Assimilation or Polonization?

Assimilation, taken literally, means making things similar to each other, and in this concrete instance refers to a desire for the assimilation of Jews in terms of language, culture, and customs to the indigenous Polish population.

Understood this way, assimilation is nothing other than the Polonization of Jews and that must be stated clearly and openly.

In struggling to uplift the cultural level of Jews, wishing to inoculate them with the elements of contemporary European culture, we are by no means thinking of assimilating them to just any community at all, but only to the Polish national group. In other words, assimilation as we understand it will lead in a direct line to the Polonization of the Jewish masses.

If this is so, then the word assimilation should be discarded completely as being too vague and should be replaced as a matter of course with the term Polonization. It was a good term at a time when the acculturation of Jews was advancing solely along the line of Polishness. Today, however, when in addition to Polish, cultural currents of an entirely different complexion are spreading among Jews, it is necessary to speak directly about Polonization.

Jews, wherever they live, always assimilate to a greater or lesser degree; they are assimilating in France, Germany, England, America, etc., but to us Jews who are Poles, it is by no means a matter of indifference with whom Jewish Poles assimilate; we are concerned that they should assimilate with the Polish nation, that is, they should Polonize themselves.

Here on Polish soil there can be no talk about a different assimilation. No nation on earth would accept that an immigrant population would assimilate in a spirit that is alien, and often hostile, with regard to the national culture. A Polish Jew, insofar as he wishes to be considered a Polish citizen, must fashion himself according to the ideals of Polish culture and should by no means stand in opposition to the Polish nationality. If molding himself after the fashion of a foreign culture, he must first tell himself that a given country is not his country and that in light of this he remains in the position of foreigner; but as a foreigner, he must rid himself of all sorts of claims to national citizenship.

Polonization can and should be the sole form of assimilation for Polish Jews, if they want to be treated the same as indigenous Polish citizens.

Raising the slogan of Polonization, we do not wish to state that Polish Jews must dissolve their entire soul into a Polish soul. There are unbreakable laws of nature that cannot be challenged; it is impossible to change certain ethnic traits of character and mentality, and it is impossible even with the strongest efforts to rid oneself of certain racial features of the Jewish psyche. It is also impossible to tear what the self loves most out from one’s conscience. Attachment to a certain religion is included in the things we love most profoundly and personally. For one may not take religion away from anyone, neither from a Jew nor from a Christian. However, along with these features of a particular racial psyche and aspirations of a religious nature, there remains an immense expanse for absorbing the elements of an alien culture without contradicting either the laws of nature or the demands of conscience.

In the name of these convictions we declare war first of all against żargon,¹ which has nothing in common either with the Jewish psyche nor the conscience of the Jew, and we declare this because żargon is the creation of a culture that is alien to Poles and in opposition to the national language of Poles, a separate language that is, in addition, closely related to the speech of Poland’s eternal enemies. In desiring to do away with żargon we do not commit any wrong in relation to Jews; we only wish to de-Germanize them and to give them in place of [their] twisted German the pure language of the nation among whom they have been living for centuries.

Someone has stated accurately that żargon is the expression of the imperfect and unfinished Germanization of the Jews. In place of this half-baked creation, in place of this caricature of German, we yearn to give Polish Jews Polish culture with a proper, undistorted language.

Our hostile attitude toward żargon requires some discussion. Only a naïf could assume that we wish to immediately, with one stroke of the pen, destroy what for the time being is the sole means of communication for an enormous community of people. We are not blindly doctrinaire and we understand that the instantaneous elimination of żargon is a fiction. Today and tomorrow, and perhaps for many years to come, the Jewish masses, not knowing Polish, will of necessity make use of żargon and use żargon to enlighten themselves by means of the press and books. But this dominance of żargon will come to an end one day—it must end, and to a great extent hastening that moment depends on us.

The education society is most important in this regard, and what is also exceedingly important is the implacable and relentless struggle of our party against the żargon ideology of Jewish nationalism.

For us, żargon is at present the inevitable means of communication among the thousands of people who, without żargon, would for the time being become like deaf mutes, and we view it as a malum necessarium, which at the present time we must tolerate out of necessity, whereas the nationalist doctrine elevates this crippled creation to the dignity of a national language, surrounds it with the most tender paternal care, nourishes it with juices from the true fount of German, fattens it, perfects it, and yearns to guarantee it eternal life.

This is the basis of the fundamental difference between our attitude and the attitude of the nationalists toward the question of żargon. We shall speak about this question many more times.

In this space we shall not discuss in more detail the Polonizing party’s tasks and methods of action. We only want to clarify how we understand in general outline the assimilation of Jews, and to raise the idea, so that we can replace the term, imprecise, as we have said it is, and open to various commentaries, with a clear name, one that is explicit and leaves no doubt as to its meaning.