Mieć w Polsce ojczyznę. Fotogra a w działalności żydowskiego ruchu krajoznawczego (1923-1939)
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Abstract
This chapter focuses on the photographic practices that the Poland based Jewish Landkentnish (Yiddish for "Sightseeing") movement employed in the interwar period in order to promote Jewish cultural identity and Poland as a home for the Jewish people. Having emerged in 1923, the movement wished to expose the Jews of Poland to the country's diverse landscapes, encourage Jewish tourism in the land, and create archives of local Jewish cultural heritage. While other early twentieth century Jewish organizations mostly dreamt about the establishment of a Jewish nation state elsewhere, leaders of the Landkentish movement considered Poland as a home, and the Poles as close neighbors. To achieve its goals, the movement organized a large number of photographic activities, including photography courses, exhibitions and photographic excursions to different regions in Poland. It also published various scientific and popular journals in which movement members printed some of the photographs they captured in the country, alongside informative articles about photographic strategies that anyone with a camera could have employed to advance the movement's aspirations. The Landkentish movement ceased to exist during the months that led to the beginning of the Second World War. While as a consequence it never fully accomplished its goals, it left behind some valuable, informative literature and photographic records that help to elaborate studies of Jewish history and Jewish photographic cultures alike. The chapter draws on these materials to demonstrate the role photography played in strengthening the complex historical connection of Jews to the Polish country, and to foreground innovative insights into the nature of the relationship of photography, nation building and Polish Jewry in the early twentieth century.