Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume III: Jews and Other Ethnic Groups in a Multi-ethnic World (Vol 3)

STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY JEWRY

The publication of Studies in Contemporary Jewry was made possible through the generous assistance of the Samuel and Althea Stroum Philanthropic Fund, Seattle, Washington.

INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY JEWRY THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM

STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY JEWRY AN ANNUAL III Jews and Other Ethnic Groups in a Multi-ethnic World 9 87

Edited by Ezra Mendelsohn Published for the Institute by OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS New York • Oxford

To Philip M. Klutznick on the occasion of his eightieth birthday in recognition of his leadership and foresight as Founding Chairman and Guide of the International Planning Committee, Institute of Contemporary Jewry Oxford University Press Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Pelaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Beirut Berlin Ibadan Nicosia

Copyright © 1987 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504896-2 ISSN 0740-8625 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 84-649196

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Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY JEWRY

Editors: Jonathan Frankel, Peter Y. Medding, Ezra Mendelsohn Institute Editorial Board: Michel Abitbol, Mordecai Altshuler, Haim Avni, Yehuda Bauer, Moshe Davis, Sergio DellaPergola, Sidra Ezrahi, Moshe Goodman, Yisrael Gutman, Menahem Kaufman, Israel Kolatt, Abraham Margaliot, Dalia Ofer, U. O. Schmelz, Gideon Shimoni, Pnina Morag-Talmon, Geoffrey Wigoder Managing Editors: Hannah Koevary, Eli Lederhendler International Advisory and Review Board: Chimen Abramsky (University College, London); Abraham Ascher (City University of New York); Arnold Band (UCLA); Doris Bensimon (Universite de la Sorbonne); Bernard Blumenkrantz (Centre national de la recherche scientifique); Lucjan Dobroszycki (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research); Solomon Encel (University of New South Wales); Henry Feingold (City University of New York); Martin Gilbert (Oxford University); Zvi Gitelman (University of Michigan); S. Julius Gould (University of Nottingham); Ben Halpern (Brandeis University); Irving Howe (City University of New York); Paula Hyman (Yale University); Lionel Kochan (University of Warwick); Seymour Martin Lipset (Stanford University); Heinz-Dietrich Lowe (Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat, Freiburg); Arthur Mendel (University of Michigan); Michael Meyer (Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati); Alan Mintz (University of Maryland, College Park); George Mosse (University of Wisconsin); Gerard Nahon (Centre universitaire d'etudes juives, Paris); Gyorgy Ranki (Hungarian Academy of Sciences); F. Raphael (Universite des sciences humaines de Strasbourg); Jehuda Reinharz (Brandeis University); Monika Richarz (Germania Judaica, Kolner Bibliothek zur Geschichte des deutschen Judentums); Joseph Rothschild (Columbia University); Ismar Schorsch (Jewish Theological Seminary of America); Marshall Sklare (Brandeis University); Michael Walzer (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton); Bernard Wasserstein (Brandeis University); Ruth Wisse (McGill University).

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Preface

Volume III ofStudiesinContemporaryJewry,in keeping with the previous two volumes, contains a symposium, articles on a variety of subjects, several review essays, a substantial number of book reviews, and a list of recently completed dissertations on modern Jewish subjects. The selection of the subject for the symposium, "Jews and Other Ethnic Groups in a Multi-ethnic World," was obviously influenced by the dramatic rise of academic interest in the phenomenon of ethnicity, itself a function of the unexpected refusal of numerous minority groups to melt away under the impact of modernity. One way of looking at modern Jewish history is to regard it as part and parcel of the "ethnic explosion" which has had such a momentous impact upon nineteenth- and twentieth-century history. If we do take this approach, it should be of value to compare Jewish behavior with that of other ethnic groups and to consider the interaction among Jews and other minorities. Indeed, the central assumption behind the choice of the symposium subject is that the comparative approach to modern Jewish studies is both intrinsically interesting and indispensible in our efforts to address ourselves to one of the great questions of modem Jewish studies: To what extent is modern Jewish history unique, and to what extent have the Jews acted in ways similar, if not identical, to those of other minorities? The essays in the symposium illustrate the various possibilities of the comparative approach. For example, Binyamin Pinkus examines Soviet policy toward the major extra-territorial minority groups in that multi-national state; Yossi Lapid considers the different ways in which ethnic groups in the United States seek to influence American foreign policy; and Peter Y. Medding analyzes the rise of what he calls "the new Jewish politics" in America within the context of the general rise of ethnicity as a powerful factor in American life. Other essays compare the behavior of Jews and other, neighboring groups in Habsburg Bohemia and in pre-revolutionary Russia. Clearly, all this does not add up to a comprehensive treatment of the subject, all the more so since large areas of the Jewish world such as the Middle East and Latin America are left out. If the symposium succeeds in raising important issues and in encouraging further research, it will have achieved its purpose. This volume of Studies in Contemporary Jewry is the first to be published by Oxford University Press. In this sense it represents something of a new beginning, but the purpose of the journal, like its format, remains the same: to disseminate information on modern Jewish studies and to stimulate research in this rapidly growing field. On behalf of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry and the editorial

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board of the journal, I would like to thank Oxford University Press for entering into what we expect will be a long and fruitful partnership. I also want to thank Ms. Hannah Koevary, who took over as managing editor in the temporary absence of Dr. Eli Lederhendler. This volume owes much to her excellent work.

E.M.

Contents

Symposium: Jews and Other Ethnic Groups in a Multi-ethnic World Yossi Lapid, Ethnic Political Mobilization and U.S. Foreign Policy: Current Trends and Conflicting Assessments Peter Y. Medding, Segmented Ethnicity and the New Jewish Politics Hillel J. Kieval, Education and National Conflict in Bohemia: Germans, Czechs and Jews Binyamin Pinkus, The Extra-Territorial National Minorities in the Soviet Union, 1917-39: Jews, Germans and Poles Yoav Peled and Gershon Shafir, From Caste to Exclusion: The Dynamics of Modernization in the Russian Pale of Settlement Joseph Rothschild, Recent Trends in the Literature on Ethnopolitics

3 26 49 72

98 115

Essays Erwin A. SchmidI, Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces, 1867-1918 Victor Karady, Post-Holocaust Hungarian Jewry, 1945-48: Class Structure, Re-stratification and Potential for Social Mobility Stephen J. Whitfield, The American Jew as Journalist Eliyahu Feldman, Reports from British Diplomats in Russia on the Participation of the Jews in Revolutionary Activity in Northwest Russia and the Kingdom of Poland, 1905-6 Lloyd P. Gartner, Paths to Jewish Social History

127 147 161

181 204

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Review Essays Michael R. Marrus, Bystanders to the Holocaust Judith E. Doneson, Portraits of the Jew in Film: Some Recent Studies Robert S. Wistrich, Vienna in Jewish History

215 222 228

Books in Review / Reviewers Norbert Abels, "Sicherheit ist nirgends": Judentum und Aufkldrung bei Arthur Schnitzler I Eleonora Lappin

237

Michel Abitbol, Les Juifs d' Afrique du Nord sous Vichy I Norman A. Stillman

239

Robert H. Abzug, Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps I James E. Young

240

L' Activite des organisations juives en France sous I' occupation I Richard Cohen

254

Hellrnut Andics, Luegerzeit: Das Schwartze Wien bis 1918 I Robert S. Wistrich

228

Rainer C. Baum, The Holocaust and the German Elite I Shlomo Aronson

242

Doris Bensimon and Sergio DellaPergola, Population juive de France: Socio-demographie et identité I Renée Poznanski

245

Marion Berghahn, German Jewish Refugees in England I Marion Kaplan

248

Eliezer Berkovits, Not in Heaven: The Nature and Function of Halakha I Gerald J. Blidstein Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, 1945—1951 I Shlomo Slonim

250

Les Camps en Provence: Exil, internement, deportation, 1933-1942 I Richard Cohen

254

Naomi W. Cohen, Encounter with Emancipation: The German Jews in the United States, 1830-1914 I David A. Gerber

256

Sarah Blacher Cohen, From Hester Street to Hollywood I Judith E. Doneson

222

Steven M. Cohen, American Modernity and Jewish Identity I Stephen Sharot

257

Lewis A. Coser, Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences I David A. Hollinger

259

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Contents

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Avigdor Dagan et al. (eds.), The Jews of Czechoslovakia: Historical Studies and Surveys I Gary B. Cohen Lucjan Dobroszycki (ed.), The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, 1941 I Yisrael Gutman John B. Dunlop, The Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism I Edith Rogovin Frankel

266

Daniel J. Elazar with Peter Medding, Jewish Communities in Frontier Societies: Argentina, Australia, and South Africa I Stephen Sharot

268

Daniel J. Elazar et al., Jewish Communities of Scandinavia: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland I Morton H. Narrowe Shlomo Erel, Neue Wurzeln: 60 Jahre Immigration deutschsprdchiger Juden in Israel I Menahem Kaufman Patricia Erens, The Jew in American Cinema I Judith E. Doneson

261 263

270 272 222

Lily Gardener Feldman, The Special Relationship Between West Germany and Israel I Menahem Kaufman Saul Friedlaender, Reflections on Nazism: An Essay on Kitsch and Death I David Biale Richard S. Geehr (ed. and trans.), "/ Decide Who is a Jew!" The Papers of Dr. Karl Lueger I Marsha L. Rozenblit Sarah Gordon, Hitler, Germans and the "Jewish Question" I Trude Maurer

280

Cynthia J. Haft, The Bargain and the Bridle: The General Union of the Israelites of France, 1941-1944 I Michael R. Marrus

283

Marvin I. Herzog et al. (eds.), The Field of Yiddish: Studies in Language, Folklore, and Literature I Janet Hadda Yosef Heller, Be-maavak la-medinah, 1936-1948 I Michael J. Cohen

286 287

Gershon David Hundert and Gershon C. Bacon, The Jews in Poland and Russia: Bibliographical Essays I Avraharn Greenbaum Annette Insdorf, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust I Judith E. Doneson Benjamin J. Israel, The Bene Israel of India: Some Studies I Stanley Wolpert J. Sydney Jones, Hitler in Vienna 1909-1913: Clues to the Future I Robert S. Wistrich Zoe Josephs (ed.), Birmingham Jewry, Volume 2: More Aspects, 17401930 I David Cesarani Michael M. Laskier, The Alliance I sraélite Universelle and the Jewish Communities of Morocco, 1862-1962 I Norman A. Stillman

274 276 278

288 222 290 228 291 293

xii William R. Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945-1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States and Postwar Imperialism I Shlomo Slonim William C. McCready (ed.), Culture, Ethnicity, and Identity: Current Issues in Research I Allon Gal Alan Mintz, Hurban: Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature I Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi Kalman (Klemens) Nussbaum, Ve-hafakh lahem le-ro'ez: ha-yehudim ba-zava ha-'amami ha-polani bi-vrit ha-mo'azot I David Engel

Contents

250 294 296 299

Michael E. Parrish, Felix Frankfurter and His Times: The Reform Years I Lloyd P. Gartner

300

Monty Noam Penkower, The Jews Were Expendable: Free World Diplomacy and the Holocaust I Michael R. Marrus

215

Benjamin Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews, 1948-1967 I Zvi Gitelman Milton Plesur, Jewish Life in Twentieth-Century America: Challenge and Accomodation I Menahem Kaufman

301 331

Michael Pollack, Vienne 1900: Une identitéblessee I Robert S. Wistrich

228

Itamar Rabinovich and Jehuda Reinharz (eds.), Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics and Foreign Relations, 1948-Present I Noah Lucas

303

Freddy Raphael, Juddisme et capitalisme: Essai sur la controverse entre Max Weber et Werner Sombart I Philippe Besnard

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David G. Roskies, Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture I Anita Norich Marsha L. Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna, 1867—1914: Assimilation and Identity I Robert S. Wistrich U. O. Schmelz, The Aging of World Jewry I Moshe Sicron Eliezer Schweid, Mistikah ve-yahadut lefi Gershom Scholem I David Biale Naomi Shepherd, Wilfried Israel: German Jewry's Secret Ambassador I Daniel Fraenkel Edmund Silberaer, Kommunisten zur Judenfrage: Zur Geschichte von Theorie und Praxis des Kommunismus I Abraham Ascher Clive Sinclair, The Brothers Singer I Janet Hadda J. B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man I Gerald J. Blidstein Steven L. Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making America' s Middle East Policy from Truman to Reagan I Shlomo Slonim

305 228 307 309 312 314 316 318 322

Contents

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Kennan Lee Teslik, Congress, the Executive Branch and Special Interests: The American Response to the Arab Boycott of Israel I Menahem Kaufman

324

Jacob Toury, Die jüdische Presse im öslerreichischen Kaiserreich, 1802-1918 I Moshe Zimmerman

325

Avraham Tsivion, Diokano ha-yehudi shel Berl Katznelson I Yaakov Shavit

328

Klaus-Peter Walter, Studien zur russischsprächig-jiidischen Dramatik des 20. Jahrhunderts: Darstellung und Analyse I Roni Hammerman

330

Chaim Waxman, America's Jews in Transition I Menahem Kaufman

331

Avraham Wein and Ahron Weiss (eds.), Pinkas ha-kehilot: Polin, Volume 3: Galizia ha-ma'aravit ve-shlezia I Ezra Mendelsohn

333

Robert S. Wistrich, Socialism and the Jews: The Dilemmas of Assimilation in Germany and Austria-Hungary I Jack Jacobs

334

David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust I Michael R. Marrus Natan Yanai, Mashberim politiim be-yisrael: tekufat Ben-Gurion I Moshe Lissak

336

Harry Zohn (ed.), Karl Kraus, in These Great Times: A Karl Kraus Reader I Robert S. Wistrich

228

Partial List of Recently Completed Doctoral Dissertations

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Symposium Jews and Other Ethnic Groups in a Multi-ethnic World

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Ethnic Political Mobilization and U.S. Foreign Policy: Current Trends and Conflicting Assessments Yossi Lapid (THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY)

"It is difficult to overstate the role of ethnic conflict and ethnic mobilization in world affairs," suggests Joane Nagel. "The substance and rhythm of national and international politics are shaped by the various ethnic configurations confined within or spanning the boundaries of the world's states."1 Indeed, over the last two decades ethnic minorities have been making a dramatic comeback. In a sense they have never truly disappeared from the socio-political landscape. However, in surveying the dynamic areas of the contemporary world one usually finds unexpectedly vigorous ethnic factors at work.2 Three aspects in particular have made this pattern of ethnic resurgence worth studying. The first one has to do with the pervasiveness of the phenomenon. The scope of the recent ethnic revival has been global. The new tide of ethnic activism has swept across virtually the entire international system. As noted by a justifiably puzzled observer, the trend has exemplified "a remarkable disdain for geography, for level of economic development, for form of government and for political philosophy."3 Faced with this unexpected development, sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists have been engaged in recent years in an attempt to revise the conventional wisdom concerning the relationship between ethnicity, modernization arid democracy. Out of these efforts to explain the scope and the timing of modern ethnic nationalism there emerged a "revisionist" school that predicted increasing— as opposed to decreasing—levels of ethnic mobilization and ethnic activism.4 The second notable aspect has been the clearly political—as opposed to the strictly cultural or anthropological—nature of the phenomenon. To a very great extent, what is most characteristic about ethnic revival is that it has occurred in the political arena. For most observers, the notion of ethnic revival refers to a political metamorphosis which launches previously dormant ethnic collectivities into political orbit.5 They argue that modern ethnic nationalism can best be understood by examining the relationship between ethnicity and politics. The concept of ethnic political mobilization has been coined to explore the complex interconnections between the ethnic question and the political question. Generally speaking, ethnic 3

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political mobilization refers to the process of collective organization around ethnic loyalties for purposes of participation in domestic and international political arenas. The process expresses itself in a growing propensity of people to perceive the sociopolitical landscape from the vantage point of the ethnic group, to demand that political institutions and practices take into account ethnic interests and concerns and to legitimize such demands with ethnic entitlements and justifications. The third intriguing aspect of the ethnic revival is its apparently irreducible international dimension. In recent years scholars have increasingly grown sceptical of, and impatient with, the shibboleths that insist on the exclusively domestic nature of ethnic problems and politics. It is clear that ethnic politics rarely, if ever, take place in isolation from the external arena. External support can be significant in activating and sustaining ethnic political mobilization. And ethnic political mobilization may affect international structures and processes. Indeed, in the context of ethnic politics, the boundary between domestic and international politics often seems remarkably insignificant. Therefore, the recent revival has brought a clearer recognition of the need to improve our understanding not only of the domestic role of ethnicity but also of how ethnic groups fit into contemporary dynamics of international relations and world politics.6 This article focuses on the American version of ethnic political mobilization and on the implications of this process for U.S. foreign policy behavior. America is, of course, a dominant actor in contemporary world affairs. It is also one of the most polyethnic societies on earth. Moreover, the United States alone among major states continues to admit large numbers of new permanent immigrants from all over the world. These considerations underline the need to explore the ethnicity-foreign policy nexus in the United States. The article consists of three major sections. The first one deals with a number of recent developments in the American political arena which have encouraged apparently greater levels of ethnic participation in foreign policy matters. It centers upon three major trends—expanding ethnic political mobilization, the "domestication" of U.S. foreign policy, and the new congressional activism in foreign affairs—to portray a possibly more favorable context for ethnic foreign policy advocacy in the United States. The second section presents two radically opposing, but possibly misleading, scholarly assessments of the actual impact of ethnic political mobilization on current U.S. diplomacy. Finally, the third section underlines the need for a more balanced and realistic attempt to assess the extent to which the ethnic makeup of the United States finds a consistent expression in its foreign policy. In general, while recognizing the limits of the ethnic factor in American diplomacy, this analysis submits that it would be unwise to assume the irrelevance of ethnic pressures in the explanation of contemporary U.S. foreign relations.

ETHNICITY ANDU.SFOREIGN POLICY: TOWARD A NEW CONTEXT? Several developments within American society and in contemporary world politics have apparently provided ethnic groupings in the United States with a more favorable context for greater activism in foreign affairs. Among the forces engendering

Ethnic Political Mobilization and U.S. Foreign Policy

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and sustaining a more energetic role by ethnic groups in U.S. diplomacy, none is more important than the expanding process of political mobilization among at least some American communal groupings. The past two decades have witnessed an American version of the global rise of ethnic political activism. Contrary to the prediction of ethnic impermanence once generally accepted among American sociologists, the powerful forces of assimilation—such as social mobility, urbanization, industrialization, mass education, acculturation, and so on—have not completely dissolved ethnic and communal bonds in American society. The expectation that assimilation, however slow, is over the long run a one-way, irreversible process has clearly proven to be mistaken. The process of Americanization, real and extensive as it may be, has left behind abundant and durable pools of latent ethnic consciousness.7 Because of the open, democratic nature of the American political system, ethnic pluralism was never fully removed from the intricacies of domestic political life. Whether one applauds or deplores this phenomenon, it is hard to deny the persistence of ethnicity as a significant political factor in American politics. However, over the past two decades American ethnic pluralism has apparently entered a new stage of relevance and responsiveness to the dynamics of political mobilization.8 This pattern of expanding ethnic political mobilization has been especially visible among American groups such as the Amerindian community, the Hispanic community, the black community and, in a somewhat different context, the Jewish community. The grim history of the defeated Indian nations in the American state is well documented. Over the years the Amerindians have suffered extensive expropriations of land and intensive economic, social and political discrimination. However, despite periods of systematic suppression, many aspects of culture and identity have survived. Moreover, in recent years the Amerindians have improved their ability to present political demands to the wider society. The Amerindians are too few, too disparate and too resource-poor to play a significant role in American politics; yet their improved capacity for political mobilization across tribal lines has enabled them to appeal to American guilt feelings as well as to the law to regain, as individuals and as corporate groups, substantial, if somewhat isolated, remuneration for past injustices and a greater degree of political control over their environment.9 Although the Chicano movement came to the fore only in the early 1960s, the impressive political credentials of the Hispanic community in general and of "MexAmerica" in particular have received wide recognition in recent years. Unlike the Amerindians, the Latinos control sufficient demographic, cultural and geographic assets to challenge seriously well-established political structures and processes in the United States. With demographic trends as they are, the Hispanic-American community is expected to become the largest U/S. minority by the year 2000.10 The Hispanic category refers to citizens and aliens living in the United States whose cultural heritage is Latin American and Spanish. It includes four major and distinct segments: Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and other immigrants from every Spanish-speaking country in the world. As with no other ethnic community, the Hispanic potential for ethnic political mobilization is reinforced by continuous immigration which augments the number of first-generation forces within the com-

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munity; by growing acceptance of bilingual and bicultural education which provides a counterpoint to forces of assimilation and acculturation; by visible patterns of discrimination in the areas of politics, education, law enforcement and employment; and by territorial concentration in particular geographic areas, including regions astride the Latin American frontier. Of the various Hispanic groups, the Mexican-American segment is particularly significant politically. A number of recent developments leave little doubt that a rapid process of political mobilization and activism is now under way in this community. Numbering approximately 9 million, Mexican-Americans are concentrated in the southwestern states of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. In New Mexico, for example, they constitute nearly 37 percent of the population. The southwest, and particularly Texas and California, is a region of increased importance in American electoral politics. In some of these states the Chicano movement has demonstrated in recent years a remarkable capacity to deliver votes to candidates in close elections. Within a four-year period (1978-82) the Chicano voting in the Texas gubernatorial elections, for example, has almost doubled, an increase which was almost three times as great as that for non-MexicanAmerican voters during the same period.11 Thus, despite the fact that for the time being the potential assets of the Hispanic community remain only partially mobilized, the political clout of the Latinos has grown in recent years to quite impressive levels. With a population of 30 million—accounting for nearly 12 percent of the national populace—black America is at present the largest racial/ethnic group in the country. Following a prolonged period of powerlessness and discrimination, a successful process of political mobilization has made blacks an increasingly influential factor in American political life. This process of political mobilization developed in two main stages. First, the civil rights movement provided the impetus for registration of large numbers of black voters. Then, the black-consciousness movement succeeded in mobilizing these voters behind black candidates. The success of this strategy has been demonstrated, among other things, by the rapid proliferation of black officeholders at most levels of the political system. 12 Martin Kilson notes the endeavors to mobilize a black political class—including over five thousand elected officials and some twenty thousand bureaucrats and appointed officeholders—with ample resources and legitimacy to exert considerable political leverage.13 Moreover, the pursuit of power through group consolidation and identification has led effectively to legal recognition of a right of political and economic representation based on race and color. Political activity on behalf of Jewish causes is not, of course, a new phenomenon in America. The re-creation of the Jewish people as a political entity gained considerable momentum after the Second World War. It may be that the same historical process which resulted in Jewish statehood in the Middle East has also brought about an unprecedented level of political mobilization in the Diaspora, especially in the United States. "The victory of Zionism," notes Daniel J. Elazar, "was not limited . . . to the creation of the Jewish state but signified a voluntary or involuntary regeneration of Jewish political consciousness and Jewish self-recognition as a people."14 And yet most scholars would agree that 1967 was the true turning point

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in the process of political mobilization of American Jewry. It is only since the late 1960s that organized American Jewish political activism moved increasingly into the open. Since then American Jews have rapidly gravitated to the heart of the American political process. This process was backed by an intensive and impressive effort of communal political consolidation and political sophistication. The growing maturation of American Jewry as a political entity has had, in turn, significant implications for its position in both the general American political system and in the world Jewish polity, of which the state of Israel is a key component.15 The emergence of American Jews as a potent and effective force in the American political process became possible less by virtue of numbers (2.7 percent of the population) than by virtue of organizational infrastructure and emotional vigor brought to the political arena. The process of expanding political mobilization has not been restricted to the Amerindian, Hispanic, black and Jewish communities. Similar ambitions have been displayed in recent years by many other American ethnic groups.16 However, our present interest in this trend is centered on the observation that in the American context ethnic political mobilization shows a consistent propensity to become internationalized. "It is a commonplace," notes Martin Kilson, "that as American ethnic groups win power for themselves at home, they seek to use the power abroad."17 Indeed, the historical record indicates that, in the past, politically active American ethnic groups have been involved in the pursuit of a wide variety of extradomestic goals such as those relating to the question of Ireland, the threat of Nazism, the birth and security of Israel, the fear of communism, the problem of "captive peoples" in Eastern Europe, the issues of self-determination and decolonization, and so on. 18 It is, therefore, hardly surprising that the intensification of ethnic political activism over the past two decades has been accompanied by a clear escalation of ethnic interest and involvement in U.S. foreign affairs. The political mobilization of the Navajos and other western Indian tribes has led, for example, to such bizarre occurrences as the initiation of contacts with OPEC to get advice on the development of energy resources. Similarly, despite their primary concern with domestic issues such as jobs, education and police brutality, the recent political rise of the Hispanic community has led almost simultaneously to the establishment of a Hispanic lobby on inter-American affairs. Even though the process of political mobilization of the Hispanic community is still at a preliminary stage, the implications for U.S. relations with Latin America in general and with Mexico in particular have been recognized by all relevant parties. Today, after many decades of minimal involvement in international relations, the U.S. Latino population openly declares its intention to play a more decisive role in issue identification, goal setting and foreign policy formulation in general. "In almost direct proportion to the level of awareness of themselves as a national people," notes Armando B. Rendon, "Latinos have begun to assert an increasing interest in foreign affairs. Out of an aroused nationalism has come, inevitably, a mounting interest in world politics." 19 The foreign policy implications of ethnic political mobilization have been even more dramatic in the case of black America. In 1963 when black Americans marched on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous "I

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have a dream" speech, their demands focused exclusively on jobs and civil rights legislation. The black agenda of the early 1960s did not embrace a foreign affairs dimension. The situation was very different in August 1983 when black Americans commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the original march. The policy statements made on this occasion left little or no doubt about the growing weight of foreign affairs in the contemporary agenda of black America.20 The determination of blacks to play a more significant role in foreign affairs in general and in the formulation of U.S. diplomacy in particular was also demonstrated by the creation in 1977 of Trans Africa, a permanent professional foreign policy lobby located in Washington. The main purpose of this organization is to influence Congress and the administration on issues relating to Africa and the Carribbean. In recent years Trans Africa has established itself as the leading voice for "black" foreign policy positions. It had a decisive impact on the crystallization of a black "Third World approach" to international affairs.21 This approach suggests new foreign policy postures for the United States, especially in crisis areas in southern Africa (Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe). For the time being, black America has been unsuccessful in shifting the emphasis in American diplomacy to favor Africa's quest for accelerated development. But like the Hispanic community, the growing black political elite has expressed a desire to increase its participation in the politics of globalized ethnicity. The propensity of ethnic political mobilization to acquire a foreign policy focus has received its clearest expression, however, in the sustained pro-Israel political effort of the American Jewish community in recent years. "Survivalism," says Jonathan S. Woocher, "is the key which when properly struck launches the American Jewish polity into action. "22 Given the consensual acceptance of the security of Israel as the symbolic sine qua non of Jewish collective survival in America, this struggle inevitably transcends the domestic arena. After 1973 it became evident that only the American nation as a whole—as opposed to merely its Jewish component—has the potential to assure the political and physical safety of the Jewish state. Since then the political efforts of the American Jewish community have been focused on the decision-making centers of the American state which control the gigantic military, economic and political resources now needed to ensure Israel's security. In the turbulent years since the late 1960s numerous foreign policy issues such as territorial status, settlements, Jerusalem, military and economic assistance, Palestinian rights, the equation of Zionism with racism and American Middle East policy in general have dominated the political agenda of American Jews. Thus, the process of political mobilization has carried American Jewry deep into the political arena with a striking concentration on foreign affairs.23 What is the explanation for this consistent pattern of "internationalization" of ethnic political mobilization? At least three major factors—executive encouragement, foreign intervention and ethnic calculus—may combine to bring ethnic political mobilization and U.S. foreign policy together. Contrary to the prevalent view, which holds that the American executive always deplores ethnic inputs in foreign policy considerations, the historical record indicates that U.S. presidents, secretaries of state and other high-ranking executive officials have occasionally encouraged (for their own reasons) ethnic participation in foreign affairs. Indeed, it is a

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mistake to treat ethnic-foreign policy mobilization as fundamentally incompatible with U.S. national interests. American-Italian relations during the late 1940s offer a telling example. In view of the concern that Italy's electorate might vote the Communist party into power, U.S. officials openly encouraged Italian-Americans to mount a mail campaign to persuade relatives in Italy to vote against the Communists.24 In a different context, President Carter appointed a black congressman, Andrew Young, as ambassador to the United Nations with the expectation that this appointment would be useful in countering increasingly anti-American attitudes in the Third World. Similar considerations must have been present in the 1980 nomination of Julian Nevo, a distinguished educator of Mexican origin, as U .S. ambassador to Mexico.25 Moreover, the frequent acrimonious collisions between American Jews and U.S. presidents and State Department officials do not necessarily mean that U.S. foreign policy makers have been on the whole unaware or unwilling to take advantage of the unusual relationship between the American Jewish community and the state of Israel. It is, therefore, not so surprising that executive officials have, in fact, contributed significantly to the cultivation of the myth of Jewish omnipotence in foreign affairs. This myth has served to strengthen U.S. bargaining positions vis-avis Arab demands for a more "forthcoming" U.S. Middle East policy. Moreover, some U.S. officials have openly expressed their belief that the American-Jewish community can be used to influence Israel's actions. "The unusual relationship of the Jewish nation, and particularly of American Jews, to the Israeli state," suggests William R. Brown, who has held a number of State Department posts in the Middle East and South Asia, "permits the U.S. government to work openly through the nation to achieve moderation in the state. . . . Effective pressure on the Israeli state can only come from the Jewish nation." 26 Administration encouragement is, however, only one of the factors which may channel ethnic political activity toward the external domain. Ethnically related "homeland" governments may serve as a second catalyst for this pattern. Enthusiastic domestic support is, as pointed out by Charles McMathias, Jr., one of the most effective ways to secure and sustain significant influence on U.S. policy.27 A foreign government with privileged access to a mobilized American ethnic group controls, therefore, a possible option of augmenting its political leverage in Washington by means of ethnic pressure on its behalf. As to be expected, foreign governments have attempted, at times, to exploit such assets. Reacting to its perception of a successful Greek-American effort to stop U.S. military aid to Turkey following its military occupation of Cyprus, the Greek government, for example, made the following declaration: "Welcoming this occurrence we express the hope that it will not remain a one-time event. We hope that in the future Greek Americans will manifest their support whenever a crisis confronts the Greek people."28 Over the years Israel's government, finding itself in open conflict with the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, has generally encouraged the efforts of American-Jewish organizations on its behalf. Thus, for example, following a particularly tense period of negotiations on the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, Prime Minister Mcnachem Begin met with two thousand Jewish leaders in New York and told them: "You have great influence. Do not hesitate to use that influ-

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ence."29 Similarly, in recent years numerous African leaders have made open appeals to black America to use its growing domestic political power to influence U.S. policy toward Africa. Finally, the rising political fortunes of the Chicanes since the early 1970s has put an effective end to the traditional apathy and hostility of Mexican regimes toward their kinsmen living in the United States. Since the administration of President Louis Echeverria (1970-76), Mexican governments have shown greater interest in forging a closer alliance with the U.S. Chicano community.30 In most cases, however, the propensity of ethnic political mobilization to acquire an international dimension is not merely a result of executive encouragement or external manipulation. Ethnic groups may develop, for their own reasons, a growing desire to expand their access to, and impact on, external affairs. American ethnic groups seek to establish themselves in an international context as they come to identify external factors impinging on their present and future well-being. The considerations leading to such a realization may be instrumental or affective. 31 "Ethnic arithmetic" is instrumental when the decision to seek external access is made for primarily utilitarian cost/benefit consideration. In such cases external involvement represents a compensatory device for domestic ineffectiveness. External support is sought wherever it is thought to be available regardless of ethnic ties and kinship considerations. The approach is effective when the considerations leading to external involvement are not dominated by the expectation that such a strategy will enhance the capacity of the ethnic group to deal more effectively with political elites and institutions in the domestic arena. When the approach is effective, the foreign policy mobilization is likely to be emotionally intense and ethnically focused. Instrumentally motivated external involvement is quite common among American ethnic groups. The previously mentioned decision of American Indian tribes to consult with OPEC is a good example of such strategies. Black leaders have also made numerous attempts to improve their domestic political leverage by means of instrumentally forged trans-national linkages and international pressures. For instance, American blacks have exploited the emerging global consensus against racism and the achievements of the Afro-Asian struggle for equality as an important resource in their domestic political struggles. In addition, black leaders have repeatedly expressed their desire to assume a role as "intermediaries" in the relationship between the United States and the Third World. Such a role could strengthen the black negotiatory posture in the United States and also create new opportunities for black businessmen in the field of international trade relations. Chicano leaders have voiced similar expectations, namely, that a closer association with an oil-rich Mexico could further enhance the political gains of the Chicano community in U.S. domestic politics. Some observers have correctly pointed out that the massive involvement in foreign policy by American Jewry has had a multiplier rather than subtractive effect on the group's total assets.32 However, it is clear that the pro-Israel mobilization of American Jewry was initiated and sustained by affective rather than instrumental factors and considerations. The historical process over the last half-century has confronted American Jews with a unique sequence of dramatic events—the Holo-

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caust, the birth of Israel, the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War—which activated a compelling fear that the kinship group as a whole was in dire physical and political danger. This emotional fear—rather than instrumental considerations—has been the greatest single factor accounting for the intensity and direction of Jewish political mobilization in the United States. It is precisely this effective motivational pattern which explains why political support for Israel has generated such resources and energies for internal group consolidation and renewal. Expanding political mobilization is only one contemporary trend which creates a more favorable milieu for ethnic activism in foreign affairs. An additional trend which is likely to produce similar results refers less to the ethnic phenomenon itself and more to some recent changes in the nature of American foreign policy. I refer here to the so-called process of "domestication" of U.S. foreign policy. One of the leading orthodoxies in the study of world politics holds that political life is bifurcated into "domestic" and "international" compartments. The postulate expresses the expectation of sharp cultural, economic, political and especially psychological discontinuities between "internal" and "external" political processes and domains. In popular political parlance this axiom is expressed by the saying, "Politics stops at the water's edge." The idea that governments are able to keep foreign affairs in relative isolation from domestic dynamics was never fully convincing. The axiom is especially suspect in modern democratic societies such as the United States because it implies that foreign policy can or should escape the sway of the domestic political process. And yet, until recent years, few scholars and even fewer politicians saw any reason to challenge this problematic distinction. Recent economic, technological and political processes have, nonetheless, rendered untenable rigid distinctions between domestic and international politics. An abiding reality of the progressive blurring of distinctions between domestic and foreign affairs has increasingly imposed itself on the perceptions of scholars and policymakers alike.33 The United States has not escaped this new convergence of international and domestic processes. Over the past quarter century America has become more deeply entwined in processes of global interdependence. Despite its privileged global position, declining economic and military superiority and growing dependence on scarce resources have made America more sensitive to foreign threats and opportunities. The livelihood of American citizens—their security, wealth and jobs—is affected by decisions taken in Moscow, Bonn, Tokyo and even Riyadh and Jerusalem. The progressive dissolution of a hard line dividing internal and external arenas has activated a process of "domestication" of U.S. foreign policy. This process refers to two interrelated phenomena. First, as what were once wholly "domestic" issues take on visible international dimensions, there is a shift in the issues confronting foreign policy decision makers. The foreign policy agenda is no longer restricted to, nor necessarily dominated by, items of war, peace, national security or other traditional "high politics" items. "Low politics" issues such as energy access, technology transfer, capital flows, currency management, pollution and refugees steadily require more attention from foreign policy executives. Second, at least in democratic societies, the domestication of foreign policy necessitates an opening up of the foreign policy process to more input by domestic constituencies affected

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by such issues. Therefore, domestication implies that, to a degree greater than hitherto seen, domestic groups will demand access to, participation in, and impact on, foreign policy decisions. In the context of our discussion the process of domestication implies that ethnic political mobilization cannot possibly avoid foreign policy issues.34 This is necessarily the case when it is nearly impossible to tell foreign actors from domestic actors and internal political processes from external ones. Under such conditions the motivation for greater access to the external arena increases, whereas the capacity of the executive to de-legitimize such behavior decreases significantly. It is symptomatic of this situation that in the past two decades mobilized interest groups have refused to be persuaded of the appropriateness of foreign policy undertakings merely by executive invocation of the concept of "national interest." The ability to obtain domestic support and to build foreign policy consensus has become, therefore, the acid test of successful endeavors in the external arena.35 American ethnic groups have shown in recent years considerable understanding of the implications of global interdependence and domestication of foreign affairs for ethnic political mobilization. The well-known Jackson-Vanik amendment of 1974, which linked American trade concessions to Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union, illustrates this point. Even if, as claimed by observers, the amendment was counterproductive to the cause of Soviet Jewish emigration and repatriation, Jewish organizations demonstrated impressive skill in modern "linkage" politics.36 Also, it is possible to argue that the successful attempt of American Jewry to present Israel's survival as virtually a "domestic" political issue would not have been possible without a general evolution of interdependence and foreign policy domestication. Responding to these same realities, black leaders seem to agree that in the 1980s the political agenda of their constituency will have to be responsive not only to the exigencies of the domestic situation but also to the overarching international context. They insist that the domestic condition of black America is determined to a great extent by the general direction of U.S. foreign and security policies. There is, for example, a growing tendency to attribute domestic unemployment and poverty to American security policy and defense expenditure. This growing inclination to detect linkages between domestic ills and foreign affairs points to an additional reason for recent clashes between Jews and blacks. The emerging confrontation is the result not only of black antisemitism or of Jewish opposition to affirmative action but also of the growing suspicion among some black activists that the billions of dollars spent by the United States since 1949 in support of Israel are not totally unrelated or unrelatable to the present economic condition of black America. Clearly Israel's friendly relations with South Africa further complicates the matter and can affect the domestic relations of Jews and blacks in America. Once again we see that under conditions of interdependence and domestication, distinctions between domestic and international factors that impinge on American ethnic groups become increasingly more difficult to sustain. Most leaders of politically mobilized American ethnic groups would, thus, probably concur with Armando B. Rendon's observation on behalf of the Latinos, "We know that foreign and domestic policy are

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related. And, as an ethnic group, we are on the verge of putting together immense political clout in all spheres of interest." 37 To summarize, whereas the process of political mobilization draws ethnic groups closer to the external arena, the process of domestication brings the external arena closer to the realm of interest of mobilized ethnic groups. These processes are therefore crosscutting and mutually reinforcing. Together they result in a greater desire of ethnic groups to participate in the formulation of U.S. diplomacy. There is, however, a third trend in American politics which has influenced in recent years the evolution of the ethnicity/U.S. diplomacy nexus. I refer to the growing interest and involvement of Congress in U.S. foreign policy. This trend is related, of course, to the process of domestication of U.S. foreign affairs. Nonetheless, this third trend is particularly important on its own because, in contrast to the other two processes, it can affect not only the volume but also the impact of externally oriented ethnic political advocacy. Like other societal actors, ethnic groups do not control any foreign policy apparatus. Access to sympathetic and effective decision-making centers is, therefore, a constant challenge for ethnic groups seeking real influence in foreign affairs. Regardless of their level of interest in foreign affairs and regardless of the volume of activity they produce in pursuit of foreign policy goals, without overcoming the access barriers ethnic groups will remain marginal factors in the formulation of foreign policy. In the United States, foreign policy decisions are made within the executive branch and by Congress. Though by no means insulated from socio-political pressures, the president and the foreign policy establishment are considered by most observers to be relatively less vulnerable and less responsive to the so-called domestic factor. Therefore Congress—where traditional ethnic assets such as money, campaign support and votes really count—has gained the reputation of being the most accessible and responsive component of the foreign policy-making process. Indeed, an examination of its "political culture" indicates that most members of Congress tend to regard foreign policy questions as an extension of domestic politics.38 The struggle for control of foreign policy between Congress and the president is one of the oldest conflicts in the American system of government. The Constitution confers important foreign policy prerogatives on the president, who has constitutional power to negotiate treaties, command the armed forces and appoint and receive ambassadors. But Congress also has important constitutional prerogatives: the power to make appropriations, to ratify treaties and, of course, the exclusive authority to declare wars. For our present purposes, it is important to point out that especially since the late 1960s Congress has shown a new dynamism in exerting its prerogatives in external affairs. Chronologically, this process has followed a consistent pattern of expansion. At first Congress used declaratory statements to emphasize its foreign policy preferences. Then, it moved to ensure compliance through a series of procedural and legislative intrusions intended to limit executive latitude in foreign affairs. Finally, Congress became directly involved in the more detailed daily management of foreign relations. The clear objective of this process was to

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establish Congress as a co-equal branch of government in the formulation and management of U.S. diplomacy.39 The resurgence of congressional activism in foreign affairs has been the result of many interrelated factors. The most important ones are: the expanding scope of government intervention in both domestic and external affairs, the process of domestication of U.S. foreign policy, the impact of Vietnam, the declining consensus on foreign policy goals, the confrontation between a Democratic Congress and Republican administrations, and the arrival of a new generation of dynamic and ambitious legislators on Capitol Hill. This combination of factors indicates that we are facing a durable, and hardly reversible, development.40 The changing balance of power between Congress and the executive branch over the control of foreign policy has, of course, important implications for the potential capacity of ethnic groups to influence foreign policy. As aptly pointed out by one of the participants in a recent AEI debate on the role of ethnic groups in U.S. foreign policy, "It is no accident that the American Enterprise Institute picks this topic at a time when Congress is in an active phase in the conduct of foreign policy. This question would not have occurred to anybody in the period before Congress really became active in foreign policy."41 In view of this analysis, it is hardly surprising that American ethnic groups interested in foreign policy issues have focused their political efforts primarily, though by no means exclusively, on Congress. In recent years numerous ethnic lobbies have been established in Washington in more or less successful attempts to emulate the probably over-rated Jewish formula for effective foreign policy lobbying. While it is difficult to generalize on this issue, it is clear that at least some of this involvement has not gone to waste. Notable ethnic successes in recent years such as the Jackson-Vanik amendment or the arms embargo against Turkey have been achieved mainly through effective lobbying in the U.S. Congress.42 We have seen, then, that as a result of the three trends analyzed here it is possible to account for the fact that American ethnic groups seem to have become more highly motivated and better equipped than ever before to participate extensively in formulating U.S. foreign policy. The process of mobilization has refined ethnic political skills and has expanded ethnic political consciousness beyond the domestic arena. The blurring of distinctions between domestic and international affairs and the domestication of U. S. diplomacy have further increased the direct relevance of foreign affairs to domestic ethnic conditions. And, finally, the assertive foreign policy posture adopted by Congress in recent years has made the American foreign policy system more responsive than ever to domestic pressure group activity. In sum, these trends have produced a more favorable milieu for American ethnic groups interested in influential foreign policy postures. What are, however, the overall implications of these processes? Are politically mobilized ethnic groups now in a position to truly exploit U.S. diplomacy for their own parochial interests'? Can ethnic groups exercise a veto power over major foreign policy options? Is contemporary U.S. foreign policy a captive of ethnic political mobilization? What arc the limits, on the other hand, of ethnic mobilization in foreign affairs? Are there countervailing forces which may mitigate or even negate ethnic input in foreign policy affairs? What, in short, is the current status of

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ethnicity as an explanatory factor of contemporary U.S. foreign policy? As we turn to these questions, we confront diametrically opposed theoretical interpretations.

PARTICIPATION VERSUS IMPACT: CONFLICTING IMAGES AND ASSESSMENTS The foreign policy role of ethnic groups is worth examining only if one can demonstrate that they are to some extent autonomous and consequential agents in the formulation and implementation of U.S. diplomacy. 43 In and of themselves, growing levels of ethnic interest in foreign affairs do not necessarily demonstrate the theoretical relevance of ethnic factors in the foreign policy process. The analysis must establish not only that ethnic groups pursue distinct international objectives but also that they have the capacity to exert some impact on actual foreign policy behavior. To the extent that the American polity retains a considerable capacity to insulate its foreign policymaking process from ethnic influences, American diplomacy might be better understood by ignoring rather than by pondering the complex permutations of foreign ethnic political mobilization. As noted by Frey, political analysts have encountered serious difficulties in their attempts to provide useful criteria for determining the dividing line of theoretical significance, or potential "weight," for political "actors" in general.44 Indeed, the specification of the precise relationship between political activity and political outcomes is one of the most demanding tasks of political analysis. Such difficulties have been apparent also in the academic response to the expanding interest of ethnic groups in foreign affairs. 45 There are at present two competing radical evaluations of the ethnic factor in U.S. diplomacy. In a sense they can be presented as equally distorted and simplistic "myths" about ethnicity and U.S. behavior in the world arena. Some scholars have recently insisted that ethnicity provides a useful and heretofore neglected explanation of U.S. diplomacy. In 1975 Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan argued that the immigration process could be considered "the single most important determinant of American foreign policy." Foreign policy, they wrote, "responds to other things as well but probably first of all to the primal facts of ethnicity."46 Additional observers concur with the portrayal of a process of an "overall ethnicization of foreign policy." These analysts apparently credit ethnic lobbies with achievements which seem to imply a posture of ethnic omnipotence in shaping foreign policy behavior.47 It is hardly surprising that the real and putative success of American Jewry in the field of foreign relations has become the standard source of reference for documenting the myth of ethnic omnipotence in U.S. foreign policy. Were we to accept uncritically the long list of resounding American Jewish foreign policy victories which have been trumpeted in recent years by both opponents and supporters of the pro-Israel political effort in the United States, we would be led to believe that American Jews are directly responsible for a long list of notable events such as securing more American economic and military assistance for Israel than for any other nation (total official U.S. assistance to Israel from 1945 to 1983 amounts to

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over $25.5 billion, more than the total U.S. assistance to South Vietnam); bringing the world to the brink of nuclear disaster in order "to save Israel" (the American military alert during the Yom Kippur War); providing the most massive American airlift since the Second World War (during the October 1973 War, America, despite the lack of cooperation of its NATO allies, dispatched 566 flights carrying 72,000 tons of equipment); and "coercing" Soviet leaders to free against their will tens of thousands of Russian Jews (the Jackson-Vanik amendment). Other items include "forcing" American presidents to back away at considerable political cost and loss of face from a number of "unacceptable" initiatives: recall, for example, the letter of seventy-six senators which put an effective end to the Kissinger-Ford punitive reassessment of U.S. Middle East policy; the Carter administration's admission of error in its 1980 support of anti-Israeli UN resolutions; and President Reagan's decision to end the partial freeze on arms to Israel imposed following the bombing of the Iraqi nuclear site. Finally, there is the recent Memorandum of Agreement between Israel and the United States (in which for the first time the mutual security interests of the two nations are publicly acknowledged). Although American Jews clearly lead the field of ethnic groups credited with effective influence over contemporary U.S. foreign policy, they are by no means alone in this category. Considerable foreign policy clout has also been ascribed to the Greek-American community after the passage of arms embargo legislation against Turkey in 1974. The Greek lobby was identified by the United States, Cyprus, Greece and Turkey as the primary factor in the formulation and passage of the embargo legislation. As a result of this legislation, the Turkish government closed about twenty U.S. military installations on its territory with the subsequent weakening of NATO cohesion in the eastern Mediterranean area. Once again we are provided with an illustration of how domestic ethnic political pressure can have presumably consequential spillover on important events at the global level.48 Confronted with the continuing foreign policy weakness of both the black and the Hispanic communities, some scholars argue that the fact that relatively small ethnic groups—such as the Jews and the Greeks in America—have been able to compensate with political skills and vigor for paucity of members and resources demonstrates that successful political mobilization in bigger communities will have equal and possibly even more dramatic implications for the future conduct of U.S. diplomacy. In other words, the fact that blacks and Hispanics have not yet appeared able to affect significantly the foreign policy process is considered by these observers less important than the fact that serious political mobilization is presently under way in these communities.49 If the impressive list of achievements cited by the defenders of ethnic policy centrality had even a remote relationship to reality, it would certainly provide dramatic illustration of the multiple ways in which America's politicized ethnicity can be effectively projected into the global arena through the amplifying mediation of the foreign policy apparatus of a major superpower. However, in recent years the conventional image of ethnic omnipotence has been increasingly challenged theoretically and empirically by an opposing image of consistent ethnic weakness and marginality in foreign affairs. Far from being uniquely responsive to ethnic pressures, U.S. diplomacy, some scholars contend, is nearly impervious to such pres-

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sures. This school of thought argues that the postulated pattern of spectacular ethnic achievements in foreign affairs is simply imaginary. The myth of ethnic omnipotence does not stand up to close empirical scrutiny. When the role and impact of ethnic groups is examined empirically, the conclusion is that ethnic factors do not play a significant role in shaping U.S. external relations. "Seldom if ever," notes Louis L. Gerson, "have major U.S. foreign policy decisions been affected by purely ethnic considerations." In most cases, he argues, the association of foreign policy outcomes with ethnic pressure is "a source of confusion and, at times, deliberate misinterpretation of motive, success, and failure of U.S. foreign policy actions."50 Similar conclusions are reached by Steven L. Spiegel, who defines the potential for foreign policy impact of American ethnic groups as an inherent "posture of weakness." Admitting that in isolation the sheer volume of ethnic foreign policy pressures may, indeed, appear impressive and even "awesome," he insists that "when the pattern of decision-making within the executive branch is studied it becomes clear that . . . these groups are remote and largely irrelevant to policymaking except as they affect the timing and announcement of decisions."51 Obviously, these scholars have alternative explanations for would-be ethnic triumphs in U.S. foreign policy. The general argument is that American ethnic groups are more often exploited than they themselves are exploitative insofar as U.S. diplomacy is concerned. As pointed out in the conclusion of Paula Stern's meticulous study of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, "Jackson was steering the Jewish groups, not vice-versa. . . . Jackson had to convince the more cautious Jewish leadership to follow his lead. Occasionally, he had to persuade, cajole, even threaten the leadership not to abandon the amendment in spite of opposition from the Administration." 52 Similarly, most studies conclude that the Greek-American lobby was not a key factor in imposing the Turkish arms embargo. This outcome was made possible by the determination of Congress to use the Cyprus crisis to improve its foreign policy posture vis-a-vis the executive branch. The Turkish invasion gave Congress an opportunity to please anti-war, anti-executive public opinion and to slap down an autocratic executive, in particular, an autocratic secretary of state. The Greek-Americans were, in other words, pushing against an open door.53 The "open door" syndrome also provides an alternative explanation for most of the spectacular foreign policy successes which have been attributed over the years to American Jewry. The fact that U.S. support for Israel has grown parallel with the acceleration of American Jewish political mobilization does not, necessarily, prove that Jews exercise a major, and perhaps decisive, influence over U.S. Middle East policy. The United States might well support Israel even if Jewish pressure groups were apathetic or politically inept. There are many factors—such as the American moral commitment to Israel, Israel's role as a democracy, Israel's value as a strategic deterrent of Soviet expansionism and the support of Israel in American public opinion—which combine to explain U.S. support for Israel. The effective articulation of support for Israel by the organized Jewish community may not be related directly to any of these factors. The possibility that in the final analysis U.S. Middle East policy is, as indicated by Steven L. Spiegel, a function of global strategic imperatives rather than domestic political advocacy deserves special attention in this context. 54

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It is interesting that some scholars grow so impressed with this postulated absence of compelling evidence for significant ethnic successes in the realm of foreign affairs that they have even suggested that the "real" question is why the impact has been so minimal. In other words, if there is, at all, a phenomenon which is both patterned and intriguing at the intersection of ethnicity and U.S. diplomacy, it is precisely the conspicuous absence rather than the intimidating presence of a distinct ethnic factor in contemporary U.S. foreign policy.55 A number of interesting explanations have been offered for this putative pattern of ethnic impotence in foreign affairs. The critics of the ethnic-power theory argue that the overall ability of ethnicity to affect U.S. diplomacy is constrained by both intrinsic and systemic factors. First, the process of ethnic political mobilization is by no means unlimited in its capacity to encourage ethnic desires to become actively involved in foreign affairs. Beyond a certain point the progressive internationalization of an ethnic political effort risks bringing ethnic loyalties in direct conflict with U.S. citizenship loyalties.56 The problem will not arise as long as ethnic interests will be perceived to be converging with national interests. In such situations, however, the actual impact of ethnic-foreign policy advocacy cannot be tested since ethnic groups are then "pushing against an open door." On the other hand, as soon as an element of basic conflict between ethnic and national interests becomes evident, members of American ethnic groups are likely to establish their national— as opposed to ethnic—priorities. The historical experience indicates that such loyalty cross-pressures are likely to lead to voluntary withdrawals from ethnic-communal struggles. In the words of Irving Louis Horowitz, "When ethnicity is a clear obstacle to U.S. foreign policy, it collapses under the weight of the national interest."57 In addition, the process of ethnic political mobilization encounters serious obstacles at the level of generating suitable tools for effective foreign policy input. In the context of domestic politics, even moderate levels of ethnic political mobilization will suffice to render ethnic groups essential to an understanding of the domestic political arena. The situation is very different, however, in the context of foreign policy. The level of political sophistication required for a significant foreign policy input can be attained only by intensive and unusually successful efforts of ethnic political mobilization.58 For the time being, apart from American Jews, no other American ethnic groups can meet the advanced level of political sophistication and development required for effective foreign policy advocacy. Additional constraints are posed by the remoteness of global events. American ethnic groups are often baffled because of the complex and controversial nature of ethnically related foreign policy problems. In recent years American Jews have shown considerable puzzlement and concern about the deepening of Jew-versusJew conflicts in a religiously and ideologically polarized Israel. Similarly, black Americans are confounded by endless black-versus-black conflicts in Africa. Such situations prevent coherent formulations of unified foreign policy postures by American ethnic groups. The potential foreign policy impact is thereby diluted by internal rivalries and intra-group fragmentation. 59 The process of ethnic-foreign policy mobilization and advocacy also encounters important structural limitations in the context: of American domestic politics. The

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congressional spring in foreign affairs has offered, at best, a very partial solution to the problem of ethnic access to effective foreign policy decision-making centers. To begin with, Congress is by no means a passive tool in the hands of mobilized ethnic contenders. There is no pattern of uninterrupted responsiveness of Congress to ethnic pressures. In many cases Congress has been able not only to withstand ethnic pressure but also to exploit ethnic mobilization for its own interests.. Moreover, despite its growing interest in foreign affairs, Congress is not really an institution bent on seizing effective control of U.S. diplomacy. In many cases congressmen continue to be content with marginal and even illusory foreign policy successes. This is so, to a great extent, because of legislators' keen awareness of the limitations of their institution in foreign affairs. In recent years congressional committees have developed their own informational and promotional capabilities, but they do not command the resources available to the president and to the executive branch. In contrast to the executive branch, in foreign policy Congress continues to be hampered by diffuse authority, thinness of expertise, lack of intelligence sources, lack of operational handles and lack of continuity and follow-up capability. In foreign affairs Congress can establish prohibitions and set limits, but it cannot take the lead. The "real foreign policy game," in sum, is still played by the executive branch. 60 Therefore, even effective access to Congress cannot fully compensate for conspicuous lack of access to, and influence on, the executive branch. For the most part, however, U.S. presidents and American diplomats have been able either to ignore ethnic groups or to play them off against one another. As pointed out by Steven L. Spiegel, U.S. presidents have been remarkably willing, and even eager on some occasions, to take on the Jewish foreign policy lobby, despite its reputation for foreign policy clout. The ability of determined presidents to prevail in such confrontations is hardly in question, given the fact that no president has ever lost a major vote in Congress on the sale of arms to an Arab nation. Despite vocal and well-organized lobbying efforts to block the F-15 and AW ACS sales during the Carter and Reagan administrations, the sales were approved.61 Finally, the fact that ethnic groups, especially under conditions of foreign policy domestication, will rarely if ever find themselves to be the only organized group active on any given issue constitutes an additional structural limitation on the capacity of ethnic groups to determine foreign policy outcomes in both Congress and the executive branch. The fact is that ethnic groups must continually struggle with other organizational interests within and outside the government who are also interested in shaping foreign policy decisions according to their preferences and interests. For example, American Jewry was defeated in the AW ACS struggle by a powerful coalition of organized interests—the military-industrial complex, the petro-diplomatic complex, and the industrial-political complex—which backed President Ronald Reagan. 62 The anti-boycott amendments in 1977, seeking to outlaw U.S. business participation in the Arab boycott of Israel, would not have been possible without successful negotiations between Jewish groups, the Business Roundtable and the Commerce Department. 63 Despite the possibility of forging occasional alliances such inter-group rivalries usually have the effect of minimizing ethnic group impact by creating a mutual cancellation effect. 64 In sum, whereas scholars who accord a central role to ethnic factors in U.S.

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foreign policy emphasize the impressive combination of trends which seem to imply an expanding role for ethnicity in U.S. diplomacy, scholars who challenge this view point to the equally impressive set of structural obstacles which seem to perpetuate the marginal role of ethnic groups in the formulation and implementation of foreign policy. For these reasons, the latter submit, even if the political salience of ethnicity is likely to increase significantly over the next decade, the ethnic factor is unlikely to become an influential force in determining U.S. diplomatic behavior.

CONCLUSION: TOWARD A MORE REALISTIC ASSESSMENT How are we to choose between such contrasting theoretical interpretations? How useful are these competing images of emerging omnipotence and continuing impotence for the comprehension of the phenomenon examined in this essay? It seems reasonable to suggest that a modified and more realistic approach would begin by rejecting all suggestions that the role of ethnic groups in U.S. foreign policy should be cast in absolute terms. Some scholars seem to believe that research clarity and theoretical coherence require a clear-cut statement about the precise nature of the ethnicity-foreign policy nexus. According to this view, ethnicity can be portrayed as either very important or as marginal, but it cannot possibly be both.65 The problem with this approach is that while it produces eloquent and defensible positions, it fails to consider an entire range of possibly interesting intermediate outcomes. The fact is that American ethnic groups have not been in the past, and are not today, monolithic as far as foreign policy impact is concerned. Different ethnic groups, at different points in time, have possessed varying degrees of understanding of, interest in and influence on U.S. foreign policy. Not unlike and perhaps more than other political actors, American ethnic groups pursuing foreign policy objectives "may vacillate between agency and independence, or they may display an intricate mixture of concurrently agential and independent behaviors that is difficult to analyze."66 Critics of the myth of ethnic omnipotence have certainly made an important contribution in their insistence that rarely, if ever, will impressive foreign policy outcomes be solely attributable to just the activities of one ethnic group. Major foreign policy actions of a global power such as the United States can never be the result of only one single factor. But their argument may have blurred the equally important observation that lack of omnipotence may still leave ample room for considerable, if erratic, influence. Indeed, it will frequently be the case that had ethnic groups not been active politically, major events would have probably followed a quite different course. On the one hand, it is, indeed, "a very serious mistake to assume that the relationship between the world's most powerful democracy and one of its smallest is mainly a matter of (domestic) politics."67 On the other hand, even an astute "political" realist like Hans Morgenthau is on record as stating in 1979, "Only Jewish influence foils U.S. dumping of Israel."68 It seems particularly important in this context to keep in mind the crucial role played by

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perceptions, whether accurate or not, in determining power relations and outcomes in domestic and international political processes. Ethnic groups may, indeed, control few of the objective resources required for effective foreign policy participation. And yet, as pointed out by John J. Paul's study of the Greek lobby in 1974, whether intentionally or not, governments can give ethnic groups more international leverage than they could ever achieve objectively on their own. 69 Furthermore, even if it is true, as argued by Spiegel, that ethnic groups consistently figure as marginal and distant when the decision-making process in the executive branch is examined, it is still possible that ethnicity and foreign policy phenomena may interact in more fundamental ways which are not necessarily active at the decisionmaking level. It is possible, for example, that the major significance of the ethnic factor in foreign affairs is at the level of parameter-setting. The ethnic makeup of America may influence its foreign relations more in the sense of ruling out certain policy options than in imposing specific courses of action that the U.S. government must follow. 70 A recent analysis of the U.S. strategic global posture in the 1980s, for example, offers the following explanation why isolationism is not an applicable option, "Of the major powers, the U.S. is the only one with strong domestic constituencies directly affected by the most likely crises of the 1980s in Europe, in the Middle East, in Latin America and in South Africa. While this may limit America's margin of maneuver, it will also rule out isolationist abstinence. 71 Similarly, it is possible that one of the most consequential and lasting effects American Jews may have had on foreign relations is related less to specific U.S. actions and more to rendering any Israeli foreign policy option other than a Western orientation a purely hypothetical possibility. In a more speculative vein, participants in the AEI Forurn on Ethnic Groups in U.S. Foreign Policy submitted that had there been a million Vietnamese in America in the early 1960s or a more dominant Lebanese community in the early 1980s, tragic world events might not have occurred.72 While it is difficult to test the validity of such speculations empirically, at the very least they support the proposition that it would be a mistake to assume in advance that the international dimensions of American ethnic activism can be safely ignored in foreign policy analysis. Clearly, then, to discount the influence of ethnic groups entirely would be almost as grave a mistake as to give credence to the persisting myth that they dominate American foreign relations. While more realistic and more empirically grounded, the corrective value of the revisionist image which questions the role of ethnicity in U.S. diplomacy is significantly impaired by its tendency to exaggerate otherwise valid and pertinent observations. It seems, therefore, important to note the limits of the emerging myth of "ethnic impotence" before it establishes itself as the new, yet equally misleading, orthodoxy. In conclusion, the precise nature of the ethnicity-foreign policy nexus apparently still eludes us. Many basic questions are still to be raised. Unfortunately, the present theoretical understanding of this increasingly problematic nexus can serve only as a rough preliminary guidepost for future research. However, especially in an era of expanding ethnic political mobilization on a global scale, there are few reasons to doubt the potential theoretical fruitlulncss and policy rclcvcncc of academic interest in the role of ethnic factors in foreign affairs.

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Yossi Lapid Notes

The author acknowledges the support of the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the preparation of this paper. 1. Joane Nagel, "The Ethnic Revolution: The Emergence of Ethnic Nationalism in Modern States," Sociology and Social Research LXVIII, no. 4 (July 1984), p. 417. 2. See, for example, Harold R. Isaacs, Power and Identity (New York: 1979); Louis L. Snyder, Global Mini-Nationalisms (Westport: 1982). 3. Walker Conner, "An Overview of the Ethnic Composition and Problem of NonArab Asia," in Tai S. Kang (ed.), Nationalism and the Crises of Ethnic Minorities in Asia (Westport: 1979), p. 11. For a good but already-dated map showing the global dimensions of the problem, see M. Kidron, The Stale of the World Atlas (New York: 1981); A. D. Smith, The Ethnic Revival (Cambridge: 1981). 4. James R. Scarritt and William Safran, "The Relationship of Ethnicity to Modernization and Democracy: A Restatement of the Issues," International Studies Notes X, no. 2 (Summer 1983), pp. 16-21. 5. For a lucid analysis of this aspect, see: Danielle Juteau-Lee, "Ethnic Nationalism: Ethnicity and Politics," Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism XI, nos. 1-2 (Fall 1984), pp. 189-200; Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics (New York: 1981); see also Michael Walzer et al., The Politics of Ethnicity (Cambridge, Mass.: 1982), p. 6. 6. See, for example, John P. Stack, Jr., Ethnic Identities in a Transnational World (Westport: 1982); A. A. Said et al. (ed.), Ethnicity in an International Context (New Brunswick: 1977); Judy S. Bertelson (ed.), Nonstate Nations in International Politics (New York: 1977). 7. S. Thernstrom, A. Orlov, 0. Handlin (eds.) Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: 1980). 8. See Walzer, Politics; Smith, Ethnic Revival, pp. 152-62; Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan (eds.), Ethnicity (Cambridge, Mass.: 1975), pp. 1-22. 9. Mary Shepardson, "The Navajo Nonstate Nation," in Bertelson (ed.), Nonstate Nations, pp. 223-244. 10. Conservative estimates indicate that some 45 million Hispanic-Americans will be living in the United States by the turn of the century. See Roberto E. Villarreal and Philip Kelly, "Mexican-Americans as Participants in U.S.-Mexico Relations," International Studies Notes IX, no. 4 (Winter 1982), p. 4. See also Armando B. Rendon, "Latinos: Breaking the Cycle of Survival to Tackle Global Affairs," in A. A. Said (ed.), Ethnicity and U.S. Foreign Policy, rev. ed. (New York: 1981), pp. 183-200. 11. Villarreal and Kelly, "Mexican-Americans," p. 4. 12. Laura Maslow Armand, "The Black Vote in the USA," Patterns of Prejudice XII, no. 2 (April 1984), pp. 3-19. 13. Martin Kilson, "What Is Africa to Me?" Dissent (Fall 1984), pp. 436-437. Jesse Jackson's performance as a presidential candidate has provided the latest demonstration of the new political centrality of black Americans within a national context; Manning Marable, "Jackson and the Rise of the Rainbow Coalition," New Left Review 149 (January/February 1985), pp. 3-44. 14. Daniel J. Elazar, "Ha-yehasim bein yisrael le-yahadut arzot ha-berit be-heksher hakehiliah ha-medinit ha-yehudit ha-'olamit," Kivunim III (Spring 1979), p. 96. 15. Jonathan S. Woocher, "The American Jewish Polity in Transition," Forum (Fall/Winter 1982), pp. 61-71; Peter Y. Mcdding, "The Politics of Jewry as a Mobilized Diaspora," in William C. McCready (ed.), Culture, Ethnicity, and Identity (New York: 1983), pp. 195-207; Charles (Yeshayahu) Liebman, "Ha-shinuyim ba-zirah ha-yehudit haamerikait ve-ha-irgunim ha-yehudiim," Gesher (Spring/Summer 1980), pp. 37-44. 16. Arab-Americans, for example, are especially noteworthy as an ethnic group that has become increasingly active in recent years.

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17. Kilson, "Africa," p. 436. 18. Louis L. Gerson, "The Influence of Hyphenated Americans on U.S. Diplomacy," in Said, Ethnicity ami U.S. Foreign Policy, pp. 54-55. 19. Rendon, "Latinos," p. 183. The Amerindian contacts with OPEC are mentioned in James N. Rosenau, The Study of Global Interdependence (New York: 1980), p. 130; see also Rodolfo 0. De La Garza, "Chicanos and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Future of ChicanoMexican Relations," Western Political Quarterly XXXIII (December 1980), pp. 115-130. 20. Arch Puddington, "Jesse Jackson, the Blacks and American Foreign Policy," Commentary LXXIV, no. 4 (April 1984), p. 24; see also Locksley Edrnondson, "Black America as a Mobilizing Diaspora; Some International Implications," paper presented to the Conference on the Impact of Diasporas on International Politics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1820 March 1983, p. 23; and Kilson, "Africa." 21. Puddington. "Jesse Jackson." 22. Woodier, "American Jewish Polity," p. 63. 23. Robert H. Trice, "Domestic Interest Groups and the Arab-Israeli Conflict," in Said, Ethnicity in an International Context, pp. 117-138. 24. John Snetsinger, "Ethnicity and Foreign Policy," in A. De Conde (ed.), Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policv, vol. 1 (New York: 1978), p. 327. 25. Rendon, "Latinos," p. 195. 26. William R. Brown, "The Dying Arab Nation," ForeignPolicy(1984), p. 43. 27. Charles McMathias, Jr., "Ethnic Groups and Foreign Policy," Foreign A/fairs LIX, no. 5 (Summer 1981), pp. 978-979, 28. John J. Paul, "The Greek Lobby and American Foreign Policy: A Transnational Perspective," in Stack,Ethnic Identities,p. 73. 29. Cecil V. Crabb, Jr., and Pat M. Holt, Invitation to Struggle: Congress, the President and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: 1980), p. 97. 30. De La Garza, "Chicanos," pp. 171-178. 31. The distinction between instrumental and affective motivation is adapted from A. Suhrke and L. G. Noble (eds.), Ethnic Conflict in International Relations (New York: 1977). 32. Rothschild, Ethnopolitics, p. 203. 33. See Rosenau, Global Interdependence; Wolfram F. Hanrieder, "Dissolving International Politics: Reflections on the Nation-Stale," American Political Science Review LXXII (1978), pp. 1276-1286. 34. See Stack, Ethnic Identities, pp. 29-32. 35. J. Martin Rochester, "The National Interest and Contemporary World Politics," Review of Politics XL, no. 1 (January 1978), pp. 77-96. 36. Dan Caldwell, "The Jackson-Vanik Amendment," in John Spanier and Joseph Nagee (eds.), Congress, the President and American Foreign Policy (New York: 1981), pp. 1-21. For a recent positive interpretation of the amendment, see William Korey, "JacksonVanik and Soviet Jewry," Washington Quarterly LXXI (Winter 1984), pp. 116-128. 37. Rendon, "Latinos," p. 199. 38. Stanley J. Heginbotham, "Dateline Washington: The Rules of the Game,"Foreign Policy (1984), pp. 159-161. 39. Hrach Gregorian, "Assessing Congressional Involvement in Foreign Policy: Lessons of the Post-Vietnam Period," Review of Politics XLVI, no. 1 (January 1984), pp. 91-112. 40. Crabb and Holt, Invitation to Struggle, pp. 51-56. 41. American Enterprise Institute, What Should Be the Role of Ethnic Groups in U.S. ForeignPolicy,(Washington, D.C.: 1979), pp. 8-9. 42. Thomas M. Frank and Edward Weisband, Foreign Policv by Congress (Oxford: 1979), pp. 186-194. 43. See the distinction between "actor" and "agent" in Frederick W. Frcy, "The Problem of Actor Designation in Political Analysis," Comparative Politics XVII, no. 2. (January 1985), pp. 144-146. 44. Ibid., pp. 127-152.

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45. Stack,Ethnic Identities,pp. 17-45. 46. Glazer and Moynihan, Ethnicity, pp. 23-24. 47. See, for example, Frank and Weisband, Foreign Policy by Congress, p. 199; McMathias, "Ethnic Groups and Foreign Policy," pp. 990-996. 48. McMathias, op. cit., pp. 987-990. 49. See, for example, Edmondson, "Black Africa," p. 22, and Rendon, "Latinos," p. 199. 50. Gerson, "Influence of Hyphenated Americans," p. 55. 51. Steven L. Spiegel, "Religious Components of U.S. Middle East Policy," Journal of International Affairs XXXVI, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 1982-83), p. 246. 52. Paula Stern, Water's Edge, (Westport, Conn.: 1979), pp. 210-211. 53. Naomi Black, "The Cyprus Conflict," in Suhrke and Noble, Ethnic Conflict in International Relations, p. 63. 54. Spiegel, "Religious Components," p. 245. 55. Irving Louis Horowitz, "Ethnic Politics and U.S. Foreign Policy," in Said, Ethnicity in an International Context,p175. 56. Ibid., p. 177. 57.Ibid. 58. Congressman Lee H. Hamilton, the 1979 chairman of the Europe and Middle East Subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, offers a lucid and succinct exposition of the advanced level of political sophistication required for effective foreign policy advocacy: Why do some ethnic groups have difficulty affecting the foreign policy process? I think the answer to that is that the effort to influence foreign policy-making in this country is an extraordinarily complex process, and the groups that do it successfully are highly sophisticated. They have to be able to activate their own members, whatever members those may be, whatever group that may be. They have to know who the decision makers are, and they have to have access to the decision makers. They have to have that access at the right time, when the decision is being made, not months before or days afterwards. They have to have good sources of information within the Executive Branch and within the Legislative Branch. They must be able to enlist the help of sympathetic groups. There is no ethnic group really large enough to get the job done by itself. They must have the support of other people. In this day and age, they certainly must be able to have access to the media. This process is very involved and complicated, and there are comparatively few people who have the degree of sophistication to use it effectively to their own advantage. See American Enterprise Institute, Role of Ethnic Groups, p. 18. 59. Rothschild, Ethnopolitics, p. 203; Horowitz, "Ethnic Politics," p. 172. 60. I. M. Destler and Eric R. Altcrman, "Congress and Reagan's Foreign Policy," Washington Quarterly VII, no. 1 (Winter 1984), pp. 95-97. 61. Spiegel, "Religious Components," pp. 244-245. For the view that the AW ACS battle was "not quite a defeat" despite the final outcome, see Aaron Rosenbaum, "The AWACS Aftermath," Moment VII, no. 1 (December 1981), pp. 13-22. 62. Rosenbaum, op. cit. 63. Kennan Lee Teslik, Congress, the Executive Branch, and Special Interests (Westport, Conn: 1982), pp. 229-250. 64. Eugene T. Rossides, one of the participants in the previously mentioned AE1 Forum states that the problem of intra-rivalries may be overrated. He says, "the effectiveness is not dampened by these intra-rivalries; it is dampened by the force and power of and controls of the bureaucracy, its vast network of knowledge of the facts, and its ability to get the media . . . ," p. 15. 65. See, for example, Spiegel, "Religious Components." 66. Frey, "Problem of Actor Designation," p. 146.

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67. Stuart Eizenstat, "How Washington Sees Jerusalem," Moment IX, no. 3 (March 1984), p. 23. 68. Mark Golub, "Morgenthau Says Only Jewish Influence Foils U.S. Dumping of Israel," Jewish Week-American Examiner, 11 March 1979. 69. Paul, "The Greek Lobby," p. 76; Don L. Piper and Ronald .1. Tcrcheck (eds.), Interaction: Foreign Policy and Public Policy (Washington, D.C.: 1983), p. 61. 70. For a lucid analysis of various models of domestic sources of foreign policy see Kim Richard Nassal, "Analyzing the Domestic Sources of Canadian Foreign Policy," InternationalJournal XXXIX, no. 1 (Winter 1983-84), pp. 1-22. See especially the discussion of the "modified statist model." 71. Christoph Bertram, "Introduction," Adelphi Papers, no. 173 (Spring 1982), p. 4. (The entire issue deals with "America's Security in the 1980V.) 72. American Enterprise Institute, Role of Ethnic Groups, p. 6.

Segmented Ethnicity and the New Jewish Politics Peter Y. Medding (THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY)

American Jewry has recently undergone a fundamental political transformation. In the past it was politically weak and insignificant; today, it is prominent and widely regarded as an influential political force. The change is dramatically symbolized in the contrast between the inaction and impotence of American Jewry during the Holocaust and its current active public support for Israel. This essay analyzes the variations and developments in Jewish ethnicity and the changes within American society and politics, which together led to the creation of a New Jewish Politics.

THE SEGMENTATION OF JEWISH ETHNICITY Jewish ethnicity is a controversial subject for Jews themselves and for scholars studying Jewry. For Jews, the breakdown of the traditional society in which Jewish ethnicity was clearly defined and widely accepted generated significant ideological disagreements about the core meaning of Jewish ethnicity and the relative significance of its constituent elements. The efforts of academic scholars to introduce order and unity into the definition of Jewish ethnicity have not been particularly successful either. Their difficulties stem mainly from not taking sufficient account of the complex and changing nature of Jewish ethnicity. For Jews, ethnicity is a more complex phenomenon than for other groups. Most other groups are identified by a single ethnic indicator such as "race, color, language, religion, customs, and geographical origin." 1 Among Jews, the ethnic indicator combines religion, language, customs and geographic origins in an intricate and inseparable mix of religion, culture and nationality. The very complexity of Jewish ethnicity distinguishes Jews from other American ethnic groups. To be born Jewish confers membership in both a religion and an ethnic group. Among other nationality groups membership is by birth and one cannot join by conversion, as, say, with Italian-Americans. Conversely, membership of religious groups comes with initiation or conversion indicating accep26

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tance of the faith; membership cannot be achieved by birth, as in the case of Catholics and Protestants. But with Jews, both operate: Membership in the group follows birth or conversion. From Community of Belief to Community of Shared Identity Jewish ethnicity was historically encompassed within a community of belief based upon a system of shared prescriptive values. As a result of modern social and political developments, it exists today within a community based upon shared identity. The differences between the two are significant. The former constituted a total system which controlled the individual's whole environment in a detailed pattern of prescribed actions and fixed roles. Group membership, consequently, was clearly defined. The latter has developed into a partial system of voluntary membership and individual decision, the boundaries of which are unclear. Personal feelings have been invested with heightened significance because they are the language and common denominator of shared identity, while ethnic roles have become a matter of personal choice and definition. The community of belief had faith that its future had been guaranteed by divine assurances, as expressed in the traditional concept of the unity of Israel, the Torah and God. Just as God and the Torah were eternal, so, too, was Israel. In the traditional Jewish view of history, the latter might be punished severely for its sins and wayward behavior, but the destruction and disappearance of the Jewish people was not part of the divine scheme of retribution because the existence and chosenness of the Jews was believed to be the reason for the Creation itself. Increasing secularization and acceptance of more universal theories of history undermined the faith in these assurances and paved the way for the community of shared identity. In it not only the centrality of Jewish continuity but the very meaning of God, the Torah and Israel became the subject of deep internal disagreement and conflict. The community of shared identity is also characterized by the increased significance of non-systematically articulated and non-text-centered elements of Jewish ethnicity, which are maintained without being related to the needs of logical or theological consistency. Since roles are performed and customs observed by virtue of individual choice and voluntaristic group decisions, external environmental influences become a major source of legitimation. Symbolic Ethnicity or Segmented Ethnicity?Gans has argued that these changes in Jewish ethnicity have created a "symbolic ethnicity, an ethnicity of last resort," characterized by ethnic identity needs which are "neither intense nor frequent." Ethnicity is symbolic because "being and feeling ethnic do not depend upon the practice of ethnic culture or participation in ethnic organizations." The synagogue, for example, is such a symbol, requiring only occasional participation. Ethnic symbols are customs and cultural practices that are " 'abstracted' out of the traditional religion, and pulled out of its original moorings." Thus "pride in the tradition can be felt without having to be incorporated" into daily life. Symbolic ethnicity is expressed "above all by a nostalgic allegiance to the culture of the immigrant generation, or that of the old country. "-'•

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Peter Y. Medding

However, to define contemporary Jewish ethnicity as "symbolic ethnicity" is to misunderstand it completely and to fail to recognize that the changed emphases within the complex mix of Jewish ethnicity have not led to the complete removal or replacement of the old elements. Connections with the latter may have altered or become attenuated, but they continue to exist. So, too, is the total system retained at the normative level. To put it somewhat paradoxically, in the complex world of Jewish ethnicity, symbols are not merely symbolic. They are this and more. Thus the customs, practices and observances express values, affirm beliefs and reinforce fundamental commitments and rejections. That some practices are more popular than others, because of personal choices influenced by pragmatic and environmental considerations, and are not maintained as part of a total system, does not sever the connection with their substance and inner meaning. On the contrary, they reaffirm it. The rites de passage and the holidays are a perfect case in point. According to Gans, these "are ceremonial, and thus symbolic to begin with; equally importantly, they do not take much time, do not upset the everyday routine, and also become an occasion for reassembling on a regular basis family members who are rarely seen. "3 To dismiss them in this way is to miss their inner meaning. The ceremonies connected with the rites de passage—for example, brit milah, bar mitzvah, marriage and burial—not only mark stages in the life cycle but also create and affirm fundamental connections with the Jewish people, its land, its tradition and its God. So, too, with Sabbath, Festival and High Holy Day rituals, many of which are maintained today by the vast majority of Jews. For all Jews, including the most secularized, these are ethnically distinctive and separating religious rituals, which signify and reaffirm the acceptance of Jewishness in its broadest sense. At the same time they imply total rejection of Christianity, the dominant and enveloping culture in all the Western societies in which Jews live. 4 Christianity is the formative5 cultural system for most Americans, at both the value and emotional levels, even when they cease to accept its premises, beliefs and practices. In this sense America is a Christian society, despite constitutional guarantees of the separation of church and state. The constant vigilance and judicial battle needed to uphold the wall of separation and the neutrality of the state with regard to Christianity serve to underline the fact that society is not neutral. In addition to fundamental religious and rationalist objections, Jews reject Christianity strongly at the emotional and affective levels. Jewish socialization processes imprint upon the core of personality feelings of belonging to a separate ethnic group, the Jews, one of whose most significant defining characteristics is that they are not Christians. This awareness is continually reinforced by the lessons of a long history of Christian antisemitism and persecution, supported by Christian theology, which believed that Jews suffered divine rejection for their obstinate refusal to accept Christianity. Such feelings and emotions of affirmation and rejection lie close to the core of personality. In the community of belief, they were overshadowed somewhat by the commitment to the total system of faith and practice which completely encompassed the rhythm of their daily lives. In the community of shared identity, religious belief and practice have been downgraded in importance. As a result, the feelings and

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emotions of ethnic belonging are relatively more significant in the total scheme of Jewish ethnicity and may, indeed, constitute its essence for many Jews. But to regard ethnic feelings and practices as merely symbolic or perfunctory is to miss their central significance for the individual, even when formal religious and ritual performance take up so little of the time and lii'e pattern of the contemporary Jew. Where the community was defined in terms of belief and faith, one could, in theory, leave it by a change of belief, that is, by religious conversion. In a world defined in religious terms, this was a possible option, although it was limited in practice by prejudice and antisemitism and the degree of willingness to accept Jews socially after conversion. In a world defined in terms of individual identity, severing connection with the community of shared identity is even more difficult because it means leaving the community of birth. It is, in a sense, to leave oneself and one's personality, somewhat like trying to get out of one's skin. In a society based upon the legitimacy of individual expressions of identity and the affirmation of individual personality development, there is a constant emphasis upon the full and frank acceptance of oneself and one's origins and roots. Not to accept oneself in this way is not simply a matter of dropping out, of ignoring or avoiding the issue: It demands constant mechanisms of repression, with all the ensuing psychological costs. Moreover, however much the society recognizes the legitimacy of conversion in terms of individual choice and self-definition, it does not seem to be a commonly exercised option. Apart from the general decline in religious belief, it may conflict with the sense of self-, and group, honor and arouse deep guilt feelings as a result of the rejection of self, parents and the group at large. Such choices do not take place in a vacuum: Both the group of origin and the surrounding society may remind the individual of his roots and both, for different reasons, may "punish" him for attempting to leave them. Jewish ethnicity in the community of shared identity is thus firmly imprinted deep in the core of personality. It exists very much in the present rather than in a "nostalgic allegiance" to the past. It is difficult to erase or escape even when the individual consciously seeks to do so. Jewish ethnicity, therefore, may remain significant without requiring the individual constantly to raise it to the level of conscious awareness or to express it consistently in a formal and prescribed pattern of behavior. In fact, in order to be Jewish one does not need to do anything. Thus, when the ethnic individual does something—when he consciously relates to it in one of many possible ways within the whole religious, national and cultural complex of available options—he further reaffirms and reinforces fundamental values and connects directly with core elements of personal and group identity. There are, however, occasions in the life of the individual which characteristically raise the issue of Jewish ethnicity to the level of conscious awareness. One such occasion occurs when parents must make a decision about whether and how to hand on the ethnic heritage, values and identity to their offspring in response to the child's need for self-identity. It is in this context that a child-centered Judaism has developed. Educational institutions have been set up to formally induct the young into the community of shared identity, that is, to impart to them the main outlines of the ethnic values and heritage without making stringent demands upon their behavior or that of the parents.

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Peter Y. Medding

Conversely, when the individual in the community of shared identity perceives prejudice or encounters discrimination and rejection by some sectors of society, particularly those with high social prestige, he is bound to feel that he, individually, has been rejected as a person, for whatever reason. Such an attack upon the personality is different in kind and has much greater impact upon it than the religious or philosophical rejection of Judaism by Christianity. It threatens all members of the community of shared identity, however tenuous their connection with it might appear to be. Even those, and in many cases particularly those, who have made a conscious and what appears to be a successful effort to sever all affiliation with the community of shared identity suffer deep personal affront and injury when confronted with social rejection because they are Jewish. A striking insight into these mechanisms and the feelings accompanying them, even among Jews who appear to have shed all connections with their Jewishness, is to be found in the life and attitudes of Walter Lippmann. His biographer reports that to many, as one of his gentile friends put it, " 'Walter simply decided that he wasn't Jewish, and that was that.' But that, as it turned out wasn't that. It rarely is. Lippmann had a complicated attitude toward his own Jewishness." In pursuing this subject, his biographer discovered that Lippmann did not want to confront the issue. However, as a biographer he felt that he "had to. ... had to write about the Jewish issue not because Lippmann was Jewish, but because—as I learned from this and other episodes—it aroused his deepest feelings. It affected the kind of person he became, and even his approach to political issues."6 Ethnicity for Jews in the community of shared identity is, thus, highly significant to the individuals, not perfunctory, even if ethnic roles are subject to personal choice and individual decision. The commitment to it and its fulfillment of deep personal needs are not necessarily reflected in the time devoted to formal ethnic performance. In this sense sexual roles and sexual identity offer a good analogy. The intense significance of sexual needs for human personality cannot be gauged from the time devoted to their fulfillment. Similarly, there is a clear parallel in the wounding capacity of the ethnic and the sexual insult. Both wound deeply because they cut through to the core of personality. The nature of contemporary Jewish ethnicity is thus captured better in the term, segmented ethnicity. Compared with the total performance and commitment of the community of shared belief, Jewish ethnicity in the community of shared identity has become segmented. The area of the segment varies; for some it is broad, reflecting a commitment that involves many constituent elements of the contemporary mix of Jewish ethnicity; for others it may be narrower, indicating involvement with fewer elements, although these may be relatively weighty, representing a concentration of commitment. But the nature of the segment is such that however narrow it is, it derives from, and reaches into, the core. To remove the segment one must detach it from the core. To increase the size or weight or capacity of the segment is to attach it more firmly at the core. The emphasis upon identity reinforces the concern of segmented ethnicity with continuity. 7 Whereas previously there existed a strong belief in continuity and in the existence of a divine promise guaranteeing it, in the community of shared identity continuity is deemed to be dependent upon the actions of the members of the group

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themselves. This commitment to continuity as a self-evident, self-fulfilling or enemy-defying value highlights the political character of segmented ethnicity. Ensuring continuity is no longer a matter of faith, it has become a question of politics. JEWISH POLITICS Constituting a Jewish Public Realm The movement from a community of belief to a community of shared identity had a revolutionary impact upon Jewish politics. The self-governing corporate community of belief had been a semi-autonomous Jewish polity, with a legitimate and clearly defined Jewish public realm. Emancipation destroyed this by according Jews equal citizenship rights as individuals while denying them rights as a political group and as a nation. 8 The distinctive contribution of the community of shared identity has been to reestablish Jewry as a political group and as a nation. This necessitated the political mobilization of Jewry and the creation of a new Jewish public realm. The new Jewish public realm extended beyond the boundaries of the Jewish community and involved Jews in the politics of the societies in which they lived, in pursuit of Jewish concerns. It was evident in the formation of new Jewish political organizations and movements, including Zionism, Bundism, and Territorialism, and in the participation of Jews in more general political movements such as socialism and communism. It was manifested in the activities of Jewish parties in the electoral and parliamentary politics of a number of Central and East European countries and in various Jewish representative organizations and roof bodies set up to promote domestic and international Jewish issues. Jewish politics has become a major element in segmented Jewish ethnicity because it gives clear expression to ollectiveneeds. As with ethnic groups in general, "the politicization of ethnicity translates the personal quest for meaning and belonging into a group demand for respect and power."9 This is based upon groups recognizing that politics is relevant to the "health of their ethnic cultural values," upon the political mobilization of the group, and upon political activity based on this awareness. 10 Segmented Jewish ethnicity, as was noted above, has two major concerns: identity and continuity. Because group activity is necessary to secure these in pluralist societies, politics became increasingly significant with regard both to respect—the group's capacity to win acceptance of its identity—and to power—the capacity to influence those outcomes which will affect or determine continuity. The Politics of Security: The Quest for Identity and Respect A Jewish public realm had begun to develop in the United States in the nineteenth century, and it received considerable impetus from the immigration influx and the pressure of events in the twentieth century. A significant event in this process was the establishment in 1944 of the National Community Relations Advisory Counci

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(NCRAC) as a coordinating body for the Jewish community relations agencies. (In 1971 the word Jewish was added to the name, and it has since been known as NJCRAC.) Today, its membership consists of 11 national and 111 local Jewish community relations organizations. NJCRAC meets annually to consider the problems facing American Jewry. The results of its deliberations are formally incorporated in the Joint Program Plan, which provides guidelines for its affiliated agencies. These are not binding upon the members; consequently, considerable effort is made to achieve consensus on joint policies. Failing this, it also includes statements of dissent from majority formulations. It is, without doubt, the most representative and comprehensive statement of an American Jewish political agenda. When viewed historically, the Joint Program Plan gives unique expression to the changing political concerns and positions of American Jews. The organization was founded in reaction to an American society which subjected Jews to discrimination in education, housing, employment, and admission to resorts, as well as to personal, public and often widely broadcast expressions of prejudice. The Christian character and substance of the American nation was instilled in schools and other public institutions. Jews were constantly reminded of their place in a Christian America. Americanization demanded conformity to WASP culture in a manner that left no doubts about the inferiority of minority and immigrant ethnic cultures and that reinforced the social superiority of the WASPs. Some leading Christian groups denied Jews a place in America because of the incompatibility of Judaism with the universal demands of democracy. According to the Christian Century in 1937, the Jews threatened the cultural integrity which was essential to the survival of American democracy because they defined Judaism in ethnic rather than religious terms. "Can democracy," it asked, "suffer a hereditary minority to perpetuate itself as a permanent minority, with its own distinctive culture sanctioned by its own distinctive cult form?"'' This was deemed to be responsible for the Jewish problem because prejudice was "generated by their long resistance to the democratic process," arising from beliefs which "require racial integrity and separateness." In its view, "the only religion compatible with democracy is one which conceives itself as universal, and offers itself to all men of all races and cultures. The Jewish religion, or any other religion, is an alien element in American democracy unless it proclaims itself as a universal faith, and proceeds upon such a conviction to persuade us all to be Jews." 12 In response to these pressures, NCRAC sought conditions which would enable Jews fully to enter American society. Jews wanted their due as American citizens, the rights of equality. From the mid-1940s until about the mid-1960s the problems confronting Jews and America were conceived of in individual terms. NCRAC regarded its role as facilitating the full integration of individual Jews into society, where they could enjoy their rights as citizens free of individual discrimination, pray in accordance with their conscience and be guaranteed equal opportunity by law. This is clearly expressed in theJointProgramlan for 1953: "The overall objectives of Jewish community relations arc to protect and promote equal rights

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and opportunities and to create conditions that contribute to the vitality of Jewish living. . , . These opportunities can be realized only in a society in which all persons are secure, whatever their religion, race or origin. . . . Freedom of individual conscience is a basic tenet of American democracy. The right of each person to worship God in his own way is the keystone in one of the major arches of our national edifice of personal liberties. Government must protect this right by protecting each in the pursuit of his conscience and by otherwise remaining aloof from religious matters." 13 The same conception is prominent in the formulation of its section headings: "an immigration policy free from racism and other discriminations," "advancing civil rights," "effective defenses against communist tactics of infiltration and subversion," "fuller respect for and application of traditional American civil liberties," "protection of religious liberties, maintenance of separation of church and state, and promotion of interreligious understanding." 14 Specific Jewish concerns and interests were also presented in these terms. Detailed recommendations with regard to discrimination in employment, education, and housing, for example, formed part of the section on civil rights. There is only the briefest mention of international Jewish issues: The Soviet Union's resort to antisemitism as an instrument of political policy and the dangers of a resurgent Nazism in Germany. Most striking is the reference to Israel: It is mentioned only once in passing, noting that the "Soviet Union has embarked on an active anti-Israel policy . . . that will deeply concern all Jewish organizations." 15 Clearly, Israel had only a limited impact upon American Jewry in the 1950s. The excitement generated by the establishment of the state dissipated fairly quickly and organized support fell away, as evidenced by the decline in the membership of Zionist organizations. 16 In fact, the actual establishment of Israel initially heightened existing ambivalence and unease within some sections of American Jewry by raising the question of dual loyalty with greater urgency. Underlying this was the historic and continuing organizational rift between Zionists and non-Zionists. This ambivalence was formally documented in the Ben-Gurion/Blausteiri "Exchange of Views" of 1950, which affirmed that American Jews were not exiles and that they "owe no political allegiance to Israel." Although Israel inspired pride and admiration in all Jews, in Mr. Blaustein's view, it had also "placed some burdens on Jews elsewhere, particularly in America." 17 Generally, the relationship with Israel was expressed in terms which emphasized distance and separateness at least as much as commitment and connection. For example, according to the 1954 Joint Program Plan, "American Jews have a deep and strong sense of cultural and ethnic affinity with the people of Israel and a warm sympathy for the young state." 18 The Jewish leadership's response to the Sinai campaign reflected these concerns. It was internally divided over Israel's actions, to which some prominent Jewish leaders were actively opposed.19 To maintain the public appearance of unity, only lukewarm and general statements of support for Israel were forthcoming, calling for "a bold and statesmanlike appraisal of the issues behind the conflict" and prayers for "the freedom and security of Israel arid all other peoples in that part of the world." 20 Forthright criticism of American policy was avoided even when there was unanimous Jewish and considerable public opposition to the American threat of

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unilateral sanctions. 21 Even then, American Jewish leaders privately encouraged Israel to meet the American government's request that it withdraw. The divisions within the Jewish community were highlighted when the secretary of state invited a number of non-Zionist leaders to hear the administration's views on sanctions in the hope that "these leaders would exercise a 'helpful influence' upon the Israeli government."22 This clumsy State Department attempt to split the Jewish community and to seek to influence Israel through American Jews was bitterly resented, even by those who opposed Israel's actions, because it exposed the deepest sources of unease within the Jewish community. It questioned the loyalty of some Jews to the United States and the commitment of others to Israel. The non-Zionists had been invited because they were "less likely than the Zionists to be influenced by considerations of Israeli interests." Not surprisingly, the group unanimously and vigorously rejected this implication. They "made it plain that all American Jews approach issues affecting U.S. interests as American citizens and that there are no divisions among them in this regard."23 To have accepted this implication would have lent support to the old accusation of dual loyalty, now reinforced by new Arab propaganda seeking "to create the impression that Jews everywhere in the world are to be regarded as Israelis, rather than citizens of their respective nations."24 On the other hand, rejecting it enabled the nonZionist group publicly to demonstrate a commitment to Israel. The consistent need to support Israel in times of crisis began to dispel some of the apprehensions and unease felt by American Jews. In 1955 the fact that views held by American Jews regarding U.S. policy in the Middle East "differed rather sharply from those being pursued by our government," aroused concern about "special community relations problems."25 But after the Suez crisis, they felt reassured that "the American public accepted the American Jewish concern about Israel . . . as a natural, normal manifestation of interest based on sympathies and emotional attachments of a sort that are common to many Americans."26 Simultaneously, the sense of distance and separateness from Israel, so prominent previously, began to be bridged. For the first time, the American Jewish political agenda incorporated Israel into American Jewish life. No longer was the connection spoken of as merely "sympathy" or "affinity" for the people of Israel, but it had become "clearer than ever . . . that the maintenance of dynamic relationships between American Jewry and the people of Israel . . . is regarded by the overwhelming majority of American Jews as conducive towards creative Jewish living here."27 The leadership's confidence about the significance of Israel for the overwhelming majority of American Jews seems more than a trifle misplaced in the light of survey findings. In 1958 only 21 percent of the Jews interviewed for the Lakeville study (dealing with a representative Jewish community) regarded support for Israel as essential "to be considered a good Jew," 47 percent thought it desirable and 32 percent believed it made no difference. Support for Israel ranked fourteenth in a list of twenty-two items, behind working for equality for Negroes ("desirable" or "essential" for 83 percent); helping the underprivileged improve their lot (95 percent); being a liberal on political and economic issues (31 percent "essential," 32 percent "desirable"); promoting civic betterment and improvement in the community (96 percent); and gaining respect of Christian neighbors (91 percent).28 Clear-

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ly, at this stage, the leadership was far ahead of the community in its understanding of the need for support of Israel and its role in Jewish life. The slowly strengthening relationships with Israel stemmed from greater Jewish understanding of the problems and dangers which it faced and a growing concern about Israel's security. By the early to mid-1960s there was a clear parallel between the domestic and international aspects of the American Jewish political agenda. The main focus of both was security. Thus, in addition to its usual concentration upon gaining acceptance of, and respect for, individual constitutional rights, the 1964-65 Joint Program Plan, for the first time, dedicated a section to Jewish security and status in the United States. A complete section on Israel and the Middle East analyzed U.S. policy in the region. It urged continuation of the American commitment "to the protection of [Israel's] security against armed aggression," in light of the "acceptance and recognition of Israel," as indicated by the first official state visit of an Israeli prime minister to the United States.29 Ethnic Pluralism This increasing emphasis on security and status reflects a turning away from the focus on individual rights and citizenship to a greater preoccupation-with group an cultural distinctiveness in a pluralist context. Much of the impetus for the development of this perspective came from developments and changes within American society, which rendered the theory and practice of pluralism more consistent. Pluralism separated Americanism from ethnicity, religion and nationality. On the other hand, nationality and ideology were fused, with the result that the nation was defined in political terms. This meant that ethnic groups could retain their integrity and separateness and perpetuate their cultural distinctiveness as long as they accepted American political ideas, values and symbols. American nationality related to allegiance to the political principles of equality, freedom and unalienable rights, not to ethnic origins. Thus there exists a body of ideas known as "Americanism," in the sense that "Britishism" or "Frenchism" do not exist. The latter rest on organic national and ethnic ties, whereas Americanism is an ideology. Because the test of Americanism is adherence to this ideology, it is perfectly compatible with the maintenance of ethnic culture, traditions, ascriptive social ties and separate social structure.30 In direct contrast with the earlier Americanization model which sought to have nationality follow politics and to make citizens into one people, the adoption of ethnic pluralism separated politics from nationality. But it stopped short of making ethnicity a principle of political organization. As at its foundation, the American political system recognizes only citizens and individuals, not ethnic groups, and individual rights, not group rights, although some aspects of affirmative action seemed to be based upon recognition of the latter. 31 This enables individuals to determine for themselves the extent of their ethnic involvements, while the maintenance of pluralism is dependent upon the capacity of the various ethnic groups and cultures to fill it with distinctive content. From the 1960s onwards, ethnic group politics in the United States has been characterized by public and militant ethnic self-assertiveness, most notably in the

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black struggle for full recognition of their civil rights. The intense and active public opposition to the American military involvement in Vietnam extended such politics to the realm of foreign policy. In both, the limits of civil obedience and protest in democracy were tested and extended. These developments had a direct impact upon Jewish politics in the United States. In general, they reinforced the legitimacy of organized and public Jewish political activity. Specifically, they broke down many of the barriers which previously had inhibited opposition on foreign policy issues. Moreover, in the two areas of greatest concern—the survival of Israel and the security of their place in American society—Jews encountered or perceived opposition and competition from other political forces, including rival ethnic groups, sometimes supported by powerful non-ethnic interests. The promotion of ethnic Jewish political interests was thus cast in a framework of political competition between ethnic groups rather than in a polarized contest between the Jews and the rest of society or the policies of the U.S. government. Jewish political activity fitted into the accepted competitive pattern of American politics, in which many groups legitimately contest with each other to influence the content and direction of policy. Ethnic pluralism transformed the general societal stance of Jews. By the end of the 1970s the strength of the society and its capacity to live up to democratic and American goals are perceived in terms of pluralism and group diversity rather than citizenship and rights. This is clearly stated in the 1984-85 Joint Program Plan: Jewish community relations activities are directed toward enhancement of conditions conducive to secure and creative Jewish living. Such conditions can be achieved only within a societal framework committed to the principles of democratic pluralism; to freedom of religion, thought and expression; equal rights, justice and opportunity; and within a climate in which differences among groups are accepted and respected, with each free to cultivate its own distinctive values while participating fully in the general life of the society. . . . The Jewish community has always been profoundly aware that maintaining a firm line of separation between church and state is essential to religious freedom and the religious voluntarism which foster the creative and distinctive survival of diverse religious groups, such as our own. 32

The Politics of Survival American Jewry has recently come to believe that the health of its major ethnic values, indeed their very continuity, are directly dependent upon political activities. Central to this concern is the belief that the Jewish public realm in Israel is permanently threatened with physical destruction. If this is not averted, American Jewish ethnic group cultural and spiritual distinctiveness and personal identity are deemed by many to be unlikely to survive. American Jewry thus seeks to exercise political power wherever public policy touches on the group's survival. This urgent concern distinguishes the New Jewish Politics from that of all other ethnic groups in the United States.33 The politics of survival is a recent development in Jewish politics in America brought about by two separate but interrelated factors: the growing trend toward

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using the Holocaust as a historical and political frame of reference in confronting group issues and the steady rise in Israel-consciousness as a major element in the self- and group-identity of segmented Jewish ethnicity. When Israel's security and continued existence suddenly appeared to be in grave danger, these combined with great impact to transform the politics of security into the politics of survival, which lies at the base of the New Jewish Politics. Although Israel is its major focus, the values and responses of the politics of survival pervade American Jewry's collective identity and have fundamentally changed its perception of its place and role in American society. During the 1950s and 1960s there was almost no consciousness at all of the Holocaust as a historical event or of its impact upon, or meaning for, American Jewry.34 The term Holocaust appears only once in the Joint Program Plan before 1969-70, in 1961-62 in the context of the Eichmann trial. It also appears obliquely in 1964-65 in relation to Rolf Hochhuth's play The Deputy. On both occasions previous fears that these would arouse antisemitism had proven to be unfounded. Moreover, considerable reassurance was derived from the apparent willingness of Christians to show sympathy and accept a measure of moral responsibility.35 Despite increasingly common public usage during the 1960s, the actual term Holocaust reappeared only in 1969-70, brought to the surface by the 1967 War. During the 1960s the outpouring of historical and literary material about the Holocaust together with the organizational efforts of the Holocaust survivors who had become established in American society, made memory of the Holocaust a central theme in Jewish life. This was not just a historical exercise or an act of commemoration. A clear political message was also transmitted—that antisemitism and prejudice left unchecked can have the most disastrous consequences for Jewry even in the most enlightened, cultured and civilized of societies. Particularly shocking in the 1960s was increasing evidence of indifference to the plight of Jewry and even obstruction of rescue efforts by many of those who had previously been regarded as friendly, in particular President Roosevelt and his administration. Antisemitism was not: the only factor to which this indifference was attributed Part of the blame was attached to the Jewish leadership and the Jewish community: They, too, may have been indifferent or not active enough, may have placed unwarranted trust in the good faith of those who had none, and may have been unduly intimidated by prejudice, disunited, and weakened by internal political differences. It was becoming increasingly felt that more might have been done had organizational rivalries and personal conflicts as well as other long-term goals (the establishment of a Jewish state) not been given precedence over efforts to rescue European Jews facing immediate death.36 The direct political lesson learned from the exposure of this agonising and traumatic period was that Jewish passivity and inaction was partly responsible for the failure to save more Jews from death at the hands of the Na/is. Holocaust-consciousness gave rise to the political response that Jews must act resolutely to promote their own security, not repeat the past mistake of misplaced trust, and that, in the last resort, they can rely only on themselves. It was positively reinforced by the example of the establishment of Israel, which maintained its security by military self-reliance.

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The 1967 War brought this consciousness to a head. There was first the image of Israel surrounded by its enemies, literally facing a battle for survival against what seemed to be superior forces. The independent Jewish state, which previously had seemed to provide a safe haven for Jews and an answer to the ineradicable evils of antisemitism, suddenly was perceived as a potential stage for a second Holocaust because of the concentration of Jews in one place. In a twist of historic irony, this conveyed the worst image of the Holocaust. Israel's few friends, however wellmeaning, did not seem able to act decisively to assist it. Once more, as in the Holocaust, the Jews appeared to stand alone. These fears dramatically brought home the central role of Israel in segmented Jewish ethnicity: The threat to collective group identity was perceived as a direct threat to personal identity. Jewish politics, thus, became the politics of survival. Neither the military victory of 1967 nor the eventual military success of 1973, which demonstrated Israel's capacity to guarantee its own survival, had much impact upon the felt analogy with the Holocaust. There was, firstly, the recognition that Israel's survival was always in question because it could not afford to lose a single battle. Secondly, there was deepening isolation of Israel in the United Nations, which came to a head in 1975 with the "Zionism is racism" resolution. Because it sought to de-legitimate the Jewish state by undermining the basis of the national right of the Jewish people to self-determination, opposition to the resolution was regarded by Jews as the minimum indication of support for Jewish survival. By the mid-1970s these themes came together. Jewish apprehensiveness, although perhaps mistaken and surely excessive, was warranted by "the long, dark Jewish history of persecution, . . . in which the Holocaust and Nazism are not part of the dead past, and in which the virus of antisemitism is not exterminated or conquered. . . . [The Jews] cannot relax their anxiety while a beleaguered Jewish state, restored after centuries of exile is threatened because it is Jewish, by a surrounding Arab world which in its worldwide propaganda propagates antisemitism along with political anti-Zionism."37 The role and significance of Israel were made more explicit, "The state has become for many Jews the symbol and e m b o d i m e n t . . . of the continuity of Jewish life. Any threat to Israel is therefore a threat to Jews." Thus the "Zionism is racism" resolution was regarded as masked antisemitism. Moreover, "given the profound sense of identity with the people and the state of Israel, American Jews often perceive the level of antisemitism in America as strongly influenced by, and in a measure, reflected in, our government's policies and public posture towards Israel."38 The relationship between American Jewry and Israel was intensified by the politics of survival. Thus in the 1980s it came to be characterized as one of "intense support for Israel and identification with the Jewish state" and "deep commitment to its security and survival." 39 Similarly, it was recognized that for "Jews everywhere, the security and vitality of the Jewish State of Israel and the welfare of its people are integral to their own vitality as Jews and as Jewish communities."40 This is a far cry from the distance and ambivalent attitudes of the 1950s. The politics of survival is posited upon a number of basic premises: (1) that the survival of Israel is at stake; (2) that the meaning of Jewish life everywhere is

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dependent on Israel; (3) that a threat to Israel's survival is a threat to Jews everywhere; (4) that Jews must be militant in acting to ensure Israel's survival; (5) that in acting to ensure Israel's survival, Jews are thereby acting to ensure their own survival and continuity; (6) that the response of non-Jews to Israel's struggle for survival is indicative of their attitude to Jews in general and (7) that in the light of history, indifference to these concerns is as dangerous as outright antisemitism. In stark contrast with the situation in the 1950s, such attitudes are not the monopoly of the American Jewish leadership but are widely held throughout the community. Recent surveys have documented this consensus as well as the slightly more intense response among Jewish leaders.41 The 1981 82 National Survey of American Jews found that 83 percent of those surveyed agreed "that if Israel were destroyed, I would feel as if I had suffered one of the greatest personal tragedies in my life." Only 12 percent agreed that "Israel's future is secure." In all, 94 percent categorized themselves as very pro-Israel or pro-Israel. In 1983 similar results were obtained, and, as well, 78 percent agreed that "caring about Israel is a very important part of my being a Jew." Among a sample of leaders, 90 percent agreed. Jews were secure about publicly identifying with Israel; only 10 percent of the public said, "I am somewhat uncomfortable about identifying myself as a supporter of Israel," as did 4 percent of the leaders. On the other hand, Jews were very insecure about where American non-Jews stood on these questions and the degree of support and understanding which they might expect from them. Only 8 percent of leaders in 1982 disagreed with the proposition that "the world is still not ready to let Jews live in peace." In 1983, 54 percent of the Jewish public and 41 percent of the leaders agreed that "when it comes to the crunch few non-Jews will come to Israel's side in its struggle to survive"; 55 percent of the public and 48 percent of the leaders were "worried the U.S. may stop being a firm ally of Israel"; and only 27 percent of the public and 44 percent of the leaders agreed that "virtually all positions of influence in America are open to Jews." In 1983 and 1984 only about 10 percent of the Jewish public disagreed with the statement that "antisemitism may, in the future, become a serious problem for American Jews." 42 THE NEW JEWISH POLITICS Some of the major elements of the New Jewish Politics are captured well in the following excerpts from a speech by one of the leading officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AlPAC) to its 1985 Annual Policy Conference. It is not surprising that the speech was made at AIPAC, because it, more than any other single Jewish organization today, is the epitome of the New Jewish Politics: Forty years ago—April, 1945—we had failed. We didn't know then the extent of our failure, but we knew we had failed. And, for many of us . . . that failure has haunted us and driven us and provided us with the internal fuel needed to create a politically active people pledged to survival. . . . In our modern world, Jews have been torn between a desire for maximum integration in the general culture on the one hand and the will for Jewish survival on the other. But,

40

Peter Y. Medding the aftermath of the Holocaust, the creation of the State of Israel, and then in 1967 and 1973 the experience of almost losing what it took the murders of six million to create, drove home the urgency of putting Jewish survival first. I believe that today we recognize that if we fail to utilize our political power we may be overwhelmed by our adversaries throughout the world. We understand that if that happens, Jewish existence itself is endangered. . . . As we have bitterly learned, it is when we assume too low a profile and fail to develop economic and political power, that we are perceived as having no vital societal role. That is what makes us dispensable—that is what made Polish Jewry dispensable in the 1930s. NEVER AGAIN. . . . The specter ofualloyaltytill haunts our community. . . . But here, in this country of ours, we ought not be shy about our interest in Israel. This is a pluralistic society and our survival here is dependent upon that pluralism. . . . Our concern for Israel does not erase our concern for America's domestic policies nor, in fact, does it mean that we do not have such concerns. . . . We care to the depths of our souls about what happens to both the United States and Israel—that caring is not inconsistent—it is not un-American—and ;'/ is not dual loyalty. It is part of democracy.

