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“Germany Belongs in the Western World”: Germany and Consensus Politics in America, 1945–1959

Brian C. Etheridge

in Enemies To Allies: Cold War Germany and American Memory

This chapter shows how coalitions formed around different understandings of Germany in the early postwar period. Once decided upon a policy of rehabilitation toward Germany, the American government ... More

This chapter shows how coalitions formed around different understandings of Germany in the early postwar period. Once decided upon a policy of rehabilitation toward Germany, the American government promoted a Cold War narrative of Germany that legitimized America's struggle against the Soviet Union. With the prestige and stature that the U.S. government enjoyed after victory in World War II, the dawning of a new ideological struggle with the Soviet Union, and a widespread fear of communist subversion, an era of consensus settled in that discouraged dissent. While some actors, such as the Federal Republic of Germany and the American Council on Germany, promoted the Cold War narrative based on their respective self-interests, major Jewish groups like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League offered their support, or at least refused to dissent, out of fear of being labeled anti-American or sympathetic to Bolshevism. The only organization that remained faithful to the world war narrative and resolved to stand against the power of the state was the Society for the Prevention of World War III. It was marginalized in the larger society and abandoned by its erstwhile allies.Less

“The Anti-German Wave”: Maintaining and Challenging Consensus in an Age of Chaos, 1959–1969

Brian C. Etheridge

in Enemies To Allies: Cold War Germany and American Memory

This chapter illustrates that during the late 1950s and early 1960s, a number of factors changed the sociopolitical landscape both abroad and at home. Although the U.S.-German relationship became ... More

This chapter illustrates that during the late 1950s and early 1960s, a number of factors changed the sociopolitical landscape both abroad and at home. Although the U.S.-German relationship became strained under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the rhetoric of Democratic administrations did not differ significantly from that of previous administrations. Especially by the middle of the 1960s, with the war in Vietnam intensifying, the civil rights movement fragmenting, and campuses in open revolt, Johnson deployed the Cold War narrative to legitimize his foreign and domestic policies. Aware of the strained relationship with the U.S. government, West German officials sought to combat what they perceived as an “anti-German wave” of material in the American mass media by intensifying their public activities. Fearful and critical of the tension between the American and West German governments, the American Council on Germany similarly sought to strengthen the alliance. The rift between the two governments, along with a series of international events that cast West Germany in a bad light, led Jewish organizations to reassess their stance toward the German Question. Still, while they became more critical, they, like the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, refrained from an open break with the West German government.Less

From Homeland to Statehood

Adam M. Howard

in Sewing the Fabric of Statehood: Garment Unions, American Labor, and the Establishment of the State of Israel

The 1939 McDonald White Paper proved calamitous for European Jews as it severely limited immigration to Palestine. This led the AFL and the recently formed CIO to pressure the British government to ... More

The 1939 McDonald White Paper proved calamitous for European Jews as it severely limited immigration to Palestine. This led the AFL and the recently formed CIO to pressure the British government to allow Jewish immigration to Palestine. The American Trade Union Council for Labor Palestine (AJTUCP) formed in 1944 so the American labor movement could speak with one voice on Palestine. Led by Max Zaritsky, the AJTUCP rallied the leadership of AFL and CIO unions as well as the leadership of both federations. By July 1945, trade union leaders hoped for relief from the White Paper’s immigration restrictions with the British Labour Party’s stunning election victory that month. However, the new government and its foreign minister, Ernest Bevin, maintained the restrictions of the predecessor Conservative government, greatly irritating U.S. labor leaders. This refusal to change course led to tremendous protests from American labor, including communist organizations such as the American Jewish Labor Council (AJLC). The International Fur and Leather Workers’ Union’s leadership, a communist led union, played a vital role in the AJLC, which protested British actions vigorously between 1946 and 1948. Ultimately, the United Nations created a special committee to investigate solutions in Palestine (UNSCOP), which led to its recommendation for the partition of Palestine in 1947. That November, the U.N. General Assembly voted for the partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.Less

Return, Relief, and Rehabilitation

David H. Weinberg

in Recovering a Voice: West European Jewry After the Holocaust

This chapter discusses the start of the relief effort for the Jews of post-war France, Belgium, and the Netherlands after the Second World War. The initial strategy devised by the American Jewish ... More

