Rise Of anti-Semitism Research Articles

Outcast Europe: The Balkans, 1789-1989. From the Ottomans to Milošević by Tom s> Gallagher (review)

146 SEER, 8i, I, 2003 grain of salt. One of the reasons for maritalbreakdownwas due to changing gender relations. The reasons for a decline in the divorce rate were complex and ranged from changes in gender relations to external reasons such as the riseof anti-Semitism,which forcedJews to rely on the familyforprotection. The fourthchaptershowsthatmarriagebreakdownwasnot alwaysfollowed by divorce. By investigating divorce agreements Freeze provides us with insightsinto parent-childaswell as husband-wiferelations. In the last chapter the author discussesnot only the crisisin the familybut the failure of the state and society to solve these issues. The intervention of RussianjuristsinJewish maritallawwas an attemptto create a singleuniform law code for all Russiansubjects.However, in the end no reformtookplace in the finalyears of the Russian Empire.Women would have benefited from the reformsmost, but women had alreadylearned how to 'utilizeand manipulate the Russian administrativeand legal system'(p. 283). The studyprovides insightsinto the behaviour patternsof ordinaryJewish women and men and shattersthe notion of the intactJewish family. Since a comparativeapproachis takenat times, the book placesJewish societywithin the frameworkof the wider society. The study 'seeks to combine the social historian'squest to understand"everydaylife" with the postmodernist'sclose attention to language in examining the transformationof theJewish familyin Imperial Russia' (p. 6). Clearly this goal has been achieved. What makesthis book specificallyvaluable is itsfine gender analysis. Department ofHistory CLAUDIA PRESTEL University ofLeicester Gallagher, Tom. Outcast Europe.TheBalkans,I789-I989. FromtheOttomans to Milosevic. Routledge, London and New York, 2001. xx + 314 PP. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. [55.00. THIS isan irritatingandmisleadingbook, despiteitsflashesof insightand good use of sources.Itpurportsto be aworkof history,butreadsmorelikea tractfor its own times, and not a very convincing one at that. Tom Gallagheris rightly anxious to combat the persistentview of the Balkansas the seat of endemic, age-old hatreds, but reaches for an alternative explanation of Balkan strife which is no lessfar-fetched.Gallagher'scentralthesisis that most, if not all, of the problemsof south-easternEurope are attributableto greatpower interference , 'unfavourableinternational pressure consistently applied' (p. vii; italics added).Althoughtherearemanysubjectswhichtheauthorcanonlysatisfactorily explain with reference to indigenous developments and actions, he seeks repeatedlyto root his analysisin the malignant influence of the great powers. When the latterarenot guiltyof interference,they are accusedof indifference, so that Gallagher manages to have his cake and eat it too. In Gallagher's interpretationvirtuallyeverydevelopment in the Balkans,fromnationalismto the NATO campaign of I999, is seen as malignant and imposed. The rise of nationalism, for instance, is seen as an unfortunatedeparturefrom 'Ottoman multiculturalism',with the Balkanpeoples 'luredinto mutuallyhostile "imagined communities"' (p. 35). Later, it is alleged, great power interference REVIEWS 147 thwarted 'Balkanunion' at the Congress of Berlin (p. 48), and turned 'South Slavsolidarityinto endemic BalkanSlavrivalry'(p. 57). The book's first chapter, covering I789-19I4, is the weakest and most error-ridden. There is confusion as to the origins of Orthodoxy, which Gallagher refers to (pp. 2I-22) as if it were a separate religion since the beginnings of Christianity.Worseis the author'stendency to use twenty-firstcenturylanguage with respect to historicalphenomena, such as the reference to 'ordinaryWest Europeans'defending Constantinople in I453 (P. 23), or to 'West European public opinion' in the context of the Greek war of independence (p. 37). Equally absurd is the exaggeratedly positive image projected of the Ottoman Empire, which 'allowed talented Balkan figures [.. .] to walk on a world stage' (p. 26), as if the undoubted upward mobility possible for (mainly Muslim) subjects of the Sultan were the result of some Ottoman equivalent of the Equal Opportunities Act. Once past I9I4, Gallagherstartsmakingmore sense,because he is able to devote greaterspace to internaldevelopmentsaswell as internationalaffairs.Some of the criticisms of BritishForeign Office contempt for the issue of minorityprotection in the interwarperiod are certainly warranted, and there is a reasonably coherent account of domestic developments in individual countries. Nevertheless, Gallagher attributes too much blame for Balkan woes on 'Versailles',as if Balkan governments and peoples had nothing to do with the post-war settlement. Significant home-grown movements like the Iron Guard in Romania are not discussed, and judgments such as calling King Alexander 'the only real unifying force in Yugoslavia'are questionable to say the least. The greatpowers are denounced, with little distinctionbetween them, for not promoting 'transnationalarrangements'between Balkan states...

Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia by ChaeRan Y. s> Freeze (review)

REVIEWS I45 Freeze, ChaeRan Y. JewishMarriage andDivorce inImperial Russia.The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry Series. Brandeis University Press, Hanover, NH, and London, 2002. xv + 399 pp. Illustrations. Tables.Appendix. Notes. Bibliography.Index. $65.00; $29.95. CHAERAN Y. FREEZE'S study is a major contribution to our understanding of Jewish societyand familyand demonstrateshow genderis an importantfactor in understanding changes in a society in transition. The author has used unpublished material from the archives of the former Soviet Union which enabled her to show the 'individual "voices" of ordinary provincial Jews, particularlywomen' (p. 7). Freeze discusses the influence of modern social theories and contemporarymedicine such as eugenics and clinical psychiatry on the lifestyleof RussianJews. The author shedsnew light on the patternsof assimilationand acculturationand the interactionwith non-Jewsin theprivate sphere such as intermarriageand extramaritalrelationships.Freeze informs us aboutpremaritalsexualrelations,illegitimatechildren,rape, abortionsand infanticide in the case of traditionalRussianJewry. These neglected areas in Jewish historiographydeserveto be writteninto history.The book addsto the discussion about the breakaway from traditional rabbinic and communal authorityby individualswho turnedto the state authoritiesin theirsearchfor help in implementinga modernlifestyle.The firstchapterdiscussestraditional patterns of Jewish marriagesas well as the expectations and the value of the individual on the marriage market.While these issues are generally known, the author nevertheless succeeds in unravelling specific details. The author also shows the influenceof Westernmedicine on the behaviourpatternsof the average Jewish man or woman. Freeze argues that while yikhus(lineage) remained an importantconsiderationin the choice of marriagepartnersdue to the scientific debate it was 'commercialized and medicalized' (p. 29). Women's secular education had further impact on the traditional marriage market, as did the Russian state. The Russian state as the key factor in the processof transformationisexploredin the second chapter.The statetogether with the Maskilimopposed underage marriagesand decided to bring 'order' into theJewish familybyforcingJews to adaptto thegeneralpatternprevalent in Russian society. Thus the state or crown rabbinate was established and these rabbis became state servants.As a resultJewish society had reason to believe that the 'state intended to transformtheir religiousleaders into 'tools of the tsaristpolice' (p. 98). These staterabbisdid not enjoy a high reputation among Jewish communities since they were generally regarded as lacking knowledgeinJewish law. As a resultan 'increasingnumberofJews, especially women' (p. 123) decided to seekjustice fromsecularauthorities.In a sense the Russian statethus succeeded in breakingcommunitysolidarity. The thirdchapter investigateswhether unhappy marriages,maritalbreakdown and rampant divorce were indeed the norm in Jewish life. Freeze concludesthatRussianJews 'showedthe contrary tendencywithmodernization: from astronomicallyhigh divorce rates in the early nineteenth century, they demonstrateda strikingtendency to reduce, not increase,the divorceratein the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries' (p. I46). Due to problematic record keeping in the Russian Empire these findingsneed to be takenwith a 146 SEER, 8i, I, 2003 grain of salt. One of the reasons for maritalbreakdownwas due to changing gender relations. The reasons for a decline in the divorce rate were complex and ranged from changes in gender relations to external reasons such as the riseof anti-Semitism,which forcedJews to rely on the familyforprotection. The fourthchaptershowsthatmarriagebreakdownwasnot alwaysfollowed by divorce. By investigating divorce agreements Freeze provides us with insightsinto parent-childaswell as husband-wiferelations. In the last chapter the author discussesnot only the crisisin the familybut the failure of the state and society to solve these issues. The intervention of RussianjuristsinJewish maritallawwas an attemptto create a singleuniform law code for all Russiansubjects.However, in the end no reformtookplace in the finalyears of the Russian Empire.Women would have benefited from the reformsmost, but women had alreadylearned how to 'utilizeand manipulate the Russian administrativeand legal system'(p. 283). The studyprovides insightsinto the behaviour patternsof ordinaryJewish women and men and shattersthe notion of the intactJewish family. Since a comparativeapproachis takenat times, the book placesJewish societywithin the frameworkof the wider society. The study 'seeks to combine the social historian'squest to understand"everydaylife" with the postmodernist'sclose attention to language in examining the transformationof theJewish familyin Imperial Russia' (p. 6). Clearly this goal has been achieved. What makesthis book specificallyvaluable is itsfine gender analysis. Department ofHistory CLAUDIA PRESTEL University ofLeicester Gallagher, Tom. Outcast Europe.TheBalkans,I789-I989. FromtheOttomans to Milosevic. Routledge, London and New York, 2001. xx + 314 PP. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. [55.00. THIS isan irritatingandmisleadingbook, despiteitsflashesof...