The New Jewish Politics and the American Political System The New Jewish Politics is characterized by its total integration into the normal operation and domestic political agenda of American politics, on the one hand, and by its rationalization of internal Jewish community politics, on the other. The Jewish political organizational framework and political agenda is more than ever before totally integrated into the mainstream of American politics. Jews are no longer an outside group, sporadically involved in the political process, and organized on an ad hoc basis when a crisis erupts. This was how the Jewish community behaved in the past, making representations mainly to the administration. When the issue was resolved, it went back to its regular pursuits, until the next critical issue arose. This was the politics of notables and organizational leaders, who descended on Washington for the occasion and left immediately after. Jewish issues are today part of the warp and woof of American politics, and the Jewish organizations and professionals involved in their promotion and in the pursuit of Jewish political interests are insiders in American politics. For insiders the political process is a day-to-day operation, highly sophisticated, fast-moving and fluid. It is subject to short-term and shifting coalitions and alliances as well as to longer-term loyalties. To keep abreast of politics under such conditions necessitates full-time, skilled, professional organization—both in Washington and across the country—that is able to get on top of extremely complicated and sometimes obscure legislative procedures, strategems and maneuvers. It must be capable of dealing with a whole range of complex policy questions, often demanding a high level of scientific or technological knowledge and advice, together with a grasp of politics that comes only with direct and intimate political experience and the capacity to take decisions quickly in the light of these considerations. This is no game for amateurs. Jewish political organization and professionals became insiders in the American political process when Israel became a regular item on the congressional appropria-

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tions agenda, following the marked increase in the level of U.S. foreign aid and defence assistance. This was reinforced by the United States' role as Israel's main source of military supplies and by its increasingly active role in peace making in the Middle East after 1967. Israel had thus become important in both congressional and presidential politics; as a result, it was a significant factor in electoral politics. Although only part of a larger picture, the changes in AIPAC over the years accurately reflect the Jewish political response to these developments. AIPAC began modestly in the early 1950s as the American Zionist Public Affairs Committee. Its status as an ultimate outsider was symbolized by the constant pressure to register as an agent of a foreign government.43 (The name change was partly in response to this pressure and accompanied a decision to register as a domestic lobby). AIPAC undertakes activities aimed at "promoting strong and consistently close relations between our country and Israel. "44 In recent years it has developed a grass roots membership of some fifty thousand members spread all over the country and its budget and full-time professional staff have grown dramatically: In 1985 it had a budget of $5 million and a full-time staff of seventy in Washington, which represented a more than fivefold increase in less than ten years. Prominent among these are its string of legislative lobbyists and a high-level academic research and information service. The lobbyists closely monitor all aspects of congressional activity that relate in any way to AIPAC's goal of gaining support for Israel, and they work with the relevant congressmen and senators. This means keeping fully abreast of the congressional agenda and working closely with the congressional staff at all levels so as to be apprised of developments on an ongoing basis even before they come to committee. In this they follow the established pattern in Washington whereby a considerable amount of activity in Congress on behalf of congressmen, senators, party leaderships, committees, sub-committees and special committees is transacted by members of the staff. The elected representative is often brought in only at the last stages of negotiation and discussion when a decision is required or a vote is to be made.45 Some insight into the changed status of AIPAC can be gained from an analysis of the career patterns of its leading officials. Its founder, I. L. Kenen, came from the ranks of the officials of the American Zionist movement. His successor, Morris J. Amitay, had worked for the State Department as a foreign service officer and then had served on the congressional staff for a number of years as a legislative aide to Senator Ribicoff. His successor, Tom Dine, had been a Peace Corps volunteer and then worked in the Senate for ten years as an aide to senators Kennedy, Muskie and Church. Many of those employed to act as lobbyists have also worked on the Hill, have gone back to the Hill or have become established as private lobbyists after leaving AIPAC. For example, when Amitay left AIPAC he set up his own office as a lobbyist representing a number of leading corporations. Detailed, firsthand, intimate knowledge of the congressional process and familiarity with its byways and its staff members are not only clear indication of insider status but arc absolutely essential for the successful operation of a body such as AIPAC, which is dependent on professional and political expertise. Here, too, AIPAC differs little from the many Washington-based lobbying and consulting

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firms which are staffed with professionals who had previously worked on the congressional staff. Rather than return to their hometowns or relocate, they stay in Washington as consultants and lobbyists.46 AIPAC maintains close contact with members and key personnel in congressional districts to bring its point of view to the attention of congressmen whom they may have been unable to reach in Washington. AIPAC members who have worked on the electoral campaigns or are otherwise well known to the representative are of particular relevance in this regard. These activities are not just restricted to the congressional district. AIPAC activists and members come to Washington to lobby their representatives, and this is carried further in an organized manner during the AIPAC annual policy conference. The more than one thousand activists who come to Washington to participate in it spend some of the time with their representatives in Congress. In all, there are identifiable Jewish communities in 384 of the 435 congressional districts, which means that mobilized Jewish constituents have direct contact with about 90 percent of the House members. AIPAC's activities dovetail neatly with another significant aspect of the New Jewish Politics, the eighty or so Political Action Committees (PACs) which generate congressional support for Israel by raising funds and allocating them to candidates who have supported, or are pledged to support, pro-Israeli policies in Congress. The largest and most significant of these is NATPAC situated in Washington, which is nationally organized; most of the others are locally organized. Here, too, the New Jewish Politics has demonstrated its insider status by its rapid and extensive involvement in this fairly new but major development on the American political scene.47 Congressmen tend to be guided by key congressional figures in all areas. Two groups which are particularly influential on matters affecting Israel are the Jewish members of Congress and the members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. There is some overlap between the two groups: In 1984, 25 percent of the members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee were Jewish, as were 30 percent of its Middle East Subcommittee. Overall there has also been a significant increase in the number of Jewish members of Congress. In 1974 there were eleven Jewish members of the House and 2 Jewish senators. By 1985 in the Ninety-ninth Congress there were thirty Jewish House members, many from districts without large or significant Jewish constituencies, and eight Jewish senators. Unlike the past when the great majority were Democrats, in recent years about a quarter are Republicans, which provides further evidence of the integration of Jews into the American political system as insiders. The Jewishness of the congressmen is not as significant as their attitudes to Jewish and Israeli issues. A survey in the late 1970s of the twenty-four Jewish members of the Ninety-fourth Congress found that most of them actively and openly identified with the Jewish community. They adopted Jewish interests and pursued them openly and effectively. Generally, they were more sympathetic to Israel than members of the House at-large. In fact, they held views about the Arab-Israeli conflict which were well within the mainstream of opinion within the organized

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American Jewish community. As such, they were described as constituting an "inhouse lobby" for Israel.48 AIPAC's congressional activities on behalf of Israel must be set against the background of general support for Israel in the United States and within the Congress, and the process of congressional decision making. There was considerable support for Israel in Congress because of members' belief in Israel's democratic character, its spirit of sacrifice, its efficient use of foreign aid and the tradition of friendship between the two countries. Others saw support for Israel in terms of America's commitment to peace in the region—any possible war being considered more costly to the United States—and in terms of the national interest in supporting Israel as a bastion against the Soviet Union and communism. Congressmen have also been influenced by public awareness of the Holocaust, particularly those with active Jewish constituencies. It is a common phenomenon for congressmen to identify with the values and feelings of their constituents and to internalize them. The grass roots activity of AIPAC is well suited to the electoral interests of members of Congress. Jewish support for Israel may only affect a small percentage of the voters, but it is exceedingly intense; most other voters are uninformed or do not care. Support for Israel under these conditions can be instrumental in gaining considerable electoral support, whereas generally none can be gained by being against Israel. The benefit to the specific group of voters is deeply appreciated, whereas the costs are widely distributed throughout the whole political system, which in politics is generally a good reason for a representative to support an issue. This gains not only individual voter support but also that of any organization which promotes the issue. Not surprisingly, there was a positive relationship between the proportion of Jewish voters in the constituency and support for Israel: Support for Israel was considerably lower among members who had no Jewish constituents than in the rest of the House. Beneath all these considerations lay the fact that there was considerable general support for Israel in American public opinion. Polls conducted for the last forty years have found that views about Israel are generally favorable and that support for Israel in the Middle East conflict was always considerably greater than support for the Arabs.49 Although the New Jewish Politics is most clearly evident with regard to Israel, its agenda is, in fact, broader. Jews and Jewish organizations actively pursue a wide range of international and domestic political interests both in the national capital and in many state capitals and major cities. Particularly significant among these are the Washington offices of major Jewish organizations such as the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, ADL, the Council of Jewish Federations and the major synagogue and religious bodies. While pursuing programs and activities in line with their goals and purposes and catering to the needs of their members, the net effect of this whole plethora of activity is the presence—sometimes in the central role—of Jewish organizations in a tremendously wide range of coalitions engaged in the whole gamut of political activity as it is practiced in the United States. Many of these activities are not directly connected with Jewish political issues per se and relate to the day-to-day

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questions and issues of American politics. Thus Jewish organizations are involved in various coalitions concerned with health and human services, labor, veteran, education, environment and energy issues as well as in the more traditional coalitions on such matters as civil rights and church-state issues in which direct or indirect Jewish interests are more clearly evident. Many of the leading positions are occupied by Jewish political professionals who have previously worked either in Congress or in the administration or both. These coalition relationships give Jewish professionals and organizations access to a wide range of groups and individuals in the American political system. They create relationships of mutual support and understanding which may later be utilized to gain support for Jewish policy positions on matters of concern, particularly on the survival issues. In particular, they provide indirect avenues to groups and individuals otherwise relatively inaccessible to Jews. The New Jewish Politics and the Jewish Community The American Jewish representational structure has traditionally been diverse and disunited, but agreed on the principle that no single body or organization spoke on behalf of American Jewry as a whole. Although since the 1950s a degree of political coordination slowly developed, it was limited by organizational rivalries and the desire of some major organizations to retain their autonomy and not be bound by majority decision. Some Jewish leaders found virtue in this diversity and pluralism because it reflected American society.50 The New Jewish Politics is characterized by considerably increased rationalization and unity at the top levels of the Jewish community structure. But this is more implicit than explicit, and it exists in informal organizational arrangements rather than in formal agreements or institutional structures. The major focus and cause of this unity is Israel and its survival, which evoke intense feelings of support and identification from almost all of American Jewry. This is particularly evident if the legitimacy of the state and its right to exist are under external attack. Ideological differences over government policies are brushed aside to enable the creation of united public support for Israel, which includes many on the margins of the Jewish community who are critical of Israel.51 Thus the commitments engendered by the politics of survival operate as a unifying factor overcoming other differences. Similarly, on the American Jewish political agenda, Israel's needs are generally recognized as having precedence; this has served for the first time to introduce a clear sense of priorities among Jewish interests. Such unity is a major political advantage in the group pattern of American politics where internal division is taken to indicate political weakness. Popular and leadership consensus in the Jewish community about Israel is therefore of fundamental importance. The specific policies and tactics which give expression to it are decided by the various organizations and professionals involved in promoting the cause of Israel. Generally, it has become the accepted practice for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to represent the Jewish community's views on Israel and other international Jewish questions (such as Soviet Jewry) to

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the White House and the executive branch, while AIPAC directs its attention to the congressional front. The division of function is maintained by careful coordination. AIPAC operates within the parameters of policies that are acceptable to the Presidents' Conference. To ensure this, AIPAC has in recent years extended its organizational framework. The executive committee has been widened to include the top leaders in major Jewish country-wide organizations, many of whom are also members of the Presidents' Conference as well as the executive bodies of the Council of Jewish Federations and NJCRAC. Some are also leaders in large Jewish communities. Thus, although AIPAC is registered as a domestic lobby and its main activity is professional and executive, it has developed an extensive network of organizational links within the Jewish community. This overlapping of organizational leadership provides it with the legitimacy of representativeness that it would otherwise lack. AIPAC can justifiably claim to speak for the whole Jewish community with regard to Israel. Regular informal consultations take place among the professionals working for Jewish organizations in Washington to discuss alternatives and to act as a clearing house for ideas and tactics. The group is a vital link in the process of ensuring that all organizations and their leaderships are fully informed about developments and, above all, that they do not act independently. Where issues are particularly complex, these informal discussions are widened to involve many others on the Washington political scene who share a commitment to ensuring Jewish survival by strengthening U.S.-Israel relations. Further unity and coordination is introduced by informal consultation and cooperation with representatives of Israel, both in Washington and Jerusalem. It is symptomatic of the New Jewish Politics that it has gotten over the sensitivities of charges of dual loyalty and that these contacts are open and frankly admitted. 52 Contact with official Israeli representatives is necessary to ensure that, in promoting the interests of Israel as they perceive them, American Jews take into account the views about these which are held by the Israeli government and people. In pragmatic political terms nothing could be more damaging to the pursuit of these interests than Israeli representatives promoting views in conflict with those of American Jewry. While there may, indeed, be legitimate differences between the two, these must be worked out prior to action being taken. The American Jewish input in this process has proved to be considerable. The evidence suggests that Israel has learned a considerable amount from the expertise and professional knowledge of the practitioners of the New Jewish Politics and that the latter are far from being mere mouthpieces or messenger boys for the Israeli government. The 1984-85 Joint Program Plan gives clear expression to the changed nature of the Jewish political agenda under the impact of the politics of survival and the New Jewish Politics. The contrast with the 1950s is striking. International issues—Israel and the Middle East, Soviet Jewry, Ethiopian Jewry, Argentina—take up the first half of the document. These are followed by a series of domestic issues—churchstate and interreligious relationships, social and economic justice, energy, Jewish security and individual freedom—in which specifically Jewish and general public issues are dealt with inter alia without clear lines of differentiation among them.

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Informing all of them is the common thread of the New Jewish Politics—the politics of an "American Jewish community . . . primarily native-born; exceptionally well educated; affluent; secure; articulate; fully integrated into American society, yet proudly identified as a Jewish community . . . [whose] use of political power became ever-more sophisticated."53

Notes This article is part of a larger project on the politics of American Jewry begun while the author was on sabbatical at the Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis University. The assistance and encouragement of the Center are gratefully acknowledged. 1. Robert H. Jackson, "Ethnicity," in Giovanni Sartori (ed.), Social Science Concepts: A Systematic Analysis (Beverly Hills: 1984), pp, 205-233. 2. Herbert J. Gans, "Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and Cultures in America," in Herbert J. Gans, Nathan Glazer, Joseph R. Gusfield, and Christopher Jencks, (eds.), On the Making of Americans: Essays in Honor of David Riesman (Philadelphia: 1979), pp. 193-220, at 193. 3. Gans, "Symbolic Ethnicity," p. 205. 4. As Ben Halpern has put it, "America is really a Christian country." See the illuminating discussion in his Jews and Blacks: The Classic American Minorities (New York: 1971). The citation is on p. 60. 5. Cynthia Ozick pushes the argument beyond religious values to language, "A language, like a people, has a history of ideas, but not all ideas; only those known to its experience. When 1 write in English, I live in Christendom." Cited in Arnold M. Eisen, The Chosen People in America (Bloomington: 1983), p. 167. 6. Ronald Steel, "The Biographer as Detective: What Walter Lippmann Preferred to Forget," New York Times Book Review, 21 July 1985, pp. 3, 16; see also the full-length biography by Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century (Boston: 1980), pp. 186-196. 7. Is there a more dramatic example of the latter than Emil Fackenheim's "614th Commandment," of not "handing Hitler any posthumous victories," of insisting on the primacy of Jewish continuity because the Nazis sought to destroy the Jews? 8. Cited in William Safran, "France and Her Jews: From 'Culte Israelite' to 'Lobby Juif," Tocqueville Review V (Spring-Summer 1983), pp. 101-135; and Judith Friedlander, " 'Juif ou Israelite'? The Old Jewish Question in Contemporary France," Judaism XXXIV (Spring 1985), pp. 221-230. Their translations vary slightly. 9. Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics: A Conceptual Framework (New York: 1981), p. 6. 10. Ibid. 11. Christian Century, 9 June 1937, cited in Eisen, Chosen People, p. 34. 12. 7 July 1937, cited in Eisen, Chosen People, p. 34. 13. Joint Program Plan (JPP) 1953, pp. 3, 21. 14. Ibid., pp. 5-6. 15. Ibid., p. 3. 16. Between 1948 and 1963 membership of the Zionist Organization of America fell from 250,000 to 87,000. See Ernest Stock, Israel on the Road to Sinai, 1949-1956 (Ithaca: 1967), p. 142. 17. The whole issue, including the circumstances which led up to the exchange, is discussed in Charles S. Liebman, Pressure Without Sanctions: The Influence of World Jewry on Israeli Policy (Rutherford: 1977), pp. 118-131; citations from pp. 124-125.

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18. JPP 1954, pp. 4-5. 19. Liebman, Pressure without Sanctions, p. 173. 20. Statement of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, 31 October 1956. 21. On this occasion the presidents of seventeen major national Jewish organizations cabled the president, secretary of state and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They sought equity and fair play for Israel, pointed out the double standards involved in light of Egypt's failure to comply with previous UN resolutions about freedom of passage and urged support of Israel's request for a promise of non-belligerancy by Egypt. The most critical aspect of the statement was its last sentence, "Most earnestly and respectfully do we appeal to you not to allow our Government and our people to be involved in what history will surely judge to be a double standard of morality" (18 February 1957). 22. American Jewish Yearbook LIX (1958), pp. 208-210. 23. JPP 1957-58, pp. 8-9. 24. JPP 1956-57, p. 4. 25. Ibid., p. 5. 26. JPP 1957-58, p. 9. 27. Ibid., p. 10. 28. Marshall Sklare, Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier(New York: 1967), p. 322. 29. JPP 1964-65, pp. 24-26. 30. See Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge, Mass.: 1981), pp. 23-30. 31. Michael Walzer, "Pluralism: A Political Perspective," Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: 1980), pp. 781-787. 32. JPP 1984-85, pp. 3, 29. 33. As Nathan Glazer has put it, "Israel is unique in that it is not threatened with defeat or loss of territory or the loss of respect—it is threatened with annihilation, up to, one assumes, the massacre of its inhabitants." Cited in Murray Friedman, "AWACS and the Jewish Community,'' Commentary LXXIII, no. 4 (April 1982), p. 31. 34. Sec Leon A. Jick, "The Holocaust: Its Use and Abuse Within the American Public," Yad Vashem Studies X!V (1981), pp. 301-318, for an analysis of the development of the awareness of the Holocaust in the United States for both Jews and non-Jews. See also Stephen J. Whitfield, "The Holocaust and the American Jewish Intellectual," Judaism XXVIII (1979), pp. 391-401. 35. Thus in 1961-62 "there was evidence that the conscience of the world had been touched. Some Christian clergymen publicly acknowledged a measure of collective guilt on the part of the Western Christian world for the Hitler Holocaust. More generally, there was a reawakened awareness of the horrors of genocide," JPP, p. 16. In 1964-65 the controversy "has revolved to a large extent around the broad question of guilt for allowing the Hitler extermination program to be carried out—not only whether Pope Pius shared the guilt, but whether all Christians were not remiss in their silence. A derivative of that discussion has been an attitude of great sympathy and warmth toward Jews on the part of many Christians and a revulsion against overt antisernitism," JPP, p. 6. 36. These are detailed in David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945 (New York: 1984); and Henry L. Feingold, "The Condition of American Jewry in Historical Perspective: A Bicentennial Assessment,"American Jewish YearbookLXXVI (1976), pp. 3-40. 37. JPP 1975-76, p. 44. 38.Ibid. 39. JPP 1983-84, pp. 1 1 , 17. 40. JPP 1978-79, p. 3. 41. This is not surprising in view of the considerable empirical evidence in the United States demonstrating greater partisanship among leaders than among the public and greater intensity of leadership support for democratic ideals and practices within the context of widespread public support.

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42. Steven Martin Cohen, "The 1981-1982 National Survey of American Jews," American Jewish Yearbook LXXXIII (1983), pp. 89-110; the 1982, 1983 and 1984 figures are from mimeographed reports distributed by the American Jewish Committee. 43. I. L. Kenen, Israel''s Defense Line: Her Friends and Foes in Washington (Buffalo: 1981) gives a personal history of AIPAC's early years by its founder and long time executive officer. 44. AIPAC Policy Statement, Near East Report, 29 April 1985. 45. See Michael J. Malbin, Unelected Representatives: Congressional Staff and the Future of Representative Government (New York: 1980), for a critical analysis of the pivotal and burgeoning role of congressional staff. 46. Malbin, Unelected Representatives. 47. On PACs in general see Larry J. Sabato, PAC Power: Inside the World of Political Action Committees (New York: 1984). 48. Marvin C. Feuerwerger, Congress and Israel: Foreign Aid Decision-Making in the House of Representatives, 1969-1976(Westport: 1984). 49. Feuerwerger, Congress and Israel, pp. 77-90. 50. See the discussion of these issues in Philip Bernstein, To Dwell in Unity: The Jewish Federation Movement Since I960 (Philadelphia: 1983), pp. 204-207, 341-343, 356-359. 51. See Edwin Epstein and Earl Raab, "The Foreign Policy of Berkeley California," Moment, September 1984, pp. 17-21 for an interesting example of how "Jews with sharply conflicting views on specific issues joined ranks when they perceived an insidious threat to Israel in general" (p. 19). It also pointed out the value of Jewish political linkages with other segments of the community on matters of general concern that led to the successful coalition to defeat the anti-Israel measure. 52. See Ben Bradlee, Jr., "Israel's Lobby," Boston Globe Magazine, 29 April 1984; William J. Lanouette, "The Many Faces of the Jewish Lobby in America," National Journal, 13 May 1978 (no. 19), pp. 748-759; Wolf Blitzer, "The AIPAC Formula," Moment, November 1981, pp. 22-28. 53. JPP 1984-85, p. 61.

Education and National Conflict in Bohemia: Germans, Czechs and Jews Hillel J. Kieval (UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON)

Nationalism as a modern phenomenon has in general sought to link the domains of culture and political power. At the base of its many guises and historical manifestations has been the goal, fundamental to ail national movements, of achieving or maintaining political sovereignty for a population that defines itself largely in terms of a common language, broadly shared cultural traditions and a common sense of historical destiny.' Because of nationalism's equation of culture and politics and, just as important, because of the role that the technical and professional intelligentsia has played in promoting modern nationalism, the issue of public education has often been paramount. It was the local school that helped to transform a dialect or peasant language into a vehicle of high culture and that paved the way for the sons of the peasantry to enter the occupations and professions of the new industrial age. It was the school that prepared one for a bureaucratic career under the auspices of a centralizing state. And, if integration into the larger state and society proved to be impossible or unsatisfactory, it was again to the local high culture of the school that the disaffected intellectual or professional turned in search of an alternative political community. 2 Nowhere has the link between education and national politics been more prominent than in the Czech lands of the Habsburg monarchy (Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia). Czech and German nationalists of all political stripes stressed the pre-eminent role that the school had to play in determining the outcome of the national controversy.3 What mattered were the number of schools that offered instruction in the national language, the attendance figures for these schools and, of course, the curriculum that they offered. Czech and German national politicians acted as if this single institution held the key to the ultimate determination of the most pressing national issues: the right to conduct business with the government and the courts in one's own language; the ability to gain employment and achieve social mobility; the hope of determining one's own future and that of one's children. The Young Czech economist and political activist Karel Adamek remarked in his study of contemporary Czech life: 49

50

Hillel J. Kieval The blossoming of Czech education was and must remain for all time the principal political goal of all genuine patriots and true friends of the people, of the whole nation. . . . The question of schools is raised high above the interests of parties and of individuals; |it is] certainly the most widespread, important, national and cultural question. 4

Similarly, a German study from the beginning of the twentieth century accused the Prague city council of setting up public kindergartens in the city not only to provide a necessary service to working parents but, more important, "to win over the children at this most tender age to the Czech nation."5 Because of the demographic weakness of the German community of Prague, all of the publicly funded kindergartens were Czech-language institutions. German nationalists, for their part, feared that the children of working-class Germans who attended such schools would lose the opportunity (and the desire) to speak German on a daily basis and, consequently, "be completely lost to the German people."6 The Austrian government itself did much to raise the school issue to a level of primary importance. Imperial legislation of 1868 and 1869 established a clear separation of church and state in the area of public education, removed statesupported primary and secondary schools from the purview of local parishes and religious orders and opened both the faculty and the student body of such schools to people of all religions.7 Moreover, in creating a new network of state-supported primary and secondary schools throughout Cisleithania, it placed the school under the direct control of the provinces. Thus local autonomy in cultural affairs—a byproduct of the constitutional reforms of the 1860s—combined with the state's interest in promoting compulsory, secular education to produce a situation in Bohemia, as well as elsewhere, in which notables from competing national camps vied with each other to determine the cultural makeup of their region.8 The government also helped to politicize education when, beginning with the census of 1880, it chose to measure the ethnic composition of the monarchy solely in terms of language. Before 1869 government censuses had employed what might be called "ethnographic" criteria in delineating the various nationalities of the Habsburg lands. In other words they accepted the existence of ethnically distinct populations as well as the right of individuals to identify with them. 9 This practice ceased with the census of 1869, taken two years after the Ausgleich with Hungary. Franz Josef's ministers mistakenly believed that in the agreement with Hungary they had solved the major nationalist challenge to the empire and simply refused to measure national affiliation in the new census. By 1880 the government had been unburdened of this illusion, but it now chose to defuse the nationality issue by claiming to be interested only in the "everyday language" of the local population, and then only for "administrative" purposes, so that the courts, government offices and schools might serve the needs of the population. 10 What the Austrian government agreed to measure in the censuses of 1880 and after was Umgangssprache (in Czech, obcovdci f e e ) , which can be translated loosely as everyday language. The president of the Central Statistical Commission explained that the term was meant to indicate "that language, which the population of local towns and communities actually spoke."" If this were really the case,

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however, the government would have sent teams of observers throughout the monarchy who, on the basis of firsthand experience, would later map the country's linguistic divisions. In fact, individuals were allowed to declare their Umgangssprache to census takers, with the restriction that only answers that corresponded to languages actually used in the region in question (hence, landesublich) would be counted. On the one hand, then, the government opened the door for the political exploitation of the census returns, encouraging the various national movements to let it be known what language a sometimes multi-lingual population should give as its "everyday" tongue. In so doing, Vienna increased the premium that national leaders placed on cultural and linguistic institutions like the schools. If Czech and German politicians agreed on anything, it was on the role that the school played in determining an individual's primary linguistic preference. On the other hand, some groups—the Jews in particular—lost the status of separate nationality that they had enjoyed in the mid-century censuses. In some cases, the language that they might have spoken was not iiblich in a particular region. As for the Jews, the process of emancipation had reduced their Jewishness in the eyes of official Austria to the realm of religion. The census takers could not accept a declaration of nationality that was not couched in linguistic terms; they also refused to recognize Yiddish as a separate language—even in Galicia—and, instead, included such declarations in the German category.12 THE GROWTH IN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION The liberalization of political life and the restructuring of the schools coincided with other dramatic developments in the social and economic conditions of the Czech lands. Chief among these were the demographic revolution in the countryside, the beginnings of large-scale industrialization and the waves of Czech migration to the cities, especially to Prague. The population of the Czech lands grew from 6,956,000 in 1857 to 8,640,000 in 1890; by 1910 it had reached well over 10 million. 13 Prague meanwhile grew from 204,488 in 1869 to over 442,000 in 1910. l4 The lion's share of this increase resulted from in-migration from the Czechspeaking towns and villages of Bohemia, A special study of the Central Statistical Commission determined that 115,235 residents of Prague Districts I-VII in 1900 were native to other parts of Bohemia and 92 percent of these came from districts that had Czech majorities. 15 Not only did Bohemia-Moravia become the most highly industrialized region of the Habsburg monarchy after Lower Austria but also one in which illiteracy had virtually been eliminated. There were 3,650 elementary schools (Volksschulen or Ndrodni skoly)in Bohemia in 1860, 3,875 in 1865 and by 1885, 4,636. Barely 611,000 students enrolled in 1860; by 1885 the number had reached 899,385. For the twenty-year interval 1865-85, the number of primary schools in Bohemia grew by 19.7 percent, the number of teachers of academic subjects by 29.9 percent, and the number of registered students by 47.4 percent. 1 6 Among those who declared Czech as their daily language in the Austrian census of 1900, nearly 94 percent

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could both read and write. Close to 92 percent of Austrian Germans could do the same. 17 The expansion of secondary education during this period was equally impressive. In 1861 there were twenty-three gymnasia and realgymnasia in Bohemia (ten Czech, six German, and seven bilingual or utraquist) and eight Realschulen (four German, four Czech). By 1884 the number of gymnasia had risen to fifty-three (thirty-one Czech, twenty-two German) and the number of Realschulen to sixteen (seven Czech, nine German). Altogether some 9,500 students enrolled in secondary schools in 1861. In 1884 the number stood at just under 21,000.18 Czech national leaders in particular could point with pride to the major advances that had been made since the beginning of the constitutional era in educating Czech children in their own language and culture. In 1864 there were some 3,200 Czechlanguage elementary schools in the Czech lands. This number jumped to 4,129 in 1884 and to 5,439 by 1914, an increase of 68 percent over the 1864 figure. 19 In Bohemia alone more than 560,000 children (72.5 percent of the school-aged population) attended Czech primary schools (obecne or mest'anske skoly) in 1885. Meanwhile, the number of students attending Czech gymnasia, realgymnasia, and redlky (Realschulen) grew from 4,273 in 1861 to over 14,000 in 1884.20 Relatively few children attended private elementary schools, only 26,339 in all of Bohemia in 1884-85, or about 2.8 percent of the total school-aged population.21 Nevertheless, leading figures within the Czech national movement voiced dissatisfaction with the pace of national education in the Czech lands. They worried in particular about the persistence of German schools in regions that had an overwhelmingly Czech population and about the movement's inability to attract to Czech schools in the so-called Sudetenland as high a percentage as attended German schools in the Czech territories. For example, 5,296 children attended German public schools in predominantly Czech regions, while only 2,131 went to Czech schools in German districts. Only 612 children attended Czech schools in urban areas other than Prague, but 7,410 went to German schools in large cities, including 3,662 in Prague alone.22 The situation in secondary and higher education was even more troublesome. In 1883-84, 17.8 percent of the students in Prague's German gymnasium, 17.6 percent of the students in the German gymnasium in Smichov, and 17.6 percent of those in the southern Bohemian city of Ceske Budejovice, were Czech nationals. Moreover, Czechs comprised 35.3 percent of the student body at the German Realschule in Prague, 30.7 percent of the school in Litomerice, and 35.4 percent of the one in Karlm.23 Before 1882 there was only one university in Prague, attended by Czech students as well as by Germans. Thereafter the institution was divided into separate national branches. Over the course of the next decade, virtually no selfdeclared German nationals received their education from the Czech university. Yet Czech students continued to choose the German branch in significant numbers: During the winter and summer semesters of 1889-90, for example, Czechs comprised 19.4 and 21.4 percent, respectively, of the total student body of Prague's German university. 24 A similar situation prevailed in the city's technical institutes. During the academic year 1880-81, 99.5 percent of the students who attended the Czech Polytechnika were themselves Czechs. On the other hand, approximately 35

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percent of the students at the German Technische Hochschule were also Czech nationals.25 This situation improved only slightly by the end of the decade when Czechs comprised 24 percent of the student body.26 Such "incursions" of German influence in Czech national life were partly the result of uneven deveiopment. As late as J886, one state-supported German middle school existed for every 25,000 Germans in Bohemia, but the Czechs could only boast one middle school for every 119,000 of their own nationals. Hence there simply may not have been enough Czech institutions to accommodate all of those who desired a secondary education.27 Perceptions about the quality or ultimate utility of a German education also played a role. A significant minority of the population that lived in the Czech regions of the country—who may even have considered themselves to be ethnically Czech—nevertheless, insisted upon a German-language education for their youth, because it was seen as providing a more useful vehicle for professional or social advancement. The provincial school boards operated under legal mandate to establish, oversee and subvent with public funds schools that taught in the language of the local population. The state had no obligation to erect or support schools for groups whose numbers did not reach a minimum level within a given district.28 In such cases the children went either to public schools in the language of the majority population or to privately funded institutions in their own language. The question of minority schools, then, served as a rallying point for nationalists of all stripes. Community leaders, on the one hand, would attempt to organize support for the establishment of private schools in order to protect the "national integrity" of beleaguered minorities. On the other hand, the same leaders would berate the representatives of rival national groups who hoped to accomplish the same ends for their own members. What was "protection" in the eyes of one was "incursion" in the eyes of the other.29 The Austrian Germans were the first to organize in order to secure the presence of minority schools for their children. The Deutscher Schulverein emerged in the spring of 1880 to establish minority schools and support them until such time as they could meet the minimum standards for public subvention. The Czechs in Bohemia responded almost immediately with an institution of their own, the Ustfedni malice skolskd (Central School Foundation). In 1887 the Schulverein claimed 120,000 members divided among over 1,000 local groups. By 1902 it was spending 4.3 million kronen to run twenty-six of its own schools and another 2 million to subsidize forty-one others.30 The Malice ceskd, meanwhile, had some 30,000 contributing members in 1900. In twenty years it had dispensed some 4 million gulden (8 million kronen) in school aid, and 10,000 Czech students had enrolled in its private schools.31

JEWISH CHILDREN,E Recently emancipated and stripped of their ancient national identification, the Jews of late-ninetcenth-century Bohemia found themselves in a doubly precarious situation. Their population of 92,745 represented only 1.5 percent of all of the people of

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Bohemia in 1900, hardly enough to tip the state-wide balance of power between Czechs and Germans, which stood at approximately 60 percent to 40 percent.32 As in all of Central and Eastern Europe, however, the percentage of Jews in the larger cities and towns was much higher. The 18,986 Jews who lived in the inner city of Prague in 1900 comprised more than 9 percent of the total population and almost 8 percent if one includes the inner suburbs.33 And although Jews did not make up as much as 5 percent of the population in the rest of Bohemia, their presence in individual school districts could help to determine whether or not a given school would exist or, alternatively, be given state support. But the real difficulty for the Jews of Bohemia lay in their long identification with German language and culture. This identification dated back at least to the 1780s when Joseph II launched an important set of cultural and social reforms within the Bohemian Jewish community. Not all of the laws of the 1780s and 1790s had a great effect on the Jews. At least three, however, were of lasting significance: the ordinance of 1784, which ended the juridical autonomy of the Jewish community; that provision in the Toleranzpatent of 1781 which mandated that all business and communal affairs be recorded in German; and, most important of all, the establishment of the Jewish Normalschulen, a network of secular schools supported by the Jewish community but supervised by the state, in which the language of instruction was German. Through the Normalschulen the Jewish children of Bohemia were weaned away from Yiddish (and sometimes Czech), educated in the spirit of the German enlightenment and channelled through the non-Jewish, also German, system of secondary and higher education.34 This new type of Jewish elementary school served as a universal medium of acculturation and Germanization and was a ubiquitous feature of Bohemian Jewish life down to the end of the nineteenth century. Since all elementary education before 1868 was connected to the Catholic Church, it is not surprising that the Jews of the Czech lands should have felt little inclination before this time to abandon their separate school system. But with the secularization of the schools, the raison d'etre of the Normalschule would appear to have vanished. Did Jews close their schools at this point in recognition of the completion of emancipation? The answer, interestingly, is no. The Jewish communities of Bohemia still maintained 114 private elementary schools in 1884-85. True, the total population at these schools was only 4,470, approximately one third of the entire Jewish school enrollment in Bohemia, and barely 17 percent of the 26,339 children who attended private elementary schools of all types in the province.35 Truly damnable in the eyes of Czech nationalists, however, were the following facts: ninety-six of the schools (84 percent) were located in Czech-speaking towns and villages, not including Prague; all but one of these institutions employed German as the language of instruction, and over 97 percent of the Jewish children who were enrolled in private schools attended German-language institutions.36 Clearly, during the early years of the national educational system, Jews in small towns and villages did not place much stock in Czech schools. Some did, to be sure—enough to create a critical mass of Jewish student supporters of Czech national culture. But the large majority, for reasons of traditionalism, religious conser-

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vatism, loyalty to the Austrian state or expediency, chose to keep in place—at least for the time being—the old system of privately run Jewish schools. This traditionalism held true for the Czech countryside, but it apparently did not extend to the areas of new Jewish settlement, in particular the industrial centers of northern and western Bohemia. Most of these places had no official Jewish community before the 1850s or 1860s and thus did riot possess long-standing, private Jewish schools. In those cities and towns with a large German-speaking population, Jewish children tended to go to the state-run German-language schools. In some cases, formerly Jewish institutions were taken over as state-run schools.37 Surprisingly little is known about the precise state of affairs in Prague. Primary accounts do not detail the fate of the Jewish Hauptschule (and its subsidiary schools) following the secularization of public education at the end of the 1860s. My sense is that it was converted to the category of "private school recognized under public law," and gradually acquired a mixed Jewish and Gentile population. Apparently, the Schutverein also helped to maintain some of its branches. However, only a close examination of the manuscript records of the Prague Jewish community will yield a definite answer. We do know that on the eve of the educational reform, the Jewish community of the city maintained fifteen private elementary schools, ten for boys and five for girls.38 Another source holds that the Prague Jews supported five such schools in 1885, but it is silent on the existence of German-Jewish schools in Prague a decade later.39 What is certain is that the large majority of Jewish children in Prague avoided private education altogether in favor of the municipal school system. And most of these children, in turn, chose the German track. In 1890, 97 percent of the Jewish children attending public schools went to German-language institutions. In 1900 the figure stood at 90.5 percent; and in 1910 it was still 89 percent. Over the course of this period the Czech cause made very small, but steady, progress both in terms of absolute numbers and as a fraction of the Jewish aggregate.40 The Josephine reforms of the late eighteenth century had provided for a system of secular Jewish schools at the primary level only. While the Jewish communities were not expressly prohibited from establishing private, middle and upper schools, nevertheless, none did so. Jewish parents who wished to send their children to classical gymnasia in preparation for the university simply chose from among existing private or state institutions. Most of the former, particularly in places like Prague, were administered by religious orders, but this fact does not appear to have deterred Jewish attendance. Jewish students in Bohemia, as in most parts of Europe, attended secondary schools with far greater frequency than their non-Jewish counterparts. Thus, in 1880 the 1,716 Jews who attended gymnasia and realgymnasia in Bohemia represented 11.5 percent of the student population, and the 586 who attended Realschulen, 10.6 percent.41 Because Jewish middle and upper schools per se did not exist in Bohemia, "Jewish separatism" could not have been an issue for Czech nationalists. But this did not mean that the secondary and higher education patterns of Jews had no political importance. Their conspicuously high presence in schools at this level meant that the "national" choices that Jews made carried extra weight. This was particularly true once the Austrian government began to award the benefits of

56

Hillel J. Kieval

cultural autonomy on the basis of precise nationality ratios. For their part, Jewish middle-school students appeared to "vote with their feet" in favor of the German minority. In 1882-83 (the first year for which accurate statistics are available), some 83 percent of all Jewish middle-school students attended German-language institutions. By the middle of the decade the figure settled down to about 80 percent, with the remaining 20 percent going to Czech schools. More significantly, the 1,931 Jewish students who attended German-language middle schools represented 23 percent of the student body in these establishments, while the 403 Jews attending Czech schools comprised a mere 3.2 percent.42 Not surprisingly, Jews also tended to pursue higher education with greater frequency than the population at large. Thus, as was the case with the middle schools, Jews constituted a conspicuous presence in the universities and technical colleges of Bohemia, particularly the German institutions. Already by 1863, Jews comprised 10 percent of the University of Prague. During the winter semester 1880-81, 11.7 percent of the student body at Prague's still-unified university and 17.9 percent of the German Technische Hochschule was Jewish. Many other Bohemian Jews completed their schooling in Vienna. 43 In the winter semester 1885-86—after the University of Prague was divided into separate German and Czech establishments— the 404 Jews in attendance at the German branch comprised 26 percent of the total student body. The 50 Jews who registered with the Czech University represented but 2.5 percent of that body. They did comprise 11 percent of the Jewish university students in Prague, but their presence in an institution which had over 2,000 students went virtually unnoticed alongside the Jewish position in the much smaller German school.44

THE PROPAGANDA OFFENSIVEGAINST CZECH JEWRY The cultural behavior of Bohemian Jewry—their identification both with the German language and with the privileged German minority—provided much grist for the propaganda mill during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. For one thing, the Jews offered an easy explanation for some of the shortcomings of the Czech national movement. They represented an irritating anachronism, a stubborn remnant of the imperial past that refused to take cognizance of the new national basis of social, political and cultural life. If private elementary schools continued to flourish in the Czech countryside, denying the largely anti-clerical Young Czech movement its vision of a completely secular, national school system, the fault lay with the Jews, who continued to maintain communal institutions that dated back to the times of enlightened absolutism. If the German nationalists were able to threaten the integrity of the Czech regions of Bohemia through the agency of German minority schools, they owed their good fortune to Czech Jews who were both ambiguous in their national orientation and obsequious in their devotion to the Habsburg monarchy. And, finally, if Czech nationalism failed to transfer to the cities of Bohemi the cultural dominance that it had achieved so decisively in the countryside, the blame once again could be placed at the doorstep of the Jews, who, unlike their non-

Education and National Conflict in Bohemia

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Jewish counterparts, appeared as eager to trade national-cultural allegiances as they were to change domicile. Karel Adamek, for one, held such views. He charged in Z nasi doby, his important work on contemporary Czech politics, culture and economic life, that the Jews in combination with the Austrian bureaucracy were "certainly . . . the strongest German factor in Slavic circles." Moreover, the Jewish elementary schools, "like the schools of the [German] Schulverein, [were] a dangerous lever in the Germanization of Czech cities and communities."4-"1 This was not a new attack. Public opinion in the Czech lands had equated Jews with the German minority for many decades now. On the eve of the Revolution of 1848, for example, the patriotic Czech journalist Karel Havlicek-Borovsky rejected an overture for Czech-Jewish cultural collaboration put forward by the Jewish poet Siegfried Kapper on the grounds that the Jews comprised a separate ethnic entity; if anything, they could ally themselves more naturally to the German nation than to the Czech.46 At the end of the nineteenth century, however, such accusations against the Jews emerged from an entirely different perception of their role in the country's national relations. Simply put, the seemingly age-old German-Jewish alliance was no longer accepted as part of the natural state of affairs. The Jewish communities in the Czech countryside ought to have resembled more closely the cultural environment in which they were located. Jews ought to have behaved like Czechs. They ought to have demonstrated loyalty to the language and culture with which, in their day-to-day activities, they appeared to be completely at home. Above all, now that a national, secular system of primary education was in place, they ought to have been sending their children to local public schools. Some within the Czech national movement accused the Jews not only of being blind and insensitive toward Czech national aspirations but of actually colluding with the rival German national movement. Karel Adamek, once again prominent in his criticism of Czech Jewry, claimed that the German Schulverein went so far as to base its "operational plan" for the Czech countryside on the maintenance of Jewish confessional schools. To support this contention, he quoted the remarks made by a certain Dr. Kraus at the General Assembly of the Schulverein in 1882: In Bohemia there is a whole array of private German schools, with and without public legal status, which are maintained in purely Slavic localities by the Jewish religious communities there. We must look upon these schools in the purely Czech countryside as rare linguistic islands which must be preserved since in such regions these schools are often the only seedbeds of German culture. 47

Adamek then listed the names of Czech communities where private German schools were subsidized by the Schulverein: Holesovice, Liben and Josefov within greater Prague; Pardubice, Pfibram, Slany, Benatek, Jicin, Novy Bydzov, Zbraslav, Caslav and elsewhere. Singling out several specific examples of GermanJewish treachery, Adamek cited the case of Hermanuv Mestec, where the formerly private Jewish school had been transformed into a public German establishment because Jews there"freelychose the German nationality" (emphasis in the original); and the private German school in the town of Nymburk, which had 230 students in 1884-85, although according to the 1880 census the town had 5,126

58

Hillel J. Kieval

Czech residents and only 226 Germans. Of the 230 students enrolled in the school, only 39 were "German" (presumably Christian). "What would the Schulverein schools look like," Adamek asked rhetorically, "if they were not attended by Jewish and Czech children?"48 Josef Koran, Czech journalist and deputy in the Bohemian Diet, appealed directly to the heart of the Czech-Jewish community when he used the pages of the Kalenddf cesko-zidovsky (Czech-Jewish Almanac) to pressure Jews to de-Germanize their communal institutions. The first thing that had to go, naturally, were the GermanJewish elementary schools. Not only did they prevent Jewish children from developing the proper Czech national sentiment, but they also stole non-Jewish children from the national camp. For, alongside the 4,073 Jewish children in the Czech towns and villages, who in 1885 continued to be educated in German schools attached to the Jewish religious community, were 192 Catholics and 17 Protestants.49 Koran challenged Bohemian Jewry to admit to the untruthfulness of many of the rationalizations that it used to justify its cultural behavior. Koran wrote: The supporters of these schools would certainly object to us that they are only intended for children to be educated in German from a young age, that they, however, are not educated in anti-Czech thought. But the mere existence of the schools is conclusive proof that Jews who establish and support them do not think as Czechs, have no love for our language, have no confidence in the victory of our cause, and even the knowledge of Czech [carries] less weight than the knowledge of German. These schools are a living protest against our national and political endeavors; indeed they are actually—even if their supporters did not have this in mind—demonstrations against our Czech culture. 50

Additionally, some had argued that the Jewish communities were merely supporting confessional schools and not German schools per se. If that were so, Koran asked, why were many of these schools inter-confessional, particularly in Prague, where there were five German-Jewish schools? If these schools existed primarily for religious instruction, one would have expected to find them in German as well as Czech areas of the country. But such was not the case. There were only ten Jewish schools in all of the German-speaking towns of Bohemia, proof enough that they existed primarily to perpetuate German culture among the Jews. THE CZECH-JEWISH RESPONSE The leaders of the young Czech-Jewish Movement—represented in the public sphere by the Spolek ceskych akademiku-zidu (S.C.A.Z. [Association of Czech Academic Jews, founded in 1876])—were already sufficiently uncomfortable with the linguistic favoritism of the formal Jewish community to want to do something about it. They did not need the prodding of Czech nationalist politicians, whether friends like Koran or opponents such as Adamek. Jewish-Czech nationalists, such as J. S. Kraus, had been agitating for the closure of the German-Jewish schools in the pages of the Kalenddfsince the early 1880s.51Krauswentsofaastooffera new reading of Bohemian Jewish history to account for the schools. Not only were

Education and National Conflict in Bohemia

59

they to blame for the abnormal asshnilatory pattern of the Jews since the Enlightenment (the absorption of "state culture" over and against local, national culture), but they had been forced upon an unwilling population. Hence, traditional Jewish society had been the victim of a despotic policy of Germanization no less than traditional Czech society. Nevertheless, the movement was prodded, and none too subtley. And it is impossible to determine precisely which motives most influenced Jewish behavior in this hazy and tumultuous period in Czech-Jewish relations. The Czech-Jewish activists were committed nationalists; they naturally stood in opposition to the cultural policies of the Jewish establishment; and they also were recipients of a barrage of criticism from Czech national quarters. Driven by this complex of factors, the Czech-Jewish movement during the last decade of the nineteenth century turned increasingly away from purely cultural tasks to the establishment of a political machinery to effect change within the Jewish community. Beginning in 1893 with the founding of the Czech-Jewish National Union (Ndrodni jednota ceskozidovskd), and followed in 1894 with the creation of both the first Czech-Jewish newspaper and an overtly political Czech-Jewish organization, the by-now veteran activists of the Spolek ceskych akademiku-zidu took aim at the Jewish communities of Prague and Bohemia. Their purpose was no longer simply to educate, to cultivate national feeling, but rather to mobilize CzechJewish opinion, to challenge directly the structure of Jewish life which had resulted from the Austrian-Jewish emancipation. The establishment of the Ndrodni jednota ceskozidovskd signaled a subtle shift within the still relatively new Czech-Jewish movement. Whereas the student leaders of the S.C.A.Z. had displayed no single political orientation, their faculty advisors and outside supporters generally had been devotees of the National, or Old-Czech, party. Members of the urban upper-middle class, and inspired by Frantisek Palacky and F. L. Rieger, they had tended to affirm the conservative nationalism which the Old Czechs typified. Those who became active in Czech politics themselves such as Bohumil Bondy, Alois Zucker and Josef Zalud ran for office as Old-Czech candidates.52 Many of the recently graduated lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and journalists, however, supported the rivals of the Old Czechs, the National Liberal party, or Young Czechs.53 Jakub Scharf, Maxim Reiner, Ignat Arnstein and others—all veterans of the Czech-Jewish student movement—tended to be supporters of the Young Czechs. They took it upon themselves to broaden the base of Czech-Jewish activities, to create a state-wide, coordinated network of Jewish patriotic societies. In establishing the Czech-Jewish National Union, they took as models the various voluntary societies that had been created by the Young Czechs during the previous decade to mobilize opinion and bolster nationalist policies in Prague and in the countryside. One of these, the Central School Foundation (U slfednl malice skolskd), we have already encountered as the great rival of the German Schulverein. But also important were the several ndrodni jednoty (national unions) that had been established to improve the material and cultural situation of Czech families living in mixed or predominantly German areas.14 Like the S.C.A.Z. before it, the National Union sought to "spread the news" of

60

Hillel J. Kieval

the Czech national movement to every corner of the country. To do so, it relied not only on public lectures and social gatherings but also on the creation of an institutional network consisting, before the year was out, of a central organization flanked by 34 district chapters.55 Like the Central School Foundation and its subsidiary organizations, the Czech-Jewish National Union considered one of its principal functions to be the furthering of Czech national education. Yet its manner of operation was quite different from that of its Czech counterpart. The Central School Foundation had emerged to meet the challenge of the German Schulverein essentially by mimicking it, by performing parallel functions to its own, but in German areas. The Jewish Ndrodni jednota, on the other hand, represented a power that could actually negate the effects of the Schulvereinin the Czech lands. Instead of simply providing increased opportunities for Czech children, the National Union attempted to make Czech education universal in areas where a Jewish minority had in the past dissented from the norm. Together with its fortnightly newspaper Ceskozidovske listy (Czech-Jewish Press), the Ndrodni jednota ceskozidovskd called for the closing of all Germanlanguage Jewish schools in Prague and the Czech countryside. "We want to work so that every Czech Jew will become completely Czech," wrote the editors of Ceskozidovske listy in its opening issue, "will feel, think, speak, and act as every other loyal Czech."56 The modern Czech Jew, the paper argued, felt himself to be part of the nation in whose midst he lived, whose culture he shared. He had no reason not to send his children to local Czech schools; and to persist in the old practice of maintaining separate Jewish schools was to commit an affront not only against the Czech people but against the "modern Jewish spirit" as well.57 As to the argument that it was important for Jews living in the Austrian monarchy to know German in order to insure success in business and professional careers, Ceskozidovske listy referred to a speech by the Prague physician and Young Czech politician Emanuel Engel: This could be accomplished through the establishment of special language schools which would be private enterprises, "not connected with either you or your faith." As for himself, Engel admitted, he was not so radical as to believe that one did not need to teach German to one's children. But he challenged the Jews of Bohemia to work toward a time when it would become less and less important for them to do so.58 THE DEMISE OF THE GERMAN-JEWISH SCHOOL Between 1894 and 1907 Ceskozidovske listy reported with great interest on the concerted efforts of the Jewish Ndrodni jednota to purge the German-Jewish elementary schools in the countryside. One by one it rattled off the names of smalltown and village communities, like a gunfighter from the Old West carefully taking aim and picking off rows of standing targets: Benesov, Tabor, Hradec Kralove, Kutna Hora, Mlada Boleslav, Plzen, Slany, and so on. Josef Koran, the Young Czech deputy who had admonished Czech Jews in the pages of the Kalendaf ceskozidovsky in 1886, made a second appearance in 1896 to report on the progress made over the past decade. Apparently, nine new German language schools had been

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established in the Czech countryside between 1885 and 1894; but twenty-five had been closed.59 In all of Bohemia, German areas included, the number of German-Jewish schools declined from 113 to 90. The number of Jewish children enrolled in such schools fell by 39 percent—from 4,239 to 2,587—while the number of Catholic students in German schools declined during this period by only 9.4 percent and the number of Protestants by 23.5 percent.60 Not only did a greater percentage of Jews switch from German to Czech schools but virtually all of the establishments which succumbed during the 1890s were schools whose student body was exclusively Jewish. Those that had a mixed Christian-Jewish student body enjoyed greater stability and resistance to closure.61 The Jews of Bohemia appeared, then, to have responded more forthrightly than either German Catholics or German Protestants to the urgings of the Czech national movement. The truth of the matter was that Jews felt less secure than non-Jews in patterns of cultural behavior which, because, of their relative newness as well as the turbulence of the post-emancipatory period, could be looked upon as still experimental. Typically, notices in Ceskozidovske listy of school closings were brief and matter-of-fact, though colored with the editor's obvious satisfaction. Thus one reads in the 1 February 1898 edition of the paper of recent events in Zbraslav on the southern outskirts of Prague: German-Jewish school closed. From Zbraslav HlasNdroda[daily paper of the Old Czech party] announces that the local German school, which has been maintained by the Jewish religious community, will be closed at the end of the school year. Jewish students attending this school will go next year to the Zbraslav public: elementary schools.62

The newspaper was careful to add the last sentence to this brief notice. It was not enough to point out that the Jewish community had given up its practice of maintaining a separate primary school. One had to add that the families in this community would be taking the subsequent proper step of enrolling their youngsters in public Czech schools. They would not be seeking other, German, alternatives. Occasionally, the editors of Ceskozidovske listy came across Jewish responses to Czech nationalism which they could not wholly endorse, as they appeared to have been made half-heartedly or without sufficient understanding of the nature of the undertaking. One such case occurred in Humpolec early in 1898. The Jewish leaders of this small town decided not to close the local Jewish school but rather to change its medium of instruction from German to Czech. Ceskozidovske listy greeted the news with reservation, acknowledging the progress that this change signified, but complaining, nevertheless, that the period of time required to achieve a complete linguistic transition would be too long. The editors sought gently to cajole the Jewish community. If it insisted on maintaining a "confessional school," at least it could begin instruction in Czech before the end of the calendar year.63 Where gentle persuasion would not work, the National Union resorted to all-out attack. Such was its tactic with the city of Kolin in cast-central Bohemia, which had one of the larger provincial Jewish populations at the time. In March 1898 Ceskozidovske lisly devoted a series of columns to what it called "the situation in

62

Hillel J. Kieval

Kolfn." It contended that the German-Jewish school there maintained its existence against the wishes of the majority of the city's Jews, against the statute of the community, and thus "as a provocation to the entire Czech nation without regard to faith." 64 To support its charges, the paper published an open letter signed by sixty voting members of the community: It was pointed out in the Jewish communal council that on the question of schools, [in the light of] present-day—in many respects, changing—conditions, neither the council nor the board of deputies any longer represents the thinking of the majority of Jewish citizens, and that therefore this citizenry must be given the opportunity to express its desires and aspirations in this regard. . . . We therefore demand that the larger directorate of the religious community be convened so that it might speedily decide upon the closing of the existing German school.65

The German-Jewish school of Kolin had educated 147 children in 1894-95. Within six months of the start of the campaign in Ceskozidovske listy, it had closed. In 1906 the Czech-Jewish National Union announced with satisfaction that, as far as it knew, fifty-two German-Jewish schools in Czech linguistic districts had been closed since the organization first began its campaign in 1893. At least two public German schools, which were frequently primarily by Jewish students, likewise were closed. And, in at least two other localities, the German-Jewish private schools had been replaced by Czech-Jewish institutions.66 In point of fact the extent of German-Jewish school closings since the early 1880s far exceeded the claims of the political leaders of the Czech-Jewish movement. Whether or not these institutions disappeared solely as a result of Czech-Jewish political pressure, however, is open to question. We know that the movement specifically targeted a number of towns for school closings and was, in most cases, successful. However, the data also show that Jewish schools in rural Bohemia began to close of their own accord during the 1880s and early 1890s, most likely because of declining enrollments. Table 1 and graphs 1 and 2 reveal the steady progression in German-Jewish primary school closings between 1884-85 and 1910. At the start of this period some 4,500 children attended Jewish-sponsored, German-language schools throughout Bohemia, over 88 percent of which were located in Czech-speaking districts, including Prague. By the end, the number of children attending the German-Jewish schools had shrunk to 154. Of the 114 private schools which had existed in 1885, only 5 remained. The pace of school closings during the first decade of political agitation (1885— 95) was brisk. The number of German-Jewish schools dropped by about 21 percent; the number of students attending them by 42 percent. This, it will be recalled, was a period in which a small number of new schools were actually opened while others were being closed. Moreover, in many of those places where the schools did not actually close, they, nevertheless, lost a high percentage of their enrollment. The Jewish school in Benesov, for example, had had 60 students in 1885; a decade later the figure stood at less than half (26). Mlada Boleslav dropped from 105 to 67; Jicfn, from 67 to 31; Brandys from 52 to 30;6Even the important German-Jewis school in Kolfn, the special target of Czech-Jewish criticism in 1898, had been losing population well before it became a political cause celebre.™

Education and National Conflict in Bohemia Table 1.

63

Private German-Jewish Schools in Bohemia

Source

German Districts

C/,cch Districts

Prague

Total

1884-85

a

13

%

5

114

4,470

1885-86 late 1880s

b c

(12) 10

% 92

5 2

113 104

4,436 (of whom 4,282 Jews) Czech districts only: 3,385*

1890

d

7

79

(0)

86

3,843

1894-95

b

10

80

(0)

90

2,587 [sic]

1896-97

e

3

72

(0)

75

Czech districts only: 2,351"

1900

d

1

27

(0)

28

1,687

1910

f

n.g.

n.g.

5

154

Year

n.g.

Number of Students

'Of these. 1,050 proclaimed C/ech as language of daily use; 2,309 German. "Of these, 1,128 (48%) proclaimed Czech as language of daily use: 1,223 (52%) German. Sources: (a) K. Adamek, Z naSldoby (OfOiirTimcs), vol. 2 ( 1 8 8 7 ) , p . 14. (b)J. Koran, "Zidovske skoly v Ccchach" (Jewish Schools iriBohemia), Kalcnddf cesko-zido\'sky, no. 16 (1896-97), pp. 152-157. (e} Adamek, Znasi dobv, vo!. 4 (1890), p. 80. (d) Die Juden in Oesterreich (Berlin: 1908), pp. 83. 84, 87. (e) NaSe doba (Our Times), no. 4 (April 1897), 670. (f) Stalislicku printcka kralovslvi ceskeho (Stali.\tic(il Handbook of the Kingdom of Bohemia) (19i3), p. 131.

Graph 1.

Number of German-Jewish Primary Schools in Bohemia

64

HillelJ. Kieval

Graph 2.

Number of Students at German-Jewish Primary Schools in Bohemia

The Jewish population of Bohemia had, indeed, been shifting away from the small towns and villages and toward the larger urban areas since the 1860s and 1870s, and the aggregate Jewish population did begin to fall after 1890. In neither case, however, was the pace of decline as rapid or as dramatic as that suggested by the statistics on primary-school attendance. One cannot escape the conclusion that Jewish parents in the Czech countryside began to remove their children from the German-Jewish school system of their own accord, long before the demise of that system would offer them no choice. And they took this action in more and more places and with growing frequency by the time the century was out. The half-decade 1895 to 1900 witnessed a general intensification of political conflict as well as the outbreak of popular violence directed specifically against Jews in the Czech countryside, the German towns in the Sudetenland and in Prague. It was indeed one of the most explosive periods in modern Czech history. And during this time a virtual tidal wave of school closings engulfed the Czech-Jewish countryside. Depending on which statistics one follows, the number of GermanJewish schools in this short period fell by as much as 69 percent and the number of students by 35 percent. Only twenty-eight schools remained open in 1900. A decade later the German-Jewish school and, to all extents, the traditional German-Jewish alliance in the Czech countryside were dead.69 In the meantime Jewish children were swelling the ranks of public elementary schools in Bohemia. A total of 2,770 Jewish children attended public schools in Czech districts in 1880; in 1890 the number was 4,791; by 1900 it had reached

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6,131. In German districts for the same years the number of Jewish students in public schools declined (probably because their population in these areas was dropping): In 1880 the figure stood at 5,908; by 1900 it had slipped to 5,I37. 70 CHANGING PATTERNS IN SECONDARY AND HIGHER EDUCATION Despite its obvious victory in the redirection of elementary education, the CzechJewish Movement failed to have as strong an impact on other areas of educational life. Changes in the patterns of Jewish attendance at the secondary school and university level did occur, but they tended to take place gradually. At the highest levels, educational patterns showed remarkable stability through the first decade of the twentieth century. Gustav Otruba recently has compiled and published data comparing Bohemian middle-school attendance for 1882-83 and 1912-13. Over this period, the yearly total of Jews attending Czech-language gymnasia and realgymnasia rose from 355 to 539; the Jewish share as a percentage of the entire student body climbed modestly from 3.3 to 4.5 percent.71 Over the same period of time Jewish attendance at German-language gymnasia and realgymnasia declined slightly, from 1,481 in 1882 to 1,225 in 1912. As a percentage of the whole, however, the decline was more profound. The 1882 figure represented 24 percent of the German student body; the 1912 figure only 15.8 percent.72 Thus, a twofold process appears to have been operating. On the Czech side, Jewish attendance increased gradually both in terms of absolute numbers and percentages. On the German side, the weight of Jewish presence was felt less and less, on the one hand, because the real numbers of Jewish students were falling, and, on the other, because their relative numbers were declining even faster.73 In the last analysis, the ratio of German-Jewish to Czech-Jewish gymnasium students provides the sharpest indication of the extent of cultural change within the Jewish community itself. And this measurement indicates clearly that progressively fewer and fewer Jews who received a classical secondary education were choosing to attend German schools. In 1882 close to 81 percent of Jewish gymnasium students took part in the German-language system. By 1912-13, however, this figure had been pared down to 69.4 percent. Still the majority, but shrinking. 74 The patterns of higher education among the Jews of Bohemia—attendance at universities and technical institutes—proved to be the most resistant of all to change. Between 1863 and 1881 Jews were able to increase their percentage at the University of Prague by only a small amount, from 10.3 to 11.7 percent, again because the increase in Jewish numbers was more or less offset by a parallel rise in the general student population.75 Once the university split into separate German and Czech branches, Jewish attendance figures resembled those of the middle schools but were even more pronounced. Thus, in 1889-90 the 478 Jews who went to the German university comprised more than 30 percent of the student body; while the 42 Jewish students at the Czech university represented a mere 1.7 percent of that institution. 76 Here, too, the actual number of Jews that attended the German university declined somewhat over the next two decades, while the absolute number of Czech-Jewish students rose. Percentages, however, remained about the same, as the

66

Hillel J. Kieval

total population at the German institution dwindled while the reverse process occurred on the other side of the ledger. Thus we find that during the winter semester, 1899-1900, 413 Jews were enrolled at the German branch, 74 in the Czech university, but the respective percentages were 31 and 2.4. In 1910 Jews continued to constitute about 20 percent of the German university and only 2 percent of its Czech counterpart.77 Since we know that the Jews of Bohemia possessed a declining population after 1900 and that even before this time the Jewish rate of growth did not keep pace with that of the population at large, the only true test of the effectiveness of CzechJewish acculturation with regard to higher education is one which measures attendance figures as a percentage of total Jewish enrollment. Yet even from this perspective, the results could not have been promising for patriotic Czech Jews. Between 1885 and 1901 as many as 92 percent—and never less than 82 percent—of Jewish university students in Prague enrolled at the German university. Perhaps some consolation could be taken from the fact that this figure was declining in steady, albeit minute, fashion over the course of the 1890s.78 Both the German and the Czech technical institutes (Technische Hochschulen/Polytechniky) succeeded in attracting ever-larger numbers of Jewish students between 1880 and 1900. But here, again, the Czech establishment could barely compete with the German school in popularity among Jews. Between 1881 and 1886, an average of 73 Jews attended Prague's Technische Hochschule each year; this was 25.4 percent of the student body. The number of Jewish students dropped somewhat for the remainder of the decade, but rose to 122 for the years 1896-1901 (26.2 percent of the student body), and jumped to 216 between 1901 and 1904 (30.5 percent). The Czech side showed a similar curve, with attendance dropping for some reason during the second half of the 1880s, but then rising dramatically in the 1890s. Between 1896 and 1901 an average of 27 Jewish students attended the Prague Polytechnika, comprising 2.6 percent of the student body as a whole. Over the next four years the average grew to 34, but the Jewish share in total attendance dropped slightly to 2.3 percent.79 As we have found in every other case, minor though perceptible change over time can be seen to have occurred when the attendance records are considered from the point of view of total Jewish enrollment. The ratio of German to Czech enrollment hovered between 9.5 to 1 and 12 to 1 for the first part of the 1880s. In 1897-98 the ratio stood at less than 4.5 to 1 and remained fairly steady in subsequent years.80 CONCLUSION The Czech-Jewish movement enjoyed a mixed record on the question of the shortterm transformation of Jewish educational patterns in Prague and Bohemia. Its only shining success came with the virtual elimination of the German-Jewish primary schools in the small towns and villages. This achievement resulted not only from secular demographic and social trends in the countryside but also from the sustained pressure applied by both Jewish and non-Jewish Czech activists on individual Jewish communities. The Czech-Jewish movement offered no such political program with regard to secondary education, relying instead on indirect persuasion and

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the natural inclinations of Czech-Jewish youth to do the job. Nevertheless, inroads were made in the patterns of Jewish gymnasium attendance; the percentage of German-Jewish students to Jewish students generally did drop, but by modest amounts and without causing any major disruptions. Attendance patterns for higher education proved to be the hardest shell to crack. When it came to university and technical college education, Bohemian Jewry chose by very wide margins perceived quality, utility, and prestige over other considerations. The German institutions of Prague enjoyed international renown. The education and training which they provided—because of the German language—could be applied in many other parts of Europe. And the German university was, for all intents and purposes, the heir to the ancient institution of Charles IV. Deliberately to have chosen the lesser-known, relatively untested, provincially oriented Czech university would have required of most Prague Jews that they turn their backs on the very premises upon which a Jewish university education rested: the pursuit of scholarly achievement, the criterion of utility, and the promise of social integration and economic mobility. In the long-term the thousands of Jewish children who abandoned the traditional German-Jewish school in favor of a Czech education helped the Jewish community complete a process of cultural transformation. These sons and daughters of CzechJewish townspeople and villagers formed the backbone of post-industrial, urban Czech Jewry. Their '"secondary acculturation"—accomplished largely at the hands of the Czech National Movement—had weaned them away from the social and cultural patterns of the emancipation period. The twentieth-century community displayed a more attenuated national profile, one in which both Jewish nationalism and Czech patriotism found room, one in which Czech language and culture found their place of honor. Czech Jewry proved that its transformation had been real when it merged with ease and success into the new Czechoslovak Republic after 1918.

Notes 1. For recent sociological-cultural discussions of modern nationalism, see Anthony D. Smith, Theories of Nationalism (New York: 197!); idem, The Ethnic Revival (Cambridge: 1981); and Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: 1984). 2. See the discussion in Smith, The Ethnic Revival, pp. 87-133. 3. See Freidrich Prinz, "Das kulturcllc Leben" in K. Bosl (ed.), Handbuch der Geschichte der bohmischen Lander, vol. 4 (Stuttgart: 1970), pp. 153-188. 4. Karel Adamek, Z nasi doby (Of Our Times), vol. 2 (Velke Mezinci: 1887), p. 60. 5. Franz Perko, "Die Tatigkeit des deutschen Schulvereines in Bohmen," Deutsche Arbeit, no. 3 (1903-4), p. 391. 6. Ibid.v 1. Jan Safranek, Skoly ceske: Obraz jejich vyvoje a osudu (Czech Schools: Portrait of Their Development and Fortunes), vol. 2 (Prague: 1918), pp. 226-232; Jaroslav Kopac, Dejiny ceske skoly a pedagogiky v letech 1867-1914 (History of the Czech School and Pedagogy, 1867-1914) (Brno: J968), pp. 16-19; see also Bruce M. Garver, The Young Czech Party 1874-1901 and the Emergence of a Multi-Party System (New Haven: 1978), pp. 10, 41-42' 8. See, inter alia, Perko, "Tatigkeit"; Adamek, 7, nasi doby, vol. 2; Prinz, "Das kulturelle Leben," p. 160; and Jin Kofalka and R. j. Crampton, "Die Tschechen," in

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Wandruszka and Urbanitsch (eds.) Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918, vol. III/l (Vienna: 1980), pp. 489-521. 9. Heinrich Rauchbcrg, DerNationale Besitzstand in Bohmen, vol. 1 (Leipzig: 1905), pp. 8-11; Frantisek Friedmann, "Zide v Cechach" ("Jews in Bohemia"), in Hugo Gold (ed.), Zide a zidovske obce v Cechach v mirmlosti a v pfitomnosti (The Jews and Jewish Communities of Bohemia in the Past and in the Present) (Brno: 1934), p. 733. 10. See the discussion in Rauchberg, Der Nationale Bestizstand, vol. l , p p . 10-14; see also Emil Brix, Die Umgangssprachen in Altosterreich zwischen Agitation und Assimilation (Vienna: 1982), passim. 11. Dr. Inama-Sternegg, in 1900; quoted in Rauchberg, Der Nationale Besitzstand, vol. 1, pp. 13-14. 12. F. Friedmann, "Zide v Cechach," p. 733; see also Ezra Mendelsohn, "Jewish Assimilation in L'viv: The Case of Wilhelm Feldman," in Markovits and Sysyn (eds.), Nationbuilding and the Politics of Nationalism: Essays on Austrian Galicia (Cambridge, Mass.: 1982), p. 94. 13. Ludmila Karnfkova, Vyvoj obyvatelstva v ceskych zemich 1754-1914 (Evolution of the Population in the Czech Lands) (Prague: 1965), pp. 348-351; cited in Garver, The Young Czech Party, p. 326. 14. Gary B. Cohen, The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861-1914 (Princeton: 1981), pp. 92-93. By Prague is meant the eight districts of the city proper plus the four "inner suburbs" of Karlm, Smichov, Vinohrady and Zizkov. 15. Gary B. Cohen, "Ethnicity and Urban Population Growth: The Decline of the Prague Germans, 1880-1920," in Keith Hutchins (ed.), Studies in East European Social History, vol. 2 (Leiden: 1981), p. 11. 16. The figures come from Adamek, Z nasi doby, vol. 2, pp. 10-11, which, in turn, were based on official census reports. 17. Figures derived from Osterreichische Statistik, vol. 63, pt. 3 (Vienna: 1903); cited in Kofalka and Crampton, "Die Tschechen," p. 511. 18. Adamek, Z nasi doby, vol. 2, p. 77. 19. Statistisches handbuchlein des Kaisertums Osterreich fur das Jahr 1865 (Vienna: 1867), p. 52; Osterreichisches Statistisches Handbuch, no. 34 (1915), p. 316; cited in Kofalka and Crampton, "Die Tschechen," p. 510. 20. Adamek, Z nasi doby, vol. 2, pp. 12, 77. 21. Ibid., pp. 11-12. 22. Ibid., p. 12. 23. Ibid., p. 83. 24. Osterreichisches Statistisches Handbuch, no. 10 (1891), pp. 40-43. On the eve of the partition of the University of Prague (winter and summer semesters, 1880-81), Czechs comprised 66.2 percent and 67.3 percent of the total student body. (Osterreichisches Statistisches Handbuch, no. 1 (1882), pp. 46-49.) 25. Osterreichisches Statistisches Handbuch, no. 1 (1882), pp. 56-59. 26. Osterreichisches Statistiches Handbuch, no. 10 (1891), pp. 48-51. 27. Adamek, Z nasi doby, vol. 2, p. 81. 28. Austrian law stipulated that in order for the state to set up a minority-language school in any district, first, the parents of minority children had to request one; second, there had to be a minimum of forty children divided among five grades (Perko, "Tatigkeit," p. 391). 29. SeePrinz, "Das kulturelle Leben," p. 160; Perko, "Tatigkeit"; and Adamek, Z/w.sv doby, vol. 2, passim. 30. Perko, "Tatigkeit," pp. 388, pp. 408-409. 31. Garver, Young Czech Party, pp. 112-113. 32. Osterreichische Statistik, vol. 64, no. 3 (1902); Die Juden in Osterreich (Berlin: 1908), p. 109. See also Gustav Otruba, "Statistische Matcrialien zur Geschichtc der Juden in den bohmischen Landcrn scit dcm Ausgang des 18. Jahrhundcrts," in Die Juden in den bohmischen Landern (Munich and Vienna: 1983), pp. 323-351.

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33. Osterreichische Statistik, vol. 63 (1902), pp. 78-79; Jan Herman, "The Evolution of the Jewish Population in Prague, 1869-1939," in Schmclz, Glikson, and DellaPergola (eds.), Papers in Jewish Demography 1977 (Jerusalem: 1980), p. 54. 34. On the role of the Normalschule in the transformation of Bohemian Jewish life after 1780, see Hillel J. Kieval. "Caution's Progress: The Modernization of Jewish Life in Prague, 1780-1830," in Jacob Katz (ed.), Toward Modernity: The European Jewish Model (New Brunswick: 1986). 35. Adamek, Z nasi doby, vol. 2, p. 14. The figure of 4,470 may have included nonJewish students who for one reason or another attended German-Jewish schools. Adamek lists them as Jews, but Koran, writing in the Kalenddf cesko-zidovsky (1886-87), claims that 192 Catholics and 17 Protestants were enrolled in Jewish communal schools in the Czech countryside in 1885-86 (p. 101). The total number of Jewish students enrolled in Volks- and Biirgerschulen (obecne and mest'anske skoly), both public and private, in Bohemia in 1880 was 13,574—about 1.6 percent of the total primary school enrollment (see Osterreichisches Statistisches Handbuch, no. 1 [1882], pp. 82-83). Die Juden in Osterreich (Berlin: 1908) gives the percentage of Jewish boys at public elementary schools in all of Austria as 2 percent in 1880, 2.35 percent in 1890, and 2.6 percent in 1900. The percentage of girls was 3.18 percent in 1880, 3.81 percent in 1890, and 4.31 percent in 1900 (Die Juden in Osterreich, p. 87). 36. Adamek, Z nasi doby, vol. 2, p. 14. 37. See Ruth Kestenberg-Gladstein, "Jews Between Czechs and Germans," The Jews of Czechoslovakia, I (Philadelphia: 1968), pp. 49-50. 38. Safranek, Skoly ceske, vol. 2, p. 201. 39. Josef Koran, "Zidovske skoly v Cechach" ("Jewish Schools in Bohemia"), Kalenddf cesko-zidovsky (K.C.Z.), no. 6 (1886-87), and/f.C.Z., no. 16 (1896-97). 40. Cohen, "Ethnicity and Urban Population Growth," pp. 225-226; idem, The Politics of Ethnic Survival, pp. 224-225; and idem, "Jews in German Society: Prague, 18601914," Central European History, 10 (1977): p. 38. 41. Die Juden in Osterreich, p. 92. Osterreichisches Statistisches Handbuch, no. 1 (1882), gives slightly different figures. For the academic year 1880-81: number of Jewish students at gymnasia and realgymnasia in Bohemia—1,761 ( 1 1 . 1 percent of the total); at Realschulen I Redlky—554 (10.8 percent) (Osterreichisches Statislisches Handbuch, no. 1 [1882], 70-71). By comparison, only 8.2 percent of all gymnasium students in Galicia in 1869 were Jews (Philip Friedman, Die Galizischen Juden im Kampfe um ihre Gleichberechtigung [1848-1868\ [Frankfurt a./M.: 1929), cited in Mendelsohn, "Jewish Assimilation in L'viv," p. 99). 42. Die Juden in Osterreich, p. 94. The tables compiled by Gustav Otruba in Die Juden in den bqhmischen Landern (Munich and Vienna: 1983)—which are derived from Osterreichsche Statistik, vol. 9, no. 1—are largely in agreement. One exception concerns Jewish attendance at Czech Redlky, which is given as 48 by Juden in Osterreich but as 495 by Otruba! The latter is obviously in error, A perusal of figures for the two decades beginning in 1882 reveals that the number of Jewish students at Czech Redlky never exceeded 315. As late as 1890, the number was only 76. The city of Lwow (Lemberg) in eastern Galicia offers an instructive contrast to the situation in Prague and Bohemia. By the end of the nineteenth century, German culture had lost much of its hold on the Jews in the Galician cities and towns. Most assimilating Jews chose to affiliate with the more prominent—and politically the more attractive—Polish culture. Jews comprised 18.3 percent of all gymnasium students in Lw6w in 1896, and over 64 percent of the Jewish students attended Polish institutions; the remainder requested the German school. See Ezra Mendelsohn, "Jewish Assimilation in L'viv," p. 99. 43. G. Otruba, "Die Universitaten in der Hochschulorganisation der Donau-Monarchie," in M. Rassem (ed.), Student und Hochschule im 19. Jahrhundert (Gottingcn: 1975), pp. 75-155; Osterreichisches Statistisches Handbuch, no. 1 (1882), pp. 46-49, 56-59. I do not have at my disposal the precise number of Bohemian Jews who chose to attend the University of Vienna rather than Prague. Marsha Rozenblit's The Jews of Vienna, 1867 ~

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1914 (Albany: 1983) offers data on the place of birth of Jewish gymnasium students in Vienna but nothing concerning Jewish university students. 44. Juden in Osterreich, p. 102. To resume the comparison with Lwow, Mendelsohn points out that in 1901-2, 21.9 percent of all the students at the University of Lwow—which was a Polish institution—were Jews. Jews also comprised 14.3 percent of the Lwow Technical College (Mendelsohn, "Jewish Assimilation in L'viv," p. 99). 45. Adamek, Z nasi doby, vol. 2, p. 20. 46. On Havlicek's rejection of Kapper's pro-Czech writings, see Guido Kisch, In Search of Freedom: A History of American Jews from Czechoslovakia (London: 1949), pp. 26-44, 213-214. 47. Adamek, Z nasi doby, vol. 2, pp. 32-33. 48. Ibid., p. 33. In the fourth and final volume of the work, published in 1890, Adamek indicated that the Schulverein subsidized 14 percent of the private Jewish elementary schools in Bohemia, certainly a low figure, given the ardor of the Czech national grievance against the Jews (Adamek, Z nasi doby, vol. 4, p. 80). 49. Josef Koran, "Zidovske skoly v Cechach," K.C.Z., no. 6 (1886), pp. 97-102. 50. Ibid., p. 101. 51. J. S. Kraus, "Nemecko-zidovske skoly v Cechach" ("The German-Jewish Schools of Bohemia"), K.C.Z., no. 2 (1882-83), pp. 117-125. On the origins of the Czech-Jewish movement in Bohemia, see Hillel J. Kieval, The Making of Czech Jewry: National Conflict and Jewish Society in Bohemia, 1870-1918 (New York: 1987). 52. Bondy won a seat in the Bohemian Diet in 1883 as a representative of Prague's Stare Mesto. Zalud and Julius Reitler were sent to the Diet the same year from Josefov—the old Jewish quarter of Prague, long considered to be a stronghold of German power—and Zucker was elected to the Imperial Diet in Vienna in 1885. On Bondy, see Ottuv slovnik naucny (Otta's Encyclopedia),vol. 4 (1891), p. 337;andK.C.Z.,o. 4 (1884-85), pp. 57-59. For Zucker, K.C.Z., no. 6 (1886-87), pp. 58-63. And for Zalud, K.C.Z., no. 8 (1888-89), pp. 55-58. 53. The National Liberals broke away from Rieger's National party in 1874 over the issue of "passive resistance," that is, non-participation in the Diet and the Reichsrat, a policy that had been practiced by the National party since 1867. On the split between Old and Young Czechs, see Bruce M. Garver, The Young Czech Party, pp. 1-87. 54. The largest and most powerful of the "National Unions" were the Ndrodni jednota posumavskd (founded in 1884) and the Ndrodni jednota severoceska(1885). In addition to providing peripheral support to the Central School Foundation, the National Unions offered legal aid to Czechs in predominantly German districts who were involved in litigation with local or imperial authorities, and they conducted private censuses in such districts, encouraging Czech residents to take the opportunity to declare their Czech allegiance. See Garver, The Young Czech Party, pp. 112-115. 55. Dejiny ceskozidovskeho hnuti (History of the Czech-Jewish Movement) (Prague: 1932), p. 8. 56. "Nas ukol""Our Mission"),Ceskozidovske listy,September 1984.Ceskozidovskelisty(1894-1907) began as a fortnightly publication but eventually appeared every week. Issued from Prague, it reflected the official views of both the S.C.A.Z. and the Czech-Jewish National Union. It was also closely allied to the Young Czech party on national issues. 57. Ceskozidovske listy, 15 October 1894, pp. 1-2. 58. Ibid., 1 November 1894, p. 1. 59. J. Koran, "Zidovske skoly v Cechach roku 1894-95," K.C.Z., no. 16 (1896-97), pp. 152-157. 60. Koran, "Zidovske skoly v Cechach," pp. 155-156. Many of these Catholic and Protestant children actually attended Jewish-supported schools (180 Catholics and 17 Protestants in 1885; 163 and 13, respectively, in 1894). 61. Ibid., pp. 155-157. Koran continued to demonstrate dissatisfaction with the overall educational situation of the Jews. In 1890 there were more children between the ages of six and fourteen in Jewish schools than the total number of registered Germans in those localities

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(a measurement which ordinarily would indicate the need for a minority school). In Novy Bydzov, for example, only 28 people in the entire town registered as Germans, yet there were 53 children in the German school; in Hofice the figures were 14 (Germans) and 28 (children); in Melnik, 18 and 40; in Kotin, 98 and 131. There were even instances of German-Jewish schools in areas where not a single person had registered as a German. These statistics indicate a socio-cultural phenomenon unique to Bohemian Jewry. Normally bilingual and sensitive to the political climate, they readily indicated their national standing as Czech, yet demonstrated unwavering loyalty to the ideal of a German education. 62. Ceskoiidovske listy, 1 February 1898. 63. Ibid., 1 January 1898, p. 7. 64. Ibid., 15 March 1898, p. 3. 65. Ibid., pp. 3-4. 66. "Narodnf jednota ceskozidovska," K.C.Z., no. 26 (1906-7), pp. 181-182. 67. Compare the figures in the two articles by Koran: "Zidovskc skoly v Cechach," K. C.Z., no. 6 (1886-87); and "Zidovske skoly v Cechach roku 1894-95," K.C.Z. no. 16 (1896-97). Even the attendance figure of 4,240 for 1885 represented a drop of over 600 from that of 1880 (Die Juden in Osterreich, p. 82). 68. The population of the school dropped by about 23 jsercent (from 190 to 147) between 1885 and 1898. The 1885 figure is given in Koran, "Zidovske skoly v Cechach," K.C.Z., no. 6 (1886-87). 69. Statistickd pfirucka krdlovstvi ceskeho (Statistical Handbook of the Kingdom of Bohemia) (Prague: 1913), p. 131; and Die Juden in Osterreich, p. 87. 70. Die Juden in Osterreich, pp. 82-84. 71. Die Juden in den bohmischen Landern (Munich and Vienna: 1983). Appendix V: "Der Anteil der Juden am hoheren Schulwesen Bohmens, Mahrens, und Schlesiens," pp. 348-349. The figures in this table accord in nearly all instances with the data provided by Die Juden in Osterreich (Berlin: 1908) for the school years 1881-82 through 1903-4. 72. Die Juden in den bohmischen Landern, pp. 348-349. 73. The total number of Jewish students registered at Bohemian middle schools rose in absolute terms only slightly between 1882 and 1912, from 3,129 to 3,441. As a percentage of the student body, the second figure represented a decline from 12.1 percent to 8.4 percent. According to Die Juden in Osterreich, the Jewish population in Bohemian gymnasia and Realschulen may have reached its peak in absolute terms in 1903-4, when it reached 2,744. However, the relative weight of Jewish attendance was never greater than in 1888-89, when 2,528 Jewish students in gymnasia and Realschulenstood for 12 percent of the student body (Die Juden in Osterreich, pp. 94-95, 97). 74. Figures derived from Die Juden in den bohmischen Landern, pp. 348-349. In the technical high schools(Realkyoralschulen)Jewish attendance patterns took a different course. In 1882 the 495 Jews who went to Czech Realky represented a healthy 11.3 percent of the student body. Thereafter the number dropped off precipitously (250, or 2.3 percent, by 1912), but the reasons for this are not apparent. On the German side, meanwhile, the number of Jews attending Realschulen nearly doubled between 1882 and 1912 (from 448 to 804), while their relative weight as a percentage of the whole declined slightly from 18.6 to 15.8 percent. 75. Die Juden in den bohmischen Landern, p. 350; Osterreichisches Statistisches Handbuch, no. 1 (1882), pp. 46-47. In contrast, Jews comprised more than 25 percent of the student body at the University of Vienna in 1880-81, 11.7 percent of the University of'Lwow (Lemberg), 8.9 percent of Cracow, and 27.7 percent of Czernowitz. 76. Osterreichisches Statistisches Handbuch, no. 10 (1891), pp. 40-43. 77. Osterreichisches Statistisches Handbuch, no. 20 (1901), pp. 78-81; Die Juden in den bohmischen Landern, p. 350. During the same winter semester, 1899-1900, Jews comprised 24.7 percent of the student body al the University of Vienna, 19.8 percent of the University of Lwow (Lemberg), 15.8 percent of Cracow, and 44.4 percent of Czernowitz. 78. Figures derived from Die Juden in Osterreich, p. 102. 79. Die Juden in Osterreich, pp. 103-104. 80. Ratios derived from Die Juden in Osterreich, p. 103.

The Extra-Territorial National Minorities in the Soviet Union, 1917-39: Jews, Germans and Poles Binyamin Pinkus (BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY)

Let me begin with a brief consideration of terminology and methodology. The term extra-territorial national minorities has been chosen here because it reflects the geographic dispersion of these minorities, the non-existence or only partial existence of a national territorial unit in their case and the reasonable prospect that they will be subjected to a speedy process of absorption, voluntarily or under compulsion. Other terms that are widely used in research on nationalities in the Soviet Union—such as ethnic minority, ethnikus, national minority, foreign national minority or mobilized diaspora—are less appropriate and may even give rise to misunderstanding and ambivalence and confuse the issue, which is complicated and problematic enough in any case. First, the terms ethnic minority or ethnikus are intended to denote groups at a low level of national development or groups just on the threshold of becoming a definite nationality; thus these terms are obviously unsuitable for the three nationalities in question here. Second, the termnationalminorityis both categorical and too vague. It refers, in fact, to all the nationalities in the Soviet Union, except for the majority nationality—the Russians. Moreover, as we shall see, there is a substantial difference between national minorities that possess a high-ranking federal unit and those that do not, from the point of view of their 'uridical and political status and their possibilities for developing their culture. Third, the terms foreign national minorityormobilizeddiaspora1rnotonlyvaguebutpossessparticularlydangerous connotation in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, which suspect "double loyalty" in all ties with mother countries or diasporas abroad. Furthermore, nationalities with federal union republics (such as the Armenian or the Tatar republics) can be considered "foreign minorities" while their juridical and political status and general situation differ from those of extra-territorial national minorities. Research on national minorities of all kinds in the Soviet Union emphasizes "externals"—the attitude of the administration to one minority or another and the 72

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establishment of its juridical status. Sometimes, on the other hand, it deals exclusively with the internal iife of the minority, completely or partially divorced from the policy of the administration arid the complicated relations and interactions between the minority and the environment. The history of the national minorities is not, however, one dimensional but rather should be understood in terms of concentric circles related to, and fitting into, each other dynamically and affecting each other in complex fashion. All research on the nationalities question should aim at an organic fusion of both "external" and "internal" aspects. The first circle, the outermost one, embraces juridical and political aspects—the extent of autonomy granted and the scale of involvement in the public life of the state. The second circle signifies demographic and socio-economic processes. The third circle, the innermost one, represents the heart and soul of national existence—religion, education, culture and national consciousness. Contacts between the national minority and its mother country are also of great importance here for reinforcing national identity, but they can also constitute an obstacle at times of internal crisis in the Soviet Union. Three distinct periods can be discerned in the history of the extra-territorial national minorities in the Soviet Union during the years 1917-39: 1917-22, the search for solutions to the nationalities problem; 1933-39, the new nationalities policy of "koren-ization" ("rooting" of nationalities); the campaign against "nationalist deviations" and the decline of the autonomy of the extra-territorial national minorities. In the following discussion the characteristics of each period will be indicated. THE POLITICAL-JURIDICAL STATUS OF THE EXTRA-TERRITORIAL MINORITIES The political-juridical status of any national minority in an ideological state par excellence—such as the Soviet Union during the years 1917—39—was settled in accordance with the powerful ruling ideology, which continued to maintain its centrality throughout the period in everything regarding the structure of the regime and its functioning. We shall examine the legislation concerned directly or indirectly with the extra-territorial minorities and the degree of autonomy granted them. Finally, we shall analyze the degree of involvement of these minorities in the overall government framework. The nationalities question preoccupied Lenin and the other Bolshevik leaders from the very inception of their organization in 1903. There is a clear similarity between Lenin's approach to the nationalities question and his general approach to the state. For him neither the state nor the nation is eternally fixed—they are, rather, passing historical phenomena. Accordingly, he formulated short-term and long-term plans for solving the nationalities problem. His plan for the short term— that is, for the transition from capitalism to socialism—dealt with three points: the question of federalism, the right of self-determination and national-cultural and regional autonomy. Revolutionary and theorist, Lenin was, nevertheless, first and foremost a rnan of

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action, quick to learn from practical realities. On the morrow of the Revolution, when an immediate solution was needed to the nationalities problem and the proposal to establish a federation was shaped, Lenin turned from being the fiercest opponent of the idea into one of its most enthusiastic supporters. Accepted as a compromise between the centralizing function of a central government and the decentralizing trend of the various nationalities, Soviet federalism enabled the different republics to use their national languages and establish national cultural institutions. But not all the nationalities, and in particular the extra-territorial national minorities, were included in this solution. The right of self-determination was a guiding principle of the Russian socialist movement and Lenin supported it consistently. Just as with federalism, however, Lenin had to change his position after the October Revolution, when he found his belief that the nationalities would voluntarily agree to remain within the framework of the socialist state instead of setting up their own small independent states to be mistaken. Lenin's new policy, forged by unanticipated events, can be seen in the case of Finland and Poland. Both these countries did receive their independence, but only after everything was done to ensure that Soviet rule be established. "National-cultural autonomy" based on the individual, as distinct from the principle of self-determination, was an idea promoted in the Austrian Social Democratic party by its most eminent theoreticians, Otto Bauer and Karl Renner. According to this theory, members of the different nationalities, regardless of where they were living, would be organized in national councils charged with responsibility for independent administration in the spheres of education and culture, while the political and economic unity of the state would remain intact. The national minorities in Russia and their socialist parties willingly accepted this solution, but Lenin attacked it fiercely, calling it "a bourgeois trick" to delude the proletariat. Despite his opposition to national-cultural autonomy, Lenin was more and more inclined, from 1913 on, to favor autonomy for regions with special economic and cultural conditions or a special national composition. However, he did not go into details on the nature of this regional autonomy. After a lot of experimental probing and searching that went on until 1923, the practical solution adopted in Soviet Russia was an improvised mixture of two approaches: national-cultural autonomy on the extra-territorial principle and the Leninist-Stalinist theory of regional autonomy on the territorial principle. This "compromise" bore within itself all the complications and the inconsistencies which were the lot of Soviet policy on the nationalities question. The political-constitutional solution of the problem of the extra-territorial national minorities took form in a large number of constitutional documents, passed mainly in the 1920s, which were based on Soviet national theory and on necessary adjustments to reality. In the Tenth Communist Party Congress (1921) resolution, entitled "Regarding a Solution of the Nationalities Problem," clause four was devoted to the specific problem of the extra-territorial minorities (the examples cited were the Latvians, Estonians, 'oles and Jews). It resolved that they must be given assistance for their free national development. 2 The resolution adopted at the Twelfth Congress (1923) was of greater significance. For the first time a clear plan was devised for reaching a practical solution. The resolution stated that it was

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necessary to pass special legislation to ensure the use of the mother tongue in all state institutions serving the national minorities. 3 Resolutions in a similar vein were also passed by the parties in the different republics where there were significant national minorities. However, resolutions passed at the Communist party congresses during the years 1930-39 were more restrictive than those of the 1920s and stressed the need to combat local nationalism. The first state decree regarding the nationalities, passed in November 1917, was entitled, "Declaration of Rights of the Peoples of Russia." It laid down the general principles on which the nationalities policy should be based in the future. Of the four principles enunciated in the resolution, the most important for our purpose was the fourth, which announced "free development for the national minorities and ethnic groups inhabiting the land of Russia." 4 The constitutions of the Russian Republic of July 1918 (clause 22), of the Belorussian Republic of February 1919 (clause 15) and of the Ukrainian Republic (clause 32) all proclaimed equal rights for all citizens of whatever race or nationality. They further declared that any grant of preferential rights to a given race or nationality, any repression of national minorities or limitation of equal rights was against the basic laws of the republic. 5 The Declaration of Independence of Belorussia of 1 August 1920 occupies a special place in this context. It stated inter alia, "Full equality of rights is granted for the languages (Belorussian, Russian, Polish and Yiddish) in dealing with state institutions, organizations and national institutions of education and socialist culture." 6 The second constitution of Belorussia (14 April 1927) introduced detailed provisions (clauses 20, 21, 23) governing the rights of the national minorities. These included the right to establish a national Soviet in places where the national minority constituted the majority of the population and the right to free use of the mother tongue in assemblies, law courts, administrative institutions and public life. Belorussia was the only republic where the constitution proclaimed not only general equal rights for the national minorities but also full rights for the languages employed in the republic—Belorussian, Russian, Polish and Yiddish.7 Measures in defense of the national minorities were not uniform in all the Soviet republics. Of the three most important republics, at least for our purposes—Russia, the Ukraine and Belorussia—where the great majority of the Jews, Germans and Poles lived, the Ukraine and Belorussia enacted extensive legislation for the minorities, whereas the Russian republic's laws and decrees dealt mainly with national minorities possessing federal units. Decrees of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukraine of 23 July 1923 dealt with the status of the different languages in the republic in great detail. Regarding the languages of the national minorities, it held that in all the territorial administrative units where the national minority constituted the majority of the population, the language of this minority was to be used in official contacts with the state, while in places where no one minority enjoyed an absolute majority, the authorities would use the language of the national minority that possessed a relative majority. On 10 April 1925 and 16 July 1925 the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukraine passed two resolutions for carrying out the policy of Ukrainization, intended to give greater weight to the

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previous resolutions and to press on with their realization. Regulations adopted on 22 July 1927 were the most detailed and all-embracing with regard to the equality of the national languages. Extensive legislation in defense of the national minorities was also enacted in Belorussia from 1924 on. The resolution of 20 May 1925 adopted by the Third Congress of the Soviets was particularly important since it concerned the entire Soviet Union. It devoted a whole section to the national minorities: Representatives of the national minorities must be placed on all Soviet elected bodies; in cases where there was a large population of national minorities, special Soviets must be set up for them; the mother tongue must be used in the schools; nationality lawcourts must be organized, and so on. 8 Thus the political-juridical status of the extra-territorial national minorities of which several (Germans and Jews) were given federal units was settled by virtue of a temporary compromise between the theoretical approach to the nationalities problem and the pragmatic approach of the 1920s, in the 1930s, however, an additional constitutional document of great importance was promulgated, the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars of 27 December 1932, which resolved that the passports of city residents aged sixteen and over must have the nationality of the bearer registered in them. This decree might have led to a strengthening of the weaker extra-territorial minorities, but, in fact, it was utilized to combat them. From 1934 on Germans working in industry and government institutions and later on Poles as well found that this registration was used to discriminate against them. The close ties existing between certain national minorities and their specific religions (Jew and Judaism, of course, and—among the Poles and Germans— Catholicism and Protestantism) also affected the juridical-political status of the extra-territorial national minorities, given the stringent anti-religious legislation of this period. The autonomy and partial "statehood" accorded the national minorities in line with the new policy on the nationalities in the 1920s took the form of party and state institutions in which the language in active daily use had to be that of the particular national minority. The first step in establishing central institutions for the nationalities was the creation of the Commissariat of Nationality Affairs(Narkomnats) on 8 November 1917, headed by Josef Stalin and his assistant of Polish origin, S. Pestovsky. It was no accident that while the Polish Commissariat was already created on 28 November 1917, the Jewish one was not established until 1 February 1918 and the German one only in May of that year. The precedence given the Polish minority did not stem from internal Soviet causes but rather from external ones— the need to create a Communist nucleus that would work to extend Soviet rule to Poland. In spite of differences in wording, the functions of the various national commissariats during the time the Narkomnats existed, from 1917 to 1924, can be summarized as follows: 1. To conduct propaganda in the mother tongue in order to draw the masses closer to Soviet rule. 2. To fight against the old nationalist parties of all trends and the old autonomous institutions.

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3. To advise the central and local Soviet bodies in all matters regarding the particular national minority and to act on its behalf for a satisfactory solution of its problem. 4. To establish new institutions in every sphere to carry out government policy. 5. To assist the refugees to return home (a particularly serious situation prevailed among the Jewish and German populations, which underwent mass deportations during the war) and to take steps for their speedy rehabilitation. 6. To initiate extensive activity directed at the mother countries as well (Poland and Germany). The national commissariats encountered innumerable difficulties. First, there was a lack of trustworthy Communists to fill the various offices created at the regional and local levels. From this point of view the Poles were better off than the Germans, who had to make do mainly with German prisoners of war who professed pro-Soviet and socialist views (an important role was played by Ernst Reuter, a future leader of German Social Democracy).9 As regards the Jews, there were veteran Bolsheviks of Jewish origin in key positions in the party, but, unlike the Poles,10 they were not prepared to work on "the Jewish street." Second, many differences of opinion emerged between the Narkomnats and other commissariats (such as education), which were also charged with handling the problems of the various nationalities and which interfered with the efficient implementation of the new nationalities policy. Third, differences of opinion also developed between the Narkomnatitself and the different national commissariats under its control. And finally, the changing political situation during the Civil War and the fluctuating policy on nationalities combined to narrow the field of activity of theNarkomnats. With the establishment of the Soviet Federation in 1924 and the subsequent abolition of the Narkomnats,'' the main functions of this body were transferred to the new administrative institutions; the Nationalities Soviets, the Nationalities Department of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union (VTSIK), the presidium of the Central Executive Committee in each republic and the Commissions of Nationality Affairs in the Interior Ministries of the Republics. This change was unquestionably damaging to the extra-territorial national minorities. In one stroke they lost their only direct representation in the central administration. They now had representation only on the local level, and those empowered to represent them were all officials dependent on the local government institutions that paid them. Unlike the national commissariats in the previous period, which had still been open to representatives of the old socialist parties and to non-party individuals, the national sections in the Communist party were by definition composed of party members only. 12 The national sections, despite their low, problematic status within the party, were certainly the most important of all the social institutions created to serve the populations of national minorities. They were, after all, institutions of the ruling party. Moreover, they not only succeeded in eliminating all the old independent parties and organizations but also succeeded in winning over leaders of socialist parties who were close to the Bolsheviks after the revolution; this was particularly evident in the Jewish section (Evsektsia), but it also occurred with the

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German and Polish sections. Last, the sections, in fact, became practically the only address for dealing with the internal affairs of the minorities and their relations with administrative institutions. The way in which the national sections were created was not uniform. The Jewish section was set up after lengthy discussions and the overcoming of numerous obstacles. On 20 October 1918, sixty-four representatives convened for its first conference. The creation of the German section and, to a great extent, the Polish section as well was closely connected with the phenomenon of the prisoners of war.13 Thus the German section set up on 24 April 1918, grew out of the German group in the federation of foreign groups in the Communist party created a week earlier (16 April) and numbering some four hundred persons. From 1920 until their dissolution in January 1930, the national sections were a sub-department of the Department of Information and Propaganda (Agitprop) of the Communist party. From the administrative point of view, the fact that the national sections were part of the hierarchy of precisely this department not only indicates the party leadership's attitude to them but also their low status in the whole framework of party functions. In their structure and membership, the sections were, in fact, little more than a technical party apparatus for implementing decisions and carrying out tasks imposed on them by the party leadership as circumstances dictated. Their tasks were practically identical with those of theNarkomnats,as cited above. The sections were thus in some sort a "head" without a "body." No data were published on the numerical size of the sections, and one can arrive at only very rough estimates. Of some 50,000 Jewish Communists in the Soviet Union in 1927,l4 about 2,000 to 3,500 were members of the Evsektsia, that is to say no more than 5 to 7 percent. In 1920 before the return home of most of the prisoners of war, the German Communists in the party numbered 2,850 members and 725 candidate members.15 It seems that the percentage of Soviet Germans among them was very low, since in 1922 there were only 2,217 German Communists in the whole Soviet Union. According to figures published in 1925, there were only 705 members in the German section. l6 In 1927 there were 5,561 German Communists in the Soviet Union: If we subtract from this number the 1,200 party members in the Autonomous German Republic of the Volga, who did not belong to the German section, and another 3,000 or so party members also not belonging to the section, it appears that in its peak years the German section numbered no more than some 1,300 to 1,500 members. A similar situation apparently prevailed among the Polish Communists, who numbered 11,158 (1.05 percent of all party members)17 in 1927. If the majority of Communists were to be found in the urban populations of the Russian Republic and not in the Ukraine and Belorussia (with its large, mainly peasant Polish population), then membership in the Polish section can be estimated at about 1,000 at the most. They were active in some twenty branches, seven of them in the Polish national region. Each section was made up of three distinct levels: the top leadership, active in the central bureau in Moscow and in the central bureaus in the republics; the medium level, comprising the representatives of the national sections in the Communist party, government and other public institutions and organizations; and the lowest level, including the (paid) representatives of the sections active in the local party

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and public state bodies. The main activity of the sections centered around the congresses and conventions they organized among professional and social groups— teachers, peasants, trade unionists, and so on. Unlike the Jewish section, which had a wide sphere of activity, the Polish and German sections were more limited, encountering as they did considerable opposition from the rural population. The national sections' balance sheet shows, on the one hand, the liquidation of the independent community institutions, elimination of all non-Communist parties and organizations, war on religion, destruction of a flourishing rural economy—results which should, in fact, have been achieved without the help of the sections, if more slowly and less effectively—and, on the other hand, the establishing of a national educational network, administrative and cultural institutions and an extension of national autonomy within the framework of the Soviet federation. The first signs of avolte-facein overall Soviet nationalities policy were already perceptible in the late 1920s. In 1926 Stalin warned Kaganovich and the members of the Ukrainian Communist Party Politburo against what he saw as overhasty Ukrainization. l8 In 1927 a campaign was initiated against "nationalist deviations," which mainly struck at the Poles but also affected the Jews and the Germans.19 In 1929 serious accusations were launched against the leaders of the national sections. They were charged with nationalism, concealing the survival of antagonistic social strata in the villages and of supporting "fundamentally mistaken national solidarity" (with foreign reactionary regimes such as those of Poland and Germany). The end came on 13 January 1930 when the national sections were abolished under the pretext of party reorganization.20 Their liquidation was the result of the entrenchment of Stalin's rule and the elimination of all opposition. Stalin felt it was no longer necessary to make concessions to the national minorities either from the internal or external point of view. His policy of "socialism in one country" meant that there was no need to consider the Soviet Union's image in the eyes of the outside world. The national minorities now lost the last vestiges of their leadership; their entire socio-economic and educational-cultural fabric was seriously weakened. The institutions of the extra-territorial nationalities were the village and regional Soviets and the national districts, law courts and police stations. The first of the Soviets was set up in 1924. They resembled the general Soviets in every respect, constituting a basic administrative unit in the new Soviet regime. They differed from the general Soviets in that the Jewish, Polish or German national Soviet was usually headed by a Jewish, Polish or German Communist. Moreover, the work of the Soviet was supposed to be conducted in the mother tongue of the nationality in question. For a national Soviet to be set up there had to be no less than one thousand persons living within its boundaries. It was however difficult to keep to this quota, and in October 1927 it was decided to reduce the figure to only five hundred. The main tasks of the village or district Soviets were as follows: cultural development, health, contacts with public organizations, local administration. A national Soviet generally had three main sections dealing respectively with communal, financial and social matters. The national district Soviets developed fastest in the Ukraine and slowest in the Russian Republic. Three main periods can be distinguished in the development of the national Soviets. The years 1925-27 witnessed the establishment and growth of these in-

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stitutions. In the Ukraine in 1925 there were 38 Jewish Soviets, 15 Polish and 98 German. There was a grand total of 990 national Soviets in the Ukraine in this year. In Belorussia in 1925 there were 28 Jewish and 13 Polish ones (the German population in this republic was very small). 21 The low proportion of Jewish Soviets, despite the Jews' being twice as numerous as the Germans and almost three-and-ahalf times as numerous as the Poles in the Soviet Union, stemmed from the fact that the Jews were concentrated mainly in the towns, while the Poles and the Germans lived in villages where the local Soviets were usually set up. During the years 192831 the national Soviets attained their high watermark. The number of Jewish Soviets set up in this period reached 168 in 1931, the number of Polish Soviets reached 153 in 1929 and the number of German ones, 254 in 1931. The grand total in the Ukraine in 1931 was 1,121 national Soviets. During the years 1933-39 a rapid decline set in. This decline was reflected in the very fact that one publication of statistics about them stopped almost entirely. In 1933 there were 154 Jewish Soviets and apparently a decrease was also registered for the Poles and the Germans. There were two main (and interconnected) reasons for this: the new nationalities policy, concrete signs of which were appearing in the later 1930s, and the tactic of combining Soviets, that is, creating mixed Soviets of two or even more nationalities—an interim stage on the way to their final liquidation. The national Soviets met with manifold difficulties and obstacles and did not always fulfil their tasks of fostering national identity, especially in the face of the trend to assimilation in the guise of proclaimed Sovietization. The Jewish Soviets served only 15 percent of the whole Jewish population in the Ukraine and about 10 percent in Belorussia; the Polish Soviets 40 percent of their population in the Ukraine and the Germans about 73 percent. These differences, as we have said, stemmed from the different population structures of the three national minorities. A national district, which was the highest level nationality administrative body, differed from a federal unit (region, province, or autonomous republic of the Union) in character and juridical status. In the peak years (1933-35) there were in the USSR sixteen German, five Jewish, and two Polish national districts. Most of the national districts began to disappear in the late 1930s, with the new administrative regionalization of the Soviet Union of March 1939 serving as the excuse for their abolition. The last such districts vanished on the outbreak of war between Germany and the Soviet Union. The national districts, like the national Soviets, met with multiple difficulties and realized only a few of the expectations raised at their establishment. Whether because of the lack of suitable administrative cadres speaking the mother tongue who were also party members or from sheer negligence or technical difficulties, the transition to mother-tongue administration was not carried out. Most of the work and consultation was done in Russian, pre-eminently so among the Jews and the Poles but also among the Germans in some of their Soviets. Furthermore, budget allocations placed at their disposal were so limited as to make proper administration impossible. There were also frequent differences of opinion between the national districts and the local Ukrainian or Belorussian regional administration. Finally, there was no lack of disputes between nationalities in the national Soviets of more than one nationality.

