Jewish politics and Jewish political culture ( )

Transcription

1 Instructor: Laura Almagor Jewish Studies Program Central European University 2017/2018, Winter Term 2 credits Office hours: by appointment Jewish politics and Jewish political culture ( ) Course Description This course aims to broaden its students knowledge and understanding of modern Jewish political behaviour. The starting point is the premise that Jewish politics, both in Europe and the United States, during the first half of the twentieth century, encompassed more than only a one-directional path leading to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Zionism s eventual victory enabled the ascription of a normative label of failure, or marginality, to other (rival) political paths and mindsets. By exploring different Jewish political identities and actions, the course s participants will gain an increased sense of the fluidity and variety of Jewish political reality during the period under consideration. Not only will we investigate the histories of Jewish political movements such as the Jewish Labour Bund, various forms of Diaspora Nationalism, Folkism, Zionism, and Territorialism, as well as of Jewish socialist, communist, and anarchist groups and individuals, but we will also focus on less clearly organised forms of Jewish politics by looking at the connection between religion and politics, culture and politics (and culture as politics), Yiddishism, American-Jewish politics and Jewish assimilationist tendencies. We will read samples from some of the classics of Jewish political history (Frankel, Mendelsohn, Gitelman, a.o.), while leaving also ample space for an exploration of the more recent burgeoning field of post-post-zionist scholarly work (Rabinovitch, Karlip, Loeffler a.o.). Finally, numerous primary sources will be central to our seminar discussions. Learning Outcomes By the end of this course, students will be able to: understand and reflect on the diversity of Jewish political behaviour during the period studied, and to situate this picture within a broader non-jewish geopolitical context. critically assess the political and scholarly aims of existing historiography of twentieth century Jewish politics. analyse primary sources on a textual basis (discourse analysis) and connect such findings to the relevant secondary literature provided. 1

2 put forward, orally and in writing, a clearly formulated claim, supported by welldefined arguments. Course Requirements Active class participation (20%) Weekly formulation of three questions based on the readings, due by 18:00, the day before class (20%) Class presentation of one of the assigned readings (depending on the number of students: 20% or 2 x 10%) Research paper (5000 words) on a class-related topic of choice. Topic (to be discussed and approved with and by the teacher): week 3; outline due in week 7. COURSE SCHEDULE Week 1: A Lost Atlantis: An Introduction to Jewish Politics and its Scholarship David N. Myers, Politics, in Jewish History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), Ezra Mendelsohn, On Modern Jewish Politics (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993), 3-5, Michael Walzer, History and National Liberation, in Anita Shapira & Derek J. Penslar, eds., Israeli Historical Revisionism: From Left to Right (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 1-8. David N. Myers, Rethinking Sovereignty and Autonomy: New Currents in the History of Jewish Nationalism, in Transversal 13, no. 1 (2015): Paula Hyman, Was there a Jewish Politics in Western and Central Europe?, in Zvi Gitelman, ed., The Quest for Utopia: Jewish Political Ideas and Institutions Through the Ages (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1992), Joshua Shanes, Introduction, in Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2012), Ezra Mendelsohn, On Modern Jewish Politics (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993), Week 2: Diaspora Nationalism David E. Fishman, Chapter 5: Reinventing Community, in The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh UP, 2005), Joshua Karlip, Introduction, in The Tragedy of a Generation: The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism in Eastern Europe (Harvard: Harvard UP, 2013), 1-23 Simon Dubnow, Autonomism, The Basis of the National Program, in Simon Dubnow, Nationalism and History. Essays on Old and New Judaism (Koppel S. 2

