Good writers,bad Jews: the “Jewish Question” among Hungarian Jewish intellectuals of the interwar period

This paper investigates the perceived place of the Jewish writer in interwar Hungarian Jewish literature. Post-World War I Hungary suffered from the effects of a short-lived communist regime, and the Trianon Treaty by losing two-thirds of its territories and more than half of its population. Though previously Jewish communities had thrived in the country, these events caused resentment that manifested itself in the creation of anti-Semitic laws in 1920. Within this new context, assimilated liberal young Jewish writers posed the question of “what is a Jew,” reflecting on their Jewishness and Hungarianness at the same time and pondering about the value of each. They answered the question in their creative works, where they indirectly explored issues such as whether Jews are able to write Hungarian novels or whether only a Hungarian can do so; whether Jewish Hungarians could write Hungarian Jewish novels; whether Hungarianness and Jewishness are compatible or whether writing literature is preconditioned on identity. Through the lens of Aladár Komlós, this paper examines the way in which liberal and assimilated young Hungarian Jewish writers interpreted their place in Hungarian culture and society within the framework of these questions.     

Health Impact of Jewish Religious Observance in the USA: Findings from the 2000–01 National Jewish Population Survey

Using data from the 2000–01 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS) (N = 5,148), effects of eight religious measures were investigated in relation to two health outcomes, standard single-item indicators of self-rated health and presence of an activity-limiting health condition. Seven of the religious measures were associated bivariately with one or both health indicators. Through two-step OLS regression of each health indicator onto all of the religious measures, adjusting for age and other sociodemographic correlates, two measures of synagogue involvement remained statistically significant. Follow-up analysis revealed a net health impact of religious observance primarily limited to Orthodox and Conservative Jews.     

“A new and modern golden age of Jewish culture”: shaping the cultural politics of transnational Jewish antifascism

The Holocaust and a worldwide Jewish enthusiasm and support for the Red Army’s defeat of the German Army on the Eastern Front led to a greater sense of international Jewish consciousness and solidarity often tied to an antifascist politics. Utilizing a transnational lens, I explore how Jewish antifascists of the immediate post-war period proffered a novel cultural politics as a means of addressing ongoing international issues of post-Holocaust Jewish survival in a dangerous and politically uncertain modernity. I examine three Jewish left magazines of the late 1940s that were involved in a loose international antifascist progressive Jewish network and ideological framework. These magazines Jewish Life (USA), New Life (UK) and Unity (Australia) represented similar antifascist politics and cultural outlooks in the USA, Britain and Australia, respectively. They have received little sustained scholarly attention previously. I analyse their vision of diverse multilingual Jewish cultures which were to be promoted and developed in any country where Jews lived and in whatever language they spoke. Their cultural vision represented antifascist values against bourgeois or nationalist Jewish culture and broadly reflected a pro-Soviet, progressive and Jewish internationalist, Popular Front politics and worldview.     

Rassenschande,Genocide and the Reproductive Jewish Body: examining the use of rape and sexualized violence against Jewish women during the Holocaust?

Rape and sexual violence against Jewish women is a relatively unexplored area of investigation. This article adds to the scant literature on this topic. It asks: how and why did women's reproductive bodies (gender), combined with their status as Jews (race), make them particularly vulnerable during the Holocaust? The law against Rassenschande (racial defilement) prohibited sexual relations between Aryans and non-Aryans. Yet, Jewish women were raped by German men. Providing a more nuanced account than is provided by the dehumanization thesis, this article argues that women were targeted precisely because of their Jewishness and their reproductive capabilities. In addition, this piece proposes that the genocidal attack on women's bodies in the form of rape (subsequently leading to the murder of impregnated women) and sexualized violence (forced abortions and forced sterilizations) must be interpreted as an attack on an essentialized group: woman-as-Jew.     

The memory of Topoľčany: the relationship of the Jewish inhabitants of Topoľčany after the tragedy of the “Topoľčany pogrom”

The aim of this article is to discuss the town of Topo??any in Slovakia and present the memories and testimonies of the Jewish (and non-Jewish) population about the incident known as “The pogrom of Topo??any.” The topic on which this article will be primarily focused is the relationship and attitude of the former Jewish inhabitants of Topo??any now living far away towards the town after the tragedies that affected it. Moreover, I want to comment on the problematics of “home.” The main questions are how the Jews of Topo??any perceive their birthplace 70 years after the pogrom; how the tragedy has influenced their relationship to Topo??any and its inhabitants; what has changed since then and what has not.     