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The third administrative institution of the minority nationalities was the national law courts and the national police stations attached to it. These were set up in a number of places, mainly in the Ukraine. Even if the main function of the national law court was to wage war on religion and "bourgeois nationalism," it also served to reinforce mother-tongue activity, to prepare national cadres for public-political work and to symbolize national autonomy. The Jews set up national courts in 1924, the first of the extra-territorial minorities to do so. In 1925 there were 15 Jewish, 6 Polish and 5 German courts in the Ukraine. In Belorussia in that year there was only 1 Jewish court. In the Ukraine in 1928 there were 36 Jewish, 12 German and 7 Polish courts. In Belorussia in 1928 there were 6 Jewish and 3 Polish courts. In the peak year, 1931, there were 46 Jewish courts, 12 German, and 7 Polish institutions of this kind out of the total of 90 national courts in the Ukraine, in 1934, the last year for which partial statistics were published, there were 106 national courts in the Ukraine, of which 40 were Jewish, 11 German and 7 Polish. In the Russian Republic only a few courts were established for the extra-territorial national minorities. In this republic in the peak year, there were 11 Jewish courts and 1 German court. 22 The number of national law courts decreased sharply in the years 1935-38. The initiative for establishing national courts generally came from the local representatives of the national sections. They conducted propaganda explaining how useful and important these institutions would be. After this preliminary phase, they would approach the executive committee of the local Soviet, pointing out that the local population was interested in having a court conducted in its mother tongue. The decision was, in fact, in the hands of the bodies responsible for the nationalities policy in the republic. In order to set up a national court, the following criterion had to be met: the existence of ten thousand persons of the nationality in question in the area where the law court was to be set up. In the course of time, however, not only in Belorussia but also in the Ukraine, the principle that the national court could be set up regardless of the number of persons of the nationality concerned and that it would serve the entire district was accepted. This principle gave rise to numerous difficulties. It was contrary to the basis of Soviet jurisprudence. It meant that witnesses had to be brought to the court from distant places. It complicated investigations and the execution of sentences. Apart from all this the main problem that affected the national courts was the fact that they were only lower courts. In the mid-1930s it was decided to close down the national courts, and they were subsequently combined with other courts on grounds of "economy and efficiency." The crowning glory, as it were, of the Soviet nationalities policy for the extraterritorial national minorities was supposed to be their achieving the grant of federal units on one level or another in the Soviet federation. The leaders of the national sections were sufficiently well acquainted with Leninist doctrine to understand that the survival of their minorities under Soviet rule could only be ensured by the transition from national-cultural autonomy in its Soviet interpretation to a territorial solution. However, they could not or dared not put forward demands of this kind to the top party leadership and could only hope that a combination of external and internal needs would cause the regime to offer this solution. As far as the Germans

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and Poles were concerned, the dominant factor in the decision whether or not to establish a federal unit was foreign policy; as for the Jews, the decisive factor was internal. The Workers' Commune of the Volga was set up as early as October 1918 as a national territorial unit in the federation of the Russian Republic. There is no doubt at all that this favorable policy regarding the Germans, the great majority of whom not only opposed the Soviet regime but were fighting against it with armed force— both in the various "white" armies and in the self-defense units created immediately after the Revolution—was the outcome of a perhaps unique combination of internal and external factors. In the internal sphere, we have already remarked upon the desire to win over the various nationalities to the Soviet side and to mobilize them for international activity on behalf of the regime. But it was certainly the international factor that was decisive here since the Soviet leadership firmly believed in the imminence of a German revolution, and the Germans in Russia were supposed to play a role in such an event, even if only of a symbolic nature. In 1924, with the creation of the Soviet Union, the Germans had their federal unit "promoted" to become the Autonomous German Republic of the Volga, covering an area of 27,152 square kilometers. In 1929 the population numbered 454,638, two thirds of which was German. Though the Germans, for various reasons, did not make full use of their achievement of a republic to develop German culture, nevertheless, while it existed, the republic played an important role. It did a great deal, especially via its educational institutions and publications, not only for the Germans who lived there but also for all the other Soviet Germans. The existence of the German Republic of the Volga certainly helped to delay the process of assimilation of the urban German population in the late 1930s (the republic was abolished in 1941). With regard to the Poles, a Provisional Revolutionary Committee for Poland was set up on 2 August 1920 under Julian Marchlewski.23 This committee was meant to serve as the nucleus for a Soviet administration in the areas of Poland "liberated" by the Red Army. The failure of the Soviet offensive against Warsaw and the signing of the Agreement of Riga between the Soviet Union and Poland in 1921 put an end to this plan. In the 1920s, however, the atmosphere was still relatively favorable. The Poles' prospects of being granted a federal unit on any level finally vanished, owing to the decreased importance of the Soviet-Polish factor in foreign policy and the wide dispersal of the Poles who still remained in the Soviet Union after the repatriation of half-a-million of them to independent Poland. The idea of bringing all the Jews together in one region and thereby establishing a Jewish national territorial unit for them was certainly welcome to some of the Evsektsia leaders at the beginning of the 1920s and especially so when discussions began in 1923-24 on settling Jews in the Crimea. They did not, however, dare to make this a formal claim or raise it as a practical proposal so long as there was no signal from the party leadership that this would be the official solution of the Jewish problem in the Soviet Union. The idea was put forward in the early 1920s by the heads of the Society for Jewish Settlement (OZKT), Abraham Bragin and Yuri Larin. There was however no substantial encouragement until the famous declaration by Mikhail Kalinin, president of the Soviet Union and Politburo member, in an

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address to the OZET conference in November 1926 (which was even compared to the Balfour Declaration): "A great mission lies ahead for the Jewish people—to preserve their nationality. . . . For this purpose a considerable part of the Jewish people—numbering at least hundreds of thousands—must be turned into peasants and farmers living on a continuous, connected stretch of land." 24 This opened the way for a change in government policy and appeared to give authoritative confirmation to the claims for a territory. Officially, however, the plan to allot the region of Birobidzhan for Jewish settlement in order to create a Jewish national unit there in the future was first propounded in 1927 by the heads of the People's Commissariat for Agricultural Affairs of the Russian Republic, supported by the Commissariat for Defense and, naturally, by Kalinin. The Evsekisia heads were apparently not enchanted with the Birobidzhan idea and did not react until January 1928, when the secretary of i\\e Evsektsia, A. Chemerisky, published an enthusiastic article significantly entitled, "To the Promised Land,"25 on the possibility of founding a Jewish national autonomy in the Far East. In March 1928, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union approved the establishment of a Jewish national unit in Birobidzhan. This unit existed from 1928 to 1934 as the lowest unit in the Soviet federation (a national district) and from 1934 on as a national region. At the peak of construction in Birobidzhan and migration to it, there was talk of Birobidzhan being transformed into an autonomous republic in the near future. It is well known, however, that the Birobidzhan project was, in fact, an utter failure. Though it was not completely liquidated, its influence on Jewish national survival in the Soviet Union was minimal. The reason for establishing this Jewish region may have resided in temporary Soviet defense needs. The reasons for the failure lay in the choice of the region, so distant from any Jewish population center, and in the harsh climatic and other conditions. What was finally decisive, however, was the change in the Soviet nationalities policy in the 1930s. The lack of any spiritual and historical-national bond between Soviet Jews and Birobidzhan, though not quantifiable, also weighed in the balance. Representation or under-representatioii of the national minorities in the central government and in the republics in the Soviet Union depended on many complex factors such as party background, socio-economic structure, educational level, and so on. The Jews were over-represented in this respect throughout the entire period. The Germans were strikingly under-represented, with the Poles somewhere in between. In 1922, in the Communist party of the Germans' Commune of the Volga (a republic from 1924 on), there were only 154 German Communists. In the whole of the Soviet Union in that year, as we already know, there were only 2,217 German Communists. In the Ukraine, with a German population of some 400,000, there were 1,069 Communists in 1925, and in the whole Soviet Union 5,226 in 1927 (0.49 percent of all party members), that is to say, only 42 Communists for every 1,000 Germans. In 1927 there were 12,181 Polish Communists (1.06 percent of all party members), 143 Communists for every 1,000 Poles. As for the Jews, in 1922 there were 19,564 Jewish Communists (5.21 percent of all party members), and by 1929 their number had risen to 49,627 (4.34 percent of all party members), or 155 Communists for every 1,000 Jews.26 Thus, unlike the Germans, whose represcnta-

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tion in the party was among the lowest among the national minorities, the Poles and even more so the Jews were over-represented, even in comparison with the nationalities comprising the majority in their republics. The main reason for this state of affairs was the historic background of political action and the weight within the particular nationality of the educated, urban population, which was often prepared to support the new regime. In the 1920s the Jews held a key position in the party leadership and their role was still considerable in the 1930s. In 1918, four of the fourteen members of the party's Central Committee were Jews (Sverdlov, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Sokolnikov). In 1921, five of the twenty-five members were Jews, and in 1939 the Jews still held an important place on this ruling body, with 10.1 percent of the entire Central Committee membership. In the Politburo up to 1926, Jews were very conspicuous (Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev), and in the 1930s there was one member, Lazar Kaganovich. There was not a single German in the top party leadership and only a few Poles (Feliks Dzierzyriski until his death in 1926 and Jan Unszlicht). The reason for the difference, as we have noted, has to do with the number of outstanding Jews in the party leadership before and during the Revolution and the influx of Jews into the party after the Revolution. In the "parliamentary" bodies of the Soviet Union, the position of the Germans was better than in the party, thanks to the existence of their autonomous republic. In 1927 there were sixty Jews on the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union, nine Germans and seven Poles;27 in 1929 fifty-five Jews, twelve Germans and thirteen Poles.28 As for government institutions, the Jews and the Poles played an important role in the 1920s, while the Germans had no foothold there whatsoever. Until 1925 Trotsky was one of the heads of the Red Army and minister of defense. There were important ministers of Jewish origin: L. Kaganovich, Sokolnikov, Rozengolts, Yagoda, and others. The noteworthy ones among the Poles were the heads of the Cheka and the GPU, Feliks Dzierzyriski and S. Mgzynski, respectively. THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC SPHERE The juridical-political status of the extra-territorial minorities and the changes of policy in their regard affected their socio-economic and even demographic situation. It is, however, difficult to isolate the different variables and to distinguish between "natural" processes and decisions reached deliberately by the government and party leadership. There were five population censuses in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1939: in 1920, 1923, 1926, 1937 and 1939; the first two were only partial ones, the 1937 census was canceled and the last one was only partly published, for political reasons.29 In 1926 there were 2,680,823 Jews in the Soviet Union; in 1939 there were 3,020,000.30 This figure should probably be raised by about 10 percent to include those who at the time of the census concealed the fact of their being Jews. The rate of natural increase of Russian Jewry was declining to a very marked degree at the end of the nineteenth century and even more so in the twentieth, dropping to 1

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percent in the years 1926-39. The reasons for the decline in the rate of natural increase, in addition to the process of modernization, were deportations, pogroms and famine during the First World War and the Civil War, from 1914 to 1921. In the 1920s emigration and the rising incidence of mixed marriages also worked in the same direction. According to the 1926 census, there were 1,238,000 Germans in the Soviet Union, and according to the 1939 census, 1,424,000. Since the birthrate among the Germans was especially high—a natural increase of 3.25 percent in 1927 and about 2 percent more annually in the 1930s—it was to be expected that the German population would number over 1,600,000 by 1939. The reasons for the disappearance of some 180,000 Germans in thirteen years were: a changed trend in German declarations of nationality in 1939, on account of the anti-German policy in the Soviet Union after Hitler's rise to power; the especially heavy blow dealt the Germans by rural collectivization; the heavy losses in the famine years of 1933 to 1939; and the arrests in the purges and other government campaigns. Moreover, some 25,000 Germans emigrated in this period. In 1926 there were 782.344 Poles in the Soviet Union, after half a million had left for Poland with the signing of the Riga Agreement in 1921. By 1939 the number of Poles had decreased to 626,905. This drop of some 20 percent in thirteen years stemmed from causes similar to those affecting the Germans, but also from an additional cause—the high rate of absorption of the Poles living among Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian Slavic populations often close to the Poles in religion and culture. Sovietization as a process of modernization produced accelerated urbanization among the different nationalities. As early as 1897, 82 percent of the Jews were living in the towns or cities; in 1926 there was only a slight change, which derived from the policy of settling Jews on the land during the years 1923-26. By 1939, 87 percent of the Jews were living in towns or cities. Moreover, some 40 percent of all Soviet Jews were now living in only six cities (Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk). A different situation existed among the Germans and the Poles. In 1926, 32.7 percent of the Polish population lived in towns or cities, and among the Germans only 15 percent. The process of urbanization was slow for both these nationalities: In 1939 we find only 19 percent of Germans living in towns, while the proportion among the Soviet population as a whole had reached 32.9 percent. The reasons for this were historical and not deliberate policy. The "war communism" economic policy of 1918-21 was especially hard on both the Jews and the Germans—if for different reasons—and less so on the Poles. The Jews were harmed mainly because of the elimination of private trade and the Germans by the high percentage in their population of well-off and "middle" farmers connected with the free market, which was abolished outright, and by endless confiscations in the German villages. The introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in March 1921, which went on until 1927, considerably improved the situation of the Jews and the Germans. The German farmers and some Poles as well exploited the new possibilities. They took Bukharin's famous "get rich!" slogan seriously and worked energetically to raise agricultural production and sell their products at high prices. This situation did not last for long, however. Rural

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collectivization was particularly destructive for the Germans and the Poles since a high percentage of them belonged to the classofkulaks wll-off peasants). According to one estimate, 700,000 of the 5 million-or-sokulakswere of German origin, that is to say 15 percent, while in the overall population the percentage was only 1 percent.31 According to the data at our disposal, collectivization in regions with a considerable German population was carried out far more quickly than in other parts of the Soviet Union. Thus, for example, in the German region of the Volga the rate of collectivization had reached 60 percent and in the Crimea 75 percent by March 1930, but it only reached 25 percent for the Russian Republic as a whole, to which those two regions belonged.32 It appears that the national factor had not been overlooked in the calculations of the executors of the collectivization policy. One of the heads of the German national section wrote in 1930: "The idea was often commonly accepted that the German village was composed only ofkulaksHence the 'middle' farmers were over-taxed and deprived of civil rights and some of them finally 'de-kulakized.' "33 Certainly, the Polish population (and part of the Jewish rural population) also suffered in the collectivization, but the losses in the Polish population were far lower than in the German case because of the different structure of its farming sector. In the Kamenets area in the Ukraine, poor Polish peasants constituted 58 percent, "middle" farmers 37.9 percent and the well-off only 4.1 percent. In Belorussia, 70 percent were "middle" farmers and 10 percent welloff. 34 Structural changes took place on a very large scale within the Jewish population, which lost its entire stratum of traders (in 1897 38.6 percent were engaged in trade, in 1926 about 18 percent and in 1929 only 2.3 percent), and in its place there grew up a new social stratum of clerks, functionaries, and technicians (24.7 percent in 1926 and 41 percent in 1939).35 Among the German and Polish populations, on the other hand, the changes were mainly "internal," in the sense of the absolute ruin of the agricultural population without a structural change involving a transfer from one economic occupation to another. RELIGION, CULTURE AND NATIONAL IDENTITY The third and innermost circle of national existence, the most important one, does not function in a vacuum. It is profoundly affected by the overall solution of the nationalities problem in the state and by the specific attitude of the state toward the religion of the national minorities. Unlike the Poles and the Jews, who belong to only one church and religion (Catholicism and Judaism), the German population in Russia was divided among a number of Christian churches—the Lutheran, Catholic and Mennonite. In 1909 there were 1,004,344 Lutherans, some 84 percent of them Germans, organized in over 2,600 religious congregations. By 1926 the number of Germans in this church declined to about 540,000.36 This reduction was the result not only of official antireligious policy but also, and mainly, the result of the loss of territory after the October Revolution and of German emigration. In 1918 the Catholic Church had about 1,600,000 congregants, registered in 1,195 religious congregations, most of

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whom were Poles and Germans.37 Mennonites in Russia numbered about 110,000 in 1917, grouped in 365 villages in the Ukraine, the Crimea, the Caucasus and Siberia. Mass emigration in the 1920s reduced their ranks as well, bringing them down to about 25,000. Karl Marx's hostility to religion, which he considered a form of extreme alienation and "the opiate of the people," was shared by Lenin and the entire Bolshevik leadership. Extensive legislation enacted on religious matters, especially from 1918 to 1929, decreed complete separation between church and state and between religion and education. To this were added draconian anti-religious provisions deliberately aimed at wiping out religion by every possible means. Legislation and party resolutions laid down that the churches were forbidden to own private property, levy taxes or collect funds. The right of religious groups to assume a legal personality was abolished. All church institutions dealing with the health and welfare of their members were closed down. Religious education was strictly forbidden except in theological seminaries, which were also closed by administrative and police measures. Particularly detailed clauses spelled out how to close prayer houses by decision of an authorized state institution. The crowning glory of the anti-religious legislation was the imposition of a special status that deprived all religious personnel of civil rights (which remained in effect until 1936). In the 1920s and 1930s extensive and blatant anti-religious propaganda was rampant. Agitprop (the Central Committee's information and propaganda department, which was in charge of the national sections) was mobilized to direct this work. In 1925, moreover, a special "public" body was set up called, The Nonbelievers' League and later the Non-believing Fighters' League, headed by the Jew, Emelyan Yaroslavski (Gubelman), to direct all anti-religious activities. The number of members of the league grew by leaps and bounds from 87,033 in 1926 to a peak of 5,500,000 in 1932. On account of changes in policy and the shift of the center of gravity to other areas, the number of adherents fell to 1,949,722 by I938.38 The differences between the three national minorities under discussion here were clearly manifested in the number of their members in this Non-believers League. Thus in 1929 there were five hundred Polish members, two-thousand Germans and two hundred thousand Jews.39 This difference derived mainly from the earlier and speedier secularization of the educated, urban Jewish society and from the high level of Jewish involvement in political and public life as compared with the Poles and Germans. One of the most sophisticated measures of the anti-religious campaign was the creation of what was called "the living church," with the help of clergy loyal to the regime and ready to serve it to the point of turning religious services and customs into caricature. The experiment had little success among the Germans, and even where it enjoyed a partial success, as in Ufa and Samara, it did not last. Among the Jews "the living synagogue" did not take root at all. From the 1930s on the authorities began to emphasize police measures, banning the publication of religious newspapers and books, closing down prayer houses and arresting the clergy and their assistants. Terror againsl the heads of various churches led to a sharp reduction in all religious activity by the end of the decade. The antireligious offensive damaged all the religions and churches in the Soviet Union, but

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there is no question whatsoever that the extra-territorial national minorities were among the main victims of this campaign because of their relative weakness among the national minorities. In a multi-national state, government policy is of crucial importance regarding the cultural development of the national minorities. Under the tsars, the culture of the Jews, Germans and Poles was closely connected with their religion. The political changes and the anti-religious campaign worked, as we have seen, to rupture this connection both in form and content. Sovietization in the sense of the Russification that predominated in the 1930s also reduced the influence of the national cultures by speeding up the processes of acculturation. The February Revolution led to an exceptional upsurge of national schools among the Jews (both in Hebrew and in Yiddish) and among the Germans and Poles in their mother tongues. From 1919 to 1922, however, on account of material difficulties and the breakdown of the private educational systems, both traditional and secular mother-tongue education declined for all three minorities. Thus in Belorussia and the Ukraine in 1921 there were only 400 Jewish schools with only 25,000 pupils.40 Among the Germans of the Volga there were 327 German schools in 1922 with 41,878 pupils.41 A number of German schools also functioned in the Crimea and the Ukraine. The main growth of the national schools network came as the result of the Twelfth Communist Party Congress in 1923, which, as we know, decided on a policy of "koren-ization," of helping the national cultures to grow "roots" in the republics. In 1924 in the Ukraine (where there was the largest concentration of Jews, Germans and Poles) there were 266 Jewish schools with 42,000 pupils, 576 German schools and 232 Polish schools.42 The spurt forward in nationality education came in 1926 when the number of Jewish schools reached 432 with 70,867 pupils, German 621 with 38,736 pupils and Polish 337 with 20,550 pupils. The school networks reached their highest point of development in 1931: In that year there were 831 Jewish schools with 94,872 pupils, 571 German schools with 63,670 pupils and in the Polish case probably over 25,000 pupils (22,364 in 1929). A visible decline was registered in 1934-35 when the number of Jewish pupils, for example, dropped to 73,412 in 1935 and 69,211 in 1936. A similar situation prevailed in German and Polish education. From 1934 to 1938 there was a consistent policy of uniting all the national schools (Jewish with Russian, Polish with Ukrainian, etc.) as an interim stage in the process of their final liquidation. In 1939 only a handful of Jewish, German and Polish schools still remained in the Ukraine. In Belorussia the situation was similar, but in the Russian Republic things were different. There, the stress was on the importance of solving the problem of the territorial minorities, which, of course, mainly benefited the Germans because of the existence of the German Autonomous Republic of the Volga. In the peak year of 1931 there were only 110 Yiddish schools in the Russian Republic, with 11,000 pupils. In this peak year the ratio of pupils among the nationalities in question who were learning in their mother tongue varied from 40 to 60 percent among the Jews and was about 70 percent among the Germans and Poles. In the German Republic of the Volga the proportion was as high as 98 percent. This was a clear demonstration of the superiority of the territorial solution over the solution reached for the extraterritorial national minorities.

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It must be emphasized that during all the years that the nationality schools existed they met with numerous difficulties. First, there was a permanent shortage of qualified teachers who were considered politically trustworthy. Second, constant pressure from the local authorities held up the development of the nationality schools since, in the nature of things, they were interested in directing the meager resources at their disposal to the schools of the ruling nationality in the republic. Third, there was a general shortage of premises, laboratories and teaching equipment, stemming from objective material conditions as well as difficulties caused by the frequent changes in the teaching syllabuses necessitated by changes in the general and national political line. Finally, there was internal opposition on the part of some of the parents among the nationalities in question to sending their children to nationality schools, whether on practical grounds connected with the child's future career or from national religious motives, since the anti-religious campaign was more repressive and dangerous in the nationality schools than in, for example, a Russian school. It would seem, however, that these difficulties could have been overcome and the Jewish. German and Polish school systems could have gone on functioning like those of other national minorities had they not been cruelly liquidated at the end of the 1930s. As for the press and literature in the first period (1917-20) the Jewish national minority published newspapers and books in a number of languages: Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, Bukharan and Tat'. A total of 188 newspapers and 343 books were published in Hebrew, mainly from 1917-19, until the language was practically wiped out in the Soviet Union. 43 In the 1920s, a group of pro-Communist Hebrew writers succeeded, after great efforts, in publishing a number of literary anthologies. After 1928 the only possible way of publishing the works of Hebrew writers of the Soviet Union was to send them abroad. The situation was better for Yiddish writers owing to official recognition of Yiddish as the mother tongue of the Jews of the Soviet Union and the support for the language on the part of the Evsektsia. In the 1920s Yiddish literature flourished and groups were founded with different literary trends (such as Eygens in Kiev, Proletarian Writers, etc.). At the end of the 1920s and in the 1930s the offensive against "nationalist deviations" produced accusations ot nationalism and chauvinism aimed at a number of Yiddish writers—Peretz, Markish, Shmuel Halkin, Ezra Fininberg, Leib Kvitko, Itzik Kipnis and others. During the years 1917-21, while there was still private publishing, 767 Yiddish books appeared and 328 newspapers and periodicals. There was a decrease to 269 books from 1922 to 1924 owing to the virtual demise of private publishing and economic difficulties. In the years 1925-32 Yiddish publishing reached its peak with 2,801 books, an average of almost 350 a year. In the years 1933-39, 2,650 Yiddish books appeared, but in this period there was a change in the nature of the books published—most of them were not technical works and translations. In 1935 there were still 41 newspapers and periodicals being published in Yiddish—Der ernes (Truth), the main organ of the Evsektsia, Ofn sprakhfront (Language Front), Yugnt un revolutsye (Youth and Revolution) and others—but from 1937 on they began to be closed down. A large number of Jewish writers in the Russian language made an important contribution to the development of Russian-Soviet literature. It is enough to name Eduard Bagritsky, Yosef Utkin, Mikhail Svetlov, Ilya Ehrcnburg, Isaak Babel and

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Vassilii Grossman. In the work of these writers we can learn not only what they thought of the proposed solution to the Jewish problem in the Soviet Union but also about the way of life, the desires and struggles of the Jews in Russia in one of the stormiest periods in their history. Jewish literary and scientific periodicals still appeared in Russian in the 1920s: Evreiskaya starina, founded by Simon Dubnow, which was closed down in 1930; Evreiskaya letopis, which appeared from 1920 to 1923; and in the 1930s Tribuna the organ of Komzet. In 1917 there were eighty-four Russian-language Jewish newspapers and periodicals; in 1919, thirty-one; in 1920, nineteen; and 1921 the number dropped to six and in the 1930s (until 1937) only one remained, as stated above. Yiddish literature was dealt a great blow in the mass purges of 1936-39. A newspaper of the "mountain Jews" of the Caucasus began to appear in the Tat' language in the town of Makhachkala in 1928. Two newspapers appeared in the Bukharan language in Bukhara. Many books were published as well in Tat', Bukharan and Georgian. At the end of the 1930s Jewish newspapers and publications in these three languages disappeared almost completely. The Tat' and Bukharan languages also suffered from linguistic "reform," Latinization in the 1920s and the introduction of the Cyrillic alphabet in the 1930s. Yiddish, as an "international" language of the Jews, was not so drastically altered, but it also suffered a partial "reform" such as dropping the final form of five letters of the alphabet and the abolition of two others stated to be signs of Hebraization. German newspaper publication in the years 1918-21 was in a chaotic state. Independent papers were closed down and prisoner-of-war papers linked to the new regime began to appear in their place. From 1918 to 1929 twenty-four German Communist or pro-Communist newspapers appeared. When the prisoners of war departed, a new period began for German literature and press in the Soviet Union. From 1922 to 1929, eleven newspapers and periodicals appeared in the Volga region, including the main paper, Nachrichten, published in Pokrovsk from 1921 to 1941. In other regions in this period, thirteen German-language newspapers and periodicals appeared, among them the main organ of the German section, Deutsche Zentralzeitung, which appeared from 1926 to 1939. In the early 1930s there was a rise in the number of newspapers and periodicals, but in 1935 most of them began to close down. The only German newspapers that went on appearing from 1939 to 1941 were those published in the Volga Republic.44 As regards German book publication (and this holds true for Polish as well), a distinction must be made between books intended for abroad and those intended for the Germans (and Poles) in the Soviet Union. Of some 6,000 German books that appeared in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1941, about 1,000 to 1,200 were by Soviet Germans.45 The change in policy in the second half of the 1930s is clearly reflected in the following data: in 1933, 531 German books were published in the Soviet Union; in 1936, 413; and in 1939, 270. No less significant was the change in the type of publications. As a general rule it can be stated with regard to the Germans, as with the Jews and the Poles, that in the 1930s original works became fewer and fewer and the number of translations, technical literature and textbooks, was on the rise. Books on literature, history and culture also declined. The German Writers' Section was founded in Moscow in 1922 and in the Ukraine

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in 1930. The first congress of all the German writers of the Soviet Union, held in 1934, was also the last. Like the Jewish writers, the German writers were accused of being "apolitical," of supporting "petit-bourgeois ideology" and of "nationalism." It is noteworthy that in the 1930s German literature in the Soviet Union was "taken over" by refugee anti-Fascist writers who fled from Germany, Austria and Hungary, not a few of them lews (a fact exploited by Nazi propaganda). During the First World War many Polish newspapers and periodicals appeared in Russia, published by a wide range of organizations and institutions. In the years 1918-21, the number of Polish newspapers declined after the liquidation of all independent papers, The main Polish newspapers in the Soviet Union were Glos Kommunisty, published in Kiev from 1919 to 1922; Glos radziecki, which also appeared in Kiev, from 1922 to 194S; Mlot and Orka, both published in Minsk; and Trybuna radziecka, the organ oi" the Polish national section, published in Moscow from 1927 to 1938. The most important of the literary periodicals was Kultura mas, edited by Bruno Jasienski, which appeared in Moscow from 1929 to 1939.46 In the years 1924-25 only 54 Polish books appeared; in 1926, 92; and in 1927, 106—of which only 10 percent were belles-lettres.47 From 1929 to 1932 there were 401 Polish publications in the Russian Republic.48 The significant decline in Polish publications is demonstrated by the catalogue of the publications of the national minorities in the Ukraine for the years 1937-39—thirty-three books in Polish were published in those years and not one of them by a Soviet-Polish writer.49 The main reason for this state of affairs was the wave of arrests among Polish writers preceding that of the Jewish and German writers, owing mainly to the decline in SovietPolish relations during the 1930s. The most outstanding Polish writers and journalists were refugees who had escaped from Poland: Bruno Jasienski, 50 Stanisiaw Stande and Witold Wandurski. The cultural life of the national minorities included theater (professional and amateur), music, painting, sculpture and cinema. Given the relatively narrow confines of this essay, we shall turn our attention mainly to the theater because of its special importance in the period in question and the efforts expended on its promotion. As in literature, so in the theater, Jewish creativity expressed itself in a number of languages. The great Jewish theater, Habimah, put on plays in Hebrew in the years 1918-26. It was supported by the most eminent Russian producers—Stanislavsky, Vakhtangov and Tairov. The Yiddish theater developed quickly in the 1920s and flourished until its fall in the second half of the 1930s. The most important theater was based in Moscow from 1918 on under the direction of Alexander Granowski and Shlomo Mikhoels. It had a mixed repertoire of Jewish, Soviet and Russian and world classics. In the Ukraine, after the liquidation of private theaters, a Jewish theater was not established until 1925 and in Belorussia not until 1926. In Birobidzhan, rated fourth as a Jewish cultural center, the Jewish theater was only founded in 1934.51 At the end of the 1920s and in the early 1930s there were eighteen Jewish theaters in the Soviet Union. 52 In 1939 there remained twelve, according to one Soviet source, and ten according to another.57' Among the nonAshkenazi Jews there was apparently only one professional theater for the Bukharans and little is known of its activity.

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The theater was not highly developed among the Germans in Russia before the Revolution, but there were numerous orchestras and choirs connected with the churches. In the 1920s many amateur choirs were established to promote German culture, but a real professional theater did not appear till the early 1930s. In 1933 after several years of preparations, the professional theater of the German Republic opened in Pokrovsk with the help of famous playwrights and producers who had come to the Soviet Union from Germany. A German theater also opened in Odessa in \he same year, and in 1934 German immigrants found Der Deutsche Theater Kolonnie Links. They also helped found a theater in Dnepropetrovsk.54 The plays put on in these German theaters were mainly chosen from the classic German repertoire (Schiller and Lessing) and from modern "progressive" German drama (Wolff). It is of some interest to note that for whatever reason the Soviet-German theater did not put on the plays of Berthold Brecht. Like the German theater, the Polish theater developed only in the late 1920s with the help of refugee Polish playwrights and producers. In the 1930s two Polish theaters functioned, one in Kiev and the other in Minsk.55 Among the classic Polish plays put on were Siowacki's Sen Srebrny Salomei, staged by Wandurski; Mazepa (also by Siowacki); Alexander Fredra's Damy i huzary, and Soviet-Polish plays such as Kowalsky's Rodzina Woroncow, which dealt with the role of Ukrainian Poles in the war against Pilsudski's armed forces in 1920. Research institutions, museums and libraries are not only of importance for research into the nation's past but also for training the scholars of the future. In the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s there was a wide network of Jewish research institutions, most of them affiliated with general Soviet scientific institutions and, of course, subject to constant surveillance by the government and the party. Among the more important Jewish research institutions were the Jewish Academy of Sciences, attached to the Belorussian Academy in Minsk, active from 1924 to 1935; and the Institute for Proletarian Jewish Culture in Kiev, which enjoyed the status of an "Institute" until 1935 and of a Kabinet from 1936 to 1948. The attempt to establish a central institute of research in the Birobidzhan region failed. The Germans did not make full use of the favorable circumstances they enjoyed in the Autonomous German Republic of the Volga to set up a university or research institution. Moreover, since they lacked a large intelligentsia, they did not develop research institutions in the other republics either. In fact, the only scientific research among the Soviet-German population was done by isolated researchers in various universities.56 The Poles, on the other hand, with a population resembling that of the Germans in its social composition, succeeded in setting up a research institute within the framework of the Central Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute;57 this was due to the active role Poles had played in the Communist movement and to the presence of outstanding Polish personalities in the state and party leadership. The Commission for Polish History was headed by Dzierzyriski, Unszlicht, Bobinski, Budzynski, Kon and Krasny. There were also Polish departments in the universities—in the Moscow University of the National Minorities, the University of Leningrad, the Belorussian Academy of Sciences (established in 1925) and the Polish Institute of Social Education in Kiev. 58 Historical-ethnographic national research—linguistic, cultural and economic—

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fell under suspicion in the late 1920s and 1930s. This led to mass arrests among the intelligentsia and the liquidation of most scholarly work. Let us now consider the question of the dynamics of national identity among the three extra-territorial groups under review. National identity can be studied in the declarations made at the population censuses. We do not possess these data, but various estimates reached by Soviet researchers (such as Yuri Larin) regarding the Jews suggest that in the years 1926-39 about 10 percent of all the Jews in then Soviet Union were "disappearing." Non-declaration of nationality in the 1920s and early 1930s stemmed mainly from the process of assimilation and not from a Jew's actual fear of presenting himself as a Jew. As for the Germans and the Poles, the percentage of those "disappearing" was apparently not high at the 1926 census, but the situation had changed by 1939 when the danger of deportation already menaced them. (Partial deportations of Germans had already been carried out in frontier areas in 1937.) We may, therefore, assume that the number of "disappearing" Germans and Poles rose considerably. We do have at our disposal a number of quantitative indicators that can be of assistance to us in evaluating changes in national identity, such as mixed marriages, the use of the national language and emigration. The process of acculturation—adjusting to the way of life and the culture of the majority nationality without loss of a personal sense of distinct national identity— had already begun among the Jews at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The far-reaching social and economic changes in the Jewish population, which took place between the two world wars, together with the penetration of Soviet ideology only strengthened this process. At the beginning of this century the rate of mixed marriages among the Jews of Russia was practically nil. The conditions prevailing among the Jews under tsarism made such marriages impossible. In 1925 in the European part of the Russian Republic, there were 18.83 mixed marriages for every 100 males.59 In 1926 in the Russian Republic they accounted for 21 percent of Jewish marriages, and in the Ukraine in the former Pale of Settlement they accounted for 11.1 percent in 1927.60 We have no data for the 1930s, but it is reasonable to assume that the proportion of mixed marriages continued to rise. In 1926 nearly 25 percent of all the Jews in the Soviet Union declared that Russian was their mother tongue, and by 1939 this 1'igure had risen to 54.6 percent. We should keep in mind that this was a period when an extensive network of Yiddish schools still existed, research institutes were still functioning and books and newspapers were being published. It is clear that the process of Russification, though not yet compulsory, was being speeded up. Another aspect of sovietization, that of Jews' finding positions in the apparatus of government and of the party, was no less swift. As for emigration, this was influenced both by general political grounds (non-acceptance of the regime) and by national motivation (the impossibility of preserving an independent national life within the Soviet system). During the years 1917—21 tens of thousands left the Soviet Union illegally and some seventy thousand legally. There were certainly many thousands more who wanted to emigrate but were not allowed to. Accelerated sovietization reached the German villages in the 1930s and certainly

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had an adverse effect on national identity. The general process of modernization within German society was also an important factor. There was increased social mobility and internal migration from one region to another. The social structure of the Russian-German rural population, that of a socio-religious community almost hermetically closed from outside influences, meant that mixed marriages almost never occurred. This situation changed after the Revolution and the Civil War and the growth of the German urban population. In the Russian Republic (which had a higher German urban population than the Ukrainian Republic), there were 15.3 mixed marriages for every 100 males in 1925, 10.94 in 1926 and 14.1 in 1927, that is, an annual average of about 13.5. German women, on the other hand, entered into mixed marriages at a much lower rate—7.52 for every 100 in 1925, 8.44 in 1926 and 11.43 in 1927 for every 100 women.61 Data are lacking for the 1930s, but if we take the data collected at the time of the Nazi invasion in the Ukraine, we discover that in 1942 in the district of Dnepropetrovsk, for example, where 824 families still remained, 265 out of 483 men were married to Russian or Ukrainian women; in the Zhitomir district 82 out of 209 Germans had contracted mixed marriages, while in 1914 there had only been 6 mixed marriages in the whole district. In the region of Kronau, on the other hand, with a village population of 2,857 families, there were only 65 mixed marriages. In other words, there were vastly more mixed marriages among the urban Germans.62 In 1926, 94.9 percent of all the Germans in the Soviet Union declared that their mother tongue was German.63 There are no data for 1939, but if we look at the data of the 1959 census, that is twenty years after German culture in the Soviet Union had been virtually wiped out, 75 percent of the Germans declared that German was their mother tongue. The rate in 1939, then, must have been in the neighborhood of 90 percent. That is to say, at the end of the 1930s language acculturation was only just beginning among the Germans. Cultural acculturation was certainly the lot of the German minority dispersed in the big cities of Russia and the Ukraine but nonexistent in the German villages and in the Autonomous German Republic (with about a third of the German population of the Soviet Union). Sovietization in the sense of integrating the Germans into political and state activity was also much less noticeable, as we saw, than among the Jews or Poles in the 1920s and even in the 1930s. As for emigration, the Germans were among the most active of the national minorities in sustained and courageous campaigning in the 1920s for the right to emigrate. Some thirty thousand Germans left the Soviet Union legally and many thousands more illegally. The situation of the Poles with regard to national identity was very different from that of both Jews and Germans. Most of the Polish rural population lived in villages and towns alongside a Russian or Ukrainian or Belorussian population that was similar to it in language, history and religion, and thus many Poles were unable to hold out against assimilatory pressures. Thus, for example, in the Ukraine in 1924, when mixed marriages were 38 percent among the Jews and 11.2 percent among the Germans, among the Poles they were already 62.3 percent. In 1925 in the Russian Republic for every 100 men among the Poles there were 80.55 mixed marriages and in 1927, 85.62. A similar percentage also existed among Polish women. Thus

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Polish national survival was certainly in real danger in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. The process of language acculturation was also accelerated among the Poles since the intellectual stratum in the urban population had left the Soviet Union in the years 1917-18 and, above all, after the Riga Agreement, under whose terms over 460,000 Poles emigrated from the Soviet Union to Poland. Thus according to the 1926 census, only 42.9 percent of the Poles declared that their mother tongue was Polish. It can be assumed that in 1939 this ratio was still lower. We may sum up by saying that on the eve of the Second World War national identification was still strong among the Germans and the Jews—though they were already on the way to linguistic acculturation—but much weaker among the Poles. Moreover, some of the Jews and the Poles had already passed from the stage of acculturation to that of complete assimilation, in the sense of the weakening of the bond felt by the individual to his ethnic group and his transition from a knowledge of the Russian (or Ukrainian or Belorussian) language to complete identification with the dominant nationality. As regards the Germans, this process existed only among a narrow stratum of the urban population.

Notes 1. R. Karklins, "The Inter-Relationship of Soviet Foreign and Nationality Policies: The Case of the Foreign Minorities in the USSR." Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1975; John A. Armstrong, "Mobilized and Proletarian Diasporas," American Political Science Review 70 (1976), pp. 393-400; idem., in Erich Goldhagen (ed.), Ethnic Minorities in the Soviet Union (New York: 1968), pp. 3-49. 2. Desyatyi s'ezd RKP(b) (Moscow: 1963), p. 606. 3. KPSS v rezoliutsiyakh, Izd. 7 (Moscow: 1954), vol. I, pp. 709-718. 4. Istoriya sovetskoi konstitutxii, 1917-1957 (Moscow: 1957), p. 20. 5. Ibid., pp. I l l , 117. 6. Prakticheskoe razreshenie natsional'nogo voprosa v Belorusskoi Sotsialisticheskoi Sovetskoi Respublike (Minsk: 1927), vol. I, p. 122. 7. Ocherki po istorii gosudarstva i prava BSSR (Minsk: 1955), p. 238. 8. Istoriya, pp. 252-253. 9. W. Brandt and R. Loewenthal, Ernst Reuter, Em Lebenfur die Freiheit (Munich: 1957), pp. 106-109. 10. W. Tegoborski, Polacy Zw/gzku Radzieckiego (Moscow: 1929); Dziesifc lot, 1917-1927 (Moscow: 1928). 11. "Likvidatsya narkomnatsa," Vlasl sovetov (1924) no. 1, pp. 129-130. 12. The only study published in the Soviet Union on the national sections is that of Ya. Sharapov, Natsional'nye sektsii KKP(b) (Kazan: 1967). No serious work has been done on the Polish and German sections. Material concerning them is to be found in Soviet publications, mainly from the 1920s. Two important studies have appeared on the Jewish section: Mordecai Altshuler's Ha-yevsekzia be-vrit ha-mo'azot, 1918-1930 (Tel-Aviv: 1980) and Zvi Gitelman's Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics (Princeton: 1972). 13. Oktyabrskaya revoliutsiya i zaruhezhnvc xlavyanskie narody (Moscow: 1951), pp. 35-66; Die Grossc Sozialislische Oktoberrevolution und Deulschland (Berlin: 1967), p. 108. 14. Sotsial'nvi i natsional'nyi soatav VKP(b) (Moscow: 1928), p. 114.

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15. Oktyabrskaya revoliutsiya i proletarskii internatsionalizm (Moscow: 1970), pp. 368-369. 16. Die Arbeit (1925) no. 23 (73), p. 2086. 17. Natsional'naya politika VKP(b)(Moscow: 1930), p. 137. 18. I. V. Stalin, Sochineniya, vol. VIII, pp. 149-151. 19. E. Girchak, Na dva fronta v bor'be s natsionalizmom (Moscow: 1933). 20. Pravda, 17 January 1930; Deutsche Zentralzeitung, 31 March 1930; Partiinoe stroitel'stvo (1930) no. 2 (4), pp. 70-72, and no. 6 (8), pp. 22-26. 21. These data are taken from numerous studies. In the interests of space, we shall indicate only the principal ones: Tegoborski, Polacy, pp. 144-146; Ya. Kantor, Natsional''noe stroitel'stvo sredi evreev v SSSR (Moscow: 1934), p. 22; Vlast sovetov no. 44-45; E. Pashukanis (ed.), 75 let sovetskogo stroitel'stva (Moscow: 1932), p. 81. 22. Tggoborski, Polacy, p. 155; Polska ZSSR. Internacjonalistyczna wspotpraca—historia i wspokze.snosc (Warsaw: 1977), vol. I, pp. 468-469; Kantor, Natsional'noe stroitel'stvo, p. 34; Vlast sovetov (1927) no. 21, p. 9; Der ernes, 12 December 1923, 17 December 1926, and 26 July 1934. 23. Peter Wandycz, Soviet-Polish Relations 1917-1921 (Cambridge, Mass.: 1969), pp. 226-229; "Julian Leszczynski-Lenski," Z Pola Walki (1958) no. 4, pp. 279-321. 24. Cited in Altshuler, Ha-yevsekzia, p. 202. 25. Der ernes, 20 January 1928. 26. Natsional'nay a politika, p. 137; Polska ZSSR, p. 448; Sotsial'nyi i natsionai nyi, p. 14. 27. S'ezdy sovetov v postanovleniyakh i resoliutsiyakh (Moscow: 1935), p. 475. 28. Sostav organov vlastii v soyuze SSR (Moscow/Leningrad: 1930), table XIV. 29. L. Starodubsky, Das Volkszdhlungswesen in der Union der Sozialistischen Sowjetrepubliken (Vienna: 1938). 30. F. Lorimer, The Population of the Soviet Union. History and Prospects (Geneva: 1946), p. 56, gives data on the Jewish, German and Polish populations; see also, A. Bohmann, Menschen und Grenzen (Cologne: 1970); I. Blum, "Polacy w Rusji carskiej i w Zwiazku Radzieckim," Wojskowy Przeglad Historiczny (1966) no. 3, p. 218; L. Zinger, Dos banayte folk (Moscow: 1941). 31. M. Neustats and D. Erka, Bin deutscher Todesweg (Berlin: 1930), p. 32. 32. Na agrarnom fronte (1930) no. 5, p. 26. 33. I. Gebgart, "Perestroit rabotu sovetov v nernetskikh rayonakh," Revoliutsiya i natsionai'nosti (1930) no. 1, p. 44. 34. Tegoborski, Polacy, pp. 127-135. 35. L. Zinger, Dos banayte folk, p. 90. 36. H. Reimich in Heimatbuch 1961, p. 82; W. Kolarz, Religion in the Soviet Union (London: 1961), p. 249; W. Kahle, Geschichte der evangelisch-lutherischen Gemeinden in der Sowjetunion (Leiden: 1974), p. 249. 37. P. Mailleux in R. Marshall, Jr., (ed.), Aspects of Religion in the Soviet Union (Chicago: 1971), p. 364. 38. Voinstvuyushchie bezbozhniki v SSSR za 15 let (Moscow: 1932), p. 346. 39. Natsional'nay a politika, p. 325. 40. E. Schulman, A History of Jewish Education in the Soviet Union (New York: 1976), pp. 42-57; Zhizn' natsionai'nostei, 26 January 1922. 41. I. P. Trainin, Der Verband der Sozialistischen Sowjetrepubliken (Hamburg: 1923), p. 108; ASSR der Wolgadeutschen (Engels: 1938), p. 43. 42. See the paper in Polska-ZSSR, p. 475; and A. Jukovksy, "L'Ukrainisation," pp. 40-41 in "Aspects de la question nationale en Ukraine sovietique dans les annees 1920," Nationalities Papers IX, no. 1 (1984), p. 69. 43. The statistical data in this section are based on sources too numerous to be listed here. Sec iny forthcoming work, The Jews of the Soviet Union. A History of a National Minority (Cambridge: 1987). 44. F. P. Schiller, Literatur zur Geschichte und Volkskunde der deutschen Kolonien in

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der Sowjetunion fur die Jahre 1764-1926 (Pokrovsk: 1927), pp. 51-55; L. Guseva, Spisok Saratovskikh periodicheskikh izdanii (Saratov: 1965), pp. 178-182; Sturmschritt (1930) no. 2-3, p. 8. 45. See the estimate reached by M. BuchsweiJer in Ha-germanim ha-etniim likrat milhemet ha-'olam ha-shniyah.Mikreshelne'emanutkefulah(Tel-Aviv: 1980), p. 160. 46. On Polish art and literature in the Soviet Union, see especially M. Stcpien, Zagadnienia literackie w publicystyce Polonii radzieckiej (Wroclaw: 1968); K. Sierocka, Z dziejow czasopismiennictwa polskiego w ZSSR (Warsaw: 1963). 47. Sierocka, ibid., pp. 36-39. 48. Natsional'naya kniga v RSFSR, 1928-1932 (Moscow: 1934), p. 34. 49. Katalog izdanii na evrei.skom, pol'skom, bolgarskom i nemetskom yazykakh 1937— 1939 (Kiev: 1940), pp. 36-39. 50. J. Dziarnowska, Stowo o Brummie Jasienskim (Warsaw: 1982). 51. There is an extensive literature on Jewish theater in the Soviet Union. See, in particular, Teater-bukh (Kiev: 1939), pp. 53-54; A. Greenbaum, in He-'Avar XVI (1969), pp. 109-117; B. Picon-Volin, La Theatre juif sovietique pendant les annees vingt (Lausanne: 1973). 52. Ya. Kantor, Natsional'noe, p. 180. 53. S. Shkarovsky, Dos ofgerikhte yidishe folk (Kiev: 1939), pp. 53-54; L. Zinger, Dos banayte folk, p. 109. 54. M. Liebermann, Aus dem Ghetto in der Welt (Berlin: 1979). On the German theater, see H. Haarmann, L. Schirmer and D. Walach, Das Engels Projekt—ein anti-faschistischer Theater deutscher Emigration in der UdSSR (Worms: 1975). 55. Kultura Max (1935) no. 1-2, pp. 54-60; Dialog (1966) no. 8, pp. 99-103. 56. The only work of historical research on the history of the Germans in Russia is that of D. Schmidt, Studien fiber die Geschichte der Wolgadeutschen (Pokrovsk: 1930). 57. Important material on this subject is to be found in Z Pola Walki, which appeared during the period 1927-32. 58. See K. Sierocka, Z dziejow, p. 13. 59. Natsional'naya politika, p. 4 1 . 60. Z. Gitelman, "The Jews," Problemsofommunism(1967) no. 5, p. 99. 61. Natsional'naya politika, p. 1 1 1 . 62. Bundesarchiv (Koblenz) SR-617, Reichsministerium fur die besiteten Ostgebiet; Kolnische Zeitung, 27 February 1943. 63. Natsional'naya politika, p. 36.

From Caste to Exclusion: The Dynamics of Modernization in the Russian Pale of Settlement Yoav Peled (TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY) and

Gershon Shafir (TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY)

The nineteenth century was a period of rapid and fundamental change in the Pale of Settlement. The cluster of historical processes—social, economic and political— commonly referred to as modernization came upon the Jews of Russia (the vast majority of whom were living in the Pale) with the force of a thunderbolt and wrought havoc on their traditional way of life. But if modernization is conventionally thought of as a process of integration, a process whereby previously isolated social groups are brought into the orbit of modern industrial society, then it is questionable whether many of the Jews living in the Pale were modernized at all. For in their case, the social and economic changes which occurred in the nineteenth century resulted not in integration but rather in greater isolation from the mainstream of Russian society. The people we have in mind are, of course, those Jews who were displaced from their traditional economic positions by the force of economic development and who were unable to find new positions for themselves in the emergent capitalist economy. The dispossession of these Jews, a phenomenon known as non- or "abnormal" proletarization, was intensely studied and hotly debated at the time by scholars and political leaders, Jews and non-Jews alike. The explanations offered by these observers were of two basic kinds. One attributed the problem to temporary maladjustments rooted in certain pre-modern cultural and political characteristics of the Jews themselves and of Russian society as a whole and predicted that eventually Jews would be successfully integrated into modern Russian society. The other saw the very condition of exile (or extra-territoriality) as the root cause of the Jewish predicament, of which the loss of their economic base was but one particularly painful manifestation. Our purpose in this essay is to examine the phenomenon of non-proletari/,ation 98

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and subject the explanations traditionally advanced to explain it to critical evaluation. We shall be guided in this effort by the insights of recently developed theories of ethnic relations and ethnic conflict and, in particular, by theories which view the labor market as the major arena for the development of such conflict. We shall conclude our analysis with our own proposal for understanding the problem, a proposal based on the analytical tools provided by the modern theories, augmented with some of the insights of contemporary observers.

THE HISTORICAL SETTING The three partitions of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century (1772, 1793, 1795) brought approximately 1 million Jews under Russian rule. This Jewish population was composed, occupationally, of a majority of tradesmen and leaseholders (c 60 percent); a large group of people with no permanent occupation who, in one way or another, depended for their subsistence on the trading and leaseholding groups (21 percent); and a smaller group of craftsmen (c 15 percent). Only a negligible minority were farmers (1 percent), while three times as many functioned as religious officials. This Jewish middleman minority controlled much of the trade in eighteenth-century Poland and had a large share, on a leaseholding basis, in the subsidiary branches of the manorial economy. The prevalence of Jewish leaseholding was so great, "that in some regions the word leaseholder, arendator, had become synonymous with Jew." 1 Prior to the partitions of Poland, the Russian authorities had placed severe restrictions on the entry of Jews into their territory. This policy was continued after the partitions through the designation of the areas taken from Poland as the Pale of Jewish Settlement, the only part of the empire where Jews were permitted to reside. Although over the years residence restrictions were eased for selected categories of Jews, at the end of the nineteenth century more than 90 percent of the 5 million Jews in Russia were still living inside the Pale.2 In addition to preventing their movement from the annexed Polish territories into Russia proper, the Russian authorities registered all Jews, many of whom had been living in the countryside for generations, in the two urban estates of merchants and townspeople. Members of these estates were required to live in the town of their registration and, although this decree was not expressly directed against the Jews, their particular occupations made Jews its almost exclusive targets. Attempts at enforcing the law began as early as 1782 and continued, with varying degrees of consistency and success, through the remaining years of the empire.3 The combined effect of this policy—the prevention of the Jews from dispersing throughout the empire and, within the Pale of Settlement, the attempt to remove them from the countryside—was to perpetuate their role as a middleman minority while making it increasingly difficult for them to gain a livelihood. Even more ominous, as far as the Jews' economic fortunes were concerned, was the pressure for rapid industrialization of Russia following the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. The emancipation and its associated reforms created an acute land shortage among the peasants, who were burdened, in addition, with heavy redemption payments and

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increasingly stiff tax rates. The resultant impoverishment of the peasantry and the introduction of capitalist methods in agriculture eroded the economic basis of the Jewish middleman strata. The Jews' conditions worsened even further as a result of fiscal measures introduced by the government in order to finance its ambitious industrialization plans. In the towns Jewish artisans were being displaced by the advance of modern industry while the massive influx of peasants into the towns created a chronic condition of over-supply in the labor market. Not all Jews were adversely affected by the development of capitalism in Russia. Those who had succeeded in accumulating sufficient merchant capital were able to play an important role in the emergent capitalist economy as bankers, industrialists and railroad magnates. Vast numbers of Jews, however, experienced a serious and rapid decline in their economic fortunes. Some continued to pursue their occupations at progressively lower levels of income. Others turned to illegal or semi-legal pursuits, such as smuggling. Many became workers in the handicraft and small manufacturing establishments which were replacing the old artisanal shops. By 1897 less than 40 percent of Russian Jews were engaged in trade or commerce, while an equal number were working in manufacture, about half of them as wage laborers. This new Jewish working class was composed primarily of handicraft workers. According to figures supplied by the Jewish Colonization Association (estimations considered too low in all categories), in 1898 there were about 400,000 Jewish wage workers in the Pale of Settlement. Of these, over 240,000 were handicraft workers, over 45,000 factory workers and over 100,000 day laborers and agricultural workers. In relation to the total Jewish population, virtually all of which was urban, Jewish factory workers constituted about 1 percent. By comparison Russian factory workers constituted 12.5 percent of the total urban population of European Russia, or 2.5 percent of the total population of that region.4 Some contemporary observers, most notably those associated with the Jewish Socialist party—the Bund—described the Jewish working masses, and especially the Jewish industrial proletariat, as a traditional group in the early stages of modernization, destined, given enough time and more congenial political conditions, to come to resemble the rest of the population.5 Others contended that the development of the entire worker population of the Pale was bifurcated, with non-Jewish workers heading for industrial modernization, while Jewish workers were being channeled into dead-end branches of the economy. The weight of the historical evidence, some of which will be presented below, supports the contention that Jewish and non-Jewish workers were moving down two different paths of development. This bifurcated development manifested itself in a number of ways. About 80 percent of Jewish workers were employed in four branches of industry: food (including tobacco products), wood processing (including the production of matches), the processing of organic products (leather, pig hair, etc.), and wool processing. In terms of specific industries, 37 percent of Jewish factory workers (as against 5 percent of Russian factory workers) were employed in four of the most laborintensive industries in the Pale: the production of matches, cigarette wrappers, tobacco and bricks. In the first three of these industries, women and children

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constituted 70 percent, 85 percent and 62 percent of all Jewish workers, respectively, many of them as homeworkers on contract for the factories.6 While in 1898 50 percent of all Russian factory workers were in establishments employing over one thousand workers each, only one plant at that time employed more than a thousand Jewish workers (a tobacco factory in Grodno). During the first five years of the twentieth century, only 15,000 Jewish workers (i.e., 5 percent of all Jewish workers or 30 percent of Jewish industrial workers) were working in plants employing over one hundred workers each. As to the level of mechanization in factories employing Jewish workers, aggregate data exist only for Poland where, in 1898, Jewish workers constituted 43.7 percent of all workers in non-mechanized factories and only 18.9 percent in mechanized ones. We have no reason to believe that the situation in other parts of the Pale was significantly different.7 A well-known feature of Jewish economic life was that Jewish workers were employed almost exclusively by Jewish employers. The reverse, however, was not true: Jewish factory owners employed a large number of non-Jewish workers.8 In general, the distinction between the two groups lay in their relation to the machine: Jewish workers concentrated in small, non-mechanized plants while non-Jewish workers employed by Jews tended to congregate in large, mechanized factories. This ethnic division of labor was the outcome of a process known as "eviction": The replacement of Jewish by non-Jewish workers in Jewish-owned factories which had undergone mechanization. While the reasons for these evictions have been subject to debate among contemporary observers, there was little disagreement as to the widespread nature of the phenomenon. Already in 1898, S. R. Landau, editor of the Vienna Zionist weekly Die Welt, reported that in Lodz, the Polish Manchester, Jewish textile workers were confined to working on hand looms, in many cases as homeworkers, while non-Jewish workers were employed by the thousand in Jewishowned, mechanized factories.9 As industrialization spread eastward, the same picture was duplicated in other cities and in different branches of industry—the textile industry in Warsaw and Bialystok, the shoe industry in Warsaw and Odessa and the tobacco industry throughout the Pale. In many instances this process was accompanied by violence, actual or threatened, between Jewish and non-Jewish workers. Attempts by the Bund, with the occasional cooperation of non-Jewish Socialist parties, to mitigate the conflict and find compromise arrangements which would allow workers of both groups to work in mechanized plants were usually to no avail. 10 In sum, the general characteristics of the emergent Jewish working class were as follows: It was composed, primarily, of craft workers in the consumer goods sector of the economy, where wages were low, working conditions poor and employment opportunities sporadic and insecure. Its members were scattered over a large number of small and generally primitive plants, owned, in most instances, by other Jews. Many of the latter were hardly better off than their workers. As a result a great deal of shifting back and forth between the ranks of workers and employers rendered the Jewish working class very unstable. These characteristics contrasted sharply with those of the Russian proletariat (with the exception of its agricultural segment) which was made up primarily of factory workers concentrated in large, technologically advanced plants owned by the government or by (Russian or for-

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eign) large firms. A high percentage of Russian workers were employed in mining and steel production and on the railroads—strategic industries within the capitalist economy. Thus, while most Russian workers participated in the dynamic, rapidly expanding sectors of the economy, Jewish workers were fighting to maintain their hold on stagnant, dead-end, rapidly declining forms of production.

THEORETICAL EXPLANATIONS The explanations offered at the time by Jewish scholars and political leaders for the predicament of Jewish workers can be classified under two major categories, those stressing "primordial," that is, traditional, cultural factors, and those focusing on structural social and economic causes. Explanations of the first type were put forward by the Bund and by spokesmen for the Russian Jewish bourgeoisie (such as the Jewish Colonization Association), namely, by those who believed that the "Jewish problem" could be solved in Russia itself, provided that both Russian society and the Russian Jewish community underwent various reforms. These "primordial" explanations stressed the difficulty of mingling Jewish and non-Jewish workers owing to the fact that the former observed the Sabbath on Saturday and kept the laws of kashrut, while the latter seemed to be almost innately antisemitic. They also pointed to the legal and political liabilities imposed on the Jews by the Tsarist government, the lack of technical know-how among the Jews and their hostility to physical labor, and the reluctance of Jewish workers to work in factories, where they had no hope of some day becoming independent producers. The other type of explanation was proposed by the Zionists (in particular the socialist Zionists) and the territorialists, who believed that the problem could be solved only by the emigration of the Jews from Russia and their concentration in an autonomous land of their own. The most important socialist-Zionist ideologist was Ber Borochov, whose theory of ethnicity, based on the concept of "territoriality," is still considered by many a brilliant attempt at constructing a Marxist theory of nationality. The natural tendency of ethnic minorities, Borochov argued, is to assimilate into the surrounding society. If assimilation does not occur, countervailing processes of an economic nature are evidently at work. These processes are of two kinds, corresponding to two periods of economic development. In the pre-capitalist period, the ethnic minority—the "extra-territorial nation"—is confined to economic roles shunned by members of the "territorial [i.e., majority] nation." These roles are generally located in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy, those which Borochov describes as being "farthest removed from nature": trade, finance, and petty craft production. Ethnic relations in this period are characterized by Borochov as "national exploitation." With the transition to capitalism, many of the roles traditionally occupied by ethnic minorities become obsolete, while others are taken over by members of the majority. The latter continues to monopolize the primary sectors of production which now include, in addition to agriculture, mining and heavy industry. In the labor market, members of the "territorial nation" take possession of

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all jobs in modern industry, even in the secondary sectors (textiles, etc.), confining the minority workers to marginal and rapidly declining manufacture. During this period, "national exploitation" is gradually replaced by "national competition" and "national exclusion," eventually forcing the non-territorial nation to emigrate. However, emigration per se cannot solve the problem since the processes of exploitation and exclusion are bound to repeat themselves in new locations. Only reterritorialization of the non-territorial nation in a land of its own can bring its predicament to an end.'' Borochov formulated his theory with the case of the Jews of Eastern Europe in mind and with an obvious ideological purpose—to advocate Zionism as the only solution to the Jewish predicament. His key concept, "territonality." was vague, and its implications, in such areas as the control of particular sectors of the economy, were ill-defined. In some cases Borochov's theoretical claims were simply erroneous. He argued, for example, that "extra-territorial nations" were excluded from employment in the primary sectors of production. This was plainly contradicted by the massive employment in agriculture of American blacks who, according to Borochov, were the only "absolutely extra-territorial nation" aside from the Jews. Nonetheless, in spite of its shortcomings, Borochov's theory contains a number of very cogent ideas, and in some areas his insights prefigure those of the most recent theoretical advances in the field of ethnic relations. These theoretical advances focus on the interrelationships between economic and cultural factors and may be seen as constituting a new paradigm for understanding the problems of ethnicity. The evolution of this new paradigm came in response to the recent revival of ethnicity as a significant political phenomenon in precisely those societies where most functionalist and diffusional theorists had assumed it to be dead and buried. Major studies in this paradigm include Edna Bonacich's "split labor market" theory, the "internal colonialism" model of Michael Hecher, and Stanley B. Greenberg's account of the historical evolution of what he describes as the capitalist state's racial apparatus.12 Common to all these models is the challenge they pose to the functionalist thesis according to which the dynamic of modernization, seen as the extension of the modern sector toward its traditional periphery, will bring about the homogenization of culturally different groups through increased interaction and by dissemination of modern values and employment opportunities.13 According to its critics, the functionalist thesis presents modernization as devoid of fundamental contradictions or antagonistic relations between the various groups concerned. In contrast, the new paradigm argues that, in actual fact, industrialization frequently imposes a rigid division of labor on pre-existing cultural differences, resulting in discontinuities in the labor market and segmentation of the opportunity structure. Responding to this criticism, functionalist theorists now argue that the slow pace, or absence, of integration of peripheral groups is due to the latter's attachment to "primordial" cultural characteristics which they refuse to trade in for the rights and duties of the modern world. 14 The initiators of the new paradigm seek to demonstrate, on the other hand, that adherence to cultural features which emphasize and enhance ethnic distinctness is, in fact, a reaction to the dualism inherent in

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the capitalist order and that it appears as a tool of political organizaion where economic processes make integration impossible. The new paradigm, in sum, addresses ethnicity as the conclusion of the social process rather than its starting point. Of the theories which constitute the new paradigm, the one most useful for explaining the situation of Russian Jewish workers is the "split labor market" model developed by Bonacich. The central features of this model are: 1. When ethnic groups, or fragments of ethnic groups, reside in the same society, one would expect the boundaries between them gradually to disappear. It is the persistence of their differences and conflicts that requires explanation.15 2. Racial and ethnic conflicts are rooted in the fact that different prices are paid for similar work when performed by members of different groups, or would be paid if they performed the same work. The fundamental social difference is that between higher- and lower-priced workers, a difference which in multi-ethnic societies takes the form of ethnic conflict. 16 3. Since the crucial distinction between ethnic groups lies in the different price of their labor, we must analyze the initial resources and motivations which determine this price. "Resources" compare standards of living, extent of information and trade-union experience, while "motivations" compare intended duration of stay in the labor market and the regular or supplementary nature of income goals. 17 4. Capital naturally gravitates toward the employment of cheaper labor, threatening the higher-priced workers with displacement. In order to protect itself, higherpriced labor will launch a struggle against the lower-priced workers, relying on the ethnic background it shares with the employers to accomplish its goal. 18 5. The two major manifestations of ethnic conflict in the labor market appear antithetical: exclusion movements and caste systems. In the former, members of one ethnic group are prevented from entering the labor market or are forced out of it: in the latter, they are confined to the lower rungs of the occupational ladder. Both strategies, however, signal the success of the higher-priced workers. 19 6. Equalization of pay may do away with both the threat of displacement and ethnic conflict. This solution is rarely attempted, however, by higher-priced workers since it may contradict their short-term interests. It is even more rarely carried to a successful conclusion since the entire world functions as a huge multi-layered split labor market, and the equalization of pay in one place may only result in the flight of capital elsewhere.20 A major difficulty in split labor market theory is that it provides no explanation for the ability of higher-priced workers to maintain their hold on the better portion of the labor market, an ability which is taken for granted. Since Bonacich selected cases in which the higher-priced workers were of the same ethnic background as their employers, it is not surprising that she concluded that common ethnicity with the employers was the cause of the higher-priced workers' success.21 But if that is so, then the theory is turned on its head: Ethnicity rather the price of labor turns out to be the major dynamic underlying the split labor market. Thus, rather than being explained by the split labor market, ethnicity ends up explaining it. Bonacich's

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theory suffers from conceptual weaknesses as well. First, as Burawoy has pointed out, her analysis is concerned with economic processes only and neglects the political context in which these processes take place.22 Second, the theory lacks a sense of historical development and fails to recognize the variety of forms a split labor market may take. These conceptual weaknesses are highlighted when the theory is applied to the case of Jewish workers in the Pale, for this particular case differs from the ones usually studied by split labor market theorists in several important respects. First, the Jewish community in Russia was neither an immigrant nor a settler community, but a middleman minority whose contact with capitalism came about through an organic process of development. Second, Jews, a subordinate group in the society, comprised both the employers' and the higher-priced workers' groups, while the lower-priced workers were non-Jewish. Third, in the struggle among the three groups, the higher-priced Jewish workers were defeated. These difficulties notwithstanding, we still feel that the central dynamic posited by split labor market theory, that of a tripartite conflict among employers, higherpriced and lower-priced workers, belonging to two different ethnic groups, corresponds very well to the situation we wish to study in the Pale; therefore, the theory can provide useful analytical tools for our study when combined with certain insights of Borochov as well as those of other, more recent students of ethnicity.

FROM CASTE TO EXCLUSION The problem of non- (or 'abnormal') proletarization emerged as the result of the fact that in the Pale of Settlement Jewish workers were defeated in the struggle over employment in modern industry. Their failure, which came about in spite of a shared ethnic background with their employers, resulted from an alliance between Jewish capitalists and non-Jewish workers, an alliance which proved stronger than both ethnic and class solidarity. The question we must ask, then, is, "What were the interests that motivated Jewish employers to displace their Jewish workers, and what was it that enabled them to do so with such a high degree of success?" A further question we must ask pertains to the usefulness of "split labor market" and of Borochov's theory in explaining this phenomenon. Bonacich and Borochov share a common theoretical position in arguing that cultural and linguistic differences and other putatively "primordial" characteristics of ethnicity are not in themselves major determinants of the survival chances of ethnic groups in multi-ethnic societies. Both authors developed their arguments in debates with theoretical and political opponents—functionalist and prejudice theorists, on the one hand, the Bund and the Jewish Colonization Association (among others), on the other—who emphasized precisely those "primordial" characteristics in their analyses of ethnic conflict. In contrast both Bonacich and Borochov stressed the importance of economic factors, particularly discontinuities in the occupational structure of society, in fomenting ethnic antagonisms. At the time, as we have seen, the most common explanation given for the exclusion of Jewish workers from employment in modern industry was paradigmatically "primordial:" their observance of the Sabbath on Saturday. Since Chris-

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tian workers rested on Sunday, employment of both groups together meant closing down the factories two days a week, at an intolerable loss to the owners. An obvious solution, if this, indeed, were the problem, would have been to employ Christians and Jews in separate plants, as had been done in the hand-powered establishments. The weight of historical evidence suggests, however, that the Sabbath was not the real issue. According to Jacob Lestchinsky, a pioneering scholar in the demography, economy and sociology of East European Jewry, more Jewish workers were employed in mechanized factories in the northwestern provinces of the Pale and in Bessarabia, where Jews were still very observant, than in the southern, more industrialized provinces of Kherson and Ekaterinoslav, where many Jewish workers had no qualms about working on the Sabbath. Similar evidence was provided by S. R. Landau, who visited the Polish city of Lodz in 1898. Landau reported that Jewish weavers, although still very observant, were so hard-pressed for employment that they were indeed willing to work on Saturday, but to no avail.23 Thus it seems that, as Bonacich and Borochov suggest, "primordial" qualities were not in themselves determinants of the situation of Jewish workers. The analysis of split labor market theory begins at the point where lower-priced workers of a distinct ethnic background enter a capitalist economy or where the latter is imposed upon them. The fate of these workers from that point on is determined by the "initial price" of their labor, an attribute they bring with them into the capitalist economy. Because the "initial price" of their labor is lower than that of other workers, the capitalists try to displace at least part of their existing labor force in favor of these new workers. The higher-priced workers react by instituting a split labor market, thus creating the mechanism which prevents lowerpriced workers from integrating into the society. Bonacich's use of the category "price of labor" has been criticized by Burawoy, who suggests that the more inclusive category "cost of labor power" should be used in its stead.24 From the perspective of the present study, the advantage of using the latter category is that, whereas the "price of labor" emphasizes wage levels while holding productivity constant, the "cost of labor power" allows us to account for differences in productivity as well. 25 This is important because the displacement of Jewish workers, as of hand-workers in similar situations elsewhere, cannot be explained by comparing only wage levels. The replacement of adult, male, relatively skilled hand-workers by women, children and agricultural laborers, has often accompanied the early stages of mechanization in hand-powered industries. In their classic studies of the English textile industry in the early nineteenth century, both Neil Smelser and E. P. Thompson have noted that this process was not ordinarily motivated by a desire for simple reduction in wages. As a matter of fact, hand-workers' wages had been so low at that particular point in the development of the industry that they often provided a disincentive to mechanize.26 If mechanization did take place, it was because it brought about a reduction of labor costs in relation to productivity, by reducing both the quantity and the quality of labor power necessary for the production of a particular commodity. It was the qualitative aspect of this process which enabled factory owners to replace their adult, male hand-workers with women, children and agricultural work-

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ers. Mechanization broke up the complicated task of skilled hand-workers into a number of simple tasks, capable of being performed by people with little or no skills. Some of these tasks required no physical strength and could be performed by women and children, while others required a great deal of strength and endurance and were more suitable for people with agricultural backgrounds. Since the skilled hand-workers did not commonly possess the technical competence required for supervisory positions in the mechanized factories, they often found themselves without employment.27 On occasion, this process, termed by Bonacich "displacement through job dilution," also entailed the replacement of one ethnic group by another.28 In England, for example, English and Scottish hand-loom weavers were replaced by Irish immigrants hired to work the power-looms.29 In our case, of course, Jewish hand-workers were replaced by non-Jewish, recently urbanized peasants.30 The situation of Jewish workers in the Pale differed, however, from that of the English hand-loom weavers in one important respect. While in England the displacement of hand-workers occurred prior to the appearance of trade unions, 31 the early stages of mechanization in the Pale coincided with the beginning of trade union organizing on a mass scale and with feverish strike activity among the Jewish workers.32 This "economic struggle," as it was known, resulted in improved wages and working conditions for the Jewish hand-workers, especially in the small handicraft shops, where the owners were less able to resist their demands. In the long run, however, the workers' success hastened the decline of their places of employment and the elimination of their own jobs, and brought about an "employers' reaction" seeking to roll back the gains that had been achieved. (Realizing this, the Bund decided in 1901 to halt the campaign for further improvements and concentrate on defending those which had already been attained.) Moreover, the reputation for militancy acquired by Jewish workers had to be taken into consideration by owners of mechanized plants in calculating the cost of Jewish labor power. As noted by one factory owner, "the Jews are good workers, but they are capable of organizing revolts . . . against the employer, the regime, the Tsar himself."33 This factory owner, like most of his colleagues, preferred to employ pliant and docile nonJewish peasants.34 One of Bonacich's most important insights is the realization that, in the structuring of the labor market, workers are not passive instruments in the hands of the capitalists but rather struggle to achieve definite ends of their own. In our particular case, once the replacement of Jewish with non-Jewish workers had gotten under way, non-Jewish workers began to resist all attempts at deviating from this pattern. As Borochov put it, "Christian workers have come to adopt the opinion that machine work is their exclusive prerogative and privilege, and they systematically prevent Jewish workers from working at the machines." 35 At times, this attitude even resulted in violent outbursts between Jewish and non-Jewish workers. Thus, in Bialystok, "fierce battles broke out between Jewish and Polish workers when in 1903 a factory owner decided to retain some Jewish workers after the transition from hand to power looms. "30 With all its violent potential, however, the resistance of non-Jewish workers was not sufficient to exclude Jewish workers from mechanized plants. This is evidenced by the fact that in certain cases Jewish workers were

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retained by their employers even after mechanization. But once replacement had become an established pattern, the resistance of non-Jewish workers to the employment of Jews in mechanized plants added to the cost of Jewish labor power and hastened the displacement process.37 In explaining the different wages paid to workers of the two ethnic groups, Bonacich identifies certain attributes ("resources" and "motivations") which, she argues, determine the "initial price" of each group's labor. She does not explicitly consider, however, the reasons underlying the differential development of these resources and motivations in the two groups. Here, we believe, her theory could be augmented with one of Borochov's insights, albeit in modified form. Borochov argued that the position occupied by each group prior to its contact with capitalism determined how it would fare in the capitalist economy. We would like to add that the historical period in which the group comes in contact with capitalism is also important in shaping its opportunity structure. In our own case, therefore, we need to examine how both the positions occupied by Jews and non-Jews in the traditional economy, and the period in which they came into contact with capitalism, influenced the differential development of their "resources and motivations." As a middleman minority, Jews had performed proto-capitalist functions in the feudal economy. They were, by and large, an urban population engaged in trade, leasing, money-lending and handicraft. Their standard of living and cultural level were higher than those of the surrounding peasant populations, and only a negligible minority drew their subsistence from the land. Their consciousness was that of small independent producers—self-sufficiency and self-reliance were highly esteemed values and religious education a major determinant of social status. The artisans among them had a long tradition of industrial relations which, while essentially paternalistic, was not devoid of important elements of struggle between workers and employers. These characteristics, which made Jews relatively well prepared to function in a capitalist economy, also made their labor power relatively expensive in relation to that of non-Jewish peasants-turned-workers with whom they had to compete. Jews scored higher in all three of Bonacich's "resources": Their standard of living was higher; they were more informed about the workings of the capitalist system; and they possessed the rudiments of trade union experience. These enabled them to launch a relatively successful struggle for wage increases and better working conditions. But their very success, as we saw, created an incentive for employers to displace them. In addition, their competitors were better able to afford to sell their labor power for less. As recently urbanized peasants, not all of whom had severed their ties to the land, they possessed at least two of the motivations which, according to Bonacich, contribute to the lowering of the price of labor: temporariness in the market and supplementary income goal. Thus, while their actual wages may not have been lower than those of Jewish workers, they were better equipped to cope with seasonal employment, business cycles and periodic reductions in wages. These qualities made them more attractive to employers than Jewish workers, for whom industrial labor was the only means of subsistence, and who were, therefore, more apt to engage in economic struggles with their employers. Like Borochov, Bonacich identifies the commonality of interest between capitalists and lower-priced workers: The former wish to reduce their labor costs, the

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latter wish to broaden their employment opportunities; both wish to displace the higher-priced workers. In all the cases Bonacich selected for study, however, the higher-priced workers succeeded in frustrating the wishes of the capitalists and of their own lower-priced competitors, and they were able to maintain their hold on the better portion of the labor market. In all instances the higher-priced workers were of the dominant ethnic group in the society. It is not surprising, therefore, that Bonacich assumed common ethnicity to be the explanation for this phenomenon. As we noted above, this is the main logical weakness in her theory, for ethnicity, instead of being explained by split labor market, ends up explaining it. In the Pale of Settlement higher-priced Jewish workers failed to maintain their hold on the better portion of the labor market, in spite of their sharing the same ethnic background with the employers. In view of this as well as for logical reasons we must reject common ethnicity as an explanation for higher-priced workers' success. What, then are the factors which account for the success or failure of each group in this tripartite struggle? The most important of these factors, we believe, is access to the state. Burawoy, as we noted, has already criticized Bonacich for her neglect of the state, that is, the political context in which the economic processes under investigation take place. Bonacich, he argues, has generalized from the individual capitalist to the capitalist system as a whole, attributing to the latter the profit and loss calculations of the former. In reality, however, the system as a whole, through its executive body—the state—is concerned not with maximizing profits per se, but with reproducing the conditions necessary for the continuing accumulation of capital. The split labor market reflects, therefore, not only the interests of higher-priced workers but, more importantly, the interests of the capitalist system as a whole. (The latter may even be opposed, in Burawoy's view, to the interests of individual capitalists who may prefer free access to cheap labor power without the interference of "color bars.") Bonacich has replied to Burawoy's criticism by claiming that arguments on the "system" level may lead to functionalist tautologies: Whatever happens can be explained as serving the interest of the system in reproducing itself.38 Her point, we feel, is well taken, but Burawoy's criticism remains pertinent. No adequate explanation of the development and operation of the split labor market can be constructed without taking into account the role played by the state. The state, however, does not respond mechanically to the undifferentiated "requirements" of capital accumulation. Rather, it is a social institution whose task is indeed the reproduction of the conditions allowing for the continuation of the capitalist social order, but which responds differentially to the pressures exerted on it by various social groups. In a capitalist society or in a society undergoing capitalization, the state would normally side with the capitalists against the workers, of whatever ethnic background. However, when a group of workers occupying a strategic position within the production system organizes itself and acts in a cohesive manner, it may be able to exert enough pressure on the state to veto certain measures deemed profitable by the capitalists. In multi-ethnic societies, this veto power may express itself in support for what Greenberg has termed a "state racial apparatus" which guarantees the operation of the split labor market. 39 In sum, the success of higher-priced workers in their efforts to fighi displacement varies with their political power

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which, in turn, is determined by two factors: the position of the particular group of workers within the productive system and its level of organization. Thus, it becomes clear why white miners in South Africa have succeeded in keeping their jobs and in forcing black workers into the position of a lower caste, while Jewish handworkers in Russia and English hand-loom weavers in the middle of the nineteenth century were displaced in favor of lower-priced workers of a different ethnic background. A major achievement of split labor market theory is the demonstration that two seemingly antithetical phenomena—the exclusion of a competing ethnic group from the labor market or, alternatively, its retention as a lower laboring caste—are rooted in a common cause. Both phenomena are explained as serving the defensive needs of higher-priced workers in preventing competition and the threat of eventual displacement by lower-priced labor. Since it lacks an historical perspective, however, split labor market theory presents the two strategies, "caste" and "exclusion," as mutually exclusive alternatives. Furthermore, the specific conditions under which one strategy will be preferred over the other, or changed into the other, have not been worked out in Bonacich's theory. All she ventures to propose is the vague claim that exclusion is a "safer" method and, therefore, in some cases preferred by higher-priced workers.40 But just how safe the workers feel is not a given but a historically specifiable factor. Therefore, instead of a general rule, what is needed is a measure of the political strength of the various parties in the three-way conflict. Borochov, we believe, provides a possible historical corrective. Like Bonacich, he distinguished between two forms of displacement—exploitation and dispossession—but saw them not as alternative strategies in the arsenal of higher-priced labor, but as consecutive steps in a struggle to monopolize the labor market. The strategy appropriate for each step, he argued, is determined by the level of economic development. At first the "feudal" mode of production was carried over into the early stages of industrialization. The primary branches of production, traditionally in the possession of the "territorial" nation, were now capitalist, while the "extra-territorial" group found its employment in the final stages of the productive process and in commercial circulation. As capitalism moved from manufacture to machine production, the dispossession of the "non-territorial" workers was completed. Mechanization, the great adversary of the artisans, is equally the enemy of the territoryless minority. Although we cannot claim that Borochov's thesis is generally applicable, we do think that it can serve as a basis for a broader hypothesis regarding the different forms which the split labor market may assume. As a rule, it seems plausible to argue, the dominant working class will select its strategy—caste or exclusion— according to its own political strength, that is, the influence it can exert on the state. The desire for total exclusion of potential competitors is likely to be the expression of political weakness, while readiness to construct a caste system, in which the dominant workers serve as a "labor aristocracy," is likely to be the result of selfconfidence in their ability to protect their position. The testing of this hypothesis must await the availability of a larger number of case studies. For the moment, we can say that the exclusion of Jewish workers from machine work may have been an

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indication of the weakness of the Russian industrial proletariat rather than of its strength. An alternative strategy to the creation of a split labor market, from the standpoint of higher-priced workers, could be the equalization of pay between the two groups. This would eliminate the threat of displacement and unify workers of both ethnic backgrounds in face of the employing class. Bonacich, however, considers it unlikely that higher-priced workers would launch a struggle to raise lower-priced workers' wages, and even more unlikely that their struggle would be successful. 41 In the Pale of Settlement, higher-priced Jewish workers, represented by the Bund, actively sought to equalize the price of the two groups' labor power through joint trade union action.42 This action resulted from the fact that the higher-priced workers comprised the politically weaker group and hence feared displacement. In this case, the political conditions proved decisive in determining the strategy chosen by higher-priced workers. Assessing the tragic consequences of the split labor market for the displaced Jewish workers, Borochov pointed out that exclusion made emigration inescapable. He believed, however, that the split labor market could only be avoided by the territorialization of the extra-territorial nation. The outcome of the historical process, eighty years later, seems to be in great variance with his predictions. Jews who emigrated to the advanced capitalist centers of the West, especially the United States, integrated into the industrial working class (albeit in industries and occupations not very dissimilar from the ones in which they had been employed in the Pale) and then moved rapidly into the professional and managerial strata, ironically, in Palestine, their land of territorial concentration, Jewish workers again encountered a split labor market which, at first, operated against them through the shared interest of Jewish employers and Arab workers. Using consecutively both strategies, exclusion and caste, and benefiting (after 1948) from the active support of the Israeli state, they were able to manipulate the split labor market in their favor. This ethnic conflict, which spilled over into the international arena, has overshadowed all other aspects of life in the newly gained Jewish homeland.43 (In fairness to Borochov, we should emphasize that one of his predictions, the closing-off of Western countries to further Jewish—and not only Jewish—immigration, which is, of course, a drastic form of exclusion, was largely borne out by historical developments.)

CONCLUSION The exclusion of vast numbers of Jewish workers from the industrial productive process in the Pale and the confinement of many others to marginal and declining occupations, was a major cause of one of the largest migration movements in history, the migration of approximately 2 million Jews from Eastern Europe to the West between 1880 and 1914. (The fact that this migration failed to bring about a noticeable reduction in the number of Jews in Eastern Europe was a tribute to another aspect of modernization in the Pale, the population explosion.) 44 By migrating to the West, these masses of Jews were voting with their feet in favor of the

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proposition that the Jewish problem could not be solved within the confines of Russian society, be it traditional or modern. But, tacitly at least, they were also expressing the conviction that their economic and political difficulties could be alleviated without the re-territorialization of the Jews in a national land of their own. Our analysis of the problem of "non-proletarization" seems to indicate that the emigrants, with their intuitive grasp of the problem they faced, may have been better judges of the situation than were many learned observers. For the roots of the problem were indeed structural rather than "primordial"; they had little to do with either the Jews' intrinsic social-cultural profile or their non-territorial status per se. As we point out in the study, while the overall context in which the struggle was played out was determined by the attitude of the Russian state toward the Jews, the exclusion of Jewish workers from modern industry resulted, in an immediate sense, from the defeat they suffered at the hands of an inter-ethnic (and inter-class) alliance of Jewish employers and non-Jewish workers. This defeat was no different, in essence, than the defeat suffered by "territorial" English workers at the hands of the inter-ethnic alliance of English employers and immigrant Irish workers. The fate of Jewish workers in the Pale, like the fate of relatively skilled handworkers elsewhere, was determined by a set of circumstances over which they had no control. On the one hand, their historical experience and the positions they had occupied in the traditional economy made their labor power more expensive than that of the recently urbanized peasants with whom they had to compete. On the other, their position within Russian society, and even within the Russian Jewish community, did not provide them with any economic or political weapons with which to fight for their share of the industrial labor market. Ethnic identity or cultural affinity with their employers was no asset at all, since the employers, whatever their preferences, could not afford to hire expensive Jewish labor rather than cheap non-Jewish labor.

Notes Research for this paper was supported by grants from the Fund for Basic Research of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Ford Foundation (through the Israel Foundations Trustees), and the Center for the Absorption of New Scientists of the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption. We would also like to thank Dov-Ber Kerler and Dan Haruv for their research assistance and, especially, our wives, Horit Herman-Peled and Helen Michal Innerfield Shafir. 1. Ezra Mendelsohn, Class Struggle in the Pale: The Formative Years of the Jewish Workers Movement in Tsarist Russia (Cambridge: 1970), p. 2; Hans Rogger, "Government, Jews, Peasants, and Land in Post-emancipation Russia," Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique XVII, no. ] (1976), p. 7; Jacob Lestchinsky, Ha-tefuza ha-yehudit (Jerusalem: 1960), pp. 126, 147. 2. Isaac Rubinow, Economic Conditions of Jews in Russia (New York: 1975. Reprint of Bulletin of U.S. Bureau of Labor, vol. 15 [Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office]), pp. 489-491; Louis Grecnbcrg, The Jews in Russia: The Struggle for Emancipation

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vol. I (New York: 1976), pp. 10—11; Robert Brym, The Jewish Intelligentsia and Russian Marxism (New York: 1978), p. 31, 3. Rogger, "Government, Jews, Peasants," pp. 7-8. 4. Jewish Colonization Association, Recueil de materiaux sur la situation economique des Israelites de Rustic (Paris: 1908); summarized in Jacob Lestchinsky, Der idisher arbeter in rusland (Vilna: 1906); Rubinow, Economic Conditions; Arcadius Kahan, "The Impact of Industrialization in Tsarist Russia on the Socioeconomic Conditions of the Jewish Population" in Arcadius Kahan, Essays in Jewish Social and Economic History, ed. Roger Weiss (Chicago: 1986), pp. 1-69. 5. Bund, Der poalci tsionism (Geneva: 1905); see Rubinow, Economic Conditions, pp. 522-523, 525-526. 6. Lestchinsky, Der idisher arbeter, pp. 27, 31, 40-43, 45-46, table VIII, X-A. 7. Jewish Colonization Association, vol. II, p. 116; Lestchinsky Der idisher arbeter, pp. 17, 38-57, 60, 63-64; Ber Borochov, Geklibene shriftn, Bcrl Locker (ed.) (New York: 1928), p. 191; Ber Borochov, Ktavini, L. Levite and D. Ben-Nahurn (cds.), vol. II (TelAviv: 1958), pp. 292-293; Rubinow, Economic Conditions, p. 544. 8. Sixty thousand according to Kahan, ''Impact of Industrialization," p. 79. 9. S. R. Landau, "Be-kcrev proletarim yehudiim," MeasefXll (1980-81), pp. 213225 (Hebrew translation of the German original, 1898). 10. Lestchinsky, Ha-tefuza ha-ychudit, pp. 141 144; Ber Borochov, Ktavim vol. Ill (Tel-Aviv: 1966), pp. 789-790, n. 382; pp. 801-804, nn. 388, 389; A. Kirzhnitz, Der idisher arbeter, A. Kirzhnitz and M. Rafes (eds.), vol. Ill (1927), pp. 112-126; Jonathan Frankel, Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and. the Russian Jews, 1862-1917 (Cambridge: 1981), pp. 153, 237, 299, 312, 325; Ezra Mendelsohn, "Jewish and Christian Workers in the Russian Pale of Settlement," Jewish Social Studies XXX. no. 4 (October 1968), pp. 243-251. 11. Ber Borochov's most important theoretical works are "The National Question and the Class Struggle" and "Our Platform," in Borochov, Ktavim vol. 1 (Tel-Aviv: 1955), pp. 154-190, 193-310. Excerpts, in English translation, are available in Borochov, Nationalism and the Class Struggle: A Marxian Approach lo the Jewish Problem (Westport: 1972). For a fuller discussion of the debate between Borochov and the Bund, see Yoav Peled, "Class, Nation, and Culture: The Debate Over Jewish Nationality in the Russian Revolutionary Movement, 1893-1906," Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1982. 12. Edna Bonacich, "A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market," American Sociological Review XXXVII (October 1972) pp. 547-559; idem, "The Past, Present, and Future of Split Labor Market Theory," Research in Race and Ethnic Relations 1 (1979), pp. 17-64. 13. See, for example, David Apter, The Politics oj Modernization (Chicago: 1966); Karl Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication (Cambridge, Mass.: 1966). 14. Edward A. Shils, "Primordial, Personal, Sacred and Civil Ties," in his Center and Periphery (Chicago: 1975). 15. Bonacich, "Split Labor Market Theory," p. 19. 16. Bonacich, "Ethnic Antagonism," p. 549; "Split Labor Market Theory," p. 17. 17. Bonacich, "Ethnic Antagonism," pp. 549-552. 18. Bonacich, "Split Labor Market Theory," pp. 20, 25, 30-32. 19. Bonacich, "Ethnic Antagonism," pp. 548, 554-557. 20. Bonacich, "Split Labor Market Theory," p. 34. 21. Bonacich, "Advanced Capitalism and Black/White Race Relations in the United States: A Split Labor Market Interpretation," American Sociological Review XLI (February 1976), pp. 34-51; idem, "Capitalism and Race Relations in South Africa: A Split Labor Market Analysis," Political Power and Social Theory II (1981), pp. 239-278. 22. Michael Burawoy, "The Capitalist State in South Africa: Marxist and Sociological Perspectives," Political Power and Social Theory II (1981), pp. 279-336. 23. Landau, "Bc-kcrcv proletarim yehudiim," p. 215.

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24. Burawoy, "Capitalist State," pp. 286-287; for Bonacich's apparent acceptance of this correction, see Bonacich, "Reply to Burawoy," Political Power and Social Theory II (1981), pp. 337-338. 25. Bonacich, "Split Labor Market Theory," p. 20. 26. Neil Smelser, .Social Change in the Industrial Revolution (London: 1959), p. 146; E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: 1966),pp. 279-280. 27. Thompson, English Working Class, p. 309. 28. Bonacich, "Split Labor Market Theory," p. 26. 29. Smelser, Social Change, p. 207; Thompson, English Working Class, pp. 302-303, 310. 30. Lestchinsky, Der idisher arbeter. 31. Thompson, English Working Class, p. 312. 32. Borochov, Ktavim vol. II, pp. 260-320. 33. Quoted in Mendelsohn, Class Struggle, p. 22. 34. Cf. Bonacich, "Split Labor Market Theory," pp. 16-21. The available information on wage levels of Jewish industrial workers around the turn of the century is extremely sketchy. The only comprehensive study of the economic conditions of Jews in Tsarist Russia, conducted by the Jewish Colonization Association, relied on information supplied by the employers, who were not asked about wage levels (Rubinow, Economic Conditions, p. 547). The available data point to great variations on the basis of sex, age, locale and branch of industry. The two extreme points on the scale in the late 1890s seem to have been 1 ruble a day for adult male metal workers in Warsaw and I ruble a month for young girls in the candy industry. The average for adult male workers seems to have been between 3 and 5 rubles a week (Rubinow, Economic Conditions, pp. 547-548; Lestchinsky, Der idisher arbeter, pp. 45-46, 51). By comparison, the daily wage of non-Jewish agricultural laborers varied between 25 kopeks and 1.5 rubles a day (Rubinow, Economic Conditions, p. 534). The average wage of a Russian industrial worker in the 1890s was about 15 rubles a month (Peter I. Lyashchenko, History of the National Economy of Russia, L. M. Herman [trans.J [New York: 1949), p. 488; Alexander Gerschenkron, "The Rate of Industrial Growth in Russia Since 1885," The Tasks of Economic History, suppl. VII to Journal of Economic History [1947], pp. 150, 154). In the Jewish sector, wages rose during the 1890s and began to decline again after 1905. 35. Borochov, Ktavim vol. I, p. 203; cf. Kirzhnitz, Arbeter, pp. 112-126. 36. Mendelsohn, Class Struggle, p. 21; cf. Landau, "Be-kercv proletarim ychudiim;" Kahan, "Impact of Industrialization," pp. 39-40. 37. Kahan, op. cit., p. 79. 38. Burawoy, "Capitalist State"; Bonacich, "Reply to Burawoy." 39. Stanley Greenberg, Race and State in Capitalist Development (New Haven/London: 1980), pp. 389-391. 40. Bonacich, "Ethnic Antagonism," p. 551. 41. Bonacich, "Split Labor Market Theory," pp. 32-35. 42. Kirzhnitz, Arbeter, pp. 113, 119-122. 43. Greenberg, Race and State, pp. 356-380. 44. Mordcchai Altshuler, Ha-kibuz ha-yehudi bi-vrit ha-mo'azot, nituah sozio-demografi (Jerusalem: 1979), pp. 11-12.

Recent Trends in the Literature on Ethnopolitics Joseph Rothschild (COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)

In order to write a reasonably cogent essay on such a variegated spectrum of books—by historians, sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists—which form the whetstone for this effort, 1 it seems necessary to ignore the traditional typological distinctions that social scientists conventionally make among the categories of (1) ethnicity, (2) nationality and (3) nation. 1 shall ignore these distinctions not merely for reasons of convenience but also from the conviction that they have not been as useful as is often claimed (by the authors of some of the books and essays here under review, among others); such a taxonomy has elicited heavy political flak from the intelligentsias of groups who have been labeled by it as being something other than (and, hence, presumptively less than) nations, and, thus, has been gratuitously provocative. Furthermore, and more seriously from a scholarly perspective, it has not been analytically productive in studying a rapidly changing world. In short, the ethnicitynationality-nation typology suffers from liabilities analogous to those which earlier discredited the older typology of seeking to distinguish between the assertedly "historic" and the allegedly "historyless" peoples of Europe. Both typologies came to be perceived as normative, judgmental, pejorative and as implicitly (perhaps, indeed, intentionally) devaluing the political aspirations—especially aspirations to statehood—of "mere" ethnic groups, nationalities, and supposedly "historyless" peoples. Hence, in this essay the terms ethnicity, ethnic, nation, national, and even ethnonational will be used indiscriminately in various compound nominal and adjectival constructions to refer to the political activities of complex collective groups whose membership is largely determined by real or putative ancestral inherited ties and who perceive these ties as systematically affecting their place and fate in the political and socio-economic structures of their state and society and who bring their social, cultural and economic interests, grievances, claims, anxieties and aspirations into the political arena—the intra-state and/or the inter-state arena. This subject of ethnoriationalism was traditionally studied either as an exercise in the history of ideas and ideologies (e.g., the pioneering works of Carlton J. H. Hayes2 and Hans Kohn 3 ) or as a politico-juridical investigation into the problematics of national minorities and their claimed rights to self-determination within

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or from extant states (e.g., the studies of C. A. Macartney4 and Alfred Cobban5). The first of these two intellectual traditions, the ideational one, was turned upside down and inside out by Elie Kedourie in his powerful polemic of I960,6 which argued that not only nationalism but even nations themselves are, in effect, inventions of the intelligentsia and in no way "natural" sentiments or categories. This argument entailed as a corollary Kedourie's denial of the conventional modern wisdom that ethnonational self-determination is the only valid legitimating principle of statehood and political authority. In turn, the second, self-determination tradition in scholarly analysis foundered on two rocks: 1. The unit, the "self" in the phrase "self-determination of peoples," could not be specified. (Does it refer to Nigerians or to Ibos? To Canadians or Quebecois? To Uzbeks within the Soviet Union or to Russians in Uzbekistan? Or possibly to other, yet smaller sub-units within extant states or even to larger units bridging extant states?) 2. This principle of the self-determination of peoples is contradicted by the also widely accepted alternative principle of the sovereignty and integrity of slates (to whom alone UN membership is available).7 In 1971 the British sociologist and art historian Anthony D. Smith analyzed many of the utilities and problematics as well as the intellectual history of both the ideational and the self-determination traditions in the study of ethnonationalism in his judicious book Theories of Nationalism,8 which still stands up very well more than a decade and a half later and despite an avalanche of subsequent publications on ethnonationalism by scholars and lawyers. Smith then went on to edit Nationalist Movements (1976)9 and to write Nationalism: A Trend Report and a Bibliography (1973)'° and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century (1979)1' as well as some studies on quite different themes in sociology and art history. Now he presents, in the book here under review, The Ethnic Revival in the Modern World (1981), a particularly ambitious effort approaching the ethnonational phenomenon at a somewhat new (for him) tangent—as an exercise in social history and in social forecasting. Such an exercise is, of course, entirely appropriate and legitimate. It responds, in a sense, to the initiative and the appeal launched as long ago as 1953 in a by-now classic, brilliant (albeit slightly perverse) inquiry by Karl Deutsch.12 And Smith's current book is indeed erudite, judicious, intelligent and appropriately sympathetic (albeit not uncritical) toward its subject matter. Its reach is global, though its author's particular familiarity with Europe is patent. Particularly impressive are (1) the book's analytical examination of the various disequilibrium theories that have been advanced to account for the ethnonational revival—including classical Marxism, relative-deprivation theories, internal colonialism theories, imperialism-dependency theories and other uneven-development explanations (chapter 2); (2) its review of ethnic consciousness in pre-modern times, including a discussion of the impact of agrarian mores and of warfare on ethnonational sentiments (chapter 4), which then flows into an analysis of the initially corrosive and then regenerative impact of historicism on ethnonational communalism (chapter 5); (3) the closing experiment at social prediction, in which Smith assesses the anticipated effects of planning, technology and science on "neo-nationalism" in the state system of the

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future (chapters 9 and 10). But since an important purpose and function of a review essay such as this one is to initiate reciprocally helpful intellectual engagement and productive dialogue, I shall here abbreviate my expressions of deserved praise for this book and instead turn to what 1 perceive to be some of its open questions and unclinched claims. It is my impression that Anthony Smith views chapters 6, 7 and 8 as forming the heart of his book—and it is with their contents that 1 have the most difficulty. They are entitled, respectively, "Bureaucracy and the Intelligentsia," "State Integration and Ethnic Schism" and "Accommodation and Neo-ethnicity." In the first of this trio of chapters, Smith correctly notes that, whereas romantic ethnonationalism used formerly to be sponsored by traditional elites, especially the clergy and humanistic intelligentsia, today it increasingly draws the endorsement of the modern industrial and so-called post-industrial elites, including the technocratic intelligentsia: note, for example, the phenomenon of the Quebecois Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and the subsequent rise to government power of the Parti Quebecois. But from this valid observation, Smith then develops a rather elaborate, overly specific and ultimately unconvincing typology seeking to identify the particular and (allegedly) mutually incompatible stances toward ethnonational sentiments and issues on the part of, respectively, intellectuals, pedagogues, humanists, technocrats and bureaucrats. The last mentioned are presented—quite unconvincingly—as "the inveterate opponents of ethnic nationalism" (p. 186). Here Smith's laudable striving for "hard" sociological structural analysis has (I fear) misled him into a false concreteness. In the next chapter, dealing with state integration and ethnic schism, Smith unintentionally exposes the fact that he is less at home in the Third World than in Europe. He exaggerates, in my judgment, the separatist-secessionist momentum of ethnonational movements in the extant states of Africa and Asia, and he stipulates, without presenting evidence, that the intelligentsias there are socially more isolated than are those of Europe. Similarly, in the next chapter—the last of this core trio— Smith seems baffled by the various North American expressions of politicized ethnicity. For example, the opening pair of sentences in that chapter contradict each other, to wit: "In strong contrast to the trend towards political separatism characteristic of Africa and Asia, the experience of many ethnic communities in the West, and notably North America, reveals a general tendency towards accommodation within plural states. There are two exceptions to this generalization: the case of blacks, Indians and Puerto Ricans in the United States, who have pursued various strategies in the past but now seem to be opting for a 'communalist' one, and the regionally based ethnic communities of Canada and Western Europe, which since the early 1960s have been pursuing a more aggressive autonomist line" (p. 152). The two sentences are not only factually dubious, but the exceptions indicated in the second sentence virtually empty the first one of real meaning. Again, toward the close of the chapter, we have these contradictory assessments: (a) "Today it would be more accurate to speak of Black 'cormnunalism' rather than autonomism. Black leaders today seek control over their urban areas in order to decide their own priorities and communal self-development plans, and at the same time they insist on having a voice in shaping the destiny of the United States as a whole, even to its foreign policy" (p. 160). Versus (b) "By the time the celebrated meeting between

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President Kennedy and the Black intellectuals took place in 1963, they had already gone over to a fiercely autonomist, even separatist, frame of mind, which was soon to be translated into political action by their disciples among the Black professionals and students" (pp. 161-62). Finally, even Smith's otherwise fine pair of closing chapters on "neonationalism" in the "scientific" state of the future is somewhat marred by his peculiar insistence that the "loss of empire" by several metropolitan European states in the wake of the Second World War entailed a corollary loss of their access to overseas raw materials and markets (p. 166). This is surely erroneous or at best oversimplified. Nevertheless, despite such flaws, The Ethnic Revival in the Modern World is a bold and suggestive book, less tightly directed than its author's important earlier monograph on Theories of Nationalism, yet a worthy successor thereto. It astutely limns the perpetual tension between state (a political-legal entity) and ethnicity (a politicized cultural-historical entity) and between the cosmopolitan-universalist logic of science and technology, on the one hand, and the cultural-historical particularism of every ethnonational group, on the other. Yet it also leaves open, if problematic, the possibly creative resolution of these tensions. As my last substantive criticism of Smith pertained to his failure to comprehend the politicized ethnic phenomenon in the United States, it seems appropriate at this point to turn to a cluster of more or less recent books on precisely this phenomenon. We begin with Stephen Steinberg's The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America (1981). To a considerable extent, this book's polemical thrust is signaled in its title. Steinberg charges that much of the recent scholarly and popular literature on ethnicity has mythologized and reified this phenomenon "as though it is a thing unto itself, independent of other spheres of life . . . creating the illusion that there is something ineffable about ethnic phenomena that does not lend itself to rational explanation. This is especially the case when ethnic groups are assumed to be endowed with a given set of cultural values, and no attempt is made to understand these values in terms of the material sources" (p. x). To correct this alleged mythologizing heresy, Steinberg proposes to re-anchor the examination of ethnic processes and patterns in their social origins and class matrices by exploring their historical and structural foundations. Now 1 cannot speak for the other social sciences, still less for popularizations, but it seems to me that with regard to respectable literature in political science, at any rate, much of Steinberg's animus turns out to be an exercise in flaying dead horses. It is surely a long time since any respectable political scientist seriously claimed the utter autonomy of ethnic group phenomena or denied the existence of self-reproducing correlations between ethnic categories, on the one hand, and socio-economic classes and unequal distribution of economic resources, social status and political power distributions, on the other hand. Nor would anyone charge that differences in the social and public fates of various American ethnic and racial groups result only from these groups' supposedly endemic cultural superiorities or inferiorities, without acknowledging that it is precisely the unequal distribution of economic resources, social status and political power among ethnic groups that transforms ethnicity from a cultural or a phenotypical datum into a public issue and gives

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political bite to what might otherwise be bland socio-economic statistics or folkloristic curiosities. Surely in this day and age it is no longer necessary for Steinberg to propose, apparently with a straight face, "to test the proposition that Catholicism is inherently anathema to intellectual achievements" (p. 145). Whose proposition is this supposed to be? For political scientists, at any rate, such proposed research would be a case of smashing through an open door. Nevertheless, it would be an unjust trivialization of Steinberg's important book to depict it tout court as a misaimed misfire. The underlying energy for Steinberg's broad and sustained attack on much of the recent claims for an ethnic revival in America derives from his linked ideological and epistemological commitments. And here, while I do not necessarily share his commitments, i acknowledge that he knows exactly what he is doing and that his strategy is well suited to his aim. He is convinced that the academic and publicistic enthusiasts for revived American ethnicity are screened conservative ideologues, that the political intent and effect of their studies and articles is to encourage white-ethnic resistance to black aspirations, that their favored ethnic enclaves would muzzle and baffle broad democratic publicpolicy initiatives on behalf of the still underprivileged sectors of American society—and that they must therefore be debunked. Furthermore, he wishes to warn both ethnic group leaders and their intellectual applauders of his suspicion that the much trumpeted ethnic revival in the United States in recent decades is hollow nostalgia without much authentic ethnic content, poor in cultural quality, lacking depth and, hence, unlikely to provide adequate moral and spiritual guidelines by which to nurture future generations of ethnic descendants. What grates on me here is less the gist of Steinberg's admonitions than the glee with which he trumpets them. If true, his prediction of the untenability of authentic ethnocultural pluralism for America and its supposedly inevitable replacement by an updated version of the old homogenizing melting pot scenario is surely an occasion for regrets rather than cheers—as is any flattening of cultural diversity by the forces of monotonal cosmopolitan uniformity in any part of the world, for moral as well as esthetic and social reasons. Steinberg's warnings as to the alleged unfeasibility of a culturally worthy and intergenerationally transmittable ethnic pluralism appear to be based on the assumption that only two options are available for America: pluralism, with the supposedly conservative, centrifugal and group-enclaving implications that he scorns, or a return to what he regards as the superior democracy of the melting pot metaphor, energized once again (as in the classic American pattern) by the assimilating public school. But perhaps a third alternative is available, one which might be described as a nongeographic version of the center/periphery metaphor that has recently been honed by several European and American academics. In this admittedly somewhat elitist scenario, central public political elites would negotiate with peripheral, yet secure, ethnic brokers and sub-elites to shape a viable modus vivendi ensuring, on the one hand, a democratic and responsible public arena and, on the other hand, meaningful maneuver-room for ethnocultural communities. This would pose a difficult but not a priori insoluble problem of allocating respective jurisdictions, regulating competing interests, respecting different identities and — hardest of all—adjusting political wills. Care would have to be taken to ensure that the ethnic arena not be rendered so

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utterly peripheral as to become a mere curio, quite divorced from the real dilemmas, opportunities, promotions, demotions, satisfactions and distresses of career, of market and of public affairs. For, as Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote in a memorable aphorism that Steinberg gracefully quotes (p. 58), "People do not live together merely to be together; they live together to do something together." On the other hand, care would also have to be taken to ensure that the ethnic groups not be empowered to intimidate their individual members into forgoing universalistic mobility opportunities based on personal achievement and free choice—including, if it comes to that, the choice to leave the ethnic group. I alluded above to the linkage of Steinberg's ideological and epistemological commitments as seemingly energizing his attack on the "mythologizers" of an allegedly spurious American ethnic renaissance. The latter, epistemological, commitment is his preference for a logic of monocausality that tolerates only one truly independent variable in the explanation of social phenomena. He terms his preferred, uniquely independent, variable "material sources," that is, class (p. x). He concedes that ethnic factors do have causal significance, yet insists that they can be understood only in terms of their "structural foundations," which again means that their own causal import is only intermediary, not truly independent. But this a priori insistence on a hierarchy of causal factors, of which only one can be independent, entails unnecessary difficulties. It seduces Steinberg into gratuitously shrill denunciations of the supposed "mythologists" of ethnicity for alleged sins that the responsible among them have not really committed and for ostensible analytical myopia of which they are not truly guilty. For example, "it is doubtful that the connection between ethnic difference and conflict is as automatic or as inevitable as is commonly supposed. What often appears to be an eruption of 'traditional hatreds' on closer examination turns out to involve political and economic issues that are real and immediate . . . almost invariably institutionalized inequalities are at or near the center of the [ethnic] conflict" (p. 170). True—but who denies this? And why insinuate that ethnic issues are ipso facto less "real and immediate" than are political and economic ones—why allege that they are only a "surface manifestation of a deeper conflict of an essentially social class character," as Steinberg puts it later on the same page? Is it not at least as plausible to infer from the evidence that we have about social differences and conflict that class interests, while indeed concrete in social and political systemic terms, are psychologically less palpable in the emotional life of real people than is ethnic identification? In any event, what is gained by insisting that only one factor, one nexus, one causation can be primary and independent, while all others must definitionally be relegated to secondary and dependent status? And, indeed, the best parts of Steinberg's provocative book are precisely the sociohistorical sections where he explains the interaction of economic (class) and cultural (ethnic) factors without worrying about "basic" and "surface" assessments. Among these are his dissection of the policies and institutional arrangements which after the American Civil War funneled European peasant immigrants into the nascent northern industrial sector where they were recycled into proletarians, while retaining black freedmen as sharecropping laborers in Southern agriculture—arrangements that were unraveled only by the industrial labor shortages combined with the interrupted

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immigration of the two World Wars, which opened up the industrial sector to black employment. Or again, his description of the neat historical fit between Jewish skills and American needs is impressive. Literate non-peasants, bearing entrepreneurial and organizational skills as well as professional ambitions, the Jewish masses who streamed into America at the turn of the century, albeit poor, were carriers of experiences, values and talents that dovetailed neatly into the requirements and structure of the expanding American capitalism of the day. Incidentally, while on this subject of American Jewry, I invite any knowledgeable reader to referee a semantic disagreement between Steinberg and this reviewer—a disagreement that appears to be free of political or ideological connotations. He includes Jews under the umbrella term of "White ethnics" (p. 3), whereas I (who have never worked or taught on American issues) have always assumed that this term conventionally covers only the descendants of Roman Catholic immigrants from Europe, and thus excludes Jews, Scandinavians, and so on. I would be happy to be authoritatively confirmed or corrected on this definitional point. Complementary to Steinberg's book, though less ideological and less polemical, is Natives and Strangers: Ethnic Groups and ihe Building of America (1979) by the triad of authors Leonard Dinnerstein, Roger L. Nichols and David M. Reimers. Seeking to correct what they claim to be the misleading overemphasis in most standard histories of the United States on natural geographic advantages and technological-industrial innovations in accounting for the development of modern America, they set out to give greater credit to the menial immigrant laborers as well as to blacks and Amerinds. In Steinberg's demonology the chief villains are the intellectual-academic enthusiasts for politicized ethnicity, and the secondary villains are the second- and third-generation descendants of white immigrant groups now reluctant to share their hard-won resources with blacks through redistributive entitlement programs such as Affirmative Action. In the Dinnerstein-Nichols-Reimers scenario, the villains, as it were, remain the WASPs whose historic posture has allegedly been one of exploiting, victimizing and demeaning all other groups, starting with the indigenous Amerinds, whose land the Anglo-Saxons stole, and proceeding to the Afro-Americans, whose labor power they enslaved, and on to European, Hispanic and now Asian immigrants whose bodies the WASPs sweated and whose cultures they denigrated as supposedly contemptible. Withal, however, the general tone of this book is neither angry nor bitter but rather ruefully regretful that such behavior and policies on the part of the propertied and power-wielding elite distorted and threatened to abort the fulfillment of the American dream of liberty, equality and justice for all—a dream whose articulation was, ironically, the great intellectual achievement precisely of the original Anglo-Saxon liberals themselves. In short, this book is an exercise in moralistic and hortatory history—albeit solid and thought-provoking history—rather than in hard-nosed political or sociological analysis. It nicely dovetails with the last volume here under review, the collection of nine essays by seven historians, one sociologist and one anthropologist: Ethnic Leadership in America (1978), edited by John Higham. After an analytical introductory essay by the editor, there follow chapters on the leaderships of seven clusters of American ethnic groups by seven established academic authorities, to wit: the Jews (Nathan Glazer); the Japanese (Roger Daniels);

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the Germans (Frederick Luebke); Afro-Americans (Nathan I. Huggins); Native Americans, that is, Amerinds (Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr.); Eastern and Southern Europeans (Josef J. Barton); the Irish (Robert D. Cross). The book closes with a somewhat mystifying "Afterword" by the anthropologist Sidney Mintz, arguing that groups identified by genetically acquired physical criteria such as pigmentation cannot and should not be compared with groups identified by socially acquired cultural markers such as language and religion. In effect, this is a claim that the politics of race and the politics of ethnicity cannot be subsumed under one set of theories and within one analytical framework. It is, therefore, also an implicit, albeit unacknowledged, repudiation of the editor's organizational principle for the book in which it serves as the closing chapter. Though perhaps understandable as expressing the disciplinary commitment of an anthropologist, I do not find Mintz's argument convincing because I am not persuaded that, historically speaking, racial (i.e., genetically acquired) criteria are necessarily politically more salient, more conflictual or more recalcitrant to efforts at their situational depoliticization than are ethnic (i.e., socially acquired) markers. I would argue that the possible and potential ethnopolitical significance of any marker-criterion is conveyed, withheld or withdrawn by the historically prevailing social and political context of group contacts, and not by its intrinsic content. After all, the political conflict among ethnic groups identified by cultural markers is today far nastier and more vehement in Lebanon and Ulster than is the competition between racial communities in Malaysia. Examples of the reverse pattern can also be readily located. In American political history, blacks as well as Jews, Amerinds as well as Irish, Orientals as well as white ethnics—that is, physically defined racial groups as well as culturally defined ethnic groups—alike perceive their claims to their due rights as part and parcel of their struggle for access to resources. Similarly, all these groups have oscillated between the politics of protest and the politics of accommodation and have at different times selected leaders appropriate to their preferred stance. Yet the oscillation between protest and accommodation has not been merely pendular. All American ethnic groups, be they racially or culturally defined, have eventually— albeit only after wrenching inner and outer struggles—opted for the politics and the leadership of reconciliation and accommodation with the other groups and with the American system as a totality.