This chapter discusses the start of the relief effort for the Jews of post-war France, Belgium, and the Netherlands after the Second World War. The initial strategy devised by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and other international Jewish organizations in 1945 in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands was to leave relief efforts to others. While working to secure Jewish representation on local aid committees that had been created by Christian charities, the Red Cross, and individual political parties, they would piggyback on the numerous relief efforts that Jewish communities in the three countries had themselves established during the war or had initiated at the time of liberation. Where possible, they would also demand that national governments assist Jewish survivors. In the absence of support from private aid groups and despite their weakened condition, a variety of local Jewish community agencies did what they could to aid survivors. Ultimately, in the first two decades after the war, American and other international organizations would be only partially successful in restructuring the Jewish communities of western Europe.Less

The Battle Begins: World War I and the End of Open Immigration from Europe

Maddalena Marinari

in Unwanted: Italian and Jewish Mobilization against Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1882-1965

The first chapter examines Italian and Jewish immigrants’ efforts to oppose proposed restrictions on new immigrants from eastern and southern Europe from the passage of the 1882 Immigration Act to ... More

The first chapter examines Italian and Jewish immigrants’ efforts to oppose proposed restrictions on new immigrants from eastern and southern Europe from the passage of the 1882 Immigration Act to the adoption of a literacy test in 1917. During this critical period in the rise of the antirestrictionist movement, both groups created national advocacy organizations (American Jewish Committee and the Order Sons of Italy) to negotiate with legislators in hopes of achieving more political influence. These organizations successfully opposed the passage of a literacy test for arriving immigrants older than 16 until World War I, when organizations like the Immigration Restriction League successfully used the war to mobilize labor unions, reformers, regular Americans, and politicians from the South eager to preserve their political influence to push for the test, which Congress passed over President Wilson’s veto. War and immigration emerge as linked processes in U.S. history. Amid rampant anti-immigrant rhetoric and violence during WWI, the debate over immigration policy pitted advocates for qualitative restriction against those who advocated for quantitative restriction as the best approach to curtail immigration from eastern and southern Europe. Supporters of the literacy test won a temporary battle.Less

The Survival of Yidishkeyt: The Impact of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee on Jewish Education in Poland, 1945—1989

Anna Sommer Schneider

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 30: Jewish Education in Eastern Europe

This chapter looks at the efforts of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) that worked with and around the Polish communist state after the war. It mentions educational institutions ... More

This chapter looks at the efforts of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) that worked with and around the Polish communist state after the war. It mentions educational institutions that function within legislative and political contexts, although at times the hand of government is far heavier than others. It also highlights the frustration and creativity of Jewish educators functioning within oppressive systems. The chapter traces the evolution of JDC activities to the end of the communist period and discusses JDC's efforts on setting up professional training, creating loan organizations, and purchasing tools for artisan activity. It emphasizes how the work begun by JDC after the Second World War had an enormous impact on the development and education of Jewish youth.Less

Holocaustomania: West German Diplomats and American Holocaust Memorial Culture in the Late 1970s

Jacob S. Eder

in Holocaust Angst: The Federal Republic of Germany and American Holocaust Memory since the 1970s

This chapter offers a detailed assessment of how West German politicians and diplomats stationed in the United States perceived and reacted to a significant shift in American Holocaust discourse at ... More

This chapter offers a detailed assessment of how West German politicians and diplomats stationed in the United States perceived and reacted to a significant shift in American Holocaust discourse at the end of the 1970s. The late 1970s marked a clear turning point for the public engagement of American society with this history. West German diplomats and officials at home began to consider American Holocaust memory a long-term political and diplomatic challenge to the Federal Republic. They saw themselves confronted with the creation of an institutional infrastructure—exemplified by museums and memorials, the establishment of educational and academic programs, and the 1978 NBC miniseries Holocaust—that would permanently incorporate engagement with the Holocaust into American public, academic, and intellectual life. In addition to looking at West German reactions to American Holocaust memory, the chapter also explores the reasons for this transformation of this memory in the United States.Less

Confronting the Church (1961–1964)

Edward K. Kaplan

in Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972

This chapter focuses on the years during which Heschel was achieving national prominence as a public intellectual. Simultaneously, he was also playing a largely confidential role in a great ... More

