The Jewish Inn in Polish Culture: Between Practice and Phantasm

The Jewish inn (żydowska karczma) was a central pillar of economic and social life in Polish lands before the Second World War. While its primary role was to provide hospitality, it also functioned as a multifaceted hub for business, leisure, and religious festivities, reflecting its vital role in the community.

In The Jewish Inn: Between Practice and Phantasm, editors Halina Goldberg and Bożena Shallcross present 11 captivating articles that delve into the inn’s significance as a symbolic incubator of Jewish cultural possibilities. The collection examines the inn’s evolving artistic potential across different eras, genres, media, and analytical perspectives.

From exploring the intricate connections between music, dance, and other arts within the inn’s spatial arrangement to highlighting the increasing prominence of women in the inn’s family dynamics, The Jewish Inn offers a comprehensive and transdisciplinary reevaluation of this crucial institution and stands as a significant and creative contribution to Polish-Jewish studies.

Halina Goldberg is Professor of Musicology and Director of the Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She is Director of the digital project Jewish Life in Interwar Lódź (https: //jewish-lodz.iu.edu), and the author of Music in Chopin’s Warsaw.
Bożena Shallcross is Professor of Polish Literature in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Core Faculty of the Institute on the Formation of Culture at the University of Chicago. She is author of The Holocaust Object in Polish and Polish-Jewish Culture, which also appeared in Polish and Russian translations.