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© Brandeis University
NEJS 166b
Author: Dr. Antony Polonsky

MODERN JEWISH HISTORY SINCE 1880

Description of the Course

This course is the continuation of NEJS 166a, Modern Jewish History from 1750 to 1880. In that course, we examined the process by which governments, politicians and a section of the Jewish community attempted to incorporate the Jews and Judaism into European society. This process was based on the optimistic liberal belief that the emancipation of the Jews, the conferring on them of the rights and duties of citizens, would break down the division between Christian and Jew, undermining the separate status of the Jews as members of a community linked by a common set of religious, moral and cultural values, which transcended national boundaries and making them into Frenchmen, Englishmen or Germans of the Jewish faith. It took place against the background of a radical transformation of European society, what Michael Polanyi has called the 'Long Revolution', the consequences of the double impact of the principles of liberalism and popular sovereignty on the one hand and of the industrial revolution on the other.

The problem of finding the appropriate place for the Jews, both as individuals and as a community in Europe, where the overwhelming majority of world Jewry still lived in 1880, raised fundamental questions about the character of the political systems in the various countries of Europe: How could an all-encompassing religious tradition fit into a socially-differentiated society with an increasingly insistent secular culture? How could a minority group with a religion regarded as theologically inferior attain political equality and social acceptance? By 1880, it was becoming increasingly doubtful whether the liberal solution of emancipation and the political and social integration which it was believed would follow, could, indeed, continue to be maintained in an increasingly hostile political environment. In the constitutional and parliamentary states of Western Europe, with their small Jewish populations, Jewish equality had been granted early and the process of social and political integration seemed to be proceeding rapidly. But in the German-speaking lands, with their much larger Jewish population, the process of emancipation had been protracted and disputed. It had only been completed in the late 1860s, had been accompanied by bitter opposition and was not followed by any significant degree of social integration. The situation was still worse in the Tsarist monarchy, home of the great majority of European ( and, at this stage, world) Jewry. After some illusory hopes during the reign of Alexander II (1855-1881), the Tsarist goverment, after his assassination, set its face firmly against the granting of equality to its Jewish subjects. Indeed, the accession of the new Tsar was followed by the worst wave of anti-Jewish pogroms for a century.

Alongside this resurgence of ancient hatreds, which it had been assumed would disappear with the advance of progress, the emancipation of the Jews provoked a new form of anti-Jewish hatred in the form of the ideology of anti-semitism. This focussed not on the antagonism of Jew and Christian, which could, after all, be overcome by baptism, but on the alleged racial difference between Jew and Aryan. In the new climate of 'scientific racism', the Jews were seen as a distinct racial element, inferior and harmful to the majority, incapable of ever being absorbed into the larger society. The Jews, according to antisemitic ideology, constituted a sort of criminal conspiracy, responsible for all the ills of the modern world - capitalism, social atomization and secularization.

The growing sense that the integrationist solution of the 'Jewish problem' had major flaws led to the emergence of new ideologies within the Jewish world. One was Zionism - the belief that the Jews were a national group, like other national groups, and that their position would be 'normalized' if they were able to establish their own nation state, preferably in their historic homeland. Another was Socialism. All socialists believed that the end of capitalism and the advent of the socialist millenium, whether by revolution or evolution, would solve the 'Jewish question'. It would lead either to the creation of a new society in which there would be 'neither Jew nor Greek' and the Jewish identity would be subsumed in the creation of a new socialist Man or to a world in which the Jews would enjoy an autonomous existence and would create a new society which would be both Jewish and socialist. These new ideologies were accompanied by a vast emigration movement, which, from the 1880s, transformed the geography of the Jewish world and led to the emergence of major new Jewish centers in North and South America, the Antipodes and South Africa and revolutionized the Jewish community in Erets Yisrael.

This course seeks to examine the impact of these developments on the Jewish world. The years between 1880 and 1945 were not favorable to liberal political solutions and saw the emergence of new totalitarianisms of the Left and Right which both, in their own way, posed deadly threats to the Jewish people. The result of the these developments was the murder of two thirds of European Jewry (two fifths of all the Jews in the world) and the emergence by 1948 of a Jewish world with two main centers. In Israel, the national vision of the Jewish people was realized, while in the United States, an integrationist concept of the Jewish future seems to have succeeded, aided perhaps by the specific and unique features of the American polity. The great Jewish centers of Europe and the Arab world have declined catastrophically, although European Jewry may be seeing a resurgence. The course thus raises major questions, not only about the Jewish past, but also about the Jewish future. It is these questions which we shall be examining together.

