Jews and the State: Dangerous Alliances and the Perils of Privilege

337 Pages·2004·1.19 MB·English

by  Ezra Mendelsohn

Jews and the State:
Dangerous Alliances and
the Perils of Privilege
Ezra Mendelsohn,
Editor
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
STUDIES IN
CONTEMPORARY
JEWRY
The publication of
Studies in Contemporary Jewry
has been made possible through the generous assistance
of the Samuel and Althea Stroum Philanthropic Fund,
Seattle, Washington
THE AVRAHAM HARMAN INSTITUTE
OF CONTEMPORARY JEWRY
THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY
OF JERUSALEM
JEWS AND THE STATE
Dangerous Alliances
and the Perils of Privilege
STUDIES IN
CONTEMPORARY
JEWRY
AN ANNUAL
XIX
2003
Edited by Ezra Mendelsohn
Published for the Institute by
1
1
Oxford New York
Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai
Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi
São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto
Copyright ©2003 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 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.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jews and the state : dangerous alliances and the perils of privilege /
edited by Ezra Mendelsohn.
p. cm.—(Studies in contemporary Jewry, ISSN 0740-8625 ; 19)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-19-517087-3
1. Jews—Europe—Politics and government 2. Jews—Legal status, laws,
etc.—Europe—History. 3. Europe—Ethnic relations.
I. Mendelsohn, Ezra. II. Series.
DS102.95.J47 2004
909(cid:1).04924 s—dc22
[909(cid:1).0492408] 2003058031
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARYJEWRY
Editors
Jonathan Frankel
Eli Lederhendler
Peter Y. Medding
Ezra Mendelsohn
Institute Editorial Board
Michel Abitbol, Mordecai Altshuler, Haim Avni, David Bankier, Avraham Bargil,
Yehuda Bauer, Daniel Blatman, Sergio DellaPergola, Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, Allon
Gal, Nitza Genuth, Moshe Goodman, Yisrael Gutman, Anat Helman, Menahem
Kaufman, Israel Kolatt, Hagit Lavsky, Pnina Morag-Talmon, Dalia Ofer, Uzi Rebhun,
Gideon Shimoni
Managing Editors
Laurie E. Fialkoff
Hannah Levinsky-Koevary
International Advisory and Review Board
Chimen Abramsky (University College, London); Abraham Ascher (City University of New
York); Arnold Band (University of California, Los Angeles); Doris Bensimon (Université de
la Sorbonne Nouvelle); Bernard Blumenkrantz (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique);
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); Paula Hyman (Yale University); Lionel Kochan (Oxford
University); David Landes (Harvard University); Seymour Martin Lipset (George Mason
University); Heinz-Dietrich Löwe (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität); Michael Meyer (Hebrew
Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati); Alan Mintz (Jewish Theological
Seminary of America); Gerard Nahon (Centre Universitaire d’Études Juives); F. Raphaël
(Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg); Jehuda Reinharz (Brandeis University);
Monika Richarz (Germania Judaica, Kölner Bibliothek zur Geschichte des deutschen
Judentums); Ismar Schorsch (Jewish Theological Seminary of America); Michael Walzer
(Institute for Advanced Study); Bernard Wasserstein (University of Chicago); Ruth Wisse
(Harvard University).
This page intentionally left blank
Preface
It was once common to think of Jewish history as a morbid tale of persecution, mis-
ery, and martyrdom. As Shylock famously said, “Sufferance is the badge of all our
tribe,” and over the centuries many Jews and non-Jews alike have tended to agree
with Shakespeare’s Jewish villain. As is well known, the great Jewish historian Salo
Baron chastised his 19th-century predecessor, Heinrich Graetz, for having written a
history of the Jews that was characterized by “suffering and tears.”
The new Jewish history produced in Israel and in the West is, of course, far re-
moved from the “Leidensgeschichte” of Graetz. Still, in recent years, the persecution
of the Jews, and the various modern manifestations of antisemitism, have been the
subject of more scholarly and popular works (not to mention memoirs and fictional
accounts) than has any other aspect of modern Jewish history—a result, obviously,
of the unprecendented catastrophe that befell European Jewry during the Second
World War.
As against this old/new emphasis on Jewish suffering the symposium in this vol-
ume of Studies in Contemporary Jewrytakes up the problem of Jewish privilege. In
certain places and at certain times in the modern Jewish diaspora, the Jewish com-
munity either enjoyed a privileged position in society or was believed to enjoy such
a status by elements among the non-Jewish majority. It was often the case that Jews
allied themselves, or were thought to be allying themselves, with regimes (usually
states, but sometimes local authorities in regions that enjoyed a certain degree of au-
tonomy) that were regarded by many as highly oppressive. Of the eight case studies
that constitute our symposium, two involve Jewish “alliances” (if that is what they
were) with openly racist regimes (South Africa and the American South in the era of
apartheid), three are concerned with the fateful Jewish support for Communist
regimes in post-Second World War East Central Europe (Hungary, Romania, and
Poland), and two analyze the relationship between Jews, the “native population,” and
the French regimes in colonial North Africa (Morocco and Algeria). The symposium
also includes an essay on the situation in the province of Quebec, where Jews found
themselves caught between the Anglican establishment and its highly attractive En-
glish culture, on the one hand, and the majority population of francophone Canadians,
on the other.
As Richard Cohen demonstrates in his introduction to the symposium, the tradi-
tion of Jews seeking the protection of the state (or, as a variation on this theme, of
powerful social classes within the state), and offering in return their full support, is
deeply rooted in the Jewish past. Were such alliances inevitable? Were they the result
of a conscious Jewish policy, and did they command the support of most members of
the Jewish community? How were they perceived by non-Jews, and what price (if
any) did the Jews pay for entering into them (a question that becomes particularly rel-
viii Preface
evant when sudden regime change occurs, as for example in the case of South Africa).
These are among the questions raised by the distinguished contributors to this vol-
ume, whose essays allow the reader to recognize both the similarities between, say,
the policies of Rabbi Moses Rosen in Romania and various rabbis in pre-Mandela
South Africa, and at the same time to realize that each case possesses its own unique
characteristics.
I wish to thank my fellow editors of Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Jonathan
Frankel, Eli Lederhendler, and Peter Medding, for their help in preparing this volume.
It is not easy to know how to thank properly our two managing editors, Laurie Fialkoff
and Hannah Levinsky-Koevary—we have run out of superlatives. Suffice it to say
that their success in overcoming innumerable difficulties (consider, to cite one such
difficulty, the issue of Hungarian accent marks) in order to produce a wonderfully
well-edited new volume each year is, in my view, nothing short of miraculous.
We wish to thank the Samuel and Althea Stroum Philanthropic Fund for its con-
tinued generous support of our journal. Publication of this volume was also assisted
by a grant from the Ben-Eli Honig Fund at theHebrew University to support Zionist
studies. Over the years we have also enjoyed the support of the Lucius N. Littauer
Foundation. Its dedicated representative, Pamela Ween Brumberg, was a good and
valued friend of our journal, and it is with deep sorrow that we record her death. We
also wish to express our sadness at the death of Charles Liebman of Bar-Ilan
University, a frequent and highly valued contributor to these pages.
E.M.