The author of this 1923 book was an American historian who, despite his generally pro-Jewish mindset, indicates why Jews were often hated in the newly-resurrected Poland. Except for the CAPS below, I quite the author directly.
JEWS PROVOKE POLES: WHY JEWS ARE HATED
“Isolation and the ghetto life have made the Polish Jew narrow and selfish, crafty and fanatical…He is unsympathetic with everything outside his own religion. Because of these unlovable qualities, he is seldom welcomed anywhere.” (p. 287).
“The natural feeling against profiteering and usurious practices is wholly centered against the one race [Jews] because there are few competitors to share the odium.” (p. 295).
JEWS PROVOKE POLES: “POLISH POGROMS” IN PERSPECTIVE
“In many of the smaller towns the entire commerce is in Jewish hands. There can be no denial of the fact that the Jewish merchants have been guilty of shameless profiteering and the smuggling of forbidden goods which offered large profits. Their business methods are frequently lacking in the principles of fairness and equity. If stores owned by Jewish merchants have been mobbed or the proprietors injured, such action has not been actuated by the pogrom spirit but by the profiteering methods.” (p. 341).
“More Negroes have suffered physical violence at the hands of the predominantly white race in the United States since November, 1918, than Jews in Poland during the same period.” (p. 341).
JEWS PROVOKE POLES: JEWISH GERMANOPHILIA ADDS TO HATRED OF JEWS AMONG POLES
“The four million Jews constitute the greatest single racial problem that the new Poland is called upon to face…The war [WWI] intensified the feelings between Poles and Jews, since large numbers of the latter were openly pro-German during the Teutonic occupation…Pro-German acts naturally aroused the animosity of Polish patriots and made them suspicious of the intentions of the masses of the Jews.” (p. 339).
JEWS PROVOKE POLES: THE JEWISH ROOTS OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
“…the Jewish Bund…developed into a powerful political organization, with ramifications throughout the empire. It was engineered by resourceful Jewish brains and financed by Jewish money. It worked underground with the craftiness of the East and the government was constantly feeling its leash. Many officials fell victims to its activities. Its headquarters were in Warsaw…Funds were distributed for anarchistic propaganda and arms were surreptitiously distributed. With the avowed aim of overthrowing the tsardom, it cooperated with all other revolutionary agencies…It was the effective organization of the Bund which enabled Jewish leaders to engineer the bolshevist revolution in Russia. A majority of the leaders and chief propagandists of the original Lenin-Trotsky government were Jews, most of them having received their training in the Bund.” (pp. 281-282).
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For more on Jewish profiteering, see:
https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/jewish-economic-advantage-family-ties-fraser/