Required Reading

All students should, if possible purchase the following books:

  1. Paul R. Mendes-Flohr, Jehuda Reinharz(eds.), The Jew in the Modern World. A Documentary History, New York, 1980.
  2. Evyatar Friesel Atlas of Modern Jewish History, New York, 1990.
  3. Shmuel Ettinger 'The Modern Period', in Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, A History of the Jewish People, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1976.
  4. Howard M. Sachar A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to our Times, New York, 1978

Recommended Reading

  1. Howard M. Sachar The Course of Modern Jewish History, Vintage Books, New York, 1990.
  2. Ezra Mendelsohn The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars, Indiana University Press, 1983.
  3. Ezra Mendelsohn On Modern Jewish Politics, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993.
  4. Benjamin Pinkus The Jews of the Soviet Union. The History of a National Minority, Cambridge University Press, 1988.
  5. Jonathan D. Sarna(ed.) The American Jewish Experience, Holmes and Meier, New York and London, 1986.

Course Requirements

Introduction to the Course

The Jewish World in 1880

Week 1

  1. *Shmuel Ettinger 'The Modern Period', in Haim Hillel
  2. Ben-Sasson, A History of the Jewish People, pp. 853-58.
  3. *Howard Sachar The Course of Jewish Modern Jewish History, chapter 5.
  4. Paul Mendes-Flohr, The Jew in the Modern World, pp. 101-Jehuda Reinharz 102, 130-39, 227-242.
  5. Ezra Mendelsohn On Modern Jewish Politics, esp. pp. 3-36, 127-146.

The Transformation of Russian Jewry 1881-1914

Week 2

  1. *Jonathan Frankel Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism and the Russian Jews 1862- 1917, Cambridge, 1981, pp. 1-4, 49-170.
  2. *John Klier, Shlomo Lambroza (eds.) Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History ,Cambridge, 1992, pp. 1-290. (Read as much as you can).
  3. Hans Rogger Jewish Policies and Right-wing Policies in Imperial Russia, Los Angeles, 1986.
  4. Michael Stanislawski 'For Whom Do I Toil?' Judah Leib Gordon and the Crisis of Russian Jewry, New York, 1988, pp. 3-7, 146-229.

The Jews of Central Europe 1879-1914

  1. *Jehuda Reinharz Fatherland of Promised Land: The Dilemma of the German Jew, 1893-1914, Ann Arbor, 1975, esp. pp. 1-143.
  2. *Peter Pulzer The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria, new edition, London, 1988, esp. pp. 1-185, 264-285.
  3. William O. McCagg A History of Habsburg Jews, 1670-1918, Bloomington, 1983.
  4. Marsha Rozenblit The Jews of Vienna 1867-1914: Assimilation and Identity, Albany, 1983.
  5. Paul Mendes Flohr, The Jew in the Modern World, pp.250-Jehuda Reinharz 299.

Week 3

The Jews of Western Europe before the First World War

  1. *Michael Marrus The Politics of Assimilation, Oxford, 1971.
  2. Paula Hyman From Dreyfus to Vichy: The Remaking of French Jewry, 1906-1939, New York, 1979.
  3. Norman L. Kleeblatt (ed.) The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth and Justice, Berkeley, 1987.

    4. England

  4. *David Cesarani (ed) The Making of Modern Anglo-Jewry, Oxford, 1990, pp. 1-14.
  5. Geoffrey Alderman Modern British Jewry, Oxford, 1992.
  6. Stuart Cohen English Zionists and British Jews: The Communal Politics of Anglo-Jewry, 1895- 1920, Princeton, 1982.
  7. Eugene Black The Social Politics of Anglo-Jewry, 1880- 1920, Oxford, 1989.

Week 4

The Development of New Jewish Centers: United States, Canada, Argentina, South Africa, Australia; The Beginnings of Zionist settlement in Erets Yisrael

  1. *Jonathan Sarna (ed.) The American Jewish Experience, pp. 102-166
  2. Irving Howe World of Our Fathers, New York, 1976.
  3. Howard Sachar The Course of Modern Jewish History, pp. 305-347
  4. Paul Mendes Flohr, The Jew in the Modern World, pp.354--Jehuda Reinharz 356, 371-414.

    5. Canada

  5. Gerald Tulchinsky Taking Root: The Origins of the Canadian Jewish Community, Brandeis, 1993.

    6. South Africa

  6. Milton Shain The Roots of Antisemitism in South Africa, Charlottesville, 1994.

    7. Argentina

  7. H. Avni Argentina y la historia de la inmigracio;n judâa 1810-1950, Buenos Aires, 1983.
  8. Lloyd Gartner 'Anglo-Jewry and the Jewish International Traffic in Prostitution', AJS Review 7-8 (1982-1983), pp. 129-178.

