How Great Was Polish Jewish Life, Johnny?

It is difficult to overstate the primacy of the Warsaw Jewish community before the Second World War. 1/3 of Warsaw’s population was Jewish. Rabbi Schudrich asserted that the seeds of all elements of contemporary Jewish practice could be found in the Warsaw Jewish community prior to the war. Of course, WE have a tendency to look back and see only the picturesque community described by Isaac Bashevis Singer (who lived and wrote in Warsaw). But there was every kind of Jewish life here – from secular to Chasidic, from Zionist to Labor, and a great number of communists and socialists.