Essay: “Debating Birth Control in Interwar Polish-Jewish Contexts”

In the second half of the 1920s, the changing understanding of the “new”, independent, and self-determined woman led to extensive debates and a new understanding of the “family”. An example of these interrelations that arose from early health Feminist attitudes and the resulting self-empowerment in the interwar period is the Polish-Jewish weekly Ewa, published between 1928 and 1933. It reflected the nationalization of the “family”, the negotiation of societal and individual attitudes towards birth control as well as that such attitudes were adapted in a particular way via a Polish-Zionist interpretation. The modern Jewish family should be healthy and prosperous, by being “cultured” and adopting a sophisticated approach to family planning. Ewa thus provided discussion of the challenges and tensions within a society which had only just begun to transform.