NHISTORY 283 JEWISH STUDIES 235 JEWS IN MODERN

NHISTORY 283 JEWISH STUDIES 235 JEWS IN MODERN TIMES

Syllabus • http: //www. history. umd. edu/Faculty/BCoop erman/Modern/283 syllabus. html • http: //www. history. umd. edu

History 299 c Films Tuesday 4 -6: 30 Skinner 0200 “Birthplace” 47 minutes

How Do You Spell It?

Semitism • 19 th-century linguistic term: Semitic • linked to ethnography -- description is generalized into categorization • predictable patterns of behavior • hierarchies of ethnicities • pro- and anti-

Racial Argumentation • linked to arguments for race defining nation – what other categories were available? • Darwinism/Social Darwinism • determined nature of “scientific” racism

Definitions • anti-Semitism is a 19 th-cen. terminological invention linked to categories of “scientific” anthropology and physiology that are activated by romanticist nationalist arguments of the period • easily adapted for other tasks and easily absorbs earlier anti-Jewish rhetorics

(Jewish) Popular Perceptions & Scholarly Approaches • “Antisemitism” • “halakha -- Esav sonè et Yaakov” -- it is a Godgiven principle that gentiles hate Jews • this turns anti-Semitism into a meta-historical explanatory force instead of a historically bound pattern of meaning and action • is Slezkine anti-Semitic? (generalized categories; content vs function)

Jewish Nationalisms

Continuity or Rupture? • nationalism is a modern idea linked to the emergence of the centralized political state • has the power to impose identity • has the need to do so • why? • an (almost) exclusive legitimizing rhetoric

Suggested Reading • Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (1983) • Eric Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition (1983) • Bernard Lewis, History Remembered, Recovered, and Invented (1975)

Role of Secularization • powerful rhetoric adopted in reaction to the secularization of the Jewish experience • co-optation of religious terminology • note the changing attitude of the Orthodox

Multiple Forms • Diaspora Nationalism – historical: Simon Dubnow – socialist: Bund • Zionism political: Herzl cultural: Ahad ha-Am (Asher Ginzberg) Zionism wins. When and why?

The Jewish Problem • physical, economic, legal, political, • elephants!! • need/craving for self-definition and selfexpression

Diaspora Nationalism • late 19 th and early 20 th centuries – attempts to define minority rights within multinational empires – nations are defined where none had existed before – criteria: language, faith, land – fall back on subjective values like common culture and common destiny

Jewish Minority Rights • Versailles following W. W. I • Jews given cultural autonomy and representation in many countries from Greece to Poland

Diaspora Nationalism • give up claim to independent state in return for national status

Simon Dubnow • Jewish people evolved from racial-ethnic to territorial-political to cultural-historical • the last spiritual stage does not need the trappings of a state like land, language, and sovereignty • the nation must redefine itself now thru secular institutions • error of religious reformers to define the group religiously • Volkspartei (People’s Party)

Bund • Jewish socialists highly Russified • aim to escape particularism and parochialism • young socialists are shocked by popular anti -Semitism and its acceptance by the left – (“socialism of the masses”) • Jewish masses suspicious of assimilationists • Jewish interests are separate

• Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeiter Bund in Lite, Poylin und Rusland (General Worker’s Union in Lithuania, Poland Russia) • est. 1897 Russia • as with most modernizing movements in the East, it is associated with Vilna and Lithuania and then spreads • reaction to decline of old Jewish craft guilds

Aaron Lieberman • 1870 s begins to spread Marxism in Yiddish • tension between internationalism of socialism and of these Jews and their Jewish orientation • Russian language gives way to Yiddish 1890 -95 • recognition of separate interests and political needs

Bund and Nationalism • • • relations with other socialist organizations cooptation Polish Bund 1914 Yiddishist movement Cy. SHO schools

Zionism • • • precursors religious messianism Moses Hess -- Rome and Jerusalem 1862 romanticism solution to split identity Theodore Herzl

Hovevei Tziyon & Bilu • organized help for settlers • impact of pogroms on migration -- 1872; 1881 • Leon Pinsker, Auto-Emancipation! (1882) – territorialism • BILU • First Aliya (1882 -1903) – Alliance Israelite Universelle; Rothschild

Herzl • • Dreyfus trial 1896 Jewish State 1896 First Zionist Congress 1897 in Basle Israel Zangwill, territorialism

Spiritual Zionism • Smolenskin • Ahad Ha’Am (Asher Ginzburg)