3 Pinson, ed.) (Philadephia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1958), Simon Dubnow, On the Tasks of the Folkspartay, in Simon Dubnow, Nationalism and History. Essays on Old and New Judaism (Koppel S. Pinson, ed.) (Philadephia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1958), David Rechter, "A Nationalism of Small Things: Jewish Autonomy in Late Habsburg Austria," Leo Baeck Year Book 52 (2007): James Loeffler, Between Zionism and Liberalism: Oscar Janowsky and Diaspora Nationalism in America, AJS Review 34, no. 2 (November 2010), Jonathan Frankel, Chaim Zhitlovsky: Russian Populist and Jewish Socialist, , in Jonathan Frankel, Prophecy and Politics. Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981), Joshua Karlip, Conclusion, in The Tragedy of a Generation: The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism in Eastern Europe (Harvard: Harvard UP, 2013), Nathan Birnbaum, The Jewish Renaissance Movement and Jewish Autonomy, in Simon Rabinovitch, ed., Jews & Diaspora Nationalism. Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2012), Simon Dubnow, Jewish Rights Between Red and Black, in Lucy S. Dawidowicz, ed., The Golden Tradition. Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe (Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1996), Week 3: Yiddish(ism): Culture as Politics Kenneth Moss, Introduction, in Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution (Harvard: Harvard UP, 2009), Ezra Mendelsohn, The Czernowitz Conference: Context, Ironies, and the Verdict of Jewish History, in Czernowitz at 100 (2010), David E. Fishman, Preface and Chapter 7: The Judaism of Secular Yiddishists, in The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh UP, 2005), vii-x & The Kultur-Lige, The Founding Tasks of the Kultur-Lige, in Simon Rabinovitch, ed., Jews & Diaspora Nationalism. Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2012), Czernowitz Conference of the Yiddish Language (1908), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Chaim Zhitlowsky, Yiddish and the Future of American Jewry (1915) & Solomon Schechter, English and Hebrew Must Be the Languages of American Jewry (1904), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the 3

4 Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Chaim Zhitlowsky, The Jewish Factor in My Socialism, in Lucy S. Dawidowicz, ed., The Golden Tradition. Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe (Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1996), David E. Fishman, Chapter 1: The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture: an Overview, in The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh UP, 2005), Kenneth Moss, Conclusion, in Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution (Harvard: Harvard UP, 2009), Cecile E. Kuznitz, Yivo and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture: Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2014). Tony Michels, A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York (Harvard: Harvard UP, 2005). Week 4: Socialism, Communism, and Anarchism Jonathan Frankel and Dan Diner, Introduction. Jews and Communism. The Utopian Temptation, in Jonathan Frankel and Dan Diner, eds., Dark Times, Dire Decisions: Jews and Communism (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004), Ezra Mendelsohn, On Modern Jewish Politics (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993), Michael Berkowitz, Emma Goldman s Radical Trajectory: A Resilient Litvak Legacy?, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 11, no. 1 (July 2012), Jacob Lestschinsky, Jewish Autonomy, Yesterday and Today, in Simon Rabinovitch, ed., Jews & Diaspora Nationalism. Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2012), Rosa Luxemburg, No Room in my Heart for Jewish Suffering (1916), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 809. Pavel Borisovich Axelrod, Socialist Jews Confront the Pogroms, in Lucy S. Dawidowicz, ed., The Golden Tradition. Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe (Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1996), Gustav Landauer, The Beilis Trial, in Gustav Landauer, Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader (Oakland: PM Press, 2010), Jonathan Frankel, The Roots of Jewish Socialism ( ): From Populism to Cosmopolitanism, in Ezra Mendelsohn, ed., Essential Papers on Jews and the Left (New York: NYU Press, 1997), Ezra Mendelsohn, Introduction, in Ezra Mendelsohn, ed., Essential Papers on Jews and the Left (New York: NYU Press, 1997),

5 Jonathan Frankel, Chapter 3: Jewish Politics and the Russian Revolution of 1905, in Jonathan Frankel, Crisis, Revolution, and Russian Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009) Jonathan Frankel, Chapter 7: The Socialist Opposition to Zionism in Historical Perspective, in Jonathan Frankel, Crisis, Revolution, and Russian Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009), Jonathan Frankel, Conclusion, in Jonathan Frankel, Prophecy and Politics. Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981), Simon Dubnow, On the Supremacy of National Politics in the Life of an Oppressed Nationality, in Simon Dubnow, Nationalism and History. Essays on Old and New Judaism (Koppel S. Pinson, ed.) (Philadephia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1958), Ernst Simon, Der werdende Mensch und der werdende Jude: Gustav Landauer s Development as a Human Being and Jew, in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Anya Mali, eds., Gustav Landauer: Anarchist and Jew (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015), Week 5: The Jewish Labour Bund Zvi Gitelman, A Century of Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe. The Legacy of the Bund and the Zionist Movement, in Zvi Gitelman, ed., The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics. Bundism and Zionism in Eastern Europe (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh UP, 2003), Joshua D. Zimmerman, The Influence of the Polish Question on the Bund s National Program, , in Jack Jacobs, ed., Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe: The Bund at 100 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), Jonathan Frankel, Chapter 9: The Bundists in America and the Zionist Problem, in Frankel, Crisis, Revolution, and Russian Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009), Vladimir Medem, The Worldwide Jewish Nation, in Simon Rabinovitch, ed., Jews & Diaspora Nationalism. Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2012), The Bund, Decisions on the Nationality Question (1899, 1901, 1905, 1910), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3 rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Jonathan Frankel, Chapter 4: The Bund: Between Nation and Class, in Jonathan Frankel, Prophecy and Politics. Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981), Anthony Polonsky, The Bund in Polish Political Life, , in Essential Papers on Jews and the Left (1997),