Notes 1. Recent books to be discussed here are: Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Revival in the Modern World (Cambridge: 1981); Stephen Steinberg, The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America (New York: 1981); Leonard Dinnerstein, Roger L. Nichols, and David M. Reimers, Natives and Strangers: Ethnic Groups and the Building of America (New York: 1979); John Higham (ed.), Ethnic Leadership in America (Baltimore: 1978). 2. Carlton J. H. Hayes, Essays on Nationalism (New York: 1926); idem. The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism (New York: 1931); idem, Nationalism: A Religion (New York: 1960). 3. Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism (New York: 1944); idem, The Age of Nationalism (New York: 1962); idem, Nationalism: Its Meaning and History (Princeton: 1955).

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4. C. A. Macartney, National States and National Minorities (London: 1934); idem, Hungary and Her Successors (London: 1937); idem, Problems of the Danube Basin (Cambridge: 1942). 5. Alfred Cobban, National Self-Determination (London: 1945). 6. Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (London: 1960). 7. Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics (New York: 1981), pp. 11-16, 177-179. 8. Anthony D. Smith, Theories of Nationalism (London: 1971). 9. Idem (ed.), Nationalist Movements (London: 1976). 10. Idem, Nationalism: A Trend Report and a Bibliography (The Hague: 1973). 11. Idem, Nationalism in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: 1979). 12. Karl Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication (New York: 1953).

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Essays

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Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces, 1867-1918 Erwin A, Schmidt (AUSTRIAN ARMY MUSEUM, VIENNA)

When Charles Orde Wingate wrote in 1937 that Jews were capable of becoming better soldiers than even the British, 1 he was expressing an idea with which few contemporaries would have agreed. Since then, of course, the Israeli Defense Forces have proved most convincingly that Jews can be as good soldiers as anybody else. Still, we must keep in mind that Jewish fighting abilities were denied or at least doubted for the better part of the last one thousand years. This was partly a consequence of the fact that Jews had lost the right to carry arms in the Middle Ages in exchange for the privilege of royal protection. The fact that the Jews were considered an "unmartial race," as their lifestyle appeared to prove, was one of the major obstacles to Jewish induction into continental European armies which began in the late eighteenth century. Fears of administrative and disciplinary difficulties arising out of Jewish religious obligations constituted an additional factor hampering Jewish enlistment, while, on the Jewish side, Orthodox communities feared that military service might alienate young Jews from their traditional way of life. In Austria, Jewish soldiers were inducted for the first time in 1788-89, while the first Jewish officers were commissioned during the Napoleonic wars. 2 Between 1815 and 1867 the number of Jewish officers and men in the Austrian armed forces rose by an estimated ten thousand to twenty thousand in the wars of 1859 (against France and Italy) and 1866 (against Prussia and Italy). At the same time, of course, Jews were becoming more and more integrated into Gentile society in civilian life. Jewish citizens were formally granted full equality in the Staatsgrundgesetz iiber die allgemeinen Rechte der Staatsburger fur die im Reichsrate vertretenen Konigreiche und Lander of 21 December 1867,-' Austria's bill of rights, which forms part of the Austrian constitution to this day. The following study is an attempt to ascertain to what extent this theoretical equality was achieved in practice in the armed forces and how the status of Jewish officers and soldiers changed in the half century between 1867 and the First World War. 127

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Erwin A. Schmidl

THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN ARMED FORCES, 1867-1918 Before studying the position of Jewish officers and soldiers, it is necessary to consider the complex military organization of the Dual Monarchy. The Ausgleich with Hungary in 1867 had created a system of two separate states, united by the monarch and by the three common ministries of foreign affairs, finance, and war. But the Gesamte bewaffnete Macht (the armed forces) was not under the control of the ministry of war alone. Apart from the common "Imperial and Royal" (I&R) forces, the army and navy, there existed the Austrian and Hungarian territorial forces, controlled by the Austrian and Hungarian ministries of defense. The establishment of a separate Hungarian force had been among the Hungarian demands during the Ausgleich talks in 1867. In Cisleithania (the non-Hungarian part of the monarchy, for which the official name Austria was adopted only in 1917), a territorial force was also established, though this was done more for the sake of symmetry than for military reasons. Thus there existed the Imperial Landwehr in Cisleithania and the Royal Hungarian Honved in Hungary, with the addition of the Royal Hungarian Croato-Slavonian Domobran in the kingdom of Croatia.4 While originally intended as second-line forces, the Landwehr and Honved developed into proper armies, although lacking in artillery and technical and supply services, which were to be provided by the common army in case of war. Compulsory national service was introduced by the Wehrgesetz of 1868,5 but only a certain number of recruits were actually inducted each year to serve in either the common army or one of the two territorial armies, which also possessed their own reserve organizations. The rest of the young men eligible for national service received only a short training of some ten weeks and were then assigned to the Landsturm, the third-line territorial defense called up in times of war.6 Again, this force was divided into an Imperial (Cisleithanian) and a Royal Hungarian Landsturm. A further particularity was created when the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina were occupied in 1878. In order not to endanger the national balance, these territories were administered by the common ministry of finance. Recruitment in Bosnia and Hercegovina began in 1881, but was confined to service in the Bosnian regiments of the common army, as no Landwehr was—for obvious reasons—established there. The Dienstsprache (official and command language) was German in the common armed forces and in the Austrian Landwehr, but the Honved used Hungarian and the Croato-Slavonian Domobran, Croatian. In addition, in each regiment there were up to three Regimentssprachen (regimental languages)—depending upon the nationalities of the regiment's soldiers. Officers and NCOs had to speak these languages, if not fluently, at least well enough to communicate with their men. All this shows that the Austro-Hungarian armed forces had a major cultural and political role in that it was one of the most important institutions in the Dual Monarchy working for integration. At the same time, however, the complex structure and multitude of nationalities and languages hampered its military effectiveness. Although Jewish officers and soldiers served in all the forces mentioned above, we shall emphasize here the situation in the common army and navy, for which reliable statistical data exist.

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JEWISH SOLDIERS AND NCOS According to the 1869 census, 822,220 Jews lived in the Austrian part of the Dual Monarchy and 522,113 in Hungary, Transylvania and Croatia, constituting together some 4 percent of the whole population.7 In 1872, the first year for which detailed information about the number of Jewish soldiers in the I&R Army is available,8 their number is repotted as 12,47! or 1,5 percent.9 During the following decades the number of Jewish soldiers rose and in 1902 reached 59,784 or 3.9 percent, thus approaching the general population percentage of a little more than 4.5 percent. By 1911, however, the number of Jewish soldiers had declined to about 3 percent (see Table 1). This can be explained in part by a slight Jewish decrease within the general population from 4.8 percent in 1890 to 4.6 percent in 1910. The reasons for the slight under-representation of Jews within the I&R Army may be explained by reference to the social and cultural context in those provinces where most Jews lived. Their Orthodox and deeply religious background did little to instill strong fighting spirit into young Jews, while the organized Jewish communities in Galicia tended to dissuade their youth from enlisting. 10 Perhaps even more important were the appalling living conditions which resulted in a high percentage of young Jews being physically unfit for military service.'' A most revealing statistic from 1910 shows that in Austria, Moravia. Bohemia and Silesia some 0.6-0.8 percent of the Jewish population served in the armed forces, while in Galicia and Bukovina, this figure was as low as 0.4 and 0.3 percent, respectively. 12 Let us note that no less than 74 percent of Cisleithania's and 43 percent of the whole Dual Monarchy's Jews resided in Galicia and Bukovina. Similarly, while the numbers reported for Jewish sailors appear rather small at first sight—0.9 percent in 1885, rising to 1.6 percent in 1898 and 1.7 percent in 1911—the Jewish population in the provinces where most sailors came from, namely Croatia and the Adriatic coast(Kiistenland)was even smaller, never exceeding 0.8 percent. l3 But obviously the Jews living there were physically more fit (and, perhaps, more willing, too) to serve in the armed forces than their brethren in the east. It is commonly believed that the low number of Jewish recruits from the east has to do with attempts to evade the draft by hiding, fleeing the country or bribing the recruiting officials.14 This was undoubtedly true in many cases, but was certainly exaggerated by antisemitic propaganda. A common feature when conscription was first introduced in the late eighteenth century, it was of less importance in the decades immediately preceding the First World War. When examining the number of Jewish soldiers in the various branches of the service, one notices immediately that Jews were over-represented in the medical corps and administrative branches, while the contrary was true of the cavalry and elite Jager (rifles or light infantry, see Table 1). In the case of the Jager, this is due to the fact that these regiments and battalions recruited most of their soldiers from provinces where few Jews lived, while the cavalry obviously preferred recruits with previous riding experience. In the line infantry, the number of Jews was slightly higher than the army-wide average, thus clearly discrediting myths that all Jews served with the Train (transport service or supply corps). The tendency to enlist

Table 1. Jewish Soldiers in the I&R Common Army, 1872-1911

Total Average

Boxaina& Hercegovinian

Artillery

Others

1872

12471 = 1.5%

9757 =1.9%

280 =0.5%

290 =0.4%

613 =1.1%

247 =1.2%

38 =1.3%

103 =0.6%

30 =0.4%

—

592 =4.6%

264 =0.7%

5 =0.8%

24 =2.4%

228 =3.4%

_

_

?

1875

16216 = 1.9*

12457 =2.3%

349 =0.5%

520 =0.6%

844 -1.4%

326 =1.5%

38 =1.3%

121 =0.7%

30 =0.4%

—

878 =5.4%

325 =0.9%

12 =1.6%

30 =2.5%

286 =3.7%

—

—

?

1878

18936 ^2.4%

13879 =2.9%

427 =0.7%

750 =0.8%

989 =1.6%

434 =2%

36 =1.2%

118 =0.7%

57 =0.6%

—

1412 =8.5%

514 =1.4%

23 =2.9%

35 =2.9%

262 =3.7%

—

—

?

1882

25017 -2.9%

18762 =3.4%

426 =0.8%

1081 =1.2%

1304 =2%

443 =2%

53 =1.7%

164 =1%

65 =0.7%-

—

1744 =10%

465 =1.2%

53 =6%

42 =3.4%

415 =5.5%

?

—

?

1885

28194 = 3.2%

20060 =3.7%

702 =1.3%

1308 =1.5%

1576 =2.5%

602 =3%

72 =2.4%

180 =1.2%

73 =0.9%

72 =1.6%

2086 =10.8%

793 =1.8%

34 =3.9%

56 =4.4%

580 =6.8%

?

—

'.'

1888

33228 = 3.8%

21681 =4%

962 =1.7%

1964 =2.2%

2192 =3.3%

702 =3.5%

97 =3.5%

186 =1.3*

83 =1.1%

142 =2.7%

3110 =13.8%

1185 =2.3%

39 =4.4%

71 =5.3%

814 =8.5%

?

—

'!

1892

39459 -3.8%

26790 =4.1%

1285 = 2%

1959 =2.1%

3401 =3.9%

767 =3.5*

89 =3.1%

281 = l.8»

122 =1.4%

157 =2.3%

1850 =9.5%

1683 =3.2%

44 =4.5%

95 =6.5%

837 =6.1»

?

—

99 -4.5*

1895

44217 -3.8%

29785 =4%

1291 =1.8%

1977 =2%

4081 =4.3%

939 =3.4%

113 =4.2%

—

541 =2%

205 =3%

1932 =9.2%

2087 =3.8%

116 =5.1%

80 =5.5%

1033 =6.8%

?

—

37 =3.3%

1898

52272 = 3.8%

36340 =4%.

1474 =1.8%

2275 =2.2%

4423 =4.3%

921 =2.9%

140 =4.9%

—

671 =2.3%

332 =4.2%

2174 =9.5%

2155 =3.7%

159 =6.3%

72 =4.9%

1115 =6.6%

?

—

21 =1*

1902

59784 = 3.9C!

41714 -4.1%

1770 =1.9%

2183 =2%

4610 =4.1*

1602 =3.7%

140 =4.6*

—

715 =2.2%

420 =4.4%

2893 =6.8%

2437 =4.2%

123 =4.3%

62 =3.7%

1100 =6.9%

?

—

15 =0.9%

1905

54033 = 3.6%

37.300 =3.9%.

1760 =2%

1897 =1.8%

3896 =3.4%

1560 =3.1%

118 =3.5%

—

615 =1.9%

571 =3.9%

2617 =7.1%

2241 =4.2%

112 =3.5%

83 =2.6%

1134 =4.9%

?

—'

129 =3.6%

1908

50259 = 3.4%

34238 =3.7%

1711 =2%

1640 =1.6%

4301 =3.1%

1.369 =2.8%

80 =2.2%

—

580 =1.7%

1089 =4.8%

2295 =7%

1724 =3.3%

103 =3.2%

77 =2.4%.

954 =4.1%

?

—

98 =2.6%

I9;'/

44('!f = 3% (46064)

2°0j2 =3.4%, (30366)

1483 =1.8% (1599)

1406 =1.4% (1463)

3917 =2.7% (4070)

1629 =3.3% (1790)

124 =3.1% (125)

—

523 -1.5% (533)

1016 =4.3% (1027)

1941 =6.4% (1948)

1646 =2.9% (1785)

76 =2.4%

58 =2.7%.

861 =3.7%.

200 =0.6% (235)

13 =0.8% (17)

111 --!.4
*Comrar> io previous years, ihc figures for ]91 > do nol include candidate- officers. For comparison, purposes, the total number of other ranks, including candidate-officers, has been added in parentheses. Source: Mi!ilar-StaU!,!isckes Jakrbuch (1872-1911).

132

Erwin A. Schmidl

Jews in administrative positions might be explained by the fact that it was easier to cater to Jewish religious obligations at a medical or administrative establishment than in a fighting division. Furthermore, their reputed linguistic abilities as well as their knowledge of German (which was the official Dienstsprache in the common army) made Jews an ideal choice for administrative positions.15 Jewish religious obligations were among the gravest problems affecting Jewish military service. Usually, Jewish soldiers were excused from drill and hard labor on the Sabbath and were allowed to attend religious services at a nearby synagogue. As Saturday was an ordinary working day, however, Jews were not completely exempted from duty and were often made to mend their uniforms or clean the barracks. Just as their Christian comrades had to perform guard duties on weekdays and Sundays alike, Jews were occasionally called up for guard duties on Saturdays, too. 16 As for kosher food, there existed no separate cooking facilities for Jewish soldiers. They were usually excused from partaking in common meals on the Sabbath and were, instead, given money to buy food for Saturday. During the week, however, Jewish soldiers had to eat non-kosher food or had to obtain kosher food at their own expense from Jewish civilians living nearby. The army authorities had their doubts about the nutritional value of kosher food as this was known to include very little meat (which, by the way, says something about Jewish living conditions in the east)—while sufficient quantities of meat were considered necessary for good army meals. 17 In practice, whether or not the religious obligations of a Jewish soldier were respected often depended on the individual officer. Certainly, many officers believed that these peculiar obligations were just efforts to evade duty, while others tried to allow their Jewish soldiers as much freedom as possible. ls Generally speaking, educated and less-religious Jews from the western provinces had less problems in adjusting to military life than recruits from Galicia and Bukovina. For the latter the religious question was only part of the "culture shock" they encountered when transferred from their home provinces, condescendingly called Half-Asia by Karl Emil Franzos, into a modern nineteenth- or twentieth-century army. This experience was in no way peculiar to Jewish recruits, of course, and applied equally well to soldiers of other religions coming from less-developed provinces of the monarchy. When the First World War broke out, the number of Jewish conscripts asking for exemption from military service was larger than the figure for other religious groups19 and there are numerous examples of Jewish soldiers feigning illnesses to evade service at the front. 20 Just as numerous, however, are the examples of outstanding bravery shown by Jewish soldiers in this war. 21 Indeed, the more educated Jews, many of them serving as reserve officers or NCOs, added to their patriotic spirit a crusade-like fervor to liberate their Russian brethren from Tsarist oppression.22 It is claimed that some 320,000 Jews fought in the I&R armed forces in the First World War.23 This figure appears not unlikely if we recall that 9 million were mobilized between 1914 and 1918. Already in the 1920s, however, it was noted that any publication of data showing the participation of the various religious groups in the Austrian-Hungarian war effort would be futile, as a great number of soldiers were not issued with proper personal documents (Grundbuchsbldner) but

Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces, 1867-1918

133

only registered in provisional files (Evidenzblatter), which did not indicate the soldier's religion.24 The fact that in 1918 there were no less than seventy-six military rabbis in the common army alone gives us a clue to the importance of Jewish soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian armed forces. The commissioning of military rabbis in times of war had already been approved in 1866. The creation of a permanent military rabbinate was considered impractical, however, as the Jewish soldiers were scattered over the entire monarchy.25 In 1875 the first military rabbi was appointed with a reserve rank and when the war broke out in 1914 there were altogether ten Feldrabbiner der Reserve. A comparison with the army list for 1918 shows that during the war an additional ten rabbis were appointed while fifty-six were commissioned for the duration of the war. 26 Usually assigned to the forces at corps or army level, the military rabbis cared for the Jewish soldiers' religious needs. They were also eager to gain recognition of the Jewish soldiers' achievements from the high command and successfully prevented discriminatory measures such as the "Jewish census" (Judenzahlung) in the German army. 27

JEWISH OFFICERS In the post-1867 period we have to distinguish between officers serving in the activ army and those holding reserve commissions. Let us first discuss the career officers. In the first year for which adequate data are available, 1897, there were 178 Jewish officers in the common army, or 1.2 percent of all officers.28 This number was probably higher in the 1880s, the "high point" of Jewish emancipation and assimilation.29 Fifteen years later, in 1911, the number of Jewish officers had dropped to 109, or 0.6 percent. This is the last year for which statistical data are available (see Table 2). It is often said that all Jewish officers served with the Train. Actually, some 65 percent to 70 percent of all Jewish officers served with the infantry. They were adequately represented in other branches of service, too, but definitely underrepresented in the cavalry and in the railway and telegraph regiment. Their complete absence from the latter is still a mystery, but might have been due to the small number of active officers: just 148 in 1911. The small number of Jewish cavalry officers, however, is certainly due to the "noble" character of the cavalry. In 1896, 58 percent of all cavalry officers (and up to 75 percent in some regiments) were noblemen, compared with an average figure of 22 percent for the rest of the army (infantry 14 percent, rifles 24 percent, artillery 16 percent).30 Between 1900 and 1903 there was only one Jewish officer in the entire cavalry (accounting for 0.05 percent of all cavalry officers). While Jews were admitted to all cadet schools and military academies, we have not been able to trace a Jewish officer on the general staff. Eduard Ritter von Schweitzer (1844-1920), who had distinguished himself in the campaigns of 1866 and 1878, had attended the Kriegsschule (staff academy) in 1879-81. Although finishing in seventeenth place out of forty-four and although all other candidates up to twenty-fifth rank (and five others as well) were accepted into the general staff,

Table 2.

Jewish Officers in the I&R Common Army, 1894-1911

Toal /

Bosnian & Her]cegovinian

Artillery

Average /

1894

2246=8.7%

1463=9.9%

1897

2171=8/3% 178-1993

1338=9.3% 116-1222

58=8.7%

3+2

105=5.9% 9=96

58=2.1% 2=56

230=8% 10+220

60=8.4% 9+51

__

19000

2223=8.1% 160-2063

1285=8.8 107=1178

72=4.2% 7=65

59=2.1 1+58

254=7.6% 11+243

83=9.9% 8+75

__

1904

1780=6.9% 118-1662

893=6.7% 79=814

41=2.5% 6=35

44=1.6% 2+42

100=3.6% 5+95

78=9.3% 5+73

__

1908

1879-6.9% 124-1755

926=6.8% 86=840

58=3.8% 5=53

50=1.7% 3+47

216=6.2% 10+206

91+9% 5+86

__

1911

19080=7% 109=1871

1032=7.3% 65=4.5% 6=59 73=959

65=2.3% 2+63

290=7%

136=11.3% 3+133

__

115=6.7%

82=2.8%

236=8.6%

10+280

22=3.6% 16=2.2% 6+10 11=1.6% 4+7 7=1.1% 4+3 3=0.4% 1+2 8=1.1% 4+4

3=4.8%

?

__

4=1.1%

2=0.5%

3=4.6%

9=2.3% 3+6

__

6=1.6%

356=25.1% 6+350

1=0.2%

3=3.9%

33=6.1% 5+28

__

5=1.5%

34=14.9% 3+31

540=27.7% 5+535

2=0.4%

2=2.6%

31=5.8% 3+28

__

2=0.6%

32=12.3% 2+30

473=24.6% 4=469

15=3% 3+132

__

2=0.6%

32=5.9% 0+32

1=2.6% 0+1

4=0.7%

60=20.4%

189=19.7%

19=8.7% 59=21.2% 3+56 0=19

266=23.7% 9+257

8=3% 0=8

53=20.1% 2+51

6=2.1% 0-6 10=3.1% 0+10

9=4.3%

11=3.4% 19=9.3% 0+11 2=17

2=0.5%

1=0.2% 2=2.6%

315=21% 3+312

The table shows in the first line the number/percentage of the active and reserve officers together (after 1894), followed by the numbers of active and reserve officers separately. Source: Miliiar-Statistisches Jahrbuch (1894-1911).

Others

__

2=2.5%

Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces, 1867-1918

135

Schweitzer was not.31 We cannot prove it, but it has been suggested that this was because Schweitzer was Jewish. 32 Perhaps the general staff wanted to avoid possible friction within its ranks at a time of rising antisemitism. 33 There was no official regulation, however, barring Jews from the general staff. Schweitzer himself, knighted in 1878, was promoted Generalmajor34 in 1904 and commanded the 53rd Infantry Brigade up to his retirement in 1908, He became Feldmarschalleutnant (retired) in 1908.35 Schweitzer's case leads us to the question of Jewish generals. As far as we know,36 Schweitzer and Heinrich Ulrich Edler von Trenckheim (1847-1914) appear to have been the only Jewish officers to reach general's rank before 1914 on active service. Ulrich was commissioned in 1866 and, like Schweitzer, served both in the campaign of 1866 and the Bosnian campaign of 1878. Knighted in 1896, he commanded the 69th Brigade from 1905 until his retirement in 1909. He became Generalmajor in 1906. Apart from co-authoring the 85th Infantry's regimental history, he wrote an NCOs' manual in the Croatian language.37 Two other Jewish officers were promoted Generalmajor during the First World War. Carl Schwarz (1859-1929) had been commissioned in 1878 after attending cadets' school and had been transferred to the Landwehr in 1888. In 1908 he was promoted Oberst (full colonel) and commanded the 16th Landwehr Infantry Regiment in Cracow. He retired in 1911, but was re-activated when war broke out. He was promoted to Generalmajor in 1.915.38 Dr. Leopold Austerlitz, born in Prague in 1858, had started his military career as an Elnjahrig-Freiwilliger (reserve officer candidate) in 1877. After completing his studies at Prague University (mathematics and physics) in 1885, Dr. Austerlitz passed the additional examination required to become an active officer in 1889. He first served as a teacher at various military schools and was then, already a well-respected scientist, transferred to the artillery staff in 1900. Already a full colonel, he became sectional head of the artillery's famous technical committee in 1913. After a short time at the front in late 1914, commanding the heavy guns at Belgrade, Dr. Austerlitz was promoted Generalmajor in 1915. In recognition for his services, Dr. Austerlitz was granted the officer's cross of the Franz Josephs-Orden in 1915 and the knight's cross of the LeopoldsOrden in 1918.39 Two other distinguished Jewish officers, Alexander Ritter von Eiss (1832-1921)40 and Simon Vogel (1850-1917),41 retired as full colonels and regimental commanders before the war and were awarded the honorary title of Generalmajor in recognition of their services. Apart from these officers who had reached general's rank, there are innumerable examples of Jewish officers who served bravely in the campaigns of the nineteenth century as well as during the First World War. 42 Moreover, our discussion of Jewish generals has not included converted Jews who became generals in the I&R armed forces.43 Generally speaking, baptized Jews were accepted into Gentile society and had been able to reach general's rank even in the eighteenth century. In our context, it should suffice to mention that the Hungarian Genemloberst (general) Samu Baron Hazai (born Kohn, 1851-1942) was of Jewish origin. He was later baptized and, as general commanding replacement and supplies for all l&R armed forces in 1917-18, he was practically the most important officer in the whole monarchy with the exception of the chief of staff.44

136

Erwin A. Schmidl

We cannot say how many officers converted during their careers. Of the 373 Jewish officers listed by Friihling in 1911, 108 had been baptized before enlisting or during their service. The proportion of converts is higher among the officers of field rank. Obviously, while not necessary for quick promotion, conversion was no obstacle to advancement. Generally speaking, Jewish officers in the Austro-Hungarian armed forces were subjected to less harassment and antisemitic bias than in other armies. Wolfgang von Weisl, who served in the First World War, asserted that even officers who shared the pan-German attitudes often associated with fin-desiecle antisemitism never displayed antisemitic bias on duty.45 There certainly were exceptions: In 1890 Archduke Friedrich, then commander of the 5th Corps, described the highly decorated Rittmeister (captain) Wolf Bardach Edler von Chlumberg (1838-1911) as unqualified for promotion with the Hussars but ideally suited to serve with the transportation corps.46 And during the First World War, an Austrian division commander whose contempt of Jews was matched by his dislike for Hungarians had the names of Hungarian officers under his command translated in order to find out whether they were Jews.47 But on the whole the officer corps remained immune to the rising antisemitism common in civilian society of the day and the Jews' position was certainly better in the armed forces than in many spheres of civilian life. This was largely due to the special situation of a multi-national army (including thirteen nationalities and ten religious groups in its ranks) serving as the strongest bond of unity in a multi-national empire. Although mostly German by birth and Roman Catholic by religion, the officers understood their duty as being above the nationalist issues of the day. Their allegiance was not to one particular nation, but to the emperor and dynasty alone.48 The relatively high number of Jewish officers in the Austro-Hungarian armed forces was exploited by pan-German radicals in their attacks on the Dual Monarchy. A typical pamphlet, published in 1891, listed the large number of Jewish officers as among the chief reasons for the deficiencies of the I&R forces: The admittance of Jews into officers' circles is a natural consequence of the power and influence ceded to the Jewish race in the Habsburg Monarchy over the last three decades. With the exception of the French army, the Austrian army is the only one in Europe to have Jewish officers and in any German regiment every officer from the colonel down to the youngest lieutenant would rather quit the service than accept a Jew as a comrade! . . . With the typical Jewish ability to stick anywhere it won't take too long before the Austrians will have half a dozen Jewish officers in each regiment. In the end the largest part of the Austro-Hungarian army will become verjudet.49

The author adds that the Austrian officers should follow the German example of not admitting Jewish officer-candidates into their regiments.50 While the rising antisemitism of fin-de-siecle Austria had consequences for the officers' corps to a certain extent—and most probably the declining number of Jewish officers was among them—the radicalization within some Roman Catholic groups affected the army even more. This was mainly due to the influence gained by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the successor-designate, over the military in the early 1900s. Himself a very pious man, he vetoed the appointment of a Protestant officer as commander of the famous military academy at Wiener Neustadt 51 and had liberal

Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces, 1867-1918

137

military chaplains replaced by conservative priests.52 While not directed against the Jews, this attitude did riot help to improve the situation of non-Catholic officers, be they Christian, Moslem or Jew. Generally speaking, the situation of Jewish officers in the Landwehr was similar to that in the common army. In the Hungarian Honved the number of Jewish officers was even higher, although no exact figures are available. A study based on a sample of 800 Honved officers killed in action during the First World War arrives at a figure of approximately one-third Jewish officers (both career and reserve officers) while in certain regiments more than half of the officers are said to have been Jews.53 While this estimate might be rather on the high side, it clearly shows a trend corresponding with the more liberal attitude shown by the Hungarians in general— who were promptly denounced as "Judo-Magyaren" by antisemitic radicals.54 Yet another factor was the overall social composition of the territorial force's officer corps. While the national Honved ranked high on the list of national Hungarian status symbols, the upper classes and nobility always chose to become officers in the common army, leaving the officer corps of theHonvedfilled up from the middle and—most of all—the lower classes of Hungarian society. At the same time, it was an appropriate vehicle for aspiring lower-class Hungarians to show their nationalist ideals. In comparison, the number of Jewish officers in the I&R navy was very small and never exceeded a handful. 55 This is probably best explained both by the small size of the Austro-Hungarian navy and the small Jewish population in the Adriatic provinces, as antisemitic bias was even rarer in the traditionally liberalminded navy than in the more conservative army. A further point which merits mention is that many officers married Jewish women. This is not only further proof of lack of antisemitic bias among the Austrian officers but it also helps to illustrate the social position of the officers' corps. In order to improve the financial situation of a deceased officer's wife and children, it had been decided in the eighteenth century to allow a couple to marry only if they had enough property to guarantee the widow a respectable income upon the death of the husband (which was, of course, considered a professional risk). While apparently reasonable enough, an officer's low pay ensured that very few officers could afford this Heiratskaution and in many regiments a large number of officers lived with their spouses for several years without being wed.56 The yearly income to be guaranteed by the Heiratskautionwas especially high for officers in the general staff.57 A popular joke made the rounds about the difference between an officer in the Train and one in the general staff: While the officer in the service corps was a Jew himself, the staff officer had a Jewish wife since only Jewish parents-in-law could afford the high Heiratskaution. This generalization is certainly a popular myth. The high number of officers' Jewish wives cannot be denied, however, though it is impossible to prove it statistically. JEWISH RESERVE OFFICERS Among the reforms initiated after the defeat of 1866 was the reorganization of the reserve officers' corps in order to prepare the army for mass mobilization. As leaders of the future mass armies, academic professionals, the elite in civilian life,

138

Erwin A. Schmidl

were a logical choice. Thus high school graduates and university students were offered the privilege of serving one year instead of three years on active service. After the completion of additional exercises the Einjahrig-Freiwilligen (one-year volunteers) were given a reserve commission. Jewish students were represented in high schools and universities in greater numbers than the census returns would suggest. While the Jews never exceeded 4.6 percent of the whole population, 7.1 percent of all high school students were Jews in 1863. This figure rose to 15.8 percent in 1890 and 17.2 percent in 1910. Similarly, while 9.4 percent of all university students were Jews in 1863, their proportion rose to 20.6 percent in 1890, dropping only slightly to 20.4 percent in 1910.58 Thus it is hardly surprising that, between 1897 and 1911, some 18 percent of all reserve officers were Jews.59 This figure of nearly one fifth of all reserve officers must be seen in conjunction with the fact that in Prussia some thirty thousand Jewish cadets tried in vain to become reserve officers between 1885 and 1914.60 In the Hungarian Honved the number of Jewish reserve officers was even higher than in the common army.61 The distribution of Jewish reserve officers in the different branches of service generally matches the picture drawn earlier for their active counterparts. The majority of all Jewish reserve officers served with the infantry. Their number was smaller among the cavalry, the rifles and the technical services. Jews were over-represented in the medical service up to 1905 and, most strikingly, in the Train where they accounted for 37 percent of the reserve officers in 1906. These numbers say nothing about the distribution on regimental level, of course. For example, while the average number of Jewish reserve officers in the artillery was rather small, one artillery regiment was mockingly dubbed "von Rothschild" because of the large number of Jewish Einjahrig-Freiwillige and reserve officers.62 Considering the values and the honor code of the late nineteenth century, it is obvious that the reserve officer's uniform hanging in the wardrobe was the final, and much-coveted, symbol of Jewish emancipation and acceptance into Gentile society. This might explain why the proportion of Jewish reserve officers was even higher than the percentage of Jewish high school students. This fact serves as an additional indication that antisemitism was not an important factor in the I&R armed forces. Indeed, the armed forces were perhaps unique in that the equal treatment of Jewish officers could actually be enforced through the officers' very strict code of honor. For example, many students' associations in the late 1890s denied the Jews Satisfaktionsfahigkeit (the privilege to fight duels). In the armed forces, however, it was not allowed to refuse a duel because the opponent was Jewish. There are examples of duels that were actually ordered to take place—otherwise both contestants would lose their commissions.63 In fact, the existence of Jewish reserve officers was among the chief reasons why in Austria many students' associations refrained from adopting more radical antisemitic positions.64 The Duellfragewas of major importance, as reserve officers had to observe their officers' honor code in civilian society, too.65 This officers' honor code affected reserve officers in many respects, especially if they were writers or artists. One of the better-known cases involving a Jewish reserve officer is that of Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931). Schnitzler, a physician and writer, lost his reserve commission in 1901 for having published the famous short

Jews In the. Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces, 1867-1918

139

story "Leutnant Gustl," which questioned the significance of the duel.66 It has at times been suggested that Dr. Schnitzler lost his commission because he was a Jew, but this is nonsense. While perhaps an interesting piece of literature, "Leutnant Gustl" obviously contained enough offences in the eyes of the military to warrant a degradation regardless of the culprit's religion. In the first months of the First World War, the number of active officers killed in the I&R armed forces was immense. This not only deprived the army of its most important leaders in the years to come but heightened the importance of the reserve officers.67 Considering the high proportion of Jewish reserve officers, we can assume that nearly 10 percent of all officers serving in the I&R armed forces in this war were Jews.68 Their bravery is well attested.69

JEWISH OFFICIALS IN THE l&R ARMED FORCES Already by the nineteenth century the proportion of non-fighting personnel in the armed forces was considerable. A statistical assessment of these "officials" is not easy, for among them were high-ranking officers serving in various institutions and academies and military doctors as well as minor cierks and servants.70 The vast majority, however, served in positions which required high school or even university training, which, in turn, helps to explain the rather high Jewish proportion of 18.4 percent in 1894 and 13.6 percent in 1911. Although not as spectacular as in the case of officers, the proportion of Jewish reserve officials is higher (21 percent in 1897, 22.8 percent in 1911) than among career officials (12.7 percent in 1897, 7.4 percent in 1911). The distribution among the different branches of service shows no distinct pattern (see Table 3). The figures are above the average in the transportation corps, whereas, contrary to common opinion, the number of Jewish military doctors is not at all out of proportion. Both in the transportation and medical branches, however, the difference between the career and reserve figures is exceptionally large. As these officials served in non-fighting positions, they encountered perhaps even less antisemitic bias than their fellow officers in the line. While it is sometimes suggested that Jews might have been assigned to non-fighting branches out of distrust, 71 we know of cases of Jewish officers who tried desperately to get transferred to some more agreeable job out of the firing line. 72 In fact, officials were generally less respected than officers of the fighting branches. A dashing cavalry officer was certainly held in higher esteem by society in general and young women in particular than some bespectacled official in the supply corps ("Mit der Intendanz geht ka' Katz mmTanz!" as the old saying goes). Still, there were exceptions from this rule, 73 just as there were good-looking officials and fat old cavalry officers. THE AFTERMATH: 1918 AND BEYOND As a final point, a few words should be added about the status of Jews in the military and paramilitary forces in Austria in the inter-war years. In the old mon-

Table 3.

Jewish Administrative Officials and Military Doctors in the I&R Common Army, 1894-191!

Total/ Average 1894 1096=18.4%

Bonian &

Artillery 353=30.%2 34=24%

1049=17.1% 343=29.7% 1897 369+680 179+164

20=16.1% 15+5

Hercegovinian

63=20.7%

15=28.

74=21.3% 42+32

77=23.8% 38+39

13=276.6% 5=1.8% 11=25.6% 1=33.3% 242=13.9% 66=24.4% 7+0 26+216 3+63 1+0 5+0 7+4

__

8=19%

12=28.5% 6+6 4=9.5% 4+0-

1900

1024=16.4% 300=27.7% 26=21.9% 65=18.4% 75=23.6% 18=40% 345+679 33+32 34+41 13+5 158+142 19+7

7=2.3% 7+0

1904

790=1`4% 288=502

250=23.7% 16=13.6% 51=16% 127+123 12+4 26+25

12+3

8+0

7609=13% 241+468

158=16.1% 18=17.8% 59=18.8% 50=1 83+75 25+25 18+41 10+8

9=18% 6+3 5=10.7% 1+4

7=2% 10=19.6% 4+6 7+0

1908

1911

780=13 204=19.6%

251+529

99+105

6=4.7% 4+2

344=17.2% 59=21.1^%

62=16.6%

62=19.4% 29+33

48=15.5% 47=13.1% 17+31 17=30

15=30.6% 8=2.6%

1=33.3%

?

28=7.6%

4=10.2% 2+2

__

32=6.8% 18+14

__

210=14.3 8=18. 6+2 24+186

__

32=6% 16+16

__

163=12% 6=12.8 __

2=9.1%

27=12.8%

3=3.1% 2=11.1% 156=13.1% 2+0 3+0 21+135

__

211=13.8% 57=22 25+186 1=56

__

133=12.7% 40=19.3% 3+1.7% 0=40 3+0 20+113

__

133=13.2% 43=29.9% 5=2.9% 2=9% 31+102 5+0 1+42 2+0

3=2.6% 3+0

6=1.9% 5-10.8% 1+8.3% 175=16.2% 45=26.4% 7=3.9% 3=12% 6+0 7+0 3+0 1+0 4+1 36+139 3+39

The table shows in the first line the number/percentage of the aetive and reserve officials together (after ! 894). followed by the separate figures. Source: Milnar-Slalislischts Jahrbuch (1894-1911).

__

Others

25+138

3+3

159=12.3% 4=7% 22+137 3+1 183=13 25+158

39-6.7% 19=20

__ 52=8.5% 24+28

3=4.34% __ 45=8.1% 26+19 2+1

Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces, 1867 -1918

141

archy, the Jews had often been called the only truly "supra-nationals," the only truly Austrian element—and this applies even more to those Jews serving as an integral part in the I&R armed forces. In his touching play about the last days of the monarchy, 74 Franz Theodor Csokor describes the burial of an old officer, who had committed suicide upon the news of the final defeat, taking place at a hospital in the Carinthian Alps. The officers representing various nationalities declare: "earth from Hungary," "earth from Poland," and so on, upon putting their shovel of earth onto the coffin. The Jewish doctor is the only one left to give "earth from—Austria." For the Jews in particular, the revolution of 1918 heralded a new era which in many respects turned out to be worse than the previous one. Few Jews, though, went, so far as an Austrian submarine officer of Jewish descent who some time after the defeat of 1918 donned his old naval uniform and shot himself in the Vienna woods, wrapped in the flag he had saved from his old ship.75 The twenty years between the two revolutions of 1918 and 1938 were dominated by an antisemitic bias shared by nearly all political groups. It is an open question if and how the relatively high number of Jewish officers in the armed forces affected antisemitic propaganda in the postwar years, but it is significant that both the (aristocratic) officer and the (Jewish) capitalist profiteer were among the chief targets of both socialist and National Socialist propaganda.76 Certainly, the allegedly high numbers of Jews in the supply and administrative branches were depicted as having caused the breakdown of supplies which contributed so much to the eventual defeat of the Central Powers, The Jews were often accused of having made considerable gains by holding back supplies while the poor soldiers at the front and their families back home were starving. 77 Since the Treaty of St. Germain (1919) allowed Austria only a small professional army of thirty thousand men, the number of Jewish officers and men in the new Bundesheer was small. 78 Among the better-known Jewish officers was Emil [von] Sommer (1869-1946) who had commanded a regiment in the war and was a highly respected commander. Retired as i'ull colonel in 1923, Sommer was later given the honorary title of Generalmajor (brigadier general).79 Despite the antisemitic bias of the 1920s and 1930s, Jewish-born Johann Friedlander (1882-1944), who had distinguished himself in the general staff before and during the war, became a regimental commander in 1925 and, from 1927, served in administrative capacities in the defense ministry. Friedlander headed the ministry's department of training, equipment and education and, promoted to Generalmajor, was transferred to the inspector general's office in 1936. Upon retirement in 1937, he was given the title of Feldmarschalleutnant (major general).80 While Friedlander perished in the Holocaust, Sommer managed to escape from the concentration camps to the United States. It should be remembered in this context that, although many Jews are said to have supported the Socialist party, a great number of Jews served with the conservative paramilitary Heimwehren. Dr. Max Thurn recalls that more than one quarter of the Viennese Heimatschutz motor unit he belonged to were Jews, including the commander. 81 Altogether some 50,000 Jews are said to have been members of the antiNazi Vaterlandische Front, whose red-white-red button badge was even known colloquially as the "Pour le Semite." The Bund Jiidischer Frontsoidaten (BJF)

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alone had 24,000 members in 1938.82 This combination of a veterans' association and a paramilitary force was established in 1932 to protect Jews and Jewish property from antisemitic riots and was headed first by Generalmajor (retired) Emil [von] Sommer and then, from 1934 onward, by Hauptmann (captain) Sigmund (Edler von] Friedmann (1892-1964), a retired First World War officer. The BJF was a pro-government conservative group and formed part of the Vaterlandische Front. There were women's and children's groups as well as a Sturmkader (storm troop).83 After the National-Socialist takeover of the Austrian government on 11 March 1938 and the ensuing annexation by the Third Reich, the BJF was abolished. Sigmund [Edler von] Friedmann, however, managed to emigrate to Palestine where, under the name of Eitan Avisar, he became deputy chief of staff in the Haganah and later, promoted to Aluf (major general), headed the IDF's supreme military court.84 Other Austrians who joined the Haganah were Rudolf Low (Rafael Lev), a former instructor in the Socialist paramilitary Schutzbund, and Dr. Wolfgang [von] Weisl.85 It might be difficult to imagine a more extreme contrast than the one existing between the old i&R armed forces and the army of the nascent state of Israel. The role played by Jewish Austrians in the Haganah and IDF would make an interesting study by itself—but it is certainly outside the scope of this paper.

Notes I should like to express my gratitude to all who have been helpful in the course of writing this article. Apart from the staff of the War Archives in Vienna, I should like to mention in particular Drs. Lohrmann, Rauchensteiner and Viellmetti as well as my wife Dr. Monika Schmidl. 1. Jehuda L. Wallach, " . . . und mil der anderen hielten sie die Waffe." Die Kriege Israels (Koblenz: 1984), p. 28. 2. I have outlined these developments in greater detail in my paper, "Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Army," presented at the Conference on Jews in Habsburg Politics and Culture, which was held at The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, on 28 October 1984. A slightly updated version is to be published in the forthcoming volume (XXII) of Bela K. Kiraly (cd.), War and Society in East Central Europe (Brooklyn College Studies on Society in Change, New York). 3. Reichsgesetzblatt Nr. 142/1867. The articles of interest in this context are nos. 2, 14 and 15. 4. A good summary of this organization is given by Rudolf Hecht, "Fragen zur Heeresergiinzung der Qesamten Bewaffneten Macht Osterreich-Ungarns wahrend des Ersten Weltkrieges." Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1969. On the I&R Armed Forces as a whole, the most up-to-date information available is probably Joh. Christoph AllmayerBeck/Erich Lessing, Die K.(u.)K. Armee 1848-1914 (Munich/Gutersloh/Vienna: 1974). For English-language readers, Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Army of Francis Joseph (West Lafayette: 1976) is a reasonably accurate introduction. 5. Some forms oi conscription had already been introduced in the 1770s. Owing to the many exemptions and the rather long period of service this cannot be considered "obligatory military service" in the modern meaning, since, except in times of war, the number of recruits inducted was very small.

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6. The number of soldiers to be inducted into the common I&R army was approximately three times as high as the number of recruits destined for the two Landwehren. In 1868 some 95,000 recruits (out of a total population of 32 million) were inducted, while just before the First World War, this number had risen to some 150,000 men. 7. Wolfdieter Bihl, "Die Juden," in Die Volker des Reiches, Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (eds.), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918, vol. IH (Vienna: 1980), pp. 880-948, see especially pp. 88Iff. 8. Despite diligent research work by the historians at the Vienna War Archives, of whom I should like to mention especially Drs. Broucek, Egger, Rutkowski and Tepperberg as well as Herr Rossa, we have not yet been able to find more statistical data than those provided in the Militar-Statistisches Jahrbuch (cited hereafter as MilStat.Jb.), vols. 18721911. This official publication contains a wealth of data, but it was discontinued in 1911. 9. MilStat.Jb. 1872 (Vienna: 1875), pp. 171ff. Bihl ("Juden," p. 945) is mistaken when he assumes that there are no statistical data available for other ranks. It should be noted that the above numbers include active soldiers as well as reservists, but there is no reason why the proportion of Jews should vary to any significant extent from one group to another. 10. The novels by Karl Emil Franzos, himself a Jew from Galicia, are a valuable source for this context, although one should take into account the curious mixture of reverence and contempt he shows for his home province. In his well-known (and, especially in our context, very readable) story "Moschko von Parma" he characterized the Galician Jews as"fromm, faul undfeige" (pious, lazy and cowardly). 11. Maximilian Paul-Schiff, "Teilnahme der osterreichisch-ungarischen Juden am Weltkriege. Eine statistische Studie," in: Jahrbuch fur jiidische Volkskunde 1924-25 (= Mitteilungen zur jiidische n Volkskunde 26-27), pp. 151-156, especially p. 155. 12. These numbers are taken from statistics published by Bihl, "Juden," p. 913. 13. Ibid. Data on the Austrian sailors' religious adherence published in theMilStat.Jb from 1885 to 1911. 14. Rudolf v. Hodl, Die Juden im osterreichisch-ungarischen Heere (ms. in the Osterreichisches Staatsarchiv/Kriegsarchiv,Vienna War Archives, hereafter cited as KA-NL B 460-11), passim. 15. Peter Broucek, Ein General im Zwielicht. Die Erinnerungen Edmund daises von Horstenau, vol. 1 (- Veroffentlichungen der Kommission fur neuere Geschichte Osterreichs, vol. 67), (Vienna/Koln-Graz: 1980), p. 143. 16. A most interesting document is a report filed by the commander of the 58th Infantry's reserve contingent at Stanislau in 1874 in response to accusations by the Jewish community at Lwow that the religious needs of Jewish recruits were insufficiently cared for (KA:KM 1874 2.A, 48-15/1,2). 17. Ibid. 18. Josef Leb, Aus den Erinnerungen eines Trainoffiziers (ms., KA-NL B 580), p. 35. 19. Ernst R.v. Rutkowski, "Eincr der tapfersten Offiziere im Regimente. Oberleutnant in der Reserve Dr. Siegfried Frisch im Weltkrieg 1914-1918," Zeitschriftfur die Geschichte der Juden (= ZGJ) VII (1970), pp. 97-129; especially pp. 98ff. 20. This problem is to be discussed in more detail in the doctoral thesis on the fortress Przemysl now being written at the University of Vienna by Mag. Forstner. 21. Ernst R.v. Rutkowski, "Aron Schapira. Ein Unteroffizier im Weltkreig 19141918—Trager der Goldenen Tapferkeitsmedaille," ZGJ IX (1972), pp. 53-64, gives just one outstanding example. 22. Wolfgang v. Weisl, Skizze ;:u einer Autobiographie (Schriftenreihe des Zwi Perez Chajes-Instituts, Tel-Aviv: 1971), p. 36. 23. E. Rubin, 140 Jewish Marshals, Generals & Admirals (London: 1952), p. 17. 24. Paul-Schiff, "Teilnahme," p. 152. The situation is even more difficult since many personal documents of soldiers born outside today's Austrian Republic had to be delivered to the successor states and, to a large extent, must be considered lost. 25. Hoitt, Juden, pp. 11 Iff. 26. Ranglisten des k.u.k. Hcercs 1918 (Vienna: 1918), pp. 1674ff.

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27. Alexander Altmann, "Adolf Altmann (1879-1944). A Filial Memoir," Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook XXVI (1981), pp. 145-167; especially pp. 154ff. 28. Again, these numbers were published in the MilStat.Jb., but only from 1897 on. 29. It might even have been 2 percent or more. For the years 1894 to 1896, the MilStat.Jb.contains the total numbers of active and reserve officers only, and these numbers show the same declining tendency for Jewish officers as is confirmed for the years following 1897. 30. Karl Kandelsdorfer, "Der Adel im k.u.k. Offizierscorps," Militarische Zeitschrift (1897), pp. 248-269. 31. KA: Kriegsschule F. 21. 32. Rubin, 140 Jewish Marshals, p. 67ff. 33. A similar case was reported in 1822 when two Jewish corporals were refused transfer to the Life Guards "because the different religion might lead to teasing and unpleasant scenes within the regiment" (KA:HKR 1822, 1-37/40). 34. Generals' ranks are always difficult to translate into other languages. Basically, Austrian generals started with the Generalmajor, Brigadier being a designation not of rank but of appointment (describing a colonel or Generalmajor who commanded a brigade). The next grades were Feldmarschalleutnant and General der Infanterie I General der CavallerielFeldzeugmeister (depending upon the arm of service). The highest rank was Feldmarschall, while in the First World War, Generaloberst was introduced as the second-highest rank. 35. KA: Quail.-F. 2685. 36. Even going through all officers' personal files would not yield complete results, as not all documents were preserved after 1918 (see n. 24). 37. KA: Quail.-F. 3060. 38. Ibid., 2678. 39. Ibid., 69. 40. Ibid., 607; GB Abg. 1921-1/94. See also Emil Seeliger, "Theresienritter ohne Theresienorden. Die Heldenfamilie derer von Eiss," Neues Wiener Journal, 23 February 1930. 41. Moritz Friihling, Biographisches Handbuch der in der k.u.k. osterreichisch-ungarischenArmeeundKriemarineaktivgedientenOffiziere,Arzte,TruppenRechnungsfuhrer and sonstigen Militarbeamten jiidischen Stammes(Vienna: 1911), pp. 5ff. Rubin, 140 Jewish Marshals, p. 68. Whereas Friihling's list is a most useful guide, it contains only the names of officers already retired or dead in 1911. 42. Paul-Schiff, "Teilnahme," passim; Seeliger, "Theresienritter." See also the biographies by Ernst R. v. Rutkowski, for example, "Das Schicksal des Oberleutnants i.d.Res. Dr. Leon Lebensart im Weltkrieg 1914-18," ZGJ IV (1967), pp. 231-246; "Dem Schopfer des osterreichischen Reiterliedes, Leutnant i.d.Res. Dr. Hugo Zuckermann, zum Gedachtnis," ZGJ X (1973), pp. 93-104; and "Dr. Siegfried Plaschkes. Arzt im Weltkrieg 1914-1918," ZGJX (1973), pp. 173-180. 43. For examples, see Bert Ben Kinsuh, "Juden im Heer und in der Marine in Deutschland und in der k.u.k. osterreichischungarischen Armee," Illustrierte Neue Welt, May and June 1975; Siegmund Kaznelson (ed.) Juden im deutschen Kulturbereich. Bin Sammelwerk, 2nd rev. ed. (Berlin: 1959), pp. 798-824; Rubin, 140 Jewish Marshals, and, most important, Wolfgang v. Weisl, "Juden in der osterreichischen und osterreichisch-ungarischen Armee," ZGJ VIII (1971), pp. 1-22. This paper, a very interesting study about our subject, was also published by the Zwi Perez Chajes-Institute in the same year together with the autobiography listed in n. 22. Weisl's paper contains a few errors, however. For example, Weisl stresses that Feldmarschalleutnant Joseph Singer (1797-1871) was not baptized at all, whereas Singer's personal file clearly lists his religion as Roman Catholic (KA: Quail.-F. 2737). 44. Rubin, 140 Jewish Marshals, p. 70, gives several inaccurate dates and I am thus indebted to Dr. Tepperberg of the Vienna War Archives for completing my information about Hazai. 45. Weisl, "Juden," p. 3.

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145

46. KA: Quail.-F. 107. 47. Robert Trimmel, memoirs (ms., KA:NL B385/I) fol. 49r. 48. Thcodor R. v. Zeynek, Aus clem Leben sines osterreichisch-ungarisehen Generalstabsoffiziers (ms., KA:NL B 151/2) pp. lOOff.; Rothenberg, Army, p. 118. 49. A. v. E., Offene Worte iiber die Osterreichisehe-ungarische Armee in ihrem Verhdltnis zum Deutschen Reichsheer. Auf Grund eigener Beobachtungen (Leipzig: 1891), pp. 3Iff. 50. As in the Prussian army, an Austrian officer-candidate had to be accepted by the officers of his regiment before being commissioned. This appears to have been a formality, however, and did not imply the exclusion of social or cultural "lower classes" from the officers' corps, as it sometimes did in the Reich. 51. Broucek, General im Zwielicht, I, p. 293. 52. Ibid., \, pp. 961T. The emperor, Franz Joseph, was much more tolerant toward other religions and strongly disapproved of Franz Ferdinand's radical attitude. 53. Paul-Schiff, "Teilnahme." In this context, 1 have to add my gratitude to Professor Sstvan Deak of Columbia University, who has been most helpful, especially about the situation in Hungary. 54. Sir Horace Rumbold, Final Recollections of a Diplomatist (London: 1905), p. 371. 55. According to the MilStat.Jb., the number of Jewish officers in the I&R navy between 1885 and 1911 was rarely higher than 0.1 percent. Friihling, Biographisches Handbuck, pp. 207ff., lists only two Jewish naval officers (Linienschiffs-KapitanMoritz Ritter von Funk, 1831-1905, and F regotten-Kapitdn Oskar Kohen, born 1862) in addition to two baptized ones (Kontre-Admiral Tobias Frh. von Oesterreicher, 1831-1893, and FregattenLeutnant Emil Kuhne/Kohn, born 1852). 56. Broucek, General im Zwielicht, I, p. 76. 57. Julius Gero, Verfahren in Heiratsangelegenheiten der Officiere und Beamten des k.u.k. Heeres, der k.u.k. Kriegsmarine, der k.k. Landwehr und der k.k. Gendarmerie, 2nd ed. (Budapest: 1904). 58. Gustav Otruba, "Die Nationalitiiten—und Sprachcnfrage des hoheren Schulwcsens und der Universitaten als Integrationsproblem der Donaumonarchie (1863-1910)," in Richard Georg Plaschka and Karlheinz Mack (eds.), Wegenetz europaischen Geistes. Wissenschqftszentren und geistige Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Mittel- und Sudosteuropa vom Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg, Schriftenreihe des osterreichischen Ost- und Sudosteuropa Instituts V11I (Vienna: 1983), pp. 88-106. 59. The MilStat.Jb. provides us with the relevant data only for the period 1897 to 1911. 60. Werner T. Angress, "Prussia's Army and the Jewish Reserve Officer Controversy Before World War I," Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook XVII (1972), pp. 19-42; Rolf Vogel, Bin Stuck von uns. Deutsche Juden in deutschen Armeen 1813-1976. Eine Dokumentation, 2nd ed. (1977). 61. See n. 53. 62. Lcb, Erinnemngen (ms. KA:NL B 580) p. 35. 63. Siegfried Trebitsch, Chronik eines Lebens (Zurich/Stuttgart/Vienna: 1951), pp. 40ff. 64. Franz Gall, Alma Mater Rudolphina 1365-1965. Die Wiener Universitat und ihre Studenten (Vienna: 1965); Robert Hein, Studentischer Antixemitismus in Osterreich, Beitrage zur osterreichischen Studentengeschichte, 10 (Vienna; 1984). 65. Unverfalschte Deutsche Worte 5 (March 1895) and 7 (April 1896). 66. For a short summary of this incident see the notes by Bernhard Denscher, in Klaus Lohrmann (ed.) 7000 Jahre osterreichisches Judentum, Studia Judaica Austriaica IX (Vienna/Eisenstadt: 1982), p. 378; and Schnitzler's own version in Die Presse (Vienna) 15 December 1959. 67. See the introductory notes in Osterreich-Ungarns letzter Krieg, vol. 1 (Vienna: 1930), the official Austrian history of the First World War. 68. In this context, see PauI-Scliiff, "Teilnahme," passim. 69. See n. 42.

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70. The MilStat.Jb. lists the religion of the bei den Truppen und Anstalten eingeteilten Militargeistlichen, dem Soldatenstande nicht angehorenden Offiziers und Militarbeamten only for the years 1894/97-1911, as is the case with officers. 71. For example, Weisl, "Juden," p. 11, assumed that Wolf Bardach (later Edler v. Chlumberg) was attached to the supply branch because "obviously one didn't expect to find any fighting spirit in a Jew from Galicia." In fact, however, Bardach was a cadet at the time, commanding a half-battery at Koniggratz in 1866. See Friihling, Biographisches Handbuch 21, and n. 46. 72. George Clare, Man Always Does, German cd.: Das waren die Klaars. Spuren einer Familie (Berlin/Frankfurt/Vienna: 1980), pp. 70ff., describes how his father, Ernst Klaar, had himself transferred from the infantry to the supply branch in 1918 by making use of his father's acquaintance with a high-ranking general. 73. Ibid. Ernst Klaar is portrayed as good looking and much admired by the girls although "only" an administrative official! 74. 3 November 1918, first published in 1936. 75. Bruno Brehm, "Der Pfefferkuchenreiter," in Das gelbe Ahornblatt. Bin Leben in Geschichten (Karlsbad/Drahowitz/Leipzig: 1931), pp. 54-67. 76. Dieter A. Binder, "Der 'reiche Jude'. Zur sozialdemokratischen Kapitalismuskritik und deren antisemitischen Feindbildern in der Ersten Republik," Geschichte und Gegenwart IV (1985), pp. 43-53. 77. The main difference between socialist and National-Socialist propaganda seems to have been that the former preferred to attack the aristocratic officer, while the latter chose the Jewish officer instead. Otherwise, the two patterns were quite similar. 78. According to a Wehrmacht report (OKW: Abt. Landesverteidigung, Nr. 504/38, geh.L I a), Berlin, 15 March 1938, 119 "Semites" did not take the oath to the Fiihrer on 14 and 15 March 1938 upon the transfer of the Austrian Bundesheer into the Wehrmacht (BundesarchivlMilitararchiv FreiburglBr., RW 6/V.95, p. 40). To this we have to add those Jews who took the oath together with the rest of their units because nobody thought of sorting them out before. Two to three hundred is a probable figure. 79. KA:OBH, Pers. Sommer; Rubin, 140 Jewish Marshals, p. 73; Weisl, "Juden," p. 13. 80. KA:OBH, Pers. Friedlander. 81. Max Thurn, "Lange Nacht im Salzkammergut," Wiener Journal nos. 46-47 (July/August 1984), p. 17. 82. Letter by S. v. Friedman to Eitan Avisar, printed in Erwin Tramer, "Der Republikanische Schutzbund. Seine Bedeutung in der politischen Entwicklung der Ersten Osterreichischen Republik" (Ph.D. diss., University Erlangen-Niirnberg, 1969), p. 270. When he wrote that there were practically no Jews in the Heimwehren and none at all in the Ostmarkischen Sturmscharen, Friedmann/Avisar obviously exaggerated the facts. 83. DreiJahreBJF—BundJudischerFrontsoldaten Osterreichs (Vienna: 1935). Friedmann/Avisar's assertion that the BJF was politically neutral is contradicted by contemporary evidence such as the articles published in the BJF's official magazine, Jiidische Front. 84. For this information, I am indebted to Professor Jehuda L. Wallach of Tel-Aviv University. 85. Weisl, "Versuch." In the war of 1948, Weisl commanded a battery in the Negev. He later wrote several articles about the military situation in the Middle East for Austrian military magazines; for example: "Die Politik der Grossmachte im Nahen und Mittleren Osten," Osterreichische Militdrische Zeitschrift V (1967), pp. 293-307.

Post-Holocaust Hungarian Jewry, 1945-48; Class Structure, Re-stratification and Potential for Social Mobility Victor Karady (CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE)

Institutionalized antisemitism in the 1930s, the persecutions suffered during the Second World War, ensuing internal migration and emigration as well as the profound changes affecting the entire Hungarian population just after the collapse of the old regime (in the years 1945-48) wrought great transformations in the class structure and especially in the potential for mobility among Hungarian Jews. It is important to clarify the scale and character of these changes, among other reasons because they influenced in a decisive manner Jewish attitudes toward the new political and economic order which was established after the Communist takeover in 1949. The essential factor in the process of re-stratification was the socially selective nature of the Nazi genocide itself. The reasons for this were in part sociological: "assimilated" Jewry enjoyed a measure of protection (however limited it proved to be) by their "host" groups. It was also the result of the fact that Budapest Jewry was not systematically deported, unlike the Jewries of the provinces. These two factors reinforced and complemented one another. The most completely assimilated sector of Hungarian Jewry, although still socially marked as Jews, escaped the impact of the antisemitic legislation (introduced from 1938 on) that ultimately led to the deportations and, in Budapest, to the mass murders perpetrated during the short-lived Hungarian Nazi regime (15 October 1944 to February 1945). According to the 1941 census, 44.1 percent of Christians of Jewish origin (i.e., some 27,100 persons out of 786,600 registered as having "Jewish blood") were not subject to legal discrimination. 1 Even those converted Jews who remained branded as such in the eyes of the anti-Jewish laws, such as those who had undergone last-minute baptism, could occasionally count on a degree of Church protection. It is well known (and this is substantiated by statistical evidence) that the relative frequency of conversions was always highest in the towns, especially in the capital city (where the proportion of converts in 1941 reached 17.5 percent of all those considered Jews by the law). 2 In the urban 147

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environment, members of the intelligentsia and the middle classes were more inclined than others to abandon the Jewish faith and thus gain possible protection. Provincial and rural Jewry had no such protection. Those assimilated Jews who were not ready to accept baptism but—belonging to the urban middle class—had acquired links, indeed, often allies, among Gentiles through mixed marriage, professional cooperation or common educational experiences, also enjoyed a degree of protection. These groups, mostly scions of the magyarized bourgeoisie, constituted a sizable part of modern secular intelligentsia in the country, people who played a prominent part in progressive politics, in the artistic and literary avant-garde as well as in science and economic entrepreneurship. Their professional ties and ideological comradeship with like-minded Gentiles and, indeed, in many instances with the ruling political hierarchy, often came to their rescue. This network of potential alliances could be activated at times of crisis. It existed in particular between sections of the pro-Habsburg aristocracy and some clusters of the no-less-legitimist Jewish bourgeoisie. It is possible to substantiate that the regent's decision of 7 July 1944, halting mass deportations just before they were to be extended to Budapest, was due to this network. 3 As we know, this hardly meant complete safety for the Jews of Budapest, but it certainly meant that their losses were considerably less than those in the provinces. Furthermore, however weak the various protective schemes may have been, they did work to a somewhat greater effect in Budapest than elsewhere. An illustration of this is the fact that by any reckoning some 25,000 Jews survived in the city with forged documents, living illegally, hiding with friends, protected by Zionist and other resistance groups as well as by Church institutions, while in the countryside there was practically no way to remain hidden.4 In these circumstances the socially selective nature of the destruction is obvious. Viewed as a whole, this meant that the social stratification of Jewish survivors showed a significant upward shift in contrast to the prewar situation. Whether we use the yardstick of education, occupation or adherence to religious or cultural traditions, these changes appear to be manifest and can be empirically demonstrated by comparing available relevant data for 1930, 1935 and 1945-46. Though summaries of data concerning Jewish social stratification according to the 1930 census offer only an approximation of the prewar state of affairs (see Table 1), it permits somewhat more than educated guesswork about the selection process caused by the Holocaust. It is true that we have no data at our disposal concerning such areas as the emigration of particular groups, shifts in employment caused in part by the economic boom before and during the war, the decline in class status owing to the anti-Jewish laws and the new processes of re-stratification and social upheaval that started immediately after 1945, let alone on the socially highly selective nature of mass conversions which took place between 1938 and 1944 and which continued afterward for some time. Nonetheless, all these factors affecting the socio-professional status of Hungarian Jewry were dwarfed in their effect by the genocide of 1944 and early 1945. We have already noted that the heavy losses inflicted on provincial Jewry transformed the class composition of the surviving Jewish community. The wave of conversions, especially in Budapest, following the introduction of the anti-Jewish legislation in 1938 demonstrates that the role of

149

Post-Holocaust Hungarian Jewry, 1945-48 Table 1.

Occupational Structure of the Jewish Population in Budapest and in the Provinces in 1930 Budapest

A. Self-employed (agriculture, trade, industry) White collar (clerical, professional, freelance) Civil servants Blue collar (trade and industry) Pensioners, rentiers, etc. Total (less others and unknown) B. Factory owners in towns C. Employed by firms with more than 20 employees: White collar Blue collar

Provinces

Number

%

Number

%

25,139 31,042 9,612 33,433 _JL064 107,290

23.4 28.9 9.0 31.2 __jL5 100.0

42,146 13,528 7,742 31,615 _L>356 102,387

41.2 13.2 7.6 30.8 T.2 100.0

783

460

14,757 22,049

4,837 7,066

Sources: A. Kovacs, A csonkamagyarorszdgi zsiddsdg a siatisztika tiikreben (Statistical Pattern of Jewry in Postwar Hungary) (Budapest: 1938), pp. 63-69; L. Illyefalvi, Csonka hazdiik vdrosai a statisztika tiikreben (Statistical Aspects of Cities and Towns in Our Truncated Homeland} (Budapest: 1940), pp. 376-377: Magyar Stalisztikai Ko'zlemenyek. no. 86(1934), pp. 75-87.

baptism—whether it became eventually an effective lifesaving expediency or not— was much more significant than that of legal emigration, though closer scrutiny of illegal (and statistically unaccounted for) emigration, mostly arranged by Zionist groups, may ultimately help to qualify this statement.'1 It is also a fair assumption— since it appears to be substantiated by recent research—that the majority of those converted during and before the war never returned, in the formal sense, to their abandoned faith.6 Thus, for purposes of statistics, baptized Jews—though maintaining their social status as Jews—became Gentiles. If one includes these people, the number of educated middle classes among the survivors should be estimated much higher than in our statistical data. Data concerning religious adherence, which is quite reliable, demonstrate the dramatic transformation of Hungarian Jewry. Taking, in turn, the three officially recognized Jewish communities, the number of Reform congregations in the country declined (from 1930 to 1946) from 219 to 102, that of the Orthodox from 436 to 146 and that of the "status quo" from 54 to a mere 15. Since average membership in the Orthodox communities was much smaller than that of Reform congregations, the predominance of the latter became paramount after 1945, not only in Budapest but also in the countryside. The percentage of the members belonging to Reform congregations went up from the 1930 figure of 65.5 percent to 76.3 percent, whereas those belonging to Orthodox congregations shrank from 29.2 percent to 19.6 percent. The "status quo" proportion declined from 5,3 percent to 3.4 percent.7 The imbalance among the different types of communities was thus significantly increased. Since it is well known that the social basis of the Reform communities was rooted in the "assimilated" middle classes, from which the majority of

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Victor Karady Table 2.

Occupational Pattern of the Jewish Active Population in Budapest, 1935 and 1945 1935

Number

1945

%

Number

%

1945 as a Percentage of 1935 Figures

9,984

9.9

8,840

19.3

88.5

Self-employed (in trade)

17,130

17.1

9,532

20.8

55.6

White collar (in industry)

10,024

10.0

3,940

8.6

38.4

White collar (other)

18,414

18.4

2,371

5.2

12.9

Civil servants (of these, army officers)

5,522 —

5.5 —

1,911 101

4.2

34.6

Professional

3,783

3.8

4,210

9.2

111.3

Blue collar (in industry)

20,337

20.3

9,462

20.6

46.5

Blue collar (other: in trade, transport, servants, etc.)

14,804

14.8

5,622

12.3

38.0

100.0

45.9

Self-employed (in industry)

Soldiers Total (not including pensioners and unknown)

274

99

99,998

100.0

45,888

Sources: For 1935, Statistical Yearbook of Budapest (1941), pp. 51-52; for 1945, E. Duschinsky, "Hungary," in The Jews in she Soviet Satellites (Syracuse: 1953), p. 396,

the baptized Jews also came, conversions must have diminished the strength of the Reform congregations. If, in spite of these losses, the relative preponderance of the latter increased after 1945, this can only be explained by the socially and religiously selective losses suffered in the catastrophe. There are reasonably accurate figures on the class distribution of Budapest Jewry for the years 1935 and 1945 (see Table 2). Between these two dates the proportion of manual workers diminished somewhat (from 35 percent to 33 percent, a difference which is statistically insignificant). Much more important is the sizable growth in the proportion of the self-employed, from 10 percent to 19 percent in industry. The number of professionals grew even in absolute terms by about 10 percent over the 1935 figures, while the percentage of self-employed in trade, a traditional Jewish occupation, increased from 17 percent to 21 percent. In contrast, the losses of white-collar employees and executives appear to have been much heavier in each category, owing probably not only to the loss of lives but also to the economic restrictions enforced by the anti-Jewish laws on employment in both private and public firms. The main burden of legal discrimination in the economic field (as enacted in the first two antisemitic laws of 1938 and 1939) did, in fact, fall upon office staff, often denying them their livelihood or forcing them to become self-employed cither legally or "under the table." 8 This is certainly one of the reasons for the growth in numbers among the self-employed category during these

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years. The same employees might suffer even more brutal declassement, being forced to turn to menial jobs once dismissed from white-collar positions. Bluecollar jobs proved to be less exposed and less controlled. This type of decline in status is only indirectly mirrored in our statistical evidence, probably because of the murderous effect of the persecutions visited upon the Jewish lower classes in the capital. If one accepts the estimate that some 25,000 Jews survived in hiding, it is more than likely that most belonged to the middle classes and not to the proletarian or petit bourgeois strata. The Jewish working class found itself without social allies, especially those employed in small Jewish businesses who were the most isolated from their Gentile social peers. The fact is that in 1945 the survivors included in these categories constituted only 42 percent of what they had been in 1935, while the figure for the middle-class groups was 48 percent, in spite of their much higher rate of emigration and conversion. Here again, the socially selective nature of the genocide at the expense of the lower strata is demonstrated. As for re-stratification, a process that moved into high gear after the liberation, it is not only of anecdotal importance to note that, only a few months after the Nazi defeat in 1945, we find more than 100 Jewish army officers and 271 soldiers of other ranks in the capital city,9 where a decade earlier there was not a single Jewish officer (and fewer than 100 privates).10 If we add to this number, however hypothetically, those men of Jewish origin who found their way into the new army or into other armed units, it would not be incorrect to assume that a not negligible proportion of Jewish men joined the various armed forces in the aftermath of the war. l ' The shift in power brought with it a swift social re-stratification of a compensatory nature, which we shall now proceed to analyze. Four factors can be distinguished in terms of intra-generational conditions of mobility. They are by and large of an interdependent nature and only close scrutiny makes it possible to pinpoint them as separate sociological variables. Later on we must also survey the inter-generational aspect of Jewish mobility potential in the post-1945 period. The first of the four factors is a trend toward the restoration of class status prior to the enforcement of the anti-Jewish legislation. Every change in status will generate its own reaction once the causative pressure is removed. The factory manager or the bank executive who, having been dismissed from his office in the early 1940s, may have turned his hand to breeding rabbits in order to make a living (to take a trivial but far from atypical example).12 Now, he did his utmost to regain his previous position under the new dispensation. Those Jews who suffered such a loss of status, especially active members of the educated middle classes, were thus endowed with a strong built-in potential for mobility based on the principle of status restitution. The second factor was equally important in its consequences—a drive to compensate for previous, long-term social frustrations. This type of potential for mobility was unleashed once the barriers and "keep out" signs set up in the job market by the old order were removed. This type of mobility was directed toward seeking public office. Between the wars, Jews had been gradually but systematically excluded from the civil service (this included Christians of Jewish origin), a fact that severely restricted career opportunities for offspring of the educated middle classes. The shackling effect of this official discrimination can be illustrated by comparing

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Jewish educational achievements and access to the public sector in the inter-war years. Since winning administrative jobs was systematically tied to levels of education, it appears as a glaring anomaly that Jews, the best-educated denominational group in the 1930s, occupied a mere 1.7 percent of civil service positions, 2.1 percent in the judiciary, and 3.8 percent in state schools among employees, not to mention the health service, where Jewish physicians in public service made up only 14 percent of the total, whereas 54.5 percent of private practitioners were Jewish. 13 To interpret these low percentages in public service one must recall that, according to the 1930 census, 26 percent of male secondary-school graduates and 17 percent of university graduates were Jewish, 14 despite the infamous numerus clausus law introduced as early as 1920 and effective during most of the period. '5 The outcome of official antisemitism in this respect is clear. It must be pointed out, however, that the potential for mobility this type of social frustration generated in surviving Jews after 1945 was far from being only of a compensatory nature. It can be rightly referred to as a kind of structural mobility if we apply the usual definition of that term (changes in occupational distribution implemented by economic development) to the situation of Hungarian Jewry after the liberation. Once the discriminatory system collapsed, new socio-economic positions were opened to Jews. Thus, their normal potential to compete for jobs in various markets, from which they had been artificially excluded earlier, could blossom forth (in contrast to, and also to the detriment of, other competing groups in Hungarian society which enjoyed earlier monopolistic privileges in the public sector). Jewish mobility opportunities suddenly multiplied owing to this one factor alone, independent of economic progress in general terms or of other socio-economic transformations. A third factor in the intra-generational potential for mobility was one directly associated with the tragic experiences of the surviving Jewish community—persecution, deportation, social exclusion, personal and collective peril, loss of property, and so on. These experiences, too, generated mobility. An obvious if trivial instance of this was when a bankrupt petty capitalist was forced to seek a new livelihood necessitating no capital investment (since it was not available). In general, those grueling experiences produced among survivors a decisive change in attitude regarding ways to assure individual and collective safety, such as political power, administrative control, participation in the civil service and in public life in general. The years of persecution meant a total loss of collective security. Understandably enough, after the war, the demand to share public power became paramount among the survivors, a fact that was clearly demonstrated by their unprecedented political mobilization which affected even previously isolated, inwardlooking or traditional elements—the Orthodox, the housewives, the elderly. Most of them actually joined one of the political parties of the emerging new regime, especially the Communist and the Social-Democratic parties, or at least offered active support to one of the anti-Fascist movements.16 The attraction of the Communist party was enhanced by its close links with the Red Army, which, in spite of its often disgraceful behavior as an occupying force, remained invested—for Jews—with the glory of the liberation and, as such, seemed to offer the most effective guarantee for social safety. This politicization of Jewry, whether owing to idealistic reasons or to enlightened self-interest, resulted in many Jews entering into political careers, well

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before the Communist accession to total power (by becoming full-time cadres of the left-wing parties). This political mobilization represented a significant additional potential for professional mobility. Indeed, the old political elite abandoned most of its positions in the state bureaucracy, leading to a further extension of career opportunities in the public sector. There appeared at the same time an even more, clear-cut political trend for social mobility within a limited sector of the Jewish community. It was based on the very significant Jewish over-representation in the militant Left and in various legal oppositional parties of the old regime, whereby many Jews accumulated considerable "political capital" to be used after 1945 to build new political careers. This factor affected not only formerly active militants of the Left, like veteran members of the Social-Democratic or of the illegal Communist parties, but also their families, friends and social allies; that is, a good portion of the surviving Jewish community as such. Recent scholarship suggests that Jewish membership in the oppositional working class and leftist movements between the wars was approximately double that of the proportion of Jews in the total population, and as far as women are concerned, nearly triple.17 We should keep in mind that among leftist emigres returning after 1945, Jews were probably an absolute majority. Furthermore, participation of converted Jews in the same group was possibly even more significant, though this fact cannot be statistically substantiated. At any rate, data on Jewish over-representation in the Left can be reasonably considered as a minimal estimate, far below the real dimensions of the phenomenon. Moreover, although illegal leftwing activity had meant in the old regime political and police persecution, it may have also meant a measure of organized protection through comradely help, particularly during the period of Nazi terror at the time of the German occupation (in March 1944) and specifically after the Arrow-Cross Fascist putsch staged on 15 October 1944. Belonging to some sort of militant organization, whether Communist or Zionist, increased the chances of survival. All in all, therefore, the proportion of politically engaged persons among the survivors was much higher after 1944 than before. Following the Communist takeover of power, these people immediately found their place in leading positions in the state and party apparatus, even if some of them (ironically enough), for example, members of anti-Soviet "Trotskyite" groups, marched straight into the jails of the new regime. Summing up, we can say that the potential for social mobility among surviving Jews would have been considerable—owing to their specific historical situation— even if no thoroughgoing social reordering had taken place in Hungarian society after the German defeat. An essential concomitant of this finding is the fact that the overwhelming majority of Jewry belonged to strata already moving up in the social order before the war. The state of mobility of Hungarian Jewry before 1945 is manifest in data concerning the connection between stratification and educational attainments. More than half of the active population in Hungary consisted of an immobile peasantry, almost utterly absent in the Jewish community. The Jewish working class, largely deprived of chances of upward mobility, was also less significant, proportionally, especially in those occupations—mining, agriculture, unskilled labor—where prospects for mobility were the poorest. Regardless of social class, educational achievement was always higher among Jews than the rest

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of the population.18 The same applied to living standards before the war, whatever indicators of the quality of life are considered, as seen in studies of living accommodations in Budapest up to 1941.19 Taking all these objective factors into consideration, we may conclude that the potential for pure intra-generational mobility of surviving Jews proved to be much higher than before the war, largely owing to various compensatory mechanisms emerging in the post-1945 years. We may also note that this potential exceeded, in all probability, that of any other group within Hungarian society at that time. All four factors of intra-generational mobility played some part in the development of inter-generational drive and capacity for upward mobility among surviving Jews. In assessing this, we have, however, to take into account a special variable that strongly favored Jewish youth, a function of the small number of children in post-1945 Jewish families, leading to much higher rates of collective "investment" in the young. The prewar situation of Jewish youth had been considerably better than that of their non-Jewish counterparts.20 One might imagine that these social differences would have been reversed during the years of institutionalized antisemitism and persecution. Indeed, there is no doubt that the economic fortunes of Jews returning from death camps or forced labor had suffered much more than those of the non-Jews, whatever losses the latter eventually suffered during the last stage of the hostilities, especially in the siege of Budapest and the bombardments. It appears, nonetheless, that these disparities were more than counterbalanced by the unprecedented shrinkage of the size of the Jewish population in the younger age brackets. The loss of life was, in fact, much more frequent among the young, especially among young males, owing to the persecutions. This negative selection was inflicted upon an ever-diminishing number of children born in the 1930s and 1940s, since the years of the anti-Jewish legislation were also, understandably, the low point of the Jewish demographic depression.21 Thus, after 1945 the surviving fragments of a whole extended Jewish family very often had only one surviving child to be looked after among its members; hence the tremendous growth within the family, but also within Jewry as a whole, of the "value" of these children and, consequently, of the sum total of collective investment dedicated to their upbringing. We should mention here the amount of material help supplied by world Jewry to Hungarian relief operations.22 A high proportion of this went toward health care, schooling and recreation for the young. All these contributed to providing facilities which intensified Jewish upward mobility trends, particularly inter-generational mobility. Of all possible data which could be mustered to this effect, let us refer to educational data since they are of strategic significance (see Tables 3 and 4). Educational data for prewar and postwar years cannot as yet be established with precision, owing to technical difficulties which further research should help to overcome. The available population data for 1930 and 1941 is not detailed enough since their denominational breakdown by age groups remains unrefined. Moreover, information on enrollments for 1941 include the temporarily annexed northern, eastern and southern areas and are thus not comparable to figures in 1946 or to those before 1938. But even allowing for all this, enrollment figures given in Table 4 clearly suggest that the incidence of schooling for Jewish youth was at least as high after 1945 as before the war—indeed, in all probability, even higher. The data for

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Post-Holocaust Hungarian Jewry, 1945-48 Table 3.

The Pattern of Schooling Among Jewish Males (over six years of age) in Budapest and the Countryside, 1930

Israelites In Budapest Number All males over six years of age Illiterate

%

93,547

In Countryside Number

%

103,673

Total Hungarian Male Population Number

%

3,702,783

0.8

2.0

7.8

Completed four years of secondary school

56.5

36.6

10.8

Reached university entrance

31.7

17.0

5.8

8.1

5.0

2.1

Completed higher education

Sources: Magyar statiszlikai kozlemenyek, no, 96 (1936), pp. 314-325, (my own calculations); Statisztiktii Szemle, no. 9 (1934), p. 743.

Budapest show a definite increase. It could be argued that the 1942-43 figures may show a decrease owing to the antisemitic legislation, and thus fall below the 1941 (or 1937-38) figures. Unfortunately, I have no information which might allow a comparison with total actual age groups in Budapest on all these dates. It is, however, certain that the Jewish totals of the age groups must have diminished by 1942-43 compared to the 1941 census figures, since the size of age groups enrolled in these years was falling constantly owing to the ever-sharpening demographic depression during the years of their birth (1926-36). Therefore our indicators overvalue the rate of schooling in 1941 and minimize the differential rate with regard to 1946. In conclusion, it seems likely that the probability of basic schooling for Jewish youth was higher after the war than before. In fact, it reached practically 100 percent. The incidence of classical secondary education (gymnasium studies, leading to the universities) is more difficult to ascertain. Enrollment data cannot be calculated for the war years, so only the situation in 1930 and in 1946 can be reasonably compared. It appears that the incidence of classical education diminished somewhat for Jewish boys while it improved somewhat for Jewish girls. The study of these data must however take into account the reorganization of the secondary-school system implemented between these two dates. In 1930 classical gymnasia had practically no institutional competitors. From 1945 onward a new type of comprehensive education was gradually introduced, taking the place of all previously existing forms of schooling up to the age of fourteen (the so-called general school). It can be assumed that in 1946 many young people who otherwise would have attended the lower grades (1 -4) of the eight-grade gymnasium, now enrolled in the upper grades (5-8) of the new eight-class "general school." Therefore, the figures

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Victor Karady Table 4.

The Pattern of Schooling of the Jewish Population by Age Group

1941 Budapest

1946

Number

%

Number

6-18 age group*

18,832

8,973

In primary and secondary schools"*

12,095

6,918

Proportion of total enrollment in primary and secondary schools

64.2

77.1

Boys

Girls

1930

1946

Number

10-18 age group*"

23,629

4,819

23,961

6,909

1,239

3,185

Proportion of total enrollment in gymnasia

29.2

Number

1930

Hungary

In gymnasia

%

%

%

25.7

Number

1946 %

Number

%

5,574 826

13.3

14.8

'Estimate. For 1941 I had data for the 10-14 age group; to this, I added three times one fifth of the numbers in the 15-19 age group. Sea Statistical Yearbook of Budapest (1944), p. 38. For 1946 I took half the number of the 6-14 age group and added to this tour times one sixth of the 14-20 age group. See data of the World Jewish Congress, Statistical Department, eited in Randolph L. Braham, The Holocaust in Hungary: The Politics of Genocide (New York: 1982), p. 1,146. "Having no data for 1941, I used the data for 1942-43 Statistical Yearbook of Budapest (1944), pp. 228, 236237. Data for 1946 is taken from World Jewish Congress, Hungarian Section, Statistical Department, Summary of Bulletin, nos. 8-9, p. 25. It is of interest to note that for 1947-48 this source gives 7,074 Jewish pupils; this would raise the estimated proportion for the year to 78.9 percent. '"Estimate. For 1946, see note 1. For 1930, the data are very uncertain, being a result of linear extrapolation based on the numbers of the 0-14 and the 15-19 age groups. (See Magyar Statisztikai Kozlemenyek, no. 114 |1941] p. 45.) ****For 1930, figures for boys and girls at classical secondary schools (gymnasia), disregarding girl pupils attending schools for boys. Thus the proportion of boys is somewhat artificially increased and that of girls reduced in a like manner. (See Hungarian Statistical Yearbook [19311, p. 269; Source for 1946-47: ibid. [1943-46], p. 265.)

for Jewish attendance in classical secondary education must have been significantly greater than those of gymnasium pupils. Consequently, our data probably underestimate the attained level of secondary schooling. It can thus be safely assumed that the real Jewish enrollments in 1946 in schools leading to university studies significantly exceeded those of the prewar years, even among boys. Moreover, the figures for 1946, refer to Jews by religion only, and must be considered as a great under-evaluation of enrollment of all those who were still socially regarded as Jews. Mass conversions in the years 1938-44 and also afterward affected first and foremost those middle-class groups that were most insistent on education for their offspring. One strong incentive for baptism prior to the German invasion had been the wish to ensure a proper and undisturbed schooling for children. In accordance with an estimate of the proportion of the baptized among

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Jews of the younger age bracket after 1945,23 we can safely increase the numbers in secondary schools in 1945-46 by at least one third, which raises by the same proportion the rate of enrollments. Thus, on the whole, the suggested rise of intergenerational mobility potential among surviving Jewish youth appears to be strongly supported by statistical evidence concerning formal education. The above analysis demonstrates that Hungarian Jewry after 1945 was on the way to a considerable upward shift in class status owing to its increased "pure" potential for mobility, even if the new order had not brought with it a social re-stratification affecting the global society and a special bonus for liberated Jewry. The reorganization of state administration and the new policies of economic development, implemented above all after 1948, inevitably led to a nation-wide shift in the professional status system. This could only strengthen the propensity already prevalent in the ranks of remaining Jews to enter in a forceful manner the new-style competition for improved social positions opened up in the wake of the Communist seizure of power.24

Notes 1. Sec A. Kovacs, "A kereszteny valliisu de zsido szarmazasu nepesseg a nepszamlalas idejen" ("The Christian Denominations' Population of Jewish Extraction at the Time of the Census"), Statisztikai Szemle (1944), pp. 96-97. 2. Ibid., p. 100. 3. It is a historical fact that Horthy (the regent) stopped and then forbade further deportations thanks to the advice of his son Miklos (who had learned the terrible truth of Auschwitz from his Jewish friends) arid of his influential aristocratic friends (Istvan Bethlen and Moric Esterhazy). See R. L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary (New York: 1981), vol. II, p. 753. 4. Braham, Politics of Genocide, vol. II, p. 1,145; E. Duschinsky, "Hungary," in The Jews in the Soviet Satellites (Syracuse/New York: 1953), p. 396. 5. Official statistics give the number of Jewish emigrants between 1938-41 as 3,054 (2,300 from Budapest). There are no later data on emigration; at any rate the number of legal emigrants must have fallen to near 0, owing to Hungary's entry into the war. (There are no data on emigration by denomination for 1939.) During these four years, the number of Jewish converts was seven times greater than the figure for emigrants (a total of 20,971; of these 13,158 in Budapest). See the relevant years of Magyar Statisztikai Evkonyv (henceforth Hungarian Statistical Yearbook) and Budapest Szekesfovaros Statisztikai Evkdnyve (henceforth Statistical Yearbook of Budapest). 6. Recent research suggests that the number of converted Jews returning to Judaism after 1945, though by no means negligible, remained until 1948 far below the number of new converts to various Christian faiths. After 1948 conversions both from and to Judaism diminished rapidly. See Victor Karady, "Les conversions des juifs de Budapest apres 1945," in Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, no. 56 (March 1985), pp. 58—62. 7. See World Jewish Congress, Hungarian Section, Statistical Department, Bulletin, nos. 8-9 (February 1948), p. 22; see also N. Katzburg, Hungary and the Jews: Policy and Legislation, 1920-1943 (Ramat-Gan: 1982), pp. 27-28. 8. Yehuda Don, "The Economic Dimensions of Antisemitism, Anti-Jewish Legislation in Hungary, 1938-1944," in Eastern European Quarterly (forthcoming). 9. Duschinsky, "Hungary," p. 400. 10. Statistical Yearbook of Budapest (1941), p. 52.

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11. Higher proportions are also likely if we consider that army recruiting affects mainly young males. In 1946 in Budapest, there were only 5,000 Jews who belonged to this age group. This number of Jewish recruits into the newly organized armed forces, 372 men, represent 7-8 percent of the total. Real proportions were probably even higher, if we add to them the converted Jews. It is highly probable that more of these were ready and willing to join the police. This assumption is also supported by the high proportion of officers quoted in the statistics (more than a quarter). In all likelihood, these were mostly recruited from the ranks of the better educated—and, in the Jewish case, from among the more assimilated. As we have seen, conversions were preponderant among highly assimilated Jews. 12. The author Simon Kemeny also quotes this in his wartime diary, with the date 7 October 1942. See Kritika, no. 8 (1982), p. 17. 13. See Magyar Statisztikai Kozlemenyek, no. 96 (1936), pp. 132-153, for the results of the 1930 census. 14. Ibid., pp. 314-324. 15. Concerning the effects of the numerus clausus law, see my essay coauthored by I. Kemeny: "Antisemitisme universitaire et concurrence de classe: la loi du numerus clausus en Hongrie entre les deux gucrres," in Actes de La recherche en sciences sociales, no. 34 (September 1980), pp. 67-96, especially pp. 82, 88-91. In 1928 during the administration of Prime Minister Count Bethlen, parliament did blunt the sharpness of this anti-Jewish law; nevertheless, anti-Jewish discrimination at universities remained in practice. So did the atmosphere of antisemitism, incitement to persecution and occasional—almost ritualized— Jew-beating by Fascist student organizations (similar to the GermanBurschenschafteri). However, it would be an overstatement to say that the modification of this law (carried through by Minister of Education Count Klebelsberg, in spite of the strong resistance of the whole political Right, including the internal opposition within government ranks) did not mitigate the effects of the law, as has been suggested by N. Katzburg, Hungary and the Jews, p. 77. 16. There is, of course, no direct evidence concerning the increase in political activity among Jews after 1945, but certain election results may serve to indicate the change in political loyalties. For instance, at the 1945 local elections in Budapest, the coalition of the workers' parties (Socialists and Communists) gained 42.8 percent of all votes cast. They were especially successful in working-class districts and in those areas where there was still an appreciable Jewish minority. The results of the 1947 parliamentary elections were very similar: the number of votes cast for the Communist party and the Social-Democratic party jointly exceeded the average for the entire city in the working-class and "Jewish" districts (i.e., in the V, VI and VII districts of the capital city). See Statistical Yearbook of Budapest (1944-46), p. 65. We may add that, before the war, the quarter of Budapest inhabited by the Jewish "high bourgeoisie" (V district) predominantly supported the Liberal party, 42 percent of votes cast there in the 1939 elections. The lower-middle-class quarters—the VI and VII districts, with a more mixed population—divided their votes among Liberals and SocialDemocrats. (See G. Ranki, "The Fascist Vote in Budapest in 1939," in S. U. Larsen, B. Hagvet, J. P. Mykelbust [eds.], Who Were the Fascists? [Oslo/Bergen/Tromso: 1980], p. 410.) Contemporary observers noted that, at the 1947 elections, a majority of the Jewish lower middle class voted Communist. Rakosi, the leader of the Communist party, himself remarked on this: "Certain elements of the petty [sic] bourgeoisie, of the intelligentsia and of small traders have supported our party—we have gained more adherents from among them than from the ranks of the working class." (See M. Jakab, Tdrsadalmi vdltozdsok es a magyar ertelmiseg, 1944-48 [Social Change and the Intelligentsia in Hungary, 1944-48], [Budapest: 1981], p. 204.) The mention of "small traders" is particularly significant; many of them were Jews. Never before had this group been known as leftist—let alone Communist—in its sympathies. 17. This is demonstrated with particular force by the representative survey by G. Borsanyi, using police files concerning the "extreme Left" between 1920 and 1943. (See his work, "Ezcrnyolcszaz kartotek a budapest baloldalrol" ["One Thousand Eight Hundred Files on Members of Leftist Organizations in Budapest"], in Valosdg, 9 [1983], pp. 19-31.) The

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proportion of Jews in the ranks of this group was 28,1 percent—and that meant that those of Jewish origin must have made up more than one third of the extreme Left (ibid., p. 26). Since the overwhelming majority—92 percent—of those in the police files were younger than forty years old (ibid., p. 21) and the proportion of Jews in the capital in the age group fifteen to thirty-nine was 17.8 percent of the whole population (1930) and only 12 percent in 1941 (according to census figures and the data quoted by the World Jewish Congress), it is clear that politically active Jewry was twice as active on the Left than the Christian population. Among women, the over-representation was threefold since about 50 percent of women in the police files were Jews (ibid., p. 26). It is also worth mentioning that this over-representation was quite strong even within the lower social brackets. Twenty percent of working-class persons in the police files were Jews, while the proportion of Jews in the Budapest working class was only 11 percent. (See Statistical Yearbook of Budapest [1941] and G. Borsanyi, "Files," p. 52.) Even more striking is the participation of middle-class employees and professionals. The absolute majority of these people in the files was Jewish—66.4 percent— while in 1920 their proportion in the population of Budapest was 29 percent and in 1935, 31 percent (based on Budapest Szekesfovdros Statisztikai Kozlemenyei, 70/3, p. 245, and Statistical Yearbook of Budapest [1941], p. 52). In view of these data, it is clear that the Jewish intelligentsia participated in the old regime opposition movements even more intensively than working-class Jews. 18. A more detailed analysis of these indicators can be found in my essay "Jewish Enrollment Patterns in Classical Secondary Education in Old Regime and Inter-war Hungary," Studies in Contemporary Jewry 1 (1984), pp. 225-252. 19. We referred to these data in our essay mentioned in n. 15. It is characteristic of the generally higher level of housing enjoyed by Jews in Budapest that, in 1941, the number of rooms per Jewish household was 2.1, against 1.65 for Gentiles; 1.6 Jewish persons lived per room while the figure for non-Jews was 2.6 per room. (See Az 1941 evi nepszdmldlds, 4.: Demogrdfiai es foglalkozdsi adatok tdrvenyhatosdgok szerint \The 1941 Census, no. 4: Demographic and Occupational Data by Administrative Areas], [Budapest: 1971], p. 41. For figures on housing see Statistical Yearbook of Budapest, [1944], p. 20.) A statistical analysis of 1928 includes figures on housing by occupation. It proves that the Jewish population enjoyed much better housing than non- Jews. Of Jewish workers, 40.5 percent lived in flats of at least two rooms, while only 1 i .5 percent of Gentile workers enjoyed the same standard. Seventy-eight percent of Jewish artisans and 45.8 percent of Gentile artisans lived in comparable conditions. Among small traders and the like, the ratio was 43 percent to 15.8 percent. Among employees in trade and industry, the ratio was 70 percent to 33.3 percent. (See BudapestSzekesfovdrosStatisztikaiKozlemenyei68/1 (1932), pp. 170-171.) It is very likely that living conditions for converted Jews were even better. 20. Exceptionally, we have data from 1942 from a survey about local government schools in Budapest, which cast light on the correlations between smaller numbers of children in families, the quality of housing and, on the other hand, the improved chances for schooling. These factors must have favored mobility among Jewish youth even under the old regime. From our point of view, the findings of this survey are especially significant since it is known that Jewish pupils in Budapest (mostly coming from families of modest means and who could not afford expensive private schools) were strongly over-represented in public schools run by local authorities. According to these findings, the chances for higher education were 84 percent for pupils from families with one or two children (typical in the Jewish milieux), while for offspring of families with four or more children, it was only 44 percent. Ninety-seven percent of all those children whose dwellings consisted of three or more rooms as well as those whose fathers had completed secondary schooling went on to higher education. Of those who lived in two-room (or less than two-room) flats or houses—or whose fathers had completed their education at the age of fourteen—37 percent did not proceed beyond the secondary level. (See L. (labor, "1945—a/, altalanos iskola megalapitasa. A magyar iskolarendszcr kialakulasiinak lortenetebol" |"1945—The Introduction of General Schools. A Contribution to the History of Hungarian Education"], in Valosdg, no. 9 (1981), pp. 84-94, especially p. 85. The original data were first published by F. Jankovits in 1944.)

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21. Jewish married couples reacted to the introduction of antisemitic legislation by an immediate further decrease (an even more drastic one than earlier) in their fertility as well as by the reduction of the incidence of divorce, even in cases of mixed marriages. For a study of various demographic effects of the anti-Jewish laws see my articles, "Les Juifs de Hongrie sous les lois antisemites: etude d'une conjoncture sociologique," mActes de la recherche en sciences societies, no. 56 (March 1985), pp. 3-30, especially pp. 21-25; and "Vers une theorie sociologique des mariages inter-confessionnels: le cas de la nuptialite hongroise sous 1'ancien regime," ibid., nos. 57-58 (June 1985), pp. 47-68. 22. The role played by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was quite considerable. Further hardships among Jews were prevented by the establishment of soup kitchens, the sending of food parcels, and so on. Along with this, the main task of the committee was the re-establishment of suspended, abolished or destroyed Jewish institutions, particularly schools and hospitals. The committee helped the non-Jewish poor, too. It is a measure of its activities that in the first year following the end of the war it distributed at least $10 million worth of aid in Hungary (see E. Duschinsky, "Hungary," p. 407). According to another source, about 95,000 people enjoyed the help of the Joint up to the end of 1948 (ibid., p. 454); by the end of 1952, more than $52 million worth of aid had been distributed by it (see Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 8, col. 1,106). The scope of this aid was something hitherto quite unknown in Hungary. In the capital alone, about 3,000 people were engaged in administering the aid—about 6 percent of the active Jewish population (E. Duschinsky, "Hungary"). Following the onset of the Cold War, the Hungarian authorities gradually limited the work of the Joint and, by 1953, it was completely liquidated. 23. See Victor Karady, "Szociologiai kiserlet a magyar zsidosag 1945 es 1956 kozotti helyzetenek elemzesere" ["Sociological Essay on the Situation of Hungarian Jewry Between 1945 and 1956"] in Zsidosag az 1945 utdni Magyarorszdgon [Jewry in Hungary After 1945] (Paris: 1984), pp. 70-71. 24. A more detailed study of the actual realization of the potential for social mobility of Hungarian Jewry after 1945 is presented in my work cited above (n. 23). See especially the chapters dedicated to the professional (pp. 110-21), psycho-sociological (pp. 122-137) and political (138-153) implications of mobility and integration in the Communist establishment.

