BOGDAN MUSIAL AND THE QUESTION OF JEWISH RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE POGROMS IN LVIV IN THE SUMMER OF 1941

This paper demonstrates that the rescue operations that saved thousands of Jewish lives during the Holocaust were in part the result of coordination and cooperation between the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) and the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), via a network of local relief organisations in Europe and worldwide. A landmark decision in building this network was the creation in 1927 of a new agency – HICEM, an abbreviation of the names of three resettlement organisations: HIAS, an American organisation with its headquarters in New York; the Paris‐based Jewish Colonisation Association, and Emigdirect, based in Berlin. During the Nazi period, as Jews were gradually pushed out of German social and economic life, HICEM was able to connect dozens of local Jewish committees throughout the world and bring thousands of Jewish refugees to safe havens in the United States, South and Central America, the Far East and Australia. The study also shows that, despite tension between HIAS and the JDC, both organisations stood firm in their mission of rescuing Jewish refugees.     

British officialdoms and European Jewry during the 1940s

On the eve of the war in Europe, Whitehall, as part of its effort to appease the Arab states, retreated from its support of Zionism. Among other acts, Britain restricted the immigration of Jews to Palestine, which was the main potential haven for Jewish refugees during and after the war. A serious conflict evolved between the Zionists and the British over the immigration issue. British officials who dealt with the Palestine problem tended to regard the Jewish refugees as soldiers in the Zionist battle, and the illegal Jewish immigration to be solely politically motivated. Geo‐political priorities dominated the thinking of these officials, blinding them to the misery of the people involved and obstructing their consideration of the human consequences of their decisions. Anti‐Semitism as such played no meaningful role in the decision‐making process.     

Facing east: the World ORT Union and the Jewish refugee problem in Europe, 1933–38

The World Union of Societies for Promotion of Artisanal and Agricultural Work among the Jews (ORT Union) was created in Berlin in 1921 by emigrants from Russia, veterans of the Russian ORT that had been founded in St Petersburg in 1880. By 1933, the ORT Union represented a transnational association of public philanthropic organisations and maintained a large network of professional schools and vocational training courses scattered all over Eastern Europe. After the advent of the Nazis in 1933, the ORT Union managed to work out and fulfil several relief programmes directed towards the rescue of the German Jews and improving the refugee problem. The ORT leadership considered the remote Birobidzhan region in the USSR as a possible asylum for the German‐Jewish refugees and tried to organise their large‐scale resettlement there. Although, because of a considerable change in Stalin’s foreign policy in the late 1930s, this ambitious plan was not fulfilled in full measure, the efforts of the ORT Union to rescue German Jews and solve the refugee problem undoubtedly led to an expansion of its activity and created a transcontinental network of technical and agricultural training institutions. ORT’s connection to the migratory processes of this period cannot be overestimated, especially in relation to professional training, which allowed thousands of refugees to adapt in a very short time to the new socioeconomic reality in the countries of their destination. Using documentary sources preserved in archives in Russia, Britain, Germany and Israel, this article analyses the all‐embracing programmes offered by the ORT Union for ameliorating the Jewish refugee problem in Europe from 1933 until the eve of the Second World War.     

From myth to counter‐myth: The romanticization of the Eastern Jew (1880–1914)

The East European Jews (Ostjuden) played an integral role in German Jewish self‐definition. As ‘ghetto Jews’ they were living embodiments of the general pre‐modern Jewish condition and perfect foils for the creation of Jewish myths and counter‐myths, stereotypical negations and affirmations. This paper attempts to delineate the outlines of these myths and counter‐myths and to analyse the major symbolic functions which the Eastern Jews performed in the ideological world of liberal, Zionist and ‘post‐Zionist’ German Jews.     

British response to the involvement of the American Jewish joint distribution committee in illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine

Following the end of the Second World War Britain conducted a comprehensive campaign against the illegal immigration of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe to displaced persons’ camps in Germany and Austria, and to Palestine. British inquiries at the time revealed that the American Jewish philanthropic agency known as the ‘Joint’ was assisting the illegal movement. The British government failed to bring this assistance to an end. British failure in this regard was primarily a consequence of the concern of the American administration for the situation of Jewish displaced persons, an attitude which was accounted for by Washington's assessment of the political power of American Jews.     

