Wilhelm Feldman

Raised in a poor Hasidic family in Zbaraż, Galicia (today in Ukraine), Wilhelm Feldman broke with traditional Jewish life early and devoted the rest of his life to promoting cultural and political Polonization among Jews. First in Lwów (today Lviv, Ukraine) and then in Kraków—both centers of Polish national culture in the Austro-Hungarian Empire—he produced a large body of Polish-language fiction, drama, social and political criticism, and literary criticism, all directed toward critique of traditional Jewish life, East European Jewish culture, and emerging Jewish national consciousness, as well as propagation of the idea that Jewish assimilation into the Polish nation was both inevitable and to be welcomed. Made secretary of the Hirsch Foundation, devoted to the improvement of Galician Jewish life, in 1891, he devoted serious effort to developing vocational training and modern educational programming among Galician Jews. Sympathetic to socialist ideas, he was above all committed to ideals of Polish nationhood and culture, and he made decisive contributions to Polish cultural life in his last two decades. In 1901, he founded the important Polish cultural journal Krytyka, in 1908 he wrote the first book-length study of contemporary Polish literature, and during World War I he served as head of the press bureau for Józef Piłsudski. Feldman was baptized shortly before his death in 1919.