    9. The Yishuv

  9. *Jacob Katz 'The Jewish National Movement: A Sociological Analysis', in Jewish Society Through the Ages.
  10. *Howard M. Sachar A History of Israel, pp. 18-35, 65-88.
  11. Walter Laqueur A History of Zionism, New York, 1952, esp. chapters 3 and 4.

Week 5

The Impact of the War 1914-1921

  1. *Mark Levene War, Jews and the New Europe: The Diplomacy of Lucien Wolf 1914-1919, Oxford, 1992.
  2. Antony Polonsky, 'Poles, Czechoslovaks and the "Jewish Michael Riff Question", 1914-1921: A Comparative Study, in Volker Berghahn, Martin Kitchen (eds), Germany in the Age of Total War: Essays in Honour of Francis Carsten, London, 1981, pp. 63-101.
  3. Eugene Black 'Lucien Wolf and the Making of Poland, Paris 1919', POLIN, 2, 1987, pp. 5-36.
  4. John D Klier Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in
  5. Shlomo Lambrozo (eds.) Russian History, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 291-313.
  6. *Howard Sachar A History of Israel, pp. 89-137.
  7. Leonard Stein The Balfour Declaration, London, 1961.
  8. Walter Laqueur A History of Zionism
  9. John D Klier Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in
  10. Shlomo Lambrozo (eds.) Russian History, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 291-313.
  11. Paul Mendes Flohr, The Jew in the Modern World, pp.344-Jehuda Reinharz 353, 458-471.

Week 6

The Yishuv 1917-1939; The Jews of the Moslem World

  1. *Howard Sachar A History of Israel, pp. 116-226.
  2. Walter Laqueur A History of Zionism, pp. 209-504. (Read as much as you can.)

    3. Jews in the Moslem World

  3. *Norman Stillman The Jews of the Arab Lands, volume 2, Philadelphia, 1990.
  4. Aron Rodrigue French Jews, Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling in Turkey 1860-1925, Indiana, 1990. Useful review in Le'eylah, April 1992.
  5. Jacob Katz 'Traditional Society and Modern Society', in Shlomo Deshen and Walter Zenner (eds.) , Jewish Societies in the Middle East, Washington, 1982, pp. 35-47.
  6. Bernard Lewis The Jews of Islam, Princeton, 1972.
  7. Andre Chouraqui Between East and West: A History of the Jews of North Africa, Philadelphis, 1968, pp. 113-183.

Week 7

The Soviet Jewish Experiment

  1. *Benjamin Pinkus The Jews of the Soviet Union, pp. 49-137.
  2. Nora Levin The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917, New York University Press, 1988, volume 1, chapters 1-19.
  3. *Zvi Gitelman Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, Princeton, 1972, esp. pp. 321-442.
  4. Chone Shmeruk 'Yiddish Literature in the U.S.S.R', The Jews in Soviet Russia since 1917, London, 1978, 3rd edition, pp. 232-268.

Week 8

Jews in East-Central Europe between the Two World Wars

  1. *Ezra Mendelsohn The Jews of East-Central Europe, pp. 11- 84.
  2. *Antony Polonsky The Little Dictators: The History of Eastern Europe since 1918, London, 1975, pp. 26-43.
  3. Yisrael Gutman, The Jews in Poland Between Two World Ezra Mendelsohn, Wars, Brandeis, 1990, especially articles by Jehuda Reinharz, Mendelsohn, pp. 1-19, Bacon, pp. 20-35,
  4. Chone Shmeruk (eds.) Gutman, pp. 97-108, Polonsky, 00. 109-25, Melzer, pp. 126-137, Shmeruk, pp. 285-311, Steinlauf, pp. 399-411, Prokopowna, pp. 412-434, Opalski, 434-449.
  5. Ezra Mendelsohn 'Interwar Poland: Good for the Jews or Bad for the Jews?' in Chimen Abramsky, Maciej Jachimczyk, Antony Polonsky (eds.), The Jews in Poland, Oxford, 1986, pp. 130-139.

    6. Hungary

  6. *Antony Polonsky The Little Dictators, pp. 44-61.
  7. *Ezra Mendelsohn The Jews of East-Central Europe, pp. 85- 130.
  8. Nathaniel Katzburg 'The Jewish Question in Hungary during the Interwar Period - Jewish Attitudes', in Bela Vago (ed.), Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe, New York, 1974, pp. 112-124.
  9. Randolph Braham 'Hungarian Jewry: An Historical Retrospect', Journal of Central European Affairs XX, 1 (1960), pp. 3-23.

