horrified and shocked.Footnote 125 The historical novel Potwarca (The Slanderer) features the mentally ill character of Carrabas, an object of ridicule by the local community:
The appearance of Carrabas in the town was sometimes a source of great delight for the street folk. His infirmity, his twitching coldness, and the perpetual smile on his lips, provoked their taunts, which the cripple endured not only good-naturedly, but even with apparent satisfaction. Whole groups of street youths chased after him, tugging at him on all sides, throwing mud at him and teasing him in every possible way, and they could never make him angry.Footnote 126
The same pattern of relations between the mentally ill and local children appears in the story Sane der kapelmeister (Sane the Bandmaster). Here too, the protagonist—who ‘assumed the function of the village idiot’—is a ‘source of amusement and ridicule’Footnote 127 whom the children chase. However, in this case, the hero beats the boys who tease him, which causes outrage in the shtetl. In literary works published in the Jewish press, mentally ill individuals were depicted in a similarly schematic manner, aligning with Natan Meir’s observation that ‘town fools’ were regarded as ‘figures of fun and sources of entertainment’.Footnote 128 However, character descriptions were rarely in-depth, and authors typically focused solely on painting disabled characters as separate and distinct from the other shtetl inhabitants.
Another group of protagonists in these literary works were individuals who were blind, deaf, or physically disabled. However, such figures were scarce in the texts published in the Jewish press, and they generally did not assume leading roles. Such texts often aimed at highlighting their physical appearances. For instance, in a story by Czesława Endelmanowa, a hunchbacked character named Josel is portrayed as resembling a ‘large monstrous spider’.Footnote 129 In a play by Jan Adolf Hertz, a blind father is grateful to his son for taking care of him while simultaneously experiencing sorrow for never having seen the face of his beloved child. Footnote 130 The press also published works that addressed the deafness of soldiers, as seen in Przygody głuchego weterana (Adventures of a Deaf Veteran)Footnote 131 or Przygody siłacza (Adventures of a Strongman),Footnote 132 where stories of war invalids are described.
However, both in these works and in texts featuring ‘village idiots,’ the presence of disabled characters primarily serves to contrast them with protagonists who are not disabled. They were portrayed as unfortunate individuals eliciting pity, with their disabilities repeatedly emphasised. While they are part of the local community, they do not function on equal terms with other residents. Instead, as dependents of their families or the Jewish community (kehillah), they occupy a marginal position within the daily life of the shtetl.
Conclusions
Jewish public discussion of disability in the second half of the nineteenth century largely echoed the prevailing non-Jewish discourse. This was particularly evident for the Polish-Jewish press, where so-called ‘progressive’ members of the Jewish community sought integration with Polish society and acculturation into Polish culture. Two periodicals, Jutrzenka and Izraelita, explicitly followed this path, employing the rhetoric of pathos and repeatedly hailing the concepts of progress, enlightenment, and civilisation. The third Polish-Jewish title, the assimilationist Nowa Gazeta, took a similar approach. But even the Yiddish and Hebrew titles were not isolated from the wider European discourses on disability and medicine. The journalists of HaTsefira, particularly in the first three decades of its existence, aimed to popularise modern technology and science, especially the natural sciences. Even as this periodical evolved towards Zionism, minimising the importance of popularising science, the change did not impact the attitude towards people perceived as disabled. Similarly, Der Moment and HaZofe, despite concentrating on Jewish topics, did not present any specific approach towards the group in question.
