Eastern European Jewish Consumer Culture at the Back Page of Ha-zefira at the Late 19th Century

• In Event: Keeping up appearances: New approaches in material, visual, and consumer culture

Abstract

In my presentation I would like to point out on several ways in which advertisements and announcements, published on the back page of the Hebrew newspaper Ha-zefira (Warsaw 1862-1931), can help us understand the development of Jewish consumer patterns in Congress Poland in the late nineteenth century. During this period the amount of ads published in the newspapers was relatively low. The extent of advertisements did not vary from the back page of the newspaper. Neither Ha-zefira nor any other Hebrew newspaper viewed advertisements as a factor that could improve their economic stability. Nevertheless, despite the limited amount of advertisements published on its back page, these announcements can be a valuable source in our attempts to understand several social and cultural phenomenon including Jewish consumer patterns. With these advertisements, we can follow the ways that Polish Jewry integrated elements from modern, non-Jewish daily life, including social and cultural trends, entertainment and leisure culture, into the traditional Jewish way of life without creating a significant clash. These advertisements illustrate how different kinds of Jewish and non-Jewish commercial companies (small businesses and relatively large corporations alike) tried to promote their services and products on the back page of the newspaper by taking into consideration the traditional Jewish way of life of Ha-zefira’s readers. With these advertisements we can follow how this consideration changed throughout the years. Despite, the reputation of Jewish Polish society and in particular the Jewish community of Warsaw as traditional society, with advertisements we can understand in what ways the Jewish way of life became less traditional and more modern.

Author

• Ela Bauer, Kibbutzim College