Jewish identity and Jewish relations with Poles and Germans in postpartition Poznania (incorporated into Prussia during the first and second partitions of Poland – in 1772 and 1793 respectively) is not an easy subject to analyze. The main reason is the lack of thorough research. This does not mean, however, that historians and publicists have not expressed opinions on Jewish identity and Jewish relations with Poles and Germans. Indeed, they continue to do so to this day. Many statements devoted to the subject contain an ideological subtext as well as emotions that tend to be characteristic of writings devoted to Jews (for example an anti-Semitic or anti- Polish subtext). The resulting myths and stereotypes that afflict historiography make it that much more difficult to hold a discussion on the merits.

I have encountered the lasting impact of these myths and stereotypes on many occasions, both while studying the literature and during numerous discussions on nationality issues in Poznania. Whenever I noted the necessity of considering Poznania's Jewish population, I usually met with the riposte that this was not necessary, since there were, in principle, no Jews in this area, for, like in the rest of Germany, the Poznanian Jews became Germans (sometimes my interlocutors added the qualification “of Mosaic faith”). This observation is generally accompanied by the conviction that the Jews joined Poznania's German population in its support of the Prussian administration's anti-Polish policies and German imperialism. Thus the main aim of this article is to debunk these two “fundamental” myths. I would like to argue that the Poznanian Jews as a group did not become Germans but remained a conscious Jewish community, as well as that most of the Poznanian Jews not only did not support the Prussian administration's anti-Polish measures but maintained entirely normal and sometimes even friendly relations with Poles.

As usual, there is, of course, some truth in these views; however, overall they suffer from gross oversimplification. Just after the partitions, Jews made up 6-7% of Poznania's population. Moreover, up to the mid-1840s this number grew constantly, so that over 80,000 Jews lived in Poznania at the height of the Jewish presence there. Only later did the number begin to fall steadily, mainly as the result of emigration, so that there were 27,000 Poznanian Jews before the outbreak of World War I.