This chapter focuses on the years during which Heschel was achieving national prominence as a public intellectual. Simultaneously, he was also playing a largely confidential role in a great international drama. As the primary theological consultant to the American Jewish Committee (AJC), he represented the interests of the Jewish people to the Second Vatican Council, popularly known as Vatican II, the epoch-making conclave convened in 1962 by Pope John XXIII to update the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and to redefine its relationship with other forms of Christianity and with non-Christian religions, especially with Judaism. Heschel felt that his mission to the Vatican was his greatest opportunity to save Jewish lives, and he began the process in 1961 as he established a close working relationship with Augustin Cardinal Bea, to whom Pope John had entrusted the future declaration on the Jews.Less

A Holocaust Syndrome?: Relations between the Federal Republic and American Jewish Organizations in the 1980s

Jacob S. Eder

in Holocaust Angst: The Federal Republic of Germany and American Holocaust Memory since the 1970s

This chapter examines the relationship between the Kohl government and the American Jewish community during the 1980s. Helmut Kohl wanted to “normalize” West Germans’ relationship to the Nazi past. ... More

This chapter examines the relationship between the Kohl government and the American Jewish community during the 1980s. Helmut Kohl wanted to “normalize” West Germans’ relationship to the Nazi past. The unprecedented boom in American Holocaust memorial culture, however, challenged such policies, especially with regard to the image of Germany abroad. The chancellor and his closest advisors personally dealt with and reacted to these issues, and they perceived relations with American Jewish organizations as a particular challenge in this context. The chapter explores some of the most contentious episodes of German–Jewish relations during the 1980s, such as the Bitburg controversy and German plans to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, but also explores how German diplomats and politicians at home dealt with American memory of the Holocaust, as well as Jewish organizations and Holocaust survivors in the United States.Less

“Guide And Motivator” or “Central Treasury”? The “Joint” in France, 1942–19441

Laura Hobson Faure

in Resisting Genocide: The Multiple Forms of Rescue

This chapter explores how the territorial level of administration influenced the rescue of Jews in France during World War II. More specifically, it examines how the American Jewish Joint ... More

This chapter explores how the territorial level of administration influenced the rescue of Jews in France during World War II. More specifically, it examines how the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC, also known as the ‘Joint’), a philanthropic organisation founded in 1914 to improve the welfare of Jews outside the United States, responded to the challenges of saving lives while maintaining political neutrality during the Shoah. It shows that the Joint's executive board in the United States wanted to remain within the confines of legality, whereas its agents at the grassroots level, especially in the person of Jules Jefroykin in France, used Joint funds to hide Jewish children and finance the Jewish resistance.Less

Flirting with the Right

Andrew Feffer

in Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism

In this chapter, the role of anti-Semitism in the Coudert probe is explored. Of the teachers and staff targeted by the investigation, a disproportionate number were Jewish, prompting critics to argue ... More

In this chapter, the role of anti-Semitism in the Coudert probe is explored. Of the teachers and staff targeted by the investigation, a disproportionate number were Jewish, prompting critics to argue that the inquiry motives were tainted by anti-Jewish bigotry. The chapter places the investigation in the context of growing racism and anti-Semitism on the streets and in the schools of the city, led by such organizations as the Christian Front and the German-American Bund.Less

‘The Extreme Non-Zionist, Apolitical Concept of Jewish Public Life’: Petitions, Human Rights, Standing, and Representation

Rotem Giladi

in Jews, Sovereignty, and International Law: Ideology and Ambivalence in Early Israeli Legal Diplomacy

Chapter 3—the second to explore the theme Voice—considers Shabtai Rosenne’s response to Hersch Lauterpacht’s reproach of Israel’s aversion to the individual right of petition. Rosenne castigated ... More

Chapter 3—the second to explore the theme Voice—considers Shabtai Rosenne’s response to Hersch Lauterpacht’s reproach of Israel’s aversion to the individual right of petition. Rosenne castigated Lauterpacht for expressing an ‘extreme non-Zionist, apolitical concept of Jewish public life and the Jewish place on the international scene’ challenging, thereby, Lauterpacht’s representative capacity and ideological credentials. The right of petition and human rights writ large were, for Rosenne, assimilationist projects. Both were premised on individual, not collective, Jewish subjecthood; both were antithetical to how Zionism constructed the legal-political status of Jews and saw the Diaspora as the root cause of the modern Jewish predicament. Moreover, by investing individual Jews with the capacity to appear before international bodies, the right of petition challenged Israel’s sovereign claim to paramount Jewish voice in the world arena; Lauterpacht’s reproach thus challenged the sovereign capacity of Rosenne and Robinson to speak for Jewish interests with authority.Less

