To Speak on Our Own Behalf

Early 20th-century Warsaw witnessed an unprecedented development of the Yiddish press. This led to a backlash not only between Poles and Jews but also among Jews themselves, over whether Jews constituted a political nation. The book analyzes how mass-circulation newspapers were not just information channels, but active platforms established by Litvak Jews in the aftermath of the 1905 Revolution for debating and defining Jewishness. Events such as the 1912 elections to the Duma and the Beilis trial proved that this press was an important factor in shaping modern Jewish national identity, as it created a public sphere that crucially allowed ordinary Jews to “speak on our own behalf.” For this very reason, it caused anxiety and moral panic in Polish public opinion, thereby turning the Litvaks into a principal enemy of the Polish nation.