The Jewish inn (zydowska karczma) was a central pillar of economic and social life in Polish lands before the Second World War. While its primary role was to provide hospitality, it also functioned as a multifaceted hub for business, leisure, and religious festivities, reflecting its vital role in the community.

In The Jewish Inn: Between Practice and Phantasm, editors Halina Goldberg and Bozena Shallcross present 11 captivating articles that delve into the inn's significance as a symbolic incubator of Jewish cultural possibilities. The collection examines the inn's evolving artistic potential across different eras, genres, media, and analytical perspectives.

From exploring the intricate connections between music, dance, and other arts within the inn's spatial arrangement to highlighting the increasing prominence of women in the inn's family dynamics, The Jewish Inn offers a comprehensive and transdisciplinary reevaluation of this crucial institution and stands as a significant and creative contribution to Polish-Jewish studies.

Halina Goldberg is Professor of Musicology and Director of the Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She is Director of the digital project Jewish Life in Interwar Lódz (https://jewish-lodz.iu.edu), and the author of Music in Chopin's Warsaw.

Bozena Shallcross is Professor of Polish Literature in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Core Faculty of the Institute on the Formation of Culture at the University of Chicago. She is author of The Holocaust Object in Polish and Polish-Jewish Culture, which also appeared in Polish and Russian translations.

Preface: An Invitation to the Jewish Inn, by Bozena Shallcross
Acknowledgments
Note on Place Names, Personal Names, and Transliterations
Part I: Theatrical and Literary Phantasms
1. The Jewish Innkeeper in Polish National Ballet, by Halina Goldberg
2. The Romantic Invention of the Jewish Inn, by Bozena Shallcross
Part II: Contractual Frameworks
3. Jewish Tavern Here and There: An Impact of Regional and Other Differences in Forms of Rural Lease-Holdings before and after Partitions, by Judith Kalik
Part III: Communal Spaces in Transition
4. Jewish Musicians in the Polish Inn during the Nineteenth Century, by Benjamin Vogel
5. From Taverns to Courtyards and Cafes: How the Shtetl Transferred/ Migrated in Fin-De-Siècle Warsaw, by Beth Holmgren
Part IV: Innkeepers' Daughters
6. Jula's Diary: A Hasidic Tavernkeeper's Daughter during the First World War, by Glenn Dynner
7. Writing for Hay: Wyspianski's Rachela as Arbiter of Speculative Value, by Eliza Rose
Part V: The Voided Austeria
8. From Lost Center to Not-Knowing: On the Use of the Jewish Inn in Julian Stryjkowski's The Inn And Piotr Szewc's Annihilation, by Alexander Lindskog
9. Austeria and a Tavern, by Iwona Kurz
Part VI: After Nostalgia
10. Serving Ciulim in Polish Countryside: Food and the Construction of a "Polish-Jewish Heritage", by Magdalena Zatorska
11. Jewish Tavern, Jewish Places: Beyond Nostalgia, by Slawomir Sikora
Bibliography
Index