What is Yiddish Literary Tradition? The Soviet Marxist Moshe Litvakov versus the American Modernist Mikhl Likht

This essay deals with the controversy between the advocates of the Soviet proletarian and American modernist branches of Yiddish literature in the 1920s. Moshe Litvakov, the leading Soviet Yiddish ideologue, claimed that the October Revolution created an unbridgeable gap between bourgeois and proletarian Yiddish cultures, and therefore Soviet Yiddish literature should hold cultural and ideological hegemony in the world of Yiddish. Yiddish writers abroad had to accept the Soviet leadership and adhere to its line. The encounter with the Soviet claim for hegemony compelled American Yiddish modernists to rethink their position with respect to the past. The poet and critic Mikhl Likht, the major proponent of the aesthetics of Anglo-American modernism in Yiddish literature, sought to reestablish continuity not with the immediate predecessors, but with the medieval Yiddish poetry that he believed was closer to the European tradition. By the 1930s, however, with the decline of spoken Yiddish, the establishment of the Stalinist dictatorship, and the rise of antisemitism in Europe, this debate became irrelevant.

<strong>What Is Yiddish Literary Tradition?</strong> The Soviet Marxist Moshe Litvakov versus the American Modernist Mikhl Likht

This essay deals with the controversy between the advocates of the Soviet proletarian and American modernist branches of Yiddish literature in the 1920s. Moshe Litvakov, the leading Soviet Yiddish ideologue, claimed that the October Revolution created an unbridgeable gap between bourgeois and proletarian Yiddish cultures, and therefore Soviet Yiddish literature should hold cultural and ideological hegemony in the world of Yiddish. Yiddish writers abroad had to accept the Soviet leadership and adhere to its line. The encounter with the Soviet claim for hegemony compelled American Yiddish modernists to rethink their position with respect to the past. The poet and critic Mikhl Likht, the major proponent of the aesthetics of Anglo-American modernism in Yiddish literature, sought to reestablish continuity not with the immediate predecessors, but with the medieval Yiddish poetry that he believed was closer to the European tradition. By the 1930s, however, with the decline of spoken Yiddish, the establishment of the Stalinist dictatorship, and the rise of antisemitism in Europe, this debate became irrelevant.

Jüdisches Bürgertum in Frankfurt am Main im 19. Jahrhundert (review)

