Jewish Nationalism Research Articles

Reforming identities: Jews’ experience of German colonial expansion

ABSTRACT This essay investigates German Jews’ conceptualization of colonialism, and its consequent meanings regarding their identity formation in the years between 1884 and 1919. The discussion tackles the intersections and disjunctions of identities among German Jews of various orientations, as inspired by the colonial venture and within globalization process. The analysis reveals the interplay between the endorsement of colonialism by Jews as part of their German national identification, and the impact of growing antisemitism and racial attitudes nourished by the encounter with other ‘inferior races’ in the colonies. It explores the ideological parallels that Jews perceived between German and European colonization, and the Zionist settlement in Palestine. The article also demonstrates how Jews’ increasing exposure – real or imagined – to different places and cultures as part of the colonial experience stirred ideas of Jewish racial superiority and distinctive nationalism, alongside transnational perspectives that encouraged a broader sense of Jewish solidarity.

German as a Jewish Problem: The Language Politics of Jewish Nationalism. By Marc Volovici. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. 352 pages. Hardback $65

Article German as a Jewish Problem: The Language Politics of Jewish Nationalism. By Marc Volovici. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. 352 pages. Hardback $65 was published on March 1, 2021 in the journal Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism (volume 4, issue 1).

A page from the history of the University of Vilnius: selected biographical threads

The article concerns the scientific path of the employees and authorities of the University of Vilnius, who had the courage to to hold a repeat official presentation of a dissertation of prof. Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov in 1978 (the previous presentation took place in Moscow in 1955, but the documentation was “lost”) and to award the title of doctor honoris causa to Vladimir Nikolaevich Toporov in 1994. Biographical threads also concern employees who moved to Warsaw after WWII, primarily Professor Maria Renata Mayenowa. She was an assistant in the Stefan Batory University and participant in the seminar of professor Manfred Kridl. As a person of Jewish nationality, she lived in hiding near Bracław under the name of Szadziewicz during the occupation and survived thanks to the help of the university community. The following names appear on further pages: Professor Tadeusz Czeżowski, Janina Zienowicz, Stefan and Lidia Wołoszyn, Feliks and Maria Wolscy. The atmosphere of mutual support and help is noteworthy. The milieu of the period is overviewed on the basis of correspondence of Professor Mayenowa to Professors Kridl and Elzenberg. As defined by Professor Zygmunt Saloni, Professor Mayenowa was “Polish by choice”.

Preface

With the 2020 volume, the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book marks its 65th birthday, a truly impressive achievement for a scholarly journal. We are not, however, resting on our laurels. This year, as ever, we present a fine collection of original and thought-provoking articles in the field of German-Jewish studies. The breadth and depth of the essays presented here are evidence of a multidisciplinary international field of research in good health. They range chronologically from fifteenth-century Nuremberg in the Holy Roman Empire to 1980s Bitburg in the Federal Republic of Germany and explore themes as diverse as the Jewry Oath, expressionist Kabbalah, gendered space in fin-de-siècle Vienna, the Jewish family, Stefan Zweig’s humanism, and Jewish nationalism in post-First World War Posen/Poznań. Our 2020 Essay Prize winner is Dr Daniel Herskowitz of Wolfson College, Oxford, for his article ‘Between Exclusion and Intersection: Heidegger’s Philosophy and Jewish Volkism’. This eclectic mix of politics, philosophy, literature, and legal, textual, and cultural studies reflects today’s imaginative multinational research into the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry, as well as the Year Book’s role in its promotion and dissemination.

Neo Zionist right-wing populist discourse and activism in the Israel education system

ABSTRACT Over the past decades, neo-Zionist discourse has gain prominence in Israel. This approach, which gives preference to the definition of Israel as a Jewish state over its definition as a democracy, is a specific version authoritarian populism. This paper explores how educational discourses, policies and curricular changes are being shaped by right-wing populist organization and politicians to strengthen New-Zionism, while delegitimising liberal-democratic values. The paper draws on three examples. The first focuses on the campaign to ban the activist groups ‘Breaking the Silence’ – a group of army veteran who collect testimonies on Israel’s misconducts in the occupied territories – from entering schools. The second example is the case of ‘Im Tirtzu’, a right-wing organization, and their campaign against left-wing influences in the academy. A third example focuses on the changes to the compulsory civic curriculum – an example to the ways in which education is used to perpetuate a particular notion of Jewish nationalism. These cases help reveal the reactions of academic institutions to such actions, and the partial acceptance they have gained in recent years. They also show how the boundaries of the political were redrawn and the role education policy and institutions play in delegitimizing left-wing critique.

Holokaust, Bog i "pacovski kanali" filosofije

The subject of this paper concerns two mechanisms wich help philosophy to circumvente the subject of Holocaust. These are: the philosophy of Heidegger and the neo-marxists tenets of so called Frankfurt School, especially those of Theodor Adorno. While Heidegger is seen in this paper as a resulting prioritization of chtonic symbolism within the the culture of Wiemar Germany, which pushes out the alternative of Ernst Cassirer, the leftist matrix of Adorno's thought is equally seen as a distancing paradigm that abolishes Biblical language, through metaphysics. Paper investigates in some details these mechanisms which aim at abolishing strategic solutions of both Jewish nation and Holocaust - in the package of Zionist ideals. Author sees philosophical fixation on generic trajectoria of man-as-species, as a way of devious handling of the specifics of the Jewish existence.

British Project in Palestine: Colonial “National Home”

Mandatory Palestine proved to be a unique example of an attempt to create a “national home” within the framework of the colonial system. The present article aims to analyse the combination of the national and the colonial in the implementation of the “home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, as well as the role of cultural-religious narratives in the mindset of both the British administrators and the Zionist settlers. The research is based on British official documents and archive materials, as well as on the memoirs of Jewish settlers in Eretz Yisrael, some of which are introduced into the Russian academic circulation for the first time. Many British politicians viewed the return of the Jews to their historical homeland as a specific noble mission, which fit both into the framework of “Christian Zionism” and the notion of the civilizing nature of imperial colonialism. Palestine, along with its religious and cultural significance, was at the same time playing a thoroughly practical strategic role, and in that sense served as a highly convenient “foothold”. The British politicians and administrators perceived the Zionists as loyal agents of European colonial influence in the Middle East region. Based on the conducted research, the author reached the following conclusions. Even before ethnic confrontation in mandate Palestine intensified, some representatives of the British Empire anticipated that the Jews would not be a loyal minority, always ready to act in the Empire’s interests to the full extent. The main finding of the research is that despite the superficial similarity between the outlooks of the European Zionists and the official representatives of the British Empire, their perceptions of Palestine and their aims and purposes there were fundamentally different. On the one hand, the notions of the leaders of the Zionist movement about Eretz Yisrael were indeed in many respects close to the positions of British politicians and administrators. Jewish nationalism emerged under the influence of European ideas and concepts, and even orientalism influenced it to a certain degree. On the other hand, the Zionists perceived the Europeans as situational allies, therefore their interests coincided only in the short-term perspective. The idea of the national revival of the people of Israel in its historical homeland played a key role for them. This laid the foundation of the new Jewish identity, which also included multiple elements of religious traditions and legal bases of Judaism.

The Yom Haatzmaut Debate and the American Yeshiva World's Declaration of Independence

The article examines the opposition to Yom Haatzmaut, Israel, Independence Day, among an influential sector of America's Orthodox Jews. The so-called Yeshiva World, or Orthodox Right, flouted observance of Yom Haatzmaut rituals, and issued strong critiques of the Religious Zionists in the Diaspora who did celebrate it. However, the opposition was not articulated as a reproach to Religious Zionism. On the contrary, the Orthodox Right's disapproval was primarily framed as a condemnation of Jewish nationalism and the denial of rabbinical sovereignty to the religious leaders of the Diaspora. Utilizing understudied responsa and rabbinical sources, this research complicates our understanding of tensions between religious leaders in Israel and the Diaspora and the factors that contributed to anti-Zionism within certain American Jewish religious quarters.

Written Testimony of Pamela S. Nadell Before the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary November 7, 2017: Examining Anti-Semitism on College Campuses

Written Testimony of Pamela S. Nadell Before the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary November 7, 2017Examining Anti-Semitism on College Campuses Pamela S. Nadell (bio) INTRODUCTION Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Conyers, and distinguished members of this committee for inviting me to this important hearing on antisemitism on our nation's college campuses.1 I am Pamela Nadell, a professor of history and director of the Jewish Studies Program at American University. I am also president of the Association for Jewish Studies, a learned society of nearly two thousand [End Page 195] members in the U.S. and far beyond who research, write, and teach in all fields of Jewish Studies from the Bible to contemporary Jewish life.2 I have spent most of my life on a college campus. As a scholar of American Jewish history, I know that antisemitism has coursed through our nation's past since twenty-three Jews landed in New Amsterdam in 1654 and the colony's governor, Peter Stuyvesant, wanted to expel what he called a "deceitful race [of] … hateful enemies and blasphemers." Had his "request that the new territories should no more be allowed to be infected by people of the Jewish nation" been granted, perhaps we would not have this morning's hearing.3 But, more than 350 years ago, he failed, and, since then, Jews have immigrated to America from around the world, and they and their descendants have proudly called this nation their home. As citizens, American Jews enjoy the rights guaranteed in our First Amendment—the freedoms of worship, speech, the press, and peaceable assembly. Those same rights allow others to voice their contempt for the Jewish people and the Jewish religion. We call that antisemitism, a form of bigotry and hatred based on many stereotypes and myths. Antisemites charge that Jews conspire to control governments, the media, the entire world; they deny the historicity of the Holocaust; they call Jews Christ-killers. At its heart antisemitism is a malevolent ideology. It targets Jews as individuals and as a people. As an historian, I know that antisemitism has waxed and waned across the landscape of American history.4 The political moment, economic dislocations, social forces, the movies in their heyday, and social media today set its volume control. ANTISEMITISM TODAY We are, by all, accounts, sadly, at one of those moments where the volume on antisemitism in American life is turned way up. Scholars and watchdog Jewish communal agencies produce alarming surveys. The press and, as this hearing demonstrates, the U.S. Congress, rightly pay attention.5 When a violent protest erupts as white supremacists in Charlottesville, [End Page 196] a college town, chant "Jews will not replace us," American Jews are rightly fearful.6 Antisemitism takes many forms: harassment and threats against individuals and Jewish organizations, vandalism and bomb threats against Jewish institutions. Swastikas spray-painted anywhere signal a renewed call to exterminate the Jews. The number of physical assaults remains low, but each is a shocking reminder of the vulnerability of all Jews. On social media, antisemitic threats have exploded. Attacks there, especially targeting Jewish journalists, run horrifically into the millions.7 The hard evidence about the rising numbers of antisemitic incidents is indisputable, and everyone—politicians, government officials, leaders of business and industry, and especially our nation's educators—must do all they can to model respectful behavior and condemn this bigotry, and all expressions of racial hatred. But, the question that has brought us to this hearing today is the climate of antisemitism on our campuses. Some charting its rise have specifically called out our colleges and universities as "hotspots of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment."8 Social scientists find that, when Jewish students are handed a list of antisemitic statements, nearly three-quarters will confess that they were exposed to at least one of them in the past year. As one 2015 study concluded from this data: "Hostility towards Jews and Israel appears to be a problem for a significant number of Jewish students."9 [End Page 197] But how does such unfortunate stereotyping impact Jewish student life on campus? Are campuses really hot-beds of antisemitism? Or...

Социально-демографический облик евреев-революционеров (на материалах Всесоюзного общества политкаторжан и ссыльнопоселенцев)

The work is devoted to the study of the generalized sociographic image of the cohort of Jewish revolutionaries. The participation of Jews in the revolution is seen as an integral part of the all-Russian revolutionary process. In the course of the study, the role and place of Jews in the Rus-sian revolutionary movement in the late 19th – early 20th centuries was clarified and concretized. Thanks to the analysis of a personalized electronic database on Jewish revolutionaries, created on the basis of materials from the All-Union Society of Political Prisoners and Exiled Settlers, the structure of social origin, level of education and type of activity of the left wing of politically ac-tive Jewry has been analyzed. The features of the political socialization of Jews, constrained by restrictive articles of Jewish legislation, are shown. We come to the conclusion that such a signifi-cant percentage of Jews in the revolutionary movement is explained both by the long-term devel-opment of the revolutionary liberation movement in the Pale of Settlement, and by the existence of numerous restrictions for representatives of the Jewish nationality.

Bialik’s Belarusian passport – The Belarusian People’s Republic and the Jews in 1921

Starting from a seemingly anecdotal detail – Bialik’s Belarusian passport – this article explores a little known page of the Belarusian People’s Republic history and of Jewish/non-Jewish relations in Eastern Europe, i.e. the rapprochement between Jewish and Belarusian political activists in Berlin in 1921, before and after the peace treaty of Riga. Using published and unpublished archival sources, the author reconstitutes the efforts of three Jewish officials of the BNR government – David Anekshtein, Isaac Lur’e and Samuil Zhitlovsky – to raise awareness of the Belarusian cause among Jewish, and particularly, Zionist circles in Berlin and in the West. The article explores the BNR government in exile’s last attempt to secure statehood at a turning point in the history of the region through active cooperation with the Jewish community. It confirms the central role attributed to the Jewish nation in the Belarusian national project but also reveals the tensions and frustrations on both sides. While this cooperation failed to produce the expected outcome – BNR independence – it was crucial in shaping the BNR’s response to the violent anti-Jewish pogroms during the summer 1921 and broadening the public knowledge about the Belarusian cause to various émigré circles in Berlin, as well as laid the basis for mutual political and cultural recognition in the BSSR.

Wizerunek wschodnioeuropejskiego Żyda w literaturze i kulturze. Paradoksy i sprzeczności

In my paper I tackle the issue of the cultural self-image of the East European Jew. I provide a critical analysis of a number of texts, of different kinds and bents – confessional, literary, historical, political – to demonstrate the paradoxes and contradictions of Jewish identity. Noticing the bi-polar paths of Jewish self-interpretation (as exemplified, for instance, by Heschel and Szahak), neither free from the subjective and emotional trends, I argue for the truth closer to those views which acknowledge the religious specificity of the Jewish nation as the chosen people. Regardless of multiple contexts worth considering and at work, the essence of Jewishness dwells in the religious feeling.

A Second Exodus: Ethiopian Jews in Israel Between Religion, Nation and State

Questions about Jewishness, Judaism, and the Jewish people have been topics ofmillennia-long debates. In this paper, I focus on the formation of social hierarchies inIsrael based on skin-color to argue that there is unresolved yet consequential tensionbetween definitions of Jewishness as a religious tradition, a national identity, and astate apparatus. I embrace the perspective of Ethiopian Jews, whose identities werereframed in Israel as Blacks, to illustrate how this tension placed dark-skinnedimmigrants beyond the scope of both Jewish religious tradition as well as nationalidentity, to become the marginalized inhabitants of the Jewish State. Thereby Idescribe and examine two state-imposed processes in which Israel’s Rabbinateplays a central role: 1) Israel’s demand that Ethiopian Jews convert to Judaism inorder to be accorded citizenship. 2) Israel’s demand that Ethiopian Jewish childrenattend a segregated Jewish Orthodox public-school system, to acquire and cultivatea particular national identity. State-sponsored schools have become the basis forboth religious and national identity education and re-education.Key words: Jewish nationalism; immigration; religious (re-)education; Skin Color;Zionism.

A Jew’s Fate in Eurasian Space: Between Hatred and Misunderstanding. Role of Mikhail Vygon‘s Legacy in Understanding Persecution of Jews in Crimea in Twentieth Century

In the article, I investigate the role of prosaic oeuvres and memoirs of the famous but now forgotten Yalta-born writer, public figure and teacher of Jewish origin Mikhail Josifovich Vygon (1924-2011), in the reconstruction of the Jewish genocide in Crimea by Nazi criminals during the Great Patriotic War, as well as the later political oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union. An especial attention is paid to Vygon’s testimony of atrocities of the Russians and Ukrainians to the Jews during the German occupation of Crimea. As a result of studying the unpublished works of Vygon, I conclude that the Yalta writer was pessimistic about the future fate of the Jews in Eurasia. Only the formation of the State of Israel in 1948, according to Vygon, where he emigrated in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, put an end to the almost universal political, cultural and social persecution of the Jewish nation in Eurasia.

The Roma Genocide. The Roma Pariahs before, during, and after the Second World War

The term “pariah” was used by Max Weber in his Ancient Judaism (published originally in the years 1917–1919) to describe the Jewish nation which, as he maintained, was“separated, formally or de facto, from their social surroundings.” Inspired by Weber’s work, Hannah Arendt was the first to expand this concept to include the Roma people, albeit unwittingly. In the light of Arendt’s essay “The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition,” the pariah is a “suspect” treated in accordance with the rules of an investigation, examination, or inspection. Constantly watched, spied on, or kept under surveillance, the pariah becomes hypervisible. The Roma pariahs have been immersed in the “ecology of fear” for ages. Never immune to accusations such as theft or fraud, they have always been construed as the criminogenic element of the society. The “suspicion” would all too easily turn into “prevention,” which would frequently take very radical forms. However, it was only in 1987 that the book The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution by Ian Hancock cast light directly onto the Roma pariah. The figure of the pariah helps to reveal the essence of the uniqueness of Porajmos – the Roma genocide as a genocide parallel to the Shoah, yet driven by different causes, proceeding along a different course, and burdened with different consequences. One of these consequences was the fact that in the post-war period the extermination of the Roma gradually sank into oblivion and, thereby, into invisibility.

The Religion of Idumea and Its Relationship to Early Judaism

For several hundred years, from the late Iron Age to the end of the 2nd century BCE, the southern neighbor of Judea was “Idumea”, populated by descendants of Edomites, together with Qedarite and other Arabs and a mix of additional ethnicities. This paper examines the known data on the identity, especially religious identity, of these Idumeans, using a wide range of written sources and archaeological data. Within the Bible, “Edom” is presented as Israel’s twin and its harshest enemy, but there are hints that the Edomites worshipped the God of Israel. While the origins of the “Edomite deity” Qaus remain obscure, as does the process of their migration into southern Judah, the many inscriptions from the Persian period show that Qaus became the most widely worshipped deity in the area, even if other gods, including Yahweh, were also recognized. The Hellenistic period brought heightened Greek and Phoenician influence, but also the stabilization of “Idumea” as an administrative/ethnic unit. Some of the practices of this period, such as male circumcision, show an affinity to the Judaism of the time. This paper also discusses the outcome of the Hasmonean conquest of Idumea and the incorporation of its inhabitants into the Jewish nation.

Kant on the Jews and their Religion

The main focus of the article is the analysis of Kant’s notion of Judaism and his attitude toward the Jewish nation in a new context. Kant’s views on the Jewish religion are juxtaposed with those of Mendelssohn and Spinoza in order to emphasize several interesting features of Kant’s political and religious thought. In particular, the analysis shows that, unlike Mendelssohn, Kant did not consider tolerance to be the last word of the enlightened state in matters of its coexistence with religion. The author also argues that Kant’s fascination with Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem was premature and that his later disappointment with Mendelssohn’s persistent adherence to Jewish orthodoxy reflects his understanding of the condition of Judaism in the context of the new era of Enlightenment. Moreover, the paper addresses in a novel way the relevant connections between Kant and Spinoza, showing substantive similarities between their notions of Judaism and Christianity, and provides an overview of Kant’s historical involvement with Jewish issues, which are significant given the argumentative structure of the article.

Why Were the Founders of Liberal Judaism in Britain Opposed to Zionism?

Until recently, scholars have assumed that Liberal Judaism’s pre-war stance against Zionism was motivated primarily by a desire to assimilate into bourgeois English cultural mores. This article argues to the contrary: that the founders of Liberal Judaism were expressly trying to combat secular assimilation. Focusing on speeches and writings from Liberal Judaism’s three primary founders, Lily Montagu, Claude Montefiore and Rabbi Israel Mattuck, I find they took a nuanced and principled approach to opposing Jewish nationalism. Their opposition to Zionism stemmed, instead, from a desire to contest definitions of Jewishness. In particular, they were concerned that national conceptions of Jewishness undermined their ethical and spiritual project. I conclude that many of their concerns anticipate problems in modern-day Israel, so that their arguments are worth revisiting.

Jan Żabiński (1897-1974) - zoolog, wizjoner, polak, demokrata

Jan Franciszek Dionizy Żabiński urodził się 8 kwietnia 1897 r. w Warszawie. Tuż po osiągnięciu pełnoletności został wcielony do odrodzonego po zaborach Wojska Polskiego. Wziął udział w wojnie polsko-bolszewickiej 1920 r. Służył też w osobistej ochronie marszałka Józefa Piłsudskiego. Ukończył studia zoologiczne w Szkole Głównej Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego w Warszawie. Pracę doktorską z fizjologii obronił na Uniwersytecie Warszawskim. Zaangażowany w program ratowania i przywracania naturze żubra, był też redaktorem Ksiąg Rodowodowych Żubra. Po wygranym konkursie, w 1929 r. objął stanowisko dyrektora Miejskiego Ogrodu Zoologicznego w Warszawie. Warszawskie ZOO pod jego kierownictwem znalazło się w ciągu dziesięciu lat wśród najnowocześniejszych ogrodów zoologicznych na świecie. O Żabińskim było głośno w świecie zoologicznym w związku z Jego zaangażowaniem w rozmnożenie likaonów, konia Przewalskiego i, przede wszystkim, słonia indyjskiego.Za kadencji Żabińskiego urodził się jedyny, jak dotąd w ogrodach zoologicznych Polski, słoń. Po zniszczeniu ZOO we wrześniu 1939 r., Żabiński pozostawał w konspiracji. Na terenie ogrodu zoologicznego ukrywał broń. Nauczał na tajnych kompletach. W swoim domu na terenie ZOO ukrywał osoby narodowości żydowskiej, wielokrotnie osobiście wyprowadzał z getta warszawskiego osoby, na które wydano wyrok śmierci. Wraz z żoną Antoniną Żabińską uratował z zagłady około 300 osób, za co został w 1965 r. odznaczony tytułem ?Sprawiedliwy wśród Narodów Świata?. Powstaniec warszawski, po upadku Warszawy, więzień Stalagów w Niemczech. W 1948 r. otworzył na nowo warszawskie ZOO dla zwiedzających. Za przynależność do AK szykanowany przez Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, zmuszony został do opuszczenia Ogrodu w 1951 r. Autor kilkudziesięciuksiążek i 1500 audycji radiowych o charakterze zoologicznym. Dwukrotnie odznaczony Krzyżem Walecznych i Krzyżem Komandorskim Orderu Odrodzenia Polski z gwiazdą. Zmarł 26 lipca 1974 r. Pochowany został na Cmentarzu Powązkowskim.

Życiodajne archiwum. Składowiska pamięci w dziele Alberta Cohena

W niniejszym artykule stawiam sobie za cel uchwycenie i przeanalizowanie kilku z kluczowych tematów pisarstwa Alberta Cohena za pomocą pojęcia archiwum Jacquesa Derridy. Obecność doświadczenia narodu wybranego jest niezmiennie obecna dla tekstów Cohena. Czytelnik nie ma żadnych wątpliwości co do jego wpływu na narrację. W swoim artykule chciałabym pokazać, że w ten sposób rozumiany proces pisania Cohena znacznie wykracza poza zwykłe myślenie o przeszłości, czy nawet o żydowskiej tożsamości, która zawsze w jakiś sposób podtrzymuje relację z przodkami. Wykorzystanie Derridiańskiego pojęcia archiwum umożliwia zaobserwowanie, jak wielka jest aktywność przeszłości i jaki jest jej impakt na kształt tożsamości podmiotu.