The American Jew as Journalist Stephen J. Whitfield (BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY)

The subject of the relationship of Jews to journalism is entangled in paradox. Their role in the press has long been an obsession of their enemies, and the vastly disproportionate power that Jews are alleged to wield through the media has long been a staple of the antisemitic imagination. The commitment to this version of bigotry has dwarfed the interest that scholars have shown in this problem, and such disparity merits the slight correction and compensation that this essay offers. This feature of Judeophobia attains prominence for the first time in a significant way in the squalid and murky origins of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the most ubiquitous of antisemitic documents. This forgery was based on a chapter in the novel Biarritz (1868) by Hermann Godsche entitled, "In the Jewish Cemetery in Prague." This chapter formed the contours of the "Rabbi's Speech" that exposed the methods of the conspiratorial ambition to dominate Christendom and, indeed, the entire planet. "If gold is the first power in this world," Godsche's rabbi informs his co-conspirators, "the second is undeniably the press. . . . Our people must become the editors of all daily newspapers in all countries. Our possession of gold, our skill in devising means of exploiting mercenary instincts, will make us the arbiters of public opinion and enable us to dominate the masses." With this influence, the rabbi fiendishly predicts: "We shall dictate to the world what it is to have faith in, what it is to honor, and what it is to curse. . . . Once we are absolute masters of the press, we will be able to transform ideas about honor, about virtue, about uprightness of character, we will be able to deal a blow against . . . the family, and we will be able to achieve its disintegration. . . . We shall declare open war on everything that people respect and venerate."' This passage from the precursor to the Protocols has been quoted at some length because it foreshadowed the conception of Jewish power in and through journalism which was to be repeated for over a century. It is commonly known that antisemitic fears were stirred by the Jewish involvement in finance; it is insufficiently realized how often this phobia was coupled with animus against a Jewish participation in journalism. As a locus of sinister or repellant Jewish influence, the newsroom was second only to the bourse. A little over a century ago, the historian Heinrich von Trietschke warned that "across our Eastern borders there pushes . . . a troop of ambitious, trousers-selling youth, whose children and children's children will someday dominate Germany's exchanges and Germany's press." Nor was the 161

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Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt immune from the impression that Jews exerted special impact upon the "venal" press.2 Our final European example is taken from Mein Kampf, whose preface explains that the book's purpose is to give an account of the Nazi movement and of the political development of its Fiihrer. This is necessary in order "to destroy the foul legends about my person dished up in the Jewish press." Before even getting to the text itself, the author reveals his paranoia and his rage—but not by alluding to race, or to the dangers of pollution and infection, or to the stock market, or to religion. In his sole reference to Jews in the preface, Hitler mentions only "the Jewish press." The chapter retracing his steps in becoming an antisemite bristles with memories of the degenerate Jewish journalists who operated as liberals or as Marxists in fin-desiecle Vienna. "For one Goethe," the inmate of Landsberg Prison concludes, "nature easily can foist on the world 10,000 of these scribblers who poison men's souls."3 In more muted form and with shifting emphases, this theme crossed the Atlantic. Henry Adams was the most impressive historian of the country which both his grandfather and great-grandfather had served as president. But on the subject of one immigrant group, Secretary of State John Hay remarked, Adams was "clean daft. The Jews are all the press, all the cabinets, all the gods and all weather. I was amazed to see so sensible a man so wild. "4 The most mischievous and important of American Judeophobes was probably the wealthiest citizen of the world's wealthiest country as well. More than anyone else, Henry Ford made the Protocols internationally famous. They punctuated the editorial policy of the weekly he owned, the Dearborn Independent. From 1920 until 1927 antisemitic columns ran in this newspaper, and the series entitled "The International Jew" was later published in book form. The first in the series (22 May 1920) set the tone. After observing the tentacles of Jewish financiers within the American economy, the editorial announced that "Jewish journalists are a large and powerful group here. . . . They absolutely control the circulation of publications throughout the country." Later, in 1920, Ford's newspaper warned that from the northeastern section of the United States, "poisonous infections of revolutionary doctrine" were being "spread throughout the country upon the wings of 'liberal' publications subsidized by Jewish money." 5 One ambition ascribed to Jews in journalism was to implicate the United States in war. This is a theme not readily found in German antisemitism, probably because the United States has been far less hospitable to militarism and also because the American tradition of isolationism was until fairly recently so tenacious. A littleknown example of this charge of war-mongering can be located in the writing of H. L. Mencken, an ornament of American letters who was the most inescapable journalist of the 1920s. But during the First World War, Mencken's opposition to the conflict and to American intervention made him a beleaguered and rather subdued figure. He was no antisemite, and yet he found it necessary to comment in 1922: "Fully four-fifths of all the foreign news that comes to the American newspapers comes through London, and most of the rest is supplied cither by Englishmen or by Jews (often American-born) who maintain close relations with the English. . . . I was in Copenhagen and Basel in 1917," Mencken added, "and found both towns—

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each an important source of war news—full of Jews representing American journals as a sideline to more delicate and confidential work for the English department of press propaganda."6 What is peculiar about this appraisal is its direct collision with the assessment of the British ambassador in Washington, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, who wrote on 13 November 1917 that the American Jewish bankers of German ancestry were "toiling in a solid phalanx to compass our destruction. One by one they are getting hold of the principal New York papers . . . and are bringing them over as much as they dare to the German side." Spring-Rice stressed the power of this lobby so adamantly that he may well have curtailed his own career. His government believed him enough to replace him in Washington with a prominent Jew, Lord Reading (Rufus Isaacs), possibly in the hope of placating the American press.7 An even more vigorous opponent of American intervention in the Great War than either Ford or Mencken was a Midwestern congressman, Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., and in the 1930s his son entered the political cockpit in order to keep the United States out of another European conflict. In a radio speech in DCS Moines, Iowa, on 11 September 1941, Lindbergh, Jr., identified "the three most important groups which have been pressing this country toward war . . . the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt Administration." Speaking of the Jews, he warned: "Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government." Although his own father's isolationism had been fueled by distrust of Eastern bankers and financiers, Colonel Lindbergh himself underscored Jewish control of what later came to be called the media. He also provided the helpful advice that, by pushing their case for military intervention against Germany, Jews would only encourage antisemitism.8 Bigotry that stressed the conspiratorial power of Jewry became inconsistent during the war against Nazism, disreputable after the Holocaust and remorselessly sour after the triumph of a democratic Israel.9 In the post-Second World War era such hostility found its most positive reception primarily in the Soviet bloc and in the Arab world—and among their allies. Let two illustrations suffice to indicate the persistence of this aspect of antisemitism. In 1956 public rallies of the Polish Communist party blamed the country's problems on "the press" and "the race" (the two words rhyme in Polish), neatly updating a familiar combination.10 And in a 1980 speech before the UN's General Assembly, the Senegalese delegate who headed the Committee on the Exercise of the Unalienable Rights of the Palestinian People complained that news organizations "dominated by Jews" had neglected or distorted the Palestinian cause. The diplomat referred especially to the New York Times, the Washington Post and the three American national television networks.'' But an accusation that could echo from Eastern Europe to the East River has been picked up by almost no American voices. Almost. When Vice-President Spiro Agnew blasted the liberal slant of the eastern "establishment" press in 1969 (in the same city as Lindbergh's speech of almost three decades earlier), it was the most vigorous, deliberate assault by a leading official on the press in American political history. Unlike Lindbergh, however, Agnew made no mention whatsoever of Jews. That did not prevent some of his more excitable supporters from drawing certain conclusions from the vice-president's condemnation of news organizations in which

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Jews happened to be prominent, and media figures as well as the American Jewish Committee noticed an increase in antisemitic hate mail. Even as Agnew protested that he was being unfairly smeared for having instigated this vitriolic attack, he told Barbara Walters on NBC's "Today Show" that a "Jewish cabal" exercised mastery of the American media, permitting "Zionist influences" to tilt American policy unduly toward Israel. Agnew repeated this charge in published interviews and even in his novel, The Canfield Decision (1976). Two ex-speechwriters for the vicepresident, William Safire and Victor Gold, denounced Agnew's remarks, which President Ford called "wrong, both substantially and morally." 12 A recent aspirant for Gerald Ford's former job, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, has also taken notice of Jewish influence on American banks and the media. 13 This is the time to emphasize again that the subject of Jews and journalism has captivated the adversaries of the Jews far more than it has either Jews themselves or independent scholars. In a biography of Mordecai Noah, the first significant journalist of Jewish origin in the New World, Professor Jonathan D. Sarna states categorically: "There is no history of Jews in American journalism."14 The researcher is therefore required to begin with specialized monographs such as biographical portraits of individuals appearing in encyclopedias and reference works. One journalist's book, Stephen D. Isaacs's Jews and American Politics, does include a chapter speculating on the apparent over-representation of such journalists on the contemporary political landscape. But the topic is not treated in a historical— much less a general scholarly—way. Neither is the over-view on the subject of journalism in the Encyclopedia Judaica interpretive: It is primarily biographical in orientation, tracking the careers and achievements of reporters, editors and publishers in various countries—one of whom even became the prophet of the Zionist state. The only scholarly article on the role of Jews in American journalism highlights the criticism that has been voiced concerning the problematic nature of the press itself.15 The rest is "no comment." In breaking this silence, a scholar must weigh without apology the validity of the claim of Jewish over-representation in the media. An argument is not ipso facto false because it is repeated by African champions of the PLO or by a disgraced vicepresident of the United States. The law of averages works in a fashion that allows for the possibility of even an antisemite being correct some of the time. But however exaggerated or unwarranted the beliefs of bigots may prove to be, the conspicuous attractiveness of journalism for many Jews merits analysis and explanation within the context of modern Jewish history. The raw statistics utterly belie the expectations envisioned in the Prague rabbi's speech quoted above. Nearly eighteen hundred daily newspapers are currently published in the United States. Jews own about fifty, or less than 3 percent, which is the proportion of Jews in the general American population. Even when these particular newspapers' circulation is taken into account (8 percent), it is evident that newspaper publishing is hardly an awesome sign of Jewish entrepreneurship.16 There are nearly nine thousand radio stations and over six hundred television network affiliates, but no data on the ethnic and religious identification of their owners appear to be extant. According to the only published figures on the percentage of Jews among

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American editors and reporters, the 3.3 percent so identified is only slightly above their proportion in the general population. 17 The two most newsworthy American cities do, however, seem to be covered by a large fraction of journalists of Jewish birth, According to a 1976 study, a quarter of the Washington press corps was of Jewish background. A volume on Jewish economic history published a year earlier claims that "i! has been estimated that . . . 40 percent of ... [New York's] journalists are Jews." Marcus Arkin fails to disclose the basis of this estimate or even its source. But since New York is the media capital of the country and the most populous urban concentration of Jews on the planet, the proportion of Jews in the general population is more relevant than their percentage in the city itself. Arkin's estimate is, therefore, almost certainly too high, perhaps much too high. 1 8 The proportion of Jews among Washington and New York journalists is probably closer to that of post-First World War Germany than post-First World War Hungary. There were 740 editors in responsible positions in Prussia in 1925, of whom 41 (a little more than 5 percent) identified themselves as Jews. By a much more indulgent standard (which would include half-Jews, converts to Christianity and Jews professing no faith whatsoever), 192 Jews toiled among the 3,475 editorial employees in Prussia that year. Hungary, where Hannah Senesh's father was a successful columnist, is a more striking case. According to official statistics, among 1,214 journalists in the country in 1910, 516 were Jews. In 1920 the number fell to 358 (36 percent) and was a little lower in 1930. Such figures, needless to say, triggered the animosity of Hungary's antisernitic People's party. 19 Numbers, of course, do not correlate with influence, nor participation with impact; and the prestige of certain papers cannot be quantified. Here, too, analogues in European history can be found. In the Weimar Republic as earlier in the Second Reich, special distinction was conceded to the Jewish-owned Frankfurter Zeitung and the publishing houses of Ullstein and Mosse. And the Jewish editorial control of the Berliner Tageblatt and the Vossische Zeitung typified the Jewish presence across the spectrum of the liberal and leftist press, even though the conservative and rightwing press (dominated by the Hugenberg trust) enjoyed greater circulation. The most prestigious newspaper in Central Europe was undoubtedly Vienna's Neue Freie Presse, which Jews published and wrote feuilletons for. In the remoter provinces of Franz Josef's empire, some visiting cards contained the following boast below the engraved name of the bearer: "Subscribes to the Neue Freie Presse. "20 In the United States, as Agnew's own partisan speech implied, some news organizations are more respected and important than others. According to one recent survey, the reporters whose beat is Washington, D.C., acknowledge that they are most influenced by: (1) television networks; (2) weekly newsmagazines; (3) the wire services; and (4) four newspapers—the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Washington Star and the Wall Street Journal.21 With the exception of the wire services (the Associated Press and the United Press International), these are institutions in which Jews have tended to congregate. A 1979 survey revealed that 27 percent of the employees of the Times, the Post, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, the three net-

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works and the Public Broadcasting System were of Jewish origin. Fifty-eight percent of the producers and editors at ABC were Jews. 22 They were conspicuously at the top. The Sulzberger family retains its ownership of the New York Times, whose executive editor is A. M. Rosenthal, associate editor is Jack Rosenthal, chief of the editorial page is Max Frankel and metropolitan editor is Sydney Schanberg. Eugene Meyer had bought the Washington Post at an auction in 1933; and it was under the leadership of his daughter, Katherine Graham, raised as a Lutheran,' and executive editor Benjamin C. Bradlee, a Brahmin, that the newspaper became the chief rival to the Times. For the Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning exposure of the Watergate scandal, the two most famous local reporters in history benefited from the support of editors Howard Simons, Harry Rosenfeld and Barry Sussman. Warren Phillips was editor of the Wall Street Journal, whose current managing editor is Norman Pearlstine. Marvin Stone was editor of US News & World Report, long the extended shadow of David Lawrence; it is now owned by Morton Zuckerman. Edward Kosner was editor of Newsweek. The managing editor of Time was Henry Anatole Grunwald, who began as the magazine's part-time copyboy. William Paley was chairman of the board of CBS, while Fred Friendly and Richard Salant were presidents of its news division. The Sarnoff family was long dominant at NBC, whose news division was headed by Richard Wald. Leonard Goldenson was president of ABC, while the executive producer of its evening news was Av Westin. The president of the Public Broadcasting System was Lawrence Grossman. The president of National Public Radio has been Frank Mankiewicz, the son of the coscenarist of Hollywood's most brilliant film, a portrait of a press lord, Citizen Kane (1941). Statistical measurement cannot convey the impact which Jews have exerted upon American journalism. How can the prestige of the New York Times be tabulated? In its authoritativeness as the newspaper of record, in its reputation for accuracy and comprehensiveness, the Times is in a class by itself. It has a news staff of 550 in New York alone, where its Times Square newsroom covers 1.3 acres. To put on paper "all the news that's fit to print," 6 million trees are chopped down annually. The Times Sunday edition typically runs over four hundred pages, printed in enough copies to paper over the island of Manhattan twice.23 But what does it mean for its editors and reporters to realize that their words will be read and pondered in the White House and in the Kremlin, in City Hall and in the libraries and archives of posterity? Or how does the scholar measure the impact of Walter Lippmann (1889—1974)? He was probably the most admired American journalist of the twentieth century, and one reputable historian considered him "perhaps the most important [American] political thinker of the twentieth century" as well. Because Lippmann's approach to journalism was interpretative, he made little impression on the process of news gathering. But it was said in Washington during his prime that foreign governments formally accredited their ambassadors to the president and by private letter to Lippmann, who seemed to stride above the etiquette of diplomacy when it suited him. His regular pilgrimages to Europe were so rigorously arranged that, in 1961, Nikita Khrushchev's request to delay Lippmann's Soviet visit by a few days, owing to an unanticipated political crisis, was turned down. The Russian dictator

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then rearranged his own plans so that he could meet the American journalist. (The resulting interviews earned Lippmann a second Pulitzer Prize.) Quantification of his stature can sometimes be attempted. When Lippmann spoke at the National Press Club to celebrate his seventieth birthday, more correspondents were in attendance than had come to hear Khrushchev speak in the same room a little earlier.24 Or how is the impact of Herbert Bayard Swope (1882-1958) to be assessed? He won the first Pulitzer Prize for repotting (in 1917) and gained fame as the executive editor of the New York World in its heyday, the 1920s (when Lippmann ran the editorial page). He coined the term op edpage, a feature for which he was primarily responsible. From a Roosevelt campaign speech of 1932, Swope singled out the phrase new deal, thus labeling not only an administration but also an era. When it was over, he coined the phrase the cold war (which Lippmann gave currency).25 He instituted the newspaper practice of capitalizing the word Negro; and under his direction the World won a Pulitzer Prize for a series exposing the Ku Klux Klan. Lord Northcliffe of the London Daily Mail considered Swope the finest reporter of his time, so that late in the 1920s, when the promising humorist James Thurber sat down in a speakeasy and was told only later that he had been in the company of Swope, Thurber feigned astonishment. He'd been under the impression that Herbert Bayard Swope was a legend. Swope possessed so much chutzpah, RCA's David Sarnoff once remarked, "if you wanted to meet God, he'd arrange it somehow." Swope was so famous that he became one of the first Time magazine-cover subjects; so arrogant that he listed among his favorite books not only the Bible and the World Almanac but also any volume containing a reference to himself; so imperious that he could scoop other reporters by dressing exactly like a diplomat and getting a front row seat at the Versailles Peace Conference. The impression he made was so distinctive, effusive and flamboyant that, after deluging a convalescent Ring Lardner with get-well messages, the humorist wired back: "CAN YOU SUGGEST ANY WAY TO END THIS CORRESPONDENCE AMICABLY STOP MY PERSONAL PHYSICIAN SAYS EXCITEMENT OF HEARING FROM YOU DAILY IS BAD FOR ME." Swope's written legacy is surprisingly sparse and unenduring, but his hellzapoppin personality made him into the most formidable newsman of his age.26 Let one other biographical illustration suggest that the elusiveness of measuring the Jewish role in American journalism. If Swope lived the myth of American journalism, Ben Hecht (1894-1964) not only partook of it but also, more than anyone else, created it. It is from Hecht that Americans learned that newspapermen were corrupt, cynical, wenching, dissolute, coarse, drunken rogues, insensitive to anyone's privacy, oblivious to puritanical codes—and therefore having more fun than anyone else. Born on the Lower East Side, Hecht began his professional career in Chicago at the age of sixteen. His first assignment, given to him by the publisher of the Chicago Journal, was to write obscene verses for a stag party. Over a decade of such intimacy with the vulgarities of his profession and the raunchiest features of city life gave Hecht material for 100] Afternoons in Chicago (1922) and for later autobiographical novels like Gaily, Gaily (1963) and his spirited memoir, A Child of the Century (1954). But Hecht's greatest achievement as a rnythmaker was The Front Page (1928), in collaboration with Charles MacArthur. 27 This piece of gal-

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lows humor, Tom Stoppard's favorite American play, possesses no less than three Hollywood versions, the last directed by the Viennese bon vivant, Billy Wilder, who had learned in the pages of Karl Kraus's Die Fackel, among other forums, of the pertinence of journalism as a peephole into modern malaise.28 Newspaper experiences were the capital that Hecht drew upon for writing fiction and films, and his recounting became the standard against which the vicissitudes of the profession came to be measured. Since such examples could be multiplied, the limitations of space make it impossible (as newsboys used to scream) to "read all about it." It is therefore preferable to elucidate such impact rather than merely to illustrate it. One theory which should not be immediately discounted is that Jews are simply more talented than other peoples. Their gifts could flourish, especially after the walls of medieval ghettos tumbled, after the isolation of the shtetlakh was punctured, as centuries of frustrated energies seemed to evaporate within a couple of generations. The belief in the superiority of the Jewish "race" was enunciated not only by Disraeli but also by nineteenth-century writers less susceptible to romanticism. Nietzsche, for instance, acknowledged the Jews' "energy and higher intelligence, their accumulated capital of spirit and will, gathered from generation to generation through a long school of suffering." Thus Nietzsche explained their preponderance.29 Mark Twain was impressed by the "marvellous fight in this world" that the Jew had made, "with his hands tied behind him." Immune to the malaise of the late nineteenth century, the Jew was "exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind."30 Exceptional accomplishment was therefore the predicate of exceptional talent, and antisemitism the consequence of envy aroused by "racial" superiority. But whatever tribute such testimony pays to Jewish self-esteem, it leaves unexplained why Jewish influence is more pronounced in some fields rather than others, why Jews gravitate toward some occupations rather than others. Even if all forms of ethnic and racial discrimination in the United States were to be miraculously obliterated, its occupational structure would probably not reveal a random distribution of minorities. Their experiences and values are hardly identical, and therefore their predispositions and interests can in the aggregate be expected to diverge. Neither talent nor intelligence can be summoned at random to be enlisted and developed whenever a barrier of discrimination "is battered down. And even if there were some way of "proving" the superior mental endowment of the Jewish people, even if the application of its gifts could be sorted out, history would still have to be appealed to in accounting for the special responsiveness of many Jews to opportunities in liberal professions such as journalism. There has to be some sort of "fit" between skill and milieu, between potentiality and circumstance. That is why the Encyclopedia Judaica dates the Jewish contribution to European journalism at the beginning of the Emancipation itself, conjecturing that a people already relatively urban and literate found itself "in the right place at the right time." Moreover, the Encyclopedia asserts, the "gift of adaptability permitted the Jew to act as an intermediary, the link between the event and the reader, as the journalist has often been called." The press offered "brightness and novelty," an

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outlet for people who felt little if any devotion to pre-modern tradition. Also pertinent here are the speculations of sociologist Arthur Ruppin that "city life forces people into intensive interaction, into an exchange of goods and ideas. It demands constant mental alertness. . . . The great mental agility of the Jews . . . enabled them to have a quick grasp and orientation in all things." 31 Such comments get us closer to the truth, though they would appear to be more applicable to the nineteenth century than to the twentieth. They are more useful in explaining the initial attraction that journalism might have exerted on the newly emancipated, not why—if anything —the Jewish involvement has persisted without noticeable loss of intensity. By the twentieth century, especially long past its midpoint, the relative historical advantages which literacy and urbanity might have conferred should have become quite marginal. The conjectures of the Encyclopedia and of Ruppin undoubtedly apply more directly to Europe than to the United States, which was post-Emancipation from its inception as an independent nation and has posed no official restrictions upon Jews. Moreover, this theory, like others, suffers from the disadvantage of blurring or ignoring the distinction between journalists themselves and their employers. With some important exceptions, Jews often achieved prominence on the business side before the expressive side. This distinction was put most cogently by A. J. Liebling, who realized early on that he "did not belong to a joyous, improvident professional group including me and [publisher] Roy Howard, but to a section of society including me and any floorwalker at Macy's. Mr. Howard, even though he asked to be called Roy, belonged in a section that included him and the gent who owned Macy's. This clarified my thinking about publishers, their common interests and motivations."32 Liebling himself wrote primarily for the New Yorker, where there was publisher Raoul Fleischmann before there was editor William Shawn. But the persuasiveness of the generalization depends, in part, on what one makes of Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911), certainly among the most inventive and spectacular figures in fin-de-siecle journalism. The format and style of the two newspapers he owned, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World, established the rules for layouts, features and photography that newspapers in this century have largely been content to imitate. In the late nineteenth century, as American antisemitism was approaching its peak, Pulitzer bore the handicap of being considered a Jew, without enjoying the spiritual advantages that adherents of Judaism can cultivate. His father was part-Jewish, his mother was a Catholic, he himself was at least nominally an Episcopalian and his children were not raised as Jews. In the haunted, afflicted years of his greatest wealth and fame, Pulitzer employed a series of secretaries to read to him the news that his failing eyesight prohibited him fro following. There is some grandeur in his insistence that his secretaries be capable of literate and sparkling conversation. There is none in the advice that the young men were given not to speak to the publisher on the topic of Jews. 33 AdophS. Ochs (1858-1935), who bought the New York Times in 1896, harbored his own sensitivities on the topic. But his identity as a Jew was not in doubt. He married the daughter of the most innovative of nineteenth-century rabbis, Isaac Mayer Wise; and he and his descendants, the Sulzbergers, remained members of the flagship Reform synagogue, Temple Emanu-El. "Religion is all that I stand for as a

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Jew," Ochs announced in 1925. "I know nothing else, no other definition for a Jew except religion." So constrained a classification exhibited a logic of its own. Faith was so private and minor a feature of family life that his descendants and relatives generally were informed that they were Jewish on the eve of their departure for boarding school. Having severed the bonds of peoplehood, the Sulzberger family through its foundation gave a pittance to Jewish philanthropies: $1,800 to the UJA in 1973, $900 the year after the Yom Kippur War.34 But limiting Jewishness to religious belief did not keep the family that has owned the Times from realizing that others might be troubled by Jewish "clannishness" and cohesiveness, and therefore much effort was expended to limit the perception of the Times as a "Jewish" newspaper. If the business side preceded the expressive and editorial side, that was because it was undoubtedly a matter of Times policy. Under Ochs, Arthur Hays Sulzberger and Orville Dryfoos, no Jew rose to the position of managing editor. That barrier was scaled by A. M. Rosenthal, but only after the chief foreign correspondent, Cyrus L. Sulzberger, kept him from covering a UN conference in 1948: "One Jew in Paris is enough." In 1952, when Daniel Schorr, then a Times stringer in the Low Countries, asked for a staff position, C. L. Sulzberger rebuffed him with the observation that "we have too many Jews in Europe."35 It is commonly believed that Theodore Bernstein, the newspaper's authority on usage, the "technical genius" of the bullpen, could have risen to the post of managing editor had he been a Gentile. It is also widely assumed that Times policy once disguised the given names of Jews, so that bylines were given to A. (for Abraham) M. Rosenthal, A. (for Abraham) H. Raskin et al. The current associate editor, Jacob Rosenthal, forced the Times to break its rule against informality; the masthead lists him, rather incongruously, as Jack Rosenthal.36 The history of American journalism cannot exclude Jews whose interest was not in deadlines or headlines but merely in the bottom line. Terms like brightness and novelty, or bridging the gap between the event and the reader make little sense in evaluating the career of Samuel I. Newhouse (1895-1979). He took charge of his first newspaper, the Bayonne Times, at the age of seventeen. By the time of his death, Newhouse owned thirty-one newspapers, seven magazines, six television stations, five radio stations, twenty cable-TV stations and even a wire service. Only two other newspaper chains were larger; none was more profitable. But profit was all that mattered to Newhouse; no publisher was less interested in the editorial policies, which varied, of the newspapers he owned. He didn't bother reading his own products, preferring the Times instead. Newhouse's credo was simple: "Only a newspaper which is a sound business operation can be a truly free, independent editorial enterprise." His sons now direct his empire.37 Entrepreneurship having nothing to do with expressiveness has also characterized the careers of Moses Annenberg (1878-1942), the immigrant who founded Triangle Publications (the Daily Racing Form, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Morning Telegraph), with his son, Walter, who founded Seventeen as well as the magazine with over 17 million readers, the second largest circulation in the United States, TV Guide.3* Dorothy SchiiT, the former publisher of the New York Post, whose grandfather was the venerable communal leader and banker Jacob Schiff, undoubtedly spoke for her peers when she confirmed an axiom that, "once you reach a certain financial level,

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people don't think of you as anything but very rich." Unpredictable and frivolous, she ran the Post from 1939 till 1976 in a style akin to the last line in Citizen Kane: "I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!"39 They belong to the history of American business, not The Oxford Companion to American Literature. Other explanations for the Jewish predilection for journalism also merit scrutiny and criticism. In Jews and American Politics, Stephen Isaacs argues that the intellectual and verbal resourcefulness that Jews have historically cherished is rewarded in the mass media.40 Since the deities and divinities that peoples worship are clues to their culture, it is no surprise that the Jewish God is something of an intellectual, since the rabbis believed that even He studies the Torah. By now Isaacs's explanation smacks of a commonplace—which does not mean that it is false, only that it is familiar. Truisms are often hard to separate from truths, the matrix of a Jewish occupational proclivity as well as a contrast with other values stressed among Gentiles. If the Jewish encounter with modern society does differ from the experience of others, the explanation may well be connected to alternative beliefs. But Isaacs's theory is also quite restricted. Almost no publishers or network executives have been intellectuals. The celebrated journalists who grew up ignorant of the Judaic religion and stress upon the Word would make a long list. Nor does the explanation incorporate those journalists whose success has been visual rather than verbal. The most prestigious award of the National Cartoonists Society, for example, is called the "Reuben," in honor of the first president of the society, Rube Goldberg. The most honored of political cartoonist is the Washington Post's Herbert Block ("Herblock"). Al Capp (ne Caplin) created the Dogpatch of Li'I Abner, which was syndicated in five hundred newspapers and has entered the mainstream of popular culture. Verbal resourcefulness had nothing to do with the photo-journalism of Erich Salomon in Germany, Alfred Eisenstaedt in Germany and then with Life magazine or Robert and Cornell Capa, Budapest-born brothers whose original name was Friedmann. Probably the most famous shot ever taken by an American photo-journalist was Joe Rosenthal's depiction of the four U.S. Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jirna—an icon of heroism and patriotism. And since the president of the United States is himself a former sports announcer, it would be patronizing to ignore such figures as Mel Allen and Howard Cosell or Nat Fleischer of Ring magazine, whose approach to subjects like the New York Yankees and Muhammad Ali bore little trace of Talmudic learning. Stephen Isaacs also notes Jewish representation in a field which, "like all forms of mass education, prizes the non-ethnicity of universalism" and especially the ideal of objectivity. Those opting for journalism as a career might therefore hope to be judged by their merit, not their religious or national origin. 41 This generalization is partially valid, for the Jews attracted to it have usually been quite assimilated and deracinated, eager or anxious to blend into civil society. One of the most brilliant editors of the Neue Freie Presse, Theodor Herzl, was far down that road himself; and after he had been irrevocably stung by the spectacle of antisemitism, he dreamed of a mass conversion of Jews at St. Stephen's Cathedral.42 Perhaps this is not too farfetched a context to discuss the star foreign correspondent of the New York Daily Tribune from 1852 till 1862, Karl Marx. His parents having con verted, Marx was formally baptized as a Lutheran; and he grew up into an atheist. It is less well known that the only

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occupation for which he was ever paid was journalism. When he edited the Rheinische Zeitung, Marx depended on Jewish businessmen in Cologne for support; but his greatest success was writing for the American newspaper edited by Horace Greeley. Marx submitted 350 articles that he himself wrote, plus another dozen in collaboration with F. Engels. The Tribune'smanaging editor, Charles A. Dana, once announced that Marx was "not only one of the most highly valued, but one of the best-paid contributors attached to the journal." The contributions ceased in 1862, however, when Greeley fired Dana, who had permitted antisemitic material to be published in the Tribune. Several articles infected with such material had been submitted by Marx.43 Perhaps the epitome of the "non-ethnicity of universalism" was Lippmann. In the more than 10 million printed words of wisdom and counsel that he imparted in his lifetime, Jews were almost never mentioned. He did write an analysis of antisemitism for the American Hebrew in 1922, blaming the excrescence of bigotry primarily on the vulgarity and ostentatiousness of nouveaux riches Jews themselves. Lippmann claimed that Jews were over-sensitive on the subject of discrimination and urged them to uphold "the classic Greek virtue of moderation." No one was more anxious to suppress whatever bound him to ancestral custom and belief. He agreed that his alma mater, Harvard College, was correct in imposing a limit on Jewish admissions. More than 15 percent of the student body, Lippmann suspected, would generate a Kulturkampf; and his own "sympathies are with the non-Jew. . . . [whose] personal manners and physical habits are, I believe, distinctly superior to the prevailing manners of the Jew." 44 From 1933 no column by the most influential pundit of his time mentioned the persecution of Jews in the Third Reich, though two columns in 1938 did suggest that the "surplus" population of Europe should be sent to Africa—the very continent which the Zionists had tumultuously rejected four decades before. During the Holocaust Lippmann wrote nothing about the camps; afterward he wrote nothing either. Though he never converted to any version of Christianity, Lippmann's efforts to obscure his own origins reached ludicrous proportions. For a book of tributes on his seventieth brithday, a boyhood friend realized that the sage would never speak to him again were the fact of Jewishness—a birth defect—mentioned. (It wasn't.) Ronald Steel's excellent biography records the nervousness that one friend experienced in playing Scrabble with Lippmann. She worried that the letters forming the word "Jew" might come up, perhaps upsetting the champion of disinterested reason, the Apollonian savant who wrote in 1915: "Man must be at peace with the sources of his life. If he is ashamed of them, if he is at war with them, they will haunt him forever. They will rob him of the basis of assurance, will leave him an interloper in the world."45 One final case of how fiercely such journalists tried to bleach out their origins is that of A. J. Liebling (1904-63). A crack reporter at the New York World under the direction of Swope, he became the inventor of modern criticism of the press and was among the shrewdest monitors of its performance. Liebling bragged that he could "write better than anyone who could write faster, and faster than anyone who could write better." Both of Lippmann's wives were Gentiles; so were all three of Liebling's. Identifying with the Irish toughs among whom he was raised, attending Dartmouth when it was perhaps the most religiously restrictive of Ivy League

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colleges, Liebling became a war correspondent for the New Yorker and was more pained by the devastation that Nazi Germany was wreaking on France than on European Jewry. His third wife commented: "Even Hitler didn't make him an intensely self-conscious Jew." Liebling once declined to attend a literary salon on Manhattan's Upper West Side because "sheenies who are meanies will be there." He was an eccentric as well as a witty and facile craftsman who suffered the strangest of deaths, because he was a gourmand who became a glutton. Devouring the forbidden foods like lobsters, clams and oysters, Liebling simply ate himself to death.46 There are of course exceptions to Isaacs's generalization; a few American journalists did not propel themselves furiously from their Jewish origins for the sake of a neutral or abstract universalism. Although Mordecai Noah (1785-1851) was a "restorationist" rather than a genuine forerunner of Zionism (before the term had been coined), he was an advocate of Jewish rights as well as a skillful, polemical journalist who helped usher in the form of mass communications associated with the liveliness and sensationalism of the penny press.47 Ben Hecht, for whom a boat transporting refugees illegally to Palestine was named, was certainly the most fervent Jewish nationalist to emerge from American journalism. He became a leading champion of the Irgun and an indignant critic of David Ben-Gurion. But his blazing opposition to Nazism and commitment to Jewish rights came after his newspaper career was essentially abandoned. Swope's support of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, his presence at the creation of the Overseas News Agency, and his fund raising for the United Jewish Appeal also transpired after he had ceased working for the World or any other newspaper. He had nothing to do with the decision of his brother, Gerard, once president of General Electric, to bequeath the bulk of his estate (nearly $8 million) to Haifa's Technion in 1957.48 A younger example of comfort with Jewish identity is Martin Peretz, who edited the campus newspaper at Brandeis University and in 1974 became the editor-in-chief of the New Republic (which Lippman had helped to found six decades earlier). Peretz has presumably been responsible for the considerable interest that the magazine has shown in the Middle East, primarily from a Labor Zionist perspective.49 If the rarity of such figures tends to corroborate Isaacs's point, an even more striking phenomenon invalidates it. For if objectivity and universalism are supposed to have made the profession so appealing, the influx of Jews to journals of opinion and to partisan organs would not be so large. Neutrality would hardly characterize the New Republic from Lippmann and Walter Weyl through Gilbert Harrison to Peretz, nor the Nation under Victor Navasky, nor Dissent under Irving Howe, Lewis Coser and Michael Walzer, nor the Progressive under Morris Rubin, nor Partisan Review under Philip Rahv and William Phillips, nor the New York Review of Books under Robert Silvers and Barbara Epstein, nor the Public Interest under Daniel Bell, Irving Kristol and Nathan Glazer. Norman Cousins, for three decades editor-in-chief of the Saturday Review, played an influential role in the genesis of the nuclear test ban treaty of 1963. Having already helped found SANE (Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy), Cousins was asked by President Kennedy to organize a citizens' committee for a nuclear test-ban treaty to press for senatorial ratification. Cousins contributed $400,000 of his own money in that effort, even selling the

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Saturday Review to do so—a triumph of political belief over journalistic professionalism. The Nixon administration's "enemies list," which was provided to the Senate's Watergate investigating committee in 1973, included CBS's Daniel Schorr ("a real media enemy") and Marvin Kalb; NBC's Sander Vanocur; and columnists Sydney Harris, Joseph Kraft, Max Lerner, and Frank Mankiewicz.50 The underground press that surfaced in the 1960s made no pretense of reaching for the asymptote of objectivity. A short list of its luminaries would include Paul Krassner (the Realist), Marvin Garson (the Berkeley Barb), Jeff Shero (Rat), Allan Katzman (East Village Other), and Jesse Kornbluth and Marshall Bloom of the Liberation News Service. Like other radical journalists, from the dawn of the twentieth century, their writing was a direct extension of their politics and indistinguishable from it (indeed, often a substitute for political action). Consider Trotsky's remarkable refusal of Lenin's offer, immediately after the October Revolution of 1917, to head the new revolutionary government. Trotsky, whose nickname was Pero (the Pen), wanted to direct the press instead. Having come from New York earlier that year, where he had made his living as a journalist, Trotsky exhibited an understandable preference.51 Even the slightest nod in the direction of comparative history would sabotage Isaacs's stress on the attractiveness of objectivity. American newspapers have generally developed in the direction of defining themselves in terms of the gathering and dissemination of information, as quickly as possible, under the aegis of impartiality. But European newspapers, say, from the Congress of Vienna until the rise of Nazism, operated according to other principles—pronouncing (and therefore forming) opinions, promoting a set of political and cultural attitudes. Such journalism was a forum for the differing Weltanschauung of publishers, editors and writers. And yet Jews flourished as fully in such an environment as have journalists of Jewish birth in the United States. It was not because of the allure of objectivity that Herzl won success as a feuilletoniste for the Neue Freie Presse, nor Leon Blum as a critic in the French socialist press, nor Arthur Koestler as a correspondent for the Ullstein house in Berlin. Even within the context of American media, objectivity is not universally prized, quite apart from the growing suspicion that it may be impossible to attain. Lippmann and David Lawrence largely invented the syndicated column of opinion and interpretation.52 Its eminent practitioners today include David Broder, Joseph Kraft and Anthony Lewis. The career of William Safire suggests how misleading it would be to remove the study of journalism from cognate fields. Safire began as a public relations counselor (once called press agent), became a speechwriter for Richard Nixon in particular, then a lexicographer, a novelist and primarily a columnist— honored with a Pulitzer Prize—for the New York Times, all without breaking stride. Swope saw no conflict between his role as an editor and his services as a publicity hack for Bernard Baruch.53 For in every vocation affecting public opinion and taste, Jews have achieved prominence. Edward L. Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, was one of the two pioneers of public relations. Albert Lasker played a comparably innovative role in advertising. Paul Lazarsfeld, who came to the United States from Vienna in 1935, was (among other accomplishments) a pivotal figure in marketing research. So was

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his pupil, Ernest Dichter,54 who became a lay analyst in Vienna (with an office across the street from Freud) and later pioneered in motivational research (first for CBS). Samuel Lubell, Louis Harris, David Garth and Daniel Yankelovich have been among the nation's leading pollsters. They are now an obligatory adjunct of politics as well as journalism, yet their vocation does not regard the standard of disinterested objectivity as always relevant to its purposes. There is another possible explanation for the disproportionate impact that Jews have exerted in the American media. It is advanced tentatively, because it is at best only partly satisfactory, and because it cannot cover all the cases or withstand all objections. No theory on this subject can. But it enjoys the advantage of taking into account the experience of other countries in the Diaspora, and applies especially well to the particularities of the American framework. The speculation allows one to acknowledge the historical singularity of the Jewish people without requiring for its theoretical validity the journalists' knowledge of or fidelity to Judaic tradition and values. This thesis holds that the press has been a key instrument in the recognition that we inhabit one world—not one village or valley or province or nation. Journalism is not only a bridge between reader and event, as the Encyclopedia Judaica avers, but between people and people. And a certain dispersed and vulnerable minority might be especially sensitive to the recalcitrant problems posed by human diversity and plurality. Exile made the Jews aware that the world is larger than parochial and even national boundaries, and some Jews became hopeful that those borders might be transcended. Positioned as outsiders, they were vouchsafed the knowledge of relatives and other co-religionists abroad, were given at least a glimmering sense that there was an abroad, a life elsewhere. Jews were therefore responsive to cosmopolitanism, or trans-nationalism, a tendency to see the world as one. Such a marginal situation and such an international spirit have commonly been appreciated by scholars explaining the Jewish penchant for trade, even though the Biblical Hebrews were not famous for their business acumen. In describing the comparatively large number of Jews working for American newspapers prior to the Civil War, Jonathan Sarna has observed, "journalism . . . permitted the kind of independence and mobility that Jews have often looked for in their occupations. . . . Commerce on a large or small scale," he adds, "depends on information. Jewish merchants, travellers, peddlers and, of course, relatives served as 'reporters' long before the public press had any interest in printing the news." But other scholars have not extended or tested Sarna's claim that "Jews had the kind of cosmopolitan outlook which journalism demands."55 Too little curiosity has been piqued by this explanation for the Jewish attraction to journalism. The cosmopolitan character of mass communications can be verified biographically. The effort to reduce the gaps of time and distance was especially pronounced in the career of Israel Ben Josephat (1816—99), a rabbi's son who was baptized in Berlin in 1844 and moved to London in 1851. He became best known for founding the news agency Reuters, for he eventually became Baron Paul Julius von Reuter. He began with pigeons, then cable and then telegraph—just as he followed political reports with commercial news and then general news. Reuters thus became perhaps the leading international news agency. 56 The inventor of the press interview, the

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prime "pseudo-event," was Henri Blowitz-Opper (1825-1903). He was born in Bohemia, wrote for Parisian newspapers and became a French citizen, but he achieved widest recognition as a correspondent for The Times of London.57 It was not necessary however to be an immigrant to seize the possibilities of communicating to newly literate, increasingly enfranchised and empowered masses. Joseph Moses Levy (1812-88) owned and edited the Sunday Times for a year; but he is more important for having published, beginning in 1855, London's first penny morning newspaper, the Daily Telegraph. Levy simply cut the previous price in half. The Daily Telegraph was Liberal until 1879, after which it switched to the Conservatives. Levy's eldest son, Edward Levy-Lawson, succeeded him, making the paper livelier in its presentation of news and famous for its crusades.58 Thus father and son played roughly the same roles in British journalism that were performed by two quite different figures in the United States. The American innovator of the penny press was not a Jew, but he was an immigrant: James Gordon Bennett, a Scotsman. An even more pivotal practitioner of mass journalism was Pulitzer, the immigrant from Hungary. The tableau of his final years—with teams of secretaries reading to Pulitzer his favorite German and French literary works in their original languages—is a sign of how cosmopolitan a figure he cut in American journalism. Of course, the American case is complicated by the obvious fact that it has been a nation of immigrants; and a thesis that is scientifically elegant would have to demonstrate that immigrant Jews, or immigrants generally, were represented in journalism more fully than in the American populace. Such validation cannot be accomplished, and impressionistic evidence will have to do. For it is striking that Adolph Ochs of the Times and William Paley of CBS were the sons of immigrants; David Sarnoff of RCA/NBC was born in Russia. Lippmann had made many trips to Europe as a child and was attuned to advanced European thinkers like Bergson, Wallas and Freud. Swope, Hecht and Liebling were also the sons of immigrants; and Liebling's dying words could not be understood because they were delivered in French.59 The closest American equivalent of the feuilleton was undoubtedly "Topics of the Times," whose anonymous but much-admired author was Simeon Strunsky, born in Russia. Even today, long after the era of mass migration of Jews is over, the editorial page of the Times is directed by Max Frankel, born in Germany. Abe Rosenthal was born in Canada to immigrants from Russia. Henry Anatole Grunwald, the chief of all Time, Inc., editorial enterprises, was born in Vienna. Luce himself, the co-inventor of the newsmagazine, was born in China to Presbyterian missionary parents; and the Calvinist sobriety and rectitude of the Times's James Reston may well have stemmed from his Scottish birthplace. Such biographical data are suggestive.60 There is however no philosopher's stone that can transmute the unstable mixture of competing theories into the purity of a single explanation. Even though monocausality lacks credence, a stress upon the cosmopolitan sympathies of Jews would rectify scholarly neglect. Complications will continue to bedevil the study of Jews in American journalism. Even though the subject cannot be studied in isolation, confined to the twelve-mile limit of the shores of the United States, it must also be fixed within the compass of a society in which an independent press has flourished and in which the talented, the

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ambitious and the lucky could often be handsomely rewarded. Freedom of the press has occupied a central place in the democratic design; and even wayward pressmen could point out that their occupation is one of the few (along with the clergy, firearms production and the liquor business) granted constitutional protection. Jefferson committed the logical flaw of the excluded middle term when he expressed a preference for "newspapers without a government" over "a government without newspapers."61 But his extravagent tribute to journalism was to echo for nearly two centuries of the republic, even though individual journalists have been hated and vilified, lost duels, been beaten up and tarred and feathered and murdered. Their power has been respected even when it has not always been exalted. It failed to strike Americans as odd that one of the legendary lawmen of the Old West, "Bat" Masterson (1853-1921), ended up as an editor of the New York Morning Telegraph.62 It was also natural for the comic-book creators of Superman, Joe Shuster and Jerome Siegel, to provide the man of steel and righteousness with the earth-bound identity of a newspaper reporter, Clark Kent of the Daily Planet. Perhaps the most beloved of recent presidents, John F. Kennedy, was first employed as a journalist (the only time he was off the public payroll). Had he lived long enough to retire from the White House, Kennedy had contemplated becoming a publisher. He, too, thought that it would be fun to run a newspaper, like Citizen Kane. (The eponymous film had as its working title American.)63 Jews could succeed as journalists, in part, because journalists could succeed in America. Finally, what will continue to render this topic enigmatic is the larger question of Jewish identity in modern times. Here is not the place to explore the definition of who is a Jew. But it is certainly fair to assert that at most only a segment of ethnic identity or religious heritage has ever been implicated in what journalists have done, and therefore the task of determining a distinctive Jewish contribution is complicated when so many Jews have blended so successfully into the structure of social organization. What they have achieved as individual journalists betrays only the most tenuous link to their sensibility as Jews, but that is why a study of their influence and motivations promises to shed further light on the elusive meaning of Jewish modernity in mass society. During a historical period when it is hardly a disability and, indeed, something of an asset to be a Jew in America, journalism is among the indices of full participation in the host society. The press badge is a certificate of "making it." Far from signifying a cabal or a conspiracy, the Jewish representation in the mass media demonstrates the hospitality of the American environment, the congruence of American values—and the benign challenge that is thereby posed to the singularity and survival of a tiny and ancient people.

Notes 1. Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders ofZion (New York: 1967), p. 273. 2. Steven E. Asehheim, Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in Germany and German Jewish Consciousness, 1800-1923 (Madison: 1982), pp. 42-43, 68; George L.

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Mosse, Germans and Jews: The Right, the Left, and the Search for a "Third Force" in PreNazi Germany (New York: 1970), p. 58. 3. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Boston: 1943), pp. vii, 57-59, 61. 4. Hay quoted in John Higham, Send These to Me: Jews and Other Immigrants in Urban America (New York: 1975), p. 183. 5. Cohn, Warrant for Genocide, p. 159; Morton Rosenstock, Louis Marshall: Defender of Jewish Rights (Detroit: 1965), pp. 128-129, 130; Leo P. Ribuffo, "Henry Ford and The International Jew," American Jewish History, no. 69 (June 1980), pp. 444-446, 453, 461, 469-470. 6. H. L. Mencken, Prejudices: A Selection, James T. Farrell (ed.) (New York: 1958), pp. 107-108. 7. Conor Cruise O'Brien, "Israel in Embryo," New York Review of Books, 15 March 1984, p. 36. 8. Selig Adler, The Isolationist Impulse: Its Twentieth-Century Reaction (New York: 1961), p. 279. 9. Leonard Dinnerstein, "Anti-Semitism Exposed and Attacked, 1945-1950," American Jewish History, no. 71 (September 1981), pp. 134-149. 10. Zbignicw K. Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: 1960), p. 249n. 11. New York Times, 16 December 1980, p. 3; "UN Protocols," New Republic 183 (27 December 1980), p. 7. 12. Stephen D. Isaacs, Jews and American Politics (Garden City: 1974), pp. 50-52; Stephen Birmingham, "Does a Zionist Conspiracy Control the Media?" MORE 6 (July/August 1976), pp. 12, 16-17; Deirdre Whiteside, "Agnew: What's the Motive?" MORE 6 (July/August 1976), p. 17. 13. "Jackson and the Jews," New Republic 190 (19 March 1984), p. 9. 14. Jonathan D. Sarna, Jacksonian Jew: The Two Worlds of Mordecai Noah (New York: 1981), p. 164, n.16. 15. Stephen J. Whitfield, "From Public Occurrences to Pseudo-Events: Journalists and Their Critics," American Jewish History, no. 72 (September 1982), pp. 52-81; reprinted in Voices of Jacob, Hands of Esau: Jews in American Life and Thought (Hamden: 1984), pp. 180-207. 16. [Kalman Seigel], "Journalism," Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: 1971), vol. X, p. 307; Isaacs, Jews and American Politics, p. 49. 17. John W. C. Johnstone, Edward J. Slawski and William W. Bowman, The News People: A Sociological Portrait of American Journalists and Their Work (Urbana: 1976), pp. ix, 9, 26, 198, 225. 18. Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter, Roots of Radicalism: Jews, Christians, and the New Left (New York: 1982), p. 97; Marcus Arkin ; Aspects of Jewish Economic History (Philadelphia: 1975), pp. 212-213. 19. Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. X, p. 306; Jacob Rader Marcus, The Rise and Destiny of the German Jew (Cincinnati: 1934), p. 97; Nathaniel Katzburg, Hungary and the Jews, 1920-1943 (Ramat-Gan: 1981), pp. 21, 30. 20. Donald L. Niewyk, The Jews in Weimar Germany (Baton Rouge: 1980), p. 15; Amos Elon, Herzl (New York: 1975), p. 99. 21. Stephen Hess, The Washington Reporters (Washington: 1981), p. 90. 22. Rothman and Lichter, Roots of Radicalism, p. 97; Edward J. Epstein, News from Nowhere: Television and the News (New York: 1973), pp. 222-223. 23. "The Kingdom and the Cabbage," Time 110 (15 August 1977), pp. 73-74, 80. 24. "Introduction," in Clinton Rossiter and James Lare (eds.), The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy (New York: 1965), p. xi; William L. Rivers, The Opinionmakers (Boston: 1965), pp. 59, 60; Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century (New York: 1980), pp. 462-463, 526-527. 25. E. J. Kahn, Jr., The World of Swope (New York: 1965), pp. 33, 133n, 182-184,

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240-241, 260-263; Eric F. Goldman, The Crucial Decade—and After: America, 19451960 (New York: 1960), p. 60. 26. Kahn, World of Swope, pp. 7, 16, 26, 30-31, 41, 55n, 226-228, 360; Rosemarian V. Staudacher, "Herbert Bayard Swope," in Perry J. Ashley (ed.), American Newspaper Journalists, 1900-1925 (Detroit: 1984), pp. 280-290. 27. BenHecht, A Child of the Century (New York: 1955),pp. 108, 112-113, 180-181, 364-365; Doug Fethcrling, The Five Lives of Ben Hecht (Toronto: 1977), pp. 18-41, 71-86. 28. Kenneth Tynan, Show People: Profiles in Entertainment (New York: 1979), p. 116; Anthony Heilbut, Exiled in Paradise: German Refugee Artists and Intellectuals in America from the 1930's to the Present (New York: 1983), p. 2.54; Maurice Zolotow, Billy Wilder in Hollywood (New York: 1977), p. 273. 29. Nietzsche quoted in Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, 3rd. ed. (Princeton: 1968), p. 289. 30. Mark Twain, "Concerning the Jews," in Charles Neider (ed.) The Complete Essays of Mark Twain (Garden City: 1963), p. 249. 31. Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. X, pp. 303-304; Ruppin quoted in Raphael Patai, The Jewish Mind (New York: 1977), pp. 377-378. 32. A. J. Liebling, The Wayward Pressman (Garden City: 1947), pp. 103-104. 33. W. A. Swanberg, Pulitzer (New York: 1967), pp. 8, 38-39, 42, 136, 377; Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: 1978), pp. 95-105. 34. Harrison E. Salisbury, Without Fear or favor: The New York Times and Its Times (New York: 1980), pp. 28-30; Gay Talcse, The Kingdom and the Power (Cleveland: 1969), pp. 59, 91-94, 168-169; Birmingham, "Zionist Conspiracy," pp. 14, 15. 35. Salisbury, Fear or Favor, pp. 28-29, 401; Isaacs, Jews and American Politics, pp. 47-48. 36. Takse, Kingdom and the Power, pp. 59,60,91-93, 109-116, 168; Salisbury, Fear or Favor, p. 403; Birmingham, "Zionist Conspiracy," p. 15. 37. Richard H. Meeker, Newspaperman: S. I. Newhouse and the Business of News (New Haven: 1983), pp. 2-3, 23, 158, 165, 166; Time, 1 14 (10 September 1979X p. 68. 38. John E. Cooney, The Annenbergs (New York: 1982), pp. 56, 66-67, 126, 160161, 184-186, 380; A. James Reichley, "Moe's Boy Waiter at the Court of St. James's," Fortune 81 (June 1970), pp. 88, 90-93, 134, 136, 139. 39. Dorothy Schiff quoted in Jeffrey Potter, Men, Money and Magic: The Story of Dorothy Schiff (New York: 1977), p. 123; Jack Newfield, Bread and Roses Too (New York: 1971), pp. 237-244; Nora Ephron, Scribble Scribble: Notes on the Media (New York: 1979), pp. 1-9. 40. Isaacs, Jews and American Politics, pp. 43-44. 41. Ibid., p. 45. 42. Elon,Herzl, pp. 114-117. 43. David McLellan, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought (New York: 1973), pp. 285289; Lewis S. Feuer, Marx and the Intellectuals: A Set of Post-Ideological Essays (Garden City: 1969), p. 38. 44. Walter Lippmann, "Public Opinion and the American Jew," American Hebrew 110 (14 April 1922), p. 575; Steel, Walter Lippmann, pp. 188-195. 45. Anthony Lewis, "The Mysteries of Mr. Lippmann," New York Review of Books 27 (9 October 1980), p. 5; Steel, Lippmann, pp. 195-196, 330-333, 373-376, 446; David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (New York: 1979), p. 370; Carl Binger, "A Child of the Enlightenment," in Marquis Childs and James Rcston (cds.), Walter Lippmann and His Times (New York: 1959), pp. 21-28; Walter Lippmann, The Stakes of Diplomacy (New York: 1915), pp. 62-63; D. Steven Blum, Walter Lippmann: Cosmopolitanism in the Century of Total War (Ithaca: 1984), pp. 36-39, 43-44. 46. Raymond Sokolov, Wayward Reporter: The Life of A. J. Liebling (New York: 1980), pp. 1, 9, 14. 21, 25, 30, 42, 98-99, 135, 1 5 1 - 1 5 2 , 232, 262-263, 305, 310.

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47. Sarna, Jacksonian Jew, p. 152. 48. Hecht, Child of the Century, pp. 84, 482-586; Fetherling, Five Lives of Ben Hecht, pp. 119-139; Kahn, World of Swope, pp. 433-439. 49. Robert Leiter, "Renaissance Man," Present Tense II (Winter 1984), pp. 18-23; William A. Henry III, "Breaking the Liberal Pattern," Time 124 (1 October 1984), p. 78. 50. Fred W. Friendly, The Good Guys, the Bad Guys and the First Amendment (New York: 1976), p. 34; Donald Pancth, The Encyclopedia of American Journalism (New York: 1983), p. 511. 51. Robert S. Wistrich, Trotsky: Fate of a Revolutionary (London: 1979), p. 140. 52. Edwin Emery and Michael Emery, The Press and America: An Interpretative History of the Mass Media, 4th cd. (Englewood Cliffs: 1978), pp. 312, 314. 53. Victor S. Navasky, "Safire Appraised," Esquire 97 (January 1982), pp. 44-50; Jordan A. Schwarz, The Speculator: BernardM. Baruch in Washington, 1917-1965 (Chapel Hill: 1981), pp. 201-206. 54. Edward L. Bernays, Biography of an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel EdwardL. Bernays (New York: 1965), passim; Richard S. Tedlow, Keeping the Corporate Image: Public Relations and Business, 1900-1950 (Greenwich: 1979), pp. 39-45, 91-97; John Gunther, Taken at the Flood: The Story of Albert D. Lasker (New York: 1960), pp. 4478, 146-173, 193-222, 244-256; Daniel J. Czitrom, Media and the American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan (Chapel Hill: 1982), pp. 127-136; "Ernest Dichter," Current Biography, 1961 (New York: 1962), pp. 130-132. 55. Sarna, Jacksonian Jew, pp. 5-6. 56. Graham Storey, Reuters: The Story of a Century of News-Gathering (New York: 1951), pp. 3-31, 87; Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. XIV, pp. 111-112. 57. Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. IV, pp. 1,134-1,135; Ernst Kahn, "The Frankfurther Zeitung," Leo Baeck Yearbook (London: 1957), vol. II, p. 229. 58. The Times (London), The History of The Times: The Tradition Established, 18411884 (London: 1939), pp. 294-296; Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. X, pp. 1489-1490. 59. Sokolov, Wayward Reporter, p. 320. 60. Halberstam, Powers That Be, pp. 549-551; Nathan Glazer, "The Immigrant Groups and American Culture," Yale Review 48 (Spring 1959), pp. 395-397. 61. Letter to Edward Carrington, 16 January 1787, in Merrill D. Peterson (ed.), The Portable Thomas Jefferson (New York: 1975), p. 415. 62. Paneth, Encyclopedia of American Journalism, p. 288. 63. Pauline Kael, "Raising Kane," in Kael, Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles, The Citizen Kane Book (Boston: 1971), pp. 29, 57; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: 1965), p. 1017.

Reports from British Diplomats in Russia on the Participation of the Jews in Revolutionary Activity in Northwest Russia and the Kingdom of Poland, 1905-6 Eliyahu Feldman (TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY)

In their reports to the Foreign Office in London during the years 1905 and 1906, British diplomats in Russia naturally paid a great deal of attention to the social and political ferment agitating the Empire. 1 Many of these reports described, among other things, the Jewish role in the wave of strikes and in other anti-government actions. The reports of the British consul-general in Warsaw were particularly copious on this theme, and we should note that the consul-general in Warsaw was responsible for a region which included all of the Kingdom of Poland, Lithuania, and parts of Belorussia, a region where the Jewish revolutionary movement was especially strong. The author of the majority of the reports was Alexander Penrose Murray, British consul-general in Warsaw during 1905 and 1906. A scion of the upper class (educated at Eton), he served in the army before joining the consular service in 1891, the year in which he was sent to Russia. He filled consular posts in various cities and was appointed consul-general in Warsaw in 1897. He remained at this post (with a break of two years when he saw service in the Anglo-Boer War) until January 1908, when he left Russia. His long service in Russia enabled him to become well acquainted with the country, but his long stay there also meant that he was influenced by the ruling circles with which he came into contact in his work and in his social life. Despite his wide experience, he does not seem to have enjoyed particular esteem among his superiors in the Foreign Office. 2 It is quite clear from his reports that, like many of his circle and social standing, he had no great affection for Jews.3 Nor did he display any sensitivity or sympathy for the workers and their struggle. He called libraries, kindergartens and old-age homes "modern luxuries" which only spoil the workers,4 but he did regard as reasonable the demands for a shorter working day and higher wages.5 Some of the reports dispatched from Warsaw were written by the vice-consul, Edmond Bower St. Clair, who deputized for Murray on various occasions. He, too, served in Warsaw for a fairly long period, at first for a few months in 1900-1901 189

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and later from March 1903 to October 1908. St. Clair also mixed in Russian high society and was even related by marriage to a local aristocratic family. Both Murray and St. Clair absolutely disapproved of the revolutionary, anti-government movement that was developing in Russia. Most of the consular reports from Warsaw were sent to the British Embassy in St. Petersburg. For a while Murray and, in his absence, St. Clair, sent the embassy weekly reports reviewing events in their consular district. They also sent a few of their reports directly to London. A few dispatches, mostly in mid-1905, reported on strikes staged by Jewish workers, mainly in the two big centers of Warsaw and Lodz: two (bakers and tailors' apprentices) in Lodz in May 1905,6 three (painters, barbers, and restaurant waiters and servants) in Warsaw in June 1905.7 The strikes of the bakers and the tailors' apprentices were joint strikes of Jews and Christians. St. Clair also reported on a strike of tailors and shoemakers in Kalisz in May 1905.8 He did not say who the strikers were, but it can safely be assumed that some, if not most of them, were Jews since these were distinctively Jewish occupations. In some of the reports, the British representatives in Warsaw clearly alluded to what they saw as the revolutionary role of the Jewish socialists in organizing the strikes and getting the Christian workers to join them in order to promote their political aims. In fact, the reports present the Jews as being behind the strikes and responsible for them. Jewish propagandists from Warsaw, writes Murray, persuaded the Christian workers to strike in two big textile factories near Warsaw, even though the workers there enjoyed excellent conditions.9 According to him, the Jewish workers even terrorized the Christian workers into joining the strikes.10 Most of the reports of Murray and St. Clair which refer to the Jews describe them as acting against the government and its representatives. If any particular individual involved in any act against the government was a Jew, they both took care to mention the fact. They reported on revolutionary handbills posted up or distributed by Jews; 1 ' on a meeting of Jewish socialists in a synagogue;12 on Jews going out into the streets with red flags to try and drum up demonstrations and riots and on the large proportion of Jews in the demonstrations;13 on the training of Jewish socialists in the use of arms; 14 on acts of violence performed by them, including attacks on Jews suspected of collaborating with the police; on clashes with the security forces; on forays in which police were attacked and killed; on assaults on government institutions and on an attempt to steal money from an army camp. 15 When taken together, all these instances of action against the government present a picture of energetic revolutionary activity on the part of the Jewish population, presented by Murray and St. Clair as the principal protagonist of the movement against the government in the Kingdom of Poland and in the northwest districts of Russia. Murray stated flatly that the revolutionary movement in his consular district "is entirely in the hands of the Jews." Such was the case, he stated, in the Polish towns where there were repeated disturbances in mid-1905, described by Murray as "purely socialistic," directed against individual property and "against the present form of government." Murray called Bialystok "the head centre of red socialism." He stated that the socialist movement was stronger in those provinces in his consular district with a high proportion of Jews in the general population, such as Grodno

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and Minsk. I6 The Jews, Murray affirmed, played the main role in all the revolutionary organizations in Poland and also in the general Socialist parties active there. 17 Murray informs his superiors that the Jewish socialists instigate riots and force the Christian workers to take part in action against the government. They inaugurate a reign of terror and violence, while the authorities stand by helpless. He expresses the hope that, with the introduction of martial law, it will be possible to overcome the Jewish socialists.l8 He states that the Jews played the central role in the events of June 1905 in Lodz, the great industrial center, where the revolutionary ferment— as in other places in the length and breadth of the Russian Empire—had been growing steadily since the events of Sunday 9/22 January [see n. 6] of that year in St. Petersburg ("Bloody Sunday"). In mid-June there were mass demonstrations in Lodz, accompanied by serious clashes between the army and the demonstrators. These events are described in Soviet historiography as a workers' uprising against the government, in the course of which some two thousand were killed or wounded, marking one of the climactic moments of revolutionary activity in 1905.l9 Murray devoted a special report to Lodz,20 describing the events there at length and the active part in them taken by the Jews. He claims that they were the main factor in the ferment in the city. It was they who put up the barricades and fought the army. 21 According to St. Clair's reports to London, the Jews also played the principal role in the rioting in Minsk in Belorussia after the publication of the Imperial Manifesto of 17/30 October 1905; they constituted the majority in the crowd which gathered in front of the governor's palace to demand the release of political prisoners and the removal of the Cossacks from the city, and which later opened fire on an army unit, leading to a clash between the army and the demonstrators with a large number of casualties.22 The British representatives in Warsaw were particularly impressed by the Bund, whose supposed leading role in initiating the organization of strikes and demonstrations against the government they describe in several reports.23 Murray even devoted a special report entirely to the Bund. 24 He called it the most powerful and most important revolutionary organization in the empire, which inspired fear throughout all of western Russia. The government was incapable of fighting it. Even the arrest of some of its leaders failed to affect it. There was no defense against it—anyone whom the Bund accused of antisetnitism, averred Murray, must flee for his life. It was the Bund, together with the two Polish Socialist parties—the "Polish Socialist party (PPS)" and the "Social Democratic party of Poland and Lithuania"—that headed the revolutionary activity and organized the strikes and rioting in Poland and western Russia. Murray's appreciation of the teachings and aims of the Bund was a strange mixture of insight and nonsense stemming both from his prejudices against Jews and from what he heard in the Russian and Polish bureaucratic and social circles in which he moved. As presented by Murray in his reports to his superiors, the Bund was a Jewish revolutionary organization aiming at the overthrow of the existing regime; it therefore conducted propaganda among non-Jews as well, including the army, and was preparing the workers for the general strike that would come at the chosen moment and paralyze the country, striking a death blow to the regime. But, in Murray's view, the Bund was also, and mainly, a Jewish nationalist organization

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with special Jewish aims. The greater part of what Murray has to say on the Bund is, in fact, devoted to what he defines as its national program, its activity among the Jewish population, the influence it exercised over it and the consequences of its actions on relations between Jews and Christians. His views on this subject are quite interesting. Murray affirmed that at the center of the Bund's national program were the demands to abolish the legal restrictions imposed on the Jews of Russia and to obtain for the Jewish population of the country some form of autonomous selfadministration. Murray interpreted the latter, however, as a renewal of the status enjoyed by the Jews of Poland in the Middle Ages by virtue of the privilege granted them by Prince Bolestaw of Kalisz in 1264,25 which included special rights in the fields of self-government and taxation. The Bund's great appeal, therefore, was explained in terms of a subterranean but still vital stratum of Jewish aspirations as well as a deep-seated hatred of Christians, all of which the Bund had successfully tapped. Murray attributed far-reaching influence to the Bund—the Bund's educational activity imbued the poverty-stricken Jewish masses with a sense of solidarity and mutual aid, encouraged them to train in the use of arms and to organize combat teams for the struggle against government forces. According to him, it transformed the Jews from a frightened minority into bold fighters feared by the police and presenting a serious challenge to the army. Murray's conclusion was that the Bund had created a new revolutionary national entity.26 In another special report, Murray also described the two general Socialist parties active in Poland: the Social Democratic party and the Polish Socialist party.27 Here, too, much is said about Jews, who, according to Murray, constituted the strongest element in these parties as well. Murray attempted to distinguish between the respective ideological backgrounds of the Jewish members of these two parties and of the Bundists. The Jewish members of the Social Democratic party had attended Russian schools and had abandoned the traditional Jewish way of life, adopting the ideas of internationalism and Marxism on which the party based its program, while the Jews who joined the Polish Socialist party had assimilated among the Poles and saw Poland as their country, accepting the nationalist program calling for the establishment of a democratic Polish republic. In the eyes of the Bund, therefore, both the internationalists and the Jewish supporters of Polish aspirations were not merely competitors, but were actually deserters. In evaluating all three parties, Murray considered the Bund to be the most important. Murray thought that socialism in general and the Bund in particular had had a negative impact on relations between Jews and Christians, although he was not entirely consistent on this point. In a number of reports he points out positive effects of socialism on the relations between the two peoples: thanks to socialism, the Jewish and Polish workers had drawn closer to each other, collaborating in the fight against the upper classes and thereby putting a damper on the antisemitic sentiments that both the authorities and the Polish nationalists wanted to arouse among the Polish workers.28 In other reports, however, Murray contends that the activities of Jewish socialists deeply angered the Christians, who felt they were nothing but tools in the hands of the Jews responsible for the riots and the resulting hardships inflicted on the inhabitants of the district. Hence antisemitic feelings spread and a hatred emerged which, according to Murray, had previously not existed in Poland.29

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The wave of bloody pogroms directed against the Jews of Russia following the Imperial Manifesto of 17/30 October 1905 bypassed the district of the British consulate-general of Warsaw and was not referred to in the reports of Murray and St. Clair. Before this, however, in August 1905, there was a pogrom in Bialystok, 30 which was repeated a year later (June 1906), attended by even greater violence, and which had world-wide repercussions. In September 1906 a serious pogrom took place in Siedlce, the chief city in the province of that name in the Kingdom of Poland, in the course of which some thirty Jews were killed. In the reports of the British representatives in Warsaw, these pogroms were depicted in terms consistent with their general approach to the Jewish question: The pogroms were allegedly the result of the Christian population's anger over the Jews' revolutionary activity and the violent response of police and the army to the Jewish revolutionaries' provocations. Thus, Murray's explanation for the Bialystok pogrom in August 1905 was the bomb thrown by Jews at a patrol of soldiers and shots which were then fired at the soldiers and police from the windows of nearby houses. The soldiers shot at the houses from which they had been shot at, and the result was forty killed, all Jews.31 The second Bialystok pogrom, in June 1906, was the result of shots fired by Jews at a Christian religious procession. The shots provoked the Christian population, already angered by Jewish terror. To throw light on the background of the pogrom, Murray explained to his superiors that Bialystok was a center of Jewish socialism and anarchism and that "not a day passes but some outrage takes place."32 The pogrom in Siedlce was explained in similar fashion by Murray and his deputy. 33 The British ambassador in Russia, and in his absence the charge d'affaires, also reported to the Foreign Office in London on the part played by the Jews in the revolutionary movement in northwest Russia and the Kingdom of Poland. Their reports were largely based on what they learned from the reports of the British consulate-general in Warsaw. They were at times a word-for-word repetition of those of Murray and St. Clair. Thus, Sir Charles Hardinge repeated exactly what Murray wrote on the favorable effect of socialism on the Jews and their relations with Christians and on the way the Jewish socialists used their economic power to initiate strikes for political ends34 and on the reason for the Bialystok pogrom in August 1905.35 Sir Arthur Nicolson repeated Murray's fears concerning the likelihood of pogroms in Warsaw because of the Jews' acts of provocation and because of the daily attacks on policemen in which young Jews are involved.36 Cecil Spring Rice repeated what Murray had to say on the Jews' revolutionary propaganda and their responsibility for the deteriorating situation in various parts of Poland and especially in Lodz.37 Nicolson also followed Murray in praising the organization of the Bund and its members' energy and determination.38 Many of the Warsaw British consulate-general reports to the embassy in St. Petersburg were sent on by the embassy to the Foreign Office in London,39 some of them with remarks indicating the ambassador's agreement with their contents. Sometimes the ambassador called the report in question "interesting" (Nicolson's term for Murray's report of 12 July 1906 on the Bund), 40 and at times he called particular attention to the report.41 Thus, those reports came to represent the position of the chief British representative in Russia. What Murray and St. Clair wrote on the role of the Jews in revolutionary activity in Russia shows that they adopted as their own the views then current in the Russian

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ruling class and bureaucracy. The revolutionary movement was seen as the handiwork of the Jews; the Jews were the initiators and protagonists, directing and financing a movement aimed at the overthrow of the existing regime.42 Even a moderate politician like Count Sergei Witte, generally thought to be sympathetic to the Jews,43 told Spring Rice that "the Jews are undoubtedly the principal organizers of the extreme socialist parties."44 In his memoirs, Witte wrote that the Jews were "one of the evil factors of our accursed revolution" and that they "played a prominent role in leading the forces of unrest and in fanning the flame of discontent."45 Murray and St. Clair accepted this point of view and transmitted it to their superiors. What Murray wrote about the Bund shows that, despite his lengthy stay in Russia, he took his ideas on the Jews and Jewish socialist organization not from what he had discovered for himself, but from what he was told by the authorities and by Russian and Polish antisemites. It was from them that he took over the notion that to grant equal rights to the Jews would lead to the creation of a socialist republic in Russia.46 Murray also accepted the Russian view on the negative economic role of the Jews in the countryside.47 Indeed, he reported to his superiors in London that the Jews were leeches sucking the blood of the peasants, who were forced to sell them all their agricultural produce in the absence of other buyers.48 This also holds true of the attitude of Murray and St. Clair toward the pogroms. Their reports on the pogroms in Bialystok and Siedlce were simply the official version put out by the Russian authorities, who attributed the events to acts of provocation and aggression perpetrated by revolutionaries identified with the Jews. The pogroms were represented as the response of the angry Christian population to Jewish provocation or as the repression of revolutionary acts and the reaction of police and soldiers to shots fired at them by revolutionaries.49 The British representatives in Warsaw adopted this Russian government version just as they adopted the government contention that the revolutionaries were identical with the Jews.50 Murray and St. Clair were not alone in this. The view of the Russian ruling circles that revolutionaries and Jews were one and the same, and that the Jews were at the head of the revolutionary movement. This was also the position of the diplomats in St. Petersburg. They expressed this view not only by transmitting Murray's and St. Clair's reports to London, but also in their own dispatches to the foreign secretary. Both in his official reports and in his private correspondence, Spring Rice expounded on the active participation of the Jews in the Russian revolutionary movement. In his view, this is the logical result of the Russian government's repressive policy against the Jews, which sows hatred in their hearts and goads them into seeking revenge.51 Like Murray and St. Clair, Spring Rice accepted the official Russian contention that the pogroms were the reaction of the masses and the army to the acts of provocation and aggression of Jews closely connected with radical organizations.52 The attitude of Murray and St. Clair in Warsaw and their superiors in the embassy in St. Petersburg was similar to that of other foreign representatives serving in Russia at the time. Their position on the Jewish role in the revolutionary movement and on the pogroms was the same as that taken, for example, by the ambassadors of Germany and Austro-Mungary in Russia, 53 and by a number of American representatives. 54 The close official and social contacts of the foreign diplomats in Russia

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with the ruling circles and the uppermost stratum in Russian society led them to identify with the views regarding the Jews current in those circles.55 It was easy enough for them to do so since some of them, for example Spring Rice and Murray, had no sympathy with the Jews from the outset, One member of the British Embassy in St. Petersburg, however, Second Secretary Henry Beaumont, had an entirely different opinion on the role of the Jews in the revolutionary movement in Russia in general and in Poland in particular. He toured the Pale of Settlement and the Kingdom of Poland in mid-1905 and then wrote a comprehensive report on the situation of the Jews in Russia. 56 He stated that there was no proof at all that the Jews were the leaders and organizers of the revolutionary movement. On the role of the Jews in the disturbances in Lodz he wrote: In the whole of Lodz there are not as many as 4,000 Jewish factory hands, so that great bodies of workmen ready organized in accidental combination and forming convenient nuclei for a revolutionary movement, do not exist among the Jewish population. As, however, nearly all the recent "revolutionary" manifestations have been manoeuvred by factory hands, to render the Jews alone responsible for the organization of such demonstrations is to suppose an influence over the Christian workmen which there is no reason to believe exists.

On the Bund, too, Beaumont's view was entirely different from Murray's, 57 but he was an exception among the British and other diplomats and his views on the Jewish question were unique. It is open to question whether the British diplomats' reports under discussion here contain any new information on the involvement of the Jews in the socialist movement and anti-government activity in northwest Russia and the Kingdom of Poland in 1905 and 1906, but they may serve as an additional source which casts light on the matter. In any case, it is not our purpose to examine whether, and to what extent, they reflect the real situation. 58 Their importance lies in their showing how the British representatives in Russia perceived the role of the Jews in the Russian revolutionary movement. As we have seen, the picture presented by Murray and St. Clair and also by the ambassador and the charge d'affaires in his absence—in large measure drawing upon the reports from Warsaw—was that the Jews are at the center and even at the head of revolutionary activity in western Russia and the Kingdom of Poland.59 Indeed, the British representatives in Russia presented the Foreign Office with the official Russian position concerning the "Jewish" character of the revolutionary movement. The Foreign Office officials were impressed by these reports. The under-secretary of state for foreign affairs in charge of the East European Department minuted "interesting" on Murray's report of 12 July 1906 devoted to the Bund, which as we have seen included fantastic notions on the Jews of Russia in general and on the Bund in particular: The report was submitted for perusal to the king, the Prince of Wales and the prime minister. The same senior official also found Murray's report of 25 June of that year on the Bialystok pogrom "interesting," and he called attention to its description of Bialystok as the center of the Jewish anarchists. The East European Department official who was the first to handle Murray's report of 29 July 1905 on the events in Lodz summed up its contents under the heading "A

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Socialist movement headed by the Jews," while another official of the same department stressed the passages in a report of Murray's on Jewish acts of provocation against the army and drew his superiors' attention to these passages, without anyone of senior rank making any comment.60 The reports of the British diplomats in Russia constituted the authoritative source for the Foreign Office and the British Government on what was happening in Russia; some of them were submitted for perusal to the king, the Prince of Wales and the prime minister. They therefore played an important role in shaping the views of the British Government on the Jewish question in Russia. The reports from Warsaw and St. Petersburg discussed here contributed to the belief which took root in Foreign Office circles and among central figures in the government that the Jews were playing an active role, if not the central one, in the revolutionary movement in the empire of the Tsars.61 This had important consequences regarding the Foreign Office position on the situation of the Jews in Russia and on the Russian government's policy regarding the Jewish question. The attitude of the British representatives in Russia to the Jews there, as expressed in the reports under discussion, also affected the stand taken by these representatives as well as by the Foreign Office toward the appeals to the British government from Jewish organizations in England to intervene in behalf of the Russian Jews.62

ANNEXES

No. 1 Consul-General Alex. Murray to Sir Charles Hardinge FO 393/22 No. 28 Warsaw, June 29th, 1905 Sir, I have the honour to furnish, for your Excellency's information, a connected and, I believe, reliable account of the disorders which occurred at Lodz at the end of last week.64 To understand what took place it is necessary to shortly recapitulate the sequence of events which led up these disorders, and also to explain their nature. The disorders which have taken place recently at Warsaw, Lodz, and Czenstochova have nothing to do with the Polish question or the Poles as such. Neither have they anything to do with the agitation for a constitution which is being carried on in all parts of the Empire. They are purely Socialistic, directed in part against bureaucratic control and in part against individual property, and partly against the present form of government. The movement is entirely in the hands of the Jews. The leaders would not, however, have been able to bring so many of the working classes, particularly the Poles, into their net were it not for the dire poverty prevailing, but that poverty is in great measure their own doing, caused by the strikes they have brought about intentionally, to the end that the working classes should be the more ready to listen to them. When the Jews were expelled from Russia some twelve years ago65 a very large number

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settled at Lodz where, having for the most part some capita!, they formed formidable competitors to the local Jewish element. Crushing competition in business, the limited number of Jews admitted to educational establishments, the ever-increasing limitations imposed on the Jews by secret circulars, found their effect at first in the spread of Zionism, but the majority of the younger Jews did not believe in it, and took more readily to Socialism, which spread so rapidly that, besides the Jewish federation known as the "Bund" a second local Socialist association called the "Achtes"66 " a second local Socialist association called the "Achtes"66 (individual) [sic] was formed. For some years the Bund and the Achtes have tried to arrange joint demonstrations of the Jewish and Polish working classes at Lodz, but the Poles kept out of them, and the demonstrations, though frequent, were poorly attended, and only by Jews. At the beginning of this year, however, after the troubles at St. Petersburgh,67 a good many labour agitators came to Warsaw and Lodz from St. Petersburgh, and succeeded in bringing about the general strike on the 28th January. At Warsaw, however, as compared with Lodz, only a comparatively small percentage of the population are workers, so the agitators found better ground to work on at the latter town. At the general strike, which began in January, the workmen at Lodz confined themselves to processions about the streets. These processions, of which there were something over a dozen, composed of several thousand factory hands, were perfectly orderly, and the men put forward fairly reasonable demands for shorter hours and increased pay. In most cases the factory owners agreed, and matters seem settling down. Finding, however, that they could not afford the concessions they had promised, various factory owners went back on their word, which led to strike after strike, called forth and arranged for the most part by the agitators from Russia. In the course of these strikes the strikers came several times into collision with the troops, several being killed on each occasion. The police and troops declared that it was the strikers who first attacked them, and that they only fired in selfdefence, but the labour agitators stirred up the men, declaring that the troops had fired and used their whips without provocation. Little by little the men became exasperated against the police, and the authorities generally, and red flags with revolutionary inscriptions were more frequently to be seen in their gatherings. On Sunday the 18th June, there was a demonstration at the Balerty suburb of Lodz in which both Polish workmen and Jews took part. The troops fired on the crowd, killing five and wounding a good many, of whom two died the same night. On Tuesday the 20th, when the killed were to be buried, all factories were stopped, and a crowd of some 30,000 assembled for the funeral. All the bodies, which were lying in different parts of the town, were brought to a central spot, where a general procession was formed. All joined hands, forming one long chain, and black and red flags with revolutionary inscriptions in Polish and Yiddish were carried. The crowd sang: some litanies, others Polish national songs, and others again the Socialistic "Red Standard." The authorities seem to have acted with great forbearance and good sense, and all passed off quietly. On Wednesday, the 21st, it became known in the town that two Jews of those wounded on Sunday had died in the Poznanski Hospital. About 7 P.M. a crowd of about 500, chiefly Jews, assembled at the hospital, demanding the bodies for burial. The police had, however, taken away the bodies earlier and buried them. The crowd then decided to organize a procession through the town, and provided themselves with some forty red and black flags with the usual Polish and Yiddish inscriptions. The workmen, who just at that time were leaving the factories, joined the procession in large numbers, and by the time it reached the centre of the town it already numbered some 20,000, of whom about two-thirds were Jews.

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At the Przeyard Street, in which lives the police-master, the crowd halted and speeches were made. After about a quarter of an hour they moved on, and about 9 P.M. reached the Karol Street. Then the troops stopped them, infantry blocking the way and Cossacks attacking the crowd from the side streets. Firing began, forty Cossacks firing three volleys, and the crowd flew in all directions. Thirteen dead remained on the spot and twenty-two seriously wounded, of whom eight died that night. Thursday, the 22nd, Corpus Christi Day, went off quietly although religious processions went through the streets instead of only round the churchyards as ordered by the Archbishop. The only trouble was in the Jewish quarter where the people began to erect barricades of packing cases, casks, timber, and stones. Several shots were fired, two policemen being wounded and a Cossack killed. Friday, the 23rd, began quietly, but new barricades were built, one on the principal street, the Piotrokowska. Those constructing them were almost without exception women and lads and girls of 14 to 17, hardly a man taking part. About 10:30 A.M. firing began in the Piotrokowska, and the street being full a good many persons were wounded, but within a few moments all the streets were empty and in possession of the troops, who fired volleys at any gathering and single shots at any one seen at a window. They pulled down the barricades which were never for a moment held by the mob, and by the afternoon the town was apparently empty except for the troops. The exact number of casualties it is difficult to state, but the street ambulance registered on the 23rd 23 deaths and 165 seriously wounded. On the 18th they had registered 7 dead and 11 wounded, and on the 21st 13 dead and 22 wounded, making a total for the three days of 43 killed and 198 seriously wounded, which makes the official statement of 93 killed and 216 seriously wounded seem not far from the mark. During the week over 20,000 Jews temporarily abandoned Lodz, but since Friday all has been quiet, and they are beginning to return. The Polish Workingmen's party has issued a Circular calling upon the men not to be led into further trouble by the agitators, and pointing out that they have really gained nothing by these strikes and disorders, and there is a very strong anti-Jewish feeling current which will probably lead to trouble before long. It is a great pity, as hitherto the Poles have had no illfeeling towards the Jews, but it is the Jewish Socialists who have caused it by making tools of the Polish workmen for their own purposes. As a matter of fact the Polish workman is paying for the revolutionary movement in Russia for this is really the continuation of the movement which began at St. Petersburgh in January, although it has been guided latterly by Jewish Socialists. The Russian workman was too down trodden or too apathetic to try again after the stern repression in January, or else there was no one to lead him, but here the movement has been kept up, at first to obtain economic concessions for the workers, and latterly in a Socialistic line as I have explained. . . . I have, etc. Alex. Murray Minutes:66

A Socialist movement headed by the Jews The King Prince of Wales Mr. Balfour DMO

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No. 2

Consul-General Alex. Murray to Sir Charles Hardinge69 FO 393/22 No. 35 Warsaw, July 29, 1905 Sir, . . . during the past few days the strikes in this Consular district have become much more serious. . . . At Messrs. Briggs large wool spinning mills near Warsaw where some 4,500 hands are employed, the strikers made a series of 32 demands, to some of which it was simply impossible for the owners to agree. . . . 1 made very careful enquiries as to who were at the bottom of the strike as the men have no real grievances and here and at Zyrardow [about 25 miles West of Warsaw, textile works in which over 9,000 hands are employed] where they are also on strike, are simply pampered in comparison with those in any other works having all modern luxuries as free libraries, kindergarten, old age asylums, etc. It appears that the leaders of the strike are Poles but that the instigators are Jews who come from Warsaw and meet the leaders secretly in woods in the vicinity. . . . . . . The English manager of some lace works at Warsaw, at which the workmen are almost all Jews, applied to me for advice as, though very popular with the work people, he has been condemned by the Jewish "Bund" as an anti-Semite. I advised him to tell his men and if they could not get the sentence withdrawn to go as he is a married man with a large family of small children and no protection is efficient against the "Bund" which now terrorises not only the whole town but the whole of Western Russia. I have, etc. Alex. Murray

No. 3

Consul-General Alex. Murray to Sir Charles Hardinge70 FO 393/22 No. 37 Warsaw, August 12, 1905 Sir, . . . The police claim to have succeeded in arresting some of the leading members of the Jewish "Bund", but even if it be so this society is too widely spread and too powerful for such arrests to have any real importance. The effect of Socialism, more especially as represented locally by the "Bund" on the poorer classes of Jews is simply extraordinary. Through the feeling of solidarity and mutual support that they have gained from the different local Socialistic organizations their whole character has completely changed. The hitherto humble and timorous Jew now makes use of revolvers and knives as readily as his Christian confrere and is even the more truculent of the two. Besides this, Socialism has brought the Jewish and Polish working classes more together

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and made them more ready to combine against the upper classes, which will act as a considerable check on the anti-Semitic feeling which the authorities and Polish nationalists have been trying to instil into the Polish working classes on the ground that it is the Jews who have made tools of them in the recent strikes and disorders. . . . 1 have, etc. Alex. Murray

No. 4

Consul-General Alex. Murray to Sir Charles Hardinge11 FO 393/22 No. 43 Warsaw, August 26, 1905 Sir, 1 regret to state that the unrest in this Consular district has been gradually increasing, and that the past week was marked by disorders on a considerable scale, particularly at Warsaw. These disorders were not the doing of the people in general, but of the Jewish socialists, who have established a reign of terror, and against whom the authorities have hitherto seemed powerless, but it is to be hoped that the introduction of martial law will at last put a stop to their doings. Their motives are purely political, and they only employ the strikes, in which they inveigle or terrorize the Polish workmen into taking part, as a means by which they hope to force the Government to grant popular representation. . . . . . . I have the honour to report that on ... the 19th, a village officer was killed by a Jew at Sokoloff in the Government of Siedlce. . . . Warsaw has, however, been the centre of disturbance during the last week. . . . August 21 ... In the evening slight collisions took place between the troops and the socialists at two points, at one of which a girl raised a red flag and a crowd began to collect, and at another where the police and troops prevented a crowd from making their way from the Jewish quarter into the richer parts of the town. During the night a crowd of armed Jews attacked the military camp at Bialany, just outside the town, with the object of seizing the military treasure chest. They evidently knew that on account of the general strike all the troops, with the exception of one company, had been sent into Warsaw. They succeeded in killing the sentries, but the remainder of the company, using their bayonets as they had no cartridges, dispersed them with a loss of six killed and nineteen wounded. . . . August 25 ... On Friday morning, the 25th August, martial law of the strictest kind . . . was proclaimed. . . . It is to be hoped that under these new conditions the authorities may at last be able to get the better of the Jewish socialists, and re-establish order. . . . I have, etc. Alex. Murray

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No. 5 Sir Charles Hardinge to Lord Lansdowne FO 65/1702 No. 510 St. Petersburgh, August 29th, 1905 My Lord, According to the latest reports from His Majesty's Consul-General at Warsaw, the state of affairs in Poland grows steadily worse. During the week ended the 19th August acts of violence by the revolutionary associations were rife, not only against ill-doers, but as acts of vengeance against persons who had offended. . . . Jews had seditious meetings in the country districts and practised revolver shooting. It is unnecessary to mention in detail all the strikes that took place during that week. It is enough to say that there were several, and that a general strike of one day was ordered on the 18th as an expression of sympathy for those killed in a somewhat serious disturbance which took place at Bialystok on the 12th instant. This began by some Jews throwing a bomb into the middle of a patrol of soldiers, and ended in the death of forty persons (all Jews) and injuries to more than 100 others. . . . I have the honour to transmit herewith copy of an interesting despatch from Mr. Murray on the events of the week ended Saturday last, the 26th instant. . . , 72 The Jewish socialists made the recent Imperial Manifesto, 73 with which they are dissatisfied, a pretext for a general strike, thus adhering to their policy of making use of their power in purely economic matters to further their political objects. This strike, though not entirely successful in its extent, appears to have paralysed all industry pretty effectually in most departments, and to have been the cause of more than the usual amount of disorder, violence and bloodshed. . . . I have, etc. Charles Hardinge

No. 6 Consul-General Alex. Murray to Sir Edward Grey FO 371/125 No. 2 Warsaw, June 17, 1906 Sir, I have the honour to report that on Thursday last, ihe 14th June, serious riots occurred at Bialystok, in this Consular district. This being the fete of Corpus Christi and also the anniversary of the union of the Uniat Church to Orthodoxy, processions of both religions were passing along the streets, when they were fired upon by Jews from two different houses. The people, exasperated against the Jews by a long course of terrorizing to compel them to strike, bomb-throwing, assassinations, and acts of violence, Bialystok being the centre of the Jewish anarchical and red socialistic parties, threw themselves on the Jews, and before the

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authorities, who, fearing some such occurrence, held troops in readiness, could interfere, Jew-beating was taking place throughout the town. With the aid of the troops the authorities soon put a stop to it, and, despite accounts from Jewish sources, little damage appears to have been done. On the following day further riots took place, but on a smaller scale, and order appears to be already restored. I have, etc. Alex. Murray Minutes:14 From this it appears, in spite of reports to the contrary effect in the press, that the Jews did open fire on the procession, further that the newspaper accounts have been grossly exaggerated and that order is now restored. Rg [Graham] Consul-General Murray does not appear to have been at Bialystok himself and his account must have been supplied from some source not mentioned. EG [Sir Eldon Gorst] I can hardly think that Mr. Murray's despatch is a correct account of the situation at Bialystok. He only mentions Jew-beating and makes no reference to any loss of life. CH [Charles Hardinge] Seen by Sir E. Grey

No. 7

Consul-General Alex. Murray to Sir Edward Grey75 FO 371/126 No. 3 Warsaw, June 25, 1906 Sir, . . . Lithuania comprises 3 governments of Vilno, Kovno and Grodno, but in fact, as far as the political feelings go, Vilno and Kovno with Suwalki, with a population of Lithuanian peasants, differ from Grodno and Minsk with a White Russian population who practically are solid with the central Russian Governments. The large percentage of Jews, however, in these two governments causes them to have a greater leavening of Socialism than the Russian Governments. . . . The Town of Bialystok, in the Government of Grodno, is the plague spot of this consular district, being the head centre of red Socialism and anarchy, both of which are in the hands of the Jews. Not a day passes but some outrage takes place, and the rule of terror is more complete than anywhere else, industry being practically paralysed. . . . I have, etc. Alex, Murray

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Minutes:16 An interesting despatch. Note what he says as to Bialystok being the centre of Jewish anarchists. EG [Sir Eldon Gorst]

No. 8

Sir Arthur Nicolson to Sir Edward Grey FO 371/127 No. 448 St. Petersburgh, July 16, 1906 Sir, I have the honour to transmit to you herewith an interesting Report on the Jewish revolutionary society known as the "Bund," which has been furnished me by His Majesty's Consul-General at Warsaw. 1 have, &c. A. Nicolson Consul-General Alex, Murray to Sir Arthur Nicolson (Enclosed in above) No. 31 Warsaw, July 12, 1906 Sir, I have the honour to forward, for your Excellency's information, a Report on the Jewish revolutionary society known as the "Bund,'' which is now probably the most powerful organization of the kind in the whole Empire. I have, &c. Alex. Murray

Report on the Jewish Revolutionary Society The most important revolutionary society in Russia at the present time is that known as the "Bund." It is important as a strong opponent of the Russian Government, but more important on account of the transformation it has effected in the character of the Jewish population of Russia, especially in the west. Its head-quarters are at Bialystok, and up to 1900 it worked chiefly amongst the Jews in Lithuania and Minsk, but in that year it transferred its chief efforts to Poland. The soil there was well prepared to receive it, for signs of a political revival, engendered by a desire to assert Jewish nationalism, had already made their appearance. Its revolutionary programme, like those of the other revolutionary parties, includes the overthrow of Czardom, the establishment of a Democratic Government, a National Assembly chosen by universal direct suffrage, nationalization of the land, &c., but its speciality, which appeals so strongly to the Jewish masses, is a demand for autonomy for the Jews as such, and the removal of all disabilities and differences between them and the rest of the population.

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What the Jews mean by autonomy is the renewal to a certain extent of the special privileges granted them in Poland, in 1264, by King Boleslas.77 The chief of these were: 1. In cases against a Jew, Christian evidence was not sufficient; there had also to be Jewish witnesses against him. 2. Jews, in quarrels amongst themselves, were not subjected to the Polish Tribunals, but to their own. 3. Jews were not to pay higher taxes than the townspeople. Besides these, there were a number of provisions protecting the Jews in their business as pawnbrokers, and inflicting special punishment on any Christian who might molest them. The most important point to the Jews, and that which they are most anxious to obtain again, was the self-government in judicial matters. Up to 1900 the principal propaganda amongst the Jews in Poland were Sionism and assimilation, but neither appealed very strongly to the masses. The Bund, however, struck the right chord. Instead of saying, like the Sionists, "Go somewhere else to make a fresh start," or, like the Assimilators, "Try to become like the Poles," they said, "Stay where you are and try to better your Jot by mutual co-operation and support." Its first work was to educate the masses, to which end it translated into Yiddish foreign Socialist pamphlets and works, and gave them the widest circulation amongst the lowest and most ignorant classes. These people, until then utterly benighted, thus came to know of what had been done to better the lot of the working classes elsewhere, and began to think why they too should not have shorter hours, better pay, &c. The Bund then taught them how to get these things by means of strikes, to which the people took very kindly, finding that their employers had to give in to them. The Bund uses strikes for two purposes, to gain adherents amongst those who are eager for better conditions, and find they have nothing to lose by striking, as they are usually able to extort strike pay, and to accustom the working classes to strike when called upon, as the Bund looks to giving the coup de grace to the present Government when the right moment comes by a general strike, which would paralyse all movement throughout the Empire. Besides this, strikes further the Bund's ends by leading towards the economic ruin of the country, in which the Bund thinks its best chance of building up the system it desires will lie. The Bund does not confine its propaganda to Jews. It devotes a great part of its energies to propaganda amongst the troops, but with indifferent success, as anti-Semitism is inherent to Russian lower classes. Still the Bund, working through Jewish conscripts, get a hearing, as they are able to put in a word with their comrades when an outsider would not be listened to at all. Witness the recent mutiny in the guards regiments at St. Petersburgh, of which Jewish bandsmen were the instigators. The large majority of the Bund's adherents are of the younger generation, and there is quite a split amongst the Jews between those of over and those of under thirty or thereabouts, the elder generation not believing that the Bund can effect the amelioration in their lot it promises. The deeds of violence void of political motive, which are now so common, are the fault of the Bund as, finding it necessary for their own purposes to arm the masses, they distributed revolvers to all who asked, and these people, once in possession of arms, use them for their own ends as well as in the service of the Bund. When the Bund began its work it found the Jewish masses such as we know them, terrified at the sight of a fire-arm or raised fist, timid to the last degree, cowards of the first water. The leaders realized that this physical cowardice was a great drawback to the success of an

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enterprise which required courage and daring, so they began to form what they called "armed groups" of picked men to protect meetings and the unarmed from the police or soldiers. It also encourages open-air meetings as tending to accustom the Jewish proletariat to danger and the use of fire-arms. To any one who applies they not only supply a revolver of the "Browning" system, but also teach them to use it. Little by little they attain their end, and now the police are in terror of those very Jews whom only five or six years ago they bullied to their hearts' content, arid even the troops recognise them as an enemy whose guerilla tactics have to be taken seriously. One result of the action of the Bund in Poland is the birth rather than the growth of antiSemitism, which formerly did not exist there. As the Jews, encouraged by the Bund, gradually felt more sure of themselves, they took less pains to hide their hatred of the Christians, and these latter, finding that the Jews showed a feeling of enmity towards themselves, which they had not up till then realized or suspected, began to reciprocate it. The consequence is that a strong anti-Semitic feeling is now current in Western Russia, which will certainly lead to trouble sooner or later. At the same time the excellence of the organization and working of the Bund, the traditional solidarity of Jews and the strong racial feeling which has risen amongst them have created a new revolutionary, separatist nationality, to be dealt with in Central Europe, which can but gather strength and importance as time goes on, as all the elements which had to make a strong national movement are present, persecution from without, characteristic gregariousness chiefly the result of persecution, which leads to collective action, and the fact that each individual has everything to gain by clinging to his co-religionists and race. The Bund appeals through and to all that which the Jews hold dear, through the Yiddish, which is their real language, to the latent ambitions and anti-Christianism of the masses. The Bund appeals to the people in a way they understand, and offers them that of which they most feel the need, and shows them how to get it. The Bund, then, has to be considered, not only as a revolutionary force against Czardom but also as the creation of a new race to be reckoned with. Minutes:1*

The King; Pee of Wales Prime Minister Lord Ripon Interesting EG [Sir Eldon Gorst CH [Sir Charles Hardinge] EG [Sir Edward Grey]

No. 9

Consul-General Alex, Murray to Sir Arthur Nicolson19 FO 371/127 No. 50 Warsaw, September 21, 1906 Sir, I regret that I am unable to report any progress towards the re-establishment of order in this Consular district during the last fortnight.

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A massacre of the Jews at Siedlce, which was almost inevitable, was the principal occurrence. A similar massacre is pretty certain to occur at the place to which the Jewish revolutionary organization transfer their head-quarters. They first chose Bialystok as a town, the greater part of the population of which are Jews, whence several railway lines radiate, and where the police and local authorities were notoriously inefficient. For a long time they did very much as they liked, but a long series of assassinations and outrages and the extra and unpleasant police work entailed thereby on the troops brought matters at last to a crisis, and they were driven out with fire and sword, the innocent Jewish inhabitants being as usual the chief sufferers. As hornets smoked out of their nest soon arrange another near by, the revolutionaries established themselves at Siedlce, a town with, from their point of view, the same advantages as Bialystok. History repeated itself, and they have now to find a new nest which will probably be Brest, which has the same advantages for them as Bialystok and Siedlce, or it may be that they return to Bialystok. Radom is less probable, as, though a notorious Socialist centre, the Christian element predominates, and it is not a railway junction. Warsaw is considered unsuitable as a centre as the authorities there are too active and ubiquitous. There was a general expectation of a Jewish massacre at Warsaw on or about the 20th instant, the Jewish New Year, but it was averted by the, action of the authorities who replaced by fresh troops from the provinces those of the Warsaw garrison who were goaded beyond endurance by excessive policy duty and the murder of their comrades. . . . For months the troops and police have been sorely tried by almost incessant police duty, exposed to assassination at any moment without being allowed to hit back. I do not believe that any troops in the world would have shown such endurance and forbearance as the Guards' Division at Warsaw. There is, however, a limit to all human endurance, and, as successive outrages occurred, the troops, more especially the Volhynian Regiment, became more and more difficult to restrain. When the attempt to assassinate the Governor-General was made on the 20th ultimo, the officers of the Hussars had to harangue their men for two hours before they could dissuade them from setting out with rifles to revenge themselves on the local population. The Volhynian Regiment are especially bitter about the assassination of their comrades, private soldiers. On the other side the Anarchists openly proclaimed their intention of provoking a massacre and murdering the foreign Consuls to bring about foreign intervention which, they believed, would take the form of forcing the Russian Government to grant such reforms, for instance, equality to the Jews, as would lead very shortly to the Socialistic republic they desire. . . 1 have, &c. Alex, Murray Minutes:*0 See passages marked. [These passages arc printed here in italics—Ed.] A.P. [Alwyn ParkerJ RPM[Richard P. Maxwell]

EG [Sir Eldon Gorst] EG [Sir Edward Grey]

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Reports from British Diplomats in Russia No. 10

Sir Arthur Nicolson to Sir Charles Hardinge FO 800/337 (Nicolson Papers)

St. Petersburgh, September 24, 1906 My dear Hardinge, The fears as to a pogrom at Warsaw and attacks on the Consuls were happily not realised but I should not be surprised to hear any day of the troops and police at Warsaw getting out of hand. I would recommend to you a despatch from Murray at Warsaw which I am sending by this bag.81 The Government are doing all that is possible to prevent any pogroms, but it would be unfair to shut one's eyes to the fact that the troops and police have received very great provocation. The Jews have undoubted and great grievances; and there is no doubt that these should be remedied as far as possible; but the younger Jews in great majority are anarchists and social revolutionaries and have of late been implicated in the daily assassination of soldiers and police—to what extent it would be difficult to prove, as the perpetrators almost invariably escape. The list of soldiers and of police who have been killed within the last few months sum up to some hundreds. . . . Yours A. Nicolson

Notes 1. These reports are in the Foreign Office files (henceforth FO) in the Public Record Office, London. I use them by kind permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, by whose permission some of them are reproduced below. 2. Murray to Sir Charles Hardinge, British Ambassador in St. Petersburg, 17 April and 12 August 1905, FO 393/22. 3. Anti-Jewish sentiments within the upper class in England were widespread at this time. See Gisella C. Lebzelter, Political Anti-Semitism in England 1918-1939 (London: 1978); Colin Holmes, Anti-Semitism in British Society 1876-1939 (London: 1979). Antisemitism was also common among Foreign Office people (Cf. Zara Steiner, "The Foreign Office Under Sir Edward Grey, 1905-1914," in F. H. Kinsley [ed.] British Foreign Policy Under Sir Edward Grey [Cambridge: 1977], p. 65). The heads of the British Embassy in St. Petersburg, Ambassador Hardinge and Councillor Cecil Spring Rice, were also not free of antisemitic attitudes. On Hardinge's views see Sir Sidney Lee, King Edward VII, vol. 11 (London: 1927), pp. 594-595; Philip Magnus, King Edward the Seventh (London: 1964), pp. 406-407; Firuz Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia 1864-1914 (London: 1968), pp. 504-505. On Spring Rice, see Stephen Gwynn (ed.), The Letters and Friendships of Sir Cecil Spring Rice, 2 vols. (London: 1929), vol. 1, pp. 226, 233, 236, 239; vol. II, pp. 56, 158, 170-171, 219, 240^245, 247-248, 269, 285, 309, 312, 337, 373. 4. Murray to Hardinge, 29 July 1905, No, 35, FO 393/22 [Annexes, No. 2J. 5. Murray to Hardinge, 29 June 1905, No. 28, FO 393/22 [Annexes, No. 1]. 6. The dates given here are those of the Gregorian Calendar, which the British representatives used in their reports. The Julian Calendar still in use in Russia was thirteen days behind the Gregorian; for certain events in Russia both dates are given here, for example, 9/22 January (Julian/Gregorian). 7. Murray to Hardinge, 12 May 1905, No. 18; St. Clair to Hardinge, 22 May 1905, No. 19; 3 June 1905, No. 21; 10 June 1905, No. 24, FO 393/22.

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8. St. Clair to Hardinge, 3 June 1905, No. 21, FO 393/22. 9. See the report referred to in n. 4 above. 10. Murray to Hardinge, 26 August 1905, No. 43, FO 393/22 [Annexes, No. 41; Murray to Sir Edward Grey (foreign secretary from December 1905), 17 June 1905, No. 2, FO 371/125 [Annexes, No. 6], 11. Murray to Hardinge, 25 April 1905, No. 13; 24 June 1905, No. 25, FO 393/22; St. Clair to Lord Lansdowne (foreign secretary till December 1905), 28 October 1905, No. 37, FO 65/1714. 12. Murray to Hardinge, 28 October 1905, No. 57, FO 393/22. 13. Murray to Hardinge, 17 June 1905, No. 24; 15 July 1905, No. 32; 23 August 1905, No. 41, FO 393/22. 14. Murray to Hardinge, 19 August 1905, No. 40, FO 393/22. 15. Murray to Hardinge, 17 June 1905, No. 24; 24 June 1905, No. 25; 1 July 1905, No. 29; 15 July 1905, No. 32; 23 August 1905, No. 41; 26 August 1905, No. 43 [Annexes, No. 4]; 14 October 1905, No. 53, FO 393/22. 16. Murray to Hardinge, 29 June 1905, No. 28, FO 393/22 [Annexes, No. 1]; Murray to Grey, 25 June 1906, No. 3, FO 371/126 [Annexes, No. 7]. 17. Murray to Sir Arthur Nicolson (who replaced Hardinge as ambassador to Russia in May 1906), 24 July 1906, No. 33 (enclosed in Nicolson to Grey, 26 July 1906, No. 483, FO 371/127); 15 December 1906, No. 60 (enclosed in Nicolson to Grey, 19 December 1906, No. 824, FO 371/127). 18. Murray to Hardinge, 26 August 1905, No. 43, FO 393/22 [Annexes, No. 4]; Murray to Grey, 17 June 1906, No. 2, FO 371/125 [Annexes, No. 6]. 19. See, for example, Istoriia SSSR, vol. 11 (Moscow: 1965), pp. 412-413. See also n. 21. 20. Murray to Hardinge, 29 June 1905, No. 28, FO 393/22 [Annexes, No. 1]. And sec also Murray to Hardinge, 24 June 1905, No. 25, FO 393/22. 21. On Jewish participation in the disturbances of June 1905 in Lodz and on the disturbances themselves from the point of view of the Bund, see A. Volf Yasny, Geshikhte fun der yidisher arbeter bavegung in Lodz, 1937, pp. 373-421; Y. Sh. Herts, Di geshikhte fun Bund in Lodz (New York: 1958), pp. 138-150. 22. St. Clair to Lansdowne, 4 November 1905, No. 38, FO 65/1714. 23. Thus, for example, Murray reported to Hardinge that the Bund organized a strike and demonstration in Kielce (the chief city in the province of that name in Poland) as a result of which the soldiers fired on the demonstrators (dispatch of 8 July 1905, No. 31, FO 393/22). Hardinge repeated this in his report to Lansdowne on the situation in Poland (dispatch of 13 July 1905, No. 439, FO 65/1701). St. Clair reported to Lansdowne that it was mainly Bundists who made revolutionary speeches to a meeting of thousands of workers in Warsaw after the publication of the Imperial Manifesto of 17/30 October 1905, which granted basic civil liberties and provided for the election of the legislative Duma. See the report referred to in n. 22. 24. Murray to Nicolson, 12 July 1906, No. 31 (enclosed in Nicolson to Grey, 16 July 1906, No. 448, FO 371/127) [Annexes No. 8], 25. This was the first privilege granted to the Jews in Poland and it served as the basis for all subsequent privileges. See Bernard D. Weinryb, The Jews of Poland (Philadelphia: 1976), pp. 33ff. 26. See the report referred to in n. 24 as well as the following reports: Murray to Lansdowne, 30 January 1905, No. 7; 27 April 1905, No. 25, FO 65/1714; Murray to Hardinge, 29 July 1905, No. 35 [Annexes, No. 2]; 12 August 1905, No. 37 [Annexes, No. 3 FO 393/22. Murray was impressed by the new type of Jew, transformed by the influence of the Bund into a brave and daring fighter, but his admiration did not prevent him from noting contemptuously that Jews allowed a few hundred rioters to kill them and their wives and children and to pillage without lifting a hand to defend themselves. Murray to Grey, 25 June 1906, No. 4, FO 371/125. 27. Murray to Nicolson, 24 July 1906, No. 33 (enclosed in Nicolson to Grey, 26 July 1906, No. 483, FO 371/127).

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28. Murray to Hardinge, 12 August 1905, No. 37, FO 393/22 [Annexes, No. 3], 29. Murray to Hardinge, 27 June 1905, No. 27, FO 393/22; Murray to Grey, 17 June 1906, No. 2, FO 371/125 [Annexes, No. 6J; 6 October 1906, No. 51, FO 371/127. 30. This pogrom is hardly mentioned at all in the literature. See Leo Motzkin, ed., Die Judenpogromen in Russland, vol. 2 (Cologne/Leipzig: 1910), pp. 60-69. 31. Murray to Hardinge, 19 August 1905, No. 40, FO 393/22. 32. Murray to Grey, 17 June 1906, No. 2, FO 371/125 (Annexes, No. 6]; 25 June 190 No. 3, FO 371/126 [Annexes, No. 7J. In an additional report of 25 June when, according to Murray, it was already possible to throw more light on what had happened in Biaiystok, he wrote to Grey that he had nothing to add to what he had reported on 17 June, that is to say he confirmed the account he had given in his first report, though this time he added that about one hundred people had been killed in the pogrom, nine tenths of whom were Jews. He also added that it was impossible to evaluate the material damage since the Jews usually greatly exaggerate the damage done: Murray to Grey, 25 June 1906, No. 4, FO 371/125. The Biaiystok pogrom was the subject of extensive correspondence between the Foreign Office in London and the embassy in Russia, the result of appeals from the leaders of Anglo-Jewry to the foreign secretary to intervene on behalf of the Jews of Russia. The British consul-general in Warsaw took no part in this correspondence. 33. St. Clair to Grey, 10 September 1906, No. 8; 12 September 1906, No. 9, FO 371/128. Murray expected that Jewish "acts of provocation" would also lead to pogroms elsewhere; see his dispatches to Nicolson of 21 September 1906, No. 50 (enclosed in Nicolson to Grey, 25 September 1906, No. 652 [Annexes, No. 9); 6 October 1906, No. 51 (enclosed in Nicolson to Grey, 10 October 1906, No. 679, FO 371/127). See also Murray to Hardinge, 27 June 1905, FO 393/22. 34. Hardinge to Lansdowne, 15 August 1905, No. 499, FO 65/1702. 35. Hardinge to Lansdowne, 29 August 1905, No. 510, FO 65/1702 [Annexes, No. 5J. 36. See n. 33; Nicolson to Hardinge (appointed permanent under-secretary of state at the beginning of 1906), 24 September 1906, private, FO 800/337 [Annexes, No. 10]. 37. Spring Rice to Grey, 11 April 1906, No. 254, FO 371/124. See also n. 23. 38. Nicolson to Grey, 14 October 1906, No. 690, FO 371/129. 39. See n. 17, 22, 25, 31; also Hardinge to Lansdowne, 28 June 1905, No. 408 and 29 June 1905, No. 412 (forwarding Murray's reports of 24 June 1905, No. 25, and 27 June 1905, No. 27), FO 65/1701. 40. Nicolson to Grey, 16 July 1906, No. 448, FO 371/127 [Annexes, No. 8]. 41. Nicolson to Grey, 25 September 1906, No. 652, FO 371/127. 42. On the views of the Tsar in this matter see Spring Rice to Grey, 3 January 1906, private, FO 800/72; the diary of General Alexei Kuropatkin, Krasnyi arkhiv, vol. 2 (1972), p. 43. On the attitudes of members of the, bureaucracy of various ranks see, for example, the very interesting memorandum to the Tsar from the Russian foreign minister, Count V. N. Lamsdorff, published in English translation by 1 Aicien Wolf, Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question (London: 1919), pp. 57-62; the report of the chief of the security police in Bessarabia of 27 April 1903 to the head of the Police Department in the Ministry of Interior on the pogrom which had taken place in Kishinev, in the collection of documents edited by Sh. Dubnov and J. Krasny-Admoni, Materialy dlia istorii antievreiskikhpogromov v Rossii, vol. I (Petrograd: 1919), p. 149. 43. See my article, "Ha-minshar mi-yom 17 be-oktober 1905, ha-rozcn Vite, vehasheela ha-yehudit be-rusiya," Sefer Raphael Mahler (Merhavia: 1974), pp. 113-137. 44. Spring Rice to Lansdowne, 9 November 1905, private, FO 800/141. 45. Sergei Witte, The Memoirs of Count Witte (New York: 1921), pp. 377, 381. 46. See on this subject the Lamsdorff memorandum referred to in n. 42. 47. See lu. Gessen, Istoriia evreiskago narodu v Kosxii, vols. I-I1 (Leningrad: 192527), passim; Hans Roggcr, "Government, Jews, Peasants and Land in Post-emancipation Russia," Cahiers du monde russe et .wvietique, XVII (1976), pp. 2-25, 171-211. 48. Murray to Lansdowne, 29 December 1903. No. 1, FO 65/1669. Murray was referring mainly to the southwest of the country; in his consular district, he wrote, the peasants

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suffered less from the Jews, although the latter were more numerous there than in other parts of Russia, since peasants also have other means of livelihood. 49. See the newspapers of the day, both Jewish and non-Jewish; G. Lavrinovich, Kto ustroil pogromy v Rossii? (Berlin: n.d.), chap. 5; the collection already referred to, Die Judenpogromen in Russland, vol. I, pp. 260ff. 50. At the end of 1903 Murray was of the opinion that the real reason for the attacks on the Jews was the Jews' exploitation of the peasants, while the religious factor, made use of by the instigators of the pogroms, served the peasants merely as a pretext for attacking their exploiters. See his report to Lansdowne referred to in n. 48. The exploitation by the Jews of the Christian population, and mainly the peasants, was the official explanation of the pogroms in the 1880s after the assassination of Alexander II. See the report of the interior minister of that time, Count N. Ignatiev, sent to Tsar Alexander III; published by lu. Gessen in the periodical Pravo, 1908, no. 30, pp. 1,632-1,633. See also the documentary collection (n. 42) on the pogroms in Russia, vol. II (Petrograd: 1922), no. 67, pp. 384-386; and Sh. Ettinger, "Ha-diyun ba-nizul ha-yehudi be-da'at ha-kahal ha-russit shel reshit shnot hashmonim la-meah ha-19," Prakim be-toldot ha-hevrah ha-yehudit biym.ei-ha-beinaim uva-'et ha-hadashah, mukdashim le-professor Ya'akov Katz bi-mlot lo shiv'im ve-hamesh shanah (Jerusalem: 1980), pp. 287-307. 51. Spring Rice to Lansdowne, 9 November 1905, private, FO 800/141; to Grey, 29 March 1906, private, FO 800/72; to his school companion, Oswald Simon, a leader of Anglo-Jewry, 20 January 1906, in Gwynn, Letters and Friendships (see n. 3), vol. 2, pp. 27-29. 52. Spring Rice to Lansdowne, 9 November 1905, No. 650, FO 65/1703; to the wife of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, 27 November 1905, Gwynn, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 12-13. 53. See Hans Heilbronner, "Count Aerenthal and Russian Jewry, 1903-1907, "Journal of Modern History XXXVIII (December 1966), pp. 394-406. 54. See Spencer Eddy (charge d'affaires in U.S. Embassy in St. Petersburg) to Elihu Root (U.S. secretary of state) 5 November 1905 (cable); 6 November 1905, No. 251 — National Archives, Dispatches, Russia, vol. 64; George von L. Meyer (U.S. ambassador in Russia) to Root, 20 December 1905, No. 358, ibid., vol. 65. 55. See the statement by Nicolson's son and biographer, Harold Nicolson, Sir Arthur Nicolson, Bart., First Lord Carnock (London: 1930), pp. 225. 56. The survey by Beaumont was forwarded by Hardinge to Lansdowne enclosed in his dispatch of 18 July 1905, No. 449, FO 65/1701. 57. In the above-mentioned survey, Beaumont wrote on the Bund: "The Jewish socialdemocratic Bund is undoubtedly a powerful organization for the communication of news, but whether it is an effective revolutionary machine is at least open to question." 58. As yet there has been no exhaustive and objective research on Jewish involvement in the revolutionary movement in Russia in general and in the events of 1905 in particular. See, from the Bund's point of view, the essay by Y. Sh. Herts, "Di ershte ruslender revolutsye," in the collection referred to above, Di geshikhte fun Bund (an official publication of the organization), vol. 2, pp. 8-482, especially pp. 167-318. See also Henry J. Tobias, The Jewish Bund in Russia (Stanford: 1972), pp. 295-332; Jonathan Frankel, Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism and the Russian Jews 1862-1917 (Cambridge: 1981); Frankel, Jewish Politics and the Russian Revolution of 1905, Spiegel Lectures in European Jewish History, No. 4 (Tel-Aviv University: 1982). Although Frankel deals with the political positions of the Jews of Russia in 1905, he also comments on their attitude to the Russian revolutionary movement. See also the data on the number of Jews among the delegates to the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Party in 1907 in David Lane, The Roots of Russian Communism (Philadelphia: 1968), p. 44, table 12 and in Di geshikhte fun bund, p. 395; also the data on the number of Jews among political prisoners given by E. Cherikover in his article, "Yidn-revolutsioncren in russland," Historishe shriftn III (Vilna/Paris: 1939), p. 129 a n d n . 251. 59. Reports on Jewish participation in revolutionary activity in Russia also reached the Foreign Office from other places in Russia. Thus from Riga (Consul Woodhousc to Grey, 27

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August 1906, No. 15, FO 371/128); from Kerch, (Consul Medhurst to Grey, 2 September 1906, FO 371/128); from Odessa (Consul-General Smith to Grey, 5 December 1906, No. 64, FO 371/127); but these reports are far fewer in number. 60. See nn. 24, 32, 20, 33. 61. In fact, others spread these ideas as well in English ruling circles and in public opinion. They included English journalists in Russia and Russians in England. On the activity of a member of the Russian aristocracy, Olga Novikoff, who lived in England for many years and carried on propaganda on behalf of the Russian government and its policies, internal and foreign, including its policy toward the Jews, see William T. Stead (ed.), The M.P. for Russia—Reminiscences and Correspondence of Madame Olga Novikoff, 2 vols. (London: 1909); Joseph C. Baylen, "Madame Olga Novikov, Propagandist," American Slavic and East European Review X (1951), pp. 255-271. 62. See my article "Pra'ot 1905 bi-fe'ilut ha-diplomatit ha-britit," He-'avar XXII (1976), pp. 65-66, 69. 63. The report was forwarded by Hardinge to Lansdowne enclosed in his dispatch of 3 June 1905, No. 417, FO 65/1701. 64. See p. 183. 65. The reference is to the explusion of the Jews from Moscow in 1891-92. Many of these Jews did settle in Lodz. 66. This is a corruption of the Hebrew name Akhdes (unity). This is what the Bund and its affiliated trade unions were called in a number of places, mainly in Lodz. See Herts, Di geshikhte fun Bund in Lodz, pp. 73ff. Murray thought these were two separate organizations, and he did not grasp the meaning of the name Akhdes. 67. The reference is to the events of 9/22 January 1905 in St. Petersburg. 68. The name of the Foreign Office official who wrote the minute is not given. The list of persons indicates to whom the reports were sent. Arthur Balfour was then Prime Minister. The initials D.M.O. stand for Director of Military Operations. 69. From the report for the week ending 28 July. 70. From the report for the week ending 12 August. 71. The report was forwarded by Hardinge to Lansdowne, enclosed in his dispatch of 29 August, No. 510, FO 65/1702 [Annexes, No. 5]. 72. The reference is to the report from Murray to Hardinge of 26 August 1905, No. 43. See Annexes, No. 4 above. 73. The reference is to the Imperial Decree of 6/19 August 1905 regarding arrangements for the establishment of a consultative Duma, in accordance with the Imperial Rescript to the Minister of the Interior Bulygin of 18 February/3 March 1905. 74. The Foreign Office officials who minuted the report were: R. W. Graham, Acting Assistant Chief Clerk in the East European Department; Sir Eldon Gorst, in charge of this department; Sir Charles Hardinge, the permanent under-secretary of state for foreign affairs. 75. From the report on the political situation in the consular district of Warsaw. 76. On Sir Eldon Gorst, who minuted on this report, sec n. 74. 77. See n. 25. 78. The persons whose names are noted in the minutes are those to whom the report was submitted for perusal. The then-prime minister was Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman; Lord Ripon was Lord Privy Seal. For the Foreign Office personnel who commented, see n. 74. 79. Enclosed in Nicolson to Grey, 25 September 1905, No. 652. 80. The Foreign Office personnel who minuted and initialled the report were: Elvin Parker, a clerk in the East European Department; Richard P. Maxwell, the chief clerk in the department; Sir Eldon Gorst; Sir Edward Grey. 81. The reference is to the report from Murray of 21 September, No. 50, FO 371/127 [Annexes, No. 9).