Jewish Education Around the Time of the New Testament (100 bce‐100 ce)

This article looks at the evidence for the Jewish system of education around the time of the New Testament (100 bce‐100 ce). The purpose of this article is to help educate readers of the New Testament, and the Gospels in particular, to enable them to improve their understanding of the educational background of that day. Its methodology is to compare the rabbinic literature with New Testament materials to see if there are correlations. As such, it refutes the notion that the New Testament personalities were ‘simple folk’ and that Jesus was ‘uneducated’ (cf. John 7: 15). This article also demonstrates how the life of Paul in Acts and his letters correspond to what is known of Jewish education in the 1st century CE. In addition, Matthew and Stephen are used to demonstrate their training as midrashics and thus the education system of their day. The overall desired effect of this article is to demonstrate the moral and spiritual value of religious education in the academy, schools and church.     

“A new book in Jewish affairs begins”: Maurice de Hirsch and the waning power of Jewish philanthropy at the Fin-de-Siècle

This article looks at Jewish responses to the death of the banker, railroad entrepreneur, and philanthropist Maurice de Hirsch in 1896, the same year that Theodor Herzl published his Jewish State. Examining printed eulogies and obituaries that appeared in Jewish newspapers, from Eastern Europe to France, and from Germany to the Ottoman Empire, the article demonstrates how contemporaries understood the passing of Baron Hirsch as the end of a golden age of Jewish philanthropy. While they celebrated the legacy of the late benefactor, the leaders of Jewish public opinion across Europe realized that the challenges that began to undermine the liberal order established in the century of emancipation were calling for a political response that philanthropy could no longer offer.     

Languages of the Jewish communities in Polish Silesia (1922–1939)

Polish Silesia, between 1922 and 1939 was the locus for a model confrontation between three distinct cultural groups of Central European Jews: Jews assimilated to German language and culture, traditional, Yiddish speaking, Orthodox Jews, and still other Jews assimilated to cultures that competed with the originally dominant German one: in the case of Upper Silesia, Polish culture. The linguistic changes these groups experienced are indicative of cultural assimilation and change. All three groups had to respond to a significant emigration of German oriented Jews in the early 1920s, the immigration of Jews assimilated to Polish culture and Yiddish speakers coming from the former Polish Kingdom and Galicia, and an increase in Polish anti-Semitic propaganda in Upper Silesia. A fourth factor was the growing distancing between these Jews and the German state and its direct cultural influences, especially after 1933. A first, and most visible, result of these factors was a rapid rise in declarations of the use of Polish language matched by a rapid fall in declared Germanophones. Initially these declarations were politically motivated: the number declaring Polish its language exceeded by far the actual number of Polish-speakers. By the late 1930s, however, the change was real. Silesian Jews had become essentially Polish speakers, and, on occasion, they had adopted other Polish cultural forms as well. Change of language is thus an important signifier of broader cultural change. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

An Atlantic Jewish republic of letters?

Atlantic port Jews began publishing English-language periodicals, pamphlets, and books during the 1840s as a means to advance an enlightened, observant form of Judaism, identified in large part with Sephardic rather than Ashkenazic religious culture and history. Three of their Jewish periodicals, the Voice of Jacob, edited by Jacob Franklin, Morris Raphall and David Aron de Sola and published in London, the Occident and American Jewish Advocate, edited by Isaac Leeser and published in Philadelphia, and the First Fruits of the West, edited by Moses N. Nathan and Lewis Ashenheim, and published in Kingston, Jamaica, provide historical evidence of the persistence of Atlantic port Jewish networks of commerce, communication, kinship and community well into the Victorian era. Publishing in a non-Jewish vernacular, and printing almost entirely in a non-Hebrew alphabet, this new “Atlantic Jewish republic of letters” did not however represent a secularizing trend. Rhetorically, ancient Jewish wisdom was invoked as the foundation, not the antithesis, of progress. The primary forces against which these editors, authors, and translators were reacting were religious, not secular in nature, namely Christian proselytizing and Jewish religious reform. Their self-conscious, programmatic activities led to the establishment of new kinds of enlightened religious educational institutions. Taken together, these phenomena constituted an Atlantic haskalah. I offer here my deep thanks and appreciation to Jonathan Karp, David Ruderman, Lois Dubin, and Kenneth Stow for their close readings and criticisms of earlier versions of this paper.     

