The Quest for Jewish Assimilation in Modern Social Science

Abstract

The Quest for Jewish Assimilation in Modern Social Science, by Amos Morris-Reich. Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought, Vol. 54. London: Roudedge, 2008. 193 pp. $95.00. In this short but interestingly conceived volume, Amos Morris-Reich presents a systematic study of role of and Jewish assimilation in thought of Franz Boas and Georg Simmel. The two thinkers are of obvious interest, because both were of Jewish background but themselves assimilated into German-Jewish culture, albeit in different ways, and because their thinking was formative for social and cultural anthropology (Boas) and theoretical sociology (Simmel), respectively. The volume's clearly stated thesis is that concept of and Jewish assimilation played a central role in thinking of both authors, and therefore in intellectual construction of modern social science. That this thesis is correct seems obvious; new are comparative approach and way Morris-Reich goes about his analysis. Although Morris- Reich offers some biographical details, historical context takes second place here to a history of ideas approach. Here, relevant linkages are to other thinkers (for example, to Kant, Moritz Lazarus, and Dilthey in case of Simmel), more than to othet formative influences, such as social context of academic scholarship. This emphasis is appropriate, ironically, even from a social historical viewpoint, because milieu in which both thinkers learned what scholarship is encouraged precisely such philosophical groundings and intellectualized self-conceptions. As Morris-Reich notes, however, his authors paid a price for taking such an approach; in their work, the Jews constitute a conceptual entity related to, but not necessarily identical with, actual Jews; nor did either author actually engage in extensive empirical research on In first part of book, Morris-Reich presents a carefully nuanced and illuminating analysis of Franz Boas's shift from physical to social and cultural anthropology (from race to culture) after his move from Germany to United States, and impact of that shift on his thinking both about race and about the Jews. Surprisingly, however, as Morris-Reich shows, Boas's representations of did not actually result from his turn to society and culture, but derived from principles he developed for study and representation of physical differences among populations (p. 45). Geography was central among these principles; the Jews initially represented for Boas variations within an Oriental who assimilated easily into surrounding populations. It was precisely on basis of such thinking on this account, that Boas could later argue that category of race, understood as a fixed physical type, had no scientific standing; and it was on basis ofthat claim, based in part on his views on the Jews, that Boas became one of leading anti-racist scholars in United States from 1920s through 1940s. …