Judaizm w „Nowym Życiu”: studium z antropologii mediów

Abstract

The author's subject of interest is the six issues of the magazine "Nowe Życie" ("New Life") from 1924. It was a monthly journal devoted to science, literature and Jewish art, where texts in Polish were published, edited by an excellent Polish-Jewish historian Majer Balaban. This unique scientific journal of Polish Jews was aimed at the renaissance of Jewish thought, so the authors sought to reach the widest possible audience who did not know Hebrew or Yiddish and was lost in search of their own identity. Thus, the authors did not fundamentally distinguish religious matters, but focused on the universal category of spiritual life. The topics covered in the journal can be divided into the following blocks: sacred art, religious issues, the history of devotion or of the religious expression of Jews, the creation of religious images printed in literary texts, presentation of Palestine from the religious perspective, the philosophical aspects of religion, Jewish legends and their religious foundations. In addition, the journal included pedagogical texts, papers from the latest scientific works, book reviews and bibliographical reviews in the context of Jewish religion. According to the author of the text, "Nowe Życie" was a project that could, at least in principle, shape a "new man" – a "new Jew". This Jewish rebirth through science, realised in the publication of the periodical did not exclude Judaism, but made it one of many figures of imagination that shaped the identity of the Jews.