The destiny of an unacknowledged trauma: the deferred retroactive effect of après-coup in the hidden Jewish children of wartime Belgium

For almost 45 years, the experience of Jewish children who were hidden during World War II was considered to be of little importance, particularly with respect to what had taken place in the concentration camps. Their very history was ignored in the many accounts of the Holocaust. It was only at the end of the 1980s that their experience began to be thought of as potentially traumatic. In this paper, the authors report on their psychoanalytical research project concerning the psychological outcomes of those experiences that had remained concealed for such an extraordinarily long latency period. The results are based on the analysis of 60 accounts and on psychoanalytically-oriented group work. The authors show that the trauma experienced by those hidden children was triggered by the retroactive effect of a deferred action [après-coup].     

Replenishing the “Fountain of Judaism”: Traditionalist Jewish Education in Interwar Poland

The unexpected revitalization of Polish Jewish traditionalism—Hasidic and non-Hasidic—is particularly visible in the realm of education. During the interwar period, a combined influx of pious refugees from the Soviet Union and generous American Jewish philanthropy bolstered traditionalist Jewish elementary schools (hadarim) and yeshivot. At the same time, traditionalists reformed those hitherto sacrosanct institutions in hopes of competing with emergent secularist Jewish movements while preserving an ostensibly authentic cultural core. Polish Jewish traditionalism was subtly transformed in the process, presenting a striking contrast with its more rigid “ultra-Orthodox” counterpart in neighboring Hungary and offering a viable alternative to secularist Jewish subcultures within Poland. This article highlights the surprising durability and flexibility of Poland’s traditionalist Jewish communities during a period usually conceived as one of secularist Jewish growth and traditionalist decline.     

How do Jewish teachings relate to beliefs about depression in the strictly orthodox Jewish community?

The aim of this study was to explore whether and, if so, how Jewish teachings influence strictly orthodox Jewish beliefs about depression. The rabbinic literature was searched for Jewish teachings relevant to depression. Ten consenting strictly orthodox Jews were purposively selected and interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule focussing on their beliefs about causes of and treatments for depression. Thematic analysis was used to analyse transcribed interviews and explore relationships between community beliefs and the Jewish teachings identified in the review. The key themes in both the rabbinic literature and the community included the overriding importance in Judaism of preserving life, using appropriate, acceptable means to do so, and obligations to help others. Contrasts between rabbinic teachings and community beliefs included community concerns about stigma, generally lacking in the rabbinic literature, and greater rabbinic emphasis on spiritual exertion in dealing with depression. Findings could prove useful to those managing depressed, orthodox Jews.     

Jewish politics and the press: The ``reception' of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (1860)

The article is a case-study that examines the way in which theJewish press in Europe and North America reacted to the establishment ofthe Alliance. Given that the mid-nineteenth century is often regarded as ahigh point in the development of the integrationist ideology among themodernizing sections of European Jewry, the creation of the Alliance wasbound to create controversy. Its stated goal was to create ``a link, asolidarity from country to country embracing in its vast network all that isJewish'' – an aspiration that could obviously be interpreted as runningcounter to what is often termed the emancipationist ``bargain'' orcontract. Moreover, its overt appeal to the values of the Frenchrevolution and to ``universal reason'' were hardly calculated to appeal tothe Orthodox camp within the Jewish world; and, likewise, could wellhave rendered the entire subject untouchable in the autocratic Habsburgand Romanov empires. In reality, though, the foundation of the Alliance was generallywelcomed in the Jewish press, with particular enthusiasm beingdemonstrated not only by the journals in France but also by those inRussia. The English-language press in both Britain and the United Statesreacted more soberly (was there not a danger of over-centralisation anddomination from Paris?), but it still welcomed the initiative. Majorcriticism, though, came from the German-language journals of LudwigPhilippson in Saxony and David Einhorn in Baltimore, who both warnedthat such an international political organization would inevitably inflameGentile fears of a ``secret pact'' directed by the Jews againstChristendom. This opposition, in turn, met with a vigorous response onthe pages of other journals, demonstrating to what an extent by 1860 theJewish press, newly established in many countries, had come to constitutea forum spanning linguistic and geographic frontiers.     

