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Zionism and Jews in Czechoslovakia

Zionism and Jews in Czechoslovakia. 19th Century. Emancipation of Jews in Central and Western Europe Eastern Europe More than 5 milion lived in Russia at the end of the 19th c. – about 10 x as many as in Germany Only about 200 000 were permitted to live in bigger towns

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Zionism and Jews in Czechoslovakia

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  1. Zionism and Jews in Czechoslovakia

  2. 19th Century • Emancipation of Jews in Central and Western Europe • Eastern Europe • More than 5 milion lived in Russia at the end of the 19th c. – about 10 x as many as in Germany • Only about 200 000 were permitted to live in bigger towns • 18% of inhabitants of Warsaw – 220 000 Jews – the biggest Jewish community in Europe • 28% of inhabitants of Cracow

  3. Russia • Alexandr I – relatively liberal policy – Jews were permitted to attend public schools, buy land and settle on it • Nicholas I – painful restrictions • Alexandr II – golden age; murdered • Alexander III - expulsions and persecutions of Jews • 1870´s and 1880´s – new wave of antisemitism • Permanent pogroms : Odessa and many other places • Leo Pinsker – physician – the only cure for antisemtism is to remove the cause and to move the Jewish people to Palestine • „For the living, the Jew is a dead man; for the natives an alien and vagrant; for property holders a beggar; for the poor an exploiter and a millionaire; for patriots a man without a country; for all classes, a hated rival.“ • When discussed his views with the chief rabbi of Vienna, he was advised to take a rest in Italy and to restore his obviously shattered nerves • „Autoemancipation“ – few intelectuals influenced by his thoughts consituted the nucleus of the Zionist movements in eastern Europe in the 1890´s – crucial for Herzl • a plight forced Jews to emigrate to the West, esp. to the USA – between 1892 and 1914 about 2,5 milion Jews left Eastern Europe

  4. France • Dreyfus affaire • Zola • Bernard Lazare, 1890´s • A fervent Socialist • One of the main figures in the campaign to rehanilitate Dreyfus and later on a Zionist • Theodor Herzl sojourned here • First racist writings – pseudo-scientific theories about the existence of „higher“ Arian race and „lower“ semitic race

  5. Sionism • Jewish nationalistic movement • reaction on the racist movement • Sion = hill in Jerusalem, symbol of redemption for the Old Testament prophets • Jewish agricultural settlements founded in Palestine • Immigrants received cold and sometimes hostile reaction from the ortodox Jews of Jerusalem • Part of the Ottoman Empire – in 1893 temporarily banned the immigration of Russia Jews • Petah Tikva, Rehovot (1890) • By 1910 the settlers were owners of plantations (mainly citrus fruits) employing mainly Arab workers. Their children were send for education to France. • 1905 – new wave if immigrants

  6. Theodor Herzl • Founder of Zionism – transformed it into a mass movement and a political force • Published „The Jewish State“, 1896 • instigated by the Dreyfuss affair • Creation of a Jewish State is the only possible solution of the problem • Was only 36 years old • Begining of the modern political Zionism • Jewish question is not social of religious but national one – attacked by Vienna chief rabbi: „Jews are not a nation, the only thing they have in common is the religion and Zionism is not compatible with the teachings of Judaism.“ • Born in Budapest in 1860 • Graduated in Law in Vienna • Playwrite • Lived in Paris • 1897 – Herzl organized the 1st sionistic congress in Basel • Established the central Zionist newspaper Die Welt • Altneuland • many detailed suggestions on the look of Israel and its legal organization • Science fiction – two visitors in Palestine in 1923 when it has become a modern Jewísh state • Promoted the necessity of the strenghtening of the Jewish self-awareness and national consciousness • Hebrew became a modern language • Eliezer ben Jehuda (1858-1922) – large hebrew dictionary

  7. Palestine • Since the WWI British mandate territory • TheBalfour Declaration • 1917 • A letter from the  UK´s Foreign Secretary A.J. Balfour to Baron Rotschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of the UK. • „His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.“

  8. Czechoslovakia

  9. 1st Czechoslovak Republic • 1918-1938 • One of the few states which recognized the Jewish nationality as equal to all other nationalities in the country • Tomáš Garrique Masaryk – 1st president • Western-oriented, liberal, and moderate nationalist • Liberal democracy • Industrialised Bohemia and Moravia + less developped Slovakia and Ruthenia (Subcarpathian Rus) • 3 milion German minority – Sudetenland • Czech and Moravian Jews reformed, quit Yiddish – fruits of Haskalah • Max Brod: „In the Prague of my youth there were only a few families that were completely faithful to the Jewish tradition.“

  10. Franz Kafka • 1883-1924 • Born and lived in Prague • All his sisters murdered by Nazis in concentration camps • Convinced sionist – was fluent in hebrew and dreamt about the life in the land of Israel • Burried at the New Jewish Cemetery at Prague 3, Žižkov (Želivského metro stop) • Max Brod did not respect his last will and published his writings

  11. Max Brod • 1884-1968 • Leader of the Zionist federation of Bohemia – leading political force during the 1st Republic • In 1939 fled to Palestine and settled in Tel Aviv

  12. Sigmund Freud • 1856-1939 • Born in Moravia (Příbor/ Freiberg) • Lived in Vienna • Psychanalysis • Fled Nazis to London in 1938 where he died (euthanasis)

