“One of Them’ as ‘One of Us’ Jewish Demands for National Autonomy as a Means to Achieve Civic Equality during the First World War

The chapter is divided into three sections. The first focuses on the dynamics of viewing the Jews in the Polish lands simultaneously as 'one of us', and therefore entitled to representation, and as 'one of them', aligned with 'foreign' interests and therefore requiring that their participation in shaping the 'common good' be limited. The second section describes the way this dynamic was reflected in the behaviour of the elected institutions of the emerging Polish state. The key concept in these two sections is Foucault's notion of 'governmentality',2 which refers to the exercise of organized political power by a state over its subjects. It emphasizes the governing of people's conduct through 'positive' means rather than a disciplinarian form of power. In this regard, governmentality is generally associated with the active consent and [End Page 321] willingness of individuals to participate in their own governance resulting from the policy of the authorities. The third section focuses on how autonomist demands attempted to transform 'one of them' into 'one of us' or, in other words, how the autonomist discourse of nationality tried to find an appropriate place for Jews in the new Polish state.