The relations of the Jewish community and the Polish Social Democratic Party in Galicia at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century may seem a matter of minor importance, but this work places the problem in a broad perspective and reveals the tensions which occurred everywhere in Eastern Europe. It may be deduced from the census of 31December1900 that there were 811,183 Jews in Galicia, the majority being employed in the crafts and light industry, though a substantial section was occupied in agriculture and mining, which was unusual for Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. Their conditions were exceptionally hard. Wages were low and hours long. Comparisons of the population figures for 1890 and 1900 suggest that over 100,000 Jews emigrated during that period. For. those who remained there arose the problem of organizing the defence of their interests. The Po'alei Zion movement, which emerged as a formal organization in 1903, though it took its stand on an eight-hour day and a rest period of thirty-six hours to cover the sabbath, tended at first to attract only white-collar workers. Labourers on the other hand were drawn into cooperation with the Polish Social-Democratic Party. Here, however, a complication arose. The Polish Social Democrats thought in terms of a united working class movement with the common language of Polish, whereas Jewish leaders thought they would be more effective if they used the ‘jargon’, a term for Yiddish certainly not used generally in that sense in English-speaking countries. Thus the Social-Democratic desire for solidarity conflicted with the Jewish desire to obtain the widest possible currency for their views. The result was that the Jewish Section of the Polish Social Democratic Party came under criticism and there arose in 1907 the Jewish Social Democratic Party.

It should be noted, however, that at election times Jews voted tactically according to which candidate seemed most likely to be returned, irrespective of his party label. As time passed the language problem uncovered the problem of Jewish nationality. A similar problem had arisen in Russia, where the Bund, founded in 1897 in Wilno, worked side by side with the Social Democrats.