Jewish Beauty Pageants in Interwar Poland: Entertainment, Beauty Ideal, and National Emotions

Abstract

Abstract In 1929, the Polish-Jewish newspaper “Nasz Przegląd” announced “Miss Judaea Contest” – Beauty Pageant exclusively for Jewish ladies. In the following year, the Yiddish newspaper “Unzer Express” launched an additional similar contest. This article focuses on two elements related to the Jewish Beauty Pageants in Interwar Poland: First, by using quantitative research methods, it reveals the esthetics and fashionable elements of the typical Jewish young women. Despite the differences between different groups in Polish Jewry, they shared similar attributes and influences which were manifested in the fashionable choices. In addition the article presents the vivid discussions that the contest aroused both in the Jewish community in Poland and in other Jewish communities abroad. The Jewish beauty pageants, as the discussions that followed, were representative of the process of change that Polish Jewry underwent in the interwar years. These pageants represented more than just pure entertainment and symbolized more than just modernity processes. For the Jewish community, as a national minority dispersed throughout Poland, such ethno-specific entertainment activities played an important role in shaping national identity.