Taking It to the Streets

in Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech

In December 1920, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) published a pamphlet, “The Protocols, Bolshevism, and the Jews,” in response to the anti-Semitic articles that appeared in Henry Ford's newspaper ... More

In December 1920, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) published a pamphlet, “The Protocols, Bolshevism, and the Jews,” in response to the anti-Semitic articles that appeared in Henry Ford's newspaper Dearborn Independent. The pamphlet generated a wave of positive publicity for AJC, which was framing the debate according to Marshall's strategy: an attack on Jewish civil rights was also an attack on American civil rights. Marshall wanted to end Ford's war on Jews by reminding Americans of the danger of violating their rights as citizens. He and his fellow Jews found allies in urban mayors and police chiefs, who relied on criminal libel laws to ban sales of the Independent on city streets. Also condemning Ford's anti-Semitism were former U.S. Presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, who signed a protest statement together with more than a hundred church leaders, politicians, artists, literary figures, and educators. This chapter examines the wave of protests generated by Ford's anti-Semitic articles and focuses on some of the prominent figures involved, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Herman Bernstein.Less

Yiddish Publishing in the Soviet Union, 1953–1991

Gennady Estraikh

in Textual Transmission in Contemporary Jewish Cultures

In the fall of 1956, a group of British Communists visited the Soviet Union. As did a number of other delegations and individual visitors of the time, they sought to examine the extent of progress of ... More

In the fall of 1956, a group of British Communists visited the Soviet Union. As did a number of other delegations and individual visitors of the time, they sought to examine the extent of progress of de-Stalinization in the political system and, in particular, to understand the status of Jews in post-Stalinist society. In their report, the delegation noted that among Jews of the older generation, including the one or two thousand who came to the Leningrad Synagogue to celebrate the festival of Simchat Torah, “the non-existence of a Yiddish paper was regarded as a deprivation and an injustice.”...Less

Lauterpacht in Jerusalem: Individual Petition and the Politics of Jewish Representation

Rotem Giladi

in Jews, Sovereignty, and International Law: Ideology and Ambivalence in Early Israeli Legal Diplomacy

This is the first of two chapters to explore the theme voice underscoring Israel’s ambivalence towards the right of petition in the draft Human Rights Covenant: the right of individuals to present ... More

This is the first of two chapters to explore the theme voice underscoring Israel’s ambivalence towards the right of petition in the draft Human Rights Covenant: the right of individuals to present grievances before the United Nations. The chapter revisits Hersch Lauterpacht’s Jerusalem lecture, delivered on the occasion of the Hebrew University’s semi-jubilee. Lauterpacht’s ‘reproach’ of Israel’s cool attitude towards the right of petition is assessed against the backdrop of his own investment in Zionism and human rights, and in light of interwar Jewish experience with the right of petition. The chapter traces the involvement of Jacob Robinson and Nathan Feinberg, Dean of the Hebrew University Law Faculty and Lauterpacht’s host, in the Bernheim petition—and their resentment of the need of Jewish national institutions to approach the League of Nations through the confines of individual legal standing. These ideological sensibilities framed Jewish representation politics before and after Israel’s establishment.Less

Document

Craig Robertson

in The Passport in America: The History of a Document

This chapter examines how the United States passport assumed an unprecedented degree of public recognition as a certificate of citizenship and a national symbol. It first considers “the passport ... More

This chapter examines how the United States passport assumed an unprecedented degree of public recognition as a certificate of citizenship and a national symbol. It first considers “the passport question,” a controversy that erupted when the American Jewish Committee waged a campaign in 1911 against a Russian policy refusing to recognize U.S. passports presented by Jews, a move that denied Jewish entry to Russia. The campaign stemmed from a 1907 decision by the Department of State not to issue passports to Jews traveling to Russia unless they had written assurance from Russian authorities that they would receive a visa. The chapter also discusses the passport as a form of correspondence between foreign officials that places greater importance on the identity of the person making the request on behalf of the bearer than the identity of the bearer. Finally, it considers the policing of the authenticity and authority of documents as reflected in the frequent changes in the appearance of national currency.Less