LELEWEL, JOACHIM°

LELEWEL, JOACHIM ° (Ignacy ; 1786–1861), historian and Polish freedom fighter. The Polish historian and statesman *Czacki, his teacher at the University of Vilna, entrusted him with the proofreading of his research work on Jews and *Karaites (Rozprawa o żydach i Karaitach) in 1807. In 1830, at the time of the Polish uprising, he was appointed vice minister of education and religions in the provisional national government. After the suppression of the revolt, he immigrated to Paris and settled in Brussels in 1833, and after 1848 he abandoned political activity. He published a comprehensive work on the history of Poland (20 vols., 1823–64). In his important work Géographie du moyen âge (5 vols. with atlas, 1849–57), Lelewel deals, among other things (vol. 4), with the travels of R. *Benjamin of Tudela. Lelewel also published an article in Eliakim *Carmoly's Notice historique sur Benjamin de Tudèle (1852²).

His attitude toward the Jews, which was at first negative, changed from 1832. At the end of that year, Lelewel issued his appeal Au peuple d'Israël! (the full text of it was published in Leon Hollaenderski's Les Israélites de Pologne (1846), 117–31), which was later translated into Yiddish by Ludwig Joshua Lubliner. Lelewel calls upon the Jews to support the revolt of the Polish nation which will break out in the future. He says that "the Jews will obtain their rights, and if they insist upon returning to Palestine the Poles will assist them in the realization of this aspiration." On Nov. 16, 1859, the Polish periodical Przegląd rzeczy polskich, which appeared in Paris, published a "letter from J. Lelewel to Mr. H. Merzbach," in which the author expressed his vigorous opposition to the antisemitic campaign, accused the Russian government of having fomented hatred between Poles and Jews, and hoped that an improvement in the condition of the population would result in healing the breach between them. At his funeral in Paris, Lelewel was eulogized by Rabbi Elie-Aristide *Astruc. Jewish students in Warsaw held a memorial service for Lelewel in a synagogue on June 1, 1861.

bibliography:

M. Muenz, Lelewel, Kaempfer fuer Recht und Wahrheit und die Judenfeinde (1860); M. Balaban, in: Miesięcznik Żydowski, 1:1 (1933), 289–331; J. Shatzky, Geshikhte fun Yidn in Varshe, 2 (1951), 164–7, 203, 218; S. Lastik, Z dziejów oświecenia żydowskiego (1961), index; A. Eisenbach (ed.), Żydzi a powstanie stycziowe, materiały i dokumenty (1963), index; H. Merzbach, Joachim Lelewel w Brukseli (1889).

[Arthur Cygielman]