Book Reviews 137 Weisberger's book, I feel obliged to add, could have benefited from a better copy editor. Names-such as Frankel and Carlebach-are spelled incorrectly. The index contains a number of printed question marks, Le. "Hegel, ? ... Parsons, ? ... Radek, ?", suggesting that no one bothered to look up the given names of a number of prominent individuals mentioned in the text. The bibliography is not as consistent as it should be, containing, for example, an entry under the heading "Helmut Hirsch, ed." and another entry, later in the bibliography, under the heading "Hirsch, Helmut (Hrsg)" (and other bloopers). Attention to technical details is a virtue in academic writing. I look forward to evidence that Professor Weisbergerhas devoted appropriate attention to such matters in his future works. Jack Jacobs Department of Government John Jay College of Criminal Justice City University ofNew York JUdisches BUrgertum in Frankfurt am Main im 19. Jahrhundert, by Andrea Hopp. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997. 301 pp. n.p.1. This sober and well-supported social history of the Jews of Frankfurt belongs to the expanding list of contributions made by a new generation of German scholars to the study of German Jewry. Typical of this genre, Hopp's work brings to bear a sound knowledge ofGerman history, a consistent attention to methodology, and an intensive use ofunpublished archival material. Hopp does much better than average in avoiding the usual flaws in this genre. She has paid adequate attention to scholarship produced outside Germany, clearly understands the rudiments of Jewish practice, and, less tangibly but most important, never misses the big picture or portrays the Jewish middle class as some exotic lost species from the distant past. The heart ofthis work is based on family archives, supplemented by published and unpublished memoirs. Hopp's focus on the family network brings an important prosopographical approach to the German Jewish middle class. Hopp acknowledges the limitations ofautobiography as a bourgeois genre and as an historiographic source-this reader found her use of this material consistently judicious and well' tempered by a consideration of the secondary literature. Hopp has read widely in all the relevant secondary literature German and Anglo-American; ifthere is anything to criticize here, it is that the work does little more than confirm what we already suspected. The families that Hopp investigates seem typical of the German Jewish middle class in their settlement and employment patterns, their attitude toward emancipation, their attitude toward marriage and kinship, and their multigenerational version ofDeutschjudentum. 138 SHOFAR Winter 2000 Vol. 18, No.2 Strangely, although Hopp notes that Frankfurt has often been regarded as "a mirror of Gennan history" (p. 25), she does not ask whether Frankfurter Jewry typifies Gennan Jewry at large. Hopp emphasizes the structural realities of Frankfurt Jewry. The families Hopp researched tended toward traditional Jewish occupations such as trade and fmance. The legal restrictions that obtained until emancipation forced Jews into riskier-but also potentially more lucrative-financial undertakings. The cohesion ofthe family network played a large role in this economic success through preparing capital, insuring support in times of crises, and encouraging multigenerational businesses. Hopp divides the political development ofFrankfurter Jewry into three stages. Before 1848, the removal of legal disabilities served as the primary focus ofactivity, led by bankers and salesmen in semi-shtadtlan style. In the second phase, the Forty-eighters broadened Jewish politics to include a pan-Gennan agenda as members ofthe free professions came to the fore. Finally, in the Kaiserreich, the crisis ofliberalism and the rise ofantisemitism led to mass politics, a proliferation of organizations (137 in 1911), and a reorientation toward specifically Jewish concerns. Hopp's discussion ofthe Epstein-Koch family's religious practices confinns that a serious ebbing away of traditional Judaism had taken place in the course of the nineteenth century. When a Jewish family is divided on issues like cremation and the abeyance ofcircumcision, when funeral orations contain no discernible Jewish content, then one is, by definition, talking of a family whose traditional practices have waned greatly. Still, as Hopp notes, the mandatory Yom Kippur visit was widely observed, and Hopp seems to agree with Marion Kaplan and others that women preserved the spirit ofreligiosity...

A SONG OF MOURNING FOR THE DISSOLVING JEWISH COMMUNITY OF SAMARKAND

Abstract Before 1991, approximately 60,000 Central Asian Jews lived in Uzbekistan. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, their centurieslong history in the region underwent dramatic changes. The lifting of emigration restrictions coupled with fear of economic chaos, political instability, growth of national movements and a rise in antisemitism, provoked massive Jewish emigration. Today, only about 4,000 Central Asian Jews remain in Uzbekistan. The others have emigrated primarily to the United States, Israel and Austria. The following piece is about the Central Asian Jews who still live in Samarkand, Uzbekistan's second largest city. Today, about one thousand—only ten percent of the city's former community—remain there. Those who have stayed have all watched while relatives and friends have packed their belongings, sold their homes and left the country. They have witnessed the community structure crumble and they have seen the city's old Jewish quarter been sold off, house by house, to outsiders. Today, they are each faced with the question: What is home and where is it now? The work is fiction, informed by an anthropological perspective. The narrative was woven from ethnographic data that I collected during field work among the Central Asian Jews in Samarkand.