Week 9

The Jews of German-speaking Europe 1918-1939

  1. *Donald Niewyk The Jews in Weimar Germany, Louisiana, 1980, particularly pp. 1-42, 96-177.
  2. *Karl Schleunes The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy towards the Jews 1933-1939, Illinois, 1970.
  3. George L. Mosse German Jews Beyond Judaism, Bloomington, 1985.
  4. Paul Mendes Flohr, The Jew in the Modern World, pp.482-Jehuda Reinharz 504.

 Week 10

Jews in the West: France, Britain, the United States

  1. *Paula Hyman From Dreyfus to Vichy: The Remaking of French Jewry, 1906-1939.
  2. Frances Malino, The Jews in Modern France, Hanover, Bernard Wasserstein (eds.) NH, 1985, particularly pp. 54-77, 103-180, 207-223, 328-346.

    3. Britain

  3. *Geoffrey Alderman Modern British Jewry.
  4. *David Cesarani (ed) The Making of Modern Anglo-Jewry, Oxford, 1990, especially pp. 115-208.
  5. Colin Holmes Anti-Semitism in British Society 1876- 1939, London, 1979, pp. 141-50.

    6. United States

  6. *Jonathan Sarna (ed.) The American Jewish Experience, pp. 171-233.
  7. Judd L. Teller Strangers and Natives: The Evolution of the American Jew from 1921 to the Present, New York, 1978.
  8. Nathan C. Belth A Promise to Keep; A Narrative of the American Encounter with anti-Semitism, New York, 1979.

Weeks 11-12

The Second World War and its aftermath

  1. *Yehuda Bauer A History of the Holocaust, New York, 1982.
  2. *David Cesarani (ed.) The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation, London, 1994, esp. pp. 1- 29.
  3. Michael Burleigh, The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945,
  4. Wolfgang Wipperman Cambridge, 1991.
  5. Michael Marrus The Holocaust in History, New York, 1988.
  6. Paul Mendes Flohr, The Jew in the Modern World, pp.504-Jehuda Reinharz 523.

    7. The Reaction of the Allies to the Genocide

  7. *Michael Marrus The Holocaust in History, pp. 155- 173.
  8. Walter Laqueur The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth about Hitler's "Final Solution", London, 1980, pp. 1-16, 65-100, 157-208.
  9. David Wyman The Abandonment of the Jews. America and the Holocaust, New York, pp. ix-15, 61-208, 311-340.
  10. David Engel 'The Western Allies and the Holocaust', POLIN, 1, pp. 300-15.

    11. The Reaction of the Churches

  11. Michael Marrus The Holocaust in History, pp. 179-83.

    12. The Reaction of Western Jews

  12. *Henry Feingold Did American Jewry Do Enough during the Holocaust?, B.G.Rudolph Lectures in Judaic Studies, Syracuse, NY, 1985.
  13. Haskel Lookstein Were We Our Brother's Keepers? The Public Response of American Jews to the Holocaust, 1938-1945, New York, 1985.
  14. Richard Bolchover British Jewry and the Holocaust, Cambridge, 1993.

    15. Palestine during the War

  15. *Howard Sachar A History of Israel, pp. 227-248.
  16. Walter Laqueur A History of Zionism, pp. 505-563.
  17. J.C. Hurewitz The Struggle for Palestine, New York, 1956.

Week 13

The Jewish People in the Post-war World

  1. *Howard Sachar A History of Israel, pp. 249-353.
  2. Walter Laqueur A History of Zionism, pp. 505-586.
  3. J.C. Hurewitz The Struggle for Palestine.
  4. Paul Mendes Flohr, The Jew in the Modern World, pp.472-Jehuda Reinharz 481.

    5. The Remnants of European Jewry

  5. Benjamin Pinkus The Jews of the Soviet Union, pp. 139-321.
  6. Michael Borwicz 'Polish-Relations 1944-1947', in The Jews in Poland, pp. 199-208.
  7. Lukasz Hirszowicz 'The Jewish Issue in Post-war Communist Politics', The Jews in Poland, pp. 199-208.
  8. Paul Lendvai Antisemitism in Eastern Europe, London, 1971.

    9. American Jewry in the Post-war Years

  9. *Jonathan Sarna (ed.) The American Jewish Experience, pp. 237-293.
  10. Bernard Martin (ed) Movements and Issues in American Judaism: An Analysis and Sourcebook of Developments Since 1945, Westport, Conn, 1978.
  11. Marshall Sklare The Jews: Social Patterns on an American Group, Glencoe, IL, 1958.

Note on the Reading List.

There is an enormous amount of material written on the subject matter of this course. I have tried to be as rigorously selective as I can, but I realize that the reading list may appear daunting. Please note that the items marked by an asterisk (*) are essential. All the others are optional, though they will add greatly to your understanding of the complex issues, which we shall be discussing.