Clerks, Jews, and farmers: projects of Jewish agricultural settlement in Poland

This essay discusses the development of policies regarding Jewish agricultural settlement in the Kingdom of Poland during the first half of the nineteenth century, focusing on the gaps between legal rulings and administrative practices, as well as on declared and hidden motivations. It argues that official policy toward Jewish agricultural settlement reflected the tensions present in so many discussions of the “Jewish question” in Poland between declared ideology and subconscious phobias and stereotypes. As proponents of Enlightenment ideology, Polish liberals advocated projects meant to reform Jewish society, including productivization. At the same time, they expressed misgivings that the strengthening of Jewish society might harm Christians. The result was striking ineffectiveness, which led to repeated failures, a growing disillusionment in Jewish circles, and the failure of the reform projects themselves.     

Between vision and reality: reassessing Jewish agricultural colony projects in nineteenth century America

This article reassesses the story of agricultural colonies established by Jews, for Jews, in the USA during the nineteenth century. Well established Jews developed schemes to settle recent Jewish immigrants on the soil. These schemes were characterized by unrealistic expectations, bad planning, and, when implemented, frequent failures. Yet, Jewish agricultural colonies must be distinguished from Christian, proto-Socialist or other utopian projects. The sponsors of Jewish colonies in the USA did not strive for separation from general society. Rather, they sought to assist Jewish integration through settlement on the land. The conceptual framework of Jewish productivization in America closely echoed the discourse of emancipation in Central Europe.     

Labor and land at the start of Jewish settlement in Argentina

Studying nearly two decades of activity as reflected in materials found in the archives of the Jewish Colonization Association, this essay explores the early stages of organized Jewish agricultural settlement in Argentina. JCA directors debated the optimal size of land that could constitute an economically viable farm. The issues of non-Jewish labor and the leasing of land to non-Jews were also a concern. The JCA further promoted the ideal of settler “productivization” through farming, a goal shared by many settlers. The rising price of land, as well as shifts in national patterns of economy and agriculture, brought about significant changes in the Argentine settlement project. The JCA responded by increasing the size of allocated land, introducing animal husbandry, and by recognizing the need for hired hands at harvest time. Aided by the JCA, and despite objective and psychological obstacles, immigrants from the Russian Empire established colonies that endured for decades.     

Jewish agricultural settlement in Brazil

Jewish agricultural colonization in Brazil began in 1904 in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, supported by the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA). The JCA created the first colonies – Philippson (1904) and Quatro Irmãos (1912) – with the intention of resettling Russian Jews during the decisive years of mass immigration from the Russian empire. In 1936, the JCA administration in Brazil proposed a new project to establish a colony for German Jews in Rezende, situated in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Similar to other initiatives undertaken by the São Paulo and Paraná state governments some years before, the Rezende colony did not last long. This essay analyzes the main factors behind the disintegration of the JCA colonies, noting that, in spite of their relative failure, the colonies aided Brazil and helped change the stereotypical image of the non-productive Jew, capable of working only in commerce and finance. The main benefit from these agricultural experiments was the removal of restrictions in Brazil on Jewish immigration from Europe during the twentieth century.     

Jewish pioneers on Canada’s prairies: The Lipton Jewish agricultural colony

This article offers a detailed analysis of the forces that shaped the Lipton colony in its 50-year existence, one of several dozen attempts to establish Jewish agricultural settlement on Canada’s Western prairies. Comparing both the particularities and the common features of Lipton with those of other colonies will allow strengthening some of the commonly accepted generalizations regarding these colonies, while at the same time showing other assumptions to be questionable or even myth. * A detailed discussion of the Jewish agricultural colonies in Western Canada may be found in Yossi Katz and John C. Lehr, The Last Best West: Essays on the Historical Geography of the Canadian Prairies (Jerusalem, 1999). Other sources discussing the colonies and the reasons for their establishment and ultimate disappearance are: Louis Rosenberg, “Jewish Agriculture in Canada” YIVO Annual of Social Sciences 5 (1950), 205–215; Louis Rosenberg, Canada’s Jews: A Social and Economic Study of the Jews of Canada in the 1930s (Montreal, 1931); Abraham J. Arnold, “The Contribution of the Jews to the Opening and Development of the West” Transactions of the Manitoba Historical Society Series 3 no. 3, (Winnipeg, 1968–’69).     

