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Fighting for Rights: Conscription and Jewish Emancipation

Derek J. Penslar

in Jews and the Military: A History

This chapter illustrates the context in which western and central European armies took form and how Jews were included in them. The issue of military service played a major role in eighteenth- and ... More

This chapter illustrates the context in which western and central European armies took form and how Jews were included in them. The issue of military service played a major role in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century debates about the emancipation of Jews. In the early 1700s, Protestant Hebraists and Enlightenment thinkers reconceived the position of Jews in European society by presenting Jews as capable of martial valor and so deserving of civil rights. In the late eighteenth century, new conceptions of the meliorability of humanity led to the introduction of conscription for all men, including Jews. Proponents of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) paid considerable attention to the issue of military service, especially after the introduction of mass conscription in France during the revolutionary wars. In the German lands, early nineteenth-century advocates of Jewish emancipation urged Jewish youth to volunteer to fight against Napoleonic France.Less

Jabotinsky Encounters Polish Jewish Youth

Daniel Kupfert Heller

in Jabotinsky's Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism

This chapter details Vladimir Jabotinsky's first encounter with Polish Jewish youth, during a last-ditch effort in 1927 to gain supporters for his political organization, the Union of Revisionist ... More

This chapter details Vladimir Jabotinsky's first encounter with Polish Jewish youth, during a last-ditch effort in 1927 to gain supporters for his political organization, the Union of Revisionist Zionists. He initially viewed the Polish Jews flocking to greet him at train stations with a mix of pity, disdain, and suspicion. Little did he know that they would transform his very understanding of Revisionism's mission and the tools required to bring him to power. The chapter then describes how members of several Jewish youth movements in Poland helped to convince the Revisionist leader to turn the celebration of militarism and the rejection of socialism into core components of his organization's program. Culminating with the founding of Poland's Betar youth movement at the end of 1927, it reveals how Polish Jewish youth were not merely the passive recipients of ideology imposed “from above” but played an active role in shaping the political beliefs and behaviors they adopted.Less

Introduction

Daniel Kupfert Heller

in Jabotinsky's Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism

This introductory chapter provides a background of the Betar youth movement in Poland in the 1930s. Like dozens of Zionist youth movements operating in the country at the time, Betar promised to ... More

This introductory chapter provides a background of the Betar youth movement in Poland in the 1930s. Like dozens of Zionist youth movements operating in the country at the time, Betar promised to prepare its members for a new life in the Yishuv—the Jewish community of prestate Palestine—by providing vocational training, Hebrew classes, and lessons in Jewish history. What set Betar apart was its commitment to the military training of Jewish youth, as well as its support of several prominent policies of the European Right. They deemed rifles, not ploughs or shovels, to be the most important tools to fulfill Zionism's goals. Like the vast majority of Zionist activists between the two world wars, Betar's leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, sought to capture the hearts and minds of Jews living in Poland. His Union of Revisionist Zionists, founded in 1925, would go on to become one of the most popular Zionist organizations in the interwar period.Less

Rescuing “Endangered Youth”: Youth Welfare and the Project of Bourgeois Social Reform

in Germans into Jews: Remaking the Jewish Social Body in the Weimar Republic

This chapter takes as a case study the pupils who were incarcerated and subjected to strict regimes of discipline at two institutions created specifically for “endangered” Jewish youth: the boys' ... More

This chapter takes as a case study the pupils who were incarcerated and subjected to strict regimes of discipline at two institutions created specifically for “endangered” Jewish youth: the boys' home at Repzin (which later moved to Wolzig) and the girls' home at Köpenick. It compares the gender- and class-specific social norms that determined how the violations committed by girls and boys were defined, and how their “social therapy” aimed at bringing about their investment in middle-class norms and ideals. Though the institutions were Jewish, the goals for the rehabilitation of these young people were virtually identical to those of non-Jewish youth welfare programs: the creation of economically and socially productive members of society.Less

Trauma and Transference: War Orphans Shape a New Jewish Nation

in Germans into Jews: Remaking the Jewish Social Body in the Weimar Republic

This chapter focuses on several youth-welfare experiments that were designed to transform a traumatized orphan population into the cadre of a new Jewish nation. In contrast to the goals of ... More