6 Joshua D. Zimmerman, Poles, Jews and the Politics of Nationality. The Bund and the Polish Socialist Party in Late Tsarist Russia, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004). Week 6: Zionism Anthony Smith, Zionism and Diaspora Nationalism, Israel Affairs 2, no. 2 (Winter 1995), Shlomo Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State (New York: Basic Books, 1981), Samuel D. Kassow, The Left Poalei Tsiyon in Interwar Poland, in Zvi Gitelman, The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics. Bundism and Zionism in Eastern Europe (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh UP, 2003), Theodor Herzl, A Solution of the Jewish Question (1896), in Paul Mendes- Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Max Nordau, Jewry of Muscle (June 1903), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Ber Borochov, Program for Proletarian Zionism (1906), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Manya Shohat, Women in the Bund and Poalei Zion (1937), in Paul Mendes- Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Gideon Shimoni, The Zionist Ideology (Hanover: Brandeis UP, 1995), esp Week 7: Zionism Revisited Noam Pianko, Chapter 1: Breaking the Sovereign Mold: Nation beyond State in Modern Jewish Thought, in Zionism and the Roads Not Taken: Rawidowicz, Kaplan, Kohn (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2010), Yfaat Weiss, Central European Ethnonationalism and Zionist Binationalism, Jewish Social Studies 11, no. 1 (Fall 2004): Yitzhak Epstein, The Hidden Question (August 1907), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Arthur Ruppin et al., Brith Shalom (1925), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011),

7 Simon Rawidowicz, Jerusalem and Babylon, in Simon Rabinovitch, ed., Jews & Diaspora Nationalism. Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2012), Hagit Lavsky, German Zionists and the Emergence of Brit Shalom, in Jehuda Reinharz and Anita Shapira, eds., Essential Papers on Zionism (New York: NYU Press, 1996), Dimitry Shumsky, Brith Shalom s Uniqueness Reconsidered: Hans Kohn and Autonomist Zionism, Jewish History 25 (2011), Zohar Maor, Moderation from Right to Left: The Hidden Roots of Brit Shalom, Jewish Social Studies 19, no. 2 (Winter 2013): Simon Rawidowicz, Preface and Jewish Existence: The End and the Endless, par. 11, in State of Israel, Diaspora and Jewish Continuity: Essays on the Ever- Dying People (Brandeis UP, 1998), 9-12, Simon Rawidowicz, Two that are One, in State of Israel, Diaspora and Jewish Continuity: Essays on the Ever-Dying People (Brandeis UP, 1998), Simon Dubnow, Reality and Fantasy in Zionism, in Simon Dubnow, Nationalism and History. Essays on Old and New Judaism (Koppel S. Pinson, ed.) (Philadephia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1958), Week 8: The Jewish Territorialist Movement Gur Alroey, Zionism without Zion? Territorialist Ideology and the Zionist Movement, , Jewish Social Studies 18, no. 1 (Fall 2011): Adam Rovner, In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands before Israel (New York: NYU Press, 2014), Israel Zangwill, The Jewish Territorial Organization (1905), in Paul Mendes- Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Isaac N. Steinberg, On the Anniversary of an Idea, Yavneh or Jerusalem? & The Mountain Peaks, all in Willy Birkenmaier, ed., Isaak Steinberg in London und New York (Heidelberg: Russica Palatina 40, 2002), 62-4, , Gur Alroey, Zionism without Zion. The Jewish Territorial Organization and its Conflict with the Zionist Organization (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2016). Laura Almagor, A Territory, but not a State. The Territorialists Visions for a Jewish Future after the Shoah ( ), S:I.M.O.N. Shoah: Intervention. Methods, Documentation 4, no. 1 (2017): Theodor Herzl, The Uganda Plan (1903), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011),