Paths to Jewish Social History Lloyd P. Gartner (TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY)

It comes as no news to anyone who pays attention to historical scholarship that social history, or the new social history as it is frequently called, has become the most prominent trend in the craft of history of the present generation. The term itself, while not hard to define, is now applied to a vast number of subjects. Beginning perhaps around 1930 with the exemplary studies of two Frenchmen, Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, social history took wing after the Second World War, during which Bloch himself was put to death by the Germans for membership in the French underground. Why social history has achieved its present predominance is by no means clear. No doubt one reason has to do with the disrepute of German historicism after the Nazi era, when that doctrine was perceived as justifying the flow of events and morally exalting the state, any state. Perhaps, too, history as then written in the scientific empirical manner seemed heavy with facts and lacking in moral imagination, at a time when Western man appeared to be losing his humanity to the supremacy of technology, and man under despotic systems was being crushed by the state. Social history inherently contains an anti-political implication: The societies of mankind rather than the states which rule them should rightly be the subjects of study. Social history has readily drawn on the social sciences, especially sociology, anthropology and demography, and it resorts freely to the computer. The social historian can feel himself part of the contemporary intellectual scene even as he delves into sometimes arcane areas of research. For such reasons and others, there is no doubt that social history today, at least for historians themselves, is the most attractive among the various fields of history. Social history in the sense of simply describing "how we lived" is dismissed by today's social historians. Thus, the History of American Life in twelve volumes, edited during the 1930s by Dixon Ryan Fox and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., while an important pathbreaker and by no means purely descriptive, is far from exemplifying the contemporary field, and even less so the Social England series edited by H. D. Traill at the turn of the present century. Nor will anyone today accept Trevelyan's once usable definition, popular though it proved for his English Social History, that social history is "history of a people with the politics left out." The counterpart in Jewish history is such fine old works as Israel Abraham's Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (London: 1896) and Abraham Berliner's Aus dem. Leben der deutschen Juden im Mittelalter (Berlin: 1900). With all their virtues, these are

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purely descriptive works. They employ literary sources only and raise few if any of the questions which interest contemporary social historians. One could assemble quite a list of such works. Social history is the history of a society and is distinct from the history of the state within which it exists. 1 Social institutions in their structure and actual functioning, including marriage and the family, as well as social classes and material conditions of life are included. Historical demography is a notable component of social history, while economic history is separate but closely linked. Social history in its varieties flourishes where society is distinct from the state, or more than that, where the state is the instrument of society and not the converse. To those who have regarded society as formed and sustained by the state, social history may hold little interest. The German historian Friedrich Meinecke (1862-1954), whose interest lay in the intellectual basis of political history, spoke from such an outlook when he wrote scornfully of the history of civilization, now called social history, as "nothing but a colorful book of mores . . . and material factors of external life, down to eating and drinking habits." This "petty-bourgeois, pleasureseeking interest" was traceable to the detested Voltaire, and by obvious implication the serious historian must have more serious subjects on his agenda.2 To the dominant Prussian school of German historiography, society was the creation of the state. Since the Second World War, however, there has been a great effort by younger German historians committed to democratic values to write finis to the state's centrality in historiography. Just as it possesses no uniform content so, too, does social history lack any single method. The French historians have presented us "total history," by which all the methods of the social and some of the natural sciences are applied to the study of history: calories, weather data, ocean currents, animal breeding, economic cycles, sexology, psychology. British social history has concentrated on the definition and history of social classes, with much attention to prosopography. American social history has been intimate with the computer and seems to specialize in social mobility studies at the local level and in the meticulous analysis of elections. Thus, methods are dictated less by rules than by the variety of materials: telephone directories, census records, election returns, cartularies, rent rolls and restaurant menus, not to mention more traditional and literary sources. Some of this historiography seems to display a left-wing political intent: to reach into the life of the masses of the people, "history from the bottom up," and to dispense with "elite history," which is sometimes identified with almost all historiography before the birth of the new social history. While quite a few social historians are Marxists, the field itself is not committed to the Marxian or any other "laws" of social development. Writing social history is compatible with rigorous personal conservatism on the historian's part. On the face of it, the social history of Jewish communities should be no harder to write than the history of any other free society. Objections may be thrust aside as quibbles or, more charitably, as the reasonable scepticism of seasoned scholars toward the untried and unproven and, we may add, frequently pretentious. Be the reasons psychic or intellectual, such objections are familiar in every new field of research.

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But there are reasons for the difficulties about Jewish social history which lie deeper than the reluctance of some scholars. Even to define Jewish society is notoriously difficult since it lacked a territorial basis for nearly two millennia, and it is harder to study the social history of mobile urban populations like the Jews than that of sedentary peasant communities. Moreover, Jewish society existed alongside other societies on the same soil, whether it was in feudal France or industrial America, and to a greater or lesser extent shared in their production of goods and services. Jewish society was structured by the common beliefs and traditions which underlay the Jewish community, by the Jews' anomalous social status and by the framework of autonomy which was legally granted the Jews before the modern state came into being. It is intricate work to separate one society from the larger society to which it belongs while bearing in mind that the separation is not total. But Jewish society, when analyzed in terms of class or economic activity, shows sharp distinctiveness not only within medieval European or Tsarist Russian society but also within that of the contemporary United States. Other minority groups differ from their larger societies, but the Jews are always distinctive. To leave aside for the moment the State of Israel, we have to inquire what is Jewish society and what have been its dynamic forces. Is Jewish society determined by religious or, as some would prefer, cultural imperatives? Has social development within the Jewish community played a major role in fixing its economic and social stratification or has that been imposed from outside? If the latter, then it is hard to see much power behind social forces within Jewry. This is the implication of the approach to Jewish studies which the Wissenschaft des Judentums embraced. The intellectual realm was not only distinguished, but, it was supposed, it was also not determined by the nonJewish world. Intellectual history is probably history of the most elite variety. The Wissenschaft des Judentums of the nineteenth century, the forebear of contemporary Jewish studies, was a philological discipline. To know a people's spirit was truly to comprehend that people, and to know the Jewish spirit one studied the vast, essentially religious literature. This comprehension would show the Jews formed by their religion, and the history of the Jews was the history of Judaism. Those scholars concluded or perhaps, actually, they adopted as an axiom that the Jews were the product of an Idea which shaped and governed them. Jewish literature in the widest sense was the expression of this Idea. Jewish historiography during the nineteenth century dealt with the relation between Judaism as the Idea and the Jews who were its bearers. Naturally, then, it saw intellectual history as the content of Jewish history. Leopold Zunz, the founding father of the discipline, divided the history of the Jews by literary periods. The difficulties of writing Jewish social history thus began with the detachment of Jewish society from soil and government, called galut, and they continued with the assertion of religious determination over secular, material history. Neither can social history really be produced if Judaism and the Jews exist by virtue of immanent primordial forces which gradually reveal themselves in history.3 As great a historian as Yitzhak Baer came close to this position, for example, in his study of the origins of the medieval Jewish community. Perhaps it was the necessity of establishing the intellectual autonomy of Jewish social history which brought about Jacob Katz's essentially similar statement of "The Concept of Social History and Its Possible Use in Jewish Historical Research" which defined Jewish social

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history as a society's consciousness of itself.4 Thus, "social history" as applied to German Jewry from about 1770 to 1815 means the sense of Jewish identity engendered by the Berlin Haskalah. This formulation at least expresses the need to recognize the realm of the social as an independent, not dependent, variable in Jewish history. For there is not much point in social history if the Jews are nothing other than the bearers of a religious idea. Graetz, however, did maintain that the existence of a Jewish society in its own land was a requirement of Judaism for its proper realization. Yet despite his desire to avoid "iernen und leiden," that theme suffuses Graetz's history. Similarly, Dubnow wished but failed to fix "sociological laws" of Jewish history, although he did turn toward the history of the people to a greater extent. His work rests on the simple, effective proposition that the Jewish polity was the community; he did study communities as political entities but wrote no history of Jewish society. Only in his history of Hasidism did Dubnow write social history, in the somewhat simplistic analysis of that movement as a social revolt. What Benzion Dinur attempted in his turn to do with the interpretation of Hasidism shows his strength and his faults. His field of historic vision focused fully on the Jewish national idea, whose authentic expression was Zionism. To Dinur, so great and creative a religious movement as early Hasidism virtually had to be nationalist; in eighteenth-century Poland that meant it had to be fervently messianic. Dinur labored to demonstrate this. There could be no accepting Gershom Scholem's argument that Hasidism, having Sabbatianism in its pedigree, "neutralized the messianic idea" after the century of social and doctrinal havoc wrought by the Sabbateans and their ideological progeny. Hasidism as a social movement interested Dinur, and his work contains interesting material on that aspect. But Scholem, the premier authority on Jewish mysticism, explicitly rejected any social basis for Sabbatianism.5 Dinur lived and wrote for an idea, not the religious Idea of the Wissemchaft des Judentums, but the Idea of Return. In galut Jewish history finds its meaning for Dinur. The conceptions of history we have discussed so far make it obvious what some of the obstacles to writing Jewish social history are. The first is philological intuitionism, which limits both the scope of Jewish history and the range of its source materials and depends upon the essentially dubious leap of the historian's mind from knowing the iiterature to knowing its creators. Another is immanentism, which sees Jewish history as the working out of what has always existed in embryo. In essence, it either denies the contingent in historic development or begs the questions why and how some phenomenon is immanent and another not and why the immanent became manifest when it did. The conception that the Jewish community was or must have been a harmonious whole is merely wishful thinking which can only inhibit historical research. The same may be said when the historian invokes "continuity," whether of antisemitism or of the hope for restoration. Continuity is itself a slippery concept since it is really impossible to specify how often a phenomenon must recur in order to qualify as "continuous." This is far more than saying the obvious: that the study of literature is essential, that Judaism possesses ancient motifs, that the Jews knew not only solidarity but conflict and that some phenomena do occur again and again. When applied together consistently, these grand conceptions virtually denature Jewish history of the contingent and acciden-

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tal, of conflict and significant change. They replace it with an immobile foreordained process in which the personal, informal and human is submerged. Against all this, social history is a tacit protest and in some respects an antidote. Social history emphasizes sources which are human even when they come in quantitative and statistical form, and it is inherently uncommitted to immanent ideas or timeless continuities. It recognizes and studies social conflict and attempts to understand the structure and relations among disparate social classes. By social history we mean not just the portrayal of society as a whole, valuable as that is, but an attempt to look much closer into that society. Perhaps one turns first to the contentious matter of the stratification of society into classes as well as consciousness of class and mobility between classes. One may examine the history of professions and occupations. In all this, quantification is one technique among many, and no traditional historian need fear that the computer will replace the manuscript. For the most part it is a matter of reading well-known sources with eyes lit by new questions. Some of these questions are suggested by the work of three distinguished Jewish historians. The late Shlomo D. Goitein proved to be a very effective social historian when he exploited the minutiae of private records in the Cairo Geniza, which previous scholars, intent on literary remains, generally disregarded. The breadth of his conception of the Jews of medieval Egypt as A Mediterranean Society always interacting with their Moslem surroundings, the immense quantity of the material which he dredged up and exploited, and his willingness to examine afresh basic social institutions and practices of family, community and business bring his great work into the orbit of contemporary social history. 6 Jacob Katz has written from a consistently applied definition of social history, cited above. Katz elsewhere describes its concerns as "not the single occurrence, but the social reality prevailing at a given time." All spheres of history are drawn upon in social history's attempt at "describing the institutions within the framework of which these (particular historical) events took place." The task is to learn "the accepted way of conduct" and "how did the average member of the society act?" and what was "typical and accepted within the framework of various social institutions." Consequently, Katz admits, the family "is merely an abstraction conjured up by the scholar from the records of many families."7 Similarly, Jewish-Christian relations before Jewish emancipation all "may be regarded as a variation on the same theme," deriving from much older Jewish tradition.8 His book, Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation 1770-1870 (Cambridge, Mass.: 1973) adheres steadfastly to Katz's conception of social history, and so it is a study of changing Jewish and Christian ideas about Jewish status in "host" societies. The particular host society taken as a frame of reference is almost exclusively that of Germany from 1770 to about 1815. Almost nothing about social change or material conditions or classes within society appears in the book. The interplay of religion and society is analyzed in terms of normative expectations, with the impact of social reality upon Halakha demonstrated perhaps more skillfully than any historian has yet done. Katz's history suffers from abstraction from social life and structure as it was lived by Jewish persons. Salo W. Baron's Social and Religious History of the Jews (New York: 1952-84) is one of the vastest projects any historian has ever undertaken. The eighteen volumes to date contain 5,189 pages of text and 2,419 pages of closely printed

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apparatus, every word of it his individual work. The title, not casually chosen, goes back to courses which Baron taught during the early 1930s and to the first edition, published in three volumes in 1937. "Social" is meant to be coordinate with "religious," not a field of history unto itself, while "religious" is likewise coordinate with "social." That is to say, this is a history of the Jews as seen in terms of the reciprocal influences of Jewish society and Jewish religion. Each has molded the other. Obviously, Baron is an opponent of conceptions of immanence and the single, all-encompassing Idea. Rather than speak of a dialectical relationship, implying conflict and opposition between society and religion, he prefers the more benign "interplay." Needless to say, there are powerful precedents and traditions in Jewish society and religion, but change constantly occurs. Much of it takes place in response to external stimuli. More than any of the historians discussed so far, Baron devotes himself to the interaction between Jews and non-Jews, a relationship which influences powerfully but does not truly control Jewish society. His earlier work, The Jewish Community, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: 1942), examined the structure and organization of the Jewish community. The integrity of the Jewish polity was demonstrated, notwithstanding its dependence on non-Jewish rulers. The constant Jew-Gentile interplay analyzed in all his works reached profoundly into Jewish social life. He scrutinizes carefully Jewish influences on non-Jewish society. One axiom to be found throughout Baron's work is that Jewish society needs to be studied in its own right. Our short discussion has tried to show the unclear place which the history of the Jews as a society has held even for some of the greatest Jewish historians. Seldom has Jewish society been examined by the methods adopted by contemporary social history. Only some American Jewish and Anglo-Jewish histories, and most recently one of Viennese Jewry, seem to be the exceptions. 9 Yet I would not wish to conclude in the realm of airy abstraction, still less on a note of negative criticism, especially of scholars every one of whom is the mentor of any serious student of Jewish history. May I try a specimen of what I am suggesting. Let me mention some soundings from a field which Jewish historians deal with gingerly, that of rabbinic responsa. Obviously, they were not written as history but as responses to queries in Jewish law, and, as such, they are current in Jewish religious life, like historic leading cases in other legal systems. Responsa are the most professional aspect of rabbinic literature since they are not the more-or-less theoretical Talmudic learning beloved of advanced students and scholars, but Halakha applied to concrete situations. They are useful to other rabbinic respondents and to batei din and probably less so to stray historians. As historical sources they often relate episodes which are themselves social history, and although one can rarely venture a historical generalization on the basis of them, they can also cast some light on the rabbinic profession itself. One of the most famous responsa collections is the Noda biyehuda by Rabbi Ezekiel Landau of Prague (1713-93), who was practically chief rabbi of the Habsburg realm. In the summer of 1774 (20 Tammu/) Rabbi Landau offered some business-like advice to his disciple and later successor, R. Eliezer Fleckelcs: [C]oncerning (the rabbinate of) a certain community, I do not advise you to return to Poland for a community of such moderate size. Moreover, the rabbi who has served

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there is childless and has had few expenses, so that he did not insist on his fees. The townspeople have grown accustomed to this and it will be difficult for the rabbi who succeeds him to support his family. That is my advice. However, if you should decide to make the attempt, let me know and I shall write to the people there who are close to me. Even though I do not know them personally, it will not keep me from writing to them on your behalf. lo

Landau's disciples were those who studied with him in his personal household, which constituted a yeshiva before the age of the institutional Russian and Hungarian yeshivot opened in the early nineteenth century. Rabbi Naftali Zvi Judah Berlin ("Neziv," 1817-94), like Landau a rabbinic scholar of high eminence but unlike the Prague rabbi not a communal but an "academic" rabbi occupied with heading the yeshiva in Volozhin, gathered in his Meshiv davar (Warsaw: 1894; reprinted Jerusalem: 1968) more than eight hundred responsa. All of the queries are couched in the flowery language customary when addressing rabbis. Some, however, are addressed to former pupils whom the Neziv recommended to their communities. In the case of the Neziv's contemporary, Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spector of Kovno (1817-96), we know that his kolel for young married rabbis was a professional nursery out of which men were recommended by him to East European immigrant communities in the United States. Manuscript letters of recommendation still exist. Now we may consider a younger contemporary of these Lithuanian luminaries, R. Shalom Mordecai Schwadron of Brzezany (1835-1911) in Galicia, a community of about four thousand, more than half the town's population. About twenty-two hundred of his responsa have been published, 1 ' none of them addressed to a former pupil. His son-in-law reported that Rabbi Schwadron received about one hundred queries weekly. In the case of the Maharsham, as he was known, what can be illuminating about the responsa (aside from their halakhic substance) is what we may call the rabbinic atlas. They were addressed mainly from Galicia itself, and from Hungary, the Ukraine and overseas—especially from one rabbi in Paris. Not many came from elsewhere in Poland and few from Lithuania—but from Lithuania to Galicia a few is many. One measurement of influence is the rabbi's "network," the number and diffusion of the Jewish communities from which halakhic questions were sent to him. These gleanings about four notable rabbis provide us some hints about the social history of the rabbinical profession. The elusive conception of influence may even be measured quantitatively, and the extent and methods of patronage may be scrutinized. The relations between teacher and pupil, both intellectual and material, may be brought into account. It ought to be possible to construct a "social responsa network" which will delineate rabbinic spheres of influence more precisely. A rather different theme is suggested by the history of Jewish emancipation, which has long been a subject of study—but exclusively in political and ideological terms—and might, indeed, be approached in terms of social class, as has thus far, to my knowledge, only been done for Edwardian and early Victorian England. 12 Can we determine whether any class wanted emancipation very much, favored it passively, did not care either way or opposed it? Baer raised the somewhat analo-

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gous question: Who were the respective social carriers of philosophical enlightenment and of mysticism in medieval Spain? 13 Classes exist in material reality and also in social self-consciousness. It is time to attend more closely to the class basis of many Jewish social issues and ideologies, not excluding Zionism. The field of migration history, especially between the 1870s and 1914, is almost purely social and economic history. It lacks ideology to place it in intellectual history, while political and communal history deal with migration only so far as migrants leaving or arriving created difficulties for the political and communal order, as did inevitably happen. Basically, migration was a vast movement to more promising lands by poor or less-poor Jews with a sprinkling of intelligentsia, oppressed by poverty and legalized persecution. Which classes and age cohorts moved and what were their social and cultural characteristics must hold great interest for the Jewish history of their lands of emigration as well as immigration. The history of the modern Diaspora as well as the State of Israel badly need such inquiries, to be based on statistics and also on sources like belles-lettres and folklore. To mention one important point, the Jewish class structure would appear to have been directly affected by migration since very few of the economic upper class emigrated, except during emergencies. The traditional religious and intellectual elites found to their dismay that in moving from Eastern Europe to Western countries their social status plummeted. The new intellectual-status elite was composed of rabbis of a different sort, ideologists and secular men of letters, and even these found that their social status was beneath what it would have been in Eastern Europe. A kindred, littlestudied process has also occurred in Israel. Among the communities who emigrated here en masse, how much of their upper class retained that status within one decade of their arrival? It is well past time to take up the challenge posed by contemporary social history to the writing of Jewish history. Jewish historiography, especially in Israel, has been losing contact with general history, and drifts toward national myths of social solidarity and toward isolation from the main currents of world history. Attention to the history of Jewish society, its classes and structure and functioning, should help to return Jewish historiography to the stream of historical reality. The social, religious and cultural tensions of our day may inspire thoughtful younger historians to address the past with the social historian's questions, as their predecessors drew inspiration from Zionism and Jewish political struggles.

Notes This essay was originally delivered as a Daniel Dumart Memorial Lecture, Ben-Gurion University, 16 January 1985. 1 am profoundly grateful to Professor Arthur A. Goren and Dr. Shaul Stampfer for their invaluable comments and suggestions. 1. Social history has become methodologically very self-conscious and is concerned with theoretical issues and comparative dimensions. Useful statements from different dates and viewpoints are: Harold Perkin, "Social History, ' in H. P. R. Finberg (cd.). Approaches

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loHistory (London: 1962), pp. 51-82; E. J. Hobsbawm, "From Social History to the History of Society," in F. Gilbert and S. R. Graubard (eds.), Historical Studies Today (New York: 1972), pp. 1-26; numerous chapters in T. K. Rabb and R. I. Rotberg (eds.), The New History: The 1980s and Beyond (Princeton: 1982), which includes considerable bibliographic apparatus; and Peter N. Stearns, "Toward a Wider Vision: Trends in Social History," in Michael Kaminen (ed.), The Past Before Us: Trends in Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States (Ithaca/London: 1970), pp. 205-230. Cf. I. Kolatt, "Social History and the History of the Yishuv," in Studies in the History of Jewish Society (Jacob Katz Festschrift) (Jerusalem: 1980), pp. 397-426. 2. As quoted in Henry M. Pachter, Weimar Etudes (New York: 1982), p. 143. 3. See Yitzhak Baer, Zion, XV (1950), p. I; but compare his remarks in Zion, III (1938), p. 298, and A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, vol. I (Philadelphia: 1961), pp. 1-15, 27-28. 4. Scripta Hierosolymitana III (1956), pp. 292-312; reprinted in Emancipation and Assimilation: Studies in Modern Jewish History (Westmead: 1972), pp. 173-194. 5. The main studies arc Dinur's "Reshitah shel ha-hasidut ve-yesodotehah hasozialiim u-meshihiim" Zion, VIII-X (1943-45), reprinted in Be-mifneh ha-dorot (Jerusalem: 1955), pp. 83-227; and Scholem's "The Neutralization of the Messianic Element in Early Hasidism," The Messianic Idea in Judaism (New York: 1971), pp. 176-202 (citing, p. 179, contributions by Tishby and J. G. Weiss on this issue). 6. Shlomo D. Goitein, A Mediterranian Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza (Berkeley/Los Angeles: 19671983). 7. Jacob Katz, Tradition and Crisis: Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages (New York: 1961), p. 5. 8. Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times (New York: 1962), p. xi. 9. For example, Bill Williams, The Making of Manchester Jewry 1740-1875 (Manchester: 1976) and William Toll, The Making of an Ethnic Middle Class: Portland Jewry Over Four Generations (Albany: 1982); Marsha L. Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna, 1967-1914: Assimilation and Identity (Albany: 1983). 10. Noda biyehudah (2 vols., ed. Vilna: 1899; reprinted, Jerusalem: 1970, I, No. 15). 11. Meshiv davar, Part 2, Nos. 42, 65, 101 may be examples; She'elot u-teshuvot maharsham, l-III (reprinted, New York: 1962); IV-VIII (Jerusalem: 1966-73). 12. Israel Finestein, "Anglo-Jewish Opinion During the Struggle for Emancipation (1828-1858)," Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, XX (1958), pp. 113-143; andToddM. Endelman, The Jews of Georgian England J714-1830 (Philadelphia: 1979). 13. Yitzhak F. Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, vol. I, pp. 289-306 and elsewhere.

Review Essays

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Bystanders to the Holocaust

Monty Noam Penkower, The Jews Were Expendable: Free World Diplomacy and the Holocaust. Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983. 429 pp. David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. 444 pp. We have now a growing shelf of books and a burgeoning file of articles on bystanders to the Nazi Holocaust, focusing particularly on the response of the AngloAmerican world to the persecution and massacre of European Jews. Among the best known are the volumes on Britain by Joshua Sherman and Bernard Wasserstein; on Canada by Irving Abella and Harold Troper; and on the United States by Arthur Morse, David Wyman, Saul Friedman, Henry Feingold, Yehuda Bauer, and Leonard Dinnerstein. The news, as we all know, is not good: Research has uncovered a persistent unwillingness to assist the Jews in their hour of need and a remarkable failure to grasp the nature of the Jewish catastrophe. The drift of scholarly opinion is summed up in the titles of the two solid investigations under review, important additions to the foregoing list: The Abandonment of the Jews by David S. Wyman and The Jews Were Expendable by Monty Noam Penkower. Now that the genre has become established, and with still more works on the way, it may be worthwhile to reflect upon the serious problems associated with this line of investigation. In the first place, it should be appreciated that many of these analyses center upon what did not happen: Jews were, not admitted, Jewish communities failed to unite, Allied governments spurned rescue suggestions, access to Auschwitz was not bombed and Nazi ransom hints were not pursued with any deliberation. Lay readers may not always appreciate the difficulty scholars have in writing what is in essence a negative report—the history of inaction, indifference and insensitivity. The obvious temptation in this kind of exposition is to assess bystanders, not from the standpoint of their own culture, priorities and preoccupations, but from what we assume ought to have been their beliefs and actions. This line of thinking imposes upon historical actors our own values, our own judgment and our own appreciation of the events of the Holocaust. The thrust of such work can then become a lamenting of the fact that the people written about failed to live up to our standards. This temptation is the historian's form of hubris: To yield fully to it is to denounce the characters we write about for not being like ourselves. Second, it should by now be apparent that the professional task of Holocaust historians, forty years after the event, must increasingly turn to explanation rather than condemnation. Admittedly, each of us has his own interpretive starting point 215

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and his own philosophic and moral commitment to the scholarly exercise. But I venture to suggest that we shall not go much further in the attempt to comprehend the past without a remorseless, painstaking effort to suspend anger, to try to understand how the people we describe perceived the world and why they acted as they did. When writing about bystanders such effort is particularly necessary in view of some harsh accusations recently made from a strongly defined political or ideological vantage point. Of course, it is incumbent upon all historians to probe the seamy underside of Allied and Jewish policy, to search the records sometimes deliberately hidden from public view and to examine every aspect of public activity during the Holocaust—whether or not it casts credit upon the contemporary actors. But I want to urge responsibility in this exercise; we should avoid the tendency to castigate outsiders without fully understanding them. The words of contemporaries are usually far more eloquent than our own denunciations so many years later. Let us listen carefully to what they said to each other, estimate as carefully as possible what they said to themselves and strive to put all of this in a context which is not our own. The authors of the two books discussed here struggled with these kinds of problems, emerging with books quite different in tone, though with similar conclusions. Monty Penkower presents nine separate essays examining aspects of Allied diplomacy and the Holocaust, incorporating several previously published articles. He surveys the campaign for a Jewish fighting force, the transmission of news about the Final Solution, Allied responses to refugees and rescue possibilities, some Jewish reactions and the origins of the War Refugee Board. Unfortunately, his chapters do not relate well to each other and frequently overlap. Extraordinarily detailed, his exposition at times becomes a tangled skein of diplomatic exchange, difficult to unravel and follow through time. His research is wide-ranging, including Hebrewlanguage material and dozens of interviews with surviving personalities—almost all of them Jews. He has visited not only the principal archival holdings in New York, Washington, London and Jerusalem but has used a remarkable array of private papers, institutional collections and other manuscript sources. Wyman's work, while more narrowly focused on American policy, is more comprehensive in its survey of the war period and more direct in its analysis. Unlike Penkower, whose anguish about his subject charges his prose and prompts obscure allusions, Wyman never leaves the reader in doubt about where he stands. While his research is equally extensive, tending more to government material, he resists the temptation to load his book with unnecessary detail. His account is clear, strongly argued and unadorned. The result is a more forceful indictment, a book that will likely become the standard work on its theme. Wyman begins by emphasizing antisemitism in the United States, which he suggests was pervasive throughout the 1930s and the war period. Between one third and one half of the American people, according to a variety of polls, were animated by some degree of anti-Jewish feeling. A good deal flowed from that. Anti-immigration sentiment was particularly strong when it came to Jews, with the result that they were practically barred from an American refuge during the Holocaust. Only 21,000 gained entry during the war years, a mere 10 percent of those who could have been legally admitted under existing immigration quotas. In barring Jews and in the failure to respond to virtually all Jewish concerns, the State Department was

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particularly active. But Congress, the War Department, the Office of War Information and other agencies also turned their backs on the Jews at important moments. The major exception, energizing late in the war, was the Treasury Department under Henry Morgenthau, Jr., which prodded the president early in 1944 to establish the War Refugee Board (WRB). By then, however, it was too late for most of Hitler's victims. Even at this late date, moreover, the president took little interest in the board's work; its funding came largely from Jewish sources; and the State Department hampered its activities. In perhaps the most original part of his book, Wyman offers a thorough evaluation of the achievements of the WRB, based on its extensive records at the Roosevelt Library. Largely accepting the board's assessment of its own activity, he concludes that it saved approximately 200,000 Jews and 20,000 non-Jews. Both authors believe that far more could have been done—and much beyond the admission of additional refugees. Wyman takes seriously the various suggestions that the Germans were prepared to release their victims and argues that these hints should have been explored. He agrees with former WRB officials that the agency could have saved many more if it had been formed a year or even a few months earlier. Axis satellites and neutrals should have been pressured to assist in various ways. Outside havens should have been secured. Shipping space—readily available when needed for other non-military projects according to Wyman's convincing demonstration—should have been made available. Money, supplies and information should have been mobilized on behalf of the trapped Jews of Europe. The Auschwitz death factory could easily have been bombed, when targets were constantly being hit in its vicinity in 1944. Both writers tend, in my view, to underestimate the commitment and the ability of the Nazis to destroy Jews no matter what the Allies did—a point to which I shall return shortly. In his discussion of the campaign for a Jewish army, Penkower laments that because of Allied failures, "Europe became a Jewish graveyard rather than [sic] a battlefield commensurate with the honor of the Jewish people" (p. 29). Unfortunately, the alternative he presents simply did not exist. Wyman is more careful in exploring the contemporaneously proposed might-have-beens, often demonstrating the low cost of such efforts and the unlikelihood that various suggestions would have interferred with the war effort. What accounts for this inaction? Penkower is rather short on explanation, blending references to obvious strategic interests, such as the British concern over Palestine, together with the failure to grasp the nature of the Nazi program of mass murder. Oddly, in a volume that concentrates on the Jewish victims, there is little evaluation of the role of antisemitism. Penkower's closely meshed description of events leaves little space for reflection on the various political and intellectual forces that shaped events. In the end, after his litany of callousness, cruelty and indifference, he falls back upon a global judgement—"Western civilization's gradual loss of the sense of solidarity," a "decay of conscience" and "a loss of a sense of certain decencies" (p. 301). Yet he demonstrates no reasons for this apparent moral collapse, and offers no demonstration that the milk of human kindness flowed more freely in earlier periods of history. He closes with a powerful moral appeal, but leaves the main historical question unanswered. Wyman identifies several causes for the American failure to act. Key individuals

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obviously played a role. An important source of State Department obstruction was Assistant Secretary Breckinridge Long (whose first name is persistently misspelled in Penkower's book), an extreme nativist in charge of refugee matters. With Long and with several other highly placed officials, anti-Jewish feeling was clearly at work. Yet although he hardly depreciates the role of antisemitism in Congress and the country, Wyman does not think it decisive in government itself. Notably, he claims that "direct proof of antisemitism in the [State] [DJepartment is limited," and his research uncovered "only two documented examples" (p. 190). Much more important was the indifference of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the Jewish tragedy, a lapse which the author calls "the worst failure of his presidency" (p. xi). Although periodically informed about mass killings, FDR was prepared to run no risks for the Jews, felt that action on their behalf meant trouble politically and seems to have kept the issue out of his mind. We have no indication that he was ever preoccupied with the fate of European Jewry and no knowledge of his inner thoughts on the matter. Revered and idealized by American Jews, the president had only a superficial grasp of Jewish issues and trimmed his policies to the winds of political expediency. And in his insouciance, the politically astute FDR reflected the indifference of the wider American public. Indeed, throughout the Holocaust the massacre of European Jews was not even important news. Wyman attempts a systematic evaluation of news coverage, concluding that "most of the mass media, whether from disbelief or fear of accusation of sensationalism or for some other reason, played down information about the Jewish tragedy" (p. 327). This media inattention, in his view, may well have prevented a full grasp of the catastrophe. In what will undoubtedly be his most controversial theme, Wyman attributes an important degree of responsibility to the American Jewish leadership for failing to unite and mount a sustained rescue campaign. Such action, he feels sure, would have produced results. Zionism, of course, was the principal basis for disagreement. While Jewish organizations stood together on the need to end the White Paper restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine, they divided on the priority to be given to rescue and the campaign for a postwar Jewish state. Distracted by communal squabbling, and sometimes failing to see their way out of a situation judged hopeless, the Jewish organizations were dominated by Stephen Wise, an aging Reform rabbi who shared his co-religionists' awe and trust in the president. Dynamism and imagination came from the fringes of the American Jewish world. Wyman paints a largely positive picture of the Palestinian Irgun organizer Peter Bergson and his group of young pro-rescue activists, who burst on the scene in early 1943. Bergson's Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe sent out shock waves of protest, contributing vitally, in Wyman's view, to the creation of the WRB. Yet while the emergency committee proved strong enough to shake the established Jewish leadership and provoke bitter divisions over rescue priorities, it was too weak to move the Roosevelt administration wholeheartedly toward saving Jews. So long as American Jewry did not join this campaign, Wyman implies, an American-backed rescue potential could not fully be realized. Critics of this viewpoint dispute the likelihood of the Nazis permitting significant numbers of Jews to escape their clutches at any time after America entered the war. Neither of our authors challenges the Nazis' obsessive determination to solve the

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"Jewish Question" by any means necessary or their utter conviction that "world Jewry" was to be destroyed. Penkower certainly goes too far in stating that Jews "would fall victim to the democracies' procrastination and unsurpassed callousness as well as to the Nazis' prussic acid" (p. 97, emphasis mine)—as if the gassings were on the same order of criminality as Allied wrongdoing. His implication, if I read him right, is that Allied indifference helped cause mass murder on a spectacular scale—a serious charge for which he presents no evidence whatsoever. Critics may also question whether American Jewry, which amounted to only 3.6 percent of an indifferent public, among which antisemitism was widespread, could ever have exercised important political leverage in Washington—united or not united. The Jews, as many of them realized, faced a near hopeless situation— accounting for much of the demoralization that analysts now have the luxury to condemn. What, as they scanned the political horizon, was their alternative? The Republican party offered no plausible appeal to rescue advocates, and in any event the prospect of prying loose masses of Jews from Roosevelt's New Deal was virtually non-existent. Attempting a media campaign, as Wyman's work suggests, was futile. (One particularly forlorn exercise stands out in my mind as emblematic of Jewish powerlessness: in December 1942, in New York City, half a million Jewish workers stopped work for ten minutes to protest the Nazis' murder of Jews. Labor leaders had considered striking for an hour, but abandoned the idea lest they be accused of hampering war production. On the following day the Jews made up the ten minutes of lost working time.) However, much it may be disparaged now, the argument that real rescue could only come with an Allied victory was compelling and persuasive. This was the position that Eleanor Roosevelt, presumably one of the staunchest friends of the Jews, maintained throughout. Breaking with this line seemed a sure way of increasing anti-Jewish feeling and injuring the Jews' postwar prospects for a national home. Wyman's answer to these arguments would be that attempts should at least have been made. Of course, no one can say that more Jews might not have been snatched from the Nazi inferno if the bystanders had not seen more clearly, made greater efforts and undertook serious sacrifices. Yet such charges can be made about virtually any manmade disaster one can imagine. More could always have been done, and in a personal as well as a collective sense there is little point in endless recrimination over missed opportunities and mistaken perceptions. More useful, and more consonant with the historical method, is to reconstruct the frame of mind that prevailed at the time. Both authors make real efforts to do this, yet both are distracted—Penkower by moral outrage, and Wyman by his concern with rescue projects that might have been. Both fail, in my view, to appreciate how difficult it was to grasp the full horror of the Holocaust, and how the imagination often collapsed under the staggering burden of reports from the Nazi slaughterhouse. Wyman presents a lengthly discussion of the message sent from Geneva in August 1942 by Gerhart Riegner, the World Jewish Congress representative who cabled Washington and London about extermination rumors. Coming together with other reports, notably from the Jewish Bund the previous May, this was indeed a shocking revelation. But Wyman errs in considering this telegram as a clear confirmation of the existence of a plan for

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systematic mass murder. Riegner carefully hedged his message with qualifications as to its exactitude, and in any event the report turned out to be wrong in most of its details. Had Wyman quoted the original cable, as does Penkower, this would have been clear. Seen in this way, the incredulity of the State Department analysts becomes more understandable. Moreover, even when the news was presented with greater clarity, it was often rejected as too fantastic, too bizarre, too macabre to be believed. People wavered in their acceptance of the awful truth. Sometimes they seemed fully to grasp it, and sometimes they ignored the messages before them. Even in the Palestinian Yishuv, as new research suggests, indications about mass murder were often pushed aside until November 1942, when several dozen refugees arrived with eye-witness reports from Poland and the rest of Europe. While full understanding of the nature of the Holocaust often eluded bystanders, other concerns pressed in upon them, further preventing a grasp of the dreadful Jewish reality. Above all, the fate of the Jews was submerged in the titanic global contest, the outcome of which appeared strongly in doubt until mid-1943. Remarkably, neither author mentions Japan when assessing American indifference to the appeals of the Jews. Yet it is worth remembering that for most of the war ordinary Americans considered the Japanese the main enemy they faced and believed that war priorities should be ordered accordingly. (Roosevelt, of course, swam strongly against this tide.) Wartime atrocities, it was certainly felt, were largely Japanese in origin. To take another case, it is clear that the Jews were not the only group to meet frustration when calling for Allied help to counter the massacre of civilians. Polish leader Wtadystaw Sikorski proposed precisely this in mid-1942, in his plea for retaliatory bombing of the Reich for crimes against non-Jewish Poles. It would be well to probe this and other such episodes, to see the extent to which an outlook having nothing to do with Jews conditioned responses to Jewish appeals. At certain times other peoples, too, were expendable. On the Jewish side, Wyman ignores the intense love affair the community had with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who gave the Jews dignity and self-respect as no one before in American history. Grateful for what they correctly felt was an entirely new attitude toward them in government, Jews working for the president conspicuously played down specifically Jewish concerns. (It has recently been pointed out, for example, that Jews in the New Deal contributed significantly to reforms in Indian affairs, while doing little for Jewish civil rights.) One can, of course, simply deplore this as an instance of "false consciousness." As with Stalinist historiography, however, such denunciations are no substitute for understanding and, in this case, cut short an effort to explain why Jews acted as they did. Research on the bystanders to the Holocaust should be undertaken with the same scrupulous care to reconstruct thought and action as is taken with other historical subjects. We are at an early stage in this process, and it is perhaps understandable that emotion and an urge to expose villainy still dominate much writing on the subject. But it is time to go on. At their best, the books discussed here point the way to further study by their painstaking research and careful assessment of complex channels of communication. Wyman's distinguished work deserves particular praise for its comprehensive research, analysis and the clarity of his argument. But

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both studies also, in my view, show tendencies that can divert us from satisfactory explanations—an unwillingness to place the bystanders' negligence fully into historical perspective and a disposition to be drawn into might-have-beens, to wrestle with the phantoms of men who have gone before. MICHAEL R. MARRUS University of Toronto

Portraits of the Jew in Film: Some Recent Studies

Sarah Blacher Cohen (ed.), From Hester Street to Hollywood. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983. 278 pp. Patricia Erens, The Jew in American Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. 415 pp. Annette Insdorf, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust. New York: Vintage Books, 1983. 235 pp.

In a world consumed by the popular media, it is no surprise to find, in recent years, a proliferation of articles, books and journals devoted to the study of film. Both as a visual representation of images and as a major element of popular culture, film provides an insight into the society in which we live. Film has been instrumental in shaping images, perpetuating myths and creating and reviving memory. Film also functions as a transmitter of history. It is both an influence on, and a mirror of, the concerns, the dreams and the prejudices of the twentieth century. As historians Marc Ferro and Pierre Sorlin and others engaged in film analysis have indicated, film is, indeed, a product of the society that produces it and must be studied in this light.' Recently, a number of works have appeared on Jewish film, on the Jew in film and on Jewish history in film. 2 The first two books under examination look at the Jew in American film. The third book deals with the Holocaust in film. The purpose of The Jew in American Cinema is to document "the presentation of Jews in American studio films between 1903 and 1983" in order to provide a history of the films produced, to suggest a typology of the Jewish characters in these films (including the emergence, disappearance and modification of specific images) and to relate the narrative context in which these Jewish figures appear. Ms. Erens looks for continuity in certain conventions and attempts to explain changes in relation to "sociohistoric and artistic pressures." To write a history of film over a span of eighty years is no easy task. It is necessary to compile a list of films with Jewish themes and with Jewish characters, locate prints of these films and, of course, view them (many of the earliest films, as Ms. Erens points out, have disappeared). After screening a great number of films, a logic and order to the material is needed. This Erens has done quite capably. One must also place all of these films in a sociohistoric context. In this task the author is less successful. 222

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The main problem in discussing so many films is the temptation to forego analysis for the sake of description. This often involves ignoring the environment in which the film was created. For example, rather than just telling us that the stern patriarch of the "primitive years" gives way to the pathetic patriarch in the films of the silent era, Erens might have explained why this change occurred. In summing up the section on Holocaust films in the 1970s, Erens emphasizes the "persistent archetype of the Jewish Victim. The image begins with Alfred Dreyfus in the -1890s . . . and continues in the postwar films which treat the aftermath of the Holocaust." Yet, in each instance, the Jewish Victim belongs to a different historical context. The Jew may be a victim, but he is not the archetype of a Jewish Victim. Erens does not explore the changes which, in each period, re-define what it means to be a victim. Erens's work also suffers from errors, weak assumptions and poor editing. She refers to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1938 (and later corrects the date to 1939); the Nazi antisemitic film The Eternal Jew appeared in 1940 and not 1942; Bertold Brecht was not a German Jew; the Yiddish word eppis does not mean truth—the correct word is ernes (a detail which destroys part of her analysis). We are told that one sign which made Woody Allen's film What's Up Tiger Lily? (1966) comprehensible only to urban Jewish audiences is a reference to egg salad, "which has Jewish connotations because of its common appearance on delicatessen menus." Now, had she mentioned corned beef or pastrami. . . . And in her analysis of the 1943 anti-Nazi film Watch on the Rhine, Erens complains that the Jewishness of Bette Davis's character, Sara, is never made explicit, "her name, plus that of her brother David, and son, Joshua [Ms. Erens neglects the Mullers' other two children, Bodo and Babette] are strong indications. Also, the fact that she and her family left Germany in the early thirties and would be 'lucky to get out of Germany' all point to her religious heritage." However, Sara's maiden name was Farrelly, hardly a Jewish name; her father, Joshua Farrelly, had been an associate justice of the Supreme Court; and it was quite common for established American families to select Biblical names for their children. In addition, a Romanian Nazi sympathizer was a constant guest at the Farrellys' home in Washington, and Sara's husband was an early member of the German underground, which explains why he and his family were lucky to get out of Germany. Such criticisms aside, Erens has undertaken an enormous project and manages, through her categories, typologies and descriptions to impart a logic to the whole. Her book will be useful to anyone interested in researching the Jew in film. Alan Spiegel's article "The Vanishing Act: A Typology of the Jew in Contemporary American Film," one of four articles dealing with film in From Hester Street to Hollywood,3 covers some of the same issues as Erens and also suffers from some of the same problems. Spiegel, too, is attempting to identify and explain common Jewish types in American film. Yet he, too, fails to deal with the context in which the films were made. He thinks it important to look at Jewish characters in film in order to "examine what these roles tell us about America's notion of the Jew and the Jew's notion of himself." His main thesis is that in spite of the countless portrayals of Jews in films in recent years as well as the overwhelming popularity of distinctly Jewish stars such as Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand, the cinematic Jew, far

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from being defined in a particular Jewish fashion, has come to signify an Americanized and universal image. Like Erens, Spiegel traces the growth of Jewish characterization from the earliest films to those of the 1980s. He attributes the new "de-semitized" situation in film after The Jazz Singer (1927) to the economic strategies and assimilationist goals of the major movie studios which resulted in "one movie for everyone." Thus, the Nominal Jew, one stripped of all particularities except for his name, came into being. His values, goals and dreams were like those of all other Americans. Spiegel traces the fluctuations of Jewish characterization in film but fails to tell us why they followed certain patterns. The result is an interesting variation on a much discussed subject.4 In his examination of Biblical films of the 1950s and 1960s, Spiegel analyzes them at face value and bemoans their shallow interpretation of ancient Judaism. Erens more astutely views these films as a metaphor for the Holocaust and the subsequent rebirth of Israel, a point Spiegel alludes to but fails to develop. Spiegel attributes the growth of films about Jews in the 1960s and 1970s to a fascination with the character of the contemporary American Jew. The Jew, he thinks, has become a paradigm of survival for the modern American. He concludes by tracing modern film figures to Biblical prototypes in what often seems to be a forced analysis. Thus we are informed that "the Abramic knife resurfaces in the coke bottle that the Jewish gangster Marty Augustine (in The Long Goodbye, 1973) smashes across the face of his blond mistress." Two other articles in From Hester Street to Hollywood examine the works of two Jewish film heroes. Mark Shechner writes on "Woody Allen: The Failure of the Therapeutic" and Sanford Pinsker writes on "Mel Brooks and the Cinema of Exhaustion." Both claim an admiration for their subjects' early works, which seems to wane as Allen begins to take himself too seriously and Brooks begins to "exhaust" his unique style of humor. Shechner points out that Woody Allen, while retaining the rebelliousness essential in a comedian, shares the common affliction of wanting to be taken seriously as an "artist." In his later movies—Annie Hall (1977), Interiors (1978), Manhattan (1979), and Stardust Memories (1980)—Allen moves from laughs to values and has become an auteur who wants to make statements on the human condition. Allen's early work is seen as juxtaposition humor based on contradictions of the sentimental with the absurd. This evolved from a "Yiddish world-view" adapted to dissonance and founded on a life of contrasts. We find here the self-irony indigenous to the Jewish mind. Woody Allen advances this technique of self-irony and "produces the comedy of the modern Jew versus his ancestors." The conflict is not one between Jew and American, but rather a dialectic between American Jewish lowbrow and European intellectual highbrow. But where, Shechner wonders, is the explicitly Jewish content in Allen's films? Those elements most Jewish in films such as Annie Hall, Manhattan and Stardust Memories are identical with what is most American about them. The middle-class stature of America's Jews brings with it the conflicts of the middle class "and it makes some sense to see Allen's recent films as footnotes to the history of immigrant success." While Woody Allen's gift is that of self-irony, Mel Brooks's forte, as Sanford Pinsker points out, is the gift of parody. As traditional art forms wear thin, taboos

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must be broken. Nothing is too outlandish for Brooks's particular brand of humor. Thus, his film The Producers (1968), in which Brooks reduces "the grotesqueries of the Holocaust world to screamingly bad theater." Emphasizing Brooks's American Jewish humor, Pinsker sees it as one of juxtaposition and incongruities: "He was at once a parody of the wise old Jew and an interloper at the watering holes of high culture." Pinsker finds parallels between parody and the American Jewish experience. Both reflect an ambivalence, a balancing act between reverence and ironic distancing. It is this ambivalence, explains Pinsker, that Brooks embodies in his films. The fourth essay in From Hester Street to Hollywood is concerned with American works dealing with the attempted genocide of Europe's Jews. In his article "The Americanization of the Holocaust on Stage and Screen," Lawrence Langer laments what he calls the Americanization of the Holocaust, a result of the inability of the American stage and screen to come to terms with the tragedy inherent in the Holocaust. Instead, they have recourse to what Langer sees as a particularly American phenomenon—the happy ending. Langer's essay forces us to confront issues which are at the very heart of contemporary civilization, and he does this in a most convincing manner. Langer begins his analysis with the play The Diary of Anne Frank. Anne's diary itself lacks the elements of horror associated with the Holocaust. The tragedy of the Diary comes with the knowledge of Anne's fate in Bergen Belsen. According to Langer, the playwrights lacked either the courage or the artistic will to emphasize that Anne and millions like her were killed simply because they were Jewish. Nonetheless, if we consider the period in which the play (and film) appeared— America of the 1950s—the universal theme of the play is in keeping with the universal tenets predominating in America at the time. It is, therefore, an oversimplification to attribute the message of hope in a drama of doom to a particular American penchant for happy endings. Whereas The Diary of Anne Frank fails to explain the tragic elements of the Holocaust, the film Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) never deals with what should be a central issue—namely, how essentially decent men of law came to support the Nazi system. Langer correctly points out that the destruction of the Jews forms the basis for any serious treatment of the Holocaust. Yet. when documentary footage of the concentration camps is introduced, it becomes, somehow, gratuitous. There is no clear connection between the mounds of bodies in the film and the deeds of those on trial. Instead, the main focus is on the two non-Jewish witnesses at the trial, on the notion of the principles of justice and on the image of the upright, small-town American judge presiding at the trial. Finally, Langer turns to the NBC TV mini-series Holocaust, which created an uproar when it was shown in 1978. Langer argues that only art can attempt to initiate men into the realm of the unknowable, and in this sense Holocaust is a total failure. Holocaust, we are told, avoids the horrors of death because Americans simply do not like dramas of doom. Annette Insdorf's Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust examines the ways in which films provide an awareness of the Holocaust, Insdorf focuses on the artistic as well as the moral aspects of the films. She takes a (hematic approach, concentrating on the development of a cinematic language in confronting the Holocaust, on

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narrative strategies, on film responses to the Nazi atrocities and on documentary films shaped by personal memories. Her approach differs from the other works under discussion in that she explores cinematic devices used to express various moral issues of the Holocaust. She questions how the art of the cinema is used to shape history. Nonetheless, Insdorf's work is too descriptive, failing to take into account the historical or social context. Incidentally, Insdorf tells us in her introduction that she is focusing on films from the United States, France, Poland, Italy and Germany because of the number of films they have made and their availability. One wonders about the omission of Czechoslovakia, which has produced many important films on the Holocaust. Perhaps the best way to illustrate Ms. Insdorf's cinematic style of analysis is to look at her treatment of Vittorio De Sica's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970), a film about the rise of antisemitism in Fascist Italy and the subsequent deportation of the Jews from Ferrara. Giorgio, the central figure in the film, is in love with Micol, daughter of the aristocratic Finzi-Continis. In describing Micol's rejection of Giorgio as a mirror of Ferrara's rejection of its Jews, Insdorf writes: Visually, De Sica expresses Giorgio's eviction when, in the foreground, he leaves Micol's house on his bicycle: with the sudden approach of the Fascist parade behind him, he is forced outside the frame which is then filled by the crowd; Giorgio is expelled from an image—and a world—in which there is no room left for individual consideration.

In other words, Insdorf analyzes the manner in which cinematic devices are used to explain what is taking place in a given film depicting certain aspects of the Holocaust. In this way, she affords us insight into the use of the camera in confronting events. There are problems in Insdorf's study which are perhaps unavoidable in a book covering so many films and countries. For example, in her chapter on films dealing with black humor, she should have differentiated between films made prior to the knowledge of the Holocaust such as Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940) and Mel Brooks The Producers (1968). In this case, the context of time becomes all-important because it determines how these films are to be interpreted. On the whole, however, Insdorf's book provides an excellent source for anyone interested in Holocaust films or for anyone wishing to comprehend the use of cinema in dealing with moral themes. Her plot summaries are very good. Her chapter entitled, "The Personal Documentary," is among the more absorbing as it offers us an interpretation of history on film from the point of view of survivors and children of survivors. To sum up, the works under discussion, when taken together, give us an interesting picture of the Jew in film. As I have already noted, the major shortcoming in all three books is the general lack of a historical or social context. In the final analysis, this detracts from their importance. Nonetheless, all three are valuable additions to the growing literature on the cinematic portrayal of the Jew. JUDITH E. DONESON The Hebrew University

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Notes 1. See, for example, Marc Ferro, "Film as an Agent, Product and Source of History," Journal of Contemporary History (July 1983), pp. 357-364; Pierre Sorlin, The Film in History (New Jersey: Barnes & Noble, 1980); also the work of K.R.M. Short, "Hollywood Fights Anti-Semitism, 1945-1947," in K.R.M. Short (ed.), Feature Films as History (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981), pp. 157-189. 2. Several examples are: Eric A. Goldman, Visions, Images and Dreams: Yiddish Film Past and Present (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1979, 1983); Saul Friedlander, Reflections of Nazism: An Essay on Kitsch and Death, Thomas Weyr (trans.) (New York: Harper & Row, 1984); Lester D. Friedman, Hollywood's Image of the Jew (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1982); R. M. Friedman, "Exorcising the Past: Jewish Figures in Contemporary Films," Journal of Contemporary History (July 1984). See also the works of K.R.M. Short. 3. The focus in this essay is film. Other articles in the book include works on theater, literature and music. 4. Sec n. 2 as well as the articles by P. Erens and Thomas Cripps in The Journal of Popular Film, no. 3 (1975); Henry Popkin, "The Vanishing Jew of Our Popular Culture," Commentary (July 1952); and David Weinberg, "The "Socially Acceptable' Immigrant Minority Group: The Image of the Jew in American Popular Films," North Dakota Quarterly (Autumn 1972).

Vienna in Jewish History

Hellmut Andics, Luegerzeit. Das Schwarze Wien bis 1918. Vienna and Munich: Jugend und Volk, 1984. 443 pp. J. Sydney Jones, Hitler in Vienna, 1907-1913. Clues to the Future. New York: Stein & Day, 1983. 350 pp. $19.95. Michael Pollack, Vienne 1900: Une identite blessee. Paris: Editions Gallimard/ Julliard, 1984. 214 pp. FF75. Marsha L. Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna, 1867-1914: Assimilation and Identity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983. 284 pp. $12.95. Harry Zohn (ed.), Karl Kraus, in These Great Times: A Karl Kraus Reader. Manchester: Carcanet, 1984. 263 pp. £12.95. In recent years there has been increasing recognition of the fact that the declining empire of Franz Joseph was the scene of one of the seminal intellectual revolutions that shaped the twentieth century. Much of what was most exciting in modernist culture—the music of Mahler and Schonberg; the architecture of Otto Wagner and Adolph Loos; the painting of Klimt, Kokoschka and Schiele; the psychoanalysis pioneered by Freud and his disciples; the Austro-Marxism of Adler, Hilferding and Otto Bauer; the positivism of Mach, Wittgenstein and the Vienna circle—was born in the cosmopolitan Kaiser'stadt of a decaying Habsburg dynasty. And this is not to mention the rich galaxy of literary talent ranging from Schnitzler and Hofmannstahl to Musil, Broch, Canetti, Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig and including such bizarre outsiders as Otto Weininger and Karl Kraus. At the same time this cultural flowering coincided with the development of a malignant racism and political antisemitism symbolized by the names of Georg van Schoenerer and Karl Lueger and their bestknown Austrian disciple, Adolf Hitler. Thus not only the seeds of modernism but also of the Holocaust can be found in fin-de-siecle Vienna, though none of the books under review—not even that of the American researcher into Hitler's early years, J. Sydney Jones—really addresses itself to this troubling paradox. Along with the renaissance in Viennese studies has come a belated recognition that Vienna's cultural elite was "Jewish" to an astounding degree and that no assessment of the city's intellectual importance can afford to ignore this massive Jewish participation. Stefan Zweig's claim that nine tenths of Viennese culture in the late nineteenth century was produced by Jews may have been an exaggeration, but it cannot be denied that at all the strategic points of modernism—whether as patrons, creators or critics—the Jewish role was preponderant. This cultural omnipresence is only marginally evoked in Marsha L. Rozenblit's 228

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book, but her instructive chapters on the quantitative Jewish presence in the gymnasia and Realschulen of Vienna reveals by implication the social base of this domination. Though just under 10 percent of the total population, Jewish students constituted over 30 percent of all gymnasia students and, in areas like the Leopoldstadt, they were the overwhelming majority (Catholic Gentiles, though a majority in the district, remained a minority in the secondary schools). Since the gymnasia in particular were the training ground for high culture and the intellectual elite, it is not surprising that from 1880 onward, to be liberal, educated and bourgeois in Vienna one almost had to be Jewish! Rozenblit's study would be worth reading for her detailed research into the gymnasia alone, but there is a great deal more to be learned from her work. In particular, an impressively detailed picture of Jewish immigration and residential patterns in Vienna emerges, one which stresses that Jews followed Jewish patterns of adaptation to the Wellstadt regardless of class and other variables. Rozenblit constantly hammers away at this point, stressing the markedly different occupational distribution of Jews and non-Jews in Vienna, their different pattern of social mobility, behavior and socialization. She does not deny their internal economic differentiation—on the contrary, there is an interesting chapter on Jewish penetration into the new white-collar occupations—but she does insist that they did not undergo any structural assimilation. Indeed, the central thesis of her book is that Jews were socialized together with other Jews and created a rich network of Jewish organizations which permitted the maintenance of their ethnic identity in spite of urbanization and modernization. There is much to be said for this thesis, but there are a number of caveats. In the first place, as a recent article by Ivar Oxaal and W. R. Weitzmann in the Leo Baeck Yearbook (1985) points out, there was actually less residential segregation of Jews from non-Jews in Vienna than in other cities of the dual monarchy. Second, there is some evidence to suggest that there was more erosion of identity among Jews than Rozenblit's study would suggest, that the anonymity and socio-economic opportunities of the big city as well as its cultural power of attraction took their toll. Rozenblit's quantitative methods seem inadequate to deal with this problem, which is much better handled by Michael Pollack's focus on the identity crisis which affected Jews and non-Jews alike in fin-de-siecle Austria. Finally, as Oxaal and Weitzmann have suggested, one needs also to look at the normative features of Jewish participation in the Austrian economy and not separate Vienna and its Jews from this context. Precisely this macro-perspective is missing in Rozenblit's account, clearly demonstrated by the book's most striking omission, namely, the failure to discuss the impact of antisemitism on Jewish assimilation and identity in spite of its obvious centrality in the period under question. Michael Pollack's concise study of fin-de-siecle Vienna, the work of a young Austrian-born sociologist living in Paris, partly fills this gap in a fascinating and elegant manner. Following in the footsteps of Carl Schorske, Pollack is primarily interested in the general interplay between culture and politics, though he pays more attention to the Jewish factor than does the American historian. Moreover, as a sociologist evidently influenced by historical materialism, Pollack is more attuned to such mundane questions as career strategies, the pursuit by intellectuals of

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institutional influence and the role of censorship and the press in Austrian cultural life. The strongest feature of his study is the discussion of the tensions between German and Austrian cultural identity (with Jewish identity fitted somewhat uneasily into this dichotomy) as it affected the Viennese intelligentsia throughout the nineteenth century. At the same time, Pollack seeks to relate the fragile multinational structure of the Habsburg state to the cultural pessimism of the Viennese intelligentsia, its anti-modernism and conservative loyalism. He sees the estheticism of Jung-Wien, its disenchantment with politics and flight from concrete social struggles as the reflection of an identite blessee, nurtured by backward economic and political conditions in the monarchy and its objective structural weaknesses. Much of what he has to say about the artists and intellectuals of Vienna rings true and the commentary is skillfully woven into a body of representative quotations taken from the period in question, which enhances the documentary value of the book. What Pollack calls le souci autobiographique, the preoccupation with self and with problems of sexuality and identity which characterized Viennese men of letters, is neatly illustrated from the writings of von Hofmannstahl, von Andrian, Hermann Bahr, Schnitzler, Kraus, Freud and Weininger. What is much less convincing is the underlying sociological reductionism which seeks to explain the prevalence of certain ideas, moods and personality traits too exclusively in terms of social milieu. Perhaps one may look forward to a major work of interpretation of this period by Michael Pollack, one which will expand and refine in a more extensive format the many insights in this highly condensed, semi-documentary work. One of the more elusive figures of fin-de-siecle Vienna, who defies any effort at purely sociological classification, is Karl Kraus, the subject of a reader which first appeared in Canada nearly nine years ago and has now been reissued in England. Kraus has long been something of a closed book to the English-speaking world, partly because of his legendary "untranslatability." Beyond this, there is the problem of rendering intelligible the source and context of Krausian satire, much of it ad hominem in nature, directed at persons, places and events unfamiliar, for the most part, to the non-specialist, English-speaking reader. This latter problem has been partly mitigated by the current resurgence of interest in fin-de-siecle Vienna, which lends an ironic twist to Kraus's aphorism, "I have to wait until my writings are obsolete; then they may acquire timeliness." In fact, Kraus has been rediscovered not only as a unique combination of poet, social critic and satirist but also a witness to his own age, which he detested with a rare passion and intensity. Many of the journalistic pieces in this volume reflect his savage hatred and contempt for the corruption and hypocrisies of bourgeois life in Vienna, his boundless rage at the gentlemen of the press—responsible in his mind for capitalism, militarism, demagogic cretinization of the masses and the devaluation of all values—as well as his well-founded doubts concerning the wonders of technology and "progress." The assaults on arrogant, posturing militarism, on male chauvinism and the insolence of the press have not lost their pertinence and editor Harry Zohn (one of the best living translators of German and Austrian literature) has done a fine job in rendering selections from Kraus's magnum opus, the pacifist epic The Last Days of Mankind, available to a wider audience.

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Nevertheless, one cannot help feeling a sense of disappointment at the final result and doubts as to whether it will convert any but the already convinced into admirers of Kraus. Partly, this feeling may be due to my own freely admitted prejudice against the essentially negative and destructive character of Krausian polemic. With all due respect and admiration for the satirist's moral integrity, for his quasireligious devotion to the Word (this Sprachmystiker had something of the Hasid in him under the cloak of his Germanic Catholic assimilationism), I have never been able to shake off my irritation at Kraus's mono-maniac insistence on language as the criterion of all vice and virtue. Zohn's somewhat uncritical and abrupt introduction has not convinced me to change my mind, and in any case it fails to place Kraus sufficiently in his Viennese context, without which he really is unintelligible. Moreover, it is disappointing to note that not a single piece selected here throws any light on Kraus's Jewish identity (a subject Zohn has admittedly written about elsewhere)—which is certainly both important and material to an understanding of his work. Kraus reacted not only against a liberal bourgeois establishment but against a world of journalism dominated by Jews and the oppositional stance he forged for himself was intimately connected with this fact. One would have expected that this problem would at least have been evoked by the editor, an eminent specialist on the subject of Jewish participation in Austrian literature. The last two works under review deal with the reverse side of the coin, namely, the Lueger phenomenon and the formative years of Adoph Hitler in Vienna. They are even less satisfactory, though both are highly readable and even entertaining at times. Luegerzeit is by far the more weighty, both in volume, content and in knowledge of the period. As a piece of haute vulgarisation, Andics has done a highly professional job, as befits the author of a number of TV documentaries on contemporary history and on nineteenth-century Austria. Andics possesses a colorful, vivid style which carries the reader along, and he excels in fusing events, personalities and social conditions into an intelligible whole. Yet anyone familiar with John Boyer's recent work on Lueger and the Christian-Social movement will find little here that is new and much that is simply out of date in what amounts to an essentially journalistic account of the Lueger era. Andics purports to focus on the transformation of Vienna under Lueger's municipal socialism and to examine the impact of Christian-Social administration on the topography, the social structure and the cultural life of the city, yet there is surprisingly little in the book itself on this admittedly important and neglected theme. What emerges is a basically uncritical account of Lueger as a progressive social reformer, the man who provided the Kaiserstadt with new gas and electricity systems and with tramlines and railways, the civic-minded politician who built hospitals, schools and publicly owned abattoirs and encouraged secession architects like Otto Wagner to beautify and modernize the city. This is all perfectly true, but it is only one side of the historical record, though it may well be the one that Austrians prefer to remember. One would, nevertheless, expect a less celebratory tone when discussing the man who was, after all, one of Adolf Hitler's political heroes, even if intellectual honesty requires one to acknowledge the ideological chasm separating the Viennese mayor from his Nazi imitator. Unfortunately, Andics never addresses himself seriously in

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this book to the problem of antisemitism (though having written on the subject elsewhere, he must certainly be aware of it) and the Jews appear only peripherally in his account of the Lueger era. If Andics is far too sparing in his references to Viennese Jewry, J. Sydney Jones's discretion is virtually incomprehensible. For a book which seriously claims to provide a new insight into Hitler's formative years cannot possibly avoid detailed discussion of his conversion to antisemitism—that central axis of his world-view, which by the Fiihrer's own account he had picked up in Leuger's Vienna. One's surprise at Jones's brief and rather thin evocation of the "Jewish problem" in Vienna turns to consternation when confronted with the following monstrosity, "Recent evidence concerning Hitler's responsibility for the 'final solution,' that horrible euphemism for the liquidation of the Jews, also points to the possibility that Hitler may have been a paper anti-Semite. It is possible that Hitler never gave a direct order for the extermination of the Jews and might even have been unaware, up to 1943, that his orders to the contrary had been ignored" (p. 121). In a footnote to this pap, Jones cites as his "authority" none other than the notorious British historian David Irving, whose self-serving and contemptible whitewash of Hitler's antisemitism has been rightly dismissed by all those familiar with the history of the Holocaust. Yet Jones's footnote compounds the offense by baldly stating, "David Irving, in his Hitler's War, deals with this question in depth, and from his evidence it would appear that the extermination of the Jews was carried out more as economic policy than as racial policy, and that Himmler was the man primarily responsible" (p. 299). Perhaps it is this kind of charlatanism, masquerading as scholarship (and at the same time trivializing the Holocaust) which explains the absurdly exaggerated praise on the inside backcover, quoted from the German language press (Jones's book was first published in German). There is no reason to suppose that Jones is an antisemite or that his intention was in any way to rehabilitate Hitler, but this is only one of several lapses that sap one's confidence in the credibility of his book. Basically, then, this is the work of a popular journalist who set out to explore a relatively unknown chapter in Hitler's early career. Unfortunately, it has all the defects of the genre. Though Jones has managed to uncover some previously unknown details about the "Nobody of Vienna"—and this is the one undeniable merit of the book—he constantly succumbs to the temptation to write a novel rather than a historical account. The confusion of genres frequently degenerates into melodramatic schmaltz and entirely speculative imaginings conerning Hitler's state of mind as a down-and-out tramp in Vienna. Though some of this reconstruction is not without interest, it scarcely advances our critical understanding any more than do the long and derivative detours on Vienna's cultural renaissance, which have been dealt with much better elsewhere. The net result is a missed opportunity and a waste of the serious research that the author evidently did in looking for new material. Nevertheless, the theme of Jones's book has at least the merit of reminding us of the Janus-face of early twentieth-century Vienna, capital of an ultra-conservative dynasty, yet the source of so many cultural and political revolutions silently incubating in its womb. Karl Kraus once described his native prewar Austria as an "experimental laboratory for world destruction." When the embodiment of this Weltuntergang finally took the reins of power in 1933, Kraus was left speechless.

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"Mir fallt zu Hitler nichts ein" were virtually his last words. On Hitler he had nothing to say. Was this an expression of Krausian irony or simply a realistic avowal of the impotence of the Word in the face of a political catastrophe? Fortunately for him, Kraus did not live to see the final destruction of old Vienna by the man who had bitterly described it in Mein Kampf as "the hardest, though most thorough school of my life." ROBERT S. WISTRICH The Hebrew University

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Book Reviews

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Norbert Abels, "Sicherheit ixt nirgends": Judentum und Aufklarung bei Arthur Schnitzler. Konigstein: Athenaum, 1982. A remark by Arthur Schnitzler serves as the title for Norbert Abels's study of this author: "Sicherheit ist nirgends." As the German word Sicherheit can mean both certainty and security, this title, like the remark itself, is consciously ambiguous. Ambiguity pervades Schnitzler's works as well as his personality. The aim of Abels's study is to shed light on the most ambiguous aspect of Schnitzler's personality, namely, his Jewish identity, using Schnitzler's autobiography Jugend in Wien (Youth in Vienna), his novel Der Weg ins Freie, and his aphorisms as his main sources. As Abels points out, Schnitzler was not simply a Jewish writer, but a GermanJewish-Austrian one. Among these three characteristics, the Jewish one is most readily forgotten by the contemporary reading and theater public, a fact which Abels takes to be the result of an act of repression on the part of this public, of an unwillingness to deal with the "Jewish question." However, it should be pointed out that authors like Schnitzler, Wassermann and Kafka themselves repressed their Jewish identity—at least in their literary works. Schnitzler and Wassermann wrote a few works dealing with Jewish topics, while Kafka's Jewish consciousness and identity is only reflected in his diaries and letters. It is therefore quite easy for the modern reader to disregard the Jewish aspects of their works and still appreciate and understand them fairly comprehensively. Schnitzler's contemporaries, however, were less willing to disregard his origins. As Schnitzler himself points out in his autobiography, a Jew holding a public position could never forget that he was Jewish because Christians and Jews alike kept reminding him of this fact. Schnitzler was very much in the center of public interest since he was a doctor as well as a writer, and this interest: was often less than friendly. Schnitzler's plays were considered daring, immoral and, at the very least, controversial, which made them simply "Jewish." Today, many of them are still popular as they are witty, elegant and just sufficiently ironic and critical of the society they portray not to be outdated. They are no longer controversial and consequently not considered "Jewish" but rather faithful portraits of the society of the late Habsburg empire. Schnitzler felt himself to be part of Austrian society but was at the same time sufficiently an outsider to see that it was doomed. He was by no means the only Austrian writer of his age to feel the uncertainty, decadence and danger underlying the charming surface of imperial Viennese society, but being a Jew he felt them more strongly than many others and also analyzed them more stringently. Much less concrete and clear is his insight into his Jewishness. Schnitzler was an assimilated Jew, but a conscious one. He knew that he could not escape his Jewishness and therefore wanted to bear it honorably and proudly. He did, however, also consider it impossible and undesirable to try So stop being a German-Austrian. Schnitzler's 237

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Jewish identity can therefore not be explained by strictly Jewish categories. Abels analyzes the use of more general concepts like scepticism, renunciation, language, responsibility, homeland, assimilation, society and individual in Schnitzler's works to show that they are seen from a Jewish perspective. Abels detects this Jewish identity first and foremost on an emotional and moral level, while Schnitzler's thinking was very much the product of German-Austrian culture. He tries to distinguish the Jewish from the non-Jewish perspectives in Schnitzler's works by giving a general survey of the ideas current at his time together with later evaluations and interpretations of these ideas. In a sometimes overly erudite manner, he confronts the reader with a mass of quotations taken from diverse sources which sometimes makes for confusion. However, the difficulty of Abels's task in analyzing tenuous and subtle German-Austrian-Jewish symbiosis, which was accepted by Schnitzler himself only on an intellectual level, but not on an emotional or social one, should be kept in mind. A whole chapter of the book is dedicated to Schnitzler's concept of Heimat (homeland), which is juxtaposed to fatherland or state in that it is not defined by a definite territory but rather by a sense of belonging and identification on the part of the individual. As Abels points out, Schnitzler's homeland did not collapse together with the Habsburg empire in 1918, but it was seriously threatened by any sort of nationalism, Jewish or German, which denied the Jew the right of belonging there. Schnitzler rejected any sort of racial prejudice as detrimental to the value of the individual. And even concepts like "people," "state" and "mankind" appeared to him to be dangerous generalizations. They were dangerous as they blurred and distorted the degree of the responsibility which each individual bears. Abels takes this belief in personal responsibility under all circumstances to be the most significantly Jewish aspect of Schnitzler's work since Schnitzler himself distinguished his Jewish from his non-Jewish characters exactly by means of the presence or absence of this quality. In his novel Der Weg ins Freie only the Christian protagonist Georg can reach "freedom" because he can free himself from any sense of responsibility toward his friends and lover, while his Jewish counterpart Heinrich is crushed by a helpless sense of responsibility which he cannot live up to. Abels finds this sense of responsibility underlying Schnitzler's attitude toward language as well. Like Wittgenstein, he thought that language could not express truth. This was, however, not an epistemological problem for him, but a moral one. Schnitzler came closest to the position of his contemporary, and fellow Jew, Karl Kraus, when he claimed that language could no longer express truth because people are no longer willing to bear responsibility for their words. Schnitzler was at the same time aware of the fact that in times of uncertainty, as the one he was living in, illusion can to a degree sustain life. He still warned against degrading speech, the only means of human communication, to mere empty jargon. When Schnitzler called for the right of the individual to a homeland of his choice rather than being a dependent citizen of the state, when he tried to make language again a means of honest communication between people, he attempted to save the individual from the dangers of mass society. Abels sees him as a late representative of Enlightenment values in the age of post-liberal mass hysteria. Being socially exposed, the Jew keenly felt the dangers of new developments, but he also sensed

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his basic inability to halt or alter them. Schnitzler's Jews might feel and think in a more humane and responsible manner, but on the level of actual deeds, they are not different from their Christian counterparts. Schnitzler points to problems and faults without giving answers or offering remedies. The responsibility Schnitzler calls for is one of consciousness rather than of action. This somehow weakens Abels's argument, as it seems that the strong ethical drive he distinguishes in Schnitzler's thinking should not allow for such passivity. Abels sees this as a result of the Jewish condition which made scepticism and renunciation the only possible reactions to an increasingly dangerous world. Abels presents a good survey of the history of Jewish emancipation, the rise of antisemitism and major trends of fin-de-siecle thought. The many comparisons to Prussian developments are not always convincing or necessary. Finally, Schnitzler's preoccupation with the human psyche, which earned him Freud's respect and dislike, should have been dealt with more in depth since this would have yielded important insights into Schnitzler's artistic as well as Jewish views. ELEONORA LAPPIN The Hebrew University

Michel Abitbol, Les Juifs d'Afrique du Nord sous Vichy. Collection Judai'sme en terre d'Islam, 2 vols. Paris: G.-P. Maisonneuve & Larose, 1983. 220 pp. The persecutions and hardships endured by European Jewry during the Second World War have been—and continue to be—copiously documented and analyzed. This is not the case as far as Afro-Asian Jewry during that terrible period is concerned. With the exception of a few articles (primarily in Hebrew) and a chapter here and there in some general works on Oriental Jewry (again, mainly in Hebrew), little mention has been made of the lot of the Jews under the short-lived pro-Axis regime of Rashid ' AH in Iraq or of their co-religionists in Fascist Libya or in French North Africa under Vichy rule. Michel Abitbol's new book takes the first significant step in filling the vacuum. The book provides a very readable general sketch based on archival and printed materials of Tunisian, Algerian and Moroccan Jewry from the years immediately preceding the Vichy regime through those immediately following it. It documents the rise of antisemitism in European colonial circles, the implementation of antiJewish policies and the various Jewish reactions. The book also records the struggle that Maghrebi Jewry was forced to wage in order to have rescinded the discriminatory Vichy laws which remained in effect well after the Allied takeover. Since each of the three Jewish communities in French North Africa underwent somewhat different experiences (e.g., only Tunisian Jewry suffered the brunt of direct German occupation) and, indeed, were themselves rather individual in character (Algerian Jews had previously enjoyed French citizenship and were on the

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whole far more Europeanized than their brethren in the neighboring territories), Abitbol treats each community separately. He is most successful in the cases of Algeria and Tunisia, for which there is a relative wealth of printed sources, including valuable memoirs published by several Algerian and Tunisian communal leaders shortly after the liberation. One of the most poignant pictures that clearly emerges from this book is that of the steadfast Jewish loyalty to the French patrie—their refusal to believe that the anti-Jewish measures inflicted upon them really emanated from Petain's government but rather were imposed by the Nazis—and their abiding confidence in the "French conscience," which had always been "the Guide of Humanity." The parallel with German Jewry's faith in Deutschtum, though not explicitly noted by Abitbol, is too strong to ignore. Hence, one can better understand the immense psychological shock of young Maghrebi Jews for whom—in Abitbol's words— "the French ideal had become a political and cultural dogma" (p. 178). North African Jewry was fortunate enough to be spared the ultimate fate meted out to the Jews of Europe. It is true that in Tunisia the Nazis did have their notorious Final Solution in mind, but for a variety of reasons their death machine could not be put into operation. One of the positive results of this period of trial throughout North Africa was a significant rise in Jewish consciousness and solidarity. This, in turn, led to a new receptivity in many quarters to Zionism, a movement whose fortunes had waned somewhat among the assimilated urban elite during the 1920s and 1930s. One item of historical revisionism that will certainly prompt debate is Abitbol's calling into question the widely held belief that the Moroccan Sultan, Muhammad V, tried to protect his Jews from the Vichy laws. Abitbol finds no documented evidence for this view and asserts that these were simply rumors deriving from English sources in the Free Zone (pp. 84-85). The book concludes with a brief appendix of nine judiciously chosen and telling documents. Let us hope that this stimulating little book will pave the way for further studies on this important period of Jewish history. NORMAN A. STILLMAN State University of New York at Binghamton

Robert H. Abzug, Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Of all the obscenities inflicted upon the Jews during the period of the Holocaust, one of the most perverse may have been the calculated displacement of a millennium-old civilization by what David Roskies has called "an enormous freak show

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of atrocity victims." Unfortunately, the unassimi table images of the wretched dead and survivors have become for many in America not only the sum of European Jewish civilization but also the sum of knowledge about the Holocaust itself. Thus, the point of departure for the "popular study" of the Holocaust is often not the conditions of history, politics, culture and mind that culminated in the catastrophe or even the rich history of pre-Holocaust European Jewry that preceded it, but only the pure, unmitigated horror at the end of Jewish history in continental Europe. In his study of the American liberators' responses to the concentration camps and their victims, Robert Abzug finds that most of the young American GIs, without a larger understanding of recent European history or of the antisemitic nature of the Nazi state, "grasped" the scenes they found only in terms of the horror and stench of the moment. In this way the liberators were "witnesses" not to the process of Nazi destruction, but only to the effects of destruction and ultimately to their own incapacity to find meaning in these effects. Without insight into the victims' past, their families and their communities, the liberators were apt to report only "ape-like creatures," "walking skeletons," and "less-than-human" behavior. As Abzug makes clear through a series of interviews and excerpts from various "oral histories" of the liberators, these soldiers thus apprehended the camps and their victims in the only terms available to them: " 'It was the same as coming upon where a mortar shell landed,' remembered J. D. Digilio, 'and you come across eight or ten German soldiers who have been killed. You know there was no sense of identification' " (p. 66). And by observing here that "it was only after learning about the fuller significance of the camps that Digilio saw his experience differently," Abzug also highlights the problematic nature of both "eye-witness testimony" like this and of making it the focus of a putatively historical study. For even though this testimony is indisputably authentic, it is not therefore authoritatively "true." "These Jewish people and these Polish people were like animals," a Jewish liberator of Woebbelin related. "[Tjhey were so degraded, there was no goodness, no kindness, nothing of that nature, there was no sharing" (p. 63). The truth in a statement like this, however, is ultimately less instructive of the actual nature of the survivors than it is of the young GIs' own incomplete understanding of the survivors. Abzug thus takes the reader on a gently written tour of the American-liberated concentration camps—from Natzwilier to Mauthausen, from Ohrdruf to Bergen Belsen—as seen through the eyes and camera lenses of the American army. But inasmuch as Abzug has undertaken "a description arid analysis of the experiences of GIs and other American eyewitnesses as they grappled with some of the most frightening scenes in modern history," he has ironically limited the scope of his own inquiry to the shock and horror that constituted the bulk of the initial responses to the camps. For, as did the GIs before him, Abzug also tends to focus primarily on the tactile horror of it all, as if the point of historical inquiry now is merely to evoke or convey the horror of events and not the understanding of events. So even though he has culled an impressive collection of photographs and eye-witness accounts from the archives at the Fred R. Crawford Witness to the Holocaust Project at Emory University in Atlanta and other centers, it is not until his last chapter on displaced persons that he goes beyond the horror to explore the implications of these responses for the victims and for the policies affecting them after the war.

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Once liberated from the liberators' own suppositions, Abzug is able to show how the response to, and perception of, events eventually fed back into the situation itself. He notes, for example, how the somewhat automatic, if naive, comparisons of the well-fed German civilians and the relatively well-treated Baltic prisoners of war with the starved and brutalized Jews put the Jewish DPs at a distinct disadvantage in their dealings with the administrators of the occupation forces. "Old antiSemitic stereotypes [thus] blended with these scenes of degradation to leave a rather unfavorable impression on many in the occupation force," Abzug writes (p. 152), which, in turn, contributed to the decision to keep the most brutalized survivors in locked DP camps and not to allow others to find refuge in the West. As Abzug shows, this attitude was most frighteningly apparent in the approach of General George C. Patton toward the Jewish DPs, which ultimately led to his being relieved of command for the occupation forces of southern Germany. Thus, even though the GIs often felt themselves to be victimized to some degree by their encounters with the camps, the survivors themselves were ultimately victimized twice: first by the Nazis and then again by the limited understanding of their degradation on the part of those who liberated them. Overall, this study represents a well-intentioned, if somewhat misdirected, record of the American GIs' understanding of, and response to, their liberation of Nazi concentration camps. But in failing to inquire beyond the sense of horror into the lives (and not just the deaths) of the victims of the camps, the author risks sustaining—not expanding—the popular understanding of the Holocaust. That is to say, there is still much to be learned about the American liberators' understanding of the Holocaust beyond their response to its seemingly ubiquitous terror. JAMES E. YOUNG New York University

Rainer C. Baum, The Holocaust and the German Elite. London: Rowan and Littlefield/Totowa: Croom Helm, 1981. This year (1985) marks the fortieth anniversary of Germany's defeat and the start of the trials of the major war criminals which followed it. Rainer Baum's book is therefore most timely, all the more so as it is an important contribution to the discussion of the Holocaust and to the great questions it poses—"How was it possible?" and "How was a civilized nation, maybe the 'most civilized' one, able to carry out genocide and as a result commit national suicide?" as Baum puts it. On the face of it, Germany reached a point of no return on 8 May 1945. It was a moment of truth—which they later called Stunde Null, zero hour—a complete national disaster, when Germany could not escape from itself and deny its own behavior and its responsibility for the atrocities committed by the regime with the active support of the German people. It might have been expected then to accept defeat as a kind of national suicide, well deserved, the logical outcome of the Nazi

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rise to power, which required not only a massive campaign to punish the responsible ones but an in-depth study of German history, psychology, its social and cultural heritage. The Nuremberg trials should have been the inevitable culmination of the process of justice and of drawing lessons from German history. At that time, so it seemed, each and every person in Germany was rudely awakened from the spell of Nazism, the Nordic saga which was transformed in their eyes by Hitler to a living, modern drama. Suddenly the Wagnerian music halted to a terrible silence. Reality, rather than a fantastic, violent dream, should have penetrated their minds. Moreover, the Jews—accused of all of Germany's misfortunes in the First World War and who were put to death during the Second World War to ensure victory—emerged in long accusing columns to tell the world the story of the slaughtered millions, of the genocide which did not prevent Germany's ultimate defeat, but added an enormous burden to her very future as a nation. The Jew, the hated Jew, was murdered for nothing, and emerged now, rightly, as a prosecutor, blaming Germany (who used to blame him for all wrongs and troubles she encountered) for the act of genocide. Morally and psychologically, let alone politically, this should have been a real moment of truth. However, such a mood did not, in fact, prevail in Germany forty years ago, at the moment of unconditional surrender. The reality was much more complicated. German history and society, the structure and the values of the German elite and their relations with the masses, German and Allied politics, and psychological, religious, legal and constitutional factors combined together to complicate Germany's soulsearching. True, the Nuremberg trials, held by the Allies a year later, did contribute immensely to a complex process of German self-evaluation. The International Military Tribunal and to a lesser extent the national Allied military courts did achieve a significant aim: to tell the Germans what had happened in an orderly, convincing way which could withstand criticism. Yet, too many Germans managed, even then, as now, to avoid responsibility and to avoid analyzing reality in the comprehensive sense that we might have expected from them at the time, or later on. Baum's book explains the Holocaust itself and the failure to engage in serious soul-searching after the defeat by discussing important complicating factors which inhibited an honest self-evaluation and which played a role during the Nuremberg trials. Jn so doing he draws on the work of such scholars as Ralf Dahrendorf as well as on his own research. First, as Baum puts it. the German people are made up of a conglomerate of regional cultures with different and opposing value systems. Yet, the effects of propaganda and mass media combined with social, psychological and educational factors and with the experiences of the First World War and the Weimar years had created a mass society. Second, the social role of the German citizens was historically limited and even if one might speak of mobilized people in a political sense, one can hardly refer to sovereign, independent individuals who entered politics and tried to influence reality in terms of free choices made by free poeple. As Baum indicates, many Germans shared anti-images rather than positive values accepted in the process of modernization—values which had transformed other Western countries into national civilizations based upon shared beliefs, religious and secularized values and generally accepted "rules of the game." We may add here that Dahrendorf (in his Society and Democracy in Germany)

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introduced an interesting distinction between societies governed by "public virtues" such as Great Britain and the United States and societies ruled by "private virtues" such as Germany. Public virtues resemble rules of behavior in sports, especially in team sports, in which the game itself remains unchanged and behavioral values such as "keep smiling," "accept defeat" and "work together with the others to win next time" are supreme. The salient concept here is the concept of "fair play," or of fairness in general. Societies based on private virtues such as Germany seek the "truth," which leads to grand philosophical inquiries into human nature, to vulgarized scientific theories concerning the same and to historical interpretations of reality which a game society largely neutralizes. Third, as Friedrich Meinecke noted in his German Catastrophe, Germany, and especially Prussia, developed a habit (influenced by its military and bureaucratic history) of looking for solutions—"final solutions"—rather than of working for compromises. The use of force was considered legitimate and transferred from purely military affairs to society as a whole, especially after the fall of the authoritarian second Reich and the introduction of an inefficient democratic regime. Fourth, human experience and the reluctance to impose one's private virtues on other people, combined in England and in the United States with traditional JudeoChristian values, and with the eighteenth century's liberal-rational ethos, created a historical continuity, a positive attitude to tradition. In Germany, this had been given up, according to Baum, as irrelevant to "modernity," to the requirements of modern men and to the specific problems of modern Germany. Yet the German elite was very much divided—as were the masses—with regard to the meaning of "modernity." This brings me to Baum's main contribution. He claims that "modernity" meant for Germans a rebellion not only against the Judeo-Christian tradition (and in this sense Nazism was fighting the Jews as a real, most terrible enemy) and not only against liberalism and rationalism. "Modernity" for them entailed, as Thomas Mann put it in his Deutsche Amprache of the early thirties, not only a denial of the values of the French Revolution and the role of the middle classes but also an emphasis on the subconscious, the "creative forces" of the instinct and the sexual, artistic, creative, rich and hidden forces underneath the surface of the political and social reality. The "modern man of power" (moderner Machtmensch), a concept which emerged in Germany in the twenties as a result of the five factors outlined above, was indeed a unique creature. Thus, the idea of legality was developed by Carl Schmitt and others to a point of pure "decisionism"—that is to say, the law must entail decisions rather than Weimar-like non-decisions, and it must at the same time allow a distinction between "enemies" of the state and "friends." In reality, however, the combination of such rigidly defined value differences (i.e., competing "private virtues") with the de-legitimization of one elite by another tended to undermine the concept of authority itself in the society at large. In the absence of a shared stratum of legitimate beliefs and convictions, it became unclear just who owed obedience to whom, for what and why. Hitler's ideology and politics created a new source of authority by mobilizing obedience, a task which was simplified by the utter confusion and the lack of authority among both the elite and the masses. At Nuremberg, obedience to Hitler, on the one hand, and his responsibility as the

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sole source of the policies and of the atrocities carried out by Germany, on the other hand, were the main defenses of the accused—as if his rise to power had been inevitable and justified, while his "errors" belonged to him alone. Germany had become, as Bauin argues, the political practitioner of modern man's central moral error: the belief that man makes himself, without reference to any system of secular morality based on traditional values; the belief that all reality is but a social construction, unrestrained by history, in which the subconscious, the instincts, force and blood should combine to yield a modern myth. The Judeo-Christian traditions, the rule of law in the traditional sense and any restrictions upon the use of force belong to the past. "Modernity" means liberation from all this—not only from democracy and its set of values. Indeed, the judges at Nuremberg had to face a set of values completely at odds with their own Judeo-Christian, liberal-humanistic ones. They succeeded because Hitler had failed; his modern myth proved to be a practical disaster to the Germans themselves. They supplied enough evidence to prove Hitler's incompetence and stupidity, and this helped to transform the Nazi leadership in German eyes from heroes and superhuman Nordic gods into a gang that had failed and had left them to suffer the consequences. Of course, the atomization of the German society after the war, the daily struggle for food and shelter, the struggle of the old-new parties for the German soul, the politics of the former allies, all these factors prevented the apocalypse that some Germans might have expected on 8 May 1945 when the spell was over. Yet Hitler's ultimate failure—the lost war, the thunder of thousands of bombers over their ruined cities, and Nuremberg— helped them back to reality by demonstrating that the modern myth was unrealizable; that the law could not be changed to fit any action; and that human experience, the "rules of the game" and Judeo-Christian values were not hopelessly obsolete, even if foreign prosecutors and judges (as was bitterly pointed out then and now) implemented them against a few of Hitler's lieutenants at Nuremberg. SHLOMO ARONSON The Hebrew University

Doris Bensimon and Sergio DellaPergola, Population juive de France: Socio-demographie et identite. Paris/Jerusalem: Centre national de la recherche scientifique/Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1984. 436 pp. FF 160. A study, over a ten-year period, of a sample of 4,300 individuals, whose names were selected from electoral lists and from card indexes provided by Jewish institutions, has permitted the authors of this work to present a rich and thorough sociodemographic picture of the Jewish population of France. Consisting largely of successive waves of immigration from Central and Kastern Europe before the Second World War and from North Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, French Jewry numbered approximately 535,000 at the beginning of the 1980s. This estimate is

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less than the 600,000-700,000 figure cited by the public opinion survey institute, La Sofres, and controversy will undoubtedly ensue. It should be noted that the population figures in this book are based on a more profound knowledge of the socio-demographic structure of the Jewish community of France than the earlier one, and they take into account evolutionary factors. For both these reasons, they may be assumed to be more accurate than those of Sofres. Moreover, the integration of dynamic and comparative perspectives (both between the Jewish population and the total population and among the different components of the Jewish population) brings to light the characteristic traits of French Jewry. In some cases, previously presented facts have been reconfirmed and quantified; in others, commonly held beliefs have been refuted. Characterized by a high rate of urbanization, the Jews of France are divided between the Parisian region (more than 50 percent, equally distributed between Paris itself and the suburban communities) and the provinces, where the Midi has replaced Alsace-Lorraine as the region with the highest Jewish concentration (p. 41). This is due to the predominance of North African Jews, who constitute 54 percent of the total Jewish population, while the Central and East European group is dwindling or confined to older age brackets (p. 92). The Jewish population is marked by a strong male predominance and a high level of education (while Jews constitute only 1.1 percent of the total population, Jewish students represent more than 6 percent of the student population). This phenomenon is explained, in part, by the selective character of immigration and in part by the desire for upward mobility based on education. French Jewish occupations display a preponderance of liberal professions and upper-level cadres (26 percent as opposed to 12 percent in the general population) and a net decline in the working class (9 percent as opposed to 29.4 percent in the general population). However, the most interesting pages of this study illustrate the phenomenon of the demographic erosion of the Jewish population of France, a fact which the authors present as inevitable. Indeed, the Jewish population is older than the total population of the country, with a smaller percentage of children and a particularly weak 30-44 age bracket (p. 160). The variations in Jewish fertility (p. 143) anticipate in rhythm and intensity those of the total population (the fall in the birthrate with its social and cultural consequences, a cause of some concern to French demographers), and the rate of reproduction is so low as to approximate zero population growth. Even North African Jews, whose reproductive rates have traditionally been higher, tend to come close to the overall rate in the social environment, in this case, that of the Midi, which has a lower birthrate than does the north of France. One can appreciate the extent of this demographic erosion if one also takes into account the increase in mixed marriages (one third of all Jewish marriagaes in the 1970s [p. 131]), most of which are contracted by Jews born in France, whose number is, of course, growing. Moreover, only a minority of the offspring of mixed marriages identifies in any way with Judaism ([p. 158]; inversely to Jewish tradition, this identification is found mainly in cases where the father rather than the mother is Jewish). Last but not least, since the 1970s the migratory tide has virtually dried up. All of the variables studied show that these processes emerge later in the North African sector of the community—more recent immigrants from a more

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traditional society—but adoption of the norms of the host group is, nonetheless, found at all levels. This book also seeks, through a study of the manner in which Jewish identity is perceived in France, to assess the purported "revival" of French Jewry. Thus, it appears that 34 percent of the respondents (p. 242) declare themselves involved in religious aspects of Jewish life (especially Jews of North African origin), while others who responded positively are concerned with other aspects (cultural, historical, attachment to family traditions, ties with communal institutions). It is noteworthy, however, that in addition to the 4 percent who declared Judaism to be insignificant to them, a striking 30 percent did not respond to this question at all. Attachment to religious aspects of Judaism appears to be inversely proportional to level of education. Thus, for example, while 83 percent of Jewish couples have their sons circumcised (the most prevalent religious practice), this figure drops to 66 percent among university graduates (p. 330). All the facts gathered suggest that the "new religious revival" is in reality occurring among the offspring of the already observant. What should also be noted is the very high number of respondents who declare themselves interested in reading about Jewish themes (64 percent); the large number of Jewish periodicals in French catering to this interest (82); the seeming disappearance among the under-twenty-five-year-olds of knowledge of Jewish languages other than Hebrew (p. 286); the acknowledgement of the importance of modern Hebrew, especially among the young and educated, as a way of affirming Jewish identity; the central place of the State of Israel in the perception of this identity (a point not investigated further by the authors); and the fact that only 42 percent of the respondents maintain ties (often tenuous) with communal institutions. Faced with such a diversified picture, it would be more exact to speak of Jewish "populations" of France, in the plural. Although the phenomenon of demographic erosion is minutely described and quantified, the polymorphous development of Jewish identity in France is much more difficult to define or measure. Only qualitative studies, which could follow upon the quantitative foundations presented in this book, could capture its nature and extent. Other aspects of this rich and diverse work deserve mention such as the study of the arrondissements of Paris or the comparative analysis of the geographic or socioprofessional mobility of the various components of the French Jewish population. Family patterns are examined as well, showing a low divorce rate relative to the total population. Similarly, low percentages apply to the economic activity of Jewish women—one woman graduate of every two does not pursue a professional career. Doris Bensimon and Sergio DellaPergola also explain some of the differences found between French Jews of Algeria and those of Tunisia and Morocco. In the former case, the community was transplanted almost in its entirety, whereas the Jews of Tunisian or Moroccan origin chose residence in France according to the degree to which they were culturally French, that is, by education. Elsewhere, the differences ascertained between the relative integration of North African Jews in France and Israel are explained by referring to conditions in the host country (majority status in Israel as opposed to France) as well as to the selective nature of

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immigration (self-selection characterized the choice of France by the great majority of the more highly educated and professionals [chap. 17]). Somewhat surprisingly, one learns (chap. 16) that assimilationist tendencies (measured by the rate of mixed and civil marriages and the number of circumcisions) and the renunciation of Jewish religious observances are more pronounced among families affected by wartime deportations. It should be emphasized that all these facts are essentially valid for the Parisian region alone. The authors explain that technical and budgetary difficulties prevented them from attaining the same depth of analysis vis-a-vis the provinces. It is clear that North African immigrants, who, as mentioned earlier, constitute a majority of the Jews of France, have reinforced certain provincial communities (p. 58) where, because of the higher proportion of religious observance among these Jews or perhaps because of the lack of alternative ways of expressing Jewish identification, the synagogue seems to play a more important role than it does in Paris. It appears, therefore, that a deeper analysis of the provincial communities would be useful in completing the picture. Doris Bensimon and Sergio DellaPergola have written a study in the Parisocentric tradition of the majority of books on the history of French Jewry and in keeping with the tendency of French society in general, thereby highlighting the strong connection between the Jewish community and the society in which it lives. Through this clear and comprehensive picture of the different components of French Jewry and its evolution, one can appreciate both the integrative and equalizing power of French society and, concomitantly, its tolerance and openness. Thus, the fate of French Jewry seems to depend ultimately as much on this particular French dialectic as on its own internal development. RENEE POZNANSKI Ben-Gurion University

Marion Berghahn, German Jewish Refugees in England. London: Macrnillan, 1984. 294 pp. £20.00. This study of German Jewish refugees in England provides an overview of the lives, perceptions and organizational activities of a group of 180 German Jews interviewed by the author. Marion Berghahn, a social anthropologist, chose to interview three distinct groups of refugees brought to her attention by a "snowball system" of referrals: those born before 1920 (80 people), those born thereafter in Germany (68), and those born after the war, outside Germany (32). The interviews were open-ended. Berghahn added her own lively, personal appraisal, not shying away from divulging her own feelings and reactions to the respondents' statements. The result is a dialogue between a German scholar living by choice in Britain and her German Jewish interviewees, most of whom would never have chosen Britain as a home had it not been for the Nazis.

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In approaching the topic, the author reworks the concepts of ethnicity and ethnic identity and offers her own definition of assimilation. Ethnicity, she suggests, is a cluster of cultural traits, but more important, it is rooted in the sub-conscious or unconscious and is relatively stable. Ethnic identity is flexible and can change over time. It is how a person describes herself or himself. Perhaps it takes an imaginative and perceptive social anthropologist to question, scrutinize (in a chapter detailing the history of the use of "assimilation") and, ultimately, challenge the historians' old warhorse of "assimilation," namely, the assumption that "Jewishness" and "Germanness" were opposites and that the general trend of Jewish assimilation in Germany ultimately meant exchanging "Jewishness" for "Germanness." She suggests that assimilation did take place but that Germany's Jews did not become Germans. Instead, "Jewish and German elements were integrated in such a way that a form of German-Jewish ethnicity emerged which was not identical with either culture" (p. 45), This new culture "possessed a character entirely of its own" (p. 36) and was not always immediately apparent, because "it is perception rather than cultural institutions which characterize ethnic differentiation in plural societies" (p. 44). Jews did not become the same as Germans, they became similar (p. 42). In Britain, too, they did not become English but rather maintained cultural traits and perceptions which produced a new amalgam. How, then, did the older respondents characterize their identity in Germany? Not as a "Jewish Jewishness" but as a specific "German-Jewishness" found in a "community life of a specific German-Jewish character" (p. 57). These Jews often had non-Jewish friends, many of whom remained loyal during the 1930s (though the figure of twenty thousand Jews surviving with the help of Germans, mentioned on p. 66, is exaggerated). Twenty-four of seventy-four respondents had suffered personally from antisemitism, most experiencing it (surprisingly) before 1933 (p. 62). Younger respondents suffered greatly from the attacks of school comrades in the thirties. Still, not until the November pogrom of 1938 did most German Jews realize that the time had come to escape. Berghahn traces the fortunes and changing identities of various groups of refugees, including academics, doctors, lawyers, artists and business people, noting the discrimination and xenophobia that often greeted them. She remarks that many writers had trouble with their new language ("writing with borrowed words") as well as with the style of British thought and writing. But an artist, too, complained of "an accent in my painting" (p. 94). She examines the crucial role of wives in helping professional men retrain or set up new practices. These women took in lodgers or worked as domestics. They performed all sorts of drudgery and, sometimes, illegal odd jobs, to start a new life. Being a "guest" at best, an "enemy alien" at worst, caused psychological dislocation, made worse by questions posed by the English regarding the refugees' lack of German loyalty! The refugees were often stigmatized in their new country both because of their German nationality (particularly during the war) and their Jewish identity. Most struggled valiantly to become British, a task so formidable that many eventually despaired of success. "Much as I (and all others) loved England, here society was too homogenous and too solid, her opportunities . . . loo narrow. . . . One could, so I felt, never quite become an Englishman" (p. 122). Still, members of the older generation ("trained

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assimilationists?" asks the author) clung most vigorously to their "Britishness," while younger people were less unqualifiedly British and were content to be known as refugees from the Continent. Many of this group experienced a cultural gap vis-avis both Jewish and Gentile British society. They never encountered labeling as a result of accents or European habits, but nonetheless often felt as little "English" as the slightly older respondents (p. 183). This does not at all mean that any of the respondents considered Germany, a land toward which they harbor anger, resentment or ambivalence, as home. Their "Germanness" is cultural, a "continental" ethnicity distinguished not only with regard to self-perception but also with regard to clusters of cultural traits, ranging from language, literature and friendships to home decorations, dress and eating habits. Even the second group, less easily marked by German customs, maintained a certain allegiance to continental foods and styles. This was particularly apparent in the contrast between German and British Jews. The third group feels neither German nor English nor English Jewish. Members of this group specifically mention the continental character of their Jewishness and assert this against either English Jewishness or non-Jewish Englishness. I welcome Berghahn's emphasis on the hidden, sub-conscious aspect of ethnic identity, which provides important psychological insights. While she may not be right about every German Jew in Britain (and she makes no claim for this), she has provided a careful and innovative approach to inter-group relations in general and has added to our understanding of the dynamics of German Jewish "assimilation" in particular. MARION KAPLAN Queens College City University of New York

Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, 1945-1951. New York/London: Norton, 1983. 896 pp. William R. Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945-1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States and Postwar Imperialism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. 803 pp. £45.00

These two excellent studies examine British foreign policy in the critical years 1945-51, the period during which Ernest Bevin served as foreign secretary. The two books neatly complement one another. While Louis's work, as the title indicates, focuses exclusively on events in the Middle East, and especially on the Palestine question, Bullock's study reviews the entire range of foreign affairs with which Bevin had to cope—from Moscow to Washington, from Berlin to the British Empire, from Istanbul to India and from Colombo to Korea. In Bcvin's words: "The world is full of problems and I have to resolve them all at once." Bullock's

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study furnishes a global perspective and also analyzes Bevin's relationships with Prime Minister Attlee, with Labour colleagues in the cabinet and with officials in the Foreign Office. We thus gain an intimate picture of Bevin's modus operandi and the reason why he enjoyed the complete confidence of the prime minister and why he elicited such fierce loyalty from his staff. He was "one of them." As Beeley, the Foreign Office adviser on the Middle East and Palestine said: Bevin underwent "a process which can be called the 'absorption' of a minister by his department" (Bullock, p. 171). This process had untold consequences for the saga of Palestine/Israel. In relation to the Middle East, both books take as their point of departure the succinct but classic study by Oxonian scholar Elizabeth Monroe of Bevin's Arab policy. Bevin's aim, according to Monroe, was to abandon traditional imperialist policy and to replace it with one of partnership between Britain and the individual Arab states. He hoped thereby to assure both the protection of the Middle East from external foes and its development for the benefit of the Arab masses. It was Bevin's conviction that the foundations of a new and durable relationship could be established only if the standard of living ofthefellahin was raised, thus immunizing them from the attraction of communism. Britain vitally needed Middle East oil to sustain the revival of its economy. In fact, the success of the entire Marshall Plan was critically dependent on the steady flow of Arab oil at a reasonable price. The Middle East was also vital as a strategic staging point in the growing confrontation with the Soviet Union in the cold war. According to the British chiefs of staff, the Middle East would serve as a springboard from which to launch an attack against the Soviet Union to supplement a projected attack directed from Western Europe. This made it essential that Britain retain control of bases in the region or that she be granted a right to return to the bases upon the outbreak, or threat, of hostilities. Only in this manner could the Middle East be secured against Russian encroachment and domination. As both Bullock and Louis, however, make clear, this new approach by Bevin was but a pipe dream. For one thing, postwar Britain was destitute and completely incapable of financing a scheme for the industrialization of the Middle East sufficient to raise the standard of living of the Arab masses. In this connection, Bullock aptly quotes a remark by James Callaghan in 1976 at a dinner given by German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, "The mistake we made was to think we won the war" (p. 51, n. 1). Bevin seems to have been quite unappreciative of the lack of means which would fatally flaw his policy. He also seems to have never grasped the true nature of Arab nationalism, the essence of which was the sundering of the colonial tie with Britain. Partnership in place of empire may have sounded honorable to Bevin; to Arab nationalists, it sounded like a variation on the theme of colonial tutelage. For the peoples of the Middle East, Britain, and not the Soviet Union, was the enemy, and there was no coinage with which Britain could "buy off" Arab nationalism and maintain its hold on the Middle East. This leads to another of Bevin's misjudgments in relation to the region. Bevin, and his chief advisor, Harold Beeley, firmly believed that Arab goodwill could be assured if Britain spurned a pro Jewish state policy in Palestine. This, of course, was a great illusion. Nonetheless, it led Bevin (o scuttle the report of the Anglo-

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American Commission of Inquiry in 1946—despite his promise to implement the report if it was unanimously recommended—and it led him to reject any British role in relation to the partition scheme. As Louis so aptly says, Britain "would pursue a course of masterly inactivity" on partition (p. 473). These moves did not endear Bevin to the Arabs; they did, however, contribute to a deterioration of ties with the United States. In particular, personal relations between the British foreign secretary and President Truman were seriously affected by Bevin's policies and his gratuitous remarks in connection with them. Here, too, Bevin failed to assess the situation correctly. As both authors point out, Britain's policy on Palestine could not succeed without the active support of the United States, and an anti-Jewish policy could not command such support. Moreover, Bevin never seems to have understood that in the American system of government the president, rather than the secretary of state, has the final word. This elementary principle helps explain why Bevin was so disappointed in his attempts to wrest the Negev from Israel by means of the Bernadotte Plan. Bevin and Secretary of State Marshall had concurred (conspired?) in the fall of 1948 on the need to separate the Negev from Israel and to attach it to Transjordan. This would provide a line of land communication between Asian Arabia and African Arabia; it would also provide the British with direct access from the Mediterranean to Transjordan and to Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Bevin regarded this as a vital link in British defense strategy for the Middle East. But American endorsement of the Bernadotte Plan had never been cleared with President Truman. Louis claims that the Bernadotte Plan "had the President's blessing" (p. 559). In fact, the president, in his message of 1 September 1948 (see Foreign Relations of the United States, pp. 1,366-1,369), agreed that Israel could not expect to retain both the Negev and the western Galilee. However, it would be up to Israel to make the choice. The Bernadotte Plan, as endorsed by Bevin and Marshall, entailed Israel's surrender of the Negev regardless of its wishes. Truman had never given his assent to a policy of dismemberment of the Jewish state. Consequently, when Secretary Marshall announced on 21 September 1948 that the United States supported the Bernadotte Plan "in its entirety"—including compulsory surrender of the Negev by Israel—President Truman was subsequently compelled to revise that statement by declaring that he remained committed to the policy he had endorsed in the Democratic party platform, namely, that Israel should not be compelled to surrender territory awarded her by the United Nations. It would seem, therefore, that Louis is rather unfair to Truman in charging that he had perpetrated a "pigheaded and calamitous sellout" to the Israelis in allowing them to retain the Negev regardless of the Bernadotte Plan (p. 567). The president was merely conforming to the policy line he had established from the beginning—faithful adherence to the 1947 Partition Plan. It was the State Department which had strayed, both in March on the withdrawal from partition and in September on the Negev. Truman was consistent throughout. A sounder appreciation by Bevin of the operation of the American system of government and of the intricacies of American domestic politics would have spared him much disillusionment. At least he would not so needlessly have forfeited the president's goodwill.

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This, of course, poses the question whether Bevin, in his outbursts against the Jews and against President Truman as a champion of the Jewish cause, was not manifesting a mean streak of antisemitism. Both Bullock and Louis reject this contention categorically, and there is no reason to believe that antisemitism was the leitmotif of Bevin's Palestine policy. His policy was directed to serving Britain's interests. In this he was guided by the conviction that the emergence of a Jewish state was antithetical to that interest. Thus, the question of Bevin's antisemitism is quite beside the point. He was as committed to denying Jewish nationalism as he was to placating Arab nationalism (in his own way). He was prepared to concede a national state to almost any people in the world—but not to the Jews. The popular image of Bevin as a man incapable of emotion is apparently not tenable. He exhibited sensitivity to the plight of the suffering people of the world— but, remarkably enough, not to the suffering of the Jews. As Bullock notes, Bevin was deeply moved in 1945 when he visited Berlin and saw "as many refugees coming out of Berlin as were going in. ... It was a pathetic sight," he declared (p. 142). An even more revealing episode took place at a meeting the same year with Weizmann and Shertok. Bevin bewailed the loss of British life in Palestine: "I cannot bear English Tommies being killed. They are innocent." When Weizmann referred to the millions of Jews who had been killed and were still dying in refugee camps, Bevin replied: "I do not want any Jews killed either, but I love the British soldiers. They belong to my class. They are working people" (p. 178). These comments reveal much about Bevin's attitude to Jewish homelessness and suffering. It was simply not his concern. His concern—to the exclusion of all else—was the British workingman and his standard of living. No matter that 6 million Jews had been annihilated in the Holocaust. No matter that the harsh and vigorous implementation of the White Paper in Palestine in the period 1939-45 had willynilly magnified the tragedy. No matter that the human dimension of the Jewish tragedy pointed in the direction of a national solution. Bevin was quite unmoved; in fact, he was immovable—since it was simply not his concern. Regardless, therefore, of any antisemitic motive, the insensitive remarks by Bevin (and Attlee) about "Jews, with all their suffering" trying "to get loo much at the head of the queue" followed as a matter of course (Bullock, p. 181; Louis, p. 389). And it is to the credit of both these works that they frankly acknowledge Bevin's insensitivity in this sphere. Both books represent a genre of historical writing which is rare these days. They are magnificently crafted with apt quotations to entrance the reader as he proceeds page by page through the saga of British foreign policy in the postwar period. Both books draw heavily on archival material in revealing the story of Britain's relations with the world at a time of her declining power. Israeli readers will always find accounts of British policy in the Middle East during the period of the founding of the Jewish state a fascinating subject. These two important books contribute handsomely to our appreciation of this epochal event. SHLOMO SLONIM The Hebrew University

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Les Camps en Provence: Exil, internement, deportation, 1933-1942. Aix-enProvence: Alinea, 1984. 234 pp. FF 98. L'Activite des organisations juives en France sous I'occupation. Paris: Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, 1947 (reimpression, 1983). 246 + 20 illus. pp. FF 100.