This chapter focuses on several youth-welfare experiments that were designed to transform a traumatized orphan population into the cadre of a new Jewish nation. In contrast to the goals of correctional education, which aimed to make “endangered youths” into useful members of German, middle-class society, the programs discussed sought to transform Jewish society itself. Jewish educators, most significantly Siegfried Bernfeld and Siegfried Lehmann, consciously positioned themselves outside the rubric of the Jewish communal welfare establishment, and were deeply influenced by the youth movement and a radical spirit of communitarianism. Employing psychoanalysis as a means to heal the psyches of troubled Jewish youth, these educators believed that the absence of emotional bonds to the family would allow orphans to fix their emotional attachments more powerfully to the Jewish Volksgemeinschaft. At the heart of these programs was the goal of socializing young Jews, in settings outside their families, in the service of the Jewish collectivity.Less

Taming the Shtetl

Daniel Kupfert Heller

in Jabotinsky's Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism

This chapter looks at the efforts of Betar's leaders in Warsaw to capture the hearts and minds of Jewish youth in provincial towns across central and eastern Poland. Armed with long-standing ... More

This chapter looks at the efforts of Betar's leaders in Warsaw to capture the hearts and minds of Jewish youth in provincial towns across central and eastern Poland. Armed with long-standing stereotypes about shtetl life, Betar leaders were certain that bringing “modernity” and “progress” to these towns would mobilize provincial youth for the Zionist cause. The chapter studies the YIVO (Yidisher visnshaftlekher institut) autobiography collection, as well as correspondence between Betar's headquarters in Warsaw and its small-town outposts, to reveal the tensions that arose between these urban activists and the young Jews they sought to transform. Providing a vivid account of Jewish life in small towns across interwar Poland, it exposes the vast gap between the ideological vision of Betar's leaders and the political beliefs and experiences of its members.Less

Acceptance and Rejection as a Source of Youth Conflict: The Case of Haifa University in a Divided Society

Rachel Hertz-Lazarowitz

in International Perspectives on Youth Conflict and Development

In Israel, the seven main universities are the most heterogeneous spaces for interaction between Arabs and Jews. With an Arab population of 20% attending alongside Jews, Haifa University is the most ... More

In Israel, the seven main universities are the most heterogeneous spaces for interaction between Arabs and Jews. With an Arab population of 20% attending alongside Jews, Haifa University is the most heterogeneous campus in Israel and thus has been a main stage for prolonged social coexistence on the one hand and consistent bitter conflicts on the other. This chapter explores how young undergraduates identifying as Arabs and Jews perceive their mutual rejection and acceptance, in the unique context of coexistence at a nationally and religiously heterogeneous university in Israel. The goal is to understand the factors that support peaceful coexistence, and those that explain the eruption of conflicts and violent behaviors on campus. It is argued that students' perceptions of coexistence are sources of conflict and harmony. In interviews where the research team asked students to speak about the full range of their positive and negative experiences as members of national groups on campus, both Arab and Jewish students highly valued “close relationships” and “cultural diversity,” while in terms of negative experiences, Arab students reported “discrimination” and “political tension,” more frequently than Jewish students, as the main processes of rejection in their lives on campus. On the basis of such findings, the chapter challenges the university to increase acceptance, and reduce rejection, on its heterogeneous campus.Less

America's National Game

Peter Levine

in To Ebbets Field: Sport and the American-Jewish Experience

This chapter examines Jewish Americans' participation in baseball games in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century. Though basketball remained the most popular participatory team sport, ... More

This chapter examines Jewish Americans' participation in baseball games in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century. Though basketball remained the most popular participatory team sport, baseball was played informally played in the streets and in more organized settings. It has always attracted its share of Jewish youth and this interest was encouraged by capitalists of leisure and social reformers.Less

Enlivening the Public Sphere: Jewish Sociability in the 1920s

Nadia Malinovich

in French and Jewish: Culture and the Politics of Identity in Early-Twentieth Century France

This chapter describes the expansion of Jewish associational life over the course of the 1920s. It talks about the growth of a whole variety of youth movements that created unprecedented ... More

This chapter describes the expansion of Jewish associational life over the course of the 1920s. It talks about the growth of a whole variety of youth movements that created unprecedented opportunities for young Jews to educate themselves about Jewish history and culture. It also examines the meaning of Jewish identity in the modern world. The chapter mentions the first national youth movement and the religiously oriented Chema Israël that aimed to provide an institutional structure of educational and recreational activities in order to transmit Judaism to future generations. It includes the Union Universelle de la Jeunesse Juive (UUJJ), which reached the height of its popularity and influence in the mid-1920s in the hope of appealing to as wide a range of Jewish youth as possible and to build bridges between different communities.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

