Conflicting Jurisdictions: The Struggle of the Jews in the Displaced Persons Camps for Legal Autonomy

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe article exposes the complex and fascinating legal system created by the Jews in displaced camps in the American Occupation Zone in Germany. At the center of the article is the tension between the Jewish displaced persons (DPs) and the American Army and Military Government, about the question of the legality of the Jewish camp courts, and the attempt to put it in the correct legal and political context. The article focuses on the relationship between the Jewish communal law and the law of the sovereign, namely the Military Government Law. It aims first and foremost to shed light both on the diverse and complex legal system created by the Jewish DPs in the American Occupation Zone and on the ‘legal’ relationship between the Jewish legal system and the Military Government Law. The two sides confronted over the scope of jurisdiction while the Military Government applied on any person in the American Occupation Zone including the Jewish DPs while the Jewish internal law applied on Jewish DPs only. The insistence of the Jewish DPs on legal autonomy reveals not only the role of law in reconstructing Jewish community after the Holocaust but also its role in their ongoing social-political struggle for national ‘self-determination’ and recognition as a distinct national collective. With the dismantling of the DP camps and the emigration of Jews from Germany, the struggle for legal autonomy ended naturally. Indeed, it was a very brief chapter in Jewish history; however, this does not detract from the importance of the political and legal aspects of the Jewish struggle for recognition as a distinct national collective. Within a short time, the Jewish DPs set up a ‘national laboratory’ of sorts for the purpose of reconstructing a Jewish collective using the law as a significant measure.