As a re-examination of Socialist attitudes to the 'Jewish question' and antisemitism, of how the growth of socialism affected relationships between Poles and Jews, and of the character of Jewish Socialist groups in Poland, it makes a significant contribution to the history of the Jews in Poland. It also sheds light on the history of Socialism in east-central Europe and the complexity of nationality problems there.

In the period between the two world wars, Poland's Jewish community of three million was second only in size to that of the United States, and was the laboratory in which the ideological orientations which dominated the Jewish world—Zionism, Bundism, Neo-Orthodoxy, assimilation—were tested. There has been much disagreement as to the character and strength of antisemitism in Poland at that time, and the extent to which it aided the Nazis in carrying out their genocidal plans. This volume of Polin includes contributions from Poland, western Europe, Israel, and North America that together provide a clearer understanding of the issues which have in the past proved so divisive. It also includes a number of personal testimonies from people who experienced the interwar period at first hand.