The burdens of maternity: devising a demographic policy for late-renaissance Bologna

Bolognese confraternities of the late sixteenth century devised a series of charitable programs meant to make it easier for young people to marry and raise children. These included dowry savings plans, unemployment insurance, and maternity benefits. Catholic lay confraternities built their plans in part on the examples of Jewish confraternities, and their efforts at promoting mutual assistance were supported by civic authorities. Catholic clergy were more ambivalent, particularly when charitable programs were believed to take priority over cultic observances.     

Anti‐Semitism and Insensitivity Toward Jews by the Counseling Profession: A Gentile's View on the Problem and His Hope for Reconciliation—A Response to Weinrach (2002)

The purpose of this article is to suggest solutions to the problems of anti‐Semitism and insensitivity toward Jews in the counseling profession, which were discussed by S. G. Weinrach (2002). Specifically, Gentiles are urged to promote healing between Gentile and Jewish counselors by acknowledging that anti‐Semitism exists, exploring biases about Jews, learning more about Jewish history and culture, and expressing genuine appreciation for Jewish colleagues. Also, Jewish counselors are invited to assist Gentiles in these efforts by affirming the good will of potential Gentile allies. Other pressing issues the profession must address, such as clarifying the boundaries between professional duties and the expression of personal religious and political convictions, are discussed. Above all else, this article communicates hope that Jewish and Gentile counselors can achieve a reconciliation that will enhance the counseling profession.     

The study of Hebrew Bible in Israel – between love and knowledge

The Bible and its study was central to the growth of Jewish nationalism and a Jewish national spirit from the nineteenth century, but especially in the new settlement in the Land of Israel, where knowledge of the Bible became integral to Jewish identity and its formation. The purported ability of Bible study to create identity achieved mythical proportions, and students were even expected to love the subject. But they did not, nor do they today, and as seen here, educators lamented, and still lament, this predicament. They seem to be ignoring that the real issue is not “love,” but teaching the Bible’s intrinsic worth.     

MICHAEL WALZER'S SECULAR JEWISH THOUGHT

Although he has never assumed the mantle of a “Jewish thinker,” Michael Walzer has over a period of several decades articulated a comprehensive teaching rooted in philosophical reflection on the sources of Judaism and focused on the most important issues facing both Israel and the diaspora. At the core of his teaching lies a reiteration of what he takes to be the Jewish idea of justice, which he derives from the Bible and other ancient and medieval texts. He also places strong emphasis on liberalism, which he sees not as a product of the Jews' ancient heritage but as “a product of emancipation,” yet no less authentically Jewish for that. On a practical level, his writings are concerned with the implementation of justice and liberal values in both Jewish communities and the Jewish state, in their internal affairs as well as in their relations with others. He has devoted special efforts to showing that a Jewish state is, as such, fully compatible with the promotion of both justice and liberalism, properly understood.     

Community and subcommunity in small-town America, 1880–1950

Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the American Jewish population was heavily concentrated in the large and mid-size cities of the United States. At the same time, however, tens of thousands of Jews lived in America's smaller cities and towns as well. This essay examines how some of the basic features of Jewish life in the immigrant era were manifested in America's less visible Jewish centers. It discusses the nature of East European Jewish culture in small towns, and demonstrates that factors such as kinship, residential and occupational patterns, the use of Yiddish, and local institutional frameworks all promoted more highly integrated and intensively Jewish ethnic communities than might have been expected in small-town America. The essay also examines the relationship between German Jews and East Europeans in small towns and considers various other aspects of communal dynamics. In doing so, it describes how in some places a kind of cooperation and creative compromise developed that did not emerge in larger communities, and it reveals how in other places communal divisions persisted despite environmental factors that should have promoted their moderation. Ultimately, this essay demonstrates that the communities of America's smaller cities and towns in the decades before World War II were not simply miniature versions of the communities of larger metropolitan areas, and it suggests that for those interested in the dynamics of Jewish communal life, smaller Jewish settlements can provide valuable laboratories in which to study the role of place in conditioning the American Jewish experience. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A comparative study of the general factor of personality in Jewish and non-Jewish populations

It was hypothesized that Jews would have a personality profile characterized by high levels of the general factor of personality (GFP). Analyses based on three large samples supported this hypothesis. Additionally, the Jewish/non-Jewish group difference on personality traits exhibited a Jensen Effect with the largest difference between groups being on the traits that had the highest loadings on the GFP. Future research should focus on investigating how the high Jewish GFP is manifested in behavioral and social outcomes.     