A Change of Scene, a Change of Fortune: Cinematic Visions of the Sephardic Jew

Cinematic Visions of the SephardicJew A CHANGE OF SCENE, A CHANGE OF FORTUNE: CINEMATIC VISIONS OF THE SEPHARDIC JEW "Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal"l by linda C. Ehrlich linda C. Ehrlich, associate professor at' Case Western Reserve University, has published articles and reviews about cinema in East-West Film Journal, Journal of Film and Video, Post Script, Literature/Film Quarterly, Cinemaya , Japan Forum CinemaJournal, and Film Quarterly, among others. She has co-edited CinematicLandscapes, an anthology of articles on the interface between the visual arts and the cinemas of China and Japan (University of Texas Press, 1994). In addition to her publications on Asian cinema, she has written on the films of Spanish directors Victor Erice and Carlos Saura. 1 The term "Jewish film" has tended to be associated with Yiddish films or with contemporary productions from the state of Israel. Only recently have special film exhibitions revealed another kind ofJewish film-feature films and documentaries about the Sephardic Jew.2 What better way to explore this rich historical and cultural tradition than through the subtlety lA Ladino saying which can be translated as "A change of scene, a change of fortune" (from Moshe Lazar, The Sephardic Tradition: Ladino and Spanish-jeUJish Literature [New York: Norton, 1972], p. 145). 2Note, for example, the exhibition by The Film Society of Lincoln Center entitled "The Other Jews: Sephardim in the Cinema" (December 1992), and "Cultural Identities in Transition: A Sephardic Film Festival" (April 1995), both co-sponsored by the Sephardic House and the Yeshiva University Museum. The National Center for Jewish Film has also organized a travelling film series entitled "A Modem Lens on Sephardic Jewry." 2 SHOFAR Winter 1997 Vol. 15, No.2 and intensity of the cinema? As anthropologist Harvey E. Goldberg notes: "Today, Sephardi Jewry constitutes less than 20 percent of world Jewry, but the importance of Sephardi communities within the modern Jewish world outweighs their numerical value.,,3 The story of the Sephardic Jew is one of dramatic ascents to positions of political and economic strength, often followed by crises. This large group ofJews, expelled from Spain in the fifteenth century, subsequently made their homes throughout the Mediterranean region, farther north to Holland and England, and even over to the New World.4 Once the ascendent force in world Jewry, their influence lessened by the midseventeenth century. During World War II, whole communities were wiped out by the Nazis. Israel's subsequent rise to power led to a rise in antiSemitism among the non-Jewish populations in various.lands where the Sephardim had established communities. The story of the Sephardic Jew reveals a strong inner core of continued , if often hidden, tradition. The act of hiding has at once diffused and intensified their sense of identity. Known for their deep religiosity and yet flexibility in the face of surrounding cultures, the Sephardim have preserved a powerful sense of communal memory. These exiles carried with them a distinctive language. and set of religious traditions which carried over to the details of their daily life and their music. How can a filmmaker depict such a world in which the past colors so many present encounters? Many of the documentary films on this topic focus on a Sephardic woman as the unique carrier of tradition, and as a unique spokesperson for a rich past. Another common element is that many of the films open with a montage of still photos, as haunting faces gaze down at us from the wall. We are privileged by a view of the private life of families, with the world of memory repeatedly coming to the fore. As film critic J. Hoberman has pointed out: "... nostalgia for a vanished world is in itself a Jewish trait. Modern Jewish history is full of lost, sacred sites.,,5 The documentary films present attempts to preserve, or revive, or merely recall lives and traditions in transition. 'Sephardi and Middle Eastemjewries: History and Culture in the Modern Era, ed. Harvey E. Goldberg (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), p. 2. 'The word "Sepharad" is mentioned in Obadiah 1:20, and is connected with the Latin name for Spain, Hispania. sJ. Hoberman, "Diaspora: Artists Invent a NewJewish Tradition," Village Voice (April 18...