The shtetl in the museum: representing Jews in the eras of Stalin and Putin

This article considers the representation of the shtetl in two museum narratives devoted to Jews in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. The first, the state-funded 1939 exhibit “The Jews in Tsarist Russia and the USSR” was organized by the Jewish Section of the State Museum of Ethnography in Leningrad and remained on display to the Soviet public until the Nazi invasion in June 1941. The second is the privately funded Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, which opened in 2012. Though conceived under radically different ideological and political circumstances, each exhibition conveys a significant message about the place of Jews in Soviet and post-Soviet society, respectively, and each positions the shtetl as a formative arena for Jewish civic identity vis-à-vis the Russian homeland. Across the chasm of over seventy years, these two museum projects raise strikingly similar questions about how and why cultural institutions are mobilized to define the relationship of Ashkenazi Jews and the state. In both cases, the shtetl plays a significant role in narrating this unequal relationship.     

Thanks to the Germans! Jewish cultural autonomy in interwar Estonia

The article explores the context of the Estonian law on cultural autonomy from February 1925. It argues that the Jewish minority was an unintended beneficiary of the concession granted by the Estonian government to the Baltic Germans whose land ownership had been previously revoked. Unlike the ethnic Germans, who considered cultural autonomy a tactical retreat, the Jews took full advantage of the opportunity to strengthen communal bonds. Cultural autonomy was upheld throughout the 1930s mainly due to the strenuous desire of the authoritarian regime that ceased power in Estonia in 1934 to avoid a conflict with Nazi Germany. As for the Jews, the lack of irredentist tendencies ensured that they could preserve their status.     

Refracted Visions: A Critique of “Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art”

This review essay focuses on the recent exhibition “Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art” at the Jewish Museum in New York. It asks questions about how the controversy surrounding this show shaped the way it was seen. It uses the notion of refraction to help explain why it remains so difficult for Americans and Jews alike to visualize evil in our own midst, especially after September 11, 2001. Entering into the space of the exhibition, it then demonstrates how particular works of contemporary art can make both visual and visceral the traces of Nazi aesthetics in contemporary culture.     

Toward an understanding of fundraising,philanthropy and charity in Western Zionism, 1897–1933

Although scholarship on the ‘third sector’ has successfully integrated Jewish history and the contemporary Jewish scene (including the State of Israel) into its overall agenda, the Zionist movement in Western Europe and the United States, before 1933, is largely absent. This is mainly because, almost until the present, spokespersons for the movement have denied that Zionism is a charity. It may seem obvious that Zionism relied on the tradition of Jews giving to charity, yet this fact is barely reflected in the movement's historiography. Zionism's appeals to Western-acculturated Jews show that many characteristics of Jewish philanthropic societies were essential to the life of the movement. This article explores the institutional strategies which drew on the charitable instincts of Zionism's constituents, especially the creation of the Jewish National Fund (1901) and the Palestine Foundation Fund (1921). The prominence of these bodies led to much of the success, as well as the frustrations of the movement, before the Nazi rise to power.     

Jewish response to the non-Jewish question: “Where were the Jews during the fighting?” 1941–5

ABSTRACT

The war of the USSR against Nazi Germany led to an increase of negative expressions in regard to Jews. Often members of the Soviet population accused Jews of avoiding combat, of cowardice, and of an inherent incapacity to feel patriotic toward Russia. Such a view was an adaptation of prewar anti-Jewish prejudices to war-time conditions. Some Jews, both at the front and in the rear, viewed these expressions as a sign of the emergence of an ethnic inequality that did not exist in the prewar Soviet Union. Increased Jewish sensitivity to one aspect of the theme of equality (the idea that Jews were fighting as well and as bravely as members of other ethnic groups) inclined Soviet Jews to prefer the term and concept of “Soviet” rather than those of “Russian.” The former represented for them a state of all its ethnic groups, including the Jews, while the latter appeared to reflect a priority accorded to a single ethnic group, the Russians. Anti-Jewish attitudes in the Soviet rear and, to some extent, at the front as well, was one factor that led to the reinforcement of the Soviet Jewish identity.     