Homosexuality,the Halacha,and the helping professions

The position of Jewish writings on homosexuality is the topic of inquiry. Overt homosexuality, child homosexuality, and lesbianism are examined in the light of Jewish Halacha (law). Though Talmudic writings view homosexuality with severe disapproval, a sprrit of tolerance and compassion is also voiced in them. It is suggested here that Jewish law placed overt homosexuality in the category of illness to evoke compassion for it Halachic insights also suggest that homosexualities be viewed differentially. Activities involving minors and lesbians are not given equal weight in the realm of retribution. There are efforts to obviate social stigma. Prevention and rehabilitation are given major concern. To conclude the article, the role of the Jewish religious practitioner and his responsibilities vis-à-vis the homosexual client are given a brief examination.     

The Gendered Politics of Public Health: Jewish Nurses and the American Joint Distribution Committee in Interwar Poland

This article examines the gendered politics of public health initiatives among Jews in interwar Poland by focusing on the establishment and activity of the Warsaw School of Nursing (Szko?a Piel?gniarstwa przy Szypitalu Starozakonnych w Warszawie). Founded in 1923 and funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the school’s staff believed that they could shape the attitudes and behaviors of Polish Jewish women and use them as a conduit to advance their vision for a Polish state committed to the protection of Jews and their equality before the law. Drawing upon the voices of JDC officials, local Jewish health activists, Polish government officials, and young Jewish women in the Second Polish Republic, the article highlights the multiple and frequently conflicting ways in which gender figured in their political imagination. It also sheds light on the efforts of American Jewish humanitarian activists and Polish Jewish women alike—much like their counterparts throughout Europe and North America—to reframe traditional gendered expectations for women in order to expand their range of professional choices and the roles they could play in public life. The final section of this article recounts the school’s decline and compares its fate to a Jewish nursing school initiative in the city of Vilna. In doing so, it assesses the limits of the Joint Distribution Committee’s interethnic bridge-building initiatives in interwar Poland.     

New agendas for agricultural research in developing countries: Policy analysis and institutional implications

This article argues that the goals of agricultural research in poor countries have changed substantially over the last four decades. In particular they have broadened from the early (and narrow) emphasis on food production to a much wider agenda that includes poverty alleviation, environmental degradation, and social inclusion. Conversely, agricultural research systems have proved remarkably resistant to the concomitant need for changes in research focus. As a result many, at both the national and international level, are under great strain. In terms of public policy the article goes on to suggest that shortcomings of existing conceptual approaches to technology development could be supplemented by adopting analytical principles that view innovation in systemic terms. An approach where flows of knowledge between institutional nodes is a key to innovative performance (the “National Systems of Innovation” approach) is suggested as one such conceptual framework that might help supplement conventional policy analysis. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a workshop “New Policy Agendas for Agricultural Research: Implications for Institutional Arrangements” held on 28 March 2000 at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, India. The workshop was supported by the UK Department of International Development (DFID) Crop Post-Harvest Programme as an output of the project “Optimising Institutional Arrangements.”     

Bringing culture to the nation: Hebraism, Yiddishism, and the dilemmas of Jewish cultural formation in Russia and Ukraine, 1917–1919

Focusing on the pivotal 1917–1919 conjuncture in Russia and Ukraine, this paper analyzes the efforts of the divided Jewish nationalist intelligentsia to disseminate new forms of Jewish culture to a mass audience, the reception of these efforts in the former Tsarist empire’s variegated Jewish population, and the intelligentsia’s parallel exploration of other forms of cultural formation less dependent on popular support. Comparing the cultural programs of Hebraism and Yiddishism, it demonstrates important parallels in their cultural visions and highlights their shared belief in the possibility of implanting a secularist, aestheticist intelligentsia culture in the whole of “the nation.” The paper reconstructs both substantial forms of popular openness to this culture and its sociocultural weaknesses. Finally, it examines experiments made by the intelligentsia with alternative routes to cultural transformation: suppression of popular culture, non-market cultural arrangements, cultural revolution through education, and the uses of the state. The paper seeks a fuller understanding both of the roots of interwar cultural programs in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and of the Jewish nationalist intelligentsia’s underlying conception of “culture,” its own authority, and the evolving relationship between these conceptions and the realities of East European Jewish social, cultural, and political life from the 1890s onward.     