Three Essays on Jewish Education during the Nazi Occupation

Marian Małowist

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 13: Focusing on the Holocaust and its Aftermath

This chapter presents three essays on Jewish education during the Nazi occupation. The first essay, entitled ‘The Spiritual Attitude of Jewish Youth in the Period before the Second World War and in ... More

This chapter presents three essays on Jewish education during the Nazi occupation. The first essay, entitled ‘The Spiritual Attitude of Jewish Youth in the Period before the Second World War and in the Ghetto’, discusses Jewish youth and its spiritual attitude in the pre-war period and during the war. The outbreak of war, with the traumatic bombing of Warsaw and the occupation, greatly affected the young people; they were spiritually completely unprepared for the hardships of the times. The second essay, entitled ‘Jewish High Schools in Warsaw during the War’, describes in general outlines the education of young people during the war. The third essay, entitled ‘Teaching Jewish Youth in the Warsaw Ghetto during the War, 1939–1941’, looks at the situation of Jewish secondary education during the Second World War.Less

The Entry of East European Jews into the Law between the World Wars

John Cooper

in Pride Versus Prejudice: Jewish Doctors and Lawyers in England, 1890-1990

This chapter explains why relatively few Jews from east European Jewish families joined the English legal profession before the Second World War and outlines when Jews from these immigrant families ... More

This chapter explains why relatively few Jews from east European Jewish families joined the English legal profession before the Second World War and outlines when Jews from these immigrant families did move into the law. Prior to the First World War, Jewish entrants into the solicitors' profession and the medical schools in England were confined to a small proportion of the upper and middle classes. During the First World War and into the 1920s, it appears, children of east European Jewish immigrants to England began to train as doctors in increasingly large numbers; but few became solicitors, and even fewer barristers, until the late 1920s and 1930s. Why was this? Cost was one highly significant factor. In the absence of special entrance requirements devised to suppress the number of Jewish solicitors admitted to the profession in England, there were economic rather than social barriers that impeded their entry. The chapter then looks at several factors which attracted talented Jewish youths to the legal profession.Less

’Vos Vayter?’ Graduating from Elementary School in Interwar Poland: From Personal Crisis to Cultural Turning Point

Adva Selzer

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

This chapter uses the YIVO autobiographies to examine a trauma faced by Polish Jews. It mentions families that could not afford to keep their children out of the work force indefinitely, which made ... More

This chapter uses the YIVO autobiographies to examine a trauma faced by Polish Jews. It mentions families that could not afford to keep their children out of the work force indefinitely, which made leaving school a painful rite of passage even though the public schools were free. It also introduces the way in which Jewish youth responded, such as increased participation in youth organizations and self-education through intensive reading and writing. The chapter explains how the emotional and existential crisis the youth experienced became a major driving force that left its mark on Jewish society and culture in interwar Poland. It describes the obstacles that stand in the way of young people who wish to establish their status in life and the kind of conflicts they have with their immediate and remote surroundings.Less

Transplanting the Heart Back East: Returning Jewish Musical Culture from the United States to Europe

Judah M. Cohen

in Rethinking European Jewish History

This chapter ponders the cultural significance of performances of American Jewish music and musical artists in contemporary European Jewish communities. It explains how performances of liturgical and ... More

This chapter ponders the cultural significance of performances of American Jewish music and musical artists in contemporary European Jewish communities. It explains how performances of liturgical and secular music expressing a European Jewish heritage could nourish the ongoing 'liberal Jewish renaissance' in Germany, such as the appearances of the Reform cantor Rebecca Garfein in Berlin in the late 1990s. It also mentions the 'Klezmaniacs' in Poland and Ukraine in 2000 that awoke enthusiasm among Jewish youth and resentment among their non-Jewish neighbours. The chapter demonstrates how performers were both ambassadors and pilgrims of American Jewish culture. It discusses the twentieth-century American Jewry that used sound to build bridges and facilitated a transnational Jewish exchange.Less

The Bund and the Jewish Fraction of the Polish Workers’ Party in Poland after 1945

Bożena Szaynok and Gwido Zlatkes

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 13: Focusing on the Holocaust and its Aftermath

This chapter explores the General Jewish Workers' Union, the Bund, which was established in Vilna in 1897. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Bund in the USSR was forcibly united with the Communist ... More