‘Acapulco in the Atlantic’: Revisiting Sosúa,a Jewish Refugee Colony in the Caribbean

This article examines the foundation objectives, settlement history and ethnic relations of the tiny but idyllic Sosúa in the Dominican Republic. Sosúa was established in 1940 as the first and only Jewish agricultural colony resulting from discussions at the 1938 Evian conference in France, which unsuccessfully addressed the growing refugee displacement produced by Nazi Germany's relentless persecution of Jews and other minorities. Fleeing from the grasp of one dictator to the ostensible embrace of Hitler's Caribbean counterpart, Rafael Trujillo, Jews in the tropical settlement were celebrated as the solution to this underdeveloped, peasant-populated, mainly agricultural northern region. Yet, the lack of international, institutional and financial commitment, settler apathy for intensive labour, and feelings of cultural displacement meant that the colony never reached Trujillo's desired yet wildly unrealistic projection of 100,000 settlers. Instead, no more than 500 settlers passed through Sosúa from 1940 to 1947. Today, the town thrives as a transnational site of displaced settlers, sex tourism and itinerant labour, with its markers of Jewish ethnic and settlement history barely visible.     

THE "BANALITY OF EVIL" REFRAMED: The Social Construction of the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Problem"

Research on the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews has arguably been dominated by historians. Yet many historians remain confounded by the Holocaust's major paradox: the "banality of evil" that occurred during the Nazi regime. In this article I argue that understanding of the "banality of evil" paradox can be advanced by reframing previously unsynthesized research in terms of a constructionist theory of social problems. I view the "Jewish problem" and its "final solution" as having a "natural history" that is characterized by the development and unfolding of claims about problems and the formulation and implementation of solutions to problems. I trace the construction of the "Jew" throughout history and as it was identified, acknowledged, and applied in a particular sociocultural and political context. By providing the first application of constructionism to a genocidal event, I show that the social processes that construct genocide parallel those that construct other social problems, and that it is precisely this correspondence that makes the construction of the "Jewish problem" and its "final solution" banal.     

‘The Sunshine of Manly Sports and Pastimes’: Sport and the Integration of Jewish Refugees in Britain, 1895–1914

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Jewish refugees arriving in Great Britain were exposed to an ‘anglicisation’ campaign designed to aid their integration into British society and their assimilation of British character traits and cultural values. Within this campaign, especially the element focusing on the children of the migrants, interest and participation in sport was consciously ‘transferred’ through the medium of youth and sporting organisations in order to help in their ‘anglicisation’. This essaywill show how physical recreation was promoted by the English Jewish establishment and how participation in sport amongst young Jews grew.     

Communism and pro‐soviet feeling among the Jews of East London, 1935–45

In the 1945 general election, a Communist was elected to Parliament from Mile End, Stepney, a constituency populated in large part by working‐class Jews of East European origin. Pro‐Soviet feeling in the preceding decade was strong, and was translated into ideological and political activity on behalf of the USSR by various East London branches of trade unions; friendly societies such as the Arbeter Ring (Workers’ Circle); Yiddishist groups, and popular front organizations such as the Jewish Fund for Soviet Russia. In late 1943 two prominent Soviet Jewish emissaries, Itzik Feffer and Shloime Mikhoels, visited England. Among their hosts were the Jewish organizations of Stepney. The effects of their tour, and the emotional intensity with which East London Jews followed the course of the Russo‐German war, were instrumental in creating the climate of opinion enabling the CP to post its 1945 victory.     

Jews in Belorussia's judicial system, 1944–1953

The relationship and cultural transfer between Jews and Belorussians are still rather unexplored topics. This article aims at analysing a historical process neglected by the historians of both the Jewish people and the Soviet Union: the “Belorussianisation” of the Jewish people in the interwar period. It proposes to scrutinise the impact of the nationalities policy on the crystallisation of a Belorussian‐Jewish identity. On the one hand, it is obvious that Belorussian leading political figures, influenced by Jewish intellectuals, proved to be very favourable to the development of the Jewish culture and to a Jewish‐Belorussian rapprochement. On the other hand, this study suggests that the achievements of the Soviet nationalities policy with regard to the “Belorussianisation” of Jews were ambiguous. In the three fields studied – education, scholarship and art – the results appeared to be mitigated and paradoxical. The “indigenisation” policy led to a separation of the Jewish and Belorussian educational system but stimulated the flourishing of a joined Belorussian‐Jewish scholarship. In contrast, the most profound and fruitful encounter between the Jewish and Belorussian cultures occurred in a domain, the visual arts, where the Belorussian government did not set a clear policy of rapprochement.     