Unraveling the human drama of the Holocaust has become a widespread concern and has taken many forms, among them private recollections, scholarly inquiries, artistic creativity and public displays which often trivialize the past. Faced with a constant stream of publications on the period of National Socialism and their chilling portrayals of the destruction of European Jewry, one often looks forward to a more modified approach, highlighting the cultural and social dilemmas of those who faced annihilation. Historians have shied away from weaving into their analysis of the Holocaust aspects of the victims' internal world, relegating them to more or less academic studies, but by so doing they have eliminated a certain human dimension from their subject. In the case of the war years in France, a rather long period of silence on the fate of its Jewish community has now given way to a growing body of literature touching on many controversial issues and inter alia implicating German perpetrators, French collaborators and even the Jewish leadership. The two books under review tread a different path: These collaborative studies, drawing on contemporary evidence to illuminate their subject, are more interested in documentation than in interpretation. A product of an inter-disciplinary research seminar held at the University of Provence on the problems of German emigrations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Les Camps en Provence is a welcome attempt to portray the life of German exiles in France from 1933 to 1942. Focusing on the Provence region, but not limiting themselves exclusively to Jewish refugees, the editors have divided their material into three sections, corresponding to distinct periods of exile in France: the prewar years, imprisonment in French internment camps in Provence and the deportations from the camps to Drancy in the summer of 1942. Conspicuously, greater interest and attention has been placed on the first two periods, with specific emphasis on the refugees' cultural life. Indeed, a community of exiles of the stature of Walter Benjamin, Julius Meier-Graefe, Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mann, Max Ernst, Jean Ballard, Franz Werfel, and Lion Feuchtwanger, to name but a few, could not fail to produce a new center of German cultural creativity. Bound together by their dislocation, they collaborated in different cultural undertakings (like the Cahiers du Sud), which gave expression to their particular inclinations. However, only bits and pieces of this creativity are reflected in the present volume; interviews with surviving refugees or their spouses and private correspondence between distinguished refugees are quoted, but not always (as in the case of the unpublished letters of Benjamin and Heinrich Mann) are the documents especially illuminating. Nevertheless, the cultural mood of the exiled in France, between hope and despair, is well portrayed. Contrary to the commonly held view that the harrowing years in the internment camps stifled all cultural life, Les Camps en Provence brings clear evidence to the

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contrary. The huge complex of Les Milles, with its debilitating daily routine, could not destroy the spirit of the refugees whose cultural aspirations served as their internal nourishment. Illustrations of sensitive and evocative drawings by Max Ernst, Ferdinand Springer and Hans Bellmer alongside descriptions of the theatrical performances of the Niebelungen, staged by Max Schlesinger, demonstrate this. It was only the brutal deportations to Drancy which put an end to them. After elucidating Vichy's complicity in the deportations, which enabled the Germans to deport more than ten thousand Jews from the unoccupied zone of France, the editors let three eyewitnesses offer their day-to-day account of the AugustSeptember deportations. Notwithstanding their different vantage points, they all applaud the presence and activity of international, Jewish and French relief agencies but also point to their failure to alter Vichy's submission to German demands. Les Camps en Provence closes with these stark accounts of acts which terminated the hopes and achievements of thousands of refugees who had been buoyed up by France's humanitarian tradition. On the whole, Jewish organizations were also imbued with a deep-seated trust in France, but as L'Activite des organisations juives en France sous I'occupation shows, the war years forced a serious re-examination. A postwar effort, L'Activite sets out to describe the diverse attempts of Jewish organizations to offset the German-Vichy persecutions and alleviate the Jewish plight. Preferring to avoid controversy and mutual recriminations between organizations, the editors proposed to surviving leaders to offer a report of their respective activities. The result is still rewarding, even if one evaluates a book published in 1947 on the basis of our present historical perspective. Re-issued with no changes, the book contains important information on the war period while transmitting the unique image of his organization each leader wished to leave to posterity. Social services, religious associations and youth movements abounded in prewar France and separately tried to confront the rising tide of antisemitism, the waves of immigration and the community's diverging cultural interests and political leanings. Catapulted into a war which challenged their very existence, the Jewish organizations did not disband but looked for ways to maintain the community's daily needs. In the fourteen chapters, each dedicated to a different organization, a clear pattern emerges. During the first two years of the war and for a good part of 1942, organizational response went along the lines of the prewar conception and only gradually during the course of 1942 did certain organizations recognize the need for more radical and unconventional methods. This is true even of the efforts of OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants), to which a most extensive and informative chapter is devoted. Clearly one of the brighter spots on the horizon of rescue in France during the war, OSE's efforts to hide, evacuate and re-route Jewish children became more aggressive and took on serious dimensions only after the massive summer deportations of 1942, and even then it persisted in maintaining an official existence for more than another year. A common phenomenon among the other organizations as well, this duality is at times overlooked in order to portray resistance activity as the basic mode of response, fitting neatly into the atmosphere of postwar France, when all groups emphasized their courageous stand against the Nazi occupation. Unfortunately, certain Jewish organizations, especially of Communist orientation

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(e.g., Solidarite, MOI), which showed continuous opposition, are for some reason not represented in this work. L'Activite is both a volume of dedication and a testimony: as such it continues to have lasting value and remains a prerequisite for all research on the Jews in France during the war. RICHARD COHEN The Hebrew University

Naomi W. Cohen, Encounter with Emancipation: The German Jews in the United States, 1830-1914. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1984. xiv + 407 pp. $25.95.

Naomi W. Cohen, one of the most prolific historians of American Jewry, has written an excellent study concerning German Jewry's rise to ethnic leadership and ideological development in the near-century of its pre-eminence in America. The product of prodigious research, though exclusively in English-language sources, Encounter with Emancipation succeeds in distilling decades of accumulated scholarship to produce a masterful synthesis. The analysis is complex and challenging, and the writing confident and clear. The result is a narrative that is a pleasure to read—all the more so because it is rich in anecdotes and in biographical portraits. The uniqueness of Cohen's book lies in its departure from the current, conventional models for synthesizing ethnic histories. The reader will not find here fullsome, systematic treatments of the sequences of emigration, resettlement and group formation, nor of occupations, communal life and such concerns of the new social history as family, social mobility, neighborhood and inter-ethnic class relations. While Cohen alludes briefly to these subjects, her principal concerns lie in the singularity of the Jewish amidst other immigrant experiences, and in the evolution of Jewish identity and communality and of Judaism within the matrix of both the German heritage and the American environment. Germany had provided the Jewish emigrants of the middle decades of the nineteenth century with both the frustrated promise of emancipation, which created intense longings for the very individual liberty and communal equality America held out, and a bicultural heritage of Germanness and Jewishness, which prepared them for American social pluralism. Thus, more than most other immigrants, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, the German Jews had a "seasoning" experience which equipped them for the opportunities and problems America presented. Cohen's book is largely the story of their efforts to balance the benefits of opportunities for greater individual social and political participation and the unfolding promise of religious and ethnic equality against the threats to Jewishness and Judaism that came with greater secularization, social visibility and acceptance and civic activity. Forever in the background, and all too frequently in the foreground as well, lay not only the reality of antisemitism, but also a pervasive anticipation of prejudice, stereotypes, ostracism and ridicule which manifested itself in timidity, defensiveness and an obsession with public images. Cohen has a powerful, intuitive grasp of the manifold ways this historical situa-

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tion persistently entered German Jewry's American social consciousness and of the practical constraints and ideological boundaries within which Jewish leadership developed its options. The result is a series of well-crafted chapters which constantly deepen our understanding while broadening the information we possess. She takes up, among other issues: the quest for religious equality and for Christian respect for Judaism; the creation of unspoken codes governing Jewish public manners, philanthropy and partisan political behavior; the cultural and theological growth of Reform Judaism; the efforts to aid European Jewry in the increasingly hostile climate of the turn of the century; confrontation with the not unrelated growth of American antisemitism; and, finally, the better-known story of the relations between the Germans and the post-1890 East European immigrants, which Cohen tells with balance and sensitivity. The author's emphasis on intellectual discourse and ideological disputations among the group's leaders is a source of strength, but also of some weakness. Ordinary people and daily life in the American cities and towns where German Jews lived rarely intrude in the narrative. Indeed, with a few exceptions, Cohen equates "the Jewish community" with editorial opinion, such corporate entities as rabbinical conferences and a national leadership group of affluent, sophisticated and prestigious men. When she does consciously attempt to reach down and make generalizations that are supposed to comprehend all or most German Jews, it is seldom clear how she arrives at her conclusions. We frequently have no clear idea how deeply the ordinary synagogue or B'nai B'rith lodge member or voter was affected by the debates among and perceptions of leaders. Moreover, when she discusses the creation of codes to define respectable and "safe" public behavior, we do not get a sense of how widely disseminated, let alone respected, such standards actually were. Cohen herself indirectly acknowledges some of these difficulties when she records occasions during which Jewish leaders castigated their people for indifference to public affairs that touched upon their own welfare. More analysis of the relations between leaders and institutions at the national level and ordinary people and their communal life would have provided us with a better sense of the limits of the hegemonic ideologies and standards created by the former to structure and guide the Jewish existence of the latter. Such qualifications are a challenge to us to build on Cohen's deft analysis and her conceptualization of the Jewish experience in America. Her book is destined to be one of the seminal works on that subject. DAVID A, GERBER State University of New York at Buffalo

Steven M. Cohen, American Modernity and Jewish Identity. New York: Tavistock Publishers, 1983. xvi + 210 pp.

Steven M. Cohen writes that the aim of his book is "to assess the prospects for American Jewish group survival within the conceptual context of modernization."

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He begins with a description of the traditional Jewish society in Europe and argues that it was sustained by features of the traditional European society and the semiisolated subordinate position of Jews within it. The traditional forms of Jewish religion and identity were undermined by the processes of modernization of which the most important, the development of capitalism and the nation-state, opened up new opportunities for Jewish participation in the wider economy and polity. Cohen moves from this general historical over-view to a detailed study of the effects of modernization on American Jews based primarily on two surveys of Boston Jewry in 1965 and 1975. His concern is to analyze the effects of generational changes, economic and residential mobility, and changes in the family on Jewish identity and behavior. In examining the differences among generations, Cohen tests a number of alternative theses: the linear assimilationist view of a decline in Jewishness with each generation; the stabilization thesis that states that generation-linked erosion in Jewish identification comes to a halt in the third and fourth generations; and the polarization thesis that American Jewry is becoming increasingly divided between a larger assimilated sector and a smaller strongly Jewish sector. Cohen finds that from the first to the second generation there is a decline in ritual observance and an expanding involvement in Jewish institutions, especially Jewish philanthropy. The third generation has a lower institutional affiliation, but although there is a decline in ritual observances such as dietary rules that involve social self-segregation, other observances such as the Passover Seder remain at the same level. There are few substantial differences between the third and fourth generations, but in his comparison of birth-cohort data Cohen finds evidence of a continuing erosion of Jewish identification. Although Jewish Orthodoxy appears to be shifting "rightward," Cohen finds little evidence to support the polarization thesis; whereas there is an increase in non-observant and non-affiliated Jews, there is little if any increase in the relative number of more observant Jews. Cohen examines three aspects of social status (education, occupation and income) and finds that education has the most substantial effect on Jewish identification patterns: Higher education is associated with lower ritual observance and slightly higher institutional affiliation. Other aspects of modernization—high residential mobility and trends in the family such as the increase in divorces, childless and single-parent families—are generally associated with reductions in Jewish practice and affiliation. Cohen examines two common political positions of American Jews, liberalism and pro-Israelism, which, he argues, reflect the twin social goals of integration and survival. Pro-Israelism has come to supplant liberalism as the central activity of major Jewish organizations. Many Jews have moved in recent years in a politically conservative direction, but among American ethnic groups Jews still remain disproportionately liberal. Cohen attributes this to the tendency of Jews in modern societies to believe that their integration can be advanced by supporting the tolerant pluralism of middle-class liberalism. Cohen concludes that the impact of modernity upon Jewish identification points neither to rapid assimilation nor to an assured group continuity. Although processes of modernization are associated with a decline in ritual practice and communal

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affiliation, traditional rites of passage continue to be observed, in addition to the widespread marking of annual observances and holidays. The majority of American Jews with school-age children join synagogues, and there is a clear consensus on the importance of the defense and survival of Israel and the Jewish people. Cohen's book is a welcome study of an area that has continued to be much discussed but which received too little scholarly attention in recent years. There were many statistical studies of American-Jewish communities in the 1960s, but apart from the 1981-82 National Survey of American Jews, upon which Cohen draws to some extent, little solid data has been compiled or analyzed. The surveys of Boston Jewry were more comprehensive than most and Cohen brings to that data methodological sophistication and a theoretical framework. Cohen skillfully interprets his data in terms of modernization, but the distance between the generality of modernization theory and the time and space specificity of his data calls for more comparative material from other American communities and from other Western Jewish communities. Cohen does not claim that Boston Jewry is representative of American Jewry, but since he notes the considerable geographic mobility of American Jews he could have given more attention to variations among American Jewish communities. Without comparative data, it is difficult to judge what is culturally specific and what is a consequence of a cross-societal process called modernization. The simple categorization of societies into "traditional" and "modern" may obscure more than it reveals, and it is a pity that Cohen does not discuss the many criticisms that have been made against modernization theory in sociology. It is not clear what Cohen means by American modernity in the title of his book. Is it simply that he is investigating modernization that happens to have occurred in a nation called America. Is it that at this time the process of modernization has gone furthest in America? Or does he mean that modernity in America is occurring within a specific socio-cultural context that has to be taken into account when investigating the effects of modernization? Cohen does not ignore American-Christian patterns of religious observance, but if the last-mentioned aspect of American modernity was intended, he could have written in greater depth on the specific American religiocultural context and its effects on American Jews. STEPHEN SHAROT Ben-Gurion University

Lewis A. Coser, Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. xviii + 351 pp. $25.00. "[To] analyze and assess the contributions to American scholarship and culture made by European refugees who arrived here between 1933 and the end of World War II, mainly but not exclusively from Germany and Austria," is the announced aim of this book. It is a worthy aim and shall continue to be so. Lewis A. Coser is

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quick to admit that Refugee Scholars in America is a modest work, designed as a foundation for "a subsequent generation of historians of ideas" (p. xv). Coser's book is essentially a collection of forty-eight mini-biographies, each addressed to the life and career of a prominent social scientist, humanistic scholar or writer. The forty-eight central characters include Kurt Lewin, Erik Erikson, Bruno Bettelheim, Paul Lazarsfeld, Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, Erwin Panofsky, Rudolph Catnap and Paul Tillich. Coser's chief findings about the intellectual migration as a whole will surprise no one who is familiar with the existing literature on this topic. The refugee scholars who received the warmest reception in America and who exercised the greatest influence were generally those who brought with them from Europe methods, presuppositions and/or research agendas that overlapped to some extent with those already in place within a substantial professional group in the United States. Hence the philosophers of the Vienna Circle found themselves quickly at the center of their profession in America, while the psychologists of the Gestalt school had difficulty getting a hearing. Moreover, the refugees who eschewed contact with Americans in order to interact only with other refugees were not as fully absorbed into American academia as those who took some initiative to become part of it. The chief function of the refugees was to "deprovincialize the American mind and upgrade American culture" (p. 10); this function they were uniquely able to perform because of their marginality as well as their cosmopolitan learning. The impression of analytic thinness is reinforced by Coser's consistent instinct for the trite. Young writers are "rising stars," even at the rate of two per page (p. 244); refugees with large American followings are "success stories" (e.g., pp. 208, 298); many individuals have such wooden and confining personas as "conservative gadflfies] of the political science establishment" (p. 214); "reluctant insider" (p. 243); and "Marxist on the way to liberalism" (p. 197). In the absence of analysis, Coser repeatedly takes recourse to threadbare characterizations and perfunctory conclusions. "This daughter of a sea captain [Karen Horney] helped to chart murky waters in the exploration of feminine psychology and America's competitive personality." "Despite ups and downs in her reputation, it is likely that Karen Horney's impact on American culture and scholarship will not soon be forgotten" (p. 82). Coser's mini-biographies are also weakened by his gratuitous speculations and opinions; real information or honest silence would have been more appropriate than the indecisive and vague accounts he often provides. A given subject "must have realized" this or that, we are told repeatedly (e.g., p. 311); and we learn of the truth of a given claim because "one cannot help but feel" (e.g., p. 317) that the claim is so. When one of his living subjects—the historian Felix Gilbert—has cast doubt by correspondence upon an interpretation Coser wishes to offer, Coser is unperturbed. "I nevertheless feel," he declares on an a priori basis, "that contact with such eminent historians and social scientists" as Gilbert met in Washington and Princeton "probably left permanent marks on Gilbert's mind" (p. 287). Although Coser has had personal access to Gilbert, about whom information is more readily available than is the case with most of Coser's subjects, Coser takes needless recourse in a single paragraph about Gilbert to one "assumption," one "surmise," one

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"seems" and two "probablies," all of which serve only to raise the suspicion that Coser has very little idea what he is talking about. The strengths of this book are difficult to summarize in a review as they reside in detailed information about individuals. In which anti-Fascist movements was Albert Hirschman a participant, and when? When and why did Erich Auerbach choose Turkey as his place of exile? With what kinds of people did Thomas Mann spend time during his years in America? What kinds of relationships did Karl August Wittfogel manage to have with his professional colleagues in the United States? These are the kinds of questions !o which one can get answers by turning to Coser. The intellectual migration is one of the most important and complex intellectual episodes in the modern history of the United States and—since the overwhelming majority of the refugees were Jews—in the modern history of the Jewish people. This collection of sketches is the appropriate starting point for the further study of this migration. Encyclopedic in orientation if not in scope, Refugee Scholars in America makes conveniently available a store of useful and interesting information. DAVID A. HOLLINGER University of Michigan

Avigdor Dagan, G. Hirschler, and L. Weiner (eds.), The Jews of Czechoslovakia: Historical Studies and Surveys. Volume 3. Philadelphia/New York: Jewish Publication Society of America/Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews, 1984. 700 pp. $29.95.

This is the third and final volume of essays commissioned by the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews in New York on the Jews in the Czech lands and Slovakia from the mid-nineteenth century to the aftermath of the Second World War. This volume deals with the decade from the Munich Agreement in 1938 to the consolidation of Communist power in 1948. As with the earlier volumes, the authors include academic historians and private scholars; in this case several participants in the events such as Ehud Avriel, Avigdor Dagan (Viktor Fischl), Zdenek Lederer and Kurt Wehle are represented as well. As in most collections the results are uneven, but overall the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. In most of the essays there is no effort at sophisticated historical analysis, but all of them are presented in a way that makes them accessible to a general, educated audience. Scholarly readers will appreciate the notes, references, and bibliography that back each essay. While those with a special interest in Czech and Slovak Jewry will find much of the most important material on the Holocaust and its aftermath familiar, the volume as a whole offers a useful compendium on the period. The essays by Livia Rothkirchen and Ladislav Lipscher on the Czech and Slovak lands between 1938 and 1945 are effective in balancing Nazi initiatives in the

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persecution of Jews against factors indigenous to Czech and Slovak society. The Czechoslovak government-in-exile, resistance groups and individual Czechs and Slovaks made efforts to protect Jews and to oppose Nazi policies. But Rothkirchen argues persuasively that the pressures of the German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia had a demoralizing effect on the Czech population. The Nazis encouraged Czech right-wing elements to heighten their antisemitism, and the strengthened Czech and Slovak nationalist sentiments during the war years resulted in increased resentment toward those Jews who had shown German or Hungarian cultural loyalties in the 1920s and 1930s. Overall, Rothkirchen finds indifference toward Jews among Czechs in Bohemia and Moravia during the height of the deportations, although she bases this argument more on the apparently limited positive efforts to aid Jews rather than on any broad range of explicit evidence on Czech popular attitudes. In Slovakia, of course, the People's Party had long made the reduction of the Jewish role in the society and economy an important goal. Ladislav Lipscher begins his essay starkly with an account of the broad "racial" definition of Jewish identity that the Slovak government approved as early as April 1939. Bolstered by Slovak Marxist studies, Lipscher shows how Slovak middle-class and lower-middle-class elements improved their economic positions through the government seizure and liquidation of Jewish businesses. Apologists for the moderate wing of the Slovak People's Party will find little comfort here: Most of the moderate leaders showed little moral courage in their opposition to anti-Jewish measures. Lipscher does grant, however, that Slovakia was the first country under Nazi domination to stop the deportations of Jews (late 1942) because of public opposition before the last of the Jews had been removed. Erich Kulka's essay chronicles the actual extermination process for all parts of Czechoslovakia while John Lexa's article is a dry listing of the major anti-Jewish laws and regulations enacted in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Much has already been published on the history of the concentration camp of Terezin (Theresienstadt); here Zdenek Lederer offers a sensitive, thoughtful review of the camp's development and the experience of its inmates. The essays by Erich Kulka and Avigdor Dagan on Jewish participation in resistance activities can only skim the surface of a complex and difficult subject. As Dagan points out, Eduard Benes and Jan Masaryk carried into exile Tomas Masaryk's legacy of official friendship to Jews and rejection of antisemitism, but they had to contend with the strengthening of Czech and Slovak nationalist feelings among citizens at home and abroad during the war. Although Kulka offers little historical analysis, he reports telling evidence of the antisemitism of Czechoslovak officers in the exile military units as well as the relative strength of Jewish participation in those units. Of necessity, the essays on the immediate postwar period are sketchier than most of those dealing with earlier periods. Trying to explain the experience of the surviving or returning Jews after 1945 raises complex questions of politics, economics and popular social values and requires access to Czechoslovak archives and libraries that these authors generally lacked. Nonetheless, an interesting, contradictory picture emerges. The revived Czechoslovak state offered vital diplomatic and military assistance to Zionist groups, particularly to the Brihah, and to the new State of

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Israel in the late 1940s; but within Czechoslovakia strong Czech and Slovak nationalism after the war, the government's determination to end the minority problems of the inter-war period and the commitment to building a socialist economy created unexpected problems for Jewish survivors who hoped to reclaim their old places in society or their lost property. Aside from the articles on the Jewish Museum of Prague and the Czech Torah scrolls, the authors of the essays in the final section of the volume tactfully cut off their narratives with the full Communist takeover in 1948. Jewish life, of course, did not end in Czechoslovakia at that time. It has continued at a low level, but the character of that life and its relationship with the state are questions which are related to the contemporary social structure and the continuing development of public policy in Communist Czechoslovakia. One can only hope that the future for the surviving Jews of Czechoslovakia will be happier than their immediate past, which is well told in this volume. GARY B. COHEN University of Oklahoma

Lucjan Dobroszycki (ed.), The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, 1941. Translated by Richard Lourie, Joachim Neugroschel et al. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. This large and impressive volume has aroused great interest and rightly so, since it is a document of great importance. The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, 1941 is one of the most important primary sources of the Holocaust period that has corne down to us. In contrast to the collections from the ghettos of Bialystok and Lublin, this is not a series of official protocols, regulations and proclamations of the Judenrat (Jewish Council). It also does not take the form of a diary which inevitably reflects the subjective attitude of the author. Even the most important diaries of the Holocaust, those of Adam Czerniakow, head of the Judenrat in the Warsaw Ghetto, of Chaim Aharon Kaplan, also from Warsaw, and of Herman Kruk from Vilna are all written first and foremost from their authors' personal viewpoints. And the materials and chronicle left by Emanuel Ringelblum, considered to be the most comprehensive and diversified documents to be written during the Holocaust, are often not much more than short-hand notations, actually a first draft which the author intended apparently to expand at some future date. On the other hand, while the authors of the diaries generally did not hesitate to give full expression to their thoughts and emotions and also described clandestine and forbidden activities, those responsible for the Lodz chronicle took pains to make no mention of such events or even to use language and terms which might incriminate them in the eyes of the German conquerors. Even if Lucjan Dobroszycki, the editor of this document, is correct in assuming that it was meant

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only for Jewish eyes, it would seem that the authors of the chronicle kept within limits acceptable to the German authorities. The Lodz chronicle follows a uniform pattern of recurring sections recording the weather, births and deaths and crime, followed by a series of short items, each with its own heading, which describe in laconic and journalistic manner the events of a specific day or several days in the life of the ghetto. The unique characteristic of this chronicle is that it details only occurrences in Lodz—other locations are mentioned only insofar as they have some bearing on events in Lodz. This does not diminish the importance of this document, for the Lodz ghetto, because of its particular situation, is important for the study of Jewish life in Nazi-occupied Poland annexed to the German Reich: It was sealed off more tightly than any other ghetto, its inhabitants living in most severe isolation; and, finally, it was ruled by the "ghetto elder," Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski, a most controversial personality. The chronicle was recorded by the staff of the ghetto's archives, who were neither historians nor professional archivists but rather a group of Jewish academics and scientists from Poland and other lands (Czechoslovakia, Austria and Germany). All but one, the engineer Bernard Ostrowski, died in the ghetto or in Auschwitz. The first notations were made in January 1941, thereafter recorded systematically— almost daily—until the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto in July 1944. The daily entries—the earliest in Polish and later on in German—were typed in several copies. When Lodz was liberated in January 1945, one of the survivors, Nahman Sonnabend, found the files and an almost complete set was reconstructed from the several copies. Dobroszycki believes that no more than 5-10 percent is missing. In the mid-1960s an annotated version of the chronicle, edited by Danuta Dabrowska and by Dobroszycki, began to appear in Poland, but at the end of the 1960s publication was halted; by then large volumes had appeared, about one half of the chronicle, reaching the end of 1942. Dobroszycki believes that cessation of publication was a result of the anti-Jewish campaign of the Polish regime at that time, which also brought about a new wave of Jewish emigration. It is therefore possible to consider the volume under review as the completion of that interrupted project. In any case, the use of the Polish edition would have been limited only to those conversant with that language, whereas the present volume gives access to this important document to a much wider readership. Dobroszycki has written an extensive introduction providing information about the context in which the chronicle was produced, its structure and the guidelines used by the editor in preparing the English edition. It should be emphasized, however, that the present volume, though meticulously edited, is only a partial completion of the publishing project begun in Poland, for it includes only about one fourth of the original surviving text. One can understand the decision of the editor and the publisher to forgo the publication of a multi-volume complete text and, instead, to prepare an edition which "has been annotated with both the specialist and the general reader in mind." It is reasonable to assume that a complete edition would have limited the use of this unique testimony to professional historians, but one must take into account that the condensation of a lengthy document made up of daily entries is a formidable task and not without risk. The first problem involves the loss of the original style and structure of the chronicle, which we have described above. Obviously, it was

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impossible to preserve this structure intact in the condensed version. A few entries are given in full, as examples of the model used by the chroniclers, but in other cases we read only a selection of the daily events. I have compared the entires for 1941 in the complete Polish edition with those chosen by Dobroszycki for this volume. It is clear that the editor preferred entries which emphasize the abnormal life of the residents—serious shocks such as deportations—as well as the cultural life of the ghetto. On the other hand, he has deleted or cut to a minimum many passages dealing with daily routine, orders received by the workshops and factories, descriptions of food rationing, how food was allocated and which groups in the population received extra rations from time to time. True, no facet of ghetto life has been overlooked, as the editor notes in his introduction, and each is accorded some place in the selection. Nonetheless, daily life in the ghetto, the efforts and expectations which are repeated every clay and every week, do not come across to the reader. And it is precisely this continuous spectrum of daily events and challenges which characterize the chronicles. In certain cases it is difficult to understand the editor's decision to prefer one entry over another. For instance, why did he choose an entry describing "a strange robbery" on 21 January 1941 but delete an earlier passage of that same date which portrays the ghetto's first aid stations? Another case in point is the cumulative entry for 10-24 March 1941. The editor chose to publish a description of Rumkowski's birthday, but deleted the detailed summary of the products produced by the ghetto artisans during February. Sometimes a whole day is omitted such as 22 April 1941, despite the fact that the entry includes information characteristic of ghetto life (a description of the activities of the ghetto police, a passage concerning anti-epidemic measures). It is to be regretted that Dobroszycki deleted the record of a murder trial held in December 1941. The accused was a member of the underworld as was the victim, who was, in addition, a relative of the murderer. The evidence presented by both sides, in strictly legalistic fashion, yet against a background of the very specific framework of ghetto life, turns this document into a fascinating description of great importance. These comments, critical as they may be, do not detract from the great effort which the editor put into this volume or from what he has accomplished. Deficiencies are unavoidable in a project of this magnitude, while the assumptions which underlie his selection policy are part of a general conception which is open to debate. The volume is handsomely produced and the translation on the whole is excellent. The many illustrations have been chosen with great care and are in themselves important documents. In sum, this is a volume which presents us with a wealth of information. Here is a summary of life stories—events of great import together with the mundane facts of the daily struggle for survival—which enables us to begin to sense the terrifying tenor of life in the face of oppression behind the ghetto walls. We are indebted to the editor and the publisher who have presented us with a document which removes the term Holocaust from its abstract setting and gives us a convincing portrayal of reality. YlSRAEL GlJTMAN

The Hebrew University

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John B. Dunlop, The Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. 363 pp. The nationalities question, in all its ramifications, is among the most serious problems facing the Soviet leadership today. Recent census figures have highlighted the striking growth of some of the non-Slavic (particularly Central Asian) groups, in contrast to the low fertility of the Russians. Beyond this, the past decades have witnessed expressions of dissatisfaction on the part of particular national groups, ranging from discreet murmurings to open complaint and defiance (as in the case of the Crimean Tatars). The regime has responded with shifts in ideological rhetoric and even with specific policies to meet new challenges. In his excellent book, John B. Dunlop deals with what he regards paradoxically, as the major national question facing the Soviet Union—the destruction and renaissance of Russian nationalism. In a series of recommendations at the end of his study, Dunlop reminds the reader to differentiate between Russia and the USSR and makes a case for including the Russian people among the "captive nations" commemorated annually by the U.S. Congress. Quoting a congressman, Dunlop adds, "The Russian people are not the perpetrators of this tyranny, but one of its chief victims." This important and informative study traces the history of Russian nationalism under Soviet rule and examines the range of its adherents and their philosophy. The significance of the Russian nationalists lies beyond the narrower confines of nationalities studies. Dunlop argues that the post-Brezhnev succession process will culminate in a regime far more committed than hitherto to one form or another of Russian nationalism. This could have profound effects for the Jewish population of the Soviet Union. Historically, there has frequently been a direct correlation between Russian nationalism and antisemitism. It is enough to mention the writings of Dostoyevsky, the ProtocolsoftheEldersofZion(a work of Russian origin), the regimes of Alexander III and Nicholas II, the activities of the Union of Russian People and the Black Hundreds, the pogroms perpetrated by the White armies. However, Russian nationalism did not necessarily invoke Judeophobia, and there were thinkers such as Nicholas Berdiaev who clearly belonged within the Slavophile tradition without endorsing antisemitic sentiments. Vladimir Solovev, the great Russian philosopher, was actually philosemitic. Be that as it may, there can be no doubt that the place to be assigned to Russian nationalism by the Soviet state is an issue of crucial importance. Russian nationalism in the USSR today is advocated by vastly disparate thinkers, ranging from people anxious to protect historical sites to those who wish to restore the Romanovs or some form of Stalinism. Dunlop gives most of his attention, and sympathy, to the large group of "moderate" nationalists, whom he identifies with activity in public preservation projects, with the idealization of village life and with the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church. He feels that they share a broad community of interests or at least empathy and overlapping membership. In fact, the book suffers from some imbalance with so much space devoted to this group. The village—which has been lionized by a large number of leading writers—is

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seen as the source of the traditional values, decency and security of the Russian people. This, as they see it, has largely been destroyed by the rapid industrialization and urbanization of the Soviet period. The demographic and social attrition brought about by government policies, which the nationalists see as essentially anti-Russian, include population Joss and a sharply diminished Russian birthrate, the overwork of women, a high divorce rate, crowded living conditions and the breakdown of village morals, resulting in sexual license, alcoholism, crime and juvenile delinquency. Dunlop appears to accept the view that these social ills result directly from the implementation of Marxism-Leninism without noting that in many ways they have become part and parcel of modern urban life the world over. (Indeed, his figures on pre-marital sex between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one in Leningrad, where morals, he feels, are perhaps "laxer" than elsewhere in the country, are not at all shocking to anyone aware of the situation in the West.) There are sociological factors at work here which transcend national boundaries. Combined with this view of the village as Russia's salvation is the desire to remember Russia's past. This latter interest has become so powerful and widespread that by 1977, there were over 12 million members of the Ail-Russian Society for the Preservation of Historic and Cultural Monuments (9.3 percent of the RSFSR population). Another voluntary organization, the All-Russian Society for the Preservation of Nature, had a reported 19 million members by 1971. Dunlop divides the main streams of Russian nationalism into two groups: the vozrozhdentsy1 (a word he borrows from Solzhenitsyn's term Russian national and religious renaissance) and the National Bolsheviks. Virtually all dissenting nationalists as well as many "official nationalists" would fall into the first category. There is, clearly, a very wide range within this group, from Solzhenitsyn and Shafarevich on the "left" to the extreme "right" represented by such figures as Shimanov. Dunlop sees all the vozrozhdentsyas sharing certain common ideas including opposition to Marxism, support for economic and administrative decentralization, the de-collectivization of agriculture, some form of Russian isolationism and the reinforcement of the family and the church. There is a great variety in their approach to the practical problem of running the post-Marxist state (about which their writings are fragmentary) and in their attitude toward the minority nationalities. One remarkable point to note in looking at this group as a whole is the number of people between the ages of thirty and fifty who articulate such strong views, often diametrically opposed to present state policy. Dunlop views National Bolshevism as an essentially fascist trend friendly to the totalitarian state and to leadership by a powerful elite which will enforce strict discipline. The National Bolsheviks and vozrozhdentsy share certain concerns: both are preservationist and both are worried about present social and demographic trends. The centrality of the Orthodox Church for most vozrozhdentsyis replaced by a quasi-deification of the Russian narod in National Bolshevik thought. According to Dunlop, it is the National Bolsheviks who would be in a better position actually to assume power, though their numbers are far less than those of the vozrozhdentsy.

'From vozrozhdenie: renaissance or revival.

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He feels that, following brief rule by the National Bolsheviks, the intellectually more sophisticated vozrozhdentsy might take over. A major failing of this study is that Dunlop's use of the term National Bolshevism is not well defined; nor does he actually name those leading National Bolsheviks— presumably well up in the party and government hierarchy—who will be in a position to attain power eventually and pursue their goals. Insufficient attention is also paid to neo-Stalinism and the points of similarity with National Bolshevism. It should be noted with regret, too, that the book has no bibliography, a serious failing and one which causes inconvenience to the reader. Dunlop contradicts himself in warning us (p. 288) not to "tar all Russian nationalists with the brush of anti-Semitism" after telling us (pp. 146-147) that "dislike of and hostility toward Soviet Jews runs like a red thread through this small group of people." The message is clear enough, taken together with Dunlop's own espousal of emigration as the best solution to the Jewish problem in the USSR. But, beyond this, while he claims that the nationalists advocate polycentrism and that many also believe that the non-Russian nationalities should have the right to secede, this is not an option which they hold out to the Ukrainians and Belorussians. True, we in the West should understand nationalist trends in the Soviet Union— and Dunlop is an excellent guide. But does this knowledge give us justified hope for a satisfactory alternative to the present order? EDITH ROGOVIN FRANKEL The Hebrew University

Daniel J. Elazar with Peter Medding, Jewish Communities in Frontier Societies: Argentina, Australia, and South Africa. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1983. ix + 357 pp. There are few comparative analyses of Jewish communities and this book may be welcomed as one that attempts to describe and compare communities in three "frontier" societies: Argentina, South Africa and Australia. Both the wider "frontier" societies and their Jewish communities began as fragments of European societies, and the distance from the parent societies led in some cases to a continuation of cultural elements that subsequently disappeared in their lands of origin. Jewish immigrants attempted to continue familiar cultural and organization patterns, but the frontier environments led to transformations and new syntheses of Jewish traditions and the new environments. The book does not fall into a neat disciplinary mold; the authors draw heavily on secondary historical works and the material is presented, in part, as descriptive history and, in part, as political science with a typological bias. Although Peter Medding draws on his sociological studies of Australian Jewry, the book lacks a general sociological framework that could have strengthened it as a comparative analysis of societies. Emphasis is placed on the development of Jewish institutions

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and the factors influencing community building. The typologies provide a framework for a description of the structure and functions of organizations in each community, but of greater interest is the more general analysis of the adaptation of each community to the wider society. The authors show that the character of the adaptations was affected by the characteristics of the wider societies and by the order and timing of the Jewish immigration. The authors' criterion of a successful adaptation appears to be a strong, integrated community that feels secure in its relationships with the wider society. In the case of Argentina, neither the wider society nor the circumstances of immigration favored a successful adaptation. The Hispanic-Catholic culture in its late medieval form did not seek to absorb Jews and it held out little appeal for them. Change has occurred, but Catholicism has remained important and the Argentinian cultural themes of personalism and fatalism are fundamentally different from Jewish communitarianism and activism. The problems of creating and maintaining an Argentinian national identity have made the population particularly hostile to "out-groups," and Jews have suffered from antisemitism and accusations of dual loyalty. Sephardi immigrants benefited from their familiarity with the cultural environment and they succeeded in maintaining family and community structures. The Ashkenazim, who make up the great majority of Argentinian Jews, are less religiously observant than the Sephardim, but they are considered less Argentinian. For most immigrants from Eastern Europe, Argentina was not a first choice, and arriving as most did from the late nineteenth century on meant that they had no ties with the formative events of Argentinian history. The immigrants were from the more secular segments of East European Jewry, and the secularism and anti-clericalism of many Argentinians reinforced Jewish secularism. The immigrants' secularist Yiddish culture held little appeal to their children and grandchildren, and the organizational patterns that were transposed from Eastern Europe failed to provide a strong and integrated framework for Argentinian Jews. In contrast to the Argentinian community, the South African community is presented as a strong and thriving one, organizationally, socially and culturally. The host society favored Jewish separation in social and communal life but also extensive participation in economic and political affairs. In addition to the strong pluralist framework of South African society, Jewish adaptation has been affected by Afrikaaners' changing attitudes toward Jews and by the Boer-English conflict. The Afrikaaners are a "covenantal people," and seeing themselves as a chosen people in the Biblical tradition, they were often favorably disposed to the Jews as their "spiritual godfathers." The Jews, on their part, sympathized with the Afrikaaners as a small people seeking their independence. Some early Jewish immigrants did settle for a time among the Afrikaaners, but the majority came to associate with the more urban and industrialized English. The Boer-British conflict led the Boers to isolate themselves, socially and culturally, and to pursue a more aggressive political strategy. One consequence of this was antisemitism that reached a peak during the 1930s and the Second World War. However, many Afrikaaners sympathized with the Zionist struggle against British imperialism, and the transi'er of this sympathy to the new Jewish state facilitated a reconciliation with South African Jews in the postwar period.

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South African Jewry was fashioned by immigrants from Eastern Europe, especially from Lithuania, between 1881 and 1910. Coming as part of a mass European, largely British, immigration, Jews were part of the frontier and had their share of "pioneers." The initial cultural differences and conflicts between Jews of English and East European origin were eliminated by rapid upward mobility, and the unified community that emerged is characterized by an Anglo-Orthodoxy, strong community organizations and an important Zionist movement. The Jewish community of Australia is a small one of about seventy thousand; it is described as prosperous, stable and flourishing. Recent changes in the host society have made it a more favorable environment for a strong Jewish community. Although early Australian society was relatively open to Jews, there developed considerable prejudice against all who were not of British origin. This led the Jewish community to minimize its distinctiveness, and the established Australian Jews opposed both Zionism and the immigration of East European Jews. Since the Second World War the Australian population has become more diverse in origin and the society has moved from an emphasis on Anglo-conformity to a more pluralist stance. Jews now feel accepted by others and this has permitted a "re-Judaization" of the community. This process was reinforced by the postwar immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe, who doubled the Jewish population, greatly strengthened the Orthodox section, developed Jewish day schools and were politically active in advancing the interests of the community and Israel. The authors bring together a considerable amount of information on three communities on which there are few good studies, but since little of the material is new, the book must be judged primarily by the interpretative framework that is brought to the material. It is a contribution to the comparative analysis of Jewish communities, but it is too descriptive and insufficiently analytical to take us very far. The "frontier" concept explains little and although many pages are devoted to describing the history and general features of the wider societies, the effects of the wider societies on the Jewish communities are not examined in a systematic manner or analyzed in a theoretically informed comparative framework. STEPHEN SHAROT Ben-Gurion University

Daniel J. Elazar, Adina Liberles, Simcha Werner, Jewish Communities of Scandinavia: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America/Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 1984. 173 pp. We should welcome the Center for Jewish Community Studies' new series, but I am not certain that it was wise to make Nordic1 Jewry one of its first projects. Studies 'It is customary to reserve the term Scandinavia for Denmark, Norway and Sweden. When adding Finland, the area is referred to as the Nordic countries. Iceland, where only a few Jews live, is usually excluded from Scandinavia but included in Nordic.

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of this sort seem to have a brief period of relevance and my guess is that the smaller the community under review, the more susceptible it is to drastic and rapid changes. The creative work of a rabbi, youth leader, Zionist emissary or a new immigrant family can significantly alter the general situation. In the late 1960s Chief Rabbi Bent Melchior and I were the only rabbis in all four Nordic countries. Today there are eight rabbis in these countries. Jewish life in almost every Nordic community is more varied and richer now than it was in the early 1970s when this study was made. In fact, there are signs that the recent expansion may have already peaked and that we may shortly return to the conditions described in the study. In any event, the fact that many of the rabbis presently serving in the Nordic countries do not plan to remain where they are does not bode well for the future. But the present is magnificent when compared with the past, and Jewish historians may look back upon these years as the most creative period of Nordic Jewish history. The study under review does not reflect this situation. Jewishness is today a positive value, and Jewish identity is accepted in the Nordic lands in a way never previously believed possible. The works of the few great Scandinavian Jews— Brandes, Nathansen, Josephson—illustrate the burden of Jewishness in the past. Today's reversal is reflected in the presence of skullcaps on the street and even more by the fact that some communities have changed their names in 1981. It was the late Bernhard Tarschis, a major cultural figure known throughout Sweden as a positive Jew, who initially suggested and then pushed through the proposal that Stockholm's Mosaiska Forsamling (Mosaic community) become known as the Judiska Forsamlingen (Jewish community). A scholar of Swedish literature and history, Tarschis was well aware of the negative associations of the word Jew (jude) in the Swedish language. Throughout the Middle Ages, when Jews were known only through the Bible, the Swedish Church transmitted demonical images of the treacherous deicide, even without Jews actually being present in the land. (Bishop Vergelius in Ingmar Bergman's film Fanny and Alexander, in his wrath against Isaac the Jew, is a fair portrayal of the sort of hatred, fear and envy of all Jews which remained potent in modern times.) Despite resistance—mainly by older Jewish families—Tarschis was successful in bringing about the change which he unfortunately did not live to see. This is significant. To be called a Jew and not one of Mosaic faith (Mosaisk trosbekannare) means at least two things: the definition of Jewishness is no longer religious and the Jew has already changed or is in the process of changing his character. The existence of a Jewish state and Israel's military bravery in the face of terror and war has made this metamorphosis possible, and pride may be the major factor behind the present opting for Jewish identification in cases where mixed marriages or free choice would have previously led to baptism. Who can otherwise explain the remarkable fact that, according to our estimates, between 80 and 90 percent of all known Jewish children in Stockholm of pre-bar miizvah age are receiving at least some Jewish education. Unfortunately this figure plunges drastically as the children grow up, but still it appears that most Jewish youth will choose to be Jewish adults, whatever that may mean. Perhaps the best definition would be that they will be open to the instruction and example of a dynamic rabbi, cantor or youth leader and might be attracted to leadership in the community in which they desire membership.

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In this volume it is interesting to read the description of the various organizations active in the mid-1970s. Some no longer exist. Several new ones have been formed, while B'nei Akiva is still the most dynamic. It appears that most organizations alternate between periods of greater and lesser interest and support. Thus a study made during the "good" or the "bad" years will soon be misleading or even wrong. We read that "approximately one-third of the Jews in Stockholm are not affiliated with the community" (p. 17). My guess is that at the time of the study and even today, when a renaissance is taking place, over half of the Jews in Stockholm are not members of the Jewish community. I believe that of the three reasons given in the book for non-membership (community is religious; Holocaust survivors are fleeing Jewish identification; cost of membership is excessive because of Swedish taxation), only the third is valid. Should the confiscatory Swedish tax system be significantly changed, Jewish membership would rise as would contributions to Israel. Should this not happen, the community will remain more or less at the present level, decreasing somewhat because of an aging population but not by defection. The best example of the dangers of this type of study is the unbelievable description (p. 20) of the Zionist Federation of Sweden as "the most dynamic country-wide organization in the Swedish-Jewish community." Today the Zionist Federation is languishing and cannot even form an executive board. "The Jewish Communities of Scandinavia" is therefore rather disappointing. It is sad that this study, copyrighted in 1984, contains no interviews or major source materials covering the years after 1976. Let us hope that future volumes in this welcome series will be more up to date. MORTON H. NARROWS Stockholm

Shlomo Erel, Neue Wurzeln: 60 Jahre Immigration deutschsprachiger Juden in Israel. Gerlingen (West Germany): 1983. 312 pp. As Shlomo Erel freely admits (p. 7), this book is not intended as an exhaustive study of his subject. What is more to the point, Neue Wurzeln is a highly subjective and selective treatment of particular episodes and individual personalities within the German Jewish community in the Yishuv and the State of Israel, from the eyewitness perspective of a participant. In one of the best chapters, he describes in great detail the difficulties encountered by German-Jewish immigrants who joined kibbutzim of the Kibuz Meuhad movement. Basing himself on personal experience, archival material, interviews, oral documentation and recent research, he is able to show that the scepticism of the movement's leadership—especially Yitzhak Tabenkin—as to the successful acclimatization of German haluzim was unfounded. The leaders opposed the founding of new kibbutzim by members of German Habonim, since they feared that they

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would develop along independent lines. In the name of an ideology which favored integration of the different Jewish communities in the kibbutzim, German haluzim were sent to kibbutzim in which they did not want to settle, with negative results. Erel places the blame for the disappointments, failures and abandonment by German Jews of kibbutzim squarely upon those responsible for this policy. As we read his portrayal of German Habonim's struggle for recognition within Hakibuz Hameuhad, we sense his own bitterness, still alive after all these years. Erel's personal viewpoint is also obvious when he discusses the contributions made by German Jews to Israeli society in general. He deals at length with Senta and Giora Josephtal, with whom he lived in Kibbutz Gal'ed. The detailed description of Giora Josephtal's public activities is undoubtedly a contribution toward a history of Israel's early years, but other German-born Jews who played leading roles such as Yosef Burg receive only summary treatment. As a result of the central role played by Martin Buber, Ernst Simon and Robert Weltsch in Brit Shalom, Erel devotes more space to this organization than is commensurate with its place in the history of the Yishuv. Buber's stature induces the author to devote some twenty pages to him, his philosophy and his political activities. Other spheres to which German-Jewish immigrants made important contributions such as economic development are only sketchily treated. Again, in the description of German-Jewish influence on journalism, center stage is reserved for two leading personalities: Gershon Schocken of Ha'aretz and Asriel Carlebach, founder of Yediot Aharonot and Ma'ariv. The achievements of the Schocken family constitute one of the most enlightening chapters in the saga of the German 'allyah, and Carlebach was certainly an exceptional figure in Israeli journalism; but the story of German-Jewish journalism is hardly co-extensive with these two instances alone. In other areas substantial discussion is devoted to the role of German Jews in the development of academic institutions in Israel and to the part played by doctors from Berlin and Vienna in the medical profession in the country. Erel's description of the German-Jewish impact on the political life of the Yishuv and the young State of Israel leads to the conclusion that in fields already dominated by earlier immigrants, the German, Austrian and Czech newcomers could not play leading roles. They were almost entirely absent from the front ranks of the labor movement—the case of Giora Josephtal is an exception which proves the rule. The veteran settlers, largely of Russian and Polish extraction, who controlled the political organizations of the Yishuv, did little to encourage political leadership among the German immigrants of the thirties. The rise and decline of the 'Aliyah Hadashah party, led by Pinhas Rosen, is symptomatic of the situation. On the one hand, many German Jews did not feel comfortable within the established political parties; on the other, their representative in the first Ben-Gurion cabinets—Minister of Justice Rosen, who played a leading role in shaping Israel's judicial system—had almost no influence on important political decisions. Unable to penetrate the inner circle of policymakers, German Jews had to be satisfied with senior positions in the Foreign Ministry, for which they were eminently suited by virtue of their cultural background. Erel has collected a good deal of information on German-Jewish successes and

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failures and has conducted interviews with a large number of active figures. Yet we must concur in his assessment that the end product is unfinished. The focus on individuals is maintained at the expense of a vital modicum of peripheral vision: the contextual background of the social, economic and political history of the Yishuv. MENAHEM KAUFMAN The Hebrew University

Lily Gardener Feldman, The Special Relationship Between West Germany and Israel. Boston/London/Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1984. 330 pp. The purpose of this monograph, prepared under the auspices of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, is to survey and evaluate West GermanIsrael relations from 1948 to the present day. The author's central theme is that this was a "special relationship," a term for which she develops a conceptual model which, she believes, can be used in order to evaluate special relationships between other countries and can even be utilized to foresee political developments. Obviously, much primary documentation of the period under discussion is still classified and Feldman did not have access either to cabinet minutes and documents or to much of the diplomatic correspondence. To overcome this serious handicap, she followed up every bit of published information and interviewed the major personalities directly involved as well as German and Israeli members of the press and of the academic world. These sources have enabled the author to present a comprehensive and interesting description of the relationship, despite the fact that in certain fields, especially the military, insufficient data leaves us without important information concerning Germany's role. We learn that during 1962-72 Israel received German arms worth DM 140 million, but this information does not enable us to make a qualitative evaluation of the military aid. As for bilateral military relations after 1965, Feldman has had to be content with hints and allusions. The inaccessibility of official records is less critical in the economic and cultural spheres. All in all, despite the limitations she has had to face, the author has presented us with an important piece of research. However, it does not seem reasonable to view the relations between Israel and West Germany as just one case in the context of a model of bilateral "special relationships" between states. In her conceptual model Feldman describes other instances of special bilateral relationships such as those of the United States with Great Britain, Canada, West Germany and Israel. She even claims that "GermanIsrael relations are special, but not unique. The Holocaust was unique yet the type of relationship to which it gave rise can be found in other nation-state pairs" (p. 276). This is highly debatable. In our opinion the historical background of West German-Israel relations with its connection to the Holocaust, is unique. Equally unique is the special relationship which began with the negotiations leading to the signing of the Reparations Agreement in 1952. The author herself presents us with

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numerous and variegated facts which point to an intrinsic difference between West German-Israel relations and those of other states. Of special note is Feldman's treatment of the years 1945—51, which she characterizes as a period of "silence" on both sides. The silence of the Germans is explained in psychological terms—inability to face their recent past, or a guilt complex. It is difficult to accept this interpretation uncritically, especially when Feldman herself discusses the results of a public opinion poll held in Germany in 1946: One third of those interviewed were still convinced of Jewish inferiority and condoned discrimination against them while 83 percent considered the Nazi atrocities to be no worse than those committed by other nations. As for the Jewish silence, there are those who attributed it to an "inability to mourn." The present reviewer feels that the Jewish silence was at most relative and ended completely in 1952. Another controversial subject is the appraisal of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's motives during the reparations negotiations. It is commonly assumed that considerations both moral and pragmatic, especially the desire for German rehabilitation in the international sphere, led to the signing of an agreement which transferred DM 3.45 million in reparations to Israel and the Jewish people, DM 480,000 of which was to be administered by the Claims Conference for Jewish needs outside of Israel. Feldman concludes that pragmatic motives prevailed. When Adenauer was led to believe that Germany's international standing in the Western world would be secured even without complete acquiescence to Jewish claims, he slowed down the negotiations; when he realized that he had been misled, they were brought to a successful conclusion. Feldman presents a good deal of information on various aspects of the overall relationship between Germany and Israel: in economics, after the conclusion of the reparations payments; in the field of informal, non-government organizations; and cooperation in scientific and technological research. A chapter is devoted to West Germany's relations with the Arab world and their influence on the special relationship with Israel. Of particular interest is the survey of German political support for Israel. Feldman points out that if during the 1950s Germany needed at least silent Israeli support in order to enhance her international position, after 1967 German political backing was a necessity for Israel, especially on the European scene. This may explain the continued pragmatic attitude of Israel towards Germany even by the governments led by Begin and Shamir, two men who vigorously led the opposition against diplomatic relations with Germany during the 1950s. From the end of that decade on, Germany attempted to portray her ties with Israel as a normal relationship, in response to pressures exerted by Arab oil-supplying countries. Feldman believes, however, that Germany's policy toward Israel was different from that of its fellow members of the EEC. Germany abstained from voting on the resolution granting the PLO observer status in the United Nations. While recognizing Palestinian claims to self-determination, Germany avoided granting recognition to the PLO as the Palestinian people's official representative. Though Israel is unhappy with Germany's Mideast policy after the Yom Kippur War, not to mention Chancellor Schmidt's pronouncements after the initiation of "Operation Peace for Galilee," Israeli statesmen also took note of the moderation of Germany's stand. There is much truth in Feldman s statement that Israel's attitude toward Germany

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was more positive than could have been expected to emanate from a generation that had witnessed the Holocaust. The special relationship continues to exist despite the strains it has experienced over the years: the involvement of German scientists in Egyptian missile development, the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic games and the subsequent release of the terrorists and Germany's reluctance to allow the United States to use American bases in Germany to aid Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Even the crises generated by the Eichmann trial and Chancellor Schmidt's pro-Palestinian stand in the EEC failed to put an end to the relationship. In the author's opinion, the Arabs—especially the Palestinians—do not understand the permanent and binding character of West German-Israel relations, a misinterpretation which is detrimental to their puipose. MENAHEM KAUFMAN The Hebrew University

Saul Friedlaender, Reflections on Nazism: An Essay on Kitsch and Death. Translated by Thomas Weyr. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. 141 pp. As the time between the defeat of the Nazis in 1945 and the present lengthens, our obsession with the Nazi phenomenon seems to grow. Saul Friedlaender argues that the immediate postwar treatment of Nazism as an absolute evil has been replaced in the last decade or so with a "new discourse" in which an uneasy and frequently unconscious nostalgia for the past has crept into works of literature and film. He undertakes an examination of such diverse creations as Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich, Michel Tournier's The Ogre, George Steiner's The Portage to San Cristobal, Werner Fassbinder's Lily Marleen and Hans-Jurgen Syberberg's Hitler: A Film from Germany. Whatever the overt intentions of their creators, these works conspire "by what they say unwittingly, even what is said despite them" to neutralize and even exorcise the evil of Nazism, replacing it with images that are somehow more familiar and acceptable. In this exorcism, something of the original psychological attraction of Nazism resurfaces, an attraction that persists today, although the social and economic conditions necessary for a resurgence of Nazism may be missing. Thus, a study of the "new discourse" about Nazism tells us not only something about contemporary cultural psychology but also reveals certain truths about why Hitler and his movement won such a following half a century ago. Friedlaender identifies the two contradictory poles of Nazism which coalesce in the "new discourse" as "kitsch" and "death." On the one hand, the Nazis reveled in a sentimental and trite nostalgia for the "good old" values. Nazi propaganda, including the very image of Hitler himself, made copious use of these "kitsch" representations. And it is precisely this sentimental kitsch, expressed in the images of the "innocent comrades in arms" or "Hitler at home," that plays such a central role in the "new discourse."

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At the same time, however, there was a deeply nihilistic element to Nazism, "a trajectory that could only land in the void." This apocalyptic impulse toward death and annihilation was always present in Nazism and culminated, of course, in the devastation of the Second World War. Nazism is perhaps the only major historical movement whose demise has left literally no positive legacy. As Karl Kraus said prophetically, "When I think of Hitler, nothing comes to mind." Here was a movement which, like an ideological black hole, swallowed up every life force and could only leave death and destruction in its wake. In both Nazi propaganda and the "new discourse," kitsch and death come together: Death is extolled with sentimental images that rob it of its terror. The evil nihilism of Nazism is neutralized by turning death into kitsch. In a similar manner, the Nazis neutralized the genocide of the Jews by the use of special language. When they had to make mention of it (and Hitler himself rarely did so, to the point where positive proof of his involvement in the Holocaust remains elusive), they typically used circumlocutions such as "the final solution" or "special handling" which sanitized the murders they committed. A striking example of this form of "exorcism" that Friedlaender discusses at length is Himmler's famous speech to the SS officers in Posen. Himmler lauded the SS for having been able to carry out the gruesome massacre of the Jews without having lost its "moral" virtues: Not a penny was stolen from the victims, no one was allowed to become wealthy from their deaths. The SS could not have been evil for it preserved the bourgeois values of private property even as it carried out its ideological mission. By turning the SS into the defender of ordinary, conventional values, Himmler was able to "evacuate its load of horror": Kitsch had triumphed over death. Friedlaender finds that the "new discourse" similarly neutralizes the crimes of the Nazis and, in particular, the murder of the Jews: in works like Fassbinder's Lily Marleen and George Steiner's The Portage to San Cristobal, there are suggestions that the Jews are somehow to blame for their fate. This fusion of the contradictory elements of kitsch and death derives from the contradictory psychological needs that Nazism tried to address. On the one hand, it sought to restore a destroyed past, a world of stable values uprooted by the forces of modernity. It posed as the defender of the German values of order and respectability. At the same time it represented a revolt against bourgeois order in favor of a new hierarchy of values in which aggression and death occupied central places. As Friedlaender puts it: Modern society and the bourgeois order are perceived both as an accomplishment and as an unbearable yoke. Hence this constant coming and going between the need for submission and the reveries of total destruction, between love of harmony and the phantasms of apocalypse, between the enchantment of Good Friday and the twilight of the gods. . . . To these opposing needs, Nazism—-in the constant duality of its representations—offers an outlet. . . . Today these aspirations are still there, and their reflections in the imaginary as weil. Friedlaender therefore demonstrates how the nostalgia for the past on which Nazism was based contained a fundamentally nihilistic impulse at its core (as opposed to the future-oriented mentalities of Soviet Russia or capitalist America).

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He finds the attraction of Nazism in its appeal to a death instinct as opposed to those like Susan Sontag who see its attraction in sado-masochistic eroticism: Thanatos rather than Eros is its patron god. Friedlaender's analysis may also help us understand a sense in which Hannah Arendt's phrase, "the banality of evil," may have been right on target. For if Friedlaender is right that Nazism camouflaged its nihilism with sentimental respectability, then it is possible to conceive of an Eichmann whose evil nature lay concealed beneath banal conventionality. Indeed, Eichmann's ability to neutralize the vile nature of his crimes with cliches demonstrates how the followers of Nazism could internalize the contradictory values of kitsch and death. Friedlaender's essay is suggestive rather than definitive: It may be too soon to say whether there is truly a "new discourse" about Nazism, although the recent study by Alvin Rosenfeld, Imagining Hitler, confirms many of Friedlaender's insights. What makes this book so important, however, is, first, its understanding of the appeal of Nazism in its own time and, second, what it teaches us about how images can neutralize and exorcise evil, a problem that every political culture must confront. For if language and visual representations can render the horrible somehow familiar and acceptable, then we shall have lost our ability to become outraged. It is this most human capacity for outrage that the twentieth century has repeatedly deadened by first confronting us with a horror more terrible than the last and then by transforming it into the language of the everyday. Friedlaender's powerful meditation, together with his earlier autobiographical essay, When Memory Comes, stand as singular warnings against this emasculation of memory. DAVID BIALE Graduate Theological Union Berkeley, Calif.

Richard S. Geehr (ed. and trans.), "/ Decide Who Is a Jew!" The Papers of Dr. Karl Lueger. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982. vii + 360 pp. Karl Lueger, antisemitic mayor of Vienna during the years 1897-1910, has long fascinated historians of late nineteenth-century Europe. A consummate politician and master orator, Lueger won the support of Viennese artisans, shopkeepers, clerks, teachers, priests and homeowners by manipulating their fears of capitalism, liberalism and modernity. He blamed the Jews for all the ills of modern society, and, in addition to his demands for urban social reform, called for an end to the socalled Jewish influence in public life. As mayor, Lueger served Vienna well, reforming city government and improving the lives of the Viennese. To this day they call him "der Schoene Karl." Lueger has won a place in history on two counts. First of all, his skillful clec-

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tioneering in an age of widening franchise has earned him a reputation as a modern politician. More important, his success at using antisemitism to win votes made the Christian-Social party the only antisemilic party in late nineteenth-century Europe to win an electoral majority. This victory not only lent respectability to antisemitic politics but also inspired the young Adolph Hitler, who lived in Vienna during the Lueger years. Suspicions have long abounded, however, that Lueger only used antisemitism to win votes, and that he himself was no antisemite and even had Jewish friends. After all, he is known to have said, "I decide who is a Jew!" In this collection of documents from the Karl Lueger papers Richard S. Geehr has attempted to "place the man and his ideas in a working perspective as a basis for further study" (p. 4) and "to illuminate previously untreated and obscure aspects of Lueger's career" (p. 12). Thus the reader is presented with English translations of letters, drafts of speeches, memoranda, legal documents, notes and electioneering material, all from Lueger's private papers. These documents reveal aspects of Lueger's love life, his days as a student, his years as member of the Vienna City Council, his work against the liberal city administration and his relationship with Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang. Although Geehr does include sections on Lueger's anticapitalism, hatred for the liberal press, Austrian patriotism and antisemitism, only a few of the documents actually provide insight into the main themes of Lueger's politics. The reader wishes that Geehr had included more documents like the 1885 speech draft in which Lueger urges the voters of Vienna's fifth district (Margarethen) to vote for him for parliament or his 1897 speech when Emperor Franz Josef finally confirmed him as mayor of the capital. Here we see his opposition to peddling, pawnshops and urban corruption, his desire for more municipal services, his loyalty to emperor and Austria and his hatred of the forces of nationalism in general and Hungarian nationalism in particular. Surprisingly, neither of these two significant speeches contains any direct antisemitic slander. Unfortunately, precious few such important documents find their way into Geehr's collection. The usefulness of this selection of Lueger papers, therefore, remains elusive. Although Geehr has translated these documents into good, readable English, the collection is unsuitable for teaching purposes since so few of the documents contain anything significant. Moreover, Geehr's desire to illuminate some less well-known aspects of Lueger's career leaves the volume oddly skewed and incomplete. This reader would have preferred more documents from Lueger's official correspondence on important issues and fewer examples of his erotic letters to his mistress Marianne Beskiba. Similarly, Geehr should have included more material on Lueger's attitude to religion and not just letters to Vogelsang discussing party meetings. Moreover, Geehr often makes claims in his introductory notes which are not substantiated by the documents at hand. For example, he argues that Lueger was an incipient totalitarian, but no evidence for this is provided. Despite the title of the collection, Geehr devotes little attention to Lueger's antisemitism. In his introduction to this subject, Geehr argues that Lueger was a private as well as a public antisemite, although the documents included here only reveal the public orator articulating standard nineteenth-century non-racist denunciations of the Jews. Lueger decries Jewish exploiters and corrupters, brands the

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Jews responsible for international finance capital and the much hated liberal press and demands the liberation of Christians from Jewish domination. Geehr acknowledges that no proof exists that Lueger ever said "1 decide who is a Jew!" Instead, Lueger probably declared, "What a Jew is, everyone knows as well as I," words which Geehr deems far more ominous. This selection of Lueger documents also suffers from some technical problems. Geehr should have made his chronological framework clearer and provided dates and more annotations for the documents. His use of the term nationalism to describe Lueger's pro-Habsburg sentiments is also confusing in the context of Austrian politics. Finally, the format of this typescript book is occasionally hard to follow. Nonetheless, the reviewer looks forward to Richard Geehr's full-length biography of Lueger, the master modern-style mass politician in Habsburg Vienna. There he can illuminate the private as well as the public man and can present a rounded picture of this most important figure. MARSHA L. ROZENBLIT University of Maryland

Sarah Gordon, Hitler, Germans and the "Jewish Question." Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. xiv + 412 pp. $40.00 (cloth), $14.50 (paper). Sarah Gordon's book is based on her dissertation (1979) on German opposition to Nazi antisemitic measures, but its present scope is much broader. Its subject is "the background and German reactions" (p. 3) to the persecution and mass murder of European Jewry. In its more general meaning, "background" refers to GermanJewish relations since 1870; in its more specific meaning, it includes the functions of antisemitism inside and outside the Nazi party. Thus, Gordon examines a variety of interrelated questions concerning antisemitism among party members and its appeal to the general electorate; the functions of persecution and propaganda in enhancing party unity as well as Nazi power and control over the population: attitudes toward persecution and help extended to the Jews both by the general public and by specific groups—the military, the bureaucracy, socialist and conservative circles within the resistance, the press and the churches. In discussing these topics she questions some widely held views on the socioeconomic characteristics of party members and voters and particularly on the social base of antisemitism. Here she draws mainly on Merkl's study of 581 early Nazis as well as his unpublished data and a number of electoral studies. She concludes that "paranoid antisemitism of Hitler's type was not typical of early Nazi party members, even though antisemitism was an important reason for their joining the party and even though it contained the hard core of Germany's antisemites" (p. 88). Only one eighth of Merkl's sample belonged to this category, whereas one third showed no evidence of antisemitism, 40 perctnt were classified as "moderate" and 14 percent as "mild" antisemites. Apart from the paranoid, all of these groups proba-

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bly joined the party for reasons other than antisemitism. A comparison between the antisemites and the no-evidence category shows that among the antisemites, women, residents of large cities, members of the middle class and Protestants were overrepresented. But the most interesting result is the over-representation of individuals aged forty-nine and over, which means that they had formed their political views at a time when political antisemitism is held to have been weak. Gordon considers her findings as additional support for the belief that intellectual and social antisemitism gained "firm ground" during the Wilhelmian period (p. 59). From her review of voter behavior she concludes that the Nazi electorate was drawn from all classes and that "it was a 'catchall' party for those who were disaffected with the other options, rather than simply a product of middle class support" (p. 89). Antisemitism was not a major drawing card for voters, but neither did it prevent them from supporting the party. Thus, Hitler's own conception of the "Jewish question" becomes even more crucial. He first produced a theory to justify the extermination of the Jews, then planned for their destruction and finally ordered it to be carried out (p. 143). Gordon basically subscribes to the view of the so-called intentionalists that the Holocaust was the realization of Hitler's Weltanschauung, but she attempts to reconcile this with the "functionalist" approach by explaining that the bureaucrats usually anticipated Hitler's next steps (p. 312). The of late much debated question of when and how the decision for extermination was taken is treated only briefly. According to Gordon, the decision (though perhaps not a detailed plan) was made by Hitler in 1939 at the latest, although it could have been made "any time between 1924 and 1936" (p. 136). That there can be no written order is to her a matter of course (p. 142). Apart from its prominent place in Hitler's Weltanschauung, antisemitism served to ensure party unity by giving the party a role in racial policies, to distract attention from the failure to implement the; socio-economic goals of the party program, to terrorize and thus atomize the population and to justify expansion and war against states that were allegedly dominated by Jews. In addition, antisemitic propaganda was used to create a consensus on antisemitism by spreading Nazi ideology and at the same time by blacking out all information about persecution and extermination that might have led to questioning the Nazi view. That this propaganda did not fully succeed is proved both by censorship and police terror (which would not have been necessary otherwise) and by public reactions to antisemitic measures. Gordon's discussion of these reactions is based on a few published studies and on unpublished reports of the Sicherheitsdienst (in the meantime a seventeen-volume edition of the Meldungen aus dem Reich has been published). She notes various shifts in attitudes (e.g., antisemitism taking root among the majority by 1938, but "a peak of criticism" in late 1938 after Kristallnacht) and concludes that the majority of Germans "apparently wanted to restrict Jewish rights substantially, but not to annihilate Jews" (p. 208). During the war the majority attitude was, however, indifference. Gordon's findings and conclusions do not fully coincide with Kulka's, the most comprehensive study as yet. Gordon's first chapters are based largely on extensive research by other historians, while the discussion of opposition to persecution is based on her own study of

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the Gestapo files on 452 opponents in the Rhine-Ruhr area. She considers two groups of opponents—Judenfreunde (i.e., people who helped Jews or publicly criticized persecution) and Rassenschander (i.e., violators of the Nuremberg laws). The support for Jews was at its strongest when persecution escalated in 1938-39 and continued during the war. Again, Gordon scrutinizes socio-economic characteristics and finds that the most active opponents of racial persecution were males, independents and white-collar workers. From the over-representation of older Germans among the Judenfreunde, she concludes that not only antisemitism but also its rejection was spawned before the First World War (p. 243). This conclusion, however, seems to be too far-reaching, as Judenfreunde might have been previously indifferent or even supporters of Nazism (she cites examples herself) and only the very extreme persecutions might have driven them to help individual Jews. The socio-economic characteristics of sixty-five Nazi opponents of racial persecution were, for that matter, quite similar to those of the total sample (p. 220). A similar investigation should now be made into the opposition in other areas of Germany, for which the Gestapo files of Wurzburg could serve as the archival base. It should be stressed that in discussing public reactions and opposition to antisemitic measures, Gordon is very cautious in her interpretation. She always considers the risks any opponent took, discusses a variety of possible explanations for her findings and compares what the Germans made of the rumors they heard with what Jews and the Allies knew (the latter of course had more detailed information). She does not always arrive at a definite conclusion, but rather points to topics for future research. The Germans are very fairly treated, and while she does not intend to apologize for them (and in fact does not), some of her considerations might appear too favorable or indulgent to some readers. The chapters on the attitudes of the churches and the other groups that had some chance of helping Jews provide an outline but not an exhaustive study. Apart from their opposition to racial ideology, she notes the failure of church leaders to extend any significant help to the Jews. In this case she provides neither social characteristics of opponents nor an indication of the extent of opposition. She emphasizes the responsibility of the bureaucracy and the Wehrmacht, whereas her evaluation of the conservative circles in the resistance appears somewhat too favorable (cf. Ch. Dipper in Geschichte und Gesellschaft IX, 1983). A word should also be said about the fairly extensive chapter, "The Setting (1870-1933)," which provides the background for her subject. Although she confines her discussion to only two aspects (socio-economic characteristics of the Jews and antisemitism), this brief survey contains a number of misleading wordings and factual errors. Hauptmann, who must be taken for a Jew in her context, was not (p. 47). The Reichsbanner was not the paramilitary organization of the SPD (pp. 36, 236), but of the three parties of the Weimar coalition, with the SPD most prominent; the Abwehrverein was a mixed Jewish-Gentile, not a Christian organization (p. 28). "Paul Blotticher" in her list of antisemites obviously refers to P. Botticher, better known by his pen name Paul de Lagarde (p. 24). In the table on p. 31 DDP and DVP have been arranged in the wrong order and the State party has by mistake been made the successor of the DVP instead of DDP. Moreover, some statements on Eastern Jewish immigration are oversimplified (e.g., "causing" divisions within

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the Jewish community, p. 10). More serious is the question of the interrelationship between the objective socio-economic differences between Germans and Jews and the rise of antisemitism. Gordon, of course, does not want to imply that the Jews themselves "caused" antisemitism (p. 44) and correctly states that the existence of such differences is not a sufficient cause of antisemitism (p. 45). Some passages in her text, nevertheless, convey the impression that Jewish behavior encouraged or even generated some of the antisemitic stereotypes (pp. 23, 43). As for her main topic, however, she offers a broad and multi-faceted, though not always exhaustive, discussion, which should stimulate further research. TRUDE MAURER University of Gottingen

Cynthia J. Haft, The Bargain and the Bridle: The General Union of the Israelites of France, 1941-1944. Chicago: Dialog Press, 1983. xviii, 137 pp.

Few problems make such great demands upon the historian as the response of European Jews to Nazi persecution and the Final Solution, For one thing, the evidence is so difficult to use. From the Jewish side, the surviving documents do not always mean what they say. Caught in the vise of Nazi persecution, Jews twisted and turned in the hope of relief; much of the Jewish sources that remain—their correspondence with their torturers—hardly represents a candid expression of how they saw the world. On the opposite side, the Nazis generally perceived the Jews of their own propaganda-fed fantasies—meek, cringing, scheming, dishonest figures held at bay by the all-powerful, omniscient bureaucracy of the Third Reich. It is not surprising that the Germans wrote about Jews in this light, neglecting aspects of Jewish reactions that did not meet their expectations or were carefully hidden. Faced with such evidence, historians must look behind the written word and weigh every statement with an eye to the eerie context of the wartime years. Also, investigators must keep an eye out for change: The tempo of persecution, with what we know to be a growing intensification to the point of mass murder, was frequently much slower than it appears to us now. Harried by one regulation after another, Jewish victims often missed the signposts on the road to the Final Solution and realized only too late the escape routes they could have taken. Additional problems arise from the very uniqueness of the Jewish situation at the end of 1941, with every man, woman and child targeted for murder by henchmen of the Nazi regime. Other civilian hostages of the Nazi system lived under such different conditions that it becomes impossible, or nearly so, to make comparative judgments. Yet this has not restrained some observers from claiming a particularly "Jewish" propensity to defer to the wishes of the persecutor, to seek refuge in self-delusion or to misread murderous intentions. Although there is every reason for caution in issuing judgments, the temptation to do so seems irresistable. Cynthia Haft's study of the Union generate des Israelites de France (UGIF), an

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organization imposed upon the Jews in 1941 which became enmeshed in the deportation and murder of close to 75,000 co-religionists, illustrates both the difficulties and some of the pitfalls of this kind of historical analysis. Students of the Holocaust in France may find the work useful as a short portrait of the UGIF, undertaken from a clearly articulated point of view. But the book invites critical examination because of its strident assuredness and its limited scope in evaluating individuals caught in desperate circumstances. Ignoring a wide body of literature on France under Nazi domination, the book is based upon extensive UGIF materials at Yad Vashem and the YIVO Institute in New York. Apparently research was also done in Paris, but the author does not seem to have used, except at secondhand, the voluminous archives at the Centre de documentation juive contemporaine. The most obvious result of this narrow research focus is a work with only a vague sense of context and a weak appreciation of important facts. In a crucial misstep early in the work, we are presented with a UGIF, uncritically referred to as a Judenrat, created by the Nazis. At the time, however, the Gestapo lured the collaborationist government of Vichy into establishing that organization, in both the occupied and unoccupied zones, in order to forestall a German move in their part of France. UGIF members may well have erred in participating in the body, but given their vantage point, being unable to read the Gestapo correspondence as we can today, they had reason to believe that the UGIF was a French and not a Nazi institution. Underplaying the extent to which the popularly acclaimed Vichy government persecuted Jews on its own, Haft has little sense of the supreme demoralization of French Jewry. Like the overwhelming majority of their countrymen, UGIF leaders simply assumed that the triumph of the Reich could not be reversed. Their task, they felt, was to make the best of a wretched situation, salvaging as much as they could from the ruin of their country. As it turned out, they were quite wrong. But they had good reason for believing what they did. Throughout the book mistakes occur when evidence is wrenched loose from its historical setting. Thus Vichy's first anti-Jewish statute (which is incorrectly dated and confused with another law of the following day on p. 43) is wrongly assumed to be "a German product" (p. 42), and Germans are generally credited with far too much foresight in determining their own anti-Jewish program. Italian protection of the Jews in the Fascist-occupied departments is presumed, without a shred of evidence, to have softened Vichy attitudes toward the Nazis' victims. Documents appear in the text, sometimes without reference to their authors, addressees or the dates when they were written, presumably in order to illustrate particular points. Reference to the notes, where citations are often incomplete, does not help to pin down numerous important quotations. In one case, where a particularly strong accusation is made against a Jewish concentration camp administration, the reference is simply to "private archives" (p. 130). One seeks in vain for the flavor of wartime France in the pages of this book, whose prose scarcely evokes real situations or real people. UGIF members are simply presented as "honest, prominent and well-thought-of" in a short collective portrait (p. 19). The atmosphere in the unoccupied zone before November 1942, when thousands of Frenchmen were close to starvation and when churchmen were beginning to protest deportations from the "Free Zone," is characterized by "relaxation and well-being" (p. 102). Like toy

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soldiers moved about on a board, Jewish resistance fighters in 1944 are seen as "entering into combat against the Germans" (p. 1 17). Haft's argument is that the UGIF "was never accorded any real power" (p. 119), that it facilitated the subjection of the Jewish community and ultimately became an effective part of the Nazi murder machine. Keeping track of the Jews in France, assisting the Germans and the French to bleed them white, the UGIF may even, she suggests at one point, have prepared deportation lists for deportation to Auschwitz. The lesson we are to learn from this—apart from a pathetic call for vengeance in the book's epigraph—is that "Jews must come to realize the dangers inherent in rendering assistance of any kind to the enemy" (p. xii, emphasis in original). While there is strong evidence for her contentions about UGIF activity, some of it interestingly presented, the book fails adequately to explain the entrapment process. We have too little here to make clear how reasonable, honorable, sensitive men like Andre Baur or Raymond-Raoul Lambert (effective heads of the UGIF in the northern and southern zones respectively) could have been drawn into this process. Haft errs when she baldly asserts that the establishment Jews of the Consistoire Central realized that the UGIF "would serve the Germans'" (p. 9), attributing to them a much greater perspicacity than they actually possessed. Jews faced with the terrible crises of 1940 and 1941 simply did not think in such terms as "serving" the occupier. Nor did individuals suffer from the "moral dilemma" Haft describes of working for the German war effort in factories or through forced contributions (p. 56). Such "moral dilemmas" are far more characteristic of late-twentieth-century liberal thought than the world-view of Jews trapped in the Nazi prison. Members of the Consistoire, as Richard Cohen has recently shown, were indeed worried about where UGIF activity might lead, but by no means did they reject the principle behind the organization.1 Personal antagonisms and a sense of being upstaged also played a role in their response. The author more plausibly speaks of how the men of the UGIF became ever more deeply ensnared in the tentacles of German authority, often blackmailed by threats against their families and themselves. But what anguish did this produce among those responsible for the UGIF? Was there no impact of the accumulating evidence of Nazi perfidy and Vichy impotence? Were UGIF leaders not moved by the military progress of the Allies, by late 1943 fighting their way up the Italian boot? Was there no reasonable hope that Jews might hang on, precisely through such an organization as the UGIF, cheating the Nazis in small ways and surviving until liberation? No hint of remorse, second thoughts or proAllied hopes, needless to say, crept into UGIF correspondence with the Germans or their Vichy collaborators, and none of it is reported here. The Jews of the UGIF, so many of whom were themselves engulfed in the Nazi horror, remain mute on these points, curiously disembodied figures. Vengeance will do them no good. But sympathetic understanding of such people, caught in excruciating dilemmas, might be useful for us all. MICHAEL R. MARRUS University of Toronto 'Yerachmiel (Richard) Cohen, "French Jewry's Dilemma on the Orientation of Its Leadership: From Polemics to Conciliation, 1942- 1944," Yad Vashem Studies XIV (1981), pp. 167-204.

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Marvin I. Herzog, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Dan Miron, and Ruth Wisse (eds.), The Field of Yiddish: Studies in Language, Folklore, and Literature. Fourth Collection. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1980.

During my years as a graduate student at YIVO's then newly founded Max Weinreich Center for Advanced Jewish Studies, I was intrigued by the remarkably diverse educational backgrounds of the other students and fraye tsuherers (auditors) in my literary seminars. I eventually grasped that in this institution scholarship was considered successful only if it was both challenging to those who all but breathed the topic and accessible to less specialized listeners as well. This concept was truly in the spirit of Weinreich himself, a scholar who could be investigating epigrams or Proto-Yiddish one day and pedagogy the next. The same insistence on Yiddish as a unified field, individual areas of specialization notwithstanding, informs the latest volume of The Field of Yiddish. Small wonder, for the series was inaugurated in 1954 under the editorship of Uriel Weinreich, Max's son, himself an admirably eclectic and dynamic scholar. The present collection contains essays on literature, linguistics, ethnomusicology, sociology, etymology and bibliography, ranging from the beginnings of Yiddish to the present. Even within this generous framework, there is additional breadth: The literary studies include an investigation by Dan Miron and Anita Norich of how the theme of politics and power is expressed and transmuted in Sh. Y. Abramovitsh's popular Masoes Benyomin Hashlishi (The Travels of Benjamin the Third) as well as Susan A. Slotnik's study of the carefully wrought structure underlying Oyzer Varshavski's 1920 novel, Shmuglares. The linguistic offerings are similarly wideranging: a historical analysis of final devoicing in Yiddish by Robert D. King; Paul Wexler's comparative examination of how Semitic (Hebrew and Arabic) verbal material is integrated, respectively, into Yiddish and Turkish; and a synchronic study by Joshua Waletzky of topicalization in Yiddish. The remaining contributors to this volume comprise—and I list them alphabetically—both venerated Yiddish scholars and their students. Joshua A. Fishman's "The Sociology of Yiddish After the Holocaust: Status, Needs and Possibilities" contains both a bibliography of work already available and suggestions for future research. David G. Roskies provides readers with an annotated bibliography, generically organized, of the work of Ayzik-Meyer Dik. Dov Sadan gives us a detailed discussion of the Yiddish word koltn. Mark Slobin's essay examines "ways in which printed songs and piano arrangements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries might be viewed in relation to folksong data gathered from oral tradition to shed light on the evolution of the Yiddish song" (p. 329). The mixture of new approaches and well-honed methods is evidence that those who love Yiddish have reason for a measure of optimism. The Field of Yiddish is not without its faults. There is an evident lack of balance in the collection as a whole. While all the essays are of excellent quality, the Miron/Norich and Waletzky studies are rather long for a compilation of this sort. In contrast, Fishman's challenge to researchers—coming, as it does, at the conclusion

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of the volume—is reminiscent of a latecomer arriving, breathless and ruffled, for a dinner party. Moreover, precisely because the level of Yiddish scholarship is constantly deepening and becoming more sophisticated, some of the essays are technical enough to alarm even the most intrepid frayer tsuherer. Finally—and here 1 concede my own perhaps idiosyncratic way of enjoying books like The Field of Yiddish—weighing in at a hefty three pounds, the bulky volume is not easy to carry around in anticipation of a few minutes' extra reading. These are minor complaints. I look forward to the next collection and further evidence that the field of Yiddish continues to flourish. JANET HADDA University of California, Los Angeles

Yosef Heller, Be-maavak la-medinah, 1936-1948. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1984. 560 pp. Yosef Heller has given the Hebrew reader a most valuable collection of over one hundred documents depicting the inner workings of Zionist policymaking and diplomacy in what he calls the "critical period" of Zionism, the thirteen years prior to the birth of the state, which began with the Arab rebellion in 1936 and concluded with the establishment of Israel in May 1948. Heller provides the Israeli student with considerable insight into the policy-forming organs of the Zionist movement—the Jewish Agency Executive, the Zionist Inner Actions Committee and the Mapai Central Committee and Political Committee. He also makes available material from private diaries and correspondence of central figures. Dr. Heller also offers his own one hundred-page preface, in which he outlines the main events and debates of this period. Students of the period will already be familiar with much of the material in the preface. One of Heller's goals is to indicate to what extent the Zionists' assessments of the policies executed and planned by the powers were accurate. Of particular interest were the debates on partition and the balance which had to be made between external and internal politics. With large sections of the Yishuv and Mapai unwilling to compromise, Zionist leaders who favored partition, faute de mieux, had to tread warily in public. Thus in 1946, BenGurion and Shertok in private told members of the Anglo-American Committee that they would be prepared to accept a reasonable partition plan, while in their public stance they adhered rigidly to the Biltmore Program, which demanded the whole of western Palestine. Preoccupation with tactical hedging of bets undoubtedly prejudiced the Zionist cause at times. By the summer of 1946 leaders such as Rabbi Wise and Rabbi Fishman were airing their pangs of conscience that in 1937 they had not supported partition- had they done so, a Jewish state might have been able to save many victims of the Holocaust during the Second World War (the Zionists were apparently unaware that partition was already a dead letter by December 1937).

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Heller's preface is less satisfactory for the postwar period, particularly with regard to American policy. A key issue was the extent to which Truman's own policy was determined by the Jewish refugee (DP) problem and to what extent by internal political needs. Heller, referring to only one of the scholarly works dealing with this period, concludes that Truman was primarily motivated by humanitarian reasons as impressed upon him by the great weight of American Jewry. There is even some internal contradiction here. For though Heller repeatedly states that everlarger numbers of American Jews now supported the Zionist case for a Jewish state (p. 77), he also quotes Ben-Gurion, who in April 1946 bemoaned the fact that the majority of American Jews did not favor a Jewish state. The fact is that American Jewry did not support the establishment of the state until their president did, in October 1947. It is also regrettable that no documents are provided on the all-important areas of Zionist diplomacy and military preparations during the period between the UN resolution (November 1947) and the establishment of the state in May 1948. There is no description of the inner workings of the Zionist lobby, which was largely responsible for the achievements at the United Nations; nothing on why the Zionist camp was taken by surprise by the American trusteeship proposal in March 1948; and nothing on relations between the political and military leadership (i.e., the "generals' revolt" against Ben-Gurion). A visit to the Haganah archives might have provided some interesting documents, though it is to be assumed that much material yet remains closed. In summary, this is a most welcome and valuable pioneering attempt, one that reflects the editor's familiarity with Zionist archival sources. Many teachers and students in Israel will be in his debt. Hopefully further volumes will complement and enlarge upon this pioneering effort. MICHAEL J. COHEN Bar-Han University

Gershon David Hundert and Gershon C. Bacon, The Jews in Poland and Russia: Bibliographical Essays. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. 276 pp. $25.00. The two authors in their joint preface describe this volume as "two books bound together for the convenience of the reader." Hundert deals with the period up to the Polish partitions (1772), and his geographic boundaries are as wide as the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Bacon takes up the story from 1772 and deals mainly with the Russian Empire and the successor republics (Polish and Soviet) which arose in 1917—18. In a bibliographic essay, the author faces the problem of creating a work which can be read as well as consulted, so that structure, style and emphasis become more

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important than in a straightforward annotated bibliography. One has to avoid connecting phrases such as "and there is" or "see also" in favor of more discrete descriptions. In general both authors have acquitted themselves well, displaying remarkable erudition to boot. In the hundreds of English, Russian, Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew and German titles (also a few in French by bilingual Poles), held together by the authors' framework, nearly everyone can find novelty and stimulation. To help those with limited language skills, pains were taken to show all languages in which a book or article appeared. In the selection itself there is a preference for studies written in English. While in general the book is up to date, there is no escaping the fact that a bibliography is already dated at the moment it finally goes to press. One unfortunate example is Hundert's categorical statement (p. 5) that no "systematic, comprehensive, and up-to-date bibliography of Jewish history" exists, but in 1983 such a study was published in Jerusalem (2,000 Books and More . . . edited by Jonathan Kaplan). Also, the cited bibliographies of Holocaust memorial volumes are badly out of date and have, in effect, been replaced by the one Zachary M. Baker appended to the anthology From a Ruined Garden (New York: 1983). These memorial volumes are one of the many special problems for the authors, who attempt not only to describe what has been done but to outline existing problems of historical research and interpretation. All of us who have tried to exploit or have our students exploit these volumes for research know how subjective, partisan and fragmented they are. Hundert, in his section, gives us a selection of them, with place names capitalized to facilitate search. This brings us to the book's main fault: the lack of an index. The books and articles are organized in alphabetical order at the end of each essay, but there is no easy way to get from the bibliographic list to the one or more places where the work is cited and described in greater or lesser detail. The absence of an index for persons and places makes it nearly impossible to find, for example, all the contexts in which Lodz is mentioned, The coverage of existing bibliographic tools is not always adequate. For example, Hundert (p. 5) dutifully lists the bibliographic quarterly of the Hebrew University Kiryat Sefer, which began covering Judaic and lire? Israel imprints in 1924. But he does not tell us that, since there is no breakdown or index by country, it is of use only for current perusal or for verifying a title more or less known. Nor does he more than mention the important Russian-language Evreiskaia enisiklopediia (p. 7). Bacon (p. 127), who because of the two-books-in-one concept tries to refer to Hundert as little as possible, gives better descriptions of the Evreiskaia entsiklopediia and other general works. Both authors are too conservative in not "closing out" dead series and journals. For example, the long defunct AIgemeyne entsiklopedye (pp. 7, 127) is cited as still coming out. Also, a little checking with publishers and editors would have elicited the information that, of the three Hebrew journals once devoted to Russian and Soviet Jewry (He-'avar, Behinot, Shvui) only Shvut was still alive at the end of the seventies. Unfortunately, Soviet Jewry is allotted no more than sixteen pages at the end of the book, about the same as the Holocaust in Poland; Bacon seems to have run out

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of steam as well as space by then. This leads to inadequate description and to the slighting of such subjects as Yiddish and Hebrew literature in Soviet Russia. At a minimum we would expect to find Shmeruk's article on "Yiddish Literature in Soviet Russia" (Behinot I [1970], pp. 5-26, published in English in the compilation edited by L. Kochan, The Jews in Soviet Russia), and Y. Gilboa's important Oktobraim 'ivrim (Tel-Aviv: 1974). Speaking of Yiddish, we protest Bacon's decision not to use a standardized Yiddish transliteration. Why is Yiddish less deserving in this respect than Hebrew or Russian? There are works, such as Weinryb's economic history and Dawidowicz's history of the Holocaust, for which this reviewer does not share Bacon's high opinion, but this is a matter of personal taste. We could go on with some specific comments and corrections but will conclude with a hearty mazal tov to Hundert and Bacon on their accomplishment. AVRAHAM GREENBAUM Haifa University

Benjamin J. Israel, The Bene Israel of India: Some Studies. London: Sangam Books, 1984. 248 pp.

This is a most valuable work of historical scholarship, the fruit of a lifetime of labor on the part of its author. The small community of Indian Jews, called Bene Israel and also known (in Marathi) as Shanwar Teli (Saturday oilpressers) poses many intriguing problems and challenges to historians of India as well as of Judaism. When did they first come to India's west coast, and from where? Were they one of the Lost Tribes or did they arrive in the wake of the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.? "Much more plausible is the theory that the Bene Israel came to India in the fifth or sixth century C.E. from either South Arabia or Persia," the author concludes, adding, however, that there is, in fact, "no hard evidence" to prove his theory (p. 16). He reviews, nonetheless, all the extant evidence and is most judicious in sifting and evaluating each fragment of information at his disposal. In 1951 the Bene Israel reached their numerical peak of some 20,000, but the community dwindled to little more than 5,000 according to the census of 1971 and seems to have "stabilised if not slightly increased" at that number (p. 6). The reason for the decline is emigration, mostly to Israel, which now has an estimated 25,000 Bene Israel citizens, and also to the United States, Canada and Australia. In his excellent introduction, Israel also explores the origins of Cochin Jews, whose treasured Pardeshi (foreign)synagogue is now in jeopardy since the community of "White Jews" which it serves in "Jewtown" has dwindled to fewer than ten adult males. The neighboring "Black Jews" of Cochin, who are part of India's caste system, continue to thrive. A third tiny Indian Jewish community is the Baghdadis, whose wealthiest family, the Sassoons, became leaders of Bombay's great munici-

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pality. This community appears to have been founded by Shalom Ha-Kohen, "a native of Aleppo in Syria" (p. 41), not Baghdad, who reached Bombay in 1790. The earliest Bene Israel synagogue was founded in Bombay City in 1796, where Jews were officially recognized as a "community" by the British and also recruited into the East India Company's army as sepoys. Though the Bene Israel Jews adopted many Hindu and, more frequently, Muslim customs and social habits, they always observed Jewish law and custom, including "circumcision on the eighth day, the abstention from labour on the Sabbath, avoidance of forbidden foods," and the celebration of Biblical festivals "at approximately the right times" (p. 60). The most scholarly and original chapters in this study are those focusing on "The Jewish Population of Kulaba District of Maharashtra" (chap. 4) and "Bene Israel Surnames and Their Village Links" (chap. 5). The author uses government~of-India census studies as well as earlier works in his careful critical analysis of the Bene Israel community in the Kulaba district. He also deals with the question of the age of marriage among the Bene Israel and reprints some excellent statistical tables from the census of 1881. The book ends with a translation of the personal autobiographical sketch of the author's father, Khan Bahadur Jacob Bapuji Israel, originally written in Marathi, and hitherto unpublished. This final chapter is a primary source of recent Maharashtrian social history that every student of Indian history will find of great value. All of us are, therefore, indebted to Benjamin J. Israel for his brilliant, illuminating work. STANLEY WOLPERT University of California, Los Angeles

Zoe Josephs (ed.), Birmingham Jewry. Volume 2: More Aspects, 1740-1930. Birmingham: Birmingham Jewish History Group, 1984. 148 pp. Volume 2 in this iocal history of Birmingham Jewry epitomizes the best and the worst of the genre. At its best it reaches those aspects of Jewish history that other historians cannot find the time, patience or local nous to get at. At its worst it presents an undifferentiated mass of data which is often of only the most parochial interest. This is the raw material of history, not the finished product: A dimension is missing. There is need of scope and vision, connecting the processes of change intrinsic to Birmingham Jewry with those affecting the rest of Anglo-Jewry and bringing to bear analytical concepts to order the facts. There is also a grave absence of context, alarming since Birmingham was considered the second city of England, the workshop of the empire and a spawning ground for some of the most vital and radical currents in British political history. Having said this, the authors must be praised for the diligence, endeavor and enthusiasm poured into the book. The section on the synagogues confirms Bill Williams's suggestion that schisms

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within the Jewish community are more profitably to be understood not as the results of pique, pettiness or theological tension, but in terms of class conflict overlaid by differences between immigrants and older settlers. In the case of the Birmingham Hebrew Congregation, the threat of secession in 1828 was also a form of free collective bargaining to force down fines for absences from synagogue on the Sabbath. The drive for a reformed service came from the "respectable" elements in the community, conscious of the Gentile looking over their shoulders. Although these well-to-do members of the community set up the Hebrew National School, they were loath to send their own children there for fear that they would mix with the young immigrants, for whom it was mainly intended. The school's chronicler notes that "class divisions proved stronger than the mere fact that all pupils belonged to one faith" (p. 134). The school was intended to Anglicize the immigrants and improve the poor. The sewing machine was, as so often elsewhere, the chief instrument for this. The Hebrew Philanthropic Society, the Board of Guardians and the school all pushed the youthful or the indigent into tailoring. It was Singer, not shatnez (the prohibition on mixing different fabrics) or any native entrepreneurial talent with the needle, that propelled so many Jews into this trade. As one interviewee recalled, few men actually wanted to enter the over-worked, poorly paid ranks of tailoring, and Jewish trade unions fought for improvements in conditions and pay. The fine account of this aspect of communal history notes that the union gained strength when it allied itself with demands for Sabbath observance. This is a useful counter-weight to more militantly secular versions of Jewish trade union history. Was it class consciousness or religious traditionalism that bolstered unionization? Alas, it is necessary to wade through a lot of detail to savor these insights. There is a sad lack of wider perspective. What was the Jewish role in the civic ethos of "the Best Governed City in the World," the city revolutionized by Joseph Chamberlain? How did Birmingham Jews react when he made his astonishing proposal, in 1904, that the Jews should have a territory in East Africa under British patronage? Nor do the authors of this volume make the point that Jews were totally absent from the central industries of the city. Jews prospered in peripheral service roles because the workshops and factories boomed and supplied them with a stream of customers and clients. Another surprising omission is any section devoted to the history of Jewish women. The chapter headings are revealing: "Founding Fathers" (p. 7), "Jewish Lads Brigade" (p. 123), "Jewish Working Men's Club" (p. 87). Women are mentioned only marginally, yet they often make tantalizing brief appearances in quite central roles. The wife of Isaac Joseph, founder of a male Jewish friendly society, was bored sitting at home and went out to form a lodge for women; another woman collected dues for the men—a grinding task. Oscar Deutsch was the entertainment genius who built up the Odeon cinema chain, distinguished by its lavish interiors, but the color coordination was done by his wife, who pored over models of new cinemas. This is not to mention the women workers who served the Jewish "masters" and whose story remains to be told. There is a severe imbalance between institutional histories and social histories. Too often, the allure of a set of minutes is allowed to produce pages, whereas the more elusive details of ordinary life are reduced to paragraphs.

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These are criticisms which the authors should not take too unkindly. There is nothing sloppy or obtuse in Birmingham Jewry, More Aspects, 1740-1930: It is a fine piece of local history which will mature in the hands of the authors and fellow Jewish historians. It is sure to win the respect and affection of professionals and non-professionals alike. DAVID CESARANI University of Leeds

Michael M. Laskier, The Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Jewish Communities of Morocco, 1862-1962. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983. 372 pp. $49.50 (cloth)/$15.95 (paper) In recent years several doctoral dissertations have appeared (mainly in the United States, curiously enough) dealing with one aspect or another of the history of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. The Alliance, the first modern international Jewish organization of its kind, was founded in 1860 and dedicated to Jewish emancipation and progress, the alleviation of Jewish suffering and the combating of antisemitism. Michael Laskier's important new book is an outgrowth of one such dissertation, written at the University of California, Los Angeles. Laskier's study offers a very full, meticulously detailed and well-documented exposition of the Alliance's role as the prime medium of modernization within the largest Jewish community, or rather, complex of communities as the book's title rightly indicates, of the Muslim world. The book records the dynamic part played by the Alliance in Morocco from the earliest days of the first boys' school established in Tetuan in 1862, through the period of the French protectorate (1921-56) and into the early years of independence. In addition to outlining the evolving curricular and extra-curricular programs, Laskier analyzes the wide-ranging effects of Alliance influence in Moroccan Jewish society and its efforts on behalf of the Jews in the political arena. He shows how Alliance education helped to create newly trained cadres among the Moroccan Jews with a distinct competitive advantage over the Muslim majority in certain commerical and administrative spheres at a time when the country was being drawn into the European orbit and the modern-world economic system. Laskier skillfully and dispassionately treats the sensitive and much debated issue of the Alliance's important connection with the forces of European penetration and its relation to later French colonialism. He carefully sums up the ties between the Alliance and France in the years before 1912 as follows (p. 74): It would be folly to deny A1U collaboration with France in the prccolonial period, for much of the educational training at the schools was geared to French commercial and business activity after graduation. Nevertheless, it would he inaccurate to suggest that the AIU intentionally sided with France in order to facilitate her colonial penetration, a theory cherished by well-informed, modern-day Moroccan nationalists.

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Not only was the Alliance not a witting ally of French colonialism, but during the colonial era its goals and aspirations for the Jews of Morocco were at times at odds with those of the regime. The Alliance did not hesitate to engage in activities contrary to French wishes when it believed them to be right. In fact, during the first twelve years of the protectorate, the Alliance had to struggle just to win official recognition and support. The long-term antagonism between the Alliance and Zionism in Morocco is also judiciously treated. Laskier catalogues the mutual accusations and recriminations but is careful to put them into a more balanced context. He shows how the AIU consistently misjudged the genuine grass roots popularity of the Zionist idea in Morocco and reveals how the Alliance's anti-Zionist stance was undermined from within by pro-Zionist-Alliance alumni and eventually even by some of the school personnel. This, together with the Vichy experience and the trauma of the Holocaust, led to a change in Alliance policy vis-a-vis Zionism and the rapid spread of the movement in Morocco at the end of the Second World War. The vicissitudes of the Alliance (which as of 1961-62 had to change its local operating name to Ittihad-Maroc) and Moroccan Jewry in independent Morocco are also discussed in detail. The book is enhanced by no less than forty-seven tables, numerous photographs and a wealth of informative notes. The style is sometimes slightly awkward, and there are numerous typographical errors which seem to have escaped the proofreader's eyes. However, these are minor flaws that are more than offset by the richness of the contents. NORMAN A. STILLMAN State University of New York at Binghamton

William C. McCready (ed.), Culture, Ethnicity, and Identity: Current Issues in Research. New York/London: Academic Press, 1983. xxiv + 450 pp. This book, consisting of twenty-three brief articles, testifies to the vitality of ethnic research in the United States, now entering its fourth decade. Indirectly, this volume is also a reflection of the intensity of ethnic pluralism in that country. Articles on American ethnicity include the following themes: Italian-Americans and school desegregation; elderly family members among the ethnic Chinese; black mayors and economic advancement; Italian-Americans in middle-class suburbia; ethnic communities in Phoenix, Arizona; American Jewry as a politically mobilized diaspora; a psycho-cultural analysis of the American family; Japanese-Americans' relationships with Caucasian Americans; immigrant and local Filipinos; the significance and relevance of ethnic psychology; community control of schools and the blacks; the Jewish identity of Soviet immigrants; social ties and ethnic-settlement patterns; the new Asian immigrants. Essays concerned with ethnic issues beyond the United States consider the fol-

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lowing subjects: ethnicity and politics in Lebanon; racialism and university education in Malaysia; sensitivity to ethnic discrimination in Israeli industries; ethnic identity in Quebec; ethnicity and competition for political hegemony in Nigeria; Israel as a latent plural society; affirmative action in Quebec; the ethnic numbers game in Hindu-Muslim conflicts. American research on ethnicity has gone a long way since its beginnings some thirty years ago. In the earlier stages the research tended to offer proof of, and elaboration on, the very existence of the ethnic factor. Today's research inclines to focus either on in-depth theoretical analysis or on sensitive discussion of specific facets of ethnic life. The present volume is largely confined to the latter category. Fellows of the Center for the Study of American Pluralism (affiliated with the University of Chicago), with which the editor of this volume is associated, and advocates of the "new ethnicity" trend, once tended to delineate ethnic groupings in America in a rigid manner. Furthermore, they tended to minimize the weight of general American political patterns and the validity of widely shared national ideological tenets. These inclinations were not always associated with scholarly analyses. Not infrequently, the spokesmen of "new ethnicity" were prone "to expose" the American tradition as "WASPish," while insisting on the intactness and continuity of the heritage of non-English-speaking groups (particularly white Catholics). The developments in ethnic research in the late 1970s and the 1980s have brought more balance and sophistication to the field. American nationality and American ethos are now "acknowledged" even by the staunch ideologists of vigorous ethnic pluralism. Obviously, this course helps to further the more solid research on ethnicity which, as a matter of fact, has continued uninterruptedly since the early 1950s. Thus, the whole dimension of interaction between ethnic heritage and American civilization is now a subject for widespread scholarly attention. In a similar vein, the interaction between various ethnic groups has also become the object of manifold study which fully acknowledges mutual influences. The present volume—through its serious approach and choice of themes—reflects the maturity of ethnic studies in America. The participants represent a wide range of disciplines; indeed, inter-disciplinary discussion has become one of the features of present-day ethnic scholarship in the United States. The contributors are trained in sociology, anthropology, nursing, political science, social work, community planning, psychology, industrial engineering and management, communications and geography. Two participants in this book perceptively discuss American-Jewish themes. The article by Peter Y. Medding, "The Politics of Jewry as a Mobilized Diaspora," focuses on American Jewry-Israel relationships. The American-Jewish community is correctly depicted as having its own interests and concerns. In a country like America, the author suggests, there is a strong Jewish interest "in maintaining pluralism, electoral polyarchy, equality of opportunity, and political, civil and constitutional liberties." Also, American Jews "are likely to facilitate the free expression and perpetuation of distinctive ethnic values, the pursuit of which in themselves constitutes a major domestic Jewish political interest." Bearing in mind that pluralism implies that citizens have more than one loyalty, these ingrained tendencies offer, on the one hand, a tremendous potential for mobilization of the Diaspora. On the other hand, the values characteristic of a community like Amcri-

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can Jewry, according to Medding, pose limits on Jewish political mobilization. For about thirty years, he writes, "Israel appeared to Diaspora Jewish leaders as a democratic, liberal society, seeking to live in peaceful coexistence with its neighbors and to conclude peace arrangements with them." Medding's conclusion is that, "Should these facts or this image change, there is no guarantee that Israel will be able to rely on the same reflexive and unquestioning support of Diaspora Jewry. These limits to political mobilization have been clearly tested since 1977." Thereafter, representative American Jews have publicly declared their disagreement with particular positions of the Israeli government in issues that bear upon their own value system. Rita J. Simon discusses in her article, "The Jewish Identity of Soviet Immigrant Parents and Children," the response of two hundred Soviet Jews living in Chicago to a series of questions about their Jewish identity and practices. The background of this research is the considerable Soviet-Jewish immigration to the United States. Between 1966 and 1975, about ten thousand came to the United States (and only 35 percent of the total of emigrants chose Israel). Simon concludes that economically, professionally and socially, the respondents have adapted well, and she observes that they are optimistic about their future in American society. The author discusses in greater detail the Jewish identity of the immigrants. Though almost all the respondents consider themselves Jewish, less than half claim that they have a strong Jewish identity, and less than 10 percent consider themselves religious. Moreover, most of them do not observe traditional practices and rituals in their homes. On the other hand, the parents want their children to participate in Jewish life. Also, 90 percent of the respondents said that, if given a choice, they would want to start their life over again as Jews. Simon pointedly poses the question, What is the strength of the Soviet Jews' commitment to their Jewish identity? Her careful conclusion is that, "For many Soviet Jews, professional and economic recognition and success will be all-important; and the Jewish connection will fade or disappear. For others, the Jewish identity will be strengthened. It will manifest itself by their having Jewish friends, their children marrying Jews, their occasional attendance at the synagogue, and their participation in Russian-Jewish cultural, intellectual, and social activities." She adds, however, that taking into account the vitality of American ethnic pluralism, her belief is that the majority of Soviet Jews will enhance and strengthen their ties with the American-Jewish community. ALLON GAL Ben-Gurion University

Alan Mintz, Hurban: Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.

