Like a Child in a Sweet Shop: Advertising Sweets in Jewish Newspaper in Interwar Poland

 The proposed paper will ask to present the place of sweets goods as chocolate, chewing gum, Halva, confitures, liqueurs, and backing products, among Polish-Jewry during the 20's and the 30's. I will do so by analysis of newspaper advertisements of a variety of sweets, as well as its references in ego documents. By doing so, I aim not only to shed new light on issues related to culinary characteristics among Polish Jews, but also to indicate consumerism patterns, Kosher and other religious debates, intergeneration gaps, gender issues, the concept of orientalism, and the approach towards Zionism and the Land of Israel.

In addition to the political and social aspects, I would like to add to the discussion the emotional layer. The passion for sweets is well manifested in literature and many ego-documents related to the interwar years. Children, as well as grownups, were attracted to all kinds of sweet food and found candies and deserts as comforting and mood enhancers. Sweets – and specifically chocolate – are also attached to romantic love in the "western" world. This paper will also ask to find the correlation or gaps between the image of sweets in the newspapers advertainments and its' presentation in ego documents. 

So it comes to the sweet farewell! Join us for the last lecture of dr Emma Zohar in Toruń. It will take place on March 24th at 5 pm, online via BigBlueButton: https://vc.umk.pl/b/krz-nwu-3we-wzj. The speech will be given in English, recorded, and then posted online.

Emma Zohar is a NAWA visiting scholar at the Copernicus University, Torun, Poland. She served as a post-doctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, the Center for History of Emotions, Berlin (2019-2021). Zohar completed her PhD (2019) in the department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University. In her PhD dissertation, Zohar focused on the Jewish non-Zionists educational institutions in interwar Poland. Zohar’s current project “Within the Pale of Pleasure: Polish Jews and the Pursuit of Happiness (1918-1939)” deals with the everyday life practices of Polish Jewry in independent Poland. The research analyzes the consumer and leisure habits of the Polish-Jewish community in contrast to the image as the epitome of Jewish suffering. Her research interests focus on Eastern European Studies, Jewish History, History of Emotions, Gender, and Cultural History.