This chapter explores the General Jewish Workers' Union, the Bund, which was established in Vilna in 1897. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Bund in the USSR was forcibly united with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In independent Poland, the Bund by the 1930s moved to a less revolutionary and more social-democratic position and established itself as one of the principal parties on the ‘Jewish street’. It retained its basic programme of establishing ‘national-cultural’ autonomy for the Jews in Poland, once a democratic socialist state had been achieved. After the Second World War, it was also active in countries other than Poland. Although the activists of Bund chapters outside Poland supported the Polish Bund with funds, the Polish Bund remained fully independent in its work in Poland. The Bund in post-war Poland began its activity in the autumn of 1944. Like other parties, the Bund started its work in Poland by searching for its pre-war members and taking care of Jewish youth regardless of orientation.Less

“The Jewish Problem Will Be Solved as Soon as the Jews Again Become a Normal Nation” (1943)

Arthur Rosenberg

in Jewish Radicals: A Documentary History

This chapter argues that the problem of anti-Semitism can only be solved by the establishment of a Jewish homeland. This homeland can only be Palestine. Furthermore, this chapter considers arguments ... More

This chapter argues that the problem of anti-Semitism can only be solved by the establishment of a Jewish homeland. This homeland can only be Palestine. Furthermore, this chapter considers arguments regarding the Jews' right to a nation, its place in the world system, and its connections to socialism. The chapter contends that the Jews are indeed a nation, with their own language, their own culture, their own manners of life, and a separate economic and social body. Furthermore, no considerable group of Jews has ever successfully assimilated to another nation. No modern system of socialism or Communism would be able to abolish the national distinctions that exist. There is, therefore, no contradiction between the Socialist ideal of the Jewish worker and the Jewish youth and their national program.Less

Years of Growth

Alexander Altmann

in Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study

This chapter explores Moses Mendelssohn's formative years. It first takes a look at his childhood in Dessau, Germany, before tracking his early journeys to the capital city of Berlin. From there, the ... More

This chapter explores Moses Mendelssohn's formative years. It first takes a look at his childhood in Dessau, Germany, before tracking his early journeys to the capital city of Berlin. From there, the chapter explores Mendelssohn's first brushes with philosophy, including non-Jewish philosophy and theology. His philosophical undertakings matured further after his first meeting and subsequent friendship with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Both men had many things in common—and here, Lessing was able to bring out the best of Mendelssohn's talents. With Lessing, Mendelssohn was able to develop his metaphysics further before both men parted ways. From there on, Mendelssohn cultivated his philosophic leanings and steadily transformed into a bel esprit as he went on to join the “Learned Coffeehouse”—a society of scholars and artists. Finally, the chapter traces the publication of Mendelssohn's Kohelet Mussar (“Preacher of Morals”), a Hebrew weekly meant for Jewish youth.Less

Daniella Doron, Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France: Rebuilding Family and Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015. xv + 309 pp.

Richard I. Cohen (ed.)

in Place in Modern Jewish Culture and Society

This chapter reviews the book Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France: Rebuilding Family and Nation (2015), by Daniella Doron. Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France examines how the French ... More

This chapter reviews the book Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France: Rebuilding Family and Nation (2015), by Daniella Doron. Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France examines how the French Jews shifted from immediate relief and rehabilitation activities following the Holocaust to longer-term efforts aimed at establishing communal stability and unity. Doron highlights the important role played by Jewish youth in these efforts, arguing that they can serve as a lens through which to study larger concerns such as the future of Jews in France, the reconstruction of families, and ideas about national identity in the reestablished republic. Doron shows that there were competing visions for reconstruction and that hope for the future was often complicated by anxiety and an underlying sense of crisis.Less

Mystical and Modernizing Trends: Prague’s Rabbinic Culture Threatened

Sharon Flatto

in Kabbalistic Culture of Eighteenth-century Prague: Ezekiel Landau and His Contemporaries

This chapter identifies various trends and developments which threatened Prague's traditional culture during the last decades of the eighteenth century. It analyses the unique responses of Prague's ... More

This chapter identifies various trends and developments which threatened Prague's traditional culture during the last decades of the eighteenth century. It analyses the unique responses of Prague's rabbinate to the Haskalah, the increasing centralization of the Habsburg state, and Sabbatianism. It also points out the importance of the state in the transformation of Prague's traditional Jewish society, particularly its embrace of German culture and cites Joseph II's systematic policy of Germanization that reshaped several of the central community institutions. The chapter highlights state-imposed secular education that forced the rabbinic authorities to modify the curriculum offered to Prague's Jewish youth. It discusses the traditional rabbinic assertion of the primacy of Torah, which precluded the study of extra-talmudic subjects.Less