The grounds for the transfer of ideas into the Jewish press were manifold. First, it was the bilingualism or multilingualism of its writers,Footnote 133 which gave them access to the non-Jewish discussions about medicine and disability. Second, the medicalised discourse on disability was widespread in public institutions such as hospitals and shelters, and this had an impact on the way disability was understood and discussed. Third, the ubiquity of medical discourse in the Jewish press can also be attributed to the high number of Jewish doctors and their involvement in medical societies. They were part of the socially engaged intelligentsia that led social campaigns to bring about progress by improving the health and hygiene standards of the population. Since the 1860s, when Jews were granted full citizenship in the Kingdom, these institutions had an inclusive character and accepted Jewish individuals. As Aneta Bołdyrew summarises, ‘the medical societies enjoyed the best operating conditions of all the scientific organisations. They were somewhat less subject to censorship, enjoyed greater freedom of assembly than other intellectual circles, and brought together well-educated specialists.’Footnote 134 Some Jewish doctors had acquired experience not only through participation in international medical congresses, but also through studies, study tours, or work abroad, particularly in Germany, Austria, or France, and subsequently introduced Western medical concepts and approaches to the Kingdom of Poland. For instance, Stanisław Leopold Lubliner (1863–1937), a specialist in laryngology and pulmonology in two Warsaw hospitals (and husband of the aforementioned Eugenia Lublinerowa), after completing his studies, visited two clinics in Berlin and four clinics in Vienna. Following his stay in clinics in Davos and Hamburg, he introduced the use of artificial emphysema in Warsaw. Lubliner was also co-owner and co-editor of the periodical Kronika Lekarska (Medical Chronicle).Footnote 135 Another example is Wilhelm Szymon Lubelski (1832–1891), a psychiatrist from Warsaw who had practised in Paris and Vienna, contributed to the Warsaw Medical Society (Towarzystwo Lekarskie Warszawskie), and was involved in organising its psychiatric section. He also authored numerous articles for Polish medical journals.Footnote 136
One additional factor impacting the perception of disability was the omnipresent discourse of utility that strengthened the division of society into two groups: the self-reliant and those perceived as a public burden. This societal division was influenced by industrialisation, which introduced new ideas of efficient labour based on time and motion.Footnote 137 This resulted in the inferior classification of individuals deemed neither independent nor able-bodied.
Despite the widespread practice of ‘othering’ Jews with disabilities and perceiving them as inferior, varying attitudes towards individuals with specific disabilities existed within a hierarchical framework. It is worth exploring why these attitudes were diverse and why certain groups were viewed more positively (or rather, less negatively) than others. One explanation for this hierarchy of attitudes lies in the social policy of the Kingdom of Poland. By placing particular emphasis on the education of the deaf and blind, as evidenced by the establishment and continuous funding of the Warsaw Institute for the Deaf-Mute and Blind (and similar institutions were planned in other cities),Footnote 138 state authorities directed public attention towards this specific group of individuals. The Institute served as a model institution, attracting great interest and support from both Polish and Jewish financial elites, who willingly made donations and participated in annual open examination sessions. The media also took notice of the Institute, praising its work. Since it was the sole school for children viewed as disabled for a large part of the century, the education of the deaf and blind was regarded as a distinctive and captivating endeavour. It was also believed that such an educational effort would minimise the undesirable social separation and otherness of these children and that their vocational training would make them socially useful.
Another factor influencing the varied perception of disability in the period under study was the content of medical brochures and books. Doctors believed in the importance of popularising medical knowledge, and a large number of publications in the Kingdom of Poland focused on two impairments: visual and auditory disabilities. What might have made the subject of deafness particularly popular were the medical theories that promised successful therapies. There were many accounts of the latest medical and pedagogical tools aimed at treating hearing loss and overcoming communication barriers.Footnote 139 Towards the end of the century, with the growing Western interest in mental illness, the Jewish public in the Kingdom could read more about another group of people perceived as disabled. Frequent press stories mentioning mentally ill individuals mirrored the broader perception of those people as dangerous and uncontrollable, necessitating confinement in psychiatric hospitals. Constant reference to the increasing size of the ‘insane’ population and limited capacities of existing institutions fuelled a sense of threat.Footnote 140
Strong emotions, although of another kind, also impacted the place of neuro-atypical people in the public imaginary. As a rule, they seem to have induced shame in their relatives and thus were mostly kept at home. Until the early 1900s, the analysed press was silent about this category of individuals, reflecting the general lack of medical publications or educational institutions aimed at this group in the Kingdom of Poland. Due to this silence, we may speak of a clear distinction between neuro-atypical people and other individuals with disabilities, particularly the deaf and the blind.
In addition to broader trends, a specific Jewish approach played a role in shaping attitudes towards disability. Recent research by John Michael Sefel highlights the significance of the core ideas of Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment born in the late eighteenth century. Its supporters, known as Maskilim, ‘sought a transformation of Jewish life and culture through major reforms to religious, educational, and social standards. Through championing the cultural and scientific advances already being embraced by Western bourgeois society, the Maskilim hoped to ultimately bring about – as described by Shmuel Feiner – a “phenomenon of transition from tradition to modernity”.’Footnote 141 In the context of the current study, worth stressing is the ‘maskilic view of the causation between anti-modernisation and disability, of anti-science and disease’,Footnote 142 a perspective evident not only in publications like Izraelita, which represents late maskilic ideology, but also to some extent in other analysed periodicals. A similarly unfavourable setting for disability was provided by Zionist concepts, present in HaTsefira (from the late 1890s) and to some extent Haynt. They heralded the creation of the ‘New Jew’ and rejected the image of its opposite in the form of a weak Diaspora Jew. In this regard, Zionism
…harboured profound ambivalence about the disabled Jewish body and psyche: they represented the persecuted, wounded, and deeply unhealthy Jewish nation, and therefore merited concern and sympathy. At the same time, however, they were also the clearest example of the Jews’ degenerate state and therefore had to be done away with through the regeneration and transformation that Zionism promised.Footnote 143
Taking the broader perspective suggested by Natan Meir, with the advent of modernity, as ‘is almost universally the case of social outcasts’, people with disabilities and other marginals began ‘to play a fraught role as the symbolic Other for Jewish society, which projected onto them its anxieties about its perception in the eyes of the Christian world, the rapid impoverishment of … Polish Jewry’. Importantly, ‘Modernizing reformers and philanthropists were particularly concerned that large groups of marginal types, more visible to Christian society in the cities to which Jews were migrating in large numbers, might endanger the positive image of modern Jewry that progressives were attempting to cultivate.’Footnote 144 Facing external stereotypes and concepts on Jewish alleged moral degeneration and physical deformation, the Jews displaced these features ‘onto their destitute and disabled’.Footnote 145
The Jewish press played a key role in perpetuating and diversifying attitudes towards people with disabilities, with a common thread being their treatment as the Other. The marginalisation experienced by individuals with disabilities could manifest in varying forms depending on circumstance, such as discrimination based on Jewishness, gender, deafness, blindness, physical impairment, mental illness, poverty, or as beneficiaries of public assistance. These marginalising attitudes, famously described by Harlan Lane, were disguised behind a ‘mask of benevolence’ maintained by the ‘able-bodied’.Footnote 146 Interestingly, the attitudes of the ‘able-bodied’ also influenced those of people with disabilities. The prominence of the national question among the deaf/Deaf community in Warsaw at the turn of the twentieth century serves as evidence of intersectional labelling within the disabled community.
Furthermore, as the nineteenth century witnessed a growing interest in the human body, individuals with physical impairments in the Polish lands began to be perceived through this lens. Their bodies were ‘interpreted through cultural values and expectations surrounding physical and mental ability’.Footnote 147 The exotic bodies and rituals of non-European people were eagerly observed by both Polish and Jewish audiences, becoming ‘a democratised form of mass entertainment’.Footnote 148 Paradoxically, the disabled body – considered at odds with the concept of normalcy – was expected to remain hidden, preferably within the newly established ‘progressive’ institutions established to provide for them.
Competing interest
The author(s) declare none.
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