A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America (review)

A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America (review)

Antisemitismus in Deutschland: Zur Aktualität eines Vorurteils (review)

194 SHOFAR Fall 1996 Vol. 15, No. 1 Antisemitismus in Deutschland: ZurAktualitit eines Vorurteils, edited by Wolfgang Benz. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995. 235 pp. DM 19.90. This collection of 12 essays on antisemitism in contemporary Germany is without a doubt the best book on the topic to date. As Wolfgang Benz, Director of the Center for Anti-Semitism Research at the Technical University of Berlin, explains, the intent of this volume was not to provide a theoretical investigation of antisemitism, but to explore the different aspects of how this prejudice has manifested itself in the post-World War II period. The articles are based on empirical research from historical, psychoanalytical, ethnographical, sociological, and political perspectives. The first two essays in the book, "Zur politisch-kulturellen Tradition des Antisemitismus in Deutschland," by Hermann Graml, and "Das Judentum als Antithese: Zur Tradition eines kulturellen Wertungsmusters," by Christhard Hoffmann, provide incisive historical background about antisemitism in Germany. Graml points out that the "Jewish Question" in Germany always emphasized how the Jews were considered an inferior race that needed to improve and change to become German, whereas Hoffmann demonstrates that Germans sought to identifY themselves ideally by using Jews arbitrarily as negative models in diametrically opposite thinking. Thus, Jews came to represent outward appearance versus spirituality, particularism versus universalism, the God of revenge versus the God of love, superstition versus reason, diaspora versus nation, etc. This type of anti-Jewish thinking in Germany has for the most part been seriously questioned and broken in the post-1945 period. Nevertheless, there are new forms of antisemitism that have arisen,· and they have occurred not in spite of Auschwitz, but rather ironically (and sadly) because ofAuschwitz. Since Jews have a different attitude toward the Nazi past and never want to forget it, they are regarded (consciously and unconsciously) as obstacles in the German path toward the normalization of history and the German nation. In light of this development, the rest of the essays in Antisemitismus in Deutschland document the manner in which new forms of antisemitism have developed because ofAuschwitz. In "Wie antisemitisch sind die Deutschen? Meinungsfragen 19451994 ," Werner Bergmann and Rainer Erb study the different phases of antisemitism in West and East Germany and conclude that, while the majority ofGermans have become less antisemitic, there has recently been a rise of antisemitism among the young who resent Jews because of the Book Reviews 195 Holocaust and believe that they have been victimized by an event that, in their eyes, may never have happened or has been exaggerated. In "Antisemitismus in offentlichen Konflikten," Bergmann describes the various public conflicts between Germans and Jews since 1945 and concludes that there has been a collective learning process so that Germans are more aware of the Jewish viewpoint and are more inclined to punish and disapprove of antisemitic acts. Nevertheless, as Lothar Mertens demonstrates in "Antizionismus: Feindschaft gegen Israel als neue Form des Antisemitismus," one manner in which traditional antisemitism has been transformed is through anti-Zionist actions. Here all Jews are identified with Israel and thus can only be alien "Israelites" in Germany, and since Israel is allegedly aligned withJewish capitalism in America,Jews are depicted as imperialistic Zionists, who seek to expand their power. Here it should be stressed that view is limited to extreme right and left political groups in Germany. Moreover, as Juliane Wetzel in "Antisemitismus als Element rechtsextremer Ideologie und Propaganda" and Wolfgang Benz in "Realitiltsverweigerung als antisemitisches Prinzip: Die Leugnung des Volkermords" point out, the dominant antisemitic groups are on the extreme right and often collaborate with other right-wing forces in the United States, France, and England to distort history and make it seem that the Shoah was an invention ofJewish propaganda. The new forms of antisemitism, while not supported by the majority ofGermans, have led to a great deal ofviolence in Germany. In "Diffamierung mit Tradition-Friedhofsschilndungen," Marion Neiss gives an informative report on the desecration of cemeteries and other Jewish monuments in Germany. In "Der Jude als Bolschewist: Die Wiederbelebung eines Stereotyps," Daniel Gerson describes how Jews have once again been identified with communists, especially since the fall ofthe Wall, and somehow held responsible for totalitarian regimes in...

