Witold Jedlicki (1929–1995), an important, if somewhat disregarded Polish sociologist, began work at the University of Warsaw as the first assistant of professor Stanislaw Ossowski, member of Ossowski’s circle, also known as the Warsaw School of Sociology. Little, however, is known of Jedlicki’s life after he emigrated to Israel in 1962; in present day Poland he is remembered mainly as the author of a single text Chamy i Żydy published in 1962 in Kultura [Culture], a leading Polish emigré journal appearing in Paris. Through research of Polish and Israeli archives, study of publications in political and academic institutional history as well as interviews with Jedlicki’s brother Jerzy and Chanan Rapaport, at that time head of the National Institute for Research in the Behavioral Sciences the author was able to partly reconstruct his career abroad in Israel and the US, including contributions to Kultura and later criticism of the political situation in Poland and Israel. Conversations with Jedlicki’s friends and acquaintances, his own texts (published and unpublished), and particularly his correspondence with Jerzy Giedroyc, editor in chief of Kultura provide a new psychological insight into the intellectual history of a scholar still quoted by the Polish school of sociology in discussions and interpretations of Polish society.
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