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NHISTORY 283 JEWISH STUDIES 235

NHISTORY 283 JEWISH STUDIES 235. JEWS IN MODERN TIMES. Syllabus. http://www.history.umd.edu/Faculty/BCooperman/Modern/283syllabus.html http://www.history.umd.edu. History 299c. Films Tuesday 4-6:30 Skinner 0200 “Birthplace” 47 minutes. How Do You Spell It?. Semitism.

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NHISTORY 283 JEWISH STUDIES 235

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  1. NHISTORY 283JEWISH STUDIES 235 JEWS IN MODERN TIMES

  2. Syllabus • http://www.history.umd.edu/Faculty/BCooperman/Modern/283syllabus.html • http://www.history.umd.edu

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

  4. How Do You Spell It?

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

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

  7. Definitions • anti-Semitism is a 19th-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

  8. (Jewish) Popular Perceptions & Scholarly Approaches • “Antisemitism” • “halakha -- Esav sonè et Yaakov” -- it is a God-given 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)

  9. Jewish Nationalisms

  10. 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

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

  12. 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

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

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

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

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

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

  18. 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)

  19. 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

  20. Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeiter Bund in Lite, Poylin und Rusland (General Worker’s Union in Lithuania, Poland and 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

  21. Aaron Lieberman • 1870s 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

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

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

  24. 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

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

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

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