The focus of this volume is on how the Jews were affected by Polish independence in 1918. Other topics covered include Jan Blonski's article 'The Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto'; Polish historiography on the privileges granted to the Jews; the decline of the kahal in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the social perception of Jews in the eighteenth-century; representations of Jews in nineteenth-century literature; nineteenth-century synagogues; the Jewish Polish-language press in the interwar period; and antisemitic slogans in Endecja political campaigns.Contributors: Wladyslaw T. Bartoszewski, Eugene C. Black, Jan Blonski, Andrzej Bryk, Sh. A. Cygielman, David Engel, Mieczyslaw Inglot, Paul Latawski, Eli Lederhendler, George J. Lerski, Józef Lewandowski, Maria and Kazimierz Pietchotka, Edward Rogerson, Szymon Rudnicki, Michael G. Steinlauf, Daniel Stone, Bernadeta Tendyra, Anna Zuk