8 Israel Zangwill, Territorialism as Practical Politics [1913], in Maurice Simon, Speeches Articles and Letters of Israel Zangwill (London: The Soncino Press, 1937), Week 9: American-Jewish Politics James Loeffler, Nationalism without a Nation?: On the Invisibility of American Jewish Politics, Jewish Quarterly Review 105, no. 3 (Summer 2015): Daniel Soyer, Transnationalism and Mutual Influence. American and East European Jewries in the 1920s and 1930s, in Jeremy Cohen and Moshe Rosman, eds., Rethinking European Jewish History (Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2009), Mordecai Kaplan, The Future of Judaism, in Simon Rabinovitch, ed., Jews & Diaspora Nationalism. Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2012), Judah Magnes, A Republic of Nationalities (February 13, 1909), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Louis Marshall, The American Jewish Committee (January 12, 1906), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Forverts, The International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the American Labor Movement (1920), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 543. Ezra Mendelsohn, On Modern Jewish Politics (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993), Jonathan Frankel, Class War and Community: the Socialists in American-Jewish Politics, , in Jonathan Frankel, Prophecy and Politics. Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981), Lederhendler, Democracy and Assimilation: The Jews, America, and the Russian Crisis from Kishinev to the End of World War I in Stefani Hoffman and Ezra Mendelsohn, eds., The Revolution of 1905 and Russia s Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), Arthur Liebman, The Ties than Bind: Jewish support for the Left in the United States, in Ezra Mendelsohn, ed., Essential Papers on Jews and the Left (New York: NYU Press, 1997), The American Jewish Conference (January 1943), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011),

9 Week 10: Religion and Jewish Politics Yosef Salmon, Tradition and Nationalism, in Jehuda Reinharz and Anita Shapira, eds., Essential Papers on Zionism (New York: NYU Press, 1996), Gershon Bacon, Imitation, Rejection, Cooperation. Agudat Yisrael and the Zionist Movement in Interwar Poland, in Gitelman, The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics. Bundism and Zionism in Eastern Europe (2003), The Mizrahi, Manifesto (1902), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 613. Agudat Israel, Founding Program (May 1912), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Nathan Birnbaum, Contra Zionism (1919), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Isaac Jacob Reines, The Two Lights of My Life, in Lucy S. Dawidowicz, ed., The Golden Tradition. Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe (Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1996), Avrom Golomb, What is Jewish Tradition? in Simon Rabinovitch, ed., Jews & Diaspora Nationalism. Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2012), Ezra Mendelsohn, On Modern Jewish Politics (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993), Joshua Shanes, Chapter 3: Building a Nation of Readers. The Emergence of a Yiddish Populist Press, Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2012), , esp Week 11: Assimilation(ism) / Integration Ezra Mendelsohn, On Modern Jewish Politics (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993), Benjamin Nathans, The Other Modern Jewish Politics. Integration and Modernity in Fin de Siècle Russia, in Zvi Gitelman, ed., The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics. Bundism and Zionism in Eastern Europe (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh UP, 2003), Simon Dubnow, Jews as a Spiritual (Cultural-Historical) Nation Among Political Nations, in Simon Rabinovitch, ed., Jews & Diaspora Nationalism. Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2012), 23-44, esp Otto Weininger, The Jew Must Free Himself From Jewishness (1903), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A 9

10 Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Arthur Koestler, A Valedictory Message to the Jewish People (1949), in Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, eds., The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, 3rd ed. (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), Israel Knox, Is America Exile or Home? We Must Begin to Build for Permanence, in Simon Rabinovitch, ed., Jews & Diaspora Nationalism. Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2012), Week 12: Synthesis and Conclusion Ezra Mendelsohn, On Modern Jewish Politics (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993), Chapters 5, 6 & Conclusion: Jonathan Frankel, Modern Jewish Politics East and West ( ), in Zvi Gitelman, ed., The Quest for Utopia: Jewish Political Ideas and Institutions Through the Ages (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1992),