ADOLESCENTS'ATTITUDES TOWARD WOMEN'S ROLES

To examine Israeli Jewish and Arab adolescents'attitudes toward women's roles, 319 Jewish and 276 Arab adolescent males and females from private, highly prestigious high schools responded to an attitudes toward women's roles questionnaire. The hypotheses that Jews (modern), females, and older (12th grade) adolescents express more liberal attitudes toward women's roles than do Arabs (transition to modernity), males, and younger (9th grade) adolescents were generally supported by the findings. The greater liberalism expressed by older Arab females indicates that their transition to adulthood is marked by a widening gap between the attitudes toward roles held by Arab males and females. Thus, Arab females striving for personal advancement may experience less support from their male peers than do their Jewish female counterparts.     

The Spiritual,Moral, Social and Cultural Values of Students in a Jewish and a Catholic Secondary School

What do students who have attended a Jewish or a Catholic secondary school have to say about the influences on their development, the values they hold and their future goals? Based on responses from more than a hundred students, in two faith-based schools, the article shows that there is no strong commitment to institutional religion or school worship but many refer to the impact on their lives of shared time away together and are willing to be of service to others. Students from both schools value diversity and openness to others. Some of the similarities and the differences between the two schools are explored, comparisons are made with relevant international research, and four possible implications of the findings are indicated.     

Jewish rural settlement in Cyprus 1882–1935: a “springboard” or a destiny?

After its transfer to British rule in 1878, Cyprus became an object of Jewish settlement. The island was seen as a reasonable alternative at a time when aliyah and land purchase in Eretz-Israel were problematic. Three attempts were made by different groups to settle Jews in rural sites between 1882 and 1935. The first, near Pathos, was initiated by a millenarian British association. It lasted barely a year and focused on helping immigrants from Russia. The second, in the years 1892–1898, fostered by a pre-Zionist group of London Jews, and with the assistance of JCA, led to the purchase of Margo, an agricultural site located between Larnaka and Nicosia. The third attempt, the longest, between 1898 and 1935, was sponsored by the JCA itself, which settled about 35 families and offered continuing professional assistance. Ultimate failure was assured, nonetheless, by the proximity of Eretz-Israel, which exerted an irresistible allure on the younger, second, generation. For a short time, Cyprus was thought by some to be a political alternative to Eretz-Israel. The so-called “Trietsch Project” of 1898 interested even Herzl himself.     

Exploring separable components of institutional confidence

Despite its contemporary and theoretical importance in numerous social scientific disciplines, institutional confidence research is limited by a lack of consensus regarding the distinctions and relationships among related constructs (e.g., trust, confidence, legitimacy, distrust, etc.). This study examined four confidence-related constructs that have been used in studies of trust/confidence in the courts: dispositional trust, trust in institutions, obligation to obey the law, and cynicism. First, the separability of the four constructs was examined by exploratory factor analyses. Relationships among the constructs were also assessed. Next, multiple regression analyses were used to explore each construct's independent contribution to confidence in the courts. Finally, a second study replicated the first study and also examined the stability of the institutional confidence constructs over time. Results supported the hypothesized separability of, and correlations among, the four confidence-related constructs. The extent to which the constructs independently explained the observed variance in confidence in the courts differed as a function of the specific operationalization of confidence in the courts and the individual predictor measures. Implications for measuring institutional confidence and future research directions are discussed.     

Judaism and Health: Reflections on an Emerging Scholarly Field

This paper surveys the field of Judaism and health. The authors trace the history of discourse on health and healing within Judaism, from the biblical and rabbinic eras to contemporary research and writing on Jewish bioethics, pastoral care, communal services, and aging, including congregational and community programming related to health and illness and the emergence of the Jewish healing movement. The work of the Kalsman Institute on Judaism and Health is described, focusing on efforts to unite these various threads into a scholarly field emphasizing basic and applied research on the instrumental functions of Jewish religious life for health and well-being.