The evolution of a primarily exegetical literature generated by specific events but revolving around a meta-historical text characterizes the ongoing response to catas-

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trophe in Jewish culture. After the destruction of the Second Temple, in the absence of a prophetic voice, on the one hand, and sacrificial worship, on the other, the Biblical text and its Midrashic and poetic commentaries emerge as alternative vehicles of consolation and reconstruction. Writing about the latest hurban under the aspect of the first, Alan Mintz establishes a sustained narrative of Hebrew literary responses to catastrophe. Sensitively and perceptively applying current critical theories and strategies that claim the primacy of text and textuality, yet without violating the historical and normative orbits in which these particular texts have traveled, Mintz enters a discourse which remains as ideologically charged after Hitler as it was after Titus. The leitmotif of that discourse is not a mimesis of destruction but, as Mintz insists in his introductory essay, a profile of "creative survival." Creative survival is defined here as a response to disaster through a bold act of reinterpretation aimed at restoring the viability of the covenant between God and Israel: "The definition of catastrophe in these pages does not relate directly to the quantum of pain and suffering caused by historical events. The catastrophic element in events is defined as the power to shatter the existing paradigms of meaning." Tracing the major paradigm shifts in the history of the Jews of Ashkenaz through a close reading of the canonic texts of each period, Mintz argues persuasively that it is in the strategic responses to critical moments of discontinuity, of rupture, that the continuity of tradition is secured. The foundations of both a theodicy and a rhetoric of catastrophe are laid in the Book of Lamentations. "What can I compare or liken to you/O Fair Jerusalem?/What can I match with you to console you . . . ?" asks the speaker, poised in the terrible silence that precedes metaphor: "For your ruin is as vast as the sea: Who can heal you?" "There is an implication here," Mintz suggests, "of a replacement of lost reality by symbol, of actual comforters by the virtual comfort of figurative language." This text, as a symbolic replacement for a lost reality, then becomes the ground on which centuries of hermeneutic activity rise, eventually assuming a sacred status and liturgical function within the culture. Under the guise of exegesis, the Midrash so transforms the Biblical text as to yield elements of severe self-chastisement as well as consolation, reconciliation and even divine pathos, which were largely missing from the Scriptures. Several hundred years later, in the paytanic response to the Crusades, the covenant is again rescued by a reshaping of the image of the victim as the innocent martyr who does a sacrificial death for the sanctification of God's name. Casting a critical eye over the next eight centuries, Mintz concludes that, although Jewish history continued to be punctuated by persecution—complex chains of events mnemonically captured by single temporal or spatial markers ("1648" or "Nemirov")—widespread destruction did not always precipitate major shifts in consciousness. Even on the threshold of the twentieth century, rocked by pogroms that swept the Russian Pale, popular culture reinvoked the medieval archetypes. But there was a reaction among Hebrew writers which would prove to be a significant paradigmatic shift: In parodying the "medievalizing" tendencies of the masses to focus on martyrology, Abramowitsch, Tchernichowsky and Bialik engaged in a kind of literary subversion that can be seen as a hallmark of the emergence of Hebrew letters into the modern era. It is at this point that the story loses its coherence. It can be argued that although

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the dynamic by which modern writers and thinkers confront catastrophe remains more or less the same, the symbolic language has been fragmented and the critical lens necessarily foreshortened. In moving from liturgy to belles lettres, this literature enters an entirely different semantic field and loses the norms of consistency and fundamental conformity which had shaped its tropes and conventions and disciplined its deviations for nearly two millennia. The covenant is reinvoked as a dim or ironic memory of a coherent system of beliefs or is transfigured into a secular promise of national redemption. Nevertheless, it is hard to account for such gaps in Mintz's chronicle as the leap from Kishinev to Auschwitz—with but a passing reference to the significant responses to the First World War in Hebrew poetry and in the prose of writers such as S. Y. Agnon. The final section suffers equally from a kind of diffusion of attention that can, again, be largely attributed to a proliferation of forces that do not cohere in our culture and cannot be tailored to fit the exigencies of a literary continuum. But that very recalcitrance should be acknowledged as part of the narrative. Mintz does provide a critical overview of Hebrew responses to the Holocaust; through a consideration of broad social and cultural processes as well as close textual readings, he argues forcefully that since Zionism was predicated upon the withering away of the Diaspora, the cataclysmic realization of dire prophesies of destruction did not, for some time at least, precipitate a fundamental crisis in prevailing perceptions of Jewish destiny. In his mythopoesis of destruction and rebirth, Uri Zvi Greenberg constructs a poetic monument which, for all its convulsions, is ultimately consistent with this ideological dialectic—a body of poetry so imperial, so sweeping in its bardic ambition and prophetic in its authority that Mintz, like other critics, accords him pride of place. Greenberg's sustained poetic cycle, Streets of the River, reaches beyond the ironizing, subversive texts of this century to recuperate in expressionist verse the classical voice of lamentation. But precisely because his poetry fits so well into inherited patterns as well as into modern political and ideological visions of Zionism does it travel beyond the textual sphere of imaginative responses to destruction and enter the problematic sphere of political action. Whereas Mintz acknowledges and traces the normative task of the early rabbis andpaytanim, he does not, I think, give adequate weight to the cultural impact of the laureate poets of modern Israel who address a community capable of acting and not merely reacting in the aftermath of catastrophe. While Greenberg stretches the spectrum in one direction, Aharon Appelfeld stretches it in another. Appelfeld demands attention because of his centrality in contemporary Hebrew prose—but, as Mintz admits, one must bend the parameters of the hurban tradition very far in order to include him in the discussion. For Appelfeld represents not the collective but the exposed individual facing catastrophe. The literary/philosophical tradition has, then, been so fragmented by the secularizing forces, by the diffusion of cultural authorities and by the historical pressures imploding on it that it is difficult to discern more than its shadows in the diversity of contemporary Hebrew verse and prose. But what modern Israel has lost in the attenuation of coherent links to the past may be balanced by the empowering prospect of the poetic word which returns us to priestly days when ritual incanta-

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tion, prophecy and even a still, small voice could find wide resonance within a sovereign community. The next step would be to explore the implications of this new contextualization; Mintz has provided the critical apparatus which could serve all those who behold Judaea capta from the watchtowers of Judaea victrix. SIDRA DEK.OVEN EZRAHI The Hebrew University

Kalman (Klemens) Nussbaum, Ve-hafakh tahem le-ro'ez: ha-yehudim ba-zava ha-'amami ha-polani bi-vrit ha-mo'azot. Tel-Aviv: Publications of the Diaspora Research Institute, Book 36, Tel-Aviv University, 1984. 380 pp. + map. At first glance, what is most striking about this book is that over one third of its pages are taken up by lists: of Jewish officers (male and female) in the Polish People's Army, of Jewish soldiers who fell in battle or were reported missing in action during the Soviet offensives of 1944 and 1945 and of Jewish officers who eventually assumed responsible positions in the administration of postwar Poland. By means of these lists Kalman Nussbaum strongly buttresses his claim that Jews made up some 11 percent of the total Polish force mustered under Soviet auspices from mid-1943, including 20 percent of the officer corps and over one third of the officers in charge of political education. These figures require such voluminous support because Polish historians have adduced much lower ones: 5 percent of the total force and less than 4 percent of the officers. Nussbaum thus sees in his lists "a precious document exploding the official Polish statistics" which have consistently denigrated the Jewish contribution to the liberation of Poland and the establishment of the Polish People's Republic. He concludes, instead, that the Jewish influence upon the character of the Polish People's Army--and later of the Communistdominated state whose backbone it formed—was decisive, especially since the army was intended by its Soviet patrons primarily as a device for the political reeducation of the Poles who joined it. This is, however, no mere exercise in contributionism. By pondering the discrepancy between his own figures and those promulgated by Polish historians since the close of the war, Nussbaum has succeeded in laying bare a significant aspect of the anomalous situation of postwar Polish Jewry. The Soviet authorities who initiated the establishment of a Polish armed force following the rupture of diplomatic relations with the London-based Polish government-in-exile meant for it to assist pro-Soviet elements to seize power in Poland following the country's liberation. However, the majority of Polish exiles in the Soviet Union demonstrated decidedly anti-Soviet attitudes, making it impossible at first to man the officer corps with Poles. Polish Jews, on the other hand, seemed politically more reliable, since for them the Soviet Union represented more than anything else the principal force fighting against Hitler. This, claims Nussbaum, accounts for the high percentage of

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Jewish officers and their concentration in politically sensitive positions. However, the Soviets also needed to camouflage as much as possible their purpose in creating the new Polish army so that Poles would willingly participate in it. To do this, it was necessary not only to stress the force's intended central role in liberating the Polish homeland but also to make certain that the army displayed a distinctly Polish ethnic character. The relatively large number of Jews in the officer corps stood to undermine this final goal. Thus, claims Nussbaum, not only were restrictions placed by the Soviet authorities upon the enlistment of Jews as private soldiers but Jewish officers were compelled to change their names and to conceal their Jewish origin. He establishes this through careful examination of officer lists published in Poland since the war and supports his conclusion with testimonies of former Jewish officers who were, in fact, forced to present themselves in the army as ethnic Poles. Nussbaum finds the same dynamic in force following the actual liberation of Polish territory. Jewish political officers were co-opted into the administrative apparatus of the Polish Committee for National Liberation, again because of their relatively greater political reliability as compared with that of the majority of Poles. The role of Jews in establishing Communist rule in Poland over the often violent opposition of most of the Polish population was thus, according to Nussbaum, crucial. However, the Soviets saw the employment of Jews in the new administration—as in the army—as merely a temporary expedient. Once Polish leadership cadres could be cultivated, both in the army and in the new state structure, the Jews became expendable. One can criticize certain aspects of this thesis, especially with regard to the importance of Jews in the postwar Communist seizure of power (see my remarks [in Hebrew] in Shvut, no. XI). On the whole, though, this is a well-researched study which illuminates a chapter in contemporary Jewish history hitherto largely overlooked. DAVID ENGEL Tel-Aviv University

Michael E. Parrish, Felix Frankfurter and His Times: The Reform Years. New York and London: The Free Press, 1982. vi + 330 pp. $17.95. The life of Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965) may easily be told as an American success story, which it certainly was. This child of a poor immigrant family arrived on the Lower East Side of New York in 1894, although not from Eastern Europe but from Vienna. To have progressed to City College of New York; from there to Harvard Law School as a student and later as a professor; to be accepted as a friend by the likes of Holmes, Brandeis and Stimson; to serve as a close advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom "Felix" called "Frank"; and to be appointed by him to the Supreme Court of the United States: this is the stuff of a great career, one which was surpassed by few if any immigrants in American history. But Frankfurter

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was more than a bright man intent upon a career. He could flatter and intrigue and he was vain and gossipy, but he was brilliant not only in his own interest but for causes in which he deeply believed. Progressive reform and the New Deal and equal access to justice under law ranked the highest, and his devotion to them was beyond the call of personal advancement. After his controversial prominence in the defense of Sacco and Vanzetti, Frankfurter played a central and likewise controversial role in providing ideas, able lawyers from among his "boys" at Harvard and legislative drafting for the New Deal until his elevation to the Court. To Frankfurter, being a Jew did not merely mean an uncomfortable awareness that he moved in circles where polite antisemitism was rife and that attacks upon him often bore an antisemitic flavor. He did not trim or seek to escape the fact of his Jewishness, and the author hints (p. 177) that this meant some friction with his nonJewish wife. Having abandoned religion in his adolescence, Frankfurter later became a Zionist under Brandeis's inspiration. He rendered important service to the Zionist movement, especially at the Versailles conference. With all his reverence for Brandeis, Frankfurter had some sympathy for Weizmann and, unlike the justice, did not favor a decisive break. Neither did the aged mentor and the younger man agree over Roosevelt's Supreme Court reform of 1937. The first volume of Michael E. Parrish's biography covers Frankfurter's life until he was nominated to succeed Cardozo on the Supreme Court. A second volume is to follow. The author is mainly interested in Frankfurter as a lawyer and legal scholar, but the full spectrum of his political activities is studied. Interestingly enough, the famous oral testimony Felix Frankfurter Speaks (New York: 1965) is nowhere cited. The tone is admiring while also critical. It is probably a virtue of the book that it is far from exhaustive, leaving quite a few topics on which one would appreciate ampler discussion such as the Anglophile's year at Oxford in 1933-34, early years and family relations, personal finances, and Zionist activity after the Brandeis/Weizmann split of 1921. Parrish has produced a fine biography, blemished slightly by a surprising number of misprints. It contributes generously to understanding Frankfurter and his numerous milieux and whets the intellectual appetite for fuller treatment of many individual topics. LLOYD P. GARTNER Tel-Aviv University

Benjamin Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews, 1948-1967: A Documented Study. London: Cambridge University Press, 1984. xvi + 612 pp. It is not easy to strike the proper balance between documentation and interpretation, chronology and analysis, especially in dealing with as difficult a subject as Soviet Jewry, but Benjamin Pinkus has pulled it off handsomely. In this large, fact-filled

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volume, he covers the periods of late Stalinism, the Khrushchev years and the first part of the Brezhnev era. Thematically, he deals with ideology, antisemitism, the "Zionist issue," religion and culture, the treatment of the Holocaust and the nonAshkenazic Jews of the USSR. Despite the diversity of topics, his introductory essays and well-chosen sources do weave together into a pattern which even the non-specialist reader can discern. Each section is introduced by an essay which allows the reader to make sense of, and put into proper perspective, the documents that follow. Pinkus's great strength is his indefatigable ferreting out of sources, in several languages, and his extensive documentation and footnoting. At times there seems to be too much detail even for the specialist, as in the sections on Jews in the government and party apparatuses and on Jews in Soviet literature. For the most part, however, interesting—but not crucial—details are relegated to the extensive notes. Unlike some chroniclers, the author does not shy away from analysis. In his extensive quantitative analysis of the 1948-53 and 1959-63 periods, for example, he finds a demonstrable "correlation between the level of antisemitism in the Soviet Union and Soviet foreign policy, especially as regards Israel and the Middle East" (p. 101). He makes the very important point that even when the USSR supported Israel in the late 1940s, it did not change its policy on Zionism. At best, Zionism was "ignored rather than attacked," and that for only one year. In fact, Pinkus discerns an inverse relationship between the authorities' attitude toward Israel and toward Soviet Jewry at that time, changing into a positive relationship toward both in the 1953-56 period, when the Soviets both improved their relations with Israel and with Soviet Jews, and then a new period (1959-63) when there was, in Pinkus's view, "an active anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish policy" (p. 233). A statistical analysis of two hundred articles dealing with the "cosmopolitanism" issue leads Pinkus to conclude that Jews were singled out, were attacked for longer periods and more violently than others and that "over eighty per cent of those attacked more than three times were Jews" (p. 159). Some of these points may have been made by others, but few observers have documented them so convincingly. A work of this scope inevitably arouses some quibbles regarding both method and conclusions. For some, there will be excessive descriptive detail at times; others will be annoyed by some typographical errors that are probably unavoidable in so massive a work drawing on sources in so many languages (but surely the Polishborn Pinkus knows better than to call Jerzy Morawski, "Yezi Murawski"). More questionable, however, is Pinkus's consistent treatment of journalistic accounts as authoritative. True, for some of the issues and periods covered there is very little "hard" evidence available, and what there is Pinkus has mined. But all the documents are presented as being of equal validity, and this can seriously mislead the reader. The reliability and authenticity of some of the documents are questionable, and the author should have pointed this out. Some readers will disagree with a few of Pinkus's judgments and with his seeming readiness to believe the worst of the Soviet regime where the evidence is a bit mixed. Some will take issue with his assertion that "particularly today" the USSR is characterized by "unrelenting employment of terror in various forms." Most social scientists arc more prepared to draw the significant distinction between coercion (predictable, even if unjust) and terror (random and seemingly irrational).

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Some will disagree that it was Israel, "particularly in the 1960s," that became the "driving force behind a worldwide effort dedicated to protesting the plight of Soviet Jewry." Many believe that Israeli officials at that time urged "restraint" and "quiet diplomacy" on people in the West who opted for a public, even militant posture. Pinkus does not question anecdotal reports of Soviet antisemitism and sees Khrushchev as one who expressed "popular antisemitism" but then goes on to quote without comment Khrushchev's memoirs where he, Khrushchev, expressed revulsion at Stalin's antisemitism. One can hardly fault the author for not foreseeing the phenomenon of a modest religious revival among young Soviet Jews, but it is strange that a book published in 1984 should assert that "to an even greater degree than any other area of Soviet Jewish life, it is the future of the Jewish religion . . . that appears to be without hope" (p. 320). Finally, Pinkus asserts that the Soviet government suppressed the "methodical extermination of European Jewry . . . in 1939 and 1940." The situation was horrible enough, but did it really reach the nadir of "methodical extermination before 1941-42 and hence before Soviet Jews came face to face with the Nazis? Did the Western democracies behave very differently from the USSR? On the other hand, Pinkus makes an excellent point when he demonstrates the dualism in Soviet publications on the Holocaust (featured in the Yiddish language, but largely absent in Russian) and offers convincing explanation for it. This book should find multiple audiences: Scholars, teachers and students in courses on Soviet politics and history will no doubt use it extensively. Moreover, anyone who does not read Russian but wishes to get the full flavor of Soviet rhetoric, journalism and scholarship as well as the views of others in this important area can do no better than to turn to this book. It is clearly the result of a very laborintensive effort and Pinkus is to be warmly congratulated on the most impressive result. One hopes that a companion volume, covering the exciting era after 1967, will soon follow. ZVI GlTELMAN

University of Michigan

Itamar Rabinovich and Jehuda Reinharz (eds.), Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics and Foreign Relations, 1948Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. 407 pp. $11.95. The purpose of this volume, in the words of its editors, "is to provide the Englishspeaking public with convenient access to the most significant documents of Israel's domestic politics and foreign policies between 1948 and 1983." The rapid growth of the academic and journalistic literature dealing with Israeli domestic and foreign policy makes this collection particularly useful. The editors have aimed for ideological and institutional diversity of sources, the better to illuminate the issues that are analyzed in numerous books and articles. There are certain documents here, such as the Proclamation of Statehood and the Law of Return, which any compiler would

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include in such an anthology. There are also many selections that others would have left out, while documents that others would have included are omitted. The editorial judgments reflected in this volume are always interesting if not always convincing, while the collection taken as a whole is refreshingly novel and stimulating. The volume is well designed and produced, although perhaps too scantily furnished with maps. A useful appendix adds some forty pages of statistics and basic information for ready reference. Inevitably, the chronological divisions within which the materials are ordered follow the turning points marked by Israel's major wars. No other division could so well have synchronized domestic and foreign developments. Each reading is introduced by a brief sketch of the context, which, with added editorial annotation, enhances the reader's frame of reference. This is so successfully accomplished that the book may almost stand on its own as a course on the subject, with the necessary narrative continuity and pace to enable it to be read right through as a unity. The selected documents and readings convey the process of national development and the extent to which it has been shaped by the external pressures of Arab enmity and international power politics. It is perhaps the main analytical achievement of the editors that the collection investigates and illuminates the interaction of domestic and foreign issues as well as their historical evolution. Thus it is more than a work of reference, for it has intrinsic pedagogic value that will assist teachers and students of the subject. The sharpest test of editorial selection is the expense incurred in omissions. Perhaps the most neglected topic in this volume is economics. The student who wants a rounded picture of Israeli politics and society will miss this type of material, the more so since of all subjects economics can be represented in reasonably precise documents like bank reports and treasury plans. Economic problems and developments, and the debates surrounding them, could usefully have been offered in the statistical appendix if not among the main readings. Also conspicuously missing is material on the Histadrut. By the late 1950s the Histadrut had already sustained a visible decline in its primary leadership capacities, which in itself would be sufficient reason to register the debates, decisions and constitutional changes reflecting this situation. Something on the new post-state status of the Zionist Organization and the Jewish agency would also have been useful as a record of the adjustments that were implemented in the early 1950s. All in all, readers will be grateful for this well-conceived book. NOAH LUCAS University of Sheffield

Freddy Raphael, Judai'sme et capitalisme: Essai sur la controverse entre Max Weber et Werner Sombart. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1982. 385 pp.

The title of Freddy Raphael's book is somewhat misleading, especially its subtitle. This "essay on the debate between Max Weber and Werner Sombart" concerning

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the relationship between Judaism and capitalism does not contain a line on the famous controversy which actually took place between these two leading German social scientists of the early twentieth century. It is quite useless to look for any information whatsoever in this book regarding the connection between the two men. An ill-informed reader could just as well imagine that the two authors lived in quite different historical periods or in different hemispheres. Moreover, the two introductory pages dedicated to the "perspectives and limits of the present work" leave the reader puzzled about the nature of these perspectives and limits. Freddy Raphael's treatment of the Weber/Sombart controversy is restricted to the two authors' conflicting views relative to various dimensions of the problem: the definition of the capitalist spirit, the Jewish economic ethos, the concept of dual morality, Judaism and asceticism, the issue of interest, rationalism, and so on. In this respect Freddy Raphael has succeeded in identifying the main aspects of the problem area (which are often ill perceived) and his minute and systematic analytical discussion can be henceforth used as a reliable reference work by all those interested in the subject. But such a juxtaposition and parallel presentation of the opposing views of Weber and Sombart is a ponderous enterprise, and it is to be deplored that Freddy Raphael did nothing to make the reader's task easier. The study, based on the author's intimate knowledge of the subject, is very detailed and very dry. Its style and scholarly rhetoric display no pedagogic concern for summarizing major points of agreement or disagreement between the two protagonists. Luckily enough, the author has not contented himself with an inventory of Weber and Sombart's topical statements but has also taken issue with them—especially with Sombart—and this leads him to make criticisms that are based upon more recent works in the field. His discussion of the problem of Judaism and of loans with interest is a relevant case in point (pp. 123 145). In one place (pp. 341-350) he also refers to German Jewry's reactions to Sombart's arguments concerning Zionism (in his lecture of 1912). The further development of a historical approach along these lines could have led to insights and discoveries which would have lent a more substantial measure of originality to this valuable book. PHILIPPE BESNARD Centre national de la recherche scientifique

David G. Roskies, Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. David G. Roskies has written an ambitious and comprehensive book that traces Jewish responses to historical tragedies since the fall of the First Temple. Culminating in the thesis that what we now call Holocaust literature exists within a firmly established tradition of liturgical, literary and historical archetypes, Roskies examines a broad range of texts. In the process, he must reconcile a series of apparently contradictory claims: that the Holocaust is unique, although responses to it are

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traditional; that it represents both a break with the past and is part of an ongoing tragedy; that writers returned to archetypal images as a way of creating new archetypes. The creation of "new archetypes," oxymoronic though it may seem in literary terms, is linked here to a continuous need to re-shape an inherited tradition of response in the face of new horrors. The artistic process, argues Roskies, anticipated the Holocaust in its variety of responses to catastrophe and thus belies the contemporary view of the Second World War as an apocalyptic event. The strength of the apocalyptic view lies in the understandable desire to subvert the tragic sense of Jewish history; a rupture, cataclysmic though it may be, is unassimilable as a link in an endless chain of tragedy. Analyzing ancient texts as well as modern Hebrew and Yiddish prose and poetry in the language of contemporary literary criticism, this book combines textual exegesis with sweeping summaries of historical and cultural trends. Modern writers addressed in some detail include Babel, Bialik, Uri Zvi Greenberg, Abramovitsh, Sholem Aleichem, Markish, Katzenelson and, especially, Avrom Sutzkever. The range of material is more impressive than the reading of any single text, illumination of an author or theoretical claims in the book. The latter, in fact, are overshadowed by the panoramic scope of Roskies's enterprise and the sheer number of citations. The book's scholarship is a model of the ways in which secular and religious views, Yiddish and Hebrew, ancient and contemporary sources can be combined. In addition to establishing historical trends and major themes, Roskies is sensitive to the changes in mood and literary mode that marked different historical periods. His discussion of the responses to the Kishinev pogrom is especially significant here since it serves as a turning point in the literary documentation of Jewish catastrophe. Bialik's selective reportage and desire to "desacralize history in God's own name" (p. 89) become the new standard of poetry freed from theology. The secular writing within Polish ghettos, Katzenelson's quest for the epic, Sutzkever's focus on Vilna and those closest to him create archetypes based on the old, but are transformed by different historical realities. Beyond the scholarly evaluations of thematic developments, Roskies's book emerges as an often surprisingly personal account. It traces the author's own sense of what one may uncover when "reading oneself back into history" (p. 10). His engagement with the material and with Jewish history emerges most explicitly in the introduction and more subtly throughout the book. Against the Apocalypse moves beyond both liturgy and literature, concluding with discussions of visual artists (Chagall, Bak, Bergner) and their use of Jewish images and metaphors. Whatever the primary or secondary material, the sense of an involved scholar personally connected to the themes and nuances of response remains constant. Finally, in his rejection of the apocalyptic view of modern Jewish history, Roskies insists on a vibrant interpretation of Hebrew and Yiddish belles-lettres, political expressions and, especially, a view of Jewish culture as continuing, viable, cohesive within its variety, and even comprehensible. ANITA NORICH University of Michigan

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U. O. Schmelz, The Aging of World Jewry, Jerusalem: Institute of Contemporary Jewry of the Hebrew University and the JDC-Brookdale Institute of Gerontology and Adult Human Development, 1984. 289 pp. In 1975 about 16 percent of Diaspora Jewry was over sixty-five years of age, totaling 1.6 million, of whom 600,000 were over seventy-five. An additional 300,000 elderly—over sixty-five years of age—lived in Israel and accounted for about 10 percent of the population there. Although there are variations in the proportion of the elderly in various communities of the Diaspora, taken as a whole, the percentage of elderly among Diaspora Jews is higher than their share in the population of modern, developed societies in the world today. These are but some of the findings which U. O. Schmelz's volume presents. Assembling demographic data on world Jewry and its various communities according to age and sex is no easy task. These data could not be gathered on the basis of a general census of world Jewish populations. The author had to cull his figures from a long list of sources and in many cases on incomplete information. Only rarely were the data received from official census statistics (when the census questionnaire included information on personal religion or ethnic group affiliation); in other instances they were taken from community surveys, registrations made by Jewish institutions or from partial estimates which varied in degree of accuracy. From these sources Schmelz compiled—after many years of painstaking work—a demographic overview of world Jewry and its component communities. The author describes at some length the methods used for compiling his estimates and projections. In addition to presenting detailed tables on the Jewish elderly and an analysis of demographic trends of this population sector, Schmelz surveys the factors which influenced the accelerated aging of the Jewish population. The study not only presents an estimate and analysis of data from the recent past, but also gives demographic projections of the elderly sector for the year 2000 (and in some tables, up to 2040). Any projection necessitates—in addition to the base year data—assumptions concerning the future trends of specific factors of change: levels of mortality, migration in the Diaspora and between the Diaspora and Israel, the rate of loss through assimilation, and so on, all of which must be weighted by age and sex. Obviously, there is no small amount of uncertainty in these factors and therefore alternative assumptions have been used. This accounts for the series of projections which present a range of possible scenarios regarding the absolute and relative share of the elderly in the Jewish populations of the world. The projections point to a general decline in the world Jewish population. In 1975 Diaspora Jews were estimated to number 10 million and the projections for the year 2000 run in the neighborhood of 8 million. (The Jewish population of Israel in 1975 was less than 3 million and, according to projections, will have passed the 4 million mark by the year 2000.) The relative share of the elderly among Diaspora Jews is on the rise and is expected to reach 20 percent by 1990, remain stable until 2000 and then continue to rise again. According to the medium projection, the sixty-five-andover age group will grow from 15.7 percent in 1975 to 20.1 percent in the year 2000, and the proportion seventy-live years and over will form from 5.7 percent to 9.1 percent in the same period.

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Jewish Population and Elderly in Regions of the World (1975 and 'Medium" Projection for 2000) Jewish Population (thousands)

Percentage Aged 65 +

Percentage Aged 75 +

1975

Projection 2000

1975

Projection 2000

1975

Projection 2000

5,600

5,321

13.9

17.1

4.9

7.8

Canada

295

281

14.0

16.1

4.5

7.9

Argentina

265

146

16.7

26.7

5.7

11.5

Other Latin America

257

202

14.1

20.8

4.2

8.9

South Africa

122

64

14.1

18.9

4.4

9.0

72

60

15.9

18.7

5.1

10.0

Western Europe

1,139

858

16.7

20.4

6.1

9.4

Eastern Europe

2,127

896

21.4

38.0

—

—

114

43

4.7

12.9

1.5

4.0

10,020

7,921

15.7

20.1

5.7

9.1

2,959

4,504

8.7

10.1

2.6

4.2

12,979

12,431

14.2

16.4

5.0

7.3

Country/Region United States

Oceania

Asia and North Africa DIASPORA, TOTAL* Israel WORLD JEWRY, TOTAL

' Including other countries in Africa.

The causes of aging of world Jewry are connected with the decline in Jewish fertility, a trend which is also characteristic of the populations of the developed countries. The varying size of birth cohorts of different periods (such as the small cohorts born during both world wars) influences the size of the groups joining the elderly at different periods of time. The accompanying table gives highlights of Schmelz's data. The size of the Jewish population is declining and will continue to decline in practically all countries of the Diaspora. However, there are differences in the extent of this future numerical contraction depending on the assumptions chosen. The share of those aged seventy-five and over is increasing. According to the author's calculations, this proportion will reach 38 percent (!) by the year 2000 among Jews in Eastern Europe and 27 percent for the Jewish community of Argentina. In most other countries, the figure will reach about 20 percent. The proportion of those aged seventy-five and over among all the elderly Jews will increase at a quicker pace and will rapidly approach half of thetn by the year 2000. Two chapters are devoted to the aging trends in Israel: The first deals with factors which determined the percentage of the elderly in the past and the second with

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findings from the projections of Israel's Jewish population and of its elderly sector. As already known from previously published projections of Israel's Jewish population, the relative share of elderly (sixty-five and over) will remain stable at about 10 percent until the end of the century, but their absolute number will grow, and those aged seventy-five and over will increase to about 40 percent of the elderly sector. The author also presents a breakdown and projections of Israel's elderly by regions of origin. The assumptions upon which the book's projections are based and other technical discussions of methodology—valuable to the professional reader—are clearly stated in an appended chapter. This allows the critical reader to choose the assumptions which seem most reasonable or even to arrive at different conclusions. The implications of this study are undoubtedly pessimistic. Whatever projection one accepts, further aging of world Jewry is foreseen. It is true that this trend is also projected for the general populations of the developed countries, but the rate of increase for the Jewish elderly in the Diaspora will be higher. MOSHE SICRON Central Bureau of Statistics, Jerusalem

Eliezer Schweid, Mistikah ve-yahadut left Gershom Scholem. Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought, Supplement 2. Jerusalem: 1983. 88 pp.

Although he died only in 1982, the legacy of Gershom Scholem has already become an object of contention in the very university in which he played such a central role. Joseph Dan, who now occupies the Gershom Scholem Chair in Jewish Mysticism, has asserted that Scholem should be evaluated primarily, if not exclusively, in terms of his textual studies; any more general philosophical arguments he might have advanced are peripheral or irrelevant to the validity of his work (see Kiryat Sefer 52 [1979], 358-362). In the present monograph, Eliezer Schweid argues (correctly, in my view) that the monumental scholarly achievement of Gershom Scholem in tracing the history of Jewish mysticism was based on a peculiar philosophy of Jewish history and that an evaluation of Scholem as a historian must involve a discussion of this philosophy. Schweid summarizes with reasonable accuracy Scholem's philosophical position, although he has an occasional tendency to draw far-reaching conclusions from some of Scholem's most parenthetical remarks. Religions follow three stages: first, that of a mythic immediacy of the divine followed by the institutionalization of the original myth and, finally, culminating in an attempt to recover the immediacy of the divine by recourse to mysticism. For Scholem, mysticism was the only vital force in post-Biblical Judaism, serving to inject life into the conservative legal system. Far from a peripheral movement in Jewish history, as the nineteenth-

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century scholars argued, Scholem portrayed mysticism as the force that kept Judaism alive. Schweid then subjects Scholem's general philosophy of Judaism to a series of critiques. Scholem ignored Biblical religion because the religion of the prophets, in particular, does not fit into his schema of the development of religions: As a selfreflective attempt to seek a God who is no longer present, prophetic religion belongs properly to Scholem's "third stage," yet it is not mystical! Had Scholem confronted the meaning of the prophetic religion, he would have had to reject his belief in mysticism as the only possible religion of the "self-reflective" third stage of Judaism. Scholem was also wrong in arguing that mysticism influenced the "popular religion" of the Middle Ages, in the first place, the mystics, up to the sixteenth century, kept their teachings esoteric so it is hard to understand Scholem's contention that their beliefs were central for the Jewish community as a whole. Moreover, Schweid rejects the dichotomy between a "normative" religion of law and a "popular religion." On the contrary, the "popular religion" was the same as the normative. Schweid goes on to challenge Scholem's arguments about the centrality of the Sabbatian movement in ushering in the subsequent movements of the modern period. For Schweid, Sabbatianism was a barren catastrophe that produced nothing positive in its wake. Finally, Schweid rejects Scholem's attack on both medieval and modern Jewish philosophy. Philosophy was much more effective in responding to external challenges such as Aristotelianism than was mysticism. Similarly, the nineteenth-century philosophers as well as the historians of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, whom Scholem regarded as arid rationalists intent only on giving Judaism a "decent burial," were, in fact, concerned with meeting the challenge of modernity. Indeed, the philological method of the historians became the basis for Scholem's own achievement, a debt Schweid incorrectly claims that Scholem did not recognize. For Schweid, not mysticism but philosophy will provide the tools for rejuvenating Judaism in our time. What lies at the heart of these criticisms is an explicitly stated view that mysticism was not an integral part of the internal dialectic of Judaism, as Scholem believed, but rather entirely marginal to its development. Mysticism was not a "necessary" product of the fossilization of rabbinic Judaism, for not only did the latter never turn into a fossil, but there were other movements of renewal such as philosophy and musar which were much more organically linked to the Halakha than mysticism. In this way Schweid turns the clock back to nineteenth-century historians like Graetz and resurrects something akin to their philosophical position. Many of these arguments against Scholem are entirely valid. Scholem undoubtedly exaggerated the importance of mysticism and denigrated the vital impulses in the Halakha; his account of the influence of Sabbatianism goes far beyond the evidence; his attack on the Wissenschaft des Judentums turned that school into something of a caricature of what it actually was. But these descriptions and criticisms of Scholem's work are not new, as Schweid's own repeated references to the well-known essays of Baruch Kur/weil demonstrate (for a less polemical discussion of Scholem than either Kurxweil's or Schweid's, see my own Gcrshom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History, which Schweid mysteriously fails even to mention).

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On the other hand, some of Schweid's criticisms are based on a distortion of Scholem's views. Scholem never claimed that mysticism was a logically "necessary" result of the second stage of religions, only that mysticism historically emerges at a late stage in a religion's development in an attempt to recapture the immediacy of original revelation. Despite Schweid's peculiar statement that Christianity was mystical at its outset (he confuses myth with mysticism), Scholem's argument still seems valid as a phenomenoiogical statement describing, at least, the three monotheistic Western religions. Moreover, Scholem did not limit the third stage to mysticism: All attempts to recover the immediacy of an absent God, including philosophy, fit into this period. Finally, Scholem never called either philosophy or Halakha "inauthentic," as Schweid repeatedly asserts. Rather, he saw them as inadequate to address fully the religious needs of medieval Judaism. Beyond these arguments about what Scholem might have said and whether he was right, however, Schweid wishes to use Scholem as a foil to advance his own philosophy of Judaism. In brief, he sees a direct line of continuity from prophetic religion to the legal and ethical concerns of the rabbis to the Jewish philosophy and ethical literature of the Middle Ages to modern Jewish philosophy, emphasizing in particular the "non-rationalist" and "neo-Orthodox" thinkers like S, R. Hirsch, S. L. Steinheim and Franz Rosenzweig. There is no place for mysticism in this development. Rather, the central doctrine of the prophets was the concept of teshuvah (repentence), which continued to play itself out in new forms in the mainstream tradition. Schweid may well be right in claiming that prophetic notions of sin, punishment and repentence molded Jewish consciousness throughout the centuries, but his discussion of their Biblical origins is unconvincing. He believes that the prophets were as conscious of the absence of God as were the medieval mystics, but their religious position was not mystical: Therefore, attempts to deal with a deus absconditus need not be mystical and can, in fact, be found in the ancient Biblical stratum of Judaism. But hester panim (the hiding of God's face), although mentioned in passing in the Bible, was, in fact, a concept quite marginal to Biblical theology; rather, the overwhelming sense in the prophets is of the presence of God (the one work in which God is perceived as truly absent is Job, but Schweid does not discuss it, for Job has nothing in common with prophetic notions of sin and punishment). In addition, to claim that prophetic "literature" is "self-reflective" seems to me singularly unpersuasive, at least in the sense in which idealist philosophy uses the term (the pre-Socratic speculations of how human beings imagine their gods are a much better example of religious "self reflection" than is anything in the prophets). In fact, the consciousness of God's absence is essentially post-Biblical and is demonstrated by the rabbinical statement that prophecy has ceased. Between the religion of the Bible and the religion of the rabbis lies a deep chasm of which the rabbis were fully cognizant and it was precisely this chasm that made possible the development of the Halakha as a legal system only loosely based on Biblical law. Schweid simply fails to recognize that the persistence of post-Biblical Judaism lies as much in the discontinuities with the Bible as in the continuities. On this score, Scholem's argument about the three stages of Judaism still seems viable. In part, the argument between Schweid and Scholem rests on the very different set of questions that each poses. For Schweid the key question is how should

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Judaism respond to external challenges, and he finds the most effective answers in the prophetic and philosophical traditions rather than in the mystical. For Scholem, the key question is one of religious psychology: Which Jewish discipline (law, philosophy or mysticism) answers most satisfactorily the internal theological needs of the people? Only mysticism provides a real attempt to address the eternal questions about the inner nature of God and the meaning of evil, questions which arise regardless of external challenges. But the difference between the two can also be understood historically. Scholem's philosophy of Judaism emerged out of the context of the Judaism of early twentieth-century Germany and his insistence on the importance of mysticism was an act of rebellion against what he perceived to be a rationalist, bourgeois culture. Schweid's defense of a continuous prophetic tradition, culminating in a kind of existentialist neo-Orthodoxy has its context in the Israel of the 1980s where secular Zionism is under attack for failing to provide an adequate Jewish identity for the Jewish state. Yet, Schweid, like Scholem, does not advocate a return to halakhic Orthodoxy per se, but rather to his own interpretation of the mainstream Jewish tradition. Might it be that one reason that the Kabbalah remained seductive for Scholem as a German Jew, although a passionate Zionist, was because it was largely a Diaspora creation; while for Schweid, a product of the Yishuv and the State of Israel, only a tradition rooted in the Bible can serve as a source of Jewish renewal? Neither Scholem nor Schweid has advanced philosophies of Jewish history that can fully withstand historical scrutiny: Both must be evaluated as much as ideologies as philosophies. Schweid has certainly rendered an important service in arguing, as he does on his closing page, that Scholem's words must not be turned into a dogma, just as Scholem himself attacked the dogmatic positions of both the Orthodox and the rationalists. Yet, the very argument between Scholem and Schweid demonstrates once again that Scholem was right about the fundamental anarchism of the Jewish tradition: No interpretation, mystical or rational, secular or Orthodox, is either marginal or foreign to its definition. DAVID BIALE GRADUATE THEOLOGICAL UNION BERKELEY, CALIF.

Naomi Shepherd, Wilfried Israel: German Jewry's Secret Ambassador. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984. 291 pp. £12.95. When Naomi Shepherd, a professional journalist, began research on her subject, Wilfried Israel was little more than a faceless name, an enigmatic hero remembered for his tragic death in a plane crash during the middle of the Second World War. Intrigued by some recent literary allusions to Israel and the mystery that seemed to surround his person and role in Germany even some forty years after his death,

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Shepherd has set out to do her own reconstruction taken from a wide array of archival sources, personal testimonies and Israel's own letters scattered over three continents. The result is a compelling historical biography which not only recreates the remarkable career of a forgotten hero, but also casts interesting new light on the strategy and techniques of rescue attempts during the Nazi era. The book takes up the story of Israel's life from his early childhood in imperial Germany to his last, fateful mission to the refugee camps in Spain and Portugal during the war. He was born in London at the turn of the century into a distinguished German-English-Jewish family, the last heir to a famous Berlin business house with a tradition stretching back into the early nineteenth century. His maternal great-grandfather, Hermann Adler, was chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain; Israel himself, while living most of his life in Germany and tying his fate to that of the Jewish community there, owned a British passport and looked upon Britain as his second home. His first love—in a sense his only true home—was, however, Kibbutz Hazorea in Palestine, where many of Israel's young Zionist friends settled after 1933. The young Israel adopted an ambivalent attitude toward his family's heritage and the role of a businessman which it had thrust upon him. He never openly revolted, but, in his own quiet way, refused to toe the line. He shared none of his class's conservative conformism and antagonized the Berlin Jewish community by his youthful flings at pacifism, socialism and Zionism. His social aloofness and emotional vulnerability were accentuated by a suppressed homosexuality which cast a permanent shadow on his private life. The biography's main interest lies, however, in its description of Israel's role in the Nazi era. When Hitler came to power in Germany, no one expected this frail and pampered young businessman to be a match for the Nazis. But, paradoxically, it was the very threat of Nazism which resolved—or at least allayed—Israel's previous doubts about himself and his place in the German-Jewish community, and stirred him into action. From now on, he was to devote the rest of his life to efforts to alleviate the lot of the persecuted and to rescue them from the clutches of the Nazi oppressors. He proved more resilient and resourceful than many a tougher character. Much of his single-handed activity was conducted on the other side of legality, involving secret and undocumented contacts with Gestapo agents and highly placed government officials. He used his connections freely to obtain prior information of impending arrests, warning the intended victims in advance. At other times, he would employ bribery to smuggle out inmates of concentration camps with the connivance of the guards. Another secret line of activity pursued by him were his calls at the British Embassy in Berlin, during which he attempted to alert and enlist the help of the outside world. The red-tape treatment given to these desperate appeals for help confronts one once again with the mixture of apathy and hypocrisy which effectively thwarted any effective intervention on behalf of the persecuted. The sole shining exception was Frank Foley, British passport control officer and—as Naomi Shepherd has been able to establish—a disguised intelligence agent who closely cooperated with Israel and other Jewish functionaries —-at times, against the restrictionist policies of his own government.

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Naomi Shepherd has thus been able to uncover a whole layer of underground activity which should modify some pat generalizations regarding the "legalism" that allegedly hampered rescue activity before the war. At the same time, however, it should be emphasized that the main thrust of Israel's efforts in the first two or three years of Hitler's rule was not to enable Jews to leave Germany but rather to help them hold out against Nazism on German soil. This comes out clearly from the contents of his representations to the British Embassy as well as from his own refusal to wind up business in Germany and his support of long-term rehabilitation and education programs inside Germany. It was only after 1936, but especially in late 1938 after the June arrests and the November pogrom, that he began to devise plans for the immediate mass evacuation of German Jews from what had become a Nazi death trap. In that period he played a leading role in the Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland (as it was termed after 1935)—the German-Jewish emigration organization sponsored by Max Warburg, which over the first six-and-a-half years of Nazi rule helped more Jews leave Germany than any other agency. He was also one of the originators of the proposal to set up huge transit camps abroad to accommodate the refugees from the Third Reich. Working in Britain during the war years as a consultant on Germany to the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Israel monitored closely developments in the Third Reich. He was one of the first to realize the full significance of the deportations to the East, and tried to pass it on to the recipients of his reports in the Foreign Office. When the Jewish Agency proposed in the spring of 1942 that he should go to Portugal and Spain to distribute 150 Palestinian immigration certificates, he promptly accepted. Characteristically, however, he far exceeded his limited brief, using his mission as a springboard for exploring much more ambitious rescue plans. On the flight back to Britain, his plane was shot down by the Germans. The true measure of moral courage is not the lofty ideals to which one subscribes, but one's readiness and ability to uphold them even in the face of the most adverse circumstances. It was precisely this readiness to act against the heaviest odds, this single-mindedness of purpose, which distinguished Israel's response to the challenge of Nazism. Naomi Shepherd has written a gripping biography of a remarkably courageous individual. It is to be regretted that its scholarly value is somewhat flawed by a string of careless misspellings of German words, which should have been spotted by a discerning editor. DANIEL FRAENKEL Israel State Archives

Edmund Silberner, Kommunisten zur Judenfrage: Zur Geschichte von Theorie und Praxis des Kommunismus. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1983.

Professor Silberner's work is the latest of a scries of studies of the European Left and the Jewish question. It is a subject that fascinates scholars who seek to under-

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stand how a movement dedicated to humanitarian ideals could harbor prejudices against a minority with a long history of oppression. It is also a subject that perplexes scholars because, ever since the late eighteenth century, Jews in large numbers were drawn to the Left in the conviction that its triumph over the old order would bring about the emancipation of the Jews and their integration into European societies. The ascendancy of liberalism in the course of the nineteenth century was, indeed, accompanied by a removal of many restrictions on Jews, but the subsequent attainment of power in several countries by the Socialist Left again placed them in a precarious situation. Although Professor Silberner has not explicitly made this paradox the focus of his study, no reader of the book can fail to sense that it is an underlying theme. In the first part of the book, Silberner discusses the roots of Communist attitudes toward the Jews. He has scrutinized with infinite care the biographies and writings of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin to determine their thinking on the Jewish question in its broadest sense. Silberner tells us whether or not they were prejudiced, how they reacted to violent attacks on Jews and how they assessed the emergence of national consciousness among the Jews. This is not an easy task, for several of them either displayed little interest in Jewish affairs or made no attempt at a systematic exposition of their views on the subject. Some of the evidence that the author cites is therefore necessarily anecdotal. Still, Silberner succeeds in presenting full and balanced accounts of the positions of his six dramatis personae. If there is one idea that can be said to have been central to their thinking, it was that only after the victory of socialism would the Jews cease to be persecuted. Beyond that, the six revolutionaries differed widely. Marx was without question antisemitic. He describes Jews as petty usurers and the "greatest swindlers" who worshiped money above all else. In his famous essay of 1843, "On the Jewish Question," Marx actually equated commerce with "Judaism" and asserted that "The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism." Elsewhere, he spoke of Jews as people who were unclean and who possessed a "black soul," just like the bourgeois. His private letters are filled with derogatory denunciations. One of his crudest outbursts was his reference to Ferdinand Lassalle as a "Jewish nigger." But it is noteworthy that Marx's collaborator and great admirer, Engels, overcame his antisemitic prejudices after 1878 and during the last years of his life (from 1890 to 1895) strongly condemned attacks on Jews. In one of the more interesting sections of the book, Silberner explains that in large measure Engels changed his mind because he had been influenced by none other than Marx's daughter, Eleanor Marx-Aveling, who was impressed by the turn to radicalism of the growing Jewish working class in London. She even learned Yiddish so as to be able to communicate with the immigrants from Eastern Europe. The discussions of the other Marxist leaders also contain material that is not generally known, as do the chapters on the Soviet, Polish and German Communist parties, which chronicle, among other things, the sad fate of Jews in those movements. Silberner has succeeded in his aim, which was to write a comprehensive history of Communist attitudes toward the Jewish question. The main defect of the

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book is the absence of a central theme. The author would have produced a more absorbing study had he devoted more effort to analyzing and interpreting,the positions and policies that he so assiduously describes. But if the book is not as searching as it might be, it is a valuable source of information. ABRAHAM ASCHER Graduate School, City University of New York

Clive Sinclair, The Brothers Singer. London: Allison & Busby, 1983. 176 pp. £8.95/$14.95.

Clive Sinclair's The Brothers Singer has an engaging subject—the study of two Yiddish literary giants who happen to share a genetic as well as an environmental history. We are informed that this is " . . . the first detailed study of the life and work of Israel Joshua and the first full-length comparative study of both brothers' novels." (This is a quote from the dust jacket. Sinclair himself is never so explicit.) It is thus particularly disappointing that The Brothers Singer falls so short of fulfilling its promise. The most outstanding flaw in Sinclair's book is its peculiar flatness. In part, this is the result of having attempted too much in too few pages. It is difficult to tread the delicate path between biography and literary criticism, between a full-length study of Israel Joshua and a description of Isaac Bashevis's first steps as an independent literary force, between reconstruction and documentation—all of which Mr. Sinclair has undertaken to accomplish. The problem is not merely one of space, however. In his introduction the author reveals an additional goal: to provide a balanced view of the brothers, one of whom—Israel Joshua—is lionized within Yiddish literary circles, the other—Isaac Bashevis—often deprecated. In the English literary world, in contrast, it is Bashevis who wears the laurel, Israel Joshua's recognition remaining scant. Under circumstances so fraught with competing and contradictory appreciations, Sinclair's mediating neutrality acts as a damper. The picture is complicated, moreover, by Sinclair's understandable urge to seek out Bashevis's views on his own life and that of his beloved older brother. Historical perspective is notoriously unreliable when it comes to familial recollections, especially when the historian is as vivid a racounteur as Bashevis. As a result, Sinclair quite legitimately feels the need to qualify his informant's remarks. Thus he edits a statement apparently gleaned through an interview: "Thereafter Der Forverts became sharply anti-communist, 'the most important anti-Bolshevik newspaper in America,' Bashevis hyperbolically called it" (p. 50). Or, referring to Bashevis's perspective on his brother/mentor's decision to stop writing: "It may be that there is too much self-identification in these diagnoses; for instance, Bashevis adds in the introduction to Yoshe Kalb a sentence into which the powerful first

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person enters: 'I saw with grief that he—as I, his younger brother—actually fit in nowhere' " (pp. 59-60). These comments have an effect, but not the one that was almost certainly intended. Isaac Bashevis, attempting to immortalize Israel Joshua, eclipses him instead simply by virtue of being alive. In the end, though, Sinclair's sincere and obviously thoughtful endeavor fails because of his methodology. StructurallyThe Singeris straightforward and reasonable. The author begins with a reconstruction, of the Singer home when the boys were growing up, using their memoirs and an autobiographical novel by their sister, Esther Kreitman. The book goes on to discuss Steel and Iron and Yoshe y Bashevis)—the brothersnovelistic output while still on European soil. Next comes a similarly organized chapter, using Israel J o s h u a ' anoran Finally, there is a lengthy discussion of Israel Joshua's East of Eden and The Family Carnovsky and Bashevis's The Family Moskal. Sinclair has decided that Israel Joshua's work uses characters as a way of writing about history, while Bashevis adopts the opposite focus, employing historical situations so as to comment on human nature. Beyond this insight, the textual illumination comes mainly in the form of careful, but dull, plot summaries. The "comparative" aspect of the book is equally wooden: [TJhore are certain similarities between Yoshe Kalb and Bashevis' first novel, Satan in Goray. . . . Both Yoshe Kalb and Satan in Gorav are about the destruction of Jewish communities by outside forces. Of course these forces could not have been successful without the co-operation of the inhabitants—al which point the brothers differ. . . . The leading ladies of both Yoshe Kalb and Satan in Goray suffer extremely unpleasant deaths. . . . The different treatment of these two women within the texts exemplifies the divergent sensibilities of Israel Joshua and Bashevis (pp. 73-74).

There is little here concerning narrative style or character analysis and nothing about language since Mr. Sinclair freely admits his ignorance of Yiddish. The "divergent sensibilities," alluded to so suggestively, are not subsequently explored. The book's most intriguing chapter, at least potentially, is the first one, in which the author seeks to recreate the early experiences and impressions of his two main characters. And, indeed, there is some interesting information to be gleaned from this section, much of it—perhaps inappropriately—about Hinde-Esther: her affection-starved rearing, her psychosomatic manifestations, her struggle to achieve the same rights as her siblings. Yet even here the pleasure is marred by a literary lapse, namely the author's confusion of the material presented in fiction with the actual facts of the author's life. Summarizing the plot of Esther Kreitmanfor example, Sinclair explains: "After the destruction of the yeshiva was virtually unemployed. He was forced to seek work elsewhere. A community in need of a rabbi invited him to become their zaddik. 'Zaddikim are not appointed by their fellow men, but by God,' he replied. But the equivocation of the tempter almost persuaded him untilcold-eyed sarcasm brought him to his senses" (p. 36; italics mine). The Singer parents were Pinchos Mendel and Bathsheba; their fictional counterparts inwere Avram Ber and Raizcla (I am using Sinclair's transcriptions of the original Yiddish). To insert a living figure into fiction is itself an artistic act, but it cannot serve as viable literary history.

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The Brothers Singer is, above all, a frustrating work because it raises so many questions, few of which are answered. In the psychological sphere, for example, what is the significance of the six- or seven-year literary silence that Bashevis suffered upon his arrival in the United States? Was it an identification with Israel Joshua's self-imposed five-year inactivity in Poland? Bashevis describes his brother as being depressed in the late 1920s. What was his own affective state in 1935? What relevance does this have to Esther Kreitman's emotional break? Why indeed did Bashevis only begin to burst with creativity after Israel Joshua's death? What do the "family" works, The Brothers Ashkenazi, The Family Carnovsky, The Family Moskat say about the relationship between these two remarkable siblings? Clive Sinclair should not be chastised for merely scratching the surface of the immense subject he has bravely attempted to tackle, but neither should we, his readers, for wanting more. JANET HADDA University of California, Los Angeles

J. B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man. Translated by Lawrence Kaplan. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1983. xi + 163 pp. $12.95. Eliezer Berkovits, Not In Heaven: The Nature and Function ofHalakha. New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1983. 183 pp. J. B. Soloveitchik's Ish ha-halakha—now available in Lawrence Kaplan's reliable translation as Halakhic Man—is a significant statement about the nature of Judaism by a major twentieth-century representative of halakhic Orthodoxy. It is also an idiosyicratic, suggestive and moving statement. First published in 1941, Halakhic Man provides a paradigm against which the intellectual trajectory of Judaism during the last forty years can be seen. Soloveitchik's major claims cluster around two topics: the centrality of halakha as an ideal normative construct and the centrality of human creativity in the halakhic scheme. The first of these claims, which presents halakha on the analogy of postAristotelian mathematical physics tempered by neo-Kantian epistemology (as Kaplan has pointed out), is an eye-opening intellectual tour de force that has also occasioned trenchant philosophical criticism and outright scepticism. For Soloveitchik, halakhic norms form an a priori system which governs man's relationship with reality and also provides the categories through which he perceives the real world. The study of Torah thus becomes a human elaboration of the ideal construct given at Sinai. (The objective merits of this analysis aside, it may provide a good psychological explanation of the fascination of traditional Talmudics: The Talmudist is engaged in the creation of an ideal—in the sense of the norm as ideal— cosmos.) This act of rational devotion then gives way to the demand that the norm be concretized in the real world. This is halakhic holiness as opposed to the mystic's

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flight from the world to the transcendent. The world of Genesis and history, of society and technology, is the stage for the ethical life-affirming act in which man meets God. This stress on objective concretization as opposed to subjective religiosity finds expression in the normative emphasis on quantification and standardization, characteristics through which halakha regulates reality. Soloveitchik repeatedly stresses that life within the normative construct is intensely creative. Conceptual halakhic analysis, the refinement of elements and relationships in the ideational construct and their elaboration, is as exhilarating as the work of the mathematician; and by his remaking the imperfect world in the image of these norms, man imitates the primal act of God the Creator. Finally, man is called upon to create himself through a full appropriation of his past and the acceptance of responsibility for his future, that is, through teshuvah (repentence). Through this act of self-shaping, man becomes an individual and—in Soloveitchik's solution to a noted Maimonidean crux—is worthy of God's providence. Halakhic Man is a strikingly modern work. This is true when elements of the traditional Jewish world-view are introduced and certainly when they are transmuted. Soloveitchik undertakes to treat his theme as a study in philosophical anthropology and phenomenology. Man, and moreover man as individual, is securely at the center. The central value is man's task as creator: creator of mental constructs, of a perfected world, of himself. The breathtaking parallel worked out between halakhic study and mathematics wrenches Halakhic Man out of the expected traditional mold in its first pages, and its continued engagement of Western concepts of personality and reality prevent it from settling back into that mold. Indeed, Soloveitchik's treatment of thoroughly traditional themes is immeasurably deepened by the contribution of his modernist perspective, for example, his use of nineteenth- and twentieth-century discussions of time and personality when developing the concept of repentence (a treatment heavily indebted, as he indicates, to the work of Max Scheler). At times, indeed, one wonders whether his discussion of traditional themes and values would be recognizable to the men whose achievement he describes. Would the description of halakhic study as the elaboration of an a priori, abstract construct have been acceptable to the men he credits with this revolution? Soloveitchik himself suggests it would not be terribly meaningful to most halakhists from Moses to R. Hayim of Brisk in the early twentieth century. Would a pre-modern Jew have appreciated the stress on creativity? Or would he have chosen to emphasize(the fear of God)? But Halakhic Man is also a strikingly traditional, indeed conservative, work. This is not simply because Torah—its study and fulfillment—is at the center of man's spiritual life, though this obvious fact ought not to be overlooked. For the basic analogy of halakha and mathematics not only serves to mount a highly analytical (as opposed, say, to a textual) view of halakhic study and creativity but also serves to discount the possibility of any significant historical input into the halakhic process. It is, thus, arguable whether geometric points and negative numbers are the best analogue to halakhic categories. The former, after all, are by definition non-empirical realities, but the latter describe physical or social relationships to begin with. By maintaining that the halakhic construct is a priori, from Sinai, one asserts that human creativity or choice can contribute nothing of true significance to this construct. One

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wonders whether so extreme a position is a true reflection of what is really going on in halakhic literature, which not infrequently seems to define its intellectual task by the responsibility of concretizing holiness in the real world. Naturally, Torah in the traditionalist's view is from Sinai. He will correctly reject radical human freedom as a legitimate posture. He will also correctly reject a relativizing socio-historical determinism. But is the opposite pole, generated by the metaphor of mathematical physics, the only remaining option? Put another way, the metaphor of mathematical physics and its heavily rationalistic overtones dignifies a good deal of modern Orthodox ideology as to the rather mechanical, passive, way in which halakhic decisions ought to be spun out. Regrettably, Soloveitchik's impassioned discussion of the ethical thrust in Judaism focuses on the concretizing of halakha in the real world and does not deal with the impact of this task on halakhic decision making itself. How central has Soloveitchik and hisbeen for the modern Orthodox experience and for the Orthodox revival of the last forty years? Much of the answer to this question lies in sociological research on the nature of the Jewish community in that period. Those of us who are his students found the combination of the analytic method described in the book and the master's charismatic intellectuality an intoxicating brew; its impact was profound and lasting. Aspects of HalakhicMve penetrated the modern Orthodox consciousness as well: the use of halakha as a conceptual base, the stress on this-worldly spirituality (always a popular perspective!), the legitimacy of culture alongside Torah. But Halakhic Man was really more. Behind the ponderous style, Halakhic Man was a call to high intellectual adventure. In that sense, Soloveitchik has found no successor. However one estimates the impact of Halakhic Man on modern Orthodoxy, it is paradoxically the case that in his choice of topic Soloveitchik put his finger on a central concern of mid- and late-twentieth-century Judaism: halakha. It is by now a commonplace that since the Second World War, all branches of Jewry have realized that halakha, however understood and experienced, will not go away. Rather, it will be integrated into Jewish life as a critical, defining moment. Soloveitchik's work, then, is curiously representative of the career of the Jewish people in our time. Eliezer Berkovits's halakhic man has had quite enough of a restricting and dysfunctional a priori. Halakha, he argues, must not be left "in heaven" but is intended for the ongoing shaping of human beings. The halakhic system expects that its details will be revised in the light of its broader values, and it endows its authorities with the religious and legal ability to undertake the task. This human, historical process and its method (rather than any substantive content) is what is meant by Oral Law. In this hierarchy of goals and specifics, Berkovits demands "halakha as the priority of the ethical," while its pragmatic criterion is "halakha as the wisdom of the feasible." Wielding these categories, Berkovits argues for broad revisions in current halakhic regulations of marriage and divorce, for example. Similarly, by asserting that the specific laws of conversion must be subordinated to the "comprehensive obligation of ahavat yisrael," he urges significant easing of the practices currently governing conversions and enters a plea for the religious legitimacy (though not correctness) of all branches of contemporary Jewry. All these positions are courageous stances for an Orthodox thinker to adopt, though most do have some halakhic precedent.

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Berkovits stands on more than guts, however. Certainly, one may disagree with some of his analysis (his denial of the force of precedent [pp. 56-57] rests, I think, on a peculiar combination of nineteenth-century textual study and classic pilpul), but it is solid and methodologically instructive. Berkovits takes the Talmud seriously; he goes beyond citations of rabbinic slogans, which often have little normative value when the chips are down, and gets us into the very fabric of the Talmudic discussion—and there, in the warp and woof itself, we see that the basic criteria are, in fact, ethical and that feasibility and reasonableness have a large say in the shaping of the law. Much, much more of this sort of close analysis ought to be done. True, the force of these illustrations is somewhat more limited than Berkovits admits. The category of the feasible is employed most radically, for example (pp. 9-11), in cases of rabbinic (rather than Scriptural) regulations. But much current halakha is formed by just such rabbinic regulations, and their rethinking alone would involve significant change. Despite the power of Berkovits's Talmudic analysis, one wonders whether the average reader (who chooses this English treatment rather than the same author's more detailed Hebrew volume) will really follow the frequently technical argument or simply assume its accuracy and skip to the conclusions. It would seem, on the other hand, that a discussion of halakha that focuses on the "ethical" and the "feasible" as basic categories would raise certain issues that the intelligent reader (non-Talmudist though he be) can be expected to understand. Thus, it is unclear whether Berkovits sees his position as representative of the halakhic mainstream or as a selective (and subjective) presentation of its best procedures and ideas. If Not in Heaven represents mainstream halakha, then current (nineteenth-century? eighteenth-century?) halakha has betrayed its heritage. But are matters so clear-cut? Take mamzerut (bastardy), for example. Here Berkovits argues that the rabbis felt the institution to be unethical—yet his own citations indicate that they did not abolish it. Certainly, rabbinic laws of evidence and other devices limited its application; but rabbinic laws of divorce and abandonment simultaneously increased its incidence. Is the career of halakha so unequivocal as Berkovits's occasionally pat summary leads one to think? Or do halakhic institutions have a normative momentum that is considerably more powerful than he admits? A central assumption is that the Oral Law is a thoroughly human and, hence, malleable device. Ample defense of this dual thesis (from the perspective of the traditional sources) ought to go into the next edition of the book. In one farreaching chapter ("Halakha in Exile"), Berkovits indicates that halakha as process has been massively contaminated since it was congealed into written Mishnah and Talmud some 1,500 years ago. An implication of this attitude is the proposal that "faith in (or seeking after) the Lord of Israel" substitute for the traditional "acceptance of mizvot" in conversion. How far will the method take us in other areas? How necessary does Talmud then remain? Interestingly, no less radical suggestions had been made by the late Chief Rabbi B. Z. Uziel, without Berkovits's historiosophical and hermeneutic platform. The same can be said for suggestions (Berkovits's among them!) to improve current divorce law. Both categories central to the book, the "ethical'" and the "feasible," need more discussion. Aside from the question of whether religious law is so completely

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committed to the ethical as a value (and the red herring of whether the ethical exists outside the legal norms themselves), one expects more discussion of the different forms of the ethical: How does halakha judge, for example, between the good of the community (social ethics) and the needs of the individual? What is the halakhic ethic? "Feasibility," especially, seems a bit glib. Judaism and the Jewish people owe much, after all, to their refusal to knuckle under to the "feasible" throughout history. What, then, governs the evaluation of the "feasible" in its confrontation with religious law? When is adjustment the order of the day and when is stubbornness the norm? The reader may suspect that historical Judaism has expected to find the answer in specific legal sources rather than by an appeal to vague over-reaching concepts. Eliezer Berkovits has, for many years, functioned within the "Orthodox" community. On the surface, at least, his insistence on the ethical and the feasible as the dominant categories of halakhic development and his view of Oral Law as the historical creature of the Jewish people, would seem to bring him far closer to the ideology propounded for decades by Conservative Judaism. If so, what is new in Berkovits? Is he simply mounting a better Talmudic defense of Gordis than Gordis himself provides? Or are the methods honed in to be used differently so as to achieve a different result? Is it a matter of who makes the decision? Be all this as it may,is a powerful and provocative book which makes a good case for a dynamic, responsive halakha. GERALD J. BLIDSTEIN Ben-Gurion University

Steven L. Spiegeetherrab-Israeli Conflict: Making America's Middle East Policy from Truman to Reagan. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1985. 522 pp. $24.95. Although many books have been written about one phase or another of the ArabIsraeli dispute, very few books have attempted to embrace and to analyze the course of the dispute from its origins in the late 1940s to the present. One of the many merits of the work by Steven L. Spiegel, of the Political Science Department of UCLA, is its comprehensive consideration of the ebb and flow of the dispute over the years. But the novelty of this outstanding work does not end there; it is the unique focus of the study—the Washington vantage point—which gives it a special place in the growing literature on the Arab-Israeli dispute. Spiegel is especially well qualified to offer insight into the making of America's Middle East policy. Besides being the author of numerous articles on the subject, he was a member, together with Brzezinski, Quandt, Bowie and Klutznick (all subsequent administration appointees), of the Brookings Institution Middle East study group which issued a

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famous report in 1975 on how to bring peace to the area. It would appear that the Brookings report had a considerable impact on the Carter administration and, as Spiegel points out, supposedly provided "the intellectual basis of Carter's policy" leading up to the attainment of the Camp David agreements. Spiegel's method is to follow a chronological pattern in analyzing American policy, not from crisis to crisis, but from president to president. (A brief but excellent chronological chart is provided at the beginning of the book.) This method of surveying the dispute is very salutary since in this way the different approaches of the key personalities involved in the formulation of U.S. policy can best be assessed. Circumstances were, of course, different at each stage, but Spiegel is fully justified in focusing on the presidential role since the last, if not always the first, word in any given policy decision is the sole prerogative of the president. Moreover, the president sets the tone of policy, and this often proves decisive in determining the shape of decisions. It is interesting to compare the reaction of three administrations, those of Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon (Kissinger), to three near-confrontations with the Soviet Union in three Arab-Israeli wars—the Suez campaign, the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. Eisenhower, bent on teaching his European allies a "lesson" for their "Suez escapade," never appreciated the extent to which his policies contributed to greater Russian penetration and domination of the Middle East. He seems never to have comprehended the degree to which Moscow would take advantage of the split between the Western powers to make new inroads into the region. When the Russians proposed joint Soviet-American action to end the warfare in Egypt, the White House seems to have become alarmed. It declared any joint U.S.Soviet action to be "unthinkable" but did not really respond vigorously to the Russian challenge. As a result, the Soviet Union, and not the United States, reaped the benefits of Eisenhower's myopic view of the Suez enterprise. In contrast, both Johnson in 1967 and Nixon/Kissinger in 1973 realized the importance of adopting a firm stand without being provocative. When Johnson learned of Soviet military maneuverings, he ordered the Sixth Fleet into position to interdict any possible Russian move. Likewise, Kissinger (on behalf of Nixon, who was engrossed in Watergate) ordered a world-wide alert of U.S. forces when Moscow threatened to send forces to Egypt. In neither case was the response timid or vacillating. As a result, the image of the United States as an effective superpower was greatly enhanced. This is a sober, restrained and balanced account of American policymaking. Fortunately, it is not marred by the emotional polemics which so often pervade books on the Arab-Israeli dispute. Spiegel presents the facts and lets the facts speak for themselves. He analyzes the inputs and outputs in the policymaking process but is careful not to put his own stamp on these facts. It is refreshing to observe his judicious treatment of the sources and his clear, forthright presentation of such controversial material. Students of the Arab-Israeli dispute will find his work an indispensable source. SHLOMO SLONIM The Hebrew University

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Kennan Lee Teslik, Congress, the Executive Branch and Special Interests: The American Response to the Arab Boycott of Israel. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1982. 280 pp. This volume provides a survey of the history of the Arab boycott against the economy of Jewish Palestine—Israel—and then goes on to review the development of U.S. legislation against the boycott. The book is richly documented, based on primary and secondary sources as well as interviews with participants in the events reported. It deals primarily with the shaping of the legislation governing the export administration, legislation which must be approved every four years. The Export Control Act of 1949 (renewed in 1965) condemned the Arab boycott and made it mandatory for American firms to report any attempt to invoke the boycott. The government did not, however, take measures to insure that firms would act in accordance with the law. The regulations were renewed at each fouryear interval, but it was not until 1975 that passage of an effective bill to compel American businesses to refuse to cooperate with the boycott became a priority issue in Congress. Among the difficulties facing proponents of such legislation, according to the author, was the fact that the United States itself used economic boycott as a political weapon, chiefly against Communist countries, and particularly in the case of Cuba. He depicts the pro-Arab lobby, on the other hand, as lacking in influence. In the author's opinion, not one Arab state or diplomatic legation played a significant role in the boycott struggle in the 1960s, waged on the Jewish side largely by the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC. During the 1970s, AIPAC displayed a rather low profile in boycott-related matters and American Jewry in general sought to present the issue as largely one of discrimination against American citizens by American companies acting at the behest of Arab governments (p. 110). The leaders in the anti-boycott campaign were the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Saudi Arabia's refusal to grant visas to Jewish employees of American companies doing business with the Saudis lent force to the Jewish organizations' claim, put forward in Congress and in the media, that the boycott was not merely anti-Israel or anti-Zionist but was directed against all Jews. The boycott itself had little effect on the Israeli economy in the 1950s and 1960s, but became a significant factor for both Israel and America in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, with the burgeoning impact of petro-dollars on world economy. The dramatic change came in early 1975. Events in the international monetary system—in particular the boycotting of Jewish-owned European banks in the world banking markets—helped bring the seriousness of the Arab boycott problem into shaiper focus. At the same time, Jewish organizations produced evidence that certain U.S. government agencies were discriminating against Jewish Americans. Still, the Ford administration continued to oppose truly effective legislation against the boycott and against those co-operating with it. In February 1975 the president formally denounced the boycott as contrary to American values, but left it at that. The author makes it clear that Ford's statement amounted to mere lip-service.

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That an effective anti-boycott law was finally passed, the author argues, was due largely to the pressure campaign waged by the American Jewish organizations. The business community, for its part, did not mount a serious anti-legislation initiative in 1975-76, relying on the Republican administration to oppose any new bill. The pro-Arab lobby and Arab diplomats in Washington, the author finds, remained ineffectual. The result was passage in 1976 of the bill sponsored by Connecticut Senator Ribicoff, depriving American companies cooperating with the boycott of important tax exemptions. The author concludes that the law did not damage American interests. During the period 1976-80, trade between the United States and the Arab states doubled in dollar-value terms. The loopholes in the law allowed Arab countries to continue their business arrangements. The author relates the success of the pre-legislative negotiations both to the flexibility shown by the two sides and to the abilities of those who conducted the talks. He warns Israel against pressing for any greater concessions, despite its heightened influence in Washington in the last few years (p. 219). It is his view that on the boycott issue, Israel obtained American support far in excess of what was warranted. This contention remains, of course, a matter of subjective assessment. While the book preserves a degree of detachment and certainly contributes to our knowledge of the events, the author does not conceal his own views. He declares that he supports an "evenhanded policy" but concludes that in the final analysis American interests were hurt by the legislation. Further, he maintains, the proJewish lobby enjoys excessive influence in the making of American domestic policy and thus in foreign policy as well. In his concluding chapter, we find an interesting analysis of the greater role attained by Congress in the determination of American foreign policy. The aim of this chapter, apparently, is to demonstrate how it is possible for ethnic groups to influence government decisions. One may perhaps view the cancellation by the Reagan administration, two years after the publication of Teslik's book, of the sale of Stinger missiles to Jordan as evidence that the combination of forces in American society favoring the pro-Israel lobby does not change quickly. MENAHEM KAUFMAN The Hebrew University

Jacob Toury, Die judische Presse irn Osterreichischen Kaisserreich, 1802—1918. Tubingen: Mohr, Schriftenreihe Wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo Baeck Instituts, 41, 1983. viii + 163 pp.

Jacob Toury, a specialist on German Jewish history, author of Die politischen Orientierungen der deutxchen JudeSoziale und politische Gexchichte der Juden in Deulxchland (1972), has now turned his attention to the history of the

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Jews of the Austrian Empire. Until the time comes for a comprehensive study in this field, we must be grateful for the work now before us, which is concerned with the Austrian-Jewish press. This short book is divided into three main chapters: the period before legal emancipation, 1802-67; from emancipation to the inception of universal suffrage, 1868-1907; the period of nationalities' conflicts, up to the end of the First World War. This chronological division does not always prove effective owing to its occasional clash with the author's thematic approach. Thus, for example, the section dealing with the Zionist press appears in chapter 2, while it extends, in fact, far beyond the chronological limits of this chapter. Toury does not begin with a programmatic or methodological introduction, contenting himself with just a sentence or two of guidance: "The following work is intended as a study in social and cultural history, and not as a bibliographical compilation, and aims at helping us to understand for what purpose, and in what languages Jewish newspapers appeared in the Danubian kingdom (and from 1868 on, particularly in the Cisleithania lands) up to the end of the World War" (p. V). The author then describes the nature of these Jewish newspapers, one after the other. This survey and description is no mean achievement in itself; a comparison between the much scantier lists and information to be found in the Jewish Lexikon (Berlin: 1927) and other encyclopedias, and the formidable list of some 250 newspapers compiled by Toury reveals his skill in research, compilation and organization. The task of reconstructing each newspaper's "little history" certainly calls for a great deal of knowledge. However, in the absence of any clear initial statement on how to analyze these findings, the book—at first sight at least—is swamped by its description of the "trees" while the "forest" is not visible until the short final chapter (pp. 144-153). The subtitle of Toury's book is "A Contribution to Research on the Problematic Aspects of Acculturation." Even if it seems obvious that the Jews' acculturation signified their coming to resemble the bourgeoisie of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this monarchy's many-sided linguistic, religious and above all national facets presented a difficult problem for the historical personalities who aspired to, or else fought against, acculturation and for the historian dealing with these processes. Acculturation in the case of the territories annexed after the partitions of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century was not the same thing as in the Habsburg royal domains before that time, and the case of Bohemia was not the same as that of Upper and Lower Austria or even Vienna at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Acculturation was a roundabout, tortuous affair, fragmented and disconnected, hence the difficulty in trying to describe it in accordance with certain rules of generalization. Thus the contours become clarified to some extent only in the aforementioned last, analytical chapter: (1) the connecting thread runs from loyalty to the ruling dynasty at the beginning of the process to the Germanization that this involved through the partial identification with the nationality of a given region to the emphasis on Jewish identification of different kinds, expressed journalistically in Yiddish and Hebrew; (2) the special status of Galicia (formerly part of the kingdom of Poland) as regards the tension between Germanization and Jewish identity; (3) the role of the antisemitic administration (especially in the early days of

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the Taaffe government in 1879) in holding up the acculturation process that was the basis of earlier official policy; (4) the relative success of Jewish culture (Yiddish or Hebrew) in the face of the growing strength of antisemitism; (5) the rise of Jewish nationalist trends (the Jewish People's party or Zionism), and increasing Jewish support for social democracy. Precisely at the end of the book two interconnected questions arise which cannot be ignored: First, is the author justified in testing acculturation precisely in the press, when he himself emphasizes how limited it was in circulation until the 1890s (p. 148)? And, second, are the conclusions in the last chapter, in fact, the fruit of the data enumerated in the book or are they in large part related to information not to be found in the volume? For example, the author strikes a rather forced note, not substantiated by his data, when he enlarges on the debt owed to the various newspaper editors who, he thinks, played such a great role in the debate over acculturation, integration, national consciousness and dis-assiinilation in the Austrian amalgam of nationalities. Toury is telling us that the press was not naturally or structurally the reflection of acculturation but depended on a number of key people whose importance has not yet been sufficiently recognized. Toury is uneasy about the marginality of the people behind these newspapers. Accordingly, an effort is made to present a number of "stars"—first and foremost, Rabbi Joseph Samuel Bloch, founder of the884), which later became the semi-official organ of the community. After him came other outstanding personalities like Nathan Birnbaum, editor o Simon Szanto, editor of Die Neuzeit, and Theodor Herzl himself. We have, then, an effort to spotlight well-known Jewish personalities active in the Austro-Jewish press as outstanding protagonists of the problem of acculturation in the monarchy. This raised the further question of how far it is possible to isolate the Habsburg monarchy from the rest of Centra] Europe. The journalistic work of Birnbaum, for example, and that of Rabbi Jellinek(Sabbath-Blatf)was certainly closely connected with events in Germany. This was no accident since the history of the Jews of Central Europe displays common characteristics regardless of the political boundaries cutting across the region. A comparative dimension would have enabled the reader to distinguish between the general and the specific in the Austrian example. The comparative element could have simplified, not complicated, the multi-faceted picture of the relations between Jews and non-Jews in the Habsburg monarchy. The author's description of the history of the Jewish press in Austria is extremely interesting and, at times, reads almost like a detective story. It is a pity that there is not more material on the economic conditions of newspaper publication in order to show the importance of this type of constraint on the entire editing process and to give the theme of acculturation a technical framework. Owing to the nature of the documentation accompanying the history of the various papers, the typology in the description and analysis falls short here and there—at times, the stress is on the biographical side; at times, on the communal-institutional aspect; and, at times, on trivialities. If the queries framed in the key sentences at the beginning of the book are to be answered, the whole work calls for a more unified structure based on conceptions from the field of the social sciences over and beyond those that have been employed here.

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This book constitutes a breakthrough in the nearly unknown field of AustrianJewish history. It points up the need to continue research into the nature of Jewish acculturation in the Austrian Empire and to proceed to create an overall synthesis of the history of this complicated and problematic community. Information on the press provides a convenient starting point for such an investigation. MOSHE ZIMMERMAN The Hebrew University

Avraham Tsivion, Diokano ha-yehudi shel Berl Katznelson. Tel-Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1984. 396 pp.

In a letter to Dov Shtok (Sadan) in July 1932, Berl Katznelson became involved in a debate conducted in the pages of the Histadrut's newspaper,oncerning the place of religion in the new Jewish society in Erez Israel. Shtok, then the literary editor of Davar, stated that he did not want a "Kulturkampf" with religious circles, but that the latter exploited the fact that their greatest opponents were not interested in waging war on clericalism. Against this view Katznelson wrote: "I am not pleased with this declaration [that in our hearts we are not for a war of cultures— Y.S.] . . . for I do not want to uncover in public and utter from my own mouth the secret of my weakness." Katznelson was of the opinion that a not inconsiderable part of the Labor movement's anti-clericalism was copied from the Communist battle against religion and expressed hatred of "anything Jewish." An anti-clerical struggle was appropriate, perhaps, for Eastern Europe, but there was no place for it in Erez Israel where religion was very weak. Berl Katznelson's religiosity, sentimentality toward the Jewish tradition and atavistic attitude with regard to the central fundamentals of Jewish ritual led him to the troubled soul-searching characteristic of intellectuals who find themselves between two worlds. This soul-searching, the author of the study before us thinks, represents the dilemma of a "secular" labor leader who was unsatisfied with the "emptiness" he saw in the national Jewish secularism in Erez Israel and who was searching for ways to preserve Jewish continuity and the attachment to the Jewish heritage. It is not surprising that one of the reviewers of the book (in Davar) was quick to declare that Berl Katznelson is proof that the Zionist "Right" does not hold a monopoly on the religious and national content of Judaism. It is clear, therefore, that it was not only a scholarly interest which led Avraham Tsivion to focus on the Jewish portrait of Berl Katznelson, one of the outstanding leaders and the central intellectual of the Zionist Labor movement in Erez Israel. Tsivion himself testifies that Katznelson, in his intensive struggle with the question of Jewish identity, was an exception in the Labor movement, not a representative

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figure. Precisely because of this Jact, Tsivion sees him as a positive example of a secular and socialist leader whose heritage is worthy of discussion and study. Thus, the author uncovers in a most detailed and meticulous way all of Katznelson's thoughts on this subject and attempts to identify his sources of inspiration in both Jewish and non-Jewish literature. There is much repetition in this book. The material is subjected from beginning to end to the author's declared intention of "proving" that Bed's Jewish identity was the dominant element in his personality. In addition, the author is guilty of a serious methodological flaw in that instead of bringing before the reader a complete cultural-intellectual portrait of Katznelson, he chose to single out only the Jewish aspect. No less serious is the fact that the author often fails to define the concepts he uses and is thus more than once caught in internal contradictions. The result is a very awkward study that does not succeed in providing the reader with an orderly and systematic portrait of this complex and "polyphonic" personality. With the exception of a few pages in the introduction, the author does not discuss Katznelson's deep and complex attachment to the Russian intellectual heritage of the latter half of the nineteenth century and, through this, his attachment to the wider European heritage. As a consequence, we find Berl Katznelson using Jewish concepts which really derive from Russian philosophy, and we are told that Berl's world was an authentically Jewish one, and that his use of Russian or socialist ideas was mere semantics. Since we have before us a man who was not a philosopher but rather an intellectual who did not formulate a systematic doctrine, it would have been appropriate to devote more space to a description of the part he played in the various cultural decisions made in Erez Israel. The author delves only briefly into this issue. Even so, we learn from Katznelson's own words, for example, that he did not succeed in confronting the basic questions of the new Jewish spiritual ambiance in Israel because he was always so busy "building" and "transporting bricks" (p. 207). This personal testimony stands in contradiction, of course, to his presumed intensive occupation with questions of religion and culture. Thus, for example, we learn that during the days of the Holocaust he felt the need to resuscitate the conceptual doctrine of the Labor movement "for the guidance and education of the people in the face of the unknown" (p. 71). But, the author does not present us with the list of books which the Am Oved publishing house, under Katznelson's management, chose to publish from 1942 on. Many of the author's judgments are of a speculative nature. He is not able to hide the fact that, after all, we are dealing with a secular man who is at once a revolutionary rebel and a sentimental conservative, caught up in a classic crisis of "searching for God." We are confronted with a secular man who does not believe in God but tries to establish a new normative system without the legitimacy and sanction of the religious system. As a result, he is constantly wandering in a world of indecision, doubt and uncertainty. It is not at all clear from this study if the reason for this is inherent in Berl Katznelson's special personality or if we have here an interesting symptom of the fundamental weakness (as some would say) of the Zionist attempt to offer "Jewish culture" and "holiness without Halakha" to the new Jewish na-

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tional society and the modern Jewish man. The reader interested in this subject will find in Avraham Tsivion's study much material, but no answer. YAAKOV SHAVIT Tel-Aviv University

Klaus-Peter Walter, Studien zur russischsprachig-jiidischen Dramatik des 20. Jahrhunderts:Analysainzeeroffentlichungen, vol. 3. Mainz: Liber Verlag, 1983. 237 pp. This book, originally a dissertation, attempts to fill a gap in research on RussianJewish literature and lay the foundations for the study of Russian-Jewish drama of the early twentieth century. The author feels that Russian-Jewish drama deserves to be defined as a thematic complex in its own right. It was created by one single generation of writers, which can be called the "generation of the grandchildren." The "grandparents" still lived in the Jewish traditional world. The "parents" experienced the traumatic rupture with this tradition, they acquired a new language, adopted secular ways and struggled for national identity. The "grandchildren" were angry young Jews who responded to the social problems of their time and portrayed them in their work. Analyzing their work, Walter arrives at the conclusion that Jewish themes, plots and motives play only a secondary role and that very little Jewish thought and custom is reflected in it. This statement can be accepted only if one assumes a very narrow ethnic-folkloristic or religious understanding of Jewishness. Another difficulty is Walter's definition of Russian-Jewish literature. In his pioneering study on this subject, Lvov-Rogachevskii dealt with "those Jewish writers who while writing in Russian were familiar with the mode of life and strivings of their own Jewish nationality." Walter, on the other hand, excludes the need for Jewish self-consciousness from his concept of Russian-Jewish drama, which from a purely formal point of view allows the inclusion of works without Jewish protagonists, but does not add in any way to our understanding of the distinguishing features of this genre. The fact is that Russian-Jewish literature, addressed to Russians as well as Jews, was concerned with issues resulting from the interaction between the two peoples rather than with exclusively Jewish subjects. While not reflecting Jewish traditional customs, it strengthened Jewish consciousness among linguistically assimilated Jews. It was deeply concerned with Russian life and responded to historical events and new currents and attitudes. And in this sense—by reflecting the dramatic destiny of this generation of Russian Jews—it was a very Jewish phenomenon. Since most of the plays Walter evaluates are unknown and inaccessible to the contemporary reader, he organizes his study in the form of a reference work. Presenting the plays in decreasing order of the intensity of the social conflict they depict, he provides the reader with a brief summary of plot and character. He

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therefore begins with a discussion of the revolutionary dramas of Aizman and lushkevich, who portray a high degree of conflict in their work, and concludes with the panoramic and episodic plays of Lerner and Svirskii, which are built around more minor social clashes. He concentrates this content analysis on the juxtaposition of generations, sexes and attitudes toward traditional institutions and values. Jewish humor is examined but found to be conspicuously scarce. Especially useful are the short entries in the biographical appendix, which provide information about individual authors and allude to the stage history of the plays. Some of the plays, in particular those of lushkevich, certainly deserve a more detailed review of their stage presentation. In general, what this study lacks is an in-depth analysis of the dramatic form and structure of the works under discussion beyond their general classification as either symbolistic or naturalistic. A discussion of the dramatic elements would have provided an adequate conceptual basis for distinguishing Russian-Jewish drama from Russian-Jewish literature as a whole. RONI HAMMERMAN The Hebrew University

Chaim Waxman, America's Jews in Transition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983. 273 pp. Milton Plesur, Jewish Life in Twentieth-Century America: Challenge and Accommodation. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1982. Both the volumes under review deal with American Jewry from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. Waxman, a sociologist, states in his introduction that he rejects a value-free society, believes in Jewish survival and identifies with what he terms "normative," or religiously observant, Judaism. Plesur, on the other hand, sees Jewish accommodation to general society as a major objective. His book is addressed both to Jews and non-Jews, each chapter enumerating the Jewish contribution to the society, economy and culture of America. In discussing Jewish achievements in the latter field, he writes: "While Jews contributed greatly to American cultural pursuits, in most cases their achievements had little or no relationship to their religion" (p. 73). What Waxman calls "cultural assimilation" is termed "acculturation" by Plesur. On the basis of dissimilar fundamental assumptions, each views differently the developments in American Jewry during the past century. Waxman recognizes as force majeure what he terms "structural assimilation": a declining predilection for separate Jewish organization and an end to the pattern of living in specifically Jewish neighborhoods. Plesur ignores this trend— perhaps identifying it with one of the stages of accommodation. Then there is "Jewish identity." Waxman labels the relinquishment of Jewish identity identificawhich endangers the future existence of a Jewish entity in America, though he points out that the trend has not increased during the past twenty years, contradicting the expectations of sociologists. Plesur is less pessimistic,

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describing American society as "a gigantic tossed salad wherein the constituents could remain identified." Thus, it is easier for Jews wishing to acculturate to retain their Jewish identity. In a socio-historical survey, Waxman ascribes much importance to the difficulties encountered by East European Jewish immigrants during the late nineteenth century and the early years of the present one, difficulties resulting both from the abrupt transition from theo the American metropolis and from the ambivalent attitude toward them on the part of the German Jews who preceded them. Plesur's treatment of the subject is quite different—a laconic factual description of demographic developments, with an emphasis on the immigrants' continuous and successful effort to accommodate to American society. He argues that the Jewish trade unions played a positive role in this process, though "socialism and radicalism never became strong enough to destroy Judaism in America" (p. 20). Both authors deal with antisemitism. Antisemitic propaganda and action were part of the American scene throughout the period under discussion. Waxman, though well aware of this, stresses that nineteenth-century antisemitism did not grow into an integral part of the American tradition, a fact of great influence upon the status of the Jews in the present century. In his opinion, latent non-virulent antisemitism exists today in America. This latent antisemitism was strong enough as late as the past few decades to delay the entry of Jews into corporate executive and other elite positions. In Plesur's view, antisemitism was a challenge which American Jewry overcame in order to become an integral part of the American nation. As evidence, he points to the rise of American Jewry on the socio-economic ladder and to the fact that they have overcome discrimination in leading universities such as Harvard and Columbia. He suggests that Jews will also conquer social antisemitism. Plesur reminds us that in the second decade of this century American Jews fought against antisemitic Hollywood films and that they successfully overcame the antisemitic activities of Henry Ford and the Ku Klux Klan. He therefore does not come to grips with the intimidating impact which the virulent antisemitism of the thirties had on American Jewry. Among other major topics discussed in both books, Jewish education and religious leadership occupy an important place. Waxman discerns a trend toward a stronger Orthodoxy, which is offsetting losses and weaknesses of earlier generations. In other sectors of American Jewry, Waxman discerns a penchant for "congregationism"—that is, an emphasis on institutional affiliation not necessarily linked to stable patterns of religious behavior—but also sees a return in synagogue services to a greater use of Hebrew. This last, he speculates, may be related to identification with Israel as well as a renewed appreciation for tradition. Plesur, with a greater sensitivity to external factors, discusses the Reform movement's gradual turn toward Zionism, which began in the mid-thirties in terms of the rise of Nazism and its consequences. He omits reference, however, to the rise to leadership positions in the Reform movement of East European immigrants and their children, an important factor in the reversal of the (1885) Pittsburgh Platform's anti-Zionist plank. Touching on recent social developments, Waxman presents a pessimistic prognosis for American Jewry's demographic stability, derived from data (gathered at

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the Institute of Contemporary Jewry) on birthrates, average age at marriage and intermarriage. While recent immigrants from Israel and the Soviet Union help to balance the demographic picture, Waxman notes that neither group has been easily absorbed into the Jewish community. Plesur's account of American Zionism is flawed by certain oversimplifications (such as the assertion that Brandeis and the American Zionists assumed global leadership of the movement during the First World War [p. 41]). This tendency to over-generalize and exaggerate is of a piece with his rather tendentious statement that, despite Jewish anxiety in the 1930s, "it was apparent that the American Jews had solidified their role and identity in the United States. Accommodation had come full circle" (p. 99). Clearly, Plesur sees integration as the great leitmotif of American Jewish history, where Waxman sees conflicting trends of acculturation, assimilation and distinctiveness. MENAHEM KAUFMAN The Hebrew University

Avraham Wein and Aharon Weiss (eds.), Pinkas ha-kehilot: Polin. Volume 3. Galizia ha-ma'aravit ve-shlezia. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1984. 392 pp. This volume is the third in a series devoted to the history of the Jewish communities of Poland. The first dealt with Lodz and its environs, the second with eastern Galicia (today part of the Soviet Union) and the third has as its subject western Galicia and that part of Silesia included within the borders of the inter-war Polish state. The format consists of an introduction, containing material both of a general nature and on the history of the Jews in the region, followed by detailed articles on every Jewish community on which something is known. The length of the articles differs greatly. Forty-three pages are devoted to Cracow, the capital of western Galicia, while a few lines each are given to a number of tiny communities "on which information is limited." There are good maps and some fine photographs, mostly taken during the tragic period of the Second World War. The articles are typically divided into three parts—the period before the First World War, the interwar period and the period of the Holocaust. As is only to be expected of a book produced by Yad Vashem, the years of destruction are given particularly detailed attention. The volume concludes with a useful bibliography. What is the purpose of this and similar volumes? For whom are they intended? Like the traditional yizker bukh (memorial book), whose more scholarly but less lively relative they are, they aim at perpetuating the memory of the myriad Jewish communities of the cities, shtetlakh and villages of Poland. People born in these places and their offspring will find here detailed and accurate information on the "heym"—the size of the Jewish population, names of distinguished rabbis, economic activities, political parties and pogroms. Scholars and students of Polish

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Jewish history will encounter in these volumes a mine of facts not readily available elsewhere. For these reasons we should welcome their appearance and congratulate their editors on a difficult job well done. Nevertheless, a few shortcomings apparent in the third volume of the series may be mentioned. The historical approach adopted by the editors is conventional and old-fashioned. Many facts have been compiled, but there are few generalizations and little in the way of interesting historical analysis, especially of a comparative nature. An unfortunate consequence is that the reader fails to obtain a clear picture of the special character of west Galician Jewry within the broader context of Polish or Polish-Russian Jewry. Those who have worked on twentieth-century Polish Jewish history know that there was something special about this relatively small but important Jewish "land," particularly in terms of its culture and politics. The authors of this work do not address themselves to this issue, one which does receive a certain degree of attention in some of the oldfashioned yizker bikher, with their memoirs and intimate portraits of Jewish life in the old country. What is particularly needed today, both by teachers and students, is a modern, synthetic history of the Jews of Galicia and of the other historic lands of Polish Jewry. It would be nice if Yad Vashem would sponsor such a project along with the valuable encyclopedias it is now producing. EZRA MENDELSOHN The Hebrew University

Robert S. Wistrich, Socialism and the Jews: The Dilemmas of Assimilation in Germany and Austria-Hungary. Madison, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982. 435 pp. $35.00.

Much of the literature on the relationship between socialism and the Jews is marred by political animus. Far too often, the scholarly value of these works has been diminished by their authors' inability to assess objectively the evidence at hand. It is, therefore, a great pleasure to report that Robert S. Wistrich has successfully overcome this failing of his predecessors. Wistrich's impressive new work, grounded in a prodigious amount of research in European archives and libraries, elucidates the attitudes of German and Austrian socialists toward the Jewish question in the period ending with 1914 by examining the contexts within which these attitudes were formed. His work contains extended discussions of the distinctive characteristics of the Jewish communities and antisemitic movements of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and of the ways in which these factors help explain the range of Social-Democratic perspectives on the Jewish question. Wistrich demonstrates that German socialists tended to defend the civil rights of Jews in the early 1880s and that they did so out of a sense of self-interest. German socialists of that era believed that political antisemitism was linked to anti-socialism and therefore spoke out against the antisemitic movement in order to defend themselves. In the 1890s, however, some German socialists also emphasized those

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features of the antisemitic movement which (so they believed) would ultimately lead antisemites into the socialist camp. This belief in a potentially positive byproduct of political antisemitism combined with a firm conviction that the antisemitic movement was doomed to eventual failure led German social democracy to underestimate the seriousness of the antisemitic movement. The SPD also tended to underestimate the potential of Jewish national sentiment and to overestimate the factors leading toward assimilation. Because it believed that assimilation was both inevitable and progressive, the mainstream of German socialism was harshly critical of Zionism. The position of Austrian social democracy toward the Jewish question was frequently more ambivalent than was that of its sister party in Germany. Faced with a populist antisemitic movement, Austrian social democracy responded by insisting that it was equally opposed to both "philo-" and antisemitism. Whereas the German socialists of the 1880s believed that the antisemites were their bitterest opponents, Austrian Social-Democrats of that era directed their strongest attacks against liberals, among whom individual Jews were very prominent. Wistrich's study is persuasive, well written and well organized. However, I do not fully agree with his assessment of the attitudes of a number of the most prominent Marxist theoreticians. Wistrich argues, for example, that "the most important" of the factors which led Engels to modify his perspective on the Jewish question was "the danger which the radical anti-semitic movements posed to the German and Austrian Labour Parties" (p. 34). However, Engels did not see these movements as posing a serious danger. A letter by Engels to Eduard Bernstein written in 1881, for example, contains the prediction that the antisemitic movement would deflate and fall "upon command from above, like a pierced pig's bladder." Twelve years later, in a letter to Rudolf Meyer, Engels confidently asserted that the economically troubled peasants and artisans would come to social democracy "by way of the detour of anti-Semitism." Engels did reassess his views on the Jewish question. It does not appear to be the case, however, that the most important factor leading him to do so was concern with the danger which the antisemites posed to the SocialDemocrats . Wistrich asserts that "assimilationist internationalism with regard to the Jewish national problem was to be the consistent response of the SPD before 1914 . . . socialist theoreticians like Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg, though divided on many issues, were unanimous on this point" (p. 143). In making this assertion, Professor Wistrich gives undue stress to what was really only an apparent unanimity. The differences among the three major theoreticians of the German Socialist movement in the era of the Second International included different attitudes toward the issues of Jewish assimilation and Jewish nationalism. These differences are far more revealing than are the similarities among their positions on these questions. Eduard Bernstein exhibited some degree of sympathy for the Zionist cause as early as 1902. "If I had any Jewish feeling," Bernstein is said to have declared to Chaim Wei/mann, "I would be a Zionist. Perhaps it will come." After meeting with Bernstein, Weizmann noted that the socialist was "on the road to Zionism" and that he had agreed to "write against the assimilationists" for a proposed Zionist

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periodical. Weizmann's hopes may have distorted his assessment of Bernstein's perspective. Nevertheless, it is clear that Bernstein had friendly contact with Zionists even in the pre-First World War era. Kautsky, while extremely critical of Zionism, was unusually sympathetic toward the Jewish Workers Bund, and remained sympathetic to it even when the Bund demanded national rights for the Jews of the Russian Empire. Kautsky hoped that East European Jewry would eventually assimilate, but he also believed that it would do so only after it had gained the freedom to develop its own culture. Luxemburg, on the other hand, not only disdained the Zionist movement, but also developed a comparable disdain for the Bund once it had developed its national program. Wistrich implies that Kautsky and Luxemburg had similar positions on the Bund (p. 145). In fact, Kautsky exhibited far more understanding for the Bund's need to work for Jewish national rights than did Luxemburg. The similarities among Bernstein, Kautsky and Luxemburg on assimilationism and internationalism actually mask deep and important differences in their perspectives on these issues—differences which are indicative of, and which help explain, the gulfs separating their respective views on the road to socialism. My differences with Wistrich on these points notwithstanding, this book demonstrates his vast knowledge and scholarship. It is a perceptive and much-needed contribution to an ongoing debate and will richly reward all those who read it. JACK JACOBS John Jay College, The City University of New York

Nathan Yanai, Mashberim politiim be-yisrael: tekufal Ben-Gurion. Jerusalem: Keter Publishing Co., 1982. Nathan Yanai discerns five political crises during the period from the birth of the State of Israel until the late seventies: the establishment of the state, the "Lavon Affair," the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War and the 1977 elections. Here, he chooses to deal thoroughly and in great detail with only the first two listed, of which the first is actually a doubled-headed crisis that focuses on two events: the Altalena affair and the disbanding of the headquarters of Palmach. Yanai believes that it is legitimate to designate these events "crises" since they were serious threats to the political structure of the new state. His definition of a political crisis is an event "which shapes and organizes" the political framework (pp. 7-8), and thus the change which it brings about is to a great degree irreversible. In effect, it obligates the political framework "to react in the form of an unprecedented (from the point of view of this framework) acclimatization to conditions, which in itself causes or accelerates changes in the political structure" (p. 8). In order to analyze the data he has collected, Yanai differentiates between "acute disrupting crises," which necessitate immediate action, and "continuous disrupting crises (postponed and recurring)."

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The first double crisis dealt with the transition from a non-sovereign to a sovereign society. The most dangerous aspect was the Altalena affair. This was a serious challenge to the authority of the political leadership to make decisions and enforce them within the legal framework of a sovereign state. For the Irgun (Irgun Zvai Leumi flZLJ) it was a crisis resulting from lack of experience with legal political action. As Yanai sees it, the IZL "tried to stretch the limits of pre-state politics into the period of statehood" (p. 36). As for the second component in the crisis of the first years of statehood, Yanai correctly views the disbanding of the Palmach as a calculated move on the part, of Ben-Gurion to achieve two purposes. The first was to isolate the Palmach from particularistic power groups within the defense forces of the pre-state Jewish community which had turned into oppositionary power groups during the formative period of early statehood. Ben-Gurion's second objective was to enhance the professionalism of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and organize it along rational and hierarchical lines. Yanai points to an interesting paradox—that there was much in common between the Irgun's attitude to the Altalena affair and Mapam's position in relation to the disbanding of the Palmach general staff. Both groups acted in accordance with the pre-state political tradition, and in this connection their actions are defined as "anticrisis." Ben-Gurion, on the other hand, wanted a quick break with the political framework of the pre-state Jewish community. In other words, by initiating structural crises, Ben-Gurion wanted to speed up the revolutionary process, which he was able to do by resorting to the privileges inherent in the government of a sovereign state: enforcement of the law and application of sanctions against its transgressors. Yanai's analysis of these two transitional crises enables him to build a model of the "revolutionary party leader" of which Ben-Gurion is the prototype, in comparison to the "traditional party leader" such as Sharett or Eshkol. The first type is characterized by personal authoritative leadership, which initiates crises and controversies, sets objectives and establishes new procedures. The second type is characterized by collective and stable leadership, which courts and appeases groups holding different points of view, and thus has a calming and uniting effect. These two types of leadership are different not only in style but also in ideology. In his confrontations with opponents outside Mapai and rivals within its ranks, BenGurion used ideological arguments, placing statehood(mamlakhtiuf)squarealy against "political movement oriented" standards. The "statehood" ideology is characterized by placing full and undivided sovereignty in the state and by refusing to compromise with particularistic groups; it stands for de-politicization of all services provided by the state, negates the segmentation of the party system and gives priority to general national considerations over particularistic ones. The Alaffair and the disbanding of the Palmach directly influenced the political balance of power in Israel. The foremost result was the establishment of Mapai as the dominant political party for many years to come. The second crisis was the "Lavon Affair," which had far-reaching repercussions on the Israeli political scene. The most noticeable influences here, according to Yanai, were the growing role of personalities in the political process, the growing power of the news media and, of course, the undermining of Mapai's dominant position.

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In an appendix to his volume, Yanai draws up an analytical model for a comparative analysis of political crises. In the model he compares three "affairs," those linked with the names of Dreyfus, Lavon and Watergate. The comparative model illustrates both the many positive contributions of his books, as well as a certain weakness. Yanai's major contribution is not in any new historical evidence but in the reorganization of the historical data in order to give them a new analytical and theoretical dimension. This is no simple task, and Yanai has been successful. His volume is a most interesting combination of structural and historical research. However, the author is at times too committed to his conclusion that the political crises—whether they were of an acute or more continuous nature—severed the old political order from the new. Yanai is undoubtedly convinced that they were a catalyst in this process. However, from today's historical perspective, it would appear that the break with the past was a much slower process. Moreover, it seems ever more evident that the trend is closer to that tradition. MOSHE LlSSAK

The Hebrew University

Partial List of Recently Completed Doctoral Dissertations

RoberAbelsperheolog984 "A Support Group for Parents of Intermarried Jewish Children" Ilan Avisar Indiana University, 1983 "The Aesthetics and Politics of the Holocaust Film" Betty Lynn Segal Burdige Harvard University, 1983 "Reflective Thinking and Pro-social Awareness: Adolescents Face the Holocaust and Themselves" Yosef Ben-Arzi Hebrew University, 1984/85 "Tikhnun ve-hitpat'hut ha-maarakh ha-fizi she! ha-moshavot ha-'ivriot bes882-"Planning and Development of the Physical Infrastructure of the Jewish Colonies in Erez Israel, 1882-1914") Bruce Lawrence Berg Syracuse University, 1983 "Jewish Identity: Subjective Declarations or Objective Life Styles" Ronnie Ann Frankel Blakeney Harvard University, 1984 "Prejudice or Discordance? The Cross-racial Moral Reasoning of Jews and Blacks" Philip Vilas Bohlman University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1984 "The Musical Culture of Central European Jewish Immigrants to Israel" Aviva Lynn Dekel George Peabody College for Teachers of Vanderbilt University, 1984 "The Idea of the Jewish University" Judith Doneson Hebrew University, 1985 "'Ha-sho'ah be-seratim amerikanim" ("The Holocaust in American Film") Yigal Drori Tel-Aviv University, 1983-84 "Ha-hugim ha-ezrahiim ba-yishuv ha-erezyisraeli bi-shnot ha-esrim" ("The Middle Classes in Erez Israel Jewry in the 1920s") Itzhak Emanuel University of San Francisco, 1983 "The Bureau of Jewish Education of San Francisco, Marin County, and the Peninsula, in the State of California: The Effectiveness of Implementation of Goals, 1977-82" Saundra Sterlipsteinniversnnsylvania, "A Needs Assessment Approach to Curriculum Development in Jewish Education" Robert Andrew Everett Columbia University, 1983 "James Parkes: Historian and Theologian of Jewish-Christian Relations" 339

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Recent Dissertations

Christopher James Frost Boston University, 1984 "Some Issues of Approach and Method Involved in Relating Psychological and Religious Studies, as Exemplified in a Study of Elie Wiesel and His Hasidic Masters" David Galbraith Hebrew University, 1984-85 "Ha-umot ha-me'uhadot ve-hafsakat esh be-sikhsukh ha-'aravi yisraeli, 1947-1949" ("The UN and the Ceasefire in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 19471949") Yaakov Geller Tel-Aviv University, 1983-84 "Irgun ha-kehilot ha-yehudiot be-romaniah ha-yeshanah bein shtei milhamot ha-'olam, 1919-1941("The Organization of Romania's Jewish Communities Between the Two World Wars, 1919-1941") Janet Marita Gnall Drew University, 1983 "Will Herberg, Jewish Theologian: A Biblical-Existential Approach to Religion" Jay Bernhard Goldberg Drake University, 1983 "The Transmittal of the Trauma of the Holocaust to Survivor Children and American Jewish Children" YosefGovrin Hebrew University, 1984-85 "Yahasei yisrael-brit ha-mo'azot, 1956-1967" ("Israel-Soviet Relations, 1956-1967") Yizhak Grinberg Tel-Aviv University, 1985 "Mi-hevrat 'ovdim le-meshek 'ovdim. Hitpat'hut ra'ayon hevrat ha-'ovdim ba-shanim, 1920-1929" ("From Workers' Society to Workers' Economy: Development of the Workers Corporation Idea, 1920-1929") Avraham Hayim Tel-Aviv University, 1985 "Hanhagat ha-sefaradim be-yerushalayim ve-yehasehah 'im ha-mosdot hamerkaziim shel ha-yishuv bi-tekufat ha-shilton ha-briti, 1917—1948" ("The Sefardi Leadership in Jerusalem and Its Relations with the Central Institutions of the Yishuv During the Mandate, 1917-1948") Judith Whitman Hochnian Temple University, 1984 "An Exploratory Investigation into the Nature of the Adult Years in the Life Cycle of a Selected Group of Married Jewish Women" Jack Lester Jacobs Columbia University, 1983 "Kautsky on the Jewish Question" Yosef Katz Hebrew University, 1984-85 "Ha-pe'ilut ha-hityashvutit be-erez yisrael shel ha-agudot veha-hevrot hayehudiot" ("Settlement Activity in Erez Israel of Jewish Societies and Organizations") Aharon Kedar Hebrew University, 1984-85 "Hitpat'huto ha-politit veha-ra'ayonit shel ha-kibm ha-me'uhad, 19331942" ("Political and Ideological Development of the Kibbutz Meuhad, 1933-1942") Philip Joseph Kipust Yeshiva University, 1983 "Moral Development and Self-Concept of Hasidic Adolescent Boys and Girls"

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341

Josef Korazim Columbia University, 1983 "Israeli Families in New York City: Utilization of Social Services, Unmet Needs and Policy Implications" Neil Jeffrey Kressel Harvard University, 1983 "American Public Opinion and Mass Media Coverage of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948-1982" Helen Goldkorn Lichtman Yeshiva University, 1983 "Children of Survivors of the Nazi Holocaust: A Personality Study" Robin G. Lowin California School of Professional Psychology, San Diego, 1983 "Cross-generational Transmission of Pathology in Jewish Families of Holocaust Survivors" Victor Leifson Ludlow Brandeis University, 1984 "Bernhard Felsenthal: Quest for Zion (Illinois)" Trude Maurer University of Tubingen, 1985 "Ostjuden in Deutschland, 1918-1933" Arlene Adrian Miller Boston University School of Medicine, 1983 "An Exploration of Ethnicity in Marriages Between White Anglo-Saxon Protestants and Jewish Americans" Mordechai Naor Tel-Aviv University, 1985 "Pinhas Sapir (bi-tekufat ha-shanim 1930-1949): le-behinat darko shel manhig me-ha~ramah ha-mekomit le-le'umit, 'ai rek'a ha-hitpat'hut ha-politit veha-kalkalit shel ha-yishuv be-shanim eilu" ("Pinhas Sapir During the 19301949 Period: A Leader's Progress from the Local to the National Echelon") Christy Marie Newman Boston College, 1984 "A Legal History of Collective Bargaining in Private Higher Education" Efraim Ofir Hebrew University, 1985 "Ha-tenu'ah ha-ziyonit be-romaniah bi-tekufat milhemet ha-'olam hashniyah" ("The Zionist Movement in Romania During the Second World War") Noah Orian Tel-Aviv University, 1983-84 "Manhiguto shel ha-rav Abba Hillel Silver be-zirah ha yehudit amerikanit, 1938-1949" ("The Leadership Role of Abba Hillel Silver in American Jewish Affairs, 1938-1949") Fran Klein Parker Saybrook Institute, 1983 "Dominant Attitudes of Adult Children of Holocaust Survivors Toward Their Parents" Tamar Pelleg-Sani U.S. International University, 1984 "Personality of the 'Jewish Mother': Realities Behind the Myth" Nathan Polen Boston University, 1983 "Eodeshe Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymos Shapiro in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1939-1943" Dina Porat Tel-Aviv University 1983-84 "Helkah shel hanhalat ha-sokhnut be-yerushaluyim ba-maamazim le-hazalat yehudei eiropah be-shanim, 1942-1945" ("The Role of the Jewish Agency Leadership in Jerusalem in Efforts to Rescue European Jewry, 1942-1945")

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Heidi Miriam Rabben Boston University, 1984 "Buber and Hegel on Religion and Society" David S. Ribner Columbia University, 1983 "Divorce in the Traditional Jewish Community" Susan Linda Rose Ohio University, 1983 "Adaptive Behavior and Coping Among Children of Holocaust Survivors: A Controlled Comparative Investigation" Robert Copeland Rowland University of Kansas, 1983 "The Rhetoric of Menachem Begin: The Myth of Redemption Through Return" Nana Sagi Hebrew University, 1984-85 "Teguvot ha-zibur ha-yehudi be-vritaniah le-redifot ha-yehudim ba-reich hashlishi be-re'i ha-'itonut ha-yehudit be-vritaniah ba-shanim, 1930-1939" ("British Jewry's Response to Anti-Jewish Persecutions in the Third Reich as Reflected in the Anglo-Jewish Press, 1930-1939") Amy L. Sales Boston University, 1984 "Pattern of Community Contact and Immigrant Adjustment: A Study of the Soviet Jews in Boston" Jack Michael Saul Boston University, 1983 "Jewish Ethnic Identity and Psychological Adjustment in Old Age" Richard Ira Schachet Princeton Theological Seminary, 1984 "Rabbis Who Have Left the Pulpit: An Exploration of Attitudes and Alternatives" Laura Anker Schwartz State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1984 "Immigrant Voices from Home, Work, and Community: Women and Family in the Migration Process, 1890-1938" Avraham Shapira Tel-Aviv University, 1983-84 "Mivnim dualiim be-hagDual Structures in the Thought of Martin Buber") Lore Shelley The Fielding Institute, 1983 "Jewish Holocaust Survivors' Attitudes Toward Contemporary Beliefs About Themselves" Gerald Lee Showstack Brandeis University, 1983 "The Jewishness of Reform Jews: Structural and Cultural Correlates of Ethnicity" David Philip Shuldiner University of California Los Angeles, 1984 "Of Moses and Marx: Folk Ideology Within the Jewish Labor Movement in the United States" Rosalind Myra Ribner Silberman Temple University, 1983 "Teacher Expectations of Jewish Afternoon School Principals: Role Responsibilities, Relationships and Decision-Making" Vivian Alpert Thompson Emory University, 1983 "A Mission in Art: Recent Holocaust Works in America" Lester Irwin Vogel George Washington University, 1984 "Zion as Place and Past: An American Myth: Ottoman Palestine in the American Mind Perceived Through Protestant Consciousness and Experience"

Recent Dissertations

343

James Edward Young University of California, Santa Cruz, 1983 "Writing and Re-writing the Holocaust: Essays on the Nature of Holocaust Literature and its Critical Interpretation" Yaakov Zur Tel-Aviv University, 1983-84 "Ha-ortodoksiah ha-yehudil be-germaniah ve-yahasah la-hitargenut hayehudit ule-ziyonut, 1896-1911" ("Jewish Orthodoxy in Germany and Its Attitude Toward Jewish Communal Organizations and Zionism, 1896-1911")

STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY

JEWRY

IV 1987 Edited by Jonathan Frankel

Symposium— War and Revolution (1914-21): Jewish Reactions to the European Crisis Jonathan Frankel, "An Introductory Essay-Jhe Paradoxical Politics of Marginality: Thoughts on the Jewish Situation During the Years 1914-21" Steven J. Zipperstein,"The Politics of Relief: The Transformation of Russian-Jewish Communal Life During the First World War" Donald L. Niewyk, "The German Jews in Revolution and Revolt, 1918-19" Jack Jacobs, "On German Socialists and German Jews: Kautsky, Bernstein and Their Reception, 1914-22" William McCagg, Jr., "On Habsburg Jewry and Its Disappearance" Sharman Kadish, " The Letter of the Ten': Bolsheviks and British Jews" Ephraim Sicher, " 'The Jewish Cossack': Isaac Babel in the First Red Cavalry" Gershon C. Bacon, "The Poznanski Affair of 1921: Kehillah Politics and the Internal Political Realignment of Polish Jewry" Anita Shapira," 'Black Night—White Snow': Attitudes of the Palestinian Labor Movement to the Russian Revolution, 1919-29" 344

Studies in Contemporary Jewry345 Essays Dov Levin, on Lithuanian-Jewish refugees in the USSR during the Holocaust Charles S. Liebman, on "revisionist" sociology and American-Jewish life Gary A. Tobin, on antisemitism in America in Jews' and non-Jews' eyes Menahem Brinker, on Yosef Haim Brenner Neil Caplan, on Zionist visions of the future in the early 1930s Gideon Aran, on the Six-Day War and the development of Gush Emunim Steven Aschheim, on the "German Sonderweg" historians and their critics . . . Plus reviews and a listing of recent doctoral dissertations

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