Abstract

The article is devoted to discussion taking place in the Polish-language Jewish press in the second half of the 19th century concerning the concepts of identity and community. In the period covered by this paper, there were political and social processes, in which the above mentioned terminology played a key role. The anti-Semitic slogans appearing more and more often in the 1870s made the Polish maskils develop a unified discourse on nationality or tribalism. Similarly, since the 1880s supporters of assimilation entered into a dispute on the fundamental matters with the Zionist movement. All these factors “enforced” specific definitions, sometimes even declarations, placed in the press.