The idea was conceived by prominentZionistMax Bodenheimer, in the context ofWorld War I and longstanding GermanMitteleuropa ambitions, utilizing the concept ofnational personal autonomy ornational curiae, which would allow Jewish representation in the government alongside other groups despite theirPale of Settlement dispersion.[1][2][3] Bodenheimer was a founder of theGerman Committee for Freeing of Russian Jews.[4] The Committee drew up a plan to establish a buffer state between Germany and Russia, created from territory to be taken from Imperial Russia.[5] The biography by his daughter describes adivide and rule strategy to the benefit of Germany: "In this Federation Ukrainians, White Russians, Lithuanians, Esthonians and Latvians would together serve as a counterbalance to the Poles, and the Germans, and Jews would hold the balance of power between the two groupings."[1]
The plan soon proved unpopular with other German officials and Bodenheimer's Zionist colleagues and was dead by the following year.[8][9][10] The only tangible result was an August 1914 military propaganda leaflet targeting the Jews of Poland, the final text of which greatly disappointed Bodenheimer.[11][12] The Poles were not very keen on the plan either.[13]
The Bodenheimer plan was cited by the authorAndrzej Leszek Szcześniak as an example of "Judeopolonia" in his 2001 book of the same name, echoing the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory positing a future Jewish domination of Poland that arose in the late nineteenth century.[14][15]
^Szajkowski, Zosa (1966-01-01). "The German Ordinance of November 1916 on the Organization of Jewish Communities in Poland".Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research.34:111–139.doi:10.2307/3622392.JSTOR3622392.
^Budnitskii, OlegRussian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920 University of Pennsylvania Press (2012) p228
^Sirutavičius, Vladas and Staliūnas, Darius (editors)A Pragmatic Alliance: Jewish-Lithuanian Political Cooperation at the Beginning of the 20th Century Central European University Press (2011) p124-5
^Bodenheimer, Henriette HannahMax Bodenheimer 1865-1940 : political genius for Zionism Pentland Press, (1990) p75
^Szajkowski, Zosa (1969-01-01). "The German Appeal to the Jews of Poland, August 1914".The Jewish Quarterly Review.59 (4):311–320.doi:10.2307/1453469.JSTOR1453469.
^Bodenheimer, Henriette HannahMax Bodenheimer 1865-1940 : political genius for Zionism Pentland Press, (1990) p77
^Michlic, Joanna Beata (2006).Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present, pp. 48, 55-56. University of Nebraska Press.ISBN0-8032-3240-3.
^Blobaum, Robert (2005).Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland, p. 61. Cornell University Press.ISBN0-8014-4347-4.
Zosa SzajkowskiDemands for Complete Emancipation of German Jewry during World War I, in: The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., Vol. 55, No. 4 (Apr., 1965), pp 350–363.
Zosa SzajkowskiThe German Appeal to the Jews of Poland, August 1914, in: The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., Vol. 59, No. 4 (Apr., 1969), pp 311–320.
Andrzej Leszek SzcześniakJudeopolonia - żydowskie państwo w państwie polskim 2004ISBN83-88822-92-6
