Casimir the Great (1310-13 70) had a Jewish mistress called Ester (Esterke, Esterka). But do we know this for certain? Esterka is mentioned first by the historian Długosz in about 1470. Yet tales of the beautiful Jewess appeared earlier and remained in the collective memories of Jews and Poles. Scholars tend on the whole to believe that she existed, although facts about the romance, or the King's possible offspring, or even Esterka's supposed residences in Opoczno will probably remain forever the stuff of legend.

It is the legend that concerns Professor Shmeruk. In its literary modifications, adaptations and reworkings five centuries of Polish-Jewish coexistence can be perceived. The story of Esterka was a very flexible legend indeed. It was first used by Poles to condemn the privileges granted by Casimir to the Jews; later, it became a symbol for the possibility of amicable understanding between the two people and even measured assimilation. For the Jews, Yiddish literature came to see it as the selfsacrifice made by a Jewess to improve the lot of the Jews. It was viewed in this literature as indicative of Jewish success (she became ‘queen’ of Poland), but also disillusionment (could Jews become polonized without losing their essential spirituality?) or even betrayal.

Thus: ‘ideologies and traditions crossed with nineteenth and twentiethcentury literary movements; hostile stereotypes and ideal models based on conceptions of coexistence revealed both the desire for mutual understanding and the fear of it’ (p. 107). This inextricable confusion finally finds its literary expression in Zeitlin’ s drama (1931) where the meeting of two cultures - and thus the figure of Esterka - is freed at last from social didacticism and nationalist considerations. But it was not by accident that Zeitlin called his play a ‘misterium’ or mystery play and concluded it with the melancholy prophecy: ‘Before settling into eternal sleep people recall their dreams - and die with a smile’ (p. 101).

Shmeruk's study of this motif evokes admiration for its cohesion, precision and subtlety of interpretation. The sources are diverse and diffuse and it is so easy to apply contemporary realities and assumptions to works which were written in another age. Shmeruk entirely avoids such pitfalls.