Verfolgungsnetzwerke

In the literature, the power structures during the rule of National Socialism are characterized as a more or less uncoordinated mix of administrative bodies, which often worked parallel to or even against each other. This structure has been widely labeled as “Polycracy” or even as “Organized Chaos”. It is yet unknown, however, whether these characteristics intensified or mitigated the persecution of the Jewish population in Europe under Nazi rule. Also, an operationalization of the “Polycracy” concept and a subsequent measurement of these specific features of Nazi rule has yet to be done. In the article, the structure of the Nazi government and persecution apparatus is operationalized through division of labor and differentiation of power applying the network concept. These structural characteristics are then measured using quantitative network analysis. This is demonstrated by presenting the case of the persecution of “converted Jews” in the Netherlands from summer 1942 to spring 1943. In the conclusion, the potential of network analysis for holocaust research and the implications of the findings for the overarching questions in this research area are discussed.     

Russian Jews in exile from Bolshevik Russia: the case of Lev Shestov as an example of Russian‐Jewish existential compromise

Lev Shestov (born Leib Jehuda Shvartsman in Kiev in 1866) was a product of his times and entangled cultural roots. His destiny became closely related to the Russian Diaspora in Europe (he fled Bolshevik Russia in 1920). He was also linked to the local (especially French and German) intellectual life. However, being a Jew made Shestov stand out from the purely Russian emigration, for although he connected himself first and foremost with Russian culture, he could not be integrated without reservations into the purely Russian Diaspora. On the other hand mapping him in relation to the diverse Russian‐Jewish émigré milieu in Europe is not a straightforward task because his attitude to his Jewish roots was rather ambivalent. The case of self‐identification, in varying degrees, was similarly ambiguous with many Russian Jews who left Russia after the revolution. Shestov’s activities in emigration were diverse. Apart from teaching he published regularly in the outlets of the émigré press as well as in major French literary journals and gave lectures in Germany (in particular, addressing such different audiences as the Union of Russian Jews and the Nietzschean Society). In brief, his way of coping with the experience of exile was to become a multicultural conductor of sorts. This article aims to analyse Shestov’s life path in the framework of the Russian‐Jewish Diaspora in Europe at the time in the context of both cultural and ethnic repudiation and appropriation. This in turn should shed some new light on the cultural life of this Diaspora.     

National Minority, National Mentality, and Communal Ethnicity: Changes in Ethnic Identity of Former Soviet Union Jewish Emigrants on the Israeli Kibbutz

In this paper we examine and compare the ethnic identity of the Jews in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and the process of change in ethnic identity among the new immigrants from the FSU. This analysis considers the role of the kibbutz as the first experience of Jewish community in their lives, as well as the location of the first phase of their process of absorption and resocialization into new and unfamiliar surroundings. The data are drawn through a longitudinal research design, with a pre‐ and post‐analysis of changes in the ethnicity of migrants studied from their arrival on the Israeli kibbutz until the completion of the five‐month kibbutz programme. We found that pre‐migration Soviet Jews defined their ethnicity as a discriminated national minority with a weak symbolic ethnicity content. The ambivalent nature of the ethnicity of Jews while in the FSU was expressed in the fact that although a majority were deculturized from traditional dimensions of Jewish life, they nevertheless felt they belonged to a specific ethnic group. Post‐migration ethnicity was found to be remarkably altered; the former ambivalence was dissolved. On the macro‐level, membership in the economically and politically successful Russian‐speaking group of Israeli society is a source of self esteem, rather than a sign of shameful otherness. On the micro‐level of ethnicity, the encounter in the initial phase of absorption in Israel, within the kibbutz Jewish community, often demands a re‐examination of their private concept of Jewishness, serving as a first step in resolving their ambivalent ethnic identity. Consequently, their new ethnic identity may now well have weaker boundaries, but a more positive (non‐alienating) content than that left behind.     

Foreigners and Outsiders: Exclusionist Attitudes towards Labour Migrants in Israel

This paper examines theoretical propositions regarding the social mechanisms that produce hostility and discriminatory attitudes towards out‐group populations. Specifically, we compare the effect of perceptions of socio‐economic and national threats, social contact and prejudice on social distance expressed towards labour migrants. To do so, we examine exclusionary views held by majority and minority groups (Jews and Arabs) towards non‐Jewish labour migrants in Israel. Data analysis is based on a survey of the adult Israeli population based on a stratified sample of 1,342 respondents, conducted in Israel in 2007. Altogether, our results show that Israelis (both Jews and Arabs) are resistant to accepting and integrating foreigners into Israeli society. Among Jews, this is because the incorporation of non‐Jews challenges the definition of Israel as a Jewish state and poses a threat to the homogeneity of the nation. Among Arabs, this is probably due to threat and competition over resources. The meanings of the findings are discussed within the unique ethno‐national context of Israeli society and in light of sociological theories on ethnic exclusionism.