Narratives or Sources? Active Learning and the Teaching of Ancient Jewish History and Texts

During my career, I have regularly taught a survey course on the history of Jews and Judaism in the Persian, Greek, and early Roman periods (ca. 520 BCE – 70 CE). Student performance in the course has long concerned and puzzled me. By the end of the course students demonstrated familiarity with the narratives and concepts we covered, but most did not really “think historically.” They had great difficulties using and applying the historical tools they learned to new situations and evidence. In 2006 and again in 2010 I overhauled the course not only to improve it, but also to figure out how my students learned history. Using a wiki exercise, I traced how students learned and then applied these insights the next time I taught the course. In this essay I report on what I learned.     

Relief and rehabilitation of Jewish DPs after the Shoah: the Hachsharot in Italy (1945–48)

In the aftermath of the Second World War, thousands of Jewish DPs reached Italy on their way to Palestine or other countries and received assistance by UNRRA and other organizations. Many joined the hachsharot that were established all over the country between 1945 and 1948. This article analyses the differences between UNRRA and the Joint in providing relief and rehabilitation to the DPs and the role of hachsharot, discussing to what extent they provided better opportunities for rehabilitation compared to DP camps.     

The impact of implicitly and explicitly primed ingroup–outgroup categorization on the evaluation of others pain: The case of the Jewish–Arab conflict

Despite the automaticity of affective sharing, many studies have documented the role of top-down effects, such as social categorization, on people’s empathic responses. An important question, largely ignored in previous research, concerns empathy to ingroup and outgroup members’ pain in the contexts of ongoing intergroup conflict. In the present study we examined how implicit and explicit ethnic social categorization of others affects empathy to pain in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. To meet this aim, we assessed the evaluation of pain by Jewish and Arab participants who viewed a series of visual stimuli depicting painful and non-painful familiar situations. The stimuli were associated with explicitly or implicitly primed typical names depicting ingroup, neutral outgroup, and adversary outgroup members. Results demonstrate that pain ratings in the explicit priming condition provide support for the ingroup empathy hypothesis, positing that empathy is higher for ingroup than for outgroup members for both Jews and Palestinian Arabs. Conversely, when the targets’ categories are primed implicitly, results revealed difference in empathy by the two ethnic groups where an ingroup bias was detected only for Palestinian Arabs. This suggests that the activation of ingroup bias on the subliminal implicit level among Palestinian Arab participants might be mediated by the amount of conflict permeating in their daily lives and by deeply rooted cultural values and behavioural patterns.     

Freud's Jewish identity,circumcision, and the theory of castration anxiety: problem or pride?

In this work the author reflects on the Jewish identity of Sigmund Freud. It is acknowledged that Freud, even though he seemed ambivalent towards Jewishness and even though anti-Semitism was omnipresent, not necessarily perceived his Jewish identity as problematic. Rather, it seems as if Freud had a positive Jewish identity, which was connected to profound knowledge in Jewish religion and tradition, even though he declared himself as a Godless Jew. Both his Jewish identity and his knowledge in Judaism seemed to have contributed to some of his insights into the human psyche. The impact of the traditional Jewish circumcision and the insights connected to the theory of castration anxiety are specifically discussed. The author suggests that Freud's positive Jewish identity, and the significance of circumcision, contributed to his insights into the prerequisites of human development and how we as individuals are shaped both by our interpersonal relationships and by the cultural context.     

Does identification predict community involvement? Exploring consequences of social identification among the Jewish minority in Poland

Previous research indicated that people who strongly identify with their own group are more involved in the group's actions. The current study examines the relation between three dimensions of group identification (affect, ties, centrality) and forms of community involvement among members of the Jewish minority in Poland. The strength of ingroup ties predicted involvement in the ethnic minority community. The link between identification and involvement was mediated by the cultural dominance. The reported study was the first quantitative survey of the Jewish community in post‐War Poland. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.