A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America

Home to nearly one-half of the world's Jews, America also harbours its share of anti-Jewish sentiment. In a country founded on the principle of religious freedom, with no medieval past, no legal nobility and no national church, the questions arise of how anti-Semitism became a presence in America, and how did America's beginnings and history affect the course of this bigotry? Frederic Cople Jaher considers these questions in A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness, a history of anti-Semitism from its origins in the ancient world to its first widespread outbreak in America during the Civil War. Comprehensive in approach, the book combines psychological, sociological, economic, cultural, anthropological and historical interpretation to reveal the nature of anti-Semitism in the United States. Jaher sets up a comparative framework, in which American anti-Semitism is seen in relation to other forms of ethnic and religious bigotry. He compares America's treatment of Jews to their treatment in other eras and countries, and notes variations by region, social group and historical period. Jaher shows us that although anti-Semitism has been less pronounced in America than in Europe, it has had a significant place in its culture from the beginning, a circumstance traced to intertwining religious and secular forces reaching back to early Christianity, with its doctrinal animosity toward Jews. He documents the growth of this animosity in its American incarnation through the 1830s to its virulent and epidemic climax during the Civil War. Though Christianity's dispute with Judaism accounts for the persistence of anti-Semitism, Jaher reveals the deeper roots of this pathology of prejudice in the human psyche - in primal concerns about defeat, enfeeblement, and death, or in visceral responses of intergroup and interpersonal envy and rivalry. An in-depth study of all phases of anti-Jewish feeling as it is manifested in politics, economic behaviour, cultural myth and legend, religious and social interaction, and the performing arts, this comprehensive work offers insight into the New World's oldest ethnic and religious hatred.

A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America. By Frederic Cople Jaher. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994. 339 pages. $29.95

A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America. By Frederic Cople Jaher. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994. 339 pages. $29.95 Get access Gary I. Rubin Gary I. Rubin George Mason UniversityFairfax, Virginia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Church and State, Volume 38, Issue 1, Winter 1996, Pages 197–198, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcs/38.1.197 Published: 01 January 1996

Frederic Cople Jaher. <italic>A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America</italic>. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1994. Pp. viii, 339. $29.95

Journal Article Frederic Cople Jaher. A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1994. Pp. viii, 339. $29.95 Get access Jaher Frederic Cople. A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1994. Pp. viii, 339. $29.95. Andrew R. Heinze Andrew R. Heinze University of San Francisco Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 100, Issue 5, December 1995, Page 1657, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/100.5.1657 Published: 01 December 1995

A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America.

A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America.

A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America

A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America

A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America.

A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America.

The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph (review)

92 SHOFAR The Jews ofVienna in the Age of Franz Joseph, by Robert S. Wistrich. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. 696 pp. n.p.I. Vienna's Jews around the turn of the twentieth century have been the subject of several major studies during the past few years. Books by William McCagg, Paul Hofmann, George Berkley, Marsha Rozenblit, Steven Beller, and the second edition of Peter Pulzer's classic, The Rise ofAnti-Semitism in Gennany and Austria, have all contributed to our knowledge of Europe's third largest (in 1910) and most culturally creative Jewish community. Of these recent works, Robert Wistrich's Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph is by far the most impressive in its sheer size and incredibly thorough research. Wistrich's title is unnecessarily modest both geographically and chronologically. Although the book's focus is certainly on Vienna, which was a magnet for Austria-Hungary's most talented Jews, Jews in the rest of the Monarchy are by no means ignored. Likewise, the author provides a generous introduction into the history of Austrian Jewry before the reign of the Emperor-King Franz Joseph. On the other hand, Wistrich has not attempted to be absolutely comprehensive in his coverage of Austrian Jewish history between 1848 and 1914. Topically rather than chronologically organized , The Jews of Vienna concentrates far more on political, intellectual, and cultural trends than it does on social developments. Above all it deals with the question of Jewish identity and how Austrian Jews-especially Jewish intellectuals such as Karl Kraus, Otto Weininger, Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler, Stefan Zweig, and Joseph Roth-attempted to cope with a bewildering number of dramatic changes and challenges in the second half of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth century. These included emancipation, secularization, urbanization, industrialization, democracy, and above all the rise of modern, political antisemitism. . The most common response to these various forms of modernization was assimilation, perhaps best articulated by Adolf Jellinek in his mouthpiece , Die Neuzeit. But for Jellinek and most other Viennese Jews, assimilation did not mean the total abandonment of Jewish traditions and identity; rather it meant that Jews should be no different from other Austrians in their speech, clothing, manners, and social behavior. Above all, they should be loyal sons of the Habsburg fatherland. Such assimilationists generally favored the German Liberal party which stood for representative government, secularism, and free-trade capitalism. After 1895, however, the German Liberals were conspicuously silent and indifferent to the rise of antisemitism, thus causing most Viennese Jews to transfer their loyalties to the Social Democratic party. Volume 9, No.2 l-Vinter 1991 93 Wistrich believes that the rise of the antisemitic Christian Social party and the appointment of its leader, Karl Lueger, as mayor of Vienna in 1897 were far more significant than antisemitic developments in neighboring Germany or Hungary. Although Austrian antisemitism was a prerequisite for both the first great Zionist leader, Nathan Birnbaum, and Zionism's most famous and successful exponent, Theodor Herzl, the great majority of preWorld War I Viennese Jews rejected Zionism and preferred fighting antisemitism through the Austrian Israelite Union, founded in 1886 by Rabbi Joseph Samuel Bloch. The activities of the Union, especially its Defense Bureau , prove that assimilationist Jews did not blindly resign themselves to antisemitic rule. On the contrary, the Union was a forum for the forceful expression ofJewish pride and identity. As for Herzl, his rejection of assimilation and passionate espousal of Zionism did not result from anyone antisemitic event, not even the Dreyfus affair which he witnessed in Paris. Herzl differed sharply from the assimilationists in maintaining that modern antisemitism was a product of emancipation and Jewish-Gentile economic competition; it was not a mere remnant of the pre-emancipation age as Jewish liberals believed. Unfortunately, Herzl's conclusion, that Jews could never assimilate, was all too eagerly exploited by antisemites, as the co-editor and proprietor of the Neue Freie Presse, Eduard Bacher, warned the Zionist leader already in February 1896. There is little to criticize in Wistrich's masterful study. The judgments of the author, an Associate Professor of Modern European and Jewish History at Hebrew University, are...