  13. Gustav Mahler • 1860-1911 • Born in Czech-Moravian highlands • Lived in Vienna and New York • Monumental symphonies

  14. Edmund Husserl • 1859 - 1938 • Born in Prostějov in Moravia • Founder of modern phenomenology • Got baptized (protestant) • Forced by Nazis to leave the university where he taught and in 1936 he had to move out of his appartment;

  15. Zionism in the Czech Lands • 1893 – Prague group Makabee : Jews are a people in their own right • 1899 – Bar Kochba – Prague Zionist group • Search for the Jewish roots • Established a Jewish Party – entered the Parliament during the 1st Republic • Poland, Hungary – political parties with antisemitic programs x not in the Czech Lands

  16. Czech Lands • Hilsner affaire • Masarykdefended with succes the Jewish victim of a false accusation from a superstitious blood libel (Polna in Moravia) • Inimaginable in Poland or Romania – openely antisemitic states – Zionism popular here only insofar it meant the mass departure of Jews from Europe • The only country with a succesful campaign against anti-Semitism • Masaryk supported Zionism and the Jewish national rights • Masaryk was as well an unusual statesman in his championing of Jewish national rights in the diaspora

  17. Slovakia • Eastern Ortodox Judaism • Part of Hungarian Jewry • Hasidic influences from Galicia • Bratislava (Poszony, Pressburg) – famous center of Ortodox Judaism • Great Yeshiva • Hatam Sofer – one of the most renowned sages of the early 19th century • Since 1867 general magyarisation • In many Jewish families the parents conversed in German while the children, who attended Hungarian schools, spoke to each other in Magyar. • Yiddish survived into the 20th century in the small towns of eastern Slovakia (influence of Galicia) • Magyarised Jews were very much disliked by the Slovak nationalists • Slovak antisemitism – close connection between Slovak nationalism and the Catholic church – Jews were identified with the social and national enemy • Proportionally Jews were more numerous in Slovakia than in the Czech lands

  18. Ruthenia (Subcarpathian Rus) • Peasant Rusyns (Ruthenians) • Hungarian landowners • East Orthodox Jewish communities • Small magyarised Jewish elite + majority yiddish speaking Jews • Hasidism was extremely influential here • Munkacs, Uzhgorod (Ungvar)

  19. Czechoslovakia • 1930: 357 000 Jews – 2% of the population • The highest proportion in Subcarpathian Rus • Bohemia – nearly 50% of all Jews lived in Prague • Subcarpathian Rus – 80% lived in shtetlekh and villages • The largest Jewish peasantry, the poorest and the most involved in physical labor of all European Jewries • Czechoslovakia – a multinational state by definition • Religious and national Jewish identity was legitimate and Jews were expected to be loyal to Czechoslovakia

  20. 1st Czechoslovak Republic • A wave of anti-Jewish feeling swept over East Central Europe immediately after the WWI • In Czechoslovakia it was felt more seriously in Slovakia and its capital, Bratislava • Economic prosperity low profile of anti-Semitism • Bohemia and Moravia – Jewish party • Main languages of young Jews were Czech and Slovak • Slovakia – anti-Zionist Orthodox party „League of Israel“ • Hasidic Munkacs (Mukačevo) rebbe in Ruthenia was hostile to Zionism and to secularizing tendencies • However a large Zionist movement like in Poland never developed here • The Jewish party did not necessarily promote the Zionist ideas

  21. The Collapse of Czechoslovakia • 1930´s – Great Depression  mass strikes • 1934 – rise of bolshevism – Gottwald: „Not Masaryk but Lenin“  escaped to Russia • 1935 – Konrad Henlein Sudeten German party won elections • Slovakia • strong influence of the Horthy´s irredentist propaganda • Anti-Czech and anti-state feeling, separatism • Growing anti-Semitism • Radical movements associated with the Catholic church and the more extreme received support from the Nazi Germany • Tiso – the Prime Minister of autonomous Slovakia, a priest • The neighbours of Czechoslovakia : antidemocratic regimes • Beck in Poland • Horthy in Hungary • Dolfuss in Austria • Hitler in the Nazi Germany

  22. The Collapse of Czechoslovakia • 1935 – Masaryk abdicated and recommended Beneš for President • 1937 – Germany added Austria („anschluss“) • GB and France did not do anything against this „family affair“ because they did not want to risk a military conflict with Hitler for the countries in the Central Europe • 1938 – Sudeten German Party was preparing a military attack of Czechoslovakia • as a result, the Czechoslovak army partially mobilzed and Germany decided to wait • Hitler spoke of protecting Germans living out of the Reich • Henlein : „We must make impossible demands that can not be satisfied“ and provoke Czechoslovak crackdown while avoiding a final agreement

  23. Munich • Chamberlain and a the French minister of Foreign Affairs decided that Sudeten will be ceded to Germany and gave an ultimate to the Czechoslovak governement • CS refused but finally has been forced to accept • 1938 – Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain and Daladier met in Munich and fully accepted German claims  Czechoslovakia was forced to cede Sudeten to Germany, a part of the territory to Poland and a part of Slovakia to Hungary

  24. The Collapse of Czechoslovakia • March 1939 Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia and a separate Slovak fascist state (in fact a Nazi protectorate)

  25. Czechoslovakia 1938-39

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