Ludwig Bamberger and the Rise of Anti-Semitism in Germany, 1848–1893

Theodor Mommsen called him “the most German man.” TheIsraelitnoted that he had never stepped forward as a Jew. Ernest Hamburger writes that he was the only Jewish deputy who omitted the usual declaration about his religious allegiance in the parliamentary manual. “It was without significance for him.” In his will he requested that “no religious ceremony take place since this is absolutely contrary to my conviction.” And even after his death, when his brother Rudolf established a fund of ten thousand marks for the Berlin Jewish community, it was specified that books could be distributed to talented children except those who attended religious schools. Thus we have a picture of Ludwig Bamberger, the most German man or at least a completely emancipated Jew.

Origins of The Sastika‐Movement in Germany

The history of the Swastika-Movement goes back to the early nineteenth century. At that time, when the first archaeological excavations were made in Germany the Swastika was found on many objects from Germanic tombs of the first Christian centuries, and so it came to be regarded as a Germanic symbol. The first to popularise the sign was a man named Jahn, who in 1806 founded the German gymnastic clubs, which politically had a strongly nationalistic tendency. Jahn subsequently came to be known as ‘The father of the gymnastic movement.’ His motto was : ‘Frisch, Fromm, Froehlich, Frei’—‘Brisk, Pious, Joyous, Free’; and he arranged the four ‘F’s’ of this device to form a badge in the shape of a Swastika.Then, the seventies of the last century saw the rise of Anti-Semitism in Germany and the foundation of various Anti-Semitic parties, which in the years before the World War 1914-18 took an increasingly radical direction under the influence of the race theorists. The Swastika, which the Viennese author Guido List (1848-1919), in his bombastically written books, called ‘The holy symbol of the Aryans,’ became, some years before the World War 1914-18, thanks to his writings, the generally adopted badge of the Anti-Semites.In order to understand later developments, it is necessary to study List’s writings, which prior to 1914 were widely current in ‘nationalist’ circles in Germany and Austria—although indeed they are completely forgotten to-day. Fundamentally, Guido List’s ideas are based on the vague and disputed writings of the Germanised Englishman, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and his predecessors, such as the French count Joseph de Gobineau and the latter’s compatriot, De Lapouge. To these must be added the publications of the East Prussian archaeologist, Gustav Kossinna, and certain misinterpreted teachings of the famous German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche.